Border Princes - By Dan Abnett Page 0,2

he... had he?

It was so hard to think. To remember. His own name. Laney’s name. No, Laney’s name was Laney. Laney, where are you?

‘Talk to me,’ said the woman called Toshiko. ‘What were you trying to tell me?’

‘There are,’ Huw began again, ignoring the woolly sound of his voice, ‘there are numbers, and there are two blue lights and they move, and they move about, like this.’

He pulled his hand free of the dripping chain link and moved it around his other hand, describing curious, geometric patterns in the air.

‘They move. They move. They move about. They’re big lights. Big big big.’

His thready voice emphasised the middle of the three ‘bigs’.

Toshiko crouched beside him. ‘Lights? And numbers?’

Huw nodded. ‘Big big big. Flashing and moving. Blue. Oh, sometimes red. Red is dead. Blue is true. Big big big.’

‘What are the numbers?’ Toshiko asked him.

‘My name is Huw!’ he blurted, as if he’d just that minute remembered.

‘Oh, well, hello Huw. Tell me about the numbers and the lights.’

Huw’s head rolled drunkenly. He was blinking very fast, and the muscles in his face were ticking. ‘Huw is blue. Huw is true. Big big big.’

‘The numbers, Huw—’

‘Abstract numbers,’ he said, very clearly and suddenly, fixing her with a stare.

Toshiko looked back at him. Jeans, a vest top, a ratty Hoxton fin ruined by the rain. No way this ‘Huw’ knew about abstract numbers.

‘Huw, tell me about the abstract numbers.’

Huw was fiddling with his left ear. He pulled out a clump of cotton wool. It was soaked in blood.

‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘I think my brain’s burst.’

‘Huw,’ Toshiko soothed.

‘Oh no!’ he wailed suddenly, writhing.

‘Oh no! Go away! Don’t look at me! Leave me alone!’

Toshiko started back. She realised Huw had just wet himself. She could smell it. He was mortified by the indignity.

That suggested he wasn’t drunk.

‘Huw...’

‘My head does hurt,’ he moaned.

‘So does mine,’ she agreed. It really, really did. ‘Tell me more about the numbers and the lights. Where did they come from?’

Boiled egg. Boiled egg. She was acutely aware that they were running out of time. Completely out of time.

‘Big big big,’ Huw replied. ‘Stephi Graff. Giraffe. Ron Moody. Bastard. Twins. Illegitimate twins. On the cover of Hello! magazine. Do you know that magazine? Very much the model of a modern major overhaul.’

‘Huw? Come on! Huw?’

He smiled at her, blinking all the time.

Then he died.

His eyeballs went slack, and his head flopped back, and a puff of smoke trickled up out of his open mouth.

The smoke smelled of burned sugar, plastic and faeces.

Knifed by the same pain that had killed him, Toshiko fell to her knees, wincing.

‘He lost the Amok,’ a voice behind her said.

Toshiko looked around.

The tramp stood in the beating rain, watching her. He seemed huge, but that was because he was wearing too many old coats. His filthy beard was strung with rainwater droplets like a Christmas tree’s decorations. He reeked of mud and factory waste. His arms were weighed down by two heavy carrier bags. Sainsbury’s.

‘He lost the what?’ Toshiko asked, rising.

‘The Amok,’ the tramp replied. There was no way of telling how old he was. Thirty? Sixty? Life had run him down without stopping.

He set his bulging carrier bags down at his feet. ‘Huw had the Amok, but he lost. Donny had it before him, and he lost too. Before Donny, Terry. Before Terry, Malcolm. Before Malcolm, Bob. Before Bob, Ash’ahvath.’

‘Before Bob who?’

‘Ash’ahvath,’ the tramp said.

‘As in the Middlesex Ash’ahvath’s?’

The tramp sniggered and shook his head so hard raindrops flew out of his beard, like a dog shaking itself after bath-time. ‘You’re funny. I don’t know no Ash’ahvath. It was just the last name on the list.’

‘I see,’ said Toshiko, slowly rising to her feet. ‘Do you have the Amok now? What’s your name?’

‘John Norris,’ replied the tramp, crouching down to sort through his carrier bags. ‘John Norris. I was all right once, you know.’

‘You’re all right now, John,’ she said.

‘I’m not. I’m not. I had a good job. A company car. It was a Rover. GL. I had my own parking space. They called me Mr Norris.’

‘What happened?’

‘Workforce rationalisation. The wife moved to her sister’s place. I haven’t seen my boy in five years.’

The tramp began to weep.

‘Mr Norris, we can sort this all out,’ Toshiko said, stepping towards him. Her head was throbbing. ‘Please, do you have the Amok?’

He nodded, sniffling, and rifled around in one of his carrier bags.

‘It’s in here somewhere.’ He glanced up at her. ‘Big big big,’ he added. Emphasis on the middle