“Take it out of this.”
The cashier did a double take. “What, all of it?”
Alaric nodded. It wouldn’t exactly break the bank.
When the girl realised what was happening, she turned to him, eyes glistening.
“You can’t…”
“I just did.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it again and sniffed before blurting, “Thank you.” Then her eyes lit in recognition. “I remember you. Did you find the man?”
“Not yet.”
“Eunice didn’t know?”
“Eunice hasn’t been home.”
“Oh. She is probably with her daughter. Over there.” The girl pointed out the window, past the towers and the dilapidated playground.
“Here on the estate?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have the address?”
She shook her head. “But I can take you there?”
Sandwich and change forgotten, Alaric grabbed the girl’s groceries and motioned her out of the store, hoping, hoping, that this would be the lead they were looking for. Over three days had passed since anyone heard from Gemma, and statistically… No, he didn’t want to think about it. The stench from Ryland’s old apartment still lingered in his nostrils.
“Let’s go.”
“It really is not allowed to keep a cat?” the girl asked.
“Huh?” Sometimes, it was hard to keep all the lies and half-truths straight. Alaric had almost forgotten his initial pretence. “It’s a condition of the tenancy. No cats.”
“What about a dog?”
“Dogs are fine as long as they’re quiet.” Probably.
“Then perhaps one day I will get a dog.”
A fur-coated burglar alarm. “Good idea.”
They wound through the graffiti-covered maze, skirting groups of loitering kids and the occasional vagrant. In Alaric’s old life, he’d heard acquaintances from the other side of the tracks ask, How can people live like this? But now he knew the answer. They’d been failed. Failed by politicians out for themselves, failed by a society conditioned to accept other people’s suffering, failed by a belief that this was their destiny. Too often, people valued material possessions above happiness, and the result was misery that spread like a plague. No one person could fix the problem. It would take an army.
But today, he had to focus on a different issue. Gemma. The girl stopped in front of a dilapidated maisonette and pointed at a set of stairs leading to the second floor.
“Up there.”
“Thanks. Do you want to wait for me to walk back with you?”
“No, it is okay. I need to go home.”
She vanished without another word, leaving Alaric to speak to Eunice alone.
When the door of the maisonette swung open, Alaric thought he’d taken the red pill and ended up in The Matrix. The woman in front of him looked just like The Oracle, and if the girl from 503 was correct, she might just have the knowledge to match.
“Eunice?”
She folded her arms. “Who are you?”
Alaric tried his spiel again. “Good afternoon, ma’am. I’m from Hounslow Borough Council, and I’m hoping to speak to Ryland Willis. Your neighbour from 503 pointed me over here in case you could help. I believe he used to live next—”
“Bull-sheeet. You ain’t from no council. Councilmen don’t come around here, not unless it’s an election year, and even then them cowards don’t make it past the ground floor.”
Alaric had to laugh. Eunice was a perceptive old battleaxe, and she had the spine to match.
“Okay, you got me. I’m not from the council.”
“Ryland owe you money? He owe every other sucker money.”
“Yes, exactly that. I wish I could let it go, but…”
“Then everyone would take the piss, I get it. But you’re out of luck, toots. Ryland upped and left six weeks ago. Something about a problem with the plumbing. The water wasn’t draining properly. He used to call and complain every damn day, eight o’clock, right before I went to work. I heard him yelling through the walls. The poor bastard of a landlord finally gave in and moved him to another place.”
“Are your drains okay? I noticed a bad smell in the hallway outside Ryland’s flat.”
“Had a fall when I was six. Crack. Banged my head on the kerb, and now I can’t smell a thing. Hevrin said there was a stink the other day, but she don’t complain none.”
“Hevrin?”
“In 503. She won’t rock the boat, that girl. Too scared of gettin’ sent back home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Syria. They killed her whole damn family.”
“They? The government?”
“The Turks. She watched her parents die, her brothers, her sister, her husband, and they said she was one of the lucky ones. What kind of world is her daughter gonna grow up in? You got kids?”
What kind of world, indeed? It was a question Alaric had considered many times after he met Rune. Sirius had been born out of the unpalatable answer. When he’d formed the partnership with Judd, Ravi, and Naz, they’d made a vow to each other—any job they took would be for the greater good. Any line they crossed would be for the benefit of humanity. Selling information had proven to be a profitable business, but money couldn’t buy the sense of satisfaction that came from empowering people who’d fight for the right causes. Their research had put an ethically challenged logging firm out of business, helped an idealistic pharmaceutical start-up to quash their Goliath of a competitor, and exposed illegal practices in a network of private detention centres, to name but a few projects. Corporate research was their bread and butter, but politics was a profitable sideline. Alaric had lost count of the number of corrupt officials they’d exposed. He didn’t much like oligarchs either.
“Yeah, I’ve got a daughter,” Alaric told Eunice. “Doing my best to avoid her following in her old man’s footsteps.”
Eunice chortled, then went into a coughing fit, and Alaric caught a whiff of old cigarette smoke over the delightful aroma of fried food drifting from the maisonette.
“Preyin’ on the desperate, you mean?”
Alaric shrugged and answered with a chuckle of his own. “Supply and demand.”
“I like you. I shouldn’t like you, but I do.”
“You got any idea where Ryland went?”
“Not far. They put him in the other tower.”
“Don’t suppose you know what number?”
“Top floor. Not sure which unit. But you didn’t get any of this from me, understand? I ain’t no narc, but Ryland never had a good word for nobody.”
“My lips are sealed. He didn’t have many friends?”
“Friends? No. Sometimes women. The man looked after himself, you know? But once they found out what was underneath, none of them stuck around for long.”
“There were arguments?”
“Not that I ever heard. They’d be there, and then they wouldn’t be, and a new girl would show up.” A child’s cries came from inside the maisonette, and Eunice backed away. “My granddaughter just woke up.”
“Thanks for your help.”