Sleepwalkers (38 page)

Ben closed his eyes. He could see Carrie smiling, waiting. All he had to do was nod.

‘Ask me.’

If he refused, he would lose her forever.

‘You’ll be so much happier.’

Little Emma would grow into a fine young lady. And he’d never see it.

Joe, his best boy, needed his dad.

‘Come on now. Nod your head.’

That was all he had to do. That tiny gesture. Just be ignorant. Close the door again, ignore what he’d seen and heard. Just do what everyone else did.

‘You have been scared of us for so long. But there is no need. We are not interested in forcing people to do our will. We’ve learned this over time. We control their damaged minds and help them see things as we do. So they want it. The whole world, Ben. Just like you. Asking us to control them. Asking not to think, not to question. Now. Ask me.’

Maybe it was the blatant arrogance or the slip of cruelty in his words, but it forced Ben’s eyes open.

Edward barely had time to react as Ben charged past him and threw himself at the patio doors on the far side of the
room. The glass shattered as he barged against the wooden frame, breaking the doors open. He smashed his way out and ran. He heard a call from behind, but he was too far away too quickly. He felt stinging pain on his face and hands, but he didn’t stop running.

He didn’t know where he was heading. He didn’t know if they were following him.

Carrie’s voice whispered in his ear.

Run.

His legs burned and his lungs begged for oxygen, but on he charged into the darkness.

He finally stopped at the peak of a long hill and he turned and looked down. He could see the lights of the town far below and the moonlight which glistened on the sea’s swelling waves.

He was all alone. The cage was broken. He stared out and wondered where he could go next. He waited for images of Carrie and his children to come back and haunt him. He expected to hear her whisper on the night’s cold breeze, a taunt at his stupidity for running away from her arms.

I love you.

But nothing came.

The night seemed so much colder in the silence.

Terry never saw any of them again. He waited at the squat all day, then began wandering the halls, pestering Daz and the other militants, but no one knew anything. He stayed for another night and then, spooked, moved to a room on the other side of the building, in case they’d been rumbled. After a week he gave up and returned home. As he turned the key, he wondered if there might be someone waiting for him but the flat was just the same. His mother sat watching the TV, muttering about unpaid bills, and his room was untouched. He checked his computer, but there were no images of intruders on the secret camera that he’d set up. He felt oddly disappointed.

Each day he wondered if Anna would appear. Or maybe it would be Toby, panicked and wide-eyed, banging on the door, begging for his help. He posted his experiences on various blogs and conspiracy websites, but even there no one seemed to take him seriously. He wandered the streets again, trying to find the lab. He couldn’t remember the exact street, however, and although he was sure he’d found the right place, there
was a different set of metal shutters at the back, so he wasn’t entirely certain. He stood outside and waved his arms, swore, even threw stones at the windows. But he got no reaction. Everything, it seemed, had been turned off.

He got a job in computer programming, something to pass the time and pay the bills. In the evenings he’d go to the pub where he’d argue angrily about mind control and the faceless men that watched and controlled our lives. But people rarely argued back. They just turned away and talked about something else until the landlord finally gave him a hard tap on the shoulder and showed him the door.

Every day he read the papers, circling stories that might prove his theories right. A shooting here, a bomb there. Wide-eyed suspects who claimed their innocence; a haunted stare for the camera. Every night he returned home a little drunk and swore at the news on the television. His mother would groan and put the kettle on.

Sometimes he woke in the night with a start. The room was empty and there was no noise. But still, the lights against the window and shadows under the door made him wonder. Were they still watching? Deep down, he knew that their punishment for helping Toby, Ben and Anna was that he would never know. And even if he did discover the truth one day, no one would ever believe him.

Carrie’s friends might have been awkward when it came to mentioning Ben’s disappearance, but she was sure that as long as the Company let her keep Emma and Joe, there was hope. So she did what she was told, waited and focused on the children.

She and Emma became zealous bakers. They started with biscuits, but were soon making elaborate cakes which Emma would deliver to school with a proud grin. So popular were the cakes that soon Emma was bringing friends home and the house would be transformed into some sort of créche-cumbakery, where mothers would pick up their daughters with more than a little envy, taking home the goodies and wondering why Carrie hadn’t become fat and spotty.

Joe was a harder nut to crack. He missed his father and would sulk and smash monsters to bits on his computer. So Carrie joined him, buying a massive television so they could play together once Emma had gone to bed. It was their time alone and each cherished it as much as the other. Joe started smiling again, even began talking at breakfast. Comments from
school percolated back that an improvement was noticed and Carrie began to feel that she was putting her family back together.

All that was missing was Ben, and during those long, cold nights when she couldn’t sleep, Carrie would feel the emptiness of the double bed and angrily tell herself that he would never come back. As she lay there, she remembered the click of the door when they brought him back, unconscious. She’d help them settle him in the bed, then follow one of them downstairs to go through a checklist of expected injuries, strains and pains that he’d suffer. Once they were gone, she’d go to the secret stash of medicines in her hidden draw and then tend his wounds, listening to his quiet, gentle breathing while she ran her finger over his newly acquired scars and bruises. My poor brown bear, she would whisper. Poor, poor brown bear. And then finally, in the morning, he would open his eyes and see her. And he would always smile.

David would come to the house and check on this and that while awkwardly attempting small-talk. But his visits became less regular and, while she never believed that they weren’t always watching her, Carrie began to think that they were becoming less interested. And she wasn’t sure why.

She continued to be the obedient, compliant employee that they desired. But when she was outside of the house and she felt safer, she would tell the children stories about Ben. She’d remind them about the time he carried both of them on his shoulders across a muddy lake, nearly making it to the end before slipping and all three of them fell into the slime. The children screamed with laughter as Carrie described Ben pulling himself to his feet, covered in green gunk from head to toe,
laughing at his own ridiculousness. She told them about the time they went camping in Cornwall and Ben tried to put up the tent in the middle of the night, making such a hash of it that they all had to sleep in the car. Joe called him a ‘dufus’ when he heard this, but Carrie reprimanded him.

‘Your father’s an amazing man. Most men can only be strong or soft. Your dad could be both. He’s my champion. And you must be my champion until he returns.’

Joe grew three inches that day.

At night, alone, she’d remember his laugh and his touch. She’d roll onto his side of the bed and pull the odourless sheets close to her, trying to imagine him there next to her, gazing at her. She might lie here alone forever. It seemed a just punishment for her infidelities. And not knowing, never being sure beyond the faint hope that the children provided, was cruel yet utterly deserved.

‘I love you, my darling,’ she’d think, but never dare whisper out loud. ‘I love you and I’m waiting for you.’

And then one day she received a call from a woman whose voice she didn’t recognise, telling her that the case was closed. She would pop over later to get Carrie to sign the necessary forms.

Closed.

Carrie hung up and felt the tears spring to her eyes. They were coming to take the children away. They would move her on to another case, another man. And Ben must be dead. She sat at the table, utterly desolate, hope extinguished.

The woman turned up an hour later. She let herself in with her own key, as they all did. Carrie was still sitting at the table and gave her a cursory nod but no more. The woman walked over and stared at her. Carrie looked up.

‘Hi, Carrie,’ she said. ‘I’m glad to meet you finally.’

‘Sure,’ she grunted back. The woman took off her coat and laid it on one of the chairs. She was pretty, Carrie noted, and she liked her clothes. But it was her stare and the way she held herself that made Carrie wary. She seemed important.

‘Do you want a cup of something? Before we begin?’

‘I’ll do it,’ Carrie said, getting up and heading to the kitchen.

‘Tea, please. White,’ came the call, but the woman didn’t follow her in. Snooping around, Carrie thought, irritated. Fuck it, what did it matter anyway? She brought back the teas a few minutes later to find the woman cradling a framed photograph. She looked at Carrie and smiled, a little embarrassed.

‘Sorry.’ She put it back down. Carrie saw that it was a photo of her and Ben.

‘I’m Anna, by the way,’ the woman said.

‘Right.’

They sat facing each other at the kitchen table. Carrie didn’t say anything. She saw no point in being friendly.

‘So,’ Anna said. ‘Well done and thank you. This particular experiment is now complete. It has been extremely revealing.’

Carrie stared down at her mug. She could feel the tears rising but she didn’t want the woman to see it.

‘The only questions now are what we do with the house, the children and you.’

‘Yes.’

‘But our interest in this case is closed.’

Carrie nodded, waiting for the appropriate paperwork to be shoved in front of her nose.

‘The cameras have been turned off,’ Anna said, more softly. Her hand reached out and touched Carrie’s. Carrie looked up,
surprised. Anna nodded, her expression surprisingly gentle. ‘Every one.’

Carrie said nothing, not trusting her. Anna took a sip of her tea. Her eyes ran across the room before they returned to Carrie. Like Diane did, but somehow more natural. Carrie wondered if Diane had been trying to copy her. This woman felt much more original.

‘What happened to him?’ Carrie finally asked, not managing much more than a whisper.

‘We don’t know,’ Anna replied. ‘Not for sure.’

‘So why have you stopped?’

‘He’s been away from us so long that the memories we placed in his head will be gone. He won’t be chasing after us and we’re happy to let him run wild. He’s no use any more.’

‘He’s free?’ Carrie shifted in her seat, trying to remain calm.

‘In a way.’

Neither spoke for a moment.

‘I met him, you know,’ Anna said. ‘Spent a bit of time with him. I liked him.’

‘Ben was the best.’

‘Yes. Ben.’

‘Are you going to take the children away?’

‘Why? Do you want to keep them?’

Carrie watched Anna from across the table and realised that she couldn’t read her at all. At times she looked kind and gentle, but then her eyes also seemed wiser, more worn somehow. She decided it was best not to answer the question.

‘He loved you,’ Anna said.

Carrie was jolted by the comment, it seemed to come out of nowhere.

‘I know,’ she replied, a little upset, a little angry.

‘We created a wonderful little family here,’ Anna said.

‘No. I did. Ben and I did.’

‘Alright. But either way, it’s gone now. I’m sorry about that.’

‘You’re sorry? Are you in charge then? Did you do all those things to him?’

‘I’m in charge of some of it. It’s taken me a while to realise that I’m really just another drone. But I’m sorry anyway.’

Carrie watched as Anna reached into her elegant leather bag and took out some papers. She slid the papers across the desk.

Carrie feigned a shrug of indifference and signed where little yellow stickers indicated she should.

She dropped the pen onto the document and shoved it back at Anna, who flicked through the papers to make sure that it was all done properly. ‘It’s funny because I received an unconfirmed report that he’d been seen in Cornwall, hanging about near a campsite. I dismissed it. Destroyed the report, actually.’

A campsite in Cornwall. Carrie just shrugged as though this meant nothing to her. Anna was watching her more closely now though.

‘The man will now call himself Lee. He’ll spend his life in bars, do some menial work on building sites, cash in hand. We give him three years, max, before he gets himself killed in a fight. It’s inevitable.’

She checked through the paperwork and nodded.

‘Good, all done.’ She sat back and drank some more of her tea. ‘Yes, that report was ridiculous. Like the idea someone had that he might still be watching your children.’

Carrie wanted to grab her. She leaned forward, her hands
on the table, inches from Anna’s. Anna held her intense gaze.

‘We made him love you, Carrie. We control him. God, we control everything. He cannot love without us. If he did …’ her voice trailed off, ‘then my bosses wouldn’t control everything after all.’

A flicker of a smile crossed her lips for a moment.

‘If someone else had seen that report, they might have wondered why a man who could not remember you, let alone love you, would show up at that particular campsite. They could, if they’d been more thorough, have checked other places that you and your children had visited. And had someone done this, they might well have found evidence that suggested that he had visited these locations too. Almost as though he was trying to hold onto the memories that they offered. But since I’m the only one who saw the report and I’ve destroyed it, I think we can discount this theory.’