Alias (17 page)

Liam and Freddie were having a great time, playing with the idea that I had a shady background. It was excruciating, but I had to pretend it was a lark.

‘I’m going for a Saudi Arabian princess, loaded, but determined to experience the life of a pauper,’ said Freddie.

‘No. Found in a basket, hidden in the bulrushes – raised by moorhens,’ said Liam, a bit slurred.

‘Like Thumbelina?’ asked Freddie.

‘I was thinking Moses,’ said Liam.

They laughed some more.

Elisa, who’d been hovering behind Freddie, joined in.

‘She’s an avatar.’

‘Genetically modified,’ added Freddie, slinging an arm around her.

It was all going horribly wrong. Not only was it a matter of time before someone suggested something near the truth, but Freddie and Elisa were looking altogether too interested in each other. I really didn’t want my work life and my home life to merge. Freddie would pounce on the tiniest inconsistency.

‘Or in witness protection,’ said Freddie.

It was Weird, capital W, hearing Freddie say the same words I’d said to Hugo.

Things were getting out of control and I wasn’t doing anything about it.

‘Or a secret agent,’ said Liam.

I pulled his sleeve, swaying slightly.

‘Liam, let’s get some fresh air. I don’t feel well.’

He followed me out into the back garden.

‘Freddie’s a laugh,’ he said.

‘He’s all right,’ I said.

‘Why
don’t
we ever go to yours?’

‘Because it’s not mine. It’s Freddie’s.’ My tone was uncharacteristically stern.

A couple of other people from work spilled out of the back door and came to join us.

‘I didn’t know you two were an item,’ said the girl from reception.

‘Everyone knows,’ said the bloke from accounts.

‘Well, I didn’t,’ she said.

‘That’s because keeping secrets is Saff’s speciality,’ said Freddie, lurching out of the door towards us, his hand in Elisa’s.

He was like a dog with a bone. I knew why. It was being estranged from my family – he wanted the story. He had no idea who I really was, but I still needed him to shut up. If anyone looked too closely beneath the sophistication, they might just spot a possibly half-Yemeni girl of anything between eighteen and twenty-five, and where might that thought go?

You have to take control of a situation.

Come on, Saffron.

‘Not everyone has the perfect family, Freddie,’ I said, my voice deliberately shaky to show I was being made to say something. ‘It was my choice to leave mine behind. And my choice not to share the reasons with you.’

As I hoped, that took the wind out of his sails.

‘See you on Monday,’ I said to Elisa as I grabbed Liam’s hand and headed for the little alley that ran down the side of the house.

‘I didn’t mean anything, Saff,’ said Freddie, talking to my back. ‘It was just a bit of fun.’

I was reminded of Hugo again, and his bit of fun in the common room.

Liam stopped, turned round and said, ‘Leave it, Freddie. It’s gone too far.’

I carried on through the side gate and waited by the smelly wheelie bin.

‘OK, OK,’ I heard Freddie say. ‘There’s no need to overreact. I wasn’t suggesting she was a terrorist or anything.’

There was the unmistakable sound of a fist hitting a face, and then Liam strode out of the alley rubbing his knuckles.

‘Please can we go,’ I said, desperate for the evening to be over. It was a mistake to have got involved with Liam, a mistake to have dropped my guard with Freddie, a mistake to have even gone to the party.

No more mistakes.

We got home at about two and went straight to sleep, but I woke a couple of hours later. Alcohol alters your brain chemistry – in my case it made me paranoid. Afraid that I was leaving clues without realising. Afraid that another Dan Langley might trip me up. Afraid that I wasn’t sure what to be afraid of.

I slipped out of bed, got dressed and let myself out of Liam’s flat.

The walk home took half an hour. I passed drunks, couples snogging, townies, students, several cats and a fox. Realising the sun was about to rise, I carried on into Hyde Park and sat for a while on the slide – Mack’s favourite spot. It was the beginning of July. I’d been in Leeds since the beginning of April. Three months of procrastinating. You can lie to other people, but you must never lie to yourself. If I’d wanted to, I could have had the whole thing done and dusted, but I’d chosen to drag my heels. There was no law against enjoying yourself, but I hadn’t sacrificed my chance of an education, my family, the right to live without fear, the possibility of ever being loved by someone who knew who I really was, to live as
Saffron Anderson. I hadn’t left Samiya behind just to be someone else.

There was no going back, which meant the only way was forward.

I went home, showered away the toxins of the night before, got dressed and left Freddie a note.

I bought a coffee in town and walked to the storage unit. It was a lovely day, but that didn’t lift my mood. I ground the rest of the beads, making three Kilner jars in all. Time to decorate the quadcopters. I glued a photo onto each one and wrote the name of the innocent victim, and the date they were killed.

I put them in six plain cardboard boxes, following the guidelines for packing devices with batteries.

At twelve-thirty, aching from being hunched over, I left the unit and went to find some food. I bought falafel with some mix of tahini, beetroot, salad and salsa. Thought about how I asked Mum to stop giving me falafel in my lunchbox because Lucy had cheese sandwiches. What a waste of a childhood, to be so concerned with fitting in.

I reluctantly went back to the sequence of tasks written on a list inside my head.

Letters.

I read the words I’d crafted, hoping they did the job.

The international community had the power to stop the drone wars, they just needed to be given a reason. I had my reason. I wanted the little girl with the big brown eyes, whose face haunted me, to play outside on sunny days before her childhood disappeared.

I signed each letter ‘Dronejacker’, folded the six sheets and put them in envelopes before placing them on top of the bubble-wrapped quadcopters.

I checked my phone. I had four missed calls from Liam and one from Elisa. I didn’t listen to my messages,
or return any of them. I sat on my pressure-cooker box and tried, not for the first time, to think about what came next. I had money, and I had another dead girl’s name (although training myself to answer to Georgia was a big ask), but I couldn’t make it real. The idea of a winter hidden away in the Scottish Highlands felt like make-believe.

I stood up suddenly and had that funny dizzy feeling. This time next week, Saffron Anderson would be back where she belonged – in the ground. Once I’d got what I needed from the chemistry lab on Monday, there was nothing to stop me sending all the parcels on Tuesday – with the quadcopters scheduled to arrive on Wednesday and the bomb scheduled to arrive on Thursday. My eyes prickled with tears, but I didn’t cry.

My messages were – Liam wanting to know where I was, and Elisa wanting to tell me that Freddie was currently pressure-washing vomit off her drive and that he was marvellous and they were going to have a night in with a takeaway and she was deliriously happy, all without a breath.

I called Liam on the way home, fake jolly.

‘I don’t know about you, but my head has only just stopped thumping,’ I said.

‘I was worried, Saffron.’ Liam sounded a bit out of breath. ‘You could have left a note.’

‘I left in a hurry. Didn’t want to throw up in your flat.’

‘You can throw up in my flat any day. What you can’t do is disappear without a trace.’

Gulp.

‘Isn’t that a line from
CSI
?’

‘No, it’s a line from me, your lovely boyfriend.’

I stopped walking, momentarily lost for words. Two joggers nearly ran into me.

‘Where are you?’ I asked.

‘Where are you?’ he said.

‘In the park,’ I said. ‘About to get mown down by joggers.’

Another over-keen runner was coming up behind me, so I stepped onto the grass to let him pass.

Two arms, hot and bare, grabbed me, nearly knocking me off balance.

I screamed. Loud.

‘Shhh!!’ said Liam, ‘I’ll get arrested.’

‘Idiot!’ I said, burying my head in his chest. His running vest was wet. The tears I’d been storing up took advantage of the shock and mingled with his sweat.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked the top of my head.

There was no answer to that, so I stayed where I was while he kissed my hair, his breath as humid as the wind that met me in Yemen.

‘Saffron, what’s up?’

He stepped away an inch so he could tip my chin up and see me, but I couldn’t look at him. He’d done nothing wrong, yet he was going to be collateral damage.

I managed to squeeze out the words, ‘Tired and emotional’.

He took my hand and walked me home.

‘Coming in?’ I asked at the door. Where was the harm? After all, our time was nearly up.

‘I don’t smell too lovely,’ he said.

I ran him a bath, but it went cold.

Tomorrow never comes. There’s only ever now. I made Liam’s now as nice as I possibly could.

For me, Monday started at two-thirty in the morning. I was glad to be awake, because my dreams were exhausting. Knowing that sleep would only bring more scenes of carnage, punctuated by episodes from my past and present that had never happened but seemed real, I got up and made a mug of tea. It was raining. A steady drizzle by the sound of it. Matched my mood.

I thought about writing a letter to Liam, but what would I say?

No one writes letters any more. They write emails and cards and texts. Mum kept a box of old letters. They were dead boring, but she loved reading them out loud to me. Some of them were from her to her mum, sent when she went to Southend-on-Sea with her aunty.

I guess she just liked having something from her past.

I left my mug in the sink and went back upstairs. The only thing I had from my past was the photo. I took it out of my purse.

If only …

Don’t go there, Samiya.

I was at my desk by eight o’clock, keen to busy my mind. The team leader arrived twenty minutes later.

‘You don’t have to work any harder now you’re permanent,’ she said. ‘Elisa’ll be calling you names again.’

‘Couldn’t sleep,’ I said.

She disappeared over to the other side of the office.

Liam arrived next. Freshly shaven, tanned face, pale-blue shirt – the sort of guy who should have a sweet, innocent girlfriend.

‘Hi, early bird.’

‘Who are you calling a bird?’ I said.

‘Sorry. Good morning, Ms Anderson.’

‘That’s more like it.’

He, after a quick glance round the office, pecked me on the cheek.

‘Come with me to get Luke from Cubs tonight, will you?’

‘I can’t —’

‘Dad won’t be home.’

‘I’m not avoiding your dad, Liam. I need to do some washing and —’

‘At it already, lovebirds?’

It was Elisa, looking incredibly tired. Liam sidled off.

‘Thanks for the party,’ I said.

‘Thanks for bringing you know who,’ she said.

‘I didn’t bring him. He gatecrashed.’

She spent the morning asking me all about Freddie.

‘Considering you live with him, you don’t seem to know much about him,’ she said, frustrated that she couldn’t read his horoscope because I didn’t know when his birthday was.

‘I do. He likes bacon and getting wasted, and has posh parents. What else is there?’

‘He said more or less the same about you,’ she said.

‘I’m all ears …’

‘Definitely got secrets, brilliant cook, no parents, good-looking …’ She stopped to see my reaction.

‘Obviously,’ I said.

‘But scary.’

I let that one go.

‘Was he livid about Liam?’ I asked.

‘Not really. He knew he was being an arse.’

At lunchtime she dragged me to Primark, Topshop, Oasis, New Look and Zara, looking for something to wear to the pub. I didn’t see what was wrong with jeans and a T-shirt, but Elisa’s idea of casual was anything but.

I went through the motions – pretending to care that the red polka dot was too tight under the arms. My only objective was to get through the day.

At four o’clock, having blitzed through all my work,
I went into the Gadget Man account and input the details of the seven parcels. SendEx drivers picked up Gadget Man packages from either the store itself or their warehouse. I used Liam’s password to add another approved pick-up point – a mini-supermarket near the office that took drop-offs. I’d been there with Elisa to return some ASOS purchases.

The next job was to ensure that the six quadcopters all arrived at around the same time, despite the wild variations in distance. I had to pay extra to get Next-Day Delivery Guaranteed for the ones that had furthest to travel. Or rather, Gadget Man did. Scheduling the bomb to arrive twenty-four hours after the rest was easy.

I’d just finished printing off the labels and the accompanying documentation when Liam came along. I rested my elbow on the pile of papers.

‘Sure you don’t want to come and talk reef knots with my brother?’

‘Tempting … but no.’

‘Tomorrow night, then?’

‘It’s my night to cook,’ I said. ‘Wednesday?’

‘You’re on.’

I put the papers into my rucksack.

I went to the lock-up, dumped the paperwork, grabbed my white lab coat and caught a bus to the university. The sun had dried up all the rain, so I sat cross-legged on the grass, bang opposite the entrance to the chemistry department. I was dreading the next
couple of hours. Theft wasn’t my area of expertise, but without the chemicals from the locked cupboard, there’d be no bang.

At twenty-five to six, my lab guide left the building and walked towards The Fav. Satisfied that he’d gone for the day, and therefore there’d be no one to recognise me, I went to the union to kill time. I wanted the labs to be empty, so that meant waiting until close to eight o’clock – any later and security would get involved.

I bought chips and a pint of blackcurrant squash, and read a copy of
Metro
. The minutes went by excruciatingly slowly.

By seven, I was in such a state that waiting any longer was counter-productive. I walked from the union to the chemistry building, swiped Polly’s card … and nothing happened.

No!

Polly must have finally got around to reporting her card missing.

A young guy was right behind me.

Snap decisions.

‘Excuse me, I’m so stupid. I’ve got the wrong —’

‘No problem,’ he said, holding the door for me. He glanced at my face. My mind fast-forwarded to his inevitable witness interview …

I dived into the loos to put on the white coat and then strolled along to the lab with my rucksack on my back.

Act like you own the place.

It was empty. I put my rucksack on the floor, took out some papers and scattered them on the work surface. I went over to the metal cabinet with a pen in my hand. I opened the third drawer down and took out the key. I heard voices in the corridor.

Ignore them.

I went across to the locked cupboard, used the key to open it and quickly scanned the labels. The words danced. The voices got louder.

I shut my eyes, calling up the visual memory of the names of the compounds I needed.

Concentrate, Saffron.

I read the label twice before taking the bottle I needed out of the cupboard and slipping it into my pocket. Two girls walked into the lab, chatting away. I pushed the cupboard door to and walked back to where I’d left my rucksack. I concentrated on nothing. My hand made shapes on the page.

Five minutes passed, but it seemed like fifty. The girls finished whatever it was they were doing by the fume cupboards. As they went to leave, one of them turned to look at me.

‘Make sure you lock that one and put the key back or you’ll be in big trouble.’

They both laughed.

‘I will,’ I said, my heart banging in my chest.

They left the lab

I went back to the cupboard containing the restricted
chemicals and, starting again at the top shelf, studied each word on every label as if it were a hieroglyphic.

As I took the second and third bottles, knowing there was now nothing standing between me and an explosion on American soil, my knees almost buckled.

Don’t think.

I locked the cupboard and replaced the key in the cabinet drawer. On the side there was a long metal spatula asking to be taken. I slipped it in my rucksack, together with the papers.

Back in the ladies, I scrumpled up the white coat and shoved that in too.

The plan was to go back to the storage unit, but I couldn’t face it. Storing the chemicals in my room overnight was hardly going to foil the whole plot.

I walked back through the park, as on edge as if the bomb itself was on my back.

‘Saff!’

‘Hello, Mack.’ Instant cheery voice. ‘How’s things?’

‘All right,’ he said. He was wearing new clothes.

‘Been shopping?’ I asked.

‘Mum got them.’

‘Nice.’

‘She’s going to college,’ he said.

‘Your mum?’

According to Mack, whose stories rarely made sense, the social worker that his mum had assaulted had helped her enrol on a hair and beauty course.

‘I’ve been to school too,’ he said.

‘That’s brilliant,’ I said.

‘Not today,’ he said, clearly a bit overwhelmed by my enthusiasm. ‘But I might go tomorrow.’

‘What’s going to decide you?’

‘The weather,’ he said.

I turned my palms upwards to signify a lack of understanding.

‘Don’t want to be outside if it’s too hot. Might burn my neck again.’

Fair enough.

‘I’d go if I were you,’ I said. ‘Might learn something.’

‘What?’ he said. ‘Can we have an ice cream?’

I bought him a Cornetto.

‘See you, then, Mack,’ I said as we reached Hyde Park Road.

‘Is that man who runs your boyfriend?’ he asked, in his typically random fashion.

‘Yes,’ I said. I’d noticed Mack had a knack for remembering faces, which was lucky given that he couldn’t recognise letters. It’s good to have some talents.

‘I like him. He gives me money,’ said Mack. ‘Fiver, every time.’

He ran off.

I walked down Brudenell Avenue, wishing I could turn back time.