16

HOW TO FEEL ANGRY

The metropolis glides by drenched in sunshine.

Danny sits back and realizes his legs are shaking as the adrenalin goes thumping through his system, excitement muddling itself with disappointment, fear, the elation of being poised high over the drop.

Something else is there too.

If only Dad could have seen the muscle reading. If only Mum could have seen me on the ladder . . . If only. It’s a voice he can’t usually hear—and when he has heard it whispering he has suppressed it.

Yes, he has felt the shock, the grief. And, yes, he has felt the crushing guilt at surviving the fire, that he selfishly ran away that evening, driven by some childish tantrum, some need for attention. But now he feels anger—the anger that has been lurking there, ever since the tragedy.

How could they have left him alone? How on earth could they have allowed themselves to be burned up by the fire? How could they have been so careless? And left him without the Mysterium, locked up half-comatose in Ballstone, or fighting for his life on a rubbish-strewn roof halfway across the world?

What were they thinking?

He leans back on the seat, eyes closed. No point being overwhelmed by that now. He remembers the rain hammering on his face outside the Bat—stimulating, tingling—how it cleared his head. I am waking up, he thinks. And when I ran out across that ladder I felt like I used to in the Mysterium. Fully awake and not just waiting for life to start happening again.

He opens his eyes, the colors there glowing intently as his thoughts race on. Now that he’s awake, he knows what he needs to do. Find Laura, of course. But more than that: he needs to go back and do what he should have done that long year and a half ago. I need to find out what really happened to Mum and Dad. Find out why and how they were taken away. Find out what they both kept tight to themselves. Open up the past and peer inside at all of the stuff lurking there—good and bad. Reveal it. Face it.

Zamora has been watching him closely. “OK, lad?”

“Yes. I’m fine.” His voice is calm, focused.

“Perhaps we should go back to the police?” Zamora says.

“No. Think about Lo typing the wrong thing. We can’t trust him.”

“And you said he got those Chinese characters wrong. We could try to find this other detective. Tan.”

“If Laura can’t find him, I doubt we can.” Danny looks the major full in the face. “You never said you’d pocketed that gun.”

“Thought it might come in handy. But I’d never shoot. Not my style.”

“You were expecting trouble, weren’t you? From the start?”

“There’s always trouble,” Zamora says heavily. “Besides, I wasn’t the only one to pocket something at the crime scene, was I?”

Danny slumps back on the seat, considering. His heartbeat’s coming back down, the fears and the nausea subsiding.

“What’s done is done,” Zamora says. “Right now we’ve got work to do.”

“You’re right,” Danny says. “And we’ve got more to go on now. I found a note from Aunt Laura on the wall at the gym. It said CHEUNG CHAU. That’s two references we’ve got to it. And then it said LOOK FOR WHITE SUIT BE CAREFUL. So she does know about him—or saw him after she was kidnapped.”

Zamora rubs his bald head thoughtfully. “It could mean ‘Be careful of White Suit.’ Or ‘Find White Suit, and be careful.’ Let’s go back to the hotel and see if there’re any messages. Then we could ask Kwan about getting to this blasted island.”

Once again Danny does his best to force the image of bolt cutters and severed fingers from his mind. He leans forward to the driver. “Pearl Hotel, please. And a bit faster?”

The neon signs are pale in the daylight. One of them says: HONG KONG: IT’S AN AMAZING ADVENTURE!

“Too blooming right,” Zamora says. “And I’m a middle-aged fellow now. Should be putting my feet up, no?”

Danny’s attention is drifting. He’s thinking again about the lipstick gash, the dead fish, the red-painted water tank. There is some kind of a link, he thinks. It’ll come if I relax. But that’s easier said than done with the adrenal system still pumped by the ladder walk.

Finding Laura is the pressing problem, but for some reason his mind won’t stop working back to the failed Water Torture Escape.

“Major? Dad was good at what he did, wasn’t he?” he says suddenly.

Zamora looks taken aback. “Good?! One of the best, Danny. As good as I’ve seen. The burning rope. Hypnosis. The escape stunts. All worked to look new and modern and cool . . . not a workaday grifter like Jimmy Torrini. No, your mum and dad were the real deal, Danny.”

“So why did the water torture go wrong?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Zamora rasps the stubble on his head. “We had it smooth as silk every day in rehearsal. Not much that could go wrong, really. I checked the equipment over the next morning. All fine.”

“But Dad didn’t make mistakes—”

“Hardly ever. He said he learned from when Houdini got it wrong—when he was impetuous and didn’t plan things properly. Heart ruling head.”

“And don’t you think it’s odd that the fire happened so quickly afterward?”

“It certainly felt weird at the time. Didn’t feel right in my bones . . .”

At last! Someone actually acknowledging the feeling he’s had all along. Danny’s heart picks up its beat again. “I knew it! It always seemed wrong!”

“Maybe. But one thing at a time, eh? Just like your dad did. Lock by lock.”

The taxi slips down into the tunnel of the Eastern Harbor Crossing and they’re swallowed by the gloom. The major glances at his young friend. “I’ll tell you one thing though, my lad. He and your mum would have been very proud of you indeed today.”

Danny turns away. Zamora’s words smart like lemon juice in a cut, and suddenly tears are swelling his eyes—some of the few he’s allowed himself since the night of the fire. He looks out at the passing tunnel walls and the tunnel lights blur and pulse.

“We’re going to find Laura,” Danny says. “That’s the priority. And then I’m going to find out what really happened at the Mysterium.”

When they come back up into the daylight he’s already wiped the tears away—and a renewed determination is dancing in his eyes. Zamora pats him on the shoulder and looks away, fighting his own emotion.

“I’m with you, Danny. I’m right with you wherever you want to go.”