Jamie stared at the Director as silence fell over the Ops Room.
“I don’t know, sir,” said Angela Darcy, eventually, a wide grin on her face. “As speeches go, that one wasn’t too shabby.”
Laughter rippled around the table, and Jamie felt a small smile rise on to his face.
“Thank you,” said Turner. “I’m delighted to have your approval. Now if I might be allowed to continue with this briefing?”
Pete Randall shoved his chair back from his desk and looked out of the window of his office. The view was an unappetising panorama of industrial units, roads and roundabouts, and low suburban sprawl. In the distance, above the angled roofs of houses and squat grey blocks of shopping malls, rose the spire of Lincoln Cathedral, its beautifully carved stone incongruous against the landscape it overlooked.
More than two months had passed since Pete had accepted Greg Browning’s invitation to move south and help him launch SSL, and the view was one of the things he was finding hardest to adjust to. From his study in the house he had once shared with his wife and daughter, Pete had looked out across the shoreline of Lindisfarne to an endlessly churning grey-blue strip of the North Sea and the rugged coastline of Northumberland. He had taken the spectacular vista for granted after long years on the island, but now, faced every day with a grey urban expanse, he realised how much he missed it.
He had not instantly said yes to Greg; in fact, he had made him wait more than a week for his decision. After the nightmarish days the two of them had spent with Albert Harker and Kevin McKenna and the bittersweet relief at seeing his daughter alive – even if she was wearing the black uniform of Blacklight – he had returned to Lindisfarne and tried to make sense of everything that had happened. He didn’t blame Greg; they had been deceived and manipulated by a monster, and although the method had ultimately veered into madness, he would always believe that the end result of their time with Harker and McKenna had been worthwhile. They had forced the world to open their eyes to vampires, and to the hateful soldiers who policed them, and he would always be proud of that.
It did not, however, mean that he was keen to involve himself again, and he had said as much to Greg when he rang with the proposal that had become SSL.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “I’m in, on two conditions. Firstly, I don’t want there to be anything I don’t know. I won’t work in the dark again, like we did with Kevin, so, if there’s anything you’re not telling me, I want to know about it right now, before we go any further. Is that clear?”
“Clear,” said Greg. “That’s absolutely fair, mate. And there is something. The funding for SSL is coming from a series of charitable foundations, backed by private donors who wish to remain anonymous. Which means I can’t tell you the names of the people writing the cheques, because I honestly don’t know them. If that’s going to be a problem for you, I understand, but it’s the only thing I can think of that you don’t know. There’s loads of stuff that still needs working out, but if you come on board you’ll be making those decisions with me. You’ll be in the loop on absolutely everything, I promise.”
“All right,” said Pete. “That’s fine.”
“Great,” said Greg. “What’s the second condition?”
“I want you to promise me that this has nothing to do with revenge,” said Pete. “That it’s not about Matt, or how much you hate Blacklight and the way they treated us. Because if it is, you’re on your own. I won’t say anything to anyone, but I won’t be a part of it. I’m done with all that, Greg.”
“Me too,” said his friend. “I’m not angry any more, mate, I promise you. All I want to do is try and help.”
“I believe you,” said Pete. “So what’s the next move?”
“I’m taking office space in Lincoln,” said Greg. “You can work remotely if you want, but to be honest, it would be good to have you down here in person. What do you think?”
“I think I can handle it,” said Pete. “Let me sort some things out up here. I’ll give you a call in a couple of days.”
Pete roused himself from his memories and returned his attention to his computer. He was reviewing the entire log of calls made to their helpline, aware that it was almost time for him to help Greg welcome the latest batch of volunteers. The public response to SSL had so far been beyond their wildest expectations; the projections they had given to their board had predicted three hundred calls a day by this point.
The previous day, they had taken nine hundred and twelve.
The phone operators were working incessantly, starting early and staying late for no reason other than faith in what they were doing. The blood drives, where SSL volunteers took fresh, clean blood from slaughterhouses into communities and made it available to any vampire that wanted it, were also proving massively popular; in Birmingham two nights earlier, they had run out of blood in less than two hours. Pete was in the process of trying to secure more stocks as Greg worked to bring in new volunteers, both for the main Lincoln office and to run the regional projects; after barely three months, SSL already needed every pair of hands it could find.
What struck Pete most as he scanned through the call logs was how often the same names appeared, time and time again. SSL did not record transcripts of the calls it received – they had promised their callers anonymity, and Pete was adamant that they adhere to it – but each call did have a number of acronyms marked against it. Some were obvious – a capital V for vampire, a capital H for human – whereas others were harder to decipher: SI for suicidal ideation, TTCH for threatening to cause harm, ATHK for admits to having killed, and many, many others. Most callers did not identify themselves in any way, but perhaps as many as fifteen per cent gave their names; it seemed to Pete, from the acronyms beside those particular calls, that they were largely men and women who were dealing with crushing guilt, who were searching for absolution. The phone calls he was looking at represented probably the only chance vampires had to speak openly about the things they had done, about the life that had been thrust upon them.
Pete scrolled through the log list, and paused. A name halfway down the fifth page had caught his eye, a name that seemed familiar. He realised why at the same moment Greg Browning knocked on his office door and stepped through it.
“Morning, mate,” he said. “Ready?”
“Morning,” said Pete. “Come in for a second.”
Greg frowned, but closed the door and walked across the office. “What’s up?” he asked.
Pete pointed at the name on the screen. “Recognise him?”
“Albert Matheson,” read Greg out loud. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Should it?”
“Not really,” said Pete. “He was the vamp the Night Stalker killed a couple of months ago. I read about him at the time.”
“No shit?” said Greg. “ATHK too. I guess he was confessing.”
“He was a convicted child molester,” said Pete. “He probably had a lot to confess.”
Greg