The Glimpse (21 page)

Ana said. ‘You just have to have faith in what you’re told.

You’ve never actualy experienced one of these Glimpses for yourself, have you?’

‘No, not
me
,’ Lila said.

A tingle ran up Ana’s spine. The implication sat between them like a chalenge. Ana narrowed her eyes.

‘Cole,’ she said. It wasn’t a question.

Lila nodded.

‘Cole’s seen the future . . . How?’

‘Wel the shaman was able to help him enter a plane of the spirit world by appearing to him in a dream and showing him a door. When Cole walked through the door it was as though he’d walked into the future. As real as you and me sitting here.’

‘I thought you said it was fractured.’

‘Wel, imagine you were lying in your bed nine years ago and you suddenly found yourself here now. You wouldn’t know anything about what had happened to get you here.

you here.

So it’s like being given a piece of a puzzle, but you’ve no idea how it al fits together.’

‘And Cole told you this?’

‘No. Cole doesn’t speak about it. Richard told me.’

‘The terrorist bomber?’

‘Why do I get the feeling we’re going round in circles?’

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‘Perhaps we’re on a time loop.’

‘Ha ha.’

A thump resounded on the roof as someone jumped aboard.

‘I’ve got to get back to the stal,’ Lila said. ‘If you don’t finish the pizza, can you put it in the fridge?’

‘Sure.’

‘OK. See you later.’

She bounded into the living area and waited by the ladder as Cole descended. ‘Hi, bro.’

Ana got up from the table and self-consciously ran a hand through the short strands of her shower-damp hair.

As if she hadn’t felt tense enough around Cole before –

now he was some kind of clairvoyant.

You don’t believe what Lila told you,
she reminded
You don’t believe what Lila told you,
she reminded herself.

Mystical Experience Disorder was a temporary disturbance in a person’s perceptions that they then attributed to some higher force. Simply put, a halucination.

But nothing seemed straightforward any more.

Cole swept through the living room like he was riding a wave of fresh air and energy. He dumped a manila bag on the kitchen table and cleared aside the pizza box.

‘Have you eaten?’ he asked, puling down a chopping board.

‘Lila brought the pizza, but no, not realy.’ His scent of summer, washing powder and something spicy like cinna-mon, overwhelmed her. She had to physicaly stop herself from stepping closer to guzzle it up. As she stood with her hands pressed to her sides, she noticed he hadn’t actualy looked at her yet.

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‘I’m juicing. You want apple and banana, or orange and lemon?’

‘Apple and banana would be great, thanks.’

He roled his sweater sleeves up to his elbows. The muscles in his forearms flexed as he took the fruit from the manila bag and cut the apple into eighths. Then he plugged in a blender and began juicing.

‘I er . . .’ Ana had to shout to be heard. ‘I’m sorry about last night.’

He cut the power. Her voice seemed to echo in the sudden quiet. His eyes finaly drank her in. She felt pleased, but disconcerted at the same time. There was something in his look she didn’t understand.

‘I didn’t realise I was sleeping in your cabin,’ she said,

‘and by staying up I left you with nowhere.’

‘Oh that.’ He shrugged, flicking the blender back on.

She wondered where he’d ended up sleeping. With Rachel? Lila had said they weren’t a couple, but Ana knew things in the City weren’t as strict as they were in the Community. In the Community everything was black and white.

Here, romantic relationships took on shades of grey; they were ful of uncertainty, maybes, broken promises.

Ana watched Cole from the corner of her eye, wondering what drove him; what sort of awful things had made him run away from the orphanage and seek refuge in the Project.

Finaly he turned off the blender and they could talk again.

‘Where did you learn to play piano?’ she asked.

‘The orphanage.’ Cole poured out two glasses of fruit 190

juice. ‘There was an old piano there. I didn’t have much else to do and none of the kids had interfaces or pods or else to do and none of the kids had interfaces or pods or anything to play music on, so if I heard something in the street or on the radio, I’d go back and try and work out the notes. By the time I left I could play a bit and then Richard got me my piano.’ He gestured to the living room.

Ana rubbed the tight pressure across her chest. She’d had years of lessons. For the last twelve months she’d studied under one of the country’s most gifted teachers, yet she was just a mimic. She couldn’t even interpret a piece of music, let alone write something. She simply copied others who’d gone before her.

‘How much original material have you got?’ she asked.

Cole shrugged. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘Ten or fifteen hours of stuff I guess. Here . . .’ He passed her a glass, then took out a rol of paper from his back pocket and laid it flat on the kitchen table. ‘These are the admissions to the loony dumps on the night of the concert.’

Stil thinking about the unbelievable fact that Cole had ten to fifteen hours of original compositions lying around, Ana struggled with the change of subject.

‘Loony dumps?’

‘Psych bins . . . They’re your best bet.’

She fel silent. Last night she’d accused him of abducting Jasper, and now he was helping her find him. ‘Thank you,’

she said eventualy. She drank her juice slowly, purposefuly making herself savour the flavours and not look at Cole.

Then she began scanning the sheets of paper.

‘Those are al the dumps within a hundred-mile radius of London – a conceivable distance if they were driving,’

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Cole said. ‘But I think it’s best to start closer to home.

I’ve taken a look and I reckon there are two strong probabilit-ies. Here.’ He pointed at two names that had been circled.

‘They’ve both got John Doe entries for the night of the concert.’

Ana read the names. St Joseph’s in Putney and Three Mils in the East End.

‘If we can find out the exact time of admission,’ Cole continued, ‘then factoring the driving time and the probability that whoever abducted Jasper took him straight there, we might be able to identify where he’s being held.’

His music, the vision, and now this. Ana felt baffled.

‘Thank you. I—’

Cole nodded, then glanced at his watch. ‘I have to go,’

he said, finishing his juice in one glug.

‘Go?’

‘I won’t be long.’ He gathered up his keys.

‘I could help you.’

His blue eyes raked through her. For a moment she didn’t quite know who she was. Or rather, she didn’t feel like the same person she had been a week ago.

‘Help me what?’

‘Whatever. I won’t get in the way.’ She pushed her hands into the back of her jeans.

Cole bit his lip. His gaze became appraising. ‘OK,’ he said finaly.

Her heart leapt. Perhaps she should be trying to stay away from him, but despite how nervous he made her, she didn’t want to. A strange feeling sprang up inside her; an 192

instinct she knew she had to folow: as long as she stuck with Cole from now on, everything would work out.

*

They rode to Archway on his beaten-up Yamaha and parked in a pedestrian walkway flanked on either side by a towering maze of council flats. Ana folowed Cole up a foul-smeling stairwel to a long corridor with endless blue doors. After a couple of minutes, they passed through a suspended tunnel into another corridor.

Cole knocked at a door with a silver eight tacked over flaky paint, and a white mark where another number had falen off. After a long wait, a heavy-set woman in a track-suit answered. She mumbled a greeting and shuffled back to let them in. From the moment they entered, she didn’t stop scratching her bloated face.

Tufts of hair sprang up from her bald head in patches.

Tufts of hair sprang up from her bald head in patches.

Her light-blue eyes were milky and glazed.

Ana felt repeled by the claustrophobic ambience and stuffy smels as she folowed Cole into the gloom. A narrow kitchen area lay off the main room to their right.

On their left, a miniature archaic television that wasn’t even flat flickered. Straight ahead, a door led into the back of the unit. Al the curtains were drawn.

The woman scuffed into the kitchen, put on a kettle, twitched and jerked for a moment, then returned to the sofa. Cole, who’d folowed her into the kitchen, opened a smal window releasing the stale air. Then he took off his black rucksack and began to unpack noodles and rice, tinned fruit and vegetables. He didn’t put anything away.

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He left it out on the sideboard, replacing a clutter of empty baked-bean tins and soup cartons, which he swept into a plastic bag.

Afterwards, he crossed the living room and checked behind one of the closed curtains. From the front window, he peeled off a Neighbourhood Watch sticker and pressed it on to some material he produced from his jacket pocket.

Tucking it away, he looked around as though checking he hadn’t forgotten anything.

Sensing they were about to leave, Ana let out her breath and edged towards the front door.

But Cole turned off the tely and crouched before the But Cole turned off the tely and crouched before the woman, taking both her hands in his.

‘You’ve got food for the next four days,’ he said, trying to fix the woman’s attention. After a couple of seconds, she nodded. Cole activated his interface. He held up a piece of white plastic in front of his projection. ‘Look,’

he said. ‘It’s Rafferty, he’s going to be five soon.’ The woman nodded again. Her eyes wandered over Cole’s face. He switched to another image.

‘Simone’s due in three months. Look how big she is.’

‘Are they coming?’ the woman asked.

‘Nate’s going to try, when the baby’s born.’

‘OK,’ she said.

Cole nodded, then stood up. ‘I’l be back soon.’ He leant over and kissed her on the cheek. Then, after a moment, he put his arms around her and pressed his face into her shoulder. She waited for him to finish.

In that motion, as he embraced the woman – his mother

– Ana understood something: Cole thought he might not 194

see her again. This business tomorrow night, helping the minister disappear, was more risky than he was letting on.

They left the flat, showing themselves out, and stood in the brick corridor, as though they’d both had the air knocked out of them.

‘Your mum?’ she asked.

‘Your mum?’ she asked.

‘Yeah. It’s the Benzidox. She’s been on it for a long time.’

Benzidox. The ‘miracle drug’ had appeared on the market about fifteen years ago. It reportedly delayed the advent of every diagnosable mental ilness and slowed down development of the Big3. It was so effective and so broadly useful, more people took Benzidox than al other medications and anti-depressants put together. And now Novastra were in the middle of negotiating a one-bilion pound deal with the government, so they could provide Benzidox free to every Sleeper or Active Big3

under the age of eighteen: BenzidoxKid.

‘She seemed . . .’ Ana wanted to say ‘vacant’, but didn’t want to offend Cole.

‘The drug’s got a four- to six-year peak,’ he said. ‘After that the mind often deteriorates so rapidly it’s like it colapses. One day she was there and the next she’d gone.’

A memory flashed over Ana. A green barn door. Car fumes poisoning clean air. Messy morning hair hanging in tangles across her face. Mud seeping up the bottoms of her white pyjamas. A gentle throb of a car engine. Her heart crashing against her chest.

She gasped and doubled over. Her arms flailed the air, searching out an alcove to her left. Reaching it, she vomited. A whiff of urine and sick struck her, making her 195

heave again. Her throat burnt. Her head pounded. She wiped the corner of her mouth with trembling fingers, wiped the corner of her mouth with trembling fingers, then stumbled back towards daylight.

In the narrow corridor Cole stared at her, eyes dark with concern.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘I . . .’ Ana shook her head. She held her knuckles against her heart, fearing the stabbing pain would return.

‘My mother—’ she managed. Her eyes swam with tears.

They dropped down her cheeks. She swept them away with her sleeve, but they kept coming. ‘My mother was on Benzidox.

I remember now. She didn’t want to take it. She said it made her feel like the Unliving. But my father, he insisted.

He—’ she faltered. How had she forgotten al this? ‘He ground it up in her food. So she starved herself. For days.

At first I tried to sneak her stuff from the kitchen, but my father locked the kitchen door and instead of going back to London, he spent the week working at home. After about four days she came and ate dinner with us. He was pleased.

He produced her special plate and watched as she spooned it al in.’

Ana battled to inhale and exhale. Cole stepped towards her. Gently, he put an arm around her back. She leaned in towards him. He smoothed his hand over the tufts of hair at the nape of her neck. A racking sob built deep within. It lashed out from her in uncontrolable spasms.

But in spite of the pain, she felt like she was finaly being But in spite of the pain, she felt like she was finaly being released.

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17

Revelations

Jack Dombrant didn’t like complications. Nor did he like traveling on the Underground or mixing with the crowds that glutted City high streets. But here he was, stepping out of Camden Tube on foot, into the stench and mayhem of North London, to check out an anonymous tip that Ashby Barber’s daughter was staying on a barge in Camden Lock.

Side-skipping a half-crushed carton of puke-coloured noodles, he headed up the main street, sticking as close to the central flow of bicycles and as far from the sprawling market stals as he could manage without getting run down.