Page 55 of The Price of Love
‘You do now. I was a miserable little guy back then, loner, reckoned no one understood me — hey, look at me now, nothing lasts forever. Right, that’s you distracted, shall we go on?’
‘God, you really are weird, aren’t you?’
‘They told me you’d do that, too.’ Cal turned away and led the way farther on, out into the field.
‘What?’
‘Be rude. It’s what you do, apparently. To keep people at a distance. One thing though, Willow.’ He reached the gate and pushed it open, stood waiting for me to follow him through. ‘It’s a bit too late.’
There were sheep in the field today, cropping down the overlong grasses and watching us in baa-filled distress. They’d eaten all the little white flowers and for some reason this made tears bubble up in my eyes. I scratched them away with a ferocious sleeve and followed Cal down into the yard. Instead ofheading into the house, he produced a key and went straight to the locked barn, fiddling about with the padlock for a second. The air was suddenly overflowing with a screaming siren noise. I clamped my hands over my ears but, unconcerned, Cal released the lock and went inside. Two seconds later the noise died.
‘Sorry. Forgot I left the alarm enabled. Come on in.’
Cautiously I crept over the threshold. Inside the barn was all the equipment I’d remembered, plus a few extra pieces that I’d either not noticed, or were new. Cal wandered around throwing random switches, flicking the lights on and generally looking like A Man in Charge. He’d looped his hair back again, too, and tied it up, acquired the focussed and deliberate movements I’d noticed in him before when he’d been working.
‘Let’s roll.’ As before, I sat behind him on the bale of straw, watching as he flicked the tiny headset on, clicked a couple more switches, then settled himself into the oddly shaped chair in front of the keyboard. He looked over at me once and winked. ‘Allright,’ he said, into the headset. ‘Come on, bitches, talk to me.’
From somewhere a voice rattled out. ‘Hey, Sandman!’
‘Hey, Fortune. Who else we got?’
‘Dix.’
‘Ratboy.’
‘Zakalwe.’
Different voices, different accents. I could feel the flesh down my spine prickle. ‘Whoarethey?’
Cal stood up and came over. ‘Boys, I’ve got someone to introduce here. She needs a bit of help and we’re going to give it to her, yeah?’ Dropping his voice, he whispered, ‘Say something. Tell them who you are. It’s okay, they can hear you. Just speak into my mike here.’
‘Oh. Er.’ Like anyone, anywhere, told to ‘say something’, I clammed up completely. ‘What shall I say?’
‘Try, hello.’
‘Um. Hello.’ I had to lean up against him to talk into his headpiece. ‘My name’s Willow.’
‘Hi, Willow.’
‘Yeah, hi there. Glad Sandman’s got some female company at last.’
‘Nice handle.’
‘Why are they calling you Sandman?’ I whispered.
‘It’s my . . . Look, I’ll explain it all later, all right? Just let me get this underway,’ Cal whispered back. ‘Okay, guys. Dix, can you get me records on that guy, James Fry? Background specific. Business.’
‘On it now, Sandman.’
‘Zakalwe. Another name. Luke Fry. Car imports. Check him out?’
‘On it.’
‘Fortune, Ratboy. Warehouse flats in York, UK. Riverside, Number six. Agents called Cambridge and Simpson.’ A query glanced my way and I nodded. ‘Yeah. Check out the sales records. Find out what glitches there are. Friend of mine’s bought in but can’t move. Need to know what the deal is.’
‘On it.’
‘Stars, all of them.’ Cal whipped off the headset, shut down the computer and whirled out of the barn, sticking his head back through the door a second later to ask, ‘Are you coming then?’ I was still sitting, dazed enough not to notice the straw particles sticking into my bum through my best jeans.
