Chapter 150: All Parties Present I

"I can’t give you the very first one," Danny said.

Jodie’s pen stopped.

"You just said this is the real one."

"It is. But the first one’s got my dad in it. I’ve not told my mum that part. She found out last about the money today, and I’m not making her last about this as well." He sat up against the headboard. "I’ll give you everything after it. Every one. And the first one when I’ve told her."

Jodie looked at him under the big light with the pad on her knee.

"Write it down. That you owe me one. In your hand."

He took the pen and wrote at the bottom of her page. First one owed. After Mum. He gave it back.

"Right." She ruled a line under it. "Then the money. When was the first money?"

"October. An email. 50 grand, with nothing behind it."

"What day in October?"

"I don’t know the date."

"Then think." She tapped the pen. "You told me on Sunday, through my chain. Naomi had you checked and there’s nothing on you before October. What did she say, exactly?"

"Nothing before the 11th of October. No credit file, no account, nothing."

Jodie wrote 11 Oct and boxed it.

"So that’s the day you start. Whatever this is, it started you on the 11th." She looked up. "What happened on the 10th?"

How’s she got there in 40 seconds? 6 weeks I’ve been carrying that date round and never put it next to Naomi’s.

"That’s the one I’m not telling you tonight," Danny said.

She looked at him a moment and wrote 10 Oct, owed next to the box.

"After the 50 grand."

"Doors. Before there were shifts there were doors. An estate. A tower. A white house in Kensington. I’d walk into a place that didn’t want me in it, and it’d pay me for being in there. The less they wanted me, the more it paid."

Jodie wrote it down word for word in her neat hand. It took her a while.

"Then the shifts."

"The first was a Saturday. Ashcombe’s, Ryder Court, SW1. Grade 2, out of 6. 140,000. Clocked on at 2 minutes past 4, off at 6. Before I went in I asked it who else does this. It said there’s others, and I’ll not meet them."

"Then?"

"Then the Travelodge."

The pen stopped.

"The night we turned up with no bags."

"Grade 1. It paid nothing. It came up on my phone at quarter past 1 with you asleep on my chest."

She put the pen down flat on the pad.

"Give me your phone."

He gave it her. She held it in both hands and scrolled up, and up, her thumb going faster, the gold lines sliding past under the big light.

"How far back does this go?"

"I’ve never got to the top."

She stopped on a Sunday in the middle, and read with her mouth shut tight. Then she turned the screen round to him.

[ Miss Carter has been added to your record. ] [ This was not done by the Concierge. ]

"That’s me," Jodie said. "Miss Carter. On a record."

"Yes."

"When did you read this?"

"That night. Quarter past 1, with you asleep on me."

She went on down the page. He knew where she was by her face. take her off it, twice, and the minute and a half of nothing under it. why is she on it. Then the 2 lines it had sent back, and she read them out loud, flat.

"Attendance at a graded door is recorded. All parties present are recorded." She kept going. "Nothing happens to her. She is on it."

Then she stopped and read something twice.

"am i on it. And it says No, host. There is no record of you to be on." She looked up. "Everybody round you goes on it, and you don’t."

"I’m what it’s filed under. I’m not on it."

"And it says this one isn’t even its own record. The Concierge does not hold the record. So somebody else has got a list with me on it, and this thing just reads it out to you."

"Yes," Danny said. "That’s what it told me."

"And everybody in a room with you on one of these. The woman with the ring. Her husband. The removal men."

"It gave me their names."

"It says nothing happens to me." She put her finger on the line. "It never says nothing happens to them. You asked about me. Did you ask about them?"

Did you? You stopped as soon as it said her.

"No."

Jodie looked at the 2 take her off its a while longer.

"You tried," she said. "At your window, twice. I can see you did." She put the phone down on the duvet between them. "And then you let me sleep on you while you were at work, and you let me sit and sew with a pin in my mouth 3 feet away on the hospital Tuesday, and you said nothing."

"I let you find it off a phone at midnight."

"No. I want you to hear it." Her voice had gone low and very level. "I was in the room both times, and I’m on its list, and I found out tonight off a phone. That’s what I’m cross about. Not the money. You can have the money. That I’ll not forgive tonight. Maybe tomorrow."

"Then I’ll ask you again tomorrow."

"Do." She picked the phone back up. "Now let me ask it."

She put her thumb at the bottom of the screen where he typed.

who added me

9 seconds.

[ That is not a question the Concierge is able to answer. ]

"Same words it gave you," Jodie said.

She started typing again. Before she had finished, another line came up on its own.

[ The host is not typing. ]

Jodie dropped the phone on the duvet as if it had gone hot.

The radiator knocked under the window. A car went along Lavender Hill with its music up and was gone.

"It knows it’s not you," she said.

"It knew there was nothing on my wrists at the hospital. It sees where I am. It’s saying a fact. That’s all it ever does."

"It’s just said a fact about me." Her breathing had gone quick. "Danny, I’m on its list and it’s watching me type."

She’s right. It’s never answered to anybody but you before. What does it do now it knows she’s there?

He picked the phone up off the duvet.

"Then I’ll ask it the one I should have asked in October."

what happens to them

They both watched it. 9 seconds. 14. 20.

[ That is not a question the Concierge is able to answer. ]

"Same again," Jodie said quietly.

"When it didn’t do a thing, it says so. It said so about you. It’s not saying it about them."

Jodie pulled her knees up under the duvet.

"Then what about Thursday?"

Think it through. Out loud, so she can see you do it.

"If I go, another 900 grand lands in an account a bank’s reading line by line. Priya said nothing near me this month. Keisha’s 13 weeks get harder. That’s against."

"And for?"

"If I don’t go, it doesn’t stop. It said there’s others. Somebody else stands in that room on Thursday, and everybody in it goes on the list with them instead."

He looked at the phone.

"In Dulwich I put a ring back in a drawer because nobody else in that house was going to. If it’s somebody else on Thursday, does anybody put the ring back?"

Jodie said nothing. She was watching him.

"I’m going," Danny said.

"And your bank? The 900 lands on top of everything they’re already looking at."

"Then they look at it. It comes in the same way as the last one, from the same nowhere. It’s not a new question for them. It’s the same question twice."

He held the phone where she could see it.

"I’d rather explain one more 900 than explain why I let somebody else stand in that room."

He typed confirm.

[ Confirmed. ] [ The location is issued at 05:30 on the day. ]

"Take me," Jodie said.

"No."

"I’m on it already."

"For a Travelodge. You’re not going on it for whatever room it sends me to at 6 in the morning, not while I can stop it. One of us on it’s enough."

She looked at him for a long moment under the light, with her jaw set. Then she pushed the pad off onto the floor and pulled the towel off her head and threw it at the chair.

"Right. I’m not lying here till 6 reading that in my head." She got up on her knees on the bed and pulled the t-shirt off over her head. "Take my head off it."

Danny looked at her kneeling on the duvet under the big light, naked. Her hair was dark blonde again where it had dried at the front and still wet and darker at the back.

Freckles all over her shoulders and splashed down onto her chest. Her tits were heavy and full, her nipples tight, and she was strong through the hips and the thighs, kneeling up with her knees wide.