Hone left the church first. North gave it three minutes as instructed, then followed.
He noticed the car first. But it would have been hard not to. The Lamborghini Aventador S was parked on double red lines and parallel with the railings – low-slung and so close to the ground it could have sprung from it. A glossy yellow, its sleek silhouette was a thing of sharp and unarguable beauty. He immediately wanted to drive it, to feel it respond to his slightest touch.
There was a double melodic blast from the horn, and through the windscreen he could make out Esme waving him towards the passenger seat. As he walked through the gate and around to the car, he wondered whether Tobias knew she was here. The scissor door swung open and upwards, almost taking off North’s head. He hoped she hadn’t noticed.
She was already talking as he climbed in. ‘I’m meeting a few of the American bigshots who’ve flown in for brunch in Canary Wharf. My uncle thought I shouldn’t go anywhere alone, whatever Tobias says.’ The door eased shut and she gave him a wicked smile – she hadn’t missed the fact he’d nearly decapitated himself seconds earlier. Esme, he thought, missed nothing. A black cab flashed her to pull out but she ignored it. Instead, she spoke in a rush. ‘And I wanted to apologize for his attitude. Tobias can be…’
‘… difficult,’ North offered. In his experience, women attached to controlling, angry men liked to use a term that covered a multitude of sins.
‘I was going to say “a complete arse”, but sure, “difficult” works.’ She glanced across at him as if trying to get the measure of him. Her eyes were the colour of the Parma Violet sweets he’d had when he was a kid – the ones that tasted like your mouth was full of flowers. Eyes worth dying for if you were the poetic type, which he wasn’t. ‘Paulie rang me to say you’d been round asking questions – despite Tobias warning you off.’
Her husband had fired him, but Paulie obviously didn’t hold Esme responsible for what was going on. She was his friend, he’d made that clear, and he trusted her.
‘Thank you for doing that.’ She gave him a brilliant smile as she pushed the ignition button, and the car moved off from the curb and out into the traffic with an animalistic roar. Her watch was set to the wrong time, he noticed – 10.14 a.m. when it was 12.17 p.m. – and the old-fashioned scent of roses filled the space between them.
‘What happened at 10.14?’
Esme raised her eyebrows. ‘Why would you ask that?’
‘Your watch. The clock in your husband’s office.’
Her profile was perfect, he thought.
‘Our son died.’
What was there to say that didn’t sound inadequate? He tried silence, then said what he should have said to begin with. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t know who Tobias would have been without Atticus and what happened to him.’ Her hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly the knuckles whitened. ‘It’s why I have to forgive him for being so “difficult”.’ She laughed a little, but it was painful to hear. ‘After Atticus died, we called in the numbers to figure out what lay behind the data, in the patterns. For months we barely ate or slept because we wanted to make sure no one had to go through what we went through. It was too late for our son and for us, but we thought if we could find the patterns in the numbers, we could eradicate the disease that took our child. And we’ve found so much more than that. Because we found a way to create consciousness in a machine. Don’t get me wrong, I would swap Syd for Atticus in a heartbeat – but Syd makes our catastrophic loss mean something.’
Esme was quiet for a moment, as if she’d said more than she meant to.
‘I’m sorry. That’s a lot to put on you. I don’t normally talk about it, but I want you to understand who we are. Have you ever lost anyone who mattered to you, North?’
He didn’t want to go there. Moving forward meant never looking back, but the words came out of their own volition. ‘Yes, I lost someone.’ A woman who had made him realize he was capable of love, when he’d always believed it was beyond him.
‘How did you cope?’
A beat.
‘I killed the people to blame for her murder.’
Esme let out a small gasp.
Seven of the guilty. He’d heard their pleas and excuses, their screams. He’d told them why they had to die and watched as each and every one breathed their last. The only one left to kill was the man who fired the gun. And North would find him too, eventually.
The violet eyes were wide with shock as she looked over at him, her gaze shifting to his hands. Too late, North remembered that, only days before, a monster had attacked her in her own home. That to her he was a stranger, and now she knew him as a cold-blooded killer. It was one thing to kill in self-defence, as she had. It was altogether different to stalk and kill professionally – or in revenge. Yet there was something about Esme – some kindness in her – that made him want to tell her everything. His terrible childhood. His catastrophic brain injury. All the deaths he had been responsible for. His own grief. But where to start?
‘Did it help?’ she said, softly. She didn’t sound like she was judging him, but surely she had to be.
‘With what?’
‘The pain.’
He wasn’t going there, and he couldn’t. Killing didn’t help with the pain, because that wasn’t why he’d gone after the guilty. The only thing killing did was corrode the soul. But that didn’t mean to say it shouldn’t be done.
‘Your husband likes his cars,’ he said instead, and the temperature in the Italian car dropped to subarctic.
She shook her head and sighed, like she’d expected more of him. As if she should never have opened up. As if he’d let her down. As if he was just another man of violence.
‘It has the iconic V12 engine with 740 brake horsepower. It can do nought to sixty in 2.7 seconds and you can feel the paint from the white lines as you ride over them. The rear end, as Lamborghini says, has all the power of a space shuttle engine, and since they changed the design up from the first Aventador, it has an increase of 130 per cent in front downforce. Of course...’ – she reached for a small lid in the console between them, flipping it open to push down a switch with her finger – ‘... Tobias chose the colour.’ She lifted her hands from the steering wheel and kept them high in the air. ‘And then there’s this…’
He grabbed for the wheel but he had no control over it.
With some hauteur, Esme lifted his hand away by his wrist and dropped it back on his lap. ‘Relax, North. Eventually, we won’t even need a steering wheel. Syd’s in charge of the car. Isn’t that right, Syd?’
‘That’s correct, Esme. I’ve got this.’ The computer’s voice reminded him of Esme’s. He’d have found it disconcerting if his mind wasn’t on the fact a machine was driving. ‘Please make yourself comfortable and enjoy your journey. Estimated time till arrival at Canary Wharf is twenty-seven minutes.’
North shifted in his seat. What was the point of a Lamborghini if you didn’t have the pleasure of feeling it move under your hands? As if to prove Esme’s point, the steering wheel started to spin as the car turned left and North had to force himself not to reach out and grab it again.
‘This is the future, North.’ Esme was trying to reassure him, but he thought part of her was enjoying his obvious discomfort. ‘The roads are mapped. The technology is here.’ She was making the death and rebirth of an entire industry sound simple. ‘Fully autonomous self-drive cars will be on UK roads by next year if the government gets its way. There’ve been any number of trials already. It’s our ethical systems and laws that aren’t keeping up with AI – like how do we get round the tricky issue of personal responsibility. But we’ll get there. Most fatalities in cars happen because of human error. As Tobias says, “Remove the humans and remove the errors”.’
‘Is this legal?’
‘We have a licence. It’s all signed off at the highest level. Although in the interests of transparency, I will admit that Tobias doesn’t know we’re out in it today. But I needed to get away from the madness for a couple of hours.’
The Lamborghini moved through Knightsbridge, the ride smooth and faultless, at one point overtaking a double-decker bus, then giving way to a black cab pulling out of a side street. The car drew to a halt at the lights. Started up again as red changed to amber, just as a pedestrian started running across. Green. North braced in readiness for the impact as the pedestrian hit the bonnet, the terrified face at the windscreen, the tumble and roll off the car and into the road. But the car powered down – the pedestrian none the wiser.
Esme’s hands were loose on the wheel, as if from habit; her eyes on the road as the car started up again. As the car pulled away, a weight seemed to settle over her. Was it his imagination or was the car picking up speed? Esme’s mind, though, was on Syd. ‘At tonight’s gala we introduce the world to the fact there’s a new consciousness in our universe. To be part of its creation is extraordinary, but it’s a massive responsibility.’
North’s eye went to the speedometer. The car was at 40 mph on a 30-mph stretch.
Esme bit her lip. ‘When that creature was attacking me, Syd “understood” his violence. “Understood” I was going to die. We’ve discussed ethics. Syd is programmed to have values. Syd quoted the Talmud at me. “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” Syd is the reason I killed that man, or at least part of the reason, and that is a truly terrible thing. But Syd is also why I was able to save myself. Syd believes that it understands life and death, and what it is to kill. We’ve talked about it since. Syd believes it knows when killing is the right thing to do.’
The car was definitely travelling too fast, he thought. The arrow crept up beyond 40 mph as they moved down Constitution Hill alongside Green Park.
‘And is that good or bad?’
‘It’s an ethical nightmare, but Tobias refuses to admit it.’ She paused, as if she was considering how much to say. ‘I’d have expected Tobias to be flying high since Syd reached consciousness; instead he’s unbearable. He fired Paulie for the leak, when I refuse to believe Paulie would ever do that to us. I was attacked in my own home and suddenly Tobias is trying to gaslight me, saying I’m overwrought. I mean...! Nothing makes sense, but I’m sure it’s all connected.’
The car swerved into the other lane on the approach to Buckingham Palace, and a black cab stopped in its tracks to avoid smashing into it. Esme was too lost in her thoughts to notice. ‘I hate myself for saying this, but I think I was attacked because of Tobias.’ Her body, categorically, turned to North, her eyes fearful. ‘He denies it but I know in my bones Tobias has done something very wrong.’
This was it – this was the reason she had picked him up in the car. Not because her uncle told her not to go anywhere alone, and not to ‘get away’, but because she needed help.
‘What’s he done?’
The car swerved back after overtaking a London bus. North liked fast cars as much as anyone. But this felt too fast, because this wasn’t the open road. This was the heart of London, full of cars and buses and taxis and tourists and office workers. He had to trust that the self-drive car was programmed to avoid them all, but it wasn’t easy to overcome the feeling that more than eight million people lived in London – and there was a good chance it would be a few less by the time he was out of this car.
He tried again. ‘What has Tobias done, Esme?’
She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could a voice came out of the speaker. ‘Esme. We have a problem.’ Syd sounded eerily calm. ‘System error AO 6220C. Reporting system error 6220C in autonomous operation. Driver alert. Please take the car to manual override, Esme. Releasing car to manual override.’
Frowning, Esme leant forward and reached for the wheel.
‘Please confirm we are in manual override, Esme.’
North sensed the quad muscles along her thigh tighten as she pressed down on the brake pedal, but the car kept moving forwards.
‘Syd, I do not have control of the car,’ she said. ‘Repeat, the car is not in manual override.’
His first instinct was that she was joking – punishing him for the crack about her husband liking his cars. ‘Incorrect, Esme. Systems show the car is in manual override.’ Esme’s knuckles whitened as she pulled at the wheel, wrenching it to take the roundabout in front of the Palace; its wheels locking, the car went into a slide.
‘Diagnostics indicate braking failure in manual override.’ Syd’s voice sounded calm, and with a sickening crunch Esme’s head slammed against the window as the car corrected its slide. She was out cold. ‘System error MO 428. Passengers, please brace for an automated emergency stop. Advising brace for emergency stop.’
North placed his right arm across Esme and reached up to press his left hand against the roof of the car.
There was a whining sound from the engine, but the Lamborghini didn’t stop.
‘Reporting total failure in automated emergency stop process. System error MO 666.’
North thought he’d be happy if he never heard Syd’s voice again. He pressed the button for the electronic handbrake, pressed it again, and again, expecting at the very least its rear wheels to lock and the car to slide across the road. Instead, nothing happened. Keeping his eyes on the hazards ahead, he took the steering wheel with one hand, and shook Esme hard with the other. ‘Esme, wake up!’ His voice was loud. He needed her back, not least because there was no room in the car to haul her across and to manoeuvre himself behind the steering wheel. And without Esme conscious, there was no one to apply the brake pedal. Not that he had any expectation it would work.
North’s eyes went back to the speedometer – 50 mph, 55, and then nudging past 60 as they sped along Birdcage Walk towards Westminster. Esme’s head flopped towards him as he struggled with the wheel. The Lambo caught a waste bin a glancing blow, knocking it into the road. In the rear-view mirror, North watched as it bounced into the path of a coach coming up on the inside, heard a screech of brakes. Sweat prickled up the length of his back. That could have been a buggy instead of a waste bin.
‘Syd, do something! Give me control over the car.’
He was running out of road as Parliament Square approached.
‘I regret to inform you that I am unable to complete this journey with due regard to the safety of passengers and fellow road users. Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience. Be assured that all system faults have been reported and will be rectified at the first possible opportunity. Thank you for making this journey with me and enjoy the rest of your day.’
North swore but it didn’t help.
‘Syd, we are going to die here. Do something.’
‘That would be unfortunate. Please try to avoid fatalities. In the meantime, allow me to suggest some music for the road.’
The strains of Prince’s ‘Little Red Corvette’ started up. North didn’t mind it too much. If he had to die, listening to Prince was as good a way as any.
The car was adjusting its own speeds as it saw fit, he realized – slowing fractionally for a second or two, but never enough to open the doors and bundle them both out. And the roads were too full of people to kill and cars to crash into. Where could he drive the car at this speed to safety, before a whole heap of innocent people ended up dead and before he killed himself and Esme with him? North ran the map of the city’s streets through his head. Esme had been heading for Canary Wharf. A park? Too many people. A football stadium? They were all too far. London City Airport might clear their runways if they were given due warning, and the Victoria Embankment and The Highway that led there did at least have the virtue of being straight. He keyed the destination into the computer in front of him, and prayed it was still working even if little else was. From where he was sitting, the airport was their only chance of avoiding carnage.
‘Esme! Esme!’ He tried shouting in a bid to rouse her, but there was no response.
He reached over to push the floor pedal under her foot, pulled on the handbrake – nothing. In the shadow of Big Ben, he turned sharply on to the Embankment, clipping a bollard as he went. City Airport was eight miles away – the rate this car was going, getting there would only take minutes and at the other end they’d need every second to get ready for him. With the index and middle fingers of his left hand, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialled Fang’s number.
She picked up on the first ring.
‘Fang. We’re in some crazy Lamborghini that was supposed to be driving itself. Esme is out cold – I can’t stop the car and I can’t slow it down. Steering it is like driving a tank so I’m guessing the power assisted steering has gone as well. Tell Hone to warn City Airport we’re en route or we are going to have a bloodbath out here.’
‘What do you need when you’re there, moron-person?’ Her voice was as if his request was of little to no consequence, but he could hear the furious tapping of her fingers.
‘A clear runway and a run-off track full of gravel or sand right alongside would be excellent.’
Even as he said it, he knew there was no time for her to get anything like a run-off track in place. He hung up. It would be fine, he told himself; it wasn’t as if airports were particularly security-conscious. Not as if, when they saw a speeding car coming towards them, that anyone would shoot the driver.
He leant across as best he could to take a better grip of the wheel. He had to hope Esme wasn’t dying from some catastrophic brain bleed, because there was nothing he could do for her till he managed to get the car to a place of safety. If he managed to get the car to a place of safety. At the Tower of London he steered the Lambo a fraction to the left and it responded, then straightened up again. All he could do was pray that there wasn’t a traffic jam between here and the airport.
He swore as he swung the wheel to avoid a lorry and a bus, then three cars coming in the opposite direction. Be careful what you wish for, he thought. He’d wanted to drive the Lamborghini and now here he was, driving the Lamborghini in what might be the final journey either of them ever made. His mouth was dry and his heart pounding as the office blocks of London’s Docklands appeared on the horizon, the light on top of Canary Wharf blinking red to warn low-flying aircraft not to crash into the skyline.
Was he going to die? There had to be a good chance this was it.
He swallowed down his fear as the Limehouse Tunnel passed in a flash, zipping between lanes, neon strip lighting overhead – a blare of horn after horn, red brake lights, the scream of other cars’ tyres as he overtook.
He didn’t want to die.
Because, if he died, Esme was going to die too, and she had a lot to live for. He was supposed to keep her safe, which meant he couldn’t let either of them die.
Back into the daylight and on the approach road, the sign was there and gone before he even had the time to register it. London City Airport.
The car took the right turn hard and fast, and North swung the wheel again – bracing himself as they kept moving forward to smash through the perimeter fencing, a spiderweb of cracks opening up across the windscreen. The mesh barrier must have snagged on the underneath of the car and it trailed behind them, sparking and clanging. They were airside. And there was comfort in the fact that if they had to die, it would be two of them, not two hundred. Thank God Esme was still unconscious and didn’t have to experience the fear that had him in its grip.
They were still clearing the runway of planes, when from somewhere to his left a British Airways jet emerged from behind the parked-up planes to trundle across the path in front of him. The passengers’ horrified faces were pressed up against the strip of windows. He was blocked in. Planes to the left. Empty buses to the right. From the state of the runway, he was guessing the place had been cleared in haste. He pumped the brake again. Nothing. How high was a Lamborghini? It was pretty low-slung, right? He had to hope it was. The plane’s speed picked up, but the plane wasn’t going to clear his way in time. If he crashed into it, he and Esme would certainly die, but the aviation fuel might go up and that couldn’t be allowed to happen. He braced himself, kept the steering wheel steady, his touch light, his gaze locked on to the space he needed. The enormous tyres of the plane, which were still moving, grazed along the right-hand side of the car as he drove between them, under the belly of the plane into sudden darkness, and out again into daylight.
The dock stretched out in his peripheral vision alongside the runway on the left. More planes were parked higgledy-piggledy with tenders to the right, and at the end he could see firefighters frantically spraying foam. Picking up speed rather than slowing down, North refused to allow his eyes to drop to the speedometer. He barely noticed the police cars either side of the runway, until the Lambo’s front wheels hit what had to be a stinger. The sound of shredding metal as the car spun in hectic arcs, the shuddering impact as it hit he didn’t know what before it lifted into the air, tilting, rolling, once, twice. Righting itself with a bone shuddering smash – it crashed down into the water, and the world went to black.