searching for on that familiar, congested streetscape, the building site nearby filling the air with dust and noise, the constant passing parade of foot traffic, vehicles of every size and description, the hypnotic lights of the theatre down the road.
Then Ranald’s gaze settles on something in the middle distance and I follow his line of sight, catch Ryan speaking to a passer-by, a woman, on the street outside that bar with the black bull on its sign. I feel an involuntary smile curve up the corners of Lela’s mouth as Ryan throws back his head and laughs at something the woman says before she moves on with a small wave.
Mine for the asking, mine for the taking, I think greedily as Ryan paces the street a while longer before disappearing inside the tapas place.
But then something like melancholy steals over me. Because in no universe could Ryan and me ever work. We were not made to be together. We were not made for each other. Feelings are for humans and . . . well, you know the rest.
As I tear my gaze away from the place where Ryan was standing and refocus on the dingy dining room before me, Ranald walks purposefully to the front door, turns the lock and flips the sign over to read Closed.
‘What’s he doing?’ I ask Cecilia, indicating Ranald with a jerk of my head.
Cecilia looks at me, puts down the jug she is holding.
Ranald turns and addresses all of us. ‘You know what it would take to get your attention, to get you all to really look at me?’
Franklin doesn’t even bother doing that, just keeps reading his paper. Ranald shocks us all by grabbing him, suddenly, by the hair above one ear.
‘Hey! Wha—’ Franklin cries out as he’s pulled out of his seat, away from his paper, his half-drunk coffee, the neat, twinned crusts of his chicken sandwich.
‘My life is full of pricks like you,’ Ranald roars, ‘who won’t even do me the courtesy of looking me in the face when I’m talking! I said, do you know what it would take to get your attention, you asshole?’
Franklin, his head pressed into the front of Ranald’s suit jacket, squeals, ‘No! What? What?’
Ranald shoves his free hand into the front of Franklin’s jacket and pulls out the handgun. ‘Violence,’ he snarls, shoving Franklin away from him so hard that the older man misses the edge on, you aand falls on the floor. ‘In point of fact, Franklin, I was lost and you showed me the way. So did that slut and her lowlife boyfriend.’ He smiles. ‘A little violence, I’ve learnt, can focus people’s attention enormously.’
He kicks Franklin so hard in one leg that Franklin shrieks in agony.
‘Get over to the counter, you fat-cat bastard,’ he orders, ‘and put your hands on it where I can see them.’
He waves the gun in Sulaiman’s direction. ‘You, too, big guy. And you.’ He points at Cecilia, whose eyes are huge in her terrified, little face.
‘I’m sorry you had to get caught up in this,’ he says to her almost kindly, ‘but I need you to witness what happens to people who betray and belittle me and insult my intelligence.’
‘What is this noise?’ Mr Dymovsky snaps, emerging out of the dark little corridor at the back of the shop. Justine is behind him, her eyes wide. ‘Who insults whom?’
Ranald stops them both in their tracks by levelling the gun at Mr Dymovsky’s chest. Mr Dymovsky’s resemblance to Humpty Dumpty is more pronounced than ever: his rounded eyes and rounded mouth, his too- tight, slightly shiny pants worn a little too high.
‘Do what I say and you won’t get hurt,’ Ranald murmurs silkily, using the gun to wave them both over to the front counter where the others are clustered, hands outspread. ‘Only those who have hurt me get hurt today. So be a good sport, Dmitri, and you’ll see out the rest of your life comfortably.’
Justine gives a muffled whimper as Ranald pushes her into place beside Mr Dymovsky, Cecilia and Franklin. He strokes the back of one of her soft hands with his fingers and her face goes pale and tight at the movement, as if she wants to throw up.
‘Someone like you wouldn’t even look at me unless I was paying, would you?’ he says, running the barrel of the gun down the side of Justine’s bare arm.
She turns her bruised face away, twists her body, every action a rejection. Ranald raises the handgun sharply, as if he’s going to hit her with it, and Justine cringes. But he laughs and lowers it again.
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ he mutters. ‘There’s only ever been one girl for me, and I’m done with the playing hard to get, with waiting around. Done with being treated like ratshit by everybody in my life, especially by her.’
He looks at me with his burning gaze and I realise who he’s talking about.
‘You can’t mean me,’ I exclaim.
I recall Lela’s journal. It was Andy this and Andy that; Ranald hadn’t even entered her headspace. He’d been nothing to her. Nothing. And I’d done nothing to encourage him, had I?
Nothing, says evil me, except agree to have dinner with the little turd
I move towards him now, more ticked off than afraid.
‘You mean you’re doing this,’ I wave my hand at our surroundings, ‘because I’ve hurt your feelings in some way?’
‘In some way?’ he yells, incensed. ‘Clementia would have been a better password than misericordia, don’t you think? Remember, I speak Latin. You said you spoke none at all. Just one more lie in a litany of lies. How do you explain what you said to Franklin? About death being the final limit? I heard you. You’ve lied to me from the beginning.’
He waves the gun around and everyone ducks and cries out, except for me. I look at him, stunned, as the meaning of his words begins to sink in.
His tone grows almost conversational. ‘The connotations are so much less negative, I would have thought. Clemency versus the cry of the miserable damned. Why choose the latter and not the former?’
‘How did you know?’ I say stupidly, and in that instant, I realise. I should have seen it before. I’d been too blinded by making contact with Ryan to take in what else was going on. It was Ranald who’d set up Lela’s profile page for me, who logged in for me on his way to the damn toilets this morning. He’d known the password I’d selected, had even entered it for me, although it was supposed to be something that I’d come up with, for my eyes alone. But what was worse was that I’d never changed the email address Ranald had inputted in the first place. It was his email address. I’d been using it ever since; had had no idea that he might be able to monitor my messages, that he’d even want to do that.
‘I’ve seen every single exchange between the two of you,’ Ranald spits. ‘I’m a software developer, remember? It’s my job to think like a hacker, act like a hacker. Even if you hadn’t been a stupid bitch and left my email address attached to your account as your point of contact with the entire world, I would have been able to get in and read everything you wrote. Nothing you could do online is safe from me. You’re pathetic, Lela, you really are. Did you get off doing some kind of weird role play with a stud who’s based overseas while you strung me along? Home-grown guys not good enough for you?’
Sulaiman says quietly, as if thinking out loud, ‘For length of days shall not be theirs.’
‘Shut up!’ Ranald screams, shaking the gun in Sulaiman’s direction, cocking the hammer. ‘Shut up, or I will shut you up permanently, you religious fanatic.’
With his free hand, Ranald grabs my shirt and pulls me across to the table that has his laptop on it. Training his gun on me, he lets go of my shirt before uncapping the little grey device resting on the table and jamming it into a slot on the side of his machine. He flicks open a draft email, then opens the window for the device. There’s only one file in it. He attaches it to the email, all with one hand.
‘I’ve spent all morning crafting an emergency anti-virus update email for P/2/Pnd its entire list of clients,’ he says, ‘each one run by truly incompetent twits who wouldn’t know how to spell “Trojan” let alone recognise one or appreciate the indignities I suffer — the bullying, the finger-pointing, the backstabbing — to keep the reams of crap they generate safe from people like me. Press send, Lela. Their networks all across the country are going to implode, and you’re going to set it in motion. From here. From the Green Lantern. I said I’d take P/2/P down with me one day, and now everyone’s finally going to believe it.’
His laughter sounds like despair to my ears.
‘What if I say no?’ I reply. ‘The police are outside. A whole pile of witnesses.’
I point through the window. While Ranald’s been busy unleashing his narcissistic inner demon — that small
