by Jenn Lees
Siobhan found herself at the stairwell and took the way downstairs to the garages. The rumble of engines, and shouts of commands rose through this natural acoustic funnel. Personnel who would attend Lloyd’s fuel summit were loading the vehicles.
Siobhan stepped heavily down the stairs. It seemed ironic that they would drive internal-combustion-engine-powered vehicles—the highest consumers of fuels—to this summit, but the electric cars could only do short journeys before their batteries required recharging. Even if the many recharge points that were once dotted around Britain still existed, the national grid didn’t. The batteries of the Government’s cars were charged by their power supply from the nuclear power station, which was guarded and maintained by government personnel.
Yes, fuels and energies were a vital issue and an important aspect of restoring Scotland’s infrastructure.
She strolled through the door to the garage floor and out onto the empty loading platform. The jeeps taking the PM and her security team were parked in front of it.
“Jake’s in the nursery.” Murray stepped beside her.
“Thanks, Uncle Murray. He loves you.” Siobhan grinned up at him.
Murray returned it with one of his own.
Thank heavens for Murray. Without Rory, he was her sanity. And it had been a relief to tell someone else of her time in the future, knowing with certainty Murray would keep it secret.
“Wonder what’s up.” Murray indicated with his chin and crossed his arms. “They’re not giving much away.” He nudged closer. “One of the team focusing on energy supplies let slip our fuel storage holds next to nothing.”
“Almost out of fuel?” Siobhan lowered her voice. “They’re using a fair amount just getting to this summit.”
“They’ve researched how to convert our vehicles to function with a vegetable-oil-based fuel and the engineers and mechanics are ready to go on a conversion.”
“Vegetable oil?” She gasped. “When we visited Lloyd’s old holiday park in Fife, reluctantly I might add, I noticed rapeseed growing in the fields. You can make canola oil out of that.”
Murray gave a slow nod. “I wish I knew what he did when he went you-know-where in the you-know-what.” Murray flicked his eyes beside him to the personnel nearby.
“Thing is, Murray, we’re just guessing it was him.”
“Oh, it was. Rory said he’d seen him walking to his room later that evening and he was ‘more than his usual cagey self’, to quote your husband.”
Siobhan pulled her mouth to the side. “I suppose so, but we don’t know when he travelled to. We’re just assuming it was forward, because it was when I went.” She whispered her last words.
Bethany and her entourage strode through the doorway to the garages and stood on the loading platform beside them. The PM wore a crisply pressed suit in brown and grey camouflage, her hair pulled back tight and revealing an almost-as-tight expression.
“Good luck, Bethany,” Siobhan said.
Bethany returned Siobhan’s well-wishes with her Prime Minister smile and walked across to her vehicle.
Henderson walked past and acknowledged Siobhan. Soon all summit participants were in the vehicles and the air filled with fumes as engines revved and the convoy drove up the concrete ramp to the outside world. Siobhan stepped through the doorway and back into the stairwell, coughing with the irritating fumes tickling the back of her throat. Murray followed. Her throat tightened again, this time with the thought of these people seeing her husband before she could.
“You okay, Siobhan?” The warmth of Murray’s hand seeped into her shoulder.
She gave a brief shrug in reply, unable to speak.
“You’ll see him soon.”
Tears trickled down her cheeks. She pulled the hanky out of her track suit pants and dabbed at her face.
“Ah, sorry.” Murray’s arm came around her, slow and hesitant.
“It’s okay. Stupid hormones! I’m full of them.” She blew her nose and returned her hanky to the pocket of the only comfortable pants she could fit into.
“What ya goin’ to do today?” Murray grasped for a distraction.
“Walk.”
“But you’ve done that.”
“Yes.” Her shoulders sagged and she paced forward. “And I’ll keep doing it until Jake has finished his day in the nursery. My very pregnant brain isn’t coping with study, reading, or thinking of any kind.”
“You know where I go when I’m like that?”
Siobhan stopped, placed her hand on her hip, and stared up at Murray. “When are you ever too hormonal to think?”
“I mean when I want a break from books and screens?” His eyes rounded.
“Okay, do tell.”
“Hydroponics.” He stepped back and grinned.
Siobhan’s brow tightened. “Hydroponics? Can’t recall having ever been there. Where is it?”
Murray beamed. “Follow me.”
He walked to the stairwell and took one flight down, then took a left and they went to the rear of this corridor where there was another stairwell, which Siobhan hadn’t seen for many years.
“Oh, I recognise where you’re taking me. I haven’t been here since my primary school days.” Siobhan followed Murray and went up this flight of stairs, which serviced the opposite side of the Bunker. They arrived at another stairwell that opened to a short concourse where crates of vegetables lay on pallets awaiting collection and transport to the kitchens.
Murray gripped the handle of the double doors, his grin spreading. “Voilà.” He opened the door.
Siobhan stepped through an exceptionally fine mesh screen covering the immediate entrance to a huge long hall. Green foliage and natural light greeted Siobhan, warmth bathed her, and moisture tickled her face. Large skylights directed daylight into the massive hall. This light was supplemented by rows of daylight bulbs directed downward to the growing plant life.
Murray led her between the first two aisles. She walked by tomato plants tied up to poles. The plants sat in wide, white tubes, which ran the length of the great hall. The music of trickling water permeated the air. It came from the tubes in which the plants grew, and the pipes connected to each row of crops, and lining the walls. Tubes of cabbages, green beans, and lettuce arranged in rows, ran along to her right. A larger space with wider cylinders grew onion, carrot, and potato plants. Espaliered fruit trees lined the far walls, bathed in sunlight directed by especially angled skylight shafts.
An insect buzzed past Siobhan’s face and travelled to the nearby line of flowering plants. Siobhan peered closer. Tiny bodies, in various shades of yellow and black, hovered around the plants. They danced in and out of the flowers, their hum growing louder with her approach.
“Hope you’re not allergic to bee stings.” Murray stood close to a flurry of buzzing creatures. “I could watch them for hours. You know the world nearly lost most of the bee species? The reduction in human activity seems to have increased the populations. Or so the drone watchers say.” He laughed. “Pardon the pun.” He then stood back. The furry buzzing creatures moved away from that plant, legs laden with pollen, and started work on the next one. “There are hives against the far wall. A guy tends to them. He’s not allergic.”
Murray waved to a man in overalls who was holding a narrow, soft brush and stood at the other end of a line of tomatoes brushing the yellow flowers. “Hi, Bob.”
Bob returned the wave, barely lifting his attention from his task.
“The bees don’t get everywhere.”
“This is your secret place?” Siobhan asked.
“Yep. Bet you wish you’d found this when you lived here.”
“I was too busy viewing the drone footage.”
Siobhan glanced down the aisle at Bob. A child’s laugh echoed up to the ceiling then an adult female voice shushed. Bob looked away from his task of pollinating the tomato plants. Murray stopped walking and Siobhan held her breath. Then the giggle happened again.
“So, you’re not t
he only one who comes here?” Siobhan eyed Murray, who stood stock still, straining to hear more.
Bob had left his post and walked in the direction of the noise. The giggle followed by another shush, occurred once more.
“Kids?” Siobhan suggested. “A school outing?”
Murray’s light brows drew together. “Not whenever I’ve been here during the day.”
“Oi!” Bob yelled.
Murray ran toward his friend and Siobhan followed at a walk, catching up to Murray when he stopped by a row in the furthest corner of the hydroponics hall. In among tall corn, camp chairs lay sprawled and upturned, and behind them, sitting on top of piled bedrolls, were a woman and four children. One child looked at Siobhan and ran to her.
“Aunty Vonn!” The little girl’s voice was so familiar.
“Michaela! Come here,” Cèilidh yelled at her daughter.
“Cèilidh?” Murray had passed Bob and stopped in front of his sister. “What’re you guys doin’ here?”
Cèilidh scowled, ignoring her brother and again called her daughter back, her voice echoing in the high ceiling.
Michaela ran to Siobhan and threw herself onto her legs, then grasped her tight.
“Why’re you hiding?” Murray’s gaze followed his sister’s pursuit of his niece.
Cèilidh reached Siobhan and grabbed her two-and-a-half-year-old by the arms and tried to peel her away from Siobhan, continuing her severe frown at her daughter.
“Are you okay?” Siobhan helped her ease Michaela’s arms from around her legs. “Is everything all right...between you and—?”
“Aye, all’s fine.” Cèilidh didn’t make eye contact with Siobhan.
She marched her daughter back to the campsite.
“Uncle Murray!” Aiden, their oldest nephew, approached his uncle with a beaming face. “We camping.”
“Shush!” Stress laced Cèilidh’s command.
“What’s going on?” Murray put his hand on Cèilidh’s shoulder and turned her to face him. She kept her head bowed, her eyes on her children and shushed any noises they made.
“I’ll leave ye to sort this.” Bob walked back in the direction of his tomato plants.
“Cèilidh,” Siobhan encouraged. “Tell us why you are at the Bunker and hiding from us, your family.”
Cèilidh raised her head, her eyes pooled with tears. “We must talk. But not here...” She glanced at her children.
“Please watch the children while Cèilidh and I have a chat,” Siobhan asked Murray.
He picked up one of the babies crawling into the corn just as her twin headed in the same direction.
Siobhan took her sister-in-law by the hand and led her to the row of runner beans. The children’s delighted laughter lifted to the skylights as they played with their uncle.
Cèilidh faced Siobhan. “I’m sorry, but I think the man I married is not on our side.” She closed her eyes and tears squeezed out.
The skin on the back of Siobhan’s neck crawled. “Has it to do with this summit?”
Cèilidh nodded. Childish shouts continued from the far corner of the huge hall, accompanied by babies’ protests.
“You need to tell me more.” Siobhan placed her hands on Cèilidh’s shoulders.
Cèilidh shook her head, mute.
“Please,” Siobhan pleaded.
“He’s my husband,” Cèilidh sniffed.
“Mine is there too!” Cold trickled down her spine. “What’s going to happen?”
“Nothing bad. Micah says it’ll be okay.” Cèilidh’s expression was unconvincing.
Siobhan dug her fingers into Cèilidh.
“I’m not into politics.” Cèilidh’s eyes widened. “And you understand more than me.”
“What?” Siobhan could barely hear over the thundering in her ears.
“I don’t know what he means. Micah whispered coo last time he spoke to his men in our kitchen, ken?”
“Coo?”
Cèilidh nodded.
Siobhan gasped. The crawling on the back of her neck turned into electric shocks. Cèilidh meant coup.
“Will it happen at Lloyd’s?”
Cèilidh cringed as she nodded again.
“Murray!” Siobhan spun. “We need to get to the CB room.”
Chapter 40
Fife
An enormous expanse of sky domed above Bethany and, unlike the few times she had walked the inner perimeter of the Bunker’s entry-compound, it wasn’t blue but a washed-out dirty-grey, with a thick line of dullness just above the horizon. The convoy drove out of Edinburgh and soon the views were of green rolling hills covered in trees weighted down with foliage, lying behind grassed meadows. Ploughed furrows, deep and brown, lined up straight and even, scored fields with linear rows made with precision and care. Men walked behind horses pulling ploughs while others followed throwing seeds in freshly dug furrows. It was all so picturesque, like a painting or an old sepia photograph of times passed, only in colour.
It was the colours that overwhelmed Bethany. She sighed and blinked, and the tears slid down her face as she imagined how it would appear if the sun’s full light shone.
Why had she never ventured out before?
It was glorious, wonderful, majestic, incredible, magnificent...
“Are you all right, Prime Minister?” Henderson’s deep voice came from the front passenger seat.
Bethany gave a quiet sniff. “Yes, of course, Iain. I was observing the state of the countryside. Spring sowings, I think they call it.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
An hour later they were in Fife. It was flatter, still with softer hills here and there, but fewer drystone walls, and the sea was nearby. Bethany opened the window a fraction letting in the sea breeze. Saltiness assailed her senses. And her memory. Summer holidays, beaches, and the wind blowing sea spray into her face. She was young again, and her parents were still alive. Long before—
“Prime Minister.” Henderson broke her reverie once more. He pointed to a stone building, stately in appearance with many tall windows, surrounded by a solid fence, situated beside the road ahead. It was neat and tidy, and flanked by fields of deep brown with a hint of green—the shoots of crops just emerging.
“Mr Lloyd’s headquarters, ma’am,” Henderson said.
The lead vehicle approached the driveway to this property where two guards holding submachine guns stood to attention. One held up his hand in a halting gesture. The driver stopped and wound down the window. The guard looked in and waved the car on then did the same to Bethany’s vehicle. Guards stood at sentry points along the perimeter fence. The driveway curved around the side of the stately home and ended at the front entrance where men in uniform stood guard, all having a military look about them.
Bethany’s driver stopped their vehicle next to the entrance, which was a double door set with panes of leadlight glass. It sat at the top of stone steps, which Lloyd descended before walking to her vehicle’s door and opening it. He looked older and more stooped, but those grey eyes were as sharp as they had been at Christmas, perhaps even more so. His son, Maxwell, followed him, dressed in a suit and tie, looking like a model in a magazine, designer-label-style.
“Welcome, Prime Minister.” Lloyd took her hand and grinned. He escorted her from the car to the front reception room, with Henderson following a pace behind. Thick carpets in a rich, deep red covered the floors, and a chandelier hung from the ceiling, the electric light glowing softly with illuminated halos surrounding each light bulb. Bethany craned her neck, noting the ornate cornices.
“From the Victorian Era, Prime Minister.” Lloyd’s voice travelled up to her.
“It’s beautiful.” Bethany let her gaze come back to the pink and white marble fireplace above which hung an enormous mirror, edged in gold filigree scrolling. An ornate clock sat on the fireplace’s wide mantelpiece, domed in glass to showcase its exposed inner workings and a pendulum in perpetual motion, with more gold filigree lacing its less functional parts.
“I’m a collector. I’ve been doing so for years.” Lloyd hid none of his smugness.
“When people have barely survived?”
“I’m a businessman, Prime Minister. I trade in the goods people require. As you are aware, money has not been a currency for many years now, and bartering can take on many forms.” His smile revealed two front teeth eroded by dental caries. “Please, take a seat, Prime Minister.” Lloyd indicated the two long, red velvet studded couches beside them.
Bethany sat in the couch to her right while Henderson stood behind it. Lloyd seated himself opposite and Maxwell stood beside him.
“Maxwell, pour the Prime Minister a drink.” Lloyd pointed to the whisky decanter tray on the Georgian wine-table beside the couch. “Scotch?” he asked Bethany.
“Oh, no I—”
“Please, don’t refuse a twenty-one-year-old single malt from the Clyde Valley.”
Bethany took the glass from Maxwell and sipped. It burned the back of her throat and threatened to set her nose on fire. She swallowed and tried to stifle a choke, without success.
Lloyd laughed a quiet, self-assured laugh. “You don’t have scotch in the Bunker?”
“I rarely drink. I prefer to keep a clear head, especially when negotiations are on the agenda.”
“Aye, truly we must start, for the day will get away from us and you’ll soon be leaving. I’m sorry you decided against staying. Perhaps if you had known how I could accommodate you and your entourage, you may have wished to stay longer. It’s not too late. I have everything you would require.”
“Thank you, but they will need me back at the Government Bunker.” She sipped once more and creaminess now tempered the burn in her throat.
Lloyd leaned forward, his arms resting on his knees, cupping the whisky glass he held. “I believe in getting straight to the issue, Miss Watts. I have rapeseed oil, which you can purchase for a reasonable price.”
“The Government has a fleet of vehicles that require an ongoing supply.” She took another sip. “If we convert our vehicles to use the oil, you must guarantee it.”