Читать книгу Perfect - Cecelia Ahern, Cecelia Ahern - Страница 21

We leave the factory behind us and take quite a walk in the enormous compound to a less futuristic side of the facility. This new section feels more residential, contains rows and rows of white Portakabins, all layered on top of one another, five levels high, ten boxes across, steel balconies and staircases connecting them. We enter a simple one-story concrete building with a reception area, with a desk that’s empty at this late hour, a few chairs, and technological and scientific magazines scattered on the coffee table. A beefy security guard is asleep in an armchair in the corner.

“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.”