LITMIR.BIZ

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as short as humanly possible, if there is nothing—”

      “I don’t like it either,” interrupted Operator Brennan, scowling at Jamie. “I don’t like any part of this. And I still don’t see why some kid who isn’t even old enough to wear the uniform gets a say in this just because his surname is Carpenter.”

      Jamie felt his face flush with anger. He opened his mouth to reply, saw Seward do the same and was surprised when someone beat them both to it.

      “Mr Brennan,” said Professor Talbot. “Have you ever seen a Priority Level 1 vampire?”

      “What does that have to—”

      “This young man,” continued Talbot, glancing at Jamie, “has not only seen one, but faced it down and destroyed it. Compared to every vampire you have ever seen, Operator Brennan, Alexandru Rusmanov might as well have been a different species; a natural disaster made flesh, like a hurricane, and Mr Carpenter destroyed him. He is the only living soul to have destroyed a Priority 1. That’s why he’s here. Because what Alexandru was to normal vampires, so Dracula will be to Alexandru if he is allowed to rise, and I for one will want Mr Carpenter on our side if that happens. Is that clear enough for you?”

      Jamie looked at Professor Talbot, stunned. He had not expected his defence to come from the most unknown quantity in the Department.

      Sometimes I forget about Alexandru. He had my mum, so for me it was simple. I forget how big a deal it is to everyone else.

      “There you have it,” said Admiral Seward. “Couldn’t have said it better myself. Anyone else have any more questions they want to ask, or speeches they’d like to make? No? Well, thank heaven for small mercies.”

      He stood up from the table, and the rest of the group followed his lead.

      “I would remind you, one more time,” said the Director. “Everything that has been said here is only for the ears of the men in this room. Any violation of this very simple instruction will be considered a court-martial offence. I ask you all not to force me to make good on that promise. Dismissed.”

      9

      NO STONE UNTURNED

      STAVELEY, NORTH DERBYSHIRE

      Matt Browning shoved his chair back from his desk and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. He had been in front of his computer for more than thirty of the last forty-eight hours, and his eyes were killing him.

      He walked out of his bedroom, stuck his head into his little sister’s room, waited until he heard the gentle rise and fall of her breathing, then made his way downstairs to the kitchen. As he passed the door to the front room, he heard his father swear at the television, berating an offside decision he had clearly not agreed with. At the table in the small dining room that was attached by French doors to the back of the living room, he could hear his mother on the phone to her sister, talking with quiet animation about a minor celebrity who had left her equally minor celebrity fiancé at the altar. It was evidently quite the scandal.

      In the kitchen, Matt poured himself a glass of water and leant against one of the counters. He doubted that anyone in the world knew as much about vampires as he had learnt in the two months since he had been returned home.

      Matt knew, as he sat in the back of the car with the blacked-out windows that was taking him home, that the first few moments of his return were going to be crucial. If he was going to be believed, if his parents were going to accept, as the doctor at the base had, that he could remember nothing of what had happened to him, then he was going to have to play his hand perfectly.

      The doctor was so pleased with his recovery from the coma that his apparent amnesia had been almost an afterthought. Tests were carried out, a great number of them, but Matt realised quickly that the doctor had been convinced that he would emerge from his coma with significant brain damage, and that lent him the courage to lie with conviction. He picked a point four days before the incident in his parents’ garden, and stuck resolutely to his claim that he could remember nothing since then. He feigned frustration, and concern for the state of his memory; he summoned tears of apparent confusion and fear, while the doctor had held his hand and told him it was all going to be all right.

      There was one brief, terrifying moment when the nurse suggested a polygraph test to assess whether there might be recoverable memories, to check whether, in effect, Matt was lying without meaning to. But the doctor rounded angrily on her, and told her that the boy had been through enough. The nurse, chastened, apologised for the suggestion, and Matt breathed a little easier.

      He stood on the doorstep of his parents’ small house for several minutes, the letter he had been told to give them in his hand, as he prepared himself to give his performance. Then he rang the doorbell, and waited until his father answered. In the end, very little was required of him; he had barely begun a stuttering, rambling apology when his father interrupted it by wrapping him into a crushing bear hug and dragging him inside the house.

      Greg Browning carried him into the kitchen, set him down, then flopped into one of the battered plastic chairs. His eyes were bulging and he was clutching at his chest, and for one terrible moment Matt was sure his father was having a heart attack. Then a great sob burst from Greg Browning’s mouth, and the tension in his body evaporated as he began to cry. He grabbed for the phone, tears pouring down his cheeks, his gaze fixed on Matt as he found the handset and dialled a number with trembling fingers; it was as though he feared that if he averted his eyes for even a second, his son might disappear again. Then a voice answered the phone, and Greg’s face had crumpled into a blubbery mess of tears and snot as he told his wife that their son had come home.

      Matt’s mother arrived the following morning, on the first train west. Matt assumed, although he didn’t say anything out loud, that she and his father had been fighting, and his mum had gone to visit Matt’s aunt in Sheffield. She carried his sister through the front door, yelling Matt’s name until she saw him, and fell silent. The look on her face was indescribable, to Matt at least; the sight of it had brought instant tears to his eyes. Then his mum started to cry as well. She put his sister carefully down on the sofa, then wrapped her arms round him so tightly that he wondered whether she was ever planning to let him go.

      That evening, the three of them sat in their front room, and had the only conversation they would ever have about the night he had been lost. Sticking to his story was easy; his parents were so overcome with relief that he had been returned to them that they never even entertained the thought that he might know more than he was saying. When they were finished talking, Matt’s dad silently handed him the letter he had brought home with him.

      “You should see this,” he said.

      Matt took it from his father, unfolded it and read it.

      Mr and Mrs Browning,

      The incident in which your son sustained injury remains a matter of the highest national security. You are hereby instructed not to discuss the incident with any other party; doing so will be considered an act of treason, and appropriate action will be taken. Acceptance of this letter constitutes acceptance of this instruction.

      Your son has received all appropriate medical care, and his recuperation is progressing well. If he develops further medical problems, you should inform medical personnel that he suffered a myocardial infarction due to sudden rapid blood loss. You should not discuss with anyone the circumstances surrounding his injury.

      Matt handed the letter back to his father, and told them he was going to bed. And the very next morning, his parents began the long process of trying to forget that any of it had ever happened.

      He didn’t even blame them, not really; the girl, the helicopter and the men in the black uniforms holding guns did not fit into the small lives his parents had carved out for themselves in their quiet corner of the world. He supposed they had known, in some abstract way, that there were things out there beyond the end of their suburban street that were wild, and dangerous, that might defy explanation, but they had been perfectly happy for such things to stay where they were. Football, and reality TV, and lager,

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