“What was his name?”
“Gustavus Rackland, one of the biggest traders in Oban.”
“What does he trade?”
“Everything. Fresh water, slate, timber, cattle, pigs, sheep, dressed stones, hides… Everything was under the sovereignty of Krossington, the traders merely competed to get the stuff in and out.”
“Divide and rule,” Bartram said. “Oldest trick in the book.”
“Out to where?”
“Portsmouth mostly,” Sarah-Kelly said. “That’s the main port of The Big K.”
“Were there other officers with grudges against Lawrence?”
“They all had grudges, except maybe Turner. The two of us snubbed their pretensions, with Lawrence being an officer and me being a pleb, not some merchant’s daughter, plus we were too white—Krossington is very anti-racist.”
“Any officers in particular?”
“There was one, a double-barrelled ponce. He had a swish motor car, always cruising up and down the promenade with his silly wife.” She concentrated. “Peterson-Veitch. That was it.”
“There is one point I don’t understand: mature organisations do not assassinate talent. You tell me Lawrence was a high-flier. To destroy him, the request must have gone to the top and permission must have come back from the top. Lawrence must have done something really wrong. That’s what I have to know.”
“He did too many things wrong. He went out with me, a pleb. He disparaged the education and brains of certain touchy officers, at least one of whom was senior to him. He had wilder and wilder ideas. A few days before he disappeared, he told me he was certain the Glorious Resolution was planned by a clique of Public Era top dogs. They wanted to annihilate the Fatted Masses and gain absolute power through land and gold. If he mentioned ideas like that to a fellow glory officer… But his biggest mistake was being alone; he had no friends or family to miss him, nor had I.”
“What do you make of this?” Donald shot at Nightminster. The abrupt shift of focus did not faze him in the least.
“Long ago as a teenager, I was a glory trooper with General Wardian, in fact I joined at ten as a cub for fun and a little money. I left at eighteen. The glory trusts are hierarchies of venal, cowardly bureaucrats who will do anything to kiss arse whilst stamping down the competition. All I have heard about Lawrence is that he was an exceptionally effective officer. Such people attract enemies. I would say his error was to serve in a place like Oban. It’s on the edge of civilization. Things like this happen and then get buried by distance.”
“Can you help get him out of the Night and Fog?”
“No. I have nothing to do with the ultramarines. They are low-life. My Value System operation runs entirely on its own energy without input from them. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you, or I would have done so by now.”
The response did not surprise Donald. Nightminster would have no desire to help reunite Sarah-Kelly with her lost beau Lawrence. That said, Nightminster did sound genuine in his contempt for the ultramarines.
Donald made a fuss of looking at his watch—if he did not get out soon, he would end up spending the night and it would get all complicated. As it was Sunday tomorrow, etiquette would require him join in some hellish bore of religious practice. In any case, he would owe them hospitality. He stood up.
“I have to be back for an evening engagement. What I will do is pass this information up the pipeline. There will be action. However much you may demonise Tom Krossington, he’s not an unreasonable man.”
Sarah-Kelly looked unconvinced.
“I will be in touch again as events move.”
In saying his good-byes, he noted a sharp, cold gleam in the eyes of Nightminster. Donald joked:
“You could fly me up to Oban in that beautiful machine of yours.”
The cold gleam altered to something keener, as if Donald’s suggestion had prompted an idea in turn. TK had described Nightminster as “clever and mysterious”, an accurate summary of a man who said little and now offered no more of his thoughts.
*
Wingfield called at Donald’s house on Sunday evening to collect the report of the excursion. He thanked Donald for his work. Then, in his cold way, he instructed Donald he must get on with his life and leave the case of Lawrence entirely in the hands of the Krossington household. He could be rest-assured that justice would be done, even if many weeks passed before he heard anything further.
Chapter 11
Yet Donald disobeyed orders. Ten days later, he stood on the apron of the Port of Erith waiting for a mysterious correspondent to appear. The previous evening, he had received an unsigned message, written in beautiful Roundhand, urging him to turn up in this place “if he wished to know more about a certain mystery”.
So, here he was.
The Port of Erith lay on the Thames Estuary about twelve miles downstream from the Central Enclave. The port was surrounded by dense woods from which, here and there, glimpsed a broken gable end or a chimney breastwork, all that remained of what had been suburbia in the Public Era. Getting to Erith had been surprisingly simple. Okeke had dropped him at his chambers at 7 am before anyone else was about. He changed into slummy clothing—including Value System boots—in his office and left the building by a rear way on foot, walking the short distance to the River Thames to explore along the Embankment. He felt sure a ferry must run to such an important port as Erith, and sure enough, there was a motor ferry that departed at 8 am. The fare varied from one and a half gold sovereigns down to three white ones, depending on whether one travelled in the saloon of the superstructure or joined the crowd of slummies on the open deck. Donald chose the latter, being dressed that way.
On the gravel apron of Erith, activity seethed around him. Krossington’s dagger-like yacht Neptune stood propped in a dry dock while workers teemed around it scraping the encrustation from its hull. Quays reached out into the River Thames like fingers, moored up with sailing barges and schooners. One of the barges was outstandingly neat relative to the rusty tubs around it. Its hull was gloss-black and the masts were white, with the cable stays wrapped in tarred cloth. It was gradually consuming a queue of what appeared to be surplus into its hold. Donald supposed, from the exotic robes and piles of baggage, that this load was moneyed surplus, perhaps wandering traders and silversmiths. He had read of such groups in the erotic novels of Titty Titterington and Samantha Saucifield. No doubt a day or so puking in the guts of a luxury barge was vastly preferable to tramping the public drains in the company of surplus, dogs, lammergeiers and bloodthirsty ultramarines.
But of his mysterious correspondent there was no sign. About ten minutes later, a silver flying boat with the wings of a gull and the fuselage of a dogfish circled over Romford Great Marsh across the estuary. It kissed the river with a zipper of spray.
“Nightminster.” Donald murmured. Well this should prove to be entertaining. He was not forgetting the cold gleam in Nightminster’ eyes.
Nightminster moored his flying boat to a buoy fifty yards offshore and was rowed to one of the quays by a harbour tender.
“Good afternoon Donald,” he said, as he stepped ashore. Like Donald, he wore The Captain’s Best boots and brown overalls, although his had large, transparent pockets down the thighs. “I’m pleased you chose to come. Wait here whilst I arrange refuelling.”
The tall man loped away to the jetties, where he boarded the neat, black barge embarking the exotic surplus and exchanged some banter with the crew. Evidently the smart little ship was part of the Value System operation—although Donald could not fathom what pig farming and leather goods had to do with freighting surplus, unless it was that the barges would otherwise have sailed empty. From the barge, Nightminster strode across the apron, head tipped up, to disappear inside a windowless brick block. This was an odd structure, like a plinth for some gigantic statue never installed. Its form hinted at many levels hidden underground, full of secrets.
After a wait
of about twenty minutes, Nightminster re-emerged and beckoned to Donald. Together they returned to the flying boat on a fuel lighter rowed by a team of a dozen in neat time. Donald followed the cat-like Nightminster in stepping across a yard of cold, brown Thames onto the port sponson of the flying boat and stooping through a hatch into a roomy cabin beneath the wings. This was the cargo hold (Nightminster informed him). It was directly under the wings to maintain the balance of the aircraft in flight.
“Get forward and make a pot of coffee,” Nightminster said, pointing at an oval door in the bulkhead. “We’ll be flying all night, so we’re going to need it.”
“Get forward and make it yourself.”
“Kindly make us both a pot of coffee, Donald. Please.”
“That’s better—where are we going?”
“Oban.”
“Oban? But—” Donald started laughing.
“Coffee please. Only one captain of this ship.”
Donald was momentarily irritated by this officiousness until he opened the door of rivetted metal. Its lightness and rigidity amazed him. It gave into a cabin rather like a gardener’s hut, with a couple of bunks and a compact galley. It had a window to each side that could be slid open. Donald lit the primus. A bit more exploration revealed a refrigerator made of aluminium sheet and cork. To judge from the smell and hot pipe leading through the roof, it burned oil to achieve its cooling. It was stored with coffee, black bread, boxes of sliced pork and butter.
Nightminster remained in the cargo bay operating a panel of valves that controlled the fuel flowing into the various tanks. A couple of crewmen on the fuel lighter hand-pumped for half an hour, until Nightminster signalled they stop. He unshackled the fuel hose and passed it back across. Donald was impressed to notice the flying boat sat noticeably deeper in the water.
“How much fuel does this thing carry?”
“Up to six tons, although today I only loaded two.”
Donald had no idea what to make of such remarkable information. Okeke had once told him the limousine weighed about two tons. It was beyond comprehension that such a bulk could leave the ground—and that was just the fuel, not the great structure of rivetted metal plates and four engines each as big as the body of a carthorse.
“How much does two tons of fuel cost? And how did you pay for it? I never saw any bags of gold.”
“You don’t need to know.”
“I’m interested though. Visiting the Newmans’ business made me realise I know absolutely nothing about how trade works.”
Nightminster hesitated, obviously wondering if he could be bothered explaining, or perhaps wary of what secrets he might reveal.
“In brief, it works like this. I want to buy two tons of mineral distillate fuel, the price is 150 ounces—of gold.” Donald registered surprise. The oil burned by his limousine cost only about one third of that. It was a mix of animal fat, vegetable oil and turpentine—and it smelled even worse. Presumably a flying boat demanded a finer vintage. “I go into that bunker over there. It’s called the Balancing House of Kronstein. I sign what’s called a bill of exchange, which Kronsteins put in a file. At the end of every week, the file gets sent into the Clearing Assembly of the Central Enclave. There are a dozen or so balancing houses scattered around London, some in the Enclave and some out in the asylums. Every month they carry out a vast adding up of all the transactions from all the trades of that period. 99% of the payments cancel out, because trade goes both ways. The remaining 1% gets shifted as physical gold to whichever balancing houses are owed it, then the process repeats in the next month.”
“You use paper money?”
“No! A bill of exchange is fully backed by gold, not fiat shit charmed from thin air. Businesses have to make use of bills of exchange, otherwise gold would have to be shifted about all the time to no purpose.”
There was an interesting point here. Nightminster’s Value System must leave a paper trail like the tail of a comet across the sky. The same must be true of any business including the sovereign households. If ever a person wanted to grab this whole society by the balls and twist, the means to do so lay in all the heaps of secrets lying within that squat bunker in the middle of the Port of Erith and in other balancing houses. This thought amused Donald, in an idle, day-dreamy sort of way.
Nightminster locked the cargo hatch and shooed Donald forward up a narrow set of steps to the cockpit. This was a broad and airy point of command. Windows occupied every direction except downwards. Outside, the light was waning into orange dusk smeared with plumes from the industrial asylums around the Central Enclave.
“Did you say we’re flying to Oban?” Donald asked.
“I did indeed, Donald.”
“It’s a private town.”
“I am welcome.”
“May I ask how?”
“TK invited me.”
“You’re close to Tom Krossington?” Donald did not bother to keep the incredulity from his voice.
“You should know—TK introduced the two of us long ago.”
“You and I have never met, Nightminster.”
“On the contrary, yes we have. You were just a scampering little lad of three who could hardly climb onto a sofa. TK introduced me to your father Morton at Wilson House. As your father did not like the look of me—and I must confess the feeling was mutual—I made friends with you instead.”
Donald frowned, sinking back to his earliest memories. There was a shadowy recollection, one of those glimpses floating on the edge of dreams, a scene he had never been able to relate to any place or person of his later life. What lingered most strongly was the kindness of an adult who towered like a tree and then stooped to make friends at knee level. To the right, far above in the heights where adults spoke to one another, there was an orange blur.
“So that was you. I even met tragic Victorina and never knew. It’s a scene that’s always puzzled me. Years later I asked my father about it. He pretended not to know anything, but I sensed he was lying. What were you up to back then?”
“I was a student at Oxford University—about which enough said. My point is that TK and I go back a long, long way.”
On thinking behind his prejudices, Donald realised this was plausible enough. The photograph of Nightminster with Victorina Krossington on the eve of the Sack of Oxford was taken thirty-three years ago. Nightminster was obviously much more than some boyfriend of the distant past.
“There is a problem,” Donald said. “I’m TK’s appointed regent. I can’t just go swanning off to Scotland without telling him.”
“Ah! Faithful servant to the last. For your information, he is already there; do not concern yourself with TK.”
“Why does he want me there?”
Nightminster frowned and glared at Donald.
“You wanted to make this fucking trip.”
That could not be disputed.
“All right, we’re going to Oban,” Donald said. “Is this a regular trip for you?”
“No. It will involve some danger.” Nightminster pulled a savage grin. “We’re going to take an unconventional route in order to save fuel. The proper route means a huge detour along the south coast of England to the Isles of Scilly and then north up the Irish Sea. That’s 900 miles even before including head winds, which would stretch the distance flown to eleven or twelve hundred miles.
“So, instead we’re going to fly north, cross England over the Yorkshire Dales and proceed up the west coast. This distance is less than 700 miles with the winds mostly behind us, so in reality it’s only half the distance flown.”
“There are no Naclaski batteries up north?”
“On the contrary, they’re some of the best-equipped units in Britain—as you’d expect. It’s a great temptation for pilots to try sneaking through the lonely valleys of Yorkshire.”
Donald’s face must have registered his visceral horror recalling the blasts of Naclaski shells around the flying boat over Kent.
“Relax, Donald. This machine has turbo-charged diesel engines and the wings of an albatross. I can fly so high the Naclaski batteries can’t reach us. Their radar only tracks up to five miles. We shall fly above seven miles of altitude.”
“How do you know about Naclaski radar?”
“Once upon a time I worked for Chadderton’s of Bermondsey asylum, the company that makes the sets. That was how I got interested in physics and… Stop bloody pestering me and get your flying suit on.”
Donald sat for a while, getting hot in the heavy flying suit and reflecting on the situation. If they were shot down whilst flouting Naclaski, there would be no benefactor to buy them out, assuming they survived the crash. That said, this character Nightminster radiated an air of great confidence. He ruled faint lines on a chart, making notes, excluding the world with an impressive concentration. Then he picked up a clipboard and ran down a checklist.
“Did you vent the primus tank?”
“No.”
“Please go and do so, or it will explode in the thin air at high altitude. Check the water heater is switched on, or the tank will freeze solid and rupture. Put the coffee pot on the electric plate and set the heat to ‘Low’. Shut off the refrigerator by the valve at the back of it. Finally, close the cap of its chimney by the lever adjacent where it passes through the roof.”
Donald obeyed. When he returned, Nightminster handed him an aluminium crank handle as long as a man’s shin, light as a stick but stiff as bone.
“Please do the honours. You insert it in that hole in the forward port engine. There are footholds on top of the fuselage. As you crank, you will hear an ascending whine as the flywheel builds up speed. Keep turning until it sounds like a piglet getting its nuts chopped. I will shout ‘Contact!’ and you must cling for your life, or the blast of propeller wash will put you straight in the river—in which case the tide will drag you under those barges. Do you understand?”
Sovereigns of the Collapse Book 1 Page 13