“Nightminster of the Value System, I presume,” Donald said.
“The Value System is my business, yes.”
“These boots you produce are excellent.”
“So glad you like them.” Nightminster pulled a cold smirk. “Presumably you wish to meet the Newmans?”
“I hope to, eventually.”
“See you inside.”
Nightminster turned his back, taking a detour to check his machine’s moorings and give the hounds a pat before ambling into the Newman mansion. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened. About ten minutes later, Bill appeared on the wharf. Donald managed to catch his attention and finally get let in.
*
Nightminster and Bartram had their heads together in a nook at the far end of the open ground floor, obviously wrangling over business. Rosa sat slumped at one end of the kitchen table. She had been crying. Sarah-Kelly sat in an armchair, her back to the room, writing on her lap. From overhead came thumping and shouts of children dashing about.
Donald took a seat beside Rosa.
She said: “If they can hit Brent Cross, they can hit us here. Suppose there’s a radio in the next house?”
Sarah-Kelly yanked out a chair and sat between them. In contemptuous tones, she said: “That’s what they want you to think, you rabbit.”
Bartram ploughed up the length of the room, barging chairs out of the way. He swiped Sarah-Kelly across the back of the head so hard her chin almost hit the table. Donald sat rigid, furious at Bartram but reluctant to intervene in a family row.
“You will not speak to my wife like that.” As he was returning to business with Nightminster, he shouted back: “You have to be more than one of Banner’s babes to stay in this house.”
Sarah-Kelly kept her head down, teeth clenched, quivering with anger and futility. Minutes passed. She said nothing, so Donald coaxed:
“I would like to thank you for telling me about Lawrence. It’s highly unlikely I would have learned about his arrest but for you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I need details of what happened—and remember I know nothing at all about his life. We only learned he joined General Wardian when the school needed permission to send his records. For ten years we’ve heard not a whisper, despite our having written to him many times.”
Sarah-Kelly kept her voice low.
“He really hated you people. He was forever jeering quotes of your father and slagging you off for being such a greasy sycophant.”
“I can’t think of anything I did to make him so hostile, he’s nine years my junior, we barely knew each other.”
“From what I’ve seen of you, he was not wrong. You make a living in the butt-crack of the sovereigns.”
Donald paused before responding, quite aware that she was right and quite aware he must not appear to sympathise.
“I provide legal advice to those with the gold to pay for it. I have to make a living just like everyone else.”
Unfortunately, this was not the right thing to say. It fired a rant about the outrages of the sovereign system. He listened politely, finding little to disagree with, becoming impressed at how thoroughly she understood the “intellectual inescapability of balanced land”, although in her interpretation, it was that inescapability that condemned the sovereign system.
“The sovereigns claim they prevent the recrudescence of the Fatted Masses to protect Nature’s beauty, but there’s nothing new under the sun—they just want everything their own way. They’re blocking history and they have to go,” she said.
He noted the passion and rigid determination. TK could be right about the National Party being dangerous. The stupidity of General Wardian’s shelling of Brent Cross would hardly made it any safer. Bartram relieved his ears of further berating by yelling:
“Give the guy a rest, Skay. I can see from here his ears are bleeding. He can’t be yer average townie if he came out all on his own.”
Sarah-Kelly set her jaw and waited.
“To help Lawrence, I need to know how he came to be court-martialled,” Donald said. “Then I can put feelers through my town network to the Krossington clan. My experience of Tom Krossington is that he’s a fair man. If his citizens were involved in this business, he will do something about it.”
Sarah-Kelly finally came down from the clouds of ideology to the here and now.
“How did you check my story?” she asked.
“I can’t give details. A friend of a friend works at Northumberland Avenue.” This was the corporate HQ of General Wardian, situated in the Westminster district of the Central Enclave. “This person was able to check Lawrence’s personnel records, which showed he had been dishonourably dismissed.”
“What makes you so sure Lawrence is innocent?”
“Family intuition. People do not change much after a certain age. The defining trait of my brother was defiance. He was never a bully, a liar, or a thief.”
“And you think Mr Krossington will give a damn?”
“Yes. In any case, what have you to lose?”
“All right, go ahead, fire away.”
Donald gathered his thoughts, all too aware how instantly he would be in danger if he blurted out something he ought not to know.
“First of all, why did you only come to me recently, when Lawrence was sent to the Fog in the summer?”
“I wasted months pestering the National Party to appeal to the ultramarines. It’s a waste of time, the ultras don’t care.”
“What rank did Lawrence hold at the time of his arrest?”
“He was a cost-centre lieutenant. That’s one below account-captain. He was very young.”
“Who was his commanding officer?”
“That was Account-Captain Turner. He was clever, you could tell he saw the sovereign system as a racket from top to bottom, what he lacked was the guts to do anything about it. Still, he might help you.”
“How did you come to be working in Oban?”
“It’s a bit of a story… do you know what I mean by a talent court?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think you would. Well, last year the Talent Court of Krossington set up a marquee on the Brent
