One hundred and four. Callum

Reporters surrounded Kamal Hadley. And there were so many cameras flashing around him that it looked like a firework display. Kamal Hadley raised his hands and immediately the clamour around him died down. The firework display didn’t.

‘I . . . I will make a short statement and t-that’s it.’ Kamal Hadley wiped the back of his hand across his cheeks before continuing. ‘My daughter is still unconscious after being found this morning. Her doctors describe her condition as critical but stable. The police are present and will interview her the moment she regains consciousness. Acting on information received, we captured one of the kidnappers and another opened fire on the police and was killed as a result. No ransom was paid. That’s all I’d like to say at this moment.’

‘How many kidnappers were there?’

‘Where was your daughter held during her ordeal?’

‘What are the extent of her injuries?’

Kamal Hadley turned without another word and headed back inside the hospital. Jude pressed the mute button on the TV remote control just as the newsreader’s face appeared on screen. I slumped back in my chair, dog-tired. We were hundreds of kilometres away from the cabin in the woods, having got out of there in a hurry once it became clear that we’d lost Sephy. We were holed up in one room in a seedy bed-and-breakfast hotel, with twin beds for Jude and Morgan and a sleeping bag for me. The walls looked like they hadn’t seen a lick of paint in at least three generations and the windows and fittings were caked with grease and grime. There was a carpet on the floor which I think had a pattern once, a long time ago, but it was so worn it was impossible to tell what the pattern might’ve been or even its original colour. Not that I had much time to dwell on our surroundings. Morgan and Jude were all too ready to beat the crap out of me – at the very least – until I told them what I’d learnt about Andrew Dorn.

‘Where did you get this information from?’ Jude asked.

‘Sephy,’ I replied.

‘And it never occurred to you that she could be lying.’

‘She wasn’t.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because I know her. If she says she saw Andrew Dorn with her dad then she did. Besides, she volunteered the information.’

‘Because she wanted us to be paranoid about each other,’ Morgan said scornfully. ‘Andrew Dorn isn’t a traitor. He’s the General’s second-in-command for God’s sake!’

‘Then tell me this. How did the police know where each of you was going to be when you went to set up the telephone relay and pick up the ransom? We set up different locations for everyone precisely so that wouldn’t happen. Only five people knew our plans apart from Andrew. One is dead. One is captured and us three are here up to our armpits in alligators. So you explain that then?’

Jude and Morgan exchanged a long look. At least I had them thinking.

‘You said you changed your positions at the last minute?’ I carried on. ‘So you didn’t have a chance to tell Andrew what you were doing and I bet that’s the only reason you’re both still here to talk about it now. He betrayed us. Sephy was right.’

‘But she can’t be . . .’ Morgan couldn’t believe it.

I remembered something else. ‘He kept whispering to me that Sephy wasn’t to leave the cabin alive. I think that’s because he knew she’d recognized him. He ordered me to kill her first and ask questions later if anyone came to the cabin. But if I’d done that, I wouldn’t’ve stood a chance of getting out alive.’

Jude and Morgan were silent as they considered what I said.

It took a while to convince them but, in a way, Leila being captured and Pete being killed finally did it for me. The police must’ve known our plans to be able to round up two of us. And Andrew must’ve told them. No-one else could’ve.

‘I’ll find him if it takes the rest of my life.’ Morgan was spitting mad by now. ‘And when I do, my hands and his throat are going to make long and painful contact.’

We discussed various ways of stopping Andrew from betraying us or anyone else in the future but the problem was, we had no proof. And you didn’t go round accusing the General’s second-in-command of being a traitor without proof, not if you wanted to live to a reasonable age.

‘Besides,’ said Jude, looking directly at me, ‘we have a more pressing problem.’

‘We’ll never be able to settle in one place long enough to figure out what we’re going to do next.’ Morgan said grimly. ‘They are never going to stop looking for us.’

‘I didn’t rape her,’ I said through gritted teeth.

‘So you say,’ Morgan sneered. ‘But here’s some free advice. If you can’t keep your trousers on, don’t leave any witnesses next time.’

‘I didn’t rape her.’ I turned to Jude. From his expression, he obviously didn’t believe me either.

‘You shouldn’t’ve done it,’ he said at last.

I closed my eyes briefly and looked away. Talking to those two was like banging my head off a brick wall.

And the worst thing of all was, Jude was right. I shouldn’t have done it.

‘Morgan, I think it’d be better if we all went our separate ways for a while,’ Jude said carefully. ‘Together we’ll be much easier to track down. We should each fend for ourselves for say, six months and then meet at a prearranged time and place.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ Morgan agreed.

‘We’ll meet up on Callum’s birthday. And no-one is to go blabbing about Andrew Dorn in the meantime,’ Jude warned. ‘If he suspects we’re on to him, he could have other cells pick us off one by one before we could do anything about him.’

‘But we can’t just let him carry on betraying the L.M. to the Crosses,’ Morgan protested.

‘None of us has the ear of the General. We don’t even know who the General is. And if we tried to get a message to him, it’s bound to go through Andrew first. So we’re going to have to bide our time.’

‘So in the meantime more of our people will go to jail or swing from the scaffold at Hewmett Prison?’ said Morgan.

‘If that’s the way it’s got to be until we can expose him – yes.’ Jude replied fiercely. ‘We have to lose this battle to win the war.’

‘That sucks!’

‘Tough,’ Jude snapped. ‘I don’t like it any more than you do, but we have no choice. Morgan, could you go out and get us a meal?’

‘What kind of meal?’

‘I don’t know.’ Jude frowned impatiently. ‘Get a curry or a chicken wrap or some burgers or something.’

Grumbling, Morgan left the room.

‘You do know we’ll be lucky if we survive a month without being wiped out by either our own side or the police, don’t you?’ Jude said quietly. ‘Andrew has probably already got the word out that we’re to be . . . eliminated.’

I’d figured that out for myself.

Jude sat back on his single bed and rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘D’you want to hear something bust-a-gut funny, little brother?’

The last thing in the world I felt like doing was laughing.

‘D’you remember when Mum had to go to hospital because she broke a finger slapping Dad’s face?’

I nodded.

‘Remember when she asked you to disappear because she had something to tell me?’

‘Yeah, I do.’ I frowned.

‘You see her?’ Jude pointed to the photo of a smiling Sephy now being shown on the TV screen.

I looked away, unable to look at her for longer than a microsecond. Just that quick sight of her had my heart drumming.

‘She and her whole family have ruined our lives. It’s as if they’ve made it their business to mix up their lives with ours,’ said Jude. ‘They’ve always believed they were better than us and they weren’t.’

I frowned at him. ‘What’re you talking about?’

‘Mum’s grandfather, our great-grandfather was a Cross. That’s what Mum told me that day. We’ve got Cross blood in our veins.’

‘I . . . I don’t believe it,’ I whispered.

‘It’s true. Mum only told me because I joined the L.M. She said I was part Cross, so killing them would be like killing my own. Poor Mum! That backfired on her.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘None of them ever wanted us. What has any Cross ever done for me except look down at me? I hated all of them even more after Mum told me the truth. Poor Mum.’

I was drowning in Jude’s words, trying to find something of sense to hold on to.

‘I had no idea . . .’

‘There’s no reason why you should.’ Jude shrugged. ‘We’re going to split up soon and I don’t even know if I’ll see you again. But I’ve got some free advice for you, Callum. Stay away from Persephone Hadley.’

‘I . . . of course I . . .’

‘Stay away from her, Callum,’ Jude interrupted. ‘Or she’s going to be the death of you.’

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 527