Deviant (22 page)

Abigail’s eyes stung as she read. She sniffed and wiped her nose with her sleeve, slumping down on the floor beside the chest. Yet she also felt annoyed. For once, could someone leave her a letter that made sense? She put the note aside and glanced at the stapled document.

Stamped in red on the front page were the words
TOP SECRET
.

She flicked to the next page.

THE GRANOCH PROJECT

1996

The words leapt off the page. The letters on Becky’s graffiti were not an acronym, and they did not spell chanorg or crahgoh or chonarf or norgach or crohbag.

GRANOCH
.

She read on.
The pilot project was implemented in 1996, in the small town of Granoch, Argyll, Scotland
.

Of course! How could she have forgotten Granoch, the housing estate just north of Holy Loch? Several of her classmates in Dunoon came from this town. Nothing more than four 1960s council house buildings, each twenty-two floors high. The township loomed over an otherwise picturesque area, an ugly reminder of the fractured state of the country. Single-parent families, drug users, alcoholics, the mentally ill, the infirm—all had been moved there from Glasgow in the 1960s. Better conditions improved their lives at first, but then
it all fell apart. Isolated, deprived, and disenfranchised, no one in their right mind ever stepped foot inside Granoch.

Once, Abigail had asked Nieve if she could play with a classmate who lived there, excited at the idea of going all the way up to her flat on the nineteenth floor. Nieve had suggested the friend come to the commune instead. “It’s a terrible shame, but it’s not safe there, darling,” Nieve had said.

The friend’s mother had said she wasn’t allowed to go for a playdate at the commune either. Part of being “looked after” by the local authority was being shunted off to Granoch Residential School at the age of fourteen for a month or so, a jail-like building with jail-like rules. Funny, perhaps she hadn’t recognized Granoch in the graffiti tease letters because she’d repressed the shit-hole, burying it as deeply in her mind as she possibly could.

No. It wasn’t funny at all.

A
BIGAIL HAD NEVER HEARD
the sound in real life before, but she recognized it immediately. A trigger, clicking ready.

The cold steel of the barrel sent waves of adrenaline through the back of her neck. She wanted to run, but knew she shouldn’t. She froze.

“Move and I’ll shoot,” the voice behind her warned.

“Okay.” Abigail gripped the letter and report, her hands trembling.

“I … I’m …” The gunman seemed nervous, unsure what to do next. His voice was also strangely high-pitched. “Get down on the ground, face down.”

Abigail stretched her legs out behind her, and her hands
out in front, papers in hand. The torch was still lit, pointing directly at the gunman’s feet. He wore bright orange Adidas trainers with blue stripes.

“Stay on the ground and count to two hundred …” The voice seemed to run out of steam. “Abigail?”

She’d seen these shoes before. “Stick? Is that you?”

Feet on glass. Someone else was in the house. Before Abigail knew it, Stick was hauling her to her feet and dragging her out the front door.

“This way,” he said. He turned left at the front gate.

Three men in suits, all with guns, raced out the front door after them.

“Here!” He grabbed her hand and ran across the road into a dark lane.

A yellow mini was parked at the end of the long dark alleyway. Tossing the gun in the back of the car, Stick jumped over the door into the driver’s seat. Abigail hurled herself in after him. She tried to grab her seatbelt, but couldn’t find it. Stick screeched left onto the street.

Abigail found herself wondering why on earth Stick was driving a bright yellow car and wearing luminous orange trainers. If he was involved in all sorts of illegal shenanigans, surely he should wear something more discreet. Stick drove through a red light, groping for her belt with one hand. A black car was following them.

“Shit, Abigail,” he muttered. “What were you doing there? You’re dead now. We’re all dead now. Where can we go? There’s nowhere safe.”

“You have a
gun
!” she yelled.

“Not real. Water-gun look-alike. Banned now. I mean, you can actually cock it, like you’re about to shoot. You know, even though the hammer doesn’t do anything.”

The black car was gaining on them. Stick pressed hard on the accelerator, winding his way through wide streets, then narrower ones—eventually reaching an area with tiny lane-ways that backed onto a canal. Car chase scenes in movies (the few she’d seen) bored Abigail. Screeches and near misses, buses turning over, drawbridges opening up at the right or wrong time, fruit stalls smoothied, cop cars bursting into flames … a load of boy nonsense.

This was not boring.

Only afterward did it seem like slow motion. Or perhaps it really did happen in slow motion. Certainly time slowed down. Stick’s yelling “Hold on” came out like: “Hooolllllddddd Oooonnn,” facing her as he turned the wheel to the left. There was nothing to hold. She dropped her papers, fumbled around to find something she could grab. She didn’t have her seatbelt on and the swerve almost catapulted her out the window. Left hand on the wheel, Stick grabbed her shoulder with his right and stopped her flying out the side of the car.

“Belt …” he said, and she reached for it and clicked it in.

They were heading for a very narrow alleyway. They were going to crash. They were going to die. They lost the side mirrors—the scrape was deafening outside her window. She breathed in and out quickly, and then turned to look behind
her. The black car was too wide to follow them. It had ground to a halt. The men inside the car couldn’t open their doors to get out.

Thank God
. As Stick kept driving, Abigail took note of the number plate and said it out loud: “4DMSP38.”

Stick still had his arm around her, perhaps because she was shaking. Or he was in shock, frozen. Sound and movement returned to normal speed. They drove away from the black car and headed along a waterway.

“Is this the Venice Canals?” Abigail asked.

“Yeah,” Stick said. Her question caused him to remove his arm. She wished she’d remained silent.

“I know where we can go.”

W
HEN
B
REN FINALLY CAME
to the door, he was dressed in shorts and a shirt, which he hadn’t done up. If Abigail hadn’t been preoccupied with the fact that three men with guns were after her and the most beautiful man on earth had just put his arm around her, she might have taken more notice of his really-quite-incredible six-pack.

“Abigail! Oh, you’ve brought a friend.”

“This is Stick. I’m sorry … Can we come in?”

“Um. Sure …”

“And is there any chance we could park in your garage?”

T
HE YELLOW MINI SAFELY
tucked away, Abigail and Stick sat at Bren’s kitchen table as he heated up the saucepan of hot toddies he’d made earlier.

“So,” Bren poured some into cups, a look of amused disbelief on his face, “what you’re saying is that a secret agency …”

“The Granoch Group,” Stick explained. “It’s made up of guys who were screw-ups as teenagers, like my dad and Becky’s—Abigail’s.” In the bright kitchen light, Stick looked gaunt, like he hadn’t eaten for a while. He was definitely annoyed that Bren seemed so reluctant to believe him. He continued, trying to sound as calm and as sane as possible. “They think they can actually get rid of those screw-up urges with meds. Some kind of guilt, regret, and repentance maybe, I don’t know. I think in Abigail’s dad’s case he felt guilty about a friend who died.”

Abigail nodded. “Bakes, he told me. Got into drugs and burglary.”

“Probably one of his reasons for getting involved,” Stick confirmed.

Bren took a sip of his hot whisky and honey drink. He flashed a weak smile. “Abigail, are you actually buying all this crap?”

“I am,” she said. “Becky died last week. They say she killed herself but now I’m not sure. Her death wasn’t right. Things aren’t right.”

“Oh my God—your sister died?” Bren set his mug down and put his arm around her. “You should’ve called me. Of course things don’t seem right when you lose someone you care about. But look at me, look. He’s talking like a nutcase. Who is this guy exactly?”

“I’m not a nutcase,” Stick said.

Abigail clung to Bren for a moment. Her life in Glasgow had taught her to be wary, especially of men. Even Billy had seemed charming at first, and all he wanted was to draw her into his junkie brothel. She stared at Stick now. He could be anyone. She already knew he lived two lives. Maybe he lived several. Maybe at least one of them was dangerous and sinister. Shit, she had let her guard down. She was turning into a gullible idiot. And then it dawned on her. Stick could have killed Becky: unrequited love turned to jealous rage. She couldn’t see evil in the eyes that were now pleading with hers to believe him, but this meant nothing. To be a good liar, you must be good at hiding. Maybe Stick didn’t go to the funeral because he was a murderer on the run, which was why men with guns were after him.

“But you’re suggesting Becky was killed by her own father?” Bren asked Stick.

It sounds crazy
, Abigail thought. The desperate accusations of a guilty psychopath. She noticed that his leg was shaking.

“No,” Stick said. “He knew what she was up to, but no, he wouldn’t have wanted her to die. He loved her. I think he had other ideas about how to stop her. But he’s not the boss.”

“Who is the boss?” Bren asked. He almost sounded amused as he sipped his drink again, one arm still around Abigail.

“I don’t know,” Stick began. “I …”

It came pouring out of Stick’s mouth in a mad jumble: he wasn’t a nutcase; he and Becky had found out about the Granoch Project six months ago. Stick had been writing an essay when the computer crashed and he’d lost all his work. A random search
included an email his dad sent to Grahame about the PhD he did at UC Berkeley on neurological-pharmaceutical intervention to antisocial behavior in monkeys.

“They’re trying to control us,” he finished.

Abigail blinked several times. The guy was talking about naughty monkeys. His leg shook faster.

“Excuse me, but what on earth does your father’s PhD and monkeys have to do with anything?” Bren asked, echoing Abigail’s thoughts.

“My dad is smart,” Stick spat back. “Smarter than any of us.”

“A dastardly secret organization!” Bren exclaimed. “Are there code words and hidden headquarters? Abigail, this guy is nuts … you see that, right?”

Abigail turned to Stick. His forehead was beaded with sweat. But so was hers.

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but listen to me,” Stick pleaded. “The Granoch Group thinks they can cure bad behavior. They came up with a tiny implant that you inject into the inner arm. The drug itself is like an anti-depressant—a serotonin reuptake inhibitor—a happy pill, only much stronger, and semi-permanent.” His eyes bored into Abigail’s. “You found something important in the chest, didn’t you? All those years, Becky thought it was empty. I saw you reading something about the Granoch Project. Can I have a look?”

Abigail swallowed. She handed him the report she’d clung onto since fleeing the ramshackle house. Stick flicked through it and began reading from the second last page.

The report made Abigail feel queasy. No one,
no one
, except Abigail herself, should have the right or even capability of reducing her sexual urges. “But, what does any of it have to do with us?” she said, taking the report from him.

“They had a plan to roll this out,” Stick muttered. “Becky and I were going to expose it.”

Bren banged the saucepan down on the table. “What are you
on
right now?”

“Sorry?” Stick asked.

“I don’t even know your real name,
Stick
!” Bren shouted. “Are you acting like Harrison Ford to impress Abigail? Nice job. I can see that it’s working.”

“This isn’t about Abigail. It’s about Becky. And Abigail knows it.” Stick’s eyes moistened. “Why would Becky have killed herself? Think about it. I’ve never known anyone with such purpose. She didn’t want to die.”

Abigail blinked between the two of them. Bren had a point. But none of that really mattered. She had all the information she needed now. Either Stick was a madman, or three madmen were after them. Either way, she needed to call the police. As calmly as she could manage, she walked over to the kitchen bench, grabbed the phone, and began to dial 9-1-1.

The kitchen window collapsed in a burst. Its shards of glass clattered into the sink, a violent tinkling house of cards. At the same moment, Abigail heard a crack on the wall behind her. There was a ringing in her ear. She turned toward Bren, who was staring in wide-eyed horror at a tiny, smoky black hole in his wall. Another
whizz
and
crack:
this one closer to her head. Another hole appeared in the wall.

“Down!” Stick yelled, tackling her.

Bren dropped his mug and fell to the floor, too. Abigail wriggled free from Stick. On her hands and knees she inched toward Bren, whose face had turned a ghastly white.