“That’s a pity,” I said.
He was silent. I u the pause to catch a mental breath.
“Are you sure you’re OK?” I asked.
“Couldn’t be helped,” he said. “I think it’s knackered.”
“The video?”
“Should have got a DVD in the sales.”
I almost said that we could have bought him one for Christmas, but the cascade of associations that this precipitated almost swamped me. I swallowed it all back, thinking that if I had done so I would never have been in my present situation.
“Got to go, bro,” Rees said.
“OK,” I said wearily. “But you should have rung earlier.”
“I know. Sorry.”
He cut the connection.
I looked up, flourishing the handset, trying not to think of Lyneth and the girls. “He’s gone. Problems with his video recorder, he says.”
Unable to raise him on the phone, we had waited over an hour. Tanya had cooked enough for four, just in case Rees turned up with someone else. Geoff, I imagined, was doing one of his evening clinics. In the end Tanya had warmed everything up in the microwave and we’d eaten, just the two of us.
“I’m bloody annoyed with him,” I told her. “He shouldn’t have left it so late.”
Tanya just shrugged and picked up my plate. She was still a little cool towards me, though we hadn’t discussed the letter-opener incident further. It was a relief to be back with her, to have escaped the bizarre assertions of Owain’s brother and Owain’s feverish reactions.
“There you go again,” Tanya said.
“What?”
“On autopilot. Not really here at all.”
Her tone conveyed irritation and concern in equal measure. It was hardly surprising that her patience was beginning to fray. I was a guest in her house, abusing her hospitality. She couldn’t begin to imagine how far away I actually went when I wasn’t there.
I made myself ask: “So who is here?”
“You tell me, Owen.”
But I couldn’t, though it was all too obvious. If I was capable of entering his world, it was equally possible Owain could do the same in reverse. It would explain many of my memory lapses, along with the urgeto wet shave, read coffee table history books and attempt to force the lock on Tanya’s bureau. Sometimes when I wasn’t here, he was.
THIRTY
Owain woke late, alone on the platform. He splashed his face with water from a fire bucket and made for the stairs. Pigeons fled from the shadows as he ascended into the light.
The morning air felt crisp and clean. There had been a dusting of snow during the night. His feet made a virgin path through it towards the observation tower at the square’s western end.
He was a lot calmer than the night before and had already persuaded himself that he had simply had a bad reaction to his brother’s unexpected appearance and his outrageous fabrications. It was even possible that Rhys had spiked his food or water with something. But this morning he felt much more clear-headed.
As far as he could tell, there was no indication that there had been any attack, no new barriers, extra patrols or the wail of emergency vehicles. If anything, the city looked freshly restored under its covering of snow. Security personnel stood calmly at their postings or squatted at braziers, brewing tea and smoking cigarettes.
The mixed-race security policewoman who stood at the entrance to the tower perimeter was tall and slim, about his age. A captain.
“Good morning, major,” she said as he approached.
Owain nodded. “All quiet?”
“Sunday morning. Like the grave.”
Her accent sounded familiar.
“If it’s OK with you,” Owain said, “I’d like to take a look up top.”
“Sightseeing, major?”
“I used to live out in Hampstead. Wondered if you could still see it from here.”
A flimsy story, and he expected her to be at least suspicious. But she didn’t question it.
“Don’t see why not,” she replied. “As long as you surrender any weapons.”
He gave up his handgun and knife without demur, opening his jacket so that she could frisk him. Her hands moved briskly and efficiently over his body.
“You were born in Cardiff?” he guessed.
“The Docks.”
A cosmopolitan area, packed with overseas migrants.
“Haven’t been back in over fifteen years,” she said. “They tell me the castle’s still standing.”
“It’s a regional HQ,” he told her. “More fortifications than ever.”
She led him through the gate. At the base of the tower was a caged lift, crank operated, big enough for perhaps half a dozen people. He secured the door.
“You’re on Field Marshal Maredudd’s staff,” she said to him. “Am I right?”
“How did you know?”
“We get mini-cine briefings these days. I’ve a good memory for faces.”
He started turning the handle. As he rose, the air grew warmer, then colder again. Pockets of smoke were rising from all over the city—rising before merging into a murky layer, as though a threadbare grey blanket had been suspended in the air. From somewhere he caught a waft of frying bacon. It was swiftly gone.
In little more than a minute the cage clanged into place on the platform. A private was there to meet him—a boy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, his face stained by a crimson blotch that lay like a distorted map of South America down his left cheek. He saluted Owain.
“Just up for a quick look,” Owain said as purposefully as he could manage. “Any chance of a pair of binoculars?”
The boy, evidently eager to please, hurried around the observation deck. Through the support struts Owain could see two older men hunched down behind the grimy plastic windows of the cold-weather cabin. Both of them were reading the Daily Herald.
Owain moved off in the opposite direction, peering through the haze when he reached the north side. He had an unrestricted view out over Soho. The boy reappeared with a pair of Zeiss, the covers already off. He loitered at Owain’s side. The smoke haze meant that visibility was not as good as he would have liked. But it was clear that nothing had changed on the Soho site: it was a featureless white. The steel gates on the northern side were closed and there was no evidence of recent traffic either inside or out. He scanned the entire area. It was so flat you could have played bowls on it. Virgin territory.
“What are you looking at?” the boy asked.
The question was framed with an adolescent’s simple curiosity. Owain eyed him. A Londoner, by the sound of it, his ears pink under his gunmetal cap. His uniform was too big, the iron-blue jacket sagging at the shoulders, its cuffs turned up. He was thin, pasty-faced, probably suffered from some chronic or congenital condition that meant he would never be of use to the armed forces.
“Nothing,” Owain replied, handing the binoculars back. “Nothing at all.”
The bedroom door opened. Tanya came in, bearing a mug of tea.
“Morning,” she said. “Sleep well?”
I nodded, glad that friendly relations appeared to have been restored. I was also pleased with the brevity of my latest sojourn in Owain’s world. I had occupied his mind in a feather-light way, merely skimming the surface of his thoughts. He was in control of himself again, had put the distortions of the previous night behind him. And he did not appear to have visited me in the interim.
Tanya drew back the curtains, and sunlight flooded in. The tape deck still sat on the table by the window, while beside it was a small pile of newspapers. Until now I’d assumed that I’d been reading them, seeking to catch up with events in the world at large; but perhaps Owain was just as interested in gleaning information about my existence as I was about his. The idea was chilling, but I knew I had to confront the possibility. At the same time I’d never detected anything in his thoughts to suggest he was aware of me or my world. Which didn’t prove he wasn’t.