Edge. Part 10

"You need another coffee, Ms Gleason? I mean Kath."

Lightning cracked somewhere in the distance.

"Jesus."

"Are you all right?" asked Josh.

"Electric storms worry me. Do you know we've had more this month already than the whole of last year? Which was more than the whole decade before that."

"Really?"

"Yes, and II'm sorry. Did you see Sophie last night?"

"This morning." He had driven from London before dawn. "Still the same."

"I'm so sorry."

"Drinks," said Josh. "I'll just be a minute."

This was such a bad idea.

Twenty minutes later, in Kath's car, they drove into a plain residential street, and pulled up before a house coated in pink pebbledash, the front door inset with amber gla.s.s. No sign of an alarm system; trusting to the high-mounted neighbourhood watchcams.

"Don't worry about what to say." Kath switched off the engine. "I'm sure they'll be nervous too."

The doorbell had no fingerprint recognition, but the door opened straightaway, pulled back by a blank-faced man.

"This is Carl, Marek's father." Kath gestured. "This is Josh."

Entering the front room, Josh scanned from near to far, and above, checking the overstuffed furniture and cluttered ornaments, the photographs on shelves. Then a thick-waisted woman came through from the rear, holding out her hand.

"h.e.l.lo, I'm Irina. Good to meet you." She looked at her husband. "Carl, you want to offer our guests drinks?"

"Um, would you like something? Beer, vodka, tea?"

"I just made a pot," said Irina.

Josh and Kath chose tea; Carl, head down, went out back.

"I'm sorry about Carl." Irina gestured. "Please sit."

The placement was not tactical, but ordinary people had no thought of preventing clear shots in through their living-room window. Not liking it, Josh sat down. Kath blinked at him, then turned back to Irina.

"Marek's at home, I presume."

"In his bedroom. He spends his time there."

"Is he seeing someone?"

"The GP, every Thursday." Irina turned to Josh. "I'm sorry about your daughter. So sorry."

"Thank you."

Kath said, "Everyone's devastated. And our safety record is good, had been so good."

"So." Irina's expression closed in. "The boy who started it, from St Joseph's, not even the same school, but he was hanging around and no one cared."

"The pupils have siblings who attend other schools. At the start or end of a day, it's not unusual"

Carl came in with a laden tea tray: mugs, teapot, milk in an open carton, a packet of plain chocolate McVities. Irina shook her head. Perhaps she had expected a milk jug and nicer cups. After Carl handed around the mugs, he stood looking down at his own tea, then walked out saying nothing, closing the door behind him. A clink sounded, and everyone waited, Josh expecting the crash of shattered crockery or gla.s.s; instead, there was nothing.

"Would you like to meet Marek?" said Irina finally. "I mean, if it would help."

"Sure." Josh put down his mug. "Are you going to call him down or?"

"You could go up." Irina pointed to the hallway. "Upstairs on the right. You'll see."

"Just me?"

"Better than all of us." Kath tucked in her lower lip. "Don't want to look like a delegation."

Josh breathed with conscious control, getting ready.

"Upstairs. Right."

He felt disengaged from his body, almost floating on automatic up the stairs, not knowing how he felt about meeting the boy the other victim of the incident that turned Sophie, his beautiful Sophie, into a small warm body with no mind. Beneath a bright graffiti notice Marek's Room he knocked.

"Hey, my name's Josh. Can I come in?"

Nothing.

"I'm Sophie c.u.mberland's father."

There was a reply that sounded like "Ugh", which was enough. He turned the handle.

Inside, on the wall behind the boy's chair was a poster of Fireman Carlsen in half armour, blade in hand. A white blanket covered the boy's lap. These were the things Josh noticed first, before he processed the too-pale, almost blue complexion, the bruise-purple hollowness of the eyes.

"Hi, Marek."

It took a second, but then Marek nodded, then he pushed PAUSE on the unfolded control pad attached to his phone, freezing the wallscreen display.

"What are you watching?"

"Firefly," he said.

"The old Joss Whedon thing, or the remake?"

"Huh? It's just out."

"The remake. Any good?""Still on the first chapter. There's no way out of Serenity Valley, no third-level choice till later."

"Uh, right."

When he'd been Marek's age, games, novels and movies had been separate things. Phone accounts had not been bank accounts; and phones were not computers.

Marek's gaze returned to the stilled image on screen.

This is stupid.

They had nothing to say to each other. He should leave the poor kid alone, let him immerse himself in imagination, forget the reality of what occurred. Up on the wall, the flat muscularity of Fireman Carlsen motto: Sh*t hot with a blade Sh*t hot with a blade was a mockery. It was the end-of-fight shot from the rematch against Slicer Stross, the Fireman's comeback from defeat, a cla.s.sic fight. Why had no one taken the poster down? was a mockery. It was the end-of-fight shot from the rematch against Slicer Stross, the Fireman's comeback from defeat, a cla.s.sic fight. Why had no one taken the poster down?

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry about... everything."

"Sure." Marek's lower lip seemed to be swelling.

"Look, I can"

Then Marek was sobbing. "He sliced me." He pulled the white blanket aside, pulled up his pyjama s.h.i.+rt, revealing white plastic, an abdominal sh.e.l.l. "They were slipping out, my things, my insides. They're soft and, and... wet."

"Yes."

"You don't know. n.o.body"

Josh's voice dropped. "I know."

Marek stopped. His eyes went wide as Josh touched the plastic with one finger.

"This is bad," Josh went on. "Real bad, and you can get through it. You ever heard of Ironman?"

With a sniff: "The remake?"

That was promising, the slyness of his humour."I mean the event. Run, bike, swim. You ever seen it on screen?"

"I guess."

"Friend of mine competes, fittest man I know. Had one of these" Josh tapped the plastic "for nearly two years."

"He's... all right?"

"Oh, yeah." Apart from rippling scars, the hollow curvature of skin and missing muscle. "Super, super fit."

"Oh."

Josh stood up. For some reason, the movement brought back his memory of the movie game, whatever that Marek was watching, and the military disaster it began with.

"You know, if the events at the start hadn't happened, there'd have been no story. They survived the hard times, got through them."

"Oh."

"Take it easy, my friend."

He let himself out of the room and went downstairs, not quite smiling, but aware that he might have done some good.

Sophie. Oh, Jesus, Sophie. Some good, but not enough. Some good, but not enough.

Tears like acid came from nowhere.

Finally, Irina showed them out, her smile sad but her eyes bright; and she watched them until they reached the car, then closed the door. Josh reached for the door handle, but Kath stood unmoving. Then tipped her head back toward the house.

"Take a look at this."She walked back to the wheelie bin out front, and pointed to one of the recycling boxes behind it. Then she raised the lid.

Vodka bottles filled the box.

Josh said, "He's having a hard time of it."

"Not Carl. He doesn't drink."

"But"

The brightness in Irina's eyes. The near-permanent sad smile.

"s.h.i.+t."

"I wish I could help, but I don't know how. Eileen would kill me if I tried."

As headmistress, Eileen O'Donoghue would be worried about legal implications.

"I don't know how, either."

Kath opened the car door. "Maybe you need someone to look after you."

This feels wrong. "You go on. I'm all right." "You go on. I'm all right."

"What do you mean?"