"Feet," said Veda. "Very helpful. Can't you construct a complete man from these pieces?"
"We were rather hoping," Avermann said, "For your help in this endeavour."
"With those fragments?" Veda laughed. "You are a tin-pot grouping after all."Avermann leaned forward and tapped her knee. "Beware, my dear, of flippant remarks. Tulchan is a gentleman, Tantivy... well... pray, my dear, that you don't find out."
Veda looked at the pug-faced boy lounging indifferently beside the fireplace.
"What would you do if you tracked down this... individual?"
Avermann shrugged. "It is not important."
"But," Veda insisted, "You say he's a threat?"
"The child is the rightful Heir to the Throne." Avermann fixed his eyes on hers. "Your crackpot Jacobite friends have identified descendants of the overthrown Stuart dynasty. They reject the Hanoverian succession as illegal and the House of Windsor as a political invention, the name itself constructed to give the present royal family a sense of history and legitimacy it does not possess. They believe the legitimate sovereign to be the living heir to James. That is presently a child, who is in the age of minority, and under the protection of a Regent. When this child is old enough to accede to the succession, he will be acclaimed and crowned in an alternative coronation. That ceremony is expected soon."
"But if these people are crackpots, as you suggest," said Veda, "Why are you so worried?"
"A country may not have two monarchs," said Avermann. "Legally, the claim of James II's descendants is stronger than that of the present occupants. Our concern is that the raising up of an alternative sovereign might serve as the focus for unrest. The dissatisfied, the alienated, the culturally disenfranchised, the socially rejected, the politically underrepresented, the marginalised, all those people who feel they have no power in their own lives - all those might group around the standard and... well, revolution, my dear. The overturning of the established order."
Avermann looked at his fingernails. "We have some twelve million people currently under surveillance, a further thirty-five million on our files, and the J List of the most dangerous 200 people in Britain, the members of JASON but this one somehow slipped through. I know you have seen the photo in the J List before. It was in your house, tucked into the Yellow Pages. I know who put it there and I know why, but I don’t know who it is."
"James was deposed three hundred years ago."
"Nevertheless," Avermann said, "We have to neutralise any possible challenge or threat to the security of the state."
"A child," said Veda.
"Of course," said Avermann. "Even a child. Would be... removed."
"Killed," said Veda.
Avermann merely lowered the lids of his eyes.
"I'm not sure," said Veda carefully, "That I would wish to support any Establishment or any political system that accepts the murder of a child as a justifiable way of preserving its own status and power."
A log settled gratingly in the fire-place.
"Suppose they don't come for me," said Veda defiantly. "Suppose you've over-estimated my importance."
"Then you shall lead us to them," said Avermann flatly.
"And why should I do that?"
"Two reasons," said Avermann. "Firstly, if you do not, we shall hand you over to the police. Remember you are the arsonist and possible child killer Vanishing Veda. Secondly…" He smiled rapaciously. "Secondly there is Tantivy. What treatment do you recommend, Doctor Tantivy, for one such as Veda?"
Tantivy gave a vulpine grin. "Lain in the breakers, stripped and tied to a frame, live jellyfish... Vaginal Jellyfish.... Ahhhhh... Inserted... Urgggggg."
"You are so inventive," Avermann slurred. "And for the Tarboy?"
Tantivy held out a pair of nutcrackers. "A Nutcracker... sweet," he gurgled.
"Ahhhhhhh," slavered Avermann.
"And for tonight's entertainment," Tantivy gurgled again, "Maiwy had a lickle lamb… urrgggggg."
The log-fire crackled in the hearth. Beyond the windows came the sound of waves crashing relentlessly against the rocks, the sound of the Sound of Jura. Veda felt as desolate as the landscape.
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