Omega

I looked up, flourishing the handset, trying not to think of Lyneth and the girls. “He’s gone. Problems with his video recorder, he says.”

Unable to raise him on the phone, we had waited over an hour. Tanya had cooked enough for four, just in case Rees turned up with someone else. Geoff, I imagined, was doing one of his evening clinics. In the end Tanya had warmed everything up in the microwave and we’d eaten, just the two of us.

“I’m bloody annoyed with him,” I told her. “He shouldn’t have left it so late.”

Tanya just shrugged and picked up my plate. She was still a little cool towards me, though we hadn’t discussed the letter-opener incident further. It was a relief to be back with her, to have escaped the bizarre assertions of Owain’s brother and Owain’s feverish reactions.

“There you go again,” Tanya said.

“What?”

“On autopilot. Not really here at all.”

Her tone conveyed irritation and concern in equal measure. It was hardly surprising that her patience was beginning to fray. I was a guest in her house, abusing her hospitality. She couldn’t begin to imagine how far away I actually went when I wasn’t there.

I made myself ask: “So who is here?”

“You tell me, Owen.”

But I couldn’t, though it was all too obvious. If I was capable of entering his world, it was equally possible Owain could do the same in reverse. It would explain many of my memory lapses, along with the urgeto wet shave, read coffee table history books and attempt to force the lock on Tanya’s bureau. Sometimes when I wasn’t here, he was.

THIRTY

Owain woke late, alone on the platform. He splashed his face with water from a fire bucket and made for the stairs. Pigeons fled from the shadows as he ascended into the light.

The morning air felt crisp and clean. There had been a dusting of snow during the night. His feet made a virgin path through it towards the observation tower at the square’s western end.

He was a lot calmer than the night before and had already persuaded himself that he had simply had a bad reaction to his brother’s unexpected appearance and his outrageous fabrications. It was even possible that Rhys had spiked his food or water with something. But this morning he felt much more clear-headed.

As far as he could tell, there was no indication that there had been any attack, no new barriers, extra patrols or the wail of emergency vehicles. If anything, the city looked freshly restored under its covering of snow. Security personnel stood calmly at their postings or squatted at braziers, brewing tea and smoking cigarettes.

The mixed-race security policewoman who stood at the entrance to the tower perimeter was tall and slim, about his age. A captain.

“Good morning, major,” she said as he approached.

Owain nodded. “All quiet?”

“Sunday morning. Like the grave.”

Her accent sounded familiar.

“If it’s OK with you,” Owain said, “I’d like to take a look up top.”

“Sightseeing, major?”

“I used to live out in Hampstead. Wondered if you could still see it from here.”

A flimsy story, and he expected her to be at least suspicious. But she didn’t question it.

“Don’t see why not,” she replied. “As long as you surrender any weapons.”

He gave up his handgun and knife without demur, opening his jacket so that she could frisk him. Her hands moved briskly and efficiently over his body.

“You were born in Cardiff?” he guessed.

“The Docks.”

A cosmopolitan area, packed with overseas migrants.

“Haven’t been back in over fifteen years,” she said. “They tell me the castle’s still standing.”

“It’s a regional HQ,” he told her. “More fortifications than ever.”

She led him through the gate. At the base of the tower was a caged lift, crank operated, big enough for perhaps half a dozen people. He secured the door.

“You’re on Field Marshal Maredudd’s staff,” she said to him. “Am I right?”

“How did you know?”

“We get mini-cine briefings these days. I’ve a good memory for faces.”

He started turning the handle. As he rose, the air grew warmer, then colder again. Pockets of smoke were rising from all over the city—rising before merging into a murky layer, as though a threadbare grey blanket had been suspended in the air. From somewhere he caught a waft of frying bacon. It was swiftly gone.

In little more than a minute the cage clanged into place on the platform. A private was there to meet him—a boy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, his face stained by a crimson blotch that lay like a distorted map of South America down his left cheek. He saluted Owain.

“Just up for a quick look,” Owain said as purposefully as he could manage. “Any chance of a pair of binoculars?”

The boy, evidently eager to please, hurried around the observation deck. Through the support struts Owain could see two older men hunched down behind the grimy plastic windows of the cold-weather cabin. Both of them were reading the Daily Herald.