A/N Kind of interested to hear if anyone's actually still reading this :) I've been a bit slack with the updating; it's all written right to the end and should be fairly quick on new chapters from here on. Reviews are loved XD
Chapter Twenty Eight
Hex
'That one,' Alex murmured, nodding slightly in the direction of a tall building with flaking paint. The perfect hideout for someone who wasn't supposed to exist. 'Flat six A?' He looked to Mara and Neil, just to make sure he'd remembered right. When they nodded, Alex turned back to me. 'We just go in and ask?'
'I suppose...' To be honest, I didn't really have a plan. I was just going to go along with what I'd said to Amber: improvise.
Alex must have read my mind because he grinned and said, 'You have no idea what to do, do you?'
'Not really,' I admitted, peering at the flat block through my window. A curtain twitched in a window halfway up the building. Level six, I realised after a quick count, and wondered whether we ourselves were being watched.
After a few more minutes of whispered discussion, we decided to just barge on in, find flat six A, and knock. As for what happened after that... We felt optimistic, but kept our hopes reasonably low, knowing that, as Amber had pointed out oh so bluntly, Helton wouldn't be eager to reveal any information about himself, Hart, his boss or the machine.
'We'll bluff it,' Mara decided as we crossed the road and approached the flat. She went to pull open the door, stopped, and added in a hushed voice, 'What do we do if he doesn't say anything?'
No one answered. I don't know about the others, but I had been thinking the exact same question and wondering over the answer. How far were we prepared to go to get the information? How far would we be able to go? Our options were limited, the tension building. Heart in my throat, I followed Mara and Alex into the building, Neil right behind me.
We climbed the stairs up to the sixth level and found ourselves facing Helton's flat. Mara took a deep breath and I looked at her sharply. She gave a sheepish smile.
'I don't think I'm cut out for interrogation,' she whispered, which came as a definite surprise. Tough, violent, fearless to the point of complete stupidity, Mara hadn't ever struck me as the sort of person to back away from anything.
'We need someone to watch the door anyway,' Neil cut in, concerned. 'You can stay out here if you want, though I don't think we'll be taking it too far.' He looked to me and I nodded immediately.
Mara looked relieved. 'Thanks. I'll just, er...' She cast around and spotted a small alcove further up the hall; she pointed. 'I'll be over there. Good luck, guys.'
As Mara walked away, Alex stepped forward and knocked on the door. We waited, then Alex knocked again when we got no response. Starting to frown, Alex went to knock a third time, when a woman suddenly appeared from a flat further down the hall.
'If you want Michael,' she called, 'you'll have to come back later. He went out, oh... Mustn't have been more than forty minutes ago. I could tell him you dropped by when he gets back if you don't want to hang around...'
The three of us exchanged glances. Mara moved out of her alcove hiding place and joined us.
'Do you know where he went?' Neil asked the woman, who looked at us with suspicion for the first time.
'Why do you want to know?' She sunk back against the doorframe, eyes half narrowed. 'Who are you? Is Michael in some sort of trouble?'
I wanted to hurry and put her fears to rest before she got worked up and jumped to conclusions. The last thing we needed was some concerned, nosy neighbour alerting Helton. But we had a problem: how to explain why four people were knocking on her neighbour's door late at night and were interested in his whereabouts.
'We just need to speak to him,' I said, disgusted with my lack of imagination. 'It's really important. Please, if you know where he went... We need to know.'
The woman made an annoyed sound and leant more heavily against her door. 'You're wasting your time. I don't know. Even if I did I don't think I'd tell you.' I didn't doubt it. 'I came home, he was in the hall-' she pointed to where we were standing '-on the phone. He hung up, ignored my greeting and left. I have no idea where he was going. That satisfy your curiosity?' The way she spoke, how she was standing, made me think that maybe she thought we were cops. Good. I was happy with that. As long as she didn't ask for ID. Or called the real cops.
Beside me, Alex tapped my arm. I looked sideways at him; he gave a tiny nod, then inclined his head, eyes sliding to look past the woman at the second set of stairs at the end of hall. We said goodbye to Helton's neighbour and turned around, as though we were going to head back the way we'd arrived. As, with a huffy sigh, the woman shut her door, we stopped our fake exit and hurried across to the second lot of stairs.
Halfway down, Mara said, 'I bet this goes to a car park. Underground.'
She was proved right when, barely a minute later, we reached the bottom of the stairs. The parking spaces were lit by half a dozen low wattage, flickering fluorescent tubes, throwing distorted shadows up the walls and leaving half the space in almost total darkness. Mara shivered.
'What're we looking for?' Neil asked as we ventured further into the car park.
'Sometimes each flat'll have a reserved car park. If we find Helton's spot, we might...' I trailed off, realising how farfetched the idea was. Whether Helton's car was parked in its spot or not was hardly going to be rock solid proof of where he'd gone, who he'd left with... I was about to suggest we just have a quick look around and head off, when Alex, who'd wandered off by himself, gave a shout.
'Quick! Over here!'
We bolted towards the sound of his voice, arriving just in time to see Alex shrugging off his jacket.
'What is it?' Mara asked, panicked. Her eyes, along with mine and Neil's, travelled to land on the four wheel drive parked in front of us, the engine still running.
Helton was behind the wheel, slumped over.
'Mind yourselves,' Alex warned, before placing his jacket over the window and driving his fist into it. There was the faint tinkle of breaking glass; Alex dropped his jacket, not bothering to put it back on, before reaching through the now glass free window and popping the lock. A faint smell I couldn't place wafted about us, but I wasn't sure whether I'd imagined it or not.
Alex was about to climb into the passenger seat when there was a scream from behind us.
'Oh my God!' The nosy neighbour had followed us down. She was standing behind us, in a pink floral dressing gown, hand to her mouth. 'Is that- What's- My God!'
'Call the police,' Neil told her as Alex slipped into the car, reaching across towards Helton; he turned the key and the engine died. 'And an ambulance.'
The woman stared at Neil as though he'd spoken in another language, then slowly nodded her head and started to turn around. Alex, though, cut in with a subdued, 'Don't worry about the ambulance.'
Her face went white. 'You mean he's...'
Alex nodded and the woman's eyes widened. Mara looked at her in alarm.
'Come on. We'll take you back to your flat, okay?' She took hold of the woman's arm and told us she'd call the police from the lady's flat; the two of them disappeared up the staircase.
'His hands are stuck,' Alex said, sounding puzzled. He gave a little tug and then sat back. 'It's like...'
'Like what?' I asked, stepping closer.
'They've been glued to the wheel.'
We stared at each other, the reality of the situation sinking in. Our suspicions were more or less confirmed when Neil called from the back of the car, 'Come look at this.'
Alex climbed out of the car and the two of us joined Neil. We all stared at the tube stretching from the car's exhaust pipe to a tiny hole made in the back of the car.
'Carbon monoxide inhalation,' Neil said softly. 'Suicide?'
Alex shook his head. 'His hands are stuck to the wheel. Either he wanted to make sure he went through with it or-'
'-someone else did.' I looked around, searching for any security cameras and, when I found none in the immediate area, set off across the car park. Finally I located one, near the exit. I went back to Alex and Neil. 'I'll be back in a minute,' I told them. 'I just want to check something out.'
My gut instinct was telling me that Helton hadn't committed suicide, that this time he really had been murdered, but I needed proof. Although I doubted I'd get that proof from the security camera- it was nowhere near Helton's car- I figured it could provide a lead. Had Hart been involved with Helton's death? He was the most likely suspect as far as I was concerned.
The far corner of the car park sported a small room which I guessed was a sort of security check point. I headed towards it, finding it unmanned and unlocked. Inside was a single monitor, a desk overflowing with rubbish and a three legged chair. It took me barely a minute to find the right section of tape, the section that would surely show anyone arriving or leaving when Helton supposedly went out for the night. I waited, waited, waited and then-
'You're bloody kidding me.'
I rewound the tape, just to be certain I'd seen what I'd thought I had. Sure enough, there was Abigail, looking very suspect, getting into a car. She mustn't have known about the security camera because she was doing nothing to hide her face from it as she climbed into the passenger seat, not the least bit concerned about being captured on the tape. The driver wasn't visible, which was disappointing, but I knew without a doubt that Abigail had had something- or everything, actually- to do with Helton's death. The only question that remained was why. She'd risked her career, no doubt, just six years before to help Helton, make him disappear and become someone completely new, so why had she suddenly gone to the other end of the scale and killed him? Last time I'd been near Abigail's office, I hadn't a chance to snoop around. I decided right then and there to change that. First available opportunity I got, I was going to break in there, hack into her computer and get some answers.
The stakes had been upped and I wasn't about to get left behind.
