84K

Chapter 1

At the beginning and ending of all things…

She had not seen the man called Theo in the cards, nor did they prophesy the meaning of her actions. When she called the ambulance they said they would come soon, and half an hour later she was still waiting by the water.

And when she called again they had no record of her call, and gave her the number of the complaints department.

The sun was down and the street lights distant, their backs turned to the towpath. On the other side of the water: an industrial estate where once patty-line men had loaded lorries with bikinis and bras, pillows and sofa throws, percale fitted sheets, gold-plated anklets and next season’s striped trend-setting onesies for the discerning customer. Once, the men who laboured there had worn tags around their ankles to ensure that they didn’t walk too slow, or spend too much time taking a piss. If they did, there were worse places they could be sent. There was always somewhere worse.

Now there was black spew up the walls, and the smell of melted plastic lingering on the winter air.

A few white lamps on the loading concourse still shone, their glow slithering across the high barbed-wire fences down to the canal. The light made the frost on the bank sparkle like witches’ eyes, before being swallowed whole by the blackness of the water.

Neila thought of calling out for help, to anyone in the night, but didn’t have the courage and didn’t think anyone would answer. People had their own problems to deal with, things being as they were. Instead she wrapped the man up as best she could in old towels she wouldn’t miss, hiding her nice, fluffy towels under the bed. She felt a bit guilty about that, and alleviated her doubts by making him hot tea, which he could barely sip. Not knowing what else to do, she sat beside the man on the thin, mud-sunk grass by the gate of the lock and dialled 999 again, and got someone new who said:

“Oh my oh yes now of course yes bleeding by the canal do you have an address for that—no an address—how about a postcode, no I’m not seeing you on my map do you have premium or standard service support for an extra £4.99 a month you can upgrade to instant recovery and full rehabilitative therapies for the—oh you’re not insured…”

The call ended there. Maybe a timer cut them off. Maybe there wasn’t much signal at the moment. A pair of ducks waddled uneasily over crêpe-thin ice, now slipping into the water below, now lurching back up onto the transparent surface above, now flapping at the sound of an eager seagull looking for a snack, now quiet again beneath the thickening blue-brown sky, paddling in listless circles.

at the end and the beginning Neila spins in circles too

The man mumbled, through lips turned blue, “You’ve been very kind very kind I’m fine I’m sure I’ll be fine it’s just I’m fine…”

He’d tried saying this before, and fainted, only for a few seconds, then woke and picked up where he’d left off, and she hadn’t had the heart to tell him that he’d passed out while trying to be so stoical, so she let him talk until he stopped, and they stayed there, waiting, and no one came.

She decided to leave him.

At the precise moment she reached that decision, like a truck driving into a concrete wall she knew that she wouldn’t. The universe crumpled and blew apart, and at the centre of it she exclaimed, “This is fucking ridiculous.” She creaked to her feet, pulling him by a limp limb. “Get your backside inside the fucking boat.”

She had to help him walk, and he nearly hit his head on the low door at the stern of the narrowboat as she guided him in, and was unconscious, bleeding out on her white faux-leather couch, before she had got her boots off.

Chapter 2

Time goes a little peculiar

when you’re not feeling so

so sometimes you wake and you remember that you will be an old, old man and that the one you love will die and you can’t work out

if they die

or you first

which would be more scary? Who will be strongest without love, alone, loveless, devoid? What is worse—for you to lose the one you love or for the one you love to be destroyed by losing you?

The man on the couch is vaguely aware, when he’s aware of much of anything at all, that he’s hit his head and that’s making things a little…

Neila wrung out blood-red water from her third-favourite tea towel into the mop bucket at her feet, and the bleeding still wouldn’t stop, and there was silence on the canal, and silence on the water.

In the early years when she had first started sailing, Neila had thought she’d love the quiet, and for a week after buying the Hector she hadn’t slept, in terror at the roar of whispers over still water. The creaking, the lapping of liquid, the insect-hiss of thin ice popping before the bow of a passing boat, the roar of a generator, the chug chug chug of the engine, the beating of wings, birds not really built for flight hounding each other half in sky, half on land for food, or sex, or maybe just something to do.

When exhaustion kicked in, she’d slept like a log, and now she understood the silence of the canal wasn’t silence at all. If anything, it was a racket, annoying in its persistence.

Not tonight. Tonight the silence made her nervous, made her think too much. She’d come to the canal to get away from thinking. Alone, once you’d thought everything there was to think, there was only being quiet left.

She turned on the radio, and listened to Pepsi Liverpool vs CheapFlightsForU Manchester, even though she didn’t really like football.

Chapter 3

At the beginning of all things…

The man lies on the couch, and dreams and memories blur in a fitful crimson smear of paint.

Maybe it hadn’t been the beginning, but in his dreams it seems that there must have been a point where it all started, where everything changed. Back when he had a job, back when “job” seemed like the most important thing ever, back in the Criminal Audit Office, before the winter and the snow and the blood, at the beginning there had been…

—it seemed ludicrously banal now, but it was perhaps the place where it all went to piss—

…a training weekend.

The weekend was voluntary.

If you did not attend you would be docked one week’s pay and a note put on your file—“BBA.” No one knew what BBA stood for, but the last woman to have these fated letters added had been given a job at a morgue, showing family members the corpses of their loved ones.

Besides, everyone knew that team players were happy volunteers.

The Teamwork Bonding Experience cost £172, payable at sign-up. On the first day he was told to put a cork in his mouth, stand in front of his colleagues and explain his Beliefs and Values.

“Come on, Mr. Miller!” exclaimed the Management Strength Inspiration Course Leader. “Enunciate!”

The man called Theo Miller hesitated, hoping the burning in his face could be mistaken for the effort of not spitting out the dry brown bung, bit a little deeper into the cork, then mumbled: “I belef fat ul pepl arg detherfin of jusfic an…”

“Project! Pro-ject. Use your whole mouth, use your breath to lift you!”

At night they slept in dormitories on creaking metal beds, and were woken at 5 a.m. for a group run. He enjoyed that part. He stood on top of a hill and watched an eyelash of light peek above the horizon, growing hotter, bending the sky, liked the way the shadows of the trees broke out long and thin across the land, the visible light and visible darkness in the air as fog burned away. The walls of London were too high for him to see this sight, and the places in the country where sometimes he’d gone as a child had fallen to scroungers, and the trains didn’t go there any more. For a moment he thought of the sea below the cliffs, and the memory filled his lungs with salty air—then someone told him to stop dawdling, Mr. Miller!

So he ran on, and pretended to be out of breath and struggling at the back, where most of the senior staff were, even though he felt like he could have run for ever. It didn’t do to stand out.

Management joined them at 10 a.m. Management were staying up the road at a golfing resort, but wanted to demonstrate leadership and muck in with the troops. Edward Witt, 37, fresh from Company central office—personal motto “I achieve for me”—roared across the waving long grass, “Come on! Put some welly into it!”

Theo Miller did not smile, did not blink, but concentrated harder on the painted picture of the wooden man before him, drew the axe back over his shoulder and threw it with all his might. He was aiming for the head, but by chance managed to hit it in the nuts.

“Keep going, guys!” barked Edward, bouncing impatiently on the edge of the field as the Fiscal Efficiency Team ran up and down, one statistician suspended by ankles and armpits between two others. “Don’t let each other down!”

Theo wasn’t sure what all of this had to do with his job. He didn’t learn anything about the law, or finance, or governmental good practice. The only colleagues he felt any closer to were the ones he usually hung out with anyway, the hangdog dredges of the Criminal Audit Office who sometimes drank cheap wine on the seventh floor when the lights were out, and didn’t go to the pub because they couldn’t stand the noise.

If anything, the weekend only served to make office cliques tighter, as friends curled in for mutual support against the horror of the experience, shooting suspicious glances across the muddy field to ensure that everyone was suffering equally, losing all together. Edward Witt prowled up and down, encouraging competition, competition, get ahead, and one or two tried gamely, and Theo was always the third man eliminated in a contest, and penultimate man picked for a side.

It wasn’t that he was inept, or even disliked. There wasn’t enough personality in Theo Miller for people to love or hate. A psychic had once attempted to read his aura, and after a period of frowning so intense she started groaning with the effort of her grimace, announced that it was puce. Like everyone else from the mystic to the mundane, she too had failed to spot that his life was a lie, or that the real Theo Miller was fifteen years dead, buried in an unmarked grave. So much for the interconnected mysteries of the universe, Theo thought.

So much for all that.

At the end of the weekend they got into a coach.

The coach sat in traffic, covering twelve miles in an hour and twenty minutes, and Theo dozed. One time he saw a woman standing on the hard shoulder, waving frantically at the passing cars for help, but no one stopped, and tears rolled down her face. People didn’t like to stop on this stretch of the M3. The security fence kept out most of the screamers, the scroungers and the children from the surrounding enclaves, but Company Police signs reminded all that YOUR SAFETY IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY, and no one doubted it for a moment. You heard rumours of tax dodgers breaking in through the fence and rushing down into the lanes when the traffic got too slow, to crack open boots and steal anything they could, until speed picked up again and they scuttled to safety or were mown down where they stood.

After four hours of snoozing to a soundtrack of inspirational speeches by Simon Fardell, Company ExO, the coach dropped them off at the office in Victoria. The pavements were too narrow for the tired, baggage-slung commuters waiting for their buses, leaves tumbling from the last of the shedding plane trees.

Though it was late, and they were tired and muddy and sore, Edward treated them to a sandwich dinner, held in the semi-sacred and barely used Large Media Suite, access usually limited to executive grade 2A and above. As they ate thin slices of cucumber between wet pieces of white bread, lights were dimmed, and Edward presented his PowerPoint of Vital Lessons Learned and Where We Go From Here, including a comic montage from the weekend of people falling into mud, dropping their axes and spraining their ankles to lighten the moment and boost team morale.

And when he was done the lights came up

and there were little pink pots of Angel Delight with a single half-strawberry on top and there

was Dani Cumali.

On the canal the man called Theo groans in his sleep and holds the blanket tight, and Neila sits with her head in her hands and wonders what the fuck she’s even done

And in his dreams

and in his memories

Dani is watching him, and that’s where it all went wrong.

In the past

These things are a little blurry but he thinks, yes, in the past, but not that past, the more recent past, the past had already happened, the less important yet more urgent bit of the past that is

(Neila wonders if she should try and give him a blood transfusion, but where the fuck do you even start, times being what they are?)

Dani Cumali stood at the edge of the Large Media Suite in the Criminal Audit Office, and stared at Theo Miller, and that was where the world changed.

Her black hair was cut to a pudding bowl around her ears, her skin devoid of make-up, lines around her mouth, grey and thin, lines between her eyebrows, a cobweb face. Her nails were scrubbed down to thin ridges, she wore the navy blue one-piece of the catering company

and she looked at him

and he looked at her

and they knew each other immediately and without a word.

On the screen was a picture of that time during the weekend when he’d been punched in the face during the self-defence training session and his nose had bled everywhere and wasn’t that hilarious our Theo Miller give him a hand

everyone clapped

and Dani saw and knew the truth.

And she knew that she could destroy him, bring down the house of lies, fraud and deceit that he had built around himself, around his name that was a lie, around teamwork bonding experiences and work reports and progress assessments and pension plans and rental deposits and

and the whole lie of his whole fucking life.

She could tear it down with a single word.

And in her eyes was the fire of the righteous and the sword.

In the beginning.

Chapter 4

The man whose name was sometimes Theo Miller had been twenty-two years old when they abolished human rights. The government insisted it was necessary to counter terrorism and bring stable leadership to the country. He’d voted for the opposition and felt very proud of himself, partially because he had a sense that this was the intangible right way of things, but mostly because it was the first time his new name had been tested at the polling station, and held up to scrutiny.

The opposition didn’t have any funding, of course, and everyone knew that the Company was backing the winning team. But any fleeting disappointment he may have felt when they crumbled to a crushing defeat and the prime minister declared, “Too long our enemies have hidden behind human rights as if they were extended to all!” was lightened by the fact that his identity had held. He had voted as Theo Miller, and it hadn’t made a difference, and no one had called his bluff.

He’d still somehow felt it would work out all right in the end.

When they shut down the newspapers for printing stories of corruption and dirty deals, he’d signed the petitions.

When they’d closed the universities for spreading warnings of impending social and economic calamity, he’d thought about attending the rallies, but then decided against it because work would probably frown on these things, and there were people there who took your photo and posted your face online—saboteurs and enemies of the people—and besides, it rained a lot that month and he just needed a morning off.

By then, of course, it was a little too late for petitions. Company men would run for parliament, Company newspapers would trumpet their excellence to the sky, Company TV stations would broadcast their election promises and say how wonderful they were. They would inevitably win, serve their seven years in office and then return to the banking or insurance branches happy to have completed their civic duty, and that was that. It was for the best, the adverts said. This was how democracy worked: corporate and public interests working together at last, for the greater good.

When it became legally compulsory to carry ID, £300 for the certified ID card, £500 fine if caught without it, he knew he was observing an injustice that sent thousands of innocent people to the patty line, too skint to buy, too skint to pay for being too skint to buy. When it became impossible to vote without the ID, he knew he lived in a tyranny, but by then he wasn’t sure what there was left to do in protest. He’d be okay. If he kept his head down. He’d be fine.

He couldn’t put his finger precisely on when parliament rebranded itself “The People’s Engagement Forum,” but he remembered thinking the logo was very well done.

Chapter 5

In the Criminal Audit Office, Dani Cumali clears away the remnants of a cucumber sandwich.

In the ancestral home of his family, Philip Arnslade stares at his mother’s dribbling form and blurts, “Well so long as she’s happy!”

On the canal, Neila is pleased to discover that she’s not actually squeamish about head wounds at all.

By the sea, a man who may or may not be a father rages at the ocean.

In the past the man called Theo cycles home from a team bonding experience, and is terrified of the face he has just seen. He didn’t try to talk to Dani. Didn’t meet her eye again after that initial moment of shock. Fled without a word, chin down, expression fixed in stone. Half ran to his bicycle and pedalled away without bothering to tuck his trousers into his socks.

The queues at the Vauxhall Bridge toll weren’t as bad as he’d feared, and the walls of Battersea Power Station were a brilliant cascade of colour bouncing back off the clouds promoting the latest reality TV escapade, huge painted faces pouting brilliant crimson lips into the dark.

He went the long way round, past the giant glass towers of the river, then south, towards houses growing lower and cracked, overgrown front gardens, laundrettes with beige linoleum floors, churches in sloped-roof sheds proclaiming a new Jesus of fire and redemption, a criss-cross of silent railway lines and budget gyms above kebab shops for the men with vast shoulders encasing tiny pop-up heads.

He circled several times before pulling up at the stiff black gate in the crumbling red-brick wall. He couldn’t remember what Mrs. Italiaander, landlady folded in fuchsia, had said to him when he came through the door—she’d said something and he’d even replied, they’d maybe even had a whole conversation—but the memory of it slipped away in a moment.

He sat on the end of his bed and looked around the room, and saw as if for the first time the paucity of character it contained.

A wooden figurine of a woman dancing.

A painting of light across a misty sea.

A couple of 1950s films where everyone knew what to say and exactly how to say it.

A fern that refused to die.

With Dani Cumali’s face overlaying his vision, these things suddenly seemed trivial, pathetic. The revelation jerked him almost to laughter, as the man somewhere beneath Theo Miller, who still faintly remembered the real name he’d been born with, and the hopes he’d had as a child, stared at the farcical illusion of Theo Miller he’d created and realised that in all his efforts to be anonymous he had in fact ceased to be a person whatsoever. The laughter rolled through him for half a minute, then stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and he stared again at nothing.

He sat in muddy clothes on the end of his bed, hands in his lap, and waited to be arrested. In the room next door, Marvin, Mrs. Italiaander’s teenage son, wannabe rock star, wannabe movie star, wannabe private detective wannabe martial artist wannabe somebody in a nobody world, played drum and bass far too loud and wondered if his mum had known all along that he’d stolen that fifty from her purse.

Downstairs, Nikesh, the other flatmate, who did something for the Company, something in insurance or actuarial or—he was never very good at explaining—cooked chicken so spicy it could burn the top off your mouth and listened to radio with the volume turned right down, too low to really hear, but it was the sound of the voices that Nikesh enjoyed, more than the words they spoke.

After a while—after the first twenty minutes of not being arrested—Theo lay back on his double bed, nearly always slept in by one, and stared at the ceiling. His room was five metres by six metres, luxurious by lodging standards. Theo had lived in it for nearly three years. He’d been renting in Streatham before, but his flatmate had got a job in something that paid more, been given a resident’s permit to Zone 1 and moved in with his girlfriend. Theo’s civil service salary didn’t stretch to a mortgage, not with prices being what they were. Not with times being so…

…besides, he didn’t have the papers to live in Kensington or Chiswick or anywhere like that, let alone the cash, so Tulse Hill it had been, two lodgers, a mother and a child pushed into a house built for three. Mrs. Italiaander had never raised Theo’s rent. She liked the way he cleaned the oven once a month and the new shower rail he’d installed. He was a nice, quiet tenant, and that was a rare thing indeed.

It struck Theo as likely that in three years’ time he would probably be in this same bed, on these same sheets, staring at the same crack running to the ceiling rose. This made him feel

…nothing.

He was masterful in feeling nothing. It was what he did best. He had cultivated the art over nearly fifteen years.

He checked his bank balance for the fifth time in the hope it was something better.

Wondered why the cops hadn’t come for him yet.

Realised he had no idea what on earth he was doing with his life, or what the hell he was meant to do now.

Having no idea what to do with himself, he did as he always did and on Monday morning went to work.

The fact they let him through security was strange. He sat at his desk in the Criminal Audit Office, patiently expecting handcuffs. For nearly twenty minutes he slouched there, fingers hooked on the edge of the desk, staring straight ahead without seeing, and waited.

No one came.

After twenty-five minutes an automatic alert appeared warning him that his productivity levels appeared to be slipping and that he was ten minutes away from being put on notice.

He stared at the pop-up message in amazement. In nearly nine years of working at the Criminal Audit Office, he’d never seen such a thing. He took a paracetamol, obvious and slow for the benefit of the camera on top of his screen, and set to work.

The cops didn’t come.

Men in black didn’t burst through his window.

Dani Cumali didn’t laugh like a banshee as they dragged him down, pointing and howling with mirth at the lie that only she could have broken.

Nothing changed, so Theo did his job.

This is the daily diet on which Theo Miller is fed:

murder

theft

fraud

burglary

rape

Guidelines on rape vary depending on whether it is felt that the woman may have dressed in a provocative manner or appeared to be sexually enthusiastic prior to the act of penetration. A woman who does not dress modestly is more likely to be a victim of crime and as a consequence we recommend indemnity in the low-to-mid £30,000 as a starting point for assessing the…

corporate espionage

libel

slander

assault on a corporation

anti-corporate profit activity

By acting against corporate interests, individuals show a complete disregard for society and are harming all, not merely a few. Starting indemnities of £400,000 are a viable place to commence negotiation…

riot

trespass

protest

Once he heard the minister for social responsibility explain: “Crime has huge financial cost on our communities. It is only right that we acknowledge its economic impact in a blue-skies thought-dynamic way that puts society back in the driving seat.”

Theo remembered that phrase clearly—“put society back in the driving seat”—because he found it inherently confusing.

“It is time to hero the narrative of personal responsibility!”

The Criminal Audit Office had emerged some seven or so years before human rights were judged passé, from the outdated monolith of the Crown Prosecution Service. This was when the Company was still trading under many different names, a mess of loans and investments, debts and boards, but after they’d started investing in security. Prison was a deeply inefficient way of rehabilitating criminals, especially given how many were clearly irredeemable, and despite privatisation efficiencies overcrowding and reoffending were a perennial problem. Rehabilitation through work was an excellent and scientifically provable way of instilling good societal values. The first Commercial Reform Institute was opened when Theo was seven years old, and made meat patties for hamburgers.

Theo hums a half-remembered tune from his childhood under his breath, doesn’t notice, reads a report.

Semen was discovered but the victim was unwilling to pay £315 for the DNA test and thus we are unable to say whether the semen came from the accused. In light of this we would suggest a reduced charge of sexual harassment.

Theo checked the database. Sexual harassment had various subcategories, but the most he could levy was £780 for a first-time offence.

At first a lot of people had been excited by the indemnity system, until it emerged that the profits raised from prosecuting crimes were almost entirely eaten up by administrative costs from the various companies contracted to manage the cases.

Corporate Police, much more reliable than the tiny rump of Civic Police accessible by the uninsured or through NGO charity funding, had shareholders to consider when they invoiced for an investigation. The TV always showed the glamour, never the paperwork—forensics was expensive, best deployed only on really profitable cases.

Corporate rehabilitation centres had a similar problem. As corporations bought up local communities, transforming towns into Winchester by Visit the Soul or Bath Spa Deluxe Healthy Living, local judiciary fell under their purview and great savings were made all round and there was much rejoicing, except for the scroungers who were unable to pay their corporate community tax, clearly weren’t contributing to society and thus couldn’t ask society to support them.

Raising the price of manslaughter in line with inflation…

…a deduction in lieu of a promising corporate career…

Added fees: £480 for putting down victim’s cat.

£48,912 for the first offence, reduced to £38,750 for prompt payment…

The victim transpired to be illegally resident on a student visa, and thus the indemnity must be reduced by £4500 to reflect that it was assault on an alien, rather than a UK citizen.

Impaled on a garden fork added hospital costs of…

Theo audited the cost of murder, mayhem and destruction, and when 5.15 p.m. came, he cycled home as the sun went down, made macaroni cheese, and ate it in his room and listened to Marvin’s drum and bass through the wall, and waited for the men to come to take him away.

And no one came.

After the first three days, the failure of the powers-that-be to swoop down and arrest him left Theo slightly annoyed. The least you can ask when your life is about to be ripped apart is to get on with these things, rather than be left in suspense.

And no one came.

And a week became two.

And two weeks became three.

And for a moment Theo permitted himself to think that he’d imagined seeing Dani Cumali at all.

And at the end of the fourth week he was intellectually certain that it would be fine, absolutely fine because that was how these things were, and on the Tuesday of the fifth week, she found him.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Dani.”

They stood in the place behind the building where they chained the bicycles. Once he’d seen a rat scamper between the bins at the back. One early evening in summer he’d met a fox. The fox had sat and watched him, and he’d watched it, and neither had moved for a long time. Neither had been afraid. They had simply looked, to learn the nature of the other’s gaze. And when the fox got bored, it stood up and walked briskly away, and there was nothing more to it.

She was waiting by his bicycle. He saw her too late to pretend he hadn’t seen her, but didn’t want to leave the bike, thought it would be stupid to just run away.

Going to the bicycle forced him to stand a little closer than he would have wanted, face angled away from the security camera, one hand resting on the seat protectively. She wore a faded blue raincoat, white cloth shoes, a tiny moonlight smile.

“So.” This word seemed to take some thinking about, a gathering of the weight of the world, a slow orbit round the burning centre of the universe. “So,” she repeated, trying out new ideas, studying his face. “It’s Theo now?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

They stood a while, and Theo remembered the fox and felt almost relieved that all this would soon be over.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and he huddled against a wall, and for nearly a minute they were silent. Then she said, “I saw you at that party. Or whatever it was.”

“Team bonding experience.”

“Right. Well. There.”

They wavered, avoiding each other’s gaze. Finally Theo mumbled, looking at some place a few hundred miles above and a little to the left of her forehead, “Are you…”

“Catering.”

“Right.”

“The catering company bought my parole.”

“You’ve been…”

“I’ve got a shift starting at 9 p.m., near Sloane Square. It’s a market. They’re selling the paroles of the pretty girls to rich geezers. Maids. Cleaners, nannies. That sort of stuff. If you’re rich enough, you get to pay less tax if you turn yourself into a company, and if you’re a company you can buy a parole. It’s all sex. I mean that’s why they… but I’m catering. I just clean the glasses.”

“Right.”

Her head bent down, then up, a curious cat not sure if the object before it is food or threat. The more he tried not to catch her eye, the harder she stared until finally his gaze met hers, and she held it with a frown. “We’re gonna talk now,” she explained, cold and flat. “That’s what’s happening. In case you’re wondering. It’s… that’s what happens now.”

He tried to look away, couldn’t, nodded once, mouth dry, and followed her.

Chapter 6

Later, on the canal.

Her name is Neila.

These are the cards that she drew when she did her reading that Friday morning:

Seven of staves, the Chariot, three of cups, nine of staves, king of swords, the Tower, eight of swords, the Fool, the Hanged Man (inverted).

She stared at the layout before her, and for a horrified moment realised she had spread the cards without focusing on a question. There had been something at the back of her mind but then…

On the couch behind her, the man rolled over a little, his head turned towards the wall, the grey light of day shining round the foil circles Blu-tacked to the portholes to keep the heat in, and today there was no fresh blood on the floor.

Neila folded the cards away, returned the pack to the walnut box beneath her bed, put some baked beans on the stove. As they warmed, she went outside and discovered that in the night something had smashed the pots of geraniums she grew on the front of the boat, thin magenta petals spilt across the water, black soil across the deck. She sighed and set to cleaning, and no one passed on the water or on the land.

Once she’d had a tomato plant uprooted and thrown into the canal. She’d found the sodden tendrils of broken leaves bumping against her hull in the morning, and she’d cried, howled almost, like her one true love was dead, and couldn’t stop crying for the best part of a week.

Now she felt nothing. That too was why she’d come to the water, to get from that place to somewhere else.

She put some margarine into the baked beans and ate silently, sitting on a green foldable chair that in summer months she liked to have on the prow so she could read by the light of the fading day. She wondered if she should wake the man, and decided not to. She thought maybe she should give him some water, soak a sponge or something, try to dribble something into the corner of his drooping mouth, but thought he might choke.

She tried calling the local hospital, but the automated switchboard wouldn’t let her proceed without inputting her eleven-digit insurance provider number, so she gave up.

At 3.30 p.m., as the sun slipped towards the horizon, she muttered, “Screw it,” gunned the engine, retrieved her mooring hooks and steered the Hector north, towards Watford and the edge of the city, blue-grey fields to the left, shining black road to the right.

By 6 p.m. the canal was dark, her fingers cold and body stiff, so she went back inside. She had enough gas and water for a hot shower, but the idea of stripping naked with an unknown man in the cabin made her uneasy. Instead she made more tea and, as the man slept, she checked his hands again for truths and signs, and found there nothing she had not found before.

At 8.23 p.m. a cormorant, confused, lost, slams into the side of the canal boat, indignant that its journey has been disrupted by so solid a thing, and at its collision

the man called Theo jerks awake, and for a moment is terrified, and cannot remember his name, and does not know where he is, and wonders if this is what every awakening will be like for the rest of his days.

Clawing, pulling the blanket tight, then flinching, turning away from the pain, another moment of uncertainty as he tries to work out where it comes from—it would be unmanly to whimper at this point but screw it, he’s only just woken and this was not how he planned on finding himself.

A cabin.

If he rolled out sideways his head could touch one wall, his feet the other, at a stretch. He might have to cheat and reach out a few fingertips, but that’s fine. If he lies down lengthwise, the boat can probably fit six or seven of him end to end before it becomes a squeeze. A curtain above his head, purple, with a silver elephant on it, the moon, or possibly the sun, or maybe just a disc of light, rising or setting behind the ambling creature, a log curled in its trunk, lilies crushed beneath its feet. The curtain is suspended by a mesh of elastic rope, a parting in the middle. On the other side of the cabin, away from the sofa, a cubicle closed off from the rest of the boat by heavy plastic doors that fold like an accordion to create a little privacy, concealing a toilet. A tomb-sized cupboard next to that encloses a plastic shower.

Black iron stove, burning bright and loud, with two hobs set on top, one for a kettle, one for a pan. A gas oven too small to roast a chicken. Cupboards above made of laminated chipboard, the handles removed in an act of domestic whimsy, replaced with hand-painted ceramic baubles of blue and yellow. A small stainless-steel sink, a saucepan and cup drying beside it. On the walls of the cabin, little hand-sewn pieces of fabric adorned with blue-stitched cornflowers, red hearts, messages of love. “Believe in yourself.” “Love thy neighbour.” “Life is for living.” And so on. One, circled by a weave of red roses and green thorns, framed and put between portholes, a little out of keeping with the others—“Deal with it, bitches”—in the same carefully embroidered hand. Round portholes covered with handmade foil circles, glued to cardboard and pressed against the glass. A clock on the wall counted away the hours. The numerals were embraced with happy, bounding rabbits. Here, a bunny balancing on the top of the 5, hugging the 8, pressed up against one o’clock in a pose which, once suggested as needlessly sexual, could be nothing else, all innocence gone.

A fold-down slatted wooden table for eating on. The couch he lay on, extending down towards the rear of the boat; more cupboards, installed a little crooked at first, then straightened up through careful addition of nails and wedges. A lampshade above his head on which ducks flew in an endless circle, eyes wide and terrified at the philosophical prison of their flight. Darkness outside, yellow light within, a few bulbs burning in the walls, candles lit on the kitchen counter, floating in white metal bowls.

The man called Theo clings to his blanket, to the back of the couch, to his side, to his head, and can’t quite remember how he came to be here, and as sense returns, for a moment entertains the possibility that he is dead, and the Greeks were right, and the rivers of the damned flow through Hades after all.

Then Neila came through the curtains that separated the cabin from her bed, disturbed by the sound of movement, and saw him, and said, “Oh.”

For a frozen moment they stared at each other and hadn’t got a clue what they were meant to say next.

Then, in almost harmony, he blurted:

“I don’t know if there…”

And she exclaimed, “You must be parched. Tea?”

Two people on a narrowboat, heading up the Grand Union Canal.

Neila makes tea.

She is six foot three, feeling less than her radiant self, wearing furry lion slippers, thick flannel pyjama trousers, a cyan-blue T-shirt, a fleece jumper given to her by someone who was hoping to also give her Jesus. Her hair is turning grey; she hasn’t had a proper haircut for a while, and the cheap DIY dyes turn the long ends brittle. There’s still a red sequin dress in her cupboard, knee-high boots so bright that they dazzle passing traffic. She hasn’t worn either for a long time, and her bum and belly have got a little saggy. Sometimes she feels sad about that, and instantly tells herself to get over such stupid thoughts and appreciate her beauty for what it is. Her arms are strong, her shoulders broad, and she hides both from the gaze of men. Even though she’s tall, she likes to wear a bit of a heel when she goes walking, to change the shape of her calves and the way her hips move. It helps; so does the lipstick.

Tonight she wears neither, and feels hot, exposed and foolish.

Fusses over making a cup of tea, puts in too much UHT milk, decides she’ll drink that cup herself rather than throw it away, tries again, teabag, water, strange how hard these things become in the gaze of a stranger’s eye, and as she works she says:

“You were by the canal. I called an ambulance. They didn’t come. I don’t know if I did the right thing, if there is family—do you have family?” The man didn’t answer. “I moved the boat. I was by the lock, there are…”

She stopped talking as quickly as she had begun. Beat the teaspoon out on the side of the mug. The sound was painfully loud, irritating; once upon a time she’d found it relaxing, ping-ping-ping! Not tonight.

Silence from the couch. She passed him a mug, and maybe he said thank you, his lips moved and there was air in his throat, but the sound didn’t quite come out whole. She cast around for something else to do, putting a saucepan away, poking at the fire in the stove, still burning strong but who cares, more wood, do excuse me I’m just going to…

more wood, taken from the pile under the tarp on top of the deck, her breath frozen in the air, the cold a sudden shock that lets her feel how fast her heart is pumping…

a moment to catch the chill, letting the cold through her skin, taking her time grasping the log, enjoying the feel of it beneath her fingers, broken bark and dry splinters

then back in.

More wood.

Well isn’t that lovely it’s just

it’s just

Well.

She stood, silent, and found she had nothing more to say.

The man, dark hair, one side clumped with blood, stuck with dirt, a damn good wash and then whoosh, a static explosion around the head, she knows how hair like that behaves she used to cut the hair of a man called…

…a man called…

It was a long time ago.

Several weeks’ growth of scraggy beard, eyes made smaller by the puffy lids that encase them. He was born with a harelip, which a doctor stitched together before he was six weeks old so that he could feed; you’d barely notice the scar, but there is a slight tugging to one side of his face, a slightly crooked smile when it appears, which hasn’t been very often in recent years.

He was also born with the little finger and ring finger on his right hand fused together, but his parents never told him that, and it was an easy operation to separate them. His mother thought it was bad luck, an evil birth. His mother was not the kind of woman to be swayed once a thought was in her mind.

“My name is Neila.”

The words were so obvious, so familiar on her lips, she was astonished she hadn’t said them before.

Silence.

She turned, her whole body now, to look at the man on the couch. Still clutching the blanket. Staring up at her, eyes catching green-grey in the firelight. She put her head on one side, hands on her hips, waited.

“Theo,” he mumbled at last. “My name is Theo.”

Then hesitated, looked away, smiled, laughed, found laughing painful, curled away from the sound, looked back up, still smiling. “Actually,” he said, “that’s a complete and utter lie. Sorry. Habit. But… call me Theo.”

Silence in the cabin.

Silence on the water.

Neila watches and feels a sudden heady rush of power. This man is the most vulnerable, pathetic creature she has ever seen. She is a saving angel. She is God-like in her authority. She holds another person’s life in her hands. She’s never done that before.

She thinks she might laugh, and it would be deeply inappropriate. Involuntarily puts one hand over her mouth, clapping the sound in.

Then she thinks she might cry, and that would be absolutely fucking ridiculous, what the fuck is she even thinking?

The man called Theo is contemplating his next words, staring into his teacup, barely sipped, maybe he’s a snob about these things, maybe he doesn’t like…

“There’s a code,” she blurted to stop him before he could say something stupid, something that would destroy this knife-edged moment in which she is in charge, and all things hang in the balance. “On the canal. There’s a code. You help people. That’s what it is. Not many people stick with it now. You get a lot more rude people. People who don’t know their boats. Triple-parking wankers, if you don’t mind me saying. But I believe in the code. It’s why I’m on the water, it’s why…”

Stopped.

Worried she’d said too much. Tried to replay her words, thought perhaps they were okay.

“There’s a code,” she repeated into the silence. “That’s the way of things.”

The man nodded, taking it in, looked down, looked up, looked into her eyes. Said: “I’m going north to destroy a man. He killed my friends and took my daughter. He broke the country. He’s why they’re all dead.” His face scrunched up for a moment, looking for something else, which he couldn’t find. “That’s all.”

She thought about it.

Was surprisingly okay with just standing and being still and quiet and thinking about it.

Heard the clock ticking down towards a rabbity midnight.

Said: “Okay then. That’s okay.”

That was that.

Chapter 7

Theo walked through autumn streets with Dani, watching the cracks in the pavement, and had nothing to say for himself.

Dani strode, chin forward, glowering at all who dared look her way, fingers in fists at her side. The sun was setting, a sluggish grey-blue drifting to sodium-brown. The streets were padded in quiet autumn hush, traffic muffled and far away.

Frames of a film caught in office windows: women picking up their coats, two men playing ping-pong at the staff table above the reception area. The cleaners starting work, down from the top, buckets on wheels, sprays in a pouch, computer screens still live, the lights never going out. A queue for an ATM, a shop assistant pulling down the shutters on a wall of leather boots.

Laughter from the pubs.

A smile and a friendly nod from the man who guards the door of the strip club, hey mate, good to see you again, come in come in yes your favourite she’s dancing tonight she’s something else isn’t she?

The buses do not stop to let people on. If you didn’t prebook your place through the gold priority transport service, there’s no chance tonight. Faces pressed to fortified glass, bodies standing right up front in that sacred place where only the driver should be, people up the stairwell, standing on the upper deck, unless someone gets off no one is getting on…

No one gets off.

Company Police move a beggar on. He has an abscess in his left leg that he proudly displays, destroyed bright pink flesh hollowed out almost to the bone, yellow fluid seeping slowly round the edges. When he just laughs in their faces, refuses to move, points and cackles, the security men carry him bodily to their truck, throw him in. He’ll be for the suburbs, for the enclaves where the good people don’t go, where they stopped the electricity after the scroungers couldn’t pay, wouldn’t pay, and where corporate councils don’t see any need to invest.

Or maybe not. Maybe he’s for somewhere else entirely. There’s no one around who’ll ask, fewer who’ll care, not for a man like that. He makes people uncomfortable. He seems to like it. That’s basically assault, that is. That’s £125 for the initial crime plus £50 for malicious intent and…

Two men are on the verge of hitting each other over a taxi. The driver sits, meter running, unperturbed, as the men scream “I was here first I was here it was me I was—”

“He answered my flag it was me I waved him down didn’t you see are you blind?”

Both men are heading towards Maida Vale. If they could just stop shouting for a minute, they could probably share the ride.

They went to a café. The café served coronation chicken, bacon and egg, egg mayo and cheese and pickle sandwiches. If you wanted anything else, the woman behind the counter tilted her mighty brow down and stared up from beneath its shadows, daring you to stick to your convictions. When you backed down, she tutted and exclaimed that you were being absurd and made it anyway, righteously going out of her way for the difficult customer despite their protestations that egg mayo was fine honest, and guessed at the price, which was usually £6.99. The woman used to be a teacher, but her students complained that she gave them too much homework, and one day she hit a boy who had punched staples into a girl’s arm and couldn’t afford to pay the indemnity, and here she is. Theo bought coffee. He used what cash he had, and as the woman fussed with the till, he slipped the battery from his phone and tried not to stare back over his shoulder as Dani settled at a beige Formica table carved with messages of love and abuse from strangers, scratched with the prongs of a fork.

He sat opposite.

Drank coffee.

Dani said, “So there was”

And the man called Theo replied, “It’s been a really long”

She cut in: “I’ve been on the patty line.”

They sipped coffee in silence. It was far too hot and better than he’d expected. In the silence Theo whispered sorry, I’m sorry to hear that, that sounds…

…but his mouth was smarter than his brain, and he looked down at his tea and said nothing at all.

“After you left… the town, there was—I mean, the factory closed. And there wasn’t much of nothing else left and I got

it got bad.

I had to

I mean, yeah, you’re not supposed to say that, you never had to. You chose to. You chose to steal, that’s what they always said, but I couldn’t see any other way to

Look. That’s not what matters. I’m out now. I got in, and things got bad, and I’m clean now. I’m clean and

so.

So.”

She ran the curve of the teaspoon over a bowl of sugar, flattening the surface to a smooth plateau, then heaping it up into a hill, then squashing the hill back down again. He watched, waited. In a moment of decision she drove the spoon down into the centre of the bowl, standing tail upright, and stared into his eyes.

“I’ve got this boss,” she announced, tumour-factual, tombstone-hard. “Gatesman. He’s my probation officer, but he also gets 5 per cent of whatever I make. It’s how they motivate him to try real hard to get us girls jobs. Best jobs are sex, but I got the dirt on him. Embezzling. Not from us—we’re fair game. But from his bosses, naughty. I got dirt, and now he’s fucking scared of me. He’s scared and I can ask for any job I want, and I said—I want into the Ministry. Get me into the Ministry, or I’ll… but he did. He got me inside. I’ve got this thing I need to do, and it’s hard but it is…

And then I saw you. You and your stupid pudding face.

And I thought…

So. Your name is Theo now. And you work for the Ministry.”

In the half-light of the candles burning on the kitchen counter of the narrowboat called Hector, the woman whose name now is Neila squats down before the man called Theo as you might hunker down to seem less frightening to a tiny, cowering cat, and hands out, fingers open, murmurs, “I read somewhere that you shouldn’t change the dressing, just put more stuff on top until it stops bleeding.”

Drinking coffee from a dirty cup on a dirty table, the man called Theo looked up and met Dani’s eye for almost the first time in fifteen years, and knew that his world was probably going to end. “What do you want?”

“You have access to stuff. With your job, with computers, you can find things out.”

“I don’t just…”

“There’s someone you gotta find for me.”

“Why?”

She smiled, tiny teeth flashing between pale lips. “Cos I’m your oldest, bestest friend, and I’m asking.”

“You can’t ask me to look at secure documents.”

“Why not?”

He didn’t answer. She turned the spoon, once, a hard twist through sugar, picked it up, dug it back in, deeper. “Theo Miller,” she mused. “Who the hell even is Theo Miller?”

“I am.”

“Right.”

“I buried it all, Dani. There’s nothing. You won’t find a piece of anything to prove…”

“So what? Who the fuck needs proof, these days?”

Theo half-closed his eyes, pinched his index fingers together at the bridge of his nose. The smile twitched at the edges of Dani’s lips. She waited.

“Who are you trying to find?” he grunted.

“Lucy Rainbow Princess.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s her name.”

“That’s a name?”

“She was franchised to a party company when she was four. Ads. Princess costumes, unicorns, blonde hair and plastic crowns—that sort of thing. They changed her name.”

“Why do you need to break into the Ministry to find her?”

“Cos I’m a patty-line whore who isn’t worth shit to the guys who do the paperwork, and cos she’s in juvvy. You think women like me get to ask questions like this?”

“And if I can’t find… Rainbow Princess?”

“Her birth name was Lucy Cumali. She’s fifteen years old, born March 11th in Shawford by Budgetfood.”

Silence a while.

In the street outside, a garbage truck creaked to a halt by overflowing black bins. Two men climbed out the back, orange parole tabards across their chests, parole company logo stamped on their hands, their trousers, their lives.

Overhead a helicopter rushed towards a landing pad, while the passengers texted, eyes averted from the city below, OMG u wont believ wat i jus heard…

Behind the counter of the café, hot steam blasted into a tannin-stained mug, and bread burned in the toaster.

Theo stared down into the depths of his coffee cup and could only see the past, not the future, in its blackness. For a moment he considered refusing. The fantasy stretched out for a few seconds towards prophecy, before dissolving into disaster.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

Chapter 8

In the beginning of all things

fifteen years before hot coffee and blood on the canal

fifteen years before time became a little…

…and it seemed to the man called Theo that past and future were not that different really and that all things came back to a point where…

In the beginning.

The boy who will become Theo lay on the beach with Dani Cumali at the centre of the universe, and listened to the stones being dragged into the ocean, and was fundamentally deeply uncomfortable and really rather cold, as is the nature of most beaches that face the North Sea. He was a flabby skinny boy. There were no muscles on his body; he hated sports, hadn’t even looked at the footie pitch since the day his dad was…

…but he didn’t eat very much either, and it’s a diet of microwave meals rejected by the factory, macaroni cheese mostly, so his childish frame was moulded with a layer of squishy white skin which could be pinched and shaped like putty, before sinking painlessly, bloodless, back down into bone.

His hair was thick and dark, his eyes were grey, he will never be handsome, but one day he might have a girlfriend who thinks he’s sorta cute and know that he’s grateful to be with her, and maybe for a little while they’ll be happy until he realises that he’s just playing this game and she’s neither his mother nor is he cute at all and in fact pretending to be cute is so fucking stupid it’s just…

Theo and Dani lay on the shingle, at the start of all things, and it is extraordinarily uncomfortable and probably deeply romantic. At their feet, the ocean reflected orange-black from a stained sky, and the wind carried in the smell of rotten eggs and cow dung. Behind them, the chimneys of Shawford by Budgetfood’s processing plant pumped smoke and steam into the sky, and the lorries growled and grumbled up the highway built by the company when they became community sponsor, though they’d had to knock down half the town to get it through. On the promenade before the pastel-painted houses, slanting grey roofs and tiny pink bullet-flowers in the garden, broad windows dive-bombed with seagull shit, four kids smoked pot and an old woman walked her dog between the shadows of the flickering street lights. Green algae had colonised long beards of colour beneath salt-scarred windows, a cross of St. George tangled itself around the pole outside a porch, and the seagulls hung in the air, tipped wings steady as they tried to fly forwards, were blown backwards, and remained going nowhere at all, resigned to their fate.

The sea rolled in, and Theo lay on the shingle, and Dani lay in his arms.

Dani Cumali, hair cut short because she hated the blue hairnet they had to wear in the factory, nails clipped down to an impossible white thread on translucent pink, skin pushed even closer to ivory white by the light spotting of dark, dark moles and ebony-black freckles that pop across her body, tiny as a needle beneath her eyes, round as a penny coin across her back.

They lie together, children again, and watch the starless sky in silence.

Dani doesn’t think she’s beautiful, and doesn’t think Theo is cute.

She thinks he’s low-pressure and she is going through certain experiences. It’s not so much the sex, which she’s already starting to suspect may be overrated. What she really wants, what she actually really needs is this thing which is sort of like that thing where…

She’s not sure if it’s like anything, really, maybe one day she’ll have the words for what it is, like some sort of love, but now it’s

friendship, perhaps

or just a needed quiet thing.

A quiet moment by the sea. That’s enough, for now.

Theo knows that Dani is beautiful, an opinion helped by the fact that she is a woman and he’s also going through a certain set of experiences, biological imperatives that haven’t been properly explained to him.

“We should go to the beach together. Like we used to when we were”

“Is 10 p.m. okay is that”

“You bring blankets, I’ll bring booze, like when we used to run away—just… you and me, tonight.”

Theo lay on the beach and at his back the theme tune of the town declared the hour, played through the speakers of Shawford. The speakers had been put in the day before the parade where the CEO of Budgetfood came to open the factory. His speech had been played to every corner of the town, from the little chapel with the large cemetery to the old ladies’ home by the leafless white trees, where they grumbled through their broken teeth about the disturbance. Since then the speakers hadn’t ever fallen silent, except once when a senior executive died, and once when someone had managed to find the main power inlet and set it on fire.

Proud to make the best low-salt meals at reasonable price!

Affordable consumption for the discerning client!

Today’s special: chicken jalfrezi, now with improved rice formula!

Theo closed his eyes as the music drifted, slow and distorted, towards the sea, the sound deep, stretched as if slowed by opposition from the rumbling wind. The tune had been written by the executive mayor’s youngest son, who did it for GCSE Music coursework. The boy was very talented. This had been made clear, and the school wisely waived all tuition fees in recognition of his ability. The music was played on the synth, and a chorus was sung at noon, 5 p.m., 9 p.m. and midnight by a choir of children. For the longest time the boy who would be called Theo thought the words went:

Together we march, together we sing, happy in our community. The children play, there are igloos on the green, happy happy happy, the aliens make noodles.

As a child, he never questioned this interpretation. Why couldn’t there be igloos on the green? Why wouldn’t aliens make noodles? Noodles were great.

Later, the suspicion grew that he might have been wrong all along, but no matter how hard he listened, he couldn’t quite make out the actual words through the infantile chirruping of ageing speakers as they slithered down the hour to midnight. There were worse community sponsors than Budgetfood. At least you got cheap food on Fridays, and they still let the school do breakfast maths club on a Wednesday.

She said, “I didn’t think you’d be back.”

“Of course I would, I mean, it’s not like I”

“Off to your fancy university your fancy friends…”

“I heard you and Andy, I mean that”

“Piss off!”

“So it’s not a…”

“It’s over.”

“Really?”

“Really, are you kidding me, yes, it’s over, he’s a jerk, it’s all just been…”

Time comes a little unstuck, they sit on the blanket spread across the shingle and it’s…

“My bum is going to sleep.”

“Hold on, if you… is that any”

“Ow!”

“Sorry, I was just…”

And in his dreams

and in his memories

This is where it begins of course, but now he can’t remember if the moon was full or if they lay in starlight, and sometimes he remembers both, and both are true, and then he forgets for a little while, and it is almost certain that details, maybe more than details, were fantasy but still it’s all he’s got, all that’s left.

And Dani is in his arms, or possibly he is in hers, the difference at this point is academic, and somewhere, he hears himself say:

“There’s this thing at university, my mate, and I thought that maybe… but I was wrong and I did… I did this thing and…”

And she replies, or maybe she didn’t, maybe this was in town the morning before or perhaps the morning after, no—not the morning after, “They sacked me. It’s not called that. They didn’t extend my contract. No point. They’ve got other kids coming up through the programme now, give the job to some sixteen-year-old, not like they need much training, let them work until they’re twenty-one then give them the shove before they have to pay full wage and you just keep thinking, don’t you, you keep thinking…”

And in his dreams, or possibly his memories, Theo is crying. “I fucked it up. Dani? I fucked up. I fucked up everything. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

If he cried in reality too, she didn’t hear it, couldn’t see the tears on his face in the night, maybe tasted the salt with her tongue and thought it was spray blown in off the sea, the smear of seaweed on his skin, stone beneath his fingers, blood on his hands, and she whispered, “You’re never coming back, are you? You’re never coming back. I saw the look in your face, you hate this place now, you hate it just like I do. But I’ve got nowhere to go you’re never coming back so where’s the harm just once just tonight where’s the…”

Later, he swore they’d used a condom.

“My foot’s gone to sleep can you just…”

“Ow! You just head-butted me with your chin!”

“Sorry it was…”

Later, thinking about it, he couldn’t work out why he would have brought a condom down to the beach, since the idea of having sex in the wind and on the shingle seemed so fundamentally absurd.

“Dani? Are you okay? Dani?”

“Could you just hold me a while?”

“Um yeah I suppose if it’s…”

“And not talk. You can do that, right?”

“Uh-hum.”

“Good. Thanks.”

In his dreams

in his past

in the present

the man called Theo sleeps a rare, clawless sleep.

Chapter 9

Two days after Dani Cumali and the man called Theo had coffee in a teacher’s café, Theo cycled to work with a plan in his mind and a twist in his stomach that made him wonder if he was actually physically ill.

He went via Battersea Bridge, because the queues for the tolls were usually faster there. He would never have the credit rating to enter Pimlico by LondonArts as anything other than a tourist of course, but his Criminal Audit Office ID got him waved through with a merry “Have a good day, sir!” and being on a bicycle he was even allowed to cut through some of the quieter streets where the Company men lived, so long as he didn’t ding his bell.

The Criminal Audit Office was based in Victoria. Once they’d had an office in Whitehall, but it had been redeveloped for corporate headquarters, so they’d been pushed out to Canary Wharf. Then Canary Wharf had become too expensive, so they’d been dragged to Willesden and for a while Theo had thought about quitting his job rather than the hour-and-forty-minute commute on the train, head down and body swaying in carriages where once there had been seats before the train company judged them inefficient.

Thankfully the minister of civic responsibility had grown annoyed at having to go to Willesden for meetings, and they handled enough high-value white-collar crime for the managers and directors and their well-paid lawyers to grumble and mope about the commute, so back to Victoria they went, to an office abandoned when foreign aid was shut down.

Now they were on the fifth floor of an oil spill of a building. Black plastic windows reflected odd smears of green and pink against the sun. Dark grey walls turned darker with the diesel fumes of the coaches that queued up outside. An embarrassed sign printed on a browning piece of A4 paper and sellotaped to the door declared CRIMINAL AUDIT OFFICE. PLEASE SHOW ID.

A wooden board by the security gate stated that the security situation was Black 2. Theo had never known what Black 2 meant, and it had never been anything else, except for once, on a Wednesday, when it was Blue, and the security man had tonsillitis.

The lift, as it climbed to the fifth floor, rattled and bumped against the shaft. Sometimes you heard bits falling: a bolt or a piece of chain, vanishing down into an unknown abyss below, but whatever the component was it clearly wasn’t that important. Theo took the stairs.

The fifth-floor walls were faded grey, with a tideline of black dirt above the radiators from those lost times when they’d worked. Here and there new plaques of laminated plastic offered inspirational advice for the employees who laboured within.

Theo wasn’t sure who’d come up with these statements. For a little while, after they’d first been put up, they’d made him angry, especially as the coffee machine had been broken for four months and hadn’t been fixed for budgetary reasons. But as the years went by, anger had faded. Most things faded, given time.

The office was technically open-plan, but hackers had once got into the webcams and filmed the lurid details of negotiations between the CAO and a stockbroker-turned-TV-personality to reduce his indemnity for sexual assault and battery down from £2.2 million to a mere £71,000. Since then all webcams in key offices had been covered with Blu Tack, and tacit acceptance given for pale-blue dividing boards to go up between the desks.

Theo’s lair was in the furthest, darkest corner. He’d had a window and everything for a while, but then someone who was making good numbers on murder cases managed to convince Edward that he had seasonal affective disorder and needed Theo’s seat. When it emerged that Theo had moved without even a quibble, another officer had stepped forward and suggested that she’d work so much better away from the high-frequency hum of the printers, and when again Theo had moved without complaint, it became open season. Six months and five desk moves later, he was between the toilets and the photocopier, cultivating a small bloom of orange mushrooms behind his waste-paper bin, and content to be ignored.

His file stated that his career progression was “steady.” His performance was “consistent,” closure rate “satisfactory” and average negotiated indemnity “a positive reflection of current guidelines.” Once he’d been rated “very good” and lived in fear for nearly six months that this might lead to people paying attention to him. Thankfully, no one did, and he managed to return his performance to a more genteel average before his next review came round.

He hung his jacket over the back of his chair, put his satchel down by his left foot, turned on the computer, waited with hands in his lap for it to boot up, and at 9 a.m. precisely started working.

Chapter 10

A sexual harassment suit. “For fuck’s sake I just said she was hot I mean what has the world come to when you say someone’s hot and that gets you in with the courts it’s just political correctness gone…” £750, plus £35 photocopying fees.

A seventeen-year-old girl tried to change the cheques her grandmother was sending her, adding zeroes to the end—she didn’t even bother to use the correct kind of biro, her corrections were in black against her grandmother’s blue it was just so…

£6421, dropping to £5100 if her grandmother was willing to lower the charges. To Theo’s surprise, the grandmother was not, and the girl went to the patty line.

A group of drug dealers. The police had found most of it but not enough, not nearly enough. They were going to pay the indemnity and have cash in hand, but what were you to do?

£52,190, and the lawyer laughed when Theo told him, as if he’d just heard an old joke his dirty uncle used to tell at Christmas, and the money was in the Audit Office’s clearing account within twenty minutes, transferred from a bank somewhere in the Maldives.

Corporate manslaughter. Ninety-three people dead after carbon monoxide leaks from faulty boilers. The safety test on the boilers had been rushed through, signed off without proper inspection, a hint of bribery perhaps, cutting corners, it was…

In many ways, exactly what Theo needed.

At 4.55 p.m. Theo Miller leaves his desk, rushes to Edward Witt’s office with a USB stick, so sorry to bother you, it’s this corporate manslaughter case, I’ve finished doing the audit on it but if you look you’ll see the accused is a Company subsidiary and I know we’ve got a policy on not necessarily…

“How much did you find them liable for?”

“Twenty-two point three million.”

An explosion. You idiot! You bumbling buffoon! This is the Company we’re talking about do you really think you can get twenty-two million out of them do you really think that you’re that man that you can take on the corporate lawyers and win you’re such a I don’t even know what kind of give me the file!

But Mr. Witt…

Give me the goddamn file you absolute…

Theo gave Edward Witt the file, and ran away, heart pounding.

Two days later, he slunk back into the office.

“Mr. Witt? I’m sorry to intrude but…”

“What is it?”

“I left a USB stick with you a few days ago and I realise now that it still has some documents on it which are…”

“Bloody hell, Miller!”

They found the USB stick in an empty dagger case that Edward kept in his middle desk drawer. It hadn’t held a dagger for years but the plush velvet interior had always appealed to the manager, and he liked to throw things inside that offended him.

“Thank you, Mr. Witt, thank you…”

“Get out, Miller!”

That night, on an open Wi-Fi network in a café in Battersea, Theo puts the USB stick into his laptop, dials the office through a VPN, and uses the keystroke recording program buried within the antiviral software to retrieve Edward Witt’s username and password.

He instinctively audits the cost of this crime in his mind—approximately £12,000 so far, rising with every minute he spends contemplating the data that he’s illegally gathering—and feels not insignificantly pleased with himself.

Search: Lucy Rainbow Princess/Cumali.

Born on

mother arrested on

taken into

caught shoplifting on

alcohol abuse

arrested by

sent to

imprisoned at

They met in a different café, down in Limehouse. Dani read in silence, turning through the stolen pages. Theo had printed them on used paper, didn’t notice until too late that behind Lucy’s life story is advice on how to prevent damage from hyper-mobile knees and relaxation techniques for the busy office worker.

Lucy Cumali barely existed any more. Only Rainbow Princess, part-property of Princess Parties Gold, remained in the system.

Three years old, the care home where she’d been placed got sponsorship from a kids’ party company. Lucy Rainbow Princess had been judged suitably cute, and the first fashion shoot had her dressed up in a rainbow tutu with a plastic crown in her hair, posing with the rest of the most winsome kids with the tagline “Make Your Child a Princess for the Day!”

It was cheaper to use kids from the home. Parents could be so pushy these days.

For the next few years, the kids were hired out for photo shoots, as extras in adverts needing a background of cute tots, and for bespoke party events in mansion houses that needed more children, preferably with semi-celebrity marketing kudos, to help make up the numbers. The money they brought in meant the home could afford two meals a day and a Victoria sponge cake at Christmas. The rest went towards management fees. You had to be careful to keep talented people happy.

When she was seven, Lucy Rainbow Princess was diagnosed with malnutrition. The cost of feeding her up to minimum standard required extra appearances at parties and ads to make up the budgetary shortfall, but as she began to put on weight, fewer advertisers wanted her. When she was eight, Lucy burst all the balloons at a party; three weeks later she stabbed a stuffed unicorn with a cake knife, leaving tattered shreds of polyester on the floor and the younger guests in tears. The care home withdrew her from the sponsorship scheme, put her on the third floor on the basic care package and didn’t spot when she dropped out of school four years later.

The cops, when they arrested her aged twelve and a half for drunk and disorderly behaviour, had to give her a lift back to the home when no one came to collect her. On her thirteenth birthday she was picked up, stoned, booze on her breath, standing in the middle of the street not knowing where she was. One of the girls had taken her to the house of some friends of hers, older, all men, who’d put something in her drink and told her to smoke more, more, they had more mates coming come on it’d be great it’d be…

But Lucy Rainbow Princess had a decent head on her shoulders, even when her face had gone walking elsewhere, and told the men to go fuck their mothers and stormed out of the flat and later

in the hospital

couldn’t press charges because she didn’t know where the flat had been or what the men were called.

And by the time her older friend came forward to tell the cops everything, the world had lost interest.

On her fourteenth birthday Lucy Cumali punched a cop in the nuts for trying to take her beer away while drinking in the square. The indemnity was set at £546—a very low rate, given her crime—but no one was willing to pay it. She was sent to juvenile detention, where she worked copying and pasting five-star online reviews for sports products.

And so on.

The day before she was meant to receive parole, she set fire to the unused gymnasium, and her sentence was extended. This seemed to cause Lucy a great deal of satisfaction.

Chapter 11

Dani cried, and it wasn’t pretty crying. It was gasping, sort of asthmatic crying, all puffy-cheeked, dribbling transparent snot and little half-whistles of indrawn breath as she tried and failed to calm down. People were staring at them and Theo felt really, really awkward and got her some more paper napkins in the hope that was sort of helpful.

Somewhere between the snot and the tears she gasped: help me.

Theo said: how?

I need to get Lucy back I need to get her out of there she needs to be

I can’t help you

She needs to be I can if I can get her out of there then

There’s nothing I can do

But you’re part of it you’re part of the system you work for

I can’t do

I NEED TO GET HER BACK I NEED TO

I’m going now

SHE’S THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS NOW SHE’S WHY I’M HERE SHE’S WHY I’M OUT WHY I’M CLEAN SHE’S

Don’t contact me again.

FUCK YOU YOU’RE A FUCKING COWARD YOU’RE

Goodbye.

COWARD YOU PIG FILTH YOU MOTHER FUCKING

He left her mid-flow. She ran after him, crying, begging, and he got on his bicycle and pedalled away as she screamed abuse, and lay on his back on his bed in Tulse Hill and wondered what the fuck he was doing with this fucking stupid excuse for his fucking life.

Chapter 12

In the time before

before the patties, before the wild things and the beautiful things and the things that need more things always and for ever

When the boy who was not yet called Theo Miller was sixteen years old, the police came to arrest his dad. They came at three o’clock in the morning, which was ridiculous, cos his dad had been in since 6.40 and they’d been watching the house for weeks. There wasn’t any reason to break down the front door, smash the glass in the garden porch, wave their guns and shout “Move!” or “Down!” or sometimes “Don’t move!” or a combination of all three in a confusing cacophony.

There wasn’t any reason to put a gun against the boy’s head as his mum screamed and screamed and cried because her son had a fucking gun against his fucking head are you fucking

His dad, as they took him away, was the quietest, stillest thing about the entire affair. He didn’t panic, didn’t look the boy in the eyes, and later Theo decided that was probably how he knew he was guilty.

Reluctantly, Theo and his mum tried to visit his dad, but Company Police said:

“We do not have that suspect currently within our files it is probable that he has been transferred for the expectation of his trial you must fill out form I89 for further information and there will be…”

They filled out the form.

“This form needs witnessing by an authorised signatory of the Company until you have an authorised signatory you will be…”

Eventually Mum got a signature, Theo didn’t know how, and the cops told them it was £65 a visit, and Mum said they didn’t have the cash. There was a company—this was before the company became the Company and these things were just taken for granted—but there was a company which owned a company who owned the company that Theo’s dad was alleged to have robbed, and the company that owned the company also owned a company that was invested in Budgetfood, and the rest of Budgetfood anyway was owned by this conglomerate of investors and so all things considered…

“The Corporate Community Council is not sure that we can renew your benefits,” declared the mayor, unable to meet his mum’s eyes. “Things… being what they are.”

The mayor wasn’t a bad man. But he had his pension to consider, and Budgetfood had been putting pressure on him to cut social spending anyway. It didn’t contribute to overall productivity, and his daughter had this condition that needed a lot of care; if he lost his place, if they sacked him then she’d go without the medicines and he just had to make these choices, these hard choices, these realistic…

It was £25 an hour to get an appointment with the chief investigative officer, and Theo wasn’t making much from his off-book work cleaning down the pub, and by the time he had £65 saved up the case was already being heard and the fee had gone up to £180 as his dad was considered a flight risk.

Four weeks after his dad was taken away, the boy who would be Theo went with Dani Cumali to get their GCSE results.

They had been in six of the same GCSE classes, including food distribution and logistics, business studies and graphics for marketing. There was only one school in Shawford by Budgetfood. Once a year the mayor came to judge sports day, and they’d get special guest speakers from the factory to talk about Retail Branding for Social Media or Fish Waste Product Use.

As children, Dani and the boy called Theo hated each other.

Dani couldn’t remember because it wasn’t important to her, but when she was eight she told Theo that his father was a done-out crook who was going to the patty line, and Theo had run away and concocted ten thousand schemes for revenge, and carried out a grand total of none, and Dani hadn’t realised that he was the last person in town to know his dad was a thief, or how close she’d come to having her hair set on fire.

And when he was eleven, Theo had muttered to Dani that maybe the reason she never had a proper school lunch was because her mother had left her when she was two and there wasn’t anyone at home to make a lunchbox for her, and Dani had told him that he was the stupidest, weirdest kid in class and no one liked him and he’d never be anything other than a screamer or a fader or a zero and anyway she was…

By the time they were thirteen, the injuries had begun to fade behind new outrages of puberty, and slowly, suspiciously, they’d forged a cordial neutrality.

And when they were fourteen, they had to choose what GCSEs to do, and the company sponsor had come down to the classroom to talk to all the pupils, and explain the compulsory curriculum subjects, the core recommended subjects, and the extra-curricular activities that Budgetfood would not fund should you chose to pursue them further.

Both Dani and Theo wanted to do art, but it wasn’t a sponsored subject, so they did graphics for marketing instead, and he finished with 131/160 and she had 132/160 and they both agreed that was the best possible way it could be.

Overall, she did better in every subject except maths.

“Dani Cumali!” exclaimed Mrs. Lee, deputy head of the school, pastoral care officer, domestic science teacher, head of stationery, head of junior factory recruitment, sponsorship liaison committee, chair of…

“Dani Cumali! Fancy you doing so well! Such a turnaround such a—you should apply for A levels! You should apply and I’m sure you’d get sponsorship I’m confident that…”

Dani applied for A-level funding to the Sponsorship Committee.

They replied:

It is with deep regret that we have to reject your application as this committee does not feel that the subjects you wish to study are conforming to the overall academic model of this institution; nor have you clearly defined your ten-year business objectives for study as required in article 729b of the standard educational practice document (2).

Theo also applied for A levels, having no idea what else he was meant to do. For his core subjects he chose maths, food science and agricultural studies.

Three weeks later he received the rejection letter, and no one was surprised.

That Sunday a woman knocked on the door and said, “Hello. I’m from Dover County Court. My son plays football down your husband’s club. He always seemed like such a nice man. Sometimes—the paperwork you know how it is—and it’s a corporate case so these things get—but the trial starts tomorrow. I do hope it goes well for you. Such a lovely fellow.” She giggled and waved goodbye, hand stationary and little digits flying, and scampered away like a naughty mouse. Later Theo realised that she was probably terrified, and had done something very, very brave.

They went to Dover to watch the trial, but the first five hours were spent arguing over what evidence could be admitted, and the judge got bored and the whole thing was adjourned.

They went back the next day and there was Dad, dressed in blue, sat in the prisoner’s cage as the judge exclaimed:

“This attack on our values, on society, on the property of people who thought that their investment was safe…”

It was the first time Theo had seen his father for nearly three months.

The father stared at the son, and Theo didn’t know what was in his gaze, and imagined every possibility, and looked away and couldn’t look back, because men didn’t cry.

Chapter 13

The Grand Union Canal was finished just in time for the railways to be invented.

Neila lies awake and listens to the sounds of nightmares from the cabin next to hers, and is too tired to check on her guest.

At some point in the night Theo snores.

She stifles a laugh.

He stops snoring.

She does not sleep and then

wakes late, even though she did not close the curtains, not that they make much difference against the light off the water and

the stove is nearly out, the fire down to a few embers, but she puts kindling on it, the smashed-up remains of a wooden pallet someone discarded by the towpath, broken down to splinters, which catch and curl orange so she

gets more wood a field to the left, a field to the right, a low hill rising in the distance, a train track where the trains do not come, a couple of thick sheep blasting frozen breath out of nostrils, scampering to the places beneath the overgrown hedgerows to find the last vestiges of grass, a Zeppelin flying overhead, she has no idea why, it is advertising a brand of shaving cream but there’s no one here no one to see maybe it got loose from its rope and ah yes, look up, see it go beneath the scudding clouds and

she is making tea.

Theo sleeps.

Neila dresses five layers deep, two pairs of gloves over her hands, goes to the back of the boat, out through the engine room, frees the ropes, guides the Hector away from its moorings, heading north.

Chapter 14

Three weeks after Theo ran away from Dani Cumali, from her daughter and her despair and her fucked-up fucking life and

and the past and the moment on the beach and a bit of maths that he wasn’t daring to do and

after he ran away because that was the only thing he was ever any good at doing

Dani called again.

When you see a person you do not want to see

are caught picking your nose

scratching your backside

kissing someone who should really have known better than to be kissed

“Dani,” he said, “You can’t call me I’m not…”

“It’s important listen, I’ve found something important, something big.”

“I’m going to hang up now and…”

“They’ve killed people—so many people—and his own mother, they’re… I’ll fucking tell them who you are I’ll tell them and…”

“Goodbye.”

“Lucy’s in trouble she’s in real trouble—I’ll tell them you’re a fraud, that you’re not Theo Miller I’ll tell them that you’re…”

He hung up.

For a moment he thought he’d felt… something. Perhaps fear? Fear would have been an acceptable reaction and certainly, when he’d first seen Dani’s face, he’d experienced a thing that was definitely…

But fear had faded, and in its place had come a resignation which had been only deepened by breaking into his boss’s computer, compounding the legion offences at his back and now…

he sat on the end of his bed

in a life that meant nothing

and spent his days condemning people to slavery while murder purchased its way to freedom, tax-free.

And nothing was the only thing safe to feel.

Dani tried calling back, and he didn’t answer, turned the world off and slept surprisingly easily.

The next morning, there were nearly a dozen text messages.

Names. Figures. Philip Arnslade. Simon Fardell. Seriously, this is big, this is so big this is

He deleted the messages and barred her number.

Two days later, she was waiting outside his office. He saw her before she saw him, and doubled back the way he’d come, and rode the bus home, even though it took forty minutes longer and someone spilt cider on his trousers.

Chapter 15

The day after his dad was sentenced, the boy who would be Theo sat on the steps of Dover County Court. The cuisine of Dover was fried chicken. The town was sponsored by the ferry companies but also did sterling business in internment camps. Salt had eaten the walls of the houses. Hardy shrubs grew between the cracks in the walls. The tourists went looking for the Roman ruins, but they were hidden behind the car park, and the signs sent you round in circles.

Mum was inside, trying to get one final meeting with Dad before they took him away, but they were on a deadline luv, they had three more drop-offs to make and didn’t get paid overtime.

The boy ate fried chicken, listened to the arcade across the street, the fruit machines, the whack-a-mole, the speed racers and the shoot-em-ups, the kung-fu button crunchers and the tingalingaling of digital gold pouring from the speakers.

Wondered what he was going to do with his life.

He couldn’t imagine any future in which he wasn’t sat here for ever, eating fried chicken until he died. He couldn’t imagine that there was any way, or any place, that wasn’t a fucking naïve stupid fucking dream. The secret, he decided, was not to care. Care about dreams and of course you’ll be disappointed; that was the point of living.

He licked his fingers, and the grease didn’t shift, and sat and waited for the seagulls to get close enough to kick.

A car pulled up.

A man with dark hair growing thin on the top got out, looked at the boy, turned, murmured to his driver, a man in jeans and black leather jacket. Get us some chips, yeah—no salt, his missus had him on one of these blood pressure diet things, but vinegar and extra vinegar because there was always the bit at the bottom which the vinegar didn’t get to. Commands given, he walked over to the boy who would be Theo, towered over him, the curve of his belly pulling the eye upwards in a concave motorway of flesh, and proclaimed:

“Mike’s boy, right?”

“No.”

The man raised both eyebrows, though perhaps he was trying to raise only one, because the expression was crooked, awkward, practised without success. Five foot five, thin hair down to his shoulders, usually in a ponytail, fingers covered in rings—a skull, a blue eye, a silver London bus, a pair of crossed gold knives and a flat band with a pinhole at the top—he was proud of his appearance, and had to remind people of this whenever they forgot to be impressed, which was most of the time.

“I’ve got no time for your boy-shit, boy.”

“I don’t have a dad.”

“Mike said you might say that. Made it out like it didn’t bother him, lying cunt.”

“Who are you?”

“Name’s Jacob. I’m a friend of your dad’s. Him and me go back a long way. Said I’d keep an eye on you said I’d make sure you were okay, not fucking things up, keeping a straight head. Godfather, me, that’s what I am, or like one of those uncles you only see at Christmas, the good kind, the kind that gives you sweets but doesn’t take any nonsense not like others might, not that kind of uncle a proper uncle—I’m like that. That’s what I’m like.”

“Excuse me I’m…”

A hand caught the boy’s wrist as he tried to stand. That hand is the hand that threw a perfect 180 at the Folkestone Champions’ League Semi-Final back last year, the crowd went wild, his whole family had bought these sponge hands with fingers pointing up to the sky, which they waved triumphantly, his son had his face painted special like a dartboard and his missus got a tattoo of the winning triple twenty inscribed on her…

…well, never mind where it was inscribed, point was it was a mighty hand indeed that now grasped the boy.

“I heard you went and applied to do A levels. That’s good. Nice. You should get educated. That’s all your dad ever asked for you and I promised I’d see it was done right. Me, I never got educated, and sure, I made a go of things but that takes a special kind of backbone which I see you lack. It’s something I’d wish for my own kids. Universities… any take your fancy?”

“They won’t let me on the course. I’ll never get to university.”

“Of course they will, they just don’t know you yet, that sort of negative attitude isn’t healthy, now I can tell you, my missus she says that there’s this psychosomatic link between the mind and the old ticker, between—”

“I can’t get sponsorship. The factory won’t sponsor a kid whose dad laundered money through the football club.”

These words, calm, composed, are possibly the first adult things that the boy who will be Theo has ever said, and having spoken them out loud, he realises with a sudden jerk that shimmers through his whole body that he will never be a child again. A flicker of grief, a flash of mourning for a thing lost without a sound, and then he hardens his gaze, and looks into the eyes of Jacob Pritchard, and sees them smiling back.

“Sponsorship,” the older man breathes. “Yeah, sponsorship. I heard about that. Two years get paid through A levels and it’s what, like six years after that working for some bank? Good rate of return that, decent interest on time spent, I respect that, I understand that, not my language but it’s my song. You should go to university. Your dad would like that. It’d make him proud, all warm and fuzzy inside. I see something in you. I feel this great soppy affection for your pasty gormless face, I could kiss you on the lips I could, hold you like my own son, you, me, Christmas turkey and bits of bacon round the sausage, yes I could, yes I can, and so you shall. You shall, boy. So you bloody shall.”

This done, the man let the boy go, and his driver came back with chips—no salt, spare vinegar, malt not onion obviously—and Jacob Pritchard, king of the coast, bathed in petrol, blood and cheap French wine, got back into his car and drove away.

Four days later, a letter came from the school announcing that after due consideration the Sponsorship Committee was altering its decision, and the boy who would be Theo was very welcome to participate in its sponsored A-level scheme, and that he needed to provide ×4 pens (black), ×4 pens (blue), ×5 reams of ×250 sheets of lined white paper, ×6 large ring binders, ×3 small ring binders, ×100 paper plates and napkins and ×16 rolls of toilet paper for the sixth-form learning hub.

The day he started A levels, Dani Cumali began her student apprenticeship at Budgetfood’s local fish-processing plant, where she maintained the fish-gut nets where the flies bred in order to produce maggots for the medicinal trade.

Very good at cleaning wounds your average maggot. They only actually eat dead flesh and that’s why we value this by-product as a vital part of our environment consumer promise return strategy, bringing the company forward for the future.

Chapter 16

Time is

Theo isn’t sure he knows what time is there is blood in his clothes in his hair in his fingers sometimes he sleeps and he dreams of

macaroni cheese

Helen in the snow in the ice in the

Dani Cumali, sat by the side of the couch

“Blessed are her hands blessed is the water beneath her fingers blessed are the stones at the bottom of the lake blessed are the roots that dig blessed is the moon that shines upon the…”

The patty’s prayer, the chant of those condemned to the prison work line, vanishes into the slop slop slop of water against the side of the boat and Theo

dreams.

Today’s cards: nine of swords, five of swords, queen of cups, the Priestess, three of coins, knave of staves, the Moon (inverted), the Fool, the Hanged Man (inverted).

If only she knew the right question to ask, Neila felt sure that there would be a satisfactory answer in all of this.

The water pump at Cassiobridge Lock isn’t working, and no one mans the gate.

Theo is awake, and walks to the prow of the boat as Neila begins cranking, the cold on the metal handle of the winch tearing through the double layers of wool and cotton on her hands, biting to the bone as she hauls open the sluice. He opens his mouth as if he might offer to help, then realises this is a silly idea and simply watches, waiting as the water rises, carrying the narrowboat up to the next level of the canal.

Neila’s back curls into a circle, legs stiff castle buttresses as she heaves the gates shut behind them, ready for another passer-by. Theo watches and waits, hands buried inside his sleeves, shivering, as she comes back on board. She enters at the stern, past the engine, and he shuffles inside at the prow, closing the door behind him.

They eat lunch and it is

very nice

thank you it’s very

I don’t have much you see but it’s…

You were hurt. On the canal. There is a code on the canal you see but actually it’s my principles that’s more important to me, my sense of…

I didn’t do anything

Neila puts her spoon down in the bowl of chemical tomato soup, leans back in her folding chair, crosses her legs, says, “I read fortunes. Hands. Cards. I’ve got clients in Leighton Buzzard, and a pub in Tring has a psychic night and they said they’d have me. Nine years ago I was arrested for antisocial behaviour and criminal damage. I’d been protesting at the closing of a library. When I was a child we used to sing ‘the wheels on the bus’ in the kids’ section, but most people liked it for the DVDs. The police said we smashed a car. We had cardboard placards made from fruit-juice boxes. They gave me an indemnity of £17,000 or four years on the patty line. I paid the indemnity, and that took everything I had. Now I live on the canal. I thought it would be romantic. Sometimes it is. I spend most of my days thinking about fuel and drinking water. When I tell you to wait outside, you wait outside. Do you understand?”

Perhaps he did. He nodded, once, watching her.

“Some things are easier with two. Carrying coal, water, wood; making repairs. The toilet has a tank which we’ll need to pump out. Sometimes the pump freezes, then you have to do it by hand. The engine goes. Usually the coolant filter. Am I making myself clear here, I don’t know if I’m making myself…

Before I read fortunes, I was a hairdresser. There’s a woman in Water Eaton who swears she won’t let anyone else touch her head. She has stories. I like her stories; she was a mayoress for a time, someone once buried a cow upside down in her front garden in protest at a planning permission, I hope the cow was dead first but imagine the effort. Getting the cow, getting the truck, getting the shovel, digging—the whole laying-the-corpse and they put the grass back too those hooves sticking in the air—are we good?” He nodded, but she repeated, firmer, one hand resting on the tabletop. “Are we good?”

Licked his lips, nodded again, harder. “Yes. We’re good.”

“Good. You should finish eating and rest. When you’re feeling ready, I’ll take you through the basics of the boat.”

Chapter 17

Ring ring ring ring!

Ring ring destiny is calling!

ring ring ring ring

In Tulse Hill, lying on his belly, Theo struggles to wake, and only answered because he didn’t recognise her number.

Dani said, “Theo?”

He didn’t speak, phone frozen, breath caught, mouth closing behind it.

“Are you there? I know you can hear me. Listen. Listen. I’ve fucked up. I’ve fucked up and now they’re going to… I’ve fucked up.”

This wasn’t sadness or self-pity. Fact upon fact, truth that was necessary to be spoken. “Are you there?”

“I’m here,” he replied, groggy.

“They’re going to come and get me. I need you to…”

“I can’t talk to you.”

“Lucy is your daughter.”

The words settled between them.

Theo looked round his room and remembered again how small and stupid and soulless it was, wondered why he bothered folding his pants. Did that make him mad? Pants could just be shoved into the drawer, there was room after all.

“Lucy is your daughter,” repeated Dani. “She’s your daughter.”

Silence on the line.

A collision of probabilities—a coin thrown one hundred times lands on heads one hundred times, and yet that does not mean that it must land on tails. Mean, median, middle, count backwards from the date of birth and maybe, the thinnest of maybes, and then what equation do you use for this moment, how do you equate her need, her lies, the truth, how do you even begin to…

“I… don’t believe you,” mumbled Theo. “I don’t believe you.”

“I didn’t rat you out. Lucy’s your daughter—I’d never snitch, whatever you’ve done, I’d never snitch, I thought that maybe… she’s your daughter. Lucy is your daughter. She’s yours. I went looking for some way to bring her back, and you wouldn’t help me so I did it myself. Listen. I don’t have much time. There’s this woman, her name is Helen, she’s seen the pits, she’s got the…

Lucy is your daughter. I love her. I haven’t seen her for fourteen years and I still love her, how fucked up is that? They’ve been watching me. I don’t care what happens to me, but you’ve gotta use this shit, you hear me? You’ve gotta get her out before it’s too late.”

“Dani, it’s not—”

“I can prove it. I can prove that they broke it. They broke everything. They broke the world. Can you hear me? I know you can hear me. I know you’re there. I know you know it’s true. You knew the moment you heard her birthday you knew you just didn’t…

Lucy is your daughter. She’s yours now. Don’t fuck it up.”

He closed his eyes.

“Where are you?”

He cycled from Tulse Hill to Sidcup. The trains stopped at 23.45, and the taxi ride was more than he could pay.

He had to swing wide to avoid the New Cross Gate enclave, the marks of the tribes painted white in dark streets, the smell of gasoline, the cracks in the road. Some places just couldn’t get the corporate sponsorship, so people gave up, if they won’t, can’t, won’t, whatever—what do you expect from the scroungers, the whiners, the mums who shouldn’t have got pregnant, the dads who can’t be redeemed, the druggies who just need to get over themselves seriously, like, just stop taking the fucking drugs it’s not so hard it’s not so…

Everyone avoided the enclaves. Sometimes the odd journalist would go inside, or stand by the gates with armed security out of shot, and the desperate ones—the children with no family left to call their own, the old biddies who liked to dine on flash-fried cat, the sewer-crawlers and the ones who picked their way through the landfills—before those were sold off to the parole companies and patties brought in from the patty line to go through the waste—they would shuffle and lurch and glare at the camera, and by their cracked faces and their brutal ugliness it was very clear that they were not human any more, and only knew how to resent and hate the intrusion of beautiful people into their scurrying lives.

“You! Off the bike on the ground now!! Get down get down you…”

The men at Blackheath had come so hard and fast out of the reinforced steel gate, Tasers up and ready to fire, that Theo nearly fell off his bike as he swung to avoid them, skidding and dropping hard onto one leg, ankle buckling against the tarmac.

“I’m lost I’m just lost I’m not I’m just lost!”

“Identification!”

“I don’t have any I left it at home I’m going to see a friend my friend she’s going into labour she can’t afford the hospital she’s going into labour I got turned round please the child is mine the child is…”

Why did he use that excuse? He wasn’t sure, but clearly he sounded convincing enough because the men walked him back to the end of the street, pointed him at Sidcup and, quieter, wished him good luck and told him to be careful not to pedal too close to the gated communities, rare bubbles of wealth clinging to the railway lines, lest security take it personally.

Walls around the enclaves to keep the wild things in; walls around the sanctuaries, deluxe lifestyle housing estates and gated villages to keep the wild things out. These decisions had never been government policy. It had just worked out that way.

The lights of London stretched out behind, the brightness where the electricity flowed, the circles of darkness where the council didn’t pay its bills, the zones where the insurance companies wouldn’t go, rationed down to their mandatory six hours a day of illumination.

Flashes of light on the side of the road.

A Chinese takeaway, a golden cat in the window perpetually fascist-saluting a marching parade.

The off-licence, never closed, two boys outside trying to muster the courage to pinch a bag of crisps.

Bin-crawlers, tearing through the tips and overflowing plastic bins in search of things to burn, sell, melt or make.

A man ran out into the middle of the street as he pedalled down the final stretch towards the M20 approach, threw himself towards the bicycle—for a moment Theo thought he was in pain, needed help, he skidded to avoid hitting him and only then saw the other two men coming towards him, one on a low stunt bicycle that bounced and hugged the road, the other on foot, running to grab the handlebars, and with a snarl of unexpected fury he pushed harder on the pedals and kicked the man who’d lunged squarely in the chest as he pedalled by, outpacing his pursuers in a few streets of wind-blasted night.

There was no wall around the enclave where Dani lived, but three women guarded the entrance, hunkered down on a cracked bench by the main road, a barrier of rusted chain slung between two lamp posts, torches in their hands. As he approached one rose, shone a light in his eyes, grunted, “Who’re you?”

“My name is Theo. I’m here for Dani Cumali.”

“This is the women’s place. The men don’t come in here.”

“I’m a friend of Dani’s.”

“This is the women’s place!” she repeated, higher, angry. “This is our place!”

“She called me. She said it was urgent.” Then, feeling almost ashamed: “She has a daughter.”

A flicker, a scowl. “Wait here.”

The women communed, heads together like the closed petals of a thorny flower, opened, returned to Theo, barked, “You got a phone?”

“Yes.”

“Gimme the phone, wallet. We’ll look after the bike. You get ’em back when you’re done.”

“She called me, she…”

“You deaf? We guard them.”

Theo hesitated, then dismounted, let the woman take the bike by the handlebars, handed over his mobile phone and wallet. The woman pointed up a flagstone alley towards a low run of grey concrete buildings. “Cumali. She’s in there, with the faders and the ones who bite. Try not to make a ruckus, yeah?”

Theo nodded and followed the line of her finger.

At his back, he thought he heard her whisper, murmurs to the faint white stain against the clouds where the moon huddled. Blessed is the moonlight through the cage blessed are those who weave and those who break blessed is the mother as she walks upon the mountain stone blessed is…

There was a concrete patio in front of the long, low concrete building with a metal roof where Dani lived. A few cracked plastic pots contained the remnants of grey shrubs and the occasional burst of yellow-petalled marigolds. Someone had made the effort of sweeping the leaves from the nearby trees into a corner, but hadn’t had anything else to do with them, so slowly they blew back in tidelines. A privet hedge ran between the frosted-glass front doors of each apartment block. Very few lights burned. A generator grumbled somewhere behind low walls, scenting the air with diesel.

Theo found Dani’s door by the light cast from the tower block opposite it. A long glass window was dark on the ground floor; a flag hung across showed a faded image of a giraffe in yellow and orange, walking away from a setting sun, head turned towards the earth.

One light shone dull on the first floor, glowing from a cracked-open window, the head of the lamp tilted back into the illuminated room. An arm moved across the light, casting a tentacle shadow over a wall, before flickering back down to darkness. Theo knocked on the front door, inaudibly. He knocked a little louder, and instantly felt afraid, looked around, wondering who’d been woken by the sound. Nothing moved, no shadows stirred. He reached out to try again, and a flicker of light caught his eye. The light vanished. A moment later it appeared again, a square of blue-white within the biting grip of the privet hedge. A mobile phone, confused by its present condition, pressing against the net of twigs that supported it, slipping steadily downwards. The motion of its slow descent through the hedge was setting off a sensor, waking and sleeping the screen. He could see the hollow it had already carved, torn leaves and snapped wood. It looked like it had landed in the hedge with some force. It looked like it hadn’t been there for very long. He hesitated, then reached in. The screen was locked, the greasy journey a dirty thumb took across it clearly visible. He turned it over, glanced up and round and wondered if this was a test, couldn’t fathom what kind, put the phone in his pocket and, moving now a little faster, feeling his heart tap-dance a head-spinning rush, pushed on the front door, testing it.

It opened on the latch, only a little pressure needed. He stepped inside, a smell of sticky dry beer, damp laundry and cigarette smoke on the air. Once the place had held a family, two parents, two kids, three at a squeeze. Now every room had been subdivided, padlocks put across the doors, nine people to a toilet. People liked to claim it was where the scroungers went, the traitors who couldn’t get a job and had lived off the charity of the state, before the Company had moved in and sorted things out, businesslike, making sure people who didn’t try couldn’t get.

No one admitted that the enclaves held the bin men, cleaners, waiters, janitors, porters, shelf-stackers, carers who wiped the old women’s bums, bus drivers and health assistants too skint to afford anywhere else. Everyone has to make a choice, the Company said. You have to choose success.

From the back of the building a lilt of guitar, played by a woman singing to herself, a glow of candlelight from beneath her door. From a door to the left the low grey buzz of a TV, playing through the night to the sleeping couple tangled in each other’s limbs across the rustled mattress. Theo felt his way up the stairs, carpet giving way to lino, squeaking like an arthritic rat beneath his feet. A light beneath the door on the first floor, from which a woman’s voice, hushed, spoke on a phone. He approached slowly, knocked once, barely brushing the painted chipboard with his knuckles. No answer, but the door was not locked or bolted, and the woman’s voice continued, so he pushed it open.

The woman inside was tall, unusually so, with short yellow hair cut to a soft fall one side of her face.She wore a black T-shirt, black jeans and a pair of red wellington boots. Her arms were gently toned from light exercise, her neck was long and unadorned, her eyes were grey, her lips were pale, she held a mobile phone pressed against her ear and a 9mm pistol in her other hand, a silencer on the end. A light freckling of blood stained her face and bare skin, and probably her clothes, though Theo wasn’t sure. A larger stain of blood and brain matter covered the wall behind the loosely made single bed in the centre of the room, still warm, still seeping down. A pair of feet stuck out from behind the bed, on the side away from the door. They were bare. They could have belonged to anyone. They belonged to Dani.

He couldn’t see her face.

He couldn’t imagine there was much of her face to see.

A little mass of matter, grey brain, shards of white bone, brilliant crimson blood, no bigger than a pinball, went schloop and detached itself by its own weight from where it had stuck to the wall, splatted onto the bedside table. The wardrobe, its door hanging by one hinge, was open. There was a bloody handprint on the handle. Clothes had been torn from their hangers and lay across the floor. A syringe, empty, sat on the sheets, small with a tiny needle point. A laptop stood open, the screen bright blue and welcoming.

The woman with the gun smiled at Theo in the door, a flicker of recognition not of familiarity, but of an awkward situation in need of a little resolution

tilted the gun a little, not threatening

requesting a moment of patience while she finished her conversation on the phone, so sorry, terribly rude, if you don’t mind just holding on a moment…?

She said, “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes. That’s right.” She spelled out a postcode one letter at a time, “Sierra, echo… yes, echo…”

Theo stood in the door, the light from a single bedside lamp skimming across his feet and knees before fading into shadow behind him.

“Homicide. Yes, that’s right. Yes, I am the killer. No, you’re my first call. Yes, I can wait. What do you estimate as being your response time? That’s fine. Thank you. Of course I can hold. Thanks.”

This done, she turned the phone to one side, pressed it so the mouthpiece was buried in her shoulder, tilted her head the other way and, smiling at Theo, added, “So sorry—the police are on their way. Now if you just make like a heron, I can be with you in a mo.”

Theo stands in the door, and wonders what a heron would make like. One leg high, one leg in the water, frozen in the act of catching a fish.

The woman went back to the phone. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes, two to the head, two to the chest. No witnesses but someone has just… Oh…”

Theo walked away.

Three women wait by the entrance to the estate

one holds his bike, his mobile phone, wallet

“That was quick,” she says.

“Dani is dead,” he replied, taking his bike.

“You kill her?” A flicker of anger, but it’s deep, beneath the resignation, expectation. This was what happened.

“No. The killer is still in there. She’s just called the police.”

“Fuck. Mum’s gonna kill me if the cops wake her tonight.”

“Thank you for looking after my bike.”

“The cops, for real?”

“Yes.”

“And Dani’s dead? Oh this is just the total fucking…”

Theo on his bike, pedalling into the night.

There are the streets

this is the city

these are the darknesses that seemed to threaten but turned out to be merely void, a place where

this is what brain sounds like as a bit of it peels away from the wall, schlooop, and drops, splat, onto a carpeted floor. If the floor was not carpeted it might have sounded different and if anyone bothers to clean it then they’ll probably use a vacuum cleaner, something specially designed to get at the dried bits basically it’s like cleaning meat but really you need a new carpet and

this is the man called Theo, riding away, at the centre of the universe

these are the times when the night is

these are the words that

bang! Who’d have thought that the gun wasn’t loaded with blanks after all and splat down he goes breathing breathing not breathing any more it’s not your fault you know that it’s not your fault that

this is the day Dani realised that dreams were for children

the news when the government announced that corporations ran things so much better than civil servants and it’d be better for everyone if the MPs focused on important things like

like

well, whatever was left when the teachers, doctors and judges were gone

this is the dream where Theo still dreams of his father dying, though he wasn’t there, he never saw all he has is imagination of the prison and the end

This is Theo, at three o’clock in the morning, cycling home from a murder scene, wondering why he doesn’t cry.

This is Theo, at three o’clock in the morning, lying awake on a canal boat pointing north, and behind the curtain that keeps him separate from his host, a stranger who has made him tea and asked no questions, and now he puts his hands over his face to hide his eyes, and in silence cries like the summer rain.

Chapter 18

When the boy who would be Theo was six months away from finishing A levels his agricultural studies teacher said:

“You know you could really make something of yourself you could indeed you could you could do accountancy for Budgetfood! Or work in the logistics division or the management department you could be a real player, a real player in the world of microwave meal distribution you could even run for corporate councillor if you worked hard, kept your nose to the grindstone like this you could have a lovely house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, two bathrooms now that’s something to look forward to that’s something!”

And three days later his maths teacher said:

“Get out. Get out while you can. You are young. You still have a chance to live. You can still be free. I know your dad was… but that’s not who you are, you don’t have to be… you have a talent you could get out just get out and be…”

Sitting on the beach with Dani Cumali, staring at the water as it dragged at the shingle, a bit of stained dark sand visible beneath, a sound like the clattering of crab’s claws across a skull as the ocean rolled, he said:

“I was thinking of applying for university.”

And Dani looked at him, and blurted, “That’s the most fucking stupid thing I’ve ever heard. Do you seriously think they’d have you? I mean look at you, where are you gonna get the cash? Where are you gonna get the references—what the fuck do you think you’d do with yourself, you can’t get out there isn’t any way out there isn’t…”

And then she stopped, and looked at the sea, and knew that no amount of washing could flush away the stench of fish intestine, stomach, heart, eye, head, skin and scale from her skin, and that the maggots as they dropped into the collection bags beneath the nets would go to eat the wounds of rich men in places far, far away, and that her contract would not be renewed and that dreams were for children and she was a grown-up now. Grown-ups just dealt with things. They carried on—that’s what being grown-up meant. She wrapped her arms around the boy who would be Theo and said:

“You should do it. I think it sounds great. I wish I was coming with you.”

And he held her tight, and they watched the sea.

He wasn’t surprised to find the man sitting in his mum’s favourite chair. Mum always hated Jacob Pritchard, said he was a bad influence, a bad, bad influence it was his fault that…

But her benefits had been stopped because she was fit for work (though no one would hire her) and if no one would hire her in Shawford she just had to look elsewhere (there was nowhere to go) but somehow they’d kept going, paid the gas, paid the electric and will you look…

…there’s Jacob Prichard now, rolling his mum’s favourite glass bauble between his ringed fingers, a swan with cloudy blue pigment in its base. They say that once a Dutchman bringing petrol over the Channel tried to double-cross him, and his feet washed up in Lowestoft.

“So,” he mused, as Theo put his school bag down and sat silent in the chair opposite him. “I hear you wanna go make something better of yourself. Mate of mine said Oxford was the business, but if you wanna go somewhere with fewer wankers I won’t stop you. Your choice, boy. Your choice.”

The day after the boy’s eighteenth birthday, there was a bank deposit in his favour.

His dad had always kept his mouth shut about the job that landed him in the nick, and though Jacob Pritchard wasn’t involved in that sort of thing, not theft, especially not those little blue pills for the

well, you know

he respected a man who knew not to grass.

Respect was important to men. One day, when Mike’s boy was all grown up, he’d understand that too.

Dani saw him onto the train to London, a transfer for Oxford in his pocket.

She didn’t stay on the platform once he boarded; there was this new guy she was going to watch TV with, but she felt it was important to be there, to say goodbye, tell him his face was stupid, absolutely refuse to cry.

He emailed, of course, in the first few weeks.

Told her about college, classes, some of the people he’d met. The boy in the room next to his was called Theo Miller, and was unbelievably posh, but also kinda nice, like, a nice kid just a bit… you know…

Dani replied sometimes. She’d met this guy, he was good, it was good. Her apprenticeship was ending; she was hoping to be bumped up on to a full-time contract or at least a fixed-term or maybe even just a six-month contract, out of the fish department into something better like packaging.

After a while his emails became less regular as the work piled up.

She stopped replying.

She was not offered a contract in packaging.

three-month fixed-term contract fourteen hours a week as a cleaning colleague 5 p.m.–7 p.m.

She supplemented her income working the local café 8 a.m.–4 p.m., and that sort of saw her through a bit. And this one time she went to this class down the local church hall where they were making jewellery from recycled stuff from the beach like these pebbles but also washed-up glass and bits of plastic and metal and things and she thought she’d like to do that, as a hobby maybe. But finding the time was really tough because they met at 7.30 p.m. and sometimes she didn’t finish work until 7.10 and then they did these spot-check searches on employees leaving the building and that could take twenty minutes and so by the time she got to the hall it was all finishing anyway and…

If Theo noticed that she was no longer replying to his emails, when they came

rarely when they came

he didn’t say anything.

He told her that he was thinking of joining the rowing club, but that actually maybe he wasn’t right for it after all. The guys who did that sort of thing, they’d done it a lot before and he hadn’t—though he could handle a boat all right, but they didn’t seem to think that would be enough; he didn’t have the attitude.

The attitude, you see the attitude was…

and Theo

the real Theo Miller, the boy in the room next door, laughed and said:

“Fuck them! Fuck them. Come on, you know I’m right! Fuck them all. Let’s have gin.”

And maybe he’d underestimated his neighbour after all, and he was all right deep down.

Chapter 19

On the canal Neila said, “Oh, so you’ve done some sailing before.”

Theo replied, “I grew up by the sea. I mean we didn’t do much, my dad ran this local youth club, mostly football but also sailing sometimes, although mostly it was money laundering. Mostly… that. I think he liked the kids, though. He coached the under-11s. They did well and…”

For a while they sat on the back of the barge, Neila watching as Theo guided it round the lazy bends towards Marsworth Locks. After much consideration, they had removed the blood-soaked padding that pressed across his side, and for the first time Theo had seen the stitching she’d done and stared a long while before finally murmuring, a little green around the cheeks,

“Is that… cornflower blue?”

Her eyes flickered from the thread that held his side together to the embroidery on the wall, and she swallowed. “Yes. Well, it’s what you have to hand, isn’t it?”

At Marsworth they moored for the night opposite the water pump, and Neila turned the handle but no water came, just the chunk chunk chunk of air and ice deep within the iron, and she declared, “No showers, I think. Not for a little while.”

They ate sliced bread with jam and margarine, and Theo sat at the back of the boat wearing his oversized stranger’s woollen coat over his grey bloodstained jumper, and two pairs of socks and long johns beneath his tracksuit bottoms. He stank, but so did she, and after a while you just got used to these things.

And when the sun rose they began to climb through the locks, heading east where the canal branched, and she opened and closed the gates and he sat with one hand on the rudder on a little wooden stool and waited for her command and it was…

…all things considered…

easier with two than it was with one, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had cleared Marsworth so quickly.

The Hector sailed for Northampton.

Time on the water is

Neila would argue that it is the purest time which obeys only the laws of nature.

Dawn dusk

Winter summer

It is the time that must be taken to do the thing that needs to be done. It is not a time for

meetings conference calls texting email commuting running late jogging committing failing counting seconds until

Until whatever it is that seemed so important at the time, has ended.

At Bletchley Neila rambled: “The Company runs things—I mean they always have what are you going to do about it it’s just how…”

And saw Theo’s face, and stopped talking, and felt strangely embarrassed.

Half a mile later three men and a woman came the other way on a wide barge covered in tarps, and as they passed the woman slowed and called out across the water, “Are you going to Milton Keynes? There’s nothing there. They closed the ski slope and they don’t play hockey any more. The cows were taken up from the roundabouts and sold to a man who owns things. There’s only patties, children and screamers there now, apart from the sanctuaries, and they shoot strangers. You don’t want to go to Milton Keynes. If you go, if you see my daughter, tell her that I didn’t mean the things I said. I didn’t mean them, it’s just the meds. She’ll understand.”

Neila smiled and didn’t answer, and Theo went inside and checked the bandages where he was bleeding again, and couldn’t be bothered to change them, and didn’t want to make a fuss.

Chapter 20

These are the rituals of Theo’s life:

Up, run, 10km on a Saturday, trailing along at the back of a park jogging group who all sort of know each other vaguely enough to smile but not well enough to ask anyone their name.

Bicycle to work

murder rape arson abuse neglect negligence conspiracy fraud…

In the evenings he’d stop off at the supermarket in Balham. He didn’t go there often, but there were ingredients he couldn’t find elsewhere, and he’d overload his basket and struggle back to Mrs. Italiaander’s in second gear, huffing and puffing through the clogged-up traffic to get home and make

fish grilled with red peppers

lemon mushroom risotto

roast feta and black olive salad

aubergine and tomato baked with balsamic vinegar

When he first moved in, Theo worried that he was hogging the kitchen, had tried to keep every meal fast, take up no space on the long black counter. After a while he’d realised that he was almost the only resident who liked cooking at all. Marvin lived on microwave meals and takeaways—some of Budgetfood’s products no less. Theo had tried to tell him about where it came from, about Shawford and the sea, but Marvin didn’t pretend to care.

Mrs. Italiaander lived on the same meal every day, which consisted of two slices of wholegrain, seed-studded bread, toasted without butter; an onion cut in half and microwaved, a couple of slices of smoked salmon, half a pot of yoghurt, some celery sticks, with hummus on Tuesdays and Fridays only, and a half-bottle of rosé wine.

Nikesh made curries with paste from a jar, to which he added whole chillies and a tablespoon of salt.

Every six or seven weeks Theo made food for everyone, though no one ate at the same time, and his contract was always peacefully renewed, and Mrs. Italiaander whispered that he was almost like a son to her and not to tell her boy she felt that way.

Sometimes, when it was raining or there was something he really wanted to see, Theo went to the cinema. A local art-house place had installed screens in the basement where you could watch documentaries from its archive for no more than the price of an expensive cup of coffee. Once he’d got locked in when the cleaner hadn’t spotted him, hunkered down in his alcove, watching a film about the hunting birds of Patagonia.

On the first Sunday of every month he helped the local community gardening group with their planting boxes down by the rookery, and one April he shared shovels with a woman called Celeste who had been funny and clever and beautiful and

Theo didn’t have many friends

…but she’d checked her horoscope the morning after, and it warned that Saturn was entering an unwelcome aspect, and he was a Taurus and she didn’t want to argue with the stars. Who did really?

They met again at the monthly gardening group and smiled at each other, but now the whimsy and the merriment that he had found enchanting before seemed frankly infantile and very, very annoying.

The morning after the night before…

Theo must have slept because he wakes and he is screaming, his head is screaming. He read once upon a time about a thing, exploding-head syndrome so your head doesn’t actually explode but you feel like it’s going bang boom a bomb going off in his skull

SHE’S YOUR DAUGHTER!

And then he sleeps again, and wakes, ashamed that he slept at all, and wasn’t kept awake by the image of Dani’s face/brains/blood by the guilt of…

…of things he probably should be feeling guilty about he wasn’t sure he had hoped for a certain clarity at least but even that was

He slept in his clothes, face down, a little wet pool of dribble on his pillow where he fell. Twelve hours ago Dani Cumali lived; now she is dead, and Theo’s thighs ache from cycling, and he lies on his bed wide awake exactly two minutes before his alarm is due to go off, and his head is…

The pain already fading, with the rising light of dawn.

A grey sweep of a grey day across a world unchanged.

He looks out of the window.

Mrs. Italiaander’s front garden is almost entirely rose bush, which does not flower, and castor oil plant. If she ever loses patience with her family, she threatens to turn it into ricin for that truly cataclysmic Christmas dinner party. She read about it online. It’s not that hard really…

Beyond, the world carries on.

Children are hurried out of bed

milk into cereal bowls

showers

steam

heat on tired muscles sigh of relief

tying shoelaces

checking the phone

rattling the rubbish cart down the street

smell of the bus

hiss of pneumatic door

Dani Cumali is dead and the world

continues.

And Theo Miller also.

Chapter 21

Theo took the train to work, and immediately remembered why he never did and how much he hated it.

He arrived five minutes late. Usually arriving late earned a place on the Efficiency Wall, where photos of shamed members of staff who were not holding up departmental standards were displayed. However, Theo was never late, never, and rather than the ritual chiding, he received an automatically generated email informing him that he had been docked one hour’s pay, and a concerned knock on the door from Edward’s secretary, El, asking him if he was okay.

“I’m fine. Think I’m coming down with something.”

“Ah, yes…” she muttered, and beat a hasty retreat to the antibacterial gel she kept in the bottom drawer of her desk.

Words on a screen.

beaten to death with a clothes iron

run over then run over again three times he drove the car until she was

dropped the child out of the window

claims he didn’t realise how hard he was hitting until it was too late

a kitchen knife, the relationship had been deteriorating for

When Theo’s calendar beeped, reminding him of the weekly team performance meeting, he nearly laughed.

Sat at the back.

Did his best not to fall asleep.

Returned to his desk.

Forgot to eat lunch.

set on fire after school because she called her fat

strangled after refusing to consider marriage with the man in

trapped between the cot and the wall suffocated to death

police investigation fee: £7891.56 (ex. VAT)

societal responsibility levy: £81,000

victim assessment fee: £128,918

no. of pets left behind by deceased: 3

value of pets: £5680

cost of rehousing pets: £675

But hey! The cats have already been spayed otherwise that’d be another £240 on the indemnity for the killer to pay, can’t have non-spayed cats running around it’d be…

Dependent children remaining to deceased: 1.

Age of child: 7.

Added value of dependent minor: £18,900, plus a further £2715 because the child witnessed her mother die and will thus require mandatory counselling with a recommended sponsor who will charge…

will charge…

a fee equivalent to…

on an hourly basis of…

Theo realised he’d been staring at nothing, and started hard enough to knock his empty coffee cup off the desk.

It tumbled to the floor, the handle cracking off the side, the rest of the ceramic surviving in one piece. He picked the handle up gingerly, wrapped it in tissue paper, put it in his bag. Maybe he’d be able to stick it back on. Superglue or tile grout or… something. Gripfill, perhaps.

Email.

A defendant had settled his indemnity, selling off a two-bedroom flat in Putney to cover the cost. Because he’d done so without taking the matter to court, he achieved a 10 per cent discount on the murder of his mother-in-law, thus taking the total profit to the department to a mere…

But the woman on her third shoplifting charge had already sold her mother’s wedding ring and the indemnity was overdue so her case was to be referred to the prison service for labour rehabilitation, making something useful for society, like circuit boards for mobile phones, or those glasses that don’t have any lenses in to make you look cool, or face serum guaranteed to keep you both firm and soft all at once.

Theo looked away, marked the email as unread, went to the toilet, sat in the locked cubicle with his pants around his ankles, realised he had no idea what he was doing, sat a while longer, felt ridiculous, went back to work.

At 4.55 the new case arrived.

It hadn’t gone to him initially. But Charlotte Burgess, who specialised in well-paying homicides, had taken one look and done some quick maths—cause of death, manner of arrest, value of deceased—and concluded that the matter was fairly open-and-shut and couldn’t bring in more than £60,000, which wouldn’t count for much on her performance review so…

she sent it on.

Which was silly really, because if she’d looked closely she would have seen the discretion clause that any wise auditor could squeeze for at least another £90,000 if they played it right.

Hey, Theo. This arrived, but I’m snowed under. Can you take a look at it? Thanks! xx

All of Charlotte’s emails ended with two kisses. She’d once signed off to a high court judge with snuggles and lols! and the judge hadn’t known what these words meant, and assumed it was just a youth thing.

Theo opened the case file.

Homicide, suspect arrested and full confession given. Status: pending assessment.

Dani Cumali.

It occurred to him that he’d only seen her feet.

And her brain of course but actually the brain on the wall, her bare feet pointing upwards these weren’t much to go by and he’d sort of assumed, he’d just thought well there it is, here we are but thinking about it he’d only really…

He opened the file.

The front of her face was remarkably intact, given the two bullets that had entered it. The back of her skull had taken most of the damage when the bullets exited, bursting open like an overheated pudding.

The bruising across the rest of her body was almost black, the blood congealing between broken arteries post-mortem.

A photo was attached of the killer.

Her name was Seph Atkins, and the cops suspected this was an alias.

Seph Atkins had called the police almost the second Dani’s body hit the floor. A transcript was attached.

“Yes, I’d like to report a homicide… I’m sorry do you need to… yes, homicide, that’s right. No, I did it. Yes. Yes. The address is… as in sierra, echo… yes, echo… what do you estimate as being your response time? Yes, that’s fine. Thank you. Of course I can hold. Thanks.”

And then in the distance, the sound of faint words, as if the killer was holding her phone against her shoulder, muffling her words, addressing someone else. The transcriber couldn’t decipher what was said, but Theo knew the words, heard the truth of it.

“Now if you just make like a heron…”

He closed the file, copied it to a USB stick, put the stick in his pocket and went home twenty minutes early. Such action might have caused something of a stir, but it being Theo, no one really noticed.

Chapter 22

Nearly fifteen years before Dani died, the boy who would be Theo took the train to Oxford. He had imagined that Oxford was always bathed in autumn sunlight, but when he arrived it was raining, and despite his best efforts he couldn’t seem to get invitations to any of those dinner clubs where they served whole roast pig and performed sexual acts with…

…well, he didn’t know if he believed the rumours, but everyone said it was the best thing to do if you wanted to get ahead in life.

He imagined he’d live on a quadrangle overlooking immaculate lawns, in rooms with high walls and medieval locks. His hall of residence was certainly near an immaculate lawn, but had been tacked on in the 1980s as a discreet extension, and featured disappointingly modern electromagnetic key fobs.

He kept to himself. Sent Dani the odd email. Answered the phone when his mum called, and when they’d gone too long without talking would call her and they’d chat for an average of forty-three seconds.

“Hi, Mum.”

“Oh, you called. How nice. Yes. Very nice of you to call, yes, good that you remembered well I’m all right. I’m all right and I’m doing well it was good of you to call.”

“I wanted to see if you were…”

“Good of you to call, you are a good boy. Well, that’s lovely. Goodbye!”

Mum didn’t like to intrude in his life.

One day—at the beginning of all things, a new spring and a new season—when the rain had stopped and the sun was wet through the leaves

He stepped outside his room to find his neighbour also in the corridor, a skinny boy with the same dark hair and drooping shoulders as himself, and the boy said:

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“We must be neighbours.”

“Yes.”

“It’s all a little surreal, isn’t it? Us, here, this place. Fount of learning and all that, passing the port to the left, snuff after dinner.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you doing law?”

“No, maths.”

“Oh, maths! I can’t understand maths at all, can’t get my head around it, just like, hello no! Very impressive, maths, although I suppose at your level it’s less about numbers and more about… ideas, yes?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“No, early days I imagine, early days and… my name’s Theo. Theo Miller.”

“Hello, Theo Miller,” said the boy who would be Theo.

“Are you… have you met anyone yet?”

“No. I don’t know anyone.”

“Me neither! It’s going to be a disaster. Say, shall we be disastrous together?”

Later, a little drunk, which was the obligatory thing to be between the hours of 7 p.m. and midnight:

“Family’s a catastrophe. My family—Christ! So my dad’s one of the biggest rubbish collectors in northern Europe. Don’t laugh, he is, it’s how he made his fortune, but he was also a survivor of the Scottish troubles, said he saw things during the campaigns that were… so he collects art. All these pictures of broken faces and wounded eyes, all these sculptures, bones and flesh in porcelain, things coming out of other things, I grew up with that can you imagine I grew up with—”

“Theo…”

“You don’t even notice these things until someone points them out and then you’re like yes, fuck me, yes, that is a bit fucking off actually, isn’t it? And Mother, well, he never really loved her, I think. I mean, at the beginning, she was something young and beautiful after his first marriage—and then after the divorce he remarried and she was younger but also a good woman, amazing woman just the most—and I love my mother too but other Mum always did her best. I was mostly raised by Aunty—that was what we called my nanny—Aunty—she was the one who was there for me while Mum and Dad went sailing because I wasn’t allowed to go sailing, I got in the way but anyway—”

“Theo, what is claret?”

“Something French. So there they are, sailing around the world and me I’m in boarding school, and with the schemes of course I ended up here and you know they forget my birthday but Aunty remembers, Aunty has always been—”

“I’m not sure I like claret.”

“You won’t last long in Oxford if you can’t drink port or claret, believe me, more that’s just what you need some more of it there you go and anyway what about your family what about—”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course! I’m a drunken ex-boarding-school lawyer-in-the-making! Your secrets are my sacred practice. Or duty. Whatever.”

“My father was the driver for a mob, my mum is kinda mad, and the only reason I’m here is because the biggest petrol smuggler in Kent threatened to kill the dean’s dog unless they let me in. As a favour, you see, for my dad, who’s in prison, cos of the pharmaceutical job.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Well that does put Eton rather into perspective.”

The boy who would one day be Theo sat next to the real Theo, the one born to the name, and ate strawberries on the grass and worried about stains on his gown and watched the sparrows fly between the pale brown spires of the college and thought that there was probably something he was missing, something very important which he’d forgotten and if only…

And the real Theo

the one who died, said:

“Oxford is beautiful—of course it’s beautiful! I mean it’s not real, but in a way it’s so real because it’s the old place, the place of facts—it’s shaped the world but all the people dressed as wizards that’s a bit…”

Somewhere out towards the suburbs, a fence is being put up to keep the riff-raff out. It’s not that they’re selling PhDs these days, not at all, candidates for the fast-track PhD programme have to hand in a 2000-word essay and complete an interview before making payment for their certificate. If you pay an extra £40,000 they’ll even hire a couple of MA students to write a full-length dissertation for you. That’s just how things are. They’ve always been that way, money was always what mattered, but the beauty of this system is that we’re honest about it. It’s just good business.

“Dad’s selling the business to the Company, of course. It’s not like they want it or need it, it’s just that it’s making a profit and they’re making a profit so they may as well invest in something which makes more of a profit. He’s going to stay on as a non-exec and I mean that’s the castle in Scotland sorted, surprisingly cheap castles in Scotland if you buy them run-down then a few mil to refurbish that’s what he says and the Company is very interested in…”

It occurs to Theo, later, that this was around the time people started to talk about the Company. Not a company, which owned a company which owned… but the Company. The one that owned it all. It had always been there. It was never a secret. Only now it owns so many things that it might as well own it all.

In a few months’ time the real Theo Miller will be dead, BANG, and the boy who steals his name will slink back to Shawford and there will be a night with Dani Cumali on the beach

“Off to your fancy university your fancy friends…”

“I heard you and Andy, I mean that…”

After.

Dani and the boy who would be Theo lay together on shingle and it was deeply uncomfortable and rather cold but no one wanted to break the spell—not him, not her, so they lay tangled and it was…

The morning after, as Theo walked towards Dani’s flat in the morning, bag on his back, head full of dreams of redemption and hope and the future, he saw Dani coming the other way, Andy slung across her shoulders, his arm across her back, owning her, pushing her down with his weight, pulling her along with his walk, and his eyes met Dani’s and he saw…

All the truth written in them.

She pretended not to know him, as she and her boyfriend swaggered past, and he pretended not to know them either, and got on the first replacement bus service back to Dover Priory and when the train juddered to a halt in Ashford and sat for twenty minutes creaking and broken on the tracks, the boy who would be Theo threw his phone out of the window and never looked back.

Later he realised he was an idiot and that was a perfectly good handset he’d destroyed, he should have just jettisoned the SIM card, but at the time it felt like a gesture that mattered.

Chapter 23

The day after Dani Cumali died

the man called Theo took a USB stick with the details of her murder home with him

put it on the small plywood desk

took out a mobile phone.

The phone was a hefty brick, grey in colour. He’d found it in a privet hedge, thrown from a window.

It still held its charge.

He turned it off.

Turned it on.

Turned it off again.

He sat on the end of his bed while in the room next door Marvin played bad music far too loud.

He went downstairs and made pasta.

Sat back on the end of his bed.

Fell asleep in his clothes.

In the morning the phone was still there, and Dani was still dead, and he still had to audit the value of her life and death.

Theo cycled to work, looked at the route as if for the first time, seeing now the phone repair shops, the laundrettes offering patch jobs on torn trousers, the chippy with a sign in the window explaining how fish was so much better than pizza

children, going to school

lunchboxes

brushed hair

uniforms

texting

shuffling

running

he

nearly cycled into the back of a bus, slammed on the brakes, heard someone shout from an open window, “You’re a vegetable!”

Laugh.

Cycled a little more carefully to work.

And work was…

She killed her because she was looking at her. She knew just knew that if she didn’t move now it was going to be…

He said I did it. Sure I did it I did it. Because it needed to be done.

Look it’s not even theft, the system let me get away with it so I did.

I dunno. I dunno. It was just. There was just this. I just got so mad.

Edward Witt said, “Why do you want to do pathology on the Cumali woman? No one will pay for it; she was a patty living in an enclave, we’ll be lucky if we can squeeze seventy grand out of it, and time-wasting stuff like autopsies are the kind of thing a good defence lawyer will laugh out of court…”

In the too-hot or too-cold or too-wet or too-dry never enough of anything that was ever good enough walls of the Criminal Audit Office, Edward pushed one pink finger down point first in the middle of his desk, driving hard enough to tilt the tip almost to ninety degrees against the knuckle, and declared:

“Justice is doing the right thing for society. This Cumali case—now I know this sounds harsh—but seventy thousand is a fair sum for her life, the woman was a leech! A patty who was never going to contribute anything meaningful to society, she didn’t even have a pension I mean she was just going to be… and it’s very sad that she died but compared to someone useful, I mean someone who mattered, I think seventy is a good figure to aim for. So get over to Seph Atkins’ lawyer and get this settled so we can move on to cases with greater profit margins.”

Theo nodded and said not a word, and left the office and walked back to his corner where the orange mushrooms grew, and sat at his desk, and realised that he hadn’t raised his voice at work for nearly twelve years, and had not fought or kicked or raged or wept or experienced anything of much at all to suggest that he was unhappy in his life. Nor could he remember the last time he smiled.

Chapter 24

On the canal Theo sat at the back of the boat, steering the Hector towards Cosgrove.

Neila drew the cards.

Four of cups, the Magician, the Lovers (inverted), ace of staves, two of swords, four of swords, the Sun (inverted), knave of cups, the Hanged Man (inverted).

Theo wound the engine down, stuck his head inside, careful to keep the door barely open lest the heat from the stove escape. “We’re nearing the lock. Do you want to stop?”

There was another boat moored a hundred yards away.

Neila went to say hi. It was the right thing to do, especially in winter. She liked the simplicity of such things. They had a cup of tea.

In the night someone started a fire in the distance, the smell of smoke as it blew across the water strong enough to wake Neila, heart racing, fumbling for the light, terror, terror, the worst thing in the world but…

…the flames were elsewhere, a fist punching the clouds, a blistering smear that made the sky a bowl instead of a roof.

For a while she watched it from the back of the boat, and Theo came out too, shrouded in a coat, and they stood and watched the blaze, and the sirens did not sing, and no one came.

In the morning the fire was still burning, lower, and the magnificence of the night was faded to a black scar, soot blown across the water.

The boat that had moored up from theirs was already gone. The cupboard was growing bare, and they did not head into town.

Chapter 25

Theo Miller went to see Seph Atkins and her lawyer.

She wasn’t being held in the police station. It wasn’t cost- effective.

They met in an office just south of Holborn. Marble floors, fishbowls on low glass tables holding green branches without leaves that coiled and looped into themselves like angry snakes, something Theo struggled to imagine had ever lived in nature. A waterfall within a glass wall behind the receptionists, a security gate guarded by Company Police, Tasers on the left hip, guns on the right. Vagrants could be Tasered on sight in this part of the city—they caused emotional distress, and emotional distress was basically assault.

Theo tried not to stare, to imagine what it must be like to wear silk and have a resident’s permit for Zone 1. He stood quietly in front of the reception desk, hands clasped, satchel over his shoulder, and the receptionists ignored him. He coughed. No response. He said, “Excuse me?” and the receptionists looked up, all three of them, simultaneous, outraged at his audacity. Then the nearest fixed her face in a radiant smile, daring him to think he’d ever seen any other expression on her softly toned features. The transformation was so sudden and complete that Theo nearly jumped, flinching from the brightness of her polished white teeth. She took his fingerprints, a credit rating, gave him a free chocolate in the shape of a heart, a leaflet about civic–corporate partnership and told him to wait.

Theo ignored the leaflet, listened to the words around him, eyes half-closed, satchel in his lap.

“When people say monopoly they don’t understand the way our economy works. No one has a monopoly on supply and demand—but the money to fuel growth must come from a dynamic, central source which carries not just a responsibility for economic, but also for cultural growth within the…”

“I do the law to make a difference. I really do. We’re giving so much back to the nation…”

“No. Downstairs. In the lobby. Yes, in the lobby! We need to talk now. Now.”

“Government raises taxes to subsidise business. That’s what economic planning means.”

The lawyer sent her secretary down to Theo after keeping him waiting barely twenty-five minutes. They did not speak in the elevator up to the twelfth floor, and the secretary did not meet Theo’s eyes.

An office, larger than any at the Audit Office and smaller than any other in the building, a painting on one wall of great bands of red and orange colour, perhaps a sunset, inverted, or a spilt drink seeping into canvas or the colour of the artist’s anger and conflicted love, it was all very…

“Mr. Miller. Thank you for coming down so quickly.” A woman, five foot five, sepia-brown skin, rich and warm, doe eyes and a bun of woven silken black hair, dressed in charcoal skirt-suit, sheer tights and black pumps, a chunky black watch on her left wrist, a gold bracelet on her right.

By night Mala Choudhary practised Muay Thai. She won most of her fights but found those she lost more exciting. She used to do MMA, but it had too many rules and the wrong kind of machismo—the kind that never learned. Her mother calls her a chubby pumpkin, because her legs are muscled and her hips are broad. She secretly didn’t do very well at university, but what does that matter when you excel in the real world?

She’s going to be a partner soon. She smiles, and Theo Miller tastes something liquid and hot in the roof of his mouth, like car sickness, while standing still.

“Just before we begin, I will be recording this conversation, is that acceptable?”

“Fine.”

A tablet, laid down on the glass table between them, a glimpse of words and images; is that the blasted remnants of Dani Cumali’s head that she swipes away, quick, searching for more pertinent things?

“Thank you—yes, please send Ms. Atkins in.”

A command issued to her watch, Theo thought for a moment that Mala Choudhary had gone mad, but no, the watch records her heartbeat, steps walked, calories burned, emails received and of course links to her assistant’s assistant, for all matters where her assistant is busy with more important assisting.

They waited.

Theo felt his fingers ripple, once along the desk, looked to see if Mala had spotted the movement, saw no sign, put his hands carefully in his lap, folded into a fist one over the other so tight it hurt.

Seph Atkins entered the room. She wore a white shirt and blue jeans. She had no jewellery, no make-up, knew that their absence made her handsome. She glanced at Theo, turned her attention to Mala, smiled a smile of tiny white teeth, glanced back to Theo and paused.

Stopped.

Looked again.

Theo stood up, nodded. “Ms. Atkins.”

“Ms. Atkins, this is Mr. Miller,” exhaled Mala, smooth as single cream, pulling back a chair for her client. “He’s from the Audit Office.”

Seph sat without taking her eyes off Theo’s face. Mala swung her tablet round, tapped tapped tapped, looked up with a burst of practised brightness, all smile and eye, announced: “Shall we get down to business? Our office has done a preliminary assessment of the case but before sharing our conclusions I was wondering where the Audit Office was currently at in processing this matter?”

Through the dry heat in his skin, a familiar phrase to carry him through. “We have conducted the initial assessment, and are looking at premeditated first-degree murder as our initial—”

“Mr. Miller I have to stop you right there, we will of course not be accepting that charge in this case.”

Theo met Mala’s eyes. Her eyes were easier to meet than Seph Atkins’, and there was that within them that stirred a memory of something resembling… was it anger? He wasn’t sure. He found it hard to remember having felt anything of anything much for a very, very long time.

“We are confident of success in a first-degree charge. Ms. Atkins entered Ms. Cumali’s house for no other purpose to kill her. Her motivation was—”

“Self-defence.”

“Ms. Atkins had a gun. No fingerprints were found on it; Dani Cumali certainly did not clean her fingerprints off the weapon after she was dead. The room had been searched, the bullets were fired at close range to centre mass, there was no attempt to disable, Dani was…”

He stopped himself.

Uncoiled his fingers, aching in a clump in his lap. Looked away. Felt Seph Atkins’ gaze on him still, silent, smiling.

Words from Mala Choudhary. Second-degree, manslaughter, there are mitigating circumstances you see, Ms. Cumali was in fact—if you’ll look at these documents yes there—a history of criminal activities of…

Theo half-listens.

There was a case he worked once, a boy, seven, was run over by three teenagers. They hit him, then rolled over him four more times, laughing, and he died. They filmed the whole thing; it was great, it was hilarious it was…

But the teenagers had money, and the boy was autistic and assessed as being unlikely to contribute very much to society. Then it turned out his mother was an immigrant anyway so it wasn’t like the boy was even a citizen just a scrounger on the nanny state, and that had been Theo’s first case, his first proper homicide as a senior auditor and how much had that cost?

How much had the boys paid?

He thought… if he closed his eyes… maybe £35,000 each?

Maybe a little more, because they’d also damaged a neighbour’s car, and it was a Volvo.

“If you look here you’ll see that our initial assessment of Dani Cumali’s life was that actually she was barely worth £17,000, and that’s with the societal cost of her demise thrown in, she was in fact a burden on the exchequer and I have seen reports from her managers saying that she was a disruptive element, even with the good fortune to have got parole she was…”

The parents had paid their children’s indemnity, and one of the kids had been sent off to boarding school on the Isle of Man. The other two had been grounded for a month. They’d also paid for a discretion clause, and no records were retained.

“A drug user, there are reports that Cumali had been found with—”

He stood up. “Excuse me,” he barked, cutting through Mala’s flow. “May I use the bathroom?”

“Of course,” she replied, leaning a little away from the desk, surprised, reassessing. “All the way down on the right.”

“Thank you.”

He marched through the office, beautiful, glass and acrylic canvas, comfy sofas in a comfy break room for people to put their feet up and choose a magazine from the extensive and frequently updated collection of lifestyle guides, adventure fables and fashion gloss; the kind of office every kid raised through every corporate—educational partnership school dreamed of working in. Even in Shawford they’d been shown pictures of Budgetfood’s corporate HQ and three students who’d completed their Gold Enterprise Certificates were taken on a tour as a special treat.

He locked himself in a cubicle in the bathroom and felt

he felt

once upon a time he’d had these feelings he’d felt things there’d been a case a woman raped repeatedly by her partner, that was before they changed the law so that rape within relationships was just a misdemeanour because frankly common sense

the indemnity had been £7800, but he made that every week with extras so he paid it and did it again

and again

and again

and she

“You’ve already got the previous case file, just use that!” exclaimed Edward. “We can’t be clogging up the system!”

what happened to her she jumped in front of a train she

Theo had felt something then, hadn’t he?

The old guy beaten to death in his flat the kids who did it couldn’t pay the indemnity but that’s all right the Company sponsored them, put them on its Special Securities team, they’re doing well now they’re big shots in the world of private peace solutions…

Dani Cumali with her brains blown out not like her case is special not like it matters more or less or differently or

The man called Theo Miller stares at a grey toilet wall and is grateful that it is not a mirror.

A swoosh of door. The door is heavy, with a furry strip at its bottom that picks up grey felted dust. Footsteps. A tap. A squelch of soap. The tap stopped. A hot-air dryer, rippling skin like tissue paper in a storm. Stopped. No footsteps. No door. Theo waited. Silence in the bathroom. Theo opened the door of the cubicle.

Seph Atkins looked at him through the mirror, hands framing the sink on which she leaned, smiling. “I saw you,” she breathed. “I saw you.”

“Ms. Atkins, you appear to have the wrong bathroom, this is the—”

“At the enclave. You were in the door. You made like a heron.”

Not turning, she straightened up, stuck her arms out to the side, elbows bent at ninety degrees, stood on one leg and waggled her tongue. For a moment she wobbled there, eyes popping, then relaxed, beamed, and walked away.

In the office, Seph Atkins did not speak. Mala Choudhary talked and talked and Theo pretended to listen.

And at the end Mala said, “Well that was all very interesting. If you persist with this first-degree nonsense we will of course take you to court where I have no doubt you’ll lose, meanwhile there is the discretion clause…”

Theo’s face flickered, the first movement it had manifested for nearly an hour. Seph Atkins examined the rim of her fingernails, cut short and lacquered an unnatural shade of natural pink. “The discretion clause. Yes. Talk me through that.”

“My client is interested in ensuring that no records of this matter are kept and that all files are removed from the system, I believe if we look at previous judgements that a standard cost is £45,000 for a case of this kind…”

“£45,000 for manslaughter,” he retorted. “£80,000 for murder.”

“As the charges are going to be manslaughter,” Mala breezed on brightly, “I don’t think we need to consider the worst-case here.”

“The judge will decide if—”

“Mr. Miller,” she cut through, harder than he’d heard her speak before. “It will be manslaughter. Now £45,000 and that’s the expunging of all records including police, and Dani Cumali’s death will be registered as drug overdose…”

“It’s an extra £700 to alter the death certificate.”

“There’ll be drugs in her system.” Mala shrugged. “She was that kind of woman.”

Seph Atkins watched Theo, who did not look her in the eye.

He walked back to the office, very, very slowly.

Chapter 26

Edward Witt came to Theo’s desk, which was unusual and did not bode well.

“…fucking Cumali case why isn’t it cleared why haven’t we got…”

As the words rolled over him, it seemed to Theo that he was hearing, not language, but shaped sound on the air, and it was strangely beautiful, even calming. His serenity only appeared to enrage his employer, who had decided a long time ago that his own presence was terrifying. Years of protein shakes, teeth-whitening treatments and secret acting classes with an unemployed actor called Reg had given Edward the physicality and voice to dominate a room.

“She sells sea shells on the sea shore!” he snarled at the mirror every night, trimming nasal hair with a pair of fine steel scissors. “The shells she sells are surely sea shells!”

Dozens of management guides had taught him that the secret to success wasn’t about being right, merely about appearing to be more right than everybody else. He knew he had the intellectual and physical prowess to cow anyone before him. Grown men had been reduced to tears by Edward’s cutting wit. He seduced women to prove a point, and could bully the gates of hell into opening, if it suited him.

But where others flinched before Edward’s wrath, Theo sat implacable. He was implacable when delivering good news, implacable when receiving bad. He endured rage and condemnation, insults that should have had him walking from the office in disgust with a tilt of the head as if trying to discern a hidden secret, not in the words, but in the soul of the man who threw them. He smiled politely without humour, spoke when spoken to, worked without complaint, achieved nothing spectacular and never failed beyond average. He was… harmless. There was almost nothing more to be said about him, and that caused Edward a great feeling of unease.

Over the years this unease had built, reinforced by Theo’s repeated failure to show any reaction to Edward’s management style whatsoever. If Theo was aware that Edward’s anxiety on this point had grown into animosity, he showed no sign of that either, and this passivity made Edward’s fury all the greater, so that he barely found himself speaking to the other man except in roars, barks and sarcastic snaps, an undignified yapping dog rather than the prowling wolf he believed himself to be.

And now he was doing it again: howling in Theo’s face, spittle flying, waving papers in front of the other man’s nose, and fucking Miller just didn’t fucking seem to care the total…

“There’s actual cases with actual profit on the desk! There’s actual indemnities that will bring something for the fucking department so you get your head out of your arse and fucking get the Cumali job cleared—I’ve got Mala Choudhary on the phone, do you have any idea what Faircloud Associates does, they’re the Company, do you understand, they’re the Company, the people who keep the lights on the water running the petrol in the pumps and you want to give them shit over some drugged-out little patty-line whore and—”

Did Theo flinch?

Edward stopped dead.

He had never seen a reaction on Theo’s face before and… was that a flinch?

Probably not. Stone again. Impassive, patient, stone. He didn’t even smile that nervous smile of stupid boys hoping that if they show willing the abuse will stop. Nor did he scowl, or glare, or retreat inwards. He simply waited, like pebbles before the sea, for the storm to pass.

“Close the Cumali job, and get on to a case with some real fucking money in it,” Edward hissed. “Or I’ll get someone else to do it.”

He threw the papers down across Theo’s desk and stalked away.

It was a great gesture, really dramatic, other people would have at the very least run outside for a shaky cigarette. But Theo stacked the papers in a pile and returned to his computer screen. Later Edward had to send his secretary to get them back, as there were documents in there he needed.

Chapter 27

Once

this was before he learned how to grow a beard

the boy who would be Theo was taken to a party in London by the boy who was actually, in fact and from birth, Theo Miller.

“It’ll be great, just the ticket. You need to be thinking about corporate sponsorship—you’ll never make it, never achieve what you need to achieve and

well yes you could wear that but tell you what and I say this with the greatest possible love why don’t you try wearing something else—you know you’re roughly my size let me see if I haven’t

splendid! Splendid! We’ll drive. No, as in my father’s driver is going to collect us and he’ll take us to…

…a train? I’ve never taken the train before isn’t it terribly crowded isn’t it full of people who are a bit…

isn’t this exciting!”

The party was at a club in Kensington. Theo’s father had some sort of connection with the place—more than a member, less than a founder, a giver of money perhaps, without the possession of the kind of excessive wealth that would make him a distraction. Theo’s father was not there. Theo’s father was very rarely in England at all these days, but Theo didn’t seem to care. He wasn’t sure when he’d last seen his parents. He wasn’t sure it mattered.

They arrived just after eight, two boys in shiny shoes, the boy who would be Theo hiding behind his dining partner, who swept up the stairs and exclaimed, “Come come come!” and like a dog at heel, the boy came.

A sickly smell of dried-out petals from a fish bowl on the entrance desk. You could leave your business card or take a chocolate liqueur from within the crispy blossom—but all the best treats were gone.

A man all in white bowing and smiling and nodding to the young gentlemen as they entered, of course, follow me.

Stairs that rose straight up towards a portrait of the queen, then split in two beneath her knowing stare, amused at a secret only she could know. Then the curving stair bent back on itself in two parts and reunited at a long landing where a ten-piece jazz band played, silver glittering off their coats, a crown woven into the hair of the lead singer, sweat on their faces, something hot and mad in their eyes.

A room that the boy who would be Theo assumed was a ballroom and was in fact a mezzanine. The great, the glorious, his tux is new, hem hem, her dress was shop-bought, tut tut, come with me come with me there are some people you simply have to meet there are…

“I tell him why does he wear his Rolex on business it’s just asking for trouble but he never listens the great lump he never listens to my good advice when I say that…”

“Yes, of course. Now where is that in relation to Chiswick?”

“Trickle-down works—if I wasn’t in this country there’d be at least twenty people who wouldn’t have jobs—at least!—and that’s not even counting the…”

“Theo?”

“…said to the sultan but of course, I mean of course you would and it’s only natural that…”

“I’m very strict there’s just not enough time for me to be involved in the charities and well you do don’t you, you do find that you’re putting other people ahead of yourself!”

“Theo?”

“In Nepal actually and it was incredible the people the people are just well it’s just so you have to be there really you have to be there and afterwards we went sailing round the Med…”

“Theo?”

“Yes?”

“Are you… is this…?”

“Normal? Fairly much. Easier to do business eye to eye sometimes, lubricated by a little champagne. There are people here you need to meet absolutely, come with me your future depends on it now hello, this is my friend he’s doing maths yes lives on the same corridor as me he’s brilliant simply brilliant yes.”

The boy who will be Theo stands on one side of the room and wonders what his friends would think if they could see him now, and for a moment remembers that he hasn’t spoken to Dani for nearly nine months and wonders if she’s okay, and then is given more champagne and some sort of nibbly thing on a penny-size lump of not-really bread, and forgets.

After a little while of watching, he realises that there are nearly as many staff as there are guests at this swirling ball. Not merely waiters, but personal servants—men and women dressed in white frills and black cotton who stand silently behind their masters and hold their champagne glasses, receive and give business cards, answer the mobile phone. It would be a terrible breach of etiquette for a guest to answer their phone during these matters, and when an argument breaks out over some detail of stocks or celebrity scandal, it is a woman with head down and eyes fixed to a point two feet in front of her big toe who checks for an answer on the internet and whispers it into her master’s ear, who may or may not lie about the outcome, depending on where his opinions lie.

The young sweep around the old, and laugh, and hold their own glasses, and are absolutely fascinated by everything that these wonderful people believe and actually yes it’s funny you should say that, I was thinking of going into corporate financing when I graduate did you say you ran a…

The boy does not resent luxury.

At college his meals are cooked for him six days a week. Room cleaned. Shoes polished. He goes to the library and someone else puts the books away if he forgets. At the weekend he has money for drink, or can walk by the river without a care in the world, or take a bicycle out into the countryside and let the sunlight wash away the work, and when he returns to his soft bed

he is better

can work better, do what he needs to do, better, and one day

if he works hard enough, earning through his labours

one day maybe someone else will turn down the duvet in the corner of his bed and someone else will press the smell of cleanliness into his fresh-washed clothes and he need not scrub at dishes and argue with the water company and stand in line for the bus that never comes because these things are fundamentally

not the things he is best at

he can give

so much more to this world

so much more

if he’s just given the opportunity to do it.

This is not an unfair position.

You must live your life first before you can help others, you must have the security so that you are not a burden, must have the space to be free to be able to make a difference to have that freedom—freedom is a thing which must be bought you buy the freedom you buy…

pension house home time learning skills friends

dancing dancing we spin the world spins all things in harmony the harmony of the heavens we are starlight stardust spinning fizz on the tongue kiss on the lips beauty bought at the gym silk and pearl and diamond and

He desires, and possibly—just maybe—he deserves

yes, deserves…

Something clatters in a room next door, a smash loud enough to briefly drown out jazz. Some heads turn; most do not. The boy looks and thinks he sees Theo through an open door. He approaches, weaving through the crowd unnoticed, and yes, there is Theo Miller, laughing in his drunken state, cracked glass and spilt lobster at his feet, a girl crying, a teenager, and three boys staring with no laughter whatsoever in their eyes, and Theo may not be sober

but the boy instantly is.

He knows these faces, though he’s never met the strangers who wear them now. He used to see them sometimes in the snarling boys who liked it when their dogs growled at passing strangers, because the dogs made people scared, and if people were scared of you then you were powerful, and if you were powerful, you mattered. Even if you didn’t know what mattering was good for.

The girl cries, the boys glare, spilt champagne crystallises on the floor as silent, non-reproachful staff rush to clean it up. Theo laughs and doesn’t seem to recognise the danger that he’s in as one of the glaring party snarls:

you stupid fucking bastard why the fuck did you fucking

and another joins in

fuck him fuck him let’s just fucking go can’t fucking believe they let in

and the third stands silent, arms folded, and watches.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” chuckles Theo, wiping shattered shards of exploded ice off his sleeves, lifting his feet one at a time to check that he hasn’t stood in anything organic. “It was a perfectly valid thing, I’m sure there’s no harm done, the lady clearly wasn’t interested in your…”

“She’s mine!” snarled the first boy.

“She’s his,” agreed the second boy.

I’m watching, the third offered silently, his eyes skimming the room, meeting the gaze of the boy who would be Theo, recognising for the briefest of moments a sobriety equal only to his own.

“Now I mean clearly this is just…”

“My father sponsored her.”

“His father sponsored her!”

“He paid for her tuition for her dress for her face—for her face—he paid and that means that I…”

“For her face!”

“Sponsored and the deal was very clear…”

“A bargain!”

“A very clear deal and if she…”

“A contract.”

“Fuck you.” The girl, on her feet, the tears still running but her voice holding strong. “Fuck your dad.” She peeled off one elbow-length glove, threw it on the floor, dragged at the other, one finger at a time, hissed in frustration at the slippery silk, got it free, threw it in the first boy’s face. “Fuck you all.”

Tried to run in her high-heeled shoes, wobbled, nearly fell, stumbled against the teetering glass-covered table, gritted her teeth. Raised her left leg so the back of her heel was behind her bum, peeled the shoe away, wobbled again, caught her balance. Raised her right, snatched the shoe off with enough force to break the strap across the top, flung it into the boy’s chest. Raised her head, pulled her shoulders back, walked away through a pool of melting ice and alcohol.

The boys watched her go.

Theo Miller giggled, tried to stifle the sound, couldn’t, burst out laughing. “Well!” he guffawed, and then, struggling to find inspiration through the champagne, “Well!”

The boy caught his arm, whispered, “Theo, we should…”

“…have her fucking head,” growled the first boy.

“Her head!” agreed the second boy.

Still watching, mused the third. There is something we can all learn from this.

“Her father was joint signatory on the contract he’ll have to pay now he’ll have to…”

“Fucking pay!”

“If she can’t keep her contracts she’ll never work never work never even finish but also never work I’ll see that she…”

“Her! Working for the Company?”

“She can clean the fucking floors no not even the floors she can—she can…”

“A contract is the most sacred thing which can…”

“Philip, I think you’ve got some lobster in your hair. Or is it crab?” Theo leaned in close to the first boy, a blast of alcoholic breath swimming across his face, then reached up and flicked a slip of shiny whiteness, glistening flesh, out of the hair above the boy’s right temple. “There you go! All better now.”

For a moment the boy called Philip looked into Theo’s eyes, and the world waited on the tightrope, wondering which way the wind would blow.

He punched Theo. If he’d had the imagination for a witty put-down, he probably would have chosen that, having not punched anyone since he was twelve and remembering it being quite an awkward experience even then.

As it was, wit failed, and so he hit him, and Theo Miller dropped to the floor and lay on his back in a pool of mingling liquids and torn fishy flesh, stared for a moment up at the ceiling, incredulous, then laughed. He laughed and laughed and let his head roll back and laughed a little bit more, as his friend squatted down next to him and wondered if he was meant to intervene, and how.

Then the boy called Philip said, “I fucking challenge you.”

He offered a few more words too, and they seemed to give him an increased passion for his theme. Most were terms of sexual abuse, but at the end they returned to the point. “I challenge you—get up you little shit—I challenge you!”

“Darling,” chuckled Theo, “you can’t. Duelling hasn’t been legal since—”

“My lawyer will draw up the indemnity. We’ll pay no more than £75,000 apiece. You can afford £75,000, can’t you? Get up! Get up!”

Theo laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed and…

On the following Wednesday a lawyer knocked on his door with the insurance papers to sign.

“Good afternoon. I am from the firm of Hatfield and Bolton and I have a preliminary indemnity insurance here for your perusal. You will see that it states that whoever should kill you should you be found deceased within the next two weeks will pay no more than £75,000 for the cost of your death and here also you will find the equivalent statement for the murder of one Philip Arnslade, assuming that your respective deaths satisfy the circumstances laid out in clauses three through eight of the—”

“I’m not signing this are you fucking kidding me I’m…”

On the Friday morning, as he was walking home, Theo Miller was mugged by three men dressed in balaclavas, who beat the shit out of him and took only £10 from his wallet, leaving credit cards and another £40 in cash behind.

On the Monday the lawyer came again.

“…and you will see a discretion clause of course which has been drawn up at Mr. Arnslade’s own expense, he is generously covering the legal fees in this matter, which have been substantial, to guarantee that the indemnity is worth no more than…”

Theo Miller threw coffee over the papers, and if only he’d planned ahead and made two cups, might have thrown something in the lawyer’s face.

Two days later he got a phone call from his aunty, whose dog had been killed, its mutilated body left on her car bonnet, head balanced on the stump of its neck on the path from the front door.

The day after that Theo Miller knocked on the door of his next-door neighbour, to discover him lying in bed with a swollen face and a split lip, torn almost exactly on the scar where as a baby his mouth had been gently stitched together, and Theo shouted, “You idiot why didn’t you say why didn’t you say this had happened you’re such an idiot why didn’t you…”

Later they sat together in the kitchen. The floor was sticky with old spilt coffee, crunchy with shattered remnants of dry, uncooked pasta, ground into dust by weeks of neglect. The cleaning lady had given up trying to keep the place in order after someone boiled milk and eggs in the kettle.

Theo said to the boy, “It’s stupid, of course. I don’t even know the girl’s name. But I walked into this room at the party and they were holding her down, and Philip had his cock out and was… it happens all the time. The contract doesn’t say that you’ll have to do anything, it’s supposed to be charity, but if you take the contract away then what have you got left? You’ve got dreams, I imagine. You let yourself dream, think for a moment that there was something else, a different future, and then when it stops you realise that there’s just this. Just this. That you’ve been bought as a whore for the master’s son, and they have the discretion to destroy your dreams whenever they want to, and you have nowhere to appeal and nothing to…

…my father bought my mother, you see. She had dreams, and he bought them. Money buys dreams. But it didn’t work out, and so he bought my stepmother and my stepmother is actually a very impressive woman but she knows, she understands that as long as she dreams of money, they’ll be fine. They’ll have a wonderful life. It’s only if she dreams of something else that her world will fall apart. Only then.”

The boy said nothing and thought briefly of Dani Cumali, felt a sudden surge of terror, panic even, and shifted in his seat and winced at the pain, and in that moment of distraction forgot again.

That night Theo Miller called up the lawyer, who’d thoughtfully left a card, and signed the indemnity. “Tell Philip Arnslade that I’m going to blow his damn brains out.”

“Mr. Arnslade will be most relieved,” replied the lawyer.

Chapter 28

“Your grandmother?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I had no idea, it’s so…”

“Sudden?”

“You have a grandmother, Mr. Miller?”

This is clearly a startling idea for her. Theo Miller is an artefact of the Criminal Audit Office; to imagine he has any existence beyond it is a struggle.

“Had. I had a grandmother.”

Theo gives his excuses and wonders if human resources are cross-checking as he speaks, looking for records of any previous absences. They won’t check if the grandmother is real—that’s not their job—but they will look through his work history and do a quick count of just how many grandmothers have died during his employment.

None thus far. That’s a good sign. There are several in the office who’ve lost at least three. And no one credits Theo with much imagination. He’s never given them reason to credit him with anything of anything much at all.

“And when do you think you’ll be back, Mr. Miller? The limit on compassionate leave for this sort of thing is forty-eight hours for a domestic case and seventy-two for a…”

“Forty-eight should be fine. Thank you.”

“Of course. I’ll have your payslip updated. And… I do hope the funeral is nice. When my grandmother died the priest had a double booking, and started giving the eulogy for the wrong dead woman.”

“My grandmother was an atheist.”

“Oh yes, but that’s no reason to miss out on a church is it? Lovely bunch of flowers, music, the whole…”

It wasn’t hard to find Dani’s supervisor.

Seb Gatesman, twenty-nine, fiddling with his mobile phone round the back of a large, detached house on the edge of a park in Barnes, trying to take a photo of himself looking appalled, horrified and humorous all at once to send to his mate who had just suggested this thing they could do tonight, the most—you won’t believe—like we’re gonna totally fuck those bitches up it’s gonna be…

“Excuse me?”

Theo Miller, dressed in a suit and tie, stood beneath the ash tree and smiled politely. The younger man was nearly a foot taller than Theo, with a carefully trimmed dark goatee that he secretly oiled last thing at night and first thing in the morning. He wore a white shirt and black trousers, and was proud of this because all the patty bitches who worked under him had to wear the jumper with the name on it, like the parole sluts they were.

“Excuse me?” repeated Theo. “Mr. Sebastian Gatesman?”

“Who’re you?”

Too early in the morning for Theo to be anyone important, the wedding party was still down the church. Gatesman was just here making sure his staff didn’t fuck up the reception, the champagne bar the ice sculpture the chocolate fountain the diamond hidden in the wedding cake health and safety had given him such shit over that and he’d been like it’s the size of a fucking fist no way you could fucking…

…but it’d be just his luck if someone broke a tooth on it.

“Mr. Gatesman, my name is Theo Miller, I work for the Criminal Audit Office. I’m here about Dani Cumali…”

“Yeah? What’s she done?” Seb Gatesman is keen for the answer to be bad. Hit by a bus, fell off a roof, gnawed by an unexpected llama, he’ll take it.

“She’s dead.”

“Fuck off!” Not anger or sadness—just an outrageous joke being pulled, funny of course, it’s funny but also in bad taste, mate, like, that’s some bad taste.

“I’m afraid so.”

“What the fuck? You’re serious?” A flicker of something—perhaps relief—before the important thoughts hit. “That’s the whole fucking rota fucking—I mean sorry, mate, like it’s all very—but that’s the rota that’s—fuck! How’d she die?”

“She was murdered.”

“Fuck off.”

“You weren’t made aware by your managers.”

“No! Last to fucking hear anything, last of the—”

“Mr. Gatesman, my job is to audit the value of the crime. To do so I need to ascertain information concerning Ms. Cumali’s past in order to profile the societal impact her murder will have. Did she have dependants, was she in good standing, were there outstanding debts which have to be paid, these matters can be…”

A snort of derision.

Theo paused.

Thought that in another time, another place, this garden would be beautiful. Autumn leaves falling onto thick green grass. The twisted spine of the hawthorn, the tall sweep of the oak, acorns dropping, conker shells cracking open to reveal their shining fruit, the distant sound of water trickling from a stone fountain crusted with yellow lichen, fresh-cut flowers all along the windowsills, their perfume drifting through the cold.

The only ugly thing, he decided, was the face in front of his, but that was the face he had to deal with and so:

“Mr. Gatesman? Your insight would be most useful for my audit.”

“She was a patty, straight off the line. Twelve years or something, she was lucky she got this job, the company picked her up cheap too, you know what those women are like, once they’re in a way of thinking, there’s nothing, like she’s lucky she got what she got.”

“Did she have children?”

“Don’t think so. Dunno. Look, I’m her supervisor not her dad.”

“What was her job, exactly?”

“Cleaning. Also went on a few catering gigs to clean the glasses and unload stuff.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere we needed staff, got a lot of big contracts, corporate stuff. Doesn’t take much to clean a glass, even a patty is good for that.”

“Anyone she disliked or who seemed to dislike her? Anything stand out about her behaviour or the behaviours of others towards her?”

A shrug.

“Any friends?”

Another shrug, and sensing that maybe this wasn’t quite enough: “Look, man, she was just a patty, okay, I mean like is it such a—”

“I hear that a lot of patties—women like Ms. Cumali—are sold for sex to wealthy clients.”

A series of expressions cross Seb Gatesman’s face, rippling like wind across a flag.

First, default: indignation, fury, clownish, comical, he’s outraged how could you even—if you weren’t such a stand-up guy and I wasn’t so reasonable I’d

This phase lasted a few seconds, then died before Theo’s steady blinking gaze.

Second, cheeky: hey, actually, you know what, you and me, you and me, men like us, we’re men of the world we know how it and it’s not illegal so long as you pay for the indemnity is it it’s not illegal it’s just expensive and if these girls they want to make a pretty buck then well who are we?

Finally: a shrug.

In answer to most things, Seb Gatesman has a shrug.

Does it matter?

Does any of this fucking matter?

And despite himself, another flash across Seb Gatesman’s face, for there was a night not so long ago when a girl came off the patty line and he sat her down and said, “You’ve had it tough I get that, but here we help our own if they help us if you play ball with me I’ll…”

Fuck me that had been one hell of a—she had totally known what he needed and…

Standing in the autumn garden, wet leaves beneath his feet, popped red berries crushed underfoot on the flagstone path, Theo watches the journey of the mind across Gatesman’s face, and feels suddenly hot, and wants to be somewhere else, and has to force himself to keep looking the other man in the eye. “Was… Ms. Cumali part of this arrangement?” he blurted, moving his briefcase from one hand to the other, feeling suddenly short, awkward against the lounging sprawl of Gatesman.

“Nah. Look I’m not supposed to talk about this, will this be in a…”

“The report is about Ms. Cumali’s murder, not her work. Unless it’s relevant I don’t see why you need to be…”

“Only I’ve got family I’ve got—”

“If you cooperate, I’m sure I can keep your name out of this. Now the arrangement, the… uh… the providing of physical services to wealthy gentlemen…”

“Some women do it. It’s a choice.”

“Ms. Cumali didn’t participate?”

“Nah. Coulda made a couple of quid if she’d played it right, but you could see she was trouble, sometimes you can get paid for that too—a biter a screamer there’s a market for everything but when supply outpaces demand…”

Once again Gatesman’s thoughts deteriorated into a shrug. Economics: what’s a guy to do? What’s a stand-up guy to do?

Theo grunts: “I need to know Ms. Cumali’s movements for the last two months.”

“Uh, I don’t know if like I can… is this like… part of your audit? Only I’ve never heard of it being so…”

“Have you ever been audited, Mr. Gatesman? As victim or perpetrator, I mean?”

A shifting of weight that wants to give way to another shake of the shoulders, and wisely doesn’t go through with the motion.

A silent conversation, conducted in great detail in meeting eyes.

Seb, phone now forgotten in his hand, wondering what Theo knows.

Theo, matching his gaze, and at the back of his mind a few words blurted by Dani while he tried to pretend she didn’t exist, and they hadn’t been children together, and that her daughter wasn’t also his.

I’ve got this boss. Gatesman. I got dirt, and now he’s fucking scared of me. Embezzling from his bosses, naughty. He’s scared and I can ask for any job I want, and I said—I want into the Ministry. Get me into the Ministry.

The Company has no problem with Seb sleeping with his charges, using them for his own power and sex. In many ways, that just makes it easier to turn a profit, get them used to the idea that this is it, all that there’ll ever be, break them early. They’re just patty-line whores and anyway, using women, it was a story as old as time, no point punishing natural instincts, not when Seb’s performance indicators were so positive.

But corporate embezzlement… for such a crime Theo had handed out indemnities that cost more than murder.

And Seb looked Theo in the eye and saw the truth of it, and looked away, remembered the phone in his hand, put it back in his pocket, and was for the briefest of moments afraid.

“So uh… not sure I can get you the last two months but I could maybe see if…”

“Her pay record should include details of her shifts, yes?”

“Yeah I guess that…”

Theo’s head turned a little to one side, and the other man didn’t meet his eyes.

“Did Ms. Cumali ever request a specific shift?”

“Yeah. Sometimes she asked for stuff.”

“Did you give it to her?”

“I respect my employees,” intoned Gatesman—shutting down now, fear will have that effect, “so if I could help her I would.”

“What shifts?”

“Some office stuff. Cleaning after hours. Said she liked the quiet.”

“Which office stuff?”

“Government buildings, that sort of thing.”

“Which buildings?”

“Ministry of Civic Responsibility, mostly.”

“Doing what?”

“Cleaning.”

“Anything else?”

“Not really.”

“Anything leap to mind, small details, it can be so easy sometimes for these things to be…”

“She wanted to be sent to this swanky do, couple of weeks ago. Big house, something corporate.”

“Did she say why?”

“No.”

Her exact words were in fact: You don’t fuck with me, I won’t fuck with you, you fucking get me?

Seb Gatesman had understood and given her what she wanted. For now. One day he’d make her pay—he’d make her fucking suck his—but not yet not until he’d found where she was keeping the pictures he needed to get the photos off the bitch before he could

“And where was this corporate event?”

“Some place… Danesmoor Hall.”

“And this was recent?”

“Coupla weeks ago. You know it’s a busy job, we’ve been really… you know. You know. Dani murdered. Murdered. It’s not every day that you get—I mean you hear but you sure she didn’t top herself?”

“Very sure.”

“I guess it can happen to anyone and a patty I mean more than others you’d think wouldn’t you—who’s paying for the funeral?”

“I don’t know.”

“The Company isn’t liable for that stuff, you know. We don’t do flowers or nothing.”

“You’ve been very helpful. If you think of anything then…”

“Yeah, I mean, yeah, of course. Like. Yeah.”

That was the only eulogy Dani Cumali would receive.

Time is

time was

Theo closed his eyes and tried not to think too much about time

Walked away from Seb Gatesman because there was nothing to be done, and that was how the world was.

Theo Miller sits on the bus and despite himself, no matter how hard he tries to stop it, words well up from a burning place inside, and in his mind’s eye he sees—

Lucy’s face, he doesn’t have a very clear image, it’s mostly fantasy really, but whoever she is, she’s just a child and there’s Seb Gatesman standing over her, a biter a screamer there’s a market for everything there’s a market for…

Theo Miller watches the still surface of the canal in the dead of winter night, hands in his pockets, and nearly turns the engine back on at the thoughts he cannot stop from

sees his father, when they took him to the patty line

his mother, getting on the train to Dorchester, I think I’ll have a better life somewhere new, it’s not much but I just don’t want to be part of this any more it’s not

Somewhere in the north there’s a place where they lock up girls like Lucy Cumali, worthless patty-line whores who’ll never amount to anything and they’ve got to help pay their way haven’t they, there’s a market for everything, there’s a market for…

Lucy, Lucy come on it’s for the cost of things you want to help us pay for the cost of things and he said he’ll be gentle since it’s your first time since you’re so young he’ll be so…

Dani: she’s your daughter.

She’s your daughter.

She’s your daughter.

SHE’S YOUR

Sitting on the bus, Theo Miller puts his head in his hands, closes his eyes and in an instant finds himself auditing the value of his own life.

In a rare fit of humour he decides that the cause of his death is “murdered in jealous sexual rage,” and laughs into his fingers, and still can’t make the value of his life worth more than a bedsit in Holloway, excluding stamp duty.

Chapter 29

The Hector spent a night in Cosgrove. The boat they’d seen before was moored next to Neila’s, but the lights were off, generator silent and no one home. Neila went to the water pump and found it iced up. When, after a few hits with a wrench, the handle began to move, air chunked and water did not flow. No one was manning the diesel station, and the hoses were dry.

Wrapped in scarf and hat, glove and coat, they went looking for someone in charge, knocking on the shut door of the brick house that guarded the lock gates. No one answered. Neila sucked in breath and said, “Let’s tie up properly and come back later.”

They tied off to bollards, hunkered down by the stove to eat and listen to the radio.

Next morning went to look

no one home.

As the sun went down went to look

no one answered.

At 8 p.m. Neila stepped outside to get another log off the roof from under the tarpaulin and saw a light burning in the house by the lock.

“Theo!”

They nearly ran, Theo clutching his side beneath his coat, back up to the lock gate, hammering on the door.

A woman, thin white beard beginning to sprout from between the squashed plum of her chin, answered.

“Yes?”

“Hello ma’am good evening ma’am we’re looking to buy some water and diesel and also to empty the waste tank ma’am…”

“Now?”

“We’re heading north, Nottingham, it would be—”

“It’s two quid a litre.”

“For the…”

“Water.”

“Ma’am, two pounds for the—”

“It’s better than what you’ll get further up the canal. I’m fair. Others aren’t fair. I’m fair. Do you doubt me?”

Neila hesitated, blinking in the light of the door, Theo a huddled shadow behind her. “And how much for the diesel?”

Daylight robbery I have never I have never been so in all my days it’s not how it’s not

Theo strapped the lock-box shut on the roof of Neila’s boat and let her talk, snapped the padlock in place

what does she even think charging that much we’re a community we treat each other as—she can’t set prices like that it’s absolutely

Neila’s rant paused only briefly as she popped open the waste tank, the flood of shit and chemicals slamming into her face, making her eyes water as she slid the pipe in.

And the way she spoke, the way she looked at me did you see the way she looked at me—well if she’d said something I would have just given her a piece of my mind

Theo flinched as the stench of liquid faeces hit him, carried by the faint southerly breeze.

Around the boat thin ice was beginning to form, millimetres clouding into centimetres, he prodded it with a stick and it buckled and cracked into thin wedges.

Never coming here ever again never even going to bother to

“You all right?”

The woman from the hut, she-who-sold-overpriced-diesel, stood behind the beam of her torch, looking down the towpath towards the Hector and its ranting captain.

Neila rose, the pipe in her hand vibrating as waste sloshed through it, mouth open mid-expletive. “I brought you ginger biscuits,” added the woman, shuffling towards the boat. “Keep you strong.”

She laid a foil packet on top of the boat next to Theo and patted it fondly, like a baked pet. “Well,” she added. “There it is.”

Walked away.

Neila and Theo stood in silence as the stars burst out across the sky.

In the morning the ice cracked easily when Theo poked it from the stern of the boat with the end of a broom handle. Neila hummed and hahhed and wasn’t sure if they should stay and wait for it to melt or whether they risked being trapped here if it thickened and in the end

they stayed

and ate ginger biscuits.

By two in the afternoon the ice had retreated a little, and Neila took three starts to get the engine going, and insisted on steering just in case, just because, and they headed towards Northampton.

Chapter 30

Time is

There was a Theo who lived in the past; there was this man alone whose life is worth no more than a single bed in north London and he is…

not the man who Theo is now.

Because the man called Theo is

walking to school with his baby girl, her hand in his

the first day at school she comes back and babbles, babbles about all that it was and he is a little sad when she’s not looking she’s so grown-up already it was so

and the man called Theo is

disappointed in her first choice of boyfriend, but that’s fine these things happen, it’s not fate or destiny she can make her choices and learn from her mistakes and he will be there for her if he is needed without forcing her to choose and

All these things, of course

are not real.

Lucy Rainbow Princess was sold to a fashion company specialising in parties for parents who knew their kids were destined to be on the stage and have million-dollar smiles and be the envy of all the other children at school

Lucy Rainbow Princess was arrested while drunk when she was twelve

spent her days forging five-star reviews for online retail companies

burned the gym to the ground

laughed at the flames

there’s a market for

Lying awake in the dark, Theo Miller tries not to do maths, and can’t stop himself.

If Lucy Cumali was born in March, at full term, she must have been conceived in July of the previous year. These things aren’t exact, so +/− two weeks either side of her actual conception date to account for premature or delayed birth, that’s a four-week window of opportunity. Assuming that Dani was having sex with Andy the national average—once a week, rising a little for the age range or the fact that Scotland seemed to do it more—call it 1.4 times a week, adjusting for menstruation

odds were that during the likely conception window Dani Cumali could have had sex at least 4.2 times

4.2 is a ludicrous number how do you have sex .2 of a time although there’d been some encounters back in the day but…

Call it 4 times within the probable window of conception.

And only one of those times had been with Theo and he was so certain…

Even though memory is not always…

Four times. That means there’s only really a 25 per cent chance that Lucy is his daughter.

In Tulse Hill, Theo Miller, the one who did maths and then pretended to do law, stares at the ceiling and does not sleep.

On the canal, Theo watches the reflection of fire on water and knows that if he does not find Lucy Cumali, he will waste away to a shadow, and there will be no colour in the sky, and he will never feel the touch of rain on his skin again.

Chapter 31

At the Ministry of Civic Responsibility the security man said:

“Ah here we go, Dani Cumali, cleaning staff, outside contractor, worked the night she—yes yes here it is logged in on and logged out on all here all written down proper proper as they say.”

And Theo said, “I’m auditing her murder, there’s financial irregularities in the assessment—we have to cover ourselves against liability for a misfiled claim against the prosecution if…”

They gave him access to the CCTV records because he seemed a nice man, utterly harmless, and why wouldn’t they?

Sitting in a booth behind the security office.

Fast-forwarding endless film of working day.

Stop talk cup of coffee machine is playing up again and

oh my God he said she said he said shall we go to the

WHY DOES THIS ELEVATOR ALWAYS TAKE SO LONG hey it’s here now bing!

holding hands

letting go

Lives lived at high speed a moment of tenderness is

gone

a flaming shouting match you stupid stupid how could you how could you be so

sorted now smile on the way to the

For a few weary moments Theo finds himself fixating on the potted plant in one corner of the screen. If he watches it long enough, will he see it grow?

Then he realises he’s drifting to sleep, and shakes himself, and stands up and gets bad coffee from the bad coffee machine, and returns to the desk, and forces himself to sit right on the edge of his chair and try again.

topping up the fruit bowl

sneaky playing with the phone under the desk no one will notice if

laying down the law on a matter of

lights go out

lights turn on somewhere else

go out

turn on.

Dani walks in.

Here she is.

Alive.

Dani is alive, only a few weeks in the past, right in front of his eyes.

He leans in so close his nose skims the screen, slows everything down to half speed, watches her turn on the spot, swimming through a digital fog.

She wears cleaning uniform, a new badge pinned to her chest.

The uniform is blue, but Theo only knows this because he’s seen it before. On the screen it could be anything, any different shade of grey.

For a moment she looks at the camera, she might be looking at him, and the shock of it is so great he falls back in his chair like a man punched in the chest

and realises he wants to look away

and forces himself to watch.

Dani arriving at the service entrance, filling in paperwork on her first day, yes she’s been checked she’s got the—hold on it’s right here it’s…

Big duffel bag full of clothes to change into and cleaning products because she likes to bring some of her own she often thinks the stuff you have here is, well…

The security guard searches her bag on the first two days, then gets bored and gives up and smiles her through, known now, how you doing luv how you

Dani cleaning.

Desks.

Computer screens.

Taking the trash out.

Scrubbing the toilets.

Scouring the sinks.

Emptying the grounds from the coffee machine. Who’d have thought something that made a drink that bad had anything organic in it?

She leaves the trash bags by the lift, to take downstairs with her in a big bundle of white.

Collects them as the last act of her work.

Goes into the lift

downstairs

emerges

vanishes off screen

reappears a few seconds later on a different camera

vanishes

reappears

puts the trash in big green bins round the back of the building and is

the same

the same

the same

three—four—days

Theo’s nose drifts back towards the screen. Even the face of Dani cannot keep him awake, dead Dani dead, he didn’t actually see her die he didn’t see her face with the bullet in it until the photo came but he knew and still has a place to doubt the truth

dead Dani dead.

On the fifth day she gets into the elevator with three bags of white trash

leaves the camera

emerges

vanishes

emerges

goes to the bins with

two bags of trash.

Theo sits up, head foggy, mind adrift, looks again.

Two bags of trash.

She puts them in the bins and vanishes.

Stays out of camera shot for nearly five minutes.

Re-emerges, swiping her security badge out at the service door and

does not look at the security camera and

leaves.

Theo scours the cameras.

He can’t see can’t find any sign of

the third bag.

Looks again.

Arrives, cleans, collects the trash, gets into the lift, gets out of the lift, turns the corner with her three bags of

re-emerges into the camera shot carrying only two.

Theo went downstairs, following half-seen geography captured on CCTV, stepped into the dead zone in the lower corridors, pipes overhead, foil wrapped around the heating units, walls that had once been painted green, then yellow, and were now a chipped collage of both.

Walked through the place where the cameras didn’t see.

Found the room on his second sweep.

Inside: a shredder, a photocopier, a stool and a sign showing the price of postage and packaging for oversized letters nine years ago. Very little of the equipment had been used for a long time. A single fluorescent tube shone overhead, flanked either side by two broken friends. A big green bin behind the shredder contained the soft tattered strings of graphs and documents long ago destroyed, letters and numbers forming strange dunes as he ran his fingers through them. He dug down into the paper, not for any particular reason other than the pleasure of sensation, and found the newspapers.

He pulled them out.

Trashy tabloids, free at the local Underground station, 40 per cent advertising, 50 per cent celebrity pop-talk, 8 per cent sport and 2 per cent rumours of death and environmental catastrophe in less important places than here.

affair scandal actor pop icon party drunk exposed footballer pregnancy sex naked downturn argument divorce

He pulled out a wedge and checked the date. The last was from a few days ago, and once he dug deeper, he found nearly thirty copies.

He drifted back to the security booth, replayed Dani’s movements on that date.

Arrive

upstairs

clean

vacuum

take the trash down

three bags in the elevator two when she

He froze the image just as she vanished out of frame, thought about what he was seeing. Her entrance and her exit both took her past the room with the shredder. He zoomed in on her arriving, exiting, looked at the duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

Bulky both ways in, but on the way out the shape had changed.

Sat back to think.

Began to laugh, and had to stop himself abruptly when a guard popped his head inside the booth to make sure he was all right.

In the evening.

He looked up “Danesmoor” from an internet café in Bermondsey.

Ancestral home. Nice garden. Areas open to the public four days a week, guided tours on the first and third Sundays of the month. Family seat of the Marquess of Mantell, title currently held by Philip Arnslade son of Helen Arnslade wife of…

He stopped.

Got himself another coffee, even though the first was still buzzing through his mind.

Sat back again. Looked up Helen Arnslade. A picture of a woman, mid-sixties, posed formally besides a bust of her dead husband, pearls at her neck, hands clasped, proud of her home, dedicated to her duty. The captain read: “Lady Helen Continues to Set the Standard for the Shooting Season.”

The photo was from several years ago. On the next page was an image of her son, proudly sporting a double-barrelled shotgun and a felt cap. He couldn’t find anything more recent. No interviews, appearances, social media; just silence and a formal picture of a woman with sealed lips who knew how to throw a party for men who liked their meat bloody.

There’s this woman, her name is Helen, she’s seen the pits, she’s got the…

Dani hadn’t said anything more about the woman called Helen. It was a common enough name. In its way.He looked at the picture of her son, forced himself to stare.

The face was familiar to everyone, in the distracted way of someone everyone knew without knowing how. The minister of fiscal efficiency had long been tipped for the top job; tipped so long that people were beginning to speculate he had other plans altogether. Something in the Company, perhaps. He’d worked for the Company before politics. The Company liked to share its expertise with government; things were so much easier when you spoke the same language.

Light brown hair on a face of long curves drooping down towards a winning, stapled smile; a swell of forehead above the eyes, a sudden drop into sallowness, another burst of bone below at high cheekbones, a long droop into the cheeks and a final, triumphant protuberance of expression at his lips, as they danced, delighted, around phrases like:

“The ongoing strong economic growth in the services sector is a direct consequence of cutting taxes to those ordinary decent working middle-class people who give so much to the nation.”

Theo had seen that face when it was younger. It had been the face of a man who couldn’t understand why a woman whose education had been paid for by his father didn’t appreciate the full nature of her commitments.

Philip Arnslade pulls the trigger by the river, and a boy dies, and as he dies, the boy who will be Theo thinks he falls too, watches the sky wheel overhead, feels the bullet in his lung, drinks blood and cannot breathe, the grass is wet and the earth punches into his back as he hits the ground and he cannot move can’t believe that he cannot move as Philip Arnslade of Danesmoor Hall walks over and

Philip Arnslade is a king, born to rule, and nothing stands in his way.

As the night settled

Theo returned to Sidcup.

Three women guarded the estate, as always. One had a child on her lap, another lost in thought, or prayer.

“Who are you?” demanded one, and immediately another:

“I remember him. He was here when Dani died.”

Hostility, plain and clear, one woman reaching for her pocket, the child sat bouncing on her mother’s knee glaring, her face a fixture of compressed concentration and dislike, he had no idea one so young could find such depth of feeling in her soul.

“I was Dani’s friend,” he replied, hands folded in front of him, back straight, head down. “I knew her from Shawford.”

“Could be anyone”

“Can’t trust”

“Could be one of the filth”

“Men!”

“Fucking coming here and giving it”

Theo blurted, “I’m Lucy’s father.”

The women hesitated, the child’s face flushing brilliant red with the effort of rage she was putting into this moment. Then her mother put a hand on her shoulder, and all at once the infant relaxed, beaming proudly into her parent’s eyes, asking with her suddenly lightened smile, delightful eyes—Did I do well? Did I hate well enough?

“Come with me,” said a woman and stood up, nodding at her sisters of the guard, and Theo followed.

They walked through the estate. No lights shone in the windows, no creatures stirred. Far off, the sound of the motorway; across the stubby grass, a torn plastic bag, a tumbled can oozing fizzy drink. A banner was slung across three different windows, huge and torn by the wind, the letters sometimes visible, sometimes twisted into obscure tangles as the stitched-together sheets on which they were written caught together.

jobs justice and

He couldn’t make out the last word.

“Dani was one of us,” the woman grunted as they walked together towards the door. “She was a patty from the women’s line. We tried being with the men, but when you spend your days in the women’s prison, in the men’s prison, these things—you spend so much time thinking about what it’ll be like that when you actually try to be together it’s hard, sometimes, to see what’s real and what’s not. So here we are. Sometimes the queen of the patties sends us a few things. She’s got a court in the north. We have to stick together, us sisters, that’s what the queen says. What’s your name?”

“Theo.”

“Theo what?”

“Theo Miller.”

“She never mentioned you.”

“Did she mention someone from home? Someone she grew up with?”

“No.”

A little laugh that vanished instantly. “That’s me too.”

She shrugged. None of her affair.

From an open window a sudden rising of a voice, female, coming high and shrill, reaching a crescendo of fury

gurgling away

dying.

The woman walked, and seemed undisturbed.

The rage rites of the patties were something Theo did not enquire into.

Coming to Dani’s door

shut

lights out

no sign the police had been

or gone

or cared.

She said, to no one in particular, “I stalked a woman called Naomi. I stalked her for five years. I told her I’d rape her, with a bottle, with a stick, I described it all so she’d understand. I sent postcards to her sister the day her kids were born, congratulating them on the birth and telling them to enjoy their kids while it lasted. I thought it was funny. It was funny. It was very, very funny.”

Sighed, waving at the door.

“The police said they’d send someone to clean the blood, but no one came. We’re saving up for some bleach.”

Theo walked inside. The woman followed.

Up the stairs, pushed open the door

the stench of brain, rotting flesh it was still on the floor bits of her brain on the floor it hadn’t been real until this moment Theo

guessed at a bathroom and managed to vomit into the sink before it was too late, acid in his nose, up his nostrils he was…

The woman stood behind him, waiting, arms folded, leaning against the wall, lost in her own thoughts. There was no water in the taps to wash his puke away, but she didn’t seem to care, and he felt ashamed.

Theo returned to the bedroom, tried again.

The room had been searched. Drawers opened, mattress turned over, cupboard torn apart, clothes ripped out. Had that been the way it was when he stood in this door, looking on the feet of Dani’s corpse?

He thought that yes, it had been Seph Atkins who searched the room and had she found…

“Has anyone touched the window?” he asked.

His guide shrugged.

The window still half-open, letting in cold air, taking some of the stench off.

There was no way to avoid Dani’s blood, the sprays of the policemen as they’d squirted something orange around the body. He looked out of the window, down to the hedge below. If you’d been fast, you could have thrown a mobile phone out of the window at the right angle to land in the privet hedge, a desperate act at the sound of footsteps, an act that acknowledged in an instant that it was too late, you were done, nowhere to hide.

“Papers,” he blurted, turning away. “Did she have any papers?”

The woman nodded, once, and led him down to the concrete back patio behind the house. Between the overgrown brambles and stinging nettles, someone had cleared the space for a crooked child’s swing, the parts salvaged from a skip and strapped back together with tape and long, string-wrapped branches. Someone else had drawn the outline of a rat’s corpse in pink chalk.

A metal bucket, knee-high, stood in a corner. The ashes were cold. Discarded half-matches formed a halo around the edge.

He sifted through the blackened crumbs of paper, found a white corner.

The words vanished into char.

“She was down here a lot. Burning things. People joined her. They liked the fire. Sometimes the biters would come, the zeroes, and they’d sit and rock and scream and that. Neighbours hated it, but we respect those things round here. You gotta get it out of your system. You gotta let it out. You gotta let it go so you can keep going.”

“You’ve been very helpful.”

“One of ours let the killer in, of course. One of ours did it for the cash. I get that, we could all do with the dough, but when we find her… are you really the kid’s dad? For real?”

“Yes. I am.”

“You should do better. You should.”

Theo cycled home, and the route seemed shorter tonight than it had last time he made the journey.

Chapter 32

Neila drew cards the moment they moored on the outskirts of Northampton, where the canal divided towards the River Nene.

Knight of cups, ten of cups, the Fool (inverted), nine of swords, the High Priestess, three of cups, seven of wands, the Tower, the Hanged Man (inverted).

She stared at them long and hard, realised she didn’t know what they meant, couldn’t find any comfort or meaning in them. Usually, no matter what she drew, there was something that gave purpose, direction to her life. Today her mind seemed frozen, trapped, looking at images without meaning. For the first time in her life she drew nine more.

Four of cups, Temperance, the Chariot, the World, six of staves, the Stars (inverted), four of swords, six of swords, the Hanged Man (inverted).

A guard from the university was at the side of the boat within ten minutes. Who are you? What are you doing here? I’m from the business school. There’s a business school next to the station, we have to keep an eye out because this is a protected space for our students; we promised our students that they’d be safe here…

No.

Our students do not cross the canal.

They don’t go to—are you joking with me, lady, are you—no, of course they don’t go to… we abandoned the northern campus two years ago because we couldn’t guarantee the safety of

87 per cent satisfaction rate, as you’re asking, 94 per cent in the arts. We lost a lot of lecturers, though, when the new system came in. They said that the criteria meant they had to be nice to their students, instead of making them learn. They said that the less homework they gave, the better their overall assessments. The better their overall assessments the more money they could make. Everyone’s gotta eat.

Ginger biscuits? Really? Well as you’re offering I mean don’t tell anyone it’s just

oh thank you these are the best they just really

look, I don’t mind you staying but the evening shift guy he’s going to be because this is a protected space it’s a place of safety so

just to let you know.

And don’t cross to the other side.

They moved the boat away from the bright glass walls of the business school, the men in black who prowled its edges. At the mooring point they found the narrowboat they’d seen a few nights before, an old woman stood with a blowtorch pressed against the air intake, cursing under her breath.

Neila went to help, smiling, hello again, and revved the engine as the woman pushed fire into the intake, and after a little while the engine reluctantly spat into full, chugging life, and the woman said thank you kindly but it’s getting dark now

can I offer you tea

and Neila said thank you but no, no, I’ll be all right, I’ve got…

And stopped herself before admitting to the existence of Theo, making a brew in the Hector.

In the evening, barely an hour after sunset, there was a sound like the howling of wolves.

It came from the darkness to the left of the canal and filled the sky above the streets where the lights had been cut off.

Blood between their teeth, chins craning to the hidden moon the children raised their heads and howled

howled

howled!

And in the darkness the others answered and shrieked their darknesses to the sky, the sound echoing off the water, the cry of the hunter, the predator that drinks the hot fresh juices from a still-beating heart

hoooowwwwwwlllllll!!!

Around the business school, the security men shut their students in and told them to wait until the buses came, secured with metal plates against reflective glass, a driver who kept a stun gun lodged between handbrake and gear stick

hoooooowwwwlllll!!!

Neila did not sleep, and neither did Theo.

At 1 a.m. they met each other, both going to the kitchen sink for a little more water.

Theo said, “There’s a queen of the patties. They say she was one of the first, the oldest—the first woman they ever condemned to make burgers on the patty line. Half the meat they use is wasted anyway, but it doesn’t matter. The government subsidises the companies that run the prison, to make sure they make a profit so they can carry on being efficient rehabilitators, says it’s better that way, cheaper in the long run, so the companies don’t worry if they waste stuff. There’s mountains of minced meat at the back of the yard, the flies are so thick it looks like a living thing. My dad died on the patty line, but the contracts say that the government can’t sue for negligence and why would they? Only a patty. Only another patty.”

Little bodies darted by the window, little figures ran along the canal.

They sat together, close to the half-orange embers of the stove, as the voices were raised around the town, screaming at the dark.

“The queen says it’s good to scream. Good to rage. If you don’t get it out of your system then you’re not being honest to yourself. You’re just pretending that everything is okay. That this… this shit, this nothing-nowhere you’ve got, this dream that you swallowed whole when you were a kid because dreams weren’t for the likes of you… you pretend that’s okay. You live your life as a grey one, one of the zeroes who’ll die alone begging for Company scraps, because you didn’t have the guts to look at yourself and say yes. Yes. This is fucked-up. And no. No. This isn’t my fault. This was done to me. The world… did this to me. Accept that, she says, and you have seen the truth of the patty line, and the only thing that is right is the screaming, the raging, the burning and the truth of the flame. And when you’ve done that, then you can find yourself again, and the quiet place inside that will let you take control. That’s the creed of the patty queen. That’s what she told them, that’s why they have these prayers…”

Blessed are her hands blessed is the water beneath her fingers blessed are the ones who blaze blessed are those who wait in shadows…

Neila warmed her hands by the stove and murmured, “All it is is screaming. That’s all they do. It doesn’t change anything.”

They sat in silence a little while.

Theo said, “You sleep, and I’ll wake, and in an hour I’ll sleep, and you wake,” and Neila nodded and lay down on the couch without another word, and pulled the blankets that covered Theo over her head, and didn’t notice his smell on them, and slept for an hour, and woke feeling refreshed, and they swapped and just after 4 a.m…

…little hands thump thump thumping against the side of her boat thump thump thump not hard just a patter of flesh thump thump thump palm against steel, a dozen, two dozen, three, the children went running

the youngest barely three years old, carried by her elder sister they ran along the pavement in their torn shoes and flapping rags, not howling now, but tip-toe tapping in the darkness

The slapping of their hands against the boat woke Theo, a jump-start, and he pulled the blanket tight and looked like a man in search of a weapon, but Neila shook her head and whispered:

“It’s just the children. Just the children. They’ll pass. They’ll pass.”

And the children did, but before they went

A smash in the night!

Something metal!

Someone fell

a squeak of voices and

another crash, hollow across the water, and more disturbing perhaps a ripple against the boat, a gentle rocking, what has disturbed the surface of the canal so much

but then that too passed.

And Theo slept, and Neila waited, watching, until it was her turn to sleep again.

They rose at sunrise and found a child, dead, face down in the water. Where she’d fallen the thin ice had cracked, then begun to seal back around her, keeping her in place where she’d landed. She wore blue rubber boots and a huge red puffer coat. Her hair was black, in two bunches held up with plastic dragonfly-adorned clips. The blood from the wound in her scalp had been trapped in the ice, retaining its crimson brilliance. Neila stared at the corpse and thought she was going to cry. Theo stared at the body and thought: probably about £120,000, £130,000 at a pinch, depending on her manner of death, add an investigation cost of course these things can spiral out of control unless you’re thoughtful about the fiscal consequences of…

And stopped.

And for a moment thought he saw Lucy there.

Thought he was going to be sick, and despised himself and everything he had become.

The locks on the doors into the narrowboat moored beyond theirs were broken. Potted plants on the roof had been smashed, spilling black, rich soil down the sides and onto the towpath. Someone had cut the rope to one bollard, but missed the second or not been bothered by it, so the boat drifted, bum out, away from the child in the water.

Neila went round to the prow, knocked tentatively on the half-open metal door, called out the old woman’s name, pushed the door back, peeked inside.

The woman sat in the half-gloom, her face illuminated by the rising daylight through the portholes.

There was remarkably little blood on her face or on her hands. Remarkably little on the kitchen knife she still held clutched in front of her. Neila looked, and wondered if maybe the blood wasn’t real, and decided it was.

She called the woman’s name again—Marta, Marta, can you…?

The woman didn’t stir.

“Marta, it’s Neila. Marta are you… are you hurt? Did they…”

The woman didn’t raise her head, and held the knife close.

Theo peeked in behind Neila.

Saw the old woman.

Saw the blood.

Looked away.

At the sky and the water, at the city and the business school behind them, gearing up again into full swing, at the girl floating face down in the water.

He stepped inside the cabin.

Crossed slowly to the woman.

Squatted down in front of her.

Put his hand over hers, cradling the fingers that held the knife.

Her eyes drifted to his face, and her fingers tightened on the handle.

“Blessed are the mothers,” he whispered. “Blessed are the children. Blessed is the dawn on the day of release. Blessed is the mist that rises by the river.”

Her eyes dropped down again, her lips hung loose on a crackle-boned jaw.

Theo took the knife without a word, laid it on the counter to one side.

Burned-down incense sticks sat in a blue ceramic holder on the fold-down dining table. A half-finished copy of a romantic novel about a family in the south of France lay on the couch. The kettle on the stove had boiled itself dry, leaving a steaming scar on the ceiling above.

The woman stared at nothing as Theo held her hands.

He waited

waited

waited

as all things waited

for the woman at last to blink, look him in the eye, feel his skin on hers and say, “They came onto my boat.”

Theo nodded once, squeezed her hands, let go, walked away.

Neila called the police.

Theo said, “I can’t be here… if the police come…”

She replied, “There’s water at Nether Heyford. I’ll find you, I promise I’ll find you…”

To Neila’s surprise, the police came.

Marta had comprehensive security coverage. She turned out to be rich, had chosen to live on the canal with savings from managing space on cargo vessels. She’d sold her house, her second home in the Cotswolds Community, most of her ninety-plus pairs of shoes, her ex-husband’s wine collection, and now she sailed the waterways for reasons that no one knew. Because she loved it, perhaps?

And in the night the children had come and they had broken into her boat and she had panicked she’d simply panicked and…

They used long hooks to fish the girl out. It took two strong men to haul her onto land, ice water streaming from the tops of her boots.

“It’s all right, love,” said one of the coppers as they handcuffed the old woman and led her away. “Kid you popped was one of the children. Everyone knows you get a discount for that sort of thing.”

Marta cried silently when the man said that, though she hadn’t wept until that moment.

When the police were gone

Theo didn’t come back.

Marta’s narrowboat drifted, stern out, and after a while Neila realised no one was coming for it, so she climbed on board, slid along the narrow edge of the boat to the rear, threw a rope to shore.

Tied off.

Had a look at the smashed door, shattered lock, couldn’t see an easy way to repair it, thought of getting a new one for when Marta came back.

Couldn’t think of a way to make that work out, didn’t know if…

Let herself inside.

Cleaned up a bit.

Righted a smashed picture frame, Marta and a child, maybe a son?

Swept the glass up, threw it away.

Cleared out the stove, made the bed, put cups back in the cupboard, straightened everything out, didn’t want to do anything more, felt intrusive, felt that what she was doing wasn’t even close to enough.

In the end, she put a note in the window.

The note wouldn’t buy Marta much time before she exceeded her permit to moor, but maybe someone would come and help save the boat before the scavengers split it open and stripped it down.

At sunset Theo did not appear.

Neila slept badly.

There was no howling in the night.

The streets were silent, except for a voice, raised shortly after midnight, a child singing in the dark, somewhere beyond the water.

As suddenly as the voice had begun singing, it stopped, and was not heard again.

“Cut his throat with a rusty cleaver,” sang Neila under her breath as she turned the lights down. “Cut his throat with a rusty cleaver…”

By the water

to the north

the man called Theo thinks he hears singing in the distance but can’t make out the words.

“Blessed are the ones who walk,” he whispers under his breath as he trudges, head down, hands buried, through the night. “Blessed are they who remember and fear…”

In the houses where the children live

the school burned down and the parents had no place to go there is only

the moon

the night

the howling at the sky

A girl is dead and the children are silent in the corners of the crowded rooms.

In the police station Marta said, “I won’t pay for an indemnity. I won’t pay. I won’t pay for the indemnity. I must pay some other way.”

And the coppers shake their heads in disbelief, and one brings her a cup of tea and sits next to her and whispers, “You don’t want to go to the patty line, luv. Not at your age. You won’t make it a year, it’s the work you see, it’s just the work, round here you gotta make Cornish pasties and I like a pasty I do lovely jubbly but the fat you know the fat? You take a bite and the fat it just burns like—you don’t want to get burned. It was just a kid you killed. Just a kid. She wasn’t going to be nothing, you don’t have to—it was just a kid. Pay the indemnity. They’re giving you that discount anyway!”

And in the office above the cells:

“What do you mean, two sets of fingerprints?”

“Two sets on the knife, and this second set you got there’s a…”

On the table in front of the man in charge, a kitchen knife, the blood dry, white forensic dust on the handle where another man’s hand gently prised the weapon away from an old woman’s fingers.

They wouldn’t have bothered to fingerprint it at all if the old biddy hadn’t been quite so peculiar about her need to be punished.

In London a phone rings.

“Mr. Markse? We’ve found a fingerprint and you won’t believe who it…”

The clouds skim across the moon.

On the towpath Theo stops suddenly, dead in his tracks, and sees a heron. It stands on one leg where a ledge creates a shallow step of water, waiting to strike with its raised claw, and does not move or turn its head.

He stares at it for a very, very long time

then raises one leg

and makes like a heron.

For a little while.

Chapter 33

The police had an inventory of items removed from Dani’s flat

toothbrush hairbrush shoes bedside cup

splatter evidence blood evidence fingerprints DNA not that anyone would

A confession has been received, and given the low estimated value of the indemnity against Ms. Cumali’s death, it is not considered necessary at this time to run any more tests on…

Theo went through the list, hunched in the low light of his bedroom, until he found her mobile phone.

He called the station.

“Paddington Safelife Policing?”

“I’m from the Criminal Audit Office—if you could—thank you that is…”

Holding music, a distortion of a tune he thought he once knew from his childhood. Or maybe all music just sounded the same these days; it was hard to tell.

“Hello? Who am I speaking to?”

“Hello, yes, my name is Theo Miller I’m from the CAO auditing the Cumali case. I just had a couple of questions…”

“Auditing?”

“Yes for the audit I’m—”

“What do you need?” Brisk, bored, the copper was mid-email and now he’s got to deal with this, his shift is ending and he just knows his missus has ruined the dinner, she always does if he gets back soon though he might be able to stop her from making it worse.

“The inventory gave a mobile phone as being part of Ms. Cumali’s possessions. I’m wondering if I can drop in tomorrow to access it?”

“Why do you need—”

“There’s a suggestion of cyber-crime which might affect—you know how it is if the defence find this stuff before we do they can argue an unfair indemnity against the value of…”

“Hold on. Hold on. Just hold a moment will you if the…”

More music. Electric guitar. Electric keys. A song about discovering how sexy you are and hoping all the women will notice your starlight smile your million-dollar sparkle your sky-high…

“Mr. Miller?”

“Still here.”

“I don’t have any record of a phone.”

“In the file I’m holding…”

“No, no record definitely I’ve just—”

“It says that—”

“There’s nothing entered into evidence there’s no sign that I’m sorry but you might be looking at the wrong—what’s your serial number?”

“I’ll cross-check with the office tomorrow thank you you’ve been very…”

Lying awake, watching the ceiling.

If he closes his eyes he can for a moment imagine the world above, he is rising like an angel, spreading wings of light and dancing, dancing in the clouds, ice-cold crystals on his skin and yet it doesn’t hurt, thin air in his lungs and yet breathing just makes him lighter, soaring, naked, beautiful, liberated and free.

And all the people of the city they fly too, the dreamers and the sleepers, the staring children and the distant old ladies drifting before the TV, they close their eyes and soar, majestic in golden light, they dance around each other like mating songbirds, wings tucking in close as they twist and twist, ribbons of DNA across the moon, meteors ripping the stars in two as they…

there’s a market for everything

She’s your daughter. She’s your daughter. She’s

Sits up gasping for breath, had dozed and not even noticed it, sweat and terror and

lies back to sleep, and does not dare close his eyes, and is scared to dream.

Chapter 34

Fifteen years before, in a pub in Oxford:

The duellists’ insurance papers required witnesses.

The boy witnessed Theo’s; the real Theo, the one who actually believed in something. Anything.

Simon Fardell witnessed Philip Arnslade’s. They signed it at a pub round the corner from St. John’s on a drizzling afternoon. The rugby club were in, and had trained most triumphantly and roared and cheered and clawed at the backside of any creature that passed, sex, age or willingness unimportant.

After they had signed, the boy sat with Simon Fardell to discuss details.

“The indemnity gives each party five shots. We have to make sure that the terms aren’t violated. I have these guns from home which I think would be appropriate, we can guarantee they fire true and of course the indemnity doesn’t cover us so I’ve drawn up a formal letter of protest requesting both parties to cease which we can sign and file in case the police attempt to give us an accessory charge, and the lawyer assures me that—”

“I haven’t seen the letter…”

“Don’t worry about that it’s really an irrelevance, the police won’t actually bother—and the discretion clause means that if it did go to court both parties would be subject to litigation regardless of who survives and I’m training to be a lawyer you know are you…”

“Maths.”

“Really? Who’s your sponsor? There’s a whole section of index-based market leveraging which is—”

“I don’t have a sponsor.”

“Oh. I just thought… I mean you seem so…”

“I self-funded.”

“Really? Never would have guessed. Anyway, as I was saying the discretion clause so neither family can sue in open civil court or defame litigate or libel the surviving party of the…”

At sunset, by the river, in the far-off half-dream of the past, the boy stood with Simon Fardell by the thin, reedy banks of the Thames and held a gun between two fingertips, and had never held a gun before, no not even with his dad doing all the things they said his dad had done, and Simon tutted and exclaimed:

“The safety here, you see, you take a grip, two hands underneath—have you never really done this before? Now sight down here, two points see two on the barrel that’s it now we’re at thirty paces which is how far they will be and—shoot!”

The boy shot, and missed by a mile.

“For goodness’ sake, squeeze the trigger just squeeze it, breathe out and…”

“Are we allowed to do this, I mean the noise, won’t the police come, isn’t it…”

“I know the chap who owns this land. Don’t worry about it, the farmers around here, the people, it’s fine so now deep breath and exhale and…”

The boy fired, and this time he hit the edge of the target tacked to a high-packed hay bale.

“Good! Better! Now, fire a few, get a feel for it, don’t lock the arms, don’t fight the recoil that’s how you—excellent! Would you say that this weapon fires straight?”

“I… yes. I suppose I would.”

“You’ll need to sign the release here for the documents it’s—good good good so here’s your copy and here’s mine and I’ll just test my gun and of course we’ll lock the weapons up afterwards, two boxes two keys, prevent tampering, photo evidence all part of protecting ourselves against—God that’s a great gun, the kick of it it’s just so…”

“Does it have to be these guns?”

“What do you mean?”

“It seems… you said it was a .45 and I thought maybe they’d use a lower calibre, maybe .22 I mean that way they could…”

“What a curious idea!”

“This duel, I mean forgetting that it’s illegal for a moment, forgetting that it’s…”

“Illegal but affordable.”

“… illegal it seems to me that the cause of the fight is so I mean it’s just so ridiculous isn’t it fundamentally it’s…”

“Philip doesn’t feel it’s ridiculous. Nor does your man Theo.”

“But it is; it is you and I can both see that it is can’t we? You seem… very smart I don’t mean that in a—but very smart and I mean don’t we have a responsibility, a civic responsibility, a responsibility as friends I mean for God’s sake we’re talking about one of them dying!”

“We’re committed now. The papers are signed.”

“What if we swapped the bullets?”

“For .22s?”

“For blanks.”

In Shawford the sea rolls against the shingle, the chalk cliffs crumble, Dani Cumali sits on a bench dedicated to D.WRIGHT, 1944–1999, HE LOVED THE SKIES, and stares across the water and cannot remember why she sat down, and does not wish to stand.

In a time yet to come, Neila threw another log onto the stove, and closed the door as it began to hiss, two parts steam to one part smoke.

In the dreams of the man called Theo, he hears his daughter, roaring.

And in a field outside Oxford, two boys stood holding loaded guns before a wall of hay bales, waiting at the centre of the universe.

Simon Fardell, even aged twenty, looked like the man he would grow into. His place had been sponsored by a company that would soon be simply the Company. He went to lectures in a three-piece suit because he knew he needed to stand out, to make an impression. It was all about thinking ahead; he had his three-year plan, his seven-year plan and his twenty-year objectives he was…

…in many ways a very handsome boy who would grow into a handsome man. He didn’t play any team sports but worked out three times a week, kept his fair hair cut short at the sides and back, had a tiny, slightly beakish nose above a small, tight smile that flashed and faded like lightning, a notch in his chin and blue eyes which he knew were unusually dark, unusually beautiful.

“Blanks?” he mused, and the boy who would be Theo, crooked and small, smiled uneasily and realised that he knew nothing about people, or human nature, and was actually really bad at remembering faces and he should try and learn some sort of method for dealing with that.

Simon laughed, and slapped the boy on the shoulder and exclaimed, “You do have the funniest ideas! Blanks! What an incredible idea. Let them fire their five and then… well blanks! Yes I suppose I see how we could…”

That night the boy slept with the gun under his pillow and it was really uncomfortable so in the end he put it in the drawer by his bed.

And in the morning, before the sun was up, he borrowed a bicycle and pedalled out to the field by the river, with Theo Miller by his side, and they didn’t speak, and they did not go to the open-faced barn with the hay bales but stood before a line of beech trees as the sun rose and the dew melted through their shoes, and it was remarkably cold for the time of year and Theo wished he’d brought more clothes but as the sun rose higher it became hotter and hotter and he realised he was sweating a waterfall and…

Simon and Philip came on foot from up the drive, their car left, engine running, by the gate, this wouldn’t take long, and as they went to load the guns the boy looked into Simon’s eyes and saw him smile and nod and understood that to be an agreement, a confirmation of the pact they had made, and he nodded back and loaded the gun.

Can it be a bullet if there is no lead? A casing to be ejected, gunpowder but no death, he loaded blanks, five shots in total, and took the weapon to Theo and said, “Good luck,” and Theo did not smile and did not flinch and did not nod and looked like he might be sick.

And the boys stood back to back, in the traditional way, and at the command of Simon, they walked fifteen paces apart in opposite directions, and at a word

“Go!”

They turned and fired.

Theo was slightly faster, he saw Philip flinch, but then Philip shot and missed, and Theo fired again, and Philip did not fall, and they fired again, and again, and on the fourth shot

Theo staggered.

He staggers and the engine of the passing barge goes chunk chunk chunk chugger chugger chugger chugger and the man who is called Theo feels the tear in his side sewn together with cornflower-blue thread and hears gunfire in the engine chugger chugger BANG

in a field beneath the shadowed light of the rising sun Theo Miller staggers, raises his gun, fires once more, but he has had his five shots, and still Philip comes, he has one shot left now he comes closer and closer stands over Theo and the boy shouts

…sounds without words or meaning…

and Philip lowers the gun and pulls the trigger.

Theo Miller died in the ambulance.

The boy rode with him, held his hand until the paramedics pulled him away, cried and shivered and at last sat in silence.

The paramedic said, “Nothing you could have done. It took out his lung then the abdomen; he was bleeding heavily I think there was nothing it wasn’t your fault…”

Time is

days are

passing and yet the winter is

time is frozen and it is the nature of time that sometimes

The boy sat outside the morgue, and called Theo Miller’s parents.

His parents were away, out of the country. They were always out of the country. No, the maid didn’t know when they’d be back. No, she couldn’t contact them immediately. Yes, she’d pass on his message, ask them to call. Was it… was everything… was young Mr. Miller was he…

The boy hung up and sat in a white corridor outside an unnamed door, locked, a vending machine at the bottom of the hall offering sugary drinks and dried fruit snacks, a couple of porters gossiping as their patients drooped and slumbered in wheelchairs, saline bags suspended above their heads. Oh I know she’s just the worst she’s just the…

The boy waited and didn’t know what he was waiting for.

When Theo’s parents called back, it was a bad line from far away.

“Hello! Hello? Yes, I’m Mrs. Miller. I was given this number and told to call it—who are you?”

“I’ve got bad news.”

“What? Speak up it’s a terrible line hold on I’ll just go outside and… yes, that’s better, what did you say?”

“Mrs. Miller, I’ve… got some bad news. Earlier this morning Theo was… there was an accident and Theo is…”

“What? Is he in hospital? What?”

“Mrs. Miller, Theo is dead.”

“Say again? What was that? Listen this line is terrible is it your end can you…”

“Theo is dead.”

Behind the silence someone is laughing. Mrs. Miller is outside a restaurant, there’s music playing, there’s gossip and life and a car revving a very expensive engine vroom they make the sounds different for different nations the Italians you see they like to know that their engines are powerful vroom it’s all part of the

she drops to the ground

holds the phone

listens to the world

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sorry but he…”

“What happens now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is there… there are things that need to be done. There are… what happens now? Who are you? What happens now?”

The lawyer came.

“The indemnity has been registered and confirmed. Mr. Arnslade will pay £75,000 to cover the cost of the alleged felony against Mr. Miller and in addition, as a token of commiseration, he’s adding £15,000 without prejudice for the family of Mr. Miller or a named charity without in any way such gesture being an admittance of liability. The discretion clause and mutual agreement between the parties ensures the case will not result in a criminal record and all parties involved are barred from further discussion, dissemination or in any way from referencing the manner of Mr. Miller’s departure.”

There were nine people at Theo Miller’s funeral, which was held discreetly at a small church in Cumbria, near a stone cottage which the family had liked to holiday at when Theo was a child.

No one from the university came, apart from the boy.

He thought perhaps Theo’s stepmother would scream at him, attack him, rage at him, how could you do this how could you let this happen how could you be so…

…instead she held his hand like she was comforting him, like he was a brother who needed her support, her only surviving son, and Theo’s father gave a short speech about a tragedy that could not be undone, and the next day the two of them left for their apartment in Vienna and never came back.

Return to Oxford. Exams were done the results came and Theo’s name was still on the list, he’d got a 2.1, all that gin and still got a 2.1 fancy that, and no one seemed to realise that he wasn’t there to collect it; that his name when called would be spoken at an empty seat.

The discretion clause worked its magic. When you weren’t allowed to talk about a thing, sometimes it was just easier to ignore it, pretend it had never happened. Theo Miller vanished and people wondered where he was, and those who knew…

…did not answer.

The boy went back to halls, began to pack, not sure where he was going, not sure what he was meant to do now.

Realised, as he packed, that Theo Miller’s room was untouched next door. No one had come to take his things, no one had asked him to leave, the rent had left his account automatically, somehow in the notification process his bank hadn’t been informed, the discretion clause had frightened the morgue or the police from doing their thing.

The boy packed his stuff, went back to Shawford, three trains and a bus, arrived at the station with no one to meet him but…

“We should go to the beach together. You bring blankets, I’ll bring booze.”

They lay on the beach together, Dani pressed to his side, and the boy tried to say something, to apologise, to explain that he’d cocked it all up, that his dream was dead too and more, his dream had always been a lie, always, he’d thought perhaps he had a future and it had never been true there was no future there was no dream only guilt and failure and regret and the distant memory of promised light.

And Dani said:

“They didn’t extend my contract. No point. They’ve got other kids coming up through the programme now, give the job to some sixteen-year-old, not like they need much training, let them work until they’re twenty-one then give them the shove before they have to pay full wage and you just keep thinking, don’t you, you keep thinking…”

The next morning there she was, with Andy. She was going to dump him. She knew she would. It was just… really hard. Because once he was dumped, what was she supposed to do?

What was she supposed to do?

Their eyes met, and he walked on by and did not look back.

Went to the train station.

Threw his phone out of the window.

Took three trains and a bus.

Back to Oxford. Back to the safe place that had always been a lie, he never should have been there, he was never going to make it. Some mad fantasy of his patty-line dad, some hilarious criminal’s joke.

At the careers centre the woman said:

So maths but no sponsor?

Internships, perhaps, a couple of years of unpaid internships and you could absolutely… do you have any contacts, or does your family have any contacts who might be…

and your father is

I see

for

driving the van.

Well I’m not saying it’s going to affect your career prospects, not at all, it’s just that… well, people might see and be somewhat… you know.

And most people who do your course have sponsorship

the banks

the defence firms

the Company

it’s all about derivatives about the way in which money works, about

well.

Well.

It is so good that someone like you thinks of applying.

The day before he had to go

Back to Shawford, perhaps. Back dragging his heels, too educated to work down the chippy, too tainted to work in a bank.

Back to… wherever the hell he was meant to go next, head full of numbers and wallet full of £17.28.

He used a knife to force the lock to Theo Miller’s room.

Let himself inside.

Sat on Theo’s bed.

Flicked through his clothes.

Opened the envelope from the university reminding him of his new degree, congratulating him on his success, inviting him to attend the graduation ceremony. Unanswered emails on the laptop, which Theo had never properly password-protected. Interviews. Prospects. Future shimmering like dawn’s first light.

Ran his fingers down the black gown on the back of Theo’s door, longer sleeves than the boy had ever had, a scholar’s sleeves, indicative of great academic promise, a badge of honour and…

Picked it up.

Tried it out for size.

Swirled, feeling the sleeves flap limply around his body.

Stared at his face in the mirror.

Pushed his hair back from his forehead. Wondered how he’d look with a beard.

Found Theo’s passport in a shoebox at the bottom of the cupboard.

Sat a while longer on the edge of the bed.

Put the passport in his pocket and went to the local pharmacy to get some new photos taken.

Chapter 35

A few days after Dani died, Theo returned to work.

His grandmother’s funeral had been very sad very sad indeed but also it was her time and he didn’t really want to talk about it…

Which was a relief, as no one wanted to talk to him about it either.

A few good cases had come through. A wealthy landlord had burned alive a former tenant who was harassing him for the return of his deposit. The case was especially lovely because it turned out the tenant was a trustee for a charity that helped terminally ill children visit petting zoos and all in all…

…£600,000, maybe even £700,000 for the murder?

The accused’s lawyer would probably barter it down to £590,000, but even so, it was an open-and-shut case and best of all, the killer could pay, it was bonus time at the Criminal Audit Office.

“My grandmother died last month,” mused Charlotte Burgess as they stood in the food queue together at lunch. “Her last words were ‘I should never have kept that damn cat.’”

The two of them considered this in silence, and Theo ordered the jacket potato with cheese and beans.

£6700 for the investigation costs because they had to do a test on the knife after the coppers decided that the

yes well the thing is she had two kids and also helped at the local community centre so that’s an extra £15,000 for the

you robbed a man with insurance the policy covers a minimum indemnity of £20,000 well that’s just how it works with

knock off ten grand because actually the guy was asking for it and

He submitted the Cumali case in the afternoon. After due consideration, charges were dropped to manslaughter, and the indemnity set at £84,000. If Edward was pleased, he didn’t show it, and Mala Choudhary sent Theo an email congratulating him on his good sense.

Theo cycled home faster than he’d ever ridden before, swerving through London streets, a driver opened her door to shout at him you stupid bloody wanker what the hell do you think…

He was gone before she could get to the juicy bits.

He picked up Dani’s phone from its hiding place above the spice cupboard in Mrs. Italiaander’s kitchen—the phone she’d thrown from the window, the one the police hadn’t found and lost—and cycled to Streatham Hill. The sun was already down, the air cold enough to make the grass crackle beneath his feet.

Found a bench.

Sat in darkness.

Turned the phone on.

There were three numbers called—his and two he didn’t recognise.

He dialled the first unknown number.

The phone was answered after two rings.

“Heya honey, what can we do for you tonight?” A voice trying hard, a little too hard, to exude sultry allure.

“Uh… I don’t really know. Who am I speaking to?”

“It’s Salome. Can I take your name?”

“Salome… who?”

A switch, a drop from sultry to something altogether more regularly seen down the pub. “Do you want me to get the missus?”

“Where are you?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what number I’ve called.”

“Wivelsfield.”

“Wivelsfield?”

“You seriously don’t know?”

“No.”

“We’re a massage parlour and luxury club experience, mister.”

“Right.”

“Luxury club experience. For men, yeah? With massage? Jesus.”

“Oh. I see.”

A slight shuffle on the other end of the line, an attempt to reassert a certain sensual musicality to the whole conversation, failing. “So you uh… interested?”

“I don’t think I am right now, thank you. Do you know a woman called Dani Cumali?”

“She’s not one of ours. Look, I’ve got to go, there are other callers, the lines are like, you know…”

“I just need to know if—”

“If you’re not buying then…”

“Can I ask—”

“Bye!”

The woman hung up.

For a while Theo sat, holding the phone, bewildered. Thought about calling back. Wasn’t sure what he could possibly say.

He dialled the second unknown number.

Waited.

Waited.

“Hello?”

“Hello, who am I speaking to?”

Silence.

A rustling, a motion, a beep.

“Hello? Hello? Is anyone…”

The line was dead.

He called back.

The phone rang, then stopped immediately.

Rang again.

Didn’t get past the first ring, before it was silenced.

Texted instead, went through various drafts, threats and challenges, wheedles and appeals to a better nature. Chose the least offensive of them all.

I knew Dani Cumali.

Hit send.

Counted to thirty.

Rang.

The phone rang a very long time. One ring before it was going to go to answerphone, a man answered.

“Yes.” He sounded tired, resigned, old.

“Who am I speaking to?”

“You first.”

“My name is Theo.”

“Theo what?”

“Just Theo. You?”

“Faris.”

“Is that…”

“Just Faris.”

“Fair enough.”

“I can’t help you.”

“I just need to ask a few questions about—”

“Don’t call me again.”

A sudden blurt; a desperate burble of words before he could be cut off. “Dani Cumali was murdered by a professional hit woman. A firm called Faircloud Associates have bought a discretion clause to close the case. Dani’s phone, the one that was registered to her, has been lost by the police. You were one of three people called from this device, which neither the killer nor the police found. One was a brothel. I am the other. I think it would be in both our interests to meet.”

time is

flying when you’re having fun

takes for ever when you’re about to have a needle shoved in your arm, it’s just one of those things

The man called Faris thinks a very long time, then says, “I can meet you in an hour.”

They met at a café near Vauxhall Bridge. The café was inside a licensed area. The bouncers checked Theo’s ID and credit rating, waved him in.

Thwump thwump thwump the sound of bass. It hurts the ears, it’s in the stomach, the kind of sound that lets you know how much food you’ve eaten lately, or if you had a liquid lunch, because you can feel it all vibrating, the soft inner sea inside your belly bouncing like the surface of the water before an earthquake thwump thwump thwump

An assault of colour.

Fuchsia, magenta, pink deepening down to red. Streaks dripping from the ceiling like blood. Across the floor, colder whites and blues, ultraviolet splotches on the floor lighting up the spilt gin and fluorescent paint, spinning green disco lights and sharp-tipped lasers burning on the retina.

Drugs too.

Theo looks for a few seconds before seeing the first pills, just there, on the table, a bit of something extra a bit of something to raise the night keep you partying stronger, harder.

If the cops catch you there’ll be an indemnity of £9150 minimum but actually the girls taking it tonight

they can pay

And more importantly the licensed area has its own security, private security on a corporate contract. It’s not that they endorse breaking the law. It’s just that cops don’t have any authority over licensed corporate business, because the law isn’t about removing choice; it’s about protecting it.

Eyes of bursting red, capillaries popping. Swollen noses, hysterical laughter, a woman sobbing in a corner, dress torn, a group of friends by the toilet door, one of their number bent over double, she didn’t make it to the sink. Let it out, honey, just let it all out.

Women in patty-line overalls, mopping up noodle-threaded puke. A parade of flesh in bikini and thong, the hottest new commodities, some are from the patty line looking to make a buck. Others too—this is just what they do. They want the money, dream of the money. Money makes the world go round.

Theo scuttles on as the security guards glower at him and his light wallet, sober face.

He found Faris in a section designed to resemble an all-American burger bar, complete with alcoholic milkshakes in chilly metal pint jugs that dripped slow condensation onto the tabletop. The sound of music was fainter here, muffled by curtains behind which waitresses in tight yellow tops and frilly white aprons negotiated with clients for more than the usual service, arms poked and scratched, veins like dead silver worms sunk into flesh.

Faris was tucked into a booth, halfway through a chicken burger with extra chilli, his beard stained with orange sauce, dark brown eyebrows drawn together. He glanced up as Theo approached, scowled, looked down at his plate, carried on with his burger.

Made a big deal of consuming it, every last bite, licking his lips, wiping his face with a napkin, spreading the detritus, putting the napkin down, picking up a single, skinny dry chip from the basket by him, taking a bite, half a chip gone, chewing with his mouth open, then the other half, licking his fingers, picking up another, watching Theo. His skin was the colour of monsoon earth, his hair was going badger grey at the temples and crown. His nails were buffed down to tiny, soft stubs. Two tendons stood out below his jaw and down his neck, like the lines of a suspension bridge.

He ate chips.

Theo waited.

Another chip and

another chip and

Theo waited.

Faris took another chip, and didn’t eat it, but held it sticky in one hand and at last met Theo’s eyes.

“So. Dani.”

“Yes.”

“When you rang…”

“I knew Dani.”

“That seems…”

“Yes?”

“Stupid thing to say to a stranger if you’re…”

“I figured we’re both…”

“In it?” Faris’s head turned a little to one side, the chip drooping between pinched fingers. “Shafted?” he added, running through options, tasting the ideas. “Up shit creek?”

“Yes.”

“How’d you get my number?”

“Found Dani’s phone. Her other phone—the one they were looking for the night she died.”

A shrug. Faris supposed someone had to find it; there are worse people than Theo. “Why’d you get involved?”

Theo hesitated, eyes drifting up as he ordered his thoughts. “Dani Cumali has a daughter. She hasn’t… hadn’t… seen her for fourteen years. She tried to blackmail me into helping. Blackmailed her boss. He got her work at the Ministry of Civic Responsibility. She stole documents. She’d get into the lift with three bags of trash and leave with only two. In her last message to me she claimed to have found something big—‘They broke the world,’ she said. I think she was looking for something to leverage against her daughter’s freedom, more blackmail. Her boss, he said this thing—‘there’s a market for everything.’ Lucy—that’s her kid—she’s on the patty line. Still a juvenile, it’s all just writing reviews, nothing… but you get stuck—these things—you get stuck and before you know it…”

Whoomp whoomp whoomp went the music and the security guards looked the other way and money switched hands and no one cared, and none of it mattered.

Theo looked at the damp bowl of sagging chips in front of Faris, and felt suddenly hungry. “Whatever Dani found in the Ministry killed her. They sent a woman called Seph Atkins. Atkins is being defended by Faircloud Associates. Faircloud Associates works for the Company, and the Company is in part run by a man called Simon Fardell. Simon Fardell is the oldest friend of Philip Arnslade, minister of fiscal efficiency. They have… shared experiences. Dani, when she blackmailed her boss, made him send her to a place called Danesmoor. Danesmoor is the ancestral home of Philip Arnslade. I’m not sure what this means yet, I’m not sure what she found, and I’m not sure I want to find out, given that they killed her for it. But I am sure that if they killed once, they’ll kill again. Before she died, Dani threw a mobile phone away—this phone.”

He laid it on the table, an ugly brick in a world of neon.

“There were three numbers on the phone. One of those is yours, one of them is mine. I thought that maybe this might create a shared need to communicate.”

He stopped, head turning a little to one side. Faris’s lips were drawn to invisibility across his mouth, a paper cut where smile, scowl, anything should have been, as if he would swallow his own features whole. Behind them a waitress in a little white apron exclaimed in a bad Texan accent, “Oh hun, you’ll just love the special!”

Faris ate a chip, picked up another, moved it towards his mouth, stopped, put it back in the basket, turned the basket so that the longest edge aligned with the bottom edge of the table, spun his empty burger plate so that the largest smear of ketchup was at the top, picked up another chip, ate half of it, put the other half back in the basket, leaned back in his chair and for a while

had absolutely nothing to say for himself.

Theo waited.

“I was a journalist,” Faris announced, a tale told too many times, the meaning sucked away into only words. “I was done for libel. The indemnity was £329,560. Few years ago, government licenses the Company to collect taxes. It was part of mainstreaming the income process blah blah blah, that shit, business efficiency taking over from creaking public authorities. Deal was, Company pays the government a guaranteed cool four hundred billion every year, just like the budget says they should, and the Company gets to keep any profit above and beyond that. They’re not allowed to set the tax rates, not officially, but of course they’re allowed to choose how they exercise their power how they…

…so they set the rates, I mean, it’s not official but everyone knows that’s what’s happening because the Company are controlling the algorithms that do the maths and you can appeal if you’ve got the cash or time but who’s got that except the rich guys and the rich guys are getting really good rates, I mean rates that would…

…and the Company is netting maybe six fifty, seven hundred billion a year. That’s a two-hundred-and-fifty-billion profit and sure, there’s some objections, people who are, like ‘That’s our money they’re taking this is tax farming they’re squeezing us dry’ but who even listens to that stuff these days? And some bleeding-heart liberals start a petition and a few try to take the whole thing to court but it was the government who made this deal and you know what? That makes it law. That means no one did anything wrong.

Except Philip Arnslade, the minister of fiscal efficiency—he’s getting two million a year from the Company for ‘consultation services,’ and pays ground rent of a quid for a palace off Sicily, and that’s corruption, I mean, that’s proper, provable corruption not just mismanagement, cos you can’t arrest someone for being crap but you can arrest them for…

But the Ministry said I’d misunderstood the tendering process and was bringing them into disrepute, and their lawyers took it all the way to the appeals court, and I lost when I couldn’t pay my barrister. By then I was broke anyway. I got five years on the patty line, but because of my CV I was sponsored out by a copy-writing company, given four years six months proofreading washing-machine manuals. My parole finished two months ago, and they decided not to keep me on at full salary. Cheaper to pull people like me from the patty line instead.”

Theo sat silent, one elbow nudging a pool of beef fat that had solidified on the table to a translucent smear.

“My daughter’s paying for me at the moment. That’s how I get by. She works for the Company, does their marketing for the pharma side of things. I can’t get sponsorship for benefits; my record means I’m an unsound investment. They keep telling me to fill out the form again. That’s what I do, mostly. I fill out the forms. I also help some of the others fill out the forms on the sly, you’d get into trouble if anyone found out that… that’s how I knew Dani. She wanted all these forms done, trying to find her kid. No chance in hell they’d let her see her, but… she kept on trying. Gotta hand it to her. Waste of bloody time.”

“Was that it? Was that all she wanted?”

The chips are getting cold. Faris’s gaze is lost to some other place.

“If a Company man kills a stranger, he pays less than an ordinary citizen. He’s worth more to society than other people—no point penalising the successful for a lapse in judgement. Wouldn’t be efficient. So that’s it. That’s our world. Eat your fucking chips and deal with it, right?”

A defiant chip, defiantly consumed, if George Washington had eaten his fries like this, the War of Independence would have been over twice as fast.

“This isn’t new,” mused Theo. “Everyone knows how the system works, everyone knows that’s just… how things are. The Company makes a profit to keep things efficient, it’s better that business profits than… than…” Stopped himself, couldn’t even remember the words he was supposed to say.

“Yeah,” grunted Faris. “All of that crap.” Another chip. Then a thought, a flicker almost of something excited, alive. “You heard of the queen of the patties?”

“Yes—a little.”

“She’s got this enclave somewhere up north, a place for the ones who dodge parole to run to, somewhere even the Company can’t be buggered to go, no point in it. The queen says this country is a slave state. That there aren’t any chains on our feet or beatings on our backs because there don’t need to be. Cos if you don’t play along with what the Company wants, you die. You die cos you can’t pay for the doctor to treat you. You die cos the police won’t come without insurance. Cos the fire brigade doesn’t cover your area, cos you can’t get a job, cos you can’t buy the food, cos the water stopped, cos there was no light at night and if that’s not slavery, if that’s not the world gone mad if that’s not…

…but we got used to it. Just the way things are. Just what the world is. Sometimes you think—people go missing, and how are there so many patties now? You do the smallest thing, and I mean the smallest thing, and you go to the patty line, that’s the law now, and who wrote the law? Who paid to get the guy to write it? This thing Dani said—‘They broke the world.’ Yeah. Yeah they did. So? So the fuck what? That’s what I said to her. That’s what I told her to her face.” A little sigh, no more chips to play with, nothing left to do. “One day I’m gonna go see this queen of patties. I’d like to hear more of what she has to say.”

“What did Dani want you to do?”

“Said she could destroy it. Said that we hadn’t seen the half of it. That the four hundred billion that the government got in receipts from the Company, like, three hundred of that just went straight back to Company contracts anyway. Paying the Company for the bin men and the cops and the academies and the private hospitals and the prisons—paying them cos it’s cheaper to pay the Company you know, cheaper to… but actually it’s not, it costs a fucking fortune, so they’ve got this problem, yeah, they’ve got all this stuff they need to do if they’re not going to have a revolution, but people are skint and the more skint they get the more pissed off they get and the government sure as hell isn’t gonna spend to get them out of the shit and…”

He stopped, mouth curling like he’d bitten the tip of his tongue.

Theo waited.

“Anyway. Dani said, ‘You don’t know the half of it.’ Said she had secrets. Could take them down. I didn’t believe her. Told her where to go.”

“Philip Arnslade? Danesmoor? Did she mention them?”

Another shrug. Faris sat back, hands resting on a gentle paunch of oil and margarine pushing at the bottom buttons of his thin blue shirt.

“What did you do?” asked Theo.

“Laughed. Told her to get lost.”

“And?”

“And she sends me this picture. It’s one of those ones taken on a phone camera, bit crap, light’s shit, but there’s this bulldozer, big yellow thing, and these guys in yellow jackets and white helmets and one guy giving a thumbs-up to the camera. And this guy with the Company T-shirt at the back texting like he’s not even paying any attention, and I’m like, so what the fuck is this? And she’s like, look closer. So I look closer. This is something she’s swiped from the Ministry of Civic Responsibility, said they were going to destroy it, destroying evidence, she said, so I look closer. I look real close. And it takes for ever to spot it, I’ve got soft in my old age, I used to be…

Anyway.

And then I see it. Right on the edge of the field, where there’s a ditch. Thought it was just a shoe, but look really close, real careful, and it’s not a shoe. It’s a foot. Sticking out of the field. It might belong to a kid. And these guys they’re just standing there, just smiling at the camera, and they’ve just turned over the whole fucking field, I mean, they must have found it, they must have found the body unless…

So I say it’s Photoshop it doesn’t mean anything, but she’s like, you have no idea.

You have no idea.

It’s so much more.

With this, we can take back the world.

She made it sound so real. She made it sound… for a moment I thought maybe there’d be something—I mean, maybe something I could do, something important that perhaps… but it wasn’t real, of course. That sort of thing isn’t ever real. So maybe she published and maybe she said that some guys who worked for the Company dug up a field where there was someone’s foot, but I don’t think it matters. We got taught not to care. It’ll pass.

It’ll pass.

I told her to leave me alone. And now she’s dead and I’m…”

What is he?

Faris is terrified is what he is. His hands are shaking. Even though his mouth finds the words he can’t meet Theo’s eyes he is…

“I made a phone call. After she called me I made one phone call. I called my daughter I said look there’s this thing there’s this thing I heard there’s this thing and…”

Now the terror seeps into his words, the tears into his eyes.

“She told me the Company knew what it was doing, that they were great for business great for Britain that… then a man called Markse knocked on my door, I mean like, five hours later, and asked if I knew Dani Cumali. I said no, I’d never heard of her. Not a clue. Just carried on as normal. I’m still carrying on as normal, that’s how you do it. I’m just… nothing’s changed. Why would anything change when you’ve got nothing to…

If I can’t find the queen of the patties, then I keep thinking I’ll go to Cornwall. It looks beautiful down there, even in the winter, though they say the winters are shit and actually on the TV you never see…

…but how long does a winter last, really? It just feels long but how long does it…”

His words ran away to shaking nothing, and he shrank into the curve of his shoulders and stared at emptiness and spun sesame seeds around the greasy edge of his plate, and spun sesame seeds, and spun sesame seeds.

Theo opened his mouth to say something reassuring and kind, but the words were meaningless. Instead: “Are you being followed?”

Faris didn’t answer.

“Are you being followed?”

“My daughter ratted me,” mused Faris. “I told her this thing, cos I was worried about her, and she went straight to the Company, she told them about me, about Dani, she… she says it’s for the best. That the only way I’m ever going to pick myself up, make something of myself, is if I get back in the normal way of things, make myself an attractive business prospect again, not some done-out outsider. That I had to get realistic and stop pretending I was some kind of martyr. That this was the way things worked and it was for the best, stop being old-fashioned, everyone has a good chance so long as they just…”

Faris stared into the distance and did not speak again, and Theo waited a little while, then stood without a word, looking around, heart pounding, and walked away.

Marching away from Vauxhall Bridge the man who is now Theo Miller thinks

he thinks and his thoughts are

stone.

Harder than the stones that roll back into the sea.

Two men follow him. They are remarkably easy to spot, but the moment they realise he’s seen them, they start to run straight towards him, leather shoes and chopping-board hands. Theo feels a sudden surge of contempt, wants to laugh in their face, lets them come on a few paces, and turns and runs.

He thought maybe he might have to run, and now he runs and he is fast—he had no idea he was so fast, he’s run by himself for so long that he hasn’t really got a sense of these things—but turns out all that time, all those early mornings and long, late nights when other people were living, had some upside after all.

The man called Theo runs.

Running changes the city. Sight and sound blazes into slithering sentience, the river is moving black popping with reflected lights of sodium orange, white, green and yellow. The Thames slurps its way down the thin tidal beach below the high walls of the embankment catching on muddy sand, belching wet gloop, the sky is a brown smear stained with bruised rushing clouds, buses unnaturally slow as they crawl across Westminster Bridge; the Houses of Parliament are all illuminated acrylic blaze and deep recesses of shadow, strips and nooks of blackness where only the pigeons can penetrate.

He runs and for a moment isn’t sure who he’s running from.

He’s a reasonable man in a reasonable world, he hasn’t technically done much wrong, running will only make it worse; they can go to the police station, there is a rule of law there is…

Theo runs without hesitation.

And for a little while, he feels free, alive, on fire. He can’t remember the last time he felt so full of blood.

He thinks, too late, that perhaps it is a mistake to commit to the path that runs between St. Thomas’ Hospital and the river, flagstones singing, wobbling and free where the mortar has eroded away, once you’re there it’s hard to turn off any way, but as his feet ring out he glances back and sees the two men, puffing and huffing behind, one already at a half-jog, half-stagger, overweight and out of breath.

Laughs, and runs a little faster, just because he can.

The security cordon at the London Eye forces him to cut inland, away from the river, past rows of shops selling tourist food: noodles in cardboard boxes with wire handles, slices of pizza adorned with three thin slivers of black-grey mushroom, a kebab shop that offers authentic awful; only a London kebab can burn your mouth so particularly, leave that aftertaste at the back of your nose, it’s an authentic city experience!

He looks back again at the British Film Institute, the faces of the latest idols exploded to two-storey monuments, edited black and white portraits of bygone goddesses smoking the latest branded thing, drinking this season’s newest whisky, as the lights sweep back and forth across the technicians rolling up a trampled red carpet.

He can’t see his followers immediately, so slows and stares properly, and sees them nearly a hundred yards off, puffing and pushing through the crowds huddled around the burrito vans, tourist gazes riveted to the licensed skateboarders who range beneath the painted walls of Waterloo Bridge, or drinking and arguing over the price of dim sum.

Perhaps whatever Dani found isn’t important enough for his pursuers to try very hard.

Perhaps you just can’t get the staff these days.

Theo slowed to a walk, head down, hands in his pockets, turned into the crowd coming out of the National Theatre and let it carry him away, towards Waterloo Station.

By the river in Oxford Philip Arnslade is shaking, shaking, trying not to laugh, or maybe cry, he holds the gun and stares down at the body of Theo Miller and had prepared something really smart, really witty to say but doesn’t have it so he just…

but Simon Fardell, his number two, leans over the expiring form of the boy as the breath leaves his lungs and says, “I suppose we should have brought something for the pain.”

And shakes his head

and walks away.

After, in the ambulance

Theo Miller can’t speak, is gasping for air, tries squeezing tight the hand of the boy who will become Theo, and for a little while he does this, and then his grip becomes loose, and cold, and wet, and the paramedic says

“nothing you could have done it wasn’t your fault”

but with memory

like a night on the beach as the sea washes the stones

the man called Theo thinks perhaps that’s not what he said at all.

Perhaps

now that he’s rewriting the past and everything he thought he knew about it

perhaps the paramedic looked him in the eye and said, “It’s your fault. There’s nothing to be done. It’s your fault.”

And the boy who would be Theo looked into the eyes of his friend, and saw in that instant that his friend knew what had happened to him, and for all his good nature couldn’t help but agree.

Chapter 36

Neila sailed north.

She had sailed for many years by herself, and sometimes it was hard, but in her heart it was easy, and she was fine.

She was fine.

When she was young, and still finding who she was, she’d wanted to matter. To her friends, family and to the world. She wanted the world to tell her that she was of value, that her actions had some meaningful consequence that people could generally see and perhaps even admire. Such actions didn’t have to involve saving children from burning buildings or adopting stray kittens. Kindness, compassion, bringing joy to others—these were surely all worthy of appreciation, and she strived to live by them.

And the world said, “Fuck right off thank you what we really want to know is what kind of implants you got for your tits and backside.”

That had been confusing, for a little while, but she’d joined the rat race and got great tits and a great backside, and the world had seemed generally content with her, as long as she played the game.

Right up to the moment when she hadn’t, and the friends she thought mattered to her, and made her whole, had told her that they didn’t like hanging out with someone who wasn’t like them, and what did she even think she was doing in those God-awful shoes?

The years that followed had been hard. The Neila she had believed herself to be turned out to be more frail than she’d thought. The self-confidence and charisma she projected was only that, a veil draped over the gossamer of her soul, and when the veil was torn, so was she.

She’d bought the Hector on a whim, with some romantic idea about life on the canals. She’d stuck with it, because having decided that this was a thing she cared about, the idea of admitting that she was wrong would be the last blow to any notion of who Neila was.

Who she aspired to be.

And over time she had found a certain something that kept her going, rituals and repetitions that drove her north and south, through the Midlands and along the old coal ways of the country.

She was fine.

She was alone, and she was among the communities of the water, and she was fine.

Then she sailed with someone else and it was…

easier

simple

different.

Every hour of every day she’d sworn she’d throw Theo off at the next lock. She did not need another person. Other people would only make her world unsteady, rip apart without even meaning to the woven confidence she’d created around the frail cocoon of self. Other people were a goddamn mistake.

She cranked the gate on the lock, her breath coming out in great huffing clouds

Pushed her back against the long timber braces

heaved

heaved

heaved

paused to catch her breath as the gate swung open.

Returned to the Hector

started the engine

sailed into the lock

gunned the engine down to idle

climbed onto land

heaved

heaved

the lock gate shut

waited

cranked

heaved

drove

heaved

cranked

drove

After four lock gates the shirt beneath her jumper was soaked with sweat, and her fingers were blue and white at the tips, and more than anything she wished the man called Theo was there too.

She sailed and did not see the man called Theo.

A desperation a terror she

Three of coins, king of coins, the Tower, nine of cups, ace of cups, knave of cups, the Priest, seven of swords, the Hanged Man (inverted).

Seeing the Hanged Man land on her table, she nearly choked with relief, and kept on sailing.

At Norton Junction she came across the Poet’s Rest. The coal barge was moored just before the turning into the Leicester Section and had no coal for sale except a couple of secret bags stored beneath the floor of the deck, which the owners gave to her at best discount because she was a friend, and they knew each other of old.

Neila sat in the cabin and cut the hair of old Mrs. Lude, whose long white tresses hadn’t been touched for nearly two years, and who let only Neila cut them, and who burbled excited to see her friend and exclaimed:

The flowers! So beautiful in the spring but first the snowdrops the snowdrops as they emerge the whiteness beneath the trees

the bluebells in the forest

the daffodils, first sign of spring, great fat bunches of daffodils getting everywhere how the bulbs spread how they

the bees as they come to life for the lavender the…

and Mr. Lude sat at the back and read his newspaper and smoked terrible, disgusting cigarettes that turned the roof of the cabin sticky and brown, and pretended not to enjoy his wife’s endless happiness.

Once, Neila heard it said, Mrs. Lude caught a sexually transmitted disease which damaged her brain and left her perpetually upbeat, but if she caught it from her husband then it clearly hadn’t achieved the same effect on his disposition.

Anyway, Neila didn’t believe a word of it. Some people were just delightful. Some people simply saw beauty in the world, even the winter, for the winter was nothing if not a promise of spring.

Neila cut her hair, and did an okay job at it, and Mrs. Lude was ecstatic, and Neila returned to her own boat quickly, a bag of coal on her back, and sat up with one light on and watched the towpath, and did not see Theo.

Lucy

Rainbow Princess Lucy Cumali where are you now in his dreams the man called Theo watches the water and sees in its reflection…

father and daughter there was so much he missed but in his dreams he holds her the day she is born he holds her and she is sleeping and so tiny yet oddly heavy too and there’s that thing that babies do that weird strength when they hold your little finger in their fist and they’re so strong it’s just incredible they’re…

In his dreams Theo can skip over certain details. Someone else can clear up the baby poo. He heard that it can come in every imaginable colour, someone he knew once said her child’s poop was bright blue.

In his dreams Theo pushes Lucy on the swings

picks her up from school

hides £1 under her pillow when her first tooth falls out, keeps hiding £1 until all her milk teeth are gone even though she long ago stopped believing in the tooth fairy

helps her do her maths homework, he’d be good at that

(very few fathers are good at that he knows this really but he’d be the exception because of how he’d respect her as a person as well as love her as his child)

Someone else can tell Lucy about puberty all that business with sanitary towels and tampons. Obviously he’d help out if wanted, but not intrusively—by this time Lucy is becoming her own woman, she should be allowed to make her own choices and just know that her dad is there for her to love her no matter what.

Funny thing. In his dreams, Dani isn’t there at all.

Neila sailed, and out of the darkness there he was.

A man sat on a bench by a lock, and did not smoke, and did not drink, and had no bag, and wore a coat very similar to the one that Theo wore, wool and fine and dark. For a moment her heart soared; but then look again. Not Theo. This man’s coat fitted him, and he had black leather gloves, and wore black leather shoes and he studied nothing much in particular until the Hector sailed into view, and then he studied it very much indeed, and studied her standing at the back, and as she approached he rose and called out, “Neil Madling?”

Neila slowed as she neared the lock and didn’t answer. He stepped a little closer to the edge of the canal, watched patiently as she hopped down towards the low bollards, began to tie off, quick and sharp with the fraying blue mooring line.

“Mr. Madling?” he repeated when the first rope was on. “My name is Markse.”

“Neila,” she replied sharply, and the man called Markse looked again, and was briefly embarrassed, and nodded once.

“I do apologise, ma’am. Is this your barge?”

“It’s a boat, not a barge.”

“A very beautiful vessel. Is there anyone else on board?”

“No.”

“Do you mind if I check?”

“Yes.”

“Ah. I’m afraid I may not have—”

“I don’t know you.”

“I am… still currently just with the Ministry of Security, I am—”

“There’s no one on my boat except me.”

“May I look?”

“Why?”

Markse hesitated, studying her face, watching as she tied off the second line, stepped back onto the boat, one hand on the rudder, holding tight, an instinctive comfort. She glared into his silence, and for a while he seemed to contemplate several different answers before with an almost-shrug declaring, “Because in Northampton you helped a woman by the name of Marta, who stabbed one of the children in the middle of the night. You told the police you were alone, and Marta told the police nothing, but on the knife there were two sets of fingerprints. The second of these belong to a man called Theo Miller. I think he’s on your boat. May I come on board?”

He came on board, starting at the prow and walking through to the stern.

“Well, I do apologise for taking your time it would appear that—”

“So get off my fucking boat.”

He got off the fucking boat, stood on the bank, hands in pockets, smiling patiently. He was, Neila decided, a deeply ugly man, too tall, too thin, too pale. His hair was thinning on top, prematurely, and he didn’t have the grace to attempt a comb-over but just let the few limp strands that remained droop around his pale, pin-poked face. His nails were buffed and polished, a gentle vanity, and as Neila looked at him she realised she had seen him in the cards, and he was the Tower, and he was destruction, and he was the eye of the storm.

They looked at each other and understood each other perfectly.

“If you meet Mr. Miller will you tell him that I called? It concerns his daughter.”

He held out a business card.

It had his name and a telephone number on it, and that was all. She took the card, put it in her pocket and turned away.

He waited a moment to see if she would look back, and when she didn’t, he nodded once and drifted back down the canal.

Three hours later, she found Theo, sitting on the frozen grass by the water.

He’d walked nearly fifty miles. In the end the cold had slowed him, and the thirst had brought him to a standstill.

She slowed down, let the Hector’s momentum carry her past him to a stop.

He looked up, slow and tired, saw her looking back and smiled.

Wordlessly, she opened the stern door to the cabin, and he climbed on board.

Chapter 37

Nine days after Theo Miller’s body was buried in an unrecorded ceremony beneath a beech tree the headstone was removed and smashed.

The boy who would be Theo watched, and didn’t speak, because this too was part of the discretion clause, this was what they had agreed to, no name, no body, no sign that Theo Miller had ever died.

Fifteen years later the man called Theo Miller cycled to work and the work was:

value of property stolen: £13,492

value of life taken: £93,410

value of rape: £8452

value of sexual harassment: £3451.50

value of

the cost of doing

he said go on, you know you want to you’re just playing hard to get you’re just

victim’s impact statement was not as fluently written as we’d hoped so only £7590 for the price of

the three kids obviously unable to pay and too young for sponsorship but the eldest was picked up by a private security force, they say they think he has a great deal of potential and want to see if he can handle an assault rifle before subcontracting him for special operations and…

fifteen thousand seven hundred and ninety-two twenty-nine thousand four hundred and eighty-seven fifty-one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three

It occurs to Theo that he has been selling slaves for the last nine years, and knew it but somehow managed not to understand that this was his profession.

Chapter 38

In the morning two men on motorbikes trailed Theo to work, and behind them a van idled in heavy traffic, and never quite seemed to get where it needed to be.

Theo wondered how they’d found him, and thought that maybe Faris had betrayed him too.

There wasn’t much to betray, but there were security cameras, credit checks, fingerprints on a linoleum table. He’d have found him, if he’d tried.

He wondered why they didn’t just arrest him then and there, and when they didn’t, he began to pack.

In the office no one talked to him.

At lunch he ate alone, and took an apple to his desk to finish working while his corner was relatively quiet.

When he cycled home, the motorbikes were on him again.

He went for a run and at the bottom of the hill a man sat reading a newspaper and the same man was there when he came back and it was…

That night he made stuffed aubergine with feta cheese, lentils, tomatoes.

While eating the doorbell rang, and Mrs. Italiaander answered. A few moments later: “Mr. Miller, there’s someone to see you!”

He opened the door to his bedroom, fork still in one hand, looked down the stairs towards the man waiting in the corridor below.

“Mr. Miller? My name is Markse. Might I have a word?”

They spoke in Theo’s room.

Markse, cramped, constrained from his usual presence by pressing walls, perched on the chair by the desk. Theo sat cross-legged on the end of the bed, a half-eaten aubergine on a bright blue plate on the top of the duvet; a single unwise motion could cause a disaster of sauce and cheese.

Markse looked around the room, taking his time, trying to read some sort of personality into the closed wardrobe, the way Theo had arranged his keys and wallet next to the laptop, the bicycle helmet hanging up by the towels on hooks behind the door, the not-life, a room without a heart, just a place to sleep and eat, no more.

Shook his head, looked away, smiled at the floor, and kept the smile on his face as he looked up at Theo and said, “Do excuse my visit, but…”

“It’s not a…”

“From the Ministry of Security, I work for the Nineteen Committee I don’t know if you…”

“Anti-terrorism.”

“Indeed, yes that is part of our—but terrorism is a broad remit these days. Anything which causes fear, in fact, and fear is… I read your report into Dani Cumali’s murder. I had no idea that the Criminal Audit Office was so diligent.”

Theo shrugged. “I could tell that the case was more than it appeared. Auditor’s instinct.”

“So not a personal interest?”

“I dislike it when people try to pay less than their due.”

A smile from Markse. He shares this view. This is clearly a meeting of noble minds. “The Nineteen Committee was investigating Ms. Cumali for a potential security breach. Documents stolen, dabbling in government business. She was in contact with certain elements who are not contributing to society. We think she had a second phone, contacted a man called Faris. Do you know a man called Faris?”

Theo shrugged.

“I’m afraid I’ll need an answer.”

“I met him.”

“In Vauxhall?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“His name came up. I thought he might have useful background information about Dani Cumali.”

“How did his name come up?”

“In the course of my investigations.”

Markse’s smile, again, a little wider. They understand each other now, indeed they do, and what bliss this knowledge brings. “Do you like your work, Mr. Miller?” A casual enquiry, eyes going to another place.

“Yes.”

“You’ve been very diligent.”

“The indemnity system is much better than alternatives. Much more efficient.”

“Cambridge, weren’t you?”

Blood colder than the ice on the canal, time is time was time when

it’s your fault

a boy dying in a field shrouded in mist a time when

“Oxford,” Theo replied, voice matching the stiffness in his spine.

“Oxford of course, sorry. I went to Oxford too—you must have been there in…”

“Fifteen years ago.”

“Fifteen, fifteen… roughly the same time as Philip Arnslade, yes?”

“We were on the same course.”

“Really you were both…?”

“Law.”

“Law together in Oxford! Know him well?”

“Not really. I was working, there wasn’t time for many friends, it was…”

“But if I was to mention your name?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it would be flattering to think that he remembered me. Do you know him well?”

“We’ve met a couple of times.”

“I didn’t realise that the Nineteen Committee and the Ministry were… is this connected to the case?”

“Would it matter if it was? So long as the payment is made?” Markse shifted on his awkward chair, pleasantries passing by, back to business. “A phone was taken from the scene of Ms. Cumali’s murder. A phone and a memory stick. In the course of your remarkably thorough audit, did you find any sign?”

“No.”

“But you found Faris.”

“Yes.”

“I would have thought without the phone…”

“As I said. I asked questions.”

“And met in Vauxhall.”

“Yes.”

“What did Faris say?”

“That Dani Cumali believed she had information with which she could blackmail the government. That she was single-minded and determined to get her daughter… I can’t remember the daughter’s name… to get her out of some sort of place where she was incarcerated. That she kept on saying she’d found something big. It made me think that it was likely that Ms. Cumali had been assassinated in order to keep her silent, which I find frustrating in light of the manslaughter plea entered in the case. Assassination is an entirely different auditing process, through different channels.”

“You’re very thorough.”

“My work is important.”

“So is mine. In normal circumstances I’d say you were a bit of a fruit loop, Mr. Miller. Is that fair? You earn a reasonable government salary but lodge in a house in Tulse Hill; you don’t have any friends except the occasional community gardening companion; you don’t interact with your colleagues at work; you almost never make a mistake except the occasional lapse towards overcharging for a crime; you went to Oxford with the leading lights of the day and yet have never sought promotion or played upon your connections, and your pursuit of this particular case borders on the… what does it border on? If I were to take you by your file, Mr. Miller, I’d say there was something almost autistic about you. Is that fair? Socially autistic, perhaps, the child bullied at school. No after-work drinks, no meaningful interactions, maybe you don’t understand how these things work, maybe you laugh because you hear others laughing but that’s not…

…but that would be wrong too, wouldn’t it, Mr. Miller? Because you’re not pursuing this out of some… neurological quirk that makes you so extra-extra-specially dedicated where everyone else would have just taken the money and run. You’re not digging because the only thing you know is dirt. It’s something else. My job is to find out what that something else is. I’m hoping that it’s harmless; I’m sure you understand.”

Theo said nothing, staring down at his hands.

Theo stared at nothing.

“Do you mind if I…?” A nod, a gesture. Theo stood, held his arms out as Markse patted him down, found nothing, smiled, sat down again, gestured for Theo to sit. Theo didn’t.

“Of course I had people watching Faris, in light of Ms. Cumali’s threats. You met him and then you ran. Why did you run?”

“Two people chased me. I don’t know what else you’re meant to do when that happens.”

“You could have assumed they were with the authorities.”

“I am the authorities, Mr. Markse, and they weren’t with me. Given that you managed to work out who I was, why didn’t you just arrest me?”

A little shrug. “Because as you say, Mr. Miller, you are the authorities. Why would I arrest someone who might be on my side? I’m going to search your room now. A couple of my colleagues are outside. One of them will sit with you downstairs while you finish your meal. We’ll try to keep disruption to a minimum.”

Sitting in the living room, he finished his dinner because it would be a waste to leave it, and a man in grey tracksuit trousers sat silently with them, and they watched a TV programme about rebuilding ruined houses to rent them out as holiday homes and ways in which you could use an accent wall to really set off the space with a vibrant colour against neutral shades.

After, when Markse was done, he stood in the living-room door as Mrs. Italiaander pretended she had something terribly important to do in the kitchen and listened with all her might, and Markse said:

“We didn’t find anything Mr. Miller, but we appreciate your help on this, your cooperation. I do wish you the best.”

And when Theo went back into his room, just before midnight, it was a turned-over disaster, bed against the wall, mattress torn and slashed open, pillows on the floor, the screen of the laptop cracked. In the end he slept in a bundle of dirty clothes piled up in one corner of the floor.

Chapter 39

“My daughter isn’t…”

“He said your daughter.”

“Why does he it’s not it’s not…”

The closest Neila thought she had seen Theo to crying. She’s put him by the stove, fed him, given him water, tea, watched him drink, starving again, he’d run away and was starving what did he think would happen?

As they bobbed in a nowhere place between towns, moored by spikes driven into the frozen earth with a heavy metal hammer, Neila gave him Markse’s card and now he paced, turned and twisted like smoke in the wind.

My daughter, he said, my daughter why did he say my daughter how did he she shouldn’t be she shouldn’t

And stopped, and sank onto the sofa and looked like an origami man crumpled at the bottom of a traveller’s bag.

They sat a while in silence.

And the time was…

Neila put her hand in his, squeezed it tight.

They sat.

And the moment was…

Theo closed his eyes.

Spoke to the darkness.

“I have failed so many people. I have failed… everyone who ever mattered to me. My father died on the patty line, my mother ran away from all things, I thought the bullets were blank and Theo died and my friend she was…

…the patties burned they burned it all everything was ash and the lady ran towards her son and my daughter ran from me and…”

Turned the card in his hand, one word printed and a telephone number, thick card, black edge.

“When we get to Leicester, I’ll make the call,” he said. “I’ll… but you pretend that you didn’t—it’s important that you didn’t although I suppose now…”

They sat a while, in silence.

Neila held his hand.

Later, she cut his hair by the light of an LED lantern on the kitchen table, and all things considered it was one of the better cuts she’d ever done.

The phone rings in London.

“Markse.”

“It’s me.”

“Theo?”

“You said my daughter.”

“We should meet.”

“What about my daughter?”

“Where are you?”

“If I—”

“Where are you?”

“Leicester.”

“I’ll be there tomorrow, 9 a.m.”

“The woman I’m travelling with, Neila. She’s not…”

“Theo. Listen to me. She’s not part of this. We can still—they haven’t found out what I did yet—we can still solve this.”

“9 a.m.”

“Yes, at Kings Lock on…”

Theo hung up.

The canal at night.

In his dreams the man called Theo stands on one leg in the middle of the river, and still hasn’t caught any fish.

Chapter 40

At the office, the morning after Markse searched his room, even the security guard wouldn’t look Theo in the eye. When he went to access his email, a sign appeared saying his password was out of date and he needed to contact IT.

IT were away for training. The entire department was on a surprise trip to Slough for a creative thinking and imaginative problem-solving development day, hosted by a manufacturer of face paints whose son had been done for child molestation and was looking to get a discount.

Theo tidied his desk, took a few paper files down to the canteen and sat in the window to read. He hadn’t been in a window for a very long time. There had been no sunlight in his working life for nearly six years, and at this time of year it could become hard to remember what it felt like, washed to silver-white, playing through the glass, warming his skin. It was, in a way, one of the nicest days he’d had at work. No one questioned him and no one spoke.

A man sat on the other side of the café and stared at him

just stared

visitor badge around his neck

and that was okay too.

Theo went out for lunch, bought a coronation chicken sandwich.

Afterwards, he returned to the office and went for a piss.

While inside the toilet cubicle, he climbed up onto the top of the toilet bowel, pushed up a ceiling panel above his head, fumbled around between the loosely laid cables until he found Dani’s phone, retrieved it, put it in his pocket, flushing the toilet on his way out and washing his hands carefully with soap and water.

On his way home, he cycled down to Westminster Pier, chained his bicycle—probably illegally—to a high iron lamp post, walked down to the wharf and caught the River Bus heading towards Blackfriars. He stood at the back, where the noise of the engine was loudest, turned on Dani’s phone and made a call.

The station were slow to answer but got there in the end.

“Paddington Safenight Policing, how can I help you?”

“It’s Markse.”

“Who?”

“Markse,” he called out over the roar of water and foam and the lashing of the wind. “From the Nineteen!”

Holding music. The same holding music as last time. Theo’s heart rushed as loud as the water foaming below, he didn’t turn his head, didn’t look to see the man on the deck above watching, just stared at the city moving behind him, stared and waited and listened.

The superintendent, when he came on, was far more solicitous at the idea of Markse’s name than he had been when Theo had called as himself.

“Markse? What’s that dreadful fucking noise are you…”

A soar in his heart, a laugh in his chest. “Sorry, very loud where I am. Just needed to check on the files from Cumali’s phone. Do you still have a copy?”

“You said to—”

“I know what I said, but do you still have a copy?”

“Yes, but we were going to—”

“Still do that, but first you need to send them to—and this is important are you—send them to this email address write it down then destroy it—so it’s gx7pp9—did you get that it’s gx7pp9 at…”

Theo gave him the email address, barely bothering to pitch his voice to sound remotely like Markse’s own, letting the roar of the wind carry the sound away, letting it fill him with strength the smell of the river the cold on the air, and the policeman said:

“Look, Markse, I don’t need you checking up on me like this I’ve got enough with the…”

“Thanks for your help!”

Turned off the phone.

Counted backwards from twenty.

Nearly laughed out loud.

Leaned over the railing to see the vortex of water churned up below, the wake washing out towards the high stone walls of the embankment.

Let the phone drop into the river, to be crunched by propeller and nibbled by grey fishes that dwelt in the spinning mud.

Chapter 41

Theo stayed on the boat to Canary Wharf, changed to the Underground, headed down to the bulbous white spot that had been the Millennium Dome, bought an overpriced ticket to the first thing that was on that night, waited in the queue, pressed in with bodies—mostly screaming young girls with huge bunches in their hair and boys in leather trying to be cool.

Bought a wrap that tasted of salty goo and wet paper.

Let the crowd heave him into the auditorium, blues and lightning-whites, lasers flicking through the smoke-filled air, a scream, a roar, ear-bending as the band came on stage. They were a Japanese girl-pop group, seven of them dressed in tiny black skirts, white socks up to their knees, they swung between covering their mouths when they laughed, little-girl giggles and shakes of their immensely long black hair, to thrusting their hips forward and exclaiming, “I ain’t taking no shit from this world!” to the adulatory screaming, whooping, shrieking, crying, frothing of the audience.

Theo moved with the crowd, up and down, side to side, a motion of its own, let it carry him, let it spin him around the stage, flowed with the rhythm of the people until he found a boy with a mobile phone sticking bright and easy out of his back pocket, tears of joy running down his face, streaming through the UV paint drawn in whiskers from the corners of his lips

stole his mobile phone very easy, really, his father would have been proud his father would have been…

his father would have

Drifted to a corner of the crowd, where the ecstasy of the moment was weakest and the floor was sticky with beer.

Logged into an email address—gx7pp9—and the only email apart from the ancient “welcome to” was brand new and came straight from Safenight Policing Ltd, police force to the stars.

Theo is

maybe in his heart he was always a criminal, maybe he inherited something from his father after all, maybe he just likes it maybe he…

He stayed until the end of the gig, left with the crowd, pushing, shoving, sobbing, laughing, let them spin and spin and spin, down to the station, a heaving mess on the Jubilee Line, got off the train at Stratford, got back on it and headed back to Canary Wharf, ran for the DLR, then changed his mind and ran for West India Quay, up the stairs three at a time, caught the DLR heading towards Bank, saw a man panting for breath running after him, saw the man miss the train…

Got off at Westferry and ran.

Ran for the canal, for the darkness, ran in the wrong kind of shoes but who even cared?

Ran for the terraced streets of Victoria Park, where the CCTV cameras hadn’t grown.

Ran for the bustling traffic, Vietnamese takeaways, evangelist churches and frozen-food shops of Mare Street.

Ran for the hipsters’ coffee shops for the sodium lights for the squirrel bulbs hanging with bare, twisted filaments of life, for the place where the enclaves and the sanctuaries bumped almost nose to nose, the darkness of those who couldn’t pay pressing up against the floodlights and barbed-wire walls of those who could.

Railway arches and trains that screamed and screeched in the night, flash pops of ultraviolet fire off the wheels

the used-metal yards

the yoga studios and vegan cafés

the drug clinics and trash yards for those who had nowhere else to go

boarded-up windows and fresh new signs—it was the perfect place to be as the night settled into the cold.

Theo Miller ran, leaving his followers far, far behind.

An all-night internet café near Dalston Kingsland. The market a few doors up had been caught selling dog, rat, monkey and bat meat again. Several arrested stallholders objected to the charges, saying it was part of their culture, it was how things were.

(Indemnity of £17,820 for the initial crime plus for the repeat offence they could be looking at… )

The internet café windows were pasted with posters for a dozen different plays and gigs. R ‘n’ B, rap, music from the Congo and Nigeria, songs of freedom, songs of love, something by Chekhov, a show by kids, a panto starring that woman off the breakfast shows, you know the one, not the weather lady the other one yeah with the really big…

Theo opened the email from the police service and went through the life and times of Dani Cumali.

They’d taken her phone, dug through her files. She’d managed to borrow a laptop pinched by a kid in the enclave, they’d torn it apart and now here it was, a full report from the cyber division complete with emails, photos, phone calls, text messages—far too much for him to digest in a single night.

But he had a feeling he knew where he was going.

He read.

And for a moment Dani Cumali was alive again, and sitting at his side, speaking the words that were on the screen, watching him, her hand on his shoulder, a guardian angel painted in blood, a ghost who whispered, she’s your daughter, and every time he thought he might drift towards sleep, she squeezed, and it hurt, and he jerked awake and kept on reading.

There weren’t any videos of Philip Arnslade.

No records of crimes committed or corruption planned.

Just the odd email from the Company, a few photos.

You fucking bitch. You fucking speak a word and I’ll fucking kill you.

A text from Seb Gatesman.

You’re safe, she replied. Touch me and you won’t be.

Messages in and out, nothing from Faris, nothing that would have been anything other than places to go, people to see there was nothing but…

(The man called Theo is aware that time is growing a little peculiar, things which he thought were in the past turn out to have some pertinence after all and there was a time when he sat on the bench with his best friend, two children by the sea drinking the cheapest beer they could buy, the only beer they could buy, canned hangover with flat fizzy bits.)

You just make like a heron and maybe one day you’ll catch some fish.

A cormorant can count to seven. Put a ring around its neck and send it catching fish and it will remember that the seventh it catches will be its to feast on.

Owls are actually very stupid birds, but when something moves! That’s when evolution does its thing.

Chugger chugger chugger goes the boat.

“You want to swap?” asked Neila. “You must be freezing.”

“I’m all right, but thank you.”

“More tea. Peppermint or ginger?”

“Peppermint, please. How far are we now?”

“A few more hours. We’ll moor on the edge of town give me a shout when you see…”

jerking back to reality, Theo reads as the sun comes up, another three quid for another hour, he reads and this is all that there is to be done now this is all that…

At 8.45 a.m. he found it.

An unsent email, sat in the drafts, no address at the top.

Dani wrote it twenty minutes before she died.

She’s your daughter. Save the mother. Go home.

Theo stared at it for a while, then shut down the computer, walked to the nearest cashpoint, took out all the cash he was allowed, pushed his credit card down the nearest drain and went to find a train home.

Knave of coins, the Devil (inverted), the Priest, seven of wands, three of coins, the Fool, three of cups, king of coins, the Hanged Man (inverted).

Neila said, “I don’t like the word ‘mister.’ It’s weighted down with this idea, this baggage like you say ‘Mr. Smith,’ and there’s this idea isn’t there in your head immediately of what Mr. Smith must be because the word, the gender identifier, it imposes so many cultural ideas about strong and right and reliable and…”

Theo made pasta with spinach and mushroom sauce.

“…once stopped at customs—this was when I could afford holidays—and they said ‘We are going to search you’ and I asked why. They didn’t give me a reason, but they took me to the men’s room. The men’s. I was so… I said I’m not… And I begged them I was crying I was just—but what the system says matters more and I…”

They ate in silence, counting down the hours until the morning. Low brick houses, white window frames, roads without trees, pawnbrokers, betting shops, a bit in the centre of town for the parents to take their kids shopping for £1 water pistols and a pot of paints that the baby would eat in the car back home. A theatre, abandoned, squatters sleeping in the place where the fly bars once had been, cardboard mattresses laid across metal beams and in the musty, mousy warmth of the orchestra pit.

“I don’t ask anything,” Neila mused as they sat together by candlelight. “Loneliness is a state of mind. You have to want something, to be lonely. You have to need some sort of reassurance, someone to tell you that this is who you are. I’m not lonely. I don’t want anything. I don’t need anything or anyone to tell me that… you know that, don’t you? You know that’s how I…”

They held hands, watched the fire melt.

Theo said, staring into flames, “There’s a place where the words stop. She did this and it was… and then we stop. It was terrible. It was barbaric. It was beautiful. You understand. And we do. We know. Our lives exist in many different, contradictory states, all at once. I am a liar. I am a killer. I am honest. I am fighting for a good cause. I am burning the world. We want things simple, and safe, and when they aren’t, when the truth is something complicated, something hard, or scary, we stop. The words run out. Everything becomes…”

Sound died on his lips. A dead place where he once thought he had the answers and where now he isn’t so sure.

“It’s how it happens, of course. The worst of it. Not ‘My neighbour has been taken to be burned alive, their house stolen, their children dead and I am so, so scared to speak of it.’ Just ‘They went away. Just—away.’ And we smile. And everyone else is as scared as we are, and knows what that smile means. Is grateful that you didn’t make the terror real. Thankful that you haven’t caused a stink. Because it would hurt… someone. Someone who isn’t a stranger would get hurt, if we ever managed to speak the truth of things. If we ever had the courage to say what we really think, even if it destroyed who we want the world to think we are. Who it is we think we should be. There would be too much pain. So we say nothing. Things just… trail away into a smile, which everyone understands and doesn’t have to mean a thing. We are grateful for that silence, for the thing that can’t be expressed. To fill it would be a terrible thing.”

She put her head on his shoulder, and they sat together a while longer, waiting for the morning.

At 8.45 a.m. Theo perched on a stool on the prow of the Hector, a hot mug of tea in his hand, watching the sky.

At ten minutes past nine the man called Markse appeared, walking around the bend of the towpath, hands free at his sides, coat open, head up and eyes bright.

He didn’t slow when he saw Theo.

Stopped in front of the boat.

Smiled.

Said, “There you are. Shall we?”

Theo nodded once, stood, folded the stool neatly against the wall of the cabin and followed Markse into the morning.

Two and a half hours later he returned, hands buried in his bulging pockets, chin tucked into his chest, and said, “Sorry about that. I have some pastries, if you’d like one?”

She had a cherry Danish. He had an almond croissant with margarine. Afterwards, they refilled the water tank and sailed north, towards Nottingham and the Trent.

Chapter 42

The man called Theo bought a ticket to Dover.

He paid in cash, a baseball cap covering his eyes, head turned away from the CCTV camera above the desk.

The ticket seller exclaimed, “If you use a card and register with our reward traveller scheme you can save up to 15 per cent on every trip you make with a value in excess of—”

“No, thank you.”

“Do you want to receive our special offers for—”

“No.”

“How about buy one get one free on our latest range of—”

“No.”

Her face fell, and sulkily she pulled the handle that spun the small metal plate that gave him the tickets.

He took the slow train.

It ran once every two hours, and was standing room only for non-gold-club-membership passengers. Sitting on bags was not allowed; it constituted a health and safety violation. Music played faintly, a soul-numbing assault on reggae. He stood head down, eyes up, avoiding the security cameras in the creaking, stinking carriage as it rattled south. Metal grates on the windows offered limited protection against the ragers, the children and the wild women who haunted the edges of the tracks as they chugged out of Blackheath. Condensation from the breath of the passengers, elbow to elbow, dripped waterfalls off the inside of the glass. Outside Sevenoaks three children stood on the tracks, staring, staring at the driver, daring him to mow them down.

The youngest child held a bicycle wheel in her right hand; the eldest carried a baby. The driver accelerated towards them, as he’d been trained to do, and they did not move, and did not move, and did not move, until at the last minute, in a breach of all guidelines, the driver slammed on the brakes, knocking people in the carriages to the floor, indignant screams and shrieks; one woman twisted her ankle, another man dislocated his shoulder as he grabbed, and missed, a handrail.

The driver put the brakes on too late, but that didn’t matter to the children—they’d done enough, they’d won their victory, and they scampered away delighted as the train picked up speed again and waved at the passengers inside the secure carriages as it rattled by. A couple waved back.

At Sevenoaks men in white shirts got off, and transport police got on, started checking IDs. Theo moved through the carriages slowly, a man looking for the toilet, and that bought him time to Tonbridge, where he got off the train and circled behind the police, pressing in between two teenagers with a pair of sticker-stamped guitar cases.

At Bethersden a woman stood on the platform, holding out her hands to the open doors of the train. “Jesus!” she shouted, and then threw her head back and roared, “Jesus! Jesus Jesus Jesus!” And then lowered her head and murmured, “Jesus. Jesus the Jesus the Jesus the Saviour Jesus the Jesus the Almighty Jesus the—”

The doors closed, cutting her off, but the lack of audience didn’t seem to deter her.

There was a replacement bus from Ashford.

Theo used elbows and brute forward momentum to get on, pushing children and old men aside. People scowled, cursed him under their breath, but did nothing more since they were doing the same anyway.

Familiar countryside outside the windows.

Tough grass clinging to the chalk slopes of the Downs; patches of forest, beech and oak, ash and sycamore, the red and brown leaves billowing away in the salty wind off the sea. Oast houses on the edges of little black and white flint-walled villages; commercial estates pressing hard against reedy rivers which had broken their shallow banks. A chalk figure carved into the hillside above the motorway, a rider galloping away, hair billowing in the wind. Recent years hadn’t been kind to the hills of Kent. The only work came from the companies which were owned by a company which was owned by…

… and with no one else offering much in the way of employment, the companies had made certain demands on the local civic and political leaders—not demands exactly—requests—suggestions, that was it, suggestions. And when the workers had rioted the police were called in and by then the police were owned by the Company too. When it’s your job, it’s your job yeah, when it’s your wife and kids and look, cops have rent to pay too…

Of course heads had been cracked.

Of course they had.

And the hospitals, run by the Company, hadn’t been willing to treat the men and women who’d rioted since they were only going to cause trouble, not within the charter to treat violent people. There’s funding to think about.

Now there were just the ragers and the zeroes left. The screamers, the ones who tore at flesh, the ones left behind when the sirens stopped. Sometimes they scraped a living, picking fruit in summer or stacking shelves in the towns that had been smart enough to obey when the Company spoke, but at night they returned to the empty places whence they came and howled at the moon, and good people learned to look the other way.

High fences cut the motorway off from the surrounding hills, as the bus idled in traffic jams for petrol stations, tailbacks on the Dover Road. Coastal–commercial partnership towns, two-storey terraced houses with paint scraped away by the sea, concrete front gardens and British flags flying proud, chippies on every other corner, the freshest fish you’d ever eat, seagulls circling the rubbish bins, orange-brick company offices and a shuttered-up library. A castle on the hill, layers of different worries built into its architecture. Once a keep whose soldiers rode inland to govern unruly natives. Then a wall circling the keep, with towers looking towards the sea. Then earthworks built for cannon, waiting for an invasion that didn’t come; then bunkers cut into the cliffs against bombardment, then nuclear shelters built all the way down, cold and dark, silent except for the endless drip-drip-dripping of water through the chalk, some people fainted going inside, knowing that if the torch went out, they would never be found.

A port.

Cranes, huge concrete car parks with painted lines to guide the way.

Ferries inching in slow past the sea wall, the smell of diesel on the air, queues back to the overspill car park in town, next to the old Roman ruins where once there had stood a temple where men sacrificed in blood to an ancient spirit, half Zeus, half a pagan being that no one dared offend, even if they didn’t believe.

At Dover there were no buses running to Shawford.

He went to the taxi rank, but the drivers refused to take him there.

“Budgetfood pulled out. No one goes there any more,” explained one. “No good, no good at all.”

He thought of hiring a car, but they wanted his name, ID, credit card.

He tried hiring a bicycle, but they wanted the same.

In the end he walked.

It wasn’t so far, really.

Nine or ten miles, a little less if you cut inland, but he knew the cliff road best, the cliff road was just for pedestrians, less likely to arouse questions if you kept close to the sea.

Theo walked.

Chapter 43

Beneath the White Cliffs of Dover, where the chalk bends towards Hellfire Corner, and the smell of the docks gives way to the billow of the sea, there is a moment when the land breaks free of the town, steps into fields of wheat rippling in the wind, the ocean stretching like a prisoner set free, the sky infinite.

Theo walked.

A sanctuary village, above the bay.

They’d built a fence around it with a locked gate, sealing in the houses that rolled down towards the water, the crab pools, the waterfall sheering to the shingle beach, the pub with its bright flags and overpriced kale salads with extra-virgin olive oil.

“Stop! Stop right there! You!”

Theo stopped, half-tangled in brambles, circling the path that surrounded the razor wire. A man and a woman, dressed in black, came running towards him, panting for breath up the slow slope of the path.

“You!” the man managed to gasp, wheezing, and when that word seemed to take his stamina, the woman picked up where he’d left off.

“You! What are you doing here?”

“I’m walking to Shawford.”

“Why?”

“It’s where I’m from.”

“But what are you doing here?”

“I’m walking to Shawford. Is there a problem?”

“This area and the bay is protected land. You can’t come here.”

“It’s protected land inside the fence. I’m outside.”

“But you’re near the fence!”

“But not inside it.”

“You’re looking inside!”

“I’m not walking inside.”

“People have seen you and complained!”

“I don’t think I can do anything about that.”

The two guards hesitated. Technically this was true; Theo could not stop people looking, if looking was what they chose to do. Then the woman exclaimed, struck by a bright idea, “We’ll walk with you!”

“To Shawford?”

“Round the edge of the village.”

“If you want.”

“That way people will see!”

“I suppose if they…”

“And they’ll feel safe.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Do you want an apple?”

“Pardon?”

“I’ve got some apples. Oh—and some fudge. Do you want fudge?”

“As you’re offering…”

“Take them, please. I can’t move for apples and fudge. It’s the locals. You as much as look at someone funny and they give you apples and fudge.”

“And tea,” added the man, falling into step on the other side of Theo, as they continued to track the line of the fence. “I’ve had to start carrying my own teabags, decaffeinated. What I do is—they make the tea, and when they’re not looking I whisk their teabag away and put mine in so that I don’t die young. Do you want a teabag? Caffeinated, I mean, not decaf.”

They walked together beneath grey autumn sky, a military escort around a village where the school always had a summer fête and a harvest festival, and the delivery man only ever served organic.

“Once we had some ragers come up from Shawford,” mused the woman as they swung past a white lighthouse, the light long since snuffed, barbed wire on top of the wall, HOME SWEET HOME painted above the door. “I thought we were going to die.”

“Die!” agreed the man.

“I thought, this is it, they’ve come to tear this place apart and I’m not paid enough, pardon me saying, I’m not paid enough to be fucking massacred for a bunch of rich wankers who don’t—”

“Don’t say wankers!”

“Affluent clients who don’t ever look out, don’t leave the walls because if you leave the walls…”

“Never leave the walls!”

“There are people if you leave the walls you see…”

“But thankfully the Company came, they sent a helicopter with tear gas and a machine gun…”

“I wouldn’t call it a machine gun.”

“A machine gun it was—”

“There were rubber bullets.”

“I saw the bodies, those bullets weren’t—”

“It’s what our clients pay for, you see.”

“They pay to be safe!”

“Protected.”

“So that’s why.”

“Are you sure you don’t want some fudge?”

In the end Theo accepted two apples, four teabags and some fudge. It seemed rude to say no.

Five miles further on…

The wind off the sea blows away all doubts, it blows away the past and the smallness of this world, it tears open the sky the fields ripple like water; it blows away the tiny cramped-up prison bars that you built across your soul the wind is…

Theo isn’t sure he has the words for what it is. It is a thing he cannot express. If he could express it, he might have to say what else the wind purges from his soul, and he can’t imagine saying these things out loud would make anyone happy.

Walking past an abandoned golf course.

A monument to pilots who died in a war, buddleia growing from between the cracks.

A trapdoor down to an unknown place beneath the cliffs, a single KEEP OUT sign nailed to the posts, rusted and ancient.

A village close enough to the water’s edge that sometimes the sea came up through their toilets, through the basements where once the smugglers had hidden their goods, chimney stacks crumbling and semi-detached retirement homes slanting a little to the side as the land gave way.

Great stems of pale brown and bright green grew from the peppered stones where they met the edge of the land, spiny, spindly, no flowers or leaves, just a forest of stems heading upwards. An empire of snails had taken up residence amongst these stalks, their shells spirals of blood red edged with black, imperial yellow dotted with white spots, flashes of blue. A single tree had managed to grow in that muddy area where stone met farmer’s field, and over the centuries its roots had spread beneath the land, sprouting in shrubs and spindly white-barked children. Someone had put a tyre swing inside the den it made of its own umbrella branches. Theo ducked beneath the canopy of leaves, a habit, a thing from his childhood, he had come here once and it had been…

That was in the time before he was Theo Miller, and these things should not affect him any more.

He walked through the village, and the curtains twitched, and grey eyes peered at him from behind the netting and through the cracks in the doors, and no one moved, and no one spoke, and no one walked along the edge of the water.

He saw the pier at Shawford before he saw the rest of the town, sticking out into the sea before the curve of the bay.

Several spans had cracked, fallen into the water. Now Dory’s Café lurked at the end, cut off from the world, lights out, and the fishing deck was swamped for most of the year, unusable as the waves crawled in.

A small rose-shaped stone fort marked the edge of town, built by Henry VIII a few months after he realised he’d pissed off the pope. Black iron cannon, the ends plugged with red bungs, pointed out towards the sea. No flags flew, and the gates were barred.

On the hill above the houses the Budgetfood Estate was silent, vines breaking through the loose corrugated-iron walls. No lorries came, no lorries left, and grass pushed up through the cracks in the pavement.

He walked into town, past the seafront apartments where the old folks had sat in long bay windows to watch the yacht club and the passing trawlers, along the shopping street of boarded windows and street lamps with no bulbs in them. Baskets still hung from some of the lamps, the soil long since washed away, the exposed roots rotted to wisps. On the walls of the local Indian takeaway someone had graffitied, WILL YOU MARRY ME? but if an answer had been given, it hadn’t endured.

The paddling pool was empty. There were poked holes where the crazy golf had been, a scar in the tarmac where the ice cream van had stood. Somewhere deep in town he heard the sound of raging, a man’s voice soon joined by a woman’s, soon joined by a few others, a call and response of unseen faces rising in fury.

Theo shuddered and was briefly afraid, and scurried on.

A man sat on a bench opposite the place where Budgetfood had once run “Microwave Meal Fridays,” discount days when it offloaded its inferior goods cheap for the town. The man had thin ginger hair, a round, smiling face stained red by the wind, a great belly and tiny legs. He smiled affably at Theo as Theo walked by, and didn’t move.

Silence on the high street.

Silence outside the church.

Silence where the arcade had once jittered and tittered its twinkly songs, its come-yea-golden salutations into the night.

Silence by the old railway line, the copper cables taken up and sold for scrap, the pylons rusted overhead.

Silence on the bridge that looked down to the dry-tiled swimming pool

Silence in the bingo hall, painted cobalt blue, a domed roof above a shuttered concourse.

Silence on the shore, except for the beating of the sea as it pulled a little more of the land back down into its depths.

The town was dead except for the man on the bench and the sound of rage from the inland streets.

Theo followed memory through a ghostly map, and went to the detached two-up, two-down on the edge of a caravan field where, as a child, Dani had lived, and knocked, and heard no answer and immediately felt stupid, and went round the back to the garden overgrown with brambles and stinging nettles, tried the back door, found it open.

Fading light from a settling day through the kitchen window.

Empty cupboards and empty shelves, an empty place where the fridge had been.

Tiles behind the sink, he’d painted them with Dani, a childish thing in bright pinks, purples, blues and yellows. It had been part of a community art project, a summer fête for the kids, they’d caught the perfect moment; both still young enough to be welcome at the kids’ fair, and old enough to have decided that mucking around with paints was cool again.

That had been a few years before the night on the beach, the sound of the sea and pebbles in Theo’s back.

He went upstairs.

Dani’s room.

Her parents’, though only one had ever slept in the bed. The mattress was gone, the frame remained, as did a mirror on the wall.

He went down to the front hall, was surprised to find some mail, curling up and crinkled. The gum had long since faded and the contents came out easily; he read with barely a glimmer of guilt.

An offer for a discount eye exam.

A letter from the GP commanding Dani to book and prepay for 10 per cent off her smear test.

A series of ever-more-threatening letters from the council, demanding unpaid taxes and charges.

A leaflet inviting the people of Shawford to come to a town meeting about Budgetfood’s proposed withdrawal, explaining that without this industry the town would die. It would simply die.

But Budgetfood had enough workers coming up through the patty line. It wasn’t economically viable to stay in a place where they had to pay national minimum wage. Cheap food came at a price, after all.

He searched the house by the failing light, and didn’t find anything interesting.

By the time he finished, he was working by the light of the torch on his mobile phone, SIM card in his pocket.

There was no electricity. No lights shone in the streets.

He let himself out the way he’d come in, and wandered a few roads over until he came to the house where once he’d been a child, almost the twin of Dani’s, and finding the front door locked, went round the back, and finding that locked too, broke the glass panel above the handle and let himself in.

Chapter 44

There had been a day his mother phoned.

“I’m selling the house and moving to Dorchester.”

“You’re… why Dorchester?”

“A job. I’ve got a job there, I’m going to be a care assistant.”

“You’ve never cared for—”

“A care assistant—the pay is £8.20 an hour I will look after the old women and I will help them shower and use the bathroom and eat and…”

“Mum I’m not sure that it’s such a—”

“And I’ll start again. I’ll start again in Dorchester.”

“Where is Dorchester? Is this really what you—”

“I’ll start again. You should think about what that means. I want you to remember this. It’s never too late to start again.”

When he became Theo, he only ever called her on a pay-as-you-go mobile phone, and never from the same place twice.

“Hi, Mum, how are you?”

“Oh. You know. It’s all pretty grim.”

Said affably, without much interest. Things are bad. They’ve been bad a while. Why would you bother asking?

“Hi, Mum, how are you?”

“Well my back’s given out.”

“How are you?”

“My wages have been cut and I’m very lonely. You know.”

“How are—”

“I don’t know why you bother to ask me that, what do you think I’m going to say, that it’s all puppies and roses?”

“What do you want me to say instead? What else is there?”

Their conversations became shorter, except for sometimes when she explained about how someone had said something about something else that she thought was stupid. She never asked how he was. She never knew that he was called Theo. She never called him and after a while…

He thought that if he called her, she’d be grateful to speak to him, and they’d be happy for a few minutes.

After a while, he thought that she might be dead.

There was nothing malicious in thinking this. She needed to be someone else. When his father was taken away, so went the woman she had been, leaving only a body behind. He needed to be someone else too; in that they understood each other perfectly.

There was probably a bit of love left, somewhere. It simply hadn’t been a priority for either of them.

An empty house in a silent town.

The furniture gone, every room seemed bigger, the windows smaller, looking out on to something less exciting than he’d remembered.

There was a smell of damp. Someone had ripped out the boiler and left the pipes wide open, but the gas and electricity had stopped a long time ago, and in the living room there was still that mark on the wall where he’d once thrown a plate and it had dented the plaster. He couldn’t remember why he’d been angry at the time.

He lay on his back on the place where his bed had been, stretched out across the floor, and studied the ceiling. Constellations shone luminous green-yellow above, glow stars bought in packets of twenty-five which he’d meticulously pressed into the shape of the galaxy above his head, and, not knowing what to do with the rockets and UFOs that came with them, added some space battles too, fleets roaring across the universe in endless pursuit.

His phone beeped, battery getting low.

He turned off the torch and lay a while longer.

Time is…

When he left home to go to university he couldn’t wait, it was the most important thing, he was stifled by everything to do with…

…and he didn’t just leave home, he left his father’s crime, his mother’s… whatever his mother was…

He left Dani’s despair and the taste of over-salted microwave meals, you could get ten for £2 on a Friday when they had their reject sale it was

And now that he is back

In this place you cannot hear the sea, but there is still a memory of something that might have been contentment.

The man called Theo thinks that tomorrow, when he leaves, he will not remember the thoughts that now run through his mind, glue him to this spot.

And the man called Theo remembers the day he put his father’s name into the Criminal Audit Office’s system, to see if he was still alive, still on the patty line, maybe even up for parole.

He wasn’t. He was dead in an unmarked grave behind the prison after a spill in which two chemicals shouldn’t have mixed, a fire that gutted B Wing of HMP Elmsley by Dazzling Beauty and Skincare. Seventeen people died in the blaze, and Theo hadn’t heard about it, and four weeks later they reopened for business. The prisoners on B Wing made jewellery, plastic gems and studs, barbells and hoops. His dad, before he burned alive, had specialised in vaginal gems. Theo hadn’t realised there were such things.

And the man called Theo thinks that there are some wading birds which can stand motionless on one leg in a river for over…

And the man called Theo thinks that time is…

Is not…

Is…

…getting harder and harder to keep track of, as time goes by.

A knocking on the door.

Theo jerked awake, listened, waited for it to go away.

The knocking came again.

It didn’t seem urgent. There was no breaking of glass, howling at the night.

Three knocks, then waiting, then three knocks again.

He went downstairs, holding the phone like a weapon, a thing to smash into faces. A figure against the half-moonlight framed in the front door’s frosted glass. He undid the lock from the inside, opened the door on the chain, just like his mum had taught him.

“Yes?”

“Are you Theo? Dani sent me.”

Chapter 45

The girl was no older than eighteen, and sat cross-legged on the floor eating cheese and onion crisps from a bag in her pocket. Theo sat opposite her. Between them a USB stick.

Around mouthfuls of potato wafer: “I knew Dani from the prison, she was nice you know? She knew what she wanted—you don’t get many people what know what they want and that’s something that inspired me, you know, like real inspired. I’d like to know what that’s like, I mean, being certain about things, like who I am and what I think and what I’m worth because that’s the first step—you got to know—and Dani did. I don’t know shit. That’s what everyone said,” a huge gap-toothed grin, another fistful of crunch, it’s funny this, isn’t it? Everyone says she doesn’t know shit and that’s a really funny joke, look, trust me, just because you weren’t there you don’t understand and so…

“I got out a few months ago. Parole company sponsored me, like with Dani, but they said I was pretty that I could make a few extra quid if I slept with the old men and the old ladies and that. And I said no, fuck that, because I’m trying to know myself and I don’t think that’s the sort of thing I’d do, and Dani told me that I shouldn’t, she said that it would be…

So they terminated my contract, removed my sponsorship. And there I was without a job but Dani, she worked real hard, got me this job in this club down in Wivelsfield I mean, yeah, it’s a sex club, only it’s like run in this semi-detached house in this really dull street. The missus, she drives a Honda, but I don’t do the sex. That’s the deal. I’m the cleaner. All that stuff has got to be kept clean, I mean, you should use barriers on everything because you get tearing, and the vagina’s got some natural protection against STDs, the fluids and stuff that are secreted which help clear things out, but still, you know. So I take my work really seriously, even the straps and that because you get bodily fluids and chafing and that’s the blood barrier, it’s all about the blood barrier, so yeah I’m…

Anyway, Dani called a few days ago, like, last week or something, and asked me to do her this favour. She gave me cash to buy the time off and my boss was real understanding cos she used to be on the patty line too and she was like ‘You won’t be sterilising dildos for ever, my girl!’ only she didn’t say my girl, that’s sorta what you think she’s saying but she doesn’t say it out loud, if you get me.

And Dani’s got this memory stick she needs to hide, cos it’s got serious stuff on it. So she goes down to the club late one night yeah and leaves the stick in the laundry and I pick it up, and there’s money and stuff and I’m like, cool. Then I get this phone call, and she’s crying or something, like properly scared and she says she’s being followed and watched, and I owe her, you know? I owe her. She saved my life, back on the line. She saved me. So she says I need to wait a few days, then take the money and the stick and go to this place called Shawford and wait. And I’m like are you fucking kidding me, screamers and ragers no thank you but she’s like it’s okay, it’s okay, they won’t hurt you if you stay small if you stay broken they recognise the broken ones, the broken things, they don’t hurt them who are already hurting, and I’m like fuck that shit fuck right off…

But I owe Dani. And two days after that the club is raided, I mean like, it’s torn to pieces it’s just the most

and that’s when I knew that maybe Dani wasn’t lying. That maybe she was in shit, because the local superintendent he was with the girls every other day and even his wife sometimes came down so…

But these guys, the ones who tore the place up, they weren’t like normal coppers—I got interrogated! Me, I got put in this room with a man called Markse and he was all like ‘Tell me about Dani Cumali’ and I’m like, don’t say a word, like not even hello, cos if you start to talk to them that’s how they break you, and in the end he lets me go, not worth bothering with.

So I get the memory stick and I’m on the first train to Dover, which is like the most expensive thing I’ve ever done ever, and then I walk and I’m waiting at this place, just waiting it’s the shittiest thing I’ve ever done but also sorta the best. The ragers leave me alone, mostly. One night they started screaming and they were real close, and I pissed myself, like, actually pissed myself—not bad, like, not a lot of piss just a little bit, like less than a teaspoonful I reckon. Then I started screaming too, just screaming, and it felt good. I’d never done nothing like that before but I was crying after, I screamed and then there was nothing left and I just cried and it was the best thing it was…

They don’t bother me now. They’ve got this guy, this boss bloke, he goes to the sea every morning and rages at it. Just rages at it, cos of how he was born into this shit, and he didn’t ever find no way to make his life good, and he rages at the sky cos it never helped him, and at the earth cos it never carried him somewhere else, and his raging it’s… it’s sorta good, you know? It’s like going to church, only different like. Sometimes I scream, it’s like praying, but different.

Anyway. Tonight’s the last night I’m sticking in this place. Fuck knows where Dani even is, I’ve got stuff to do… but tonight I come home.

See there’s someone in the house.

And there you are. There you are.”

She finished speaking, twisting the crisp bag into a knot, then unwound it as if surprised by her own destructiveness, smoothed it out on the ground between them. Stared at the USB stick, looked up at Theo, then away. “Missus already reopened the club, mind. Says she’s still got a place for me, says there’s a market in Wivelsfield, and I’m like real diligent; that’s economics that is that’s knowing your business. Says no one else bothers to put the plastics in the bin marked BIOHAZARD. I’m gonna…”

She stood up, unfolding in a single motion, long skinny legs in dark blue leggings, pale face turned towards the door.

Theo stayed sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Thank you for the—”

“I did it for Dani. Dani was good to me. She was like… she was good. Is she dead?” An afterthought, a thing which was probable but which the girl hadn’t wanted to ask.

“Yes. She is.”

She nodded once, sad, at nothing much. “I thought maybe she might be, way she was acting it was all… was it quick?”

“I think so.”

“Did she die cos of that?” A nod towards the memory stick.

“Probably.”

“Why? No—don’t tell me. Don’t tell me. I got a life I gotta live. I got… I got this person I need to be. I gotta find… I’m gonna go now. I gotta get back to Wivelsfield.”

“Thank you for the…”

The girl was already going

going

gone.

Chapter 46

Once upon a time Neila was a man called Neil, and she worked out down the gym six times a week and drank protein shakes and was going to have the surgery for her arms, to make them properly, you know, but one day she realised that all of this, all of this was because she was in the wrong body and the protein wasn’t making it right because not only was her body wrong, the soul she was trying to force herself to be

the place inside her flesh where she fitted the light of her heart

she had shrunk down so small beneath the muscle mass that she hadn’t been able to see that the shape of her soul was a woman, blazing with light.

Theo stands at the back of the narrowboat, one hand on the rudder, and for a little while Dani Cumali is with him, disguised as a cormorant that keeps following the boat. It follows like the albatross followed the ship at sea, and for a while it was discomfiting, but now he knows it is divine.

On the patty lines they sing their songs

We are the ones who

we are the fallen who

we are the dead who

we are the dirt beneath

ours were the dreams that

we were the ones who

We lost the

we lost the

we broke the

blessed is the key in the lock

blessed are the children, for theirs is tomorrow, and their hands make the world anew.

Chapter 47

Theo slept on the floor where once his bed had been.

The cold kept waking him. He huddled into the furthest corner from the window, buried himself inside his coat and slept.

Once he thought he heard music, a tiny sound, sung in a child’s voice.

“Together we march, together we sing, happy in our community. The children play, there are igloos on the green, happy happy happy, the aliens make noodles…”

He thought he was dreaming, and the thought that he was dreaming seemed very alert, and wide awake.

He curled up tighter, shivering, and the singing went away.

A little before dawn the screaming started again. A morning chorus, a rising prayer, the hidden people of the town turned their faces towards the mirrored sea and wailed. Not a song of rage, not for the rising of the sun. They called out the long sound of the whistle that marked the end of the factory day. They sang the closing of the metal gates across the forecourt. They shrieked the rubber on road of the last lorry driving away. They called to the sea, and at their sound Theo jerked awake, and bleary crawled to the bathroom and tried the tap, and there wasn’t any water, and so he walked to the front door and opened it a crack as the eastern sun bounced off the ocean at the bottom of the hill, and as he opened it, someone grabbed his hand from outside, pulled him forward and off his feet, and kicked him in the head.

The screamers, the ragers, the ones who got left behind, they feast on raw fish torn from the sea, they pick at the mussels that cling to the edge of the pier. There are no children born here, but they cling on, cling on, cling on like the sucker-flesh they feast on.

Hands pulled Theo through familiar streets.

To say he was beaten was probably unfair as that implied a plan, implied that there was some sort of…

Instead they hit because it was what they did.

And they smashed the windows.

And threw stones at the wall.

And tore at their hair and hit each other and scratched at their own skin as often as they bothered to kick him, when they remembered he was there, thrown in a corner of what had once been the back room of the pub where the ex-sailors went to drink away their landlubber days.

He stayed huddled, most of the time, and hoped no one noticed him, and for a while that seemed to work, as the four men and women turning through the room seemed equally as occupied with clawing at the last remnants of wooden panelling around the bar, cutting their arms lightly with glass and fighting over a bag of slightly mouldy bread stolen from the back of a shop down the way in Ramsgate, smuggled out through the fences and down the muddy causeway, as with beating him.

Sometimes someone saw him, and remembered that he was there, and kicked him or pulled his hair or trod on a vulnerable-looking joint for good measure, because why not, and then they’d lose interest and go back to trying to rip out the bathroom sink with their bare hands.

After a while even the ragers were calm, their morning rituals fulfilled, and they sat on the floor of the gutted pub, thin burgundy carpets peeled back to brown strings stretched like tripwires across the floor; the mirror gone from behind the bar, the bottles smashed and handles wrenched off the taps.

Still a slight smell of stale beer hung on the air, embedded in the fabric of the walls itself. As the sun climbed higher and swept across the floor, it was easy to imagine the place that had been before, and remember the time Theo’s dad came down here for a pint with…

A pint with…

It might even have been Jacob Pritchard, king of the coast, back in the days when boys were just boys.

Theo lay in a corner, and was for a while forgotten.

A man stood over him.

Thought about things for a while.

Then stamped on his abdomen, just to show willing.

Stood a while longer.

Said, not unreasonably, “You were Dani’s mate, yeah?”

Theo opened his less swollen eye, and looked at the man through the fold of his arms as the pain blurred vision and the light from the sea turned all things into grey shadows against its brightness.

“Hard-faced bitch she was, but we had some laughs. Wasn’t surprised she ended up on the patty line. Always gonna be the way.”

The figure before Theo drew a penknife, squatted on his haunches, toyed for a while with pushing the knife into the top half of Theo’s left arm, rocking the point back and forth against his sleeve, not applying pressure, not releasing the weight, just mulling a proposition, before getting bored again and instead digging the rusting point thoughtfully into his own leg, slow and long, then releasing it with a sigh as the blood began to flow.

“Shouldn’t laugh. Maybe the patty line was better, a smart move, she was always smart. You were the dumb one, right? Yeah—that’s right—Dani and her dumb friend. Wasn’t your dad some sort of nutter? Or am I thinking ’bout somebody else?”

The blood from the man’s leg seeped into familiar shapes carved by a dozen other indentations, a network of streams and rivers that had dried deep, muddy brown in the fabric of his once-blue jeans. Little crimson drops began to run down his exposed ankle into the hollowed-out rags of his shoes.

He didn’t seem to notice, or care.

“She got knocked up, didn’t she? Kept trying to tell me that the vermin was mine. No fucking way I said, not mine, not my fucking problem, you think she’s my problem then you’ve got another… what happened to that kid anyway? What happened to her?”

A thoughtful prod of Theo’s shoulder with the point of the knife when he didn’t answer, then another, a little more insistent.

“Dani’s dead,” whispered Theo through the bundled-up cocoon of his own pain.

“Is she? What was it—drugs?”

“Murdered.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No. The Company.”

“Seriously? Seriously, you’re not just—shit. Hey that’s something, to say that’s a real…”

From the back of the building a sudden howl of fury, met by another, the sound of gasping men, a fight breaking out, something cracked, something smashed, someone fell, screamed in agony, true agony now, a bone broken, something cut.

The sound subsided.

The man with the knife listened, waited for it to fade away, the distant whimpering of a broken body crawling towards the dust, then turned his attention back to Theo, smiling broadly.

“What’s your name?”

“Theo.”

“Theo, huh? Didn’t think… but what do I know? Never stuck my nose into the business of… come on then.”

He folded the knife away, hooked one arm under Theo’s, pulled him to his feet. Theo moaned, unable to keep down the sound, half-fell, was caught on the man’s shoulders, let himself be dragged, feet trailing, out of the pub into the blazing light of day.

The pub looked straight onto the shingle beach. A criss-cross of tattered grey British flag bunting still swagged the pavement in front of it, waiting for a brass band to play below, the souvenir shop to reopen and sell bags of shells imported from Thailand for only £2 a kilogram.

In the brilliant outdoors light Theo saw the face of the man who carried him, and thought he knew it. Somewhere, through the cuts and the scars, the intricate dot-to-dot patterns of scabs and half-healed wounds drawn through the ears and cheeks, nose and lips, there was a recollection, a name.

“You were Dani’s boyfriend,” he whimpered as the man carried him towards the sea. “Your name is Andy.”

The man called Andy gave him a hoick as he began to slip again, beamed brightly, exclaimed, “You ever been mad at something, Theo? You ever properly lost it?”

Theo grunted in reply. Andy carried him onto the shingle, laid him down at the top of the slope that tumbled towards the sea, thought for a moment, then with an easy kick pushed him, so Theo rolled like a sausage down to the edge of the water, landing in a curled-up groan of pain where the sea darkened the stone to deeper brown, the detritus of his fall forming small mounds of rattling pebbles against his side. Andy slipped down behind him, the shingle scuttling away beneath his weight, landed easily on his haunches. For a while he sat there, rocking a little, as the water came in and brushed against his toes, thick white foam hissing and popping as it rolled back out.

Theo turned his head away from the incoming tide, let the cold salt seep into his coat, his clothes, chill his fingers, and waited, eyes half-shut, and didn’t have the strength to bother with imagination.

After a while Andy said, “You gotta stick around and look after what you got. That’s what it is. You gotta say fuck you to them who tell you to go you gotta believe in what you have you gotta stand up for your family and the little guy and for the…”

He stopped as suddenly as he’d begun, opened his knife, stared at the bloody blade, closed it, opened it again, washed it in the salt water, dried it on his sleeve, closed it, put it away.

Rocking on his haunches, like a man at prayer, he watched the sea.

“Sometimes we go on raids. Me and the lads. We go pinch things, sometimes we dance around the village up on the cliffs to make the rich people scared, it’s funny that, funny ha ha. Last time though, bastards called a helicopter on us. Didn’t even let us get the dead, funny, funny ha.” Watched the sea. “Murdered, huh?”

“Yes.”

“You and she, you like…”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. We weren’t. Once when we were kids, we were… but that was fifteen years ago. She’s just someone who… I just thought… it seemed like that maybe this might matter, that maybe it was… I lied about who I was. I’ve been lying since I left this place. I pretended to be stupid, I stole this kid’s degree and kept my head down, you just… keep your head down and…”

Stopped. Words hurt, breath hurt.

Rolled a little to one side to see if that would make things better. When it didn’t, groaned, rolled back. Andy watched in silence.

“You ever screamed?” he asked at last. “You ever howled?”

When Theo didn’t answer, he leaned forward, breath brushing the salt on Theo’s face. One hand slid over the exposed left side of Theo’s ribs, as a lover might hold their beloved close, found a part tender and swollen, pushed. Theo’s eyes bulged, his body curled in and away from the pain, he spat salt and spit, but the scream stuck somewhere in the mess of his throat, and with a tut Andy let go, shaking his head sadly.

“Gotta learn to let it out,” he chided. “Gotta listen to the truth of the thing. Seems like guy like you needs to get a bit of the rage. You don’t do the rage, you not gonna know what matters.”

Shook his head again, chuckled at a distant memory. “I met Dani at the factory. She did the maggot nets. I did packaging—you have to make these cardboard templates which wrap around things like you know your sandwiches? When you have a sandwich you open up the packet and it just folds out so neatly, it’s the perfect size and shape. That’s what I did. I was great. I was the shit, I was… but they had this kid who they didn’t have to pay full wage to so when I turned twenty-five they were like, the kid knows everything you do, and I was like, I’ve got talent I’ve got skills I’ve got…

But they sent me away. Next thing Dani is knocked up, and she’s like, it’s yours, but we’d stopped going out by then we’d stopped being—I was like, fuck that shit babe fuck that I don’t care who the fucking dad is cos I can’t deal with some…

Too late for an abortion by then, course. Couldn’t pay for it even if. Didn’t have health insurance, she has to borrow cash to get to the charity hospital in Canterbury but they don’t have beds so she phones me and is like, my waters are breaking, and I’m like, fuck, and by the time I get there she’s given birth to this purple thing in the car park and I’m like…

…babies stink. And like, when a woman gives birth, she can like, crap herself there was like blood and crap and baby stink and it was…”

Rocking, rocking by the sea, he drives his fists forward suddenly, both, knuckles down into the gravel, bone cracking, blood and bruising, rolls forward, rolls back, rolls forward, rolls back. An animal groan, a moan, head twisting to the side, back arch, curl, arch, curl. Then silence a little while. Theo lay, half on sea, half on shore, and watched through his one open eye.

“I went for benefits, and they said my case was a hard one and they’d put me on £53 a week. I had to have a sponsor, my sponsor was the dentist my job was the biological waste too you’d get these bags, these little yellow bags, of teeth.

I’d put them in the incinerator every night, kids’ teeth, but also old teeth and broken teeth and yellow teeth and black teeth and you’d get the roots too I’d never seen a root before but it’s long and covered in the bits of meat that get pulled out when it does, like it’s furry you know?

I wasn’t talking to Dani. Her dad had a stroke, and she pinched some medicine. You shouldn’t do that shit, shouldn’t get caught, they gave her an indemnity, she couldn’t pay. Sent her to the patty line making kids’ shoes and before she went she came to me with this baby and said, you gotta look after her you gotta, but I was like, she doesn’t even look like me, and she tried leaving the kid on my door, can you fucking, she left the kid who was…

They took her away, anyway. Dani first, then the kid. Good riddance I said good riddance and…”

He reached over, caught Theo by the back of his head, rolled him over, pushed his head down into the rising water, into the softer sand and, biting little stones of the low-tide beach, held him as he twitched and gagged and writhed and gasped, chuckled and let him go.

Theo flopped back onto the stones, gasping for air, tried to crawl away, couldn’t move.

There they stayed a little while longer.

“She got out, in the end. Dani, I mean. Went crazy trying to find her kid, was like, where the fuck is Lucy?—that’s her name, Lucy—and I was like, fuck if I know, and she was like, she’s your daughter she’s your daughter how could you do this to your own fucking daughter, and I thought maybe… I thought maybe…”

Tears in his eyes? Spray from the sea. Salt from the rage, the pain, the rocking and the blood. Theo found it hard to judge. Maybe none. Maybe all three together, now rolling down the red, scarred cheeks of Andy.

“She punched her parole officer. That was it. Back on the line. Never got free. Out for a few weeks, she’d steal stuff, go back on the line. Got into crack. I didn’t see her. I was like, I don’t want to know, I just don’t wanna, and after a while she shut up, pissed off, let me think. Fuck it’s so hard to think sometimes it’s so hard to know anything, I know things when I scream then I know then I know what’s inside but the rest of the time it’s just… Never surrender never surrender that’s the way you do it. Never admit you’re beaten never let go of justice truth justice making right that’s all that matters now blessed are the it’s justice for the…”

“Lucy is my daughter,” he mumbled.

Andy stopped rocking, thought a while, shrugged, didn’t move.

“I didn’t know, I thought… she’s probably your daughter. She’s probably your daughter, Dani didn’t lie if you do the maths if you…”

Andy feinted towards him, hands, feet, head, and laughed as Theo flung his hands up to protect himself, curling up in the expectation of pain. Andy uncoiled, enjoying his merry joke.

Laughed a little.

The laughter faded.

A jerking half-chuckle.

Then silent again, apart from the washing of the sea.

At last, Andy mused: “Sometimes I’d think, maybe the kid was mine. I’d think that for a while, and I’d think, so what? So fucking what? Doesn’t fucking matter. But couldn’t stop thinking it. Couldn’t get it out of my head. Tried shouting her name, but that didn’t stop it hurting. Usually, you put one pain over the other and you forget the thing that hurt and it’s better, I mean, it’s better it’s how you get… but it didn’t get better. It doesn’t get better. I don’t know.”

Salt on his face, between his toes, in his fingers, Theo blinked at Andy against the light and couldn’t work out what he was seeing on the other man’s face, or what he saw through the brilliance of the ocean-reflected sun. “It doesn’t matter,” he croaked. “It doesn’t matter. Dani said she’s your daughter and Dani is dead so this is all…”

Words rolled down.

Nothing more to say.

Andy watched the sea, Theo watched the land.

Andy said, “Lucy is my daughter.” Rocked a little while by the sea. “Lucy is my daughter. I got that, one night. I got it when the raging stopped, when I cut my wrists but didn’t die, men shouldn’t do that, men shouldn’t die, Dads shouldn’t ever… that was when I got it. Lucy is my daughter, and I left her. I left her. I fucking left her.”

Tears and blood, rolling into water.

“If she’s your daughter, will you… you gotta find her and tell her that… she can’t live like we do. The sea the sky the earth they never carried me I hate them for letting me be born for making me breathe I hate them I hate—but she gotta love ’em. If she’s your daughter you gotta find her, you gotta help her be something which isn’t… you know. You know.”

Shook his head. Stared at his hands.

“You’d best be going.”

Salt water ran out of Theo’s nose.

“There’s a queen, somewhere in the north. They give her prayers, blessed is the sky blessed are the falling leaves blessed are the daughters who—there’s a queen. The queen of the patties. If the kid, Lucy, if she wants a DNA test or something like that if she wants it…”

The sea rolled in and they lay in silence.

“Nothing changes. Nothing changes. That’s just the way it is and you fight against it just the way it is you go places and it still doesn’t change and you ask what the point of…”

Silence again, watching the sea.

“You walking?”

Theo crawled onto his hands and knees, waited a while, stood up, slipped, sat on the shingle, crawled onto his hands and knees, stood, swayed, waited a while, looked towards the land at the top of the curve of shingle, the town obscured by stone, only blue sky above.

“Don’t come back,” mused Andy. “Don’t come back. Tell Lucy it’s on her now. She’s got to make something she’s got to… tell her I’m… don’t come back.”

Theo crawled, hand and foot, up the slope of the shingle.

Andy watched the sea.

After a while he stood up, waded hip-deep in, letting the muddy swell knock against his balance, grit fill his shoes. He closed his eyes, and punched the water, screamed and wailed and hurled his fists, his arms, kicked out beneath the foaming waves he screamed and screamed and punched and punched and

Theo walked away.

Chapter 48

Walking inland.

Didn’t feel like the cliff path again didn’t think he could make the hills, there were stairs cut into the chalk but even then…

Fell by a windmill which had stopped spinning a long time ago.

Lay on the ground as the sun turned towards afternoon.

Walked crusted in salt shoes and socks and shrivelled-up feet. A USB stick inside his pocket. It wasn’t wet. That was a miracle, divine intervention, he thought he saw something in the flight of seagulls, thought there was meaning in the way they turned overhead.

He came to a farm and dogs barked and a child shouted and a man came charging with a shotgun which probably didn’t work, but Theo ran anyway and fell in a ditch and hid there a while as the sun moved towards night.

At sunset came to a village with a little church where all the people prayed and a little square outside the church where there were stalls to sell childhood teddy bears to raise money for the fight against cancer and a pub where the landlord knew everybody’s name.

But the pub landlord took one look at Theo and absolutely did not have a room for the night, so he walked on until he came to a house on the edge of town which doubled up as the dentist’s, and the dentist came out and said, “You’re in trouble?” and led him inside and sat him down in front of the electric fire in the living room as the TV played far too loud, and gave him tea and bread and said, “You can sleep in my son’s room. He’s gone away now. He wouldn’t mind you sleeping there. I’ll phone him to make sure.”

And the dentist went into the kitchen and tried phoning her son, and he didn’t answer, because he never did, and he didn’t reply to her texts, but that was okay, if he cared about someone sleeping in his former bed she was sure he would answer, absolutely he would.

Theo sat on the floor in front of the fire as the dentist watched the weather, a channel broadcasting nothing but temperatures and wind speeds, ocean currents and storms brewing in the Carolinas, no mention made of Kent, and accidentally he fell asleep in that place, and woke in the morning to find that the dentist had put a pillow under his head and a blanket over his shoulders, and had washed and dried his socks and laid them out by his shoes, along with a cheese and pickle sandwich and a set of rosary beads.

The rosary had belonged to her son too, but he’d forgotten to take it with him when he left home. One day, she knew he’d reclaim it.

“I give kindness to strangers. The Lord teaches us to give kindly, that’s how we find grace.”

The vicar came round to check in on Theo, and told him that Jesus was his salvation, and to give thanks. The dentist made tea and whispered, “I didn’t believe, but my son he believes, and I find that since he’s left home believing brings me closer to him. Believing makes me…”

“You’re very kind,” mumbled Theo. “You’re very…”

Time, when your face is all smashed up, is a little…

the ice on the canal

It creaks it cracks before the prow of the boat he hadn’t even noticed how deep the cold went into the marrow his fingers are blue the ice

Even thin ice can puncture the hull, can sink a narrowboat. They drown as they sleep they wake the water rushing down their noses it is

Even Neila dies, sometimes, in Theo’s dreams and time is…

From the room next door, mystic words:

“P2, P3, M1, M2… M2… P2 M2…”

The dentist pulled back the top lip of her patient and tutted at what she saw.

“Mrs. Trott, I did tell you that this day would come.”

The high whine of the electric drill, a whimper of pain.

Neila turns over the cards.

Four of coins, Temperance, ace of staves, Death (inverted), king of swords, the Emperor, ten of staves, eight of cups, the Hanged Man (inverted).

The Hanged Man is a complicated card. Restriction, letting go, sacrifice. Trapped between heaven and hell, perhaps supporting the heavens, maybe plunging into hell. Only the Tower is a trickier card to handle when it’s drawn.

Indecision. Martyrdom. Suspension of all things, a failure to act, the need to look at things from a new perspective, a willing victim a…

Neila doesn’t like the word “victim.”

If you’re “willing” then how are you a “victim”? Victim is the denial of choice, it is…

From the banks of the canal, shrieks of laughter through the night. She looks up from the cards, Theo from the stove, and they listen.

The laughter is the heady wildness of the poisoned mushroom, the crimson berry, the wild things who run naked through the dark.

Neila turns out the lights, and for a while they sit in silence, peeking through the porthole.

The convoy rolls past, trucks blazing with light, a hundred, a thousand bulbs flashing and blazing, rattling along the nearby road, turning the gently falling snow into a bubble of white. The revellers are dancing, writhing, kissing, falling, sleeping, shrieking, laughing, they crawl across the tops of the over-heavy vehicles and over each other, stepping in eyes and on bellies, glass bottles smashing on the tarmac below, they laugh and laugh and laugh

and keep on driving, no one entirely knows where, a wild hunt through the night.

Sometimes, secretly, Neila hears the people scream at the side of the canal and wants to raise her voice in chorus with theirs, to join the singing, the singing of the ones who have lost. But she knows that if she does, she will be an animal. Only animals howl at the moon.

In a dentist’s house in a village with no name, no walls and a church in a little square, Theo sat at the computer and slipped Dani’s memory stick into the slot.

There, laid out in neat little boxes, was the mother lode.

Flicking through files.

Video, taken from a strange angle: two men in a high-ceilinged room, or maybe it just seemed that way because of the plant pot the camera was hidden in. They drink port from little crystal glasses and behind them is a painting of a man with one hand resting on the turning globe, and they are Philip Arnslade and Simon Fardell, and Simon says:

“The problem with the excess is that…”

“I entirely understand.”

“Under these circumstances, for the sake of the business.”

“It’s a relief, really.”

“If they don’t pull their weight.”

“I’ve always said…”

“We can’t always guarantee…”

“The site at Wootton…”

“Entirely in hand. You’re doing the right thing, Phil. You’re doing the right thing.”

A door opened, someone came in, the two men switched immediately, golf and the weather, the camera stopped filming.

From the dentist’s studio next door:

“You can’t gargle what do you mean you can’t gargle look it’s NO THAT’S CHOKING NOT GARGLING IT’S LIKE THIS YOU…”

Photos on a screen.

A factory behind, a pit in front.

The bulldozer has nearly finished filling in. The sheer horsepower of the machinery makes the bodies seem like fabric things, easily bent, easily pushed, no sense that this was once human flesh.

On the canal:

“Neila? Have I said thank you? Have I said… did I ever say anything which was… is there anything I can say which is…”

Neila turned over the final card and sighed, and looked up into the face of the man called Theo and smiled. “No,” she replied. “No.”

On the computer screen:

Finances. Data, numbers, they run down the screen projected profits margins of opportunity the number of…

A list of names.

Wootton.

King’s Badby.

New Roade.

St. Cecile on the Neve.

Lower Ayot.

Little Fife.

Twinmarsh.

He looks them up on the computer, and sees only the factory buildings and high walls of the patty lines.

Looks again and sees the long, dug fields of earth behind the factories, where fresh grass is beginning to grow.

The dead weren’t given names, but the last four digits of their National Insurance numbers were visible, along with the crimes for which they were indicted and the value of the indemnity they had failed to pay.

Theo washed his face in the bathroom sink, put the memory stick in his pocket, and let himself out of the back door of the house as the dentist berated a crying child.

Chapter 49

Following country lanes for a while, until he turned north and found the River Stour.

Long reeds tipped with black ends and sharp spines, slow-running waters through boggy marsh, midges, an apple orchard, a town where they sold hog roast and methane.

An empty village where the pub sign swung gently in the breeze.

Not tracking the river as much as he’d thought, the wetness of the land pushed him through little villages and around enclaves where sometimes the screamers screamed and the rich locked up their cars.

A tiny town, no name, no gate, where two people sat in their front garden, naked, and watched Theo go by. Another woman, naked, stood behind a living-room window, hands on hips, and in the full resplendence of an autumn sun shimmering cold across her bare, goosebumped flesh, glared at the walking man as he passed by.

Soon they’d have a party, soon there’d be another night for flesh and seeing what new flavours could be best licked off another man’s skin and it would be…

… but for now the sun was still up, so they waited for the evening and Theo walked.

He wasn’t sure if he would find the place he was looking for.

Doubted very much if the man he needed was still there, but still, sometimes you had to put everything on a wager.

He turned off the path where it met a slightly larger country lane, followed it down to the river’s edge, paused to wash his face again, dribble icy water down the back of his neck, listen to the swaying of the red-leafed trees, smell the mould behind the church.

Crossed a fat, belching A road, a railway line where the trains had stopped.

Walked up a hill to the valley’s edge, to a village of two houses and a corrugated-iron farm. There were gates on either end of the road, in and out of town. The gates were built in two parts, the outers heavy black metal, the inners swirling iron, reclaimed from a manor house, the date of construction still visible amid the roses blooming and songbirds soaring in metal, lovingly restored.

He knocked on an outer gate, and a panel swung back instantly, a man glaring through the peephole.

“Yes?”

“I’m looking for Mr. Pritchard.”

“He’s not here.”

“But he lives here.”

“No.”

A little sigh, a shifting of bruised, aching bones, flat, blistered feet. “I’m looking for Mr. Pritchard, it’s very important.”

The peephole slammed shut.

Theo knocked again.

The peephole didn’t open.

He called out, voice bouncing back at him from the high metal gate, “Tell Mr. Pritchard that I’m Mike’s boy. My name is Theo. Tell him I’m going to destroy the country, the government and the Company.”

No answer.

He slunk down, back against the concrete blast wall that encircled the little cluster of thatch-roofed houses, and waited.

Slept a while.

Woke hungry.

Slept a little bit more.

Stirred with the crunching of boots, the play of light against his eyelids, bright against the thick dark of cold autumn night bitten with the taste of winter.

A man in a green waxed coat, dark blue rubber boots and a pair of tatty blue jeans stood over him, face half-lost behind the glow of torchlight cutting into Theo’s face. A long-tongued mongrel dog sat patiently beside him, waiting for orders, tail beating slow and rhythmic against the ground, breath steaming a little in the air. Behind the pair, two more men stood, arms buried in black woollen coats, faces hard, ready to kick out against any who dared their disfavour.

“It is you,” mused the man with the torch. “You look like shit.”

Theo, shielding his eyes against the glare, squinted up. “Hello, Mr. Pritchard.”

“You’d better have a cuppa.”

The gate was opened at a nod, and Theo followed the older man inside.

“You take tea, right?”

“Please.”

“Milly! One cup of proper tea for our guest here, and I’ll have that herbal shit—it’s past my bedtime you see, if I have even a sniff of caffeine after 3 p.m. I can’t get to sleep and it’s my bowels too—you wouldn’t understand but when you’re my age you’ll see. Sit down, sit down.”

“Thank you I’m…”

“Someone do you over?”

“In Shawford.”

“Ragers?”

“Yes.”

“Town went to piss. After Budgetfood pulled out, place with such a fine tradition of smuggling too but they couldn’t hold it together, it’s all gone downhill, it’s nice to have a place to call your own though isn’t it, this place—biscuit?”

“Thank you.”

“Digestive?”

“I’ll eat anything.”

“Hungry? Milly! Our guest is hungry! Knock something up, will you?”

“You knock something up!” came the reply from the kitchen, down the end of a low-ceilinged, wood-timbered hall.

Jacob Pritchard chuckled, eased back into his padded chair with a creak of spine and sinew, smiled brightly at Theo.

Flames in an old iron fireplace; soot in the chimney. Various prizes for darts on the mantelpiece, getting old now, a few newer trophies for bowls. The stuffed head of a gorilla above a rocking chair, its face wrinkled in disapproval. The face seemed old, wise; it was not angry that it had been killed, severed from its body, stuffed, pickled and suspended on a living-room wall in Kent. It was merely exasperated that there was a species out there that thought this was the acceptable way of things.

A single fat-bodied fly crawled weakly at the edge of a windowpane, too exhausted from days of endeavour to find its way to the open crack at the top.

Jacob Pritchard, king of diesel, prince of cheap booze, sitting in a padded brown armchair, had grown old. His once-dark hair was tied in a thin ponytail, the peeling-back strands revealing the bright pink scalp underneath. His great hands shrank into his chicken-skin arms; most of his teeth were fake, and he kept them in a clear green jar by his bed at night.

His mind would be the last to go, and he knew it. Always assumed he’d go mad like his old mum had, but no, he’d be awake until the end, as his body failed one bone at a time, so it went, so it goes, you can’t beat time, not even him, not even Jacob Pritchard.

“So,” he mused, studying the bruised figure in the chair opposite his. “Little Mike’s boy, all grown up.”

Theo shrugged, and it hurt.

“All strapping man, all bringing down the Company, yes? All heroic causes and towns full of ragers and knocking on my door in the middle of the night. Yes indeed grown up, but maybe not the way your old man would’ve wanted. So how’d it work out for you, being Theo Miller? Did he have a good life?”

“Mostly.”

“Mostly—mostly—a joker—mostly he says and I say to you mostly is not what brings you to my door, sonny, it’s not the truth of matters as they now stand. It’s not why we’re here so why are we here, Theo Miller? Why would you come knocking, and what trouble do you bring?”

“I have proof.”

“What kind of proof?”

“All of it. Everything. Company Police shooting runaways, gunning down screamers and ragers, clearing whole enclaves out to send in the patties to remove the scrap metal, the bricks, the pipes—everything. I’ve got the maps of the mass graves behind the prisons, the records of how many people died cos the hospital wouldn’t let them in, the starvation figures for Wales, the murder rates for Newcastle, the…”

Jacob Pritchard rolled his lower lip in, puckered his cheeks, stared up at the ceiling, then shrugged. Where’s his tea? Pritchard called for tea and tea hasn’t come. In his more tempestuous days this would have been cause for some remark.

“If you can’t work on the patty line, you’re a burden on the state,” Theo mused. “You have to be fed, be given clothes, you have to be… but there are jobs, dangerous jobs, sometimes it’s easier, cheaper… at New Roade they process radioactive waste. The oldest patties, the ones who aren’t any use, are sent into the rooms with the spent fuel rods. They’re given these overalls, but real kit costs, so they just let them work until… then they break the bodies down and put them in these heaps and wait a few years and…

At King’s Badby they process jet fuel. There’s these conditions you get, these tumours, but the Company contracts don’t say they have to provide medical help. It got left out of the deal. The government deliberately left it out of the deal, Philip Arnslade and Simon Fardell, they were at university together. They’re best friends. One for the Company, one for the government, but the Company pays for them both.

And when they run out of labour, they send Company Police into the enclaves, and they grab anyone who looks at them funny. Where’d you think the beggars went from the city? Where’d you think the drunks, the kids who throw eggs are? Why’d you think there aren’t more people in the ghost towns that the Company left behind? Where’d you think they all went?”

On the canal, Neila said, “Tea? We’re down to camomile, which I don’t even like, but it’s all that is…”

In the prison, in the past, the man who was Theo’s father reached down into the bowels of the machine and realised, too late, that something was still moving, felt the cog, felt the lock, the first brush of metal and then the squeeze it burst through his hand like a bullet through a melon and he screamed and screamed and knew that he could pull his arm free and didn’t dare because if he did he would have to look at the place where his hand had been and he…

In Dorchester the woman who was Theo Miller’s mother helped pull up Mrs. King’s trousers, sweeping thin faeces off the inside of her thigh with a Wet Wipe and popping the fouled tissue into the bin, and said, “Mushy banana for supper lovely mushy banana you like banana don’t you you like it?”

But Mrs. King didn’t answer. She never did talk, really, except for when she wasn’t allowed her cigarettes.

By the fire, Jacob Pritchard said, “So?”

Outside the churchyard, the unnamed grave of the real Theo Miller is cold and overgrown. The first winter snow has fallen, the grass is stiff and cracked with frost there and the body is just bone in the thin coffin.

Jacob Pritchard shifts in his seat, wiggling an old ache in his lower back, and says again, “So? So what? Everyone knows this shit. This shit has been happening for years. This ain’t nothing new. So you got some shit. Funny—it’s funny, I like that, very funny—dead people, enclaves cleared, slaves locked up on the patty line, yeah, that’s a thing but what about it? I’m comfortable. I’m peachy. Most people are. Few thousands die… well shit. Most people are scared of the ones who aren’t like them anyway.”

Silence on the canal.

Silence in the firelight.

And of course, there it is. There is the truth, the one that has been waiting for Theo, and the ghost of Dani Cumali, their whole lives.

Everyone knew.

So what?

Then Theo murmured, “You’re right. Of course. Everyone knows. I’ve known. I send people to die, and I knew it. I’ve always known. No one ever says it. We stop before the hard things. We never finish saying anything that might matter at all. And you’re right. That’s how it happens. That’s how it always happened.”

Looked up. Met Jacob’s eyes. Smiled.

“My friend left me a message—save the mother. I thought she meant her, I thought I had to save her, but she was already dead. Dani went to a place called Danesmoor. There’s a woman there called Helen, she’s Philip Arnslade’s mother. Help the mother, Dani said. And sure, Dani stole stuff from the Ministry, but she’d been pinching things for weeks before she got herself sent to Danesmoor. That changed everything. Something there scared the Company enough to kill Dani. Kill my friend.”

“Boo hoo hoo kill my friend; well bugger me, Hamlet.”

Theo smiled at nothing much, nodding into the mesh of his fingers. Without rancour: “I don’t think bodies pushed into a field are enough to make people care. Or maybe… maybe that’s unfair. Maybe they care. But caring isn’t the same as doing something, and doing something is hard. It’s very, very hard. But the Company is made of people, and people are weak. They are cowards, like the rest of us. They wear a nicer suit. I’m going to destroy them all, one at a time, until there is nothing left, and the cities can burn and the sea can turn red with blood, and when it’s done I will make a better world for my daughter.” Thought through those words, looking to see if there was anything wrong with them. Couldn’t see it. “That’s all.”

In the room where they keep the children before they’re strong enough to be useful or pretty enough to sell, Lucy Rainbow Princess clicks through to her next review. “Came in perfect condition and is everything I wanted. Would 100 per cent recommend.”

Pauses, head on one side, thinks for a moment.

Types at the bottom: “Until it broke, 24 hours after opening the box. Fucking shit.”

Hit send.

She’d be punished later. The night would be hungry and cold. Someone had said once that her sentence was nearly up, but then it hadn’t been, it had been extended for… she wasn’t sure for what. Someone said she should see a lawyer, but no one would come, so here she was. This was what life was. This was all that her life would ever be. But for now, in her own way, this was a little victory.

By the sea, the screamers screamed at the waves, which foamed beneath the beating of their fists.

In the prisons, the patty lines kept on rolling rolling rolling

The golf club swung and the ball went wide, carried by the wind

A child scratched the art on the wall, wicked child you wicked wicked

The girl said, no, no, I don’t want to, I don’t want to, please, I don’t I don’t I just please stop please it’s not…

By the fire, Jacob Pritchard weaves his fingers across his belly and thinks about his past, his future and the man before him, and murmurs, “Not sure I want to bring down the system, not sure I do at that. I do just fine, I do, I do just fine with my wall and my gun and my dog we are safe, see, men like me, the Company—it’d buy the petrol I brought in cos I never robbed them, nice cheap stuff, no VAT, they do right by me, I do right by them so you see…”

Then the woman called Milly was in the door of the room, and Jacob looked at her and had nothing but a heart full of love, and saw that in her face which did not approve of this line of conversation, and sighed, and said, “You can sleep in the spare room, but if you get blood on my shit I’ll do you. Only bothering cos I liked your dad, a good man, him and me, we went way back, we went all the way.”

In the morning Jacob Pritchard gave Theo a car, stolen, plates changed, a Tupperware box of egg-and-cress sandwiches, five hundred quid in used notes. “Don’t come back,” he explained, affably, as Theo climbed into the driver’s seat. “Come back and I’ll drown you in tar.” And smiled, and shook Theo’s hand cordially, and watched him on his way.

A bouncing plastic toy wearing the colours of Watford FC by Hairworks swung from the front mirror, thumbs up and right foot raised to boot a ball towards victory.

It was annoying for a time, and then, after a little while, it wasn’t any more.