Owen huffed.
‘Come on, Owen, you should have brought it to me anyway,’ said Jack. ‘It’s a security issue.’
‘No, it was a favour for a mate. He was scared. I was able to put his mind at rest. There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s not sick, he’s not compromised, and he’s not a bloody shape-shifting alien invader.’
Jack stood up. ‘It’s a security issue whichever way you want to dress it up. There’s something going on. It may be just stress, or something psychological like you say. Or it may be something different. Something that we can’t read or taste or scan for.’
‘We’re talking about James,’ said Owen.
‘We are.’
‘Our own Captain Analogy.’
‘Yeah. And that’s why I’m taking it End of the World seriously.’
Owen rapped his fingers on the edge of his station. ‘Just say,’ he said, ‘just say there is something up with him. Something bad. Should we be letting him go home with Gwen like that?’
‘Gwen’ll be fine.’
‘I thought you said this was a security issue?’
‘Gwen’s a big girl,’ said Jack. ‘If something comes up, she’ll let us know.’
Friday night was typically busy from six until eight thirty. Then the lull came, like the eye of a storm, before the pubs turned out later.
As soon as things quietened down, Shiznay took a break, and told Dilip, the cover waiter, she’d be upstairs for five minutes.
‘Call me if my father needs me,’ she said. Her father was busy in the kitchen, supervising the phone orders and yelling at the moped drivers.
She went upstairs with the foil takeout punnets of salad, rice and lamb pasanda, and a bottle of lager.
Her mother and her aunts were in the living room, chatting loudly and watching the television. They were laughing at the antics of a quiz show host.
She scurried down to Kamil’s room, and let herself in.
Mr Dine lay on the bed, apparently exactly where she’d left him. She put the food and the beer bottle down and turned to see if she could wake him.
Another man was standing in front of the window, beside the wardrobe. She hadn’t seen him when she had first entered the room. He was so deep in the shadows he seemed to be made out of them.
At the sight of him, she felt terror wash through her, an awful, vicing effervescence of fear and shock. She made a noise in her throat and backed away sharply, knocking into Kamil’s hi-fi stand.
The man in the shadows stepped towards her swiftly, and reached out his hand, as if to touch her face or choke her. His expression was utterly blank. There was no rage, or anger, or malice in it, no smirk of lust, or grin of cruelty.
Before he could touch her, Mr Dine stopped him. He was suddenly just standing there, between the two of them, one hand raised to block the other man’s extending grasp.
‘No,’ he said.
The intruder blinked. He was wearing what seemed to be a plain grey T-shirt and dark jeans. He was lean, and of a similar height and build to Mr Dine. His hair was dark and close-cropped.
Shiznay’s eyes were very wide. Her voice seemed to have vanished entirely.
The intruder tried to move his hand. Mr Dine held it tightly and refused to allow it to stray.
‘No,’ he repeated.
They stared at each other for a moment, then Mr Dine let go. The intruder withdrew his hand and took a step backwards.
Mr Dine turned and looked at Shiznay. She shook.
‘W-who is… who is…?’
Mr Dine looked into her eyes. Immediately, she felt a little better. He raised a slender finger and put it to his lips. ‘Shiznay, go down stairs. Return to work. Do not be afraid. You will not remember this.’ His voice was level and heavy.
She nodded, and went out, shutting and locking the door to Kamil’s room behind her.
She took a few steps down the corridor, and then stopped, frowning. She heard her mother and her aunts laughing raucously.
‘Shiznay?’
She shook herself. Her father was calling to her up the stairs.
‘Shiznay!’
‘Yes, Father?’
‘What are you doing up there, girl?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘I said… I’m just coming, Father.’
In the dark, cluttered bedroom, in the amber glow of the street-lamps shining in through the rumpled curtain, Mr Dine turned back to face the intruder. A car went by outside, and white stripes travelled across the ceiling’s shadows like the luminous, sweeping hands of a clock.
‘Why have you come?’ asked Mr Dine.
‘Necessity,’ said the intruder.
‘There is no necessity.’
‘Your opinion is noted. It does not matter. I have been sent.’
‘By order?’
‘By the highest order.’
Mr Dine paused. ‘When were you inserted?’
‘At nightfall.’
‘Am I to consider myself relieved?’
The intruder shook his head. ‘Supported. Unless you have cause to be relieved. Do you wish to stand down? You have sustained damage.’
Mr Dine looked down at his ribs. The deep wound had become an ugly weal of purple bruising, smeared with black residue. ‘It is healing. I have had worse. You have had worse.’
The intruder nodded.
‘In war, yes. Supported by my kin. Not alone. Not in the prosecution of such a singular duty.’
‘This is my duty still,’ said Mr Dine. ‘It was given to me, the highest honour, and I will discharge it.’
‘That is to be assessed,’ said the intruder. ‘Are you able to invest?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then do so,’ said Mr Lowe.
‘Pause it, I really need to wee.’
‘No, no,’ said James, ‘the next bit is really funny.’
‘That’s the problem,’ said Gwen, getting up off the sofa. ‘I’m laughing so bloody hard, I’m going to wet myself. Pause it.’
James reached for the remote. The image on the TV froze. She put the half-empty bowl of kettle chips on the side and went out.
James sat back, and took a sip of his wine. The warm fuzz of alcohol was taking the throb out of his cheek and shoulder. He wondered if he should have asked Owen if it was all right to drink. He thought there was very little chance of Owen ever saying it wasn’t all right to drink.
‘I can’t believe I’ve never seen this before,’ Gwen called from the loo.
‘I can’t believe you’ve never seen this before either. It’s one of my favourite movies. This, Tootsie, Ferris Bueller and Mad Max II.’
‘Mad Max?’ she called.
‘Mad Max II,’ he corrected.
‘Was that Beyond Thunderdome?’
‘It was before Thunderdome. Are you actually sitting on the loo with the door open talking to me?’
‘Sorry.’
James got up and stretched. Outside, youthful voices were singing ebulliently on their way between pubs. It was ten thirty. He went to the window, and pulled back the curtain, peering out. Two boys were racing down the centre of the road, holding traffic cones on their heads like witches’ hats. Five others ran along after them, laughing. He was about to drop the curtain back and turn away when he saw the men. Two men, loitering in the shadows by the phone box. What were they up to?
Just standing. They seemed to be looking up at him, at his flat. Two men standing in the shadows-No, they were shadows. A minicab spurted by, and its headlights washed the roadside. The ‘two men’ turned into the flat, sidelong shadows they were, and then vanished. Once the cab had gone, the men were back, staring up, but now James knew they were just dark shapes created by the hedge and the railings.
He laughed at himself, and turned away.