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cold even for January, so nobody had bothered to hang about outside to watch the show. I

went out at seven to escape the stifling warmth that my ever shivering mother claimed she

need to survive the long winters. The frost was already settling on the grass out front, and it crunched underfoot as I walked to the low brick wall that surrounded most of the house. I

leaned against the wall, and closed my eyes, enjoying the relative silence and the biting cold on my skin, pretending for a few moments that the houses and all the people on this

crowded island had vanished, and that I was utterly alone, breathing the icy air and hearing

my heartbeat rushing in my ears.

“Rebecca?” My mother. She never called me Becky or Bex, and I was grateful for that. I

did prefer the long version of my name, but I wasn’t fussy. I’d answer to anything, really.

“I’m out here.”

“Come in, baby. You’ll catch a cold out there.” My mother firmly believed that getting

cold caused all manner of illnesses. I’d explained to her about viruses and bacteria and all

that. Made no difference. It always amazed me that someone who hated and feared the

cold so much insisted on staying in a country renowned for its rubbish weather. I’d asked

her about it before, and she’d said that she didn’t want to uproot us all just because of the

weather. It seemed as good a reason as any other to me. And my “roots” were pretty weak,

as roots go. I didn’t have any close friends; just acquaintances that I made conversation with at school to keep up appearances. The only ties I had were to my family. They were all I

needed, I guess.

Angus

Marcus phoned late Sunday night to let me know that he’d confirmed the match with

the blood sample that he’d somehow managed to acquire. Deception, probably. Marcus and

Fergus could both get the biggest sceptics, the most narrow-minded bureaucrats, to glug

down any story they chose to feed them. You could call it a kind of vocal charisma. Or long

distance hypnosis. I was admittedly fairly good at convincing people to do what I wanted,

but those two were devastating. Especially face to face. It occurred to me that they would

probably be able to persuade Rebecca Harding to abandon everything she knew here and go

with them just by looking at her. A small part of me suppressed that thought with what

could have been jealousy or possessiveness, or maybe a bit of both. I wasn’t sure. These

feelings were alien to me, so I ignored them. I’d already decided that I’d approach this

rationally, explain the whole situation to the girl, hoping that she would understand and

accept what I had to tell her. Give her a chance to come to terms with everything under her

own steam. But if she said “No,” there was always plan B.

Fergus had miraculously managed to purchase a house across from Rebecca and her

family. The occupants had been persuaded to leave fairly abruptly, and he informed me that

it was standing empty, and ready for me to move in at any time. He sounded smug. I

grinned, and considered about wiping the smug look off his face, but it was a fleeting

thought. I would have to deny myself that satisfaction until my task here was accomplished.

Growing up with two brothers and a distracted father meant that we had spent most of the

time fighting, testing our strengths and each other’s weaknesses, and the urge hadn’t really

dimmed as we had aged.

Marcus was the intelligent one, frighteningly so, able to read thick textbooks in hours,

and not only remember their contents, but also comprehend every single concept contained

between those intimidatingly numerous pages. He had about fourteen degrees, some of

them achieved simultaneously, three or four at a time. Freaky by anyone’s standards, even

ours.

Fergus was slightly different, also gifted, but a bit like a kid with ADD. He was unable or

unwilling to concentrate on one thing for long periods of time, and his flitting intelligence

found a friend in the tangled workings of computers and the internet. No task was too

complicated for him. He was probably the most accomplished hacker in the world, too good

to even be detected. Humility was not one of his talents, though, and he laughingly resisted

all my efforts to teach him.

I was different to both of them, both in appearance and intellect. They were pale, with

silvery blonde hair and startling grey eyes. I was just as pale, but my hair was much darker,

almost black, and my eyes were brown, nondescript, really, which was why it was decided

that I should become the reconnaissance expert. I wasn’t as extraordinarily gifted intellect-

wise as my brothers were; my intelligence was apparently well above average (Marcus had

tested us all a few years back – no prizes for guessing who got the gold star), but my

strengths lay elsewhere. I could read people, of course, and after that occasion with the

paedophile, I guess I could write them too, in a manner of speaking. I was strong and fast,

but we all were, though I did have a bit of an edge on my siblings. A lot of an edge, really,

but they didn’t like to admit it.

My unique talent lay in hunting. Not the shooting defenceless animals type of hunting;

anyone with a firearm and half a brain could do that. I hunted people, tracking down men

and women who did not want to be found for whatever reason, and who often went to

great lengths to
not
be found. I seemed to be able to anticipate their actions, and the direction that those actions would take them. Kind of like a mixture between a profiler and a

strategist. I’d been employed by various organisations over the years, the GSG 9 in

Germany, the SAS here in the UK, and the FBI eventually. I had made it a rule never to stay

in the same place for more than five years, and always used a new identity forged by my

hacker brother. Each establishment taught me new skills, but the work was seldom very

challenging, and I‘d started drawing unwanted attention to myself by having a better solve

rate than most. And there was always the frustrating problem of “proof”, and “beyond

reasonable doubt”. I didn’t need these to make a decision about whether someone had

perpetrated a crime. I looked at their minds and I
knew
.

My father had conditioned us more or less from birth to shy away from attention of any

sort. It’s a hard habit to break, so when the FBI started giving me commendations and

asking all number of questions, I left, and started tracking people on my own. Bad people,

unspeakably bad people, who eluded police through contacts and cunning and often sheer

luck. Sometimes I was able to reprogram them, but if I couldn’t, if the hurting was too much

even for me, I killed them and discreetly disposed of the remains. Marcus often asked me

why I did it; how I was able to stand in judgement of these people, when so many others

wouldn’t. I told him that someone had to do it.

Everyone needs a hobby.

Monday morning. I had dreaded this day since my accident five days earlier, and its

inevitable arrival did nothing to lessen that dread. The cast encasing most of my left leg had started to crumble slightly around the edges, so I wandered around the house shedding

Plaster of Paris flakes. Some of them went down the inside of the cast and added to the

cacophony of itches and prickles marching up and down the skin of my leg. The cast, despite

all its crumbling, felt like it had doubled in weight, but I had been practising with the

crutches, and was able to swing myself around without endangering lives, including my own.

I modified my school uniform with a pair of Joe’s black track bottoms, and a thick black

sock encasing my left foot, and examined the effect in the mirror. White shirt, tie, dark

green jumper. I glanced at my face. I looked tired, grumpy and slightly scruffy. Never mind.

Dressing up had never really been my thing. I tied my hair back and went to have breakfast.

Mark was already at the table, calmly eating Cheerios with a fork. He was, as usual,

dressed way before anyone else, except Mum, who had left for work thirty minutes ago.

Mark was the good-looking one in the family, with wheat blonde hair and sky blue eyes, but

he didn’t care. He lived inside his own head most of the time, preoccupied by his own

thoughts. I often wondered what he was thinking, that could keep him so fascinated and so

detached from the world around him.

“Why are you eating Cheerios with a fork?” I just had to ask.

“Am I?” Mark looked at the fork, surprised, and then he shrugged. “Seems to work OK.”

That was a typical Mark conversation. Bizarre, peculiar, and not quite right, but not

completely wrong or obviously mad either. Mark walked a fine line sometimes.

“I see those people from across the road are completely gone now. There’s even a sold

sign stuck to the wall.” The sign was new and shiny and looked like it didn’t want to be

there. The top right hand corner had already detached itself from where it had been tacked

to the crumbling brick and was waving slightly at the gusts of wind that teased it.

Mark grunted. “Good riddance.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I didn’t know that you knew them?”

“I didn’t.”

I left it at that, and went to pour bran flakes into a bowl. Ten minutes later, and Mark

was standing outside waiting for Harry. Harry lived a few blocks away, and the two fourteen

year olds had drifted into the habit of walking to school together. I don’t know why, they

hardly ever seemed to speak to each other. I propped a book that I was reading for the

second time open with a tin opener, and ate my breakfast at a leisurely pace. I read loads of

books; for me it was a way of escaping the cocoon of unnecessary anxiety my mother

wrapped around us. As if any anxiety could ever be considered
necessary
. But my mother seemed to worry most when you wouldn’t think she had a reason to worry. I didn’t want to

add to all of that by actually having a social life, and I don’t much like other people, so it’s not a strain to avoid them. Weird, I know, but I like books.

Today I was reading slowly, enjoying the words as they rolled off the page. I wasn’t

worried about getting to school on time. I glanced down at my cast, my iron clad excuse.

Angus

I was at the house by eight in the morning. I stood outside for a few seconds, absorbing

the general air of neglect and crumbling mortar that surrounded the place. I went inside and

dialled Fergus.

“This was the best you could do?” I teased him. “It’s a tip.”

“So?” Fergus, buoyant with his success. “What do you want now?”

“A cleaning service, to start. And renovators. Today.”

“Hmm. Fussy. I’m on it.” He hung up.

I wandered around inside. I knew the cleaners and renovators would be arriving soon,

but I didn’t feel like going back outside and loitering. I didn’t mind the cold or the wind, not at all, but I might draw attention to myself. I wasn’t ready for that yet. I don’t think I ever will be.

So; sitting room downstairs, also a kitchen and a tiny utility room. The sitting room had

yellowing walls, dark pink carpets and numerous stains on the walls. The carpets looked

newer and more garish in patches where the furniture had stood. Dirt had improved things,

apparently. There was a page from a magazine taped to one of the walls with discoloured

sellotape. It showed some woman in what looked like a pink velour tracksuit and gaudy

make-up. She was eating an ice cream.

The kitchen was filthy, each available surface crusted over with unidentifiable residues.

The cupboards were covered in beige and brown linoleum. The floor was green and sticky. It

reeked. I decided to go upstairs to escape from the sights and smells that assaulted my

senses. It wasn’t much better; there were two bedrooms and a small bathroom, which was

filled with cracked tiles, faded wallpaper, and mould. Lots of mould. The bedroom that

overlooked the front garden was slightly larger than the other, and didn’t have the same

sweaty socks and dirty body stench. The wallpaper was pink with green and yellow stripes. I

was starting to detect a theme. I wandered into the smelly sock room and opened a grimy

window. Wide.

Something caught my attention then. I smelled pain and fear, but it was not human. I

glanced around the room, trying to pinpoint the origin of the smell. It didn’t take long.

A battered looking cardboard box sat in a corner, untidily, as if it had been thrown

there. Inside a small, dirty white kitten looked fearfully up at me. It moved its head and

front paws slightly, and mewled weakly. Its hind limbs seemed useless. Dried diarrhoea

encrusted its thin hindquarters.

I stood looking at the small creature curled up in its cardboard box, in its own filth and

pain and misery, and I felt the rage howling in the recesses of my soul. I fought to suppress

it, grinding my teeth and clenching my fists at my side. It took at least five minutes to bring myself under control, and then I was able to consider the problem at hand, if not

dispassionately, then at least more levelly.

As I saw it, I had two options. I could simply reach down and snap the creature’s neck,

ending its agony quickly and easily. Or I could try to help it. I looked into the innocent blue eyes of the little cat, and dismissed the first option. I had a duty to humanity, even if I barely represented it myself. This animal had known nothing but the cruelty of people. It was time