'Unless Beehive Red intervenes, when they'll be too busy.'
Harley shrugged without speaking. Sir Walter leaned his knuckles on the front of Harley's desk and stared at him with the eyes that had quelled more than one rebellious Congress.
'Do you know what, Reggie boy? I think you regard us as useful yes-men – just like our precious Prime Minister. Well, watch it. I'll work with you, because I think your original idea about "key minds" was a sound one. But minds, not bloody string-puppets. You're not God, you know. And I can still pull a few strings myself.'
With that, he left the office. Harley sat for several minutes, his lips pursed. 'Reggie boy', indeed!… He had a prudent respect for ability and a shrewd gift for recruiting and exploiting it, but buried deeper within him was an ancestral contempt for the common herd – and Jennings was of that herd, for all his brilliance, his success, his knighthood. It only took one phrase of calculated disrespect to trigger off Harley's atavistic hatred in full flood. He allowed himself to wallow in it for a while and then took himself in hand. This would not do, he could not afford emotional reactions. He would have to watch himself.
And watch Sir Walter Jennings, even more carefully.
If Philip had not noticed the bruises, he doubted whether Betty would have told him. Last night she had (he now realized) deliberately dimmed the light before they went to bed and had undressed and climbed in beside him without turning her back. He had been very tired after a long and physically active day's work and must have fallen asleep at once, but he had wakened briefly once or twice during the night to find her restless, wriggling and rearranging herself as she sometimes did when she had indigestion. He had asked her if she was all right but she had only murmured wordlessly as though she were still asleep.
This morning, when the alarm clock buzzed, she was still heavily unconscious. Philip got up and made tea, dressing while the kettle boiled and then took a cup to her; she liked to be wakened for her tea if she had outslept him. He put the cup beside the bed and, as his habit was, pulled back the covers to wake her by kissing her between the shoulder-blades.
It was then he saw the marks.
With an involuntary gasp, he pulled the bedclothes down further. From shoulders to buttocks, she was marked with blue-black stripes as though she had been thrashed with a heavy cane.
She awoke and turned quickly to face him.
'Who did it?' he demanded. 'Who did that to you?'
'Oh, darling – I hoped you wouldn't see…'
'Of course I'd see! Those bruises'll last for days. Who did it?'
She sat up in bed and reached for her cup of tea. 'I don't know, Phil. I could make a few guesses but what's the point? It doesn't matter who the actual ones were.'
'It damn well matters to me!'
'I know, darling. Of course it does. But if you went to Security and complained, what would it achieve? I couldn't prove who did it and I'd only be drawing more attention to myself for nothing. Security don't like witch-lovers any better than the ones who beat me up do.'
'Is that what they called you?'
'That's what they called me… It was my own fault, really. I was in the Mess for morning coffee and all the wives' gang were there – about a dozen of them, gloating over the papers, talking their usual nonsense. They'd almost stopped picking on me about the witches recently but this time a couple of them kept goading me. And in the end I'm afraid I lost my temper and told them what mugs they were being, how I thought the whole campaign had been deliberately whipped up and so on. I know – it was simply asking for trouble… Anyway, I walked out and went to the shops. I was carrying a couple of full bags when I came out, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to jump me so easily… It was in that corridor by the baggage store – they must have known that was the quietest place-on my way home… Anyhow, they pounced on me out of a doorway and one of them had a gag stuffed in my mouth before I could yell out. There were four of them and they all had scarves over their faces – not that I had time to look at them properly, they shoved a bag or something over my head and dragged me inside the door… Then three of them held me while the other beat me – it felt like a whippy sort of rod or something… They kept saying "witch-lover" at me, sort of croaking as though they were disguising their voices.' Betty gave a strained little laugh. 'All rather melodramatic, really – almost silly, except that they bloody well hurt. I think I almost fainted… Then all of a sudden they dropped me on the floor and ran off… I pulled myself together and came home. I was glad, for once, you didn't come back for lunch.'
'Christ, darling – you must know who they were! Tell me and I'll find a way, without Security…'
'You will not, darling man. It's over – and I'll just make sure I don't go down empty corridors in future. Now – out of the way and I'll get breakfast. I'm hungry if you're not.'
Philip was silent while she set the table and put slices in the toaster. He took a longer time than usual to shave, struggling to control his anger and think calmly. When he had finished Betty was already seated. He came and sat opposite her, taking both her hands in his.
Involuntarily, he dropped his voice to the whisper they were accustomed to use on their pillow.
'Betty, my love – we're getting out of here.'
She simply said 'Yes' and the matter was settled.
Arranging their escape was less easy than deciding upon it. Philip could get a Surface pass at any time; he had merely to claim that a ventilation intake needed inspection and his chief, the Director of Structural Services, would sign a pass for him. But a pass for Betty was another matter. Beehive personnel who had no official reason for going to Surface were not allowed to leave except in special circumstances – the dangerous illness of an immediate relative, for example – and then only with a Security escort.
There was one possibility and it was a risky one. The first step in it, Philip achieved within two days. He applied at the appropriate office for a Surface pass for an inspection trip and while he was there noticed from which drawer the blank pass was taken and where the rubber stamp was kept. He also remarked to the clerk who dealt with him that the office air-conditioning extractor was unduly noisy, and promised to come back after his inspection trip to take a look at it. He then went to his chief for his signature on the pass and paid his visit to Surface for a quite unnecessary examination of a roof-top intake near Mornington Crescent.
When he got back, he made his promised inspection of the office extractor, which took half an hour because he removed the grille to do it. Cleaning the grille did reduce the noise, so the clerk was quite unsuspicious – and quite unaware, too, that during one of his frequent trips into the next office, Philip had stolen and stamped three blank passes.
So far, so good. Philip was confident he could make a satisfactory forgery of his chief's signature on each of the passes. Meanwhile, Betty was busy altering Philip's spare uniform to fit herself, and sewing 'Maintenance' shoulder-flashes to it. There were women maintenance workers; no difficulty there.
It was the actual passing of the exit-guard that would be dangerous. Betty would be carrying equipment as Philip's assistant and her forged pass would bear a fictitious name. The exit-guard would have no reason to suspect them -unless it happened to be someone who had seen them together as man and wife. To minimize this possibility, they planned to use one of the outlying exits several kilometres from anywhere that Betty had visited. Philip did a reconnaissance, and found an empty room half a kilometre from the exit. There Betty could change, having brought her uniform bundled up in a shopping bag.
If the guard did suspect, he might ask for Betty's identity card; then, of course, they would be in trouble because Philip had found no way of obtaining a blank identity card and would not have been able to put a plasticated colour photograph of Betty on it if he had. But assuming they got past the guard, a pass that tallied with her identity card might be useful on Surface; hence the third stolen pass which Philip made out in her real name.