Scott continues for her. ‘I’m . . . I’m kicking the man on the ground. I’m wearing black boots. I’m pushing him with my foot. Jeez. He’s trying to get up. The side of his face is covered in blood. His camera – damn, James, is that you? Oh Christ. Your camera’s on the ground next to you. It’s smashed. You’re . . . or he, I don’t know who this guy is . . . whoever it is, he’s groaning. He’s trying to get his hands onto the ground, trying to lever himself up. But I’m pushing him with my boot again.’ Scott clutches his head. ‘Holy shit, this is . . . this is like the worst virtual reality game I’ve ever played. I can’t . . . Lucy, take over again? Saying it out loud makes it even worse.’
Lucy is pale with shock, but she takes over, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘I’m, um . . . he’s bending down to the man on the ground. Jesus, James, is that you? You’re just lying there. I don’t know if you can’t move, or if you’re pretending so that . . . so that you won’t get another kicking. But I’m . . . he’s kicking you. Or whoever that is. Fuck. This is brutal.’ She pauses, takes a breath. ‘OK. I’ve stopped. Thank God. I’m leaning down, rummaging through his pockets. Grabbing what I can. I’ve picked up his camera, I’m turning it over in my hands. The lens has a crack running down it, but other than that it’s still intact. It’s just light enough that I can see my face reflected back in the cracked lens. I, um . . . I’m so thin, my face is all angles and dark circles. Dark shadows around my mouth, like sores, maybe. I . . . he . . . I just look broken, and . . . sad. I look like someone who’s lost even the memory of hope. I look like—’
Scott sees it first. ‘Ho-lee-crap.’ He spins round to face James, eyes wide in shock. ‘Gotta tell you, buddy, I did not expect that.’
‘What do you mean?’ Amelia says. Her voice is high-pitched, frantic. ‘Who is it?’
Scott is still staring at James. ‘I was right about you being an addict, huh?’ Scott cocks his head, looking partly pleased with himself, but partly disturbed at what he’s just seen.
Amelia can’t take it in. James has been her strongest ally from the moment they arrived. They’d been drawn to one another from the moment he’d walked up the steps just as she’d woken on the plane, confused and alone. He’d been the first one to help anyone who’d needed it.
But who is James?
Giles’s secret was almost predictable, but just like Tiggy’s and Lucy’s, James’s big reveal has come completely from left field. It makes her feel better about her own. Although the memory is still hazy and not yet fully formed, there is a familiarity about James in the video that resonates.
James’s voice comes out in a croak. ‘I was a different person back then.’
‘No shit,’ Lucy mutters. No doubt turning her own memory over and over in her head.
James clears his throat. ‘Why are they doing this to us?’ He looks around at them all. None of them are looking at him now, except for Amelia, who wants to simultaneously hug him and shake him. She’s the only one who’s heard his story. His mum, his abandonment at a precious age. Is it any wonder that he turned to drugs? Scott was right about him being an addict, but so what? James is different now. He’s no longer the skinny, disease-addled junkie from that horrible projection. But what if the story he told her earlier was a lie?
She doesn’t know what to think anymore.
‘Look, I’ll just say it because no one else is going to.’ Scott crosses his arms. ‘Did you kick him into the canal? Because that seemed to be where that little performance was heading. Am I right?’
James shakes his head. ‘No. Jesus. I didn’t kill him. I’m not a monster.’
Lucy raises her head, catches Amelia’s eye. Neither of them speaks, but there is plenty conveyed in that look. Just as Scott has seen James, Lucy has seen her. She can feel it. A kindred link that she wants to sever straight away. You’re wrong about me, she thinks. I’m good. I’ve always been good.
‘That was a turning point for me,’ James says quietly. ‘I took a picture of myself with that camera. Looked at it on the screen. I saw what I’d become, and I knew I had to stop. I was heading in one direction, and I didn’t want to be that man. That damaged kid living a ruined life. I kept the camera. I used it to turn my life around.’ He lifts the camera hanging from his neck. The lens cracked, in a horrible symmetry with the memory that’s just been shared. ‘That’s why I couldn’t ditch it. Even though it’s useless to me right now. I fixed it before, and I can fix it again. I keep it, because of what it means . . .’ His voice trails off and he lets the camera go. It swings back into his chest with a thump. He raises his head and stares into Amelia’s eyes. ‘That was me then. It’s not me now.’
Amelia nods. ‘I know.’ It’s the same thing she’s been telling herself.
Tiggy
They won’t let her see Giles. On the boat she’d been in shock and let them tell her what to do – to stay back from him as he was receiving treatment, to keep herself warm. They gave her hot, sugary tea, which she hated but drank anyway.
But they’ve been in the house now for four hours, and she has no idea where Giles is. She taps the tracker and asks again: ‘Hey. When am I getting out of here?’ But it’s as if since she’s been indoors, the tracker no longer does anything – like they’ve turned it off – which makes no sense whatsoever. She’d thought maybe they’d come and take it. Odd, but they haven’t done that either. In fact, since she was brought here on the boat, and Harvey led her into this bedroom to rest, she hasn’t seen anyone at all.
The house is pretty much what she expected. When they’d bundled her in, wrapped in blankets – head fuzzy from the tea, which must have had something other than sugar dissolved in it – she’d seen the white walls, ornate pillars and the huge wooden door. But even from her rushed transit from outdoors to in, she could tell that this wasn’t a genuine old mansion.
She sits up against the pile of white cotton pillows, rubs her eyes and has a good look around the room. Fancy cornices, dado rails, long navy velvet curtains hung on brass poles. The furniture looks expensive, but probably isn’t. Like the facade and the fittings, this fancy house is nothing more than a replica.
She should know.
Growing up in one of the most prestigious white houses in Chelsea, one of those built in the 1840s by a famous London architect, she can spot a fake a mile off. She runs a hand across the bedside table, with its pretty brass lamp and its velvet shade to match the curtains. Someone has spent a lot of time making this place look expensive. But all this smacks of to her is the classless nouveau riche. The hideous sorts that have begun to infiltrate SW3, despite the best efforts of the long-term residents to keep them out. The Russians are the worst. Their money comes from unspecified means and their women, although immaculate, ooze venom. The Arabs, at least, have slightly more class, due to them having actual assets to brag about, and their women are dripping in gold yet oddly demure – in public, at least. The changing face of Kensington and Chelsea is a source of constant fascination, and if she’s honest she actually quite likes it – although her braying Sloaney Pony friends all disagree. But if that memory replay did anything, it was to serve a timely reminder that most of those people are not her friends.