Ana searched her friend’s face, wondering whether there was something fundamentally wrong with Lila. Who was happy like that all the time? Or perhaps it was something fundamentally wrong with everyone else.
‘What’s all happening?’ she asked.
Lila’s pupils widened. ‘The Writings. Tengeri’s vision. The Fall! Your father’s spoken out against the Pure test. The Office of Fair Trading is looking into the minister’s recording and so is the government. Three Mills has been shut down. They’re even pulling out the Wardens from around the Project.’
‘They probably need them for crowd control in the centre of the City,’ Ana said. But the back of her neck tingled. It was good news. Great news. The members of the Project were safe. She hadn’t started a war. Perhaps she and Cole had done everything that needed to be done. Someone else would discover the doctors and the experiments on the Arashan children, and they would be free to leave the City. She gave Lila a perfunctory smile, then returned to her picture search.
‘You’re not going to talk about what happened last night, are you?’
Ana shook her head.
Lila sighed. ‘Well what are you looking for? Maybe I can help?’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Remember after Cole’s hearing when I walked into an Arashan street?’ Lila nodded. ‘Do you know if there are other groups of them like that anywhere else?’
‘I don’t think so. Why do you want to know?’ Ana didn’t answer. ‘You’re as bad as Cole,’ Lila said, putting her hand in Ana’s and pulling her up. ‘He never tells me anything. Come on, we need to wash out the hair dye before it makes your scalp black too.’
With a backwards glance at Clemence and Cole, Ana allowed Lila to drag her out of the tower. Lila picked up a cup from beside the burnt-out fire and they crossed the marshland to a deep pool. It was mid-morning, mild enough for T-shirts; the sky strewn with wispy clouds. Ana crouched down at the water’s edge.
‘Dip your head over further,’ Lila instructed.
Ana heard the metal cup plunge into the pool. Freezing water oozed over her hair, dripping down her neck. She closed her eyes and saw the snow-peaked mountains, the shaman and the fire. She shuddered. A Glimpse wasn’t simply a fleeting vision of a possible future: it was a chance, a single moment in time when she could be true to the best of what she knew, the best of herself.
But maybe none of that had to happen. Maybe the Pure test would be suspended, the Board closed and Evelyn forced to give up her experiments.
‘Tell me about Tengeri’s Writings,’ she said quietly. ‘What happens to the angel?’
Lila paused for a fraction, before continuing to scoop and pour. ‘Well, after the angel appears in the light of a full moon, the golden star comes close to two planets and the people awaken.’ Lila laughed self-consciously. The moon necklace prickled beneath Ana’s T-shirt. ‘It’s rather mystic and obscure,’ Lila continued. ‘Later in the poem it says, “The messenger’s past for the future. The messenger’s light for the sun to rise again. The messenger’s ultimate sacrifice.” Most people in the Project who follow the Writings think the Angel is the messenger.’
‘But she might not be?’
‘The Greek and Latin words for angel are “messenger, envoy, or one that announces”.’
‘Cole thinks the angel dies.’
Lila twisted back Ana’s hair. ‘Does he?’ she said. She dipped over so that their faces were side by side. ‘Some people see death as the point of rebirth.’
Ana spluttered and sat up. Wet strands of hair seeped into her T-shirt, soaking her back.
‘What’s wrong?’
Before she could respond to Lila’s death euphemism, Dombrant’s interface began ringing. She stared at it, astonished and afraid. Lila picked it up and passed it to her.
Dombrant is with me when I find the boy.
‘Go on,’ Lila said, hooking the interface chain around Ana’s neck. Ana made the hand gesture for answering a call.
‘Cole Winter?’ Dombrant said, his lilting accent impossible to mistake.
‘No,’ she murmured. Without a screen, the image projected into the air was fuzzy. It looked like he was standing in a dim cream corridor.
‘Ana, we have to talk. I have to see you straight away.’ His tone sent her heart slamming into her throat. Why was he calling and not her father?
‘What’s happening? Is Dad—’
‘I can’t talk on this line. I’ll send you an address where we can meet. Do you know your father’s password for the house alarm?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll send the address to this interface with the alarm code as the password encryption. Be careful travelling through the City.’
‘Wait!’ she said.
But the blurred image of the corridor abruptly vanished.
*
Cole and Ana stood in the entrance to a block of flats near Finchley Road in north-west London. This was where Dombrant had asked to meet them: a shabby lobby with a digital keypad on the main door that hung from its hinges. Brown carpet covered the walls and the floor. A smeary gold mirror lay embedded in the wallpaper beside the doorway. Impatience gnawed at her.
The Tube line had been packed with protestors heading in the opposite direction, to the south of the City. She and Cole had heard people talking about a march around the Board’s Headquarters, protestors demanding Evelyn Knight’s resignation. Even now, distant shouts reached them from the main entrance to the St John’s Wood Pure Community four hundred metres away – the Community where Ana and Jasper had taken their joining vows.
Cole threaded his arms around her waist and pulled her close. He hadn’t brought the crutches and though he was still limping, the swelling had gone down.
‘I’m sure your dad’s fine.’
‘What if the Chairman’s got hold of him?’
He chewed his lip, unable to answer. He knew as well as she did the danger her father was in now he’d spoken out against the Pure test.
He caressed a hand down the side of her face. ‘I think the gels are dissolving.’
‘Cole?’
‘Yes.’
‘Once you’d had your Glimpse, did you ever consider trying to avoid it?’
His palms swept along her shoulders, drawing down the tension, through her arms and out of her body.
‘Not meeting you,’ he said. ‘But the last bit, when I left and you stayed in the Community, yes. Then when it happened, I realised it was too late.’
‘So it could have been a warning?’
‘Perhaps. I had years to think about it. After a while all I had to go on was the way it made me feel about myself and about you. I wanted to be that person at that moment.’
Fear fluttered inside her.
The best of oneself.
What she’d seen somehow made her responsible for the boy. As she was thinking this, the door to the street flipped open and Dombrant walked in. His nose was twisted and jagged, his face bruised, his eyes bloodshot. The easy, sly confidence had been ripped away, leaving a raw edginess. He flinched when he saw her. With her jet black hair, powdered face and dark eyeshadow, she wasn’t a pretty sight either.
He closed the door behind him. The three of them stood in awkward silence for a moment.
‘Ana,’ he said, his soft Irish accent more pronounced than ever. ‘I’m afraid there’s no easy way to break this to you.’
She took a deep breath and stood up straighter.
‘Your father had the operation for his leg this morning.’
‘Yes?’
‘They’re saying he didn’t wake up from the general anaesthetic. I’m sorry Ana, your father’s dead.’
It was like an unexpected blow to the head, knocking her senseless. Sparks of light danced before her eyes. She was going to faint or throw up.
‘What?’ she asked. There must be some misunderstanding. She’d misheard. The Warden was wrong. Cole gripped her arm, maybe she was falling and he was trying to hold on. Keep her there. Pull her back from the edge.
No one died from a broken leg. People broke their legs and had them fixed every day.
No one died.
Dombrant cleared his throat. ‘I’ve put a young lad I know – the son of a friend of mine – down in the morgue to keep an eye on things until the Coroner’s office sends someone for an autopsy.’
Her shoulders trembled like they were going to shake away from her body. Cole enveloped her, holding her tight. She waited for a moment, arms locked by her sides, before pulling away.
‘I’m fine,’ she said.
Dombrant nodded, but he was wincing like it hurt to look at her. There were tears in his eyes. She turned away from both of them. She couldn’t bear their sympathy. Even a little of it might knock her over the edge.
‘Did someone kill my father?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Dombrant said quietly. ‘I think so, yes.’
‘I want to see him.’
*
Cole adjusted the blue blazer they’d picked up from a market stall near the hospital. It was too short in the wrists; the matching trousers hitched up his legs revealing socks and trainers. But however scruffy the attire, Wardens always wore suits, and it would help deflect any questions when they walked into the Pure hospital.
The private facility lay at the edge of the St John’s Wood Community. Strictly speaking it wasn’t only for Pures, but no one else could afford to be treated there. Reporters and cameramen loitered outside the cream two-storey building. The entrance to the building was set back from the pavement. Metal barriers and a security guard kept the reporters off the property.
The news of Ashby’s death wasn’t yet public. Even in her daze, Ana thought this odd. How had it been kept secret? Why?
Dombrant led her and Cole through the small gathering up to the hospital barrier. He handed a Warden his ID stick. The Warden held it up before his interface, checking the details. He nodded and shifted the barrier aside.
‘They’re with me,’ Dombrant said, waving Ana and Cole through.
Ana barely shuddered. She was too numb to feel the danger. Cole puffed out his cheeks and furrowed his brows, which made the gels in his forehead bulge even more. The three of them walked across the car park up to the sliding glass entrance.
‘If there’s any talking to be done, let me do it,’ Dombrant said.
They entered a reception and Dombrant greeted the woman behind the desk before heading for a steel enforced door with a biometric panel. He placed his hand on the panel and it released. Dombrant didn’t look back as they strode down a plain corridor to a flight of stairs.
‘The morgue is in the basement,’ he said.
‘Warden,’ a voice called. They all stopped. A security guard hurried down the corridor after them, steaming plastic cup in one hand, a Stinger in the other. The tea spilt and slopped over his fist as he caught up. Dombrant stepped across Ana, concealing her.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘Need to ID everyone,’ the security guard said.
‘Whose orders?’
‘We have to log everyone who goes in and out.’
‘Well they’re both Wardens.’
The guard peered around Dombrant. ‘She doesn’t look like a Warden.’
‘She’s in training.’
‘What’s in the rucksack,’ he said, pointing to Cole’s black rucksack which Ana carried on her back.
‘Just clothes,’ she answered.
And a prepped sedative, which I will use if you try to stop me from seeing my father.
‘Why is he wearing trainers?’ The guard pointed at Cole’s feet. ‘The required Warden uniform is hard flats.’
‘Can I see your ID?’ Dombrant asked.
‘
My
ID?’
‘Yes.’
The security guard caved a little under Dombrant’s authoritative demeanour. ‘I’ve only been working here a month.’
‘Well, Tim,’ Dombrant said, as he brought up the ID on his interface. ‘Your enthusiasm is appreciated.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Any one else been down to the morgue in the last half hour?’
‘I don’t know . . . Sir.’
‘Keep a look out for me, would you? Let me know if you see anything suspicious.’
‘How will I—’
‘ID them. I’ve set my interface to track everyone you ID.’
Tim’s mouth dropped open. ‘How do you . . . Is that legal?’
Dombrant herded Ana and Cole away. She moved rigidly, still too wiped out to really be affected by what was transpiring. Cole was faster, striding ahead of them.
‘I’m relying on you, Tim,’ Dombrant called back to the guard.
They took a lift down to the basement and walked through a winding concrete passage. Dombrant stopped before a set of unlabelled double doors.
‘You sure about this?’ he asked. She nodded.
‘Wait here,’ he said. The swing door flipped back as he disappeared through it. A moment later, he returned with a young man.
‘Just stay in the area,’ he said to the man. ‘And let me know if the Coroner arrives.’
The Warden held the door open for Ana and she shuffled into a chilly room with off-white tiles on the walls and floor. At the far end stood an examining table, a sink, weighing equipment, creams, paper towels, funnels. A smell of decay and blood lingered beneath the stench of disinfectant. Three rows of grey metal boxes, resembling the AGA cooker her mother had used at the farmhouse lined the wall on her right. Dombrant curled his fingers around a handle. A door swung back on its bulky hinges. He reached forward and heaved a tray from its hatch.
‘Wait!’ she said. Dombrant stopped. Her legs buckled as a distant memory came to her. It was a wintry evening. Hushed snow fluttered beyond the latticed pane of the farmhouse kitchen window where she waited for her father. She was eight years old. Her mother was telling her it was time for bed – the weather was too bad, her father wouldn’t make it for the weekend. Then a flash of headlights loomed in the darkness. A car horn beeped. He’d come! Sliding and slipping over crunchy new snow, she ran to his car. He popped open the door and grinned at her.
‘Daddy!’ she squealed. He pulled her up and twirled her in his arms. His cheek was warm and smooth. She whooped with happiness and dug her cold nose into his face. ‘Mummy said you wouldn’t come. She said the roads were too dangerous.’
‘Not even a fire breathing dragon would have stopped me,’ he said, kissing her. Then he popped her back on her feet and she ran around to the boot of the car to help him with his bag.
Ana stared at the morgue’s tiled floor. After a minute she nodded. ‘OK.’