sort of cinema is this?” Felix whispered. “How come they’re allowed to show American movies?”
“Old films are OK,” Helen whispered back. “This was made in the 1940s.”
Felix scrunched up his face, as if the images on the screen were giving off a bad smell.
“They expect people to sit through a movie that’s older than me, not coloured in and about some Chinese woman? No wonder the place is empty.” He slumped down and started fiddling with the tattered velvet seat cover.
In fact there were a few other people there – a solitary bald head in the front row that reflected the flickering light from the film and two girls a few years older than Georgie. Felix thought they were probably students and wondered whether they had boyfriends. He was so desperate to think about anything except the reason they were there that he forced himself to pay attention to the movie.
Then came a sharp whisper from the row behind.
“Don’t look round.”
It was a man with a French accent. Felix and Georgie froze in their seats, but Felix couldn’t help very slowly trying to glance over his shoulder.
“Enjoying the film?” snapped the man behind them. He leaned all the way forward, until Felix could smell the popcorn on his breath. Felix quickly turned back, before he’d caught a proper glimpse of the man. Helen didn’t turn round at all, even when she started speaking.
“I assume you got my message?” Helen began.
Felix felt his blood fizzing with excitement. Maybe the man already knew where his parents were. But his hopes died almost immediately.
“A lot of people have disappeared since this Government came to power,” the man said. “My organisation is overstretched already. Every day we get new messages begging for help to find family members, friends, teachers. Thousands of them. Anybody with any views this Government doesn’t approve of. Anybody who shows any kind of support for Christopher Viggo. They all disappear. What makes you think your case is so special?”
“If there’s nothing special about our case why did you agree to meet us? Why take the risk?” countered Helen.
“In your message you said you thought NJ7 might use your friends for some political purpose. That’s unusual. What did you mean? These people weren’t politicians. Were they public figures? Scientists perhaps?”
“No.”
“Then don’t waste my time.”
Felix heard the man heave himself to his feet. He wanted to reach back and grab him, or shout out – anything to get the man to stay and help them. Then, to his shock, Helen Coates spun round and stated loudly: “I used to work for them.”
The man slowly walked back to them. The bald man at the front of the cinema turned round and gave a loud “Shh!”.
“For this boy’s parents you mean?” asked the French man, crouching again behind Helen’s seat.
“No – for NJ7.” There was a pause, filled only by the voices from the film. “Many years ago. I was NJ7, but I left when…” She stopped, suddenly wary of her surroundings.
“It’s OK,” the man reassured her. “This building still has walls lined with lead. It makes it difficult for them to listen in or to watch without having an agent inside.”
“Well, that’s all.” Helen added no more details.
“I see.” The man pondered for a moment and shovelled in a fistful of popcorn. “It makes sense now. Your method of communication, you demanding this meeting…”
While the man considered everything, Felix couldn’t help peering round. He didn’t want to miss a single word. Now for the first time he got a proper look at their contact’s face: podgy and sullen, with a neat, blond moustache.
Suddenly the moustache twitched. “Neil and Olivia Muzbeke could be more significant than I first thought,” the man announced.
Felix shuddered slightly at the mention of his parents’ names. They are significant, he insisted in his head. “You’re going to help us?” he exclaimed, with a surge of energy. He could barely keep his voice to a whisper.
The French man ignored him and spoke directly into Helen’s ear.
“You said in your message they were taken in New York, so they could be at any one of dozens of British detention centres all over the world. But from what you’ve told me I don’t think they’ll be dead. Yet.”
Felix felt a lump lurching up in his throat. He fought back tears.
“If I need to contact you again?” asked Helen.
“You’ll never see me again,” replied the French man. “But somebody will contact you.”
He left them with instructions to stay until the end of the film and go straight home afterwards. Felix sat in the darkness thinking of nothing but his parents and how wonderful it must be to be French.
06 WHITEOUT
Jimmy opened his eyes. He was surrounded by a whiteness so intense that at first it hurt the backs of his eyes. He tried to look down at his body, but moving his head was awkward, as if it was being held in place by a surgical clamp. Every bit of his skin was prickling from the cold. It grew more acute the more awake he became, until it was the pain of a thousand stabs.
The pounding of his heart and the flow of blood through his ears were the only sounds. Beyond that was unwavering silence. His slightest movement caused a low creak that was like a hurricane in comparison. What is that? he asked himself. Then he realised it was the noise of densely packed snow shifting.
Only now did Jimmy remember the details of his crash and that he must be suspended in a snowdrift in the Pyrenees. Every sensation became less disturbing because he could explain it. But then he was attacked by another memory – the reason he was here in the first place. Britain is going to attack France. How long have I been unconscious? I have to warn the French. For all he knew he could be too late.
Jimmy tried to raise his right hand to wipe his face, but the weight of snow packed in around him held it down. He jerked it free, sending a stab of agony through his ribcage.
He struggled to think clearly. He didn’t even know which way was up. He spat out a globule of saliva. His mouth was so dry it took some effort. The spit dribbled up his cheek, then froze just below his eye.
Great, he thought. I’m upside-down.
At last he loosened enough of the snow around him and tumbled backwards, just managing to avoid landing on his head. It was only a short fall, but the impact doubled every pain in his body. He gripped the right side of his ribcage and let out a cry of agony that rang off the cliff faces and echoed back to him.
The world was still almost completely white. Plumes of mist swirled around him, only parting for fleeting seconds to reveal glimpses of the mountain peaks. Massive rock formations, hundreds of times the size of Jimmy, poked their heads out of the whiteness to peer down at him, then disappeared again as if they’d
