Donald asked some questions too.
Sarah-Kelly? Well, Rosa had a shock for him.
“Our Skay is a party girl; a paid-up and very active member of the National Party.”
Donald feigned complete surprise. The rest of them rolled their eyes and groaned. Evidently, they had borne the rhetoric and exhortations of a true believer with a patience only family will give.
“Well, yesterday our Sarah-Kelly set off for the National Party annual conference in Brent Cross. Or so she said, we think it’s just a bonking bonanza. Still, she’s a big girl. She can definitely look after herself.”
They all laughed at that. Rosa eyed Donald with a certain speculation, notwithstanding his wedding ring. Rosa said Skay ought to be back by dinner time. Privately Donald cussed at this. He was not hanging around North Kensington basin until evening. His plan was to proceed out to Brent Cross to attend the National Party conference and get back inside the Central Enclave before nightfall.
This was of course an illicit ‘extension’ to the trip. Wingfield would blow a fuse if he ever learned about it. He had stated in the most emphatic terms that Donald must not, under any circumstances, explore beyond North Kensington basin. He had far too many Krossington secrets in his head to risk being taken for ransom.
However, there was no easy way for Donald to escape the deep hospitality of the Newman family. Rosa offered to give a tour of the business. It would have been downright rude to refuse, so he accepted. He would scrape her for knowledge to bulk out the report for Wingfield.
She started at the wharf. He became increasingly curious about how the barging business worked. How did these barges move? Who maintained the waterways? What about Naclaski and Frite? How did they agree carriage rates? He pricked up his ears on learning the canal network all over Britain was essentially an ultramarine operation. The ultras occupied and operated the whole network. The barges were towed by the sweat of Night and Fog slaves and the Ultramarine Guild took the gold.
“The more I learn about the ultramarines, the more I see them as a scam of staggering scale,” he said. In saying this, he was intimidated by the sheer massiveness of the system that had swallowed brother Lawrence.
“They’re no worse than the sovereigns: they both live off the backs of slaves,” Rosa said, pointedly. Donald certainly was not going to argue with that. “What are folk like you and I supposed to do about it? We keep our heads down and survive.”
She showed him the stock in the warehouses. It was no modest enterprise. Donald estimated the area under cover to be at least an acre. Most of the space was taken up with grain, potatoes, onions and other agricultural basics brought in from the sovereign lands. A small bay was reserved for industrial goods like castings and ingots of copper.
“This is our top-selling stock,” she said, showing him the last bay, which amounted to about a third of the total area. “Bartram reckons we make seven in ten ounces of profit from these Value System lines.”
She explained the Value System was owned by the flamboyant businessman with the flying boat.
“He should be here this afternoon—you’ll like him, he’s a really interesting and intelligent guy. He can stand here on a clear night and name every star and constipation—oops! You’ll have to excuse me, I meant consolation. He can even point out things we can’t see but he knows are there from his education.
“His big lines are leather goods. There’s ‘The Captain’s Best’, that’s working boots, aprons, weatherproof overalls, gloves and that kind of thing. Then here we have his ‘Style Captain’ line. That’s the kind of thing a gent like you might want: leather raincoats and jackets, ladies’ and gents’ shoes, leather trousers and helmets for riding motorbikes. And finally here we have his line in bottled meats, ‘The Captain’s Table’.”
“These are really excellent boots,” Donald said, turning one over to see “The Captain’s Best” logo stamped on the sole. Now he understood where Sarah-Kelly had got her distinctive boots from. “Look at how smooth and supple the leather is.”
“Go ahead and have a pair. What size are you? About 10? Try these.”
She had a good eye. The boots fitted in soothing relief to the rough old hiking boots Donald had bought at an Oxford flea market back in his student days. His feet luxuriated within the folds of soft leather.
“How much do they cost?”
“Forget it, Donald, we wear them ourselves.”
“Absolutely beautiful leather. Excellent stitching too.”
“Why not take a nice pair of gloves for your wife?”
“She’s got pairs enough as it is.”
Rosa must have caught a certain tone in his voice as she did not press the point.
“Seemingly it took generations—going back even before the Glorious Resolution—to create a special breed of pig with just the right hide. Our customers love all this Value System stuff.”
In taking in the rank upon rank of crates stacked almost to the rafters with The Captain’s Best, Style Captain and The Captain’s Table, Donald’s critical eye started to question. This Value System must be a major operation employing hundreds or even thousands of people.
“In which of the industrial asylums is this Value System found?” he asked.
“Oh, I can’t tell you that, it’s a trade secret.” After a pause, Rosa added: “It isn’t anywhere near London. Jakub knew something about it, only he never let on—Jakub was Bartram and Sarah-Kelly’s dad. He died about five years ago.” Donald sensed she had more to say. When she held her silence, he tried to coach her.
“Sarah-Kelly told me about Jakub—my own father died of cancer recently, that’s why she mentioned it.”
“I’m so sorry... Well, let’s get back out to the sunshine.”
It was his impression that talk of the Value System had stirred in Rosa’s mind thoughts she normally kept buried. She was distracted as they stood on the quay, at a loss for what to do next.
“You say this flying gentleman of the Value System will be here this afternoon?”
“I suppose so.”
Donald pulled his watch from an inside pocket—evidently Rolex wristwatches worth 145 ounces were not worn by off-duty servants—and was dismayed to see it was half past eleven. The hours had flowed easily during the tour, damn it. Getting up to Brent Cross and then back to meet this Value System character was going to be a tight squeeze. Donald suspected the Value System was an ultramarine operation. If not, its owner must be intimate with the ultramarines, due to their monopoly over the transport system. The owner might help to trace Lawrence.
Rosa spoke, interrupting his thoughts.
“Brent Cross is right that way. But they couldn’t have hit it. They wouldn’t dare.”
She was staring at the far smoke, still creeping aloft and arcing over to disperse for miles downwind. This was the smoke caused by the gunfire from Ladbroke fort. Donald froze as the implication sank in: for the fires to have lasted so long, the shells must have hit something large. Suppose the glories had shelled the National Party conference?
Rosa hugged herself. “I wish Bartram were here.”
“I’m going up to Brent Cross to get Sarah-Kelly.”
Rosa was genuinely startled by this idea.
“Are you sure you know what you’re getting in to? It’s four miles to Brent Cross and none of it’s friendly.”
Donald just shrugged.
“I’ve got artillery.”
“I’ll send Bill and Dave with you—you’ll need more than artillery, believe me.”
Donald did not want company. However, events now passed from his control. There came a raucous yell from the basin. He shaded his eyes and saw three barges poling in towards the wharf. At the bows of the lead barge was a sturdy man with long-arms and wide-hips, rather like a badger standing up.
“Bartram!” called Rosa.
“There you are… and who’s that? Caught you, have I?”
Rosa lau
ghed and gave Donald a pat.
“This is—”
“Get Bill, Dave and Cyrus, we’re going up to Brent Cross.”
“What for?”
“The dogs shelled it this morning. We saw it from the inn at Park Royal. The shells went straight into the asylum.”
“Oh Christ,” said Rosa.
Chapter 10
The turnpike was a civilized place. Donald could not understand Rosa’s concerns. It was a wide way of well-beaten, smooth gravel between high brick walls that formed the frontiers of petty domains. The impression was of a drained canal. The only glitch was an overweight woman collapsed in the first quarter mile. Due to her veil, Donald had no idea of her age or whether she was alive or not. Bartram and his brothers ignored her, so Donald did the same, noting a couple of lammergeiers perched on the nearest wall waiting to feed. Of wagon traffic there was little. They overtook a labouring team of about twenty Night and Fog hauling a limousine, presumably taking it out to Brent Cross for its annual service. Donald recognised it as belonging to a member of his inn of court, a successful but supercilious character who specialised in probate. His limousine was distinctive in having six wheels and not one, but two, chimney stacks, features of which he was inordinately proud. Bartram led the party in a wide berth to avoid tempting the driver to take a casual lash at them with his whip.
The turnpike narrowed at the Old Dudden Bridge, which crossed an overgrown gully that had been a railway line in the Public Era. From there the land gently sloped down across a couple of miles towards Brent Cross. The view was superficially charming; autumn-tattered woods, towering redwood groves—presumably too distant from sovereign privacy to challenge Naclaski—and brick castles of gangsters spiked with turrets streaming banners. In contrast, Brent Cross asylum was a jammed-up heap of immense sheds like beached wrecks, all bound together with rusty gantries. Chimneys clustered like quills, belching dark smoke. Amongst this foul industry were dinky terracotta rooftops, folded and crushed together as if they had been swept up by a giant. The damage from the shelling appeared trivial at this distance. There were just a few glimmers of fire here and there. As they closed on Brent Cross asylum, the harm done became more disturbing. The shells had blasted craters in the jostle of workers’ terraces. Tiny houses were blown in half, clothes and beds hung out like entrails. Others had the roofs blasted off leaving bedrooms open to the blue sky.
He saw vultures on the turnpike ahead, pecking and tugging at bundles, shoving their heads deep inside and withdrawing greasy with gore. The first whiff reached him…
“It’s a bad day,” called Bartram. He waved a ball peen hammer. “Make them respect!”
Donald squeezed his nose shut with one hand and kept the Webley at the ready in his pocket. Ahead was a jam of wagons, amongst which milled gaunt, empty-faced people towing huddles of kids. To both sides of the turnpike dead bodies lay in banks. Vultures strutted about, men swore and kicked at them, the vultures jumped out of harm’s way and then nipped back in for a quick lunge. The racket was unlike anything Donald had experienced. The ultramarine drivers on the wagons yelled and lashed to all sides with their whips, whilst their side-kicks jabbed with sawn-off shotguns. Children wailed. Men howled. Mothers cried and screamed. He saw one woman clubbed in the face with a sawn-off and stagger away pouring blood from a broken nose. Bartram exploded into a terrifying war cry, whirling the ball peen hammer, hacking at two young men who failed to leap aside.
“Out of the way! Riff-raff and sub-humanity!” Sprays of saliva flew from his mouth. The Newman troop dove in through the aimless mass. Donald guessed this was pooled surplus from the public drains. It fascinated more than scared him. Why did it not use its great number? But it did not. Some of it had given up and sat with the banks of dead, faces in hands. The same expression was in all their eyes, of a pained consternation. In his tourism, he nearly got lost off the back of the group and run down by a team of Night and Fog haulers. The driver cursed him and took a snap with his whip, which Donald dodged. To deter a second try, he glared and waved the Webley.
The Brent Cross customs barrier was manned by giants in leather and bamboo armour. They let the whole group through on Bartram’s passport, after which the Newmans clustered to take stock. None commented on the melée they had just broken through. They were standing at one end of a vast gravel plaza, surrounded by towering chimneys. Rumbles and tremors shook the air. The top end of the plaza was filled by a multitude of marquee tents and advertising banners. The largest billboard of all pictured a beaming young man under the caption: “Get spayed and get paid!” It had been disfigured by graffiti: “Get paid and get laid!” The place swirled with people. More decanted from the labyrinth of streets leading into the workers’ districts. These streets were like ravines, countless, creating the impression of a sponge. Apart from the brown haze overhead, there was nothing to indicate artillery shells had landed nearby and killed people.
“If we find the National Party conference, we find her,” Donald said.
“It could be fucking anywhere, including inside one of these sheds Some of the factories have become quite close to the nationalists; they can smell who’s going to win.” Bartram turned to Donald. “You’d better keep that pretty townie accent to yourself here.”
It did not do to loiter on this plaza. An ultramarine driver yelled at them to get out of the way. Then they were almost flattened by a gang carrying planks between them, running towards the area of houses from which the smoke was rising.
“Let’s follow them,” said Bartram. They dived into one of the ravines amongst the toy houses, passing doorways leading straight into little kitchens full of children and steam. They tripped over more children in the shadows under the overhanging upper floors and the parades of washing. They crossed little squares where locals queued for water and the common latrines. At one point they had to press their backs to the wall to allow an open ‘honey wagon’ of sewage to pass the other way, lurching horribly. A burned-hair reek intensified. They rounded a sharp corner and were there, looking across a crater, surrounded by the guts of blown-open houses. The gang set to work loading the planks with what Donald at first thought was clothing but then saw were body parts wrapped in shreds of blanket, sacking and anything else that came to hand. The dark grease gleaming off the wall beside him was blood. Arms, feet, whole legs, a head and shoulders with the lungs hanging out, the bottom half of a baby… Donald swung away, his eyes shut, sobbing with horror. He felt an arm around his shoulders and Bartram said, in a gentle voice:
“Come on mate, let’s do what we can.”
A man in a blue boiler suit was directing the salvage, trying to recognise which parts belonged to whom. He spoke matter of factly: they go with Josh (a pair of little feet still laced into sandals), I think that’s Betty Rae (an arm with some shoulder), no idea (some charred ribs) put ‘em with the lost souls. Donald and Bartram searched down in the crater. Donald found some fingers, splinters of bone, a bottom jaw taken off clean with the tongue and several shards of brutally torn steel. Bartram informed him these were fragments of artillery shells, known as shrapnel. Now it was clear how bodies got sliced to pieces and flung in all directions.
The crater was deeper than Donald was tall, covering roughly the area of a squash court. Beyond that was a greater extent blasted flat, then an outer fringe of buildings with only damage to the upper floors. In such a compressed mass of habitation, he guessed at least ten families had been wiped out by this one shell. From what he gathered listening, at least a dozen shells had hit the asylum. There were bitter jokes that not one had hit a factory. Gold kisses gold, how fucking typical, were common reactions. Donald helped carry the remains out to the plaza and up towards the tents and stalls of the market at the top end.
They worked their way to the front of a silent crowd beside one of the marquee tents. Human remains had been laid out over an area the size of a gymnasium. The gang put down their load of pieces at the edge and made the are
a a little bigger. Donald stared at it all, at a naked child, headless, scorched like grilled meat, a pregnant women, her body ruptured by blast so that the head of the foetus showed. A heap of guts, brains hanging out—these were normal. Men and women roamed amongst the remains, trying to keep the seagulls off, without much success. A siren wound up through the scales behind him. Then another and another, until there was wailing all around. Gouts of workers in coloured overalls poured from the gates around the plaza and flowed up towards the marquee tent, swelling into such a mass as Donald, who was tall enough to see across it, could scarcely believe. The crowd was like a restless lake. Currents flowed in to look at the remains and then swirled back out to the middle. From talk around him, he learned that the Saturday morning shift had run as usual—these were workers released for the afternoon. All his senses told him that he, as a ‘toff’, would get a rough time if he opened his mouth. They might even kill him. The pistols inside his raincoat would not hold off a mob. A fury was building. Someone shouted “Death to the dogs!”, a roar echoed off the chimneys. “Death to the sovereigns!”, another roar. At school, he had read about masses like this during the Glorious Resolution. They became human storms, tearing whole cities apart. He thought about Sarah-Kelly. Attractive young women would be gang-raped.
“People of Brent Cross,” spoke a voice from the air. The crowd froze, silent, mystified, looking around at the clouds and the surrounding factories as if one of them had spoken. “My name is Vasco Banner, I am the leader of the National Party.”
Where the crowd washed against the end of the marquee tent, a pole lifted into view carrying a flag. It was an orange circle on a forest green background. Donald easily recognised the close-cropped white hair and lean form of Vasco Banner balancing on the shoulders of two men, using the flag pole to brace himself. The voice, Donald could now see, came from a loud speaker of the same tuba shape as used by the glory troopers at Ladbroke fort. Quite possibly the devices were manufactured here in the asylum.
Sovereigns of the Collapse Book 1 Page 11
