Corvus Page 22

  'You're so right, Lyle,' Gordon said. 'Go and see if there's any marg in the kitchen.'

  *****

  Zach made no sound, except one muffled cry. There was a moment when Laura thought he'd stopped breathing, or she had. A moment when the contours of the room blurred, and colour bled from the furnishings into the air, and the dark hedges of nightmare took root at her feet. A moment when the pain was so intense that her vision doubled.

  You see yourself kneel by his head. You see yourself stroke his hair, bend to whisper in his ear. I love you, you say. Again and again you tell him. Listen to me. I love you.

  The room is dark but you see him lock the door behind him. You're not asleep. You're waiting. The night is a maze, he says, a secret game I'm teaching you how to play.

  A sharp expletive whipcracked in Laura's face. She jerked upwards, half rising till her shoulder met Dave's hand, and he shook his head. He didn't need to force her to watch, however: she would rather gouge out her eyes than abandon Zach to these men. As she sank back in her chair, a bright flash like the dazzle of sunlight on water caught her attention from the corner of the room. For a moment she saw the figure again, light spilling from the object in his hand. His lips seemed to move. Elusive as a fish, the image wavered and began to slip away as soon as she tried to focus on it, to net it. But in her inner ear she heard the whisper: keep telling him.

  Now Lyle took his turn. Zach was so still that Laura thought he'd fainted. She put a knuckle to her mouth and bit down on it as hard as she could without drawing blood. Lyle was noisier, perhaps quicker than Gordon—she couldn't quite tell, something odd was happening to her sense of time. She thought of those surreal liquid clocks of Dali. Had they already known about gravitational lensing back then? If only the mind could alter the light cone of an event as easily as a painting knife scrapes away a botched or imperfect layer . . . if only she could go back and paint over the canvas . . .

  Stop it! she told herself, firmly damming the opiate drift of her thoughts. Concentrate on Zach. Keep telling him, and telling him, and telling him. You've got to believe he'll hear.

  Gordon signalled to Dave, who set his mouth and shook his head. It looked as though there might even be an argument till Dave moved to Zach's side and stared down at him, then crouched and shook his shoulder. Head cradled in the crook of his elbow, Zach lay limp and unmoving like an item of bedraggled washing which had been blown from the line and now would have to be relaundered, but Laura could see his chest rising and falling, stalling and catching and rising, hear him struggling painfully to suck in enough air to stay alive. He was close to gasping—the harsh wet sound a heavy smoker makes during a bad cold. She would have been less troubled by his shivering.

  'Has your dad got any brandy in the house?' Dave asked her, getting to his feet.

  'Bloody hell, nobody croaks from a little rearguard action.' Gordon prodded Zach carelessly with a shoe, almost as an afterthought. (They hadn't even removed their shoes, Laura thought incongruously.) 'Get up, you, it's time to go.'

  'Simus aren't able to drink, alcohol is harmful to them,' Laura said. 'Kind of like poison.'

  'Then come and help him while we load his motorbike into the van and have a look round.'

  'Christ, Dave, you're making—' Gordon said.

  Dave didn't let him finish. 'You want to explain to the chief why we've wrecked Fulgur property? He's supposed to be their most valuable auger.'

  'A fucking terr!' Lyle said from the doorway. His hands were still dripping, he'd obviously gone to clean himself up, unlike Gordon.

  Ignoring him, Dave turned to Laura. 'You'd best make him a cup of tea with plenty of sugar. But no nonsense, hear?'

  Neither Gordon nor Lyle were bothered enough to bicker about it, not now. After a half-hearted remark or two, they set about their police business, leaving Dave and Laura facing each other over Zach's prone, half-naked form. Dave's hand went to his ring. Laura wanted to scream at him to get out, finally get the fuck out, so she could minister to Zach. There was no way he'd let her touch him, clean him up in front of anyone else, especially not one of them. But he seemed to be breathing a bit easier now.

  'Can I trust you not to pull any stunts?' Dave repeated.

  'Do you really think I'll give you an excuse to shoot him in the head?'

  Dave looked as though he wanted to say something more but confined himself to a vague meaningless gesture, his eyes sliding away from hers. His attack of conscience was even less welcome than a sudden bout of diarrhoea, and his reluctance to leave disgusted her like a bad smell.

  Empowered her. 'Look, will you please just let me get on with it? He's not about to run a marathon in the next twenty minutes, is he?'

  She could see shame and affront warring for mastery behind his eyes as he turned at last to go, and hurled after him with savage pleasure, 'You did say you've got kids of your own? I reckon this will make a great bedtime story for them.'

  But Zach, as always, surprised her. At her taunt he lifted his head, took a deep breath, and refusing her hand, got slowly to his feet without any attempt whatsoever to cover himself. His stubborn dignity brought a prickle of tears, the first since this nightmare had begun.

  'Haven't you got a forensic camera with you?' Zach asked. 'That way you could turn the story into a picture book.' Expressionless, he waited in the brittle silence, then picked up his clothes and left the room.

  *****

  Till now essentially a dayclub minus music and swank gear, school became a form of therapy. The well-greased machinery of justice—or perhaps Fulgur—had swallowed Zach whole, and though everyone was still talking about the club bombing, no one knew what had happened to him. Arrested, was the general consensus. Wild, then wilder tales circulated about his attempted escape, but nothing came close to the truth, and Laura's involvement remained undisclosed. There had been enough confusion in the immediate aftermath of the explosion to cover any number of plausible stories, and her parents continued to speak gravely about her brief 'rest cure'. In pre-emptive self-defence she speculated along with the rest of the kids about the terrs, and the what-the-fuck-do-we-do-about-them simus, and Zach. Due to the exigencies of national security, the police were releasing only the sketchiest of details, and that in barely perceptible increments under pressure from the media. The bloggers loved it.

  Laura's mates, who had survived by a dicey evasion of underage smoking laws, sucked every trace of rad from their ordeal. 'Who says cigarettes kill?' Derek repeated so often that even Tim finally told him to shut it or he'd wish he'd not gone outside for a fag. Olivia spent most of her free time with Damien, and Laura almost convinced herself that her friend's coolness derived from the incident in the club toilet. But Olivia remained loyal enough not to spread her insider info round—or else was saving it up like extra dosh for the right investment.

  It was Laura's teachers who first remarked on the change. Mr Mitchell spoke to her after a maths lesson. 'I knew you had it in you all the time. If you continue to work like this, you'll soon be getting top marks.' Like everyone else, he assumed that a sideswipe with death had catapulted her into the overtaking lane. Whereas in fact she'd begun to study because she hated it, because she was dolt terrible at it. Soon afterwards, Olivia sent her a cryptic text in history class: Henry II said at Canterbury, 'Scourge me as I kneel at the tomb of the saint.' And hissed 'net it, if you're suddenly so bloody smart', when quizzed. Which Laura did, using her laptop. Aside from obvious precautions, she didn't know how to disable—or even detect—a trace on Zach's computer.

  She went out with Owen; she went back to swimming; and she went to Zach's flat when all else failed. The first time she stayed less than fifteen minutes, startling at each mumbled complaint of heating and plumbing, an old building which protested arthritically at this unwonted intrusion. The flat was chilly and smelled musty. How quickly possessions take on an air of neglect, lifelessness: they might belong to anyone at all, and whatever Laura was searching for wouldn't be found amon
g the lonely ranks of books on a shelf, tumble of clothing in a hamper.

  She stayed away for two days. Then, after a particularly bitter fight with her mum, she stuffed schoolwork, her pod, and a sandwich into her backpack and headed for the library, with no intention of going to Zach's. As she was turning the key in the lock, the door to the adjacent flat opened—not the one with the dog, at least.

  'What are you up to? There's nobody home.'

  'I'm a friend.' The old man was glaring at her, so she added rather belligerently, 'I've got his permission.'

  'Oh yeah? Prove it. Zach don't give nobody permission.'

  It crossed her mind to ignore the whiskery snoop by hurrying into the flat and shutting the door in his face, but common sense prevailed. She jangled the keys in front of his beakish nose. In fact, he resembled a nasty old buzzard, with those protuberant eyes and feathery bits of whitish hair.

  'I'm looking after Zach's place while he's gone.'

  'You could have nicked them from him.'

  Laura gave an exasperated sigh. 'Listen, I've been here lots of times already. Even my little brother's got a key.'

  'Max is your brother?'

  'You know him?'

  'A nice kid. Polite, not like some.' His implication wasn't lost on her.

  'Thanks.' She ought to go in for politics, she was becoming practised at the ambiguous response. She hefted her backpack. 'I need to do some studying, and I promised Zach I'd wash his clothes, so if you don't mind.'

  'Not in any trouble again, is he?'

  'I don't know what you mean.'

  'Then either you're stupid or a liar.' He shuffled in her direction, and suddenly she realised by the way his eyes remained fixed on a point above her shoulder that something was wrong with his eyesight, that what she had mistaken for a stare might in fact be near blindness.

  'Bloody-mindedness seems to be a side effect of deteriorating vision. My great uncle's got the same syndrome, but he takes pills for it. Maybe you should ask your GP for a prescription.'

  To her surprise the man gave a bellow of laughter. 'That's telling me all right! Good, Zach needs someone who'll stick up for him, not some piece of candy floss who'll melt away after a poke or two from a fancy simu todger.'

  Laura was glad he couldn't see her face redden. 'He'll be gone for a while.'

  'A special assignment?'

  'Something like that.' She couldn't decide how well Zach knew this man. 'His job.'

  Better than she'd guessed. 'Zach's no terr, but they've got it in for him.' He waved a hand in the direction of the third flat on their floor. 'Brain-dead porkers included. Hope he's found a good place to take cover for a while.'

  Laura squeezed her eyes shut, which merely threw the last hour at the cottage into relief, vivid as a burning tower in the dark, its gutted struts etched in stark, mute, defiant contrast to the raging flames. Where was he? She suspected that her Dad knew, or could find out, from the evasive way he answered her questions. And Max wouldn't talk much about it. 'I told you, I can't always tell about places. But Zach's OK so far.' When pressed for additional information, Max sounded sincere. 'Don't know. He wouldn't like it if I snooped.' Scant consolation that not everything had changed: she could still sense when Max was lying.

  'He's a fine lad. Does my shopping for me. Takes me to the clinic, too.'

  'Zach?' she whispered.

  'A fine lad,' he repeated. 'Not many his age would bother. Maybe not any.'

  Laura turned her head away, though he wouldn't have seen her eyes filling.

  'Name's Josh,' he said, patting her on the shoulder. 'You go take care of your business, then come round later for a cup of tea.'

  'OK. I'd like that.' And found that she meant it. Even his uneven yellow teeth no longer repelled her, his sagging skin.

  'I'll babble on about my youth for a bit, then you'll be allowed to tell me about yourself.' At her chuckle, he added shrewdly, 'Reckon there's no one else you can talk to about Zach. Years ago had a Mongolian boyfriend, I remember how tough it can be.'

  'You're not axing me, are you?'

  'That's another thing about Zach. He looks beyond the wrinkles and baldness and shortness of breath.'

  Once she'd let herself into the flat, Laura dropped her backpack by the door, threw off her jacket and boots, and went straight to the laundry hamper. A T-shirt was first to hand. She hauled it out, crept into Zach's bed, and cried with her face buried in the sweet stale smell till, exhausted, she fell asleep.

  *****

  Dark and icy cold, with a glaze of frozen slush underfoot which numbed her toes despite thick-soled boots, the night aspired to hurry Laura along. By rights she shouldn't be out on these streets alone, even in good weather. The Christmas decorations already looked past their use-by date, though it was still a few weeks till the holiday, mismatched too, as if they'd been picked at random from a box of jumble. What the fuck was there to celebrate?

  It was impossible to walk fast enough to suit her. Several times she threw a glance over her shoulder, several times stared into the shop windows, though they reflected no one else except the odd trudging figure muffled against the bitterest winter in years and intent only on a hot meal and bed. Not even any late shoppers in this district. Once a couple of noisy lads whose interest was perfunctory, something in her look warning them off: 'Aw, let her be. That one's got knives up her cunt.'

  Halfway there she stopped and retraced her steps for almost a block, reluctant to involve Stella. Reluctant perhaps to face what there might be to face. Then, just before turning the last corner, she ducked into a bus shelter and leaned against a battle-scarred wall, shivering and hugging herself, telling herself she needed to make sure she wasn't being followed. Sulphurous light from a streetlamp dimly illuminated the graffiti. Among the usual assortment of hearts and vulgar comments was a crude drawing of a fat, snaggletoothed woman wearing a peaked witch's hat and lashed to a post in the midst of a bonfire. Laura grimaced but her nose was running, so she shrugged off her backpack and rummaged for a tissue, fingers clumsy in her woollen gloves, then slowly raised her head when the scrawl underneath the picture coalesced into words, into incendiary words. Grabbing up her backpack, she ran the rest of the distance.

  The café was boarded up. Laura couldn't tell whether it had been looted first, but the blackened brick and lingering smell of smoke and the charred sign, once Stella's hand-painted pride, rendered the vicious graffiti sprayed across the plywood panels entirely superfluous.

  Chapter 28

  A cognoscens is unaccustomed to the complete absence of light. With returning consciousness Zach sees patterns in the deep blackness where there are none, patterns which hover on the threshold of signification. He fixes on them, dazzling and puzzling, a message to decode, a formula to derive, an art form to explore. Like ripples in water, they describe reiterations of a restless, ceaseless, seamless, senseless energy, his liquid mind flowing into itself. Is that why he's not afraid?

  You're faced with a choice.

  Lev?

  Either the abort function is restored

  I'll be able to go back?

  or you'll remain to find the other way back.

  It's Laura I need to find!

  Then you've made your choice?

  I don't understand the choice.

  That's why it's a choice.

  *****

  The iglu perches on a wafer of ice, adrift in a sea darker than the darkest wine. Even from the air it would be impossible to guess the island's size: the monochromic Arctic palette distorts scale as well as depth perception. Is there too much space in this place, or too little? Fulgur instrumentation would no doubt furnish a string of numbers, whose accuracy is an article of faith for their techs and scientists and policy makers. Yet absolute pitch doesn't make a Mozart; and absolute faith, a deity. Zach, however, will not get to see it from above. His wings have been clipped.

  Nor will he get to see Ethan strangle Chloe.

  *****

  Trap
or shelter? This is the question Zach asks himself as he stares at the iglu before him, its walls glowing with muted but beckoning light. Slowly he turns to take stock of his surroundings, and his memory.

  'Lev,' he calls.

  'Lev,' he shouts. 'What's going on?'

  'Lev!' he screams.

  A fierce updraft flings snow like a round of curses into his face, once upon a bitter time playground bullies, now a ground blizzard. Skin already burning under his mask, he's left with little choice but to get out of the icy wind. As expected, the abort code proves useless. He scoots along the trench to the vestibule, then folds himself into the L-shaped cold sink at the entrance, a tight squeeze and at one point a panicky one, when it feels as though the trap has already been sprung and he will be wedged here forever, unable to wriggle forwards or back, frozen into the white purgatory of the Arctic. No one, he recollects grimly, talks about what happens to your head if you die in the Fulgrid. Are your neural circuits wiped so that you'll be watching snowy static and crooning white noise till someone pulls the plug?

  Once inside, he gets to his feet and throws a tense glance to all sides, then hunches over with his hands on his thighs to catch his breath. If there's a trap, it's not in the guise of a harpoon-brandishing hunter defending hearth and home. The iglu is lit by a large, cheerful storm lantern—not the traditional kudlik, or saucer-shaped soapstone vessel which burns seal fat—with candles and a supply of kitchen matches placed in readiness on a low wooden table, alongside a length of sturdy twine, a water bottle, and basic cooking utensils. The double-burner campstove looks new, and Zach assumes that the storage box contains food. The walls and hard-packed floor are lined with caribou fur, likewise the rear sleeping platform, on which a down bag, more pelts, and a pair of sealskin kamiks wait like favourite soft toys abandoned till bedtime, a little shabby but still loyal. On the right he sees a metal bucket, a spade, even a machete-like panak for cutting snow. A drum which probably contains fuel. Not much else, but it's obvious that someone intends for him to survive. For now.