Castles Made of Sand (40 page)

‘So am I,’ said Ax. ‘Thank you, Kathryn. I owe you, mightily. Tell me about Fiorinda. What’s been happening in England? I’ll need to talk to David Sale—’

‘No…’ The Ugly American wet her lips. ‘David Sale’s dead.’

‘David is
dead
? David Sale is
dead
?’ he repeated, stunned.

‘Ax, there’s no easy way to tell you… It’s a different world. Things have changed so much. I don’t know where to start.’

Fiorinda put the bi-loc phone back in its hiding place in that never-furnished spare room; which had been partially colonised by Sage’s stuff, but remained a complete dump.
Sage
. Ghosts of him… She was hiding the phone from herself as much as anything. If she had it in sight she’d be calling Ax every five minutes, and she mustn’t do that. In the kitchen Elsie was playing don’t-step-on-the-floor, mad-eyed little cat perched on the fridge, psyching herself up for the suicidal, really insane bit where she leaps for the hood over the cooking hob. Claw marks scoured in plastic showed the frantic record of failure.

‘Don’t do it,’ said Fiorinda. ‘Life is still worth living.’ She sat at the kitchen table, in afternoon sunlight, pressing her hands over her eyes to hold the memory of that cool grey morning, thousands of miles away.

The day Sage had left, as soon as it was too late, everything had become clear to her. Her father had been screwing around with her, trying to break up the Triumvirate, and Fiorinda, FOOL, IDIOT, had played into the bastard’s hands. One of those drowning moments when your blood turns to ice-water.

If she had only told Ax and Sage… If she had told them what? What could they have done? A terrified little voice deep inside said there was no defence against her father’s power. But that was learned helplessness (hope to God—) and she had remembered the phone now. She had talked to Ax. She wished she had touched him, but no, better not. I don’t want bi-loc, I want him
here
. I’ll touch him when he’s here.

Oh, my Ax. My darling. Sage is gone, there’s a monster stalking us, but we love each other again and at this minute
I’m happy
. George had reported that he’d delivered Sage to Caer Siddi without further medical emergencies (and she trusted George not to lie about that). So there was hope.

Ax will come home; we’ll fetch him out. Ax is right, the Heads and I are fucking idiots about Sage. We’re like hypnotised rabbits. Yes master, of course master, of course it’s right for you to drag your own brain down your nose with a fishhook…
Why
did I let him go?

Shit, why don’t I go up there and get him back myself? What a coup!

She knew she was kidding herself. But you have to refuse to believe the worst while it’s staring you in the face if you’re going to achieve anything at all. That’s Ax Preston’s philosophy, and we can learn from it, we realists. Elsie jumped: flailed, scrabbling, and fell. No pots on the stove, so not really spectacular. ‘Stupid cat,’ said Fiorinda; picked her up and carried her, kissing and cuddling, into the living room, where she sat down with her own phone and called Fergal Kearney. Now I will get a grip. For a start, I will find out what’s happening with the London barmies. There’s something
odd
about this idea that Fergal has ‘taken over’. The barmy army doesn’t work like that, I’m sure it doesn’t.

She worked in Ax’s office downstairs: visiting meetings, responding to memos, reading reports. Tracking the maze of surplus-trading whereby the Volunteer Initiative scraped the barrels of pre-Crisis over-production. Okay as long as she was locked into the system, lonely and heartsick whenever she raised her head. I’ll commute to the Insanitude in future, she thought, or Whitehall if I have to. Working here isn’t good for morale. At seven in the evening the entryphone chimed. She remembered she’d asked Fergal to come round. She answered, and there he was in a window on her screen.

‘Good evening, Fiorinda,’ he said gravely, ‘will you let me in?’

‘Of course.’

They went up to the living-room and talked, and opened some wine. Fiorinda had been sexually active (or acted upon) since she was twelve years old. She had no illusions about the male heterosexual mind, so the unease she felt didn’t bother her. His thoughts are roaming, he can’t help it; he’s okay. Strangely enough (or not so strange), she’d never been completely alone with Fergal before. It was mutual. Fergal was shy of female company: Fiorinda was afraid that he’d say something about her father. Having someone around who (maybe) knew Rufus O’Niall’s secret made her feel more secure, but she didn’t want to talk about it. She hadn’t expected him to stay long, but he was in no hurry to leave. They were both non-eaters, not interested in food, so they opened more wine and went on chatting.

Next thing Fiorinda knew, she was in bed and Sage was fucking her. A moment at the wellspring, the wingspan sweep of his shoulders, his taper waist, the beautiful muscles of his bum…but no.
This is not Sage
. She was in the nightmare, the worst nightmare. She fought out of it and lay there shuddering. No one to call, no comfort. The evening wouldn’t come back to her. Damn. I must’ve got drunk. She couldn’t remember what she’d said to Fergal, or what he’d said to her. The whole conversation was gone. Fuck. I’m an idiot. Something moved heavily beside her in the dark. A body turning over, a disgusting waft of carrion breath.
Oh, shit
, thought Fiorinda.
Shit!
What the fuck possessed me—?

Fergal put the bedside light on and there he was, propped on one elbow, his coarse-grained face and aging, geezer’s body, rusty mat of hair around his nipples, slackened flesh over middle-aged muscle, red tan stops at the throat and the rest is cheesy-white. Then he laughed, and all thought of dealing with this daft, embarrassing situation ended. For a moment Sage was there: a perfect simulacrum, except for the malevolence.

Fiorinda shot out of bed and grabbed her kimono.

‘
Who are you?
’

Sage was gone. Fergal sat up, legs over the side of the bed. He had an erection, but his sea-green eyes were blank, watery, bewildered. He looked like an old man in hospital. ‘I’m dead.’

‘
What?
’

‘Oh Jaysus, I’m dead, can’t someone kill me?’

‘Of course I won’t kill you. I don’t kill people. What the fuck’s going on?’

‘Augh! This can’t be right. Why the bluidy hell can’t someone do something?’

His eyes came into focus. For a moment someone she had never met before was staring at her, out of such fathomless fear and agony it caught her breath—

The entryphone light on the wall by the bed was winking.

Fergal leaned towards it and listened. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘come up.’

She ran into the living-room. This is going to be bad, I’m an idiot,
why
am I here alone? Because we are wild and free, citizens of Utopia. Because I’m supposed to be safe, Brixton is my… The door opened. Three big, Celtic-style barmy army types came in. Oh yes, she thought, I remember. Fergal took over. One of the men grabbed her. She didn’t struggle or scream. If I’m to die, I’d die before I could be reached. If not, I don’t want this public, not until I
think
. The other two started going through the room.

‘What are you looking for?’ she asked, calmly.

‘Something they can use,’ said Fergal Kearney, coming out of the bedroom, and she noticed that the Belfast brogue had gone. He was dressed. He sat at the back of the big open room, turning a chair to face the scene that Fiorinda and the three men made: very relaxed, one leg crossed over the other. She didn’t understand, and then she did, because one of the barmies had found Elsie.

Poor Elsie, she’s not half as tough as she makes out. She was scared out of her mind, so cowed she didn’t even spit until the men began to hurt her. Then she spat and clawed and bit and yowled and struggled, but it didn’t do her any good. Fiorinda yelled, ‘STOP IT!’ and ‘LEAVE HER ALONE YOU BASTARDS! WHAT DO YOU WANT?’ But they weren’t going to stop, whatever Fiorinda surrendered. It wasn’t that kind of torture. There was only one way to stop what was happening.

The agonised little body went limp.

The two men put Elsie down on the rug, tried her eyes and shook her a bit.

‘The cat’s dead, Rufus,’ said one of them, doubtfully.

Fergal laughed. (No. That’s not Fergal Kearney. It never was.) A rumble of soft thunder. A body that belies its occupant. Behind him on the wall Mr Preston and Mr Pender were taking sherry, in a clear, cool, dispassionate light… She was conscious of the grip on her arms as something that was happening far away, but acutely, immediately conscious of each breath she took. The sound of air taken in, the expansion of her lungs. The cat’s little mad presence trotting around the flat, insistent lap-seeking missile. She loves Ax best. She loves him with all her tiny heart. But Sage and I, we can be useful occasionally. We know where the food is, we’ll watch when she shows off.

‘What do you want?’

‘I want you.’

She stared at him, fighting her thoughts into order, fighting terror and bewilderment: seeing the long masquerade, stunned and yet not surprised. The first time I met Fergal Kearney, I felt sick to death… But Fergal saved Ax’s life! Oh, he didn’t want Ax dead. He wanted to
destroy
Ax. That’s what this has been about. He’s not going to kill me either. He doesn’t have to rape me, he can take me any time, he just did. No, he’s not going to kill me. He wants more.

The smile that Fergal’s face was wearing sat uneasily in the facial muscles of a difficult, diffident loser of a dead artist. ‘This is nothing,’ he said. ‘This is just so you know where we are at. If you’re wise, you’ll tell no one. Think about your options.’

She was released. The men walked out, shutting the door behind them.

She listened, counting them out of the front door. She ran to the spare bedroom, unearthed the bi-loc, ran with it into the unused bathroom adjoining, smashed it on the terrazzo floor. Oh God, if he’d known I had this: a piece of weird tech
slaved to Ax’s chip.
Oh God, what use he could have made of it. Trembling, she swept up the bits and dumped them in the plastic and metals bin. One problem dealt with.

She went back to Elsie. The men had put all the lights on, the room seemed very bright. She dimmed them—and remembered that the fake Fergal had been able to light the ATP lamp by the bed, which shouldn’t have been possible for him. The only thing I know is that I don’t know if he has any limits.

Oh, shit. Think, think, think.

‘Elsie,’ she whispered, ‘you can come out now, sweetheart.’

The tortoiseshell cat stirred, curling herself up as best she could. She licked one of her paws and looked up at Fiorinda, bewildered.

‘Now, darling,’ said Fiorinda, stroking the little warm head, ‘listen to me. I’m not completely helpless. In a way I’ve been preparing myself for this for, ooh, a long time. Long time. In a way, I always knew it would come. There are things that I can do, or at least things I can try. I’ve been incredibly stupid. Well, I don’t know, maybe not so stupid… Anyway, I’m on the case now. I think I can hold things together. I think I can hold the pass until my Ax comes home. But I can’t protect
you
, Elsie, my darling. I can’t let this happen again; and it would.’

Her heart stood still, her gaze poised in darkness.
I can’t protect Ax’s little cat
.

‘So you have to go to sleep now. Curl up and go to sleep. You know Ax loves you. And I love you, and even Sage loves you, though he pretends not. I’ve seen him stroke you. I’ve caught him
talking
to you, before now. So you go quietly to sleep, little one, thinking about how we love you. Go to sleep, go to sleep.’

She carried on stroking and murmuring until she was sure that Elsie was really dead this time. Then she packed up, swiftly and resolutely, and headed for Rivermead, just as the dawn was breaking. The new building, the fixed abode she’d never wanted, already consigned to sorrow and disaster, was the place where she would fight her battle. Not on this holy ground. She took Elsie’s body with her, it was no time to go digging holes in the Brixton garden; and otherwise someone might find a dead cat in the rubbish and think that was
very
weird.

The day after Fiorinda moved to Rivermead, David Sale called her with urgent news from the Internet Commission. Mr Preston had disappeared. The quarantine talks had gone very well indeed, but then Ax had vanished. Everything possible was being done to trace him. They agreed to keep it to themselves for now. ‘We don’t know,’ said Fiorinda—who knew Ax had been alive and fine, and on his way home, the morning before, but could not tell David this. ‘I don’t think he counts as missing yet. It could be he’s ducked under their radar because he wanted to. He may have his own agenda.’

Ax didn’t come home. She could not call him: she had smashed the bi-loc. She slept uneasily, and woke, and wandered her shadowy rooms. She wasn’t alone. There were plenty of people in the building, but no one else slept in her suite. She had been dreaming of her early childhood. She found a tall mirror, framed in metal, and stood looking into it, still in the atmosphere of the dream, still held by scraps of memory she had not known she possessed. Who is this woman? This sallow, worn-down redhead with the flinching shoulders and look of dumb endurance? It’s my mother. What a dog’s life she must have led, long ago, between him and Carly. How English, how familiar. The horrors that hide behind closed doors, in suburban streets… Carly Slater, Mum’s sister, the procuress, had told Fiorinda the child that her mother had mortally offended the music biz world. She’d been cast out: that was why she’d become a bitter, recluse. Later, Fiorinda had looked for traces of her mother’s downfall, and found none. Suzy Slater had just dropped out and vanished, for no visible reason, after her break up with Rufus O’Niall.