Once the coast is clear, he slips into the filing room, which was really just a giant computer in the middle of the room full of whirring fans. He’s not allowed access to this room but the door is sometimes left ajar. There are clearly people in the world less paranoid than him. Ribbons in different shades of blue are tied to the fan skeletons, giving the feeling that the room was some kind of stage design for a scene out of Atlantis, or an experiential advert for Aquascape.
He closes the door and sits backwards on the swivel chair, starts to work on the machine. The security on the files he wants to look at is ironclad. There would be a chink, there always was, but as he looks around he realises that it would take him months to hack. He smacks the side of the flatscreen.
‘Fuck a monkey,’ he says.
‘Excuse me?’
Seth spins around. Weasel.
‘Oh,’ says Seth. Fuck!
With all the white noise of the fans he hadn’t heard Wesley come in. He quickly uses a short-cut to close the windows he had open. He wonders if The Weasel had left this door open on purpose: a test.
‘This is a limited access room,’ says Weasel, ‘you’re not allowed in here.’
‘I didn’t know,’ says Seth.
‘It was in your Fontus Welcome Pack,’ says Wesley. Seth gives him a blank look.
‘I needed to find something.’ It wasn’t a lie.
‘Look,’ starts Wesley, rubbing his beard and drumming his fingers on his chin. ‘I’m going to have to report this… incident. They’re not gonna like it. They’re not gonna like it one bit. We’re talking a warning, or a disciplinary meeting at best. You’d better come in tomorrow wearing that suit I’ve been asking you about.’
‘Are you kidding?’ asks Seth.
The Weasel starts guffawing. Seth looks on in astonishment.
‘Of course I am, Mr Maths!’ he snorts, whacking Seth on the back. ‘You genius-types sure lack a sense of humour. Ha! Ha!’ He steers Seth out of the room with a firm hand and makes sure he closes the door behind him. It beeps twice to signal that it’s locked.
‘Beep-beep!’ says Wesley, and guffaws again.
Kirsten reads the letter out to Keke:
KIRSTEN/KATE – I know you didn’t believe me when we spoke. Am sending you extra keys. THEY ARE WATCHING YOU. DO NOT LET ANYONE TAKE THEM FROM YOU. Take care of yourself. Do it for your mother. Despite this mess, the list is proof that she loved you.
DOOMSDAY is the key. God help the Taken Ones if you don’t get this. ACT NOW. B/B
Keke lets out a loud wolf whistle. ‘No prize for guessing which particular delusional schizophrenic sent this.’
Kirsten replays their interaction in her head: the shadows in the basement, the shock, the fetid warning, James throwing the key off the bridge.
‘I guess sometimes it pays to be paranoid,’ says Keke.
‘What do you mean?’ asks Kirsten, dry-mouthed.
‘Well, just that, you know, she knew you wouldn’t keep the first key.’
‘She said keys. She said I’m sending you extra keys, plural.’ She shakes the envelope even though she knows it’s empty.
‘Maybe she didn’t get around to sending the other one,’ reasons Keke, ‘you know, before she stuck her head in the oven.’
‘I don’t understand,’ says Kirsten.
‘I’ll explain it to you,’ says Keke, taking the letter to the compost chute. ‘This lunatic lady didn’t know fantasy from reality, and she for some reason decided to drag you into it.’ She is about to throw the note away when Kirsten jumps up.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she says, snatching it away.
‘Listen, Cat. She was a delusional schizophrenic. She killed herself. Surely that’s the end of this conversation?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘You have got to be joking. They’re watching you? DOOMSday?’
Kirsten had thought Keke understood her Black Hole but clearly she didn’t.
‘She is dead, Keke. She said that they would kill her, and now she’s dead. She believed in this enough to track me down. Approach me. She wasn’t even leaving her flat to see her shrink anymore, but she came to see me. I think I at least owe it to her to see whatever this key unlocks.’
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a familiar blue-and-white striped jersey (Cobalt & Cream). It doesn’t make any sense to her. It takes her a few moments to catch on. That’s James’s jersey. It should be on James, or at home. Their home. She walks towards it, picks it up, smells it. Marmalade.
‘What is this doing here?’
‘Kitty,’ says Keke, ‘I was going to tell you. I just wanted to give you the letter first.’
‘Fine, then, I have the letter.’
‘James was here last night.’
‘What?’
‘He’s worried about you.’
‘Why? What is there to worry about?’ She knows the question is disingenuous.
‘He says that you’ve been having a rough time. Obsessing about your parents—’
‘He used the word ‘obsessing’?’
‘Said you’re not sleeping. That you haven’t been feeling well. Haven’t been yourself. In denial about all of the above.’
‘What did he want you to do about it?’
‘He asked me to keep an eye on you. He said he knows you tell me things that you don’t tell him.’
‘He wants you to spy on me? Tell him what I tell you?’
‘He wants me to make sure you’re okay.’
‘Make sure I don’t stick my head in an oven, too?’
‘Well, yes. I guess that would be first prize. And he asked me to… discourage… you, from investigating any of this… what-what. Your parents. The crazy lady. He just wants what’s best for you. You guys have been together for what? Eleven years?’
‘Thirteen.’
‘A lifetime. He said you’re pushing him away. And he’s worried that you might do something… risky.’
‘Fuck,’ she sighs. ‘Am I out of control? I don’t feel out of control.’
‘That’s what you said when you went off chasing pirates.’
‘Which I won awards for. Which launched my career.’
‘Kitty, no one respects you as a photojournalist more than I do. No one. That story was cosmic. You deserved every award you got. But you almost died.’
‘Well, that’s an exaggeration.’
‘Cat, you almost DIED.’
‘Okay, but that was different. I was young. Reckless.’
‘So you’re less reckless now?’ laughs Keke.
‘Hello? Yes! I’m practically a housewife. I mean, look at me.’
‘The day you become anything close to a housewife I will personally deliver you to the Somalis.’
‘Keke, I have a fucking OvO app on my watch. I can tell you the actual minute that I ovulate.’
‘Marmalade is right, you are out of control. What’s next? Hosting crafternoons?’
‘Ha,’ says Kirsten.
‘Look, lady, I told your better half I’d watch over you, and I will. But I’m behind you all the way with finding out about your parents.’
Keke opens the freezer and brings out the bright red box that she keeps as a staple especially for Kirsten. She pops some waffles into the toaster and pushes down the lever.
‘So, what do we do next?’
Journal entry
27 January 1988
Westville
In the news: Guerrillas open fire on a police vehicle in Soweto and injure three policemen and a civilian. The first reviews are in for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ which debuted last night on Broadway.