‘Callum . . .’
‘Just go, Sephy.’ He let go of my hands and turned away.
‘Callum, we have to talk . . .’
‘No. Just go.’ He turned away again.
‘Callum . . .’ And then I remembered what had been bothering me about the stranger since I’d first seen him. I grabbed Callum’s hand. ‘Wait. That man with the blond pony-tail, the one who came in with you to see me?’
‘What about him?’
‘He works for my father. I saw him a couple of years ago at our house.’
‘You’re sure?’ Callum frowned.
‘Yes. I’m positive. It was him. He works for Dad. He wore the same boots with the silver chains. I recognized them. It’s definitely him.’
‘Thanks.’ He pulled away from me and a moment later he’d melted into the shadows. I tried to train my eyes to see him but he’d gone. I turned and ran.
THE CONFESSION . . .
one hundred and four.
Callum
Reporters surrounded Kamal Hadley. And there were so many cameras flashing around him that it looked like a firework display. Kamal Hadley raised his hands and immediately the clamour around him died down. The firework display didn’t.
‘I . . . I will make a short statement and t-that’s it.’ Kamal Hadley wiped the back of his hand across his cheeks before continuing. ‘My daughter is still unconscious after being found this morning. Her doctors describe her condition as critical but stable. The police are present and will interview her the moment she regains consciousness. Acting on information received, we captured one of the kidnappers and another opened fire on the police and was killed as a result. No ransom was paid. That’s all I’d like to say at this moment.’
‘How many kidnappers were there?’
‘Where was your daughter held during her ordeal?’
‘What are the extent of her injuries?’
Kamal Hadley turned without another word and headed back inside the hospital. Jude pressed the mute button on the TV remote control just as the newsreader’s face appeared on screen. I slumped back in my chair, dog-tired. We were hundreds of kilometres away from the cabin in the woods, having got out of there in a hurry once it became clear that we’d lost Sephy. We were holed up in one room in a seedy bed-and-breakfast hotel, with twin beds for Jude and Morgan and a sleeping bag for me. The walls looked like they hadn’t seen a lick of paint in at least three generations and the windows and fittings were caked with grease and grime. There was a carpet on the floor which I think had a pattern once, a long time ago, but it was so worn it was impossible to tell what the pattern might’ve been or even its original colour. Not that I had much time to dwell on our surroundings. Morgan and Jude were all too ready to beat the crap out of me – at the very least – until I told them what I’d learnt about Andrew Dorn.
‘Where did you get this information from?’ Jude asked.
‘Sephy,’ I replied.
‘And it never occurred to you that she could be lying.’
‘She wasn’t.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because I know her. If she says she saw Andrew Dorn with her dad then she did. Besides, she volunteered the information.’
‘Because she wanted us to be paranoid about each other,’ Morgan said scornfully. ‘Andrew Dorn isn’t a traitor. He’s the General’s second-in-command for God’s sake!’
‘Then tell me this. How did the police know where each of you was going to be when you went to set up the telephone relay and pick up the ransom? We set up different locations for everyone precisely so that wouldn’t happen. Only five people knew our plans apart from Andrew. One is dead. One is captured and us three are here up to our armpits in alligators. So you explain that then?’
Jude and Morgan exchanged a long look. At least I had them thinking.
‘You said you changed your positions at the last minute?’ I carried on. ‘So you didn’t have a chance to tell Andrew what you were doing and I bet that’s the only reason you’re both still here to talk about it now. He betrayed us. Sephy was right.’
‘But she can’t be . . .’ Morgan couldn’t believe it.
I remembered something else. ‘He kept whispering to me that Sephy wasn’t to leave the cabin alive. I think that’s because he knew she’d recognized him. He ordered me to kill her first and ask questions later if anyone came to the cabin. But if I’d done that, I wouldn’t’ve stood a chance of getting out alive.’
Jude and Morgan were silent as they considered what I said.
It took a while to convince them but, in a way, Leila being captured and Pete being killed finally did it for me. The police must’ve known our plans to be able to round up two of us. And Andrew must’ve told them. No-one else could’ve.
‘I’ll find him if it takes the rest of my life.’ Morgan was spitting mad by now. ‘And when I do, my hands and his throat are going to make long and painful contact.’
We discussed various ways of stopping Andrew from betraying us or anyone else in the future but the problem was, we had no proof. And you didn’t go round accusing the General’s second-in-command of being a traitor without proof, not if you wanted to live to a reasonable age.
‘Besides,’ said Jude, looking directly at me, ‘we have a more pressing problem.’
‘We’ll never be able to settle in one place long enough to figure out what we’re going to do next.’ Morgan said grimly. ‘They are never going to stop looking for us.’
‘I didn’t rape her,’ I said through gritted teeth.
‘So you say,’ Morgan sneered. ‘But here’s some free advice. If you can’t keep your trousers on, don’t leave any witnesses next time.’
‘I didn’t rape her.’ I turned to Jude. From his expression, he obviously didn’t believe me either.
‘You shouldn’t’ve done it,’ he said at last.
I closed my eyes briefly and looked away. Talking to those two was like banging my head off a brick wall.
And the worst thing of all was, Jude was right. I shouldn’t have done it.
‘Morgan, I think it’d be better if we all went our separate ways for a while,’ Jude said carefully. ‘Together we’ll be much easier to track down. We should each fend for ourselves for say, six months and then meet at a prearranged time and place.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ Morgan agreed.
‘We’ll meet up on Callum’s birthday. And no-one is to go blabbing about Andrew Dorn in the meantime,’ Jude warned. ‘If he suspects we’re on to him, he could have other cells pick us off one by one before we could do anything about him.’
‘But we can’t just let him carry on betraying the L.M. to the Crosses,’ Morgan protested.
‘None of us has the ear of the General. We don’t even know who the General is. And if we tried to get a message to him, it’s bound to go through Andrew first. So we’re going to have to bide our time.’
‘So in the meantime more of our people will go to jail or swing from the scaffold at Hewmett Prison?’ said Morgan.
‘If that’s the way it’s got to be until we can expose him – yes.’ Jude replied fiercely. ‘We have to lose this battle to win the war.’
‘That sucks!’
‘Tough,’ Jude snapped. ‘I don’t like it any more than you do, but we have no choice. Morgan, could you go out and get us a meal?’
‘What kind of meal?’
‘I don’t know.’ Jude frowned impatiently. ‘Get a curry or a chicken wrap or some burgers or something.’
Grumbling, Morgan left the room.
‘You do know we’ll be lucky if we survive a month without being wiped out by either our own side or the police, don’t you?’ Jude said quietly. ‘Andrew has probably already got the word out that we’re to be . . . eliminated.’
I’d figured that out for myself.
Jude sat back on his single bed and rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘D’you want to hear something bust-a-gut funny, little brother?’
&n
bsp; The last thing in the world I felt like doing was laughing.
‘D’you remember when Mum had to go to hospital because she broke a finger slapping Dad’s face?’
I nodded.
‘Remember when she asked you to disappear because she had something to tell me?’
‘Yeah, I do.’ I frowned.
‘You see her?’ Jude pointed to the photo of a smiling Sephy now being shown on the TV screen.
I looked away, unable to look at her for longer than a microsecond. Just that quick sight of her had my heart drumming.
‘She and her whole family have ruined our lives. It’s as if they’ve made it their business to mix up their lives with ours,’ said Jude. ‘They’ve always believed they were better than us and they weren’t.’
I frowned at him. ‘What’re you talking about?’
‘Mum’s grandfather, our great-grandfather was a Cross. That’s what Mum told me that day. We’ve got Cross blood in our veins.’
‘I . . . I don’t believe it,’ I whispered.
‘It’s true. Mum only told me because I joined the L.M. She said I was part Cross, so killing them would be like killing my own. Poor Mum! That backfired on her.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘None of them ever wanted us. What has any Cross ever done for me except look down at me? I hated all of them even more after Mum told me the truth. Poor Mum.’
I was drowning in Jude’s words, trying to find something of sense to hold on to.
‘I had no idea . . .’
‘There’s no reason why you should.’ Jude shrugged. ‘We’re going to split up soon and I don’t even know if I’ll see you again. But I’ve got some free advice for you, Callum. Stay away from Persephone Hadley.’
‘I . . . of course I . . .’
‘Stay away from her, Callum,’ Jude interrupted. ‘Or she’s going to be the death of you.’
one hundred and five.
Sephy
Not again! I only just made it to the bathroom, collapsing with my head over the toilet bowl before I brought up what felt like most of the acid in my stomach. It was seven o’clock in the morning and I’d only just woken up, so my stomach was totally empty. And retching on an empty stomach was far worse than vomiting with a full one. My stomach acid stung my nose and made my mouth taste bitter and nasty. And this was about the fifth morning in a row that I’d woken up feeling like last Crossmas’s leftover turkey.
Only when I was reasonably sure that I could get to my feet without keeling over did I stand up. I cleaned my teeth and gargled for at least a minute with mouthwash. But I still felt wretched. I made my way out of my bedroom and headed downstairs, feeling very sorry for myself. As if everything that’d happened to me in the last five weeks wasn’t enough, now I’d caught a tummy bug.
The last five weeks . . .
After I’d regained consciousness, it seemed like every doctor in the northern hemisphere had prodded and poked me and given me test after humiliating test until I felt more like a specimen in a lab than a human being. And the police had asked me question after embarrassing question.
Especially about what my kidnappers had done to me.
‘Whatever happened, you mustn’t feel it was your fault. You were powerless. You can tell us everything that happened, we’ll understand . . .’ The policewoman had smiled and hugged and tried to get me to confide in her until all I wanted to do was slap her senseless. She interviewed me in a room with a huge mirror on one wall and kept stealing quick glances at it when I wouldn’t answer her questions. I mean, did she really think I was that stupid? Jeez! I knew a one-way mirror when I saw one.
I had nothing to say to them. I had nothing to say to anyone about my ordeal in the cabin in the woods. I didn’t even want to think about it. It hurt my head and stung my eyes and broke my heart to think about it. Not the kidnapping so much, although that’d been bad enough. But Callum . . . I couldn’t bear to think about Callum. And yet every thought seemed to find its own way back to him. He was never out of my mind. And it was driving me crazy.
I entered the kitchen and made myself some dry toast and a cup of weak blackcurrant tea. It helped. A bit. A very little bit.
‘Oh, there you are,’ Minnie entered the kitchen to sit opposite me at the breakfast bar. ‘You OK?’
‘Yes. Apart from this tummy bug?’
‘You’ve been sick for the last couple of mornings, haven’t you?’ Minnie frowned.
‘How d’you know?’
‘I’ve heard you calling on the porcelain telephone!’
I raised an eyebrow and carried on eating my toast. I wasn’t in the mood for any of my sister’s so-called jokes.
‘When’re you going to talk about what happened to you when you were kidnapped?’ Minnie asked.
‘Never.’
‘You shouldn’t bottle it up inside . . .’
‘Back off, Minnie. OK?’ I snapped. ‘My being kidnapped won’t reflect badly on you in any manner, shape or form so you can leave me alone now.’
‘What’re you talking about? I’m concerned about you.’
‘Yeah, right!’ I took another bite of toast.
‘What happened to you out there?’ Minnie asked softly.
‘I was kidnapped. I escaped. Now you know as much as I do.’ I chewed my last piece of toast and swallowed it down with a sip of rapidly cooling fruit tea.
‘Sephy, are . . . are you pregnant?’
‘What’re you talking about? Of course I’m . . . not . . .’ The words trailed away to nothing. I stared at my sister, in a daze.
‘So you could be?’ Minnie said grimly. ‘Who was it? One of the kidnappers?’
‘I can’t be . . . I can’t be pregnant . . .’ I whispered, aghast.
‘Who was it, Sephy? You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.’
I sprang up and raced from the room, like if I could only run fast enough I could leave my sister’s words far behind me.
Come on, Sephy! Just do it. The pregnancy test doesn’t work unless you actually use it! Just do it. And one minute later, you’ll know. If it stays white you’re not pregnant. You’ll have ducked a bullet and no one need ever know. And if it turns blue . . .
For heaven’s sake, do it. Anything’s better than this not knowing.
I picked up the leaflet and read the instructions again. It seemed straightforward enough. One indicator stick included. Just add urine. Nothing to it. So get on with it. I took a deep breath and followed the instructions. Which was silly of me, because I knew I wasn’t pregnant.
I couldn’t be. Not now. Not like this.
I placed the now-wet indicator stick on top of the toilet cistern whilst I washed my hands.
All I had to do now was wait. Just one minute to go.
The longest minute of my life. I sat down on the closed toilet lid, my back to the indicator stick as I counted up to sixty. I stopped at fifty-nine, unable to even think the next number, never mind say it.
I’m not pregnant. Just because I’ve been a bit sick in the mornings . . . That doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a delayed reaction to everything that’s happened to me over the last few weeks. That’s all. Steeling myself, I turned around, my eyes closed. I opened my eyes slowly. I didn’t even have to pick it up. I could see its colour very clearly.
What am I going to do? God help me, what am I going to do?
one hundred and six.
Callum
Now I don’t have anything. Not even the Liberation Militia. And there’s still three months to go before I meet up with Morgan and my brother again. I miss them. When you work with people for so long, your life in their hands and their lives in yours, they almost become family. Sometimes even closer than real family. I thought about going to see Mum. I even got so far as to stand outside my aunt’s house. I had so many questions I wanted to ask her. But then I changed my mind. Some things are best left unsaid. And seeing me would hurt Mum even more than not seeing me, especially as there
was no way I could stay.
Sometimes when it’s late at night and I’m all alone in a room or sleeping rough on the streets, I look up at the moon or one of the stars and imagine that at that precise moment, she is looking at the very same thing.
Why did she cry?
I guess I’ll never know. I doubt if I’ll ever see her again.
I’ve finally figured it out. I’m dead. I died a long time ago, woke up in hell and didn’t even realize. Thinking about it, I must’ve died just before I started at Heathcroft school. That’s what happened.
I know I’m right.
one hundred and seven.
Sephy
There came the lightest of taps at the door. I quickly wiped my eyes and jumped off the bed to sit at my dressing-table. I picked up the first thing to hand, a comb, and began to comb my hair.
‘Come in.’
Minnie entered my room, closing the door quietly behind her. I watched her via my dressing-table mirror. She’d been watching me very strangely for the last few days. Or was it the last few weeks?
‘Sephy, are you OK?’
‘Is that what you came in here to ask me?’ I frowned.
Minnie nodded.
‘Yes, I’m fine. Now stop asking me that,’ I snapped.
‘I’m concerned about you.’
‘Well, you’re wasting your time. I’ve already told you, I’m brilliant, wonderful, marvellous. I’ve never felt better in my life. So back off.’
Minnie gave me a deeply sceptical look. ‘Then why haven’t you gone back to school?’
‘’Cause I don’t want everyone pointing their fingers at me and whispering behind my back and feeling sorry for me.’
‘And why do you always look like you’ve just stopped crying or you’re just about to start?’
‘You need to get your eyes tested.’
‘And why have you taken to wearing leggings and baggy T-shirts and jumpers?’
I was really beginning to lose it now. ‘Minerva, what’s the matter with you? Since when have you been the least bit interested in what I wear?’