them on the matter, not least because of his own sympathy with their position.

He was becoming suspicious of Farkas’ motivations in making him minister for trade. The other members of the Provisional Cabinet were more or less openly sceptical of a man who had been Tom Krossington’s appointed regent. One character called General Yelcho had been especially caustic.

“I trust you’ll show greater loyalty to us than you did to your previous master, you colourless puppet.”

Donald had suppressed a retort that Yelcho had until Sunday been, like Farkas, a team lieutenant of General Wardian and no doubt owed his absurd jump in rank only to his friendship with the president. As for the president, what was he? The Provisional Cabinet had been ‘declared’ on Sunday afternoon after an ‘emergency plenum’ of party survivors. In reality, Farkas was president on no stronger credential than having jumped on a box and yelled across Brent Cross market place that he was the president. In Donald’s eyes, the cabinet had no more legitimacy than a fourth-form debating club. Who the hell were they to insult him? Yet he had to be careful in his retorts; they were his raft. They were his place in the world. They held his leash, damn them.

Donald’s mood was not improved by his next effort as minister for trade. He wished to meet with gangster chieftains to introduce them to the Republic and tell them they were now citizens, with all the rights and protections that went with that. By way of making a start, he had tried to draw them out onto Willesden Market. If one imagined it as a hub, then gangster petty domains surrounded it like segments of a wheel. Firing his pistol in the air drew silence. Smarting with exasperation, he ordered his retinue back to Brent Cross for lunch. He was increasingly convinced Farkas had given him this portfolio knowing he would make a fool of himself. Doubtless it would lighten the Provisional Cabinet meetings to have a loser they could all laugh at. It would dissipate jealousies that otherwise could have been dangerous. The failure of ‘sensible Donald’ would also justify ‘effective action’ by the likes of General Yelcho against North Kensington basin, gangsters and anyone else who objected to the diktats of the Provisional Cabinet.

In short, he was being kept alive because he was useful, at least for the time being.

On the way home, his driver lost patience dawdling in the smoke of the armoured car. He swerved around it and put his foot to the floor. Donald gaped at the speedometer needle as it swung around past one hundred miles per hour. The engine shrilled with power. The brick walls of the turnpike swelled out of the distance and shot behind as the car leaped and writhed over the beaten gravel. What seemed smooth as water at a brisk walk turned into a dangerous swell at the speeds these petrol-fired motor cars could reach—and the motorcyclists had torn off ahead even faster, throwing up rooster-tails of dusk and grit that stung the bodywork of the car.

The driver had to slow down for the ruts and craters of Brent Cross market place. After they stopped, Donald called all the motorcyclists and the driver together to address them.

“From now, my fellow citizens, you will respect a maximum speed of forty miles per hour.”

To his surprise, this was greeted with bitter sullenness. An air of hostility closed upon him. He added:

“Can’t you see it’s for your own good? You can’t race about at one hundred miles per hour and get away with it forever.”

“Forty miles per hour, Mr Aldingford?” The driver’s voice was strained. “At that speed we’re sitting ducks.”

“Sixty then, but only well away from people and brick walls.”

This concession was taken in better spirit. The problem with these petrol-fired cars and motorbikes was they could reach the speed of a flying boat in seconds—just feet from hard brick and soft flesh. There was a diabolical temptation in them. They turned normally docile, obedient men into reckless fools.

*

It was just after noon when he returned to the National Party headquarters at Brent Cross, where he sought out Sarah-Kelly for a quick lunch. She sat, extremely flustered, at a desk across the office from President Farkas, who had appointed her to the grand role of lead statement manager of the Atrocity Commission.

“Take a break?” he asked, rubbing her back.

“This is a nightmare—the records pour in and get dumped all over the place. The folk murdered at Bloomsbury kept so much in their heads that with them gone the whole thing’s chaos and meantime top killers are escaping out to the sovereign lands because they haven’t been named for arrest.”

“It’s always a good idea to step back and take a big view. Anyway, I want to talk about something.”

He led her downstairs to the canteen. It was packed. They waited twenty minutes in the queue, by which time the choice had narrowed to mashed parsnips and roesti. There was no chance of a quiet word whilst eating elbow to elbow. He waited until afterwards, when they strolled up and down the steps of the headquarters building.

“I want to talk about Lawrence,” he said, keeping alert for anyone drifting close enough to hear. He had not shown Sarah-Kelly the statement by Leading Basic Garrington. It had gone back into a process of thousands of such statements from which it was unlikely ever to surface to her attention.

“I haven’t had time to think about him.”

“I want your frank opinion. You see, I’ve been doing a little drifting about amongst former glory officers, sounding people out generally. I’ve got a far better understanding of promotion in the glory trusts—as always, when you look closely, it turns out things aren’t as simple as they appeared in caricature.

“People did get promoted without being top killers. One way up was through corruption. The contraband networks replicated themselves by pulling up juniors to be seniors who would in turn pull new juniors

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