The silence of the wood is underscored by the distant hum of the road beneath and the shudder of the wind in the trees.
She squats down and blows on the embers. Flames spring to life and begin to take hold of the screwed up newspaper and twigs. Humming, she fills up the kettle and places it on the fire.
Taking a blue folder out of her rucksack, she sits down on the wooden pallet. There are five in total, five including her own. She opens the folder and begins to write.
They are slowly moving towards her as the word count grows. She acts responsibly, carefully crafting the story in relation to each individuals needs. She enjoys drawing them in, but knows she should be wary of her growing sense of self-importance. It was the others that counted, not her. She smiles at the words she writes. She is merely a cipher, a conduit. And a liar.
The clinking noise of the kettle draws her attention to the fire. She puts down the folder and carefully pours boiling water into the chipped blue mug. She stands for awhile at the mouth of the cave, staring out at the rain, sipping her tea.
——–
“Approximately 9112”
Elyssa tuts “There’s no approximately about it, it’s got to be exact”
She puts her hands on her hips and shifts her weight from one foot to another. His mirror shades reflect back her angry frown. “And take off those ridiculous sunglasses, you look like a motorcycle cop”. Smirking, he does as he is told, and starts to recalibrate The Mechanism.
Sweat trickles down her back. She wipes her arm across her forehead and looks out at the endless flat and dusty landscape. They will be here soon.
Turning back, she watches him as he sits hunched over the circuit board, fiddling with the wires, trying out different connections.
She kicks the table leg in frustration, wanting his attention, wanting him to explain. He looks up and smiles, holding her gaze for a moment before returning to The Mechanism.
He infuriates her. He hardly speaks, just smiles his dumb-ass smirk. When he does talk he seems to enjoy peppering the conversation with facts he’s gathered on her past, her family, her work, even her childhood pets. He never gives her a straight answer as to how long they will be there, who else is involved, where he comes from. She knew when she signed up for the project she would never get to hear the whole story, but that doesn’t stop her from being pissed off at him for drip feeding her snippets of information. Sometimes she feels like jacking it all in and going home. But she had wanted this, she had wanted to take a ‘leap outside her everyday life’. She kicks the table leg again, irritated at her own naivete. He doesn’t look up this time. A tight little smile twitches across his face.
The approaching dust cloud snaps her out of her tantrum. It must be them. She looks back at him for reassurance, her earlier bravado fading. He watches her keenly, as if waiting to see what her next move will be.
——–
“I’m pleased that you’re in charge”
Lin grimaces through a stretched smile, trying to keep the patronising tone out of her voice.
She looks over his shoulder at her reflection in the two-way mirror. She smooths down her blonde hair and takes off her glasses. Pulling down the sleeve of her jumper, she slowly cleans the lenses, using the repetitive motion to steady her breathing and focus her mind. If she doesn’t concentrate she’ll trip up. The detective across the table is a plodding form-filler, but she needs to keep her wits about her, she knows who is standing behind the two-way mirror.
She replaces her glasses and folds her hands in front of her. The detective carries on studying the blue folder in front of him, not noticing that his left sleeve is soaking up the pool of spilt coffee on the table.
She sits trying to formulate her answers in anticipation of his questions. She needs to stay in character. She must get out of there as fast as possible, the others will be on their way.
——–
“I have my reasons”
Lizzie slams the door in his face.
“Reasons, reasons? What kind of reasons are they? I don’t even know who you are any more. Fuck your reasons and fuck you”.
She stares at herself in the hallway mirror, listening the screech of tyres as Richard speeds off down the road. She slowly reapplies her lipstick, licking her finger and smoothing her eyebrows. “Not bad for 34” she thinks, and blows her reflection a kiss.
A polaroid photo stuck in the mirror frame catches her eye. The two of them on Brighton beach last July. She’d brought him the polaroid camera from a second hand shop in The Lanes. She rips the photo in two, letting it fall to the ground. She goes into their bedroom and retrieves the shoebox from the back of the wardrobe.
She sits on the bed and opens the box. She feels a twinge of regret over the way she’s slowly pushed Richard out of her life until he had finally got the message and stormed off. It was the most animated she had ever seen him. But she had the project now and she didn’t need anything or anyone holding her back.
Lizzie’s first meeting with Lin had seemed like a chance encounter, but she knew now that Lin had been watching her for weeks. She had gotten into the habit of going for a coffee at Woodes Cafe, on her way home from work. She’d kidded herself it was a way to unwind after the stress of the day, but really she’d been putting off going home to her dull life with Richard.
The cafe had been unusually busy one evening and Lin had asked if she could share her table. They had talked about the weather, work, the coffee – the usual sort of small talk you have with strangers. But she’d enjoyed their chat and had been pleased to bump into Lin the next evening. It got to be a regular thing, meeting for coffee, chatting.
Lin had seemed pretty unremarkable at first – a neat looking middle aged woman with shoulder length blonde hair and glasses. It was Lin’s stories that drew her in. She’d done so much, been to so many different places, met so many different people. It had made Lizzie realise that she was just treading water, going through the motions of her life. So when Lin had started talking to her about the project she’d been intrigued, and then when Lin had invited her to “come on board”, she’d be flattered and excited.
She checks the contents of the shoebox and replaces the lid. She picks up her handbag and car keys from by the phone and puts on her coat. She stands for a moment, looking at herself again in the hall way mirror. Giving herself a reassuring smile, she walks out of the house.
——–
“Where are you taking me?”
Fraser grabs Phil by the hand and starts to pull him down the street. Phil lets himself be led, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. He feigns resistance, pulling Fraser up short outside McDonalds. They stare at their reflection in the window and then through it to the slacked jawed fast food junkies ruminating on fat and gristle. Fraser makes spewing noises and pulls him on again, faster now, weaving in and out of the lunchtime shoppers and office workers.
Phil lets go of Fraser’s hand. “Race you” he shouts over his shoulder as he takes off down a side street. Fraser sprints after him, almost overtaking him until they both land in a breathless heap on the tables outside Woodes Cafe.
Phil goes inside and gets a couple of bottles of mineral water. He’s brought Fraser there on purpose. He knows they are being watched now. It gives him a thrill, knowing something is happening outside of Fraser’s control, something that is all his idea and nothing to do with Fraser.
Taking a swig of water he sits down and surreptitiously looks around him. He reckons she is in one of the buildings overlooking the cafe, but which one? She’d told him to meet her there on his own. He did want to be part of the project but there was something about a complete stranger telling him what to do that brought out his petulant side. Childish really. He looks at his watch, it’s almost time. He needs to get rid of Fraser fast. He pours the contents of the water bottle over Fraser’s feet. That should do it.
——–
He squints into the sun and watches her walk towards the approaching car. The outline of her retreating back is shadowed by the hazy heat.
In some ways Elyssa is behaving exactly how he thought she would. Testing his authority, oscillating between flattery and petulance, compliments and veiled insults. She was used to being in control, yet he felt she was looking for direction, looking for someone to tell her what to do. But then they all wanted that. What made Elssya different was her insistence in drawing him out, placing him within her unravelling realisations. He had to admire her, it took guts to leave her child and husband behind in their comfy Victorian semi in South London, and come to this desolate dust bowl with a complete stranger.
He smiles at her insecurities. He only knows what she revealed about herself in their initial correspondence. She thinks he has a load of information on her, a bulging blue folder full of facts, when what he actually has is a collection of half-truths that configure and reconfigure as the story tilts.
He puts down the needle he has been using to untangle the mass of fibre, relieved to stop the delicate work. His fingers ache and his head pounds. He should have remembered to wear his hat.
The car grinds to a halt a few metres from where is she standing. A man gets out and walks hesitantly towards her. As he gets closer she realises he’s just a kid, may be 22, 23, 24 tops. She hadn’t been expecting that and feels oddly disappointed at the awkward, gangly boy standing in front of her.
“Elyssa?”
She nods and holds out her hand.
He shakes it enthusiastically. His palms are sticky.
“Hi, I’m Steve”
“ Hi. Long journey?” She lets go of his grip and surreptitiously wipes her hand on her dress.
“Just from the airport. The same one you arrived at I guess”.
“No, we came overland” she replies.
“We? I thought I was just picking you up”. He peers over shoulder. “I was told to pick up you and The Mechanism and escort you back to the UK”.
Someone else who knows more than she does. She feigns a knowledge she does not have. “Yeah, just me and The Mechanism”.
She turns and retraces her steps. The kid trots along behind her. What other weirdoes and adolescents were involved in the project, she wonders.
He’s still fiddling with the wires. She stares at his back as he sits up straight. She hadn’t noticed how slight he was, hunched over the table for god knows how long. She notices a hole in his shirt, just below his shoulder blade. Big enough for her to plug with her ring finger.
He looks at the boy and then looks at her.
“This is Steve”. The kid sticks out his hand and smiles. He ignores him.
“The Mechanism is ready” he says as he places it in an old shoebox and hands it to her. “She will expect you to be on time. Don’t let her and the others down.”
——–
Richard screeches to a halt just round the corner. The sudden stop sends the duct tape and roll of bin bags tumbling to the floor. He pulls out an M&S carrier from the accumulation of lunchtime debris at his feet. He places the tape and rubbish bags inside – such innocuous items, there was really no need to keep them out of sight.
His mobile vibrates in his pocket.
“Hello Mr Dulstan, it’s Christine from Anchor Self Storage. Just ringing to let you know that your payment has gone through and you can pick up the keys and ID code for your unit any time today before 6pm”.
“OK, thank you Christine, I’ll be round later”.
“Are you OK Mr Dulstan, you don’t sound well”.
He realises he’s so wound up that his voice is trembling. He inhales deeply and exhales slowly, trying to calm himself down.
“No I’m fine, just a bit tired. Bye Christine, see you later”.
He feels like he’s been on edge for months. Ever since he had decided to remedy the situation. There was still part of him that isn’t sure if he can go through with it, but it’s her fault it has come to this.
They’d met at work. She had started as an office junior at Sunlife in 2003. He had been attracted to her from the beginning but being her line manager and priding himself on his professionalism, he didn’t ask her out on a date until she transferred to the Park Street branch a year later. He had taken things slowly, his mother had brought him up to respect women. They used to meet at Woodes Cafe for a coffee after work and just talk. It had been a good six months before he had kissed her and then, well, they’d been together for six years now and he had been thinking of asking her to marry him.
He grips the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white. That was what really got him. It had been their special meeting place. He had felt even more betrayed when he found out Lizzie had been meeting that woman there. She’d been coming home late from work every so often, and when he asked her where she’d been she came up with some nonsensical story about a ‘project’ she was involved in.
So he’d followed her to the cafe one evening after work and that’s when he’d seen them, talking so intently over their coffees that their heads touched. That woman whispered something in Lizzie’s ear that set her off in a fit of giggles - he’d never seen her laugh like that before.
As the months progressed she became more and more distant. He couldn’t bear the thought of loosing her, but most of all he couldn’t bear the thought of loosing her to that woman. What would his colleagues say? The men would make lewd comments about threesomes and the women would look at him with pity. If mother hadn’t passed away a year ago, the embarrassment of the situation would have certainly killed her.
Lizzie’s car turns round the corner. He slumps down in his seat, turns the ignition and starts to follow her. He knows where she will be going. She’ll be going to meet that woman in ‘their’ cafe.
He thinks about what he is going to do and feels oddly excited at the neatness of it all. After the sale of his mother’s house he has enough money to keep him going for quite awhile. He’d handed in his resignation and brought a one way ticket to Morocco.
He looks at Liz’s car ahead of him and smiles. The storage unit will tidy up the remaining loose ends.
——–
Time begins to take on an illusionary quality. She is so tired her teeth ache. She has been awake for 36 hours, 5 of those she’s spent in custody.
The detective looks up and involuntarily brings his hand to his ear, alerting her to the wire snaking down his neck and into his collar. So that’s the way it’s going to be played, feed the stooge questions. The detective clears his throat and shifts in his seat. She gives him a reassuring smile.
“Can you tell me where you were on the 16th?”
She thinks about the others. She can trust Lizzie to act sensibly, but Phil was another matter. She’d had reservations about recruiting him. Though initially troublesome, he basically wanted to be led, like they all did. She just needed to keep him on a tight rein.
“Lin, can you tell me where you were on the 16th?” The detective repeats.
Lin, such an ordinary, everyday sort of name.
“I was hill walking in Wales, like I do every Sunday”
“Any witnesses?”
“No, I like to go on my own, to get away from the stress of work”
The detective looks back at her file.
“It says here you work in a wool shop, how stressful can that be? All those little old ladies give you grief do they?” he smirks.
Lin, who works in a wool shop and likes to go hiking at the weekend. A great, if a little dull, cover story had been chosen for her. She’d been living it for a year now, and part of her would be sad to see Lin go. She looks at her watch. She needed to get out of there and check on Elyssa. And she’d had enough of the manipulative presence from behind the two-way mirror.
“I’m not saying any more until I see my solicitor”.
“You were seen”.
She tenses and can feel her face flush with irritation. She knows he is bluffing. She needs to stay within the story. The only way she can move time forward is to stick to the lines that had already been written. The bumbling, slightly scanty Lin she had been for the last year comes back to the surface.
“Well gosh officer, I think I did bump into a couple of other ramblers and had a chat about the weather. It was overcast and drizzly that day. I remember that because I had on my new waterproofs and the lilac jumper Pip had just knitted for me. So I was warm and dry, not like the previous Sunday when all I had was my dreadful old pac-a-mac and I got soaked to the skin..”
“Lin”
“..and freezing cold. Though nothing that a hot chocolate and rock cake at Woodes Cafe couldn’t sort out..”
“Lin”
She stopped for breath and smiled at the detective. He frowned back and put his hand to his ear.
“Now officer, I’m not really sure what this is all about. That nice PC Slater told me it was just a routine enquiry and would I mind if I came down to the station to help out. And of course I am more than happy to help you boys in blue. But I’ve been here for hours now and the cats will be starving and Pip will be in the shop on her own and starting to worry and I don’t really like to leave her in charge for too long as her maths is awful and she’s for ever short-changing customers and if it wasn’t for her encyclopaedic knowledge of wool I would have let her go by now. Just the other day she….”
“Ok, ok” the officer holds his hands up in surrender. “That’s it for now. PC Slater will drive you home. But don’t leave the city as we may need to call you in again for further questioning”.
She knew all along they didn’t really have anything on her, that they’d pulled her in in an attempt to divert the narrative. But it wasn’t their story to tell. It was hers and she would take it where it needed to go.
“Oh no need for a police car, I prefer to walk. I’ve always walked, all my life. Never owned a car, I don’t even know how to drive! I had a bicycle once, but its so dangerous on the roads isn’t it? Motorists driving at you, pedestrians throwing themselves in front of you…”
“Ok, Lin, I get the picture” the detective interrupts impatiently. “ PC Slater will show you to the front desk and you can fly home for all I care”.
She picks up her handbag and shoots a final glance at the two-way mirror.
At the front desk she goes through the Lin-like motions of thanking the PC effusively and imploring him to consider taking up knitting as a way of coping with the stress of the job. And then she is out on the street and walking fast. She heads in the direction of home and when she is sure no-one is following her, she changes direction and heads towards the city centre.
She needs to get hold of the others fast, the time of the meet had been set yesterday, but then she’d been taken in for questioning and hadn’t been able to pass the message onto the others.
She checks again she isn’t being followed and then ducks into a phone box.
Elyssa will be in the country by now, keeping an eye on Lizzie. She dials the number.
“It’s Lin”
“There’s a problem”.
Lin frowns, clutching the phone tight to her ear and listens.
“Don’t worry, I’ll sort it”.
She replaces the receiver carefully and looks at her watch. There’s only a couple of hours to go. She doesn’t want to risk taking care of Richard herself, just in case the police decide to pick her up again. And she needs Elyssa to safeguard The Mechanism. She dials another number.
——–
He sits on the quayside, throwing stones in the water. He’s such an idiot. Of course she hadn’t shown up. Fraser had gone mental, shouting at him for ruining his new Nikes. It was only a bit of water, but then he was so precious about his trainers. Fraser had poured the rest of the Evian over his head and stormed off. So he’d been left alone in the busy street, soaking wet, knowing she would be watching him. What a plonker.
He’d been so bored working at the museum, surrounded by old dusty artefacts, answering the same questions over and over again. So when he’d received that first email about the project, he hadn’t hesitated in replying. And now he’d messed it up.
The muffled sound of Britney’s ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ emanated from his pocket. Pulling out his mobile phone, he looks at the screen – it wasn’t a number he recognised.
“Hello, Phil here”
“Do you still want to be part of the project or do you just want to dick around like a fucking adolescent?”
He blanches and looks at the phone. How had she gotten his number?
“Is that you Lin?”
“No, its Princess fucking Di, who do you think it is?”
He feels uneasy, exposed. His stomach tightens and bile rises in his throat.
“Stop sitting around like a skiving schoolboy and get your fucking arse in gear”.
He looks around him in a panic, she must have followed him. He tries to discern her face from the knots of tourists wandering along the waterside.
“I need you to focus now Phil”.
He realises he is holding his breath. Exhaling loudly and inhaling deeply, he presses the phone closer to his ear.
“Stop fucking hyperventilating and listen. The other operative in your area is experiencing some trouble. Her dickhead of an ex-boyfriend is threatening to undermine all my hard work. He’s on his way into the city centre in some ill conceived mission to win her back. She can’t be disturbed and pulled off course, what she is doing is too important. I need you to intercept him and do what ever is needed to keep him occupied for the next hour or so. Think you can manage that?”
“Sure I can” he replies, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.
——–
Lin gives him the details of where and when to expect Richard. How deals with him she leaves up to Phil. Hanging up, she hopes she hasn’t made a mistake in trusting him with the task, but there is no-one else.
She checks her watch again, lets herself out of the phone box and continues on her journey.
——–
What the hell had he gotten himself into?
He waits at the entrance to the car park, trying to look inconspicuous and failing. The urge to leave is strong, but his desire to please is stronger. Lin has told him the make and registration of each car. What she didn’t tell him is exactly how he is supposed to ‘detain’ Lizzie’s boyfriend, Richard. He’d done a bit of Kung Fu when he was a teenager, and more recently some kick boxing at the leisure centre, but there was no way his hands could be described as lethal weapons. Hopefully Richard would turn out to be a small, myopic asthmatic with brittle bone disease. He’d told Lin he wasn’t really the aggressive type, and she’d said that it was his project as well now, that there was no more room for excuses, and to just “fucking get on with it”. He’d never heard a woman swear so much before. Total lack of appropriate adjectives. How could it be his project when he didn’t know who was involved or what the outcome was supposed to be. All he knew was there was Lin swearing at him down the phone and a woman called Lizzie who was “on a mission” and was being followed by her disgruntled ex-boyfriend. Sounded like a plot from a bad Tarantino movie.
A blue Fiat Punto drives into the car park, followed a few moments later by a silver Skoda. It was them. He watches them park. The woman gets out of her car carrying a shoebox, and heads off to the lift. The guy, Richard, sits scowling in his car, hunched over the steering wheel. He doesn’t look like a myopic asthmatic with brittle bone disease, he looks like a angry arsenal supporter. Great. He waits until Richard gets out of the car and then walks over.
“Erm, h-h-hi” he stutters.
“Yeah, what” Richard snarls.
He smiles and falters, and then not knowing what else to do, knees Richard in the balls.
Richard falls to the ground with a bellow, clutching his groin.
He panics and kicks Richard in the side of the head.
“Shit, fuck, shit, fuck, shit, fuck” he mutters repetitively under his breath, jiggling the loose change in his pocket and staring at the prone body at his feet. He kneels down to check if Richard is still breathing. He is.
He looks around him to see if anyone has clocked what just happen. The car park is empty. He notices some duct tape has rolled out of the M&S bag Richard had been holding. With shaking hands he tears off several lengths and wraps them round Richards ankles, wrists and the final piece over Richards mouth. He grabs the car keys out of Richards hand. With considerable effort he drags him round the side of the car. Holding onto Richard with one hand, he undoes the boot with the other and hauls him in. He closes the door and leans up against the car, rooted to the spot. What is he supposed to do now? The noise of a car pulling into space opposite startles him out of his panic. He looks around and his eyes land with a jolt on a CCTV camera pointing directly at him. He flinches and hurries towards the exit. He’s got to get out of there fast if he is to make the meet on time.
——–
“Hey look where you’re going” Elssya calls after the idiot who’s just trodden on her toe as he rushed past her. He turns round and mouths an apology. “Dickhead” she mutters as she rubs her toes, noting the desert dust still clinging to her sandals. She ducks down and retrieves The Mechanism from the back seat. Straightening up, she yaws and rubs her eyes, her body still thinking it’s the middle of the night instead of late afternoon. A muffled thud echoes from across the car park. She stops and listens more intently. Nothing. She shrugs and locks the car.
She wasn’t looking forward to the long walk to the meet point, but Lin had told her to arrive on foot. God knows why, but then a lot of what she had experienced recently made no sense. But she’d done what had been asked of her. She’d gotten straight off the plane and spent the last three hours parked up outside some suburban bungalow, keeping an eye on Lizzie, a woman she didn’t know and would probably never meet. She’d realised straight away that the guy in silver Skoda was trouble, the way he screeched to a halt and sat grimacing and clutching the steering wheel. When he’d taken off in pursuit of Lizzie’s Fiat, she’d been about to follow when Lin called and told her that she would sort it, and to just carry on to the meet point. Fine by her, all she wanted was to have a long soak in a hot tub and curl up in bed. Sighing, she tucks The Mechanism under her arm and sets off towards the woods.
——–
The snap of twigs underfoot signals their imminent arrival. She refills the kettle and places it on the fire. She frowns. May be she should have brought something more celebratory than PG Tips. She’s been on her own for so long, she’s forgotten about social niceties and rituals.
Perhaps they don’t realise they have cause for celebration. They have The Mechanism. All she has is five blue folders containing incomplete truths. She places the folders on the fire one by one. The paper catches fire with a roar, sending lacy ribbons of ash darting up into the air.
Now she has nothing. Now the story starts.