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  ‘You a looky likey, are you? Look an awful lot like ‘em you do. Lot of money in that is there?’ Gilly questioned.

  ‘Shit ton.’ Replied Cameron. Gilly gave a half grin and started off cleaning again.

  ‘Actually. Could I ask you something?’ Cameron stopped Gilly, grasping the cuffs of his clean white shirt.

  He looked over, when Cameron was younger he’d heard about Gilly’s temper, he had a short fuse which was easily lit, if stories were to be believed, he once had thrown a man through the pub window and even got him convinced it was his doing to pay for it, after he’d got out of hospital of course.

  Cameron let go of the sleeve without a beat of him grasping it.

  ‘What can I do you for?’ Gilly chuckled, obviously the last twenty odd years had cleared his hard edges.

  ‘We’re,’ Cameron started, the others shook their heads.

  ‘I’m looking for somebody. Somebody who used to work here. A bar maid that Cameron got on well with, very well.’ Cameron probed.

  ‘You won’t be messing with that young boys ‘ed. He isn’t got brothers, halve or other. You may look a lot like him I’ll give you that. But that means nothing. Cam may have been a bit of all over the place but I never let a bad word be put on em.’ Gilly at this point had strangled the life from a rag, Cameron was just glad it wasn’t his neck.

  Tom stormed off, Cameron rubbed his shin where it had been kicked repeatedly by Mary, her sharp leather boots left dents in his leg.

  ‘Maybe it's rather a good idea we keep hush for a little bit, yes?’ Mary said, smiling at the staff as they tidied past them, she’d somehow found a red-pink lipstick which she had applied, either that or her lips had always been this color and Cameron hadn’t noticed.

  ‘She’s right, until we can find out where to go, or what to do, we keep hush, it’ll make things worse if we speak up anyway.’ Explained Simon, keeping his voice down to him, meant keeping his body low to the table also.

  ‘This guy knows where my son is, he’s the only one who knows where to go, keeping hush isn’t going to help find my son, nor is it going to stop him trying to kill me anymore.’ Cameron also brought his body low to the table in the hopes he wouldn’t have to speak loud to be heard.

  ‘That gentleman looks as if he could throw us all out, in one go, possibly through a window.’ Simon had a little fear in his voice.

  ‘Well, actually I’d heard a story about something like that.’ Cameron began a story which he’d never finish. Out from the kitchen bounded the large man, his face now as grey as his hair, his eyes, bloodshot red, trained on Cameron.

  ‘And another thing.’ Gilly's finger was solely directed at Cameron, cocking his elbow back and forth, the finger moved with it, Cameron without a prompt from his mind found himself stood up, both hands were up at around his chest and he was apologising none stop.

  ‘Look, man, I didn't mean anything, I just had some questions is all,’ Cameron explained.

  ‘Questions about what exactly, why are you people so set on ruining that kid's life?’ asked Gilly pushing his sausage finger into Cameron's chest, he looked at the other two as if to ask for what to. Both Simon and Mary were clueless and showed it by shrugging and glancing back down at the menu.

  ‘That boy's life has been nothing but misery, he couldn’t even keep working here without you lot, axing questions all the damn time.’ Cameron was now against the wall, unable to speak for being yelled at, unable to wipe his face from the spit it was being rained with.

  ‘I Just,’ Cameron looked defeated.

  ‘You just nothing, nothing at all, now please leave.’ Gilly walked away, Cameron looked defeated,

  ‘We most probably should leave, there is little for us here, and with the required funds I believe we’d already overstayed our welcome.’ Mary explained, standing from the table she’d sat at for all this time, she stood stiffly as if she’d been sat for hundreds of years.

  ‘She’s right, onwards and upwards and all that.’ Simon pushed himself off his chair using his cane, he called it at cane, it was simply a branch he’d picked up on the way.

  He’d look stiff, if it was possible for him to seem any more rigid then normal.

  Outside the pub all three of them stood, unsure what was next, they huddled around each other, chatting amongst themselves on what options they had.

  ‘I couldn’t think of anything, this was literally our only option.’ Simon said looking around for anything that would kick off a thought or idea on where to go next.

  ‘Come with me.’ A blonde girl stepped out from the grey goose, she was untying her apron with a goose embroidered into the chest, a small badge hung from the neck, it stated she was Stephanie and, although she didn’t look like it, she was here to help. The three followed her, she was short with stubby legs so staying close wasn’t too hard.

  They passed the bin where Gilly was once again throwing rubbish into a grey bin. He held up his hand to slow them down but none of them stopped.

  ‘I wanted to say,’ he trailed off when he realised nobody was going to break stride.

  ‘Sorry,’ Cameron mouthed, too quiet to be heard as they scurried past.

  Behind the grey goose were badly painted steps. They were painted in thick black which still looked wet even though it had dried years before. The blonde girl stepped onto one of the steps, the whole thing rattled.

  ‘Don’t worry it’s never came off before.’ Stephanie said as she reached the top, fumbling with some keys in seconds the door was open.

  ‘Why are we following this broad?’ Simon asked, looking behind him, there was Mary giving him that stern look, she was getting a lot of practice with it now.

  ‘Right now, she's the only person on our side, now it’s cold and it’s going to rain, I, for one, don’t want to be court in the rain wearing this.’ She pointed to the blouse, the bright white cotton stood out in all the black she wore. The puzzle piece fell into place in the back of his mind.

  ‘Oh, of course.’ Simon held the door open for Mary, she rushed in behind the other two. Simon followed last, shutting the door behind him. Living above the place you worked may seem pretty handy, but once you got past the smell of stale piss and beer, the possibility of your boss pulling you down to work a shift made Steph’s piss boil.

  ‘You do look a lot like him,’ Steph grabbed Cameron by the chin and pulled his face around. He did look a lot like himself, he couldn’t deny that.

  The three of them sat down, posters from films they’d never heard of plastered to walls.

  A woman in a similar outfit to what Mary was wearing, was taped to the wall, the biggest difference between the poster girl and Mary was the vampire teeth, Mary didn’t have any.

  A huge wailing sound came from a black photo frame, it glowed blue and the Somnus logo glowed in white.

  ‘According to a couple of other Children of Bishop,’ she paused as the computer glowed warm, Cameron's face filled with puzzle.

  ‘It's what we call ourselves. 'Cause we’re Cameron Bishops kids.’ Steph explained.

  ‘I got it, it’s a stupid name, but I get it.’ Bishop nodded. He rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Steph lay back on her computer desk, the computer had heated up enough for it to work.

  ‘I didn’t come up with the name, my.’ She paused, for a second, a split second, but enough for Mary and Simon to notice.

  ‘My brother came up with it, he was the guy who found where Cameron was.’ She explained.

  ‘Wait, somebody found where, where Cameron Bishop is. He’s supposed to be dead.’ Simon asked knowingly.

  ‘He wasn’t dead, nobody can shoot them self while using a gun as a bong.’ She explained, turning to use the computer, Cameron turned so as not look at his possible daughter's arse.

  ‘Guns don’t just go off, and no, celebrities don’t go around shooting themselves, they are too big headed for that.’ She hit enter and the Somnus logo vanished and a website opened, in the banner
was a green triangle with eyes and a very skinny body, in the other corner was a plate which people claimed was a ufo.

  ‘He tracked down something, out in the middle of nowhere, where Cameron was hidden.’ A few keys clicked and the Somnus building is hidden as Mr. Pratchett's joke shop popped up. Cameron became frantic.

  ‘Do you know where he is now?’ Cameron gasped.

  ‘No, he said he was going to go have a look at this place, went a few days ago,’ Steph answered turning on her heels,

  ‘I need to know where he is. Where does he live? Will he be there now?’ questions fired out of him.

  ‘I don’t know if he’ll be there, he’s never home anymore, he hangs around with this other guy all the time.’ Steph without looking at the small square of yellow paper scribbled three numbers and a name of a local celebrity on a piece of paper.

  ‘Is he always like this?’ Steph asked the other two.

  ‘No this is new, he’s a little lost, right now that is.’ Simon lifted his leg over to cross them.

  Steph ripped the yellow paper from its block, she handed it to Cameron who didn’t take it for a few seconds, Mary reached in and grabbed it to spare her fingers.

  ‘I think that was your door,’ Simon said, it was her door, somebody was knocking, Cameron continued to stare forward. He’d meet his son soon, his mind scrambled for what to say to him, a difficult task being his son would be only a few years younger than himself, how would he explain that? Would he already know? He had to, else who did he think he was shooting at.

  ‘What’s his name?’ Cameron asked as Steph started to leave the single room which was her living room and bedroom all rolled into one.

  She tilted her head back into the room.

  ‘Ben, we all call him Benji.’ Steph left to open the door, Cameron just sat in silence, his mouth moving but not saying any words.

  ‘I think he’s trying to say, Benji, Chap are you okay?’ The glazed look of Cameron freaked Simon out.

  ‘I’d say so.’ Mary Agreed. The creek of a door echoed through the stairwell.

  Chapter 7

  ‘I’ve been told by our wife that I may have been a little aggressive before. Is that young lad still with you?’ the portly man said to Stephanie.

  ‘Yeah Gill. I’d give him a couple of seconds. It’s good of you to apologise’ she flicked a smile at him, it was small and didn’t have teeth but it was a smile never the less.

  Stephanie turned and ran back upstairs. The second she’d made it to the room silence filled it, Cameron had just been ranting about how he’d never call his kids Stephanie or Ben.

  ‘Gilly is down stairs, I think he wants to say sorry for yelling at you and kicking you out of the grey goose.’ Steph stepped to one side allowing them to leave as they did so under Cameron’s breath she heard.

  ‘It’s called the three-legged lamb.’ Cameron felt mad suddenly, although he had been mad when he found out a bunch of people who may or may not be his kids, had grouped together and gave themselves a title. Children of Bishop wasn’t a bad name. But the idea of them all coming together and talking about him had boiled his piss.

  ‘There’s no one here my dear.’ Mary said up to Cameron, the hallway way was thin and it had to be traversed in single file.

  ‘What?’ Cameron pushed along the thin gap between Simon and the wall.

  ‘There’s no one here.’ Cameron stepped out in the small path that was behind the grey goose. Where he presumed, Gilly would be, he wasn’t. From behind him stepped Mary followed by Simon. Mary without question pulled the bag from Cameron’s back, rooting around and pulling out chemicals she found two that seemed to please her and mixed them.

  ‘What’s she?’ Cameron began to ask but was shushed by Simon, he pulled at his moustache while he watched.

  Mary stood back up, sprinkled a little of the liquid on the floor, splattering of it turned glassy like oil on water.

  ‘Blood. Somebody bled here.’ She analysed.

  ‘We’re at a pub. There’s loads of fights. Lots of people bleed around here.’ Cameron pointed out.

  ‘Let the woman work.’ Simon snarled.

  ‘She’s only doing this to help find your son.’ He continued, he ran his tongue along his lip line, pushing down the hairs which had stood up.

  ‘The blood splatters are in line with somebody being shot. I’d say Gilly.’ Mary continued.

  ‘Why would somebody kill Gill?’ Cameron didn’t feel like the y helped in that sentence, he was still a song writer after all. Poetic license meant something to him.

  ‘I haven’t the foggiest. But this purse of his says he was here.’ She held up a battered black square of a wallet. It seemed cheap and was even oily to hold.

  ‘Maybe as a warning. We’re getting to close. Maybe chasing down Benji isn’t the best idea.’ Mary insisted.

  ‘It’s Ben. And it is probably the best idea, cos it’s our only idea.’ Cameron took the wallet from Mary’s finger tips with a snatch, he rifled through it, there was little of interest in it.

  ‘He couldn’t have left a name of Cameron’s friend in here could he.’ He sarcastically said dropping the wallet back into Mary’s hands.

  ‘Michael.’ A voice from the stairwell said.

  ‘Pardon?’ Simon asked being at this point he was the sweeter of the three.

  ‘Michael was his name.’ it was Stephanie, she slowly bobbed down the stairs, she had a sad face and very red eyes, there was no tears but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been any.

  She’d obviously heard everything and was quite shook up about it.

  ‘Benji didn’t do this.’ Steph explained but it fell on deaf ears.

  ‘This Michael fellow, was he English or otherwise.’ Simon asked with a kind grin.

  ‘He sounded it.’ She answered.

  ‘I believe he means was he of Indian blood miss?’ Mary, now she’d cooled down from the snatching ordeal, asked.

  ‘Oh, yeah, sorry, he was Asian, yeah’ Steph stuttered

  ‘Thank you.’ Mary said and turned back to Cameron with the stink eye only Simon had gotten so far.

  ‘Mikey?’ Cameron said through gritted teeth, he was unable to peel them apart at this point.

  ‘he’d be the only one to know.’ Mary paused.

  ‘Miss Stephanie. Maybe pop back to work. That’s a good girl.’ Simon said, she stomped her feet a little but left, back to the kitchen.

  Sometimes keeping busy is the best way to ignore big problems.

  ‘There can’t be that many Michael’s walking around who know about secret facilities which freeze celebs.’ Cameron jumped in finishing off Mary’s thought before she could.

  ‘There was another one who worked in the cafeteria. Splendid fellow.’ Simon was glancing around when he thought of the other Michael.

  ‘You did not.’ Mary looked at him with cross eyes. Simon did not answer.

  ‘I seriously doubt that the Mikey my son is hanging out with is the one you’re picturing right now.’ Cameron explained.

  ‘Either way I think it’d be a better idea to go talk to Michael Hassan instead of Benji.’ Explained Mary to the boys.

  ‘How do you figure that?’ Cameron ignored the use of the ridicules name.

  ‘Well, perhaps it’s a healthier choice to chase after somebody who isn’t killing people willy nilly.’ Mary didn’t think of the stupidity in the sentence.

  ‘If you think that’s best you go chase after Mikey. Good look with that, I have my sons address you have nothing.’ Examined Cameron, he stepped away.

  Mary huffed as Simon pulled himself from his day dream.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ Simon kicked at his moustache.

  ‘He has no fucking clue. And I for one wouldn’t like to be there when he cottons on to that fact.’ She ruffled around in the large sack she still held. From it a small four by two book was pulled, the paper had bloated due to water damage but you could still see the faint red that circled the pages.

  ‘A lit
tle black book, found it on a desk inside.’ Mary flicked back and forward between the leaves.

  ‘I didn’t think people actually had little black books. Who’s, is it?’ Simon wondered if his name was somewhere in there, though he didn’t have an address nor a phone number.

  ‘Anthony Tate.’ Mary replied she’d not found what she was looking for as Tate was as organised as a church library, once you put the book in the religious section there wasn’t much else you could do for it.

  ‘Found it, right next to Greg Cheshire. What kind of system is this.’ She tore the page from the book, placed the book back into the bag and threw the lot onto the back of Simon’s, he rebalanced himself with his cane.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Simon’s thumb was still stuck in the backpacks sling, you could tell it didn’t mesh with him at all.

  ‘We find Mikey, find out what he knows. Hide with him if needs must.’ Mary said with a cartoonish gulp. This would never work in her head, she’d never let on though.

  ‘The roads couldn’t have changed that much. Travel can’t be much of an issue.’ She looked left and right for a sign or a street name.

  ‘Perhaps we ask somebody. A passer-by.’ She looked up at Simon, the cross aggressive brows were now replaced with dread and a new fear. Simon pushed down on his top lip and down to his jaw.

  ‘Oh, baby doll. Everything will be fine.’

  Cameron was able to stomp away better than most, his huge skate shoes gave him a large area to stamp with and the loose worn jeans fall around creating cracking, whip like noises if he did it with enough power.

  He unfolded the small yellow paper, he’d known the street written on it as it was one his friend had lived on. Robertson street it read, it girlish cursive handwriting, he’d not mentioned the street name to Mary.

  Nobody should know they had a street named after them, more so if it was named after their husband who used your mind for his gain, the way Mary talked about her husband, when she wasted the breath to talk about him, she sold him as a stupid man, not the great scientist Cameron had learned of in school.