my mother moved forward a little way, or he stepped back. A harsh release of breath from my father.

And then, thirty-five years later, from me.

My mother was holding the hands of two very young children, one on either side. They looked to be

the same age, and were dressed to match, though one wore a blue top, the other yellow. They appeared little more than a year old, perhaps eighteen months, and tottered unsteadily on their feet.

The camera zoomed in on them. One's hair was cut short, the other slightly longer. The faces were identical.

The camera pulled back out. My mother let go of the hand of one of the children. The one with the longer hair and yellow top, a little green satchel. She squatted next to the other child.

'Say goodbye,' she said. The child in blue looked at her dubiously, uncomprehending. 'Say goodbye, Ward.'

The two children looked at one another. Then the one with the short hair, the child that must have been me, glanced back at his mother for reassurance. She took my hand, and lifted it up.

'Say goodbye.'

She made my hand wave, then took me in her arms and stood up. The other child looked up at my mother then, smiled, held his or her arms to be lifted, too. I couldn't tell, not for sure, what sex it might be.

My mother started walking down the street.

She walked at an even pace, not hurrying, but not looking back. The camera stayed on the other child, even as my father walked away after my mother down the hill. They left it standing there.

The child got further and further away, silent at the crest of the rise. It never even cried: at least, not until we were too far away for the sound to be heard.

Then the camera turned a corner and it was gone.

The image cut back to white noise, and this time nothing came afterwards. Within a minute the tape turned itself off, leaving me staring at my reflection in the screen.

I fumbled for the remote, rewound, paused. Stared at the frozen image of a child, left standing at the top of a hill, my hands held up over my mouth.

7

The slot opened. A dim light shone down from above. 'Hello, my dear,' the man said. 'I'm back.'

Sarah could not see his face. From the sound of his voice, it appeared he was sitting on the floor just behind her head.

'Hello,' she said, her voice as steady as she could make it. She wanted to shrink away from him, put just an extra inch of distance between them, but couldn't move even that much. She fought to remain calm, to keep to her plan of sounding as if she didn't care. 'How are you today? Still insane, I guess.'

The man laughed quietly. 'You're not going to make me angry.'

'Who wants you angry?'

'So why do you say these things?'

'My mom and dad are going to be worried sick. I'm scared. I may not be that polite.'

'I understand.'

He was silent then, for a long time. Sarah waited.

Perhaps five minutes later, she saw a hand reaching out over her face. It held a glass of water. Without warning, he slowly tipped it. She got her mouth open in time, and drank as much as she could. The hand disappeared again.

'Is that it?' she said. Her mouth felt strange, clean and wet. The water had tasted the way she had always expected wine to, from the way grown-ups made such a big deal of it and rolled it around in their mouths like it was the best thing they had ever tasted. In fact, in her experience, wine generally tasted like something was wrong with it.

'What else were you expecting?'

'You want me to stay alive, then you're going to have to give me something more than water.'

'Why do you think I want you alive?'

'Because otherwise you would have killed me right off and have me sitting naked someplace where

you could look at me and jack off.'

'That's not a very nice thing to say.'

'I refer you to my earlier comments. I'm not feeling very nice, and you're a sicko, so I don't have to

be.'

'I'm not a sicko, Sarah.'

'No? How would you define yourself? Unusual?'

He laughed again, delightedly. 'Oh certainly.'

'Unusual like Ted fucking Bundy.'

'Ted Bundy was an idiot,' the man said. All humour had vanished from his voice. 'A grandstanding

fool and a fake.' 'Okay,' she said, trying to placate him, though privately she thought he now sounded pompous as well

as insane. 'I'm sorry. I'm not a big fan of his either. You're much better. So do I get some food or what?'

'Later, perhaps.'

'Great. I'll look forward to it. Cut it up small, so I can catch it.'

'Good night, Sarah.'

When she heard him standing, her pretend calm fled. The plan hadn't worked. At all. He knew she

was frightened.

'Please don't put the lid back on. I can't move anyway.'

'I'm afraid I have to,' the man said.

'Please…'

It was replaced, and Sarah was in darkness again.

She heard his footsteps receding, a door shutting quietly, and then all was silent once more.

She licked frantically around her mouth, collecting as much of the remaining moisture as she could. Now that the initial shock of it was gone, she realized the water tasted different from the stuff she was used to at home. It must be from a different supply, which meant she had to be a long way from home. Like when you went on vacation. That was something, at least, something that she knew. The more she knew, the better.

Then she realized that maybe it was mineral water, something from a bottle, in which case the taste didn't mean anything. It could just be a different brand. That didn't matter. It was still worth thinking about. The more ideas she had, the better. Like the fact that when she'd mentioned her parents, the man hadn't said again how he'd killed them. When he'd captured her he'd been very keen to talk about what he'd done to them. Maybe it meant something. Hopefully it meant that they were still alive, and he'd only said the other things to frighten her.

Maybe not. Sarah lay in the darkness, her hands clenched into fists, and tried not to scream.

Part 2

Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation or creed. Bertrand

Russell

8

The flight got in to Los Angeles at 22.05. Nina had nothing except her handbag and the file, and Zandt could carry all he owned with one hand and not look lopsided. There was a car waiting for them. Nothing sleek and official. Just a cab Nina had booked from the plane, to drop him in Santa Monica and then take her home.

Lights and signs in the darkness, half-seen faces, the rustle and honk of life on just another of those evenings in a city whose heart never seems to be quite where you are, but is always round a corner, or down that street, or the other side of hulking buildings in some new club whose glory nights will be over before you've even heard of it. Between there and here are a clutch of cheap hotels, dusty liquor stores, car lots selling vehicles of dubious provenance. A tatty herd of people waiting on street corners with nothing very positive in mind, in a veldt of concrete bunkers housing businesses that will swallow countless hollow lives without ever being quoted on NASDAQ. Gradually the change to residential streets, and then into Venice. From the outside, on the right streets, Venice can look like it's trying to claw itself back upmarket. Some of the property is expensive, in a crappy International style. Every now and then you'll see a tattered piece of 1950s signage, something exuberant that harks back to flash bulbs and frozen glamour. Most have been torn down now, replaced by brutal information boards stamped out in Helvetica, the official typeface of purgatory. Helvetica isn't designed to make you feel anything good, to promise adventure or gladden the heart. Helvetica is for telling you that profits are down, that the photocopier needs servicing and by the way, you've been fired. Finally, Santa Monica. Nicer houses, small offices, places to get Japanese food and the London Times. The sea, with a pier that was born in sepia but knows those days are over. The Palisades up above, busy Ocean Avenue, then the first line of hotels and restaurants. The sense, from somewhere, that this suburb had once been a town. Perhaps it's the sea that makes it feel that way, that gives an impression that this community is here for a reason. In places it still is, still feels as if it has a relationship to its environment that goes beyond simply having flattened it. Stores and cafes and places to be, places to walk into and to buy from. You could live there and understand where you were, as the Becker family had until recently. It's not a real place, but then so little of Los Angeles is real, and the parts that are real are the places you don't want to be. Real is for people with guns and hangovers. Real is what you want to avoid. LA believes itself full of magic, and sometimes can even feel that way, but much of this is a mutually agreed upon sleight of hand. You can stand in one place and believe that one day you'll be a movie star — stand somewhere else, and you'll believe that you'll soon be dead. You know that what you see is a trick, but still you want to believe. You can buy maps that tell you where the stars live, but not where to stand to become one: all you can do is walk the lots and prop up the bars, hoping that luck will come find you. LA is a city that has taken Fate to its heart, has bought her many drinks and scribbled her phone number down after long evenings making eyes: but to call Fate a harsh mistress is giving her the benefit of very many doubts. Fate is more like a malevolent little starlet on a downhill cocaine slide, doing a slightly good deed once a week just in case someone important is watching. Fate doesn't always have your best interests in mind. Fate just doesn't give a shit.