Dominion

‘He seems to be out cold. That means Ben is in the hospital now, fetching Frank.’ Unlike Jackson, she used his first name. ‘Put the headlights out for now, please.’

Geoff switched them off. ‘Will the porter be all right?’ he asked.

‘He should be. He’s gagged, if he wakes up he can’t move or shout.’

‘If someone’s gagged and unconscious there’s the risk of them being sick when they wake up, choking to death. There was a case in Kenya when I was there, a robbery that went wrong.’

‘Ben is a professional,’ Natalia replied steadily. ‘He knows how to do these things.’

‘I’m just saying—’

‘You know what’s at stake here,’ she answered sharply, her accent stronger. ‘There are risks we have to take – ’ She broke off. Something was happening at the gates. David saw one of them was slightly open. He leaned forward to look more closely. ‘Someone’s coming out – no, two people.’ As he watched a short, stocky figure slipped through, leading someone else, slight and stumbling, by the arm.

Natalia leaned over and switched the headlights on. Frank and Ben stared at the car, blinking. David opened his door and got out, Natalia and Geoff following as he walked over to them. He saw Frank sag suddenly, almost falling, but Ben held him. His head had flopped forward onto his chest. David touched him gently on the shoulder. ‘It’s all right, Frank,’ he said. ‘It’s me. Geoff’s here too, we’ve come to help you.’

Natalia took the wheel. They drove through a sleeping village. Just beyond it she slowed the car. Frank seemed to have fallen asleep, his head lolling on his chest. David gave him a little nudge; he grunted but did not wake. The country road was very dark. Natalia said, ‘We’re looking for a long brick wall, with the name Rose Grange on a plaque by the gate.’

‘Who lives there?’ David asked.

‘A retired military man. Colonel Brock. He spent most of his life serving in India.’

‘One o’ thae types,’ Ben said disapprovingly.

‘He’s been with the movement since 1940. He’s too old for action now, but he has sheltered many of us before. Look, there it is, the plaque.’

She stopped the car. Geoff got out and opened a pair of creaky iron gates, and they drove up a short gravel drive with shrubbery on either side. They passed a palm tree, the leaves looking shrivelled and dead, and drew up outside a Victorian detached house, probably once a country vicarage. There were no lights. Inside, a dog began to bark. Natalia got out and opened the rear door. ‘Bring him out,’ she said gently.

Ben and David eased Frank out of the car. He muttered a little, shivering as the cold air hit him. He couldn’t stand unaided but between them Ben and David got him to his feet. They stood supporting Frank on the gravel, while Natalia went up to the front door and rang the bell. It was very cold; you could smell the frost in the air.

A light came on in the hall. The barking grew louder. A man’s voice shouted, ‘Nigger, shut up!’ David and Ben walked Frank up to the front door. It opened and a man stood looking at them. He was tall, with thin grey hair and a lined, stern face.

‘Colonel Brock?’ Natalia asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Aztec.’ It was the code word for their party.

The old man nodded. ‘Mission accomplished?’ he asked quietly.

‘Yes. We got him out safe.’

‘Hiya, pal,’ Ben said cheerfully.

The colonel nodded stiffly, then looked at Frank. ‘That him? He looks pretty groggy.’

‘He’s drugged,’ Ben said. ‘He needs putting to bed.’

‘Come inside.’

They took Frank into the house. The cold had woken him up a little and he gazed fearfully around the hall, blinking in the light. The furniture was an odd mixture of shabby English fittings and exotic mementos of India – a little stone sculpture of an ox pulling a cart, a portrait of a royal-looking Indian in a turban. A big black Labrador stood beside Colonel Brock, looking uncertainly at the visitors. An inner door opened and a short, plump woman came out. ‘My wife,’ the colonel said, nodding at her. ‘Elsie, my dear, could you help our visitors to some food?’

‘Of course.’ The woman looked at them nervously, her gaze lingering on Frank.

‘He’s all right,’ the colonel said firmly. ‘We’re going to put him to bed. Come on now, darling, food. Chop! Chop!’ Colonel Brock led them to the stairs. David and Ben helped Frank, the old man walking ahead, a gnarled hand on the banister. David saw that though he tried to keep his back straight he had a stoop.

He led them to a little bedroom with a single bed: a boy’s bedroom, a map of the world with pictures of the peoples of the Empire round the edges, schoolbooks on shelves, old copies of the Magnet piled in a corner. On the front of the topmost comic Billy Bunter, trying to skate on an icy pond, was falling over, other boys laughing as he went up in the air. They eased Frank onto the bed, where he turned over and fell asleep at once. Ben checked his pulse, then eased off Frank’s shoes and put a blanket over him. ‘He’ll sleep till morning, I should think. But someone should stay with him.’ He looked at David. ‘I’ll sit wi’ him till say four, then can you take over? If he wakes he should see someone he knows.’

‘Of course.’

The colonel looked down at Frank. ‘What’s he on?’ he asked bluntly.

‘Largactil. It’s a sedative. I gave him a heavy dose to quiet him while I got him oot.’

‘Looks done in, poor bugger.’

They left Ben with Frank and went back downstairs. The colonel showed David and Geoff into a big dining room. The television was on with the sound turned down, a quiz show, Isobel Barnett in an evening dress. A statue of the four-armed god Shiva stood incongruously on a Welsh dresser. David looked at it. ‘Pagan stuff, I know,’ Colonel Brock said, ‘but it’s very well done.’ He turned to Natalia. ‘I’d better get to the radio, let them know you’ve arrived. Elsie’s got it in the kitchen.’

‘Thank you.’

David asked, ‘Is there any news of my wife? Someone was being sent to pick her up.’

‘I haven’t heard anything.’ The colonel looked at him sympathetically. ‘I’ll ask.’ He went out. David and Natalia and Geoff sat down at the dining table.

‘Maybe no news is good news, old chap,’ Geoff said.

‘If they’ve got her safe, you’d think they’d have let us know by now.’

The colonel’s wife came in with a large tray containing bowls of vegetable soup, a loaf of bread, some butter. Geoff got up and helped her lay it on the table. ‘Short commons tonight, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘We’ve sent our housekeeper on holiday for a few days, since we heard you were coming.’

The colonel returned and sat at the head of the table. ‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said to Elsie. ‘You’d better get back to the radio.’ He looked at David. ‘No news about your wife yet, Fitzgerald,’ he said gently, ‘but London might not have been able to get through. There’s been a lot going on with this Jew business. Elsie will come and tell us if anything changes.’

‘Thanks,’ David said.

‘I’m told the chap upstairs is pretty important?’ Colonel Brock said.

‘He could be, sir,’ Geoff answered.

The old man raised a hand. ‘Don’t need to know the details. I gather Churchill’s been personally involved with this one, though.’ He looked at Natalia, a little uneasily David thought. There was another silence while they ate the thick, flavourless soup. David suddenly felt very tired. He thought, about forty-eight hours ago I was sitting in my office, at work. How fragile our lives are, how a day can turn them inside out.

Geoff said, to break the silence, ‘You have a lot of Indian mementos, sir.’

‘Yes. Served there thirty years. My son’s out there now, God help him. Rioters broke his bloody arm with a brick in Delhi last year.’

‘I worked in the Colonial Office. I was in Kenya for quite a while.’

The colonel smiled. ‘Wondered if you’d been out in the Empire. Your tan hasn’t quite faded.’ He grunted. ‘Quieter out in Africa. The blacks know their place. God knows how it’ll all end in India.’ Geoff set his lips, but didn’t reply. The colonel continued, ‘Lefties in the Resistance say we should pull out, and even Churchill seems to have accepted that now. I suppose I must, too, though it’s not what I joined the Resistance for.’

‘Why did you join, sir?’ David asked.