by Frank Tayell
“Since Cavendish is dead, there won’t be trial,” Mitchell said.
“Not of her, but what of her co-conspirators?”
“I doubt there are many,” Mitchell said. “Not who knew what the woman really planned. Not who are still alive.”
Atherton picked up a sheet of paper from the desk. “We’ve almost won a victory in Calais. That’s what the admiral is calling it, though I don’t know if I agree. She says that our objectives have been achieved now that the pirates have fled their positions.”
“The Marines call them cultists,” Mitchell said. “Personally, I’d prefer we just called them murderers, but I’m not I’m not the one putting my life on the line. Are they really retreating?”
“Some have fled,” Atherton said. “But Calais is not yet entirely secure. There are…” He glanced at the sheet of paper again. “There are three groups who have gone to ground on the outskirts. One is in an old supermarket to the east, one group is in a church to the north, and the last is in a school three miles to the northeast of the city. Until they are dug out of their positions, we can’t chase those who fled. Without pursuit, they’ll have time to create a new bastion, this time further from our own supply lines. But our losses have been severe. Two hundred and seventeen are dead. At least four hundred will never return to frontline duty. A further eight hundred and ninety-two have been brought back to Britain for medical treatment.”
“That many?” Mitchell said.
“Not from the battle, not directly,” Atherton said. “Dysentery has swept through the ranks. This was our first major conflict and we were woefully unprepared. No, best we use the next few months to get ready, because this is only the beginning.”
“It does seem that way,” Mitchell said. “What are you doing about the Railway Company?”
“There I am on the horns of a dilemma,” Atherton said. “The Railway Company directly employs thousands. Indirectly, it employs tens of thousands, and they all have families. They all have friends. And they all vote.”
“You’re worried about the election?” Mitchell asked.
“Since the conspiracy centred around placing a puppet in this chair, shouldn’t I be? There are too many to lock-up. I can’t conscript them, nor send them to one of our overseas outposts, as that would risk creating the insurrection that I am trying to stop. I will nationalise the railway, and bring it under direct control of the cabinet, but there is little else that can be done.” Atherton fixed his eyes on the portraits that hung by the door. “Can one absolute good erase a lifetime of sin? We would not be here if it wasn’t for Cavendish. The same can be said for many of her people.”
“You want to hush this all up?” Mitchell half turned in his chair, and gestured at the paintings. “I bet Wilberforce once said something about how the motive didn’t justify the ends. Either way, the truth will come out. Best to get ahead of it. Broadcast the recording. Let people decide for themselves.”
“They tried to win power through disrupting the election, and though they are dead, they still might achieve that goal. My only true opponent is Alasdair McPherson, and he is a Luddite. Not like your deluded witness. I mean that McPherson is a genuine revolutionary, and is the only candidate I would even call a real politician. The others are venal, corrupt, and care for nothing but power. They are too busy fighting over which of them gets the right to call their party Conservative or Labour. No, they want to rule simply so that history can say that they did. They want their portrait on the wall, nothing more. There is even a growing movement that wants a monarch. Some of those say we should give the position to the King of Albion, mostly because the man knows how to sit on a horse.”
“You mean you want to suppress this recording so as to guarantee your victory?” Mitchell asked.
“No. I want to impress upon you the delicate situation we are in,” Atherton said. “I am not so naive as to assume that you haven’t made copies of that recording. Nor do I forget that you believe yourself above the civil power.”
“No,” Mitchell said. “I believe that the law applies to the governors as much as the governed. You know what my father hated about politicians? They always thought that some policies were too complex for the average voter to understand. What you lot never grasped was that it was you who didn’t understand what we, the electorate, actually wanted. After all, who is a newly elected politician but an elector a few hours after the last vote was cast?”
“Very pithy,” Atherton said. He picked up a report from the desk. “We will take Calais and put a garrison in Boulogne, but we will need three months to resupply and retrain, and for our troops to recover. The offensive will start in March. The bodies will begin coming back in April, just in time for the election in May.”
“Are you going to broadcast that recording?”
Atherton looked at the tablet. “If doing so has the opposite effect? If the nation falls apart?”
“Do you remember twenty years ago, when we first met?” Mitchell asked. “Do you remember that underground railway station?”
“Almost every night,” Atherton said.
“And it’s twenty years later, and we’re still here,” Mitchell said. “Have some faith in people, and they’ll have faith in you.”
“Hmm. Very well,” Atherton said. “I will have it broadcast.”
Mitchell stood. “I’ll leave you that, too,” he said, nodding at the tablet. “There’s a few good books on there.”
“Where are you going now? Home, or Dover?” Atherton asked.
“I was hoping to retire,” Mitchell said. “I really was, but war will make bloody work for soldier and police officer alike. No, I’d like to retire, but I can’t. I’m a copper, and I’m glad I’m not a soldier.” He smiled. “But I’m even more glad I’m not a politician.”
Epilogue 2 - Sameen
19th November, Dover
“Friends, comrades, we were betrayed,” Alasdair McPherson yelled, though there was no need for him to raise his voice. The crowd gathered at Dover’s dockside was small and they were hanging on the man’s every word. “You heard that recording of Rebecca Cavendish, didn’t you? You saw the words printed in the newspaper? Those we trusted to lead us have betrayed that trust. Cavendish. Wallace. Longfield. The industrialists, the politicians, the leaders who told us to trust them were motivated only by greed, by power. They wanted a return to the days of the one-percent, the days of exploitation, of unchecked capitalism at the expense of our labour and without consideration for the sweat of our brows. They want to bring back the old world. Well, some of us remember what the old world was really like. Inequality. Exploitation. Poverty. Working two jobs and still unable to feed your family. That was the old world. We were prisoners to technology in a world of distractions, told to be grateful that our lot was better than the starving millions in the nations we had destroyed. Bankrupt countries. Constant war. Constant terror. That was the old world. A dying world filled with corrupt autocrats who thought they were god. That is what they want to bring back. Is that what you want? Is it?”
The last demand was loud enough to cause a pair of sailors carrying shells onto the HMS Resolve to pause halfway up the gangplank.
“No lollygagging!” a bosun called out. “There are murderers, rapists, and cannibals in France waiting for a gift of those shells. Move it!”
The words were addressed solely to the two sailors, but yelled in a parade-ground bark loud enough to echo across the dockyard warehouses. The spell McPherson had been weaving was broken. A few near the rear of small crowd glanced towards the large clock on top of the shipping office, and drifted away.
Ruth checked the time herself. McPherson had another two minutes before he was breaking the law. He knew it, as did the woman with the angular nose standing next to the cart McPherson was using as a stage. Her eyes were glued to her pocket watch.
“No more, I say. No more,” McPherson continued. “We must learn from the mistakes of the past. We must learn not to repeat them. There is a
better way. A just way, a…”
Ruth tuned him out, and turned her attention to the crowd. It was four days since Cavendish and Emmitt had died. Three days since the radio broadcast of Mitchell’s confrontation with the traitor, but McPherson had already been in Dover. Ruth wasn’t sure why he was here, though it wasn’t simply to protest the war. Not outright, anyway. Sergeant Kettering had said McPherson was simply trying to raise his profile before the election.
Ruth checked the time again. McPherson was allowed ten minutes before he could be charged with obstructing the military power. Exactly nine minutes after he began, he came to a finish.
“There is a better way than this,” McPherson roared. “A better future for our children. It is not too late for us to change the course of history.” And then he jumped down from the cart, grabbed one handle as the woman grabbed the other, and they pulled the cart away. A couple of people in the small crowd followed. Most turned around, heading back to work. There was a lot of work to be done.
Ruth, half turning around, paused as she saw a familiar face. Craddock, the pickpocket that they’d arrested the day Mr Wilson was murdered. She wondered what he was doing out of jail. The man hadn’t noticed her in the shadows of the chandler’s doorway. He was pushing his way through the crowd as if he was heading for the ship’s gangway. As Craddock made his way around a middle-aged woman with a twice-broken nose and thrice-broken spectacles held together with wire, Ruth saw the thief’s hand dip into the woman’s pocket.
“Hoy! Stop!” she yelled, darting out from the shadows. “Stop! Thief!” The crowd stopped and turned to see who was shouting. Craddock didn’t. As Ruth pushed and weaved her way towards him, the man dropped the woman’s wallet and nimbly sidestepped his way through the crowd.
“Police! Move!” Ruth barked, and a few people did, but more got in her way as they turned around to see why she’d called out.
Craddock darted down the long alley that ran between two of the new-built warehouses storing replacement rope and timbers for the wood-and-steel ships. Ruth reached the back of the crowd and ran after him. Craddock reached a door halfway along. Ruth didn’t stop running. She knew the doors were locked. Craddock gave them a pull, a shove, and realised it, too. He ran, but there was only twenty feet between them. Nineteen. Eighteen. Nineteen. He was faster than she, and the end of the alley was less than thirty feet away. If he reached it first, he could disappear into the warren of pubs and cafes that clustered around the docks. On the other hand, he wasn’t going to get out of the city. Dover’s gates were kept closed now even during daylight. The military police patrolled the city around the clock. The thief would be caught. But they were military and she was police. Craddock was a criminal, and he wasn’t going to get away.
She found a last ounce of speed. The distance narrowed. The pickpocket drew nearer to the end of the alley as Ruth drew nearer to him. Craddock’s left foot hit the pavement at the alley’s end, and then a boathook hit him square in the shins.
Craddock tumbled out into the road, landing in a pile of recently deposited horse manure. Craddock made an attempt to stand up, but the boathook pushed him back down, a boathook held by Isaac.
“Seriously?” Ruth said.
“No thanks necessary,” Isaac said. “I was simply doing my civic duty, assisting our gallant officers in the upholding of our laws.”
“Yeah, but look at him,” Ruth said. “He’s covered in manure. It’ll be hours before he’s collected by the military police, during which time he’ll stink up the station, and I’ve got to sleep there. Get up, you. And don’t try to run.”
“And that’s the thanks an honest citizen gets for assisting the civil power,” Isaac said.
“Don’t start,” Ruth said. “It’s bad enough having you following me around without you spouting that kind of nonsense.”
“In a bad mood today, are we, Ruth?” Isaac asked.
Ruth cuffed the thief, doing her best not to touch the man’s manure-speckled coat. “Off to the police station,” Ruth said to Craddock. “You know the way. On which note, how come you aren’t in jail for robbing that master tailor?”
“The tailor didn’t want to press charges,” the thief said.
“Really? Why not?” she asked, but Craddock didn’t reply. Nevertheless, Ruth’s interest was piqued. Why would a master tailor not want to press charges? It was something to look into. There probably wasn’t a crime at the bottom of it, but she was a copper, and it was something to investigate.
“Tell you what, Isaac,” Ruth said. “Since you want to help, take him back to the cells. Give him a wash outside, a change of clothes, and,” she added, slightly vindictively, “a hot cup of tea.”
Three hours later, Ruth had spoken to the middle-aged woman whose pocket Craddock had picked, and discovered that she didn’t want to press charges, either.
“An interesting business,” Kettering said as she glanced through Ruth’s notes. “Two victims of the same thief. One drops the charges, the other doesn’t want them pressed, despite it being the definition of open and shut.”
“Something is going on, isn’t it?” Ruth said. “Something illegal. They don’t want charges pressed because Craddock knows, and they know he’ll tell.”
“I would say so,” Kettering said.
“Then I’m going to ask him,” Ruth said.
“No, not yet,” Kettering said. “Craddock isn’t going anywhere, and this little piece of knowledge of his is clearly prized to him. He won’t give it up so easily. No, let him sweat. Let’s look into the victims first. But I can do that. It’s getting on, there’s only a few hours of daylight left if you still wanted to go out.”
Ruth glanced at the clock. It was one thirty, still what she would call lunchtime, but Kettering was right. Night came early as the winter solstice neared. She almost said no. She almost said that she’d rather spend her time digging into this new mystery. And she would have preferred it, but there was an older mystery that she had to solve, one that would nag away at her until she did.
“I’ll be back at five,” Ruth said.
“As long as you’re back by half past seven,” Kettering said. “We’re celebrating tonight.”
“Celebrating what?” Ruth asked.
“Eloise has a new job. She’s an apprentice to the coroner. It’ll be months of moving corpses before she’s even allowed to witness an autopsy, but it’s still worth celebrating.”
“It is?”
“She isn’t joining the Marines,” Kettering said. “I’d rather she dealt with dead bodies than became one.”
Isaac was sitting by the front door of the police station, seemingly oblivious to the cold.
Ruth thrust her hands into her pockets. “How can you stand this weather?”
“I’ve lived through far worse,” Isaac said. “The first year after the Blackout, I was certain the snow would never melt. The fire truly brought the ice. Before the Blackout, the data suggested nuclear winter was a myth. Perhaps it was. I have my own theory as to what brought the snow. I even wrote it up as a paper during one particularly icy spell. Not that I had it published. There was no university back then to review it, and no publication to print it. Perhaps I should dust it off, and see if the newspaper would be interested. Perhaps not. No, this is pleasant by comparison. Are we taking a stroll?”
“I don’t suppose there’s any point me telling you to stay behind?”
“Not really, no,” he said, smiling.
“Have you heard from Mister Mitchell?” Ruth asked as they headed towards the western-gate.
“I was going to ask whether you had,” Isaac said. “But no, I haven’t.”
“You can’t call him?” she asked.
“Not unless we’re both in Twynham,” Isaac said.
Dover was bustling as ships arrived from the furthest corners of the world. Word had gone out to Africa, the Americas, and beyond, recalling all but the most essential of shipping. Marines and sailors were being reassigned, sent to stiffen
the ranks of the newly recruited regiments. None of them looked happy about it.
They reached the gate and found it closed.
“Any business today?” Ruth asked.
“Only the official kind,” the gate-captain asked. “You’ll be back before nightfall?”
“Long before,” Ruth said.
The postern gate was opened, and they were allowed through.
“Where are we looking today?” Isaac asked.
Ruth took out the map. “Square C4,” she said. “And tomorrow we’ll do C5.”
It had begun with the pub from which Emmitt had shot Cavendish. The Five Bells, there was something about the name that had struck a chord with Ruth. It was so difficult to know what was true memory and what was overlaid fabrication based on recent observation, but that pub, at least its name, had resonated deep inside.
She’d found the map in the library and had divided up the area within five miles of the old Folkestone refugee camp. She was limiting her search to that which a small child could conceivably run. It would probably lead to nothing, but she had to search. She had to look, and make the effort simply so that she could tell herself she had.
“You know, I could install a map on your tablet,” Isaac said.
“With McPherson in Dover, I think we’ll avoid overt displays of technology for now,” Ruth said. The newspaper hadn’t printed anything about a surge in anti-technological sentiment, but she was increasingly suspicious that the paper was only printing what Atherton wanted the world to know. Certainly, the coverage of Cavendish’s arrest had been… lacking. It had lacked in details, in names, and in condemnation of anyone other than Cavendish, Longfield, Wallace, and Fairmont. Emmitt’s death had received only the briefest of mentions, with the paper implying that he’d just been another one of Cavendish’s thugs. The article hadn’t explicitly said that the crisis was over, though it had implied it, using soaring rhetoric exhorting all efforts now be directed into ridding Europe of the Knights of St Sebastian. They’d made no mention of the other two groups of cultists, but that, Ruth thought, was more because there was only so much room in the newspaper.