Snakeskins

by Tim Major

  “What happened?” Caitlin managed to ask. “Has she gone?”

  Ian hesitated. “Not in the way you mean. A few others came, or they were already waiting out the front, I don’t know. She didn’t fight them once they arrived. There was a van.”

  “Where will they take her?” Caitlin asked, though she realised that she didn’t want to know.

  “There are rules. They’ll do what’s right.”

  Nobody said anything for more than a minute.

  “She shouldn’t have run, should she?” Caitlin said, finally. “They won’t be happy about it.”

  Ian was about to say something, but he only puffed out his cheeks. Caitlin wondered if he was thinking what she was thinking. She’s exactly the same as me. Of course she made a run for it.

  Another thought struck her. “Dad? What would have been the point of running? Where did she think she was going?”

  Ian rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “Upstairs. She wasn’t trying to escape, exactly. She was trying to get into your bedroom.”

  SIX

  Russell pushed the oak door to the drawing room, gritting his teeth with the effort of keeping the silver tray level. The two brandy bottles on one side were far heavier than the stack of glasses on the other, threatening to tip the tray. To make matters worse, the route from Ellis’s kitchen to the drawing room was cluttered with antique tables, umbrella stands and cabinets designed to trip him up.

  The hubbub of the guests paused as he entered the room. A few of them – there must have been twenty in all, with more arriving all the time – looked his way. They saw his grey waiter’s uniform and resumed their conversations.

  “Good man, Russell,” Ellis said, clapping him on the back and almost upsetting the tray entirely. “Pop it down there.”

  Russell deposited the tray upon a cabinet that surely would have been the sensible place to store brandy in the first place. Ellis was still watching him. Over the course of the evening, Russell had become convinced that Ellis’s insistence that Russell should give up his time to help at his ‘soirée’ was some kind of test. Perhaps he already knew about Russell snooping around at the office. Perhaps he knew about Russell speaking to the shadowy stranger in the Gloucester Green car park.

  A man poked his head around the door. Ellis was upon him in seconds to shake him by the hand.

  Russell recognised the newcomer. He was unmistakable, in his tweed suit and bow tie, his goatee beard. It was Michael Trent, one of the accountants from the office complex. He bent his head to listen to Ellis amid the din of the other guests. Something about the body language of the two men surprised Russell. From their postures, anyone might have thought that Michael Trent was the one with power and influence, not Ellis.

  Ellis turned and beckoned to Russell. His face appeared slightly flushed.

  Russell retrieved one of the bottles of brandy and two glasses.

  “I wanted to introduce you, not summon the help,” Ellis said. Even so, he watched on as Russell unstoppered the bottle. To Michael he said, “May I introduce Russell Handler, my right-hand fellow. Handler by name, and all that.”

  Michael smoothed his beard. “So that’s how you get anything done, Blackwood!”

  “I’d be nothing without him.” Ellis said, looking suddenly mournful.

  “You do look bloody tired. You might want to see what can be done about that,” Michael replied. He clucked his tongue. “So. Going up in the world, Russell Handler, aren’t you? Play your cards right and soon enough you’ll be personal assistant to His Lordship!”

  Russell took a moment to get the reference, though he understood he was being mocked. He had heard people refer to the Prime Minister, Adrian Lorde, as His Lordship a couple of times before. The term was otherwise redundant since the abandonment of the House of Lords more than seventy-five years ago, when Charmers finally absorbed the old Tory party, rebranded themselves as the Great British Prosperity Party and announced the reformation of government. He remembered Nell Blackwood’s undisguised scorn for Lorde. Perhaps it was a standard joke, that Lorde held no real power. But then who did? Some of the people in this room?

  Russell hadn’t realised that Ellis knew any of the other occupants of the offices socially. Then again, judging from the way he treated the accountant, perhaps ‘socially’ wasn’t quite the right word.

  “Very glad to meet you,” Russell said, squirming under the accountant’s continued scrutiny. He poured the drinks. “I should offer the brandy to the other guests.”

  “Glad to meet you too,” Michael murmured, “in the flesh.”

  From the little that Ellis had told him, Russell guessed the guests were all dignitaries of various sorts. They conducted themselves in a way that suggested that they knew their own importance. It made a certain amount of sense that Ellis might need to schmooze them. His government department was Redevelopment and Funding, after all, and these people looked as though they might have the means to fund an awful lot, if the mood took them. Russell recognised a couple as MPs that he had seen on news broadcasts – presumably invited to lay on the charm, along with Ellis. Others were familiar, but Russell struggled to pin down where he’d seen them. They all appeared more or less the same – both the men and the women – in their dark suits. Business leaders of some sort, perhaps? There was only one thing he was sure about. They were all Charmers. Their cheeks and hair shone with health.

  Russell picked his way among the guests, pouring drinks. A pink-cheeked man in his sixties downed his glass immediately and held it out again. Then he turned to the three guests who had crowded around him. “Bit of a blunt instrument, I’ll admit. It wasn’t me who came up with the format, or the name, but I sure as hell took the credit! ‘Champions of Eternity’ sounded pretty ridiculous at first.”

  Russell remembered the cartoon, from the late eighties. Even after people saw it for the Charmer propaganda it was, it was still remembered with affection.

  “Still, it worked a treat,” the man continued, swaying slightly as he slurped his drink. “The kiddies lapped it up – lunch boxes, sticker collections, cereal, the whole lot. Bloody shame when the policy changed and we had to wrap it all up. Not much artistry in the sweeping-it-under-the-carpet approach, if you ask me. The fools at Pinewood, Shepperton and Rank are all talking about audience approval ratings and review scores now, rather than support for Party messaging.” A woman nudged him in the ribs. He looked at Russell and coughed.

  Russell sloped away but then almost bumped into two men huddled at one side of the enormous fireplace. They both glared at him until he retreated, then returned to their conversation.

  “You don’t understand,” the younger of the two said in a low voice. “Their broadcast capabilities are improving all the time. If France, say, became determined to make contact – or even America, come to that – then increasingly we’re going to have a hard time preventing it.”

  His elderly companion waved a hand. “We have a programme in place. Shifting broadcast frequencies, all that.”

  “But you – all of you – are still talking about radio and TV, and you’re entirely missing the point,” the first man insisted. “The technology out there is beyond anything we understand. Wireless communication far beyond the scale of the new cellular phones. Messaging between computers. Adrian Lorde can decree that development is slowed as much as possible, sure, but you must understand that devices get smuggled in occasionally, despite the restrictions. And if anybody were to—”

  The man looked up. Russell realised he was still hovering before them, having backed away only a few steps. His head dropped and he made a show of restacking the glasses on his tray. Without looking up, he spun and marched away.

  He kept to one side of the room. He was intent on watching Ellis through the crowd.

  The woman he had seen inside the banner-printers – Angela McKinney – approached Ellis silently, a predator sizing up its prey. Her dark hair had been straightened to make sheer walls on eithe
r side of her face. Once again, her body language suggested that she was his superior. Russell had done a bit of research in the file of GBP staff profiles that he had found on a shelf in the office. Angela McKinney’s official role was as Minister for Progression – a title no more prestigious or meaningful than Ellis’s. Russell edged around the crowd to get within earshot.

  Angela was looking around the room even as she spoke to Ellis in an offhand tone. “—and at short notice too. Did you furnish it yourself?”

  “It was Nell,” Ellis replied. His brow furrowed as he gazed around at the mahogany side tables and deep leather sofas. “It’s all her. She has an eye for that sort of thing. History. What fits.”

  “Ah.” Angela’s eyes flickered over Ellis’s features. Russell wondered whether she had feelings for him. “And she isn’t…”

  Ellis cleared his throat. He said in a firm voice, “No.”

  Russell thought again about the scene Nell Blackwood had made outside the office. It now seemed conceivable that Ellis was having an affair with this severe woman. Her being here might explain why Nell had stubbornly remained in the kitchen with Spencer, nursing a cup of tea and barely acknowledging Russell as he came and went with the trays. At one point, while Russell was refilling his tray, Ellis had been pleading with Nell to say hello to the guests. Her only response had been a steady glare. If she was at risk, as the stranger Ixion had asserted, perhaps it was the risk of adultery or her loss of self-respect.

  However, the more he watched Ellis and Angela together, the less plausible it was that they were romantically involved. From the way she was looking at him, what she had in mind seemed more in the vein of acquisition.

  “I see,” Angela said. “Still. She’s done wonderful work here.”

  Russell noticed the door to the room open. Nell appeared. Russell winced at the thought of the altercation that might soon play out. But instead of approaching Ellis and Angela, Nell snuck over to Russell and plucked the half-full brandy bottle from the tray. Her conspiratorial grin made his stomach leap. Seconds later, she had left the room again.

  Ellis drew Angela further into the corner of the room. Russell edged along the mahogany-panelled wall to stand closer.

  “While I have you here,” Ellis said in a low voice. “I wanted to offer reassurance.”

  “Are you mixing business and pleasure?”

  “Perhaps. Sorry. But after yesterday, I wanted to make it clear that we’re back on track.”

  “You’ve solved the issue?”

  Ellis fiddled with a shirt cuff. “Yes, solved. Or rather, it sorted itself out. It’s the nature of projected locations, ma’am. With anything of this nature, the target does tend to shift, rather.”

  A projected location? A target? Russell leant in closer to listen.

  Angela’s expression hardened. “Not an exact science, is it?”

  “That’s not what I meant. The data—”

  “Data be damned. This is your job, Blackwood. If you’re not up to it, perhaps you should scurry back to the PM and leave us to the real work. It was your lobbying of Lorde that brought you to my attention in the first place – you were right about the need for automation in factories, for example, though if Lorde has his way we’ll never see it happen. But the game has changed profoundly. If we’re to establish the UK on the world stage we’ll need to work with what we’ve got. And your being a progressive is worth nothing if you’re a damned fool when it comes to practicalities.”

  “Ma’am. I really do think—” Ellis scanned the room. When he saw Russell he blanched. “Thank you, Russell. I think we can manage from here on in.” He waved a hand in the manner of a king dismissing a serf. His fingers were trembling.

  Other guests had noticed the dispute between Ellis and Angela. Russell heard the same word – ‘target’ – muttered several times. Even though Ellis was still watching, Russell slowed his movements as he deposited the tray and walked to the door, still trying to listen in.

  Finally, he could delay no more. He closed the oak door behind him as he left. It must be immensely thick – he could hear nothing from inside except a low murmur.

  How had Ixion phrased it when he had accosted Russell in the underground car park? The Party is on the verge of disintegration, and Ellis Blackwood will play a key role. Certainly it seemed clear that a great number of Party members found Adrian Lorde contemptible, and if their plotting related only to ousting him, Russell would have found it easy to turn a blind eye. But some of the things he had overheard tonight…

  He shook his head. He could blame Ixion for so much of what he had seen and heard sounding sinister. Conspiracy theories were always intentionally vague, so that credulous people could fill in the gaps for themselves.

  Yes. It was only the power of suggestion that was responsible for Russell’s heart beating so rapidly. The word ‘target’ could be perfectly benign, after all. Angela McKinney was Ellis’s superior, clearly, and every employee had targets. Targets for improvement. Targets for revenue. But part of the problem was that even after three months, Russell still wasn’t sure quite what the remit of the department was, even in broad terms. Redevelopment and Funding. A meaningless description. From Russell’s limited point of view, Ellis’s job was to meet with wealthy clients over afternoon tea at the Randolph or the Old Parsonage. What was discussed in those meetings, he had no idea.

  He plodded away from the drawing room. The kitchen was dark now – Nell must have taken the brandy upstairs. He imagined sharing the drink with her, tucked up in bed.

  The sound of his footsteps was amplified by the darkness of the house. His limbs were heavy with exhaustion. The catering company were scheduled to arrive soon, ready to serve the main meal – but as far as Russell was concerned, somebody else could let them in. He’d be at home on the sofa with his duvet and some mindless Pinewood action film or a Shepperton comedy, and if Ellis complained in the morning, Russell would give him what for. He smiled at his capacity for self-denial. Sure he would.

  As he neared the front door, he jumped at a sharp beeping sound from his right. A thick curtain hung behind the door. He pushed it aside and peered into the darkness. It was difficult to make out, but there was a narrow corridor that would normally be obscured by the bulk of the curtain. Given the age of the house, he supposed it might once have led to the servants’ quarters. Perhaps the caterers had already arrived? Grudgingly, he supposed he would have to point them towards the dining room after all. No doubt he’d get embroiled in serving the dinner, too.

  The beep sounded again. Dim light leaked from somewhere along the narrow corridor.

  He yelped in fright as somebody appeared at the end of the corridor. His feet skidded on the polished floor. He fell backwards through the curtains and then to the ground, his shoulder blades striking the wall.

  “Russell?”

  He shielded his eyes. “Nell? Mrs Blackwood?”

  She reached out a hand to help him up. For a fleeting moment, Russell imagined she was going to draw him towards her for a kiss.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she said softly.

  Russell winced at the throbbing in his shoulders. “I was going to say the same to you. I thought you were in bed.” Suddenly, he found that he didn’t know where to look.

  “Well, in that case we’d both better say nothing about this encounter, then.”

  Whatever marital issues Nell and Ellis had, there was no reason he ought to get involved. Ixion’s reference to Nell being at risk was a calculated strategy to prod at Russell’s chivalry. Even so, a small part of his mind was already processing the implications, the prospect of Nell being freed from Ellis’s influence. If she were his wife, Russell would encourage her sculpture work. She would thrive. And perhaps Nell would rub his shoulders, which ached terribly.

  “Mrs Blackwood. I don’t know how to put this. Are you… safe?”

  She tilted her head. “In what respect?”

  “I don’t know. I just want to know that you’re
okay. Here in this house. I had an impression…” He peered around Nell. The curtain was still drawn to one side. Light still leaked around the corner of the narrow corridor.

  All traces of good humour left Nell’s face. “This is not your concern.”

  He gaped up at her.

  “I mean to say,” she continued, “there’s nothing for you to worry about. I’m just fine. All right?” She drew in a deep breath. “So. Are you all finished kowtowing to the muckety-mucks?”

  Russell’s throat was dry. What he had witnessed in Nell’s behaviour was a glimpse of the reality of her situation. She may not appear afraid exactly, but he was convinced that she was grappling with something awful.

  “I’ll be off in a minute,” he managed to say in a croaky voice. “The catering people will—”

  The chime of the doorbell cut him off.

  Nell laughed. “I suppose that’ll be them. But you go now. I’ll deal with the caterers, then I’ll nip upstairs before Ellis can collar me for a meet and greet.”

  Russell began to protest but Nell opened the front door and ushered him out, past the black-uniformed caterer and the two other staff already beginning to unload trays from a small van.

  Dejectedly, he crunched along the gravel driveway. It was cold. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

  He turned at the end of the driveway to look at the house. The only light visible was from the drawing room. He wondered if the guests were still talking about targets. It was a vague term, certainly, but it didn’t sound good. He understood that what was really bothering him, deep down, was Nell Blackwood. His desire to act as a white knight, rescuing her somehow.

  His fingers brushed against something in his pocket. He pulled out a business card with numbers written in spidery handwriting.

  A red public phone box stood at one side of the Blackwoods’ driveway. On an impulse, Russell dived inside and dialled the number on the card. It rang six times – almost enough time for Russell to consider hanging up – before a man answered.