by Gemma Malley
Anna watched in silence as Peter tried to fold a jumper. He made three attempts but each time the sleeves fell away as soon as he picked it up. She didn’t step in to help and eventually he gave up, stuffing it untidily into his suitcase. He looked up and met her eyes.
‘A few days,’ he said again, as though it made a difference. ‘One week max. You’ll hardly notice I’m gone.’
Anna stayed mute; she knew her eyes spoke for her, knew that Peter could read her thoughts, that speaking them out loud wouldn’t help.
‘You were right about staying here,’ he continued, adding trousers, socks and T-shirts to the heap inside his suitcase. ‘It’s safer, I know that. So me going on my own makes sense. This way I can just find out what’s going on and be back in no time.’
He looked down again as he spoke and Anna knew why. Guilt was seeping out of his pores. She sat down on the bed. She could stop him if she really wanted to – she knew that. But for how long? How long could she live around those pained eyes, the restlessness, the voice full of reproach? Yet she was angry with him for needing to go, for having any needs that didn’t centre on her, on Ben, on Molly. They should be enough. This should be enough.
She sighed and self-consciously pulled a jumper from the suitcase, folding it neatly in what was almost a reflex action. Sleeves across the shoulder then fold at the chest. She had done it a thousand times at Grange Hall; taking in laundry had been one of the ways it had demonstrated its ‘usefulness’ to the local community. Then she picked up another. Peter looked at her gratefully.
‘You’re not angry?’
He seemed relieved, like he really thought everything was OK now. Anna’s eyes narrowed; she threw the two jumpers back into the suitcase, ignoring the mess lying beneath them.
‘Of course I’m angry.’ His words had revealed his complete lack of understanding of the situation. Now she wasn’t even going to pretend to be OK with what he was doing.
Peter looked stunned. ‘I won’t go for long,’ he said, as though that made a difference.
‘You won’t go for long?’ Anna looked at him in disbelief. ‘An hour is long. A day is long. Peter, you’re leaving us alone up here. Richard Pincent wants you dead, wants us all dead, and you’re going to London? All because you want to be close to the action? What action, Peter? What could matter so much?’
Peter sighed, cleared his throat, took a breath. ‘You know what matters so much.’ He was looking at her, but she refused to meet his eyes.
‘No,’ she lied. ‘I don’t.’
‘Yes you do,’ Peter said tightly. ‘We might be safe up here for now, but we won’t be for ever. I know you want to stay here and pretend that the world doesn’t exist, but it does. What about the Surpluses, about the children hidden in attics? And now there are dead bodies. Can’t you see? We need to fight, Anna. I need to fight.’
Anna could feel her hands clenching into fists. He was right and she hated him for it. ‘Why can’t other people fight?’ she said in a strangled voice. ‘We’ve been fighting all our lives.’
‘Other people are fighting. Every day. But I can’t sit back and let them do it for me. You know I can’t.’
‘I know you won’t.’ Anna saw Peter’s face tighten, could feel him drifting away – already she seemed to be losing her grip on him. ‘Anyway, you can’t go now. We’ve hardly got any food,’ she said, resorting to practical obstacles, knowing already it was futile.
‘I’ll dig up some vegetables before I go.’
‘And I won’t be able to do all the planting while you’re away. Not if I’m looking after the children all the time.’ She sounded petulant and it irritated her, but she could see that it irritated Peter more. Impatience filled his eyes.
‘Whatever,’ he said, banging the lid of his case shut. ‘I’m sure we’ll manage.’
‘There’s still a “we”?’ Anna asked, sticking out her chin.
Peter’s eyes met hers and immediately she regretted the words.
‘I didn’t mean . . .’ she said, but it was too late. He was heaving his case off the bed, dragging it out of the room, down the stairs.
‘I’ll get the vegetables now,’ she heard him say.
‘Don’t bother,’ she called back. It was his fault, after all, that she’d questioned their future. He’d driven her to it. ‘Go to London. See if I care. See if any of us do.’
Margaret paused outside the door to catch her breath, collect her thoughts. It was open – the visitor was already in the room waiting for her. The visitor . . . But who?
‘You going in?’ The guard looked at her impatiently. She nodded.
Slowly, she walked into the room. There was a man sitting at a small table on the other side of the toughened glass that separated them. A man who was utterly familiar and yet a total stranger.
‘I didn’t expect you,’ she said, her eyes narrowing. ‘Why come now? Why come at all?’
The man stood up and smiled. ‘Margaret,’ he said. ‘It’s good to see you.’
She pursed her lips. ‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine you relish the sight of me. The decay. I’m part of you and yet here I am, fallible. A failure. That must be hard to accept.’
Her eyes were stony; she felt nothing but contempt for the man who was her father.
He nodded slowly, appearing to digest her words. ‘You’re right,’ he said eventually. ‘It is hard. And yet I have made my peace with the disappointment you have given me over the years.’
It still hurt, even though Margaret would die before letting him know. She steeled herself. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.
Richard Pincent smiled. ‘You received a letter,’ he said. ‘I’d like it, please.’
Margaret stared at him for a few seconds. ‘You mean it wasn’t read before I got it?’ she asked flatly. ‘Surely not.’
‘It was checked for seditious content,’ Richard said, a smile on his face but not in his eyes. He looked strained, Margaret realised. He never looked strained. ‘But then it was given to you. Only then did anyone think to tell me about it.’
‘And you want me to give it to you?’
‘Yes,’ Richard said.
Margaret nodded. ‘What you mean is that my room is being searched, am I right?’
Richard shrugged. ‘You are a prisoner, Margaret. Possessions are a luxury that you cannot expect to benefit from.’
A guard appeared at the door and nodded his head. Richard smiled and scraped back his chair, walking to the door and holding out his hand. Margaret watched tight-lipped as the guard whispered something in her father’s ear and gave him Anna’s letter. He quickly scanned it then walked back to her.
‘Apparently the envelope was postmarked Scotland,’ he said, leaning towards her so that she could see the fine red veins that covered his nose, the slightly enlarged pores around his eyes. Even as a child she hadn’t trusted his face, but she had also been scared of him. She’d thought she had nothing left to fear, but she’d been wrong.
‘He’s protected by people cleverer than you,’ she said, her voice low but the shake in it audible to them both. ‘You will never find my son.’
Richard sat down again. ‘Oh, but I will,’ he said, leaning back, a relaxed expression on his face. ‘Right now, though, I’m more interested in how you managed to write to him. To the girl. How does a prisoner of the Authorities track down two dissidents that have managed to evade the Catchers? You’ve had no visitors. So is it another prisoner? A guard?’
Margaret said nothing.
‘Tell me,’ Richard said, his eyes narrowing. ‘Who took your letters for you? Who sent them?’
Margaret looked him right in the eye and suddenly she realised that she wasn’t afraid of him any more. ‘There are people all around the world who hate you, just as I have always hated you,’ she said quietly. ‘There will always be people who will fight you, who will attack you, who will eventually destroy you. And I hope that Peter is one of them. I hope he wins. So I’ll te
ll you nothing. Not one thing.’
Richard didn’t say anything for a few moments, then he shrugged and stood up. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said. ‘You were always a disappointment to me, Margaret, and it’s no surprise that you should disappoint me today as well. We’ll track down your accomplice – it won’t be hard. In the meantime, I’ll suggest to the guards that they withdraw your drugs completely. No use extending your life any more, is there? You can die knowing that I remain unbeaten. That you failed, just as you have always failed. I’ll send Peter your best, shall I? Tell him that your weakness failed him yet again.’
‘Tell him . . .’ Margaret started to say, her eyes filling with tears in spite of her best efforts to stop them. ‘Tell him . . .’ But it was already too late – her father had stood up and was striding back towards the door.
.
Chapter Thirteen
‘Unfortunately the Underground do not appreciate the sanctity of human life, nor do they respect it. What we are dealing with here is unadulterated evil. And we will crush it, be assured of that. The Authorities and Pincent Pharma will not stop until these terrorists are stopped and brought to justice . . .’
The brick came through the window at 9 a.m., three days after the Authorities had first pointed the finger of blame at the Underground. Jude heard it immediately; he’d been listening to the radio, manning the phone while Sheila caught up on some sleep. The crash sent him running to the room he called his office, fearing the worst. The noise had come from the room that housed his computer, the only possession he truly valued, but it wasn’t the computer he was worried about this time – it was the children, six of them now, huddled on the floor. The boy he’d rescued, a girl brought here by one of the Underground guards, and four more who had been left by their desperate parents and guardians.
He arrived to find glass on the floor, the window shattered, the brick in the middle of the room wrapped in paper. Cautiously he unwrapped it and spread the paper out, looking up at the window every few seconds. This time it was just a brick; next time it would be worse. If one person knew they were here, soon more would. Even if it was just a lucky guess, even if it was just a random act of violence, Jude couldn’t risk it – they had to move. They had to get out of here.
‘What was that sound? What’s that on the ground?’ He turned to see Sheila who’d appeared next to him, her gaunt frame barely seeming strong enough to support her head. She was staring at the brick worriedly.
‘This,’ he whispered, ‘is a warning that we’re under siege.’
‘We?’ Sheila looked at him warily.
‘The Underground,’ Jude said quietly. She sat down next to him and crossed her legs.
‘Did we really kill people? Did we really sabotage the Longevity drugs?’ she asked softly. She sounded fragile. Jude wrapped his arm around her, then realised that actually he was feeling fragile too, that he needed comfort just as much as she did.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘No, we didn’t.’
‘And where’s Pip?’
Jude looked around helplessly. He hadn’t seen Pip for days; he had convinced himself that he was out rescuing Surpluses, developing a plan, doing something important. But if any of those things were true, he would have been in touch. Jude had heard nothing. No one had.
‘What was that noise?’
The door guard, a man called Sam, appeared. ‘The noise?’ he asked again.
‘A brick,’ Jude said grimly, holding it up.
‘A brick? Through a window?’ Sam’s face changed suddenly. ‘We have to move. People know where we are. We can’t hang around here.’
‘I know,’ Jude said. ‘But Pip’s not here.’
‘Pip’ll find us. Regulations are, any form of attack and we move immediately. We need to be out of here within the hour.’
‘But where would we even go?’ Sheila demanded. ‘Where would we move to?’
‘There are places,’ Sam said.
Jude nodded. ‘They’re in here,’ he said seriously, walking into Pip’s office and pulling open a drawer. ‘Here. Locations,’ he said, showing Sheila. ‘These are all possible alternative headquarters. Pip showed me two weeks ago. We pick two, tell everyone we’re going to one and then change it on the day, just in case anyone . . . Well, you know, just in case.’
He looked back at the smashed window and shivered at the cold wind whistling through it.
‘Let’s get packing then,’ Sam said matter-of-factly. ‘Can’t wait here, not if people on the Outside know where we are. Turn off the computers and shut everything down.’
‘I’ll shut them down,’ Sheila said quickly.
Jude nodded, but he wasn’t really listening. He was looking at something on the newsfeed. A rolling headline. ‘Head of the Underground hands himself in for terrorist atrocity.’
‘Turn that up,’ he ordered Sheila, who was about to turn it off. ‘Now.’
Silently Sheila turned the volume control. And then she gasped.
‘Yes, Sandra, that’s right,’ a woman was saying into the camera. And next to her was a man – a man with long grey hair and a long grey beard.
‘No!’ Jude shouted to no one in particular, but it was no use. It was Pip, right there on the screen. In handcuffs.
‘I can confirm that the man who calls himself Pip, the elusive leader of the Underground movement, is here with me now,’ the woman continued. ‘He approached the Newsfeed Service to announce that he is handing himself in, that he takes full responsibility for the sabotage to Longevity drugs. He told me earlier that he broke into Pincent Pharma on his own initiative, and that the Underground has ostracised him for the deed.’
‘Tell me, Vanessa, does that mean that Pip is no longer the leader of the Underground?’
‘It certainly does, Sandra. Now, the Authorities have requested that Pip is not allowed to answer questions directly, but earlier he told me that he is no longer part of the organisation, that many within the organisation were unhappy with what he was doing. Shall we run the clip?’
The image faded away and was replaced by one of Pip staring into the camera. Jude’s mouth fell open and his skin felt prickly all of a sudden.
‘And why have you decided to hand yourself in?’
‘I’m tired of running, tired of fighting,’ Pip said gently. ‘I realised that I’d taken a wrong path and caused a great deal of suffering and that I’m ready to take responsibility for my actions and make amends. I acted alone in contaminating the Longevity supply; I betrayed and let down my own Underground supporters, who never condoned such an attack. The Underground deserved better leaders, leaders who stayed true to the cause. It now has such leaders. Man was not supposed to live forever, but I had no right to curtail the lives of Legal people, I realise that now.’
The image faded and was replaced with the news reporter, Pip at her side.
‘And what’s happening now? What’s going to happen to Pip?’ a voice asked.
‘What indeed, Sandra,’ the reporter said. ‘Well, the police and Hillary Wright are both on their way here, along with Richard Pincent. What Pip’s fate will be, only they will know. But one thing we can be certain of is that justice will be done. Pip is a terrorist, and he must pay the price for that.’
‘Thank you. That was Vanessa Hedgecoe reporting from the Newsfeed central office in London, where just hours ago the leader of the Underground, a man who refers to himself as Pip, handed himself in to officials and asked to make a statement . . .’
Jude turned the volume off then turned round to Sam and Sheila, who were both looking at him in shock. ‘Let’s pack,’ he said, his throat constricting as he spoke. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
It hurt to walk. Hurt so badly Margaret winced with the pain. But she had to keep going, had to keep shuffling down the corridor towards the canteen. She had been there perhaps once in her time in prison and she despised the place, felt only contempt for those who ate there. Some desperate, some aggressive, some defeated – all were reminder
s of what she’d become, who she was now.
But contempt was no longer an excuse; revulsion did not matter and nor did her pride. She had to find the woman who had taken the letters. It had been chance that brought them together. Her toilet – a ‘luxury’ offered to those whose sentences were terminal, whose Longevity drugs were being withheld or reduced – had become blocked and Margaret, suffering from an upset stomach, underwent the humiliation of having to use the communal facility along the corridor while it was cleared. It had been in that horrible place, after throwing up bile, that she had been approached by Gail. And the approach had not been friendly – Gail had accosted her, pinned her against the wall, told her that she was evil incarnate for manning a Surplus Hall, for taking in stolen children and subjecting them to years of abuse. Margaret hadn’t had the energy to fight back and that had given Gail confidence. The words poured out. She was a proud Underground supporter. She was a fighter, and there were more like her. Margaret’s father would be revealed eventually as the terrible blight on humanity that he truly was. ‘Your son,’ she had said, eyes flashing, ‘your son will bring Richard Pincent to his knees.’
And so when Margaret had written her first letter to Peter, it had been Gail that she had sought out, Gail that she had persuaded to give the letter to someone who could forward it. It had taken some time, some tears, some threats and some promises of money, but eventually Gail had agreed.
Now Margaret needed something else from her. She needed Gail to warn that man. Pip. The man who had looked after her son. She needed to warn him that her father was on his way to Scotland. She had to make sure that Pip knew, that he could protect him, that he could do what Margaret herself couldn’t – what she had never been able to do – look after Peter.
Pausing briefly to regain what remained of her breath, Margaret took the last few steps into the canteen. It was a sea of people, of colour, of noise; she felt dizzy and put her hand to the wall to steady herself. People were looking at her but she didn’t care. Slowly, deliberately, she began to move forward again, scanning the room. Was she here? Please let her be here. Then suddenly she saw her with a cluster of women, queuing. She rushed forward, nearly falling. ‘Gail.’ Her voice was hoarse, a whisper. ‘Gail, I . . .’ But Gail wasn’t listening, didn’t even notice her. She was staring at the screen on the wall. ‘Shhhh,’ someone shouted. ‘Shut up!’ someone else called out. People stopped talking. Silence descended like a wave.
