“It’s a beautiful, sunny day and the helicopter is waiting on the lawn,” Gideon said as they walked down the stairs together. He might have said something else, but Alex couldn’t hear him. His head was filled only with his song, which he chanted silently over and over again.
Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope.
The rest of the staff were waiting for him in the huge entrance hall, all lined up to say goodbye, as if he was some kind of dignitary. He smiled, nodded, shook hands – and barely registered any of them.
Where there is darkness only light,
And where there’s sadness ever joy.
“Many thanks, B… Goodbye, C… It was a pleasure, F…” The words seemed to come from someone else. He said one final goodbye to Gideon, whose brown eyes were shining a little too brightly. Could it be that Gideon, who’d cautioned him in the strongest terms about not getting too close to anyone, hadn’t been able to take his own advice?
He kept his gaze resolutely blank as he walked to the helicopter. A security guard in black Tyler livery was waiting to escort him onboard, but he didn’t know the man. He wondered where Mick was, but it wasn’t any of his business, so best not to speculate. Best not to wonder, either, where Tyler was, and whether he was being taken straight to see him, or somewhereelse. None of it was his concern. His only mission was to be the perfect IS, to wait and bide his time until his opportunity arose.
Oh, Master grant that I may never seek,
So much to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.
“Good morning,” he said politely to his guard. “I’m…” Pausing, he gave a little smile. “Alexander Tyler,” he finished firmly. The security guard couldn’t have looked less interested. He jerked his head, and Alex took his seat. Alexander Tyler. That’s who his houder wanted him to be, so that’s who he was now.
The helicopter took off into the bright blue sky, and soon Belvedere was a tiny white dot beneath them. Alex didn’t look back.
A little while later, the helicopter landed on the rooftop of Vertex Tower. The significance of this location wasn’t lost on Alex. He’d run away from this place, and now he was being returned to it. The message couldn’t have been clearer: there was no escape. Not then, not now, not ever. This was where Tyler wanted him to be, so this was where he’d stay.
His minder was called Harris. The man didn’t offer any other name, and Alex didn’t ask for one. He escorted Alex down in the lift, which opened onto the exact same suite he’d lived in before. It was precisely the same as when he’d left it; nothing had changed – and yet everything was different, including him.
He glanced around the living room. There was no Solange, but her presence was everywhere. Over there, on the beanbags, where they’d eaten popcorn together while watching the screen.On the sofa, where she’d sat with him, painting her nails and chatting, trying to distract him during his recovery from Jake Harper’s assault. And there… over there by the window, was where Ted had taken that photo of her, the one Alex had been forced to leave behind at Belvedere. He allowed none of these thoughts to show, gazing around blankly as if this place held no meaning for him. He knew Tyler would be watching. The smartwall was still active, recording every corner of every room.
Solange wasn’t the only one missing. Alex didn’t recognise any of the people who now staffed the suite. He hadn’t expected Ted to be there, so that was no surprise, but everyone else had been replaced, too. The new security guards were a tough-looking crew, eyeing him suspiciously. Maybe, beneath their macho posturing, some of them were as nice as Ted, but Alex didn’t intend to get close enough to find out, for their sake as much as his.
Harris took him to the gym to meet the new trainer, a big, burly man with a tightly trimmed black beard.
“I’m Jack. I heard you gave Mason a hard time. Don’t try any of that shit with me,” he said stonily.
“I look forward to learning from you, Jack,” Alex replied demurely. He handed Jack the nanocard E had given him. “This is from my trainer at Belvedere, outlining my current fitness programme. I hope we can build on it, as I’d like to continue to improve. Also, she’s keen that I carry on with yoga. It keeps me supple, which helps in my line of work.” He said that without shame or irony, as the straightforward fact it was. Jack looked taken aback, but he took the card and scanned it into his holopad.
“I’ll take a proper look and work out a full programme for you. I want you in here at eleven a.m. tomorrow,” he ordered. A later start than at Belvedere, to account, no doubt, for the fact that most of Alex’s work would be performed at night.
“Of course,” Alex said smoothly. He hoped Jack would agree to help him with his yoga practice, but even if he didn’t, it didn’t matter. He could continue that privately, during the long hours of nothingness that he remembered from his previous life here. Even Tyler didn’t have enough blackmail targets to keep Alex perpetually busy.
The next stop was his bedroom – only it wasn’t the room he’d occupied before. He was taken, instead, further down the corridor, towards… His heart sank as he realised where Harris was taking him. They stopped outside his new bedroom.Herroom.
“This is new,” he observed, as pleasantly as he could muster. More Tyler mind games? How cruel could the man be to make him sleep where Solange had once slept? Then he realised it wasn’t just mindless cruelty; there was a method to everything Tyler did. He’d moved Alex here as a warning, and the message was obvious: behave, or what happened to Solange will happen to you.
Harris flung open the door and ushered Alex inside. Solange’s room was the same size as his old one but had a slightly different view. The wreckage of the London Eye was still faintly visible in the dark waters of the lost zone below, but he also had more of a view of the city itself, with all its bright lights and scurrying people.
“Make yourself at home. Andrew will be here soon,” Harris said, and then he left. Who was Andrew? Well, no doubt he’d find out soon enough. He wandered around the room, aware of Tyler’s gaze on his every move. This was his first test, and he was determined to pass it.
He could see Solange’s ghost everywhere. Over there, curled up in the big armchair by the window, reading a magazine, one finger curled in her glorious hair. There, in the bathroom, where he’d chased her one day when they’d both been sweaty fromworking out. He’d pushed her under the shower and turned it on, then jumped in beside her, both of them still dressed in their workout clothes, and they’d laughed helplessly under the warm spray. On the bed, where he’d crawled in beside her and cuddled her when she’d cried after spending the night with a particularly unpleasant guest. The memories were oddly comforting. They made him feel close to her. Instead of continuing to feel angry with Tyler for putting him in her room, now he was pleased. Everything else had changed, but she was still here with him. He couldfeelher.
Behind him, the door opened, and he turned to see a plain man in his thirties with a nervous, smiling face.
“I’m Andrew, your new stylist,” he said. He had short blond hair and baby blue eyes, and there was a sweetness to him that couldn’t be faked. Alex treated him the same way he’d treated Jack: remote smile, polite disinterest, making it only about the work.
