Part 15 (2/2)

Blond looked down at Muscle, up at Crane. 'You must be Crane,' he said.

Crane nodded.

'I heard you were a mad piece of s.h.i.+t.'

'People exaggerate,' said Crane.

Blond was Brian. Muscle was Paul. Or that might have been the other way around. Neither was especially delighted to be here, on a lump of rock in the middle of nowhere; a place that only existed, Brian said, in case G.o.d needed somewhere to take a dump. The Farm offered nothing in the way of comfort. The walls were bare, as were the floors; light bulbs swung uncovered from the ceilings. Count themselves lucky there were light bulbs, in fact. There was no Cable, and you couldn't pick up ITV worth s.h.i.+t; and they only had three videos, one of which was Dumbo. The real Dumbo. The food was all tinned and the microwave was bust so they had to use the frigging stove to cook on. There was a cat they all hated. And, Brian summed up, n.o.body told them f.u.c.k all. Who was the kid supposed to be? And who could they expect to come looking?

Did they think he'd come all this way to find out if they had any complaints?

Instead he asked about the nurse, and from the looks that pa.s.sed between them he knew that yes, the nurse was female, and yes they were doing her. Probably both of them. Probably not at once. So much for the lack of creature comforts, then; he just hoped they weren't doing it in front of the kid. Crane had a theory about kids: he thought they remembered everything that happened to them even before they could talk about it, and bad stuff came back and f.u.c.ked them up in later life. He knew this wasn't an original theory, but that made it more likely to be true.

He didn't remember anything particularly bad happening to him and Axel in early life. On the other hand, they were both pretty balanced: not bad, considering the jobs they were in . . .

They were looking at him as if he'd just flaked out in front of them. 'So where is she?' he said.

'Downstairs. With the kid.'

He left them discussing just how weird he was, which bothered him not at all, and on the way downstairs pa.s.sed the cat on its way up. It shot past, as if it recognized him. He found the nurse in one of the former cells. The kid was with her. Dinah. For a moment, Crane was left without anything to say: how was he supposed to make conversation with a four-year-old kid? Then he remembered the bear. 'Here,' he said. 'I brought you this.'

Dinah looked at him with big Disney eyes.

The nurse was about forty, a battle-scarred blonde. Crane wondered briefly how hard she'd had to angle for the job: just her and two men, with no channels worth watching. But the way she was holding the kid, who clutched tight to her knee, maybe she had other qualifications. Her name was Deedee. Deedee and Dinah. It sounded like a sitcom.

'You're frightening her,' Deedee said.

'Me?'

'She's scared.'

'I'm trying to give her a toy. I'm not going to hurt her.'

'Have you any idea what she's been through?'

Amos Crane thought about it and decided the honest answer was yes, he had a b.l.o.o.d.y good idea. But he also decided, with a rare flash of insight, there wasn't much point in saying so. Instead he put the bear on the floor, a foot or so in front of the girl, and stepped back, looking around the room. Still very much a cell. There'd been attempts all around the wall, at Dinah-height, splashes of paint added a four-year old's version of decoration; the duvet was cartoon lions but nothing much could be done about the absence of windows, or the way the walls rippled here and there, where the drills hadn't sheared them smooth. Not what you'd call a nursery feel. Deedee was talking to him. 'Have you come to take her away?'

'No.'

'Because wherever she goes, I'm going with her.'

He nodded vaguely, as if answering a question. You'll do what you're f.u.c.king told. 'I haven't come to take her anywhere. I've just brought her a bear, that's all.'

'Why is she here?'

'Circ.u.mstances.'

'None of us have been told anything.'

'None of you need to know anything. Have you been with us long?'

'Seven years.'

'And how often do you get the background on an op?'

She bit her lip. On the bridge of her nose, Crane could see the pinchmarks left by spectacles: perhaps she'd just been reading to the child a scatter of soft books lay all around: pictures of talking crocodiles and huge round babies. He realized the child was staring at him, though she'd not yet relinquished her grip on Deedee's knee. With his foot, he edged the bear a little closer. For Christ's sake, anyone would think he was going to eat her.

Deedee said, 'And what happens after?'

'After?'

'After whatever it is we're here for happens. What happens after that?'

Crane didn't have the faintest idea, nor did he care to speculate. Once or twice not in a long time, but you could never rule it out things went so spectacularly wrong on an op, you didn't so much mop up afterwards as hose everything down. If that happened here, the chances of Dinah being among those left standing weren't so high they'd make you dizzy. This was a shame, and would leave Crane in seriously poor odour, but there was little point in getting sentimental.

'Well?'

'Arrangements are in place. She'll be cared for.'

'Why did you come here?'

'I had to see her.' Startled into honesty, he let the answer roll around his mind another time or two: I had to see her. I had to see her. Back at his desk, he'd gamed the situation just about every which way there was, and there wasn't really call for anything else. There was a blip on the screen called Nurse; two other blips called Men. It didn't matter that the Nurse was also called Deedee, or that her colouring came out of a bottle. He didn't have to wrap a bag round Muscle's head to mark him out of ten. And nor did he have to see for himself that the blip called Child had Disney eyes, untidy hair like a feathery cap, and limbs like sticks wrapped in pudgy lagging. It was just . . . It was just that he'd felt so out of it, that was all. Axel playing King of the Castle in Oxford; Howard nagging him, Amos, whenever Axel got overexcited. Everybody on the screen, all the players, they were all more involved than he was, even the kid. He'd just wanted to take a look, that was all. So when drastic changes occurred, at least he'd know what the ex-blips had looked like.

Especially the kid. She was at the heart. It was like when a p.a.w.n reached the far side of the board, and got to be queen: one moment she didn't matter, the next she was at the centre of events.

Deedee was watching him too now, a look of quiet horror on her face, as if his thoughts had just unravelled in front of her. He wiped a hand across his mouth; tried to fit a smile there instead. She shook her head, though whether in denial at what he had said or what she'd thought he meant, he'd never know. And the child blinked. Was that the first time she'd blinked in all the while he'd been standing there? And how come she was so quiet? Weren't kids her age talking yet? The vague impression he'd had was they never shut up.

'She's very quiet,' he said.

'I know.'

'Does she talk at all?'

'I expect she could if she wanted. But she's four years old and her mother's disappeared. That's all she knows about it. Wouldn't you be traumatized?'

Crane didn't answer. And none of it signified anyhow, he thought suddenly: talking, dumb the kid could be dead, as far as that went, so long as Downey didn't think she was. An aspect of his gaming he'd be foolish to forget: blips were, in fact, more important than the people.

He said, 'The bear's for her. Do your job. And remember whatever happens, she'll be taken away from you. She looks just like a little girl. But it's no different from guarding a parcel.'

'You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

Maybe so. But it was said now, anyway. He turned and walked out on them, aware that if the woman had had a weapon, she'd have been a whisker away from using it. But that whisker would always be there. It was the weakness in women, he thought; that they always waited until the last possible moment instead of taking the first possible chance.

Upstairs he walked straight past Muscle and Blond, who were waiting for a chance to pump more information. The cat, which had got behind him somehow, darted out in front again: Muscle aimed a kick at it, missing by inches. 'I hate that b.a.s.t.a.r.d cat,' he said. Amos Crane shrugged his shoulders as he stepped into the light. He'd done what he'd intended to do; he'd given the child a bear.

Amos Crane started to jog.

<script>