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‘Why are you doing this?’ Emily whispered, watching Robin stuff the last five pound note through the slot.
‘I told you, I want to. Stay there, I’ve got to give the scissors back.’
She found Emily standing exactly where she’d left her when she returned.
‘OK, shall we—?’
‘My brother killed himself and it was all our fault,’ said Emily jerkily. ‘Mine and Becca’s.’
‘You can’t be sure of that.’
‘I can. It was us, we did it to him. He shot himself. You can get guns really easily in the materialist world,’ said Emily with a nervous glance at the shoppers passing the toy shop window, as though she feared they might be armed.
‘It might’ve been an accident,’ said Robin.
‘No, it wasn’t, it definitely wasn’t. Becca made me sign a thing… she told me I’d suppressed what he did to us. She’s always done that,’ said Emily, her breathing rapid and shallow, ‘told me what happened, and what didn’t happen.’
Despite her genuine concern for Emily and the urgent need to get back to the group, this was an opening Robin couldn’t ignore.
‘What does Becca say didn’t happen?’
‘I can’t tell you,’ said Emily, shifting her gaze back on to the rows of happily paired animals smiling out of their neat cellophane-wrapped boxes. ‘Look,’ she said, pointing at a family of four pigs. ‘Pig demons… that’s a sign,’ she said, breathing rapidly.
‘A sign of what?’ said Robin.
‘That I need to shut up.’
‘Emily, they’re just toys,’ said Robin. ‘They aren’t supernatural, they’re not signs. You can tell me anything, I won’t give you away.’
‘The last person who said that to me was in Birmingham and he didn’t – he didn’t mean it – he—’
Emily began to cry. She shook her head as Robin laid a consoling hand on her arm.
‘Don’t, don’t – you’ll be in trouble, being nice to me – you shouldn’t be helping me, Becca will make sure you’re punished for it—’
‘I’m not scared of Becca,’ said Robin.
‘Well, you should be,’ said Emily, drawing deep breaths in an effort to control herself. ‘She’ll… do anything to protect the mission. Anything. I… I should know.’
‘How could you threaten the mission?’ asked Robin.
‘Because,’ said Emily, staring at a pair of small pandas in pink and blue nappies, ‘I know things… Becca says I was too young to remember…’ Then, in a rush of words, Emily said, ‘But I wasn’t really small, I was nine, and I know, because they moved me out of the kids’ dormitory after it happened.’
‘After what happened?’ said Robin.
‘After Daiyu became “invisible”,’ said Emily, her tone putting quotation marks around the word. ‘I knew Becca was lying, even then, only I went along with it, because,’ fresh tears gushed forth, ‘I loved… loved…’
‘You loved Becca?’
‘No… not… it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter… I shouldn’t be… talking about any of this… forget it, please…’
‘I will,’ lied Robin.
‘It’s just Becca,’ said Emily, struggling to regain control of herself again, wiping her face, ‘telling me I’m lying all the time… she’s not… since she went away… I feel like she’s not who she was before…’
‘When did she go away?’ asked Robin.
‘Ages ago… they sent her to Birmingham… they split up flesh objects… they must have thought we were too close… and when she came back… she wasn’t… she was really one of them, she wouldn’t hear a word against any of them, even Mazu… Sometimes,’ said Emily, ‘I want to scream the truth, but… that’s egomotivity…’
