She said impatiently: “Bicycle. I’ve left it outside your back gate. It was locked but luckily your neighbour had put out his dustbin. I climbed over. Look, there isn’t time to eat. You’d better grab what food you’ve got handy. We’ve got some bread, cheese, a few tinned goods. Where’s your car?”
“In a garage off Pusey Lane. I’ll get my coat. There’s a bag hanging behind that cupboard door. The larder’s through there. See what food you can get together. And you’d better recork and put in the wine.”
He went upstairs to fetch his heavy coat, and, mounting one more staircase to the small back room, slipped his diary into the large inner pocket. The action was instinctive; if asked, he would have had difficulty in explaining it even to himself. The diary wasn’t particularly incriminating; he had taken care over that. He had no premonition that he was leaving for more than a few hours the life which the diary chronicled and this echoing house enclosed. And even if the journey were the beginning of an odyssey, there were more useful, more valued, more relevant talismans which he could have slipped into his pocket.
Miriam’s last call to him to hurry had been unnecessary. Time, he knew, was very short. If he were to get to the group to discuss with them how best he could use his influence with Xan, above all if he were to see Julian before her arrest, he must get on the road without a second’s unnecessary delay. Once the SSP knew that the group had flown they would turn their attention to him. His car registration was on record. The abandoned dinner, even if he could spare the time to throw it into the waste bin, would be evidence enough that he had left in a hurry. In his anxiety to get to Julian he felt no more than a slight concern for his own safety. He was still ex-adviser to the Council. There was one man in Britain who had absolute power, absolute authority, absolute control, and he was that man’s cousin. Even the State Security Police couldn’t in the end prevent him from seeing Xan. But they could prevent him from getting to Julian; that at least was within their power.
Miriam, holding a bulging tote-bag, was waiting for him beside the front door. He opened it but she motioned him back, put her head against the doorpost and glanced quickly each way. She said: “It looks clear.”
It must have rained. The air was fresh but the night dark, the street lamps cast their dim light over the grey stones, the rain-mottled roofs of the parked cars. On each side of the street curtains were drawn, except in one high window where a square of light shone out and he could see dark heads passing, hear the faint sound of music. Then someone in the room turned up the volume and suddenly there poured out over the grey street, piercingly sweet, mingled tenor, bass, soprano voices singing a quartet, surely Mozart, though he couldn’t recognize the opera. For one vivid moment of nostalgia and regret the sound took him back to the street he had first known as an undergraduate thirty years ago, to friends who had lodged here and were gone, to the memory of windows open to the summer night, young voices calling, music and laughter.
There was no sign of prying eyes, no sign of life except for that one surge of glorious sound, but he and Miriam walked swiftly and quietly the thirty yards down Pusey Street, heads bent and in silence as if even a whisper or a heavy footfall could wake the street into clamorous life. They turned into Pusey Lane and she waited, still silently, while he unlocked the garage, started up the Rover and opened the door for her to slide quickly in. He drove fast down Woodstock Road but carefully and well within the speed limit. They were on the outskirts of the city before he spoke.
“When did they take Gascoigne?”
“About two hours ago. He was placing explosives to blow up a landing stage at Shoreham. There was to be another Quietus. The Security Police were waiting for him.”
“Not surprisingly. You’ve been destroying the embarkation stages. Obviously they kept watch. So they’ve had him for two hours. I’m surprised they haven’t picked you up yet.”
“They probably waited to question him until they got him back to London. And I don’t suppose they’re in much of a hurry, we’re not that important. But they will come.”
“Of course. How do you know they’ve got Gascoigne?”
“He rang to say what he was going to do. It was a private initiative, Rolf hadn’t authorized it. We always ring back when the job’s completed; he didn’t. Luke went round to his lodgings in Cowley. The State Security Police had been to search—at least, the landlady said someone had been to search. Obviously it was the State Security Police.”
“That wasn’t sensible of Luke, to go to the house. They could have been waiting for him.”
“Nothing we’ve done has been sensible, only necessary.”
He said: “I don’t know what you’re expecting from me, but if you want me to help you’d better tell me something about yourselves. I know nothing except your forenames. Where do you live? What do you do? How did you meet?”
“I’ll tell you, but I don’t see why it matters or why you need to know. Gascoigne is—was—a long-distance lorry-driver. That’s why Rolf recruited him. I think they met in a pub. He could distribute our leaflets over the whole of England.”
“A long-distance driver who’s an explosives expert. I can see his usefulness.”
“His granddad taught him about explosives. He was in the army and the two of them were close. He didn’t need to be an expert. There’s nothing very complicated about blowing up landing stages or anything else. Rolf is an engineer. He works in the electricity-supply industry.”
“And what did Rolf contribute to the enterprise apart from not particularly effective leadership?”
Miriam ignored the taunt. She went on: “You know about Luke. He used to be a priest. I suppose he still is. According to him, once a priest, always a priest. He hasn’t got a parish, because there aren’t many churches left that want his brand of Christianity.”
“What brand is that?”
“The sort the Church got rid of in the 1990s. The old Bible, the old prayer book. He takes the occasional service if people ask him. He’s employed at the botanical gardens and he’s learning animal husbandry.”
“And why did Rolf recruit him? Hardly to provide spiritual consolation to the group?”
“Julian wanted him.”
“And you?”
“You know about me. I was a midwife. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. After Omega I took a job at a supermarket check-out in Headington. Now I manage the store.”
“And what do you do for the Five Fishes? Slip the pamphlets into packets of breakfast cereal?”
She said: “Look, I said we weren’t sensible. I didn’t say we were daft. If we hadn’t been careful, if we were as incompetent as you make out, we wouldn’t have lasted this long.”
He said: “You’ve lasted this long because the Warden wanted you to last. He could have had you picked up months ago. He didn’t because you’re more useful to him at large than imprisoned. He doesn’t want martyrs. What he does want is the pretence of an internal threat to good public order. It helps buttress his authority. All tyrants have needed that from time to time. All he has to do is tell the people that there’s a secret society operating whose published manifesto may be beguilingly liberal but whose real aim is to close down the Isle of Man Colony, let loose ten thousand criminal psychopaths on an ageing society, send home all the Sojourners so that the rubbish isn’t collected and the streets are unswept, and ultimately overthrow the Council and the Warden himself.”
“Why should people believe that?”
“Why not? Between the five of you you’d probably like to do all those things. Rolf certainly would like to do the last. Under an undemocratic government there can be no acceptable dissent any more than there can be moderate sedition. I know you call yourselves the Five Fishes. You may as well tell me your code names.”
“Rolf is Rudd, Luke is Loach, Gascoigne is Gurdon, I’m Minnow.”
“And Julian?”
