Although he was a couple of years younger, these days Felix felt almost as close to Georgie Coates as he always had to her brother, Jimmy. And behind Georgie stood her mother, Helen. Both offered the same reassuring smile, lips pressed together, concern in their eyes.
So Felix opened the door and entered one of the few remaining sushi restaurants in Soho, in Central London. There was a time when the place had been packed with them, when there would have been hundreds of people around to eat in them as well – tourists, locals, shop workers. But Felix and Georgie had never seen it in those days and tonight Brewer Street was deserted. The buildings twisted above them, Victorian and Georgian styles butting edges like brickwork pick ‘n’ mix.
Before Georgie and Helen followed Felix in, they both instinctively glanced up and down the street. They all knew they were watched every moment by NJ7, either on camera or by field agents. Checking over her shoulder was an old habit for Helen and had become a new one for Georgie. A habit it was safer not to break.
Just as Georgie stepped over the threshold of the restaurant, a man swept along the street so fast he was already past them. But Georgie heard the echo of his whisper:
“Nasu Miso.”
Nasu Miso? Georgie repeated the words in her head. Was it some kind of message, or just a foreigner saying “excuse me”? She watched the man’s silhouette marching away along the street. His body and head were both round – like a satsuma balanced on a melon.
Her mother hurried her into the restaurant.
It was only a small room, with a low bar and about thirty stools, all of them empty. A conveyor belt snaked its way through the place, carrying dozens of small dishes, each loaded with different morsels. Japanese waiters with crisp white coats and stern expressions hovered about, their arms behind their backs.
“Three green teas, please,” announced Felix nervously, perching on the nearest stool.
They all knew they weren’t there to have a meal. They just had to look like they were, for the sake of the NJ7 surveillance. Georgie knew they were all thinking about the same thing: whether the man they would be meeting could find Felix’s parents. He was from a French charity that specialised in tracking down people who had been made to disappear by the British Government. It all made Georgie feel sick, not hungry.
She’d hardly sat down when her mother announced, “OK, let’s go.”
“Wait,” Felix blurted. “Aren’t we…” He looked around at the waiters. They were all watching. Felix knew he couldn’t say anything, but his face was a picture of anxiety.
“He’s just late,” Felix whispered. “We should wait. This could be the only way to—”
Helen hushed him with a smile. She’d taken a single dish from the conveyor belt: chunks of aubergine in a gloopy-looking sauce, their purple skins glistening in the low lighting.
Georgie glanced at the menu and scanned the pictures. There it was. “Nasu Miso,” she mumbled under her breath.
“So let’s go,” Helen repeated softly. She slipped her fingers under the dish and pulled out the three cinema tickets that had been concealed there. “We don’t want to miss the trailers.”
As Helen, Georgie and Felix took their seats in the centre row of the cinema, the opening credits were already finishing. A black and white title card announced that the film was called The Lady From Shanghai, then the actors started talking in American accents.
“What 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