‘The police,’ said Bastian.
‘Forgive me, officer. I had no idea,’ begged the man.
‘Then you should open your eyes before your mouth,’ said Jambit.
He was wearing his police armband like Bastian but not allowed a firearm.
‘And maybe take a bath,’ said Bastian turning away from the wind that carried an unpleasant odour to his offended nostrils.
‘Sorry, Sir, I’m the new pigsty-man, Clem.’
His predecessor had been sent to the chain-gangs for dangerously riding a bicycle whilst in a hurry to feed the pigs.
‘Prove it!’
He rolled up his left sleeve and showed them a pig tattooed on his forearm.
‘You do know you’re not supposed to cover it up,’ said Bastian.
‘I’m sorry, Sir.’
‘Your knee, what happened?’
It was bloodied, the trouser torn with threads still dangling.
‘I was picking blackberries and fell on the thorns.’
‘And what did you do to merit such a wonderful job with the pigs, Clem?’ asked Jambit.
Pigsty-men and rat-catchers were criminals without points. Their offences were not severe enough for the chain-gangs so they were still given the opportunity to repay society. They lived on the edge of the villages, shunned but away from their victims lest a mob dragged them to the village stocks to be pelted by fruit carrying real stones.
‘Stole my neighbour’s grapes.’
‘And where are you going now?’ Bastian asked.
‘Back home, Sir, I just fed the pigs at Jeremiah’s house.’
The pig swill was made from rotting grains, fruit and veg, unless Clem was given permission to take them foraging, which often took place in the orchards after harvest.
‘That’s the other side of the village.’
‘Yes.’
‘Which means you crossed the common,’ said Bastian. ‘Tell me, what did you see that merited opium use so early in the day?’
‘The hanging girl, a horrible sight,’ he said.
‘Go on.’
‘Just that, Sir, as God is my witness.’
‘One last thing,’ said Bastian, ‘have you got any soap at home?’
‘Yes, Sir. From Scotland.’
‘Then make sure you use it!’
They watched Clem skulk away into the undergrowth.
‘First the old man in church and now a dead care assistant,’ said Bastian. ‘I smell a rat from a sunken ship.’
Chapter Ten
‘It’s just a simple pre-retirement meeting at the Ministry,’ said Jeremiah, checking his reflection in the bedroom mirror.
‘Then why no warning?’ asked Eliza, choosing a dress. ‘I’m scared.’
‘Don’t be. I’ll be with you and we both have enough points for Scotland. There’s nothing to worry about.’
‘What’s taking you both so long,’ shouted Holroyd up the stairs.
‘On our way,’ shouted Jeremiah, fastening his best braces.
He wore long trousers and a buttoned shirt with long sleeves like most old timers, but forwent his waistcoat in the heatwave.
Eliza was slipping on her best dress, the one that covered her knees and the redness. Though no one wanted to see an old woman’s legs, not even Jeremiah, and they were both wondering if separate bedrooms might be more suitable in Scotland.
Jeremiah pushed a note under the bedroom door with Mandrake flat on his back inside and snoring after his first night back at work. The writing was shaky and only mentioned a daytrip to London so Mandrake wouldn’t worry. His boys were still barred from school with a cough and would keep him awake, and he was avoiding it too, not wishing to take any germs into work and lose points.
He watched his parents leave in the Ministry car with licence plate MRT5 through a gap in the curtains, they were holding hands with Eliza in tears. He put on a dressing gown and walked through the house imagining which of his furniture would go where.
The car had air conditioning, the radio dial turned to the only channel on the airwaves, Edward and his government propaganda. Jeremiah and Eliza soon fell asleep on the backseats with Holroyd at the wheel.
On the outskirts of London were rusted flood risk signs and checkpoints. It had taken them eight hours to reach the sinking capital and overhead on the last bridge a chain-gang were scrubbing away the letters STOP painted overnight.
Eliza had never been to London and Jeremiah tried to keep her spirits up by pointing at the landmarks. There were few cars on the road but more bicycles than they had ever seen, peddled in and out of the horse-drawn carts. The old financial heart had died of a stroke, the tables of the money changers bulldozed and replaced by caravans full of new immigrants.
Tourists were carefully ferried around the capital in rickshaws with bells to warn others but no horns to admonish them over trifling mistakes. Everyone signalled and gave way when appropriate.
They approached the Houses of Parliament and base of the four Ministries. The armed militia held shotguns or leant them against the nearest wall, and wore regular clothes with their armband insignia: a black scarecrow upon a white background.
The militia were sworn to uphold the Party and had their own HQ at the Tower of London where many a subversive’s head had been impaled on the railings. In the days of turmoil when they plucked rotten fruit from the tree, their presence would elicit fear in both guilty and innocent, but now their duty was to stop the rise of counter-revolutionary influences and prevent inter-departmental assassination. They were, however, no match for the ideological elite, the feared commissars, who could if necessary investigate Party oligarchs.
Holroyd walked them to the entrance with several parked golf buggies outside.
‘This way, please,’ said Nabulus quickly turning around before they could greet him and Jeremiah and Eliza followed him down the air-conditioned corridor.
Holroyd waved them goodbye and went back to the car for a nap.
Water from the storm drains was lapping over their shoes as an offender walked ahead with a bag of dead rats strung over his back.
They were pleased to see Nabulus, and Jeremiah wondered if all this fuss was to do with Freya’s Anchor and the madman at church. He was smiling to himself, ready
