The UnTied Kingdom (8 page)

Charlie raised her eyebrows and went to look. Finding a jug, she sniffed experimentally. ‘Reckon that’s apple,’ she said, and at Harker’s gesture, poured him a glass. He drained it, and gestured for more as he finished the doorstopper sandwich.

‘I think that’s the healthiest thing I’ve ever seen you consume,’ she said, fascinated, as he picked up the glass.

‘Charlie, I get shot at on a reasonably regular basis,’ he said. He considered that, and added, ‘Probably daily if I have to work with Wilmington. What’s the point of eating healthily?’

Charlie just shook her head and put his plate in the sink.

‘But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll take the men on a march around the city. Blow away some cobwebs.’

‘Good idea, sir,’ Charlie said approvingly.

‘Right. Now, where are my fags?’

Chapter Seven

Cobwebs duly dispersed, Harker dispatched Charlie to find Captain Haran while he decided on who else to take with him. On returning from the march with his men, he found her on the green where the cars were parked, talking to a Wolf with a pair of legs sticking out from under it.

‘Bleedin’ freezing out here, Charlie,’ he said. ‘Did you find our sawbones?’

The legs flailed for a second, then the body attached to them revealed itself. Under the greasy smudges, Harker discerned the cartoon-faced doctor who’d treated him last week after his dip in the Thames.

Charlie said, as politely as she could, ‘Sir, this is Captain Haran.’

Harker winced. ‘Right. Sorry.’ He nodded at the man’s hasty salute, and added, ‘Wheeler said you were something of a mechanic.’

‘Yes, sir. In my spare time.’

‘Really? And when do you get that?’

Haran’s ears turned pink. Charlie hid a smile, but Harker didn’t bother. ‘We’ll leave tomorrow, Captain. Get all your stuff, I want a full and comprehensive medical kit, no telling what sort of trouble we’ll get into, and we won’t be attached to a base. Do you know anything about computers?’

‘Not very much, sir, but I’m good at working things out.’

‘Fantastic,’ said Harker, and judging by Captain Haran’s smile, he hadn’t caught Harker’s sarcasm.

Harker walked away wondering who else he could possibly add to this band of misfits to make it any worse. Charlie clearly didn’t have a high opinion of the doctor, but he’d seemed reasonably competent when he was treating Eve, and if he knew his way around a complex piece of machinery like a car, or a human being for that matter, then he could probably figure out a computer. After all, how hard could they be?

He pinched the bridge of his nose as he walked out under the Middle Tower, nodding to the guards there.

Wheeler had told him to take between six and ten men, and so far he only had four, including himself. He’d spent the afternoon march observing his men, mentally taking notes as to who would be due for promotion soon, and who would never rise higher than private. He’d taken them to the targets in Southwark and shouted them, personally, into line, then watched to see who the best shots were.

They’d marched out over the Bridge, which was hell this time of day, but he needed to sort the wheat from the chaff and hell was a damn good place to do that. Southwark, a desolate wasteland, had given him thinking space. Leaving Captain Wilmington to take the company back to the barracks, he’d kept a few of the best shots back. And then they’d taken the old horse ferry across to Westminster and marched up Whitehall on his way to the targets at St Giles-in-the-Fields, to remind the men who they were fighting for. Shooting at them as they tried to take aim, to test their ability in battle conditions, all but one managed to dodge his fire; and according to the medic, his ear would be just fine with a small nick in it.

Harker blamed himself; he’d been distracted. For the march, unfortunately, brought him perilously close to the only other person he’d ever heard talk about computers. And, damn it, it had dawned on him as he took his men home that he was going to end up taking Eve Carpenter with him.

The guards on the gate at St James’s weren’t familiar to Harker, but they saw his rank insignia and let him in anyway, and he trudged up to the handsome brick building. It had once been a royal residence, but the King had signed it over to the army for their own use after it became apparent that he didn’t need quite so many palaces when he wasn’t even in the country.

Lucky sod
, Harker thought.
I’d sure as hell like to be in America right now
. So much electricity they used it for street lights. Televisions in every home
.
I’ve never even seen a damn television.

And no war. No sodding, ugly, bloody war.

‘Eve Carpenter,’ he said to the officer at the desk, after showing her both his rank insignia and a copy of Wheeler’s orders that he could take any soldier, officer or civilian he deemed necessary to the mission.

And then he cursed himself. She’d actually written that word, civilian. She knew he was going to get Eve. Hell, the guards on the gate had waved him straight in. And the officer at the desk had seemed to be
expecting
him.

‘She’s probably in the …’ The woman listened, then smiled. ‘Yes, the Garden Room.’

‘And where’s that?’ Harker said, wondering what she was listening to. He could hear faint music, was that it?

‘Straight down the hall, through those double doors, and keep going until you see the piano,’ the officer said, and Harker turned away, slightly confused.

It was one of those grand buildings where each room opens on to another by means of double doors. Saskia’s parents had lived in a place like this, and back then they’d been able to employ men to open each door, at least when they had company. Now there was no one to open the doors for him, although there were plenty of people standing around, reading books or sewing or playing endless games of chess.

Most of them, on seeing his uniform, glared.

The sounds of music, piano-playing and singing got louder the further he went, until there was only one set of doors between him and a woman singing. The melody was sad, haunting, but the words weren’t clear, so he opened the door on her singing something about yesterday coming suddenly, which made no sense to Harker.

Then he realised that the singer was Eve, and that she was sitting at the piano with her back to him.

She didn’t seem to have heard him, but continued playing and singing the sad, beautiful song. Quite taken with it, Harker found himself moving closer, and then a floorboard squeaked and Eve glanced back over her shoulder.

When she saw him, the music stopped abruptly.

‘Hi,’ he said, and she turned back to the piano, still for a second.

Then she hammered the keys and yelled at someone named Jack to hit the road.

‘Who’s Jack?’ Harker asked, but she ignored him. The only other occupant of the room was a young African woman, who was giggling a little.

He wasn’t getting any reaction from either of them, so he brought out the big guns. Reaching inside his jacket, he placed a small gold box on the top of the piano, and stood back.

Eve faltered a little when he moved close to her, but stopped altogether when she saw the little box. It was tied with a green ribbon.

The music dying away, she reached for the box, then pulled her hands back.

‘Lucille?’ she said to the African woman. ‘Do you see a box of chocolates on the piano?’

‘Yes, I see it. And the cocoa is very rare in England, is it not? It has to be imported. I think they must be very expensive.’

Damn right they’d been expensive. Harker had a feeling Eve wasn’t the sort to be won over easily. He could use force if he wanted to, but he’d prefer to use Ogilvy & Kent, who had at one time supplied chocolates to the King.

‘And do you see a lying, sneaky, scum-sucking weasel standing behind me?’

‘A weasel?’ Lucille peered at the floor. Harker stifled a laugh.

‘A
man
,’ Eve spat, ‘in an army uniform.’

‘Ah. I am all comprehension.’ Lucille squinted. ‘I think he is a major,’ she offered.

‘Dammit,’ Eve muttered, and turned to face him, her face sullen. ‘I was doing well ignoring you, but it’s impossible to ignore chocolate.’

Harker grinned at her. She didn’t return it.

‘Of course, it’s entirely possible that it’s a hallucination. I’m hallucinating chocolate. If I can hallucinate an entire city, I can hallucinate chocolate.’

‘Smell it,’ Harker said. Eve ignored him.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, as if she owned the place.

‘I came to see you.’

‘Bearing chocolates. Which, as Lucille has kindly explained to me, are very hard to come by in this country, and it’s all jolly expensive.’

‘It is,’ Harker said.

‘So you must want something. Unless, possibly, my insanity is catching and it’s infected poor Lucille, too.’

‘Well, I’m sure I’m here, if that’s any help.’

‘No,’ Eve said. ‘It’s not.’ She stood up abruptly, grabbing the chocolates and shoving the piano stool back into his leg.

‘You sing really well,’ he said, limping slightly as he followed her out of the room.

She ignored him.

‘And play. You play well. The piano.’

‘Well, there’s no guitar here,’ Eve said shortly.

‘What was that song? I don’t know it.’

Eve gave a mirthless laugh. ‘There are little old men in Outer Mongolia who have never even seen a radio, let alone heard one, who know what that song is,’ she said.

‘Are there? Well, I ain’t a little old man in Outer Mongolia,’ Harker said cheerfully.

‘No. And yet you don’t recognise one of the most famous songs of the most famous band the world has ever seen.’

Harker darted round her to open the first set of doors before she could. She didn’t appear to appreciate the courtesy. Stalking through, she snapped, ‘That was
Yesterday
, by the Beatles. And the fact that you don’t know it, that no one knows it, only confirms what I’ve become totally sure of in the last few days.’

‘What’s that?’ Harker asked, following her up a staircase. She still favoured one leg slightly.

‘That I’ve had a complete mental breakdown and I’m imagining everything around me.’ She paused, looked again at the hideously expensive box of chocolates, and handed them back to him. ‘Including these.’

Harker was stunned. So stunned that she was almost at the top of the stairs before he caught up to her.

‘Eve,’ he said, ‘are you serious?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m mad.’

‘Mad as in angry?’

‘That too.’ She started off down a wide corridor that had once been decorated with rich wallpaper and many large portraits. Now, the paper was peeling, and had many large, dark squares where the portraits had once been.

‘Because I brought you here?’

‘Score one for the Major.’

Harker tried to figure out what she meant, and gave up. ‘Look, it’s not a bad place,’ he said. ‘They feed you okay, don’t they? And you can use the grounds.’

‘Sure, the food’s great. Only it involves no tea, coffee, chocolate, rice, pasta, or anything else that’s not indigenous to this country. I mean, haven’t you people heard of citrus fruits?’

‘Yeah, coffee’s at a premium,’ Harker said. ‘The army’s restricted it to officers only.’

‘So you get all you want?’

‘Well, not all
I
want,’ he said, smiling at her. She didn’t smile back. ‘And, hey. You have a piano to play.’

‘Whoopee,’ Eve said, and shoved a door open. Her bedroom was small, part of a large room that had been cheaply subdivided. It had half a window, and that half was crisscrossed with bars. She stomped to the foot of the narrow bed, opened the locker there, and pulled out a familiar bundle of khaki fabric. His greatcoat.

She held it out to him, but Harker didn’t take it.

‘Yours,’ she said, as if he might have forgotten.

‘You can keep it if you like,’ Harker said generously, wondering if he was going to be able to cadge another one before the winter set in. Probably not.

‘No,’ Eve said shortly, holding it out further. ‘Thank you.’

‘I didn’t come for my coat,’ Harker said, gently.

She faltered a little, then pushed the coat further towards him. ‘Then what did you come for?’

‘You.’

She stared at him a moment, then burst out laughing. Throwing the coat down on the bed, she shook her head and said, ‘Okay, I’m mad. What’s your excuse?’

‘You’re not mad,’ Harker said, despite the evidence.

‘Yes, I am,’ Eve said, as if he was being silly. ‘I think London has skyscrapers and an ethnically diverse population. I think Britain is one of the richest countries in the world, thanks to the empire – the
British
Empire – and the Industrial Revolution. I think the last battle to take place on British soil was against the Scots in the eighteenth century, and that we won both world wars, and that every home in Britain has electricity, and TV sets, and computers and DVDs and–’ Her voice, having wound itself faster and higher, suddenly broke off. Shook her head. ‘And clearly, none of that is actually real, so, you know, I must be mad. It’s okay, I’ve come to terms with it. Last few days weren’t pretty, but I’m okay now. Happy in my insanity.’

She sat down on the bed, and stared determinedly at the wall.

Harker sighed, and pulled the locker around to sit on in the absence of a chair. Eve avoided his gaze.

‘I can get you out of here,’ he said, and saw her fingers twitch. ‘Look, the only reason you’re in here is because the army thinks you’re a spy.’

‘Because
you
think I’m a spy,’ Eve said sulkily.

‘No, I don’t.’ He wasn’t sure what he thought she was – mad probably was about right – but he really didn’t think she was a spy. ‘Look, Eve, I need you.’