Of Lights and Shadows (Book 4)

30) Time to Worry

The next morning Silence lay in bed for as long as he dared after his alarm rang. It was six o'clock and far too early for him to want to wake up and get out of bed and head down to the park. There was really no reason for him to stay in bed, it was just one of those days when your body feels just too heavy to be able to lift it and bed is just so much more comfortable than sitting in a van watching life walk by the cameras set out.

When they first arrived at the van, they decided they would speed through the videos taken during the night rather than having them spend the night in the van. Anything interesting or suspicious was to be placed to the side and written down for Dastardious to go over later.

Dastardious didn't often show up at the bus, though occasionally they would see him walk past a camera. But other than that they didn't see him very often. What he did when he wasn't with them or walking past the cameras they weren't quite sure, but Silence couldn't imagine that Dastardious would just be doing nothing. He was on the case, in his own words, to survive, and he wouldn't if he didn't give the Commissioner results. How long they would keep Dastardious employed none of them knew, though Silence did know that somehow after Dastardious had had that chat with the  Commissioner that he wouldn't be let off just yet. But, like whether his new child would survive childbirth, you never knew.

At half past six Susan's alarm went and she rose from bed. Silence couldn't help but smile, his alarm had gone off half an hour ago and here he was, still in bed, and Susan's had gone off and she was off like a shot, getting dressed and getting ready for work.

He watched her as she dressed, marvelling at how he was able to get someone perfect like her. It amazed him even after seven years. But it amazed him more that at the second time they had met, after an even longer nine year gap of not seeing each other, that he had wanted nothing to do with her and had wished for her to leave him and his life alone. Thankfully she had been stubborn and wouldn't rest until she had solved the mystery surrounding his name and the reason he couldn't talk, and, basically, his life before America. Now as he looked at her shining face as she climbed into a white skirt and fastened the buttons, he was so thankful that she had persisted. How his life would have turned out if she hadn't shown up he shuddered to think. Probably single, still sharing an apartment, and living day after day in the same routine while life ran away from him.

She caught him watching and smiled, then sauntered over and lay down on the bed next to him and gave him a kiss.

'You know that it's twenty to seven?' she said in between kisses. 'Which means no more of these until you're up,' she said, planting a last kiss on his lips before sliding off the bed. He groaned while she found her shirt and buttoned it up before leaving him alone in the room. Then with a grin, he pulled the covers back, jumping out of bed and set about getting ready for his own work.

He was ready before she was, and after wishing her a great day found an empty cab to take him to Central Park. By the time he reached there the memory of last night, the strange way Susan had been acting, took him once more and he collapsed glumly into one of the spare seats after a quick good morning to Dutch who had been waiting impatiently before starting to fast forward the videos from the night before.

It was the same as the day before and there was no suspicious activity recorded. They filed the tapes away for Dastardious to watch when he arrived before each taking half the video screens and settling down to watch and wait.

'We could be waiting for weeks, you know that?' Dutch said after a silent hour.

Silence sighed and wrote a reply. This wasn't the first time Dutch had said that, in fact Silence had lost count of the amount of times Dutch had said it. He could understand though Dutch's anger at having to sit cooped up in a van, he did seem to work better when he was free. How he could have survived ten years in prison was a mystery. The other men inside were probably sick of his complaining and were glad to have him gone.