Cecelia Ahern – Perfect (страница 9)

“One hundred employees live on-site,” Carrick explains. “This place is out of the way – the closest village or town is too far for a daily commute – so the owners thought it best to house them here.”

“Owners?”

“Private company, Vigor.” He shrugs. “I’ve been here only two weeks, but I haven’t seen them around. Whoever they are, they’re sympathetic to the Flawed. They’ve allowed a gang of evaders to work and live here. He’s one of them.” He nods at the security guard who’s snoring quietly.

He points at the poster on the wall behind the reception desk and I see the same red V logo I’ve been seeing all around the plant. The V in ‘Vigor’ is designed as a mathematical square-root sign and I’ve seen it before somewhere, though I can’t place it.

√igor. turning a problem into a solution.

“There are four different recreational areas, depending on which unit you’re in. Flawed are all employed in the same unit; it’s this way.”

He pushes open a door and we’re back in the night air and walking across to a collection of Portakabins. Despite the late hour I can hear voices and activity coming from one of them and I know that our time alone is running out for now. There’s something important on my mind that I need to discuss first.

“Carrick, I need to know something.” I swallow. “Have you told anybody about …” I indicate my back.

“No one.”

I feel relieved, but awkward for bringing up the sixth brand. Things had been easy between us, but thinking about the Branding Chamber has caused me to tense up again.

“Apart from the guards and Crevan, Mr Berry and I are the only two who know,” Carrick assures me. “I’ve been trying to contact Mr Berry, but I haven’t had any luck so far,” he explains. “It’s been hard, trying to do things while I’m off the grid.”

“The guards are all missing, Carrick,” I say urgently. “Mr Berry is missing. I was afraid Crevan had got to you too. We have so much to talk about.”

“What?” His eyes widen.

At the end of the corridor, the door opens and I hear voices, laughter, a gang of people. I’m not ready to meet them yet; I need to talk to Carrick first. I speak quickly. “I told Pia Wang about my sixth brand.”

He raises his eyebrows, surprised that I would share this information with a Flawed TV and Crevan Media journalist. It had been Pia’s duty to tell my story, and after the trial she had set out to destroy my character, as was the norm with all her Flawed interviewees, but something happened with me. She believed me. She doubted my trial from the beginning and she couldn’t justify her one-sided reporting any longer. She sensed something was amiss.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but we can trust her. She was doing all she could to gather information to write a revealing story about Crevan. I haven’t heard from her in over two weeks. It’s not just our communication that has been broken: I’ve been checking online and she hasn’t written an article under Pia Wang … or under her pseudonym.”

“Her pseudonym?”

“Lisa Life.”

Carrick whistles. “Wow. She’s Lisa Life? Okay. Now I get why you told her.”

Lisa Life is a notorious blogger, writing stories critical of the Flawed system. The authorities have been trying to find her and shut her down for weeks, but she just keeps changing servers.

“You can’t tell anyone,” I say. “She swore me to secrecy.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Anyway,” I say. “She hasn’t posted anything for weeks. I hope she’s being quiet because she’s in the thick of writing her big, juicy Crevan reveal that will tear him apart,” I continue, “but … Pia isn’t the type of person to ever be quiet. The last I heard from her she was going to speak to the guards’ families.”

He frowns, still back at square one. “Have their families reported them? Are the police looking for them?”

“I think they’re afraid to. Mr Berry’s husband said he just disappeared. I was worried about you this whole time, afraid that Crevan would make you disappear too. Crevan has no idea that you were in the viewing room; he never saw you and I didn’t tell Pia about you, so I think you’re safe. Also Crevan had no idea that Mr Berry was filming the branding until he overheard a phone conversation between me and Mr Berry’s husband. He told me that I have the footage,” I whisper.

“So that’s why Crevan wants you so badly? He wants the Branding Chamber footage?”

I nod.

“He’s afraid you’ll reveal the video.”

“I think so.”

He looks at me with the utmost respect. “Then we’ve got him. I knew it, but I didn’t know why. He’s afraid of you, Celestine. We’ve got him.”

“You two have plenty of time to talk,” a woman calls suddenly, startling me. She’s standing at the open door of the cabin that the noise was flowing from. “Come join us, Celestine.” She has an enormous welcoming smile on her face.

I blink. Then I realise: my face has been in the news for weeks now; of course this stranger knows who I am.

“Um, thanks,” I say.

“Celestine North,” she says as I reach her. She opens her arms and embraces me. “It is an honour to meet you.” She wraps me up and I’m stiff at first but slowly relax into it. When is the last time I received a hug? I think of my mum and dad and fight the emotion that follows. “I’m Kelly – come inside and I’ll introduce you to everyone.”

I look back at Carrick for help, but Kelly takes me by the hand and brings me along with her. Once inside the cabin, I see a roomful of strangers staring at me. Carrick follows us into the room and disappears into a corner somewhere.

Kelly introduces me. “This is my husband, Adam.”

Adam hugs me warmly. “Welcome.”

“Come and meet Rogan,” Kelly says, dragging me away.

In a darkened corner, a younger teen lurks.

“Say hi to Celestine, Rogan,” Kelly coaxes him, as a parent would do with a much younger child.

He gives me a weak wave, like the effort to care is too great.

“Oh, come on,” Kelly says to him, and he slowly stands, shuffles over to me with feet too big for his body, trousers too big for his waist, and reaches out to shake my hand. It’s limp. It’s damp. He doesn’t look me in the eye and quickly scampers back to his bean bag. If I was on the outside I would say he was disgusted by a Flawed, but in here, in the company of so many Flawed and assuming he’s one of us himself, I put it down to shyness. Kelly talks a mile a minute, introducing me to the rest of the group.

There’s Cordelia and her little girl, six-year-old Evelyn, who shows me that her top teeth fell out, pushing her tongue through the holes. I’m surprised to recognise the two men I was standing beside at the cash register when the entire drama started at the supermarket riot two weeks ago. Now I know their names are Fergus and Lorcan. Fergus has stitches across his forehead, and Lorcan is covered in bruises. I meet Mona, a girl around my age, with a smile so bright, and sizzling energy that would light up the darkest day. I immediately like her. There’s an older man named Bahee, a chilled-out dude wearing circular blue-tinted glasses and a long grey ponytail, who’d look comfortable sitting round a camp fire and singing “Kumbaya”.

“And you already know our eldest son, Carrick.” Kelly smiles. Carrick comes a bit closer. “I’m so glad you were with him in the castle.” She takes my hands, her eyes filled with tears. “We know how horrific the experience is. I’m glad you were there with my boy.” She reaches out to him, but he recoils slightly. It’s as though his actions have surprised himself, but it’s too late—the damage is done. Kelly pulls her hand away from him, trying to hide her hurt expression.

“You found your parents?” I ask in surprise.

I look from Adam to Kate, finally and suddenly seeing a resemblance between Carrick and his dad. But he’s nothing like his mother – she’s tiny, birdlike. Carrick towers over her, though he does with most people. She’s more like Rogan, who would barely shake my hand. I look to Rogan then and realise that he’s her son.

“That means you two are …”

I wait for them to say something but nobody speaks. They don’t even look at one another. There’s such an awkward atmosphere, so much tension. But of course being reunited with loved ones after thirteen years was never going to be easy.

“They’re brothers!” Mona suddenly announces. “Yay! Do I get a point for that?” she asks sarcastically, punching the air. “It’s just one big happy family around here, isn’t it, guys?”

“Mona,” Adam says, annoyed, as Kelly turns away. It doesn’t seem to bother Mona in the slightest.

“You didn’t tell her you found us, Carrick?” Kelly asks, confused and hurt.

There’s a long silence as Carrick pulls at his earlobe self-consciously, trying to search for an answer that will help his situation.

“Hey, has Carrick shown you the sleepboxes yet?” Mona jumps in at just the right time.

While I deal with the shock of Carrick finding his parents, I’m dragged away by a chirping Mona, who talks so fast I can barely keep up.

“Doesn’t matter, I’ll show you. You can share with me.”

The accommodation is a series of Portakabins piled on top of one another, but not just regular cubic cabins with basic beds inside; these are modern, state-of-the-art. I steal a glimpse inside one of them as we pass and see an entire living space cleverly built in the pod. There’s a bunk bed – single on top and double beneath – built-in shelves, drawers beside the beds. There’s even a toilet and shower. Everything is glossy white.