So then what, goes John. We’ve been silent for an hour. Me chewing, him sewing, both trying not to think. The needle flashing in the light.
I sigh.
– Well, I was allowed home after that. Under house arrest. They tagged me with this sort of ankle-bracelet with an alarm system. (John nodded knowledgeably.) – They’d gutted the place by then. My family photos, the lot.
I gulp, remembering how grief-stricken I’d been. How bereft.
– Anyway, it didn’t feel like home any more, without the family there, I said. It was like they’d never existed. And then to cap it all, Keith buggered off.
– Keith?
– The cat.
– Where’d he go?
– Next door. With Mrs Dragon-lady.
– Who’s she?
– Neighbour woman. It’s what Tiffany used to call her, as a kid. Anyway I guess Keith went round to her place because he was getting old, and he could read the writing on the wall.
– He could read?
Is he stupid or what?
– No, you dork. What I mean is, they’re intuitive, aren’t they, cats. He must’ve sensed a downward spiral. He did come back, though, just the once.
– What for?
– To be sick on the carpet. I laughed, remembering. – I yelled at him at the top of my voice. He shot out of the cat-flap so fast it rattled for ages.
– What happened to him?
– I didn’t see him again for a while. He went back to Mrs Dragon-lady. She fed him that addictive dried stuff.
– How d’you know?
– I inspected his sick.
John’s mouth twisted.
– And so then what did you do?
– I just mooned about the house. I had cabin fever. I microwaved these horrible meals that Gwynneth’d left at the back of the freezer, pasta bake and that bollocks, way past their eat-by date. I didn’t have any appetite.
I remember pining for the Hoggs, and getting all stir-crazy. I remember thinking about what Tiffany had said at the forcie station. Just the thought that she wasn’t my real daughter turned my stomach. It explained why Gwynneth had kept Tiffany away from me like her own private doll. Why she’d asked if I wanted her to keep the baby. Could it actually be that she thought I knew? Another question kept nagging me too and I didn’t have the answer to it. Would I have been a dad to Tiff, if I’d known the truth? Everything was roiling about inside me. But no need to tell John all that.
– Then after two days, I said, the phone rang.
John looked up, a tiny purple sequin poised on the end of his huge finger.
The meeting took place in the Snak Attak. Pike had suggested it on the phone.
– You go there, as I understand it, from time to time, he went. For spring onion and noodle soup, and to read the news online?
I wondered how long I’d been under surveillance.
– All right, I said. No problem. Come and see the criminal in his natural habitat. A rare species of white-collar fraudster. Won’t bite.
He must have liked that, because he laughed. His voice was strong, meaty – like a movie star’s.
– See you there at four.
It was one of those hazy summer days when the air was more clogged than usual, but the peppermint felt fresh, carried on a light breeze. You could still feel the buzz in the air from the Festival – a sort of success aura, I suppose you’d call it. The people I passed were smiling. I went there on foot, skirting the rim of the purification zone. I’ll miss this place if I have to leave it, I thought – and although I didn’t reckon it would come to that, because I was naive and I wasn’t thinking straight, I felt a big pang of hurt just at the idea. Like everyone, I’d found over the years that the zone had grown on me, until one day I’d realised I loved it. I loved the white watchtowers, the clean perimeter fence, the sudden dark hole of the crater itself. I loved its lines, its angles, I loved the way it was high-tech but without screaming at you. It was like a very high-class toilet, I suppose – but I mean that in a positive way. You could see why it’d won so many awards. As for the rumours about Marginals ending up there – well, there are all sorts of urban myths, aren’t there? Like the stories about reclaimed land getting over-stressed and caving in on itself. All countries have their Chinese whispers, but on an island they’re worse. On an island, there’s nowhere to run. Things get trapped, and fester.
I was on Tarre Street by now. I must have sensed Pike before I saw him, because something made me look up and squint through the mist.
And there he was, outside the Osaka Snak Attak, just thirty metres ahead: a tall figure standing on the pavement with his back to me, pretending to look at the plastic replicas of the food in the window. He must have sensed me coming or seen my reflection in the glass because suddenly he swivelled and shone his round face on me like a receiver dish. It was completely blank. As I came closer, I focused on his tie, for some reason – perhaps so as not to look at his face. It was silk, bright yellow, with curious black dots and squiggles on it.
– They’re punctuation marks, he went, by way of greeting. He smiled, a big fat semicircle, but I didn’t know what to say, and just gawped at the tie like an idiot. – Quotation marks, brackets, asterisks and so on… Somewhat stylised, of course, he said.
And he held out a hand for me to shake. The way he did it was like he was someone important. Someone charismatic. Embarrassingly, I felt turned on. Don’t ask me why. Nerves, I guess. When we went in, he held the door open for me, like I was a girl.
The Snak Attak, proprietors Mr and Mrs Najima, stinks of soy sauce, and there’s nothing to see through the window but retail outlets and electric trams. It’s clean enough inside, but Pike wiped the red plastic bench-seat before he sat down, like it was seeping infection, and I began to feel tacky, for being the type of person who’d come here for noodles. I could be a salesman from the hi-fi superstore up the road, having a late lunch break. Pike could be one of the bosses from headquarters. Firing me.
Defensively, I ordered tea, sushi, and vegetable tempura from little Mrs Najima.
– Nice have a friend today, she said, her eyes sizing up Pike. You could tell he impressed her; he was the type women find attractive.
Pike ordered coffee, but when she brought it, he took one sip, winced, and pushed it aside. And when my order came his eyes moved away while I chopsticked in my nosh. As I thought, a man of class. And dangerous too. Straight off, I clocked him for the sort of bloke who starts his career at the age of three, doing five-hundred-piece jigsaws, moves on to brain-teasers and crosswords, excels at bridge, plays poker like Fu Man Chu, and reaches his peak in the egghead world of people-management. There was a tiny metal Bird of Liberty clipped to his lapel, but apart from that there was nothing to show he was from Them.
– It’s always interesting to get out of Head Office from time to time, he grinned. Meet the customers. Catch the vibes. See what’s cooking on the streets. Meet characters like you.
– Characters, I grunted. So I’m a specimen, eh.
I kept on eating. He kept on watching.
– Now let me guess something, Harvey, he said after a while in his smoothie voice.
Straight away I knew I didn’t like that idea. So I grunted again, in a way I hoped was discouraging. It didn’t work.
– You experienced some kind of trauma, around the age of nine? he went.
I sat back in my chair a bit then, folded my arms, tried to look weary and cynical.
– A bullying incident, perhaps? he said all soft.
For some reason the words sliced right into me, and I felt a ball swell in my throat from the memory of the Welcome Centre. I looked out through the window: a silent tram slid past. The people on it all know where they’re going, I thought. But I haven’t a clue, thanks to this bastard.