Flesh and Blood (16 page)

I sat gathering my thoughts, my face in my hands, staring at the distorted reflections from the shops on the damp pavement. My muscles ached from running. I felt exhausted, defeated, drowned.

People came and went around me. I thought maybe I should just tell someone, or show the notebook to anyone passing by.

How many of them would have listened? How many would have given me strange looks and dismissive sneers? How many were spies for the Greenhills? How many would have tapped their
phones and called the cops and a psychiatric ward? How long would I have lasted? I’d have been like that guy at the end of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
, raving and shouting, a madman with a message that nobody wanted to hear. An old film I’d seen the other week, with Liam and Jo. Part of our shared nerdiness.

My heart sank at the thought of Liam and Jo.

There was no saving them, was there?

There was only vengeance. That would drive me on.

The
Hadlington Courier
was no good. The tentacles of the Greenhills were tightly squeezed around everything in town. I’d have to go much further afield. I had to talk to someone well away from any possibility of Greenhill influence, someone rational and impartial, who had enough influence of their own to ensure that the truth would be revealed.

I checked the money I’d brought with me. There was more than enough cash for a one-way ticket to London.

The railway station was about a fifteen-minute walk away. Trains into London ran until at least ten o’clock. Once I got there, I could lose myself, no problem. I could get a phone, and let Mum and Dad
know I was OK. And check they were OK. Even if Mum and Dad were totally under the Greenhills’ chemical spell and told them I’d called, they still wouldn’t be able to track me down.

There were risks. The Greenhills might threaten my parents. But as soon as the lid was blown, as soon as the truth was out…

Decision made, I headed for the station at a brisk pace. I seemed to have found fresh energy.

Hadlington station was quiet at that time of night. There were staff milling about beside the ticket booth and a couple of taxi drivers chatted around mugs of tea in the car park.

I bought a ticket at the machine and waited on the platform, keeping to the few shadows and watching the arrivals board tick away the minutes. A bald man appeared, wearing a long overcoat and scarf, and took up a position close to the platform’s edge. He stood still, looking directly ahead, except for one brief scan left and right. He saw me and kept an expression of indifference on his face. The smooth dome of his head reflected the overhead lights.

Moments later, a woman appeared, too. She also stood close to the platform edge, about ten metres
along from the bald man. She had long, blond hair, a short jacket and high heels. She looked at me, too. Her expression was identical to the man’s.

The 21:47 to London Marylebone rumbled into view and slowed to a halt in a hissing screech of brakes. I hurried over to the nearest carriage and hopped on board. There weren’t many passengers.

Neither the man nor the woman made a move until I did. They walked along the platform and got into the same carriage as me.

I found a seat by a window, one of an empty four round a table. The doors slid shut, and there was a rising hum of power as the train moved off.

The bald man sat on the other side of the central aisle, directly opposite me. The woman was behind me; I couldn’t see exactly where without standing up and turning around.

The train clattered and rumbled. The lights of Hadlington were left behind, and we travelled through countryside, little of it visible in the cloud-shrouded night. The bright streak of a motorway ran alongside for a short distance, then glided away behind hills.

The bald man plucked a phone from the top pocket of his overcoat. He glanced over, and caught me watching him. I turned my head, and watched his reflection in the window beside me instead. He tapped out a message, then pocketed the phone. He sat still and quiet, not even bothering to look out into the gloom. He didn’t use his phone again, or take out a book, or otherwise occupy himself in any way.

I began to get nervous. Something about him didn’t seem quite right. Was he just a late-night commuter? Why was he just sitting there? People don’t just sit there on trains. If they’ve nothing to do then they doze, or at least they look bored and restless.

But, then, I was just sitting there, too. Maybe I was the one who seemed odd. Furtive. Watchful.

Or maybe I was right to be paranoid. Had he texted the Greenhills? Or someone acting on their behalf? The police?

What was the woman doing? There were barely more than a dozen passengers in this carriage – why had she sat behind me? Were they working together, making sure I was between them?

Who were they? Who the hell were they?

I tried to stay calm and focused. There were other people here; there was nothing these two could do to me out in public like this. I told myself that I was letting my imagination run away with me. I had no reason to suspect them. The Greenhills couldn’t even have known that I’d go to the station, could they?

There were two stops between Hadlington and London. As the train slowly drew into the first of them, the woman suddenly appeared from behind
me and stood beside the door.

Nobody got on or off, the woman included. When the train began to move again, she went back to her seat. The bald man sent a second message.

What was that about? Had she done that in case I’d tried to leave the train? Was he sending an update?

The train rattled on. A uniformed attendant plodded down the aisle, clipping tickets and sniffing. A couple further down the carriage started laughing at a private joke.

Shortly before the train was due to make its second stop, I thought of a way to test my suspicions. I stood up, walked along to a point beyond the laughing couple, and found another seat. If the man and the woman were supposed to be keeping a close eye on me, then one or the other of them would have to change seats as well. I was out of their sight.

With my heart thumping, I shifted slightly to look back along the aisle. I couldn’t see the bald man any more, but the woman’s high heels were poking out. I waited, watching the aisle, not shifting my gaze for a second.

The train began to slow down. The glow of the
next station suddenly flowed along the sides of the carriage. The woman got to her feet and stood beside the door again. The doors slid back, letting a bank of cold air ripple along the aisle. The woman got off and marched away, following signs saying ‘Buses’ and ‘Platforms 2,3,4’.

Instead of feeling relieved that I’d obviously been wrong, my churning fears made me wonder if she’d left the train because her part of my surveillance was over. No more stops before London, no more opportunities for me to get off. I could tell how nervous I was because I could have sworn I heard the next-stop station announcement as ‘Maybrick High’.

What about the bald man? Was he still sitting there?

The train sped up once more. I considered returning to my original seat, purely to check on the man’s whereabouts. However, before I could move I saw him coming towards me. My nerves froze. He walked slowly between the seats, and stopped when he was level with the exits. Digging his hands into the pockets of his overcoat, he leaned against one of the transparent partitions beside the doors. He stood there, his weight shifted to one side, his features still
set in that casual mask of disinterest.

He didn’t look in my direction. Or, at least, I didn’t notice if he did. I monitored him closely for the remainder of the journey, slightly less than ten minutes. He barely moved a muscle.

The train pulled into Marylebone at 22:27, exactly on time. The bald man stepped out as soon as the doors opened and I lost sight of him. I went through the ticket barriers, across the draughty concourse, out on to the road. Black cabs growled along, picking up and dropping off fares. A couple of taxi drivers chatted around mugs of tea.

My first thought was that it should be safe to contact the police here, but caution made me change my mind. I might be able to present my evidence to cops in London, but I had no guarantee that I wouldn’t be dealing with one of Chief Constable Greenhill’s colleagues. In any case, my claims would inevitably be handed over to the police in Hadlington at some point, and then I’d be back to square one.

For similar reasons, I dismissed the idea of contacting any official authority. There were relatives of the Greenhills in the Home Office, and elsewhere. I couldn’t be sure who was a potential
friend or a potential enemy. I was not going to take unnecessary chances.

The media, in some form or other, seemed like the best option.
The national papers will hear me out
, I thought. But anything I say could be dismissed, or even discredited completely if the Greenhills were able to put pressure on the right people. Something with a significant internet readership might be a safer bet, or a TV news channel.

What was clear was that simply calling them would be pointless. They’d never listen, they’d assume I was a nutter. I had to be there in person, show them the notebook.

There was a large, busy café on the other side of the street, opposite the station entrance, next to a chip shop where I could see an Asian man was tipping a bucket of chopped potatoes into the fryer. Hand-painted lettering on the café window said ‘Free Wi-Fi’ and ‘Internet Access Here’. I dodged a line of taxis and crossed the road.

The café was warm and bustling. There was a short queue at the bar. A skinny woman in yellow Chinos placed her order. Music was playing in the background, beneath a hubbub of voices. It was my
favourite track from one of my favourite bands.

There were three flatscreen terminals in the corner, with people hunched over two of them. I asked at the bar about the third, and paid the fee for half an hour’s use.

I sat on a rocky wooden stool and tapped at the keyboard. There were clean patches on the tops of the letter keys, where thousands of fingers had rubbed off the accumulated grime of cooking and the city. Someone had left a sheet of paper beside the screen, covered in calculations and broken English. Someone else had jotted a phone number in marker pen on to the bottom corner of the screen itself.

It was the work of only minutes to discover that the nearest media office was less than half a kilometre away. The radio station VoiceTalk Digital had its studio in a converted factory building off Lisson Grove. I’d listened to VoiceTalk a few times in the past; it was mostly inane chatter about soaps and whatever was outraging the tabloids that day, but it also had a respected reviews show and it covered major news stories. It was perfect.

I hurried back out into the street, the route to the place fixed in my mind. It was close to twenty to
eleven when I arrived. The station’s logo was on an illuminated rectangular sign above the entrance. Inside, beside an unmanned reception desk, was a button like a domestic doorbell marked ‘Outside Office Hours, Please Ring For Assistance’.

I pressed it, and paced back and forth. I suddenly caught sight of my reflection in the glass of a framed abstract painting screwed to the wall. I looked dishevelled and drawn – I could have passed for someone twice my age. Awkwardly, I smoothed my hair.

The sound of shoes clumping down steps was followed by the appearance of an attractive woman in a chunky jumper and jeans. She was carrying a wad of loose papers, and a file just like the one I’d kept my research in at home.

“Yes, can I help you? Deliveries are during office hours only, I’m afraid.”

I didn’t know where to begin. “It’s nothing like that,” I said. “I’ve … come here because there’s nowhere else I can go. There’s … er, a news story I have information about.”

She frowned. “Which one?”

“None you’ll know about. This is … new.
Look, er, I have a news story that I can give you, but it’s complicated, and you may not believe it at first, but I have proof.”

“Why don’t you come back in the morning?” she said, with a smile of encouragement. “Our news editor will be in quite early.”

“It can’t wait,” I said, more sharply than I meant to. “I’m sorry, it really can’t. This is a very big deal, believe me. I promise you, you’ll have a world exclusive, the biggest crime story in decades, but it can’t wait, not even till tomorrow.”

Her eyes narrowed a little. “Crime? Are you in trouble? Are you involved in—?”

“No, no, I promise you, it’s not like that. I have proof of crimes, but there’s a great danger that I’ll be silenced, that it’ll all be hushed up, because it’s been hushed up for years. I need to talk to someone right now.”

“Then tell the police.”

“I can’t. The criminals have friends in the police, although many of those friends might not know the whole truth. I can’t risk it.”

She paused, looking past me through the glass entrance. “Is anyone else going to turn up here?
Is this going to be a security issue?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Well, I can’t guarantee it, but there’s nobody following me at the moment, I’m almost sure.”

“Who are you, exactly? And how old are you? Where have you come from?”

“My name is Sam Hunter. I’m seventeen. I live in Hadlington.”

“Hadlington?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Why come here?”

“Because I can trust you, can’t I?” I shrugged.

I could see she was wavering. She glanced at her watch.

“Follow me up,” she said. “But I’m warning you, if this is some sort of gag, you are in big trouble.”

She led me up two flights of stairs, into a heavily carpeted area with sofas on one side and two enormous glass panels on the other, each looking into a small studio. In one of them, an unshaven man in a
Doctor Strange
T-shirt was at a sound desk, talking into a microphone. The station’s output came from a speaker on a coffee table.

“…broadcasting around the UK on DAB, and on the world wide web, this is VoiceTalk Digital, the
home of debate, discussion, and chat…”

“Wait here a minute, have a seat. I’m Sarah, by the way.”

“Thanks,” I said weakly.

She was only gone for a matter of seconds. When she came back, she had a notepad and pen.

“As luck would have it, I have a little time,” she said. “We can talk in the Meeting Room. Do you want a cup of tea or anything?”

“No, thank you,” I said.

“Mind if I do?”

“No, of course not.”

She showed me into a narrow room overlooking the road. The only things in it were a polished oval table and six chrome-framed chairs arranged round it. I sat down while she fetched a Styrofoam cup of milky coffee. She sat opposite me and flipped open her notepad.

“OK, Sam, tell me all about it. What are we talking here, robbery? Fraud?”

“Murder,” I said.

Her expression changed. “Whoa, this is for the police. I know what you said, but this station can’t start being—”

“Please, I’m begging you,” I cried. “Just hear me out. Then do what you like, call who you like, but please listen to me. I have to tell someone like you, I can’t trust anyone else.”

She rubbed a hand across her forehead and took a sip of her coffee. “I’m probably being stupid saying this, but go on.”

I told her everything, from the beginning. It all flooded out of me. She listened, taking notes and staring at me with a growing look of horror on her face. I pulled the little notebook from my jeans, straightened it out a bit and handed it to her. She turned the pages with the edge of two fingers, as if the thing would suddenly bite her. The colour drained from her cheeks.

“This notebook is … how old?” she said.

“Entries are dated 1971,” I said. “And if you look in the back you’ll see a printed advert for 1972 diaries.”

She placed it delicately on the table. She was silent for a while.

“OK,” she said at last. “First, the police really have got to know about this, and right now. But! Also, we have to get you, and this notebook, some
sort of reliable protection. If these Greenhills are intent on getting to you, then we have to make sure that you’re so far out of their reach you might as well be on Mars. OK?”

“OK,” I nodded.

“We can’t broadcast anything, I’m sure you can understand that. We’d be breaking laws ourselves. Once the police are involved, it’s a different matter.”

“Right.” I was nodding as if to make my head drop off.

“Also,” she said, “your parents may be in danger, if your suspicions are right and the Greenhills might use them to frame you for something. I’ve got a few contacts who’ll know who to call on that score, security people.”

“Right, thank you.”

Sarah leaned towards me. She spoke slowly and quietly. “Sam, you’ve been extremely brave. This is going to be over soon. You’re not alone. And there was nothing you could have done to help your friends. You can’t beat yourself up about that. OK?”

My vision glazed and swam. “Thanks,” I muttered.

“OK?”

I nodded again. I sniffed and swiped at my nose
with the back of my hand.

There was something yellow on my knuckles. A thin line of yellow. Like my parents, like the neighbours.

I raised my hand, my mind shattering in fright, telling myself it couldn’t be true.

I looked up at Sarah.

“OK? … OK? … OK? … OK?”

It wasn’t my vision that swam. It was the room.

I leaped to my feet and ran, but I didn’t move. I screamed out, but didn’t make a sound. I kicked and raged, but stayed exactly where I was.