Fractured Light Read online

  Clarke sat forward and steepled his fingers together. ‘And you didn’t see Gavin Knotley hanging around the area?’

  I managed to keep the shock off my face. How could Clarke have known he’d been there? ‘I didn’t see anyone.’

  ‘That’s not what our witness said.’

  The old woman. She must’ve spotted Gavin and the others under the streetlight and seen what had really happened. And she knew his name because Gavin was something of a local celebrity, but for all the wrong reasons – just like me.

  Clarke tapped his pen on a notepad. ‘Tell me what really happened, Jake, and why you would want to take the rap for something you didn’t do?’

  I knew he knew I was lying, could see straight through me, but I tried to make my lie sound convincing. ‘I’m telling you the truth, Inspector.’

  The tall policeman muttered under his breath, ‘Oh, give me strength.’

  But Clarke gave me a look that had more than a hint of kindness to it. ‘Look, Jake, give us some credit here.’

  ‘Inspector, you have this all wrong. I just found the hammer in the street.’

  He gave me a long look that I did my best to hold.

  ‘OK, if that’s how you want to play it…’ Clarke drummed the pencil on the table. ‘Here’s my problem, Jake, and, believe it or not, it isn’t with you. You see, there’s been a whole spate of recent car break-ins across town, and garages too – all easy targets. And we have plenty of soft evidence for who’s responsible, but nothing solid enough to get a conviction. However, if someone were to give us information that led to an arrest…’

  So there it was. They knew Gavin was behind the mini Stoneham crime wave and wanted me to drop him in it. I turned the thought over. It would be one way to get Gavin out of my life. For a second I was tempted. But I also knew it could never really be an option. If Gavin thought, even for a moment, that I’d talked, then he’d make my life a bigger nightmare than it already was. No, it wasn’t worth the risk. Keep my head down like usual and it would all be OK.

  I sat back. ‘Sorry, Inspector. I really don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘But let’s pretend for a moment that you do, Jake. The thing that I don’t understand is why you would try to protect him. Especially when the two of you have had all that history together.’

  History…that was one way of putting it. A screwed-up tangled mess of mutual hatred would be a more accurate description.

  ‘So why, Jake?’

  I peered over the edge of a metaphorical cliff, seriously tempted.

  Clarke took a deep breath and his face relaxed into the same understanding look that my tutor always gave me.

  ‘This is a small town, Jake, and I hear things. Gavin’s father was a caretaker at that university research building and was killed in the same explosion as your father.’

  The old pain pulsed inside my chest. It was like the inspector was deliberately picking at the scab of that awful day that had changed my life for ever.

  Clarke pressed his fingertips together. ‘Sometimes, Jake, people aren’t fair and they need someone to blame.’

  This was so not where I’d expected this conversation to go. The rain intensified on the window. Rivulets of water ran over the glass like golden snakes lit by the streetlights outside.

  ‘Look, Jake, I’m on your side. Anyone with half a brain is.’

  I wished I could believe that, but the hostile stares didn’t always just come from Gavin. I’d learnt long ago to look at the pavement as I walked through town. Unfortunately for me, it seemed like everyone held the son of the professor responsible for the explosion that his experiment into dark energy had unleashed. A single awful mistake that had killed so many local people.

  Clarke’s eyes bored into mine like a hypnotist’s. ‘You need to tell me what happened… Tell me the truth, Jake.’

  I felt myself teetering on the edge, ready to give him what he wanted. I stuck my fingernails into my palm and locked my gaze on to the small window with a view of the darkened office block opposite. My silence thickened the air.

  There was a knock, the door opened and a policewoman popped her head in.

  ‘Jake’s uncle is here.’

  Clarke closed his notebook and relief surged through me. ‘It would seem we’re all done here, so show him in please.’ His searchlight gaze narrowed on me for a second. ‘Think on what I’ve said, Jake.’

  I raised my shoulders in a vague shrug as the door opened.

  Allan stood there leaning on his stick, his old green Burberry jacket beaded with rain.

  ‘Seriously, Jake?’ he asked.

  I shrugged. ‘Honestly, I didn’t do it, Allan.’

  Allan’s look was like a laser as he searched my face. Then his gaze relaxed as if he’d spotted a grain of truth somewhere and he slowly nodded. ‘I didn’t think any of this sounded like something you would do.’

  ‘It wasn’t.’ Allan was hard on me sometimes, pushing me to do even better with my grades, but he believed in me too.

  ‘Come on, Jake, let’s get you home,’ he said with a scowl towards Clarke.

  I avoided Clarke’s gaze and followed my uncle out of the door.

  The windscreen wipers thumped backwards and forwards, as Allan continued the lecture that had begun the moment we’d climbed into his ancient Volvo estate, its light-blue paintwork decorated with pimples of rust.

  ‘You do realise you’re lucky the inspector didn’t charge you,’ Allan said.

  ‘I know…’

  ‘How do you think this would have gone down with the Oxford University admissions board if he had?’

  ‘Not well.’

  ‘To say the least.’ Allan blew out his cheeks. ‘So why get involved rather than just ring the police?’

  Because of the boy; because of Chloe; because something inside me cracked. I shrugged.

  ‘So you’re sure you didn’t see who was responsible?’

  ‘No…’

  Allan actually rolled his eyes. ‘I might not be your dad, but I understand you well enough to realise when you’re holding something back from me.’

  Of course he did.

  He let out a long sigh. ‘I realise I can never replace Martin, but please know how much you mean to me, lad.’

  The mention of my dad’s name made me stiffen. I found myself reaching for my watch, an old habit I used to anchor myself. It was a diver’s watch that had belonged to Mum. ‘I know, Allan, and you me.’

  ‘And that you can tell me anything…’

  ‘Of course I do.’ Not that I could…or would.

  ‘And for someone who didn’t think of themselves as academic, look how far you’ve come.’

  He wasn’t wrong. The transformation of Jake Stevens over the last six years – from an academic lost cause to class swot – had surprised everyone, even me. But then again, school, followed by college, had become my whole world – certainly the only thing that had made sense as my life imploded around me. It was also partly based on a guilt trip. When Dad had been alive I’d shirked my schoolwork and had disappeared down the rabbit hole of computer gaming whenever I could. Even though Dad had never said it I knew he’d been disappointed in me. And I’d been trying to make that up to him ever since his death.

  Allan dragged his top lip over his teeth. ‘I’m not sure exactly what happened with you tonight, Jake, but I hope you know that I’m on your side and always have been.’ He glanced at me. ‘And it’s not always been easy for me either since Martin…’

  I spotted the same deep pain in his eyes that I often saw in mine. ‘But you’re doing OK, aren’t you?’

  ‘As well as anyone can be who lost a very close younger brother. But the real question is: what about you? You’re a complicated lad, Jake, but then after everything you’ve been through that’s hardly surprising.’

  Yet another person to pick at that scab today… This time a stone lodged in my throat.

  ‘Just try not to trip yourself up when you are so close
to realising your dreams.’

  To run away from Stoneham to Oxford University and never come back. Nothing was going to get in the way of that strategy.

  Allan gave me a sideways glance and his face softened. ‘All right, Jake, enough lectures for one day.’

  I forced myself to look at my uncle, but could only manage a nod.

  Beyond his head a flare of light in the sky was glowing through the clouds. It pulsed again, this time brighter.

  I sat up straighter. ‘Pull over.’

  Allan’s eyes tightened on the road as he braked. ‘Did I hit something?’

  ‘No. I think I just spotted a flash above the cloud line.’

  ‘Oh hell, I’d forgotten all about Varuna with everything that’s happened.’

  ‘That makes two of us.’

  The car had barely come to a standstill when I leapt out into the middle of the deserted country back road. Allan got out more slowly, using his stick to support the leg with his bad arthritic knee.

  I pointed towards the patch of sky where I’d spotted the burst of light. ‘It came from that direction.’

  For a moment there was nothing, but then it came again, a brief burning spiderweb of light blazing through the cracks between the thick cloud cover. The air caught in my throat, the sheer awe of what was happening starting to sink in. This was way bigger than anything I could have ever imagined. I took out my phone and snapped a shot.

  ‘At the rate that thing’s shifting, it will be over the coast in less than a few minutes,’ Allan said.

  ‘So much for it crashing over land,’ I replied. ‘All those people who stocked up with food are going to feel really stupid…’ My words faded away as the streaking satellite started to curve back in a large arc, a dazzling white ball through the cloud cover, trailed by golden flames. ‘How can it be possible for it to change direction like that?’

  ‘Maybe its directional attitude jets are misfiring.’

  The satellite continued to turn, tracing a glowing ribbon of light above the cloud until it seemed almost aimed straight at us.

  ‘Allan?’

  ‘Relax, Jake, you know the maths. The chances of it hitting us are one in several billion.’

  The point of light burst through the clouds, becoming a burning blue meteor and shedding pieces in a stream that trailed behind it as a growing swarm of fiery debris. The constellation of objects began to arc towards the ground, spinning shards of metal that would hit the ground at hundreds of miles per hour. And if anyone was underneath them as they hit…

  A boom thundered from the sky and a slap of air punched into my body, rocking me back on my feet.

  Allan clapped. ‘Sonic boom! Will you look at that son of a bitch go?’

  I laughed. ‘This is beyond incredible.’

  The plummeting hunk of metal ate up the remaining distance in a shockingly tiny amount of time, but I guessed it was still going to pass several miles over our heads.

  Allan winked at me. ‘See, told you.’

  I was about to reply when Varuna seemed to buck around in the sky like someone had begun shaking it. A jet flame blossomed into life at its rear and it swung round in a large arc until it was almost travelling in the direction it had come from.

  My mouth became dry and I put my hands on top of my head. ‘About those odds. I think they just narrowed.’

  Allan scowled. ‘OK, I have to admit this is looking a bit more worrying.’

  It shot past the three-hundred-metre-high TV mast on top of the Mendips just a couple of miles away. Once again Varuna altered its course but this time directly towards us, closing in like a homing missile.

  The sound of whistling air grew to a banshee roar. My dream whirled through my mind… A dream or a premonition?

  With one glance at each other, we turned and I helped Allan back towards the car.

  The branches of bare winter trees lining the hedgerows started to bend and twist as the ground under our feet began to tremble.

  We were still metres from the car when a huge fist of wind punched into my back and sent me sprawling. Allan slid over the verge and came to a stop next to me, face down. We both instinctively covered our heads with our hands. The temperature rose from winter cold to a hot summer’s day in a second, as brilliant light burned the night away around us. The ground drummed beneath my body as the thundering roar numbed my ears and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth – I’d bitten down on my lip.

  We were going to die in a billion-to-one freak accident. And somehow part of my subconscious had known and tried to warn me about this exact moment through that damned dream. But I hadn’t listened and had rationalised it away like I did with everything. Now I was going to pay the ultimate price for my blinkered thinking.

  Allan’s hand clamped round mine. No time for any goodbyes.

  But I had to see, had to witness my last moment before my life was scrubbed from the face of the planet.

  I rolled over on to my back to see a burned hunk of metal with twisted spines speeding towards us…and then the orange flame burst from its rear once more. The furnace heat washed over us for a heartbeat as the satellite lurched up with a shriek that split the sky and soared directly over our heads.

  The man-made meteor streaked beyond us, past one field, two, almost as if someone was in control and trying to save us.

  A pure blaze of light lit up the sky, turning night into day as the shockwave hit. The ground bucked beneath our feet and branches tore from the trees and tumbled away in a hurricane of wind. The Volvo bounced on its shocks like a fairground ride gone badly wrong.

  The air was sucked from my lungs as the fallen metal angel roared its death at the world.

  I didn’t move, didn’t do anything, just lay there watching the billows of smoke in the sky. Then, so slowly, reality crept back in.

  I was shaking, a bright stain of vomit on the ground before me. I felt Allan’s hand rubbing my back and I sucked in a lungful of breath.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

  My heart rate slowed and I drew in another large breath. It was the sweetest air I’d ever tasted, despite the stench of my own sick. ‘Just surprised to be alive.’

  I retrieved Allan’s stick and helped him get shakily back to his feet. We stared across the field towards the column of smoke glowing orange, the impact point in a field just out of sight beyond a gradual rising hill. Sparks rolled up like fireflies into the sky.

  My mobile warbled and on autopilot I took it out of my pocket and gazed at the screen. The text was from 11111111. What sort of phone number was that? 7%5$@….dying…%!¢#, the text said.

  What? Who was sending me weird garbled messages?

  ‘We should ring the authorities,’ Allan said, still staring at the crash site. He took out his mobile and scowled at the screen.

  ‘You too?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’

  I showed him my phone. ‘It looks like some sort of scrambled message.’

  ‘I didn’t get anything like that, but I’ve got no mobile signal. I expect the satellite sent out an electronic pulse as it crashed that messed with the networks, which is probably why you received that gibberish.’

  Allan turned his attention towards Stoneham at the bottom of the bowl of hills beneath us, a couple of miles away. ‘Oh hell, will you look at that!’

  I followed his gaze. The whole town was in total darkness, not a light to be seen. An astronomer’s dream in any other circumstance.

  ‘The electronic pulse must have overloaded the power grid too. But maybe your mobile network is still running,’ Allan said. ‘Try ringing the emergency services to tell them what’s happened.’

  ‘I’m on it.’ I tapped 999 and hit dial.

  Call failed flashed up on the screen. Then I spotted the lack of reception bars on the top corner of the screen. ‘My network’s down too.’

  Almost in answer, my mobile pinged again with another message. ^)()*!%…find…urgent…%^+!

  ‘How come you’re sti
ll getting messages then?’ Allan asked, staring at my mobile.

  ‘Maybe my mobile is glitching out?’

  ‘Hardly surprising with what just happened.’

  I gestured towards the column of fire and smoke rising into the sky. As I watched I felt drawn towards it as if I needed to be there to witness it with my own eyes.

  ‘We should go and check it out,’ I said.

  ‘No. As much as I’d love to have a nose, there could still be unspent rocket propellant on-board Varuna. We were lucky enough to live through that crash. Let’s not push our luck any further and risk getting barbecued for our troubles.’

  I knew Allan was making sense but I could almost hear the satellite calling to me. I stared at the scrambled message again. No one ever messaged me apart from Allan, and he was standing right next to me. A random buffer of data…a message meant for someone else? I wondered. Still, it seemed like a sign. Just like the dream had been. I’d ignored that, but maybe that was a mistake I shouldn’t repeat?

  Allan sat in the car and tried the ignition. The engine turned over but didn’t catch.

  He pulled a lever under the dash, got out and popped open the bonnet to stare at the engine, scratching his chin. ‘Hmmmm…’

  ‘How’s it looking?’

  ‘Not sure, but we can’t call the recovery services with both our mobiles out. I’ll try fiddling with the engine and see if I can coax it back into life.’

  I pointed towards the burning crash site. ‘And what about that? We need to tell someone, don’t we?’

  ‘The whole town must have been woken by the shockwave from the impact. It’ll only be a matter of time before the authorities turn up to deal with it.’

  ‘But we know exactly where it came down.’

  Allan gestured to the fire. ‘And you think they won’t be able to spot that from miles away?’

  ‘But it may have burned itself out by the time they get here.’

  ‘True…’ He sighed. ‘I guess we could head back into town on foot to try to get a signal from another mast that hasn’t been affected. But if I leave my car here it would be a sitting duck. Knowing my luck, the next time we see it, it’ll be crashed into a ditch.’

  He wasn’t exaggerating either. At least three cars had ended up that way over the last six months. It might well have been Gavin upping his game.