hall. They moved forward, carrying Maxted like a totem at their head, running towards the blaze, his hoarse cries lost in the fierce drumming of the inferno.
41
A SOLAR CULT
‘WHAT HAPPENED to Tony Maxted?’ Julia asked.
We stood by the police railings and gazed across the empty plaza at what remained of the Metro-Centre. Much of the dome was intact, a curved wall like the stand of a circular stadium. But the apex had collapsed, falling into the furnace of shops, hotels and department stores. Three weeks after our escape, smoke and steam rose from the ruin, watched by a dozen fire crews drawn up within fifty yards of the structure. A small crowd appeared each day, staring at the stricken mall as if unable to grasp what had happened. The Metro-Centre had devoured itself, a furnace consumed by its own fire.
‘Richard . . . poor man, are you still here?’
‘I’m not sure. It feels rather strange. In a way we shouldn’t be watching . . .’
‘No? Where should we be? Sweet man, part of you will be forever beachcombing near the Holiday Inn . . .’
She took my arm to reassure me, but kept a wary eye on my shifting moods. For the first time her hair was reined in over her left shoulder, exposing her face. Three nights under sedation at Brooklands Hospital, and long days of sleep in her bed at home, had transformed her from the haggard refugee I had pushed to safety from the dome. That morning I had heard from her for the first time, when she left a text message suggesting that she drive me to the dome.
Parking outside my father’s flat, she smiled approvingly when I crossed the gravel, stick supporting me as I swung my foot in its surgical boot. I knew there and then that she was at ease with herself and ready to be at ease with me. I had rescued her from the furnace of the Metro-Centre, and in the mysterious logic of the affections this single act erased her guilt over the part she had played in my father’s death. Victims had to pay twice for the crimes committed against them.
By contrast, I was still exhausted, barely able to keep awake, watching the TV news, hobbling around the flat and cooking boiled eggs that I found waiting for me the next day. But the sight of the Metro-Centre woke me. I was glad to be with Julia, and slipped my arm around her waist.
‘Richard . . . ?’
‘Sorry, I was dreaming. What happened to Maxted? They found his body yesterday. Hard to identify in all that ash. One thing you can say about consumer durables, they give off a lot of heat.’
‘Where was he?’
‘In the atrium. I think they tied him to one of the bears.’
‘What a hell of a way to go.’ Julia shuddered, tempted to unrein her hair. ‘He was rather devious, but I liked him. Why did the marshals turn on him? He was leading them out of the dome.’
‘They “flipped”. Willed madness, he called it. Remember Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Pol Pot’s Cambodia? It never occurred to Maxted that he could be the last victim.’
‘And Sangster? I don’t think he got out.’
‘Most people didn’t.’ I held Julia’s shoulder, trying to calm her. ‘Sergeant Falconer, Carradine, all those marshals and engineers who helped him seize the dome. The fire . . .’
‘Did Duncan Christie set it off?’
‘Hard to say. He wasn’t very good at anything. His wife has taken the child and disappeared. I hope he’s with them.’
‘If Christie didn’t start the fire, who did?’
‘No one. The army commander gave the order to turn on the lights. Once the police opened the doors the air flooded in. One spark somewhere was all it needed. Instead of flushing out any snipers they started a solar cult.’
Lips pursed, Julia listened to me. ‘So . . . Geoffrey Fairfax, Maxted, Sangster, Sergeant Falconer, Christie— the people who killed your father are all dead. Except for one.’
‘Julia . . .’ I dropped my stick and embraced her. She held her head from me, exposing her chin and neck, and I could see the scars brought to the surface of her skin like a guilty rash, a last flush of self-contempt. ‘You didn’t kill my father. If you’d known what Fairfax and Sangster had really planned you’d have stopped them.’
‘Would I?’ Julia forced her eyes to look away from the dome. ‘I’m still not sure.’
‘Something very dangerous was happening here. You needed to act.’
‘But the wrong people got hurt, as they usually do.’ Julia retrieved my stick and pressed it into my hand. ‘I have to get to the hospital—all these check-ups, they’re a disease in their own right. I’ll give you a lift home.’
‘Thanks, but I’ll stay here for a while. There are a few things . . .’
WE WALKED TO her car, parked on the nearby kerb. She settled herself behind the wheel, watching me through the bright new windscreen as I arranged my mind.
‘Richard? You’re trying to say something?’
‘Right. Why don’t we meet this weekend—you can stay in my father’s flat?’
‘Your flat, Richard.’ She corrected me solemnly. ‘Your flat.’
‘My flat.’
‘Brave chap. That took some doing. You’re on—I’ll take my chances with a wounded man.’
‘Good. I’ll have to learn how to clean the bath.’
‘I’ll come, if you tell me something. I’ve been thinking about it all week.’ She pointed to the dome and the watching crowds, their impassive faces turned towards the plumes of smoke and water vapour. ‘When you and David Cruise started all this, did you know where it would end?’
‘I can’t say. Perhaps we did . . . in a way, that was the whole idea.’
SHE THOUGHT OVER my reply, once again the serious young doctor, and drove away with a mock-fascist salute. I waved to her until she had gone, inhaling the last traces of her scent on the air. Tapping the ground before each step, I moved through the crowd and found a free place at the railings. The Metro-Centre was as much a tourist attraction as it had ever been. Visitors drove from the motorway towns to gaze at its smoking carcass, once the repository of everything they most valued. None of them, I noticed, was wearing a St George’s shirt. Tom Carradine’s seizure of the dome had sent a seismic jolt through the Heathrow suburbs, and the ground beneath our feet was still shifting.
The policewoman who carried out my debriefing told me that all marches and most of the sports fixtures had been cancelled. Post-match violence and racist attacks had fallen away, and many Asian families were returning to their homes. The cable channels had reverted to an anaesthetic diet of household hints and book-group discussions. Once people began to talk earnestly about the novel any hope of freedom had died. The once real possibility of a fascist republic had vanished into the air with all the vapourizing three-piece suites and discount carpeting.
I GRIPPED THE police railing in both hands, the stick crooked over one arm. In some ways the dome reminded me of a crashed airship, one of the vast inter-war zeppelins that belonged to the lost era of the Brooklands racing circuit. But in other ways it resembled the caldera of a resting volcano, still smoking and ready to revive itself. One day it would become active again, spewing over the motorway towns a shower of patio doors and appliance islands, sun loungers and en-suite bathrooms.
I remembered my last moments in the dome, looking back at the fires that raced along the high galleries from one store to the next. In my mind the fires still burned, moving through the streets of Brooklands and the motorway towns, the flames engulfing crescents of modest bungalows, devouring executive estates and community centres, football stadiums and car showrooms, the last bonfire of the consumer gods.
I watched the spectators around me, standing silently at the railing. There were no St George’s shirts, but they watched a little too intently. One day there would be another Metro-Centre and another desperate and deranged dream. Marchers would drill and wheel while another cable announcer sang out the beat. In time, unless the sane woke and rallied themselves, an even fiercer republic would open the doors and spin the turnstiles of its
