“Krossington.”
“He’s a barbarian. He won’t save you, however your family plead with him. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
Lawrence scoured around his mind for any further means of persuasion, without success; he was out of bargaining chips. He got to his feet.
“I’m a danger to you. Take these clothes back. You can assume your secrets are safe with me.”
In silence, Kalchelik marched out to find the servant who had taken the foul Value System clothes. Afterwards, he accompanied Lawrence down to the gates of the premises.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help. Your only hope is to get out of Britain. Don’t come back until the National Party have won.” He pressed a pouch of metal into Lawrence’s hand.
“Maybe,” Lawrence said. Kalchelik observed the remoteness, the bleakness of Lawrence’s face.
“What was your rank when you were fogged?”
“Cost-centre lieutenant.” Kalchelik’s reaction was a long, sad sigh. After a pause, Lawrence held out his hand and Kalchelik shook it. “I wish you the best of luck.”
*
The pouch contained a mix of shiny steel balls, copper Norsemen and silver white ones. The steel shot was Public Era heirloom ball bearings salvaged from the millions of useless motor cars that had once littered the drains. It was ubiquitous money. The Norsemen and white ones were peculiar to the London basin, although they would be accepted more widely, if with some grumpiness. The question was, how could he make use of this wealth? The end of the afternoon allowed him some grace to linger on the great market space of Brent Cross. He reasoned that the pouch of coins was if anything a liability. It was useless for the turnpike without a passport. To spend any of it was to risk broadcasting he had money, which instantly targeted him either for assault or denouncement as a thief.
He saw his situation thus: he had to assume The Captain had the means to watch North Kensington basin and his family’s house in the Bloomsbury district of the Central Enclave. The man who owned the Value System had the means to bribe (or threaten) customs officials and servants. All Lawrence had in his armoury was time. If months passed without the reappearance of Big Stak, then The Captain would be forced to assume that either his missing value had perished in the fens, or else had fled to the oblivion of ‘seeing the world’. In either case, the threat had evaporated. So, Lawrence had to plan for months of furtive living before making any move. It was late November, the worst of winter was yet to arrive. He thought of the ragged tents and boxes the marginals lived in. What sort of health would he be in by April, even if he avoided freezing to death?
As dusk came, there was an unspoken coagulation of the marginal groups. They gathered outside a pub on the edge of a workers’ district on the east side of the market place. At some signal Lawrence never saw, they drained away down a lane through the maze of passages and tiny squares to the clearing where they had accumulated that morning. From there, everyone filtered off into the wasteland. Lawrence by this time had found Bob once again and with much gesticulation and pretty much unintelligible plosives expressed no lie that he had spotted a long-lost friend. Bob grinned and shook his head.
“You’re one of the big, sad losers of this world, Horace, but…” He wagged a finger at Lawrence. “You know how to work and that’s what counts. You come with me and I’ll see you’re all right.”
About a score lived in the settlement with Bob. They sat around the fire, yarning, those who had had a day’s work satisfied to have full bellies and be stewing a good shit before kip—seemingly a good shit before bed was living high on the hog by marginal standards. Lawrence kept his ears alert. Today was Friday 26th November. It was Advent Sunday this weekend. The churches were opened to all, there would be food and a glass of wine for the poor. The citizens of the asylum would be less spiteful. Traders would hand out potatoes, turnips, onions and clean water to the needy.
One of the men around the fire sat with a bow and a quiver of arrows slung about his chest. Lawrence took a close interest. After some apologetic soothing from Bob, the man allowed Lawrence to try the bow, test its pull, select an arrow and smack it bang in the centre of a birch bole some thirty feet off. The bow’s owner took a closer interest. He set up a challenge for Lawrence—see if you can hit ‘this’. The bowman placed a much-chipped rat carved from oak on a box and paced out twelve yards. Lawrence drew the bow, aimed... The wooden rat leaped and fell, the arrow in its flank.
All the men cheered and clapped. The bowman introduced himself as Tuwile—not two willies, too-will-eh. The name came out of Kenya, that was a nation state somewhere in Africa back in the Public Era. The man’s skin was very black. He laughed at how white Lawrence’s skin was: I think I have a partner, I’ll call you White Horace. Lawrence discovered he was to be a top killer of rats, not the most impressive career move for a man who once aspired to be an account-captain first class, but hey, it put food on the table... Seriously, this was a major advance. Now he had a job. The world was never going to stop hating rats after all. Tuwile also shot mad dogs and the odd cat. Cats were welcome in the asylum provided they stuck to eating rats and mice. If they acquired a taste for hens, pet rats or wild
