Just in Case (2 page)

The screech and the sound of the impact stopped him momentarily and he watched with interest as the cyclist flew off his bike and into the air. No matter what happened, Justin would be fluid, clever and responsive. He would
duck and dive, beat the odds. The cyclist crashed on to the roof of the van, bounced once off the windscreen, slid to the ground, and lay still.

Justin Case would not be listed in the social service records, on the county birth lists, in the plans for the future of mankind. David’s heart soared. He could hear the approaching sound of ambulance and police sirens and continued on his way, not wanting to be the sort of person who stops to stare at other people’s misfortunes.

As he rounded the corner he felt triumphant. Nothing bad could happen to Justin Case because he didn’t exist.

5

Justin (formerly David) had work to do. He had to change how he looked, exchange David’s baggy jeans and sweatshirts, his trainers and T-shirts, his unexceptional socks and mediocre anorak for the sort of clothes Justin Case might wear. In four months he would turn sixteen. He had always imagined everything would change when he turned sixteen, so why not start now?

He headed for the front door and found Charlie in the hall, balancing a small plastic hippo on the edge of a porcelain umbrella stand. Charlie looked up at his brother, startled, and dropped the animal into the abyss.

‘Never mind.’ Justin reached into the deep cylinder and felt around for the toy, bringing it up with a handful of others. ‘There’s your hippo,’ he said, placing it in his brother’s outstretched hand. ‘And a zebra, lion, goat, giraffe, cow. Why don’t you play somewhere else? There’s a whole lost animal kingdom down there.’

I’m not playing, Charlie said, dropping the animals back
down the umbrella stand one by one. I’m thinking about falling.

Justin shook his head. Young children seemed unable to grasp the simplest principles. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said, ruffling the child’s hair. And opening the door, he set off down the road.

For the practicalities of his transformation he had chosen a nearby charity shop. Inside were thousands of cast-offs from other lives; surely one of them would fit.

He walked the short distance to the shop feeling guilty and somewhat suspect, like a spy. The feeling was good. He had a mission.

Inside he hesitated, running his eyes over the racks of dowdy blouses, last decade’s dresses and scuffed shoes. The woman at the till, pinch-faced and scowling, glared at him but said nothing. In her eyes, he was obviously a shiftless, thieving young person with nothing better to do with the last days of his summer holiday than defraud charity shops of their chipped and valueless merchandise.

He stared back at her, eyes hard and emptied of emotion. The name was Case. Justin Case. If he wanted to try on a shirt, he would try on a shirt.

In the far corner, he spied a rack of men’s clothing, crossed the floor to it and pulled out a shirt. He held it up under his chin. It smelled of something, something not entirely pleasant: stale cigarettes, burnt potatoes, coconut soap. The thought of adopting another person’s
smell hadn’t occurred to him, made him faintly queasy. He closed his eyes, trying to expel the image from his brain.

A voice at his elbow nearly caused him to jump out of his skin. ‘Try this,’ the voice said. Its arm held out a dark brown and lavender paisley shirt.

Justin turned slowly. The voice belonged to a girl of perhaps nineteen, who peered at him through a heavy, clipped pink fringe. Her eyes were thickly rimmed with kohl; her mouth neatly outlined in a vivid shade of orange that clashed perfectly with her hair. She wore four-inch platform boots in pale green snakeskin, wildly patterned tights, a very short skirt, and a tight see-through shirt printed with Japanese cartoons over which was squeezed a 1950s-style long-line beige elastic bra. A camera bag hung from her shoulder.

Even Justin recognized that her dress sense was unusual. ‘Wow,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she replied demurely. And then, ‘I’ve never seen you before.’ She tilted her head to one side, taking in his pale skin, lank hair and good cheekbones. The dark circles under his eyes.

Doomed youth, she thought. Interesting.

Justin looked alarmed. ‘What?’

‘I was just thinking. You could find some excellent things here if you knew what to look for.’

‘I know what I need.’

She waited.

‘Everything,’ he said at last. ‘Everything different in every way from this.’ He indicated himself.

‘Everything?’

‘Yes. I need a whole new identity.’

She smiled. ‘Have you killed someone?’

‘Not yet.’

The perfectly drawn orange mouth formed a tiny ‘o’.

Justin turned away. When he looked back, she was still staring at him.

‘You’re a
potential
killer?’

He sighed. ‘A potential kill-ee, more like.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you involved with drugs?’

‘No.’

‘Blackmail?’

‘No.’

‘Witness protection?’

‘No.’

‘Spooks?’

He shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that.’

‘Then what?’

Justin fidgeted, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, chewed his thumb. ‘I discovered my old self was doomed.’

‘Doomed?’

‘Doomed.’

‘In what sense, doomed?’

‘In the sense of standing poised on the brink of ruin with time running out.’

She stared.

‘Which is why I need to change everything, all of me. I can’t be recognized.’

The girl frowned. ‘But who do you think will recognize you?’

He dropped his voice. ‘Fate. My fate. David Case’s fate.’

‘Who’s David Case?’

‘Me. That is, I used to be him. Before I started changing everything.’

‘You’ve changed your name?’

He nodded.

‘So, you’re running away from fate,’ the girl said slowly, ‘and you think all this is going to make a difference?’

He shrugged. ‘What else can I do?’

‘Stop believing in fate?’

Justin sighed. ‘I wish I could.’

Neither of them said anything for a long time. The girl studied a chip in one of her nails.

‘Well,’ she said finally, with the smallest hint of a smile. ‘It’s
different.’

He looked at her.

‘Not uninteresting,’ she added.

‘Not?’

‘No.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Not.’

She extended her hand. ‘My name is Agnes.’ The fingers she offered had pale green fingernails. ‘Agnes Bee.’

‘Justin. Justin Case.’

She blinked, digesting this information. And then all at once she beamed, her face illuminated with delight. He took the hand she offered. It was surprisingly soft and warm, and he held it cautiously, not sure when to let go. He had no experience of touching older women.

‘How very nice to meet you, Justin Case.’

Still smiling, Agnes turned to one of the racks and pulled out a shirt: poppy-coloured, long sleeves, ruffle down the front. She thrust it at Justin, along with the brown and lavender paisley.

‘Try these. I’ll keep looking.’

Justin looked at the shirts. ‘I don’t think so.’

She ignored him.

He sighed, took the hangers, and entered the tiny changing room at the far end of the shop. There was barely room to turn sideways.

The first shirt fitted. He buttoned it and looked around for a mirror.

Agnes swept the curtain aside and Justin found himself viewed in reverse close-up portrait through the wrong end of a Nikon 55mm DX lens. Click click click, click click click. Three frames per second. Two seconds. He leapt back with a startled squeak.

Agnes’s face emerged from one side of her Nikon. ‘What?’

‘What do you mean “what?”
That
.’

She frowned. ‘Turn around and let me look at you.’

He turned around and let her look at him.

‘Not bad.’ She beamed approval, then put the camera down and picked up a small pile of clothes. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on these things for ages. For
exactly
the right person.’

The thought of being exactly the right person appealed to Justin so completely that he tried everything she brought him and attempted to like it all. She brought him a turquoise flowered shirt, a skinny brown cardigan that he thought must have been designed for a woman, and a pair of white canvas trousers that had to be cinched with a belt. He put them all on and emerged from the cubicle, nervous.

Click click, click click click. Five shots aimed with deadly accuracy at his head. Agnes lowered her camera and considered him. ‘Excellent. You’ll take them all.’ She squinted, her head turned slightly to one side. ‘You’re very lucky I was here today.’

Justin nodded uncertainly.

‘Of course this is only the beginning.’ She spotted a red and white vinyl bowling bag and crossed briskly to pick it up. Justin watched her. He had no idea what she was talking about, but the feeling fitted with his new life as a stranger. There was even something reassuring about it.

Agnes carried the clothes to the till, accepted a small pile of creased £5 notes from Justin and handed them to the sour-faced woman. The money looked as if it had been crammed in a piggy bank for years, which it had. ‘That’s all he has,’ she told the scowling troll. ‘It’ll have to do.’

While the woman harrumphed and muttered irritably, Agnes flicked through her camera’s digital display.

She looked up and gazed solemnly at Justin. ‘You photograph like an angel, Justin Case.’

Was he being solicited for a child pornography website, or perhaps a fanzine article on fashion disasters?

‘Never mind. Next time I’ll bring proofs.’

Next time
?

‘I’ve enjoyed our first meeting immensely.’

He tried to smile, but it came out lopsided, uncertain. Click click click.

On the way out of the shop, Agnes spied a pair of pristine black jeans half-hidden under a pile of shirts. She stopped, examined them and tossed them to Justin.

‘Try them on.’

Agnes Bee waited outside the tiny changing room as he pulled them on. They fitted perfectly.

She swept back the curtain once more. ‘Could you scream?’ she asked happily.

Justin nodded. He thought he probably could.

6

Allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Kismet. Turkish, from Persian
qismat,
from Arabic
qisma;
lot, from
qasama,
to divide, allot. SYN: Chance. Providence. Destiny. Luck.

Fate.

I’m the one with my finger on the scale, the bullet, the brakes. The one who chooses which sperm, which egg, who lives, who dies.

Fate giveth, fate taketh away.

But we were talking about David.

Poor feckless little David, holding fast to his stunted little life. It could almost be amusing.

Almost.

You.
Come closer. Let me whisper in your ear.

Your friend, your character, your
David
is a fool. A chump. A little white mouse with a pink twitching nose.

I have my paw on his tail. Watch what happens when I lift it.

See? Let him have his little scamper. I’m not hungry just now.

A little later, perhaps.

You’ll know.

7

Justin’s parents refused to address him by his new name.

‘How do you expect us to change what we call you after all these years? It’s unnatural.’

He didn’t even try explaining about his fate. He knew they weren’t really paying attention, what with all the first-time walking, talking and weeing going on in other parts of the house.

Justin felt sure that unless they actually found him with a loaded gun in one hand and a suicide note in the other, they wouldn’t worry overmuch about the levels and sources of his anxiety. But that was OK. He didn’t expect much from them. He knew they were busy. He knew they’d tried to be good parents. They’d paid attention to him when he was younger, took him to zoos and sports days, bought him snacks. Pretended his Christmas list really went to Santa. Gave him an instructional video about sex.

He also recognized that his younger brother was cuter, more biddable and less philosophically challenging. Under
the circumstances, his parents’ preference for the baby made sense, as did their lack of understanding on the subject of their older son’s doom. He didn’t exactly understand it himself.

They had refrained from commenting on his recent metamorphosis, having read in the Sunday supplements that teenagers were likely to behave in an eccentric manner, but Justin noticed his mother trying to peer into his mouth sometimes when he spoke. He suspected she was looking for a tongue stud. The thought of such a piercing sickened him; it made him sad that this was the level on which she believed he operated.

‘Hello, David,’ she said as usual on the morning he came down to breakfast in a poppy-coloured shirt with a ruffle down the front and a pair of white trousers cinched with a belt. She glanced at her husband, and a look passed between them suggesting a subject of previous and mutual concern. Folding his newspaper, Justin’s father cleared his throat.

‘David,’ he began in the manner of a pronouncement.

Justin raised his spoon to his mouth and paused.

‘David. I want to know, that is,
we
want to know, to enquire really, your mother and I, neither here nor there in any real sense, simply to access the facts, well, ahem. That is to say. You’re not homosexual, are you?’

Justin placed the spoon in his mouth and then returned it slowly to the bowl. Across the table, his brother sucked on an apricot.

‘No no no!’ The little boy laughed, waving his arms emphatically to no one in particular.

‘Because if you are, your mother and I want you to know it’s fine.’