Lawrence dwelled on his failure to pose as a dumb marginal and could only accept that Bartram was right.
“Then I’ll stay away from children.”
“They’ll be off to school in half an hour. Take a seat over in that office—” He swung an arm towards a cabin in the corner. “I’ll tell Bill and Dave—the guys you saw outside—and my brothers you’re a friend of Sarah-Kelly’s we’re helping out. It’s no lie. It gives you cover for today at least. As for the longer term—”
Lawrence reassured him the longer term was not going to be a problem. He set up the impression brother Donald would have the clout to secure a pardon through his links to Tom Krossington. Perhaps Lawrence’s acting skills continued to flop; Bartram’s response was non-committal:
“We’ll take it one day at a time. All I really want to know is that Skay is safe, not dead at Bloomsbury College.”
“I could go and look for her.”
“We’ll discuss it later. Wait there in that cabin. We’ll get you a bath and fresh clothes, some grub and… Maybe I’ll have had some ideas by then.”
Chapter 19
Lawrence sought an escape route. The warehouses had internal archways allowing him to explore all three bays without going out into yard. There were no exits from the premises. No windows, not even barred ones, no doors. The external walls were very solid mortared brick. The buildings were probably of Public Era vintage adapted from a previous purpose. A ladder ran up the wall from the corner cabin to a hatch in the roof. No doubt this was used by the fire watch to check for torches or burning arrows landing on the roof. Lawrence made a hasty ascent and peered out from under the hatch. It offered a fine view across the bushes and gaping basements of the Strip. Looking back in daylight over his route of the night, Lawrence was amazed he had avoided a lethal fall.
A quarter of a mile to the south, the red saw-tooth battlements of the Grande Enceinte formed the silhouette over which the morning sun blazed. Its battlements were so crowded with heads and shoulders that he could only suppose tourists had invaded the galleries and stairwells within. That meant tourists could roam armouries stacked with 155mm shells, bags of propellant, crates of 0.303 ammunition, racks of rifles… Well, it was thankfully not his problem. It did reveal the National Party was still some way from exerting its presumptuous rule upon its subjects. At the gates of White City fort was a little cluster of dark suits handing out sheets, no doubt more of their bulletins. They did not appear to be hindering the flow in and out. Lawrence risked a quick lift of the hatch to scan the roof. It was slate, with a moderate slope. The gap across to the neighbouring premises was too far for even a desperate man to jump, unless he was desperate enough to believe a broken spine was going to improve his safety. The other way, at the west end of the Newman property, the warehouse was only two floors high. That was low enough to risk a jump and roll onto grass—after which one had to get over the frontier. Lawrence ran his eyes along its prickly thatch. He noted a thin area about a hundred yards to the left, to the east. A man could bore through that in half a minute and be away. Whether he enjoyed the motivation of mastiffs snapping at his buttocks was all a matter of how intensely his pursuers wished to bring him back.
He descended back to the little cabin and sat surrounded by wooden filing cabinets neatly labelled by years and customers: Soho KBS 2100 on, Pallingham Arrivals 2090-2100, Braunston Grant & Culworth 2100 on etc. The names meant nothing to Lawrence. He was conscious of how alien this nation of the Newman family was compared to the corporate nation of General Wardian. Each did its business totally unaware of and independent of the other. Lawrence was fairly sure the glory trusts did not rely on the canals for logistics. The glory trusts were self-sufficient for safety’s sake. They moved their troops by ship as much as possible. After disembarking ashore the troops moved inland by route-marching, any heavy gear being towed by steam trucks (which could burn wood from any locale).
Still, it was a massive luxury to be amongst friends. He relaxed back and shut his eyes, the exhaustion of lonely struggle coming over him, turning him into sagging plasticine. If it came to the worst, would he bother fleeing by the hatch to the Strip? What was the point? It was like jumping over the rail of a ship into wild open sea—it changed the manner of death, not the end result. Why not just face up to execution? At least it was a dignified end compared to skulking on the public drains dying of cold and hunger. He lingered on the realities of such a wretched death. It would be frostbite, then gangrene, then death by carrion, ripped apart by a pack of dogs or worse, blinded by feeding rooks—eaten alive strip by strip. That was how a rabbit died. No, if his time came, he was going to stand and face it like a man.
He woke up in the process of sliding off the chair, startling a cat that had been staring at him around the door. For some seconds he remained listening, trying to judge if much time had passed. A quick look outside to the yard revealed shadows stretched long westwards—it was still quite early. The sleep must have been brief. For amusement, he watched the cat hunt. It had spotted a mouse under a pallet. It lunged into the gap and emerged with the mouse dangling by the tail, whereupon it rolled about, pawing at the mouse, batting it, letting it sneak off, then
