Try not to worry. Get some sleep if you can.
Provender would have laughed, if he hadn't felt so much like weeping.
15
In the open-plan vastness of the second largest of Dashlands House's six main drawing rooms, Prosper Gleed, Cynthia Gleed, Gratitude Gleed and Extravagance Gleed all sat, none of them saying a word. In front of them, on various tables, lay trays of victuals. Clusters of untouched cups encircled cafetières of undrunk coffee and pots of cooled, stewed tea. Croissants and bread rolls, brought hot from the oven, were stacked stone-cold beside melting curls of butter. It was 9 a.m. Sunlight gleamed behind blinds that no one had thought to furl. Around the room several table lamps shed their own muted illumination. Each lamp took the form of a classical figurine, cast in spelter, either holding aloft or cavorting alongside a crackle-glass orb that served to shade the bulb. It was as though, in miniature, gods and nymphs were playing with planets.
On one sofa, Extravagance lay with her head resting in her mother's lap. Cynthia, in turn, was stroking her daughter's hair, just as she might have done when Extravagance was eight or nine. The action, performed mindlessly, soothed them both. Gratitude, meanwhile, had a faraway stare, and Prosper was absorbed in dark inward contemplation. The faces of all four showed, to a greater or lesser degree, a grey-tinged tautness - exhaustion compounded by shock, shock amplified by exhaustion. They had all changed out of their ball costumes into day wear. The party seemed to have happened a long time ago, and its pleasures and excesses had been consigned to memory along with the masks and the wigs and the makeup. The mood now was as sombre as it had been, for the duration of the night, frivolous.
Gratitude was the one who at last broke the long silence. 'This better not be some stupid stunt he's pulling, that's all I can say. Some practical joke.'
'He wouldn't, 'Tudey,' said her mother. 'He wouldn't dare. He knows I'd kill him.'
'He's got such a strange brain, though. It might be his idea of fun. "I'll go missing for a while. Pretend I've been kidnapped. Give everyone a scare." He's probably feeling unappreciated and this is his way of getting everyone to notice him and take him seriously again.'
'I was mean to him,' Extravagance said. 'At the ball. The last time we spoke we were sort of having an argument and I was sarcastic to him and --'
'Don't,' said Cynthia, patting her. 'Don't even think that way. This has nothing to do with anything you said to him, I'm quite certain of that.'
'But I wish we hadn't been arguing.'
'You two are always arguing,' said Gratitude, meaning it as comfort.
'But if I'd known something like this was going to happen...'
'But you didn't, 'Strav.'
Extravagance settled her head in her mother's lap once more, disconsolately. 'I promise I'm going to be nicer to him from now on. Every chance I get.'
Implicit in this statement was the belief that Provender would be coming back to Dashlands sometime in the future, alive and well. Nobody thought to suggest to Extravagance that she was wrong to think that way. Nobody wanted to say such a thing aloud.
'If he has been kidnapped,' Gratitude said, slowly, 'if that is what this is, then won't we be hearing from the kidnappers soon? You know, a message with their demands, or whatever.'
'Let's hope so,' said her mother. 'And let's pray that all they're after is money.'
'What would it be if it wasn't money?'
'They might' - Cynthia chose her words carefully - 'try to make political capital out of holding Provender. They might try and blackmail us into making ... compromises that would injure us as a Family. Force us to sacrifice certain rights and assets.'
'Such as?'
'Our controlling stakes in major corporations, for one thing.'
'Why?'
'To humiliate us, of course. Remember that Japanese Family a few years back, the Omarus? No, you wouldn't, either of you. You were both very small when it happened. Some radical activists, members of some kind of religious brainwashing cult, I forget what they called themselves, stole the youngest son of the main branch of the Family. He was barely a week old. He had been born premature, and they took him from the hospital, incubator unit and all, right under the noses of a dozen security guards. They just dressed up in white coats, pretended they were doctors, and wheeled the poor little thing out to a waiting car.'
'I sort of have heard this story, I think. How horrid!'
'And then they went on TV and ordered Kenji Omaru --'
'Kenji was the baby's father?'
'Correct, and the head of the Omarus back then. They ordered him to sell off all Family stocks in the main Japanese zaibatsus and then read out a speech on primetime television, which they'd written for him, basically saying he was corrupt, Families were evil, no one should have that much money, the wealth belonged to the people, it should be shared out more evenly, et cetera, et cetera. It was about twenty pages long, that speech, and Kenji was supposed to deliver it to camera with the whole world watching, and you know how the Japanese are about pride and honour. It was intended to break him. It was tantamount to a death sentence. Also, these people - the Cult of the Orange Shrine, something like that - they just hadn't thought the financial side of it through. If the Omarus tried to sell off that much stock all at once, there'd be a huge drop in share values across the board. The stock market would crash. The whole regional economy would collapse. Perhaps they wanted that as well. Social and economic chaos. Who knows how these people's minds work. Anyway...'
'What happened?'
The bitterness of Cynthia's tone gave way to wariness. 'No, well, come to think of it, it's not such a relevant story after all.'
'Mother, what happened?'
She shook her head. 'I wish I hadn't brought it up now. The circumstances aren't similar to ours, not at all.'
'Mother...'
'Kenji refused. Point-blank. Refused to do as they asked. He wasn't going to destroy himself and his whole Family, and heap financial ruin on so many others as well.'
'He refused. So what about the baby? His son?'
'He ... he thought it better to let the boy... It was his youngest son. He had three others.'
'Oh my God.'
'They... Police found the body a month later in marshland outside Kobe. They had a tip-off and apprehended the cultists too. There was a trial. Death sentences were passed.'
'But he let the baby...'
'He had to. Had no choice. Too much else was at stake. He felt it was the right decision. He said Family is about more than parents and offspring and relatives.'
'What a bloody wonderful little tale,' said Extravagance from Cynthia's lap. 'Thanks for sharing that with us, Mum. I feel a whole lot better now.'
'I know, I'm sorry, it was just to illustrate what some people might be prepared to ask from us, how far they'd be willing to go. I really don't believe it's the same here with --'
'"Some people",' said Prosper. He, of all of them, was the one who had said the least since they assembled in the drawing room. His brooding had been deeper and more intense than anyone else's. Now that he had piped up, it was clear that he had come to some conclusions and wished to air them.
'Yes, dear?' Cynthia said.
Prosper looked at his wife and daughters, steely-eyed. 'I don't think this was "some people". I don't think this is about ransom either.'
'What is it about, then?'
His voice dropped so low, it was almost a growl. 'I think we're under attack.'
'What?'
'I think this is the opening salvo. Someone's gunning for us.'
'Really?'
'Really.'
'Where's the evidence? What makes you say this?'
'Instinct. Gut.'
'Who, Dad?' said Gratitude. 'Who's gunning for us?'
'Who do you think?'
'Another Family?'
'Not just any other Family. One particular Family.'
It didn't take much hard thinking to work out who he was referring to.
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'No,' said Gratitude.
'They wouldn't,' said Cynthia.
'Why not?' said Prosper.
'They - they wouldn't go this far,' Cynthia said. 'It's always been strictly business between us and them. Buyouts, takeovers, forced mergers. Yes, we fight them, but only in boardrooms, only in industry and commerce. We compete. We don't... It doesn't come to this. Not actually attacking Family members. I don't believe for one second they'd stoop that low.'
'Don't you?' said her husband, flatly. 'I'm not so sure. Face it, we've waged wars with them in the past. Literal wars. Twice this century we've virtually razed Europe, battling them. Oh, it looked like it was about armies invading territory, annexation, occupation, political power blocs colliding - we know it wasn't. This Provender situation, it's clearly just an extension of that. A new form of war. A new battlefront opening up.'
'No, you're wrong, Prosper. This is paranoid talk. There's just no way they'd, out of the blue, they'd --'
One of the drawing room's three doors sprang wide open and Fortune came striding through.
'Right!' he said, thrusting the door shut behind him. He was still in his devil get-up, although he had relinquished his horns and pitchfork and, for the sake of warmth and decorum, had donned a smoking jacket borrowed from his brother. He was also still not entirely sobered up, although his drunkenness had been mostly alleviated by a sense of mission, and by several cups of espresso from the kitchen. 'This is the situation out there. Prov's definitely not in the grounds. They've done sweeps of the estate, grid-pattern, military-style. Carver's running the whole shebang and you can take the man out of the army but you can't take the ... and so forth. All the guests have gone. All the catering staff and that lot have been allowed to leave too. The set breakers have been put on hold. All they've been told is that we don't need them yet. The excuse is you lot want a lie-in, don't want to be disturbed by a bunch of blokes hammering away all morning. We'll have to let them come this afternoon at the latest, otherwise it'll look like things have gone awry.'
Fortune pronounced the last word or-ree, for reasons unknown even to himself. It was just one of his little verbal tics.
'So,' he went on, 'we've got the rest of the morning to keep searching, though somehow I don't think we'll have any more luck. The main thing is, as far as I'm aware nobody knows a thing about this except us and the security personnel, and we can be pretty sure they won't tell a soul. They're trained to keep schtum and they know that if one of them blabs and we find out who, he or she will never be employed anywhere else again ever. So that's your information blackout right there, Prosp. This isn't going public unless or until we want it to.'
'Or the kidnappers want it to,' said Cynthia. 'Any idea how they got Provender off the estate?'
'Carver's looking into that. Seems there might be some sort of anomaly. Something to do with the catering staff. It may be relevant, it may not, who knows. Carver's on to it, at any rate. Frankly, if I was the chap in charge of catering and I'd made a goof of some sort, I'd be quaking in my boots right now.'
'And has Great been informed?'
'Still asleep, apparently.'
'He'll need to be told, but it should be broken to him gently. Someone in his state of health...'
'I'm sure the man with the scar will know how to handle it.' Fortune eyed avidly the items of breakfast food ranged around the room. 'Blimey, I'm famished. Mind if I tuck in?'
'It's not at its freshest. We could ring for more.'
'Not too fussed about freshness.' Within moments Fortune's cheeks were bulging with buttered and marmaladed roll, which he washed down with slurps of room-temperature coffee. Glancing up from his repast, he noticed that his arrival had done little to raise morale. The faces around him were as glum as when he had entered. This perturbed him. If Fortune Gleed had any particular talent, it was the ability to lift the mood of a room. Usually all he had to do was walk in.
'Oh come on,' he said. 'This is going to turn out fine. Of course it is.' He took another look around. 'Isn't it?'
16
Is spoon-fed Provender the last of the corn flakes and held up the glass of orange juice for him to sip. Some of the juice missed his mouth and dribbled down his chin. She swabbed the drips away with a wad of paper towel.
'I feel like I'm six months old,' he said.
It wasn't much of a joke, and the laugh he chased it up with wasn't much of a laugh either. All the same, Is felt a prickle of admiration. In his position, would she be capable of making wisecracks?
'I wouldn't know about six months old,' she said. 'I've fed sixty-year-olds like this, though.'
'You're a nurse, aren't you?'
She hesitated, cursing herself. Damien had been adamant that they gave away nothing about themselves. No clues to their identities whatsoever. She wasn't sure, however, if this was a practical precaution or if Damien was insisting on it because that was what kidnappers conventionally did: remained anonymous to their victims. When all was said and done, this wasn't a conventional kidnapping.
She decided it didn't matter. After all, she had already given Provender her real name. She hadn't meant to, but he had surprised her by asking for it at the ball, and her mind had gone blank. Instead of mustering up a false name, she had let the real one slip out. There was nothing she could do about that now, and similarly, there was no point trying to deny she was a nurse. Even if it wasn't obvious from the injection and the sphygmomanometer, that remark of hers about sixty-year-olds put it beyond doubt. She resolved, however, to be more careful in future.
'Good guess,' she said. 'Well done.'
Provender nodded. 'The way you are with that blood pressure thing. Very professional. And,' he added, 'you seem like you're used to caring for people.'
'This an attempt to get on my good side? Win me over? Because if so, it's not going to work.'
Had his eyes been visible, she knew she would have seen them wince.
'No, I only... It was an observation, nothing more.'
'Right, then. Fine. Just so's you know. We're not going to be getting into any hostage-hostage-taker bonding here.'
She clacked the empty juice glass into the cereal bowl, with finality, and stood up to go.
'Um, Is?'
'Yes?'
'I'm sorry, I don't want to be a pain or anything, but... I've been holding it off, and I can't any more.'
'Holding what off? Oh. You need to pee.'
'I need to pee. Quite badly, as a matter of fact.'
She set down the glass and bowl. 'All right. Listen, though. You're going to have to do this with my help because I'm not untying your hands or taking off the blindfold.'
'I'm not all that comfortable with --'
'Tough. Now, stand up. I've got your arm. I'm taking your weight. Both feet flat on the floor. I know it's difficult with them tied together. Yes, that's it, there we go...'
She stationed Provender in front of the toilet, lifted the lid, and briskly unzipped his fly. As she delved into his trousers, he tried to bat her hand away.
'I can manage.'
'No, you can't. Men have bad aim at the best of times. God knows what you'd be like blindfold.'
'I could always sit.'
'Don't be such a baby.'
Provender fixed his jaw in an awkward jut as she groped through the flap in his underpants and fished out his penis.
Is had handled more strangers' penises than she cared to remember - all in the line of duty, naturally. Dealing with a male patient's appendage was one of a nurse's less agreeable tasks, although it was far from being the worst (wiping off vomit and cleaning up shit vied for that honour). The trick was to think of the penis as just another anatomical part, no more interesting than a toe or a nose. Failing that, you had to try to regard it as just a functional object, a tube that just happened to be made of flesh. Normally, of course, she would be wearing latex gloves, a thin but crucial barrier between clinical and intimate. She made a mental note to buy some. This wasn't going
to be the last time she had to help Provender pee.
'Your fingers,' Provender said with a hiss. 'Cold.'
'That's your excuse, is it?'
'What?'
'Nothing. Sorry.'
Provender screwed up his face, then gave a sigh.
'I can't. Nothing's coming.'
'Relax. Try to pretend I'm not here.'
'Difficult.'
'Count yourself lucky. We did think about catheterising you.'
'You wouldn't.'
'But I could.'
Again, Provender concentrated.
'Still nothing?'
'Nope,' he said, pained.
'I'll run a tap.'
Water spattered into the basin.
'I really --'
'Think watery thoughts. And unclench your pelvic floor.'
He turned his head towards her, as though he could see her through the blindfold. 'I don't have a pelvic floor. Do I?'
'Of course you do.'
'I thought only women had...'
'Well, you're wrong.'
The water continued to pour, but it was the only thing that did.
'Can we talk about something maybe?' Provender said. 'You know, as a distraction. Take my mind off the problem at hand.'
'What would you like to talk about?'
'How about the name Is? It's short for something, right? Isabel?'
'No.'
'Isadora?'
'No.'
'Isolde?'
'No.'
'I'm all out of Is-es.'
In spite of her earlier resolution, Is felt that giving him one more tiny nugget of information couldn't do any harm. He had half her name already, and the other half was identical to that half. Effectively, she was giving him nothing new.
'Isis.'
'Isis?'
'Ancient Egyptian goddess. Wife of Osiris. Mother of Horus. Associated with nature and fertility. Symbolised by --'
'I know who Isis is. My parents spent a shit-load of money so that I'd be educated to know things like that.'
'Ooh, well, aren't you the lucky one.'
'No, I didn't mean it like that.'
Provender Gleed Page 9