“What about your man Okeke Ortalo, Donald’s chauffeur? He’d be bound to know if Lawrence turned up.”
“I’ll contact him when the chance arises.”
“This is turning into a fucking messy business,” TK said. “As if I need this bloody hassle as the world falls apart.”
Chapter 18
Donald’s limousine returned to a house that was dark and silent—and not even locked. The house lights achieved but a wan orange. Neither Butler Campbell nor anyone else responded to tugs of the bell rope. The staff rooms in the basement spoke back in silence. The generator was cold and dead for the simple reason there were no servants to start it—hence the flat battery. Donald got the generator working and returned to the garage.
“My household staff have abandoned me,” he told Okeke.
It was astounding. Butler Campbell had served the family for thirty years, starting as a footman. Most of the rest of the staff had gathered at least a decade of service.
“I wouldn’t blame them for getting out while they can,” Okeke said.
“I expected better.”
“There’s talk a mob from Elephant and Castle will be in at first light.”
“Talk by whom?”
“Word gets through us lot faster than it does your lot, in my experience. Most of the folk out in the streets is probably ordinary folk getting back home.”
“You go home, then. Good luck.”
Okeke hesitated. However, Donald was already on his way to the Annex. After a long wait, Sarah-Kelly answered. She scowled at him, hugging a blanket about herself and peering about down the garden.
“There was someone lurking out here not half an hour ago. It scared the shit out of me,” she said.
“It will have been one of the staff. They’re afraid a mob will be in at dawn so they’ve gone back to their asylums—clean abandoned the house.”
“No. It wasn’t your staff, Donald. I don’t think your staff were padding about in socks with their boots knocking around their neck. I know that noise from when we did it last night. I saw this big guy in overalls through the window. He was up to no good.”
Donald pondered on this news. Break-ins were rare in this area, normally. However, tonight was not normal; the workers of town were on the roads fleeing home and his own house had been left unlocked. The scoundrel might still be inside.
“Come with me,” he said, drawing his Colt pistol. He led her back around to the front door, which he left wide open. Then he commenced a systematic and noisy room-to-room search, starting with the attic and working down to the staff quarters in the basement. He reasoned that any sensible intruder would quickly see the pattern and get out by the escape route on offer. The generator having taken effect, Donald now had proper lighting to work with. The search yielded no intruder. However, some person had been in the house. The shower in the master bedroom had been used, the razor and strop were missing, arrows from his boyhood bedroom had vanished and it was evident the kitchen had been selectively looted.
To begin with, Donald was furious at the violation, trivial though it was. The thought of some vile body having washed its filth in his shower particularly disgusted him. Sarah-Kelly was more pragmatic.
“You were lucky. Look at all the stuff they could have taken,” she said. “Those silver figures on the hall cabinet and those ivory miniatures. Think of all your wife’s jewellery—boxes and boxes of junk lying around right outside the shower.”
It was true enough. The pattern was that of an opportunist vagabond seeking the luxury of a clean body and a few safety features. A cut-throat razor and arrows would give life to a man scraping survival on the public drains. Such a character would have no need of Lavinia’s junk, although it was surprising he had not taken the pouch of common metal on the dressing table. The individual was now out on the dark streets, probably heading back to his natural habitat of the public drains, mind focused on the utter basics of life: shelter, clean water and food.
“Well he’s gone now anyway,” Donald said. “We’re truly on our own. Come on, I’ll make tea and sandwiches, you get a fire going in the library—it’s the cosiest room in the house.”
In the library, she got a small fire of kindling going, onto which she added coal lump by lump. With the central heating long cooled, the house was perishing such that they could see their own breath. She huddled around the steaming cup of tea.
“The world has fallen apart since the Bloomsbury attack,” Donald said. “The glories have vanished. They’re probably terrified of being lynched on sight. I suspect there may be some mobbing in the outer areas of the Enclave tomorrow.”
“What are you going to do?”
“In the morning, I’ll make an appointment to see TK. He needs someone who can contact the decapitated corpse of the National Party and get dialogue started before this mess gets completely out of hand.” He leaned towards her. “I’ll need your help. There won’t be anyone else with our combined contacts and expertise.”
Sarah-Kelly blew on her tea, eyeing him cautiously.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she said.
“No. At least, I don’t think so.”
“What about your wife?”
“You and I have to convince TK we’re too useful for her to screw things up. She’ll be told to shut her damned face and let me have a decent share of my daughters.”
Sarah-Kelly smiled and patted his shoulders.
“You’re quite the warrior when you get wound up about things. I still think there’s a problem,” she said.
“You’re too good at seeing problems.”
“Nightminster.”
“What’s he going to bloody do? You can’t stand the guy and that’s the end of the matter.”
They sat for a time in silence. The coals popped and hissed in the grate. Their faces began to glow. Perhaps that was it—the glowing heat. Did he edge to her, or she to him? Her blonde hair brushed
