Dominion

Chapter Forty-Six

DAVID AND BEN AND NATALIA STOOD, trying to quiet their rapid breathing. In the entrance to the alley they had taken refuge in, they saw two thin, weak beams of light. David thought, if it wasn’t for the fog, we’d all have been caught. But Geoff was gone, both the O’Sheas too, and Frank was lost. They would catch Frank now and it would all have been for nothing.

‘Where the bloody hell are they?’ an angry voice asked from the road.

‘We’ll never find them in this. They’re putting a cordon round these streets. We’re going to have to pen them in, do a house-to-house.’ The policemen’s footsteps faded away. They heard the sirens of Black Marias in the distance.

Suddenly a yard door opened right beside them in the alley. Ben and Natalia instantly turned and covered it with their guns. David saw a shape in the entrance, made out a fat old man in a cap and raincoat, his mouth falling open with shock. There was something white at his feet – a small mongrel dog on the end of a lead.

‘Dinnae move, pal!’ Ben said quietly but fiercely. ‘Dinnae say anything and ye’ll no’ get hurt.’ The dog stared at him, then at his master. It growled softly.

The old man gestured wildly at one ear. ‘Deaf,’ he said.

‘Fuckin’ ’ell!’ Ben leaned in to him. ‘Do you live in that house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes.’

The dog growled again. ‘Quiet, Rags,’ the old man said. ‘Don’t ’urt ’im,’ he whispered pleadingly. ‘’E’s old, ’e won’t hurt you. Please, ‘e’s all I got since my wife died.’

Ben said, ‘We need coats.’ He gestured with his gun. ‘Go on, go back inside.’

‘Who are you?’ the old man asked pathetically. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Never you mind. What you dinnae ken can’t hurt you.’

A note of anger came into the old man’s voice. ‘You’re Resistance, aren’t you? Takin’ advantage of the fog for some stunt. Why can’t you just leave people alone?’

‘We need warm clothes,’ Ben repeated grimly. ‘Fuckin’ get back in.’

Natalia touched David’s hand briefly. ‘I’ll go in with him. Stay here, don’t move. Take this.’ She handed him her gun. ‘You know how to use it?’

‘I was in the army.’

‘Good.’ She touched his arm softly, then followed Ben and the old man through the gate.

David stood in the fog. He was starting to shiver from cold; none of them had coats. He looked down the alley. It was quiet now but the streets would soon be full of policemen. A cordon, how could they get out of that? They would be captured, or shot like Geoff. He gripped the cyanide pill in his pocket. He thought, at least Sarah’s safe.

He remembered the moment when the banging sounded at the front door. David had been lying naked on the mattress. Natalia was sprawled across him, a happy, slightly teasing expression on her face as she played with the hairs on his chest, making them into little bunches of curls. But she jumped up, immediately alert, at the first crash from the front door. She said, ‘Get dressed!’, her voice fierce, already throwing on her clothes. David had learned in the army to dress in moments. A second, splintering crash told him the door had been broken in. As he pulled on his trousers he felt the cyanide capsule. She had given him a smile, fleeting, of infinite regret.

Ben and Natalia returned, slipping back through the gate. Natalia was wearing an old-fashioned fur coat that reached almost to her ankles, and Ben had on the heavy coat and muffler the old man had been wearing. He passed a blue raincoat to David. As he put it on David asked, ‘What have you done with him?’

‘Left him tied up on his bed. The dog’s wi’ him.’ He shook his head. ‘Stupidest bloody mutt I ever saw. He says a neighbour’s coming to do some shopping for him tomorrow. She’ll find him. If the police don’t first.’

‘Good at tying people up, aren’t you?’ David couldn’t help saying.

‘Just as well for you I am, pal. And for chrissake, keep your voice down.’

Natalia walked slowly to the end of the alley, the others following. David said, ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of finding Frank in this.’

‘No,’ Natalia agreed. ‘We must find somewhere to hide. At least we have coats now, and they’ll be looking for people without them. Don’t worry, there is a contingency plan.’

They spent over an hour feeling their way through the dark, deserted streets, not talking above a whisper, walking slowly to avoid bumping into things and to make as little sound as possible. They didn’t hear any more police cars. Twice they ducked into alleys or behind garden fences at the sound of footsteps, once they saw the weak lances of torch beams. They stood huddled by a wall until they faded away. Natalia whispered, ‘They’ll need hundreds to search the streets properly in this fog.’

‘Remember one of them was talking about a roadblock,’ Ben said. ‘That’s what I’d do, cordon the area off. Let’s keep movin’, we might be able to get out before they can set it up.’

They came out into a wider street and walked slowly along, pressed against the walls. Then the brick gave way to spiked iron railings, bushes behind and the dim shapes of trees. There was a gate with a sign on it. Natalia bent down close to read it. Hanwick Park. She looked along the road. A little way ahead was a tall, fuzzy rectangle of light which after a moment David realized was a telephone box. Natalia whispered, ‘Let’s go in the park, we can hide among the trees. And I can telephone our people, get someone to try and collect us.’

‘What about the roadblock?’ David asked. ‘They’d never get someone here in time, in this.’

‘There’s a plan for something like this.’

‘What? Shooting their way through?’

‘Maybe not.’ She gripped his hand. ‘I can’t tell you. In case we get caught first. Wait and you’ll see.’

‘Come on,’ Ben said. He took off his coat and laid it over the spiked railings. David did the same and he and Ben managed to climb over. Natalia walked away up the street, invisible almost at once. Inside the park, David saw the hazy light from the telephone box dim, saw a shape in there. His heart lurched; she was exposed, any police coming close could see her. It seemed an age before she came out again, disappearing at once into the murk. She reappeared at the side of the railings and they helped her over.

‘I got through,’ she said, a triumphant note in her voice. ‘They’re coming.’

The three disappeared into the dripping vegetation of the park. They followed the inner side of the railings right round; it was small, an open lawned area in the middle. Then, at the far end, they saw flashing lights in the road, torch beams, the shapes of men walking to and fro. Peering through the railings, they made out a police car parked sideways to block the entrance of the road, its interior lights on. More cars were parked behind.

‘We almost walked into that,’ Ben whispered.

Natalia said, ‘It’s all right. We have to wait now. They’ll come.’

‘How are they going to get through that?’ David asked despairingly. He thought again of the cyanide pills. They could die here, together, he and Natalia and Ben. He felt a rush of fear.

‘Trust me,’ Natalia whispered.

They fell silent, straining to see and hear as much as they could of what was happening ahead. They heard a hiss of static, then a man’s voice, talking loudly. ‘It’s going to have to be a bloody powerful light to do anything at all in this damn stuff! Is it on a lorry?’ Other figures passed to and fro, bulky shapes revealed briefly by the car with the lit interior.

Natalia said, ‘Move a little further into the trees, away from the railings.’

They eased their way through the bushes, holding branches aside for each other to avoid making a noise. They came to a spot surrounded by trees but with a view of the roadblock. Ben said, ‘If they shine a searchlight on the park, will they be able to see us?’

‘I don’t know,’ David replied. ‘Like he said, it would have to be a pretty powerful beam.’ He looked at Natalia. ‘Should we go back to the street?’

‘No, we have to stay here. This is where I told our people we would be.’

They were quiet for a minute. Then David whispered, ‘They killed Geoff, didn’t they?’

Natalia said quietly, ‘I think so.’

‘He was the best friend I ever had.’

She touched his arm. There was a rustle behind them. David whirled round, but it was only a grey squirrel, sitting on a branch looking at them. It made a chittering noise and disappeared.

‘Something’s happening out there,’ Natalia whispered urgently.

They turned back to where the police were. They heard a sound, a jangling bell but much louder than a police car, approaching very quickly. ‘The lorry with the searchlight,’ David said. ‘Jesus, why is it moving so fast?’ His hand went to the pill in his pocket. Was this it?

‘No,’ Natalia whispered. ‘That’s our people.’

The sound grew louder. There was something familiar in the tone. Then a huge shape, red behind powerful headlights, loomed out of the fog, travelling at a dangerous, reckless speed along the side of the park, towards the roadblock. It passed the spot where they were standing and came to a screeching halt just in front of the police car blocking the road. David saw to his amazement that it was a fire engine, huge, solidly and squarely built, the turntable ladder on top. The bell stopped and the light in the cab came on, illuminating the figures of several men in tall helmets who stepped down to the street. Staring through the railings David saw three policemen approach the firemen. He whispered to Natalia, ‘The Fire Brigade? Those are our people?’

Ben turned to him with a grin. ‘Always been the most left-wing union in Britain, the firemen. Good Socialists. Let’s just say this is no’ a real call.’

The firemen and policemen were talking urgently now. David couldn’t hear at first but then their voices rose, one of the policemen shouting, ‘This whole area’s cordoned off. Nobody in or out.’

‘But the police at Priory Street let us through the other end. We’re on our way to a big fire—’

‘They shouldn’t have! Orders are to seal these streets off!’

‘Listen, it’s a hospital fire! There’s people trapped, they can’t get out! And we’ve got to get another mile through this. D’you want to be responsible for kids and old folk getting burned to death? Do you?’

David saw another figure slip down from the back of the fire engine, quiet and stealthy. He walked across the pavement, slipping along the park railings, and Ben shook a bush to attract his attention. A man in fireman’s uniform stood before them, a pale young face under a helmet that looked too big for him.

‘Quick,’ the young man whispered. ‘Get over the fence. Climb on the back of the engine.’

The police hadn’t seen them through the fog, and a few yards away the argument was still raging. The fireman ran back across the pavement to the back of the engine, half crouching, the others climbing over silently and following. ‘Come on!’ the young man breathed. ‘Up the back!’

It was a difficult climb – over six feet up the side of the fire engine on slippery metal steps. There David found himself in the open back of the vehicle, and they all crouched down, beside the long, coiled hose and the lower end of the turntable ladder, crowded closely together. The fireman whispered, ‘Hold onto something, we’ll be going fast!’ David grasped a rail as tightly as he could. Like everything in the smog, it felt wet and slippery. He saw the fireman was clutching a pistol.

He heard footsteps returning to the fire engine, the cab doors shutting and the revving of a motor; the firemen must have persuaded the policemen to move their car. Then he was jolted backwards as the fire engine started up. In a blare of noise they were off, the police car and the shadowy figures around it disappearing in a blur. They sped on down the main road, at what seemed a mad, suicidal pace. They passed a car that was crawling along ahead of them, grazing it, the jolt running through their bodies. Beside David the young fireman let out a whoop. ‘We did it, we fucking did it!’ He brandished a fist in the air. ‘We’ll go down in fucking history for this!’

On David’s other side Natalia’s hair was flying in the wind. She said to the fireman, ‘There was another man with us, he’s very important. He panicked and ran off.’

The young man turned to her. ‘We’ve got him too! He turned up at the local church, they’ve got him safe.’ There was a loud hoot from a car coming in the opposite direction, only visible for a second before the fire engine managed to swerve aside. David hoped to God they didn’t hit a pedestrian, or a wall. But he knew that fire-engine drivers were incredibly skilled, and the huge, powerful vehicle could knock any other vehicle aside. He looked at the fireman. ‘He’s all right? Frank?’

The young man’s face was alive with excitement. ‘Yes. That’s what I mean! We’re going down in fucking history!’

It sunk in then: Frank was alive.