“You find them?” he asked.
“I was looking at the list and your kitchen. It’s impressive.”
“Oh, the list isn’t mine. I just do the cooking.”
“You don’t look after the storeroom?”
“Don’t need to. Not yet. That’s why they call it stores. Three more days.” He looked slowly around the kitchen, his eyes falling on the fresh food. He picked up a carrot and moved it from one pile to another. “Maybe two, then we’ll start on the stores. But there’s the food outside. Not sure how much that is. The longer we leave it, the better. Make sure you cross those biscuits off when you take ‘em. That’s important.”
That much was written in bold red letters at the top of the list. She scanned down the page, turned to the next, then the third. “Nothing’s been crossed off,” she said.
“Yeah. I don’t think people hand in everything they find, you know?” Stewart said. “They go out, find something nice, and they keep it for themselves. Well, fair enough, I say. I mean, we’ve all been hungry. We know what hunger can do. Terrible, terrible things. So everyone keeps a bit aside, and what does it matter as long as everyone has enough? That’s all that matters, right? As long as they cross off what they take. We don’t want to be eating the stores, you see. Because when we do, it means people have run out of their own private supplies. That’s when the trouble will start. When people will change. We can’t run out of food. That’ll be the end. Can’t have that. Not now. Not ever.”
“You know Chester’s going to Anglesey tomorrow,” Nilda said. “He’ll come back with food.”
“If they’re still there. They might not be. They might have nothing to spare, and then what? No. We can’t rely on the kindness of strangers, not unless they can rely on us. And they can’t do that unless we know we can rely on ourselves. That’s why the stores are important.”
Nilda nodded and smiled, but decided it was time to give up. Stewart seemed to have brief moments of lucidity followed by periods of utter detachment. She took the flashlight from the hook, opened the door, and went to search for the biscuits.
She was immediately struck by the size of the room and the sheer number of boxes. Since the dining hall had been barely half full with a hundred people in it that morning, she supposed the Tower must have been catering for thousands a day. As she ran the light down the rows of mostly brown cardboard mixed with the multi-coloured packaging of the more expensive brands, she had a flashback to her previous life, and smiled at the memory.
She scanned the light along the shelves until she found the one containing the biscuits. It was empty. Disappointment mixed with irritation. Whoever had eaten them could, if not crossed them off the list, at least have removed the empty box. She tracked the light left and right, looking for something else vaguely snackable. There was a label that read ‘Brazil nuts’. She checked the box. It, too, was empty.
Don’t panic, she told herself. Don’t let dark thoughts turn fear into fact. She tried another box, and a third. It was only when she reached the sixth that she found one with something inside it: two small bags of rice.
Slowly, methodically, she went through the room, checking each box against the list Stewart had given her. When she’d finished, she’d found there was enough food for one hundred meals, but only if you really stretched out that rice.
Again she told herself not to panic. It was bad stock management, nothing more. She repeated that, standing in the near dark, trying to convince herself that everything was okay.
“Tell me again how this works,” she asked Stewart, back in the kitchen. “What food do you use for cooking?”
“Fresh food, anything that’ll expire, that’s all here,” he said. “Anything we’re keeping for the long-term, that goes in the storeroom.”
“Right. So how often do you go in there?” she asked.
“I don’t. I’ve got everything I need here. Two thousand calories a day, that’s what we’re on. I’ve got it marked down in the ledger over—”
“Right, and this list,” she said, tapping the clipboard. “Was this started back when you were all in Kirkman House?”
“Oh no. We started that when we were putting everything away.”
She opened the kitchen cupboards, hoping against hope that somehow the missing food would have found its way in there. There just weren’t enough cupboards. A few did contain food, but not nearly enough.
“Is everything all right?” Stewart asked.
“It’s fine,” she said. But it wasn’t. After they’d eaten what was in the kitchen they’d have to start on the stores, and it turned out they hadn’t got any left.
“And how often do people come and help themselves?”
“Well, check the list. They’ll have crossed it off.”
“But no one has crossed anything out.”
“Exactly,” he said, as if that answered anything. Perhaps it did.
“What about Hana and the food for the animals?” she asked.
“Oh no, that doesn’t go in. We separated out all the food that would do as feed. No additives, that sort of thing. That’s all in her store over in the Keep.”
“And how much time do you spend in here?” she asked.
“Well, there’s cooking. And then there’s the cleaning up. Most of the time, I suppose, except when there’s other work to be done. I mean—”
“Yes. Yes, I know.” She looked at him, and properly this time. The man was a shadow of whoever he’d formerly been. It was her fault, or Hana’s or someone’s for letting responsibility fall on his shoulders.
“I have to go,” she said.
“You said you’d help with dinner.”
“I’ll send someone,” she said, and almost immediately forgot as she went outside. She heard the buzzing of the drone as it flew overhead, followed by the sound of children yelling and running after it. She found no cheer in the sound. They needed the food outside the castle walls more than ever, but for now it was safer where it was. She looked around. What should she do? What could she do? An idea came to her.
“Set a thief,” she murmured, and went to find Chester.
He was where she’d left him, sitting in the chair, surrounded by maps, his eyes closed.
“Nilda?” he asked, then opened an eye. “Yep. I thought it was you. You have this firm walk. As if you’re determined to get somewhere, and the ground better play along or get out of the—”
“We have a problem,” she interrupted.
“Another one?”
“A big one,” she said. “We’re missing food from the storeroom. A lot of food.”
“How much?”
“Almost all of it. At best there’s three days left. More likely it’s two. This is the list of everything that’s come in and meant to have gone into the stores. Most of it came from Kirkman House. You see here, at the end, that’s what’s actually there. There’s a few bags of rice. A dozen tins. Some sugar. Not much else.”
He took the list and glanced at it. “Well, it doesn’t look good. But does it matter? We’ve got all that stuff from the—”
“Chester, Listen! I’m saying it’s been stolen!”
He looked down the list again. “Biscuits, icing sugar, nuts… it’s stuff people would have snacked on. Did anyone tell them not to?”
“Two things. First, they left the empty boxes in there. I mean, surely you can’t be saying that people got peckish, went in, found the place nearly empty, and didn’t say anything.”
“Well, perhaps it’s—”
“Second,” she interrupted. “Forgetting the fact that no one snacks on icing sugar, we’re missing at least twenty-five kilos of rice. Who eats raw rice?”
Chester glanced at the list again. “You can’t eat raw rice. And you can’t cook it without people knowing. Are you sure it was ever here?”
“Stewart says the list was written when they arrived from Kirkman House. You see here, that’s the entry for the rice. That’s Hana’s handwriting.”
&n
bsp; “So it almost certainly was put in there. Could an empty box have been put in there and marked as full? No,” he said, answering his own question before Nilda could. “One box, sure. Two, maybe, but not all of them. Alright, so someone took it. They couldn’t have eaten it all, so it’s been hidden. Not a bad idea that, the empty boxes. I take it these entries at the bottom are the things found more recently? And that food was actually there, right? And it was all near the door?”
“Yes. Exactly,” she said.
“So we’re dealing with a professional.”
“McInery?”
“No. I don’t think so,” he said. She was about to ask how he could be so sure when he continued. “She’d have added rocks to the empty boxes for that extra layer of authenticity. No, it’s not her kind of crime. Where’s the profit in it? Besides, she wouldn't have had the opportunity since she came back from the museum. Nor would Tuck, Jay, or the others.”
“If not her, then who?”
“Well, I suppose Stewart is the obvious suspect.”
“I honestly can’t believe he would. Not with his obsession about calories and people not going hungry.”
“He’s had the opportunity, and you’ve just given him motive. Perhaps he’s been hiding it deliberately.”
“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “He hasn’t got enough neurons firing in the right direction to manage something that subtle.”
“Perhaps not,” Chester said, unconvinced. “Okay, so not him. I’d say that leaves you as the prime suspect, squirrelling away food to keep your son from starving like you did back in Penrith, except I know you’ve not had the time either. And that leaves pretty much everyone else.”
“That doesn’t help. But if they weren’t eating it, why would anyone steal the supplies?”
“Either they’re doing it out of pre-emptive self-preservation, or so they can play the hero when we run out. Whichever it is, how much danger are you in?”
“You mean that we’ve got the food from the mansion, and you’ll soon be back with a boat laden with supplies? What if it keeps happening? What if it all goes missing during the depths of winter when no boat can reach us? What if you don’t make it to Wales, what then?”
“Yeah, okay. You know, there’s someone else who we can be certain didn’t do it. Styles. Our very own Detective Inspector. This should be right up his alley.”
“And this is what you call safety, is it?” Styles snapped. “A toxic river and no fresh food, except it turns out there’s no food at all because you’ve got a thief in your midst. Do the people in Wales even exist?”
“They do,” Chester said.
“Frankly, I’ll believe it when I’m standing on the deck of a boat waving goodbye to this place.”
“Look, Inspector,” Chester growled. “You can complain all you like, but the children are safer here than in Kent. And it’ll be easier to get them out by boat when it comes.”
“And it won’t until you leave,” Styles said. “And when is that going to be?”
“When we’ve got to the bottom of this,” Nilda said. “There’s a thief here. I’m certain of that. Or,” she added, “perhaps it’s someone spun mad by the outbreak now driven to hide and hoard food. It doesn’t matter which. If we’d not gone down to that farm, if Chester had gone north to get help from Anglesey, we’d have starved before it arrived.”
“Then go to Anglesey, see if they can bring some law and order to this place,” Styles snapped.
“We don’t need to go quite that far,” Chester said. “Not when we’ve got you here, Detective Inspector.”
“Right,” Styles breathed out. “Yeah, okay. Who are the suspects?”
“There’s Stewart,” Chester said.
“The cook?” Styles asked.
“If it was him, he doesn’t know he’s doing it,” Nilda said. “He’s not… well, he’s been pretty twisted by all that’s happened since the event.”
“He could have done it though?
“He’s obsessed with food. Making sure there’s enough of it,” Chester said.
“But everyone’s obsessed with that,” Nilda said.
“He’s a cook. He has access,” the Inspector said. “Right?”
“Yes,” Nilda allowed.
“There you are then. He probably did it.”
“Or possibly didn’t,” Nilda said. “But how do we prove it?”
“I don’t see that as my problem,” Styles said. “I’ll take the children and our food, and we’ll take over one wing of this place. We’ll hand out the supplies one day at a time until you come back with that boat.”
“Your food is still mostly outside the walls,” Chester said. “Even if it was inside, you can’t stop us from taking it.”
“I see. It’s like that, is it?”
“And this is why we need to catch that thief. Look at us. Here. Now.” Nilda sighed. “Okay. So how do we find out who actually did it? What about fingerprints? They put the boxes back, so whichever set is on every box has to be the thief’s.”
“Possibly. I suppose so. But we don’t have a kit,” Styles said.
“Any fine powder will do,” Chester said. “You must have been at least one crime scene where you ran out.”
“I worked Special Branch, not robbery,” Styles said.
“Special Branch? With the MET?” Chester asked.
“Out of Scotland Yard,” Styles said.
“For how long?” Chester asked.
“For the last five years.”
“I see.” He stood up. “You’re not police.”
“What do you mean?”
“N’ah, you see, I thought I didn’t recognise you. On its own it doesn’t add up to much, but you’re not like any rozzer I’ve ever met. And Special Branch? You must have got that from the telly.”
“What do you mean?” Nilda asked.
“They rebranded it as Counter Terrorism at the beginning of the century,” Chester said. “So who are you?”
“Fine. I’m not police. I was underground with a bunch of screaming children whilst some battleship was bombarding us. Being a figure of authority was a comfort to them. How was I supposed to know that I’d end up stuck with them? The lie didn’t matter. Of course it didn’t. I mean, under what possible circumstances could it matter? And how does it matter now, since I’m clearly not your thief?”
“Yeah, but out of all the professions you could have chosen, why police?” Chester asked. “After what they did—”
“He’s right. It doesn’t matter,” Nilda said. “We’re all entitled to reinvent ourselves. But since everyone else actually thinks you’re a detective, we might as well let the lie stand. It could be useful, though it doesn’t get us any closer to finding out who did it.”
“DNA’s out. So is CCTV,” Styles said, clearly eager to move the conversation along. “I suppose you could do fingerprinting. I mean, how hard can it actually be? But you’d need to take everyone’s prints. And I guess the best way of doing that is when you interrogate them. But have you thought about what will happen when you start doing that? As soon as you announce there’s a thief here, people will pick out their own favourite suspect, and those suspicions will linger long after you find out who did it.”
“The man’s got a point,” Chester said. “We could say that this is a stock error. A miscalculation, and because of it we’re going to have to keep far tighter track of food from now on. Keep it under lock and key, and give fewer people access. And make sure those are people you know you can trust.”
“No,” Nilda said. “If we can’t find the thief, then I think I have a better long-term solution, but we shouldn’t give up. Chester, how would you do it?”
“Steal it, you mean? Well, getting it out of the stock room isn’t hard. The difficult part is moving it to somewhere it won’t be found.”
“How do you know that?” Styles asked.
“I’ve got a lot of experience with law enforcement,” Chester said.
“So you t
hink it’ll be hidden in the castle?” Nilda asked.
“I doubt it,” Chester said. “You have to assume that Fogerty knows every tunnel and secret passageway. There’s too great a chance he’d stumble over it. If he did, then everything would be discovered. So, if I was hiding it inside, I’d have to kill the old soldier. Since he’s still alive, I’d say the food was outside.”
“Surely we’d have noticed someone going out with a full bag,” Nilda said.
“Clearly not,” Chester said. “But if it was me, I’d move it at night.”
“Tuck sleeps on that tower, she’d have seen.”
“Only if she was awake and only if our thief went over that section of wall. And why should they? You know, the more I think about it, the more that makes sense. Why is it that there are more undead around in the mornings than in the evenings? They must hear something at night.”
“Well, where outside could they be stashing the food?” Styles asked.
“It could be anywhere,” Chester said. “A restaurant, an office, one of the churches, or anyplace really, but wherever it is, it won’t be far. Somewhere you can walk to from the castle, get inside, and then get back, quickly. It’ll take a while to find it, and we want this over with tonight. We’ll have to lay a trap and that’ll be simple enough, but you’re right, when people are told, they’ll need proof. Something that will allow them to believe it’s over, that the thief is caught and it won’t happen again. Fingerprinting might be a bit beyond us, but I think we can manage CCTV.”
First, they enlisted the help of Jay and Tuck. When they told them what had happened, Jay didn’t want to believe it. Tuck didn’t seem surprised.
After the evening meal, Jay stood up to propose that due to their suddenly increased numbers, any personal stashes of food should be handed in to be added to the stores. He also suggested that as soon as they gathered the food from outside, they should conduct a more thorough inventory. Then they should bottle, pickle, or smoke as much as they could. When the ship from Anglesey arrived, they could then trade for supplies, even if it was only with a token gesture.
Surviving The Evacuation (Book 6): Harvest Page 20
