Ice Diaries (10 page)

I got back to Bézier thinking
about lunch and intending to spend the afternoon curled up on the
sofa by the stove, reading. As I approached, I saw Greg at the
window. He must have had something particular he wanted me for, to
wait for me when I was out. He waved. I stepped over the threshold
removing my sunglasses, my eyes taking a moment to adjust to the
dimness of the flat after the brightness outside. A movement in the
shadows startled me. Greg was not alone; there were two men sitting
on stools at the kitchen counter. They were built like Morgan, on a
large scale. I guessed they were cage fighters too. A third man
standing by my bookshelves put the book he’d been looking at
back on its shelf and came forward.

Greg said, “Tori, this is Mike.
He’s friends with Morgan. And the others are Big Mac and
Eddie.”

Mike did not look remotely as I’d
imagined him. A tall slim black man with shrewd eyes and a sunny
smile that showed perfect teeth. His hair was cut short to his scalp,
and he was clean-shaven. Young – at a guess a year or two
younger than Morgan, but with a certain natural authority. He looked
as if he’d be more at home in a suit than the parka he wore. He
held out his hand and I shook it, my initial alarm subsiding
somewhat.

“Mike Shand. Nice to meet you,
Tori. Is that short for Victoria?” His voice was deep and
pleasant, the sort that made you think he’d have a good singing
tenor; his manner was engaging. I nodded. “Sorry to barge in on
you like this. Greg said you wouldn’t mind.”

“No, that’s … er,
fine. Would you like a tea or coffee?”

“No, it’s okay. The others
are setting up the generator. I just thought I’d better
introduce myself to the neighbours.”

“Are you moving in to Bézier?”
I wasn’t keen on this. I regard it as mine.

“Just for a little while, then
we’ll be moving on. We’re in a flat on the other corner
this side.”

I was still recovering from Mike not
being at all what I’d expected, finding it difficult to adjust.
From the little Morgan had let drop, I’d picked up a vivid
mental image of an overweight middle-aged white guy with mean shifty
eyes, a shaved head and a Northern accent; a villain straight out of
a run-of-the-mill cop series on TV. The only thing that fitted with
my preconception was the presence of the two muscular men who, by the
way they stayed in the background and said nothing, seemed to be
bodyguards.

Mike picked up a solar tulip, smiled
and put it back in its jar. “I was hoping to have a word with
Morgan. He’s living here, Greg said.”

“He was.” Amiable as this
man seemed, I’d only just met him, and was not going to tell
him anything till I’d worked out what was going on and who to
trust. “He left this morning.”

“On a sled? A snowmobile?”

I paused. “No. He hasn’t
got a snowmobile. He arrived on foot.” I’d mentioned the
snowmobile to Claire. I must go back and tell her to keep quiet about
it.

Greg said, “We all have to walk
everywhere. It’s all right, though, because we’ve got
trailers for moving supplies.”

“He left us on a sled.”
Mike frowned slightly. The smile had vanished from his eyes. He was
suddenly dead serious. “My sled, to be precise. Maybe he didn’t
tell you about it. He plays his cards close to his chest. I’d
like it back. That’s one of the things I want to talk to him
about.”

“He was heading south,” I
said. “I expect you’ll overtake him easily enough.”

“I expect so.” He stood,
his pleasant smile in place once more. “We’d better go
and give the others a hand. I’ll be seeing you.”

He got a pair of dark glasses from an
inner pocket, unfolded them and put them on. The two men rose and
followed him. Perhaps they were the men who’d escorted Morgan
when Mike threw him out, to make sure he didn’t come back. Greg
and I watched them walk to the door and out to the balcony, swing
their legs over the rail and head away to the left.

“What did they say to you, Greg?”

“Big Mac and Eddie didn’t
say much. Mike was asking about Morgan, because they’re friends
and he wants to see him. And I told him about you and the others, and
he was interested. He wasn’t interested in Doctor Who, though.”

“Did you meet the other people
with him?”

“No, but I saw a woman. She was
being cross about something, I don’t know what. When they’ve
settled in they might want to trade with me.”

A loud revving noise penetrated the
double glazing, and two snowmobiles ripped past the windows, spraying
snow.

Greg watched them out of sight. “I
wish I could have a go.”

Greg stayed for ten minutes more,
before going to call on Charlie and Sam in their office block above
Liverpool Street Station. I made myself wait another five minutes, as
long as I could bear, then left, pulling my trailer and not looking
behind me. I went to the Old Street shops and as quickly as possible
raced down and brought up four big packs of disposable nappies. I
didn’t see anyone hanging around when I came up. When I got to
the Barbican, Claire thanked me for the nappies, rather surprised.

“You shouldn’t have. Paul
can do that.”

“They were just camouflage, in
case anyone was watching.” Her eyebrows rose. “Morgan’s
old gang has turned up, they’ve moved into Bézier. Mike,
that’s the leader, seems very keen to find Morgan. I said he
hadn’t got a snowmobile, so don’t tell anyone, will you,
if they come sniffing round? That’s what I came over for.
Morgan wasn’t going to tell any of us, so I thought I’d
better play dumb.”

“Is it a secret?” said
Gemma. She’d gone back to doing her jigsaw.

“Yes. Act shy if they ask any
questions, and don’t say anything. They may be nice, but we
don’t know yet.”

I said goodbye and headed for the
Gherkin, to tell Morgan Mike had arrived.

I crossed over one of the sled tracks,
a distinctive double ribbon, its centre churned and lumpy. Halfway I
heard a buzzing like furious wasps and caught sight of the
snowmobiles in the distance kicking up spray, making deep scars on
the fresh surface of the snow. I was careful to keep against the
buildings to stop their riders noticing me. Were they letting off
steam or hunting Morgan? I made a wearisome detour behind the
neighbouring office blocks west of the Gherkin on the off chance
someone in Bézier was watching me through binoculars. Paranoid
maybe, but you can see a person for miles on the snow, standing out
like a spider walking up a white wall.

The surface outside the triangular
window was smooth and undisturbed apart from my earlier footprints. I
stepped inside, pulling my trailer after me, and left it between the
inner and outer façade. Morgan was crouched beside the
snowmobile, stripped down to his sweater in the comparative warmth of
the building’s energy-efficient ventilation system, hair tied
back, working on the engine.

He glanced up. “What are you
doing here?”

“Hi to you too. I came to tell
you Mike’s arrived.”

“Yeah.” His concentration
went back to what he was doing. “I saw the sleds racing around.
D’you know how many people were with him?”

“No, don’t you? You said
there were seven. I only met Big Mac and Eddie.” He didn’t
answer, just reached for a spanner. “I want to talk to you
about Mike.” I came closer to get his attention. He had taken
the engine casing off; bits of engine lay on the floor around him. He
was unscrewing something, swearing under his breath, intent. “What
are you doing?”

“It won’t start. It’s
not the spark plugs or the fuel line, the wiring or the crank seals.
I’m checking the fuel pump …” He eased a component
free. “Oh shit.”

“What?”

“There’s a puncture in the
fuel pump diaphragm. I don’t have a spare.” He stared at
it. “Fuck.”

“Can you mend it? Or find a spare
somewhere?”

“No and no. The nearest spare
parts are in Mike’s baggage. Second nearest, Scotland under a
load of snow. You didn’t tell Mike you’d seen the sled?”

“No.”

“Or get followed here?”

“I came via Claire’s and
round the back.”

“That’s something. Don’t
come here again unless you have to.” He started work on the
engine once more, putting it back together fast, his expression
blank. He was thinking. I didn’t interrupt. I don’t know
why I felt I had to help him – possibly just because he’d
been staying with me for a week, and I’d got to know him a bit.
And I’d saved his life, so had an interest in keeping him
alive; I didn’t want my initial effort to be for nothing. When
he had finished, he stood and wiped black grease off his hands on to
a tee shirt. “You can help me hide it. We’ll have to bury
it round the other side of the building. Go and find a curtain or
something big enough to cover it. And a broom.”

“Bury it? Is that really
necessary?”

“Yes. Because else Mike will find
it and take it. Then I’ll be stuck here with you lot.”

“I can see you wouldn’t
want that.”

Ignoring my sarcasm he gripped the
handles on the front of the sled’s skis and pulled it over the
threshold. Catching his sense of urgency, I dumped my jacket and ran
to the lobby and up a flight of stairs. The next floor had been
occupied and was full of partitions and work stations. One could
believe that, come Monday morning, phones would be ringing, computers
glowing and office personnel busy at their desks. The only clue no
workers would be back, ever, were large dead plants in steel
planters, their leaves brown and brittle. The executives’
offices all had blinds. I tried the next floor, with the same lack of
success, and the next; there seemed a consensus curtains were out of
place in this futuristic building. I was just beginning to think he
could maybe use his trailer instead when I came across an office
abandoned in the middle of redecorations. I folded a couple of
groundsheets, grabbed the dustpan and brush lying on the floor, and
went to find Morgan.

At the south-facing side of the
building, close to the windows, he had already dug a deep hole and
was standing in it, his shovel moving like a machine, snow flying on
to a growing heap. I threw a dustsheet over the sled which was
glittering in the sun – no point letting our activities be too
eye-catching from a distance if the sleds came round this side. The
cans of petrol were there, too, waiting to be interred.

“Where did you get the shovel?”

He kept working as he said, “Folding
one I carry on the sled. Essential kit. Dig a ramp that end.”

I started to scoop snow. I’d get
him to talk later. The top layer was easy, but it got harder lower
down, and the dustpan was bendy, being plastic not metal. Morgan did
most of the work. As soon as the hole was deep enough, he dragged the
ACE into it, arranged the petrol cans around the sled and spread the
dustsheets over, tucking them in underneath. We shovelled back the
snow, stamping it down and artistically spreading the excess about so
there was no trace of a bump. Morgan levelled the tracks and our
footprints with his shovel, and I backed out, sweeping the surface.
It looked pretty smooth from a few feet away, if you weren’t
looking for it.

Back inside, he wiped the sweat from
his face with his sleeve, and said, “Let’s hope it
snows.”

I thought of something. “Did you
mark where it is?”

“No. I counted how many windows
from here.”

“How many?”

I could see him debating whether to
tell me.

“Thirty-three.”

“Is that the real number?”

He laughed and chucked his supplies
into his roof box trailer, then asked me to take one end. The
backpack with the gold wasn’t there. Even without it the
trailer was heavy. We headed up the stairs.

“You’re going to stay here,
then?”

“I can’t stay with you now
Mike’s living next door. And this place only gets really cold
at night, and I’ve got a sleeping bag and a tent.”

We went up the next flight, and the
next. My legs were getting tired and the edge of the trailer was
digging into my hands. “How far are you going?”

“High enough to get a good view.
High enough for anyone searching the place to give up before they get
there and go away.”

“How high is that?”

“A few more.”

He stopped eight floors above snow
level, not even breathing hard, in a smart coffee-making area tucked
behind a wall; all grey, white and steel, with upholstered banquettes
and a clear view of Bézier to the north. I’d started to
worry he was going all the way to the top. I flopped on to a bench to
get my breath, rubbing my sore fingers and gazing at the panorama.
Morgan rummaged among his stuff, looking for something.

“Mike wasn’t how I
expected. From what you told me, I imagined his knuckles dragging along the ground.
But he wouldn’t be out of place in a boardroom.”

“That figures.” Morgan
spoke without looking up. “He’s a smooth operator. He’s
got a lot of confidence, he carries people along with him. The family
business was motorbikes – they dealt in snowmobiles too, but he
wanted something of his own.”

“How did you meet him?”

“In a Manchester nightclub. Some
drunks were hassling him because he was with a white girl. I told
them to get lost and he bought me a drink. I wasn’t doing much
at the time, casual manual work while I concentrated on getting my
Jiu-Jitsu black belt, and he said I could do better than that. He’d
pay me more to work for him. That was two years ago.”

Morgan had found what he was looking
for. He took the lens caps off binoculars and leaned on the double
rail, focusing on Bézier.

“Mike had issues with his
parents, maybe because he was adopted. His father was a self-made
man, very successful, and didn’t let anyone forget it. Mike
wanted to prove himself, he was determined to make more money than
his dad. He started by setting up events after he left uni, fights,
illegally at first in empty properties. He made a packet running a
book on the side. Then he went legit, got licenses, hired venues.
Finally he made enough to rent his own building and do it up; ritzy
bars and restaurants and dance floors on different levels, and in the
middle the cage fighting arena. Somewhere different for the rich kids
to go. He’d have set up a chain of FreeFights if civilization
hadn’t crashed on him.”