Читать книгу Last Light - Alex Scarrow - Страница 26

8.21 a.m. GMT UEA, Norwich

Leona smiled.

Two nights in a row now.

It was definitely looking very promising. She had half-expected Dan to make up some excuse yesterday, about not being able to get together again last night. Most lads his age were like that.

Break the glass, grab the goodies and run.

But it seemed not Dan. She hated leaving him this morning, dashing out whilst he was still stretched out and dozy in his messy bed. Staying over at his place hadn’t exactly been planned, and now she had to scurry over to her rooms on campus to get her books before today’s first lecture. It was only halfway back up the Watton Road entrance to the UEA grounds that she remembered she had left her phone switched off.

It rang as soon as she switched it on.

‘Leona?’

‘Dad?’

‘For crying out loud, Mum and me have been trying to get hold of you all morning. Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Listen, your mum and I have talked. We both want you to go get Jake and go home.’

‘You mean because of those riots?’

‘Yes.’ He sounded tired and stressed.

Leona ground her teeth with frustration.

Not now. Please, not now.

‘Dad, I’m right in the middle of some really important assignments, ’ she replied.

And I’ve finally landed Daniel, don’t let’s forget that.

‘Leona, I’m not going to argue with you, love.’

Love. Leona rolled her eyes. God that was irritating, Dad only called her that when he was about to blow off steam, like some flipping primeval volcano; annoying actually, rather than intimidating.

‘Look Dad, I’m not—’

‘SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN!’ his voice barked furiously.

Leona recoiled. The phone nearly slipped out of her hand on to the ground.

‘YOU WILL do as Mum said. Leave now, pick up Jake, go home, and get as much tinned food as you can.’

Leona was stunned into silence. Now, all of a sudden, sensing things had become serious.

‘Are we going to have riots over here?’ she asked. ‘I heard something on the radio yesterday about—’

‘Yeah, it may happen. Food shortages, power shortages, all sorts.’

His voice sounded stretched and thin, and worried - frightened even. She had heard that sort of fear in his voice once before, years ago.

‘Dad, did you get my email?’

‘What?’

‘My email. I sent it on Friday?’

‘What? Yeah . . . yeah I got it, but what’s—’

‘I saw one of those men on TV, Dad. One of those men I saw in New York.’

There was a pause, although she could hear a lot of noise in the background. Voices shouting and banging like someone hitting a nail with a hammer.

‘I’m not sure we should talk about this, Leona. Not over the phone.’

‘Why?’

Another long pause.

‘Leona, please just get your brother, and go home. Buy as much food and water as you can.’

In the background she heard voices rising in timbre; several of them, loud, insistent.

‘Dad? What’s going on?’

And then she heard the staccato sound of hammering again, more of it joining in.

‘Leona!’ Dad shouted, his voice distorted by the noise. ‘Leona! I’ve got to go now!’

She’d never heard him sound like that, not ever. Angry a few times, but never like that.

‘Dad! What’s going on?’ she replied, her voice beginning to wobble, sown with the first seeds of panic. She heard a man in the background, close by, as if he was standing next to Dad. It was the sort of voice she guessed was normally very deep, but was now raised, almost shrill with panic - God, it was frightening. Something was going on.

She heard Dad one last time. ‘Please! DO AS I ASK! I’ve got to—’

And then they were disconnected.

The call left her trembling. The voice in the background had sounded foreign, American perhaps. But if truth be told, it wasn’t the shrillness of his timbre, but the words she had heard this man shout that had set the hairs on her forearms standing.

‘Here they come.’

The memory came back to her five minutes later, as she was playing over and over the last few seconds of that bizarre phone call. It was the tone of Dad’s voice though, that had brought the memory to the surface - fear, not for himself of course, fear for her . . .

Dad seems so on edge. He sits her down on the bed, and looks at her intently.

‘You saw nothing important Leona. Do you understand? Nothing important,’ he says, speaking loudly, clearly . . . almost as if he’s speaking to someone else, someone on the other side of the hotel room.

‘But who were those men Daddy?’

‘No one you need to concern yourself with. Just a bunch of boring old business men, nothing to worry about, okay?’

Leona knows that’s a brush-off. Those men were the ‘mystery men’ Dad was meant to meet. They’re the reason Dad’s been so distracted, short-tempered, nervous these last few days. But she knows by the way he’s staring at her, by the tremble in his voice, that she should do as he says and forget about them.

Leona smiles reassuringly at him. ‘Okay.’

‘It happens, sweetheart, wrong room. I’ve done that before. No harm done.’

Leona nods.

‘Good girl. Let’s just forget about this now, huh? Just a silly little secret between you and me?’

‘Okay.’

‘Good. Remember Leona: our secret. Come on, I’m going to buy you that Beanie Doll you’re after . . . what’s her name?’

‘Sally Beanie.’

‘Sally Beanie, that’s right. And maybe, if you’re good, we’ll get the pony-riding set too?’

Leona finds herself grinning, the men in the room next door forgotten for now.

The memory, from when she was ten - that family trip to New York - had all but faded. She had almost forgotten wandering into that wrong room, then the right room, walking in on Dad, sitting in the dark. And then telling him what had just happened.

But seeing that old man’s face again on the TV recently had been unsettling, and hearing that fear again in Dad’s voice - the memory had come tumbling out from a dark and dusty corner, as clear as day. She wondered for a second time, if she should have emailed Dad about it. There’d been something so intense about him - the day he made her promise to forget.

He hadn’t been frightened, he’d been terrified.