Fragments (16 page)

There are too many people crowded into this room, either in tatty sleeping bags or with worn rugs and old coats covering them. I step carefully over them and make my way to the bathroom where I wash my face and try to tidy my hair a little. I get my toothbrush from its hiding place behind the loose tile and brush the staleness away from my mouth, looking at my reflection in the brown-spotted mirror. You have to hide everything in this place or it becomes public property.

My skin is a sort of greyish colour at the moment. I know it’s because I’ve been living in these slums for a couple of weeks, never going near a fresh vegetable and absorbing the dampness and dirt of the bare brick walls. My chest is tight and I can hear the wheeze starting to come back so, hiding the toothbrush again, I find the breather stick and soon feel the cool relief as my lungs relax.

When I was at the camp, I didn’t have any problems with my asthma. It was the air there, I think. Pure and clean. Here in London it’s even worse than it was in Sheffield but if I was to wear the expensive miasma mask folded to nothing in my bag, it would give the game away. That I’m not really homeless Kizzy, on the run from her abusive stepdad, but Kyla, CATS’ Eye. The girl who, if things go as expected today, will never have to see any of these people again. For a second, a wave of doubt washes over me and I picture Adem’s expression earlier. Full of trust. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, looking inside myself to the place I know will ground me and show me the right way. I hear that lilting, soft voice saying, ‘You are fighting evil, Kyla. It’s war. You are light in the dark place.’

Dark place . . .

I was in a very dark place for a while at the camp. I only remember snatches. It feels a bit unreal now, like a film I once saw. Being alone inside the white room flashes into my head. I remember crying. Pain and then relief as the pain stopped. The room filling with images of terrorist victims. A young boy crying next to smoking rubble. An old woman being shot in the head. And worse. Sounds come back to me sometimes too, weird noises like cats fighting and high-pitched singing. But the weirdest one of all, which surely can’t be real, is hearing the theme tune from the kids’ programme
Here’s Gomez!
over and over and over again.

Here’s Gomez! Here’s Gomez! He’s got r-attitude!

Here’s Gomez! Here’s Gomez! He’s got r-attitude!

I shudder and pull my thin top over my fists as I remember, wrapping my arms around my middle. Then there was the soft voice again. The voice I came to love. I slept for a long time then and when I woke, Mrs Sheehy’s face was the first one that I saw, kindly smiling down and smoothing my hair away from my cheek.

I asked her why I was there and she said I’d been ill but now I was safe. I couldn’t remember what happened just before I was in the hospital wing. Everything felt sort of hazy. Still does. But like I always say, I’m no hero. I’m just trying to stay alive. I reckon what I don’t know can’t hurt me. I’ve got this far, haven’t I? When I left the hospital wing, Christian was strange with me. Didn’t speak to me much any more. But luckily Skye soon helped me get back on my feet.

All I wanted was to work hard, to make up for missing time I should have spent learning. Learning how to defeat our enemies and keep the world safe.

To help destroy Torch.

As always, a shiver of disgust goes through me at that name. And that makes the image of Adem’s smiling face dissolve in my mind. OK, so he’s cute and funny, with a quick mind that flits from one topic to another so fast I can’t keep up. And he might think he’s out to make the world better, but he’s got it so, so wrong. Because he’s one of them.

It’s not my job to help him understand that. It’s only my job to help him and his kind get caught.

I just need the name of the person he’s reporting to and I can make the call.

A loud rap on the door makes me jump. The breather stick clatters onto the dirty, sticky floor.

‘Hurry up in there, yeah?’

‘Sorry!’ I call out, hurriedly putting the stick back behind the tile and securing it with the glue-tac balls that keep it in place.

I open the door. Magda grins at me, revealing her missing tooth at the front. She’s forty-something and her head is a mass of twisty dreadlocks, threaded with jewel-coloured scarves. Her eyes twinkle even though they’re redrimmed from partying the night before.

‘Have you finished with the Jacuzzi?’ she says. It’s a running joke between us, that really we live in a millionaire’s palace instead of a filthy squat, where damp and mould coat the walls and you have to watch where you tread or you could stand on a week-old pizza, a full ashtray or a sleeping person.

‘Yeah,’ I bat back, ‘I’m going to call for breakfast now and take it on the veranda. Hoping the buff butler brings it this morning.’

‘Well, watch out for the pigeon shit out there, eh?’ says Magda, collapsing into a cackle that quickly turns into a wet, smoker’s cough.

I smile and step past her, disgust roiling inside.

Do I feel guilty about what’s going to happen later? It’s a question I ask myself from time to time. I asked myself with the first job I did when I came to London, working in a nursery school and then reporting on the woman, Stevie, who ran it. It was hard leaving the little kids behind afterwards, and not easy watching Stevie being dragged away with a blackened eye and an arm that hung in a weird way. But it’s getting easier every time I do a job. And I haven’t killed anyone . . . not directly. That seems important. I just flush them out and what happens next isn’t my business or concern.

It’s what I do now. And it’s for a good cause. I know I used to feel things too much. Inside I was a mass of softness. I’m not soft inside any more. I’m strong and I’m hard. And I only bruise on the outside.

Adem’s up now and when the bathroom is free, he goes for a shower. Cold, which is the only sort of shower on offer here at the crumbling old building that is Hoxton Mansions, London. He grins at me, distractedly, as he emerges from the bathroom with black hair seal-wet against his head and a manky towel under one arm.

I return his smile and then regard his retreating back. Something’s definitely up. I can feel it. There’s an electricity in the air; a sense of expectation. But why?

Adem has been weird for the last couple of days, checking his phone too much and laughing too loud at my jokes. He practically crackles with nerves. He’s almost blue-lit, like he’s been volted. But he hasn’t shared anything with me, despite lots of dropped hints and teasing kisses on my part. By the afternoon I’ve decided I have to up the stakes. I’ve had enough of this job. I want a bath, some clean clothes. Some decent food.

I go and sit in the bay window on the top staircase. It looks out over the street . . . well, it would, if you could see through the smeared, cracked glass that lets wind whistle through it like a ghostly cry.

If he can’t find me straight away, he’ll come looking. He’s so lovesick, he can’t bear to be parted from me for a minute.

I make myself cry for authenticity and rub my eyes hard. I can do this. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I was an actress in movies, rather than this. But there’s no point in thinking that way.

Soon enough I hear the distinctive creak of the broken stair. I bury my face in my arms, drawing my knees in close so I’m a ball of misery.

‘Kiz?’ His voice is gentle and I feel a warm hand on my arm. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

I look up at him blearily, seeing the concern on his face. ‘It’s nothing,’ I say in a thick, snotty voice.

He sits next to me on the big window ledge. ‘It’s not nothing, is it. Tell me?’

I stare downwards, letting a single tear roll down my cheek. He gently brushes it away with a finger.

‘It’s just . . . today. It’s the anniversary.’

‘Of what, Kiz?’

I give a huge, trembly sigh. ‘Of when they took my dad away.’

‘Who did?’ Adem’s voice is so quiet it’s just breath.

I look deep into his eyes and whisper, ‘CATS.’ And then, ‘I
hate
them.’

There’s a long pause. For a second I wonder if I’ve played this wrong. What if he ended up reporting
me
? I almost laugh at that thought and have to keep control over my face muscles, keeping my mouth turned down at the corners and my eyes gleaming with sadness.

‘What happened?’ he says at last, his voice low and deep.

‘They said he was a terrorist,’ I sniffle. ‘That he belonged to all sorts of banned organisations. That he was organising meetings in our neighbourhood. But he was a good person!’ I blurt, louder. ‘He ran the football team, he organised all the social things like barbecues and picnics. He didn’t have a bad bone in his body!’ I let a sob escape and then continue, as though the words have to pop out painfully, one at a time. ‘But they came early one morning and beat him in front of us all. Dragged him away. No one saw him again. And Mum,’ I take a big, shaky breath, ‘she never got over it. She took some pills . . .’

Wow, I’m laying it on thick but I’m doing such a good job I can practically see the scene before my eyes.

The pearly, dawn light, the shouts puncturing the quiet of the sleeping street as the innocent dad is dragged away
.

He sounds much nicer than my real dad, the loser Mum told me about. The one who left her, pregnant, and went off with the army, never to come back from the war. It’s my fantasy so I’m going for a handsome but cuddly sort of dad, with a bald head and an easy smile. Heck, I’m actually feeling sad for the poor, made-up sod myself now . . .

Adem pulls me into a fierce hug. I rest my face against his chest and smell the cheap soap powder he uses to wash his clothes by hand. He rests his cheek against my head and speaks in a voice so low, I have to strain to make out what he’s saying.

‘Look, I shouldn’t tell you this and you have to forget I ever did, but I agree with you. Plenty of others agree with you. Plenty.’

I pull away and meet his eyes.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘But I wish I could do something, you know? Fight back in some way?’ I swallow. ‘For my dad.’ God, I’m really trowelling this on. Adem looks at me for a long time then. Again, I wonder if I’ve blown it, and then he leans over and gently kisses me on the lips.

‘I’m not making any promises, but maybe you can,’ he says then, his eyes as serious as I have ever seen them.

I pretend to look confused. ‘But how? Even talking about joining Torch is against the law.’

I whisper the word ‘Torch’ and Adem shifts uneasily.

‘I know I can trust you, Kiz,’ he says.

You really can’t
, I think.

‘Someone is coming here today,’ he continues. ‘Someone important. They’re going to lay low for a while in the basement. No one in the house is meant to know about it. But I’m telling you because maybe this person might be able to find a way for you to do what you want . . . fight back.’

I grab him in mock excitement and plant a kiss on his mouth.

‘Who?’ I say. ‘Who is it?’

He seems to hesitate again and then leans over and whispers a name into my ear. It’s the name of a senior member of Torch, someone the CATS have been after for years.

I swallow back the gasp but let the excitement shine through my eyes.

‘I won’t tell a soul,’ I murmur, and lean in for another traitor’s kiss.

Like I said, it’s what I do now. I might feel a little bad later. Or I might not. Mostly, I just want a bath.

C
HAPTER
17

reveal, enhance

L
ater, I lie back, inhaling the smell of expensive bath oil. Steam rises around me and I stare upwards at pure white tiles, so different from the cracked, rotten moulding that covered the ceiling at Hoxton Mansions. I wave a hand vaguely at the wall and, as News 24/7 appears on the hidden screen, I wave again to set it to 2D. It’s a bit weird having 3D people in the room when you’re in the bath.

The ticker is running along the bottom of the screen saying
Senior terror suspect killed in bomb blast
and I sit up so fast that water sloshes over the sides of the tub onto the heated, marble floor. I grip the edge of the bath and stare at the screen as the newsreader talks.

‘It’s believed that the man, Jack Richardson, was one of the most senior operatives in the illegal organisation Torch. We have
a live statement from East London now.’

The screen fills with the image of four men sitting at a table for a press conference. They all wear CATS uniforms.

The camera flashes to a face I know. A face I last saw in the back of a car in Yorkshire after Mick attacked me and I fought back. The man who ultimately put me in this room, right now. The ticker reads:
Alexander Cameron, Chief Commanding Officer of the Counterinsurgency and Anti-Terrorist Squad
.

‘This afternoon we took part in an operation to capture a senior member of the terror organisation, Torch. After attempting to arrest Mr Richardson by peaceful means, our officers had no alternative but to take decisive action when residents of the house he was hiding in opened fire. In order to protect innocent civilians in the neighbourhood, we launched an attack on the building. The bodies of Richardson and four other people, also believed to be Torch members, were later found.’

I hit the panel on the side of the bath and tap the fan unit in the ceiling into action so that seconds later, the air is clear.

I wonder if Adem was one of those four bodies and sigh deeply before getting out of the bath, sloshing more water over the sides. Grabbing one of the thick, fluffy towels, I wrap it round me. I love these towels. They’re filled with crystals that mean they stay dry on the surface and are always just the right temperature.

I slowly dress, pulling on the silk tracksuit bottoms that are so soft they whisper when I walk and feel almost weightless, and a light cotton T-shirt. I’m glad I can wear good clothes again, glad I can lie in that luxurious bathroom for as long as I want, knowing I will come out to a fridge stuffed with food and anything I want to drink.