The Girl With All the Gifts(90)

Justineau is two syllables into an obscene rejoinder when Parks claps his hand down on her shoulder and turns her round to face him. The brusqueness of it takes her by surprise. He’s almost never touched her, and never since his abortive pass on the roof of Wainwright House.

“Enough,” he says. “I need you in the engine room, Helen. The rest of you, you know what you’re doing. Or you should do. The kid goes in the cage. But you don’t touch her, Doc. For now, she’s off-limits. You cut her, you’ll answer to me. Trust me, all those slides you spent last night making up will not survive the encounter. Understood?”

“I’ve said I’ll wait.”

“And I believe you. I’m just saying. Helen?”

Justineau lingers for a moment longer. “If she comes near you,” she says to Melanie, “just scream and I’ll be right there.”

She follows Parks all the way aft to the engine room, where he closes the door and leans his weight against it.

“I know things are bad,” Justineau says. “I’m not trying to make them worse. I just… I don’t trust her. I can’t.”

“No,” Parks agrees. “I don’t blame you. But nothing’s going to happen to the kid. You’ve got my word.”

It’s a relief to hear him say that. To know that he recognises Melanie as an ally, at least for now, and won’t let her be hurt.

“But I’d like you to do me a favour in return,” Parks goes on.

Justineau shrugs. “Okay. If I can. What?”

“Find out what she really saw.”

“What?” Justineau is mystified for a moment. Not angry or exasperated, just at a loss to understand what Parks is saying. “Why would she lie? Why would you even think that she…? Shit! Because of what Caroline said? Because she fancies herself as an anthropologist? She doesn’t know shit. You can’t expect psychopaths like the junkers to make rational decisions.”

“Probably not,” Parks agrees.

“Then what are you talking about?”

“Helen, the kid’s talking hairy-arsed nonsense. I’m pretty sure she saw something last night. And it was probably something that scared her, because she’s really sincere about wanting us to leave. But it wasn’t junkers.”

Justineau is getting angry again. “Why?” she demands. “How do you know? And how many times does she have to prove herself to you?”

“None. No times. I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on her now. But her story doesn’t hold together at all.”

He picks up one of the manuals he’s been working from, which he’s left lying on the cowling of the generator, and sets it aside so he can sit there. He doesn’t look happy.

“I can see why you wouldn’t want to face up to this,” Justineau says. “If they followed us from the base, it means we screwed up. We left a trail.”

Parks gives a sound that could be a laugh or just a snort. “We left a trail you could follow facing backwards with your head in a bucket,” he says. “It’s not that. It’s just…”

He raises a hand and starts counting off on his fingers.

“She says she saw all men, no women, which means this is a temporary camp. So why don’t they put up a perimeter? How come she can walk right in there and walk right out again without being seen?”

“Maybe they have lousy security, Parks. Not everyone has your skill set.”

“Maybe. And then we have those guys conveniently coming in just at the right moment and saying they’re following someone. And the tattoo. Private Barlow, back at the base, he had that same word on his arm. Some coincidence.”

“Coincidences happen, Parks.”

“Sometimes they do,” Parks agrees. “But then there’s Rosie.”

“Rosie? What’s Rosie got to do with this?”

“She hasn’t been touched. We found her standing right here in the street, and there isn’t a mark on her. Nobody tried to jack the door open, or to lever out one of the windows. There was all that dirt and grime on her, and not so much as a handprint or a smudge. I’m having a hard time believing that fifty junkers could walk through here and not see her. Or that they could see her and not want to take a look inside. Come to think of it, I’m having a hard time believing that you and Gallagher managed to do your foraging yesterday without bumping into them. Or that they didn’t see your flare. If they really are following our trail, they’re missing a hell of a lot of tricks.”

Justineau is looking for counterarguments, and finding some, when she runs right into the one piece of evidence that Parks didn’t see. Those sidelong looks at Caldwell… it was as though Melanie was really aiming her story at an audience of one all along. Talking to the doctor over the heads of everyone else in the room.

So she doesn’t argue. There’s no point when she’s more than half sold. But she doesn’t let it rest there either. She’s not going to go off and interrogate Melanie without knowing what Parks’ play is.

“Why did you do that then?” she demands. “Back in there?”

“Why did I do what?”

“Order a lockdown. If Melanie is lying, there’s no danger.”

“I didn’t say that.”