Thicker Than Water

It’s a wonderful and awe-inspiring facet of modern technology that you can call out from the heart of Armageddon to share the experience and chat with like-minded friends.

Nothing the first time around: the phone rang for the best part of a minute before kicking me through to the voicemail service. No time to piss around with that: something told me it might be a while before Gary had a chance to catch up with his messages.

I tried again. Hung up again. A third time . . .

‘Hello?’ Coldwood’s voice, with a babel of other voices, movements, sirens behind him.

They were the same sirens I was hearing, away out there in the red night, but slightly out of phase because radio and sound waves don’t march in lockstep.

‘Hello, Gary.’

‘Castor? Bloody hell, where are you? Basquiat said you—’

‘Weston Block, flat 137,’ I said.

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‘Jesus fucking wept! You’re still in there!’

‘And you’re somewhere out on the edge, yeah? New Kent Road?’

‘Other side. Henshaw Street.

Listen, if you want a rescue, you can forget it. We can’t get close. The riot boys have taken over, and their OCO doesn’t play well with others. They’re making a right pig’s breakfast of it, but there isn’t a bastard thing we can do. He’s got us running escorts for the paramedics and evacuating people out of the north end.’

‘I don’t want a rescue, Gary. I want Matt. I need you to bring him here.’

Silence at the other end of the line, apart from the sirens and shouted commands.

‘Did you hear me, Gary?’

‘No. I’m not sure I did. I thought you said you wanted me to bring your brother in to you.’

‘Yeah. That’s right.’

The next sound I heard was an incredulous laugh. ‘Did you fall on your head at some point, Fix? I told you, I can’t get in. And your brother’s on remand for fucking murder.’

‘Which he didn’t do. But that’s beside the point. He’s the only person alive who can stop this.’

‘Why?’ Coldwood’s voice was strained. ‘Explain the logic. No, on second thoughts don’t bother because this is not fucking happening.

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"He hung up on me. I dialled again. There was nothing else to do except keep hitting at the one point and hope that something gave way. If it didn’t, I was going to sit here until the demon crept past my defences: and then I was probably going to do pretty much what everyone else was doing.

‘Fix, piss off out of it,’ Gary yelled down the phone.

‘I’d love to, Gary. Sincerely.