Edge. Part 9

Someone was talking to Jayce outside the college. Had the police had found him already? But the man's silhouette was a little familiar one of the men from Khan's shop. Maybe he was only a shop a.s.sistant; but the look that swivelled in Jayce's direction was dark and cold, then the man was stalking away, not looking back.

"Do me a favour, man." Jayce's hand trembled, holding out a pen. "Write this, will ya?"

The pen was a felt-tip, chewed and sticky. Jayce pulled up his sleeve and offered the pale inside of his forearm.

"Write, uh..." Jayce's eyes jiggled, dancing to ghost music. "Arches, Wandsworth, 9 o'clock Thursday."

A discarded sweet wrapper lay curled on the ground, containing no trace of green powder.

"Uh, how do you spell Wandsworth?"

"s.h.i.+t, man. How it sounds."

Richard wrote: ARCHES WONZWORTH 9, ARCHES WONZWORTH 9, thought for a moment, then added: thought for a moment, then added: PM THURSDAY. PM THURSDAY.

"Great." Jayce pushed down his sleeve. "Yeah. Wow. Oh, wow."

He tilted his head to one side, eyes like slits.

"What?" Richard looked round. "What is it?""That light, man." Jayce pointed at a streetlamp. "You gotta squeeze your eyes nearly shut. See the pattern? In like your eyelashes?"

"Diffraction."

"Say what? You're mad in the head, pal."

But when Richard started to walk on, Jayce followed, his gait bouncing. Chemical springs in his heels.

"So where we going, man?"

"You tell me," said Richard.

Adrenalised fear was seeping away from him, his body staring to slump in on itself. The surrounding night was chill.

"Let's go up the West End. See what happens, right?"

"I was thinking of somewhere to sleep." Standing upright was becoming hard.

"Man, you want to sleep in the dark? Around here?"

A spurt of fear came back, a short-lived boost of energy. But if he didn't find someplace, he would end up sliding down and closing his eyes, fatigued, with no other options.

"I know a doorway." Jayce flicked his fingers at Richard's sleeve. "Come on."

"A doorway?"

"Better than it sounds. And look." Jayce pointed to a wheelie-bin in front of a house, filled with black bags for tomorrow's collection. "Take that."

"The bin?"

"That cardboard box beside it."

"Oh, right."

Insulation. Thermal insulation using cardboard.

Hey, Ms Simms. Physics can save your life.

"Tip the rubbish out, you moron. Quietly."

"Uh. Right." He did what he was told.

There was a doorway in shadow, part of some old building, not a house. Tucked in the corner of a cold porch, he was invisible from the road. Opposite him, Jayce spread his blanket on concrete.

"You really going to sleep, man?"

"Yeah." Invisible fingers were pus.h.i.+ng down on Richard's eyelids. "Sorry."

"I'll keep watch, like. You're safe."

His chin dipped. It was too cold to sleep, but Richard slipped into a grey dream regardless, s.h.i.+vering but no longer fully conscious, while some minutes pa.s.sed... until he trembled into wakefulness, and saw the dark green edge to the night sky. This was pre-dawn, and hours had slipped by, while Jayce must have gone, taking his blanket, for the porch was empty.

Richard slipped back into pseudo-sleep, trying to dream of a warm world and luxury, where enemies did not lurk in the night, and reality was no longer alien and hard.

[ NINE ].

Josh clapped and cheered along with the others.

"Come on, Paula. You can do it!"She adjusted her hair, tugged at the jacket of her trouser suit, then settled her stance. Not bad, on the basis of ten minutes' instruction. The cheering filled the corporate cla.s.sroom: twenty-two delegates and four instructors, including Josh, while Vikram and Pete held the smooth plastic "board" ready for breaking. A vertical hair's-breadth line bisected the plastic, almost invisible, for it was designed to split apart under the same force as one-inch pine, all very traditional.

Paula twisted and thrust out her palm "Ha!"

while the two halves clunked apart and fell as the guys let go.

"Yes!"

"Way to go, Paula!"

Whoops and backslapping, fists pumped in the air. Paula's face flushed beneath a s.h.i.+ning lamina of sweat.

"Good work." Tony raised his thumb, nodding to Josh as well as Paula. "Well done, team. So, let's sit down for the wrap-up."

The delegates had filled in their online feedback forms after the afternoon break, when they were relaxed, not rus.h.i.+ng to get home. Tony was a professional, and knew exactly how to direct corporate training.

"So." He spoke as they took their seats, and a list of checked-off bullet-points appeared on the wallscreen. "There's our objectives from the start of the week and, well... those ticks or check-marks might be a little hint" he smiled at the delegates' laughter "that we've achieved them all. So this is like the finale of special forces selection, and I hereby declare you all special operatives in systems development. Well done, everyone!"

There was applause, the pus.h.i.+ng back of chairs on carpet, then the shaking of hands and the delegates slipping out, chatting and laughing as they went. Tony, Vikram, and Pete went with them, saying final farewells in the corridor. At last there was quiet, as Josh turned to regard the empty room. A last tidy-up, and they were done.

"f.u.c.k it."

He had wanted the training to finish. Now there was an empty weekend to face. Going forward felt awful; going back in time was impossible.

Sophie. I could have saved you, if I'd been there.

There were six board-halves lying on the floor, the relics of three teams breaking simultaneously, boosting their self-belief, the confidence they could achieve anything they wanted. (Like Sophie, whole and well.) Slotting pieces together, he created three unbroken boards, then tossed them into the air. Lightning flew through his nerves as his fists cracked one, one-two one, one-two and the shards were down once more. and the shards were down once more.

"Not bad." Tony had returned. "Braced at the edges is one thing, but boards in the air? Good focus in those punches, well done."

Josh did his best Bruce Lee voice: "Boards... don't fight back."

"Uh-huh. So you're OK, then?"

"Sure am."

"Lying sod."

"Sure am."

"You know," said Tony, "Vikram could teach your course next week."

"I thought he was teaching genetic algorithms."

"Sylvie can do that."

"I don't know..."

"If it's the money, we can come to some arrangement. You bill me for next week as course development, and I'll pay you. You can actually write a course later. What do you say?"

In the end Tony would probably want more than five days' effort for the money, but this was still was a favour, and a big one.

"When do you need to know?" asked Josh.

He really didn't feel like teaching next week, but what else could he do?

"Sunday lunchtime, latest."

In the Regiment, before a mission, you came clean about any weakness, told the commander in private necessary, because the boss needed accurate information to obey the Seven-P Principle: Proper Prior Planning Prevents p.i.s.s-Poor Performance.

"OK. Good."

"So what are you up to this weekend, mate?"

Josh found himself wincing. He stared out the window over Docklands.

"Going to Hereford.""If there'd been a change, you'd have told me, right?"

"Sophie's the same. I'm going to see her teacher, not sure why. Other than she asked."

"A good-looking lady teacher?"

Josh, not knowing the answer Kath was female but he had no opinion about her looks ignored the question.

"She wants me to meet the parents of another boy injured in the... When it happened. I think she's trying create a mutual support group."

"Maybe she's got the right idea. You ring me anytime, all right?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

"And call me lunchtime Sunday for sure."

"You got it."

Josh arrived twenty minutes early, but Kath Gleason was already sitting there, at a clean aluminium table in front of a cafe, at one end of a colonnade.

"h.e.l.lo." She looked up from her milky tea. "I thought I'd get here in plenty of time."

"In case I came early, then changed my mind?"

"No, I just thought... you'd be super-punctual, and all."

Most often, Josh had missed parent-teacher evenings, while Maria had attended. Had she and Kath Gleason talked about his military service, and the itinerant life of a corporate trainer? Or perhaps, since this was Hereford, Kath had drawn independent conclusions, for many of the ex-Regiment guys continued to live in the area, unable to tear themselves away from the life.