Omega

His brother’s room turned out to be at the end of the corridor along the topmost floor. It grew colder as he moved down it. He didn’t knock but turned the knob. The door wasn’t locked.

Owain stepped quietly inside to a stale unventilated heat. A pair of shoes lay on the lounge floor, and there was a copy of the News Chronicle on the coffee table. Yesterday’s edition. The room gave no other evidence of habitation.

He slipped into the bedroom, where the contrast was stark. The bed was unmade, items of clothing scattered on it, an open paperback lying on the pillow. The Rake of the Main, a trashy TripleX adventure novel, sold in PP outlets only. A tale of de-may-care pirates, of lust and vengeance on the high seas, it said on the back. They sold for thirty euros or more on the black market.

The door to the en suite bathroom was open, a razor and brush on the sink, the sides of the bath still wet. But Rhys was gone: he must have exited the room minutes before.

Owain pocketed the book and went outside. The fire escape door opposite was open a crack, the cold air seeping in. There were fresh footprints on the snow-covered steps. He followed them down, treading carefully. They continued along an alleyway that gave out on a ramshackle open space of stalls, barrows and braziers arranged around three sides of a flagstone square.

A rich mixture of smells reached his nostrils: wood smoke, curry sauce, and the ammoniacal smell of raw fish turning rank. Civilians and soldiers of many nationalities milled around in the dirty slush, buying and bartering all manner of goods from bowls of glistening offal to galvanised bathtubs. Two carthorses were munching straw in one corner, while corrugated sheets framed a latrine in the other.

There was no sign of Rhys amongst the crowds. Had his brother spotted his arrival and made haste to flee? Probably, though an odd reversal given his previous eagerness to make contact. Owain’s premonition of impending danger, and of the need to get some straight answers from his brother, was merely heightened.

He swiftly abandoned the idea of attempting to find Rhys by hunting through the bustle. Instead he went into a pub that stood on the corner of the square. From its front window he would have a clear view of the entrance to the alleyway. Assuming that Rhys returned via the same route, it was the perfect place to spot him.

The pub, like the square, was crowded, mostly with customers he judged to be ex-servicemen or manual workers from exempted industries. The place was thick with cigarette smoke, raucous voices and the reek of spilled beer. A large alcove was packed with spectators watching horseracing on a dusty track. He found an empty stool at the window and wedged himself in.

Within minutes of sitting down he realised he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten anything all day. When a young boy pushed through the crowd with a basket holding brown paper bags of nuts, Owain bought one and wolfed them down. They tasted of little but salt and left his mouth feeling stripped of its juices.

He put his hat on his stool and pushed his way to the bar. A hollow-eyed Dravidic woman was serving. She could have been any age between thirty and fifty, her hair dyed the colour of dirty straw.

“What can I get you, major?” she asked.

Owain realised he had no idea. I seized my chance, said, “Beer.”

“Pint?”

I waited for him to say something; he simply nodded.

“Dimpled or straight?”

It felt like a test. “As it comes.”

He was given a dimpled glass with a handle, the beer a mahogany brown with caramel-coloured foam. She slopped a portion of it as she pushed it across the counter, already taking an order from her next customer.

Owain manoeuvred his way back to the window, only to find that a beefy, florid-faced man now occupied his stool. He looked like a stereotypical butcher.

“I was sitting there,” Owain said to him.

He was already tensed, expecting a confrontation, but the man merely picked up his drink and slid himself off the stool. He said something in what sounded like Norwegian before merging into the crowd. Owain saw that his hat had been carefully placed on the ledge, propped by its peak against the window to minimise seepage from beer puddles.

He seated himself and put the glass to his mouth. It smelled like yeasty bilge water. He swallowed a big mouthful. A shudder went through him as the liquid went down, bitter and earthy. Steeling himself, he took another mouthful, determined to moisten his mouth, sloshing it through his teeth, not swallowing until it was warmed to body heat. All the while he was looking out the window, searching for a glimpse of Rhys.

He set the glass down, made himself more comfortable. Outside the snow had stopped falling and the crowd in the square had thinned. Stallholders were starting to pack up for the day. Though it was still early, the sky already held the first hint of the darkness to come.