As he folded up his phone and slipped it into his pocket, this time it was Emilia’s turn to grasp her husband’s hand.
‘What happened?’ she asked. Only when Ted winced did she realise the strength of her grip. She let go. ‘Please, I have to know.’
‘It wasn’t your fault. You were working horrendous, horrendous hours, sometimes nineteen, twenty a day. It was unsustainable. You weren’t sleeping, you weren’t eating properly and the pressure you were putting upon yourself and your team was intolerable. It’s no surprise that something had to give.’
‘And that something was me?’
‘Yes, you suffered a mental breakdown.’
‘Was there a specific trigger that pushed me?’
Again, Ted glared at her as if begging her not to ask him to expand. But Emilia wasn’t ready to back down. ‘I can take it,’ she said. ‘Tell me.’
‘One of your team members was driven to breaking point. She arrived at your offices one morning and stabbed four of your colleagues to death before she tried to kill you.’
Chapter 15
FLICK, ALDEBURGH, SUFFOLK
Flick examined her mobile phone from all angles: she vaguely recalled playing with an old clamshell like this belonging to her father back when she was a child. The case of the clunky, ugly, silver obsolete gadget was reflecting light from the sea ahead and that was the most interesting thing about it. It had no working camera, games to play, text message facility, emails, cloud access, voicemail or GPS. She couldn’t download apps or maps and internet access was restricted to only the ReadWell website. It wasn’t associated with any network and piggybacked other people’s mobile phone hotspots or Wi-Fi to make a connection. The phone was completely incognito and left no digital footprint attributable to her.
‘Every Minder will get this exact same model,’ Karczewski had advised.
‘I thought the idea was to blend in? This’ll make us stand out.’
‘You’ll simply tell people you’re part of that ever-expanding Neo-Luddite movement that rejects intrusive technology like the kind found on phones.’
‘But won’t it seem hypocritical if I then use a credit card?’
‘Since the abolition of cash as a valid payment form, you don’t have a choice.’
Flick soon found it liberating to be living off-grid and not beholden to any form of technology. The programme strictly forbade Minders from using anything that might lead to their identification. That meant no email address, social media accounts, online shopping, or banking. Everything was to be paid for in person via the credit card she had been issued and that was funded by dozens of untraceable foreign shell accounts. Only Karczewski had any idea of where she was.
From her bench by Aldeburgh’s Crag Path boating pond, she watched a dad with two young children pushing paper sailboats. Flick hoped to make new friends while she was here but it wasn’t going be an easy process. What she knew had to be protected at all costs. She had been trained to trust no one and because friendships were a two-way street, connections were going to be hard to make for someone who travelled only in one direction.
As she relaxed, her brain began casually decoding random fragments of implanted data. It was against the rules but not always possible to control. Today, she saw the face of a much-loved politician who had been caught in a hushed-up, potentially career-destroying sex scandal. Next came a once redacted but now readable report of secret military operations and coded maps of British weapons bases hidden worldwide. Then she learned the truth behind the closure of the nearby Sizewell nuclear power station and its hidden catastrophic environmental impact. The ruthlessness and power her country’s leaders had over the truth was frightening.
It was days after the implant procedure when similar details began seeping into her conscious mind. It was as if she was recalling someone else’s memories and it fascinated her. Karczewski advised her it was all perfectly normal and part of the healing process for knowledge to occasionally leak like it was today.
To harness them, Flick put into practice a range of mindfulness routines. She closed her eyes and concentrated only on what she could hear in the present; the animated voices of the children in front of her, the gentle thud of boules landing with a thump on crushed stone and seagulls squawking as they circled wooden fishing shacks. Soon, the insight she was a party to migrated back into the box from which it’d escaped.
She took a leisurely walk along the sea front and in the direction of the neighbouring village of Thorpeness. Her brother Theo’s dog Rupert would have loved this hike and she briefly considered if adopting a pet of her own might keep her company.No dependents, she reminded herself. If she needed to beat a hasty retreat, she couldn’t allow anything to slow her down, not even a canine companion.
It was still the week of her arrival and it wasn’t the first time she’d walked this five-mile round trip. Again, she made mental notes of the landscape, focusing on bridleways, roads that went somewhere and others that led nowhere, fields with locked gates and low hedgerows and those surrounded by streams or marshland. She knew the area off by heart and had mentally mapped out a dozen potential escape routes. She hoped she’d never have call to use one.
Later, on her return, Flick chose to walk along a decommissioned railway track that had been converted into a public walkway. She passed ramblers and dog walkers, all making a point of either smiling at her or saying hello. She was learning to ignore her natural instinct as a Londoner to be suspicious of friendly types. There were many aspects of this new life that would take time to become accustomed to.
Yet despite all the hope that filled her, something buried inside pecked away at her like a vulture picking at a carcass.It’s all too good to be true, it warned.Your time here is limited. You’d better lead with your head because your heart will get you killed.
Chapter 16
CHARLIE, MANCHESTER
Mapping out a city centre using his long-term memory was a challenge. Much of his first week had been spent holding a fold-up map, a novelty for his generation who’d grown up relying on smart glasses or phones to direct them. But anything that could track his whereabouts was strictly off limits. He’d used the map to navigate every street, cul-de-sac and dual carriageway, along with train routes, taxi ranks and trams until he knew Manchester off by heart.
It was an ever-expanding metropolis and its tentacles spread out in so many directions that it would have taken months to put to memory each area beyond the inner ring road. The city’s redevelopment over the last two decades had seen an influx of workers relocating there, especially from the south of England. Demand for housing meant buildings of historic interest and high-rise offices and apartments jostled for space in the sky. It also housed its own slum area where low-income immigrants had made their homes inside a sea of tents before the country’s borders went into lockdown.
Meanwhile, high-speed trains meant a commute from London to Manchester took as long as getting from one side of the capital to the other. The daytime footfall of residents, tourists, shoppers, office workers and shop stafffollowed by the night-time demands for bars, restaurants and entertainment centres meant it rivalled New York as a city that didn’t sleep.
