Split Second (11 page)

I walked on, still looking for Nat. I might have failed to rob his laptop, but if I could just get him talking, I was sure I could force him to let something slip about his involvement with the
League of Iron, some detail I could use to start building evidence against him.

There
he was, hunched over his phone, crossing the room. He was heading for the fire door in the corner. My jaw dropped as he looked around – a quick furtive glance – then
pressed down on the bar. Was he leaving the memorial service? A moment later he slipped outside and out of sight.

Where on earth was he going?

I hesitated for just a second, then I sped across the room and followed him outside. He was still studying his mobile, walking purposefully up the road. Before I knew what I was doing, I was
hurrying after him. My pulse raced. Rationally this was mad: Nat was probably going somewhere completely unconnected with the League of Iron. On the other hand, why would he walk out on the
memorial service if it was for some innocent reason? In my bones I was sure that whatever he was doing was linked to the bomb and to his brother and to that disgusting League forum he had written
on as AngelOfFire.

The wind pinched at my face, despite the bright sunshine. I hurried along, tugging my scarf around me. Nat turned right at the end of the road. He was walking fast. I sped up, almost having to
run in order to keep him in view. He took a left, then two rights in quick succession. He stopped for a moment, as if deciding which way to turn next, then headed towards the canal. I followed him
past a pair of homeless women arguing over the contents of a bin. A moment later, Nat reached the water and the first of the three low-rise council estate buildings that ran along its banks. I lost
sight of him as he walked through the entry arch.

I sped up again, racing under the arch myself, out to the other side. Two men in the distance were shouting.

Without warning, a hand grabbed my arm. Nat swung me round, his eyes blazing in the bright sunlight. ‘Why are you following me?’ he snapped.

I tried to pull away, to run, but Nat held me fast.

I gripped Charlie’s arm. There was shock – but no fear – in her eyes. As she stared up at me, I had the weird sensation of falling through air. The dirty
estate around us vanished, the shouts of the men in the distance faded to background noise. It was like I was seeing her for the first time, really
seeing
her, from the stubborn tilt of
her jaw to those dark, fierce eyes that seemed to penetrate right inside me.

It struck me that Charlie wasn’t just pretty, as I’d first thought. She was beautiful.

I dropped her arm. ‘I asked you why you’re following me?’

Charlie stuck out her chin. ‘Who says I’m following you?’

I smiled. Her expression was just so ridiculously haughty. ‘Yeah, right. You’ve been behind me since the memorial. What are you, some kind of stalker?’

‘Of course I’m not.’ She was still sticking out her chin, but the shadow of embarrassment flickered across her face, presumably at the fact I had spotted her so easily.

‘It’s your hair,’ I said. ‘It’s kind of hard to miss.’

Charlie shook her curls away from her face – a gesture of defiance. My pulse raced. What the hell was happening to me? I’d fancied plenty of girls before, but this . . . this was
completely different.

‘So are you going to tell me what you’re doing?’ I demanded, trying to make my voice sound hard and cross.

‘I wanted to see who you were meeting,’ Charlie said.

‘What makes you think I’m meeting anyone?’ I asked, genuinely astonished.

Charlie put her hands on her hips. She was dressed in a black skirt and jumper, a red scarf around her neck and a red hat pulled over her wild curls. No make-up. No jewellery. Unlike Jas, I
didn’t normally take much notice of how people put together what they wore, but it struck me that Charlie looked cooler than anyone I’d ever met.

‘You’re going to meet people from the League of Iron, aren’t you?’ she said.

‘
What?
’ I stared at her. How on earth had she connected me with the League?

‘You’re a member of the League. You were there when the market bomb that killed my mum went off,’ Charlie said. ‘You were
part
of it.’

‘How can you think—?’

‘I know you belong to the League of Iron and they already said that they set off the bomb. Don’t deny it, I’ve seen what you write on their forum as AngelOfFire. It’s
disgusting
.’

How the hell had she identified me from the forums? ‘What are you talking about?’ I said.

‘Don’t lie to me. I saw on your laptop. All that stuff about who to bomb and hating black people and—’

‘Ssh.’ I looked around, but no-one was near us, nobody was listening. ‘You sneaked into my room and looked on my computer?’

Charlie nodded.

A shiver ran down my spine. Up until now I’d thought Taylor’s request to replace my hard drive had been a bit over the top. But if Charlie had stolen a look at my laptop, then other
people might have too.

Charlie looked up. ‘I’ll give you one final chance to tell me the truth,’ she said. Her mouth trembled slightly. ‘Did you set off the bomb that killed my mum?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

We stared at each other. I felt torn. I had promised Taylor that I wouldn’t talk about our meeting, but if anyone deserved to know the truth it was, surely, Charlie. I had seen the hurt in
her eyes at the memorial service. She ought to know that someone, somewhere, was trying to stop the League of Iron.

‘It’s complicated,’ I said.

‘What is? Being a Nazi thug who thinks bombing random people in markets is a great thing?’

‘I don’t think that.’

‘So how do you explain being AngelOfFire
?
’

I hesitated.

‘The League left your brother in a coma. Your
own
brother. And my . . . my mum . . .’ Charlie’s voice cracked.

I racked my brains, frantic for a way to explain at least part of the truth. ‘I . . . I was just doing the forums because I need . . . I want . . .to understand why the League of Iron did
the bombing,’ I said.

‘You want to
understand
them?’ Charlie folded her arms. She sounded incredulous. ‘
I
want to
kill
them.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ I bit my lip. ‘Like I said, it’s complicated.’

‘You’re lying,’ Charlie scowled. ‘It’s written all over your face, like the way you snuck out of the memorial service so no-one saw you. You’re going to meet
League of Iron people, aren’t you? You’re planning who to bomb next.’

I thought of the text on the phone in my pocket.

‘You’re wrong,’ I said, truthfully. ‘I was actually going to visit my brother in hospital. You can come with me if you don’t believe me.’

‘Fine,’ Charlie said. ‘Let’s go.’

I was sure Nat was lying. At the very least, he was holding something back. I mean he said the text he’d got was irrelevant and that he was really just going to see his
brother, but how did I know either of those things were true? As we walked to the hospital I was still sure he had been behind the marketplace bomb.

It didn’t occur to me to be scared. All I could think about was how on earth I was going to get Nat to admit to what he’d done. And, as we reached the hospital and crossed the car
park, I made my plan.

Harassed-looking people were bustling in and out of the hospital’s glass doors. The NHS had been strained to breaking point this year because of all the cuts. Even though I didn’t
follow politics, I’d still heard the summer heatwave horror story about the three elderly women who died on the same day – in different hospitals – because they had been left,
untreated and forgotten, by busy nurses in crowded corridors.

The lift stopped at the third floor. We got out and I followed Nat along the corridor. A couple of the nurses glanced over as we passed. They seemed to recognise Nat. He led me into a room on
the left. The boy from the picture at the memorial service lay on the bed. This was Jas and Nat’s brother, Lucas.

I gasped, shocked by the sight of all the tubes and wires running out of his body. It was hot in the room. Nat took off his jacket and laid it on the end of the bed, then he walked around the
bed and sat down in the chair. He looked at me.

‘This is why I left the memorial service: to see my brother, okay?’

I stared at Lucas, distracted momentarily from my plan. I was still sure Nat had been lying about coming here, but even so it must be awful to have someone you loved strapped up to machines like
this. What if it was Mum lying in a coma for six months, in this limbo hell between living and dying? No wonder Nat’s mum was always in the hospital and his dad kept himself busy with work;
no wonder Jas had stopped playing the piano and only picked at her food. For a whole year I’d envied everyone who’d survived the blast – whatever their circumstances – but
now, for the first time, it occurred to me that losing Mum as I did might have been better, after all, than losing her like this.

Nat leaned forward in his chair, his eyes intent on his brother’s face. I glanced at his jacket, still lying at the end of the bed, and remembered my plan. I edged closer until I was
perching on the end of the bed. Nat didn’t look around. Pulse racing, I reached for the jacket. Slowly, carefully, my trembling fingers felt for the outline of Nat’s mobile.
There
. Silently, I drew the phone out of the jacket pocket. I stood up, hiding the mobile behind my back.

‘I need the bathroom,’ I said.

‘Sure.’ Nat didn’t look up. ‘It’s just down the corridor on the left.’

I scuttled out of the room, keeping the phone out of sight. It felt hot against my clammy palms as I ducked into the toilet and locked the door. I looked at the mobile. It was a basic model. I
scrolled to messages; there was only one text here, received fifteen minutes or so ago. This was the message Nat had got at the memorial service.

I opened it up and read.

I barely noticed Charlie leave the room. I was staring at Lucas, so still and pale on the hospital bed. I had been thinking about him all through the memorial service,
imagining how he would have laughed at all the solemn faces and at the Mayor’s pompous speech.

Taylor’s text had been the final prompt to come here. And yet, now I was actually by Lucas’s bedside, all I could think was how impossible it was that my brother, who had always been
so strong and full of life, could be this shell of a person lying in front of me.

I turned around and saw Charlie standing in the doorway. Her forehead was creased with a frown. Slowly, she held up her hand and, to my horror, I recognised the phone Taylor had given me resting
on her palm. She had seen the text.

Charlie walked around the hospital bed, then thrust the phone under my nose. The text Taylor had sent me at the service was on the screen:

‘The League of Iron sent this, didn’t they?’ Charlie asked, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘Are you the soldier they mean?’

‘No.’

‘Then
what
?
Who
?’

I didn’t know what to say. I turned to Lucas, then looked back at Charlie watching as the realisation dawned in her eyes.

‘
Him?
’ she said.

I nodded.

‘Your
brother
is the soldier?’ Charlie gasped. ‘
He
did the bomb for the League of Iron?’

I kept my gaze on Lucas, as everything I had held on to for the past six months seemed to collapse inside me. ‘No,’ I said at last. ‘Lucas was trying to stop the bomb. He
wasn’t in the League of Iron any more than I am.’

‘You’re not making sense,’ Charlie said. ‘If you aren’t in the League, why were you on their forum the other day?’

‘I can’t tell you,’ I said.

‘Then I’m going to the police.’ Charlie turned away. ‘I’ll show them this text, see what
they
think.’

I caught her hand. ‘No.’

We stared at each other and I knew that I couldn’t stay silent any longer. The desire to confess what I knew was overwhelming. Charlie had half guessed anyway.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘and I’ll tell you everything.’

Nat’s voice was low and even as he told me about the text he had seen on Lucas’s phone and how he had believed his brother was the League of Iron bomber for six
months. I listened, too shocked to feel anything.

At last Nat came to his meeting with Taylor the previous week. He explained how he had given up his laptop, how Taylor wanted to recruit him to a secret group that called themselves the English
Freedom Army, how their aim was to stop the random violence of extremist groups like the League of Iron. How Lucas had been part of that group.

His words settled like shards of ice in my brain. Nat seemed totally sincere, but could I really trust him?

‘And no-one else knows?’ I asked.

‘No-one. I haven’t told
anyone
else.’

‘But . . .’ I still wasn’t fully convinced. ‘When you knew there was going to be an explosion back in the market six months ago, why didn’t you just dial
999?’

‘I wish I had,’ Nat said with a groan. ‘Everything was happening so fast . . . I did tell one of the security guards, but it was too late. He died in the blast before he could
say anything to anyone . . . I guess I thought I could find Lucas before it happened. I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d done everything differently, but . . .’

‘What about afterwards?’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you tell anyone then?’

Nat sagged against his chair. ‘Because my family was falling apart and I thought that if Mum and Dad and Jas knew Lucas had been responsible for the bomb
as well
it would destroy
them. You’ve seen my parents . . . Dad’s barely coping as it is and Mum . . .’ Nat’s voice cracked. He put his head in his hands.

I stared down at him, a million emotions careering around my head.