Perhaps time to change the subject anyway. “Would you like to hold Luc?”
“Uh...” Warring emotions flitted across Watkins’ face: disbelief, eagerness... closely followed by that familiar oh-no-what-if-I-drop-it expression...
“Here we go.” I scooped Luc up and deposited him on Watkins’ knees. “Just hold onto him so he doesn’t fall off, but he can hold his head up fine so you don’t need to worry about that.”
Watkins’ look of panic eased as Luc peered and cooed up at him, unphased. “Well, you’re a dear little lad, aren’t you?” he cooed back. “Goodness, this brings it back. My two were about this age when I first held them. Both born just when I’d gone back on shift, as my ill luck would have it...”
My two... But of course Watkins had children. EGD Security officers were exempt from the Stable Population Act since their higher pay and greater perks did not extend to much in the way of leave and even the EGD recognised that no one in their right mind would want to raise a family in a Facility—but EGD Security rankers, with their six months on, six months off shift patterns, were still expected to produce the regulation two children. So of course Watkins had children.
“Was it difficult, being away so much of the time?” I couldn’t help asking.
Watkins grimaced and freed one hand from Luc, perfectly secure on his lap, to pick up his glass again. “They lived with their mother,” he said bluntly. “It was a Stable Population match when I was thirty. We, er, did what was necessary, but we didn’t take to each other. She allowed me access to begin with, then when the eldest was about five, she finally found out what I did for a living. I’d just said I was a security guard, you see, but it was too hard to hide the shift pattern and she figured it out.
“After a year and a bit, I managed to get access granted me by a court order. Once a month. Which in practise meant just six times a year. Judge was as prejudiced as the rest of the population. And Carol and David stopped wanting to see me once they got to be teenagers and realised all the stuff their mum had been saying about me was true. So my contact after that... was sporadic. I never quite lost touch, but...”
He drained his glass—then brightened. “They’ve been in contact, you know, since those posts you wrote. So I really meant it, when I thanked you, y’know. And you making me look so nice in your book... I’ve seen more of them in the last year than in the last decade! Met my grandkids for the first time, as well.” He broke off and pulled some faces at Luc, who was beginning to look disgruntled at the lack of attention, and Luc gurgled gleefully.
Bane reached over and tickled one tiny foot, making Luc giggle even harder. Our son was a happy baby.
“I don’t know why they don’t just give up on the whole Stable Population thing,” said Bane. “All they’d have to do is lower the price of a third Child Permittance, and they’d have the same number of children without having to... you know, force people.”
“They won’t do it,” said Jon, shaking his head. “The whole reason they came up with the Stable Population law was because they just weren’t prepared to admit that the declining population the EGD had worked so hard to bring about was simply making the economic problems worse. So they came up with the excuse that everyone needed to have two children in order to maintain genetic diversity, but anyone with a brain knows the real reason.”
“Well, they called it the Stable Population Act,” snorted Watkins, slurring his words a little.
“Er, actually, it’s called the Critical Genetic Diversity Act,” I said, apologetically. “Everyone just calls it the Stable Population Act because... well, because that’s what it really is: their desperate attempt to put a brake on the population decline and at least keep it steady. Though they even now aren’t prepared to go against their own ideology and let it increase again.”
Watkins looked like he’d quite like to spit, only there wasn’t anywhere to do it. “It’s hard for me to say I wish the Act didn’t exist,” he said, quite heatedly, “because I wouldn’t ever want to rub out Carol and David, however difficult things have been. But if it wasn’t for them... Well, if it weren’t for that entire stupid pack of breeding laws, Sorting, the whole blinking lot...” he was very red in the face now... “maybe Carol and David would have been Cathie and my kids. Suppose they wouldn’t have been quite who they are but all the same... maybe... maybe we’d have had more than two... maybe Cathie and I would be retiring together... Seeing our kids regularly...”
His voice went thinner, almost... lonely. “Going to sleep at night with a clear conscience... We can’t all wipe out our sins by firing squad... almost envy him in a way, you know...” He drank the last of his wine, though I was quite sure by now he’d had more than enough, and slammed the glass down rather hard on the floor. “Confounded EGD! Blasted EuroGov! You keep hammering them, lassie! You just keep hammering the whole pack of filthy toads! Kick ’em where it hurts! Yeah. Yeah...” he trailed off, staring at Lucas’s picture again.
Bane eased Luc from Watkins’s lap as he started fretting. “I think this little one is hungry again, Margo,” he said... then pulled a face. “Ah, no, I think he needs changing. Oh well, my turn, I suppose.”
He bore Luc off to the bathroom. Watkins was still staring at the photo.
“Did you like Lucas, Watkins?” I asked, remembering something Lucas had said. “Or just... you know, think he was a good superior to have around?”
Watkins’ expression grew thoughtful. “Well now... when he first arrived, he was as nice a young man as you could hope to meet. As nice a young gentleman, I’d even say. Certainly I liked him. He kept order, but by the book. But then, after some years... something happened. I never did know what. One day he was normal, the next... walking around like a zombie. Like someone had ripped his heart right out of him. He recovered a bit, to a degree... but it was like all that was left was bitterness and cynicism and... well, he got more imaginative with the punishments after that. I must say, they were more effective than the official versions.”
“So... he never told you what happened?”
“No.” Watkins shook his head. “He just changed overnight. To begin with... well, quite frankly I was afraid we’d have to break his door down one morning. Instead, a couple of weeks later he just jumped in the car and drove off, in the middle of the day, without saying anything to anyone. When he hadn’t come back by the following morning, I suggested to Captain Wallis that she try the hospital first of all. Which she did. And he was there.”
My eyes widened. “He’d tried to...” Surely not, Lucas had told me...
“No. It’s what I expected, but no. But he was there. He’d been found lying on a garden path in the early hours of the morning, beaten half to death; two broken arms and a lot more. Well, if you do go out in your uniform without even taking a driver along... Officers are supposed to be driven around, you see,” he informed me solemnly. “Supposed to make them look important, but it’s for security too. It’s a firm rule. He’d even take a driver when he took his plants into the forest. I often did it.
“Did you know that?” Watkins digressed, still slurring the words. “He used to take all the plants he didn’t want to keep and plant them in the forest? Always a different spot. I asked him, why, once, and he said most of the plants wouldn’t survive out there, and that’s why he didn’t want to go back. But he still planted them all, ever so carefully. Wanted to give them a chance.
“Anyway,” he dragged his mind back to what he’d been saying with obvious effort. “After about a week someone called from the hospital and said we should now go and collect him and look after him at the Facility. But when we got there they didn’t seem to know anything about the call. They were all too happy to let us take him, though. They weren’t taking that good care of him, by the look of it. Hypocrites,” he said loudly, beginning to get heated again. “Vile hypocrisy! Vile...”
Yeah, where did the organs the hospitals had been using come from, after all?
But seeing another ra
nt forthcoming, I said hastily, “Did they catch the people who attacked him, or did the police not care either?”
“Well,” Watkins blinked and took a moment to gather his thoughts. “Oh, well, that was odd. By all accounts the police interviewed him as they ought to. But he wouldn’t tell them a thing. Just said over and over that he had no wish to press charges, thank you kindly. They gave up soon enough and cleared off. So no, I never found out who did it.”
“How strange,” remarked Jon.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
Watkins shrugged. “Mysterious fellow, he was. I dare say you probably know more about it than me.”
I shrugged as well. If Lucas hadn’t told him, I didn’t feel I could.
“How’s things, Jon?” I said, since I’d not actually got around to asking yet. “How’s the seminary?”
His face brightened. “Oh, it’s great. Even just the things we’ve learned already... oh, it’s fantastic, Margo; I’m loving it.”
I smiled too. It was wonderful to see Jon looking so... happy. So content. If he didn’t become a priest I’d be extremely surprised. “The black suits you.”
Jon’s cheeks reddened slightly. “To be honest, I feel very self-conscious,” he confided. “At least, whenever I remember what I’ve got on. But that’s why they start us wearing it so soon, of course. So by the time we’re actually ordained—if we are—we’re comfortable and can concentrate on the job at hand, not what we’re wearing.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a good plan.”
Jon’s head turned slightly in a familiar listening pose, then he winked in my direction and jerked his head towards Watkins. Ah, Watkins’ head had tilted back against the sofa and he was breathing deeply and evenly, fast asleep.
“Well, thank goodness for that,” I said under my breath. “If he’d left in that condition, think what he might have said to the EuroSoldiers on the way out?” Visiting Vatican State, he could get away with, nowadays. But tipsy or not, slagging off the EuroGov too publicly might get him arrested.
Jon grinned. “Yeah. Would have been fun to listen, though.”
“Umm.” I was feeling quite drowsy myself, after that nice lunch. Luc was sleeping through the night most of the time now, but he still woke us often enough to feel it.
“What did we miss?” Bane came back in, Luc asleep in his arms. “Ah...” he noticed our slumbering guest and sat on the other sofa instead. “Siesta time,” he said more softly, arranging Luc in his lap. “Well, not for me, I’m holding the baby...”
Somehow, despite my determination to stay awake and talk to Jon some more, I woke up over an hour later to find Jon gone and Bane sitting with Luc still asleep on his lap, reading a book. Watkins was snoring slightly.
“Oh, Jon’s gone,” I said, disappointed.
“Well, this place being such a hive of activity,” said Bane dryly. “He was thinking of joining U and Jane at the range and having a crack at the audible targets, then realised that probably wasn’t such a good idea.” From his slight snigger, Bane had been the one to point that out.
“Can you believe it?” I said. “U asking Jane out! Perhaps it was... you know, just a phase for him, or... some issues that he’s now worked through... So now...”
Bane frowned, though. “I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “Not for U. He told me once that his older brother figured it out way before him. He was fantastic about it, apparently, helped U so much. Kept him focused on how he was a child of God, how God loved him and wanted him, and he was no different in God’s eyes because he felt those things, they were just temptations to be dealt with, the way everyone has temptations. I still hope his brother shows up alive.”
“Not much chance of that by now, surely?” I said sadly. U’s older brother had been a missionary in the EuroGov: far more dangerous even than a parish priest. No official EuroGov record of his execution had yet come to light, but he’d not turned up either, so...
Bane sighed. “No. I know. But anyway, what I’m saying is, I think Jane must just be... you know, that one girl in a million.”
My turn to frown. “Then I really hope they’re right for each other! Because if you’re correct, U may not get another shot.”
“Well, she looked pretty interested to me,” smirked Bane.
Yes, she had, and small wonder. U was handsome, kind... and it couldn’t hurt that he was Eduardo’s unofficial heir, to boot.
Carefully, I eased off the sofa and went to join Bane—I really didn’t want to wake Watkins until he’d slept it off a bit. From his snores he was still well out of it, though, so I turned to Bane eagerly. “Watkins was telling us that Lucas got beaten up and admitted to hospital. And from what he said—and the timing—Lucas must have been that EGD Security officer Uncle Peter told us about!”
Bane frowned. “What, the one whose life he pretty much saved?”
“Yep.”
Uncle Peter had trotted out the story now and then, usually in the context of forgiving one’s enemies. It had always impressed me and drawn an ambiguous reaction from Bane. I could remember Uncle Peter telling it...
“I was visiting a dying parishioner every day in one particular ward,” he would begin, “and I became aware of this new patient that everyone hated; fellow patients, nurses, doctors, everyone. He’d two of his arms in plaster and other injuries hidden from view; he was a mess. Hard to believe anyone could feel too harshly towards him, in that condition, but they did.
“I soon found out why; even my parishioner had no compassion for him—at least, not until we’d talked about it a bit. But this guy was an EGD Security Officer, one of society’s ultimate scapegoats—you know they’re even more reviled than the rankers. Someone had certainly had a pretty good go at beating him to death, by the look of it.
“The arms were his problem. He couldn’t reach anything for himself. He was helpless. And the nurses who should have been feeding him kept leaving it for the next shift. Then the next shift would leave the job to the next shift. He literally was not getting any food or water.
“In partial defence of the medical staff, I don’t think they were actually trying to kill him, but they were well on the way to doing so. To start with he had the bell button in his hand and he kept ringing it, but the way the nurses spoke to him! ‘We’ll get to you when we’ve time, stop bothering us,’ was about the nicest thing I heard them say.
“Anyway, I had this feeling he didn’t really want the food or water that much, he was just ringing that button out of some... I don’t know, some sense of duty? Anyway, after a day or two of this, he’d had enough. I was there when it happened: a nurse came to tell him to stop ringing that damn bell! He asked for water—can’t have had any for almost two days, and he was a sick man—but she just gave a particularly cutting response.
“Anyway, this was clearly the last straw. I’ll never forget the look of total despair and exhaustion that settled on his face as the nurse left. He opened his hands and let the bell go. Flicked it right off the bed and closed his eyes, and I could tell he wasn’t going to say another word. He was just going to lie there and die a horrible death from thirst.
“Well, regardless of his profession, I couldn’t have that, so I went over and got the cup and put it to his lips. But he didn’t want it, by then—if he’d ever really wanted it. He turned his face away and wouldn’t drink.
So I said to him, “If you don’t drink this water, you’re killing yourself as surely as if you put a gun to your head.” I’d not much hope he’d listen, to be honest. He looked that past caring. But you know, it had a remarkable effect on him. He opened his eyes and looked at me—such a look of anguish—and then he just started sipping, meek as you please.
“I came back after visiting some other patients and there was a stone-cold meal on his dresser, so I fed him that. And did the same whenever I was there for the next few days. He never said anything to me, so I didn’t say much to him either. It was a dangerous thing I was doing, after all; exactly the sort
of thing that might draw suspicion. But I’d no choice; I’m quite sure it was the only food and drink he was getting.
“Anyway, when he seemed, as far as my limited medical knowledge could judge, out of any serious danger from his injuries, I opened up his dresser drawer one day and found his wallet. He still didn’t say anything, just watched me that way he did. I was worried by then that he suspected, even if no one else was paying much attention, but what could I do?
“Well, they’d put his security card safe in his wallet and sure enough, it had his Facility’s phone number on it. So I phoned up the Facility and equivocated slightly by saying, ‘I’m calling from the hospital’ and that they should now come and collect him. Sure enough, they assumed it was an official call and along they came. Had to wheel him off in the bed, mind you, but no one cared. Suppose they thought it was worth losing a bed to be rid of him. Those ham-fisted but undoubtedly well-meaning guards were clearly going to look after him much better.”
“Did he never say anything to you at all?” I would always ask, at this point.
“Just one thing. As they were wheeling him out, they passed me, at the bedside of old Jimmy, and he met my eyes for a moment and said...”
“Thank you?” Bane would suggest.
“Nope,” Uncle Peter would say, grinning... then his face would sober. “No, not thank you. I think he’d rather I’d left him to die. No, he said, ‘Don’t worry.’ Just that.”
“What did he mean?” Bane would demand.
“I always took it to mean, ‘Don’t worry that I’m going to have you hauled before a judge to make a Divine Denial, Father Priest.’ Or something like that. Anyway, I never saw him again. And I was never hauled before a judge.”
Lucas had clearly kept his mouth as tightly shut about his unwanted saviour as he had about the thugs who’d beaten him. I was glad in a way he’d never found out that Uncle Peter had died in his own Facility, albeit years later. Well, he’d know now, of course, but finding out in heaven was different. Impossible, surely to wring your hands and feel guilty when you’re both radiantly happy in God’s awesome presence?
The Siege of Reginald Hill Page 23