'I'm not having her ring round to everyone's mum!'
'For godsake. How could any brother of mine be such a bad liar? Then say it was some simu kid from school. That she'll believe, but won't be able to do a thing. Especially if you say you can't tell them apart anyway.'
'Brilliant.'
'You got it.' She blew him a kiss. 'And Max-'
'Yeah?'
'Thanks.'
* * *
After Max left, she stood up and went to bolt her door. Though it wouldn't keep her mum out for long, at least no one could sally in unannounced. The shouting from downstairs barely registered, much like the noise from the high-speed rail line which ran behind the flats where Olivia's dad lived. You got used to it.
Back at her desk, she picked up the envelope and held it for a few moments between her fingers, then laid it down again. One part of her wanted to tear it open straightaway; another part wanted to enjoy the anticipation-or possibly, postpone the disappointment. He was mad to write to her. Mad to try to contact her at all. Why did madness seem like the true matrix of sanity?
Finally she carried the envelope to the window. Leaning against the casement, she carefully prised open the flap. A crow was hopping among her dad's dahlias, his glossy black plumage contrasting sharply with the ostentatious sprawl of colour in the flowerbed. She'd always hated those flowers-vulgar tarts slathered with lippy, top-heavy and lolling suggestively. She preferred the crows, though her father called them nasty pests and fought an endless, futile battle against them. He'd even offered Max a pellet gun alongside a premium, but her brother had been horrified. There wasn't a bird with a broken wing or an orphaned litter of hedgehogs which Max didn't try to rescue. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought somebody had scrambled his genetic code.
She watched the alert movements of the crow until he cocked his head in her direction. A keen eye whose scrutiny was unmistakable-and familiar. She giggled, then rapped a knuckle against the pane. As he rose into the air, she was startled by the black rainbow of his flight-Zach's hair shimmered in the sunlight with the same iridescence.
Inside the envelope was a thin sheet of white paper which she'd have to destroy no matter what he'd written; no texting and no messaging and no emailing, they'd agreed. She drew it out with fingers just short of trembling. She missed the easygoing times with Livs when they'd been able to say anything and everything to each other. Now even opening a note-or your mouth-seemed to require as much discipline as winning an Olympic gold medal. Towards which, despite her mother, she was most definitely not about to swim.
Unfolded, the sheet revealed an exquisite, handcut paper snowflake, as delicately wrought as silver filigree. Utterly anonymous, devastatingly personal. Laura held it up against the light. She could see those long fingers snipping with a scissors, that crow hair swinging forward as he bent over the table.
'Thank you,' she whispered, and he might have smiled in response. But the rest-the kiss, the embrace, the future-took place in her own imagination.
* * *
Owen was waiting for her at the pool on Saturday.
'You must be starving after all that swimming. Let's get a burger,' he said. He made no mention of her weeks of punishment, nor of Zach. Laura should have been grateful; instead, she felt irritated and resentful. That damned niceness again.
'Only if we go someplace new.'
'Where?' he asked, amenable.
'Follow me. We'll walk.'
She'd seen what she thought might be a ginkgo tree near the canal. Its leaves would already be yellowing this late in October, but she'd collect a few anyway and slip them into an envelope.
Owen was fit, but she was fitter. She set a punishing pace, then increased it in deliberate increments, remembering how she'd had to stride to keep up with Zach. By the time they reached the old cannery, Owen was panting slightly, with a thin film of sweat above his upper lip and on his forehead. Though the nights had turned cool, the midday sun could still insist on homage like an ageing rock star. Owen stopped to catch his breath.
'Hold on a sec, I don't think we ought to be heading this way,' he said, trying to disguise his physical discomfort by turning aside and pointing towards the canal. 'Not a good area to hang around. And no place where there's anything decent to eat, unless you fancy weird spices or rancid grease. Or cockroaches.'
'Come on, we can sit down for a bit on that wall,' she said, sweetly solicitous.
He gave her a look that reminded her of one of Max's strays. The ever-present threat of humiliation seemed to sharpen their wits. She took his hand, abashed. It wasn't his fault, was it?
He followed her with obvious reluctance. The cannery fronted the canal and was infamous for its contingent of streeters whose numbers only declined-temporarily-after periodic police raids. When she'd been driven away from Zach's flat that night, she'd seen the glow of paraffin lamps and cooking fires through its smeared and partly boarded-up windows.
'Fulgur's thinking of knocking it down and building a new production unit on this site,' Owen said. 'It's prime property.'
Owen's dad was much further up in the corporate hierarchy than Laura's-so much further, in fact, that family assets included an indoor swimming pool, a full-time housekeeper, and a custom-built Jaguar. Another reason Laura's mum fawned over Owen. And to his credit, Laura had to admit that he didn't fit the stereotype of spoilt rich kid. Six siblings might have had something to do with it, plus a mum who was known for her down-to-earth style, which included Household Responsibilities for the kids-and her husband, Laura suspected.
She studied the brick wall of the cannery, which was covered by graffiti. Most of it the usual stuff, lots of tags and dubs and lav epithets, but there was one painting that she wanted to get a closer look at. 'Be right back,' she told Owen, and sprang down from the wall. 'Wait here,' she added at his protest. 'There's nobody around. You can come to the rescue when the kankers show up.' She saw that he intended to join her. 'I mean it,' she said rather sharply. 'I want to go by myself.'
A nice dilemma for him, she thought, irritated once more. Her mum was right, he was perfect boyfriend material. If only perfect weren't a synonym for boring.
It took her a while to navigate the rubbish-strewn ground. Up close, the creature was even more disturbing: an enormous black figure, half man and half crow, with glittering eyes, talons like scimitars, and a wild disarray of long hair. His torso and part of his limbs were human, his face nearly so. Laura stared at his features for a long time, then walked a few metres to the left, stopped, and regarded him again. After retracing her steps, she repeated the manoeuvre to the right. No matter where she stood, the crowman seemed to be looking straight at her, something she remembered from certain museum portraits. Almost as if he had a desperate message to impart.
Her stomach growled, a reminder that Owen was waiting for her. She turned, waved, and began to pick her way back across the overgrown tract. After a few steps she cast one last glance over her shoulder at the painting. It was then that she heard a sound from inside the building-moaning, or perhaps low sobbing. She stopped and listened. There. Ignoring Owen's surprised shout, she went in search of a door.
Once her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she was able to see quite well. She had to skirt rubble, puddles of water, and the odd piece of broken equipment, but there was no sign of habitation till she reached a small series of interconnected rooms which, to judge from the overturned filing cabinets, a single shattered monitor, and decaying furniture, must have formed an office block. Several stained mattresses were piled in a corner of the second room, along with newish-looking bin liners, cardboard boxes, and a paraffin cooker. Two battered enamel pans rested near the cooker, some candles and a tablespoon on an upturned metal drawer. The bin liners looked full, but Laura didn't stop to check their contents. Not that she believed they'd contain body parts . . . not really. But the whimpering was nearby now, and her courage beginning to wane. She'd noted the empty bottles, the smell. Only the momentum of her search-or perhaps the memory of the crowman-kept her going.
In the third office she found the child.
Her-no, his-wrists and ankles were bound with rope. He lay in a foetal position on a piece of cardboard, his long hair covering most of his face. As soon as he saw her, he ceased moaning and watched with over-bright eyes. He was nearly naked. He was shivering. He was filthy. He stank. And he was an auger.
With a hiss his eyes darted behind her-warning or fear. She spun round.
'What do you think you're doing?' Owen said. 'This place is dangerous.'
Then he too caught sight of the child.
'Shit,' he said. 'What's that?'
That began to shudder at the sound of Owen's voice.
Chapter 8
By the time Zach reaches him, Lev has sliced open the seal's belly and removed part of its liver.
'Here,' Lev says, 'your share.'
Zach stares from the glistening piece of meat to Lev's face and back to the blood dripping onto the snow, dripping and freezing near mitts discarded for the heat of the animal's open cavity.
'Where's the polar bear?' Zach asks.
Lev chews, swallows, licks his fingers clean. 'Eat.'
'Seal liver's toxic.'
'Only in large quantities. Go on, it's good for you.'
'I'm not going to touch raw meat.'
'This is the Arctic. Stop obsessing, I've apportioned the right amount.'
The small slab of liver is still steaming. Zach hesitates for another moment, then pulls off a mitt and cautiously takes a bite. It's strong-tasting, but not nearly as slimy as it looks. He discovers that he's hungry, and eats it all, even to licking off his fingers. Lev, however, has consumed a much larger quantity.
A throaty rumble halfway between burp and purr, then Lev plunges his knife into the snow and wipes it on his trousers before sheathing it. With a large bone needle he sews up the cut in the seal's belly. 'To keep the blood and organs inside while we drag her back to the cabin.'
'Inuit fashion,' Zach says.
'Some things even Fulgur's scientists can't improve on.'
'Right, that axes it.' Zach draws on his mitt. 'Who are you? How did you catch the seal? And where the hell is the polar bear?'
'Do you really think they tell you everything?' Lev gives that chuff of his. 'Frozenhell, they don't know everything.'
* * *
Zach helps himself to what he hopes is a marmite sandwich and some steaming coffee from the flask on the table. He stirs in several teaspoons of sugar, takes a cautious sip, and grimaces; it tastes of seal liver, heavy as rolled copper on his tongue.
'Ethan's looking much better,' he says.
'Still a bit feverish, but nothing will keep him from a kill,' Chloe says, grinning in a way that makes Zach want to look over his shoulder.
'It's a big animal, Lev will be glad for the help.'
'Who?'
A burning wedge of wood tumbles from the fireplace in a fortuitous shower of sparks, occupying Zach while he considers how not to react. Chloe comes over with her mug, but when she lays her fingers on his arm, he realises that last night hasn't been a bad dream, or a glitch in the program. Only in his program, he reflects grimly-a release of nothing other than a teaspoon of ejaculate. Self-disgust makes him inept.
'You know, Lev. The tall, fair bloke with the scar and the blue eyes. The third member of your party.'
But Chloe regards him with a sympathetic expression, as if he's admitted to an endearing secret like stealing library books or masturbating with his teddy bear.
'Lev,' he insists. 'The hunter. The macho, you called him. He's out in the lean-to butchering the seal.'
'Ethan's by himself. I've just brought him some coffee.'
'There's no way I could have speared a seal on my own.'
'You can't remember? I'm not surprised, the cold does weird stuff to you.'
Her hand on his arm. All he does is remember.
Shivering slightly, he stepped back into the alcove and removed a book from the shelf. It was hard enough to believe that Bach or Mozart or Coltrane weren't simus-and then these books, these magnificent books, all written by monkeys. She crowded in close to read over his arm, their hips touching. Customers were rare: most people bought online, and those who came to the tiny, dusty, draughty shop had eyes only for their own obsessions.
'I'd like to buy this for you,' he said. 'But it's a signed first edition, your mum might ask where it's come from.'
'Then I'll keep it at your flat,' Laura said, laying a hand on his arm, and after a moment's hesitation, standing on tiptoe to kiss the corner of his mouth-so lightly that he might have imagined
her hand on his arm, and all he ever does is try not to remember.
'Don't touch me,' he says.
Chloe snatches away her hand, then mutters angrily, 'You liked it well enough last night.'
No good, he's just making his job more difficult. Though why he should bother about what happens to her . . . shorten her stay, she just gets to cheat on the next bloke a bit sooner. He doesn't need to know her to know what she'll do. They're all alike, those girls who sleep with his kind.
'Look, I'm sorry,' he says. 'It's not you.'
'Who's to know?' she asks, moving closer again.
'I was tired. It was-you know.'
'It gets lonely here. What's wrong with a little companionship? Not everyone thinks like the Purists.'
'I'm not a very good companion.'
She glances up at him quickly, avoiding his eyes-no surprise there. But her next words startle him. 'OK, if that's the way it is. I didn't know simus have partners.'
