‘That’s good to know.’
Fahad said, ‘The place where you work got firebombed, and the police are looking for you. If you’re in so much trouble, how can you help me?’
‘The place where I work, Disruption Theory, is owned by Dr Ada Morange. She’s rich and smart. She has a lot of resources. She helped me, and she wants to help you too. You and Rana. But I bet you already know that. I bet that’s why you asked me to come here. You think she can help you, but you aren’t sure that you can trust her. You want me to tell you that you can.’
Henry said in her ear, ‘You better wind this up, Sandra’s picking up—’
His voice cut off with a little click. Chloe wondered what she was supposed to do, he hadn’t told her to walk…
Fahad was saying, ‘Her people came to the gym yesterday, asking about me. And then your friend turned up. How come, if you’re working for her?’
‘I wasn’t sure her people would ask the right questions.’
‘Meaning you don’t exactly trust her,’ Fahad said.
‘Dr Morange is interested in your drawings, Fahad. She wants to know why you draw them, what they mean to you. So do I. I came here because I really think she can help you. And if you come with me, right now, you’ll see—’
Shop doors slammed open on either side; police in uniform and plainclothes barged out, crowding the passageway. Fahad clutched Rana to him, glaring with fright and anger, and Chief Inspector Adam Nevers smiled down at Chloe. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I think you should come with me.’
‘You’ve fallen in with some bad people,’ Nevers told Chloe, as they hustled down the grimy service corridor behind the shops. ‘And you’ve put yourself in serious danger. The kids too. But if you help me I think I can find a way of clearing all this up.’
His hand was on her shoulder, steering her. Unpainted plasterboard on one side, pipes and swags of cable running along a rough wall of dark purple coral on the other, widely spaced low-watt lights. He’d taken her spex, dropped them on the ground and stepped on them. Ahead, Fahad and Rana were sandwiched between two uniformed policewomen; two more police, burly young men in T-shirts and jeans, brought up the rear.
‘The kids were already in danger,’ Chloe said.
‘Did you really think that Ada Morange could help them?’
‘I thought I could help them.’
She was trying to stay calm. She was wondering where Henry and the others were. Wondering if they would challenge the police, if they’d been arrested.
‘You’re out of your depth,’ Nevers said. ‘Dr Morange was using you, Chloe. And she wants to use the kids, too. She isn’t interested in their welfare. She’s interested in whatever it is that’s infected them with peculiar ideas.’
‘And why are you interested in them, Chief Inspector? Is it pure charity on your part?’
Chloe felt peculiarly calm, but her mouth was dry and her heart was going like crazy.
‘The thing that’s infected these kids could be dangerous. As you well know. It has to be contained. Think carefully, Chloe. Think about which side you want to be on. And don’t expect any help from your friend Henry Harris. We have his surveillance team and pretty soon we’ll have him.’
They pushed through a narrow door into the free market. People staring, whistles and catcalls echoing under webs of fairy lights, no sign of Henry or Sandra’s young men. Down the wide passageway, out into sunlight and the fresh smell of rain, puddles shining everywhere on the translucent surface of the broad tongue of coral. Three Range Rovers with tinted windows were drawn up in front of the line of tour buses, light bars flashing. Knots of police in uniform and men and women in suits and skirt suits, pistols and tasers at their hips. A big drone with a blue and white chequered paint job tilted in the air, its amplified voice telling people to disperse. And beyond all this, beyond ragged rows of parked cars, on the far side of acres of weedy tarmac, Sandra’s surveillance van was on fire, tossing flames and billows of black smoke high into the air.
Rana began to struggle, trying to free herself from the grip of the policewoman who held her. The woman told her to be quiet, they were going for a ride in a police car, it would be a lot of fun. ‘I don’t want to,’ Rana wailed, upset beyond reason.
Fahad bucked between the two police holding his arms. ‘Leave her alone!’
‘Let’s keep moving,’ Nevers said, and the policewoman hoisted Rana up, the little girl kicking and screaming, and the awful thing happened.
Chloe was overwhelmed by a tidal surge of unreasoning panic, and something sharp and bright she couldn’t look at loomed overhead. She had the impression of the air splintering apart and raw sun-stuff lancing out, a seethe of activity boiling off it. The sense of a voracious inhuman intelligence turning its attention towards her, bigger and brighter than any eidolon she’d ever seen or heard about, pushing into her head.
And then there was a moment of sickening eversion, as if her mind was a glove that had been pulled inside out, and the world came back. The seething raw light was gone, but everyone around her was flinching away from some private horror show. Nevers had drawn his pistol and was pointing it in different directions, face twisted into a desperate grimace. The policewoman dropped Rana and fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around her head. A policeman doubled over and vomited. Another policeman screwed the heels of his hands into his eyes, his mouth stretched wide in a red scream. And Rana was running. Knees and elbows splayed, running past the police and the police vehicles. Chloe chased after the little girl as she dodged between parked cars. Behind her, Fahad was shouting something.
There was no sign of Rana. Chloe looked around, then dropped to her hands and knees, peered under the cars on either side.
The little girl was pressed against a wheel, knees tucked into her chest, arms wrapped around her shins.
‘It’s okay,’ Chloe said, trying her best to smile. ‘It’s okay now. You can come out.’
‘I don’t like the bad people.’
‘Nor do I. Let’s make sure they don’t catch us.’
‘Ugly Chicken doesn’t like them either,’ the little girl said.
‘I know.’
‘He made everyone see things. Were you scared?’
‘Very scared.’
Chloe remembered seeing, in some disaster-porn documentary, a robot sent in to inspect the burning heart of a nuclear reactor smashed open by an earthquake. She felt that she’d been given a glimpse of something like that: an elemental devouring light that could boil a person’s brain in her skull. And with a horrible lurch of association she thought of the Trafalgar Square bomb, the incandescent flare of her mother’s last moment, and wondered if that was what Ugly Chicken had tapped into.
Rana said, ‘It wasn’t meant for you. He mostly aimed it at the bad people.’
‘Can you scoot out, sweetheart?’ Chloe said. ‘We need to get going.’
Footsteps behind her: Fahad, breathless and sweating, squatting down to look at his sister. ‘You did good,’ he told her, and said to Chloe, ‘I don’t even know why I wanted to meet you. We can take care of ourselves.’
‘Let’s get out of here. Find somewhere to talk.’
Fahad picked up Rana and cradled her to his chest, and he and Chloe scurried across the lorry park. Chloe’s camo jacket flickered, trying to imitate the candy colours of cars, a stretch of weedy tarmac. Her heart was beating quick and high and she had only one thought in her head: get as far away from the Reef as possible.
They were close to the ragged hedge of buddleias at the edge of the lot when she heard the whine of an engine behind her. Fahad stopped and turned around, but she couldn’t look. If she did, she might see Ugly Chicken again, might turn into a pillar of salt. She grabbed Fahad’s arm, shook him, told him to keep going.