Drift (Don’t… #8)

Chapter 35 THE PROFILERS

Gray sat on the corner settee in Light’s lounge, his iPad close by as West and Drift came on through. Jan hadn’t liked suggesting it, but Gray understood his ask that he stay on audio with Raif in the Oval. This was family, but it was still a formal interview, one that came with emotional ties Gray needed to moderate as best as possible, so Jan took himself out of the equation to clear the emotional playing field. Gray hadn’t given Martin the same request to stay in the Oval because locking him in there would only piss him off and add to the internal conflict going on between him and Jack. Martin was best where Gray could see and anticipate his reactions, and at the moment, they all centred around Drift.

But in many ways, he wanted… also needed Martin’s sharpness at his side, and just how bloody guilty did that make him feel?

Martin came on through with Light and Simon a few moments later. Martin’s look stayed on Drift and West as they stood awkwardly in the kitchen, but he kept to leaning against the window, as Light and Simon took seats at the dining table.

Jan’s softness over asking them to come here also sank in a little more seeing Light. The last time two friends had been sitting here for an interview, it had been Light and Brin in the manor’s kitchen. Jan’s thoughts had been with Light, for Light, keeping the wrong emotional playing field away from him, and that… yeah… that was Jan also bringing family talk into the summerhouse to wipe away traces of Light being in here with Cath, with killing her. Jan’s head… it worked as fast, maybe a little better than all of them, because it came with his heart behind it all.

“Take a seat.” Gray indicated opposite him on the settee, making sure West and Drift stayed close. It also gave them a clear run to the door. He didn’t want them to feel there was no out option here. “You need a drink before we start?”

West shook her head, and Drift stayed quiet, offering nothing at all.

“Tell me how you two met, West.”

The question jolted Drift, maybe more so because Gray had directed it to West. They were street kids, where personal details weren’t handed out, especially more so with Drift moving from crew to crew. They held on to privacy in order to keep a piece of identity when most had been stripped away by street walking, but West’s look hid a tiredness Drift’s didn’t carry, not over fighting it alone.

“That’s none of your fuh—”

West shot Drift a hard look that shut down his None of your fucking business mouth, and she looked at Gray a moment later.

“Back when I’d just turned nine, I lived in Hounslow, West London,” she said eventually with a haunted smile. “Wellington Avenue.” A cold snort. “My family was one of the lucky ones to have a back garden at the far end of the street.” She looked Drift’s way. “There’s a lot of rooftop access there.”

Ah. Gray cocked a small smile, seeing where this was going.

“He got lost that night.” She held Drift’s look, at the long look and shake of head that came her way. “Although he’d never tell you that.” She found Gray again. “At eight and a half, six months younger than me, he was still a little raw to the streets and learning the rooftop ropes with Ava, and Grant.” She frowned. “Grant had left him alone and told him to find his own way back, but to stay off the street pathways doing it.”

West focused down briefly to her feet. “I’d got locked outside in my pyjamas, my mother not giving a fuck with the snow on the ground.” She snorted. “I just wanted back in despite what came with getting back, well… in. Bare-footed, shivering, crying at how white-hot cold my feet felt, with all those pretty houses lined all in a row on our street, not one person came outside to help.”

West looked at Gray. “Same old same old. Fire and ice. My mother tried to burn out traces of the girl and then stuck her outside like a snowman to learn to coat the burns with ice.”

Light looked at her, then dropped his head.

“A stone came my way.” West’s look was too lost, and a soft smile crept in. “Missed my feet by inches, but it got me looking up. The whistle from the kid up there, his nod back to my bedroom window showed that it was open.” A snort. “Damn weird considering it had a lock on the inside to keep me out or in, depending on the mood, and now it was, well… open.”

She glanced Drift’s way, then her smile fell. “I was too cold to move. So damn cold, and a coat landed at my feet a moment later, despite a boy trying not to look like he was left shivering like a drown rat in a frozen pond. And after that?” She shrugged, and that smile crept back in Gray’s way. “I found the window open most times I got put out. Then a pretty coat. Socks. A pair of girl’s trainers to keep my feet warm until I learned to climb when I was cold.”

She offered Drift such a ghost of a look. “Been following me around ever since like a little fucking Chihuahua guard dog, he has. Clothes still end up on my bed too.”

A blush touched her nose, but she avoided the look that Drift gave her. “Grant and Ava always followed him of those times to see what was making him late back of a night, and after that?” She shrugged. “I ran with them to keep warm.”

Drift added nothing, and the reason he ran to the streets stayed lost in the quiet of the lounge. Gray filed that away, but also something else that crept in. “How did you get to hear about the Night-walkers?”

She stayed quiet for a moment. “They seemed nothing more than a nightmare,” she said eventually. “One Grant used to keep us both awake to of a night, listening for. But he’d get… he’d get so damn angry at us for running after ten at night. I think it’s what really got him coming after Drift when I delayed him at mine. And I didn’t understand his madness, not for a long time. I thought he was really mad, you know, my Pidgeon’s a parrot mad? He warned us these Night-walkers were more focused to main towns, and Grant always kept us based on the outskirts of London, only coming in here alone. But he’d still shout us down for breaking curfew even if we stayed outskirting.”

Gray stroked at his bottom lip. “But they looked your way eventually. The Night-walkers?”

West sent Drift a quick look, but let it fall, and after a moment, Drift gave a rough sigh and sat back, arms folded—looking every bit Jack in that moment with being forced to do something he really didn’t want to do, but knew it needed to be done anyway. He’d come here to talk Night-walkers, not personal details, and this shifted into Night-walker talk now.

“I was ten when a kid came to see Grant after curfew,” he said flatly. “I’d not seen him before, and it set warning bells off with Jackson that he was on the outskirts, after curfew. Jackson was new to the scene, just coming in every weekend or so for us to go feeding with him, learn what would later be his patch on the streets. But this kid, he had Jackson so damn quiet. And?” Drift frowned. “The kid’s whole body language was off.” He wiped across his nose. “We were looked after, but this kid came with suit trousers and shirt, tramlines through his hair, no sign of drug use, and money. This kid in the suit had lots of money.”

He looked at Gray. “He offered it Grant. But Grant wouldn’t take it.”

West took hold of Drift’s hand and pulled it into her lap, forcing Drift away from the wall he put up around himself.

“I was so pissed off, so fucking pissed off,” he said eventually. “Grant never took above what was needed, and we still shifted from crew to crew, with West sometimes staying with Jackson when we did because Grant wanted her looked after. Ava? She’s older than me by two years.” He frowned. “She loved the run of the streets as much as me, so we worked them together. But that winter was an utter bastard, and the money that kid offered, it could have helped Jackson settle with West permanently. It could have helped us all.

So I argued it out with Grant. Fucking ten years old and as mouthy as shit.” He frowned. “He’d never hit out, but he snapped so quickly that night.” Drift gave a rough sigh. “It hurt. All the slips and broken bones with learning parkour, the cold, how it makes it hurt more, but being hit by him? I ran. Mostly blind, mostly to piss him off, mostly to get back at him for playing like a safe house-warmer and not running with the risks in order to look after his crew.”

Drift frowned. “I thought I was pretty much untouchable on the rooftops by then. Even Ava and Grant couldn’t catch up with me. But this kid? I got blocked in on a rooftop, and as I tried to run my way free, something stung my cheek. I…” Drift shrugged. “I don’t remember much after that. Just a lot of screaming, heat… vomiting, falling too. Maybe off the rooftop, only it seemed to never stop, day after day….”

Light snapped a look Gray’s way.

“How long were you sick for?” said Gray flatly.

Drift shrugged. “I don’t know. I woke in a warehouse next to Ava, feeling so groggy. She must have come after me and been taken as well. A lot of shouting came from the main floor.” His face creased like it still hurt his head. “Grant… he lay close by, bits of shattered skull mixing with hair and grey matter. Blood… lots of fucking blood. And Jackson?” Drift paled. “He hung from a noose, legs kicking, surrounded by kids who just stood there laughing, some no older than me, the oldest being the kid in the suit. He kept hitting Jackson with a baseball bat like he was a fucking pinata….” He narrowed his eyes. “Me and Ava bolted over, trying to grab at Jackson’s legs, give him something to stand on, stop the pressure…. And they let us both. One of the hardest lessons… knowing just how fucking shit you are as a ten-year-old trying to play games with the big kids.”

He looked West’s way, then pulled her hold of his hand into his lap, where he twisted one of her rings in his fingers. “Jackson hadn’t rushed in when Grant had. He’d come with friends, some from his own crew, but most others? Most others came from the crews Grant had drifted between.” Drift shook his head. “Fucking brutal what they did in there to all those kids around Jackson. They came in with Molotov Cocktails and set them on fire, and they didn’t stop until the screams did. There… there was this fear in their eyes, a wildness, like they knew if they let any kid out alive, they’d be marked.”

He looked Gray’s way. “Jackson dragged the kid in the suit outside and beat him to death despite the kid burning. He was mad, so fucking mad. Then he was on me, dragging me out as Ava was pulled free as well. Other kids had been taken with us, but that hadn’t registered back then. Jackson had to make the choice to leave Grant behind.”

“There’s no record of any of this,” Simon said gently, and it was probably the first time he’d offered gentleness Drift’s way.

“Of course there isn’t,” Drift said flatly. “But Jackson tried.”

Simon frowned.

“Jackson didn’t speak to anyone on the way back, not a word,” said Drift, looking at him, then he glanced briefly at Light. “But I think he knew something worse was going to come, like he’d only touched a few fleas off the bitch’s back. Jackson called enough and for the first time, he went to the police.”

Light held his look.

“Two plain clothed officers took us into a room, Jackson, me, and Ava. Then despite the rope burns around his neck, the broken ribs from the baseball bats, losing Grant…. one of them raped him for opening his mouth.”

Light eased back in his chair, hands running through his hair.

“They touch you?” That came so flatly off Martin.

Drift shook his head. “They went for the main threat. They showed two kids that their main threat was easy pickings if and when they called it. All because I was fucking cold and wanted more out of life.”

It fell quiet, and Gray watched him for a moment. “At some stage they acid-burned your fingers, no doubt Ava’s too,” he said eventually. “You were taken at ten, with the others, as a recruitment drive?”

Drift nodded. “I don’t remember much about the acid-burning. I get these memories sometimes. Just flashes. I was awake when they did it, but not at the same time. But they fucked up. They sent Jackson pictures of me and Ava, two kids literally sleeping with the enemy. Only they put me and Ava in a bed. Both of us always opted for underneath it no matter who offered one our way.” He shrugged. “Just safer.”

“But they drugged you both with something.” Gray knew these questions would hurt. “Something that made you sick.”

Drift nodded again. “Sick games. Survival of the fittest.” He frowned. “I think we met your virus back there, or a version of, and just by luck, me and Ava survived.”

Light quickly got up and headed into the hall as he tugged out his mobile. Gray knew where his head was going. He didn’t need to hear his conversation with Raif to know he requested items for bloods and swab tests to be send over to the UK Health Security Agency.

“Why take talent only to kill half of it?” That came off Simon as he looked Gray’s way.

“Profit,” said Drift. “With those kids who fail, they sell the kids’ organs on to hospitals and the black market.”

Simon slowly looked his way.

Drift eased forward, elbows on knees. “Jackson told me and Ava that we’d been there a week, and during it, I’d keep waking, seeing kids not much older than me on a table. One had his stomach ripped open, and a transplant carrier close by. Maybe that could have been blamed on what shit they gave me, but the kids I’ve seen since…?”

Light came back in and nodded Gray’s way.

“You ever heard of them syphoning bone marrow off victims?” Gray stayed with Drift. “Did you stay around in Wales long enough to see them do it there?”

Drift stilled.

Ah. He had, but which had it been: heard or seen? Gray worded this so very carefully now, because he got a very strange feeling when it came to what Drift had said about only sleeping with their own. “They don’t sell the bone marrow on, do they.” It wasn’t even a question.

Drift wiped a hand over his face. “I didn’t hang around in Wales to see if they still do it, no. But the lad on the table with his stomach ripped open…? I saw that.” He seemed to fight throwing up. “The skin on his knee joint had been stripped, exposing the bone. The young woman working on him, she started to carve something into it, this intensity about her like a graffiti artist to wall. After she finished, she broke the bone, and something was taken from inside…”

“Bone marrow.” said Gray.

Drift nodded. “Only she didn’t do anything with those samples. She put them in a case, then pulled out some others that looked the same. Maybe.” He frowned. “Either way, we were held down and it was injected into our knee.”

Light snapped a look Gray’s way. “She couldn’t use raw bone marrow. Drift’s body would have recognised it as a foreign DNA and destroyed it.”

Gray gave a brief nod. “DNA splicing,” he said distractedly. “Some form of. But she couldn’t use those raw samples. Which gave her access to specialist lab and equipment back then.”

“Doesn’t really matter,” mumbled Drift. “She topped it off with mixing bits of skin and blood into some kind of broth, then sipped at it. Then she forced it down our throats.”

Simon wiped a hand over his face.

“Oh… Modern-day Cannibals.” Martin called it out.

Drift looked over his shoulder at him. “I don’t know. I was out of it, it could just be part of a fucked-up dream, but…?” He looked down at his hands. “I was there for the best part of a week, and I don’t remember eating anything else but broth. So I guess that makes me a cannibal too, right?”

“No, it fucking doesn’t,” said Martin.

West hadn’t taken her look off Drift, like she heard this part for the first time as well.

Sixty Dinner Sid… all the drive to eat food, to try and erase nightmares and the taste of… humanity in the most basic form. It was in her eyes, Gray’s frown too. But why the transferal of bone marrow prior to that?

“They didn’t come for you?” Gray said gently to West.

She eventually tore her look off Drift. “Grant and Jackson, they’d handed me over to another crew before they went in. They’d gotten me and all his other kids off the street, out of the way.”

Gray eased back. “Okay,” he said gently, conscious of how quiet Drift had fallen. “That’s enough for now. Just one last question, though. Do you remember the names of the officers Jackson tried to speak to? The station you went to.”

“Yeah,” said Drift. “I made a point to remember every fucking detail after that. Just be aware nametags are just that: they might not be real. I don’t even know if they were real rozzers.”

Gray twisted his iPad over to him. “Write it down for me anyway.”

Drift froze, and as West quickly took the pad and leaned in, whispering his way, Gray…

Oh. Flaws. For all that smart head of his, had being on the street come at the cost of learning some of the basics most kids learned at school?

Drift snapped a whisper into West’s ear, and she wrote it down for him.

Yeah, that called it.

“Thank you.” Gray took it off her, and offered a sad smile Drift’s way. “You two, go take Jan up on his offer to get some food.” He really understood why Drift always chased food and, from what he’d heard in the hall, his hide away in drugs. He’d been running from nightmares that left such a… dark taste in his throat he needed to drown out. “You let me handle this from here.” He knew Jack wouldn’t like this next bit, Drift certainly wouldn’t, but Drift had survived the virus. He needed to stay here, and he’d stand by this decision each and every goddamn time now. “You both need to stay here, do you understand that? It’s too dangerous back at Jackson’s, at street level, and we need to run tests to see why this virus didn’t kill you.”

“And what about Jackson?” Drift looked up at him. “He’s still there. So is the rest of our crew with whoever is playing spy bollocks in there. They could retaliate at home to get us… home.”

Gray went and crouched down by him. “The warning came our way, not yours. Whoever is imbedded at Jackson’s isn’t going to damage a working vantage point. Focus will stay on us when they realise you’re not home. They’ll come here. Also, they know your MO with walking different crews, and they know those crews have banded together and hurt them for taking their own in the past. They won’t want that high profile turf war with this virus in the planning. People are around the perimeter at Jackson’s to make sure the house stays safe. And they are people I trust when trust is never offered lightly.”

Drift went to say something, and when he stopped, Gray nodded and eased to his feet before turning away.

“In Wales, the lead woman who killed the bloke and his missus.”

Gray turned back to Drift.

“She goes by the name of Freak.” Drift looked up at him. “To West, she’s Ava.”

West looked away as Gray cocked a brow. “To West, but not to you?” he said evenly.

“No. West met her at Avalon Road, not far from Eel Brook Common, hence the name… Ava.” He frowned and looked really uncomfortable. “But to me, she’s Grace. She’s my sister.” He looked down at his hands. “By adoption laws, anyway, and, yeah… fuck.” That was said far too bitterly and West rubbed at his hands when he refused to look up.

But Grace had stayed back with the Farlands…. She went on to university…. Or so the records had said…. Gray snorted. Or been fabricated to say? But by whom? “So after Jackson was raped, did they take her and force her to turn, or did she turn willingly a second time after she learned the lesson on the strongest being taken down if they turned informer?”

“I don’t know.” That came from West because it looked like Drift had shut himself down now. “With all the bone-marrow she injects, and the blood and bone she drinks like vodka, I don’t think she does any more either.”

Gray had so many questions, but Drift’s look at the door said he’d had enough. His ease to his feet proved it and Gray moved out of his way. There was something else about Ava that he was hiding.

Drift stopped before he passed Gray. “Out of all of their crews, she’s lead…” he said quietly. “Watch out for her. She can fight, and I mean really fucking fight.” A frown. “Farland liked adopting Asian kids…. And Grace, she’s Japanese, pissed off at losing her heritage in an English name, and gutted many a kid with a blade to get at bone marrow and inject it in order to drown it out. Watch for the daggers she carries. But it’s mostly the various poisons she likes to carry in a claw you need to watch out for.”

“Okay. Thank you for the intel,” Gray said softly. “Now go on, take some timeout. Use the home cinema if you’re not hungry. I’m going to need blood and swab samples, though.”

Drift nodded, looking too sick and tired to protest.

“Go. Get a head start,” said Martin, flatly. “I’ll join you in a moment.”

They headed out, and Martin came over just as Gray held up a finger a moment, needing quiet. “Raif,” said Gray.

“Here.” He didn’t sound happy. “I got every last fucking word of that.”

“Who’s Grant?” He kept it frank. “He’s too skilled for the streets, and now really isn’t the time to piss me about over street codes and silence.”

“I only knew him in passing as an old-guard nightwalker,” Raif said quietly. “Checks I’ve done over the past few days called the rest, but the signs were there back then. He was a spotter, training those he found, and taking them to the streets to do it.”

“A talent scouter. Who for? MI6?”

“Undercover Interpol. He spotted internationally, but also trained their international talent here, on UK soil, with a green card from the top brass at both MI5 and MI6, so long as MI6 ops got the same access abroad.”

Gray gave a rough sigh. “And he gave Interpol or ours nothing on the Night-walkers?”

Raif fell quiet for a moment. “He stopped talking altogether, and I know him well enough to know that was him saying he didn’t trust the system with his intel.”

And that backed up what Drift had been saying about hierarchy. “When did Interpol lose track of him?”

“He went off the radar after we last met, so just before he met Drift by the sound of it.”

“Why would the Night-walkers offer him money? They were talent-scouting themselves that night, and they don’t seem the type to bargain. Grant doesn’t seem the type to tolerate them doing it if he turned away from life because of them.”

“Yeah.” Raif gave a rough sigh. “That’s my concern too. I think it’s time I had a word with Jackson away from the house. He was there the night Grant died and is the best source from here on in with how sick Drift said he was. George will bring over the blood sample kits.”

“Get on it.” Gray glanced Light’s way. “If Drift was given the virus, him and Ava are the only ones to come out of it. It also hit his system a lot sooner than it did Ray. So it was still in testing stage.”

Light nodded as he took a seat next to Simon and took his laptop. “I’ll get in touch with the UK Health Security Agency, let them know about Drift, see what they advise on the blood sample, what tests need to be run, if they can be run with the potential infection being over seven years ago.” He shook his head. “I know antibodies can last in the system for several months, like with Covid-19, but this isn’t Covid, and the time period has been far too long.”

“It’s not historic infection that’s my concern,” said Gray. “This virus has been worked over years, not months. They’re keeping a close watch on him for a reason.”

Light sent a hard look at Gray as he eased back in his chair. “You’re thinking patient zero and the testing is… ongoing with Drift?”

“If Ava had the same virus, they have two potential patient zeros,” Martin said quietly. He looked at Gray. “Maybe Ava ran with the Night-walkers to avoid being a test subject, so that just leaves Drift as her personal lab rat.”

“Hmmm. But they’re not blood related, so maybe they were taken abroad somewhere together and picked up an immunity somehow?” Light frowned. “I don’t know. But what about the tie to cannibalism in all this and getting Drift to drink it?”

“Maybe nothing to do with the virus itself. Just a product of the cell,” said Gray. “Last known cannibals on British soil were the cannibals of Gough cave in Somerset, some fourteen-thousand years ago. They used to carve patterns into the bones of their dead before they ate the bone marrow. Drift said the woman took time to carve into the bone too. It was never really known why the cannibals of Gough cave did it, but archaeologists theorised it was most likely ritualistic: a celebration of the dead by eating the dead.”

Martin looked his way. “And you had issues with me picking up Orwell’s 1984 for leisure reading?”

Gray snorted a small smile.

“You’re thinking the same here?” said Simon. “Ritualistic?”

“He said theorised,” said Martin. “Nothing’s certain. But one thing is sure: the young lady who potentially carved the bones and injected Drift with the spliced bone marrow…” He looked Gray’s way. “She’s your instigator. She’s your geneticist.”

“But didn’t Drift say all the kids that night had died?” Simon wiped a hand over his face, and Gray looked his way.

“He said he wasn’t sure of any of the detail. The only one to go to the police thinking something else was coming was Jackson. He must have seen someone get out. And the fact he took damage at the police station after she was supposed to be dead, that calls someone got out.”

“Jackson hasn’t been targeted since, though.” That came from Martin, and all emotion was gone from his eyes, blackness swamping them. “What’s the chance he made a bargain with the geneticist to keep his kids and Feeders safe on the street? He knows how high up this cell goes and the damage they can do. So he allows any potential ongoing testing with Drift? And Jackson will do anything to protect his kids, even kill. He—” Martin fell quiet too quickly as Simon eased to his feet.

“Oh a talk with Jackson, it is.”

Gray shook his head at Simon. “Raif handles him, but let him know about Jackson potentially allowing any kind of testing Drift’s way. Tell him to dig deep. Jackson’s not going to trust anyone but a street-walker at this stage, and how Raif knew Grant might just be the ice-breaker.” He handed him the iPad. “Find out everything about Ava, why it says in the report that she’s still at home with the Farlands. I also want the officers who got Jackson alone. Track the station, the dates West’s given on here. I’ll handle the rest.”

As he went to head out, Martin pulled him to a stop.

“We haven’t addressed the main issue here,” he said quietly between them.

Gray looked his way.

“The virus potentially targets disorders.” Martin held his look. “So why the hell did they give it to Drift? If he’s no psychopath, what has he inherited in the blood from me and Jack, or even Cutter’s side?”

Yeah. That was the main damn issue here, and he went to head out again, but Martin shook his head.

“My turn,” he said quietly. “My kid. One who dances around personal details as professionally as he moves around the street and dancehall. There’s something going on between him and Ava too, and from the look in his eyes, it’s something worse than being forced to go cannibal and eat blood and bone as well as be injected with bone-marrow.”

Martin had picked up on that too. Gray watched him for a moment. “Okay. Jan takes West. She’s more open to talking. You work them together. Let Jan know what he’s got to question her about.” He nodded at Martin. “Find out why. Find out when. I’ll observe via CCTV. Simon gets the names of the policeman who raped Jackson, I’m in talks with Brennan.”