Shredder Read Free Page A

its general direction anyhow—some of it hit the window and dribbled down in brown streaks.
    “Zoe—”
    “Finn, I’m in the middle of a really tough assignment and I can’t think about this right now. And where the hell would we go? Where would we stay? I sold my dad’s house, and the place you’re living in isn’t even yours, and it’s not exactly safe….”
    She seemed to realize how shrill and angry she sounded, and stopped, and took a deep breath.
    “Look,” she said. “Thanks for coming up. It was good to see you. But I really wish you hadn’t. I don’t want to go into hiding for the rest of my life over something I didn’t do and know nothing about. If you’d never told me, if you’d just found McGovern, I would have been fine, so…why don’t you just go home and do that?”
    Of course I should never have come up here. I’d made everything worse, not better—and I’d fooled myself that I was being noble and righteous. A trouble shared is a trouble doubled, my dad used to sigh, and I’d never known what he’d meant, till now, when I had tainted Zoe’s perfect life. I’d screwed up my own a little more too: from now on I’d never beable to think of Zoe without seeing Patrick’s glinting smile and golden tresses, and hearing Zoe’s moan as he slipped her bra straps off her shoulders.
    I hadn’t been the only one living in blissful ignorance.
    “Fine.” I stood up. “I’ll…”
See you around
, I wanted to finish, all casual and cool, but the words were so feeble they died in my throat. Restraining my polite impulse to rinse my cup out in the sink, I plonked it on the table and headed for the door. “Bye,” I said. Maybe it looked like I was flouncing out, but I couldn’t say any more—I’d already said too much.
    Our parting had been pretty final, I realized as I crossed the road outside and strode back towards the station. But maybe that was for the best. What had I to offer Zoe except bad associations? She was right to try to ignore me, to forget about me. If she carried on with her life and pretended I’d never been here, the Turk would have no need to act against her—he couldn’t, in fact, without jeopardizing the only hold he had over me. No, Zoe would be safe if she stayed put and I did what I was told. All I had achieved with this visit was to give Zoe nightmares, and to mess up the only real friendship I had.
    I was five minutes from the station, and the nexttrain left in eight minutes, so two hours from now I would be back in London. I would try, somehow, to find the Guvnor, or at least get a message to him. Then the Turk would forget about me and Zoe, and let us go back to our ordinary lives…wouldn’t he?
    I suddenly remembered Geronimo, the young cat my parents had adopted when I was little. She’d bring mice into the kitchen from the garden, and let them go, and catch them again, and let them go, and do that all morning, until she got bored. Then she’d rip their heads off for the fun of watching the blood spurt and their bodies twitch.
    The next train back to London was the last one before peak hours, and it was crowded with cheapskate travelers like me on discount tickets. All the table seats were taken, and I had to wedge myself into one of the rigid cramped single seats facing backwards, cursing at the pain from my kneecaps where the Turk’s playmates had stamped on them. Though the window seat was empty I took the aisle, hoping size and surliness would put anyone off the idea of clambering over me to get to the empty one. It would give me a little space to stretch out later. And the ploy worked, right up until the last minute.
    Through the thick tinted train window I saw theplatform supervisor blow her whistle and wave her ping-pong bat at the driver, and the train jolted gently into motion, and at that moment I felt someone waiting at my elbow. I smelled her scent before I turned round, so I knew it was Zoe before I looked up; but when I did, I saw that