‘I will.’ She knew my name! Mia had talked about me!

‘OK.’ A tired nod and a wave of her hand. I was dismissed.

‘I’ll come out in a bit.’ Mia smiled at me, half-embarrassed, half-pleased.

She found me back in that wheelchair thirty minutes later.

‘How is she?’

‘Resting. The doctors seem more worried than she is. Well, according to the nurses. I didn’t actually see any doctors . . . Anyway, smoke can mess you up. They have to watch her carefully, make sure she doesn’t go downhill.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault.’ Mia’s face hardened. ‘We know who did it. And we know he isn’t going to stop.’

I nodded. With most people, almost everyone, there’s some level at which enough is enough. The level varies from one person to another, but there is a level. You didn’t have to spend long in Rust’s company to realise that he had no threshold. He would escalate any situation with startling rapidity to the point where he could count it as a victory, which meant the other party had to lose. His wasn’t a personality built to last. At least, not in a society with laws and police to enforce them. But he would make quite a mess before he was finished. I was pretty sure of that!

‘So, we lie low. Like your mum said. And wait for your brother’s friends to sort it.’ I tried to hide the hope from my voice.

Mia nodded, a touch unwillingly. ‘If I see him, though . . .’

‘Let’s hope we don’t.’ I levered myself to my feet. ‘Though, given that he knows where both of us live, it seems as if the option might be his rather than ours.’

‘We could stay over at Elton’s?’ Mia said.

‘They’re like sardines in there already. John’s got more room.’

Mia shook her head. ‘I don’t think I could be civil to his mum.’

‘I know what you mean. His dad’s a nice guy, though. He went round to the Arnots’ to apologise for his wife and try to settle things. I mean, you can’t. It’s like trying to pick shit out of a sandwich. But at least he tried. Short of divorcing the woman, what can he do?’

‘I guess. But I’m not staying there.’

‘Simon’s then. You heard Mrs Brett. She practically invited us, and they have a box room.’ I’d stayed over at Simon’s so many times I was starting to wear a me-shaped dent in the floor.

Mia nodded thoughtfully. ‘Let’s get some air first.’

The night had that bitter January edge to it that makes you so very glad we live in centrally heated houses and have warm beds to sleep in. I shivered at the thought that just a dozen generations ago, we’d have counted ourselves lucky to have mud and twigs between us and the outside, that we would have had to go out and labour in the frost, and huddle at night around a pile of burning sticks.

‘Freezing.’ I hugged myself. The orange glow of streetlights and the whiter illumination in the hospital car park both conspired to chase the darkness under the bushes, but any warmth they promised was a lie. Frost had started to trace its way across the cars, and the sounds of the street had taken on that brittle quality that cold brings.

‘He could be watching, you know.’ Mia stood close, her shoulder to my arm.

‘What?’

‘Rust. If he was after me, then he would only have to know which hospital they took Mum to. He must have known I would come to see her. So, all he had to do was wait out here and follow when I left.’

‘Uh.’ It had a certain uncomfortable ring of truth to it. It sounded like the sort of strategy a creature like Rust would use. Exploiting those bonds of human affection that he knew existed but didn’t understand. ‘Wouldn’t he be more interested in your mother? She was the one that cut him after all . . . What did you do? You were a bit late paying a debt that was mostly fake anyway.’

‘I crossed him. We both did. And we saw what Mum did to him. And last night just made it worse. He’s the sort that keeps score.’

‘He is.’ I knew that much. Once he got a taste of you, Rust wasn’t the sort to let go. Not even now, with Sacks’s crew out hunting him. The interest he had in Mia had moved well past being financial. It may have been more than financial right from the start. And she’d told him no, seen him humiliated, twice. ‘OK, what do we do?’

‘Well, we don’t go to Simon’s. Not if we think Rust might be following.’ Mia shook her head. Her breath plumed.

I sighed. Our options seemed to have been whittled down to a selection of unpleasant choices. ‘Demus told me that once we have the chip he can make the “Rust problem” go away. He also reminded me that we need to get it done in the next few days, or the timing on the memory-wipe won’t match with how it happened for him.’

‘Easy then.’ Mia didn’t hesitate. ‘We call the others and get this chip for Demus tonight. That way, we’re all together if Rust comes and we’re not anywhere where our families can get hurt.’

I bit my lip and nodded. We did need to get the thing done. And as much as I didn’t like the idea of facing Rust out in the dark, I liked it more knowing my friends would be there and knowing he wouldn’t be letting himself in through my back door in the small hours, walking upstairs toward Mother’s room with a knife gleaming in his hand.

‘Let’s do it.’

CHAPTER 21

We called Elton first, from a piss-stinking phone box just down from the hospital. Mia stared out through the little graffitied panes of glass and held the door open against its leather hinges while I fumbled a ten-pence piece into the slot with numb fingers.

‘Elton. We gotta do it tonight. No. Tonight. I’m not kidding. Yes. Yes, she should be fine. Smoke inhalation. She has to stay in. No. No. Yes. We’ll call you from outside the Spot. About half an hour.’ I put down the receiver. ‘Said we’ll meet him outside The Spotted Horse.’ The pub was close to his flat.

I called John next. He bitched and moaned, of course, but in the end he said he’d come. I could hear the TV in the background and he sounded as if he was eating. ‘I’ll have to work on an excuse to get out, then call to say I’m staying over somewhere. Better to apologise after than to ask permission and be told no!’

‘Great. Thanks, John.’

‘Hey, tell future you to get me a hover board and we’re all good. Catch you later. The Spot at eleven, right?’

‘Right. See you—’

‘Hey, wait. I forgot. How’s Mia’s mum?’

‘Should be OK. Breathed in a lot of smoke. High tar.’

‘Good. Good. And the lovely Mia?’

‘She’s coming with us.’

‘Really?’ A pause. ‘Fine. She’ll probably be more help than you, anyway.’

I hung up and dug in my pockets for another ten pence. ‘Now for the difficult one . . .’

Mia offered me the necessary coin. ‘I can sweet talk Simon, if you like?’ She fluttered her eyelids in my direction. ‘I think he likes me.’

‘Simon?’ I scoffed. ‘He’s less interested in girls than Elton is!’

Mia punched my arm. It hurt. ‘You can be interested in girls without wanting to take them to bed. We’re people, too, you know.’

‘Sorry.’ I rubbed my shoulder. ‘Boys’ school education. It’s true. He likes you.’ I handed her the phone.

She dialled the number and I took my turn at holding the door open, the extra cold being a price worth paying for fresher air.

The half of the conversation that I got to listen to didn’t make much sense to me, but when she hung up after a far longer phone call than I had ever managed with Simon, Mia was grinning. ‘He’ll be there. He’s telling his mum he’s staying over at yours. I doubt she minds where he is, to be honest. She’ll just be glad he’s not in his room all evening.’

We walked back to the Miller blocks. I told Mia it was too far, but she said it was too cold to wait for buses. I think she was too agitated to stand still and wanted to be on the move. I relied on her for directions and we stuck to the high streets and the main roads, staying where it was well lit and well trafficked. If Rust was following us, he would be waiting for his moment. A dark alley, a lonely park. I was damned if I would just give it to him. I looked back a few times, but in London there’s always someone following you by chance, so picking out someone doing it on purpose isn’t exactly easy.

We crossed the Thames by Battersea Bridge, getting back south of the river where we belonged. The four great chimneys of the power station stood illuminated on the far bank, smokeless for the last couple of years now. A dinosaur on its back, legs in the air. I wondered what stood in the spot in Demus’s time. Then it struck me.

‘How’s he going to get back?’ I stopped dead centre of the bridge, the black waters of the Thames sliding beneath us, traffic roaring past a foot to our left.

‘What? Who? And where?’ Mia stopped a yard ahead and turned to face me.

‘How will Demus get back to the future?’

Mia grinned. ‘This really does sound like the film. You have to see it.’

‘What does?’