The top level creaked with every movement on the steel ladder. Her trainers scraped on its rusted platform. It seemed farther down than looking up had been. But she was sure no one had heard her, and this was Radleigh’s flat. She looked through the nearest window. Yes, this was the place. She was looking into the main bedroom. Its door was ajar, and she could see the dim shadow of the bed and the shape of the big icon of Saint George left on the wall after the eviction of the flat’s previous and suddenly penniless Russian tenant. She held her breath and focussed hard on the bed. No Radleigh—not that he’d be there so early in any event. There was a light on in the next room. To look into that, she’d need to climb onto the left rail of the fire escape and hold herself steady against the sill. She looked down again. If she lost hold, she’d land in or beside the bin. She swallowed and held up hands that were sweaty again, and beginning to shake. But she’d come this far. It was too late even to think of turning back. She took hold of the rail and pushed herself up and made a grab at the sill. So long as she held herself tight, she had a straight view into the sitting room. When she was finished, it ought to be an easy matter of pushing herself to the right and trying not to make any noise when she landed on the unsteady platform.
“My dear Abigail, you really should save all this for the telly. Your viewers might have more patience than I have—or be more desperate to believe.” Radleigh spoke with weary contempt, and the sound of a man who knew that he might shut the Home Secretary up, but could never bring her to his own opinion. Looking through the half inch slit between the night blind and the window frame, Jennifer could see him fussing over a cocktail cabinet. Silk dressing gown about his ample form, silk scarf about his throat, he looked as if he’d lived in this degree of luxury since time out of mind. He handed a glass to the seated woman, and, glancing sideways as if at a clock, pushed a cigarette into a long holder.
This was the first time Jennifer had seen Abigail Hooper in the flesh. Nearly facing the window, she looked smaller than she did on television. With rising disquiet, she wondered how important Radleigh was. It had been one thing to learn that he knew the Home Secretary. It was something else to see how close they seemed to be. She pulled herself into a more stable position and waited. Hooper sat up. “You still don’t understand, Basil.” She took a sip from her glass and swallowed. “These are, no one can deny, unwelcome times. But, day in, day out, some of us have fought to maintain investment in essential public services. The structures of our caring and multicultural society remain intact. Doesn’t that record stands for itself?”
“Do go and tell that to the Mozzies!” Radleigh laughed.
Hooper put up a hand to silence him. “Don’t blame me for what happened today!” She lowered her voice. “It was that fool Duffy. As usual, he panicked. This time, he turned a simple rescue into a massacre. And, coming back to your own faults, dear Basil—what’s all this about the Baldwins’ daughter?”
Jennifer went stiff, and she nearly pulled a muscle from tightening her grip on the window sill. “And don’t blame me for that!” came the delayed and slightly defensive reply. “I assumed she’d been taken off with her parents and killed or whatever. The last place I expected to see her was in the Liberal Club. If your fool of a secretary hadn’t tried raping her with his eyes, I’d have nabbed her there and then. As it is, my own people kept partial tabs on her. She was last spotted this afternoon in Piccadilly. She was prancing about like a six year-old who’s borrowed her mother’s most impractical shoes. The girl knows absolutely nothing, I can assure you. Now, much as I dote on your company, I’m expecting her at any moment—assuming, that is, You-Know-Who doesn’t get to her first.” He laughed and finally lit his cigarette.
Hooper went into a low nagging about something. But Jennifer heard nothing. Taken off with her parents and killed—the words echoed in her mind, registering slowly in their enormity. She felt one of her trainers slide on the pitted rail, and thought for a moment she’d fall. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. If she did keep in position, that didn’t matter either. Her stomach had turned to ice, and her eyes were blurring over. Her parents were dead. The last she’d ever remember of them was her father’s biting commentary on the British Gazette and her mother’s mild reminder not to be out on her bicycle after the electricity was shut off.
She might have let herself fall into the darkness. She might have pushed herself back onto the fire escape and slunk off in despair. But Radleigh’s voice cut through the gathering fog within her mind. “Look, Abigail, I didn’t expect you to hurry round in person when I called. All I wanted was a one word answer to a three word question.” Almost against her will, Jennifer listened to something about a trip to Tenterden. Hadn’t he been there the day before? She tried not to make any noise and she twisted left and looked down at the empty yard. All was still in silence. She looked at her watch. If he was expecting her after all, she wasn’t due to press the front buzzer for nearly another hour. She looked back in and tried to listen. But the window glass was muffling the sound of whatever the Home Secretary was saying. Suddenly, she got up and came over to the window. Jennifer thought she’d been noticed. Even as she told herself it no longer mattered, she could feel the rising panic. But Hooper turned at the last moment to look at Radleigh.
Abigail, Abigail!” Radleigh was jeering at what had been said. “Why can’t you just admit that that the game is up? The whole country’s running on empty. How much longer do you think we can get by on cannibalising everything in sight? If that weren’t bad enough, do I hear right that the natives have driven us back to the outskirts of Dublin? Talk about armed insurgency—it’s turning into Afghanistan and the bloody IRA rolled into one!” He laughed and made an ironic toast. “Shall I remind you who it was said all our neighbours would be in White Man’s Magic mode for a century to come? No? Well, let me go back on myself and say how astonished I’ll be if we turn out to be months rather than weeks from a new famine. If Duffy is siding with the oil men, they at least have a plan for getting us out of this mess. What have you got to offer?”
Hooper had moved away from the window, but her mocking laughter rang clear through the glass. “I don’t think we’ll be running too much longer on empty.” She dropped her voice. “I can tell you we had a major breakthrough last week,” she continued in a tone of quiet triumph. “I think we had another this afternoon. If Duffy hadn’t been such a fool, we’d already be putting it to the test.”
“Oh, so it does work!” Radleigh called satirically. “At least one of your essential investments has paid off. I suppose that will bring the Prime Minister back on side.” He laughed. “Have you spoken to yourself yet?” Hooper’s answer was to look once more at the window. Radleigh stood upright and waved his cigarette holder as if to assure her they were alone. “Well, if you do, please get some decent ciggies passed over. The supermarkets and bonded warehouses you requisitioned are running distressingly low.” He’d lost the tobacco from his cigarette. He clucked with annoyance and took out another. “Any chance you’ll relent and let me see this fabulous Gateway of yours? After all, we are supposed to be friends.”