The conversation turned to the fast moving situation for all parties, and after Joanie had introduced herself and brought everyone up to speed with her illness and subsequent recovery, the others delivered their own news.
Doctor John was delighted to announce that he had secured a position in the surgery department in the main British hospital, and that his wife and children would join him upstairs in his new flat within a week – all courtesy of Dame Ann Fletcher.
Patric had to agree that Dame Ann had also done them proud, but expressed reservations about the motives behind her benevolence.
Brady joined in at this stage and announced that he had a new job and would be on the road for the next month working for UKRA – again all due to the assistance of Dame Ann Fletcher. However, he also voiced misgivings regarding her altruism. He revealed that he had once been married to Dame Ann, and knew her very well. He had also learned a great deal about her since arriving in Holland after escaping the snow! He did not however, reveal that Chloe was his daughter, giving her the slightest of glances to warn her.
Even Ross Bryant had to admit that Dame Ann was the source of his current success and status. He was working directly for her, but did not disclose his connection to Brady. However, he did comment that Dame Ann appeared to have a ruthless streak bordering on callousness.
Chloe spoke for the first time at this point.
‘I suppose you are all aware that Dame Ann is my mother – and I know her very, very well. I believe it's time to stop pussy-footing around. I believe that we are all friends in this room and some straight talking is required.
She is cold-blooded, selfish, vicious and has absolutely no conscience.
She will always do what she must to achieve her aims. She will stop at nothing and my guess is that she is up to something – something incredibly malevolent.
I know that she is the deputy Prime Minister and all that, but she is being far too generous to people she barely knows. I believe it's time for someone to find out just what that might be.’
At this juncture, Ross broke in:
‘Patric, is this flat electronically secure?’
‘Oh shit,’ exclaimed Chloe, ‘I never thought of that!’
Patric immediately put their fears to rest.
‘Absolutely. I have a friend who cleared it on the first day I moved in. There’s nothing. Obviously, I'm not important or dangerous enough to be bugged.’
‘Thank God for that,’ chimed in Joanie.
Ross took up Chloe’s gauntlet.
‘There are seven of us in here and three of us, John, Chris and Joanie are not really in a position to affect matters – directly. Myself, Chloe, Andy and Patric are all closely involved with Dame Ann, and perhaps it's time that we laid our cards on the table – without the other three being present.’
Patric tended to agree.
‘You are absolutely correct Ross. If what Chloe says is only half true, then perhaps we are dealing with a very dangerous woman who is on the verge of doing irreparable damage to the nation.’
Brady was cautious in his response to the upsurge of anti-Fletcherism.
‘It's going to be very difficult to gain access to information pertaining to any potential misconduct. We all have access to her, but what does she ever tell us – lies and disinformation! I believe the key to all of this is Chloe. If she could worm her way into Ann’s confidence, then perhaps we might gain a clue to her nefarious activities – if any.’
He turned to his daughter:
‘Chloe, you say that your mother has inferred that she might fix you up with some work. Could you not request that you work with her, as a sort of super-personal personal assistant? She might well fall for that, if she believes that she can keep you close and therefore control you. What do you say?’
Chloe shrugged.
‘You might be right. She definitely wants me to be closer to her and if I pretended that I was ‘really interested’ in her work she might take me on. I reckon it's worth a try. What do you other’s think?’
There was a general nodding of heads but only Ross spoke.
‘You’d need to be very careful Chloe. If she gets the merest whiff of treachery, I think she’d throw even you to the wolves. By all means proceed – but proceed with extreme caution.’
The others concurred with Ross and the evening continued with general anecdotes concerning Ann Fletcher and theories to the possible schemes she may be plotting.
The only reticent party was Doctor John. He had little to say and was totally unconvinced by the conspiracy theory. Therefore, he kept his own counsel and as the party broke up, he returned to his apartment confused and uncertain as to how to proceed.
He spent a very disturbed night.
Meanwhile, Ross, Brady and Patric returned to Brady’s flat and talked until the wee small hours.
By the time they had finished, each was convinced that Ann Fletcher was up to no good and would liaise accordingly. They arranged a method of clandestine communication and agreed to keep alert and in touch.
However, they hadn’t bargained for the unexpected, and the other interested third parties who had yet to play their cards.
Day 38
Tuesday 21st January – 1200
General Update
Sir Ian James had been in the United States since the previous Friday, and had been overwhelmed with meetings, discussions, seminars and fund-raising.
He was close to complete physical and mental exhaustion.
A doctor had been called to his hotel suite, and prescribed a forty-eight hour break from all activity. Sir Ian was dosed up with sleeping pills and took to his bed. Before he crashed out into the oblivion he craved, he phoned Ann Fletcher and formally handed over the reins of government until midnight on Thursday the twenty-third. Naturally, she was elated – not only could she make vital and life-changing decisions within UKRA – her path to success with Operation Auric became cleared of any possible interference. Sir Ian had asked for an update, and so she instructed Richard Castle to e-mail a sanitised version of the plan – which she edited before secure transmission - to New York.
Ann correctly surmised that Ian James was at the end of his rope. He was a sincerely moral and compassionate being, and the events in the UK had taken its toll on his inner soul. He couldn’t reconcile the number of deaths, the destruction and the national grief – and most of all he couldn’t visualise a future for the UK which presented any hope or optimism. All he could envisage was despair, misery and loss.
As it happened, neither could Ann, which is why she had devised Operation Auric in the first place.
***
The UK remained in the grip of a massive high-pressure weather system, which allowed the rescue services to continue the search for survivors.
Typically, all they encountered was death and destruction.
The psychological toll on these brave souls was growing daily.
All but a few had received counselling in order to try to come to terms with the awful conditions they came across on a daily basis. Rotation of these aircrews, doctors, nurses and security forces was mandatory after three days, when a new shift would take over the terrible task of flying back and forth over their homeland.
Had this really ever been a green and pleasant land?
It certainly wasn’t now.
Great Britain had become a giant flooded rubbish tip, interspersed with the corpses of human and animal life.
Every now and then, a feeble, starving wretch would be plucked to safety from a high-rise block or a town centre sky-scraper, but mostly the landscape was desolate and uninhabited.
The snow continued to melt, and the flooding continued its unremitting flow towards the sea. Immense lakes began to form with furniture and rotting vegetation floating aimlessly amongst the dead bodies.
Ann Fletcher had reviewed the situation with senior military personnel and the Cabinet minister responsible for S & R. They had already decided to ramp-down the rescue op
eration and concentrate on body recovery and disposal. The various designated locations around the UK were kept very busy with deliveries of bodies picked up by the trawlers as they cascaded into the seas around Britain and Ireland. They chose an additional thirty mass burial sites, and the transfer of men and machinery was in progress. Hospital ships, quickly becoming redundant were converted back into the ferries and cruise ships they once were and re-stationed offshore at each burial location. They provided accommodation, food and off-duty amusement for the unfortunates involved with the mass interment. Some of the workers were volunteers from the transit camps, and some were paid labourers from all over Europe. Clearly, it was a difficult and unsavoury job, and this presented an opportunity for making money. Wages were high and there was no shortage of applicants.
The list of the dead grew steadily and the GB News published names on a daily basis. This provided closure for many in the transit camps and those now living in their adopted countries around the world.
Many had now realised that returning to the UK in their own lifetimes was extremely unlikely, and that any relatives not already rescued were probably dead.
The Resettlement Questionnaire was distributed widely and could also be accessed online across the globe. Those UK and Irish citizens not in Europe were offered the same opportunity to resettle, and were also presented with the same alternatives.
Unsurprisingly, the impatience of the French and German populace grew daily. Although the disaster was only five weeks old, many mainland citizens began to lobby their own domestic politicians in an attempt to rid themselves of itinerant Brits.
One of Ann Fletcher’s main tasks was talking to the leaders of the central European countries in an attempt to buy time. Her personal deadline was mid-February, and she employed every tactic in her armoury to stall and delay any precipitous action.
Mainly though, she lied.
***
Northern Ireland had suffered less than the mainland, in relative terms. The eastern side was devastated. From Londonderry through Portadown to Newry and everything east of that line, including Belfast, had borne the full brunt of the storm. It was a similar story in the South. From Sligo in the north-west to Waterford in the south-east, Eire had also endured appalling weather and loss of human and animal life.
However, the main advantage once the snow had stopped was that most of western Eire was essentially untouched. And now, apart from areas of localised flooding, rescue operations could be based on dry land, and refugees could be rehoused with their compatriots. The Irish didn’t have the same set of international relations issues which the British were now forced to tolerate.
The Irish population in the west happily and willingly supported, housed and fed their fellows from the east – those who had survived of course.
In the initial stages of the storm many thousands had fled west on the advice of their government and TV stations. Most of these were now billeted in family homes, hotels and boarding houses.
However, many were trapped by the appalling weather conditions on the eastern side and perished.
Dublin and Belfast were virtually destroyed by the weather and by the twenty-first of January, flooding was finishing the job of complete annihilation. British and European relief workers were stationed in Ireland as soon as the snow abated, and their job was a damned sight easier than their counterparts on ships and in aircraft over the UK.
Cork and Galway had survived unscathed, and it was decided to allow the Irish to resume control of their own affairs, and an interim government was invested in Limerick. Funds were diverted from the main disaster relief pot, and Irish holidaymakers trapped in German transit camps were slowly being repatriated. A no-go area in the eastern sector was designated, and formally assigned as a national gravesite. Security forces guarded the border between habitable and inhabitable areas in an effort to protect the dignity of the dead, and to preserve assets that the Irish people might need in the future.
Looting would not be tolerated. The control of unauthorised shipping attempting to land in Ireland was strict and uncompromising.
Consequently, the Irish government was able to make solid and realistic plans for the rebirth of their nation. They had a viable platform from which to launch a new Ireland.
And the most pleasing and refreshing aspect was that both North and South worked together in their grief, and the long struggle for survival.
The old borders and enmities had melted with the snow.
***
Siobhan Baxter lived in Greystones, just south of Dublin, and was off sick from her job as a teacher when the snow started.
She was slim, attractive, with a shock of red hair, in her late twenties and lived alone in a small terraced house in the centre of town. Her family lived in Cork and she had move to Greystones because her aunt, who was headmistress of a local junior school, let it be known that a vacancy would be arising after the summer holidays. Her present Year Six teacher was unexpectedly pregnant, and had decided to give up the profession at very short notice to care for the child full time.
Siobhan moved to Greystones in the summer holidays, rented the small house, undertook the formal interviews, and was appointed in late August. She had started teaching at the beginning of the new term in September, and all parties were justifiably satisfied. Work was hard to come by in Ireland, so Siobhan’s aunt had done her a very good turn. Conversely, the headmistress had no need to endure the full recruitment process, which would not have been complete in time for the start of the Autumn term.
Unfortunately, in early December, Siobhan caught a nasty head cold from one of the children, which turned into severe bronchitis. As a result, on the fifteenth of December she lay in her bed, coughing and spluttering, and dosed up to eyeballs with antibiotics. Her only companion was a well-bred Abyssinian cat, which had been her constant companion since she was given him by her parents three Christmases before.
Siobhan struggled up and down the stairs twice a day to fetch hot drinks and food for herself and Selassie the cat, and to use the loo as required. Apart from that, she watched the television that she had set up in the bedroom and snuggled up with the cat. Her aunt called in once or twice to check on her progress and to drop off some shopping, but apart from that, she had no other human contact.
When the Prime Minister of England appeared on the TV, shortly followed by the Taoiseach, she gasped in disbelief. The snow was falling quite heavily outside, and when she eventually gathered the strength to shuffle to the window on that Tuesday afternoon, a full-scale blizzard was in progress.
Her antibiotics were running low, and for some reason were not solving her bronchial problems. She telephoned to the doctor’s surgery, only to be told by an automated message that it was now closed indefinitely, and that the doctors could not possibly make home visits as conditions were far too severe.
In short, by that Tuesday evening, Siobhan was on her own with only Selassie, the Abyssinian cat for company. She didn’t have the physical strength to try all the good things the TV pundits were advising, like filling up baths with drinking water and cooking food before the power failed. She didn’t really know the next door neighbours yet, and could hear no evidence that they were actually in residence.
She was weak, tired and frightened. She had phoned and talked to her parents the night before, but could make no contact today. Her i-phone wasn’t functioning, and on Wednesday morning the electricity failed.
The central heating went off, as did her immersion water heater and the TV. The phone couldn’t work and the internet had crashed. The snow thrashed against her bedroom window as the room got colder and colder. She had managed to carry up a supply of bread, biscuits and other foods which didn’t need cooking, plus cans of coke and beer she had in the fridge. She had only one bottle of carbonated water.
Cat food had run out, so Selassie was obliged to pick at dried biscuits and cold baked beans. He wasn’t keen and became irritable and distant. She had lost her best frien
d.
By Thursday her bronchitis was so bad that she could hardly take breath and after one particularly vehement bout of coughing, she tumbled out of bed and crashed onto the bedroom floor, catching the side of her head on the bedside table as she went down. She was stunned and disoriented and unable to lift herself back into bed, so she lay there, panting and wheezing until after about an hour, she fell asleep.
By Friday morning she was dead.
Hypothermia.
By Sunday morning, Selassie rewarded his mistress for years of love and attention by eating her face.
***
On the twenty-eighth of January shipping was anchored off Greystones, acting as a focal point for the search for and recovery of the town’s corpses.
Of a population of approximately fifteen thousand, around fifteen hundred bodies were recovered from the harbour. Of the remainder, they found less than three thousand corpses. The authorities were struggling to make sense of the numbers.
And like many of the townspeople who died in their homes of hypothermia, starvation and dehydration, the body of Siobhan Baxter was nowhere to be seen.
Not a trace of her was ever found.
Day 39
Wednesday 22nd January – 2000
Cheltenham, England and Brussels
Dame Ann Fletcher sat at her oversized antique mahogany desk, sifting through the outstanding issues brought up at the Cabinet meeting which had just concluded. She was deep in thought when her PA, Eleanor, buzzed through.
Ann was irritated by the disturbance to her train of thought.
‘Eleanor, I said no interruptions until 9pm. Can't you understand the simplest of instructions?’
‘Dame Ann, I'm sorry, but there is a lady here to see you,’ Eleanor stated firmly, ignoring the barb.
‘Eleanor, did you hear what I said?’ Ann’s voice was rising in anger.
‘Yes, ma'am, I heard – but you will want to see this lady – I am certain.’
Dame Ann was losing her temper.
‘Eleanor, I don’t care if it's the Queen of bloody England. No interruptions!’
Snow! The Series [Books 1-4] Page 91
