Page 9 of The Lost Zone (Dark Water #3)

Alex buried his head in Ted’s shoulder and flung his arms around him, and they clung on to each other.

“When was the last time you saw each other?” Josiah asked.

“The day I gave him that photo,” Ted said, finally releasing Alex and looking him up and down in disbelief. “Shit – you look as pretty now as you did back then. How the fuck do you do that, Alex?”

“Well, I kept my hair – that helps.” Alex grinned, reaching up to rub Ted’s balding head.

“Still the same cheeky bastard then,” Ted said, grinning back delightedly. “Looks like Tyler didn’t manage to beat that out of you, though not for want of trying.” His grin faded. “How are you here, Alex? Where’s Tyler? What the hell is happening?”

“I don’t belong to Tyler anymore. Don’t you watch the news, Ted? I’m plastered all over it at the moment.”

“Nah. There’s never anything good in the news.

I only watch the racing.” Ted grinned. “Sometimes, I catch stuff passing on the screen, but I’ve been busy lately.

Shop was flooded again last week, so I’ve been picking up dead rats and cleaning out the stock – trying to save what I can.

Been packing up the decent stuff into boxes and chucking the rest.” He gestured at the boxes piled up behind the counter.

“We need to talk,” Alex said, gazing at him searchingly.

Ted gave a tight nod. “Yeah, I reckon we do.” He locked the shop entrance, then beckoned them through the door behind the counter. “C’mon, through here, and bring the big fella with you.”

The back room was cold and damp. Ted turned on a small electric fire and warmed his hands in front of it. “Want a cuppa?” he asked.

“We’re fine,” Josiah said firmly. It was a kind offer, but this man clearly had too little to share.

He was used to the juxtaposition between extreme poverty and those like himself, lucky enough to have access to tech and comfort, but all the same, it was striking.

He hadn’t forgotten his upbringing in the Quarterlands, which was several steps below that even of Ted and his army shop.

Alex sat down on the floor beside the fire. There was only one chair, shabby and hard-backed. Josiah took it. “Tyler offered to buy you a place, and you asked for this?” Alex asked, looking at the peeling walls.

“Always wanted an army shop,” Ted said with a shrug. “Growing up, I always thought I’d be made up if I had an army shop. Used to hang out at the one close to where I lived – it was a lifeline for me and my mum and sister. So, when Tyler said he’d rent me a place, this is what I chose.”

“You could have named your price with what you know about him.”

“Nah.” Ted shook his head vehemently. “You know how he operates – carrot and stick. He was prepared to give me this, but he made it clear that if I pushed for too much, he’d go after my family.”

Josiah glanced around – there was a curtain at the far end of the room that was pulled halfway open, and he could see a couple of old mattresses slung on the floor beyond. This was the entirety of Ted’s living space.

The place was sparsely furnished, with threadbare cushions on the floor next to the fire, a rickety wooden table in the centre, and a battered old brown dresser propped up against the wall. There was an old-fashioned screen in the corner with a large crack across the glass, held together with tape.

“Mum died last year,” Ted said, “and my sister found some no-good bloke to shack up with up north a couple of years ago.”

“So, you live here alone?” Alex glanced around.

Ted hesitated. “Not quite.”

Josiah saw, as Alex had not, the damp children’s clothes hung over the old-fashioned radiator, next to a woman’s blouse and bra.

Ted looked away, embarrassed. Alex frowned and glanced at Josiah, who nodded at the drying clothes.

“Oh,” Alex said, leaning back. He looked as if all the life had drained from him. In all the years he’d been dreaming about this moment, Josiah realised he hadn’t accounted for the simple fact that Ted might have found someone else.

“I loved Solange,” Ted explained, “but she’s been dead for years, Alex.”

“I know. I understand,” Alex said distantly.

“Do you?” Ted crouched down in front of him, touching his knee. “Trudy’s a nice girl – Solange would have liked her. We’ve got a couple of kids together – two little girls. I couldn’t grieve for Solange forever, Alex. I had to move on. I had to let her go.”

“I can’t do that,” Alex said quietly. “My life is still the same, Ted. I’m still an indie. I still wear an ID tag. I still have to go where I’m ordered and do what I’m told. I can’t get married or have kids. Where are they now?” He picked up a grubby teddy bear from under the table.

Ted stood up with a sigh. “They’re with Trudy’s mum. Trudy works in the pub down the road and helps me out in the shop when she can. We don’t make much, but we get by.”

“With Tyler’s help,” Josiah pointed out.

Ted shrugged. “I’m not proud, sir. Can’t afford to be.

Alex knows how it is with Tyler. Keeping his dirty secret meant I could get my family out of the Quarterlands.

I know this place isn’t a palace, but it is compared to where I was raised.

My kids have a chance at something better.

That’s why…” He gave Alex an agonised look.

“Sorry, Alex, but it’s why I can’t help you.

Solange would understand. The living need me more than the dead. ”

“I can see you have a lot to lose,” Alex murmured.

Ted wrapped his arms around his body, looking away. “I’m sorry, mate. I really am. You were always the strong one, not me. You’ll find a way without me. I know you will.”

“That won’t be easy,” Josiah said. “I won’t get authorisation to investigate this on Alex’s word alone, given who Tyler is. If you don’t testify, then we won’t be able to bring Tyler to justice. We need you, Ted. Solange needs you.”

“No, mate, I don’t reckon she does. In an ideal world, I’d say yes, you know I would.” He looked beseechingly at Alex. “But this isn’t an ideal world. This is Tyler’s world, and I know my place in it.”

“You saw what Tyler did to Alex,” Josiah said forcefully. “The only thing that kept him going was the hope of finding justice for Solange one day. You gave him that mission, Ted. You told him to stay strong for her, and he did. He did his bit. Now it’s time for you to step up and do yours.”

Ted gave him a withering look. “With all due respect, Mr Investigator, sir, you come in here with your fancy suit, spouting on about justice, but you have no idea what it’s like to live in the Quarterlands. I can’t send Trudy and the kids back to that. I won’t. You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Yes, I do,” Josiah said quietly. “I know what it’s like to wake up every day with wet hair, breathing in damp air, and lying on a sodden mattress in a room with five other families and a bucket for a toilet.

The stink of it gets into your skin and the damp gets into your bones, making them ache.

I know how it feels to believe you’ll never be warm and dry again, no matter how long you sit in the sun.

I know what it’s like to hang out at the army shop for hours every day, fighting for scraps of food you wouldn’t feed to a pig but feeling grateful all the same.

I know precisely what that’s like, Ted.”

Ted stared at him. “Maybe you do, mister,” he said grudgingly. He turned to Alex. “I’m glad you’ve got someone like him on your side,” he said, gesturing with his thumb. “I’m sorry I can’t step up and be the kind of man Solange deserves. I never was good enough for her.”

Alex stood up and put his hands on Ted’s shoulders. “I think you are that man, Ted. It’s not too late. Don’t let her down now.”

Ted shook his head. “I’m sorry, Alex. I can’t do this.”

All the hope seemed to leave Alex and his shoulders slumped. “I understand,” he said softly. “And Solange would, too.”

Josiah thought he was being too kind. He decided to give it one last try.

“We’ve all had to give up something to obtain justice for Solange, Ted,” he said forcefully.

“I’ve given up a cause that was dearer to me than you can ever know, and Alex has given up the chance of escape.

What you’d be giving up is just as hard, but I know how much you want justice for her.

I know how much you must want revenge on the man who killed her – how much you must burn for it inside.

I can feel it. In here.” He put his hand on Ted’s chest, over his heart. Ted stared at him in surprise.

Josiah leaned in close and spoke in a low, intense tone.

“Forget about Special Investigator Josiah Raine from Inquisitus – I’m talking to you as Joe, the shabby little Quarterlands kid who used to stand outside an army shop just like this one, with his nose pressed up against the window.

Solange was a Quarterlands kid, too, Ted.

She was one of us. Don’t we deserve justice?

Shouldn’t the law care when one of us is murdered?

Shouldn’t Special Investigator Raine be sent to track down Solange Alajika’s murderer with the full weight of the law and the country’s leading investigation agency behind him?

Or is that kind of justice only for houders? ”

A light flared, briefly, in Ted’s eyes, and then ebbed away. “Nobody cares about us, Joe, and nothing’s ever gonna change that,” he said sadly.

“You could.” Josiah was so close now that he could feel the staccato warmth of Ted’s breath on his cheek. “If not you and me and Alex – then who? Who else is going to do it? It has to be us.”

“I don’t have the fight in me. I’m not who I was. I changed when she died.” Ted’s voice broke, and he looked away. “I loved her so much, and losing her almost killed me. You don’t know what that’s like, or you wouldn’t be standing here, asking this of me.”

Josiah clenched his hands into fists, and the world became a blur in front of him, with Ted’s face at its centre.

He wasn’t sure what he’d have done if Alex hadn’t made a little sound in the back of his throat.

The room came back into focus, and with great effort, Josiah relaxed his fists.

He reached into his pocket and fished out an Inquisitus nanocard.

“In case you change your mind,” he said brusquely, handing it to Ted.

Ted took it, but Josiah knew he had no intention of using it.

“Sorry you’ve had a wasted trip, but it was good to see you again, Alex,” Ted muttered.

“And you, Ted.”

Ted held out his hand uncertainly. Alex pushed it aside and gave him another warm hug, which Ted returned with a look of relief.

Ted escorted them back into the shop. “Take care of yourselves – both of you – if you’re going after Tyler,” he warned as he unlocked the door. “That bastard and fuckers like him run this country. You’ll be lucky to get out of this alive.”

Josiah saw genuine fear in his eyes.

“I was right about one thing though, Alex. You are strong. If anyone can bring Tyler down, it’s you – and Mr Fancypants here looks like just the right bloke to help you do it.”

Alex didn’t say another word. He looked utterly deflated as he walked quickly back to the duck with his head down and his shoulders hunched. Josiah caught up with him, slipped his hand silently into his, and gently squeezed.