He smacked his lips. “Interesting isn’t the word.” He fiddled with his tie. “I sit at the absolute nerve centre of British politics. In a manner of speaking, you can say that Abigail is the British Government. And I advise her.” Jennifer tried to think of a question that would avoid revealing any prior knowledge of Radleigh. But he gave up on her knickers and looked at her own unfinished drink. “The new and better life this country enjoys is down to me and her.”
New and better life? Jennifer said nothing. How to steer this conversation to something more useful? He laughed. “Oh, but isn’t it a better life already? There’s work for all—proper work as well. And just look at what else we’ve achieved. Who’d have though we could keep the whole nation together—black and white, Christian and Moslem, gay and straight and transgendered, all pulling together as one team.” Jennifer thought back to the ruthless culling of known or likely dissenters. Her father’s escape had been down to his connection with Radleigh. But she put the overweight fixer out of mind, and focussed on Wapping. He’d spread his legs wide, and was showing an area of pinstripe frayed from the continual rubbing of his thighs.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” With an abrupt change of mood, Wapping sat forward and pressed his hands together. “One of the men who carried me here used to be a director of fixed asset use management—whatever that was. The other traded bonds. His wife hanged herself when their child died in The Hunger. He stayed alive by eating garden worms and tree bark. One morning, he and all the others like him will wake up and realise this is the utopia they always wanted.” He picked his glass up and tried to lick the red smear that had congealed within it. “When Abigail ordered The Pacification, she was only completing a process that began with the Second World War. When you look back at Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair and all the non-entities who came after them, you can’t avoid laughing. They really believed you couldn’t build a strong state without also giving prosperity and the pretence of freedom. They were wrong. What most people wanted, even then, was not to have to think for themselves. Give them that, and they’ll put up with anything else.”
He stopped for the rumble of another explosion. This one was closer, but only set the television into a spasm of white noise. Wapping sat back again and smiled. “So not everyone out there is a sheep,” he allowed. “But Abigail has a plan for dealing with them.” His smile shaded into a snarl of hate. “As for the rest, they’ll come round sooner or later. Then, we can stop jollying them along with talk about a return to normality. This is normality. And it’s a better normality. Why—we’ll even call an election.” He laughed loudly and shouted over at the waiter: “Would you like an election? It’ll only be one party this time round—mind you, that’s how it always was in the Olden Days, once you looked below the surface!” He shook his head, scattering more dandruff over his lapels. No answer from the waiter.
He stopped and looked over at the television. This had come back on and was showing an item about the Armistice centenary. If there could be no ceremony in France, the BBC was promising endless documentaries about what it called “this glorious victory for British arms.” Wapping put his hand up for the waiter, and went pouty when he was ignored. He looked back to Jennifer and smiled. “Don’t you ever wonder what happened to everyone else after The Break—I mean, everyone abroad?”
Something in his voice made the hairs stand up on the back of Jennifer’s neck. He couldn’t possibly be an informer. But this was pushing close to an incitement to Hate Crime. “I don’t understand what you mean,” she said. To be on the safe side, she added a silly smile and a fluttering of eyelashes. She picked up her glass and pretended to sip at its contents.
“I mean,” he went on, the last news we had before the Great Storm was how the Chinese and Russians were threatening a response if the Americans went ahead and nuked Mecca. Isn’t it possible that our own world was about to become a ball of rock as sterile as all the others in the Solar System? Wouldn’t you like to know? Wouldn’t you really like to know?”
Jennifer fluttered her eyelashes again. “Since I can’t know, I don’t see the point of asking. But it may be that, all considered, The Break was for us a very lucky break.”
Wapping sniffed and cleared his throat. “Don’t tell me you also think this was God’s work!” he sneered. “There is no God,” he recited. “We are creatures of Nature, and we follow Nature’s laws. That’s what Abigail says.” He fixed his glance on her knees and licked his lips. “Talking of which, are you still seeing Basil tonight?”
“Yes.” She’d been hoping he would get round to this. “He’s a very important man, and he doesn’t have all the time he’d like. But we have our appointment.” She leaned slightly towards him, letting the top of her blouse fall open. He swallowed and scratched the top of his thighs, managing to poke a hole in the frayed cloth. “Do you know Basil well?”
“Basil and me, we’re like that!” he said, lifting his right hand and pressing forefinger and thumb hard together.” Jennifer was thinking of a new question, when he spread his legs wider apart. “How much do you charge Basil?”
Difficult question. One of the girls down the corridor had told her the normal price was between £90 and £150. But that couldn’t be right. Jennifer had spent more than the upper sum on lunch. “£8,000,” she said, thinking of how much she’d paid for her dress.
Wapping’s mouth fell open. He sat forward and reached into his pocket for a bundle of notes. “I’ll give you £300 for a quickie,” he offered. “Abigail’s got a suite upstairs on permanent booking. It’s even got a bath.” He got up. “Don’t move,” he said. “I’m just going to see if the suite is being used.” He hurried off, leaving his cash on the table.
Jennifer could have tried playing Mata Hari. But her idea of getting information out of him hadn’t so far come to anything. The thought of going upstairs with him was enough to turn her stomach.
“The men who were following you have been gone some time,” the waiter said quietly. “Shall I have a rickshaw stopped for you?” Jennifer nodded, and made sure to give him the £100 he’d earlier refused. The rest of the greasy cash they left where Wapping had let it fall.
After the air conditioning of the hotel, the air outside the hotel seemed nastier than ever. It didn’t help that, as she got out of the rickshaw in Oxford Street, she was passed by a dozen military trucks. She heard them coming in time to press herself against one of the boarded up shop windows. But she couldn’t get far enough away to avoid their clouds of black smoke. It set her coughing and spluttering for nearly a minute. She paid no attention to the old women who stopped and pointed at her. Instead, she looked at the last of the trucks as it hurried towards Portland Place. Its flap was open, and she was able to see the grim-faced men as they clutched at their rifles. All the soldiers she’d seen in Kent had been little more than boys in uniform—barely up to shooting back at the occasional raid by the Outsiders. These were all regular fighting men. Jennifer turned and began walking in the direction of the shattered stump of the Centre Point tower. She got within fifty yards of the ruined junction with Charing Cross Road. It was thick here with police officers. Screaming abuse at anyone who dared watch them, dozens of them were clambering from a couple of black vans. They were soon absorbed in harassing some priests who’d been handing out bread to an army of beggars. But she couldn’t afford to be stopped. One touch of her identity card against a reader, and she’d be straight under arrest. She stopped and leaned against one of the few lampposts that had been left in place.