Rejoining the council after the lunch break, Meri launched into her personal agenda before she could be deflected onto matters of state. She’d written the comments down on a scrap of paper so she didn’t fluff her lines.
‘I have a few requirements for you to approve, council members.’ She cleared her throat nervously, trying to ignore Rio’s sneer. ‘As you know, I’m only eighteen and have not yet finished my schooling. I wish to attend the local college in Jerez. I see from the books in my room that it has an international faculty teaching in English and other languages. I’d like to take my A levels or their equivalent here.’
Derwent, the official in charge of Tean education policy, raised a hand.
‘Yes, Derwent?’
‘The desire to educate oneself is laudable…’
Meri bit back the comment that she really didn’t need to be patronized.
‘…so I can arrange for tutors to attend Your Highness.’
‘Sorry, I don’t think you heard me. I want to go to college. Additionally, I want to enrol as an ordinary student.’
‘But that won’t be safe!’
‘It will be safer than sending me in with an entourage signalling “pay attention—VIP present”. The Tean staff can be told, of course, but I don’t think anyone else needs to know.’
‘Dr Caspian?’ Derwent appealed to his boss.
Rayne took her time to answer, weighing up all sides of the matter, as was her habit. ‘I believe Her Highness has a point.’
‘And no one would think she was anything special,’ muttered Rio. Meri flashed him a sardonic smile.
‘She can go with Mr Cruz,’ said Rayne. ‘He attends classes so no one will look twice if she arrives with him and he can keep an eye on her.’ For her own safety or because they didn’t trust her? Meri wondered. ‘He can say she is a relative if pressed. Anything else, ma’am?’
Dare she ask for them to stop calling her ‘your highness’ and ‘ma’am’? But, as she was fighting to establish her authority, that might not be a sound move at this stage: she’d have to put up with it.
‘I’d like a personal computer and a phone purchased for me as soon as possible.’
Rayne looked pained. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. A phone would allow your enemies to track you—the same for any email or messages you might send online. For your security you need to remain offline.’
Keep hold of your temper, Meri. ‘It is not acceptable that I can’t contact my friends. Surely there must be a way to allow me to do so? They need to know I’m safe, even if I do not tell them where I am.’ The council sat in stubborn silence. ‘How would you feel if your child disappeared off the face of the Earth? You’d want to be reassured or you’d make a big fuss trying to find them. If Theo doesn’t find out soon that I’m OK, he’ll make a lot of noise, believe me.’
‘What about a letter?’ suggested Tegel, surprising Meri by being the one to relent. Perhaps he had a child her age. ‘Sent to a safe house? That is near impossible to track.’
‘What safe house? If Miss Marlowe is talking about her guardian, we know he is either held or being closely watched by the Perilous,’ said Rayne.
With a feeling of relief, Meri saw an answer. ‘I know just the people—Rivers, Brook and Linton, the law firm that kept my parents’ messages for me. They’re based in the City of London. I’ve never told anyone about them and Theo is the only other person who knows my link to them.’
Rayne thought for a moment. ‘That would be…acceptable. I would like to see what you write, naturally.’
‘Uh-huh, red line.’ Meri shook her head. ‘You don’t get to read my private messages.’ That would stop her including her note to Kel, which she had already planned to enclose in one to Theo. ‘You have to trust me, Dr Caspian. I understand I need to keep my position secret. Look, I could go behind your back and get a phone for myself if I put my mind to it. So don’t you think that if I play by your rules on this, you need to play by mine on the contents of the letter?’
Rayne gave a reluctant nod. ‘All right, as long as you promise not to reveal your location. We will see how that goes. There is no word yet from London from our people. Theo Woolf and friends have not yet returned home.’
Meri smiled to herself. ‘They will. I can’t see anyone keeping those three contained for long.’
Theo sniffed as he opened the door to his flat. The air wasn’t as stale as he expected and his collection of herbs on the kitchen windowsill was still alive. He was sure he had his landlord downstairs, Mr Kingsley, to thank for that.
‘All clear?’ asked Valerie. They had been to her address first and found that her room had been let and her belongings boxed up. She would be staying with him temporarily while she sorted herself out.
‘No break-ins and my neighbour’s kept things ticking over.’ With a sense of unreality, Theo dropped onto the sofa. ‘It’s like I’ve never been away.’
‘Speak for yourself. My flat share was quick enough to invite her boyfriend to move in.’
‘To be fair, she was left with a financial hole on rent day and no means of paying,’ said Saddiq. He shared a house with some cousins so was hoping family had been more lenient. Rooms were gold dust in climate-changed London with so much housing lost to the swollen river.
Theo noticed the pile of unopened mail on the sideboard where Mr Kingsley had stacked it. ‘You know you are all very welcome here. In fact, that might be for the best. I don’t think this is over by a long chalk. I’m still finding it hard to believe they just let us go.’
Valerie collapsed into the saggy armchair and kicked her feet up onto the coffee table. ‘Which means they probably didn’t. You know anything about modern surveillance methods, Saddiq? Could they have planted something on us?’
Saddiq let the water run a moment then filled the kettle. ‘They could. Does anybody think they mysteriously lost some time and woke up with a sore patch somewhere on the body?’
‘God, I don’t know.’ Valerie tweaked the bow on top of her headdress. It was great to see her back in her flamboyant colours, warm as a West African sunrise. ‘We had some pretty wild drinking sessions to pass the time. I’m fairly certain I was unconscious on a couple of occasions thanks to their superior supplies of spirits. Speaking of which.’ Valerie produced a bottle of cognac from her bag. ‘Voilà. Liberated from the mansion.’
Theo met her eyes and pulled a bottle of Scotch from his coat pocket.
‘You guys have no ambition.’ Saddiq put a couple of expensive looking ornaments on the kitchen counter, two bottles of wine and a small painting.
‘Is that a Turner?’ marvelled Theo.
‘Yep. Call it…compensation for our time wasted.’
‘We can’t sell it. They’ll prosecute.’
‘But we can enjoy it.’ He took down Theo’s print of a Renoir bathing scene and put the painting up in its place. ‘Welcome home, Theo.’
Valerie cracked open the cognac. ‘I don’t know about you but I suddenly feel a whole lot better.’
A phone call later and the number in the flat rose to three. Saddiq’s cousins were very apologetic but they had let his younger brother move in for the month on a temporary contract while he did eco-service on the new embankment and he wouldn’t be gone until March. Theo found he didn’t mind sharing his flat with his friends. Without Meri, he had felt like he was rattling around the empty rooms. Leaving them to sort out who took her bedroom and who made up the couch, he went downstairs.
‘Theo, my boy!’ exclaimed Mr Kingsley after opening the door. His spaniel, Charlotte, bounced around Theo’s knees then leaned against him for a stroke. ‘I’ve been so worried.’
‘Thank you for looking after my plants.’
‘The least I could do. Come in, come in.’ He led Theo through his stacks of opera memorabilia to his backroom where he spent most of the day listening to old recordings. He wasn’t a fan of the new generation of singers; he said they were rough table wine compared to the cella
r-aged vintage of his era. ‘I went to the police, of course, as that boy of Meri’s asked…’
‘Kel was here? When?’
‘Oh yes. He came just after New Year. A very nice young man. He told me to contact the authorities if you didn’t show up. I did but they didn’t take any notice. I even contacted your parents, Theo, but they said you were always moving at the drop of a hat and that you’d pop up again in your own good time. What happened to you?’
‘Some people kept us as unwilling guests for a few weeks, but then they let us go.’
‘How very…’ Mr Kingsley tugged an earlobe, ‘…peculiar.’
‘You can say that again. I was with Valerie and Saddiq. Now we are trying to sort out the mess of our lives. They’ve lost their rooms. Did you get the rent for last month?’
‘Yes, yes, your bank transfer worked as normal. In any case, I wouldn’t have thrown you out, Theo, or let it from under you.’
‘I know—and thank you.’ Theo was worried that work may have cut off his salary, leaving him with a negative balance. ‘I’m going to have to sweet-talk my boss into getting my job back.’
‘I take it you can’t get the police to confirm your story?’
‘They’re powerful people we’re up against. I’ll think of something.’
‘An accident and amnesia might do the trick. Oh, this came for you. I had to sign for it.’ He rifled through a pile of papers on the side and pulled out a cream envelope. Theo’s heart leapt. He’d seen that stationery before when Meri got a summons to her lawyer’s office.
‘Thank you!’ He took the letter, resisting the temptation to rip it open there and then. ‘I’ll send Valerie and Saddiq down later to say hello.’
‘Splendid. Why don’t we all have supper together and have a proper catch up?’ From the wistful note in Mr Kingsley’s voice, Theo could tell he had been lonely.
‘I’d like that.’ Though what he could say to explain this mess to his neighbour, he didn’t know.
Back in his own apartment, Theo gestured to his friends. ‘What’s the likelihood do you think that they’ve put surveillance on this place?’
‘A dead cert,’ said Saddiq. ‘I’m going to need bug sweeping equipment and a few hours to make sure it’s safe. I’ve already messaged my cousins.’
‘Let’s go for a walk then.’
He led his friends out into the middle of Wimbledon Common, not ideal in late January but in the shelter of some trees, they could put up with the freezing rain. There were shelters dotted across the parkland but it didn’t look like this storm was winding up to be anything special.
‘Can you hold the umbrella over me?’ As Valerie leaned in holding the large golf umbrella, Theo broke the seal. He pulled out a folded piece of paper and two smaller envelopes fell out: one had his name on, the other was addressed to Kel. Why would she be writing to her boyfriend? He thought from what Ade once said about the escape that they were together? He gave the envelopes to Saddiq to hold while he scanned the letter from the lawyer, Mr Rivers. It gave little away, merely saying he had been instructed to pass these enclosures on to him by a very special client and awaited further instructions should there be a return message.
‘Meri’s found a way to contact us without letting the Perilous know,’ said Theo. ‘And even better: I can write back.’
‘That’s great!’ Valerie grinned. ‘Quick, open her letter to you. I’m dying to know how she is—where she is.’
Theo tugged the handwritten letter out of its envelope. It gave a terrifying account of her escape from London and subsequent journey on board a yacht.
‘Waters was right about the ship,’ said Theo. He no longer deserved to be called Ade, not after shooting at his girl which he’d failed to tell them when he’d let them go. So much for that ‘she’ll be safest with me’ line he tried to spin them in their mansion prison.
‘Does it say where she is now?’ asked Saddiq.
Theo shook his head. ‘No. She just says she’s OK and doesn’t want to put us at risk by telling us. It’s a secret people will kill to defend.’
‘These warring races, Perilous and Tean? They need to enter the twenty-first century.’
‘I’m afraid war never goes out of fashion. We kid ourselves if we think we’re any more advanced.’
‘Why the note for Kel?’ asked Valerie.
‘That’s what worries me. She doesn’t go into details but she says he separated from her in France. If Kel hasn’t arrived back in the UK, she wants me to take this note to her friend Sadie. She’s the one with computer skills that I told you about.’
Valerie held out her hand. ‘Give me the letters. If someone is watching us in your flat, then they’ll realize we went out for a purpose. Knowing how little they care about the law, they might search the flat and us.’
Theo handed them over. ‘Where are you going to put them?’
She passed him the umbrella to hold. ‘I’ll keep them under my hat.’ She unwound her headdress and included the letters in the folds when she fastened it again. ‘Not perfect but unless they do a full body search, they’re not going to find them.’
‘I wouldn’t put it past them.’
‘This time I’m prepared.’ She showed him the tin of mace that she had in a pocket. ‘I’ve got that and a rape alarm. They’re going to be sorry if they lay hands on me again.’
‘Yeah, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me,’ said Saddiq, pointing to a little badge on his coat. ‘I’ve fitted a body cam. If anyone comes for us again, I’m going to get footage that no one can talk their way out of before a judge. Ade Waters and his mates will be going down.’
Pride in his friends swelled. ‘You guys are the best.’
‘We know,’ said Valerie, patting his arm.
10
Kel had been with the No-Homer band for a month. He’d fallen into his role as one of the main gatherers, sent into villages and towns to find charitable soup kitchens or, at a pinch, buy the necessities. The young people with no children were given that task because it was considered dangerous and they could run fastest if the people turned nasty. And, as Rashid said, if anything really bad happened then at least there wouldn’t be orphans left behind.
It was the end of winter and casual work was scarce. Supplies were running low and no one had many notches on their belts left to tighten. Walking with his friends, Kel tried to find encouragement in the flush of green on the bushes and swelling buds on the hedges. The No-Homers said that as soon as the farmers started hiring, their presence would be more readily accepted by the suspicious locals. People were more generous in the warm months until the scorching weather arrived. In fact, you could judge the mood of the population towards the homeless by the temperature: cold to them in winter, warmer in spring and autumn, fiery in summer as crops withered and they battled against drought.
‘I’m not sure this town is so welcoming at any time of year,’ said Hoon as they approached the sign for Villedieu. The ‘dieu’ had been crossed out and the name ‘François’ inserted, changing the meaning from God’s Town to François’ Town. ‘Definitely something weird going on round here. I wish Rashid would give it a miss.’ Hoon had his arm around his girlfriend, Bitna, in a protective gesture. The two, both refugees from Busan in South Korea, were inseparable, and as surprised as anyone that their wandering had taken them so far from their native land. They said it was a long story.
‘How do you know—about the weird stuff?’ asked Kel. He and Nixie followed the couple. After a hungry couple of days, the rest of the group had tasked them with getting supplies by fair means or foul. Carrying the guitar, Kel had hopes that, by trying a new way of raising money, he’d get money fairly. Rashid had decided it was worth the risk entering the unfriendly town. They didn’t have to do what Rashid said but there was an assumption that they would follow his lead if they wanted to stay in the group.
Hoon took off his knitted cap and ran his fingers through his silky black hair. ‘We came
here six months ago. They chased Rashid, Salima and the children away when they tried to sell their crafts. That’s why the families don’t go into towns anymore—it was a close call. The place was under the control of a cult preacher who thinks anyone of a different way of thinking is an outcaste.’
‘Is his name François by any chance?’ Kel asked wryly, nodding at the sign.
‘By a not-so-strange coincidence, I think it is. We’re hoping he’s moved on to bigger game than this little place. Rashid didn’t think he’d stay content with just this.’
Kel rubbed his chest where his permanent spiral marks lay hidden under his clothes. The collection of houses with tiled roofs nestled in the Loire river valley had at first struck him as picturesque. A castle that looked right out of Disneyland completed the backdrop, though Kel suspected this was the genuine article rather than a modern fake. Its white towers and conical rooftops seemed welcoming, but then so had the gingerbread cottage. The world had become one great obstacle course. He wished he knew where he was heading with his life but for the moment all he could think of was to remain with Rashid’s band. There was safety in numbers. On his own, he was far more likely to be spotted by his enemies. The band were heading roughly towards Paris which felt right so he followed his instincts and stayed for the moment.
Besides, it was nice to have friends who were nothing to do with the Perilous and Tean conflict.
‘So that's why we were sent and not Raoul and Cheng? Because they’ve not seen any of us before?’ asked Kel, naming two of the other young men.
Nixie scrunched up her nose. ‘I was here. They refused to give me medicine for my father.’
Bitna said something in rapid Korean to her partner.
‘Bitna says that strange times encourage crackpots. We mustn’t assume the man’s followers have gone, even if he has,’ explained Hoon.
‘You’re right, Bitna.’ Kel had got used to the fact that the Korean girl understood far more than she could say. Shyness prevented her trying out her English on him. Give her time and he hoped she would.