Dark Tomorrow (Bo Blackman Book 6) (12 page)

I wait impatiently for the first of the shops to open then dart inside and start throwing things into a basket. My choices would make a nutritionist faint with horror but I reckon Michael can worry about getting his five a day later. O’Shea’s kebab gave him more energy than I could have hoped for, so the more salty, sugary, fatty shit I can find, the better. No doctor would prescribe a junk food diet but they’ve never treated an ex-vampire before. I grab pickled onion crisps, fizzy cola bottles, tinned luncheon meat and noodles coated in a thick sweet and sour sauce that would make a self-respecting Chinese person huddle in a corner and give up on life. At the last minute, when guilt niggles at me, I toss in a bag of apples.

There’s only one till, located right at the back of the shop. I’m so focused on the shelves that I don’t notice until I’m there that the person manning it has the distinct, throbbing tattoo of a black witch. I stare at her and she stares at me. Uh oh.

I draw myself up and bare my fangs. I might be short but I can look threatening when I need to. The witch isn’t intimidated. She just continues to stare.

The door jangles as someone else enters. A female voice calls out a cheery hello. Neither the witch nor I move.

‘What are you going to do?’ I ask eventually.

The witch doesn’t answer.

‘You can try to hurt me,’ I continue. Her tattoo pulsates faster, flashing at me as if in anger. ‘But I’m betting you’re not that strong. If you were, you wouldn’t be working in this shop.’ I pause and drop my voice to a silky whisper. ‘I can take you.’

She swallows nervously. I think she’s going to speak but the other customer strolls up without even noticing who or what I am. She is a human woman with greying hair and a stiff waddle that suggests years of painful sciatica. ‘Have you seen today’s headlines? You were right, Thomasina. That Bo Blackman isn’t done. I bet we’re going to see more bloodshed before long.’ There’s an unpleasant note of anticipation in her voice. She tosses a newspaper next to the till and jabs at it. ‘He runs an insurance company. Maybe he was part of that Toe Rag outfit.’

The witch rips her eyes away from me. ‘Tov V’ra,’ she says, her voice barely audible. She clears her throat. ‘They were called Tov V’ra.’

The woman airily dismisses the correction. ‘The police said they’d caught most of them but I bet they’re lying. Bo Blackman will sort them out. She’ll make sure they pay for what they did.’ She nods. ‘We need more people like her around here. If Bo Blackman was here, she wouldn’t let that prick round the corner keep dealing.’ She lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I heard he was hanging around the primary school yesterday. Trying to get them young.’

The witch darts a quick, nervous glance in my direction. I step back, pick up a box of cereal and pretend to read the back. Apparently, if I collect five tokens I can get an orange plastic daemon all of my very own.

‘He’s not a drug dealer,’ the witch says.

‘Oh yeah? Then why was he at the school?’

‘His son goes there.’

The woman is taken aback. ‘Oh. Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

She considers this before declaring, ‘I still don’t trust him. We should go round to his place later. Tell him that his sort isn’t welcome here.’

So much for a community spirit. I raise my eyebrows slightly. The witch is growing more and more uncomfortable. ‘What can I get for you anyway?’

‘Tin of baccy. And a bottle of vodka.’ She rubs the base of her spine. ‘Helps ease the pain.’

I try not to snort. She has no problem castigating her neighbour for allegedly taking or selling drugs, yet here she is at eight o’clock in the morning buying hard liquor. What a difference the law makes. Booze will rip families and people apart just as much any illegal substance.

The woman pays for her purchases and walks out without paying me any attention. Once the door shuts, I eye the witch. ‘Interesting clientele you have.’

‘She’s harmless.’

‘And the man she was talking about?’

‘Same.’

‘If you say so.’ I smile. ‘Now, it’s the two of us alone all over again.’

The witch holds out her hand. I jerk, expecting a flare of magic, but her palm remains bare. ‘I’ll ring up your items,’ she says. Her fingers twitch with a nervous tremor. She’s a lot more scared of me than I am of her.

I cock my head and observe her then shrug and step forward. I keep my fangs at the ready. Just in case. The witch keeps her head down as she scans my shopping. I have one eye on her and one eye on the door behind her. Maybe there are more witches skulking back there, waiting for the right moment to jump out and attack. I tilt my head back. There’s a CCTV camera in the corner. Its little red light blinks at me.

The witch bags everything up. ‘Twenty-two pounds and seventy-eight pence.’

I blink. ‘For a bunch of junk food?’

‘I don’t set the prices. You should eat more healthily. All this stuff is full of additives.’

I start to smile, my gaze dropping to her neck. ‘Oh,’ I purr, ‘I eat pretty healthily when I need to.’

The witch pales and steps back. This is kind of fun. I dig into my back pocket, pull out the money and she drops it into the till.

I’m tempted to kill her but we’re close to the warehouse and if she lets it be known that I was here some bright spark is bound to put two and two together. It’s inevitable that we’ll be discovered there sooner or later but, despite my grandfather’s assurances that it’s as safe a place as we’re likely to find, I’d prefer it if our presence is made known later. I have enough hassles as it is. I run my tongue over my lips. The smart thing to do would definitely be to kill her. I can easily destroy the CCTV; there’s no way this shop runs anything other than a cheap in-house video recording system. Those images aren’t going anywhere.

‘I wouldn’t tell anyone about this if I were you,’ I say eventually.

She nods. I take my shopping and leave.

I’m barely five steps from the door when my phone rings. I dig it out and check the display. O’Shea.

‘Hey,’ I say. I walk up to the fence and unhook Kimchi’s lead. The dog performs a bizarre dance of ecstasy. I’ve only been out of sight for ten minutes; you’d think I’d abandoned him for a week. He slobbers down my legs.

‘It’s me,’ O’Shea says unnecessarily. ‘You won’t believe what I’ve got to tell you. I mean it. I’ve heard some strange things in my time, I’ve seen some strange things too, but this is about as weird as it gets.’

I walk briskly. The homeless guy has vanished but other people are starting to emerge onto the street. I glance back at the shop and swear I can see a flutter of movement at the window. Bugger. Is the witch watching where I go so she can find me later? I veer right just in case.

‘The hooded men?’ I ask.

‘Not exactly.’

I pause for a beat. ‘Green men?’ I say finally.

‘Eh? Green men?’

I feel a bit stupid. ‘Yeah. Like … aliens.’

‘I think all that sun has made you go a bit soft in the head, Bo. Aliens? I know these kids are being abducted but I doubt it’s so they can be taken up in UFOs and experimented on. This isn’t Roswell.’

I scratch my ear. ‘Well, what then? What have you found out?’

‘I asked around about the hooded men. Either no one knows anything or they’re keeping quiet. So I asked about missing children. Long before I met you, there was a group of teenagers living rough near one of the poorer Agathos daemon neighbourhoods. Most of them were runaways. I knew a few of them. They were good for errands, running messages, handing over contraband, that kind of thing.’

I stare at him. ‘Bloody hell, O’Shea. You used kids to help you break the law?’

‘Hey!’ he protests. ‘They needed the money. It was quid pro quo. Nothing I asked them to do was dangerous ‒ I’m not totally heartless. And pot kettle, Bo Blackman. What about Rogu3? How long have you been using him for illegal activities?’

‘That’s different.’ Sort of. Well, it’s not actually. I wince.

‘Whatever. Do you want to hear this or not?’

I sigh. Sometimes, where O’Shea’s past life is concerned, it’s better not to know. And with mine it’s better to forget. ‘Go on,’ I tell him.

‘Well,’ he drawls, ‘I bumped into a mate of mine who said that one of those kids disappeared about three and a half years ago. A Glaswegian boy with red dreadlocks. If you ask me, no white person should ever have dreadlocks. I once offered to get the kid shampoo, I even said I’d pay for it. He looked at me like I was mad and…’

‘O’Shea,’ I interrupt. ‘Is his hair relevant to this story?’

I can almost hear him pouting on the other end of the line. ‘Yes. He was very proud of his hair. He told me he’d never wash it and never cut it and he wanted to go to his grave looking like that.’

I turn a corner, the shop now out of sight, and immediately start looping back towards the warehouse. Kimchi picks up the pace too, apparently happy that we’re heading home.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’m still not sure why you’re telling me this.’

‘My mate said that one of these kids disappeared.’

Kimchi, spotting a squirrel, tugs sharply at the lead. I haul him back and hiss. He responds by barking in delight. Idiot dog. ‘I imagine that they disappear all the time. Maybe he went back to Glasgow.’

‘No chance. There was nothing for him back there. He had a girlfriend here and things were on the up and up. Even the council was involved and had arranged sheltered housing for the whole group. Benjy disappeared two days before he was due to move in.’

I nod slowly. ‘Okay. But I don’t see any smoking gun.’

‘That’s the thing. My mate says that last year he saw Benjy over in the West End. He said he called to him and Benjy ignored him. It was like he’d never seen my friend before. No recognition. Nothing.’

I shrug. ‘So?’

‘So out of interest I went looking for him today. Went to the same place my mate was and hung around. I was there less than three hours when I found him.’

‘Benjy?’

‘Yep. He was coming out of some swanky apartment ‒ and he was wearing a suit. His hair had been cut and he looked like your average corporate idiot. I said hello and he looked right through me. Then,’ O’Shea adds quickly before I can interrupt again, ‘I ask the doorman who he is. He says he’s related to some bigwig who works in finance. There used to be a man called Colin Fairworthy in the apartment and now his nephew, James, lives there. I’m telling you though, it was Benjy. It was the kid I knew.’

‘So he found himself a sugar daddy. Big deal. I’d probably want to forget my past life too if it was me on the streets.’

‘You don’t get it, Bo,’ O’Shea says earnestly. ‘He looked like Benjy. He walked like Benjy. But he wasn’t Benjy. Not any more.’

I mull this over. ‘A glamour?’

‘No way. It was too good. And the doorman said he’s been living there as James Fairworthy for three years. No one can sustain a glamour for that long.’

I clench my jaw. ‘I’m betting a Kakos daemon could.’

‘It’s not a Kakos daemon. Trust me on this, Bo. Something stole him away and wiped his memory and is now using him for their own nefarious purposes. Maybe even this Colin Fairworthy. And if they can do it to one kid, they can do it to hundreds.’

O’Shea sounds very sure but all this is nothing more than circumstantial evidence. And even if it’s true, I don’t see where Alice would fit in. A homeless kid might be able to melt away into a different life without anyone noticing but Alice was all over the news. She still appeared on television every anniversary of her disappearance. Someone would recognise her. But it’s not as if we have much else to work on.

‘Okay,’ I say finally. ‘Do you think you can track down the other kids? The ones who were living rough with Benjy before he vanished?’

‘I’ve already got several names and addresses.’

‘Good. Ask
them
about the hooded men.’

‘I’m on it. I got a photo of the new and improved Benjy, too. They’ll confirm that it’s him, I promise you. It’s the Manchurian Candidate, Bo. That’s what’s happening to these kids. I already spoke to your grandfather and he reckons it’s possible. He should know. We’re staying in MI7’s own hideout. Maybe it’s time we skedaddled after all.’

I murmur non-committally. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that jumping to conclusions never does anyone any favours. You start making the evidence fit your assumptions rather than the other way around. And wiping someone’s mind? It just seems so implausible. There’s no apparent motive either, despite the many conspiracy theories that immediately spring to mind. But then, as O’Shea has already pointed out, the idea of aliens is implausible as well. ‘Ask them about green men too,’ I say. ‘With, er, big eyes.’

‘Bo, the government has to be behind all this. We already know how shady Vince Hale is. But aliens from outer space?’ He pauses and draws in a breath. ‘Although now you come to mention it… You don’t really think…?’

‘Just ask, O’Shea. That’s all.’

‘What are you going to do?’

I glance at Kimchi. ‘Drop off a few things at the warehouse then go back to Rogu3’s neighbourhood. There’s someone there I need to talk to.’