‘Hello?’ he said.
There was no answer. Black and violet shadow patterns stirred as the trees hissed and creaked.
‘Who the hell are you? What do you want?’
He stepped forwards. The shadows had gone. He jumped. Where had they-All in his mind.
He felt decidedly stupid. He turned.
Two grey shapes stood in front of him.
‘Jesus!’ he said, recoiling. Anger swelled. ‘Who the hell are you?’ He lunged forward.
The grey shapes vanished.
James spun around. They were behind him again. Just shadows.
‘What the hell are you? What do you want with me?’
He lunged again. The shadows melted.
He spun. Behind him again.
‘What do you want?’
‘What?’
‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’
He looked around. A trio of boozed-up lads were ambling down the street on the opposite side of the road.
‘All right?’ one of them shouted.
‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,’ James called back.
He looked back at the pair of shadows. They’d gone again. He wheeled. They were right behind him. He grabbed at them.
They darted away.
‘Shit!’ James cried. He grabbed again, without thinking, not where the shadows were, but at where his gut told him they might be.
He realised he had taken hold of something.
A matt-grey forearm, studded with thorns.
James looked up from the arm. The grey thing he was holding onto tried to pull away.
‘No, you don’t,’ James said, tightening his grip.
It struggled, but it couldn’t break free.
‘What are you?’ James demanded, gazing into its grey face. ‘Are you what Jack saw? Are you?’
‘Not a chance.’
‘Not until you tell me what you are.’
‘I’ll… what?’ asked James.
The alarm buzzer woke him at eight. He thumped it off. It was Saturday. Bloody Saturday. He cursed himself for not resetting the alarm the night before. He hoped it hadn’t disturbed Gwen.
He woke again at nine, then at ten thirty. Daylight was streaming in through the window. James roused and looked around. He was alone in bed.
He got up, grumpy and bewildered, and expected to find Gwen in the shower. She wasn’t there either.
He found the Post-it on the counter, attached to a packet of croissants.
James sighed and headed back to bed.
TWENTY-SIX
She got the eight fifty out of Cardiff Central, Platform 1.
It was a dull morning, with a flat sky that teasingly promised to clear and warm up. Gwen was a little tired, but she soldiered on, invigorated by a sense of purpose.
She got herself a window seat and settled in. Almost three and a half hours to Manchester Piccadilly. She’d bought a coffee and a breakfast roll from a Baguette-away on the concourse, and a paper and some magazines from the news-stand. She sat back to read the headlines. Someone shouted something outside, and coach doors double-slammed.
After a few minutes, the train started to move, just a silent, sliding motion. A faint vibration made her steady her coffee cup.
The speaker crackled some kind of ‘welcome, here’s the buffet’ announcement that she didn’t properly listen to. The carriage was half-full, and no one seemed likely to invade her space.
The speed picked up. Suburban east Cardiff toiled by like a laboriously moved stage backdrop. The sun came out for about ten minutes. She had a go at the quick crossword.
Bored with that, she sat back and put on her MP3 player. Random shuffle. She looked around the carriage, amusing herself by watching the other passengers: a middle-aged man in a suit, reading a broadsheet; two young student travellers with bright cagoules and Gore-Tex backpacks that kept impeding people on their way down the aisle; a young mother with a small boy, who was playing with some toys as she passed him grapes from a Tupperware box; a nice-looking young bloke, who seemed intent on snoozing; a trendy type with fashionable specs working on a laptop; a nondescript guy reading a novel. A young woman who thought a lot of herself, texting on a fancy clam-shell phone; another middle-aged man who looked like a teacher or an academic, working through a sheaf of documents with a pen; two matronly women in expensive twinsets, travelling together, chatting animatedly.
Her MP3 randomly selected ‘Coming Up For Air’. She looked out of the window at the trees flashing by and thought about what she’d say to Rhys.
When she’d had enough of that, she picked up one of the magazines she’d bought.
James wasn’t entirely sure what Gwen had meant by ‘later’, so he assumed the evening. A plan to welcome her with a really pull-out-the-stops, home-cooked meal formed in his mind. He liked cooking, and he figured he’d get a lot of boyfriend points with a gesture like that.
He left the flat and set off on foot, intending to pick up some bits and pieces at the upmarket deli and grocers he liked to use. It was a good walk — he usually drove — but the sun was coming out, he was in no rush, and he felt he needed the exercise and the air.
His head was a little muddy. He’d lolled around in bed far too long, and polishing off a whole bottle the night before had been a mistake, nothing paracetamol wouldn’t cure.
Jack, Ianto and Owen were arranged in a little, conspiratorial huddle in the work station area of the Hub when Toshiko arrived. They all looked at her and nodded hello. Owen looked especially sour. He yawned.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked, taking off her coat.
‘Sorry to drag you in, Tosh,’ said Jack, not sounding sorry at all. ‘A little situation has come up.’
‘Situation?’ she asked.
‘A confluence of events,’ said Jack. ‘Pull up a chair. I’ve already run through this with Owen and Ianto.’
‘Where are Gwen and James?’ Toshiko asked, sitting down.
‘I haven’t called them,’ said Jack. ‘Not yet. You’ll see why.’
Toshiko glanced at Owen. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
‘Just listen to Jack,’ said Owen, darkly.
‘OK,’ said Jack. He held up the black tile. ‘This has been doing weird things all night. The pattern’s changed a couple of times. You got to figure that we’re on some kind of countdown now.’
‘But still nothing on any of our systems?’ asked Toshiko.
‘Nothing at all.’
‘Nothing we can see,’ said Owen, pointedly. Toshiko didn’t fully understand the reference.
