It was late, and no one noticed the teenage girl with two stubby plaits and Joe 90 spectacles pacing backwards and forwards next to a black limousine parked in the darkest corner of the short-stay car park across from Terminal 5.
Behind the smoked glass of the limo, the dozing figure of the chauffeur with his cap tipped over his eyes was all but invisible. As was the old woman knitting furiously on the back seat.
The teenager tapped and swiped at her phone as she chewed gum. The occasional pop of an enormous bright blue bubble punctuated the muffled rhythmic click-clack of knitting needles from inside the car. And the teenager must have seen something on her screen, because all of a sudden she beamed from ear to ear.
Fangfang Yu rapped loudly on the glass, waking the chauffeur from his nap. Hauling open the passenger door, she scrambled over the back seat as the driver settled his cap, turned the key in the engine and pulled out from the parking space in one smooth, practised movement.
It wasn’t quite six yesterday morning when two immigration officials turned up at the takeaway in the roughest part of Newcastle upon Tyne and took away her mother. Fang’s Dobermann, Killer, was worse than useless. Still in her nightdress, Mama Yu had started screaming Fang’s name, over and over, as they’d each taken an arm and propelled the little weeping woman into a van with metal mesh at every window. It took less than three minutes. As the van drove away, Edmund Hone loomed into view, his brown riding coat flapping in the wind as he climbed out of the unmarked car and walked towards the takeaway.
In the living room above the Oriental Dragon, Hone had spelled out what he wanted from her. He needed North back in the country to protect his niece, and he wanted to know exactly what was going on at the Derkind Institute. Where is North, anyway? Hone asked. You could save me a lot of time and trouble if you tell me. Fang had shrugged. Of course she knew. North was holed up in a Berlin rathole feeling boohoo sorry for himself. But she wasn’t in the business of making Hone’s life any easier. Why do you need to know? she said. He’ll come home when I ask him. You know that or you wouldn’t be here. Hone had stared at her with his creepy eye. Respect, he said. Yeah right, she’d thought. Hone wanted to throw his weight around so that North knew who was the boss. She couldn’t see that going down well.
In her head, as Hone talked, Fang had run through what she had to do to bring North back, and it never crossed her mind that he wouldn’t come at her call. She scratched Killer behind his ear, his docked tail wagging in ecstasy, and pictured her frightened mum in some detention centre. The wailing of children kept confined, the babble of languages, and the smells of overworked drains and undercooked food. Bars at the windows.
I forgot the old lady and the dog. Hone said, all of a sudden. I’ll send someone for them so you can focus on the job at hand. And behind him, the old lady slid a boning knife from her sleeve, and in stockinged feet padded towards his chair. The MI5 agent checked his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes, and Fang made a ‘don’t even think about it’ face at Granny Po. He looked back up as the old lady raised the knife high in the air, and Fang dropped her unlaced and glittering gold bovver boots on the stack of Alexandre Dumas books on the coffee table with a bone-shuddering bang. Definitely. Not. Happening, the girl said, her eyes on her grandmother. The one-eyed man sighed, like the entire world was against him. Fine, kennel the dog and keep the old lady. Or kennel the old lady and keep the dog. Do whatever it is you’ve got to do, Fang, and do it fast.
Behind him, the old lady lowered the knife.
A neighbour took the dog.
The microdot was easy – she’d made one for a history project once – just a camera, film, developing chemicals, cellophane, distilled water, latex gloves, white paper, a black pen, a potato and a postcard. The only difficult bit was ammonium dichromate. For that she had to break into her old school, find the chemistry lab and lever open a cupboard marked ‘Hazardous chemicals’. She tasked a black-sheep cousin to fly over to Berlin to hand-deliver the postcard. He had a record for breaking and entering, which the family never talked about. She didn’t ask him how he managed it, but she’d already expunged his criminal record and awarded him a degree in finance from a Russell Group university – a First. She thought he’d fit right into the City.
Her only mistake was letting North handle his own return. Fang went back to her phone and the website with its minute-by-minute airport arrivals and departures. Her round eyes, behind the heavy-framed glasses, fixed on the last British Airways arrival from Berlin. The arrival that should have touched down at 8.40 p.m., carrying its very particular cargo, was thirty-five minutes late – thirty-five minutes that could mean the difference between life and death.
The hearse in front of them motored at a steady 65 mph, taking it up to 70 whenever it could. Fast, she thought. Faster than was entirely respectable, as if the driver knew time was running out. Cars kept their distance, careful to avoid the contagion of death.
She’d never seen a coffin before. Only ever seen one corpse, a month ago. The thug who had tied her up and been ready to do her all kinds of grievous harm. Till North broke down the door.
She was worried in case something had gone wrong with the coffin, because North mattered. She’d never had a friend before. Other kids always considered her odd. Too clever. Too quirky. Too obsessive. She hadn’t realized how lonely she’d been. And North was more than a friend, anyway. He was like a brother, even if he was a moron. Of course, that’s if he wasn’t dead by now. Her eyes went to the coffin ahead of them. Because really, North was such a moron, she wouldn’t put it past him.