“What?” She glanced up. “Oh, yes, go ahead, Mr Tyler. It’s a bit windy out there today, so you might want to take a coat.” She gestured to several raincoats hanging beside the door. “Enjoy yourself. I must be getting on.”
She hurried away, and Alex wondered what she, C, and D were so busy doing when he appeared to be the only resident.
He put on one of the coats and walked out of the door. Such a small thing, but it felt momentous. The last time he’d been out on his own had been during that dreadful week of his escape, and he couldn’t help still feeling like a fugitive as he walked around the grounds.
The Belvedere estate was remote, perched on a clifftop, with only one long, winding road leading in and out. He walked towards the sea, drawn by the screeching of the gulls and the scent of saltwater. It was a dull, chilly day with a hint of drizzle in the air. He reached the cliff’s edge and gazed down at the grey waves thrashing onto the rocks below.
It would be so easy to end the continuing horror of his existence and throw himself off the cliffs, to be cut to shreds by the rocks below. If he did that, Solange would never get the justice he’d promised her, but at least he’d be free of George Tyler.
Who are you?
He thought he’d made this decision when he’d started eating again back at Tyler’s house. Maybe it wasn’t that easy. Maybe it was a decision he had to commit to every day.
He could take a few steps forward, stretch out his arms and fall to his death. It would solve so many things. He thought of Joe, enduring the brutal murder of the man he loved. Wouldheever contemplate suicide as a response to that loss? He barely knew Josiah Raine, but he was sure he knew the answer.
Who is Alexander Lytton?
He stared down at the mesmerising white froth on the rocks below, and then, without thinking, he turned away.
“So, not suicidal, then,” he murmured to himself. “Whoever I am, I’m not that. At least, not yet.”
The Belvedere grounds were neatly kept, with borders of evergreen shrubs. He admired several large camellias that were flowering in a riot of pretty red flowers and took a stroll through an Edwardian walled garden, full of herbs, fruit trees, and shrubs.
He wandered up the road away from the house and found that it led, eventually, to a set of ornate wrought-iron gates, withBelvederefashioned in elegant lettering in the middle.
As he drew closer, he saw that the gates were open. He stopped, looking around. There was a gatehouse but nobody was in it. There were no guards, no surveillance, nothing. He could just walk out of here and be free.
Of course, freedom was a relative term. He glanced down at the red dot blinking in his wrist. He could cut it out again and make a run for it. He was already by the coast, and there might be local sailors prepared to take him away. He didn’t have any money but he could offer to work his passage, one way or another. He was so used to selling his body that it was second nature by now, and there was always someone who wanted to buy.
He could go to France and disappear, live out the rest of his days far away from Tyler. It would mean abandoning any hope ofgetting justice for Solange, but he doubted she would begrudge him that. It was his choice.
Who is Alex Lytton?
He stood there for a long time under the grey December sky. Then he turned around and walked back to the house.
Chapter Three
OCTOBER 2095
Josiah
The address Reed found for Ted Burgis took them to a rundown street opposite a massive lost zone. They pulled up a short distance from a square block of old estate housing, now half buried under water. Even inside the duck, with all the windows closed, the stench coming from the estate was foul.
“Quarterlands,” Alex murmured.
The flood defences were holding, but only just. The waters were being kept at bay, but the street they were on probably flooded regularly.
“Yeah. Not the nicest neighbourhood.” Josiah peered out of the duck window at the address he’d been given, which was a squalid-looking shopfront. There was a green army aid flag painted on the makeshift sign above the shop.
“So, Ted’s address is an army shop,” Josiah said. “That’s interesting.”
Army shops were common near any large lost zone. In the chaotic years immediately after the Rising, the army had commandeered shops as bases from which to provide food and medical aid to the stricken population. Nowadays, the government refused to feed anyone who didn’t voluntarily submit to living in a work camp, so the old army shops hadbecome cheap food banks run by locals. The name had stuck, though, and they were still called army shops, long after the army had stopped handing out free supplies. The banks were basic, the choice limited, and the food frequently substandard or downright illegal. Nobody came here by choice.
“Wait here,” Josiah ordered. “I’ll call you if I need you.”
The stench hit him full-on when he opened the duck door. He was familiar with it from growing up in the Quarterlands, but even so, he almost retched. It took him a few seconds to acclimatise, then he crossed the street, stepping over several puddles of raw sewage on the way.
There was a small pack of feral kids hanging around outside the shop, which made him feel almost nostalgic. When he was a kid, he’d often lurked outside the army shop near his Quarter. It had been a much dirtier place than this, and he’d often searched the trash at night with gangs of Quarterlands kids, looking for food deemed not good enough even for army shop customers.
