sister is doing something useful for the first time in her life-and you, Vikram, you’ve been instrumental in that. She doesn’t need any-distractions.”
“Not even if it means finding out the truth?”
Linus tapped the envelope.
“What does this tell us, really, Vikram? All this talk of missions. Horses. It’s not an answer.”
“But you believe the letter is genuine.”
“Yes.” Linus was decisive. “I do. And for that reason, I think it’s best that I keep it in the family. As they say. This investigation-it’s put us in a very difficult position, as I’m sure you can understand. Axel generated enough publicity in his lifetime. We don’t need any more. This way, the investigation can just… peter out.”
“She’s sure he’s alive,” said Vikram. “You do know that.”
Linus loosened his collar slightly, pulling its tight starch away from his neck.
“Adelaide is sure about a lot of things,” he said. “Besides, as we said-what does a letter prove?” He looked at Vikram directly. “Thank you for trusting me with this. I trust I can show my appreciation in some way-lean on the Council for those extensions to the aid schemes? Perhaps have a look at the flooded buildings?”
“You can do both of those. Will you show her the letter?”
“Of course. In time.” Linus glanced up at the clock. “Now don’t think I’m trying to get rid of you, but I have a meeting to get to.”
“It’s fine. I’ve got places to be myself.”
Linus shrugged on his jacket, tucking the envelope into his inside pocket. Vikram felt the weight of it then; his part in what must now be a conspiracy between himself and Linus. From this moment Vikram would carry that knowledge around with him like a microchip embedded in his brain. It would surface every time he saw an image of Adelaide’s face, or heard her voice on the o’dio. The thought that he would probably never see her in person again hit him with a terrible wave of loneliness.
A low burring noise jolted him out of his thoughts. Linus hooked in an earpiece and slid his Sobek scarab into one pocket.
“Hello?” He picked up a slim briefcase and mouthed to Vikram, “I’ll walk out with you.”
Vikram opened the door and Linus stepped out with him, passing an electronic key over the lock.
“I’ll be there in ten. Yes… I’ve got the whitefly notes.” At the entrance to his offices, he pressed his wrist to Vikram’s. Then he walked away, confident in his pinstriped suit, a man at ease in every way that Vikram was not; with himself, with his place and with his times. Vikram felt his own wrongness like a physical ailment. To the west, he had treated with the enemy, even if it was for their own good. To the City, he would always be an impostor. Only Adelaide had accepted him for what he was, and Adelaide was a liar, and now he had betrayed her and her twin.
35 ADELAIDE
Boats with black hulls and crudely painted eyes slunk down the border, each vessel thick with Guards. Dark, bulky overcoats and furred hats hid their features, but the men bristled with guns.
Adelaide sat in the stern of the speedboat, hunched over, gloved hands at her chin. She stared determinedly westward through the checkpoint. She had been out here for thirty minutes, watching; she could no longer feel the exposed parts of her face or her feet. Gulls flapped overhead, pale and sharp beaked against the overcast sky. Their raucous calls pierced the cold air. Adelaide did not move.
The boatman gave her an exasperated look.
“Miss, haven’t you seen enough?”
“No.”
He folded his arms, sighing loud enough for her to hear.
Every waterbus that came out of the west was stopped. Each time, the officer in charge boarded the waterbus and forced its passengers to form a line. He walked the length of the line, pausing in front of some passengers, barely glancing at others. The officer carried a stick with which he rapped the decking in time to his footsteps, and she could tell by the dull contact sound that it was made of metal.
Beyond the checkpoint and the border net, western pyramids and scrapers rose grim and sallow. Faded graffiti covered the towers, layer upon layer, angry slogans and figures like manga cartoons, frozen in action-mid- leap, mid-punch. Their oversized eyes followed her across the border.
Further in, she could make out more boats, or things that had been coaxed to float, rafts and metal basins, clustered around the bases of the towers. There were shapes inside the boats and propped up on the deckings. Their movements were slow and laboured. At first she did not realize they were people. They moved like another race, one long lost and forgotten.
This was it. The last place.
For the first time since that day, she allowed the execution scene to crystallise in her memory, looking at it without flinching. Looking at it from Vikram’s side.
“We’re going across,” she told the boatman. He stared at her as if she was crazy. Perhaps I am, she thought. Crazy like Axel. He’d have to be crazy to come here, and she knew suddenly that her instinct was right.
“I’m afraid I can’t go any further, Miss.”
“I’m ordering you to take the boat across.”
“Miss, with all due respect, I’m not going to. Your father would have a fit.”
“My father can go hang himself.”
“Your father’s orders come above your own, Miss Rechnov. There’s no way in Osiris I’m taking you into the west. Do you want to be shot?”
She wanted to hit him for the way he was looking at her, defiantly, insolently, but more than that-as though she was something to be contained, even pitied. She clenched her teeth.
“I have to cross the border, Foma.”
How long they might have argued for in the bitter cold, she would not find out, because another dispute, louder than theirs, carried over the water. A waterbus had stopped at the checkpoint. The shouting was between the officer and one of the passengers. Adelaide could see those not involved fidgeting, the other passengers anxiously, the Guards with a twitching impatience.
Uneasily now, she watched as the officer hauled the passenger out of the line and off the boat, onto the jetty. He jerked him along the decking and thrust him onto his knees.
“Miss, miss, we should really go now.”
Foma shook her shoulder gently, but she felt it with the force applied to the passenger.
“Miss, you don’t want to see this.”
The officer lifted his stick, high above his head. It cracked through the air. A scream was quickly muffled. The officer leaned over to wipe the weapon against the man’s coat. He stepped away, twisting his wrist.
At a sign, four of the Guards gathered around the man. Systematically, they delivered a series of kicks and blows until he shrivelled against the decking. At first there were no sounds other than that of impact. Then he began to shriek.
It took barely a minute, and his face was no longer recognizable as a face.
One of the women on the boat turned away with a moan of horror. A Guard marched her to the rail and pinched her chin, forcing her to watch. Adelaide saw the woman’s body convulse as she retched.
“Miss, come on. Let’s go.”
The boatman reached for the ignition, but Adelaide put her hand over it.
“Wait.”
The officer in charge raised a hand. The beating stopped. The man’s howls grew shakier. The officer stepped forward, put the muzzle of his gun against the man’s head, and pulled the trigger. Two Guards took the wrists and ankles, and slung the body into the sea.
The dead man floated, his ruined face to the clouds.
“Miss, can we go now?” Foma’s voice had lost all its anger; now it was pleading. Adelaide nodded, numbly. She felt the boat gear into life, knew there must be something she should do, but was incapable of finding words or
