Peril Read online

  ‘True. We’ll make sure Kel’s treated well, trained thoroughly. I’ll look after him as if he were my own. My son, Swanny, will keep the younger boys in check; he’ll make sure Kel feels at home.’

  ‘Thanks, Sandy. Much appreciated. He’s still grieving—we all are. I’m going to miss him like crazy. He’s a really lovely boy, our pride and joy, but every parent probably would say that. I know this is right for him.’

  Reluctantly, Kel took a few more steps towards the boys. One with black curly hair and dark skin came to meet him across the lawn, body beaded with water from the pool like an otter emerging from the sea. He had friendly cartoon turtles on his swimming trunks. ‘Are you my new guard?’

  ‘That's what my dad said.’

  ‘Brill. I’m Ade.’ He chucked Kel a water pistol. ‘You’re on my side then. We’re the reds; those guys are the blues. Direct hit on the front and you’re out. On back or side, you survive but sit out for ten. Got it?’

  ‘Yep. Is this loaded?’ Kel was relieved to see it was a pump action like one he’d used before at a friend’s house. He glanced back and saw that his dad was still there, watching him. He tried to hold it like he knew what he was doing.

  ‘It’s full. Ready?’

  Kel returned Ade’s smile, liking the mischief in the prince’s eyes. He decided that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t going to be so bad. ‘I’m ready.’

  1

  Wimbledon, London, after the flood

  Gazing out at the storm-damaged trees of the common, Meredith Marlowe toyed with the punnet of cherries sitting on the sink to drain. She couldn’t eat one without thinking of that day at Mount Vernon. The chill still lingered, like the aftereffects of a dip in a cold sea. She shook herself back to the present.

  ‘They’re not in season, you know, Theo.’ Cherries were a bitter sweet luxury to her, the pleasure always marred by the hard stone of remembering in the middle.

  Theo Woolf looked up from the Arts Section of the newspaper. Thirty-something with straw blond hair, a spike earring and sparkling blue eyes, he appeared nothing like anyone’s idea of a staid guardian for a seventeen-year-old orphan. ‘But I know how much you love them.’

  ‘What about global warming?’ She took a couple and sat down opposite him at the breakfast table. ‘Did you consider that, Mr Eco-warrior?’

  ‘One punnet of Spanish cherries is not going to be single-handedly to blame for that.’

  She rolled her eyes.

  ‘If it would make you feel better, I’ll cycle to work rather than take the car. That should even it up.’

  ‘You always cycle. We don’t have a car anymore.’ They’d got rid of it last month when Theo couldn’t keep up the payments.

  ‘Ah yes, but imagine I was going to call a taxi but decided not to.’

  ‘I’m not sure you can measure your carbon footprint that way.’

  He smiled, turned the page of the paper, and spread out an article which he read with renewed concentration. He punctuated his reading with groans.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Meri poured herself some apple juice, admiring the deep golden green in the glass. Ordinary things were filled with so many beautiful colours if you just looked.

  ‘They cut the grant to the North-East community singers. Bloody Birmingham mafia. Guess who will be ringing me up first thing this morning?’ Theo ran a small office in a lottery funded charity that supported grass-roots organisations building community links for the influx of refugees. ‘The politicians just don’t get how music helps integrate the newcomers—from rock choirs to opera, it all plays a part.’

  ‘You always claim you’re the richest person you know, being in charge of a budget of five million pounds.’

  ‘But don’t forget I always add that I’m working for the smallest salary, barely enough to pay the rent on our little flat.’ Since much of central and south London had been lost to flooding or accessible only by boat, the outskirts had become even more sought after. They could only afford such a nice address because the landlord, a retired opera singer who lived downstairs, was an old friend of Theo’s.

  Meri tried not to worry about their precarious financial situation. ‘Can’t you squeeze something out of your budget for the singers?’

  ‘I’ll have to refuse as I’ve already allocated it this year.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll find a very diplomatic way of saying “no”. You always do to me when I want something.’

  He whisked her over the head with the sports section. ‘Cheeky. This is the respect I get from my almost eighteen-year-old foster daughter. Which reminds me, on my desk I have tickets for the Hammersmith Odeon on Saturday. Tee Park is playing.’

  ‘Oh wow, that’s great!’

  ‘I had to pull serious strings to get them and I thought we could make it your birthday treat. Is there anyone you want to bring?’

  Meri had once calculated that Theo’s real income was double its paper amount if you included all the freebies he got as part of his job. ‘No one.’

  ‘Come on, you’ve been at that school for a few months now. There must be some friends in the wings.’ He sipped his black coffee and winced. Meri knew that he really wanted sugar but had decided to give up as it had become so expensive recently.

  ‘Oh yeah, you know me and my vast social circle.’

  ‘You don’t want to be always hanging out with me and my mates at your age.’

  She stirred her cereal, drowning a couple of freeze-dried berries. ‘I like your friends.’

  ‘But none of us are under thirty. You should be socialising with people your own age.’

  Meri had a sudden, unwelcome thought. ‘Am I cramping your style, Theo?’ Her guardian had been catapulted at twenty-five from footloose student lodger doing a Masters in Arts Administration into the role of carer for a traumatised four-year-old. That entailed having to move every few years to make sure she was safe, as well as training her to say nothing about herself until she was old enough to know the importance of keeping her secret. He didn’t know the exact nature of the danger she faced but he said he understood enough to believe her parents hadn't been exaggerating.

  ‘No, Meri, you are not cramping my style.’ Theo smirked at the thought. ‘The ladies love a lone dad with a cute little girl. And when they find out I’m a foster parent, they all think I’m a saint.’

  ‘I’m way past being cute. And you’re not a saint.’

  ‘I agree about the sainthood thing but you don’t do too bad at being cute. Now I get sympathy for having taken on a teenager—it’s regarded as a tougher job than river dredging.’

  She smiled. ‘I bet you milk it for all it’s worth.’

  ‘You know me so well.’

  They fell into companionable silence. Meri finished her cereal and apple juice as she glanced through the headlines—mass movements of climate refugees, reports on cities being lost to flooding or desertification, resource wars. There was lots of news from America but not the sort she wanted, not the ‘missing persons found’ kind. Her birthday was coming and her parents were going to be absent again.

  ‘Theo, I’ve been wondering about that day a lot recently. Why do you think they left me?’

  From his pained expression, he knew exactly what she meant. ‘They didn’t leave, not willingly.’

  ‘You think they were murdered.’ He had always told her this. Only something as terrible as that would keep her parents from claiming her, he had said. They had been completely devoted to their daughter. ‘But there were no bodies.’

  ‘There’s a river right by Mount Vernon, Meri. And there was the fake terrorist alert. All the staff involved in the chase just vanished. It wouldn't be hard to dump two bodies there and still get away. I suppose I could pretend and let you hope that they’ll turn up one day but I think false hope the cruelest kind. I promised myself I’d never lie to you.’

  They hadn't been just bodies; they'd been Mommy and Daddy.

  Not something that she could dwell on and keep her san
ity. Theo had always been straight-talking so Meri forced herself past the mention of bodies. ‘So what was it that killed them?’

  ‘My best guess is they got tangled up in some organised crime hit. Your mother said on the phone that they were in trouble with old enemies.’

  ‘The Perilous.’

  ‘Sounds like a gang tag to me—pretentious, meant to strike fear in the other person. I looked them up but there’s nothing on the Internet but then, Wiki doesn’t know everything.’

  If it had been a gang, it had been the oddest one she’d ever heard of: an actress, guides and gardeners, hardly the stuff of the mafia. She had often wondered if her memories were confused with dreams of that last outing and it hadn’t really happened like that. The glowing skin didn’t seem likely, more like a hallucination stirred up by a fever. It had become hazy and surreal in the details, swirling in the colour only she could see. ‘And you think I’m still in danger?’

  Theo sighed. ‘We’re going to do this now, are we? Really? You have to catch your bus in ten minutes and I’m supposed to be out of the house already.’

  Meri nodded, rearranging the saucer of butter, pot of parsley, and the jar of organic honey Theo liked on his toast so as to make a more pleasing still life.

  ‘OK, cards on the table. I don’t know that you’re not in danger, which isn’t exactly the same thing. It’s been years, fourteen years to be exact. If there was some crime vendetta going on, it might all now be history. I promised your parents I would save you so you could live a long and happy life. Maybe it’s time you started to do the living part of that.’ He got up and picked up his messenger bag. ‘So the Theo advice of the day is go out and live a little. Make some friends, take some risks, but not too many, mind.’ He grimaced. ‘Do as I say and not as I did as a teenager.’

  ‘I’m not sure I know how to make friends,’ Meri confessed.

  ‘Just be your usual sardonic self. It’ll scare a few feeble types away but that should whittle the list down to a couple of good mates who like a wise-cracking know-it-all. That’s all you need in my experience.’

  ‘Gee, thanks, Theo. Your confidence in my charm is so reassuring.’

  ‘There, you’ll do fine. It’s still early in the new school year; you can make a fresh start. See how you get on today.’

  Meri remembered Theo’s advice only after she took her usual seat in the bus half way down on the lower deck with the old age pensioners, not upstairs with the others going to her school. That wasn’t the new start she meant to make.

  ‘Excuse me.’ With a smile to the birdlike lady with the frizzy grey hair who sat next to her each morning, Meri squeezed past and headed up to the top deck. The bus swung round a corner and she almost went flying. A hand reached up and steadied her from behind.

  ‘Thanks.’ She glanced round and smiled at a tall, dark guy she’d seen in the common room. She remembered he had a big name—Adetokunbo according to the register, but everyone called him Ade, to rhyme with daddy. It suited him as he was a big guy with a big presence.

  ‘Any time, Mouse.’ Ade smiled brightly. Already sporting a close-clipped beard and moustache around his chin and mouth, he was one of those guys who looked too old for school.

  She winced at the nickname. Following Ade’s lead, her year had started calling her Mouse Marlowe after she had got the reputation for creeping in and out of class without talking to anyone. Old habits died hard. She was only herself when with Theo. However, her guardian was right: she didn’t want to be that mouse anymore. It was past time for a change. Reaching the top deck she looked for a place to sit down. There were two double seats near the front free so she slid into the one by the forward-facing window. The comp-punk girl across the aisle reached over and tapped Meri’s shoulder, her multiple piercings glinting like a row of little ear-fortifications.

  ‘You don’t want to do that,’ she said with a kindly shake of her head. Like many of her computer-mad set, she wore a data-stick among the earrings. Funny to think of all those terabytes of information acting as jewellery.

  ‘Sorry? What?’

  ‘You’re in Ade’s seat,’ said a new voice behind her. Ade stood in the aisle, flanked by his two mates, Kel and Lee, she thought they were called. It was Lee who had spoken.

  ‘We have allotted seats now?’ Meri didn’t like being spoken to in that tone. ‘And I thought this was public transport.’

  ‘I suggest you find another seat down the back,’ said Lee. He had an angular pale face, fly-away brown hair and grey-green eyes which were currently narrowed at her. He reminded her of the old Hollywood actors cast in the 2010s vampire series that they were always repeating on TV. Hollywood itself had gone, of course, lost to wildfires a few years ago. New Hollywood in Colorado had moved on to making endless disaster movies which meant chisel-jawed actors rather than the fey vampire types were getting the cream of the jobs. ‘Go on: move.’

  That damn well settled it. Meri folded her arms and stayed put.

  Ade put a hand on his friend’s arm. ‘Lee, it doesn’t matter. We’ll sit behind.’

  Meri wasn’t going to let it go so easily. ‘So, Lee, you got a memo from the mayor, saying that the front row was reserved for your friend here? Somehow I was missed off the distribution. You’re going to be busy, chucking out all those little kids who like making bus noises and pretending to drive. Their mums and dads must love you spoiling their day.’

  Ade shook his head at Lee and sat down behind her. Lee slid in next to him which left the other seat at the front to the third of the trio, the blond one who had been silent so far. He sat, his jean-clad thigh squeezing her into the corner as he had to spread his legs to fit. She recognized him from lessons, partly because she’d spent rather too long looking at him across the classroom when she thought she could get away with it. Kel was a gifted artist. Meri had a shrewd suspicion, though, that the exchange with his two companions wasn’t what Theo had meant about making friends, unless most friendships began with pissing off the people involved.

  Ade tweaked a lock of her straggling brown hair hanging over the back. ‘I’ve never heard you string two words together before. What happened to Mouse?’

  ‘She never existed.’ Meri tucked her chin lower, feeling awkward now she had won that small battle. Really these boys were too full of themselves if everyone else had bowed out of their way for weeks on the top deck. It was disconcerting, though, to be crammed so close to guys whom she had just mocked. She could feel the warmth coming off the body of the one next to her, the scent of the soap he must've used that morning, so different from the old lady talc smell downstairs. There was something so intensely there about her neighbour, like she was sitting in the full beam of a car headlight.

  ‘She shouldn't talk to you like that, Ade,’ muttered Lee.

  ‘Why not? I'm not her boss. You need to lighten up, Lee, or people will think we're dicks.’

  Meri couldn't resist. Ade had left himself wide open. ‘Too late for that.’

  The guy next to her started to laugh but turned it into a cough.

  ‘Bitch,’ said Lee.

  Back for Round Two. ‘Ouch. Looks like someone’s got a bad case of PMT.’ She turned to face Lee. ‘That’s Permanent Male Twitness, if you were wondering, far more trouble than the female monthly sort.’ What had got into her? She must have a death wish.

  Lee told her crudely where she could get off.

  ‘That’s enough, Lee. Apologize to Mouse.’ Ade ordered it in such a tone of authority that Lee muttered something that might have included the word 'sorry'.

  Meri shrugged and pretended to be only interested in the view from the window. The bus journey wasn't long but there was so much traffic it was often quicker to go on foot. She measured their progress by a guy in a tracksuit with a collie dog. Yep: quicker to walk as long as you knew where the emergency shelters were. As the minutes passed after the little spat with Lee she found her attention drawn back to the boy beside her. In contrast to the stormy energy wh
irling off Count Twit behind, Kel seemed to radiate a kind of lightness. That was a stupid idea, Meri decided. Probably just an association with his honey blond hair that seemed to go every which way like it didn’t need to obey gravity. She studied his reflection and decided he had an unusual but nice face. Maybe not as drop dead gorgeous as his friends but there was a strength to the jaw line and aquiline nose. What colour were his eyes? The reflection didn't give a definitive answer. Not that it mattered. After today she wouldn't make the mistake of sitting up front again.

  ‘What's your name? Not really Mouse, I guess?’

  He was speaking to her. Oh crap, he hadn't caught her watching him, had he? That would be so lowering to admit. ‘Meredith Marlowe.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Meredith. I’m Kel Douglas. Actually Kelvin, but I’ll never forgive my parents for that.’

  She almost added her friends called her Meri but was brought up short by the thought she didn't have any. ‘Oh. Um, nice to meet you too.’

  ‘We have Art together this term.’

  ‘I know.’

  He waited but she didn’t expand on her comment. ‘Not much of a talker then?’

  ‘No.’ She had been once but she'd learned to shut up.

  ‘Anyway, nice finally to meet you.’

  ‘And you.’

  It was an oddly formal conversation, the kind you might have with a chance met stranger, not someone you saw around school each and every day. Meri kicked herself wondering if there was something she could say that would make her seem more normal. ‘So, er, do you like Art?’

  ‘She speaks.’ Kel turned to her and grinned. The power of that smile was enough to knock her off her feet if she hadn’t already been sitting down. OK, that was a little hyperbolic but his smile was just amazing. ‘Yes. I like making things. Ceramics mostly. You?’

  ‘Painting. I like painting.’ Thankfully the bus was drawing close to their stop and the students were beginning to gather in the aisle.

  ‘See you later then. In Art.’