Very slowly he became aware that he had a visitor. Sounds first. The shuffling, the rustle of fabric, the plastic-on-lino sound of a chair being repositioned. The lights were coming back too. It was like a system reboot. Wherever he’d been, he was back. In hospital, with a visitor. He could hear the electrical buzz of the lights and the occasional beeps and clicks of whatever they had plugged him into. He could feel a needle in his left arm – a drip, presumably. His fever had gone, the nausea too. Only a soreness in his throat and pain in his stomach muscles remained. He remembered the poison, remembered why he had taken it. He hoped he was in an isolation ward. Except that he had a visitor.
He kept his eyes shut. The last image to fade was that of the two IPS women. Huddled together, deep in conversation. Had they known each other? Salvation past and present.
He heard the sound of a page turning. His visitor was reading. Someone who wasn’t medical staff. Someone who was prepared to wait.
The page turning was regular, every two minutes he guessed. The pages sounded light and small. A book reader for certain. Only the student’s cell knew he was here so his visitor’s identity wasn’t really a mystery. The systematic cracking of knuckles confirmed it. The man in the chair by his bed was the man he was trying to escape from. The leader.
The student’s heart sank. The leaves had worked, the Geiger counter had worked. Yet here he was, in hospital with a crazed and angry revolutionary for company. If the leader had discovered that the Geiger’s clicks had been generated by the hidden radioactive smoke alarm core in his pocket, the one that started life on his ceiling in Boxer Street, then retribution would have been swift. The wooden-handled blade would be in the leader’s pocket for certain.
‘Can you hear me, citizen?’ The tone was urgent, conspiratorial.
The student decided that he couldn’t hear him. He lay motionless. His breathing was steady. He would just wait until the leader got bored and left.
‘Can you hear me, citizen?’ A slight change in tone and emphasis. He sounded almost panicky. ‘Your breathing has changed. I hope you’re better.’ His voice was closer now, the book cast to one side.
The student kept his eyes closed. Tried a few words. ‘That was close,’ he said, his voice a painful rasp. His mouth felt stale and sticky. He licked his lips.
‘Water?’ offered the leader.
The student nodded. ‘But not their water,’ he whispered.
The sound of a plastic bottle being unscrewed.
‘It’s fresh. From the machine,’ said the leader.
The student raised his head, smelt the tang of the plastic then sipped gratefully.
He slumped back to the pillow, eyes still closed.
‘They say you are safe,’ said the leader. ‘I am not so sure.’ He spoke quickly, softly. ‘I believe you were poisoned on the drop. I spoke with her. She told me about the homeless man who approached you. It must have been him. You were sick. My Geiger counter speaks the truth. Now it says you’re OK.’
The student cracked his eyes open. He was in a private room, one bed, two chairs; one chair next to him, the other by the closed door. A single window allowed bright sunshine into the room. The leader was a metre away, leaning forward in the chair. His glasses had slid down his nose, his face remained impassive. The student closed his eyes again.
‘What time is it?’
‘Quarter to four.’
I’ve been out a while, he thought.
‘So I’m not radioactive?’
The leader found the Geiger counter, stuck it close to the student’s face and pressed the trigger. Silence. A few clicks then more silence.
‘You’re not radioactive,’ he said, ‘but you were, you must have heard it.’
The student nodded. ‘I did.’
‘Must have been on your clothes.’
‘Must have.’ Or the smoke alarm core just fell out of my pocket, he thought. Either way, no clicks now. He chanced some more detail. ‘Maybe it was a spray. Maybe I inhaled enough to make me sick but not enough to show up now.’
The leader nodded. ‘The closer we get, the closer they get. This attack is proof.’
If this is what he wants to believe, thought the student, I’ll see if I can help some more.
‘Maybe it’s a fascist group,’ he said. ‘Maybe they got a tip-off.’
The leader’s head snapped back to the student. ‘From within our cell?’
The student said nothing. Shrugged. Let the new poison take effect.
Eventually the leader muttered, ‘We’re too close to stop now.’
‘How close?’
‘Too close.’
Now was the moment to push. ‘I’m a liability,’ said the student. ‘They know my face.’
‘You’re a hero.’
‘I’m a liability. You should leave me behind.’
‘Too late.’
‘Not if I’m a liability. Not if I damage the operation.’
‘You won’t.’
‘I will if the fash know me.’
The leader considered that. ‘We can disguise you.’
Enough pushing for now. ‘I just hope I’m out of here in time.’
‘You will be. You’re not safe here. We’re going to take you out early. Then we have just over sixty hours.’
It’s Monday afternoon. So it must be happening on Thursday now.
The student fought the tremble in his voice. ‘How much filth?’ he whispered.
The leader pushed his Browline glasses back up his nose. He smiled. Stood up. ‘So much filth,’ he said, and left.
The woman appeared then. One in, one out. She glanced around the room, hawklike, unsmiling.
‘Where are your clothes?’ she asked.
The student shrugged.
‘I’ll find some,’ she said, and ducked out again.
He heard her shout at someone, then silence.
The student lay as still as his racing mind and heart would allow. Thursday. The leader had said just over sixty hours. Whatever they’d been recruited for, it was happening in three days’ time.
A doctor came in and told him what he already knew: his sickness had probably been caused by a poison and they were waiting for toxicology reports.
Alone again in his room, he fought the urge to unplug the drip and run. The doctors wanted him to stay where he was. The leader wanted him out.
He sat up in bed, arranging the meagre pillows behind him. The smells of food mingled with floor disinfectant. The door to his room was ajar and he could see two beds in the main ward, one empty, the other occupied. An elderly man with a tube in his mouth slept heavily.
The woman wouldn’t be long, all she had to do was find some clothes, but when she arrived he would be guarded again. She wasn’t as twitchy as the leader, but she shared his obsessive, messianic determination. She had been his first link to Boxer Street. She had been the first to threaten his sisters. He found himself gripping his thin blue blanket with both hands and screwed his eyes shut. A headstart on his debt and a job after university had sounded like everything he’d ever wanted. He’d have made it. Made it in spite of his absentee father, in spite of his as-good-as-absent mother and in spite of his doubting friends. Then the killing started and his options vanished. The final throw of the dice – his plan to get the leader to leave him behind – had failed.