Authors: Kevin Brooks
The BMW was a powerful car and it wasn’t long before we’d left London behind and were speeding along the motorway through the heart of the country – Leicester, Derby, Nottingham. I’d never been up this way before, and although I couldn’t see much in the passing darkness outside, everything seemed cold and ancient. The landscape was darker, the night sky blacker. Even the lights of the passing towns seemed dimmer than the brightly lit towns of the south. The cities themselves were barely visible in the clouded night, they just glowed in the distance, like shallow nests of lights in the darkness. They looked as if they’d been there forever.
Another world, another time.
And as we purred along through the unfamiliar landscape, I wondered if that’s what I wanted – another world. Somewhere new. Somewhere different. Somewhere else.
Somewhere I could forget about things.
‘How much do you know about mobile phones?’ I asked Eddi.
‘Why?’ she said. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Are they safe?’
‘It depends… hold on.’ She looked in the mirror and
pulled out to overtake a slow-moving car. Once she’d got past it and moved back into the middle lane again, she turned her attention back to me. ‘What do you mean by
safe?’
‘If I called someone on a mobile phone and their phone was bugged, could the people who were listening in get a trace on my phone?’
Eddi looked at me, intrigued but slightly concerned. ‘Would this be a landline you were calling?’
‘Yeah…’
‘From a prepaid mobile?’
‘I think so.’
‘And who’d be listening in?’ She raised her eyebrows at me. ‘I don’t suppose it’d be Ryan, would it?’
I looked at her. ‘I just want to call Bridget and Pete to let them know I’m all right. I haven’t spoken to them since all this happened. I just want to tell them I’m OK. It’ll only take a minute.’
Eddi looked away and stared through the windscreen, thinking about it.
I said, ‘I don’t even know if Ryan
is
tapping their phone –’
‘He’s bound to be.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘How long did you say you’ve been with Bridget and Pete?’
‘Just over a year.’
‘Do you trust them?’
‘I don’t know… I suppose so. They’ve always been really good to me.’
‘How did they end up fostering you? Did it all go through the usual channels?’
‘Yeah, as far as I know. They’ve been fostering for years. The kid they had before me was with them for ages.’
‘So there was nothing unusual about it?’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t
know,
Robert. At the moment, all I know about any of this is what you’ve told me – you woke up in hospital and you had something inside you, or Ryan was
putting
something inside you, and now he’s got everyone looking for you, and people are dying all over the place…’ She paused, taking a drag on her cigarette, then she leaned down, stabbed it out in the ashtray and blew out a long stream of smoke. ‘All I’m trying to do,’ she said, ‘is work out what the hell it all means – what was inside you, who put it there, why they put it there.’ She looked at me. ‘We need to know if anyone else was involved.’
I stared through the windscreen for a moment, remembering my own doubts about Bridget and Pete. I still didn’t want to believe they had anything to do with all this, and from the way Ryan had spoken about them at the hospital – as if he’d never heard of them before – I was fairly sure they
didn’t
have anything to do with it.
But it still wasn’t impossible.
‘I don’t know if Bridget and Pete are involved,’ I said to Eddi. ‘I don’t
think
they are… I mean, I can’t think of anything unusual or suspicious about them. They just seemed quite nice, you know? They were good to me and I liked them. That’s why I want to call them. And anyway, if you think about, it doesn’t really matter whether they’re involved or not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because if they are, they’ll act as if they’re not when I call them. And if they’re not… well, it won’t make any difference, will it? As long as I don’t tell them where we
are or anything, and my call can’t be traced, it doesn’t matter if anyone’s listening in or not.’
Eddi didn’t speak for a moment, she just sat there in silence – chewing on her lip, thinking things through. After a while she said, ‘It depends what kind of tracking equipment Ryan’s people have got. If they’ve got the very best stuff, which I think they probably have, and they’re expecting a call to a particular number, and the call comes in from a landline, they should be able to get a trace on it almost immediately. If the call comes in from a prepaid mobile, though… well, they’ll still get a trace on it, but it’ll take them a while to get a location, especially if the mobile isn’t registered. And even when they
do
get a location, it won’t be very accurate.’
‘So,’ I said, ‘if we had a prepaid mobile that wasn’t registered, and I used it to call Bridget and Pete, what’s the worst that could happen?’
‘Ryan would eventually find out that you made the call from somewhere between Nottingham and Leeds.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘Yeah.’ She glanced across at me. ‘Go on, then. Make your call. There’s a couple of phones in the side pocket of my rucksack. Use the Nokia.’
‘Are you sure?’ I said, smiling at her.
She shook her head. ‘Just do it… before I change my mind.’
I reached over to the back seat and started going through the pockets of her rucksack. It had lots of pockets, but I couldn’t find any phones. I looked round at Eddi to ask her which pocket they were in, but she was having a bit of trouble with a lorry we were overtaking – it kept
speeding up and swaying into our lane – so, rather than disturb her, I just turned back to the rucksack, opened it up and started digging around inside. There was a full carrier bag packed at the top of the rucksack and it was hard to find anything without moving it. I pulled it out and put it down on the seat, and then the car lurched slightly and the bag flopped over to one side… and a pile of £50 notes slid out.
I stared at them. I’d never seen so much money in all my life. And there was more inside the bag too – lots more. The whole bag was packed full of notes – fifties, twenties, euros… all banded up in grubby little stacks.
‘Shit,’ I whispered.
‘What are you doing?’ I heard Eddi say.
I glanced up and saw her watching me in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were cold and steely.
‘Sorry,’ I spluttered, ‘I couldn’t find the phones… I was just looking… I didn’t mean to –’
‘The phones are in the side pocket with the little red zip,’ she said calmly. ‘Make sure you put all the money back.’
I scooped all the spilled cash back into the bag, stuffed the bag into the rucksack, then found the side pocket with the little red zip and pulled out a polythene bag full of phones. There were three of them: two Motorolas and a Nokia. I picked out the Nokia and settled myself down in the seat again.
Eddi glanced at me for a second, then looked away.
‘Is that all your money?’ I asked her.
‘What do you mean? Does it all
belong
to me, or is that all I’ve
got?’
‘Is that all you’ve got?’
‘It’s all the
cash
I’ve got, yeah.’
‘How much is it?’
‘Just over ten grand, including the euros.’ She nodded at the phone in my hand. ‘Make your call. And keep it short.’
I couldn’t remember the number for a moment. I sat there staring at the phone in my hand, trying to think, trying to picture the number – my
own
telephone number – then I gave up thinking and let my thumb do it for me. Thumb-memory. It worked. My thumb punched in the number and I put the phone to my ear.
For a couple of seconds, I felt really weird – anxious, excited, afraid, uncertain. I didn’t know who was going to answer the phone or what I was going to say to them. I was hoping it’d be Bridget, but even if it was… I still didn’t know what I was going to say to her or what she was going to say to me. I didn’t even know if she’d
want
to talk to me.
But I needn’t have worried.
The phone didn’t ring.
It didn’t do anything, just hissed emptily. A ghostly electric sound.
‘No answer?’ asked Eddi.
‘No nothing,’ I said, holding the phone to her ear to let her listen.
‘Maybe you got the wrong number,’ she suggested. ‘Try it again.’
I tried again, keying in the number slowly and carefully, but when I put the phone to my ear, the emptiness was still there.
‘Here, let me try it,’ said Eddi. ‘What’s the number?’
I passed her the phone and told her the number. As she punched it in and held the phone to her ear, I quickly reached into my pocket, pulled out one of Ryan’s business cards and placed it on the seat beside my left leg, out of Eddi’s sight. I glanced across at her. She was listening hard to the phone.
‘Anything?’ I asked her.
She shook her head. ‘Are you sure it’s the right number?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It hasn’t been disconnected or anything?’
‘It was fine when I left home on Monday. What do you think it means?’
She shook her head again and passed me back the phone. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what it means, but I don’t like the sound of it.’
I looked down at Ryan’s business card and started to punch in the number.
Eddi glared at me. ‘What are you
doing?’
Ignoring her, I quickly keyed in the last two digits and put the phone to my ear.
‘Give me that!’ she said, grabbing for the phone.
I leaned away from her and switched the phone to my left ear, keeping it out of her reach.
‘Robert!’
she hissed.
But it was too late. The number was ringing. I put my finger to my lips and held up my hand to Eddi – keep quiet. She thumped the steering wheel with her fist and stared angrily at me.
The phone answered on the second ring.
‘Hello, Robert.’
At the sound of his voice, a wave of nausea welled up inside me. I breathed in slowly and swallowed it down.
‘Ryan?’ I said.
‘How are you, Robert?’
His voice was calm and confident.
‘I’m all right,’ I told him.
‘That’s good.’
I could hear the clean smile in his voice. I could see his silver eyes. I could picture him – dark suit, white shirt, coal-black hair… sitting at a desk in a basement office. The office was white. White walls, banks of computers and phone equipment, wires, cables, flashing lights. Maps on the wall. Pins in the maps.
‘Where are you?’ Ryan said.
‘Where are
you?’
He laughed quietly. ‘I’ll tell you if you tell me.’
‘I don’t think so.’
Rapid metallic clicks sounded on the line, like a cogwheel. In the background, I could hear a thin and distant whine.
‘Where’s Morris?’ Ryan asked me.
‘Who?’
‘What have you done with him?’
‘I haven’t done anything.’
Ryan sighed. ‘You’re in a lot of trouble, Robert.’
‘I know.’
‘Tell me where you are. We can talk about it.’
‘We can talk about it now.’
‘OK, if that’s what you want.’
‘Are you tracing this call?’
‘You’re on a mobile. You’re safe enough for now.’
‘How do I know you’re not lying?’
‘You don’t.’
I thought about that for a few moments, trying to work out if he
was
lying or not, but there was no way of telling from his voice. It was nerveless, expressionless, empty.
‘Where are you?’ I asked him again.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Tell me where you are or I’ll hang up right now.’
He didn’t say anything for a while. I waited, staring straight ahead. I could feel Eddi watching me, silently urging me to end the call, and I didn’t want to look at her. I wanted to concentrate on Ryan. I didn’t think he’d tell me where he was, and even if he did, I knew he’d probably be lying. But I didn’t really care. I just wanted to see what he said.
‘I’m in London,’ he said eventually.
‘No, you’re not.’
‘Why should I lie?’
‘Whereabouts in London? What’s your address?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘Why not?’
He sighed. ‘We’re in Queen Anne’s Gate, SW
I
.
‘What number?’
‘We don’t have a number. It’s just a building, an office block –’
‘What do you do there?’
‘Work.’
‘What kind of work? What do you do?’
‘We find things.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘Things like you.’
‘Who’s
we?
Who do you work for?’
‘Robert, listen –’
‘What do you think I am?’
‘What?’
‘What do you think I
am?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I’m sorry, Robert. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Yes, you do.’
He paused for a moment, then said, ‘Are you with someone?’
‘Look,’ I told him, ‘I don’t know anything about any of this. Do you understand? You
think
I do, but I don’t. I don’t know anything about it.’
‘You don’t know anything about what?’
‘Everything, anything…’ I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to think. I wanted to ask Ryan what he knew about me – what I was, what I was made of, where I came from – but I couldn’t just come out and say it, not with Eddi listening.
‘Robert?’ Ryan said into the phone. ‘Robert… are you still there?’
‘What was that thing inside me?’ I asked him.
‘Sorry?’
‘Inside me… what is it?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Just tell me.’
He sighed again, this time with something that sounded like honesty. ‘You’re not making sense, Robert. I think you’re a bit confused –’
‘Where’s Bridget?’ I asked him.
‘Bridget’s fine –’
‘Where
is she?’
‘I don’t know… I expect she’s at home. Where else would she be?’
I felt Eddi’s hand on my arm then and without thinking I glanced across at her.
No more,
she mouthed at me.
End the call now
…
I shrugged her hand off my arm and turned my attention back to Ryan.