David covered Ellen's hands with work-hardened palms. `And you've blamed yourself ever since...'
Ellen looked him in the eye. `You should know me better than that, David. Of course I haven't. I had no idea that she wanted to kill herself. And even if I had known, she would've found a way. I've never blamed myself... But that hasn't stopped Roscoe from blaming me because he found out at the inquest that his wife had been pregnant with his child. She hadn't told him. I suppose she felt that for a reconciliation to work, it had to because he wanted her and not just because she was expecting a baby... He really hates me and called me a witch to my face in this shop, in front of customers. And you saw his behaviour yesterday.'
`But he's never done anything like this before?'
Pain flickered momentarily as Ellen thought about Thomas. `Nothing as serious as this -- no. But with his neurosis about witches and witchcraft, he's blaming me for Pentworth's present troubles.'
`In that case, I'll go and confront him now,' said David with grim determination.
`God protect me from protective males,' Ellen muttered. `You will do nothing of the sort. You promised me that you would do nothing. I'm holding you to that, David.'
`And I'll keep my word so long as you're not in danger.' He added hurriedly before she had a chance to object, `The damnable thing is that Roscoe has such wide support. I heard one of his orations a couple of weeks ago in Market Square. As usual, he was raving about the asteroid belt being a planet destroyed by the wrath of God and how we would be next. The majority were with him. Hecklers got shouted down.'
`He likes big audiences. That's why he never proclaims his message outside the town.'
`A news update,' said the radio presenter in a matter-of-fact voice. `The trial of Brad Jackson for treason, the murder of Government House security officer, Robert Vincent, and the attempted murder of our chairman, has just ended. Jackson, who pleaded guilty to the murder and attempted murder charges, but not guilty of treason, was found guilty of the latter by the jury who took only ten minutes to reach their verdict after a summing-up in which Mr Justice Hooper reminded the jury that the huge weight of corroborative evidence of several witnesses as to what Jackson said immediately before he carried out the attack in Market Square, was sufficient to remove any element of hearsay. Also he continued to make statements on his intentions after the attack despite being cautioned by the police.
`Judge Hooper sentenced Jackson to death by hanging and urged the establishing of a court of appeal to review the verdict and sentence. A government spokesman said that the judge's comments would be considered. In the meantime arrangements would go ahead to carry out the sentence as soon as is practical.'
Ellen and David stared at each and the radio in mutual shock.
`For God's sake,' David muttered. `I don't believe it... Hanging! That can't be right. The reporter has made a mistake.'
`I don't think so. Prescott got those enabling measures through that give him virtually unlimited powers.'
`But the appeal court would be certain to overturn the sentence.'
`What appeal court? You heard the radio. It doesn't exist.'
`But -- Goddamn it -- they can't bring back hanging!'
`They? You mean We, David. What powers we haven't given Prescott, he's grabbed.' Ellen's expression was one of troubled foreboding. She added quietly, `What's happening to us, David? What's happened to Pentworth? It's like a summer madness is taking over.'
Chapter 20.
CATHY'S INSTINCT WHEN SHE walked into Market Square the next morning to start work was to return home. She stared at the turmoil in dismay and wondered why there had been no mention of it on the radio. There was a gathering of about 50 jubilant citizens yelling for Prescott and waving placards bearing his picture while chanting his name. Some had even climbed on the stocks to sing their praise of Pentworth's beloved chairman. The loudest were two thickset men holding a banner declaring that:
JACKSON MUST HANG.
`It's okay, miss,' said a friendly voice. `We've got everything under control.'
Cathy turned. A white-bloused morris policeman, a veritable giant of a man holding a staff, was grinning at her. He was wearing a crash helmet instead of the customary straw hat. She returned his smile. The morris police were well-liked. They were firm but fair. `What happened?' she asked.
`Some troublemakers turned up. Relatives of Brad Jackson and a few others. Mostly country. We've sorted them.' He looked down appreciatively at Cathy. He had seen her before -- always pretty as a picture in her short, pleated skirts and sleeveless T-shirts. Good enough to eat, he reckoned.
Cathy thanked him and mounted the steps to Government House. She noticed a shredded placard on the ground whose message appeared to have been `PRESCOTT -- MURDERER'. A cleaner was mopping up what may have been a pool of blood outside the Mothercare shop. One of the windows fronting a display of reconditioned pushchairs and secondhand baby clothes was cracked. In the entrance lobby several blackshirts were marshalling a small group of sullen detainees for an appearance in the courtroom before a magistrate.
`I seem to have missed the party,' she remarked to Dennis on entering the library. There were no catcalls and wolf whistles to greet her entrance. She looked around in surprise. `Where are the chippies?'
`Our missing carpenters have been given another job,' said Dennis curtly, nodding to the windows that overlooked Government House's tiny quadrangle.
Cathy crossed the library and looked down. She guessed that the embryo structure taking shape on the patch of grass was a scaffold. She shivered inwardly and could think of nothing to say. Her colleagues were busy at their desks even though there were still a few minutes to go, and her boss seemed in no mood to talk. There was nothing else for it but to start work.
Malone strolled in an hour later and nodded to Cathy as he passed her desk. She had given up trying to find out what he was researching. He took books from so many different sections that it was impossible to pin down his interests. Nor did he encourage visitors behind his screen, and he always had an opened Ordnance Survey map of the area ready to spread over his work to study closely when she had been near his desk.
Cathy dipped her pen in the ink bottle and started work. She had spent a week now, numbing her brain with the crashingly boring work of writing out library index cards with the horrible lampblack and water ink. She was beginning to give up hope of locating her Mackintosh computer in Government House. There was a limit to the number of times she could pretend to get lost and wander into offices, and out again with apologies. The top floor, the adminstration level together with the radio studio and newsroom, was strictly out of bounds; the two blackshirts guarding the top of the stairs were there in response to Prescott's paranoia about security since the attempt on his life. No one was allowed on the top floor who had no business there.
She was half-dozing because an old acquaintance she had met in the Crown the evening before had kept her awake most of the night with his not unwelcome demands, when a shadow fell across her desk. She looked up into the brooding eyes of Nelson Faraday.
`Good morning, Mr Faraday.' She sat up straight so that he couldn't see down her T-shirt. The other girls among her colleagues found the head of Government House security attractive. He always chilled Cathy's blood.
`Davies said you could find some books for me.'
`With or without pictures, Mr Faraday?'
Faraday's lips curled into an icy smile, but his eyes were hard and unforgiving. `Books on hanging. I've been given a new job.'
Looking up the Dewey Decimal Classification and finding entries in the card index saved Cathy having to think of an answer to that. She crossed to the shelves, found two books, and tossed them on her desk in front of Faraday. `They are the only ones we have catalogued at the moment.'
`Executioner -- Pierrepoint,' mused Faraday, thumbing through one of the books. `An autobiography by Albert Pierrepoint. Sounds like he'd be more of an expert on the guillotine than the noose.'
`I wouldn't know,' Cathy replied, wanting rid of him. His nearness turned her blood to liquid nitrogen.
`Ah -- he hanged the last woman to be executed in England. Ruth Ellis -- pretty.'
`I'm delighted you've found some pictures.'
`Okay -- I'll take them.'
`You'll need a ticket.'
`And you need a fuck.'
Cathy smiled beguilingly. `My partner last night provided three. That's two and a half more than I expect you could manage, Mr Faraday.'
Faraday stared speculatively down at her. `Has anyone ever told you you've got nice tits?'
`Only people who get on them.'
Faraday turned and left without another word leaving Cathy wondering if her put-downs had been wise. She suddenly cursed herself for her stupidity when it occurred to her that had she played up to him, she might have found out where her Mac was installed. It was beginning to look as if she would never find it.
Her break came in the afternoon when Dennis issued her with a pocket torch and sent her on an errand that involved her hunting through dusty file boxes and cabinets in the archives of a local solicitor in search of a duplicate set of the deeds for Pentworth House. After an hour she found the folder -- a huge binder fastened with ancient ribbons that disintegrated when she lifted it out of the filing cabinet. Yellowing hand-copied documents in beautiful copperplate script dating back to the 14th Century, and maps of the Pentworth House estate cascaded onto the floor. Cathy returned to Government House with the deeds in a new box file and was told to take it to Diana Sheldon on the top floor. The blackshirts at the top of the stairs allowed her to pass once they had checked on their Handie-Com radios that she was on legitimate business. She followed their directions to Diana Sheldon's office but took opportunities to get "lost" on the way. None of the hot little offices she entered had her Mac system. The door leading to the radio station suite was locked. There was nothing for it but to make her way along the corridor to her correct destination.
`Oh good, Cathy' said Diana smiling, rising from her chair and taking the box file. `You found them. The chairman will be pleased. How are you settling in downstairs?'
`Well -- it's a bit boring -- writing out millions of index cards,' Cathy replied, glancing curiously around. Four women were pounding mechanical typewriters. Vanessa Grossman was busy at a photocopier. She glanced at Cathy and accorded her a curt nod. There was no sign of the Mac in the crowded outer office. In fact none of the offices she had entered would have had room for the computer system; space was already at a premium throughout Government House, obeying the law that states that a bureaucracy will expand to fill the space available for its storage.
`We could do with you up here to work your computer system afterall,' said Diana ruefully. `It's not as simple as we thought. We got into an awful mess doing the ID badges. In the end Vanessa helped out but she's not used to Macs.'
`A frightening machine,' Vanessa commented, intent on her photocopying. `A law unto themselves.'
Diana smiled at the comment. `Don't listen to Vanessa. She managed a print run of food coupons but I really can't spare her. Would you be interested in a transfer? We'll need you when we start on the identity cards.'
`Yes -- I would, very much. Will it take long? I think I'll go mad in the library.'
`Well -- about a week. The library indexing has been given priority during the long daylight hours -- our centre of knowledge and all that. You wouldn't able to dress like that up here, though. I'll have a word with staffing resources.' Her antique telephone jangled. `Oh -- I've been waiting for this call. Would you take the file into the chairman for me please, Cathy. Just knock and enter.'
The chill was the first thing Cathy noticed when she entered the chairman's office. Air-conditioning!
`Shut the door,' said Prescott irritably without looking up from the document he was reading. `Don't let the summer in.'
Cathy stood uncertainly by the door, wondering what to do. Prescott was too pre-occupied to notice her. He was muttering angrily to himself. The document was a petition from a group of local solicitors and other worthies calling on the government to establish a court of appeal. He suspected that His Honour Judge John blasted Harleston-Hooper was behind it. They must have been up half the night drafting the thing. Damn the man! Hooper's job was to hear serious cases and pass sentence -- not meddle in politics. Prescott was tempted to scribble "refused" on the petition but Hooper's co-operation was essential. If the unthinkable happened and the Wall disappeared overnight it was important to show that all his actions had been in the light of Hooper's judicial rulings. Of course, Hooper had guarded his arse by calling them opinions but that could always be argued as a misunderstanding. Prescott sighed and opted for political delaying tactics. He noted on the petition for it to be considered at the next full council meeting and tossed it in his out tray. He looked up at Cathy and his eyes widened, the tiresome Judge Hooper momentarily forgotten.
`The deeds of Pentworth House, Mr Chairman.'
`Ah. Excellent.' He held out his hand. `Cathy Price, isn't it?'
`Yes, Mr Chairman.'
Prescott's hungry gaze had all five items of Cathy's clothing and her shoulderbag strewn on the carpet by the time she had crossed the office to the ornate desk. Unable to resist exercising control and not realising the dangerous game she was playing with this man, she bent lower than necessary when placing the box file on the desk.
`Thank you... Cathy. Ah -- yes. You're the Cathy Price who regained the use of her legs recently after an accident as a kid?'
Cathy straightened, pulling her shoulders back, aware that the pleasant coolness in the room and the piquancy of some gameplay with the most powerful man in Pentworth had caused her nipples to harden. `Yes, Mr Chairman. That's me. Actually it was my sense of balance that I'd lost. There was nothing wrong with my legs. You see?' She hitched up her skirt, not overtly high or for long enough for the gesture to lose its successfully-contrived quality of coltish innocence, but high enough to show that her panties were transparent. She had the dubious satisfaction of seeing a sudden gleam of lust in Prescott's eyes before the hem fell.
`Indeed I do, Cathy. And very lovely legs they are, too, if you don't mind my saying.'
Cathy's cheeks dimpled prettily. `Not at all, Mr Chairman. Thank you.'
`And thank you, Cathy.'
She turned to leave but he seemed anxious to detain her. `That's your computer, isn't it?'
Surprised, Cathy turned and saw her Mackintosh with its scanner and laser printer set up on a desk in an alcove at the far end of the office. `Why, yes, Mr Chairman' she said, hoping that her voice sounded calm. `Is it behaving?'
`So far as I know, it is. More useful here with electricity laid on than at your place, eh?' Prescott turned his attention to the contents of the box file. `Thank you, Cathy. That will be all.'
`Everything okay?' Diana asked, replacing the telephone's headphone on its hook as Cathy entered the outer office.
`Yes. Fine. He was quite pleased.' It would be foolish not to mention what she had seen so she added, `My old Mac seems to have been given a place of honour.'
The older woman gave a conspiratorial smile. `The chairman was dead set against the idea, but there was nowhere else to put it. We simply don't have the room. But when Vanessa said that it might be best if it had an air-conditioned environment and that she had tracked down a new air-conditioner, he changed his mind.'
`I'd better get back to the grind,' said Cathy. She hesitated, her mind racing. `You said about a week to get a transfer. Any chance of speeding that up? It's terribly boring work downstairs.'
Diana looked doubtful. `I don't think so. But I'm sure you'll come up and help out with the Mac when we start on the identity cards. We're going to need at least 7000.' `Yes, of course, I'd be only too pleased.'
A week! Shit! Someone was certain to discover the terrible secrets on the file server's hard disk before then.
Outside in the corridor Cathy sa
w a door marked WOMEN and decided to grab the chance of using a real toilet. All the cubicles were empty. She used one and afterwards relished the luxury of being able to wash her hands in clean, hot running water and dry them on an ironed roller towel. They certainly looked after themselves on the 4th floor.
A glance around before leaving and she spotted a ceiling hatch above the cubicle she had used. Without hesitation, she shinned onto the partition and pushed. The hatch swung open easily. Cathy's arms had always been strong; she had no difficulty lifting herself into the suffocatingly hot roof space and carefully closing the hatch. She spread her weight across several ceiling collar-beams and waited for her heart to stop pounding before risking a quick inspection. The strips of daylight showing under the eaves merely illuminated the underside of the frost-spawled roof tiles. The torch revealed a cavernous loft, not cluttered with junk but home to a curious mixture of ancient and modern plumbing, and piles of bat guano like a range of miniature slag heaps whose peaks disappeared into the gloom. She flashed the torch up at the roof trusses and saw huddled masses of bats. They were hanging about, waiting for dusk, twittering and fidgeting anxiously at the light. The dozens of long-eared, furry Mr Spocks didn't worry her; Hill House had its fair share and they now enjoyed greater protection than ever, such was their importance in keeping Pentworth's burgeoning insect population in check.
A hundred doubts taunted Cathy once she had taken stock. Climbing into the roof had been on an impulse, a seized opportunity although she had no clear plan in mind. The blackshirts at the top of the stairs would be certain to notice that she hadn't returned. On the other hand, why should they? They probably didn't know what her precise business had been; she recalled that they had showed little interest in people leaving the top floor. What about Dennis? Would he check? There again, the chances were that he would assume that she had decided to skive off work for the rest of the afternoon and her pay would be docked accordingly.
Two chattering girls entering the toilets intruded on her worries. It was the same during the rest of that long, boring afternoon: an intermittent stream of coming and going. Barely had the nearby header tank stopped gurgling and it was off again. The staff flushed the toilets every time without giving a thought to the stream of jingles on the radio exhorting the populace to save water, not that the many householders in outlying areas who had to fetch their drinking water from stand pipes had much chance to waste it.
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