I’ve got grease on my hands and clothes after sorting out my bike. The stuff’s everywhere, and soap and water don’t wash it off too good. It’ll come off in its own time; the important thing is, I’ve fixed my baby now. Means the world’s my oyster and I gotta find the pearls. I need to give my bike a spinaroo – make sure everything’s as it should be.
I grab my backpack, give my peeps a shout, tell ’em I’m off to see Jomo. Back soon, don’t wait up for me, that kind of thing.
I’m not going to see Jomo, though.
I text Priya and tell her I’m going on a recon mission to the house Rooster Rob told us about. The place Katie was taken. Like Uncle Tzu said, you gotta prepare before you meet the enemy on the field of battle. You can’t go flying in like some sap. Send scouts out, have a nosey, find out their strengths and weaknesses, and the battle is won before you even take to the field. I’m thinking of listening to an audiobook by von Clausewitz next, ’cause I keep hearing talk about him on my podcasts.
That’s the thing about this learning stuff. No sooner have you picked one thing up before you’re sent off after another book. Sometimes the guys I listen to say contradictory things and I have to choose for myself who’s right and who’s wrong. Other times they’re both right and it makes no sense to pick one over the other, so you just have to be pragmatic: pick what works now and discard it for something else when the time comes. That’s how I like to operate. Can’t afford to put myself in some sort of ideological straitjacket. That’s for losers.
I get a ping back from Priya saying be careful and not to make a move until she gets back. I ask her how the conference is going, and she says it’s a posh wank. Figures. Really shouldn’t cycle and text at the same time. I don’t need Uncle Tzu to tell me that’s dumb.
I veer off the main road and head towards Newington. It’s a short ride from here through the Meadows to the university. Used to be posh when folks with dosh lived here. Bourgeois paradise with students from all over the world spicing it up. That was before things went to shit. Back when looking at some punk the wrong way didn’t necessarily result in your guts being sliced open, and your entrails poured down the gutter.
Once we got to that level, the rich said sod it and split, going up the East Coast line to hunker down in Gullane and North Berwick. Hell, even Dirleton was a better option them days. That, or they established enclaves of privilege further out from the city centre. It’s not as bad as it used to be, though. I’ve heard the stories of when anarchy reigned supreme and they were thinking of renaming the city Fife 2.0 (the 0 pronounced ‘ewww’).
The houses and tenements out here are therefore sublet by the absent rich. Families now share rooms with communal kitchens and toilets. The gardens are overgrown and unkempt. Broken windows go unrepaired. Graffiti artists ply their trade without restriction. Suppose it adds a little colour to the gloomy grey.
I pass a skip overflowing with garbage on the corner of Lauder Road, change gear and my chain clunks into place. Short ride from here and I stop on the pavement in front of a grand house. It stands out like a flower growing in a compost heap. The hedges are neatly trimmed back. Driveway cleared of snow. Yep, that’s a sore thumb in this neck of the woods.
The gate’s open and there’s a fountain in the yard, but it’s not turned on. Reckon the pipes must be frozen. This is one of them houses with a name in lieu of number for an address. The pillar on the left of the gate says ‘ARTHUR’ and the one on the right ‘LODGE’.
This is it, I think. Can’t blame Rob and them for trying to score here. It looks like a good spot to hit. There’s no way other operators haven’t tried before. This is pretty much an open invitation to burglary. But it’s too obvious. I scan the streets and the adjacent houses.
I can’t shake the feeling I’ve been here before. Can’t place the when, why or who for, though. There’s something off about the place too. I can’t quite put a finger to it. It’s like them games I played when I was young, the ones that ask you to find the mistake in the pic and you don’t quite know what’s wrong at first or second glance, until you study the damn thing and see what’s what.
This is a house built for this city. Grey stone blocks form formidable walls. They’d have been quarried in Blackford or the Hailes, tying it indelibly to the very earth it stands on. It has that imposing Georgian obsession with classical architecture. Solidity and wealth. Back when they built houses with deep foundations. Wings on either side recede back into the garden. And even as the neighbourhood around it decays, this house seems to stand firm against the buffeting waves of time. If I was to use Callander-speak, I’d say it resists the second law of thermodynamics, turns the arrow the other way. The windows are large. Very large.
I look for a way in. Any lapse in security. Houses are puzzles to be broken into. When I was working for the Rooster, even Santa Claus didn’t have anywhere near my level of stealth. In and out. That’s how we used to do it. Between the Clan and me, I think we’ve been in half the homes in the city . . . the nicer ones anyway.
I’ve seen all I need to see. Not much else for me to do until Priya gets back. At least I’ve satisfied my itch, seen the place up front. If we can trail where Katie’s been, then there’s a good chance of finding Ollie – or his body – from there. I shouldn’t be thinking like that. Mustn’t think of Ollie as dead. If Katie and Mark survived whatever this is, then there’s no reason to assume he’s gonna be killed. He hasn’t passed through the everyThere, so there’s hope. Always.
The curtains are open, so I take a final look through a window. There’s someone in what must be the drawing room. My vision blurs a bit. I blink and squint to focus, and that’s when I see her, standing with her back to the window. She wears a colourful robe whose patterns I can’t quite make out. She turns her head one way and then the other, as if searching for something. I recognize the way she’s tied her hair in a bun on top of her head – she used to do that at night, so it wouldn’t disturb her while she slept. But it’s not just her appearance; the essence of her is in that simple gesture of turning, the way she moves her head. She has her back to me and I can’t see her face, but I know it’s her.
I’ve searched for so long in every place, and even among the dead, but until today, I could not find her.
‘Mama,’ I cry.
I wheel my bike through the gate and up the gravel driveway. My eyes are fixed on her. Her long neck. Her back. Her. Her.
It’s her. My mother. Tears run down my face. I’ve found her again. She’s been here all along. I don’t care where she’s been or why she vanished. I don’t care about the past, or anything else. All I care about is that I can see her again, when I thought this would never be possible. I’ve had a lifetime of pushing down memories of her because they hurt too much. Put them in a box in my mind, sealed off from my life. But it overflows sometimes and the memories break out, their sharp hooks piercing every fibre of my being. How I’ve missed her.
And now she’s walking away from the window.
I run faster than I’ve ever run before, toss my bike on the lawn. Leap over the stairs to the terrace. The door swings open. I run to be with her, and the world opens up beneath me.