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Mr. Miller?

Why are you here?”

Time is

Neila gunned the engine and it refused to tick over, cursed and muttered and opened up the cover and in the end had to put a hot-water bottle on the blasted thing before it would start.

In a stranger’s house in the Cotswolds the mother of his enemy sat quiet before him, Theo pinched the tips of his fingers together beneath his bottom lip and tried to find words.

“I… there was…

…sometimes pieces come together and it’s…

So I used to be an auditor and while I was working on the job there was

Dani is dead.

Her name is Dani.

The woman who

her name is Dani.

She was murdered.

She was my friend.

Her daughter is my daughter. Her name is Lucy. Dani went to a journalist called Faris, I think she tried to… But they got found out. His daughter was Company and she told them and that was… They killed her, Dani, I mean. And I audited her death. Her life is worth £84,000. She left me a message. ‘Save the mother.’ So I came to Danesmoor and saw you and certain things fell into place and

here we are.

Here we are.

I have Dani’s information now. I have her copy of your file. She sent it back to the town where we’d grown up, so I could find it. She knew she was going to die, I think. She used me as a back-up plan.

I think you should understand that my life has been cowardly, futile and empty. You tell me that family is the most important thing in the world. You should understand that when I was a boy my father was arrested for theft, and died on the patty line, and I hated him because he wasn’t there for me and never gave me anything to believe in. And my mum sort of… faded out, and when I was given a second chance, I blew it. I went to university and realised that all the dreams which I thought were mine were just some fantasy that couldn’t ever come true, so I took the identity of a boy who I got killed—I killed him, I didn’t pull the trigger, but it was me, it was my fault, he died because of me. I took his identity. I became Theo Miller and with that opportunity, that amazing chance…

I blew that too, you see. I couldn’t ever find anything to care about. I couldn’t understand why anything mattered at all. I didn’t think there was any point to me. Just keep going. Just… go through the motions. I have spent my life sending people into slavery, and freeing killers because they were rich, or because the person they killed was poor, or an immigrant, or no good for society, and it was… I did it because it was a job. Because all I ever wanted was a job, and to be safe, and not cause any trouble.

I have led a thoroughly despicable life. Or rather… not despicable. My evils have been ordinary evils. My sins against the world are daily, little sins that no one would question. I am a normal man, and have done no wrong, and there is a place in hell waiting for me. That’s

that’s what I have decided.

That’s what I think.

I want to get my daughter out. I’ve never met her. She’s in an institution writing online reviews for sales products. She’s never getting out. Kids like her don’t. They get lost in the system. Dani’s supervisor said… there’s a market for anything. There’s a market for my daughter. He didn’t know that’s what he was saying, but that’s all I could hear. She’s probably not my daughter. I want her to have a better life. Even if I die for it, it seems now of extreme importance that I do something in my life which matters. Our children matter. There we probably agree. I plan to destroy the Company, the government and the country. When there is nothing left except ashes, then I get my daughter out, and make a better world for her.

I am probably going to destroy your son. I came to find you because Dani told me to. She seemed to have some sort of… of centre, something in her that was… real, and mattered, which I didn’t. I don’t know why. Maybe she was just a better person than me. I have some ideas. Do you want to help?”

Chapter 57

Time is

The children play in the park, they run and play as the city burns because the fire is beautiful and the sky is huge and their eyes are full of light and

time is…

Neila moored the Hector a few miles outside Nottingham.

She said, without fear or reproach, “It’s an enclave town. My insurance makes it difficult to…”

They sat in silence at the back of the Hector, looking towards the place where fields ended and bricks began, the low edge of buildings rising towards the empty shopping malls in the centre. Finally Theo said, “The queen of the patties once guaranteed me passage. Her word might still hold.”

Neila bit her bottom lip, hand resting on the rudder, contemplating the river. Then: “Screw it.”

They sailed on, towards the town.

She chugged down the middle of the canal, listening for every sound, whisper, bump and thump over the slow rattle of the engine. Fat wetlands gave way to streets of close-pressed houses, white chipped paint and boarded-up windows. A lone wind turbine spun in the distance. In an office block of grey lines and black windows a single light turned one rectangle of glass yellow. A sudden burst of tall red houses emerged from behind the overgrown hedges that hemmed in the canal, blue-black tiles curving up into little ornamental cupolas, before collapsing back down again into bungalows and lanes of grey. At Beeston Lock the water branched, wide river laced with blue-balustraded bridges in one direction, canal criss-crossed by silent railway lines and black brick arches in the other.

Neila stood at the back of the Hector as the water rose in the lock, and in her mind she counted steps to the kitchen knife, listened to the tock-clock of the winch in the gate as Theo turned the handle, wondered if she should tell him, it’s heavy, iron heavy, the crank could be used as a weapon just in case, you never know, just in case it becomes necessary.

The boat rose, and she headed into the narrower, softer waters of the canal.

A bonfire burning outside Lenton Abbey, she couldn’t see what fuelled it, just odd squares and hard angles breaking through the inferno, hints of black behind the smoke, the shape of figures moving around it, none turning to look at her as she sailed by.

Four children sat on the railway bridge, feet dangling over the sides. She sailed beneath them, waiting for them to spit on her, throw stones, laugh, shout, run for help. They didn’t. They watched her pass, then scrambled to the other side of the bridge to sit and watch her emerge, waiting silently, kicking their heels, fingers spun together in their laps.

At Castle Lock there were seven people waiting for them. Two held battery torches; one held a makeshift flaming torch of rag and wood. No street lights burned. A generator rattled somewhere far off. The turbine eclipsed the moon. The night was silent as Neila gunned the engine down and drifted, out of reach of the first lock gate, watching the people on the bank.

For a while all were silent. Then a woman called, “North?”

Neila nodded, then realised the gesture might not be visible in the dark, so called back, “Towards Gainsborough.”

The woman nodded, swept her torch across the boat, her expression lost behind the beam.

“Petrol?” she asked at last, a tired lilt to her tone.

“Not much.”

“We’ll take half.”

“No.”

“You wanna pass; we take half the petrol.”

No antagonism, no shouting. A simple statement, the truth, two women discussing the hardness of stone, the wetness of water.