The Disappearances

  Rab raised an eyebrow, then he leant forwards, his expression suddenly conspiratorial. ‘That’s the thing, though,’ he said under his breath. ‘This time it was different.’

  ‘Different how?’ Lucas asked impatiently.

  Rab smiled, apparently enjoying Lucas’s frustration. He took another sip of whisky, then spat violently on the floor. ‘Different,’ he said, cradling his glass and looking at Lucas knowingly, ‘because like I said, they came three months ago. But this time, they didn’t leave.’

  Lucas felt his heart begin to thud in his chest. He could feel Clara’s eyes on him, saying ‘I told you so. I told you.’

  ‘So they’ve been here all this time?’ he asked, but Rab didn’t answer; instead he held his hand up, motioning for Lucas to be quiet.

  ‘You hear that?’ he asked. Lucas shook his head. ‘They follow you here?’

  Lucas was surprised to see Rab’s face fill with fear. ‘You led them to me?’ he asked, standing up, agitated. ‘Get out. Let them take you. I just want to be left alone. I don’t want anything to do with this.’

  ‘You’re already up to your neck,’ Lucas whispered, because now he too could hear the sound of footsteps outside. ‘You’re the one who let these people into the City,’ he said. ‘And you found the bodies with me.’

  ‘I noticed the flies, that’s all,’ Rab hissed, then he grabbed Lucas. ‘This way,’ he said, bundling him and Clara out through a kitchen that smelt of mould and sour milk. ‘You get out, you get yourself hidden and you don’t get yourself unhidden, understand?’ He opened a door silently and pushed them through it before closing it immediately.

  Lucas grabbed Clara and pulled her down towards the swamp, submerging them both in its foul-smelling depths, guiding her hands to find the narrow platform that enabled access to the gate. With one hand, he held her; with the other, he clung onto the platform himself. Then, silently, they waited.

  7

  It was dark outside, and his limbs were beginning to ache. Thomas realised that he had been sitting in the same position for several hours; he was hungry and thirsty. But such mundane things could wait another few minutes. He was so nearly there. So close he could almost feel it.

  As he scrolled through the information in front of him, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. And what made it so incredible was how easy it was, how easy it all was. Four years ago, he’d been a junior manager in a technology firm having to answer to a stupid boss who didn’t understand anything. Now … now he had his own department, a budget that no one questioned, a remit that was as wide as he wanted it to be. He was in charge of security and data, of investigating breaches. At his say so, the entire network could be changed, closed, manipulated. His investigations were so secretive he could fly to the Caribbean for a week’s holiday on expenses and no one would question it. All because he got it. All because he knew how to harness people, harness technology. All because he knew how to scare people, how to excite them, how to make them think they needed him.

  And they did need him; they needed him because he was the only person who saw what was possible. The only person who was thinking big.

  And Thomas was thinking very big. Very big indeed. He scrolled through his list of candidates, checking and double-checking the information he had on them. And oh, did he have information. Reams of it. Every sorry detail of their pathetic lives. He smiled to himself as he remembered his former boss talking to him about privacy, like it was something that had to be preserved. Prosser was gone now, left in the last reshuffle, managed out of the business. Some information had got out about an affair, some dubious expense claims. It had been easy, in the event. Pitifully so.

  But what lay ahead would be a real challenge. What lay ahead would take patience, time, skill, cunning and confidence. It was almost impossible to pull off. But only almost.

  Thomas smiled to himself. At last a proper challenge. And if it worked …

  What was he saying? Of course it would work.

  He opened a screen, stared at the face of a despondent-looking girl with eyes that seemed completely empty; she had proved to be one of his best recruits. Then he flicked to another prospective recruit, a boy, black skin, fierce eyes full of anger, full of mistrust. He stared at the face for a few minutes, then flicked to his file. He was the perfect candidate. But it would be a long game. It would take time. And he would need some help.

  He stood up, opened his door, looked at his assistant who was sitting at the desk just outside. ‘Get in here.’

  Two minutes later, his latest recruit Adrian Crouch appeared. ‘Got your badge on?’ he asked.

  Adrian shook his head. ‘No. It’s in my pocket,’ he said, as though that made up for it.

  Thomas’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘In your pocket?’ he said, his tone cutting. ‘Put it on. I told you that badge is important. It signals you out to people. Doors will open for you. There will be people looking out for you.’

  Adrian raised an eyebrow. Thomas opened his mouth to shout at him, to fire him right there on the spot, then changed his mind. Instead, he picked up his phone, dialled a number. ‘Mike?’ he said. ‘Mike, come in here.’

  Mike was in the room within a minute. ‘Hey,’ he said.

  ‘Adrian wasn’t wearing his badge,’ Thomas said.

  Mike looked at the new recruit warily. ‘You weren’t?’

  Adrian shrugged. ‘I’m not really a badge kind of a guy,’ he said.

  Thomas hesitated before speaking. Adrian had been at the company a matter of weeks; had been identified by a member of Thomas’s existing team as one of the most talented hackers out there. And since he’d arrived he’d proved his reputation to be correct; he was the best Thomas had ever seen. Well, nearly the best. No one would ever get close to his protégé, his old intern. But the problem was that Adrian knew he was good, and that knowledge made him arrogant, made him think he could do things his way. Thomas moved his chair closer.

  ‘The thing about the badge,’ he said, quietly, ‘is that if you wear it, if you demonstrate your full allegiance, no one will mention the incident with your uncle. No one will ever find out about it. Ever.’

  Adrian’s face immediately flushed with fear and shame. He stared at Thomas, wide-eyed. Clearly written across his face was the question: How did you find out about that? Thomas couldn’t help smiling. He could find out anything. That was the whole point.

  He stood up, walked towards Adrian, put his arm around him and led him to his computer. ‘What we’re building here is the future, Adrian,’ he breathed. ‘What we’re doing here is going to change the world. But I need people I can trust. Who trust me. Who do what I ask them to do unquestioningly. Do you understand? Like Mike here. Like everyone in this department and a lot of people beyond it. Policemen. Judges. Politicians. Actors. Terrorists. Journalists. All bound together, all working towards the same thing. All proud to be one of us. Do you see why the badge is so important now, Adrian?’

  Adrian nodded. He was shaking, Thomas noticed. That was good.

  ‘Wear the badge and you’re protected, Adrian. You are above the law. This badge, it’s a passport. You see?’

  Adrian was sweating now; Thomas thought for a moment. ‘And no one will ever find out what you did. Or where your uncle’s body is. He deserved it, right? He paid for what he did to you, to your brother. We get it. We’re on your side, Adrian. We’re a team. Okay? I don’t want you to be unhappy, or uncomfortable. I don’t want you being afraid of anyone. We all have histories, but in this team we put that all behind us, do you understand? It doesn’t matter any more. What matters is information. Who has it and who controls it. What matters now isn’t what’s real but what we tell the world is real. Who we are, what we’ve done … it’s all in our hands. We’ll delete what’s happened, delete all of it and give you a new past. A better one.’ He clicked the mouse; immediately a picture appeared, of Adrian, surrounded by a group of students.

  ‘You want to be an academic?’
he asked. ‘Have a first-class degree from Oxford?’

  Adrian frowned. ‘I never even went to university,’ he said.

  ‘That’s not what the evidence suggests,’ Thomas smiled, ‘that’s not what potential girlfriends will see when they google you. Or how about you have a large inheritance?’

  Adrian raised an eyebrow. ‘So you fake a few photos and documents. So what? I’m still me.’ He was trying to sound cool, but Thomas could see the desire in his eyes.

  ‘No, you’re not. Not if you don’t want to be,’ Thomas said smoothly. ‘I’m not talking about Photoshop. I’m talking about creating a history. Creating a person.’

  ‘But it won’t be real,’ Adrian said uncertainly.

  Thomas laughed. ‘Real? What’s real? What you see on the television? What you read on the Internet? Don’t you get it yet? We control the search engine, we control the information people see, we control reality. Do you see? Do you see what we can do here?’

  ‘Yeah, I see.’ Adrian nodded, his eyes glued to the screen.

  Thomas could see that he had him; the fear had gone. He would need to be managed carefully, would need to be brought right into the centre, surrounded, supported. But he was going to be OK. Thomas had a feeling about him.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘So don’t take off your badge. Don’t ever take it off again …’

  8

  Devil stared into the young boy’s eyes. He could see the fear in them, but to his credit the boy didn’t blink, didn’t look down like the others had done. His hands hung at his sides, pale jeans only just staying up.

  ‘You hear me? You hear what I need you to do?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘Tell me.’

  The boy repeated what he had told him, word for word.

  ‘And what happens if you don’t do it?’

  Not even a lip quiver. Maybe this boy was tougher than he looked. Maybe he needed to watch him. ‘I go to hell,’ the boy said, his voice soft and high. Like a choir boy, Devil found himself thinking. He chuckled to himself. There weren’t any choirs around here. The only singing was from the druggies, the tramps, rocking back and forth under the bridge, high on desperation.

  ‘You know about hell?’ he asked. He would play with the boy a while. Make sure he knew who he was talking to. Make sure he knew what he was dealing with here. The boy nodded. ‘You learn about it in church? With your mama?’ Devil emphasised the word in a bid to make the boy look pathetic in front of the rest of the gang. There was a ripple of laughter. They knew the drill. They’d been through it themselves. Some of the boys shouted out insults, but the boy didn’t seem to notice. He just nodded again.

  ‘Yeah, well, then you don’t know,’ Devil continued, warming to his theme. He knew how to instil fear, knew how to work them up. His dad had taught him everything he needed to know about that. He used to listen to his dad when he stood in the pulpit and made his congregation worship him, got them listening to his every word like he was Jesus Christ himself. Before they realised he was stealing their money, before the police came and took him away.

  Before his mother moved them to this shit-hole.

  ‘See, the Church don’t know about hell. Not the hell you’ll be going to. The Church thinks hell is a place you go to when you die. But there’s hell right here on earth, too. And that’s the hell I’m talking about.’ Devil stood up, loomed over the boy. Devil was tall. Tall and broad, just like his father. He knew he could physically intimidate pretty much anyone if he wanted to. And most of the time, he wanted to. ‘See, I got my own hell for people that cross me, you know what I’m saying? A hell full of pain. For you. For your little brother. Your little sister. Your mother. You want your little sister to be screaming when we put her hands in boiling water? You want your mother to be mopping my piss with chains around her ankles? ’Cos that’s the hell I’m talking about. That’s what you got to think about when you’re deciding whether to finish that rival off. You hear me? It’s dog eat dog, you get me? Ain’t no survivors.’

  The boy nodded again, silently. Maybe he wasn’t shaking, but he knew who was boss, Devil thought to himself. He would do as he was told.

  ‘Good.’ He took the knife out of his pocket, carefully wiped it for fingerprints. One day he would have something better than a knife. Soon the Dalston Crew would be big, strong, ready to run with the big boys. To fight the big boys and win. Soon he would be in control of the whole of East London, not just this crummy estate. Everyone would know that he was the boss. Everyone would know to be scared of him. ‘And after, you hide this good for me? Until I need it again. You don’t go bringing it back to me. And when them pigs come looking, what you do?’

  ‘I don’t know nothing,’ the boy said, parroting what he’d been told.

  ‘And if they fit you up? If they come after you? If the police get your mama down to the station and she’s begging you to tell the truth, to tell them where you got the knife, to tell them who told you to do this?’

  ‘I tell them that boy has been agitatin’ me. That it was all my idea. That I found the knife.’ The boy’s voice was getting quieter; his eyes were clouding over.

  Devil smiled. It was a smile that disarmed, that made people think that maybe he was human after all, that he had feelings. That’s how he controlled people. People were afraid of him one minute, but the next, they wanted to help him, they were devoted to him. That’s how he liked it. It had taken him a long time to get to this place.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’m done with you. You get this job finished. And then you got the protection of the Dalston Crew for life. You get me? You, your mother, your sister, your baby brother. All safe. No more windows getting smashed. No more money going missing. No more fires starting in your flat. You get me?’

  ‘I get you.’

  The boy took the knife, tucked it into his waistband. And it was only when he turned to leave that Devil noticed that the boy’s trousers were wet, a big damp patch right around the crotch. And for a moment, just a moment, he felt something. Something close to guilt. A sick feeling that made him wonder who he was; what he was. What he’d become. For just a second, he imagined Leona looking at him, those fierce eyes of hers filling him with self-loathing, just like they’d done that time he’d teased her about her braces. But then Devil shook himself. He wasn’t the same person he’d been back then. He was Devil now. And he was a survivor.

  He pushed all thoughts of Leona from his head and smiled. The kid wasn’t tough after all; he was scared, good and proper. The kid would do just what he’d been told, for as long as Devil wanted him to do it.

  9

  Lucas freed a hand to wipe away the sweat dripping from his forehead, his other hand clutching Clara. He tried not to notice the blisters on his feet, the scratches on his legs, the tightness of his chest, but they were all getting worse, all threatening to overcome him. He and Clara had been running for what felt like days but was really about twenty-four hours, a few very short rests stolen en route. For the past few hours he had been carrying Clara; she had tried to keep up but kept stumbling with tiredness, and Lucas knew they had to keep going. Until they were far away. Until they were somewhere safe.

  They’d waited for an hour in the swamps, their heads just above the surface, just high enough to breathe, until Lucas was sure there was no one there. He had helped Clara out, and then they had crept towards the wall, opened the gate and started to run.

  They’d run all day, and most of the night, following the same path that he’d sent Raffy and Evie on a little over a year before. They were hungry, thirsty, exhausted. Neither of them had been outside of the City walls before and even though Lucas knew that no Evils roamed the land, he could still see the fear in Clara’s eyes, still felt trepidation as he ran, his eyes widening in incomprehension as he saw the landscape outside the City walls, immense, green, deserted.

  But they had had no time to explore, to question, to investigate, and now all thoughts of exploration disappeared from his head an
yway. The directions Linus had given him so long ago had brought him to safety; he could see the lights of Base Camp in the distance like a lighthouse guiding him in.

  He had told himself he would never come here, told himself that it was not his place. When he’d said goodbye to Evie at the City gate, he’d meant it; had intended never to see her again. Base Camp belonged to her and Raffy; the world outside was their world, not his. But he had no choice, he told himself as he ran. And he was not coming to live here; he was coming because he had to, because he needed help, because he was fighting an enemy he didn’t know or understand.

  The Informers.

  What Clara had told him had seemed … incredible. Inconceivable. And yet now he realised that what she knew was just a tiny part of the whole; and for that, her friends had paid with their lives.

  Lucas closed his eyes, steeled himself, forced himself to keep going, taking Clara’s hand to help her along. And soon enough it was there, in front of him, getting closer, just as he’d hoped it would be, this mythical place that he had heard about from his father, but never seen with his own eyes before. At Base Camp, Clara would be safe. At Base Camp he could gather his thoughts, and work out what to do next.

  They were less than a mile away. He worried for a moment that they were still being followed, that he was leading the Informers straight to Base Camp, but soon dismissed the thought. He had taken a roundabout route, and anyway, he would have known if he was being followed. He always knew.

  The lights became larger as they ran; soon he could see the campfire, the tents. Clara stumbled and he lifted her up, his legs speeding up as he found the last vestiges of energy within himself to make it over the line. He had made it. He was there.

  He laid Clara down, then collapsed in front of the fire; immediately a woman rushed towards him. For a split second he thought it must be Evie and his entire body stiffened, in longing, in fear. But it wasn’t Evie, it was someone else, someone older, a woman he recognised. ‘Martha,’ he managed to say before he passed out. ‘Martha, this is Clara. She needs to be kept safe …’