Castles Made of Sand (42 page)

Fiorinda looked at him. He kept his face blank. She put on latex gloves and goggles. The techs insisted on that, even while they told you a strange packet was perfectly okay. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth; her heart had started thumping. Layers of parcel tape had been stripped away, the seal loosened. She finished the job, aware that this was ritual. I must, officially, be the first to see—

There was a sheet of folded paper. She glanced at it, and passed it to Mohammad. There was a ring. Everyone knew the ring. There was a bundle of surgical dressing, stained with old blood and other fluids. Fiorinda peeled it open, releasing a faded waft of putrefaction. A silicon wafer lay there, clotted with tissue and tangled with a few long, dark hairs. Fiorinda took off her goggles and stared at it, breathing slow.

‘It’s his warehouse stack. They’ve sent us his brain implant.’

Verlaine gave a sob, and stifled it with his fists. No one else made a sound, but the circle of tables rang with shock, and acceptance. Terrible relief.

‘Oh God,’ whispered Felice, at last. ‘Oh,
Ax
—’

‘Ah,’ breathed Mohammad. He bent his head and murmured in Arabic, prayer that no one here could join, a part of Ax’s life that none of them had understood.

‘He isn’t dead,’ said Fiorinda, tallow-pale. ‘He is not dead.’

‘Be Jaysus,’ said Fergal Kearney, shaking his head, ‘this is doing no good. Ye might be better off to face it, Fiorinda me darling. Time’s up.’

Typical Fergal, crashingly tactless whatever the circumstances. Even at this juncture, the Few winced and looked away. What does she see in him?

‘Time is not up,’ said Fiorinda, distinctly. ‘This is not the moment for any sudden changes. That would be crazy.’

Fergal cleared his throat. ‘Maybe yez’ll change your mind.’

She ignored him. ‘I’ll have to call David. Allie, I need you too.’

The Prime Minister came at once: Fiorinda and Allie spent the afternoon with him. The packet, the ransom note, the chip and Ax’s carnelian ring were taken away for forensic. The news was despatched to the US search operation, via GCHQ. The data quarantine was still in place, the connectivity deal was going through, but it had been delayed by Ax’s disappearence.

The kidnappers wanted a global ban on the manufacture of synthetic cocaine, an end to European taxes and regulation on imported recreational drugs (except alcohol and tobacco), and a large but not huge sum in hard currency. They wanted these terms made public, and publicly accepted, on all major global tv channels and news-sites, or his friends would never see Ax Preston alive again.

‘We could offer them the money,’ said Fiorinda. ‘Can we find the money—?’

‘We can’t do any of the other things,’ said Allie. ‘But we could try that.’

‘I let him go,’ said David. ‘I was the last person to speak to him, I was excited and I told him he should go. I had no right. I can never forgive myself.’

They thought they ought to draft a press release, because they knew the news would be leaked (the Insanitude was not secure); but it was beyond them. They decided it could wait until tomorrow. Fiorinda went back to Brixton, refusing to let Allie come with her. She desperately needed to be alone. She knew David and Allie had been humouring her… Ax had to be dead.

The bad guys cut his head open. He’s dead.

The flat was immaculate. The night her father had revealed himself she’d tried to clean the cat shit, piss and blood from the rug where Elsie had died. William the cleaning person had done a much better job. The aching cleanliness was an expression of William’s love and sympathy, but the place felt like a morgue. She fetched Ax’s old leather coat, which had been sent from Amsterdam where he’d left it behind, and sat hugging it on the couch by the cold gas stove. Will they give me his ring? When can I have his ring? She couldn’t cry. She just wanted Ax’s ring. She would have stayed like that all night. But something started to grow in her: a horrible premonition. Finally her phone rang.

‘Hello, Fiorinda.’

His voice was slurred, oh, shit. ‘Hi, David. What is it?’

‘I…just…wanted to say I’m sorry… He was so good to me. You guys, all so good to me. I should have stopped him. My fault. America. Not safe.’

‘
David
, where are you? What are you doing? I’m coming round.’ The phone went dead but thank God it had been a landline call and she could trace it.

David had started using heroin again. Fiorinda had spotted him, challenged him over it and made him lay off: but now she was very scared. She took a taxi to Battersea to pick up George and Bill and the Heads’ First Aid kit. Within an hour from the phone call they were at Canary Wharf, where the Prime Minister had a bolthole. She’d kept trying to call ahead all the way: no answer. They went straight up. David’s Secret Service minder was sitting in the lobby outside the flat, watching tv. He thought the PM was asleep. He was shocked to find that somehow his own phone had switched itself off, which was why Fiorinda had been getting no response. The front door was locked, bolted on the inside, no response from within. Fiorinda was
incandescent
. She insisted they must get inside, at once, right now—

And there he was, the Prime Minister of England, dying in his sad hideaway furnished from a style-catalogue, with his needle and his spoon—

They should have been able to save him. George and Bill were perfect masters at drug-related First Aid. He was still breathing, all the signs were of a simple overdose. But it didn’t work out. When they got him to hospital the whitecoats discovered massive, irreparable brain damage. Twelve hours later Fiorinda, who was at Battersea waiting for news, got a call to say that David’s wife (they were amicably separated), and his grown-up son, had been advised that there was no hope. They’d decided to let David go.

The media of the three nations kindly called it a tragic accident. Crisis Europe tabloids invented a conspiracy masterminded by the ex-Royals, linking the death of the PM to Ax’s disappearance. The English, Countercultural and otherwise, took it for granted that David had topped himself due to horrible stress; and forgave him. He’d had his faults, the old raver, but he’d been much loved. He had a cracking funeral, watched by millions on the big screens of the Countercultural Very Large Array.

Allie put the most hopeful possible spin on the ransom note, and the media folk backed her up as best they could. It was lucky they hadn’t briefed the press already, before David died. They were able to make something of the pooignant irony: if only David Sale had lived to know the ‘terrific good news’.

Fiorinda understood that her bluff had been called.

Time’s up.

Ferg called, Fiorinda. He says you invited him to stay the night. Shall I make up a guest room? Fiorinda’s friends were suspicious, but the Rivermead housekeeper had no idea. She wouldn’t dream of questioning Fiorinda’s behaviour, no matter what, but she thought of Fergal Kearney as a harmless old geezer, a kind uncle, a shoulder for Fiorinda to cry on.

‘Yes,’ said Fiorinda. ‘Any of the bedrooms on my floor, that’ll be fine.’

The night was dark. The Rivermead Palace had no draughts, no sighing woodwork or rattling windowframes, but there was a wind blowing somewhere. The leaves on the Tyller Pystri oaks were tarnished green and gold. Somewhere, anywhere, three people could lie under a hedge, rain on their faces, without a house or a home, no direction known, don’t care. And I loved them both. Plenty of people have weird relationships, why shouldn’t we? Nobody understood, nobody knew. It was just us, and no one else.

She stood in front of the tall, metal-framed mirror where she had seen her mother, in her cream and green kimono. It was very pretty. Such a fresh green, reaching up from the hem in abstract fronds, into magnolia-petal clouds. Dr Barnado’s, Battersea. You get a better class of charity clothes at Dr Barnado’s. Why should I be afraid? Ax loves me, Sage loves me. I love them both. Everything real is good, and
this will work
. Until I think of something. She let the gown fall open and looked at her body, still yellow-brown wherever it had been exposed to the summer’s sun. He likes his daughter to be white, gets a kick out of having a white girl-child in bed; but tough. It’ll have to do.

This is my body, for the last time.

She went to meet her father.

Olwen Devi was in the Zen Self main space, helping to dismantle one of the more complex neuroscience rides. It was a cold and rainy morning; the dome was empty except for Zen Selfers. They were making their preparations for departure quietly, so that when they were ready they could vanish overnight… Fiorinda wandered in, her shapeless old rain jacket over the violet satin sheath, bare legs, army boots. She came over and watched, head down, fists buried in her pockets.

‘Rats leave sinking ship,’ she said. ‘Very wise, Welsh rats. Where going?’

Olwen straightened. ‘Yes, we’re leaving. I’m sorry, Fio, but we must.’

‘No, don’t tell me,’ said Fiorinda, ‘that’s right,
don’t tell me
. Don’t trust me.’

The rock and roll princess had lost weight she could ill afford to lose in the last months. She still looked wonderful on stage, but this morning her sallow, rain-streaked face was haggard and her stubborn jaw oversized. Her eyes were sick-animal. She walked away. She had no business in the Zen Self tent. She was just moving about at random, because it eases the pain; and stealing a moment of truth. Got nothing to say to Olwen Devi, but at least don’t have to put a face on. Nothing to hide.

‘Wait—’

The guru had followed her, and laid a hand on her sleeve. Fiorinda looked at the ring on Olwen’s finger. Could Serendip do anything? Nah. She’s just a computer, dumb bundle of noughts and ones, however you dress it up.

‘
What
?’

‘Fiorinda, removal of an implant, even if it’s done crudely, need not be a disaster. Ax was supposed to be away for six weeks. That chip should have come out as soon as he got back, it was not in a good state. You may take it from me, if it hadn’t been removed, he would be in worse trouble by now.’

Fiorinda nodded, indifferent, and wandered off into the rain.

There was no question of a violent coup. The remains of the Coalition Cabinet stepped down of their own free will. A cross-party group, drawn mainly from the Green Second Chamber, took over; inviting special representatives from the CCM majority—Celtics, that is—to join them. It was the end of the limping hybrid system (said the advertising); the first genuinely Countercultural Government of England.

The Few were not surprised to find that Benny Preminder, their hateful Countercultural Liasion Secretary, was closely involved in these changes. They were dismayed, but they’d worked with a hostile government before. Keep up the free gigs: they’re a reassuring ritual. Look after the drop-out hordes. Protect the science base.

Fall back. Adjust. We don’t need to be centre stage to keep Ax’s vision alive.

Pray that nothing worse happens.

One night in November Rob Nelson woke up in a hotel, on the motorway somewhere outside Northampton. Felice was asleep beside him. Dora and Cherry in the living-room of the suite with the babies, Ferdelice and Mamba. Members of the Snake Eyes rhythm section snored gently on the sofas and the floor. Room space was tight: the place was half closed-down, much of it unfit for occupation. They’d been on stage until after midnight, playing in a dance venue in town that was icy-cold until the sweat started running, and now it was… He looked at his watch.
Two a.m
. Shit. He got up, feeling very angry and wishing he’d elected to sleep on the bus. No one comes hammering on my door at 2 a.m., waking my babies. That’s out of order! It was Doug Hutton standing there.

‘What are doing, banging on my door?’

‘I’m sorry, Rob,’ said the Few’s security chief. ‘I had to fetch you, not call you.’

‘What’s wrong with using a phone?’

‘I dunno. You’d better get dressed. I think it’s urgent.’

Rob followed Doug through spooky corridors to the barely lit, dilapidated lobby, his breath puffing ahead of him in the cold air. He was amazed to see Fiorinda by the desk in her old winter coat, her hair wrapped up in a scarf, her pale face bleak and sullen.

‘How did
you
get here?’ he gasped, as if she’d flown in from another planet.

‘Doug drove me. Come on.’

He felt wrong-footed. Fiorinda could still have that effect on him, shades of his old distrust for Ax’s arrogant rock-royalty new girlfriend. Outside there was a car waiting. He got into the back, thinking,
there’s a reason for this, so I’m not going to shoot my mouth off
, and was amazed again to find Dilip sitting there.

‘What’s going on?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the mixmaster. ‘Trouble of some kind. She’s not saying.’

They drove into the countryside, along very dark lanes. Fiorinda giving Doug directions, with a penlight and a road atlas. At last they pulled off.

‘You stay here, Doug,’ said Fiorinda. ‘You two, with me.’

There was a white-painted fence, and beyond it an unlit carpark. They were in the middle of nowhere. Trees loomed against a pallid, suffused sky. Fiorinda stood looking round, still telling them nothing.

‘I was nightwatchman,’ said Dilip quietly, ‘at the San. She arrived with Doug, said I had to come with her. Not another word. What d’you think’s going on?’

‘I don’t know.’

Nightwatchman meant Dilip’d been in charge at the Insanitude. The club was very quiet these days, Immix and fx were out of style. But often Celtics would turn up and make trouble, it took one of the Few to talk that down… They both looked at Fiorinda, her head bowed, shoulders hunched and her arms wrapped around herself. It crossed both of their minds that she’d finally flipped. She’d been behaving very strangely since Ax’s chip had come home; or longer. It had shocked everyone when they’d realised she was sleeping with Fergal. Not that they begrudged her any comfort she could find, although it was seriously offensive to the Islamics, but it was so
unlikely
—

‘Fio?’ said Dilip, cautiously, ‘are you okay?’

‘This is a Roman site,’ said Fiorinda, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Or pre-Roman. There’s the remains of a theatre, through the trees. That’s where the pit will be.’