Dan Abnett - Border Princes

Gwen pulled her phone and dialled the number Mr Beavan had given her.

‘You’re not serious?’ asked Toshiko.

‘Hang on,’ said Gwen, holding up her hand. She shook her head and lowered the phone. ‘No, I just got an answerphone.’

They got into the SUV. ‘You’d seriously go all the way to Manchester after some old diaries?’ asked Toshiko.

‘No,’ said Gwen. ‘That would be daft. I just wish it wasn’t the only lead we had. I hate going back to Jack empty-handed, especially when he’s told me I’ll be coming back empty-handed.’

Toshiko started the engine. ‘You do know that proving Jack wrong is not the primary objective of our work?’

‘Bugger. Isn’t it?’ said Gwen.

James looked up as Owen walked back into the care room.

‘Well? Am I ever going to play the violin again?’

‘Like Maxim frigging Vengerov, mate,’ said Owen. ‘Your unqualified diagnosis that you were OK was pretty much spot on. I’m not picking up anything this morning that gives me cause for concern.’

‘So I can get dressed and leave this room?’

‘Yup. Provided you take it easy. Really easy.’

‘OK.’

Owen turned to leave.

‘Hey,’ said James.

‘What?’

‘How thorough are those tests?’

‘What do you mean?’ Owen frowned.

‘How thorough are the tests you ran on me? On anyone in this situation?’

‘Scale of one to ten?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Six, seven,’ said Owen with a shrug. ‘I mean it’s a pretty good, cover-the-bases work-up, bloods and CAT, looking at the obvious. A thorough assessment.’

‘What would it pick up?’

‘What do you want it to pick up?’ Owen asked. He looked at James quizzically. ‘What is this? You’re freaking me out.’

James opened his mouth to reply then laughed and closed it again. He looked down at the floor, then back up at Owen.

‘What?’ asked Owen, in half-jokey frustration, shaking his hands in the air.

James pursed his lips. ‘Could you… could you run some more tests on me? More critical ones? More thorough ones?’

‘How much more thorough?’ asked Owen.

‘Scale of one to ten?’

Owen nodded.

‘What do you think?’ James asked.

Owen raised his eyebrows and whistled. ‘Shit. Why?’

James let out a long breath before replying, as if he was trying to make sure he was doing the right thing.

‘I think…’ he began. ‘Christ, I can’t believe it’s you I’m confiding in.’

‘Doctor-patient privilege,’ said Owen.

‘Yeah. Even so.’

Owen pursed his lips and pointed a finger in the direction of the door. ‘You want me to get Jack, then?’

‘No.’ James stood up. He paced for a moment. Then he sat down on the chair again. ‘No, not Jack. Not yet. I need you to help me with this, Owen. If it all comes up clear, Jack need never know. Nor Gwen. Just be our secret. You will then be permitted, from time to time, to take the piss out of me for being an idiot, and no one will ever know why.’

Owen frowned. He closed the room door, picked up another chair from the corner and carried it across to face James. ‘OK. You’re talking some fairly bonkers talk now. What’s going on?’

‘I’m scared,’ said James.

‘Of what?’ Owen asked him.

‘Myself,’ he said.

In the middle of the afternoon, after the lunchtime rush (though it wasn’t much of a rush at the Mughal Dynasty buffet lunch), Shiznay managed to sneak away as soon as she’d cleared the last of the dishes. People were busy elsewhere, with other things. Her mother had gone shopping to the garment market. Her father, as was his custom, was taking a slow hour to read the day’s paper before gearing up for the evening shift. He did this sitting alone in the restaurant with the radio on.

Shiznay snuck upstairs. She could hear the little transistor set buzzing away.

The Mughal Dynasty had once been two large Edwardian semis, and all the rooms in the upper floors retained most of their original fixtures and fittings, including door handles and locks. Every door had a mortise lock. Her brother Kamil’s arguments with his mother over issues of privacy had led to him making regular use of his key. It was never a surprise to find Kamil’s door locked, especially when he was away.

Her brother was away for the whole weekend. He’d left the previous evening to visit his friends in Birmingham.

Her brother didn’t know Shiznay had discovered, about a year before, a spare key that fitted his room.

Checking there was absolutely no one around, Shiznay unlocked the door and went in.

Pale afternoon light slanted in through half-drawn curtains. Kamil’s room was a mess as usual, a jumble of clothes and CDs and PlayStation games. There were some pin-up pictures of pneumatic women stuck on the wall. Naked pneumatic women, in general, one of the main reasons Kamil denied his mother access.

Mr Dine lay where she had put him, sprawled across Kamil’s unmade bed. She’d wash the sheets later. Kamil probably wouldn’t notice anyway.

Mr Dine stirred and looked up at her. He looked just as bad as he had done the previous night, though at least his stab wound seemed to have stopped leaking.

‘It’s all right,’ she whispered. ‘I just came to check on you. I brought you some stuff.’

She held up the bottle of mineral water she’d taken from the cooler downstairs, some fresh fruit and a tub of ice cream.

There was a stiff breeze coming in off the Bay, but the rain had cleared. The sun had come out, weak and watery, but a sun nonetheless, and the sky was big and full of voluminous white clouds.

It was just the middle of the afternoon, with an hour or two of daylight left. The Friday-night traffic had started already, murmuring in the Cardiff streets behind him.

Dressed, showered and shaved, James walked down to the end of the Pierhead boardwalks and stood at the rail, looking out towards the Norwegian Church and the chemical works beyond the Queen Alexandra Dock. A water taxi chugged by, leaving a tail of foam behind it.

He’d spent a long time shaving and showering in the Hub’s bathroom, a long time staring at himself in the mirror. Both of his eyes had remained resolutely brown.

‘Taking the air?’

James looked around. Owen was approaching along the empty quayside. He had his coat on, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

‘Clearing my head,’ James replied.

‘Thought I’d come and find you. I finished processing the tests.’

‘That was fast.’

‘I got the impression you didn’t want me to hang around.’

‘Come on then. How long have I got, Doctor?’

Owen leant his back against the railing. ‘Well, to answer your first concern, you’re not sick. Not even a little bit. Nothing untoward except for the bumps and bruises you’ve collected this week.’

‘Nothing at all? Not even a suggestion?’

‘You’re in amazingly rude health, mate. I’ve run a sweep for just about every clinical condition I can think of: disease, infection, degenerative syndromes, you name it. You’re a fine, healthy human being. Healthier than me, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Yeah? No shadows on my head CT? No lurking enigmas in my major organs?’

‘Nothing at all.’

James looked out at the sea. ‘OK, then.’

‘To address your second concern,’ said Owen, ‘I can’t find anything… out of place either. No foreign objects. No implants. No buried tech that’s got in under your skin. I’m as sure as it’s possible to be that you haven’t in any way been… what shall we say? Infiltrated? Interfered with? Corrupted?’

‘You make it sound dumb that I asked. Isn’t that a very real danger in our line of work?’