As he walked along Devonia Road, Danny tried to disguise his height and lanky walk, though that wasn't easy. The moment he started consciously thinking about his walk, the entire rhythm broke down. Maybe that was a good thing. Bradlee and Ronnie couldn't see down Devonia Road from where they were standing, but they'd only have to move twenty feet to their right.
At first he'd been thinking of going to the Whittington hospital to see Dr Russell, but he could imagine how that conversation might go.
She'd proved very reluctant to disconnect Danielle before, and there wasn't much chance of Danny convincing her this time. The good doctor would ask Danny how much he knew about medicine and he'd answer not a lot, but that he knew a lot about machines. If they'd just try disconnecting Danielle, they'd see an improvement. How many responsible doctors would opt for that kind of experiment?
But there was one person who could swing it. Danielle had given Sharon authority for medical consent. That was signed and official. If
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Sharon demanded they disconnect Danielle from the dialysis machine for a few hours, well… not many people were capable of standing up to Sharon in full flow.
He wanted to call Sharon on his mobile, but knew Frank might interfere. It would be best if he made his other call first. He reached Upper Street and hailed a black cab, asked for King's Cross, and tapped the keys of his phone.
"Eric?"
"Yes, who is this?"
"Your partner in crime."
"Danny. How's it going?"
"Have you had your tooth fixed yet?"
There was a pause at the other end.
"My wisdom tooth? No, that's tomorrow.
I'm ready though, I can tell you."
"Will it be under general anaesthetic?"
"Dead right it will. They're going to be in there with a JCB and a dumper truck. I don't want to see all that, and I certainly don't want to feel it."
"Cancel it. Don't go."
"What? I've been waiting three weeks for the rotten NHS…"
"Trust me, don't go. Our artificial friend has been taking a pruning saw to experts like
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you. Run an Internet search on robotics research and recent funding. You'll…"
And the line went dead. Danny had half expected this. He'd known Frank probably wouldn't allow him to complete the call.
Fortunately, he'd had enough time to get Eric alarmed. Eric wasn't stupid. He'd do his research and fill in the gaps.
One more call. How would Frank react to this?
"Hello?"
"Sharon, sweetheart, it's me. I'm fine."
"Hello?"
"I got arrested, but I've been released. It's a bit complicated to explain."
"Hello? If there's anybody there, I can't hear you."
Danny growled to himself and switched off. Out of all the plays Frank could have made, that was the worst, allowing him to hear Sharon but not make himself heard. He'd guessed he'd be allowed to make a call or two. Frank would want to know the location of the mobile, whether it was in motion and where it was heading. At least he hoped so.
He leaned forward to talk to the cab driver. "I've changed my mind. I don't want to go to King's Cross, I want to go back to Fulham,
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Can you take me to Dover Road, just past Waterstone's, the junction with Boxington Street?"
The driver was early fifties, number two haircut, very thick-set.
"Eh? Come on, mate. That's almost where I picked you up. You're pissing me about."
"You'll still get paid."
"Yeah, and it'll be another half hour before I get to the West End."
The cab did a U-turn on Hammersmith Road. It hadn't gone far before sirens sounded and three police cars flashed by in the other direction, heading at speed towards King's Cross.
Danny briefly smiled. They were almost certainly following up Frank's phone trace. Just in case they might recognise him, he ducked down below window level while they passed, then decided to stay there for the rest of the journey. There was no advantage in being seen.
"Here we are, Boxington Street. That'll be a tenner."
"What?" Danny tried to open the cab door. It was still locked. "What do you mean, ten pounds? It says five pounds sixty-five on the meter."
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"Yeah, but that's the fare for people who don't duck down when a cop car comes the other way."
This wasn't an argument worth having. As he handed over the money with his right hand, Danny switched his mobile on again with his left, and squeezed it into the gap between the seat cushions. It was of no further use for calling. He may as well get some value from it. "Ten it is."
"Ta."
Danny stepped out on to the pavement.
"You have an interesting evening."
"Yeah, sure I will."
***
He'd never broken into his own home before. The garden walls at the back were over seven feet high in places, but if the boys from the Boxington Estate could make it across more than a dozen back gardens, distributing crisp packets and empty Smirnoff Ice bottles in their irregular version of the Grand National, then he could certainly manage to reach fence four.
He walked down Boxington Street, past the old cinema, and turned right on to Raleigh Street. The house at the end of his expensive Georgian terrace had a garden that bordered this
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road. The boundary wall was taller than Danny and had broken glass set into its top, as did many of the walls around here, but the glass was missing close to the end. There was also a convenient electricity board box at waist level. It was easy to step on the box and climb over the wall.
He made a mental note to bring this to somebody's attention at a later date. In fact he might find himself bringing it to his neighbours'
attention very soon if they happened to be looking out of their rear windows this evening.
The light had faded and he was thankful for that, but still anybody looking in the right direction would be able to see him.
There were two gardens between the one he was in now and his own. Walking quickly, but not running, he climbed the two separating walls, taking care not to harm his neighbours' plants. He rarely did anything this physical, but when he did, his own strength sometimes surprised him.
The gardens were pretty, full of early summer flowers, though this was a strange way to view them.
It took less than thirty seconds to get to his own garden. He wanted to run from where he was to his back door, but instead walked, as a man should do in his own back yard.
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There were three full bin-liners outside the back door. It was locked, but the kitchen window a few yards further along was slightly open. Sharon usually left it that way to get rid of cooking smells. That was another security issue he'd have to mention later. He lifted the sash window and climbed in over the ancient sink, trying his best not to loosen it from its equally ancient moorings. There was no light on in the kitchen and it took his eyes a few seconds to adjust. It felt strange getting inside his own house this way, and even though he'd made it without incident, he still couldn't relax. It was like he didn't belong here and the real owner might turn up at any moment to kick him out.
He moved through from the kitchen and checked the dining room, but Sharon wasn't there. He couldn't remember whether he'd left his laptop out when he'd last been here, which seemed like days ago. It wasn't on the table, and when he looked in the sideboard drawer it wasn't there either. He checked the TV room but still didn't find Sharon. A single table lamp was on and the heavy curtains were closed.
From above, a slight noise passed through the ceiling. Presumably Sharon was in the bedroom. He moved into the stairwell and listened. He heard a muffled moan. It could have
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been the bedroom TV, but didn't sound like a TV.
He wondered if he was getting paranoid, then decided that with two violent criminals outside, and Frank after him, as well as the police, he had every reason to feel unsafe. What if Bradlee and Ronnie weren't outside at all, and Ronnie had picked the lock to get them in? Or what if Frank had hired other players?
Physical confrontation was the last thing he wanted, but maybe it would be wise to choose some kind of weapon. Just the feel of it would be comforting. A knife from the kitchen? No, that was too brutal, so brutal that he could never imagine using it. By the front door was a big golfing umbrella, a tall one with a white Volvo logo on a blue background, but more importantly with a long metal spike at the end. He picked it up, and while he was close to the door he quietly fitted the door chain into its slot, just in case Ronnie decided to get in, assuming he wasn't already inside.
Umbrella in hand, he began to sneak up the stairs, avoiding step six, the one that always squeaked when the weather was damp, which in London meant most of the year.
At the bedroom door he hesitated. It was very strange sneaking around your own home.
His approach had been silent, he'd have the
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element of surprise. From behind the door he heard Sharon laugh, which was a good sign. Then a grunt, a moan, and a man's voice, not loud enough to identify, yet familiar. What the hell was going on? These weren't sounds of violence, but not what he wanted to hear.
Sharon squealed abruptly, ending his intellectual analysis and sending him into action.
He reached for the door handle, jabbed it down and burst inside, umbrella at the ready.
She was naked, lying on the bed, or at least its bottom left corner, lit with artistic obliqueness by a single bedside lamp, her legs parted and over the edge, head on a pillow at its centre, clothes strewn behind her near the headboard, her left hand between her legs, where her sexual excitement was clear to the person most qualified to recognise it. And there was that heady fragrance, the most sexual smell in the world, of turned-on Sharon. He breathed it in, reflexively, appreciating it without conscious thought, but for possibly the first time in his life, didn't find it arousing.
There was nobody else in the room.
Danny's laptop was open on the dresser opposite her, next to the blank TV. The laptop screen showed the face of a man. It was Frank, grinning.
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Sharon removed her hand from her private parts and sat upright. "Well thank God for that! What happened to you? I had to ring the police in the end. They said you were on the run, made me out to be a gangster's moll who didn't know where her gangster was." She looked at the umbrella. "Is it raining?"
"No," said Frank, through the laptop speakers.
"What the fuck's going on?" Danny's eyes flitted from Sharon to the laptop and back again.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Masturbating. Or I was." She smiled.
"Your timing's pretty good."
Danny shot a finger at the screen. "With him?"
"He's not a him, he's an 'it', an interactive computer image, an Internet service for lonely women whose partners run away and desert them. He's got good timing too, haven't you, Frank? He just appeared on the screen this evening, out of nowhere, when I was checking my email, hoping I might get some kind of contact from you."
On cue, Frank rotated the top part of his head 360 degrees, from the top lip and above, leaving the bottom lip and chin where they were,
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until everything smoothly rejoined and once more he looked handsome rather than grotesque.
"See?" said Sharon.
"He's not… It's…"
Where to begin?
Sharon frowned. "I hope we're not going to get into a goose and gander argument here.
You've looked at plenty of Internet porn in your time. Frank is Internet porn for women. Sure, he looks good, but it's the stories he tells, and the sexy voice he uses to tell them."
Danny stared at her, open-mouthed.
"Danny, come on! You weren't here. I heard nothing from you, I had no idea where you were, when you'd be back. I felt horny. I still feel horny. You know how sex calms me." She pointed at the screen. "It's not like you've found me in bed with a real person. I wouldn't do that.
He's a computer animation, that's all. Do I get funny when you watch porn on the Internet?"
"I haven't done that for years," said Danny, recognising how feeble that sounded even as he said it.
"Sorry. It's obviously a shock." Sharon softened, her voice turned more playful. "Why don't you just take off your clothes and finish what Frank started? That's what we used to do when it was the other way round."
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Frank's voice came through the laptop again. "I don't think Danny has enough time, do you, Danny?"
"You are staying, aren't you?" asked Sharon.
Danny didn't answer. His visit was no longer a secret. Even now, Frank would be mobilising his forces. There was no reason why he should limit himself to one avatar visible onscreen. All that computing power could be put to good use, a separate voice would be calling the police, a third phoning Bradlee and Ronnie outside. That was what Frank meant by no time.
"Danny?"
"I… can't."
Sharon did a poor job of hiding her annoyance. "Oh well." She grasped behind her head for her clothes.
Danny stared with hatred at Frank, who, noticing that Sharon was looking away, brought an animated arm into view and obscenely pumped it.
"You fucking bastard!" yelled Danny, lunging at the screen with his umbrella.
"Danny!" barked Sharon.
The point of the umbrella entered the plastic screen at the bottom of Frank's nose. Dull white gel seeped out, as if the screen were
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bleeding or the nose running. A black cross of dead screen elements appeared over Frank's face, like the bars of a cell, otherwise the screen still worked fine.
"Tilting at windmills," said Frank. "That can lead to madness."
"You piece of shit!" Danny reached for the Off switch, then realised Frank might override it. The power cord. That would be no use either - the machine would switch to batteries. Roughly he yanked out the telephone line. Frank's face froze in its last position. The gel continued its slow mucal progress down the screen.
"Danny!" yelled Sharon. "Get a grip, for God's sake!"
For a while there were no more words, just the sound of Sharon struggling to get into her skirt and sweater at speed, no more words from the speakers, Danny immobile, trying to calm himself, wondering how he'd ever come to be in this position, how he'd ever get out of it. Then the sound of banging at the front door.
"Jesus!" said Sharon. "What are they using? Their feet?"
The sound, and the strange realisation that was beginning to form in Danny's mind, abruptly
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brought him out of his anger. "That's Percy."
Clearly Frank had called up his goons.
"Well he's going to break the door down if he's not careful."
At speed, Danny stripped off his jacket and shirt.
"I wish you'd make up your mind," said Sharon.
Equally quickly, he put on a fresh shirt and a darker jacket. "Somebody may have described my clothes," he muttered.
"What are you talking about?"
Danny held Sharon gently by the arm, for full attention. "Listen, my sweet, I love you so much I can't… What the police said is true, I am on the run, but I haven't done anything wrong.
Well, not what they want me for, anyway. The animation you had on the screen is involved.
Armed police are after me, and so are the people breaking down the door. I have to go, escape through the garden. And you have to help me."
Her eyes stayed locked on his. She allowed her gripped arm to stay limp and brushed back her hair with her free hand. Plaintively, she asked, "Why didn't you call?"
"I did. That was your mystery caller, no voice. It was intercepted." He pointed at the frozen screen. "By him, it, whatever."
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That seemed to satisfy Sharon. "Of course I'll help."
"Ok. Kitchen. Let's go!"
Danny took the stairs two at a time.
Sharon, in bare feet, was slower. The sound of Percy battering the front door filled the hallway.
The door was slightly open, held only by the chain, but that had been fitted professionally and was screwed into solid oak. Percy made slow progress.
Between blows, Bradlee swore on the other side. "You fucker, you fucker…"
Something would have to give, maybe the doorframe, but it was putting up a good fight.
"Come on," Danny urged Sharon, quietly.
In the kitchen he opened the back door and waited for her to arrive. "Shit!" And he'd almost been distracted from the entire reason for his visit. How much more rushed could an explanation be?
"You have to get Danielle disconnected from the dialysis machine."
Sharon tried to catch her breath and at the same time absorb this strange new information.
"What? After all that effort to keep her connected?"
"It's gone wrong, it's poisoning her."
"Then she needs another one."
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Danny shook his head. "Listen, this is all to do with computers, not medicine. She mustn't be connected to a dialysis machine of any kind.
Go to the hospital and don't leave until they disconnect her. Scream and yell, threaten lawyers, trial by TV. You hear me?"
From the front door came the sound of splintering wood. Sharon turned, distracted by it.
"Do you trust me with your sister's life?"
She turned back and nodded.
"Lock this door behind me," said Danny, the words coming out so fast he was barely making sense. "Then pretend I'm upstairs. Don't resist. They won't harm you, I promise."
"When will I see you again?"
"Er…"
Good question. When indeed? And where? Now was his one chance to make an arrangement. "Tomorrow, two o'clock, New River."
They kissed very briefly, a peck of confirmation of everything that had gone before, yet even that brief meeting of lips had Danny aching to stay. He broke off abruptly and ran down the garden. He heard the lock turn in the back door, the sash window come down - he'd forgotten about that. Sharon's prized Acer was about to help him to freedom. A small branch
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gave way as he used it to launch himself up the wall. "Oh shit." He hoped she wasn't watching.
Then he was up on the wall and into next door's garden, running across, not walking this time, two more easy walls and then the big one that bordered Raleigh Street. There was no electricity box to help him up on this side, just an enormous amount of adrenaline. He jumped up and grunted like a circus strongman as his arms pulled his weight up the wall. An awkward jump on the other side, and it was time to run for the anonymity of Dover Road, where he could finally slow to a walk, if his pumped-up body allowed.
From there he'd be able to circle around to the west and approach Angela's flat from Devonia Road.
He wasn't feeling too bad, all things considered. In the bedroom, while he'd been trying to get to grips with his anger, a great realisation had come to him. He needed to talk to Angela right away. He'd finally found Frank's weak spot.
It was the same as his own.
It was Sharon.