LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

none of them had two spaces in the same year group.”

      “So you just thought you’d split us up,” Rich said.

      “What was I supposed to do?” Chance asked.

      Rich said nothing. He turned up the volume of the television.

      But he still heard Jade’s shout from the kitchen, where she’d gone to empty the ashtray into the bin: “What is this? You are one seriously weird guy.”

      Rich clicked off the telly and followed Chance to the kitchen. Jade had the fridge door open and was unloading its contents on to the side. Bottles of beer.

      “Is that all there is?” Rich asked.

      “No. There’s this too.” She pulled out two bigger bottles and put those with the beer. Champagne. “I mean, where’s the butter? Milk? Eggs? Food of any sort? Anything at all really?”

      “It’s down the road,” Chance said. He gently eased Jade to one side and started to repack the fridge.

      “What do you mean, down the road?”

      “I get a takeaway or I eat at the pub. They’re down the road.”

      “And that’s how you live?” Jade was aghast. “No wonder the kitchen’s so clean. At least you do the washing up.”

      “Eat out of the cartons usually,” Chance said casually. He turned and winked at Rich, who stifled a smile.

      “You are so gross,” Jade told him. “Just don’t expect us to sink to your level.”

      Chance shrugged.

      “What about a Chinese?” Rich asked.

      They ate Chinese with the telly on. It meant they didn’t have to talk to one another. Jade took herself off to bed almost as soon as she’d finished her egg-fried rice and spring roll. Rich pushed his sweet and sour chicken around the plate, not really hungry.

      “I’m tired,” he said awkwardly. “I think I’ll get to bed too.”

      “That’s OK,” Chance said. “I’ve got work to do anyway. Some calls to make. Don’t worry – I’ll tidy away. And wash up.”

      Rich gave a weak smile and headed for the bedroom.

      Jade was already in bed. She hadn’t turned the light out and she was just staring at the ceiling. She frowned at Rich as he came in.

      “Hey,” he said.

      She turned over, facing away.

      “What’s the matter?” he asked. “I haven’t done anything.”

      She pulled the pillow over her head.

      Not listening.

      So Rich pulled her duvet away instead.

      “Give that back!” she said.

      Jade was out of bed and grabbing back the duvet. Rich let it go and went for her pillow instead. They faced one another, each brandishing bedding.

      “Peace?” Rich suggested.

      “If you give me my pillow back.”

      “Fair enough.” He threw it to her.

      Jade dropped the duvet and caught the pillow. Then she started hitting Rich with it, driving him back on to his bed.

      “Hey, hey, hey!” He tried to fend her off.

      “That’s for ganging up on me.”

      “We’re not – I wasn’t. When?”

      “In the kitchen. Getting a Chinese.”

      “Yeah, as opposed to what?” Rich wanted to know. “There’s no food in this house. Just beer, champagne and cigarettes. Which did you want for dinner? At least now we’ve been and got some milk.”

      Jade flopped down on her bed, dragging the duvet back up over herself. “I’m sorry. It’s all just so… sudden. So unfair.”

      She started crying again. Rich sat beside her on the bed.

      “It is a nightmare,” Rich agreed. He looked over at the bedroom door. “He’s a nightmare. Maybe boarding school will be better.”

      “Oh, look,” Jade said, sniffing between her tears. “Out the window.”

      The curtains were drawn and Rich frowned. “What?”

      “Thought I saw a flying pig,” Jade said.

      “Maybe you did,” Rich told her. He grabbed his pyjamas from under his pillow and headed for the bathroom.

      In Krejikistan, the cut glass of a chandelier glittered as the light reflected off its facets. Electric bulbs had replaced the candles that once provided the light, but the ceiling above it still retained an original mural – a pale blue sky with delicate clouds drifting across.

      The room below was enormous, with a floor made up of black-and-white marble squares. The space was made to seem even bigger by large mirrors that hung on the walls. The furniture – a highly-polished wooden table that had been made for Louis XIV of France, high-backed chairs patterned in gold leaf that had been a gift to a tsar, and a series of seventeenth-century side tables – were almost lost in the huge space.

      Viktor Vishinsky sat in one of the antique chairs. In front of him was a single place setting for dinner – heavy silver cutlery, an ornate bowl filled with stuffed olives and a glass of white wine. He was looking intently at a large screen that his technicians had set up at the other end of the table. The image was grainy and unclear.

      “Is that the best you can do?” he asked. He took one of the olives from the bowl in front of him and rolled it between his finger and thumb.

      “We have enhanced it as much as possible,” Pavlov, the chief technician, assured him.

      Vishinsky settled back in his chair and let them explain. To him, the images still looked crude and fuzzy. He pushed the olive into his mouth.

      “You can see where the man at the back of the laboratory is opening the canister,” Pavlov said. He froze the image. It was projected from a laptop computer on to the large screen. The hi-tech set-up looked out of place in the tsarist splendour of the huge room.

      Two other technicians were standing nervously at the side of the room. Whether they were there in case Pavlov needed their own specialist expertise, or simply to give him moral support, Vishinsky did not know or care. His whole attention was focused on the speckled images on the screen.

      Pavlov used a laser pointer and ran the red dot of light round the figure just visible by the shadowy shape of the canisters. “If we had images from an infra-red camera—” he began.

      But Vishinsky cut him off. “We do not. We must work with what we have. What can you tell me, apart from the obvious?”

      Pavlov let the video run on. “As you can see, just, he is reaching inside the canister. As his hand comes out – there.” He froze the video again and indicated the man’s hand with the pointer. “He is holding something. Something which we must assume he dipped into the fluid and filled. It is not very big. We can tell from his hand that it is about the size of an eggcup.” Pavlov paused for a moment, before adding, “It is not an eggcup, I should point out.”

      “I said omit the obvious. Is it something he found in the lab?” Vishinsky asked, taking another olive. “Or is it something he brought with him?”

      “We can find no indication that any container of that size was in the lab. Unfortunately, there is nothing left of the lab, so it is impossible to be sure if anything was taken. But earlier in the sequence we see the man looking round, we think for a container. He finds nothing useful, so uses whatever he brought with him. See, here…” He wound the footage back at high speed before letting it play again. “He seems to take something from his pocket.”

Скачать книгу