Vortex (2 page)

Chapter One

Fifty years later

Ben Tracey was bored.

Only a couple of weeks ago, when he had been stuck in a remote part of Africa in circumstances that, frankly, he wouldn't care to repeat, he'd have given anything to be back in rainy, grey Macclesfield. But now he was here, he found the four walls of his bedroom closing in on him, and his mood was as grim as the incessant and unseasonable rain that had been hammering against the windowpane for three days now, although it seemed much longer. The remainder of the summer holidays seemed to stretch endlessly before him: it would almost be a relief, he thought to himself more than once, to get back to school.

He could always phone round a few friends, of course, see what everybody was up to, maybe even go out; but something stopped him from doing that. He was a bit embarrassed to admit it, even to himself, but since his adventures in London, Adelaide and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the pursuits and interests of his friends had seemed a bit . . . he didn't want to use the word
childish
, but he supposed that was it. More than that, he was beginning to get a bit paranoid. Stuff just seemed to happen to Ben Tracey. He had a knack of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it was a miracle he'd come through it all unscathed. He wasn't the type to brag about it, though, and none of his friends really knew what he'd been up against. They probably wouldn't believe him in any case, so he just kept quiet about it all and hoped his days of finding himself in mortal danger were at an end.

It didn't have to be
quite
this dull, though, did it? he thought to himself as he continued to watch the raindrops slide down the window.

He was woken from his daydream by a beeping sound. On the table in his bedroom, hidden under a mess of old magazines and T-shirts that should probably have found their way into the dirty-washing basket, was his new PDA - a present from his dad. 'For everything you've done,' Russell had said awkwardly, shaking Ben's hand in a grown-up kind of way as though they were work colleagues rather than father and son. Ben had mumbled a slightly embarrassed word of thanks, but once he'd opened the package, he was actually pretty excited. Say what you like about his dad, but as a scientist he was a bit like a teenager when it came to the latest electronic gadgets, and the device Ben held in his hand was pretty neat. He'd filled a good deal of time working his way around it over the past few days, and now he rummaged around on his messy table to find the palm-sized computer.

It was an email, he saw, as he tapped his finger to the screen, and his face lightened up into a broad smile when he saw who it was from: Annie, his cousin. Actually, she was his second cousin, or was it his cousin once removed? He'd forgotten, if he ever even knew, but it was always good to hear from her.

Plenty of people thought Annie was a bit weird. Truth to tell, she
was
a bit weird - Ben smiled to himself - but that didn't mean she wasn't good company. To look at her you'd think she was just another ordinary teenage girl: quite pretty, fashionably dressed; but there was a lot more to Annie than met the eye.

Her father, James Macpherson, was an air commodore in the RAF. Ben had seen him a number of times in his military uniform, and his jacket was practically plastered in colourful decorations for bravery. He'd been all over the world with his job, and still spent more time away from home than he did with his family. Annie adored him - idolized him, even - and as a result she was obsessed with all things military. She could tell you the spec of any plane you cared to show her, she knew more about guns than anybody Ben had ever met, and she was, for her age, an expert at tae kwon do. It was an extremely bad idea to try and patronize Annie by asking her a girlie question about her make-up - you were likely to end up groaning on the floor in agony after receiving a well-placed kick in the knee.

Ben opened up the email. Like Annie, it was curt and to the point:

GOING BIRD-WATCHING FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS. FANCY COMING ALONG?

ANNIE

That was another thing about Annie. Her hobbies were her hobbies - it didn't matter to her one bit that some girls her age would have scorned the idea of going bird-watching. She'd been an avid birder for as long as Ben could remember, and had been trying to get him to join her for ages. There had always been some reason why he couldn't, but now he thought that a few days in Annie's company was just what he needed. Moreover, it would get him out of the house and fill his time more productively than moping around here.

And besides, it was just a bird-watching trip. They weren't heading into any major natural catastrophes; they weren't heading into any dangerous, war-torn corners of the world. It was a bird-watching trip, plain and simple. Just him, Annie and a couple of pairs of binoculars.

You couldn't get much safer than that, could you?

The old man didn't really know where he was. He knew it was an institution, of course, but it could have been anywhere in the country. Perhaps it was a week ago that they'd moved him here, perhaps a month or even a year. Time had long since ceased to mean much to him.

He sat in the common room, keeping himself to himself. How he loathed this place: the way all the furniture was firmly screwed to the floor, the antiseptic smell. His face was firmly locked into a position that expressed all that loathing, his lip curled and the steeliness around his green eyes interrupted only by the occasional twitch of his left cheek - a nervous tic that had been with him since he was a young man. But he couldn't stay in his room all day. 'Enough to drive you mad,' he would joke in his high-pitched voice to the nurses, who always seemed uncomfortable with his sense of humour.

The television was blaring in the corner, and five or six other inmates were staring at it intently. Everyone else called them patients, of course, but he preferred to think of them as inmates, because that's what they were. They all wore the same clothes as him - plain trousers, T-shirts and slip-on shoes. No belts, no shoelaces, nothing that could be used to harm themselves or others. None of them were taking in a single word that was being said on the television - the old man could tell that much from the look on their faces.

Days just merged into one for him now. He would be woken at seven o'clock with his daily cocktail of medicines - anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, anti-this, anti-that - then left to his own devices. Most days he would read in the morning - scientific journals from the hospital library. His reading was slow these days, and not just because of his eyesight, but he liked to keep abreast of things. Somehow it made him feel as if his life was not being wasted. He had long since grown used to the unpleasant hospital food that was served at lunch time, and he would eat what he was given enthusiastically, knowing that he had to keep his strength up. In the afternoon he would sleep - the drugs made him tired; sometimes he would have meetings with the doctors, little more than kids to his old eyes, and answer the same questions that he had been answering for so many years.

All this was assuming he was not in the middle of what they politely referred to as an 'episode'. When he was having an episode, everything was different. Every
one
was different.

One of the inmates started shouting - a hoarse, hollow bark that would have been alarming had such sounds not been commonplace around here. Almost immediately a female nurse hurried into the common room to check on him. She had a friendly face - open and clear - and she put her clipboard and security card down on the table beside her as she wrapped an arm around the distressed inmate and spoke to him with calm, soothing words. Her patient started murmuring. The old man couldn't hear what he was saying, but soon the nurse seemed satisfied that she had settled him. She picked up her clipboard and left the room.

It took a few moments for the old man to realize what he was seeing. The nurse's security badge had fallen to the floor, and she had left without picking it up.

His limbs suddenly froze with adrenaline. His green eyes flickered around: had anyone been looking at him, they might have thought he appeared shifty. But nobody
was
looking at him - they were all distracted by the blare of the television.

He had to move quickly, that much he knew. He had escaped once before, many years ago and out of a place very different from this. Things had been different then. Less enlightened. When they finally caught him, he had been brutally restrained and dealt with severely. It had blunted his taste for freedom considerably. But lately he had been dreaming of trying again. He was old. He had been assessed as unlikely ever to be suitable for care in the community and so, if he wanted to live a little of his life on the outside now, he would have to take risks. But risks don't seem that risky when you have nothing to lose.

This was what he had been waiting for. An opportunity.

He stood up and sidled over to the inmate the nurse had been looking after. As he did so, he started to prepare himself to make small talk, but there was no need: the inmate did not seem to notice him as he bent down and slowly picked up the string with the nurse's card on it. Hiding it up his sleeve, he shuffled out of the common room.

It was busy in the corridor. He would have preferred to wait for a quieter time of day, but he knew that the nurse would soon realize she had forgotten her badge; when she realized it was missing, the whole hospital would be shut down. He was a familiar enough face, though, to be walking around, so nobody paid him any attention as he made his way towards the exit.

Suddenly he heard a voice. 'Everything all right, Joseph?' it said in a pronounced Cornish accent.

Joseph stopped still, then turned, very slowly, to see the smiling face of one of the young doctors who insisted on asking him foolish questions about 'how he was feeling'. He stared at the doctor for a moment, feeling his face twitching involuntarily. 'Everything's all right, Doctor,' he said finally. 'Everything's all right. Yes.' His head continued to nod as he spoke, and his fingers moved up to flick his floppy hair out of his eyes.

'Good,' the doctor replied, his face concerned. He stepped back a pace or two, his eyes narrowing slightly, before turning and walking off. Joseph stood still, watching him until he turned round a corner out of sight. Then he continued on his way.

There was a receptionist at the exit - a young man whom he did not recognize - but no security guard, he was relieved to see. Joseph stood a little distance away, watching him carefully. He was too old to run, and that would only have drawn attention to him anyway, but he knew he only needed the receptionist to be distracted for a few moments to give him his chance. He felt his bony hands shaking with anticipation.

The moment came soon enough.

The phone rang, and the young man's face lit up. Clearly it was a personal call - a girlfriend, maybe. The phone firmly pressed to his ear, he sat back in his swivel chair and spun round. Joseph didn't waste a second. He strode to the door and swiped the nurse's security card. The door slid open. He took a deep breath and, without looking back, stepped out into the main body of the hospital.