I don’t know. But I have to try. Because if I don’t, then sooner or later Farah or Chiu will try and then their death will be on my hands too.
You’re important to him, Kyle. That’s the only thing keeping the three of you alive.
I step forward. It has to be fast.
What he does here, the killing, it makes him powerful.
I know Ose is right. I know it won’t work.
Just walk away.
But now a new idea comes. A flash of inspiration. It’s so quick and so clear, it feels as if it comes from somewhere outside. This time I don’t have to think. I act.
I dart forward, raise the knife…
And it’s done.
I stare at the dark handle of the knife in my hand and my hand pressed against the naked flesh of Tongue’s neck and the blade is gone because it’s deep, deep inside.
Tongue’s eyes flick wide open. His arm flashes up and grabs my wrist. I’m terrified he’s going to shout. But he just gives a slight, wheezy intake of breath.
I try to pull my hand back but Tongue holds me where I am, my hand pressed against his throat. “Tongue,” he says quietly, emphatically.
He looks at me with an extraordinary, profound, oddly familiar expression, his eyes shining in the undarkness with an amazing lustre. Then I feel the pressure of his hand, not pushing me away, but drawing me forward, ensuring that I finish.
I don’t dare look at Jonah. I walk, fast and silent, across the food court, back towards Farah and Chiu.
My body is rigid with fear. I shake Farah awake. She starts, sitting up quickly.
“We need to go,” I say. “Right now.”
I shake Chiu and press my finger to my lips to silence him. He and Farah clock the look on my face and don’t ask any questions.
Just go, I think. Don’t stop. Don’t think. Just walk.
Out into the night and whatever waits for us out there.
TWENTY-SEVEN
We walk fast, desperate to break into a run but scared to, in case the noise of our footsteps gives us away. We’re lucky Farah has this part worked out already. She leads us through the car park and across the motorway bridge. There’s an airy, grasping sort of non-space in the air. The night sky feels like falling. It’s worse at night, Jonah said. He was right. I glance over the side and catch a glimpse of the traffic in the ordinary world, cutting in and out of my vision like faulty wiring.
“You killed Jonah?” Chiu asks, breathless, trotting to keep up.
“No,” I say.
Chiu looks panicked. “But the bikes? He’ll come?”
“The bikes aren’t a problem now,” I say.
Chiu casts Farah a questioning look and I see the realization dawn on him. The thought of it swims sickly in my mind. I killed a man. I killed Tongue.
“Down here,” Farah says.
We follow the ramp down on to the M25. I keep my eyes fixed on the hard shoulder, knowing that if I let myself see the traffic, I might not be able to unsee it this time and I don’t have the luxury of freaking out right now.
The road gleams in the night, the weight of the traffic in the ordinary world presses against us. I keep seeing Tongue’s eyes, wide and fearful.
“This one,” Farah says. “Barnet, A1081.”
“Are you sure?” Chiu says.
“It’ll take us south, towards London.”
“What if he comes after us on foot?”
“We’ll get off the main road as soon as we can,” Farah says. “We’ll be into the housing estates before morning. He can’t search that many roads without transport.”
We drop down, leaving the M25 behind us. The four-lane junction peels away and we’re left with a single-lane road, grass verges and a thick line of gorse bushes on either side. The thought of the housing estates and hundreds of side roads to get lost in draws us on, but right now there’s only this road. This road and fields either side and an impenetrable line of spiny gorse corralling us to this one and only route. I’d hoped we’d be able to get into a field or something and be hidden by bushes until we’re into the suburbs. But there’s no way.
Keep moving.
We pound down the tarmac without speaking. We know we’re too exposed, visible for the entire stretch of road until it curves ahead of us half a mile away; visible from the motorway that stretches over our heads. If Jonah’s awake already, he has a fifty-fifty chance of picking the right direction on the M25. But our odds are worse than that because it wouldn’t take much for him to guess that we’d take the most direct route towards London. We told him we were going there after all.
He’ll sniff you out.
“We should have doubled back,” Chiu says. “Thrown him off the scent.”
