The UnTied Kingdom (6 page)

After about half-an-hour of weaving around the remains of Brixton, Clapham, and Streatham, Harker leaned over Tallulah’s shoulder, peered at the map, and said, ‘Reckon this is about it.’

‘This is about what?’ asked Eve.

‘Well, this is Mitcham.’

Tallulah stopped the car. There was grass growing on what once had been a street, between some lumps in the ground where buildings had stood. Off to the right was half a stone wall. A hundred or so yards ahead was part of a wooden house frame. It stood like a dead tree, listing to one side and creaking in the wind.

Harker vaguely remembered Mitcham before the battle, and what he remembered was the air, thick with the scent of lavender from the bushes growing for miles around in all the fields. Now, the fields were stark and empty but for the flock of crows feasting on some dead animal.

‘This is not Mitcham,’ Eve said.

Harker ignored her. He couldn’t even be bothered to sigh at her any more.

‘Look. My Mitcham has tower blocks, and shopping precincts, and, and, and people, and buses, and cars! This looks like something out of a war film!’

‘It
is
something out of a war,’ said Harker, politely ignoring the last word, which he didn’t understand.

‘This is ridiculous! This is – wait.’ Eve’s voice changed. The hysteria vanished, and in its place came a sort of relief. ‘I’m still being filmed, aren’t I?’

‘Um,’ Harker said. All right, she was crazy. Pity. That soft little body next to his in the car had been a pleasant thing to be thrown against.

‘This is – oh my God, this is like, what do you call it? That thing on MTV. Where they do something to celebs – well, not that I’m much of a celeb any more, but this is all Let’s Humiliate stupid Has-Beens, isn’t it? You’ve been filming me the whole time!’

Tallulah turned in her seat to exchange a look with Harker. Her expression said she didn’t know what the hell Eve was talking about, either.

‘All right,’ Eve called cheerfully, ‘you can come out now. Where’s the camera? There’s probably one here, isn’t there? In the car?’

‘A camera,’ Harker said. Who the hell was she talking to? What the buggery bollocks was MTV? A Multi Terrain Vehicle, maybe that was what the Coalitionists called them. ‘The army doesn’t have any cameras.’

‘Yes, but this is not the army, is it?’

A pause, then Harker said, ‘I’m pretty sure it is.’

‘I bet it’s in one of those building things. Where are we? ’Cos you just
told
me we were in the Tower of London and I believed it, but I bet it’s a set, isn’t it? A film set? It’s pretty elaborate, but wow, I’m impressed.’

She sounded pretty cheerful, Harker thought. Of course, that was because she was completely insane.

‘Where is it?’

Eve made to open the car door, but Harker leaned across. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘To look for the camera.’

‘What camera?’

‘Come on, guys, the game’s up. Unless – oh,
you are kidding
; you don’t know, either?’

Harker gave her a measured look. ‘No, I really don’t,’ he said. He started to get out of the car. ‘You can get out and look around if you want, but I’m coming with you.’

‘Fine.’

Eve waited for him to come around and help her out of the car, smiling conspiratorially at Tallulah, who smiled nervously back. Hand on gun, Harker watched Eve hop confidently over to a fragment of stone wall and peek around behind it. She seemed disappointed not to find anything there.

Poking at the rubble and weeds around the base of the wall also produced nothing. Eve hopped over to the wooden frame, her smile fading, and peered around it. She squinted off into the distance, where there were barren fields, several of which were undulated with shell holes.

Starting to hop over to one of them, Harker halted her, his hand firm on her shoulder.

‘I wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘Not unless you want to further the cause of the British Army by detecting landmines for us.’

She paused, and looked up at him uncertainly. He stared back steadily.

‘Well, maybe the camera’s on the car,’ she said, and started back towards it. She poked at the doors, at the spare tyre on the back, at the camo netting strung along the sides. She was about to go for the gun on the bonnet when Harker once more stopped her.

‘Please don’t touch that.’

‘But what if it’s–’

Harker flicked the safety catch, aimed at the empty field, and a spray of bullets kicked up mud.

‘But–’ she began, and Harker lost his patience. He leapt into the car, grabbed the submachine-gun from the seat and, raising it over Eve and Tallulah’s heads, sprayed bullets into a circle twenty feet wide around the car.

Eve went white.

‘There’s got to be a camera somewhere,’ she whispered.

‘There isn’t,’ Harker said. ‘And if there was, there isn’t any more. Now get back in the car.’

Eve, looking shocked, did so, this time without complaining.

‘Lu,’ Harker said, tucking the gun down beside him, on the opposite side to Eve, ‘back to the bridge.’

Tallulah did as she was told, and rather faster than necessary. In the back of the car, Eve sat still and quiet, her face pale and her eyes big with confusion.

‘But it doesn’t make any sense,’ she whispered at one, apparently random, point, and Harker replied, ‘War rarely does,’ and put his arm around her.

Chapter Six

‘Wheeler wants to see you,’ Charlie said as Harker tugged off his jacket and looked for somewhere to put it. But unless he started colonising Captain Turner’s desk, next to his, there wasn’t anywhere.

‘Of course she does.’

Charlie grinned and made a T with her hands. Harker nodded, in desperate need of something to take away the bad taste in his mouth that St James’s always left him with.

‘Did she say what it was about?’

‘No. But I’m guessing it’s our alien. What have you done with her, anyway?’

‘St James’s,’ Harker said. He threw his jacket on the floor and sat down, swinging his boots on to the few inches of desk that Charlie kept clear for such a purpose.

‘Shame,’ Charlie said. ‘She seemed to have spirit.’

‘Yeah.’ Harker frowned as he thought about the silent ghost curled up next to him in the car on the way back to the city. She’d had spirit, until he’d fired that gun and she’d … deflated, like someone had sucked all the fight out of her.

He’d handed her over to the halfway house at St James’s, explaining that she’d be fine there, and well-treated. It wasn’t a prison as such, more a place to put people they weren’t sure about. People they suspected of nefarious deeds, but didn’t have any proof of.

The army was big on proof.

But Eve hadn’t really seemed to listen. Stumbling, shivering, like a person in shock, she’d huddled into his greatcoat and avoided eye contact. In the end, Harker had given up trying to talk to her, and just left.

Coop had been there, though. Good old Cooper, one of his best sergeants. On light duties after getting shot. Again. He smiled. Cooper’s fiancée, Rosie, said that if he collected any more lead they could use it to fix the guttering.

Your men come back
. Well, yes; if Coop hadn’t, Rosie would be wearing Harker’s entrails as lingerie.

Charlie handed him a cup of tea and leaned back against his desk. She didn’t have one of her own, although she ought to. But then, Harker ought to have his own office and didn’t.

‘Any word on our new captain yet, Charlie?’

She shook her head.

‘I put you forward for it, by the way.’

He didn’t need to tell her. Half her promotions had come through him. Wheeler herself had seen to the rest. Wherever Harker went, there was always Charlie Riggs. Some of them called her his spaniel, behind both their backs of course.

Harker considered that a folly. For one thing, they ought to know he heard everything said behind his back; and for another, if they thought Charlie was a spaniel, they clearly didn’t know much about dogs. Or about Charlie, for that matter.

‘Thank you, sir.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Drink up. Time and Wheeler wait for no man.’

Harker did so, grimacing. When he’d joined the army as an enlisted man, a nice cup of hot, sweet tea was almost his constitutional right. But now he was an officer, he never had the time any more.

‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘Three months back pay I’m owed, and I still can’t finish a cup of tea. Never had to put up with this shit when I was a sergeant.’

‘Sir?’

‘Never mind.’ Harker grabbed his jacket, now dusty and creased, which was just the way he liked it.

Wheeler was donning her own immaculate coat and gloves as he entered her office. ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’

‘Yes, Harker. Walk with me.’

He did, following her back down the way he’d just come.

‘Lieutenant-Colonel Green’s men are clearing No Man’s Land,’ Wheeler said. ‘In about an hour I will be sending in the Grenadiers.’

Harker waited to see where this was going.

‘Did you drive your alien into the area?’

‘Yes, sir. Found an old map and took her to Mitcham. Nothing there, of course, sir. She went a bit …’

‘Yes, Major?’

‘Well, a bit mental, tell the truth, sir. Still don’t know if she’s mad or a spy, but I’ve sent her to St James’s anyway.’

‘Good. That’s one less thing. See if they can get anything out of her.’

Harker bristled at the implication that he hadn’t been able to, and almost forgot to open the door into the courtyard for Wheeler.

‘Now, Major. Colonel Watling-Coburg passed on to me a recommendation from you for the position of captain in C Company.’

‘Did she?’ Harker shivered; it was damn cold out here.

‘You know she did, Harker. And you know it was for Lieutenant Riggs.’

‘Yes, sir. I really think–’

‘I agree with you, Major. She would make a fine captain. And as I understand it, she’s been the
de facto
second-in-command of C Company for as long as you’ve had it.’

‘She’s been the
de facto
second-in-command wherever I’ve been. No disrespect to Captain Smith, sir, he was a fine officer, but Charlie’s the best second I’ve ever had.’

‘Yes, I know. I’ve often considered the two of you as brothers.’

‘Er, d’you mean she’s like my sister, sir?’

There was a pause as both of them brought to mind one Charlotte Riggs, the most ruthlessly unfeminine person on the planet.

‘All right, brother,’ Harker conceded.

‘And a very good officer. It’s shameful it took us so long to get her out of the ranks. But nonetheless, I am going to have to turn her down for the position.’

Harker blinked. ‘Might I ask why, sir?’

‘No, Harker. Not today, you may not.’

Anger boiled up within Harker, but years of experience had taught him to squash it, quickly.

‘I see, sir,’ he said, which was a direct lie.

‘No,’ Wheeler gave him a faint smile, ‘you don’t. I don’t expect you to. I would explain it to you, Harker, but I’m afraid it’s on a need-to-know basis right now, and you don’t need to know. Colonel Watling-Coburg has made her recommendation, with which I agree.’

‘Do I get any choice in this?’ Harker asked gloomily.

‘No,’ Wheeler said cheerfully. They’d reached the car, and its crisply saluting driver. Harker glanced at the kid; you didn’t get boots as shiny as that unless all you did was drive around in them all day. They were not, Harker considered, boots that had seen many muddy battlefields.

‘Do I get to find out who it is?’

‘A Captain Wilmington. I don’t think you know him. Exemplary service record.’

‘Then surely I would have heard of him?’ Harker muttered, but Wheeler caught it.

‘Not every officer is promoted for heroism,’ she said sharply. ‘I have been known to look kindly on soldiers who have simply done nothing wrong.’

Harker refrained, but only just, from rolling his eyes.

‘And then there are officers like you,’ Wheeler said, looking him over in much the same way Harker imagined his mother might have done, had she still been around. Despairing, but with, he hoped, a touch of affection. ‘Harker, where is your overcoat?’

‘Oh.’ He thought about it. ‘Damn. I left it with Eve.’

Wheeler let out a theatrical sigh. ‘How have I promoted this far from the ranks a man who can’t even keep track of his overcoat?’

‘Don’t know, sir. Must have done something else right, sir.’

Wheeler gave him another faint smile. ‘Yes, Harker. You must.’

‘So. For what did they catch you?’

The speaker was a black girl with a French accent. She was dressed in jeans and heeled boots and looked, to Eve, like the first normal person she’d seen since her glider collapsed.

Eve closed her book but kept her finger on the page. They were in the small, pleasant library of the Palace of St James; smaller than Eve might have expected, but a quick inspection of the titles on offer gave one explanation: there just weren’t enough books printed in English for a large library.

‘Paragliding over the Thames.’

‘Para … ah,
oui
.’ The girl nodded. ‘You were doing the spying?’

‘No! But they seemed to think I was.’ Eve glared angrily at the book in front of her. ‘And how do I prove I wasn’t?’

‘You can’t,’ said the girl. ‘It is why they put us here, yes? My name is Lucille.’

‘Eve,’ Eve said distractedly.

‘You are English? From where do you come?’

At that, Eve let out a laugh. It was the sort of laugh she’d become familiar with in the months following the news that her accountant hadn’t paid her tax bill, and her mother had taken all her money and run off to the Bahamas. It was the kind of laugh that came from hearing something so mercilessly unfunny that it had gone round the other way into hilarity.

‘London,’ she said. ‘But not this London.’

Lucille frowned. ‘Not this London? But how many are there?’ she said. ‘Perhaps I am not understanding. I do not have the good English.’

‘No, your English is really good. Where are you from?’

‘Mozambique. I come to England to help with the children, and the hospitals, you understand?’

‘An aid worker,’ Eve said heavily.

‘Yes, just so. But when there was the Battle of Southwark it was decided I was doing the espionage, and I was put here.’

An aid worker from Africa. It made total sense, in a way that didn’t.

‘When was this?’

‘It is since three years.’ Lucille shrugged. ‘But it is not so bad. The food, it is good, I have my own bedroom and there is much to do.’ She waved a hand at the book on Eve’s lap. ‘What is it you read?’

Eve looked at the mistyped title page of the book, which had a sad, cheap, hand-printed look about it. ‘
A History of the Untied Kingdom
,’ she read bitterly.

‘Ah, yes? Me, I don’t know a lot about the history of your country,’ Lucille said, totally missing the malapropism. ‘Perhaps to the last fifty, or sixty years.’

‘Yes,’ said Eve, flipping towards the end of the book, ‘sixty years including the Third Civil War, the secession of Scotland and Wales from the United Kingdom – to which no part of Ireland ever belonged, apparently – oh yes, and the World War, the
only
World War, no numbers, which we
lost
.’

Lucille was nodding politely. ‘Yes. The French Empire, it was too strong. And with the Americans also … I think no one expected for Germany to win.’

‘Germany
didn’t
win,’ Eve said. ‘
We
did, but Germany
didn’t
. We were fighting
against
Germany. We didn’t ally ourselves with the … the …’ she glanced at the book, ‘the Austro-Hungarian Empire!’

‘
Oui
?’ said Lucille nervously.

‘And look at this.’ Eve stabbed the page. ‘In 1914, absolutely nothing happened.’

‘Uh,’ Lucille said.

‘No! No, something did, but not here. You want to know what?’ Eve dragged over another book, this one larger, proclaiming itself to be a history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the twentieth century. ‘Because look. Here. In 1914, Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated …’

Lucille was nodding as if this all made perfect sense to her.

‘…
and his capable wife Sophie stepped into his place
, ruling the Empire and bringing about a period of peace and prosperity that lasted until the rise of Hitler, who we
supported–
’

She broke off, because fear had come into Lucille’s eyes. And she couldn’t blame her. She was ranting like a crazy person.

In the last three days she’d started to believe she might
be
a crazy person.

‘None of this makes sense,’ she said, calming her voice. ‘I’m living in a blasted typo. There’s all this stuff … there was never an empire. Not a British Empire. No … no Colonial India, or America, or Australia – it’s all French! It all belongs to the damn French!’

‘Yes, this is so,’ Lucille said, starting to back away.

‘Apart from America, which they – wait, I’ve got it here–’ she grabbed a shiny book about the New World, ‘which the French investigated in the eighteenth century, because of the tales about seafarers going there and not returning, but they decided it was just marsh because they’d sailed up the Mississippi Delta, and ignored it. And no one knew there were people in America until an experimental Japanese flight sailed over buildings in Hawaii! I mean – how did anyone learn to fly? Have you ever heard of the Wright Brothers?’

Lucille looked at her with a worried expression. ‘I do not think so. Are they English?’

‘No, they’re American.’ She felt like sobbing.

‘Wright,’ Lucille said thoughtfully. ‘It does not sound American to me. Perhaps they are
émigré
?’

Eve’s fingers clutched the book tightly. ‘Who invented flying, Lucille? Modern aviation? The biplane, powered flight?’

If she says the Wright Brothers I’ll know I’m sane. It’s just a practical joke. A really, really big practical joke.

‘Ah, it was the Frenchman Robert Esnault-Pelterie,’ Lucille said. ‘He founded the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, yes? My father, he is an engineer for the–’