Troll Page 23

  Sophie, what are you saying?

  forty-six

  FORTUNE CHECKED HIS DWINDLING CASH RESERVES AS HE walked towards Old Street roundabout, on his way back to the car. He heard footsteps and had begun to turn when a skinny kid in a hooded top pulled his wallet out of his hand and took off down the pavement. Fortune didn’t chase him, didn’t have the energy; anyway, most of his money was in his pocket, and it wasn’t like he could still use his credit cards. It could be worse. No big deal.

  But then he heard a police siren wail into life and looked behind him at blue lights flashing through the front grille of an unmarked BMW, two male plain-clothes officers in the front seat. The kid stopped, looked around and saw the lights and started running again, now fifty yards away, heading for the roundabout. The traffic was heavy on the street approaching the roundabout, the street Fortune was on, and the BMW struggled through it, cars parting slowly, too much traffic. The kid ran across the roundabout, across three lanes of traffic, Fortune watching as a flatbed truck carrying scaffolding hit him and he fell, the front wheel of the truck rolling over his midriff.

  There was a moment of stillness, of shock, then the BMW pulled up next to the kid and the police officers jumped out, knelt down next to him. They got on the radio and called the medics, even though anybody could see that it was too late. One of the policemen looked for the wallet, Fortune’s wallet, the one they’d seen being stolen, to make sure they were covered. That they’d had legitimate grounds to be chasing him. The driver of the truck climbed down and saw the kid and put his head in his hands, turned around in a slow circle, looking up at the sky.

  Fortune watched it all happen, standing perfectly still on the pavement, the action hyper-real, the police in sharp focus as if he had suddenly been gifted twenty-twenty vision. One of the officers was still kneeling next to the kid, but the other was looking through the wallet. He stopped, holding something in his hand. Probably Fortune’s credit card, or his driving licence. He glanced up and looked straight at Fortune, a hundred yards away, then pressed something near his neck and spoke, must be to HQ, calling it in. I’m looking at him now, he’d be saying. Send backup. Send a lot, and send it now.

  Fortune turned and walked away, in the opposite direction. He was aware of the sound of horns, angry drivers wondering what the hold-up was, not knowing that some kid had just been killed. The street was busy and he pushed past pedestrians, walking fast, looking around him, searching for options. He turned and couldn’t see the officer following him, but then a woman went into a shop and Fortune saw him, running towards him, no more than fifty yards away. Fortune was walking next to a building site, green-painted wooden boards hiding it from the street. There was a gap in the boards for site traffic and he walked through. On an expanse of muddy ground was a building, huge, only the concrete structure finished so that it looked more like a multistorey car park than the office block it would become. People were working inside, sparks flying from an angle grinder cutting through steel. Fortune hurried across the mud and walked into the structure, past a man with some device on a tripod, looking through a viewfinder. It was gloomy, and he passed from one dark room into another, through doorless openings.

  ‘Help you?’ asked a man in a hard hat, looking up from where he was squatting, laying blue plastic piping on the floor. Fortune didn’t answer, kept on towards the rear of the building. Keep walking, he thought. Don’t look back. He heard a man’s voice shout, ‘Police!’ from behind him, a long way behind him, and he took a left into another room, all the rooms big, the concrete floors wet from recent rain, no windows installed yet. He couldn’t outrun the police. He was old and terminally ill and he hadn’t eaten properly for he didn’t know how long, and his lungs felt like tiny hard balloons, thick rubber incapable of inflating.

  He reached the back of the building and looked up at a greasy ochre slope of wet mud criss-crossed with the tracks of diggers and trucks, pooled with dirty water. He started up and slipped, his businessman’s shoes giving him no grip, made for boardrooms, not building sites. He dug his toes in, knowing that he was too slow, too slow, the police on to him, behind him, closing, closing.

  He kept going, climbing up the slope and listening to sirens in the distance, the whop-whop-whop of a helicopter that he couldn’t yet see. At the top of the slope was a yellow JCB with its scoop lifted, facing downwards. Fortune put a foot on its gridded metal step and pushed himself up. He opened the door to the cab, reached over to the handbrake and released it. He climbed back down and waited. Nothing. At the bottom of the slope he saw the plain-clothes officer run out of the building and look up at him, unable to believe that this man, this fugitive, had fallen into his lap. Thinking of the promotion. The ceremony, the cameras. The JCB’s wheels moved, an inch, a foot, gathering speed through the resistant mud, which was unable to stop the tons of steel. It might give the officer something else to worry about, thought Fortune. Maybe.

  He didn’t wait, but walked forward, through another site entrance and into a small side street, the street silent and empty, silent until he heard the sound of an impact, a muted thud.

  Sirens and noise, helicopters. They had thermal imaging, Fortune had nothing. He leant against the brick wall of a building on the other side of the street and assessed. He was breathing heavily, finding it hard to get enough oxygen in. And he hadn’t even started running yet. He was in one of the world’s biggest and most policed cities and he had to get away. If he didn’t, his daughter was dead. Think. He slumped down into a crouch and put his hands over his ears. Think. Think think think. You can do this. You need to do this. What was it a previous boss of his had said, used it as a catchphrase? Failure is not an option. The sirens were getting closer and he had no plan. No plan at all. But failure was not an option. It didn’t matter what it took.

  A street cleaner passed, a stooped man who looked way past retirement age, thin and unshaven and pushing a cart. Fortune stood back up and crossed the street to him.

  ‘Give me your coat,’ he said.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Give me your coat. Here.’ He dug in his pocket and pulled out a handful of money. ‘I’ll pay. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll take it from you.’

  The cleaner looked at Fortune and must have seen something unhinged in his eyes, because he took the money and shrugged himself out of his hi-vis jacket. Fortune took it and put it on. It was too small and he could feel its tightness across his shoulders. Okay. He looked like the street cleaner, could easily pass as a down-at-heel minimum-wage council drone, particularly given that he looked like hell, malnourished and exhausted and beaten.

  He walked quickly, keeping his head down, going for the perennially subservient look of the bottom-rung worker. He got to the end of the street and took a quick glance behind. A police car pulled up at the far end and he turned right, kept going, looking around, knowing that this was a temporary measure. What he needed to do was get back to his untraceable car, Lee’s mother’s car, the best escape he had. The only thing was, having walked through the building, up the street and taken a right, he had no idea where he was. He’d turned too many corners and lost his bearings. Shit. What was the name of the street he’d parked in? White Horse Street. It didn’t matter, he didn’t know where it was or how to get there. Now he was on a wide street full of people, but not the same street he’d left. And the police were right behind him. How long would it take for the cleaner to talk to them? Look for the man in the hi-vis jacket. That’s your man. All he was doing was postponing his capture, nothing more. He needed to gain some kind of advantage. Turn the tables. Right. Against the combined forces of the Metropolitan Police, men and cars and helicopters. Of course. Easy.

  He passed a hotel, upmarket, stone stairs up to a set of revolving doors, a glass canopy over them to protect the doormen. Fortune didn’t understand a lot about modern life, but there were a few things he was fluent in, and hotels were one of them. He stopped and thought. He looked down at his shoes in dismay,
caked in building-site mud. He’d need a story if he was going to be let in to the hotel. He didn’t look like their kind of clientele. He turned back and walked up the steps.

  ‘Yes?’ said one of the doormen, long coat and gloves, suspicious expression.

  ‘Gas,’ said Fortune. ‘I’ve come from the building site. I need to speak to your manager.’ The story didn’t make a lot of sense, but Fortune figured gas was one of those things you didn’t question.

  ‘Go to the front desk,’ said the doorman, looking down at Fortune’s shoes doubtfully. ‘They’ll help you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Fortune, and pushed through the revolving doors, checking behind him, but the doorman was looking out into the street, his back to him. A man ran past the front of the hotel. Fortune recognized him as the plain-clothes officer who had chased him through the building site. A marked car passed immediately after, a kinetic blur of sirens and lights. He’d need to work fast. Very fast.

  forty-seven

  FORTUNE STOOD AT THE FRONT DESK AND WATCHED A COUPLE drop their key card, number 316. He crossed to the other side of the lobby, where there was a seating area, armchairs around a low table with newspapers on it. There was a phone on the table and he picked up the receiver and hit the button marked Front Desk. He heard it ring and watched across the lobby as a woman behind the counter picked it up.

  ‘Front desk,’ said the woman. Fortune turned his back, shielding himself from view, and spoke in a whisper.

  ‘There’s a man in my room,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to help me.’

  ‘Sir?’ The woman sounded confused. ‘Would you mind—’

  ‘In my room,’ Fortune hissed, sounding close to panic. ‘I’m in the bathroom. I’ve locked myself in, with the phone.’

  ‘Sir, what number is your room?’

  ‘Three-one-six. You need to help me. It’s him, the one who killed that TV guy.’

  ‘Sir, stay where you are. I’m calling the police.’

  ‘He’s out there,’ said Fortune. ‘I …’ He clamped a hand over the mouthpiece and knocked the receiver on the table, three, four times. ‘He’s trying to get in.’

  ‘Don’t panic,’ said the woman. ‘Just stay there.’

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ said Fortune. ‘He’s found the phone line, he’s …’ He put a finger on the hook to cut the connection, then placed the receiver back down, stood up and turned. The woman on reception was speaking into the phone, looking flustered, scared. Why did this have to happen on her watch?

  Fortune walked away from the hotel’s entrance, looking for a back way out, picking up a card as he passed the front desk. He pushed through double doors into a dining area with a bar at one end, then through another set of double doors into a kitchen area, busy, a waitress standing at the pass as a chef placed plates underneath the hot lamps. Apparently Fortune’s hi-vis jacket conferred some kind of status, because nobody challenged him and he walked through the kitchen, past chefs juggling flaming dishes, hot faces, towels over every shoulder.

  ‘Way out?’ he asked a young man deftly placing scallops in a frying pan, who looked up and jerked his chin, indicating behind him. Fortune found a door, a fire exit, and pushed on the metal bar. The door opened and he walked through, onto an iron stairway that led into a car park, huge bins underneath him through the latticed metalwork. He could still hear sirens and he rattled down the stairs, taking off the hi-vis and lifting the cover of one of the bins to push it in. He walked through the car park and pulled out his phone, looked at the card he had taken and dialled the number. He was breathing heavily and he stopped walking, waiting for somebody to pick up.

  ‘Borders Hotel.’ It was the same woman, speaking quickly, tense.

  ‘He’s still here,’ Fortune said. ‘He’s crazy, he’s a madman.’

  ‘Sir, the police are on their way.’

  ‘He says he’s got a hand grenade. He says he’ll set it off if anyone comes in.’ If you’re going to tell a lie, Fortune had always heard, it’s better to make it a huge one.

  ‘What does he want?’ said the woman.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Fortune said, summoning up as much panicked fear as he could. He was no actor, this he knew. ‘He’s off his head.’

  ‘Sir, the police are here.’

  ‘Tell them to stay away. He’s got a grenade.’

  ‘I will tell them,’ said the woman. ‘Please try to stay calm.’

  ‘I—’ said Fortune, then killed the call. He reckoned that, with the addition of the hand grenade, he’d created enough noise and confusion to keep the police guessing for a while, maybe an hour, more than long enough. He turned out of the car park and headed for the Tube, taking the steps into the busy sanctity of the ticket hall. He bought a single and passed through the barrier, down the escalator to the platform, keeping his head down, away from CCTV cameras. He took the first train that arrived and rode it two stops, two short, jarring, crowded and blissful stops to safety.

  Back at the car, Fortune called Lee. His mother would be back any time, and Fortune was miles away. He’d only just got away from the police. He couldn’t have them knowing what he was driving, or he wouldn’t last a day. Which meant that he needed to keep Lee onside.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Lee?’

  ‘Oh man, where are you? My mum’s coming back like any minute.’

  ‘She’s back today?’

  ‘Today, tomorrow, I don’t know. What I know is, her car ain’t here.’

  ‘I’m on my way. It’s fixed, all sorted. I’ll be with you tonight.’

  ‘What if she’s back?’

  Fortune imagined Lee at the caravan park, glumly surveying the chaos he’d created, the unwashed dishes and empty bottles and cans, the burn marks from the joints he’d been incessantly smoking. All this, and some guy had taken off with his mum’s car, the car he’d crashed when he was blasted off his mind. Fortune couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. But he still needed the car.

  ‘I’m on my way. If your mother comes back, tell her I needed to use it in an emergency. I’ll be there soon.’

  ‘Oh man. Wish I’d never let you take it.’

  ‘Yeah? You’d prefer to explain where the dents came from?’

  ‘No. Yeah. I dunno. She’s gonna kill me.’

  ‘It’ll be okay. Stop worrying. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll be with you soon.’

  ‘Better be, man.’

  Fortune cut the call. Poor Lee. He couldn’t imagine the boy had a bright and shining future waiting for him, and he, Fortune, certainly wasn’t helping. Next he sent a message to the troll, to his son, not expecting an answer and not receiving one. He’d been off grid for days now, waiting for Fortune to show up, he supposed. There wasn’t much need for communication. Find me or don’t, that was all there was to it. And Fortune had two days left. It wasn’t enough time, wasn’t nearly enough. He started the car, and headed for the orphanage, St Basil’s. If his son wasn’t there, then Fortune was out of ideas. Out completely.

  forty-eight

  TODAY THE TROLL TOOK ME TO THE GAMES ROOM AND IT WAS the worst thing that has ever happened, worse than I could ever imagine. I’d prefer to be dead, right now, just not be here any more, not alive. I’ve had enough, it’s too terrible, too frightening, and I think the troll is mad, utterly mad. He is the worst person I have ever met. What did I do? What did I do to him that he does this to me?

  He must have put something in my food because I woke up in the Games Room but I can’t remember how I got there. So he must have drugged me and waited and come in and carried me in there. Because when I woke up, one of my wrists had a plastic cuff around it, those ones the police use. There was another plastic cuff connected to it, and that was attached to a bike lock, a plastic-wrapped cable that was looped through one of the bolts in the wall. It was a combination lock. I was sitting with my back against the wall and my cuffed hand was raised and attached to one of the bolts and I couldn’t move, not far.

  So I sat there. It wasn’t d
ark because the lamp was on so it was only gloomy, the corners of the room in darkness. I sat, and I waited. I didn’t know what he was going to do. Wasn’t there still a day left? Didn’t I still have a day? He couldn’t kill me now, it wasn’t time. He couldn’t come, he couldn’t come with a knife and attack me and keep cutting and stabbing as I kicked and lashed out until I got too tired and couldn’t fight any more and he found the right place, the right spot and I died. He couldn’t.

  Then the door opened and I started to scream, I couldn’t help it, but the troll didn’t come in. He stayed outside where I couldn’t see him and he threw in a net, like a fishing net with a long handle, and he said:

  Work out the combination and you’ll be able to reach that. There are no rules. No time limit.

  What? I said.

  You heard. He started to pull the door closed, then said: One more thing. A question. Are you ready? You need to listen.

  I was sitting on a concrete floor stained with the blood of what I think were children, chained to a ring in the wall. Was I ready? No, I said. Of course I’m not.

  But he didn’t care. He just said: Do you believe in fortune?

  Believe in what?

  Do you believe in fortune?

  And he closed the door.

  And I just sat there, looking at the net, wondering what the hell was going on. Thinking about what just happened, and what he’d asked. And my arm was getting tired, and I didn’t know what the net was for, and I would have loved, loved, loved-loved-loved to have got my hands on the troll. I closed my eyes, imagining that same old fantasy of beating him up, and when I opened my eyes I saw it, saw it immediately. It was moving, coming out of the shadows in the corner of the room, moving, stopping, moving. So quick, so unpredictable. Here. There. Move, change. A spider, but huge, out of some jungle nightmare, how had it come through the wall, how had it got here, in this room? It was scuttling, busy, planting a leg, planting another, then a blur, so fast. Slow, slow, slow, quick. And silent. No sound, all movement. I got my knees up and tucked them under my chin, then pulled my legs in and tried to get all of me as far away as I could from the spider. It was as big as my hand, bigger. Much, much bigger. So big, and so fast.