The Children of Men

He returned to Oxford on the last day of September, arriving in mid-afternoon. No one had tried to prevent him from going and no one welcomed him home. The house smelt unclean, the basement dining-room damp and musty, the upper rooms unaired. He had instructed Mrs. Kavanagh to open the windows from time to time but the air, with its disagreeable sourness, smelt as if they had been tightly closed for years. The narrow hall was littered with post; some of it looked as if the flimsy envelopes were adhering to the carpet. In the drawing-room, its long curtains drawn against the afternoon sun as if in the house of the dead, small chunks of rubble and gouts of soot had fallen from the chimney, and were ground into the rug under his unwary feet. He breathed in sootiness and decay. The house itself seemed to be disintegrating before his eyes.

The small top room, with its view of the campanile of St. Barnabas Church and the trees of Wytham Wood tinged with the first hues of autumn, struck him as very cold but unchanged. Here he sat and listlessly turned over the pages of his diary where he had recorded each day of his travels, joylessly, meticulously, mentally ticking off each of the cities and sights he had planned to revisit as if he were a schoolboy fulfilling some holiday task. The Auvergne, Fontainebleau, Carcassonne, Florence, Venice, Perugia, the cathedral at Orvieto, the mosaics in San Vitale, Ravenna, the Temple of Hera at Paestum. He had set out in no mood of excited anticipation, had invited no adventures, sought no unfamiliar primitive places where novelty and discovery could more than compensate for monotonous food or hard beds. He had moved in organized and expensive comfort from capital to capital: Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Rome. He hadn’t even been consciously saying farewell to the beauty and splendours he had first known in youth. He could hope to come again; this needn’t be a final visit. This was a journey of escape, not a pilgrimage in search of forgotten sensations. But he knew now that the part of him from which he most needed to escape had remained in Oxford.

By August Italy had become too hot. Fleeing from the heat, the dust, the grey company of the old who seemed to shuffle through Europe like a moving fog, he took the twisting road to Ravello, strung like an eyrie between the deep blue of the Mediterranean and the sky. Here he found a small family-run hotel, expensive and half-empty. He stayed for the rest of the month. It couldn’t give him peace, but it did give him comfort and solitude.

His keenest memory was of Rome, standing before the Michelangelo Pieta in St. Peter’s, of the rows of spluttering candles, the kneeling women, rich and poor, young and old, fixing their eyes on the Virgin’s face with an intensity of longing almost too painful to witness. He remembered their outstretched arms, their palms pressed against the glass protective shield, the low continual mutter of their prayers as if this ceaseless anguished moan came from a single throat and carried to that unregarding marble the hopeless longing of all the world.

He returned to an Oxford which lay bleached and exhausted after a hot summer, to an atmosphere which impressed itself upon him as anxious, fretful, almost intimidating. He walked through the empty quads, their stones gold in the mellow autumn sun, the last gauds of high summer still flaming against their walls, and met no face he knew. It seemed to his depressed and distorted imagination that the previous inhabitants had been mysteriously evicted and that strangers walked the grey streets and sat like returning ghosts under the trees of the college gardens. The talk in the Senior Common Room was forced, desultory. His colleagues seemed unwilling to meet his eyes. Those few who realized that he had been away inquired about the success of the trip, but without curiosity, a mere sop to politeness. He felt as if he had brought back with him some foreign and disreputable contagion. He had returned to his own city, his own familiar place, yet was revisited by that peculiar and unfamiliar unease which he supposed could only be called loneliness.

After the first week he telephoned Helena, surprised that he should wish not only to hear her voice, but to hope for an invitation. Helena gave none. She made no attempt to hide her disappointment at hearing his voice. Mathilda was listless and off her food. The vet had done some tests and she was expecting him to telephone.

He said: “I’ve been out of Oxford for the whole summer. Has anything been happening?”

“What do you mean, has anything been happening? What sort of things? Nothing’s been happening.”

“I suppose not. One returns after six months expecting to find things changed.”

“Things don’t change in Oxford. Why should anything change?”

“I wasn’t thinking of Oxford. The country as a whole. I didn’t get much news when I was away.”

“Well, there isn’t any. And why ask me? There’s been trouble about some dissidents, that’s all. It’s mostly rumour. Apparently they’ve been blowing up piers, trying to stop the Quietus. And there was something on the television news about a month ago. The announcer said that a group of them are planning to free all the convicts on the Isle of Man, that they might even organize an invasion from the island and try to depose the Warden.”

Theo said: “That’s ridiculous.”

“That’s what Rupert says. But they shouldn’t publicize things like that if they aren’t true. It only upsets people. Everything used to be so peaceful.”

“Do they know who these dissidents are?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think they know. Theo, I’ve got to get off the line now. I’m expecting the vet to call.”

Without waiting for his goodbye, she put down the receiver.

In the early hours of the tenth day after his return the nightmare returned. But this time it wasn’t his father who stood at the foot of his bed pointing his bleeding stump, but Luke, and he wasn’t in bed but sitting up in his car, not outside the Lathbury Road house but actually in the nave of Binsey Church. The windows of the car were closed. He could hear a woman screaming as Helena had screamed. Rolf was there, scarlet-faced, pounding his fists against the car and shouting: “You’ve killed Julian, you’ve killed Julian!” At the front of the car stood Luke, mutely pointing his bleeding stump. He was unable to move, locked in a rigor like the rigor of death. He heard their angry voices, “Get out! Get out!,” but he couldn’t move. He sat there staring with blank eyes through the windscreen at Luke’s accusing figure, waiting for the door to be wrenched open, for hands to drag him out and confront him with the horror of what he, and he alone, had done. The nightmare left its legacy of unease, which deepened day by day. He tried to throw it off but nothing in his uneventful, solitary, routine-dominated life was powerful enough to engage more than a part of his mind. He told himself that he must act normally, appear unconcerned, that he was under some kind of surveillance. But there was no sign of it. He heard nothing from Xan, nothing from the Council, received no communications, was not aware that he was being followed. He dreaded hearing from Jasper, with a renewal of his suggestion that they should join forces. But Jasper hadn’t been in touch since the Quietus and no call came. He took his usual exercise and two weeks after his return set off for an early-morning run across Port Meadow to Binsey Church. He knew that it would be unwise to visit and question the old priest and he found it difficult to explain to himself why revisiting

Binsey was so important, or what he hoped to gain. Running with his long regular strides across Port Meadow he was for a moment worried in case he should lead the State Security Police to one of the group’s normal meeting places. But when he reached Binsey he saw that the hamlet was completely deserted and told himself that they would hardly continue to meet in any of their old haunts. Wherever they were, he knew them to be in terrible danger. He ran now, as he had every day, in a tumult of conflicting and familiar emotions: irritation that he had become involved, regret that he hadn’t handled the interview with the Council better, terror that Julian might even now be in the hands of the Security Police, frustration that there was no way in which he could get in touch with her, no person to whom he could safely talk.

The lane to St. Margaret’s Church was even more dishevelled, even more overgrown than when he had last walked it, the interlocking boughs overhead making it dark and sinister as a tunnel. When he reached the churchyard he saw that there was a mortuary van outside the house and that two men were carrying a simple pine coffin down the path.

He said: “Is the old parson dead?”

The man who replied barely gazed at him. “He’d better be. He’s in the box.” He slid the coffin expertly into the back of the van, slammed the door and the two of them drove away.

The door to the church was open and he moved into its dim secular emptiness. Already there were signs of its impending decay. Leaves had blown in through the open door and the floor of the chancel was muddy and stained with what looked like blood. The pews were thick with dust and it was apparent from the smell that animals, probably dogs, had been loose. Before the altar, curious signs had been painted on the floor, some of which were vaguely familiar. He was sorry he had come to this desecrated hovel. He left it, closing the heavy door behind him with a sense of relief. But he had learned nothing, done no good. His pointless small pilgrimage had only deepened his sense of impotence, of impending disaster.

It was at half past eight that night that he heard the knock. He was in the kitchen dressing a salad for his dinner, carefully mixing the olive oil and the wine vinegar in the right proportions. He was to eat, as he usually did at night, from a tray in his study and the tray with its clean cloth and table napkin was already set and waiting on the kitchen table. The lamb chop was in the grilling pan. The claret had been uncorked an hour earlier and he had poured the first glass to drink while he was cooking. He went through the familiar motions without enthusiasm, almost without interest. He supposed he needed to eat. It was his habit to take trouble with the salad dressing. Even as his hands were at the familiar business of preparation his mind told him that it was all supremely unimportant.

He had drawn the curtains across the french doors leading to the patio and the steps up to the garden, less to preserve privacy—that was hardly necessary—than because it was his habit to shut out the night. Apart from the small noises of his own making he was surrounded by total silence, the empty floors of the house piled above him like a physical weight. And it was at the moment when he raised the glass to his lips that he heard a knock. It was low but urgent, a single tap on the glass quickly followed by three others, as definite as a signal. He drew back the curtains and could just make out the outlines of a face almost pressed to the glass. A dark face. He knew instinctively rather than could see that it was Miriam. He drew back the two bolts and unlocked the door and immediately she slipped in.

She wasted no time on greeting but said: “You’re alone?”

“Yes. What is it? What’s happened?”

“They’ve got Gascoigne. We’re on the run. Julian needs you. It wasn’t easy for her to come herself so she sent me.”

He was surprised that he could match her excitement, the half-suppressed terror, with such calmness. But, then, this visit, although unforeseen, seemed but the natural culmination of the week’s mounting anxiety. He had known that something traumatic would happen, that some extraordinary demand would be made on him. Now the summons had come.

When he didn’t reply, she said: “You told Julian you’d come if she wanted you. She wants you now.”

“Where are they?”

She paused for a second as if even now wondering if it was safe to tell him, then said: “They’re in a chapel at Widford outside Swinbrook. We’ve got Rolf’s car but the SSP will know the number. We need your car and we need you. We’ve got to get away before Gascoigne breaks and gives them the names.”

Neither of them doubted that Gascoigne would break. Nothing as crude as physical torture would be necessary. The State Security Police would have the necessary drugs and the knowledge and ruthlessness to use them.

He asked: “How did you get here?”

She said impatiently: “Bicycle. I’ve left it outside your back gate. It was locked but luckily your neighbour had put out his dustbin. I climbed over. Look, there isn’t time to eat. You’d better grab what food you’ve got handy. We’ve got some bread, cheese, a few tinned goods. Where’s your car?”

“In a garage off Pusey Lane. I’ll get my coat. There’s a bag hanging behind that cupboard door. The larder’s through there. See what food you can get together. And you’d better recork and put in the wine.”

He went upstairs to fetch his heavy coat, and, mounting one more staircase to the small back room, slipped his diary into the large inner pocket. The action was instinctive; if asked, he would have had difficulty in explaining it even to himself. The diary wasn’t particularly incriminating; he had taken care over that. He had no premonition that he was leaving for more than a few hours the life which the diary chronicled and this echoing house enclosed. And even if the journey were the beginning of an odyssey, there were more useful, more valued, more relevant talismans which he could have slipped into his pocket.

Miriam’s last call to him to hurry had been unnecessary. Time, he knew, was very short. If he were to get to the group to discuss with them how best he could use his influence with Xan, above all if he were to see Julian before her arrest, he must get on the road without a second’s unnecessary delay. Once the SSP knew that the group had flown they would turn their attention to him. His car registration was on record. The abandoned dinner, even if he could spare the time to throw it into the waste bin, would be evidence enough that he had left in a hurry. In his anxiety to get to Julian he felt no more than a slight concern for his own safety. He was still ex-adviser to the Council. There was one man in Britain who had absolute power, absolute authority, absolute control, and he was that man’s cousin. Even the State Security Police couldn’t in the end prevent him from seeing Xan. But they could prevent him from getting to Julian; that at least was within their power.

Miriam, holding a bulging tote-bag, was waiting for him beside the front door. He opened it but she motioned him back, put her head against the doorpost and glanced quickly each way. She said: “It looks clear.”

It must have rained. The air was fresh but the night dark, the street lamps cast their dim light over the grey stones, the rain-mottled roofs of the parked cars. On each side of the street curtains were drawn, except in one high window where a square of light shone out and he could see dark heads passing, hear the faint sound of music. Then someone in the room turned up the volume and suddenly there poured out over the grey street, piercingly sweet, mingled tenor, bass, soprano voices singing a quartet, surely Mozart, though he couldn’t recognize the opera. For one vivid moment of nostalgia and regret the sound took him back to the street he had first known as an undergraduate thirty years ago, to friends who had lodged here and were gone, to the memory of windows open to the summer night, young voices calling, music and laughter.

There was no sign of prying eyes, no sign of life except for that one surge of glorious sound, but he and Miriam walked swiftly and quietly the thirty yards down Pusey Street, heads bent and in silence as if even a whisper or a heavy footfall could wake the street into clamorous life. They turned into Pusey Lane and she waited, still silently, while he unlocked the garage, started up the Rover and opened the door for her to slide quickly in. He drove fast down Woodstock Road but carefully and well within the speed limit. They were on the outskirts of the city before he spoke.

“When did they take Gascoigne?”

“About two hours ago. He was placing explosives to blow up a landing stage at Shoreham. There was to be another Quietus. The Security Police were waiting for him.”

“Not surprisingly. You’ve been destroying the embarkation stages. Obviously they kept watch. So they’ve had him for two hours. I’m surprised they haven’t picked you up yet.”

“They probably waited to question him until they got him back to London. And I don’t suppose they’re in much of a hurry, we’re not that important. But they will come.”

“Of course. How do you know they’ve got Gascoigne?”

“He rang to say what he was going to do. It was a private initiative, Rolf hadn’t authorized it. We always ring back when the job’s completed; he didn’t. Luke went round to his lodgings in Cowley. The State Security Police had been to search—at least, the landlady said someone had been to search. Obviously it was the State Security Police.”

“That wasn’t sensible of Luke, to go to the house. They could have been waiting for him.”

“Nothing we’ve done has been sensible, only necessary.”

He said: “I don’t know what you’re expecting from me, but if you want me to help you’d better tell me something about yourselves. I know nothing except your forenames. Where do you live? What do you do? How did you meet?”

“I’ll tell you, but I don’t see why it matters or why you need to know. Gascoigne is—was—a long-distance lorry-driver. That’s why Rolf recruited him. I think they met in a pub. He could distribute our leaflets over the whole of England.”

“A long-distance driver who’s an explosives expert. I can see his usefulness.”

“His granddad taught him about explosives. He was in the army and the two of them were close. He didn’t need to be an expert. There’s nothing very complicated about blowing up landing stages or anything else. Rolf is an engineer. He works in the electricity-supply industry.”

“And what did Rolf contribute to the enterprise apart from not particularly effective leadership?”

Miriam ignored the taunt. She went on: “You know about Luke. He used to be a priest. I suppose he still is. According to him, once a priest, always a priest. He hasn’t got a parish, because there aren’t many churches left that want his brand of Christianity.”

“What brand is that?”

“The sort the Church got rid of in the 1990s. The old Bible, the old prayer book. He takes the occasional service if people ask him. He’s employed at the botanical gardens and he’s learning animal husbandry.”

“And why did Rolf recruit him? Hardly to provide spiritual consolation to the group?”

“Julian wanted him.”

“And you?”

“You know about me. I was a midwife. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. After Omega I took a job at a supermarket check-out in Headington. Now I manage the store.”

“And what do you do for the Five Fishes? Slip the pamphlets into packets of breakfast cereal?”

She said: “Look, I said we weren’t sensible. I didn’t say we were daft. If we hadn’t been careful, if we were as incompetent as you make out, we wouldn’t have lasted this long.”

He said: “You’ve lasted this long because the Warden wanted you to last. He could have had you picked up months ago. He didn’t because you’re more useful to him at large than imprisoned. He doesn’t want martyrs. What he does want is the pretence of an internal threat to good public order. It helps buttress his authority. All tyrants have needed that from time to time. All he has to do is tell the people that there’s a secret society operating whose published manifesto may be beguilingly liberal but whose real aim is to close down the Isle of Man Colony, let loose ten thousand criminal psychopaths on an ageing society, send home all the Sojourners so that the rubbish isn’t collected and the streets are unswept, and ultimately overthrow the Council and the Warden himself.”

“Why should people believe that?”

“Why not? Between the five of you you’d probably like to do all those things. Rolf certainly would like to do the last. Under an undemocratic government there can be no acceptable dissent any more than there can be moderate sedition. I know you call yourselves the Five Fishes. You may as well tell me your code names.”

“Rolf is Rudd, Luke is Loach, Gascoigne is Gurdon, I’m Minnow.”

“And Julian?”

“We had difficulty there. There’s only one fish we could find which begins with J, a John Dory.”

He had to stop himself from laughing aloud. He said: “What on earth was the point of it? You’ve advertised to the whole country that you call yourselves the Five Fishes? I suppose that when Rolf telephones you he says this is Rudd calling Minnow, in the hope that if the SSP are listening they’ll tear their hair and bite the carpet with frustration.”

She said: “All right, you’ve made your point. We didn’t actually use the names, not often anyway. It was just an idea of Rolf’s.”

“I thought it might be.”

“Look, cut out all this supercilious chat, will you? We know you’re clever and sarcasm is your way of showing us just how clever, but I can’t cope with it for the moment. And don’t antagonize Rolf. If you care at all about Julian, calm it, OK?”

For the next few minutes they drove in silence. Glancing at her he saw that she was gazing at the road ahead with an almost passionate intensity as if expecting to find that it was mined. Her hands clutching the bag were taut, the knuckles white, and it seemed to him that there flowed from her a surge of excitement which was almost palpable. She had answered his questions, but as if her mind were elsewhere.

Then she spoke, and when she used his name he felt a small shock at the unexpected intimacy. “Theo, there’s something I have to tell you. Julian said not to tell you until we were on our way. It wasn’t a test of your good faith. She knew you’d come if she sent for you. But if you didn’t, if there was something important to prevent you, if you couldn’t come, then I wasn’t to tell. There’d be no point in it anyway.”

“Tell me what?” He gave her a long glance. She was still staring ahead, lips moving silently as if she were searching for words. “Tell me what, Miriam?”

Still she didn’t look at him. She said: “You won’t believe me. I don’t expect you to believe me. Your disbelief isn’t important, because in little more than thirty minutes you’ll see the truth for yourself. Only don’t argue about it. I don’t want to cope right now with protestations, arguments. I’m not going to try to convince you, Julian will do that.”

“Just tell me. I’ll decide whether to believe you.”

And now she turned her head and looked at him. She said, her voice clear above the noise of the engine: “Julian is pregnant. That’s why she needs you. She’s going to have a child.”

In the silence that followed he was aware firstly of a plunging disappointment followed by irritation and then disgust. It was repugnant to believe that Julian was capable of such self-deceiving nonsense or that Miriam should be fool enough to connive in it. At their first and only meeting at Binsey, brief though it had been, he had liked her, had thought her sensible and intelligent. He didn’t like having his judgement of a person so confounded.

After a moment he said: “I won’t argue, but I don’t believe you. I’m not saying you’re deliberately lying, I believe you think it’s true. But it isn’t.”

It used, after all, to be a common delusion. In the first years after Omega women all over the world believed themselves to be pregnant, displayed the symptoms of pregnancy, walked proud-bellied—he had seen them walking down the High Street in Oxford. They had made plans for the birth, had even gone into spurious labour, groaning and straining and bringing forth nothing but wind and anguish.

After five minutes he said: “How long have you believed this story?”

“I said I didn’t want to talk about it. I said you were to wait.”

“You said I wasn’t to argue. I’m not arguing. I’m only asking one question.”

“Since the baby quickened. Julian didn’t know until then. How could she? Then she spoke to me and I confirmed the pregnancy. I’m a midwife, remember? We’d thought it wise not to be together more than necessary during the last four months. If I’d seen her more often I should have known earlier. Even after twenty-five years, I should have known.”

He said: “If you believe it—the unbelievable—then you’re taking it very calmly.”

“I’ve had time to get used to the glory of it. Now I’m more concerned with the practicalities.”

There was a silence. Then she said, as if reminiscing with all the time in the world: “I was twenty-seven at Omega and working in the maternity department of the John Radcliffe. I was doing a stint in the antenatal clinic at the time. I remember booking a patient for her next appointment and suddenly noticing that the page seven months ahead was blank. Not a single name. Women usually booked in by the time they’d missed their second period, some as soon as they’d missed one. Not a single name. I thought, what’s happening to the men in this city? Then I rang a friend who was working at Queen Charlotte’s. She said the same. She said she’d telephone someone she knew at the Rosie Maternity Hospital in Cambridge. She rang me back twenty minutes later. It was the same there. It was then I knew, I must have been one of the first to know. I was there at the end. Now I shall be there at the beginning.”

They were coming into Swinbrook now and he drove more slowly, dimming the headlights, as if these precautions could somehow make them invisible. But the village was deserted. The waxy moon, half full, swayed against a sky of blue-grey trembling silk, pierced by a few high stars. The night was less dark than he had expected, the air still and sweet, with a grassy smell. In the pale moonlight the mellow stones gave out a faint glow which seemed to suffuse the air and he could clearly make out the shape of the houses, the high sloping roofs and the flower-hung garden walls. There were no lights in any of the windows and the village lay silent and empty as a deserted film-set, outwardly solid and permanent but ephemeral, the painted walls backed only by wooden supports and concealing the rotting debris of the departed crew. He had a momentary delusion that he would only have to lean against one of the walls and it would collapse in a crumble of plaster and snapping batons. And it was familiar. Even in this unreal light he could recognize the landmarks: the small green beside the pond with its huge overhanging tree and surrounding seat, the entrance to the narrow lane leading up to the church.

He had been here before, with Xan, in their first year. It had been a hot day in late June when Oxford had become a place to escape from, her hot pavements blocked with tourists, her air stinking with car fumes and loud with the clatter of alien tongues, her peaceful quads invaded. They had been driving down the Woodstock Road with no clear idea of their destination when Theo had remembered his wish to see St. Oswald’s Chapel at Widford. It was as good a destination as any. Glad that the expedition had a purpose, they had taken the road to Swinbrook. The day, in memory, was an icon which he could conjure up to represent the perfect English summer: an azure almost cloudless sky, the haze of cow parsley, the smell of mown grass, the rushing air tearing at their hair. It could conjure up other things too, more transitory, which, unlike the summer, had been lost forever: youth, confidence, joy, the hope of love. They had been in no hurry. Outside Swinbrook there had been a village cricket match and they had parked the car and sat on the grass bank behind the dry-stone wall to watch, criticize, applaud. They had parked again where he parked now, beside the pond, had taken the same walk which he and Miriam would take, past the old post office, up the narrow cobbled lane bordered by the high, ivy-clad wall, to the village church. There had been a christening. A small procession of villagers was straggling up the path towards the porch, the parents at the head, the mother carrying the baby in its white flounced christening robe, the women in flowered hats, the men, a little self-conscious, perspiring in close-fitting blue and grey suits. He remembered thinking that the scene was timeless and had amused himself for a moment imagining earlier christenings, the clothes different but the country faces, with their mixture of serious purpose and anticipated pleasure, unchanged. He thought then, as he thought now, of time passing, inexorable, unforgiving, unstoppable time. But the thought then had been an intellectual exercise devoid of pain or nostalgia, since time still stretched ahead and for a nineteen-year-old seemed an eternity.

Now, turning to lock the car, he said: “If the meeting place is St. Oswald’s Chapel the Warden knows it.”

Her reply was calm: “But he doesn’t know that we do.”

“He will when Gascoigne talks.”

“Gascoigne doesn’t know either. This is a fall-back meeting place which Rolf kept to himself in case one of us was taken.”

“Where has he left his car?”

“Concealed somewhere off the road. They planned to do the last mile or so on foot.”

Theo said: “Across rough fields, and in the dark. Not exactly an easy place for a quick getaway.”

“No, but it’s remote, unused, and the chapel is always open. We don’t have to worry about a quick getaway if no one knows where to find us.”

But there must be a more suitable place, thought Theo, and felt again a doubt of Rolf’s competence to plan and lead. Comforted by disdain, he told himself: He’s got looks and a certain crude force but not much intelligence, an ambitious barbarian. How on earth did she come to marry him?

The lane came to an end and they turned left down a narrow path of earth and stone between the ivy-covered walls, across a cattle-grid and into the field. Down the hill to the left was a low farmhouse which he hadn’t remembered seeing before.

Miriam said: “It’s empty. All the village is deserted now. I don’t know why that’s happened with one place more than another. I suppose one or two key families leave and the rest panic and follow.”

The field was rough and tussocky and they walked with care, their eyes on the ground. From time to time one of them would stumble and the other put out a quick supporting hand, while Miriam shone her torch, searching in the pool of light for a non-existent path. It seemed to Theo that they must look like a very old couple, the last inhabitants of a deserted village making their way through the final darkness to St. Oswald’s Chapel out of some perverse or atavistic need to die on consecrated ground. To his left the fields stretched down to a high hedge behind which, he knew, ran the Windrush. Here, after visiting the chapel, he and Xan had lain on the grass watching the slow-flowing stream for the dart and rise of the fish, then, turning on their backs, had stared upwards through the silvered leaves to the blue of the sky. They had brought wine with them and strawberries purchased on the road. He found that he could recall every word of their talk.

Xan, dropping a strawberry into his mouth, then twisting over to reach for wine: “How too Brideshead, dear boy. I feel the need of a teddy bear.” And then, with no change of tone: “I’m thinking of joining the army.”

“Xan, whatever for?”

“No particular reason. At least it won’t be boring.”

“It will be unutterably boring, except for people who like travel and sport, and you’ve never particularly cared for either, except cricket, and that’s hardly an army game. They play rough, those boys. Anyway, they probably won’t have you. Now they’ve got so small I’m told they’ve become very choosy.”

“Oh, they’ll have me. And then later I might try politics.”

“Even more boring. You’ve never shown the slightest interest in politics. You’ve no political convictions.”

“I can acquire them. And it won’t be as boring as what you’ve got planned for yourself. You’ll get your First, of course; then Jasper will find a research job for his favourite pupil. Then there’ll be the usual provincial appointment, serving your time with red-brick nonentities, publishing your papers, writing the occasional well-researched book which will be respectfully received. Then back to Oxford with a fellowship. All Souls, if you’re lucky and haven’t already got it, and a job for life teaching undergraduates who see history as a soft option. Oh, I forgot. A suitable wife, intelligent enough to make acceptable dinner-table talk but not so intelligent that she’ll compete with you, a mortgaged house in North Oxford and two intelligent, boring children who will repeat the pattern.”

Well, he got most of it right, all of it right except the intelligent wife and the two children. And what he had spoken in that seemingly casual conversation, had it even then been part of a plan? He was right, the army did take him. He became the youngest colonel for 150 years. He still had no political allegiance, no convictions beyond his conviction that what he wanted he should have and that when he set his hand to something he would succeed. After Omega, with the country sunk in apathy, no one wanting to work, services almost at a stop, crime uncontrollable, all hope and ambition lost forever, England had been a ripe plum for his picking. The metaphor was trite but none was more accurate. It had hung there, overripe, rotten; and Xan had only to put out his hand. Theo tried to thrust the past out of memory, but the voices of that last summer echoed in his mind, and even on this chill autumnal night he could feel its sun on his back.

And now the chapel was plain before them, the chancel and nave under one roof, the central bell-turret. It looked just as it had when he first saw it, incredibly small, a chapel built by some over-indulgent deist as a child’s plaything. As they approached the door he was seized with a sudden reluctance which momentarily froze his footsteps, wondering for the first time with an upsurge of curiosity and anxiety what exactly he would find. He couldn’t believe that Julian had conceived, that wasn’t why he was here. Miriam might be a midwife but she hadn’t practised for twenty-five years and there were numerous medical conditions which could simulate pregnancy. Some of them were dangerous; was this a malignant tumour left untreated because Miriam and Julian had been deceived by hope? It had been a common enough tragedy in the first years after Omega, almost as common as the phantom pregnancies. He hated the thought that Julian was a deluded fool, but hated more the fear that she might be mortally ill. He half-resented his concern, what seemed his obsession with her. But what else had brought him to this rough unencumbered place?

Miriam swept the torchlight over the door, then switched it off. The door opened easily under her hand. The chapel was dark but the group had lit eight night lights and had set them in a line in front of the altar. He wondered whether Rolf had secreted them here in advance of need or whether they had been left by other, less transient visitors. The wicks flickered briefly in the breeze from the open door, throwing shadows on the stone floor and on the pale, unpolished wood before settling into a gentle milky glow. At first he thought that the chapel was empty, and then he saw their three dark heads rising from one of the box pews. They moved out into the narrow aisle and stood regarding him. They were dressed as for a journey, Rolf in a Breton cap and large, grubby sheepskin jacket, Luke in a shabby black coat and muffler, Julian in a long cloak almost to the ground. In the dim light of the candles their faces were soft blurs. No one spoke. Then Luke turned, picked up one of the candles and held it high. Julian moved towards Theo and looked up into his face, smiling.

She said: “It’s true, Theo, feel.”

Under the cloak she was wearing a smock over baggy trousers. She took his right hand and guided it under the cotton of the smock, pulling the elastic of the trousers taut. The swollen belly felt tight and his first thought was of wonder that this huge convexity was so little visible beneath her clothes. At first her skin, stretched but silken smooth, felt cool under his resting hand, but imperceptibly the warmth passed from his skin to hers so that he could no longer feel any difference and it seemed to him that their flesh had become one. And then, with a sudden convulsive spasm, his hand was almost kicked away. She laughed, and the joyous peal rang out and filled the chapel.

“Listen,” she said, “listen to her heartbeat.”

It was easier for him to kneel, so he knelt, unselfconsciously, not thinking of it as a gesture of homage but knowing that it was right that he should be on his knees. He placed his right arm round her waist and pressed his ear against her stomach. He couldn’t hear the beating heart, but he could hear and feel the movements of the child, feel its life. He was swept by a tide of emotion which rose, buffeted and engulfed him in a turbulent surge of awe, excitement and terror, then receded, leaving him spent and weak. For a moment he knelt there, unable to move, half-supported by Julian’s body, letting the smell of her, the warmth of her, the very essence of her seep into him. Then he straightened himself and got to his feet, aware of their watching eyes. But still no one spoke. He wished that they would go away so that he could lead Julian into the darkness and silence of the night and with her be part of that darkness and stand together in that greater silence. He needed to rest his mind in peace, to feel and not speak. But he knew that he had to speak and that he would need all his persuasive power. And words might not be enough. He would need to match will with will, passion with passion. All he had on offer was reason, argument, intelligence, and he had put his faith in them all his life. Now he felt vulnerable and inadequate where once he had felt most confident and sure.

He drew apart from Julian and said to Miriam: “Give me the torch.”

She handed it to him without a word and he switched it on and swept the beam over their faces. They gazed back at him: Miriam’s eyes quizzical and smiling, Rolf’s resentful but triumphant, Luke’s full of a desperate appeal.

It was Luke who spoke first: “You see, Theo, that we had to get away, that we must keep Julian safe.”

Theo said: “You won’t keep her safe by running. This changes everything, changes it not only for you but for the whole world. Nothing matters now except the safety of Julian and the child. She ought to be in hospital. Telephone the Warden, or let me. Once this is known no one is going to worry about seditious pamphlets or dissent. There isn’t anyone on the Council, anyone in the country, anyone of importance in the world for that matter, who won’t be concerned only for one thing; the safe birth of this child.”

Julian put her deformed hand over his own. She said: “Please don’t make me. I don’t want him to be there when my baby is born.”

“He needn’t actually be present. He’ll do what you want. Everyone will do what you want.”

“He will be there. You know he will be. He’ll be there at the birth and he’ll be there always. He killed Miriam’s brother; he’s killing Gascoigne now. If I fall into his hands I’ll never be free of him. My baby will never be free.”

How, Theo wondered, would she and her baby keep out of Xan’s hands? Did she propose to keep the child a secret forever? He said: “You must think first of your baby. Suppose there are complications, a haemorrhage?”

“There won’t be. Miriam will look after me.”

Theo turned to her. “Speak to her, Miriam. You’re the professional. You know she ought to be in hospital. Or are you thinking of yourself? Is that all any of you are thinking of, yourselves? Your own glory? It would be quite a thing, wouldn’t it? Midwife to the first of a new race, if that is what this child is destined to be. You don’t want to share the glory; you’re afraid you might not be allowed even a share. You want to be the only one to see this miracle child into the world.”

Miriam said calmly: “I’ve delivered two hundred and eighty babies. They all seemed like miracles, at least at the time of birth. All I want is for the mother and child to be safe and well. I wouldn’t hand over a pregnant bitch to the mercies of the Warden of England. Yes, I’d prefer to deliver the child in hospital, but Julian has a right to her choice.”

Theo turned to Rolf. “What does the father think?”

Rolf was impatient. “If we stand here talking about it much longer we won’t have a choice. Julian’s right. Once she’s in the Warden’s hands he’ll take over. He’ll be there at the birth. He’ll announce it to the world. He’ll be the one on television showing my child to the nation. That’s for me to do, not him.”

Theo thought: He thinks he’s supporting his wife. But all he really cares about is getting the child safely born before Xan and the Council find out about the pregnancy.

Anger and frustration made his voice harsh: “This is crazy. You aren’t children with a new toy which you can keep to yourselves, play with by yourselves, prevent the other children from sharing. This birth is the concern of the whole world, not just England. The child belongs to mankind.”

Luke said: “The child belongs to God.”

Theo turned on him. “Christ! Can’t we discuss this at least on the basis of reason?”

It was Miriam who spoke. She said: “The child belongs to herself, but her mother is Julian. Until she’s born and for a time after the birth, the baby and her mother are one. Julian has the right to say where she will give birth.”

“Even if it means risking the baby.”

Julian said: “If I have my baby with the Warden present we shall both die.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Miriam said calmly: “Do you want to take the risk?” He didn’t reply. She waited, then reiterated: “Are you prepared to take that responsibility?”

“So what are your plans?”

It was Rolf who replied. “To find somewhere safe, or as safe as possible. An empty house, a cottage, any kind of shelter where we can shack up for four weeks. It needs to be in remote country, perhaps a forest. We need provisions and water and we need a car. The only car we’ve got is mine and they’ll know the number of that!”

Theo said: “We can’t use mine, either, not for long. The SSP are probably at St. John Street now. The whole enterprise is futile. Once Gascoigne talks—and he will talk, they don’t need torture, they’ve got drugs—once the Council know about the pregnancy they’ll come after you with all they’ve got. How far do you think you’ll get before they find you?”

Luke’s voice sounded calm and patient. He could have been explaining the reading of the situation to a not very intelligent child. “We know they’ll come. They’ve been looking for us and they want us destroyed. Put they may not come quickly, may not bother too much at first. You see, they don’t know about the baby. We never told Gascoigne.”

“But he was part of you, part of the group. Didn’t he guess? He had eyes, couldn’t he see?”

Julian said: “He was thirty-one and I doubt whether he ever saw a pregnant woman. No one has given birth for twenty-five years. It wasn’t a possibility his mind was open to. And the Sojourners I worked with in the camp, their minds weren’t open to it either. No one knows but we five.”

Miriam said: “And Julian is wide-hipped, carrying high. It wouldn’t have been obvious to you if you hadn’t felt the foetus move.”

Theo thought, so they hadn’t trusted Gascoigne, at least not with the most valuable secret of all. Gascoigne hadn’t been thought worthy of it, that sturdy, simple, decent man who had seemed to Theo at their first meeting the stolid, dependable anchor of the group. And if they had trusted him, he would have obeyed orders. There would have been no attempted sabotage, no capture.

As if reading his thoughts, Rolf said: “It was for his own protection, and ours. The fewer people who knew, the better. I had to tell Miriam, of course. We needed her skills. Then I told Luke, because Julian wanted him to know. It was something to do with his being a priest, some superstition or other. He’s supposed to bring us good luck. It was against my advice, but I told him.”

Julian said: “I was the one who told Luke.”

Theo thought that it was probably also against Rolf’s advice that he had been sent for. Julian had wanted him, and what she wanted they were trying to give. But the secret, once revealed, could never be unlearned. He might still try to escape commitment but he couldn’t now escape knowledge.

For the first time there was a note of urgency in Luke’s voice. “Let’s get away before they come. We can use your car. We can go on talking while we travel. You’ll have the time and chance to persuade Julian to change her mind.”

Julian said: “Please come with us, Theo. Please help us.”

Rolf said impatiently: “He has no choice. He knows too much. We can’t let him go free now.”

Theo looked at Julian. He wanted to ask: “Is this the man you and your God between you have chosen to repopulate the world?”

He said coldly: “For God’s sake, don’t start threatening. You can reduce everything, even this, to the level of a cheap feature film. If I come with you it will be because I choose to.”

One by one they blew out the candles. The little chapel returned to its ageless calm. Rolf closed the door and they began their careful trudge across the field, Rolf leading. He had taken the torch and its small moon of light moved like a will-o‘-the-wisp over the matted tussocks of brown grass, briefly illuminating as if with a miniature searchlight a single trembling flower and patches of daisies, bright as buttons. Behind Rolf the two women walked together, Julian with her arm in Miriam’s. Luke and Theo brought up the rear. They didn’t speak but Theo was aware that Luke was glad of his company. He was interested that he himself could be possessed by such strong feelings, by surges of wonder, excitement and awe, and yet be able to observe and analyse the effect of feelings on action and thought. He was interested, too, that amid the tumult he could have room for irritation. It seemed so petty and irrelevant a response to the overwhelming importance of his dilemma. But the whole situation was one of paradox. Could ever aims and means have been so mismatched? Had there ever been an enterprise of such immense importance embarked upon by such frail and pathetically inadequate adventurers? But he didn’t need to be one of them. Unarmed they couldn’t permanently hold him by force, and he had his car keys. He could get away, telephone Xan, put an end to it. But if he did, Julian would die. At least she thought she would, and the conviction might be powerful enough to kill both her and her child. He had been responsible for the death of one child. That was enough.

When they at last reached the pond and the green where he had parked the Rover, he half-expected to see it surrounded by the SSP, black immobile figures, stony-eyed, guns at the ready. But the village was as deserted as when they had arrived. As they came up to the car he decided to make one more attempt.

It was to Julian he turned. He said: “Whatever you feel about the Warden, whatever you fear, let me ring him now. Let me speak to him. He’s not the devil you think.”

It was Rolf's impatient voice that answered. “Don’t you ever give up? She doesn’t want your patronage. She doesn’t trust your promises. We’ll do what we’ve planned, get as far from here as we can and find shelter. We’ll steal what food we need until the child’s born.”

Miriam said: “Theo, we’ve no choice. Somewhere there must be a place for us, perhaps a deserted cottage in deep woodland.”

Theo turned on her. “Quite an idyll, isn’t it? I can picture you all. A snug little cottage in some remote forest glade, smoke from your wood fire rising from the chimney, a well of clean water, rabbits and birds sitting around ready to be caught, the rear garden stocked with vegetables. Perhaps you’ll even find a few chickens and a goat to provide milk. And no doubt the previous owners will have obligingly left a pram in the garden shed.”

Miriam said again, calmly but firmly, her eyes fixed on his: “Theo, we have no choice.”

And nor had he. That moment when he had knelt at Julian’s feet, had felt her child move under his hand, had bound him to them irrevocably. And they needed him. Rolf might resent him but he was still needed. If the worst came to the worst he could intercede with Xan. If they were to fall into the hands of the State Security Police, his was a voice they might listen to.

He took the car keys from his pocket. Rolf put out his hand for them. Theo said: “I’ll drive. You can choose the route. I take it you can read a map.”

The cheap jibe had been unwise. Rolf’s voice was dangerously calm: “You despise us, don’t you?”

“No, why should I?”

“You don’t need a reason. You despise the whole world except people of your own sort, people who have had your education, your advantages, your choices. Gascoigne was twice the man you are. What have you ever produced in your life? What have you ever done except talk about the past? No wonder you chose museums as meeting places. That’s where you feel at home. Gascoigne could destroy a landing stage and put a stop to a Quietus single-handed. Could you?”

“Use explosives? No, I admit that that isn’t among my accomplishments.”

Rolf mimicked his voice: “ ‘I admit that that isn’t among my accomplishments’! You should hear yourself. You’re not one of us, you never have been. You haven’t got the guts. And don’t think we really want you. Don’t think we like you. You’re here because you’re the Warden’s cousin. That might be useful.”

He had used the plural, but both of them knew of whom he was speaking. Theo said: “If you admired Gascoigne so much why didn’t you confide in him? If you’d told him about the baby he wouldn’t have disobeyed orders. I might not be one of you, but he was. He had a right to know. You’re responsible for his capture and, if he’s dead, you’re responsible for his death. Don’t blame me if you’re feeling guilty.”

He felt Miriam’s hand on his arm. She said with quiet authority: “Cool it, Theo. If we quarrel, we’re dead. Let’s get away from here, OK?”

When they were in the car, Theo and Rolf in the front seats, Theo asked: “Which way?”

“North-west and into Wales. We’ll be safer over the border. The Warden’s diktat runs there, but he’s more resented than loved. We’ll move by night, sleep by day. And we’ll keep to the minor roads. It’s more important not to be detected than to cover the miles. And they’ll be looking for this car. If we get a chance we’ll change it.”

It was then that inspiration came to Theo. Jasper. Jasper so conveniently close, so well provisioned. Jasper who desperately needed to join him in St. John Street.

He said: “I have a friend who lives outside Asthall, practically the next village. He’s got a store of food and I think I could persuade him to lend us his car.”

Rolf asked: “What makes you think he’s going to agree?”

“There’s something he wants badly which I can give him.”

Rolf said: “We haven’t got time to waste. How long will this persuasion take?”

Theo controlled his irritation. He said: “Getting a different car and stocking it with what we need is hardly a waste of time. I’d have said it was essential. But if you’ve a better suggestion, let’s hear it.”

Rolf said: “All right, let’s go.”

Theo slipped in the clutch and drove carefully through the darkness. When they reached the outskirts of Asthall, he said: “We’ll borrow his car and leave mine in his garage. With any luck it will be a long time before they get on to him. And I think I can promise he won’t talk.”

Julian leaned forward and said: “Wouldn’t that mean putting your friend in danger? We mustn’t do that.”

Rolf was impatient. “He’ll have to take his chances.”

Theo spoke to Julian: “If we’re caught, all they’ll have to connect him with us is the car. He can argue that it was taken in the night, that we stole it, or that we forced him to co-operate.”

Rolf said: “Suppose he won’t co-operate? I’d better come in with you and see that he does.”

“By force? Don’t be a fool. How long would he remain silent after that? He’ll co-operate, but not if you start threatening him. I’ll need one person with me. I’ll take Miriam.”

“Why Miriam?”

“She knows what she wants for the birth.”

Rolf didn’t argue further. Theo wondered if he’d handled Rolf with enough tact, then felt resentment at the arrogance which made that tact necessary. But somehow he must avoid an open quarrel. Compared with Julian’s safety, the appalling importance of their enterprise, his increasing irritation with Rolf seemed a trivial but dangerous indulgence. He was with them by choice but there had, in fact, been no choice. It was to Julian and her unborn child, and to them only, that he owed allegiance.

When he lifted his hand to press the doorbell at the huge gate in the wall he saw to his surprise that the gate was open. He beckoned Miriam and they went in together. He closed the gate behind him. The house was in darkness except for the sitting-room. The curtains were drawn but with an inch of light shining through. He saw that the garage, too, was unlocked, the door up and the dark bulk of the Renault parked inside. He was not surprised now to find the side door unlocked. He switched on the light of the hall, calling softly, but there was no reply. With Miriam at his shoulder, he walked down the passage to the sitting-room.

As soon as he pushed open the door he knew what he would find. The smell choked him, strong and evil as a contagion: blood, faeces, the stink of death. Jasper had made himself comfortable for the final act of his life. He was seated in the armchair before the empty fire, hands hanging loosely over the arms. The method he had chosen had been certain and catastrophic. He had put the muzzle of a revolver in his mouth and blown off the top of his head. What remained of it was slumped forward on his chest, where there was a stiffened bib of brown blood which looked like dried vomit. He had been left-handed and the gun lay on the floor by the chair, under a small round table which held his house and car keys, an empty glass, an empty claret bottle and a handwritten note, the first part in Latin, the last in English.

Quid te exempta iuvat spinis de pluribus una? Vivere si recte nescis, decede peritis. Lusisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti: Tempus abire tibi est.

Miriam moved up to him and touched the cold fingers in an instinctive and futile gesture of compassion. She said: “Poor man. Oh, poor man.”

“Rolf would say he’s done us a service. No time wasted now in persuasion.”

“Why did he do it? What does the note say?”

“It’s a quotation from Horace. It says that there’s no pleasure in getting rid of one thorn among so many. If you can’t live well, get out. He probably found the Latin in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.”

The English underneath was shorter and plainer. “I apologize for the mess. There is one bullet left in the gun.” Was that, Theo wondered, a warning or an invitation? And what had led Jasper to this act? Remorse, regret, loneliness, despair, or the realization that the thorn had been drawn but the pain and the hurt remained and were past healing? He said: “You’ll probably find the linen and blankets upstairs. I’ll get the stores.”

He was glad that he was wearing his long country coat. The inner pocket in the lining would easily take the revolver. He checked that there was one bullet in the chamber, removed it, and placed both gun and bullet in his pocket.

The kitchen, its working surfaces bare, a row of mugs hanging with their handles aligned, was grubby but tidy, with no sign that it had ever been used except for a tea-towel, crumpled and obviously recently washed, which had been laid across the empty draining rack to dry. The only discordant note in the ordered neatness was two rush mats rolled up and propped against the wall. Had Jasper perhaps intended to kill himself here and been concerned that the blood should be easily swabbed from the stone floor? Or had he intended once more to wash the stones and then realized the futility of this last obsessional concern for appearance?

The door of the store-room was unlocked. After twenty-five years of anxious husbandry, having no further need of his treasure store, he had left it open, as he had left open his life, to casual despoilers. Here too all was neatness and order. The wooden racks held large tin boxes, the edges sealed with tape. Each was labelled in Jasper’s elegant script: Meat, Tinned Fruit, Milk Powder, Sugar, Coffee, Rice, Tea, Flour. The sight of the labels, the letters so meticulously written, provoked in Theo a small spasm of compassion, painful and unwelcome, a surge of pity and regret, which the sight of Jasper’s splattered brains and bloody chest had been powerless to touch. He let it flow briefly over him, then concentrated on the job in hand. His immediate thought was to empty the tins over the floor and make a selection of the things they were most likely to need, at least for the first week, but he told himself there wasn’t time. Even to strip away the tape would hold him up. Better to take a selection unopened: meat, milk powder, dried fruit, coffee, sugar, tinned vegetables. The smaller tins labelled Drugs and Syringes, Water Purifying Tablets and Matches were obvious choices, as was a compass. Two paraffin stoves presented a more difficult decision. One was an old-fashioned single-burner, the other a more modern, cumbersome, triple-burner stove which he rejected as taking up too much room. He was relieved to find a tin of oil and a two-gallon tin of petrol. He hoped that the tank in the car wasn’t empty.

He could hear Miriam moving rapidly but quietly above, and as he came back from carrying out the second lot of tins to the car he met her coming down the stairs, her chin resting on four pillows.

She said: “May as well be comfortable.”

“They’ll take up quite a bit of room. Have you got all you need for the birth?”

“Plenty of towels and single sheets. We can sit on the pillows. And there’s a medicine chest in the bedroom. I’ve cleared that out, shoved everything in a pillowcase. The disinfectant will be useful but it’s mainly simple remedies—aspirin, bicarb, cough mixture. This place has got everything. Pity we can’t stay here.”

It was not, he knew, a serious suggestion, but he countered it. “Once they find I’m missing, this will be one of the very first places they’ll call. All the people I know will be visited and questioned.”

They worked together silently, methodically. The boot at last full, he closed it quietly then said: “We’ll put my car in the garage and lock it. I’ll lock the outer gate, too. It won’t keep out the SSP but it may prevent premature discovery.”

As he was locking the door of the cottage, Miriam laid a hand on his arm and said quickly: “The gun. Better not let Rolf know you’ve got it.”

There was an insistence, almost an authority in her voice which echoed his own instinctive anxiety. He said: “I’ve no intention of letting Rolf know.”

“Better not tell Julian either. Rolf would try to take it from you and Julian would want you to throw it away.”

He said curtly: “I shan’t tell either of them. And if Julian wants protection for herself and her child she’ll have to stomach the means. Does she aspire to be more virtuous than her God?”

Carefully he edged the Renault out of the gate and parked it behind the Rover. Rolf, pacing beside the car, was indignant.

“You’ve been a hell of a time. Did you have trouble?”

“No. Jasper’s dead. Suicide. We’ve collected as much as the car will hold. Drive the Rover into the garage and I’ll lock it and the gate. I’ve already locked the house.”

There was nothing worth transferring from the Rover to the Renault except his road maps and a paperback edition of Emma, which he found in the glove box. He slipped the book into his inner coat pocket, which held the revolver and his diary. Two minutes later they were together in the Renault. Theo took the driver’s seat. Rolf, after a moment’s hesitation, got in beside him. Julian sat in the back between Miriam and Luke. Theo locked the gate and tossed the key over. Nothing could be seen of the darkened house except the high black slope of the roof.

In the first hour they had to stop twice so that Miriam and Julian could disappear into the darkness. Rolf strained his eyes after them, uneasy once they were out of his sight. In reply to his obvious impatience, Miriam said: “You’ll have to get used to it. It happens in late pregnancy. Pressure on the bladder.”

At the third stop they all got out to stretch their legs and Luke too, with a muttered excuse, made off towards the hedgerow. With the car lights off and the engine still, the silence seemed absolute. The air was warm and sweet as if it were still summer; the stars were bright but high. Theo thought he could smell a distant bean field, but that was surely illusory; the flowers would have dropped by now, the beans would be in full pod.

Rolf moved up to stand beside him. “You and I have got to talk.”

“Then talk.”

“We can’t have two leaders of this expedition.”

“Expedition, is that what it is? Five ill-equipped fugitives with no clear idea where we’re going or what we’re going to do when we get there. It hardly requires a hierarchy of command. But if you get any satisfaction from calling yourself the leader, it doesn’t worry me as long as you don’t expect unquestioning obedience.”

“You were never part of us, never part of the group. You had your chance to join and turned it down. You’re only here because I sent for you.”

“I’m here because Julian sent for me. We’re stuck with each other. I can put up with you since I have no choice. I suggest that you exercise a similar tolerance.”

“I want to drive.” Then, as if he hadn’t made his meaning clear: “I want to take over the driving from now on.”

Theo laughed, his mirth spontaneous and genuine. “Julian’s child will be hailed as a miracle. You will be hailed as the father of that miracle. The new Adam, begetter of the new race, the saviour of mankind. That’s enough potential power for any man-more power, I suspect, than you’ll be able to cope with. And you’re worried that you’re not getting your share of the driving!”

Rolf paused before replying. “All right, we’ll make a pact. I may even be able to use you. The Warden thought you had something to offer. I shall want an adviser too.”

“I seem to be the universal confidant. You’ll probably find me as unsatisfactory as he did.” He was silent for a moment, then asked: “So you’re thinking of taking over?”

“Why not? If they want my sperm they’ll have to take me. They can’t have one without the other. I could do the job as well as he does.”

“I thought that your group were arguing that he does it badly, that he’s a merciless tyrant. So you’re proposing to replace one dictatorship with another. Benevolent this time, I suppose. Most tyrants begin that way.”

Rolf didn’t reply. Theo thought: We’re alone. It may be the only chance I have to talk to him without the others being present. He said: “Look, I still feel that we should telephone the Warden, get Julian the care she needs. You know it’s the only sensible course.”

“And you know she can’t cope with that. She’ll be all right. Childbirth is a natural process, isn’t it? She’s got a midwife.”

“Who hasn’t delivered a baby for twenty-five years. And there’s always the chance of complications.”

“There won’t be any complications. Miriam isn’t worried. Anyway, she’ll be in greater danger from complications, physical or mental, if she’s forced into hospital. She’s terrified of the Warden, she thinks he’s evil. He killed Miriam’s brother and he’s probably killing Gascoigne now. She’s terrified that he’ll harm her baby.”

“That’s ridiculous! Neither of you can believe that. It’s the last thing he’ll want to do. Once he gets possession of the child his power will be immensely increased, not just in Britain, all over the world.”

“Not his power, mine. I’m not worried about her safety. The Council won’t harm her, or the baby. But it will be me, not Xan Lyppiatt, who presents my child to the world, and then we’ll see who’s Warden of England.”

“So what are your plans?”

“How do you mean?” Rolf’s voice was suspicious.

“Well, you must have some idea what you plan to do if you manage to wrest power away from the Warden.”

“It won’t be a question of wresting it away, the people will give it to me. They’ll have to if they want Britain repopulated.”

“Oh, I see. The people will give it to you. Well, you’re probably right. What then?”

“I shall appoint my own Council but without Xan Lyppiatt as a member. Lyppiatt’s had his share of power.”

“Presumably you’ll do something about pacifying the Isle of Man.”

“That’s hardly a high priority. The country won’t exactly thank me for releasing a gang of criminal psychopaths on them. I’ll wait until they reduce themselves by natural wastage. That problem will solve itself.”

Theo said: “I imagine that’s Lyppiatt’s idea, too. It won’t please Miriam.”

“I don’t have to please Miriam. She has her job to do and when that’s done she’ll be appropriately rewarded.”

“And the Sojourners? Are you planning better treatment for them or will you put a stop to all immigration of young foreigners? After all, their own countries need them.”

“I’ll control it and see that the ones we do let in get fair and firm treatment.”

“I imagine that’s what the Warden thinks he’s doing. What about the Quietus?”

“I shan’t interfere with people’s liberty to kill themselves in the way they find most convenient.”

“The Warden of England would agree.”

Rolf said: “What I can do and he can’t is to father the new race. We’ve already got details of all healthy females in the thirty-to-fifty age group on the computer. There’ll be tremendous competition for fertile sperm. Obviously there’s a danger in interbreeding. That’s why we have got to select very carefully for superb physical health and high intelligence.”

“The Warden of England would approve. That was his plan.”

“But he hasn’t got the sperm, I have.”

Theo said: “There’s one thing you haven’t apparently considered. It will depend on what she gives birth to, won’t it? The child will have to be normal and healthy. Suppose she’s carrying a monster?”

“Why should he be a monster? Why shouldn’t he be normal, my child and hers?”

The moment of vulnerability, of shared confidence, the secret fear at last acknowledged and given voice, provoked in Theo a second of sympathy. It wasn’t enough to make him like his companion; it was enough to prevent him speaking what was in his mind: “It may be luckier for you if the child is abnormal, deformed, an idiot, a monster. If he’s healthy you’ll be a breeding, experimental animal for the rest of your life. You don’t imagine the Warden will give up his power, even to the father of the new race? They may need your sperm, but they can get possession of enough of that to populate England and half the world, and then decide that you’re expendable. Once the Warden sees you as a threat that’s probably what will happen.”

But he didn’t speak.

Three figures appeared out of the darkness, Luke first, behind him Miriam and Julian, holding hands, walking carefully over the humpy verge. Rolf got in behind the wheel.

“All right,” he said, “let’s get moving. From now on, I’m doing the driving.”

As soon as the car jolted forward Theo knew that Rolf would drive too fast. He glanced at him, wondering if he dared risk a warning, hoping that the surface would improve and make it unnecessary. In the bleaching beam of the headlights the pustulous road looked as eerie and alien as a moon landscape, at once close yet mysteriously remote and perpetual. Rolf was gazing through the windscreen with the fierce intensity of a rally driver, wrenching the wheel as each fresh obstruction sprang up from the darkness. The road, with its pot-holes, its ruts and ridges, would have been hazardous for a careful driver. Now, under Rolf’s brutal handling, the car jumped and lurched, swaying the three tightly wedged back passengers from side to side.

Miriam struggled free to lean forward, and said: “Take it easy, Rolf. Slow down. This isn’t good for Julian. D’you want a premature labour?”

Her voice was calm, but her authority was absolute, its effect immediate. Rolf at once eased his foot on the accelerator. But it was too late. The car juddered and leapt, swerved violently and for three seconds spun out of control. Rolf slammed his foot on the brake and they jerked to a stop.

He said, almost under his breath: “Bloody hell! A front puncture.”

There was no point in recriminations. Theo undid his seat belt. “There’s a spare wheel in the boot. Let’s get the car off the road.”

They clambered out and stood in the dark shadow of the hedge while Rolf steered the car on to the grass verge. Theo saw that they were in open rolling country, probably, he thought, about ten miles from Stratford. On either side ran an unkempt hedge of high, tangled bushes broken by torn gaps through which they could see the scarred ridges of the ploughed field. Julian, wrapped in her cloak, stood calmly and silently, like a docile child taken on a picnic and waiting patiently for some minor mishap to be remedied by the adults.

Miriam’s voice was calm, but she could not disguise the underlying note of anxiety. “How long will it take?”

Rolf was looking round. He said: “About twenty minutes, less if we’re lucky. But we’ll be safer off the road, where we can’t be seen.”

Without an explanation he walked briskly ahead. They waited, their eyes staring after him. Within less than a minute he was back. “About a hundred yards to the right there’s a gate and a rough track. It looks as if it leads to a clump of trees. We’ll be safer there. God knows this road’s practically impassable, but if we can drive down it so can others. We can’t risk some fool stopping and offering to help.”

Miriam objected: “How far is it? We don’t want to go further than we need and it will be tough on the wheel rim.”

Rolf said: “We’ve got to get under cover. I can’t be sure how long the job will take. We have to get well out of sight of the road.”

Silently Theo agreed with him. It was more important to remain undetected than to cover the miles. The SSP would have no idea in which direction they were travelling and, unless they had already discovered Jasper’s body, no name or number for the car. He got into the driver’s seat and Rolf made no objection.

Rolf said: “With all those supplies in the boot we’d better lighten the load. Julian can ride, the rest of us will walk.”

The gate and the path were closer than Theo had expected. The rough track ran gently uphill along the edge of an unploughed field, obviously long ago left to seed. The track had been rutted and chevroned by the heavy tyres of tractors; the central ridge was crowned with tall grasses which shook like frail antennae in the headlights. Theo drove slowly and with great care, Julian in the seat beside him, the three silent figures moving like dark shadows alongside. When they came to the clump of trees he saw that the wood offered denser cover than he had expected. But there was a final obstacle. Between it and the track was a deep gully over six feet wide.

Rolf banged on the car window. He said: “Wait here a moment,” and again dashed ahead. He came back and said: “There is a way across about thirty yards on. It looks as if it leads into a kind of clearing.”

The entrance to the wood was a narrow bridge compounded of sliced logs and earth now covered with grass and weeds. Theo saw with relief that it was wide enough to take the car, but waited while Rolf took the torch and inspected the logs to make sure they hadn’t rotted. He gave a wave and Theo manoeuvred the car across with little difficulty. The car bumped gently forward and was enclosed by a grove of beech trees, their high boughs arched into a canopy of bronzed leaves, intricate as a carved roof. Getting out, Theo saw that they had come to a stop in a mush of dead and crackling leaves and split beech nuts.

It was Rolf and Theo who together tackled the front wheel, with Miriam holding the torch. Luke and Julian stood together and watched silently while Rolf lugged out the spare wheel, the jack and the wheel brace. But removing the wheel proved more difficult than Theo had expected. The nuts had been screwed very tightly and neither he nor Rolf could get them to move.

The torchlight moved erratically as Miriam squatted to a more comfortable position. Rolf said impatiently: “For God’s sake, hold it steady. I can’t see what I’m doing. And it’s very dim.”

A second later the light went out.

Miriam didn’t wait for Rolf’s question. She said: “There isn’t a spare battery. Sorry. We’ll have to stick here until morning.”

Theo waited for Rolf’s explosion of irritation. It didn’t come. Instead he got up and said calmly: “Then we may as well have something to eat and make ourselves comfortable for the rest of the night.”

Theo and Rolf elected to sleep on the ground; the other three chose the car, Luke in the front seat and the two women curled up in the back. Theo scooped up armfuls of beech leaves, spread out Jasper’s raincoat and covered himself with a blanket and his own coat. His last consciousness was of distant voices as the women settled themselves for sleep, of the crackle of twigs as he wriggled deeper into the bed of leaves. Before he slept the wind began to rise, not strong enough to agitate the low boughs of the beech above his head, but making a far-off, distant sound as if the wood was stirring into life.

Next morning he opened his eyes to the pattern of bronze-and-russet beech leaves broken by thin shafts of pale milky light. He was aware of the hardness of the earth, of the smell of loam and leaves, pungent and obscurely comforting. He struggled from under the weight of blanket and coat and stretched, aware of an ache in his shoulders and the small of his back. He was surprised that he had slept so soundly on a bed which, initially wonderfully soft, had compacted under his weight and now felt like a board.

It looked as if he was the last to wake. The doors of the car were open, the seats empty. Someone had already brewed the morning tea. On the flattened ridge of a log were five mugs, all from Jasper’s collection of coronation mugs, and a metal teapot. The coloured mugs looked curiously festive.

Rolf said: “Help yourself.”

Miriam had a pillow in each hand and was shaking them vigorously. She carried them back to the car, where Rolf had already started work on the wheel. Theo drank his tea, men went over to help him, and they worked together, efficiently and companionably. Rolf’s large, square-fingered hands were remarkably dextrous. Perhaps because they were both rested, less anxious, no longer dependent on a single beam of torchlight, the previously intractable nuts yielded to their joint effort.

Gathering up a fistful of leaves to wipe his hands, Theo asked: “Where are Julian and Luke?”

It was Rolf who replied. “Saying their prayers. They do every day. When they come back we’ll have breakfast. I’ve put Luke in charge of the rations. It’s good for him to have something more useful to do than saying his prayers with my wife.”

“Couldn’t they pray here? We ought to keep together.”

“They aren’t far off. They like to be private. Anyway, I can’t stop them. Julian likes it and Miriam tells me I’m to keep her calm and happy. Apparently praying keeps her calm and happy. It’s some kind of ritual for them. It doesn’t do any harm. Why don’t you go and join them if you’re worried?”

Theo said: “I don’t think they’d want me.”

“I don’t know, they might. They might try to convert you. Are you a Christian?”

“No, I’m not a Christian.”

“What do you believe, then?”

“Believe about what?”

“The things that religious people think are important. Whether there is a God. How do you explain evil? What happens when we die? Why are we here? How ought we to live our lives?”

Theo said: “The last is the most important, the only question that really matters. You don’t have to be religious to believe that. And you don’t have to be a Christian to find an answer.”

Rolf turned to him and asked, as if he really wanted to know: “But what do you believe? I don’t just mean religion. What are you sure of?”

“That once I was not and that now I am. That one day I shall no longer be.”

Rolf gave a short laugh, harsh as a shout. “That’s safe enough. No one can argue with that. What does he believe, the Warden of England?”

“I don’t know. We never discussed it.”

Miriam came over and, sitting with her back against a trunk, stretched out her legs wide, closed her eyes and lifted her face, gently smiling, to the sky, listening but not speaking.

Rolf said: “I used to believe in God and the Devil and then one morning, when I was twelve, I lost my faith. I woke up and found that I didn’t believe in any of the things the Christian Brothers had taught me. I thought if that ever happened I’d be too frightened to go on living, but it didn’t make any difference. One night I went to bed believing and the next morning I woke up unbelieving. I couldn’t even tell God I was sorry, because He wasn’t there any more. And yet it didn’t really matter. It hasn’t mattered ever since.”

Miriam said without opening her eyes: “What did you put in His empty place?”

“There wasn’t any empty place. That’s what I’m telling you.”

“What about the Devil?”

“I believe in the Warden of England. He exists. He’s Devil enough for me to be going on with.”

Theo walked away from them and made his way down the narrow path between the trees. He was still uneasy about Julian’s absence, uneasy and angry. She ought to know that they must keep together, ought to realize that someone, a rambler, a woodman, an estate worker, might come along the lane and see them. It wasn’t only the State Security Police or the Grenadiers they needed to fear. He knew that he was feeding irritation with irrational anxieties. Who in this deserted place and at this hour was likely to surprise them? Anger welled up in him, disturbing in its vehemence.

And then he saw them. They were only fifty yards away from the clearing and the car, kneeling in a small green patch of moss. They were totally absorbed. Luke had set up his altar-one of the tin boxes upturned and spread with a tea-towel. On it was a single candle stuck in a saucer. Beside it was another saucer with two crumbs of bread and, beside that, a small—mug. He was wearing a cream stole. Theo wondered if he had been carrying it rolled in his pocket. They were unaware of his presence and they reminded him of two children totally absorbed in some primitive game; their faces grave and dappled by the shadow of the leaves. He watched as Luke lifted the saucer with the two crumbs in his left hand, placing his right palm above it. Julian bent her head lower so that she seemed to crouch into the ground.

The words, half-remembered from his distant childhood, were spoken very quietly but came to Theo clearly. “Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood: who, in the same night that he was betrayed, took Bread; and, when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat; this is my Body which is given for you; Do this in remembrance of me.”

He stood back in the shelter of the trees and watched. In memory he was back in that dull little church in Surrey in his Sunday dark-blue suit, Mr. Greenstreet, his self-importance carefully controlled, ushering the congregation pew by pew to the communion rail. He remembered his mother’s bent head. He had felt excluded then and he felt excluded now.

Slipping away from the trees he went back to the clearing. He said: “They’ve nearly finished. They won’t be long now.”

Rolf said: “They never are long. We may as well wait breakfast for them. I suppose we should be grateful Luke doesn’t feel the need to preach her a sermon.”

His voice and smile were indulgent. Theo wondered about his relationship with Luke, whom he seemed to tolerate as he might a well-meaning child who couldn’t be expected to make a full adult contribution but who was doing his best to be useful and was no trouble. Was Rolf merely indulging what he saw as the whim of a pregnant woman? If Julian wanted the services of a personal chaplain, then he was prepared to include Luke in the Five Fishes even though he had no practical skills to offer. Or had Rolf in that single and complete rejection of his childhood religion retained an unacknowledged vestige of superstition? Did he with part of his mind see Luke as the miracle-worker who could turn dry crumbs into flesh, the bringer of luck, the possessor of mystic powers and ancient charms, whose very presence among them could propitiate the dangerous gods of the forest and the night?

Friday 15 October

I am writing this entry sitting in the glade of a beechwood, my back against a tree. It is late afternoon and the shadows are beginning to lengthen but, within the grove, the warmth of day still lingers. I have a conviction that this is the last diary entry I shall make, but even if neither I nor these words survive, I need to record this day. It has been one of extraordinary happiness and I have spent it with four strangers. In the years before Omega, at the beginning of each academic year, I used to write an assessment of the applicants I had selected for admission to college. This record, with a photograph from their application form, I kept in a private file. At the end of their three years it used to interest me to see how often my preliminary pen-portrait was accurate, how little they had changed, how powerless I was to alter their essential natures. I was seldom wrong about them. The exercise reinforced my natural confidence in my judgement; perhaps that was its purpose. I believed that I could know them and did know them. I can’t feel that about my fellow-fugitives. I still know practically nothing about them: their parents, their families, their education, their loves, their hopes and desires. Yet I have never felt so much at ease with other human beings as I have been today with these four strangers to whom I am now, still half-reluctantly, committed and one of whom I am learning to love.

It has been a perfect autumn day, the sky a clear azure blue, the sunlight mellow and gentle but strong as high June, the air sweet-scented, carrying the illusion of wood smoke, mown hay, the gathered sweets of summer. Perhaps because the beech grove is so remote, so enclosed, we have shared a sense of absolute safety. We have occupied our time in dozing, talking, working, playing childish games with stones and twigs and pages torn from my diary. Rolf has checked and cleaned the car. Watching his meticulous attention to every inch, his energetic rubbing and polishing, I found it impossible to believe this innocently employed natural mechanic with his simple pleasure in the job was the same Rolf who yesterday had displayed such arrogance, such naked ambition.

Luke busied himself with the stores. Rolf showed some natural leadership in giving him this responsibility. Luke decided that we should eat the fresh food first and then the tins in their date-stamped order, discovering in this obviously sensible priority an unwonted confidence in his own administrative ability. He has sorted out the tins, made lists, devised menus. After we had eaten he would sit quietly with his prayer book or come to join Miriam and Julian while I read to them from Emma. Lying back on the beech leaves and gazing up at the glimpses of the strengthening blue sky, I felt as innocently joyous as if we were having a picnic. We were having a picnic. We didn’t discuss plans for the future or the dangers to come. Now that seems extraordinary to me, but I think it was less a conscious decision not to plan or argue or discuss than a wish to keep this day inviolate. And I haven’t spent time rereading the early entries in this diary. In my present euphoria I have no wish to encounter that self-regarding, sardonic and solitary man. The diary has lasted less than ten months and, after today, I shall no longer have need of it.

The light is failing now and I can hardly see the page. In another hour we shall begin the journey. The car, shining under Rolf’s ministrations, is packed and ready. Just as I feel confident that this will be the last entry in my diary, so I know that we shall face dangers and horrors at present unimaginable to me. I have never been superstitious, but this belief cannot be argued or reasoned away. Believing it, I am still at peace. And I am glad we have had this respite, these happy innocent hours stolen, it seems, out of inexorable time. During the afternoon, while rummaging in the back of the car, Miriam found a second torch, little larger than a pencil, wedged down the side of a seat. It would hardly have been adequate to replace the one which failed, but I am grateful we didn’t know it was there. We needed this day.

The dashboard clock showed five minutes to three, later than Theo had expected. The road, narrow and deserted, opened palely before them, then slid under the wheels like a strip of torn and soiled linen. The surface was deteriorating and from time to time the car jolted violently as they struck a pot-hole. It was impossible to drive fast on such a road; he dared not risk a second puncture. The night was dark but not totally black; the half-moon reeled between the scudding clouds, the stars were high pin-pricks of half-formed constellations, the Milky Way was a smudge of light. The car, handling easily, seemed to be a moving refuge, warmed by their breath, smelling faintly of familiar, unfrightening things which in his bemused state he tried to identify: petrol, human bodies, Jasper’s old dog, long since dead, even the faint aroma of peppermint. Rolf was beside him, silent but tense, staring ahead. In the back seat Julian sat squashed between Miriam and Luke. It was the least comfortable seat but the one she had wanted; perhaps being buttressed by the two bodies gave her an illusion of added safety. Her eyes were closed, her head rested on Miriam’s shoulder. Then, as he watched in the mirror, it jerked, slipped and lolled forward. Gently Miriam raised it to a more comfortable position. Luke, too, looked asleep, his head thrown back, his mouth a little open.

The road curved and twisted but its surface became smoother. Theo was lulled into confidence by the hours of trouble-free motoring. Perhaps, after all, the journey need not be disastrous. Gascoigne would have talked, but he hadn’t known about the child. In Xan’s eyes the Five Fishes were surely a small and contemptible band of amateurs. He might not even bother to have them hunted down. For the first time since the journey began there rose in him a spring of hope.

He saw the fallen trunk only just in time and braked violently a moment before the car bonnet scraped its jutting branches. Rolf jerked awake and swore. Theo switched off the engine. There was a moment of silence in which two thoughts, following so quickly they were almost instantaneous, shook him into full consciousness. The first was relief; the trunk didn’t look heavy despite its bush of autumn leaves. He and the other two men could probably drag it clear without much trouble. The second realization was horror. It couldn’t have fallen so inconveniently; there had been no recent strong winds. This was a deliberate obstruction.

And in that second the Omegas were upon them. Horribly, they came at first unheard, in total silence. At each car window the painted faces stared in, lit by the flames of torches. Miriam gave a short involuntary scream. Rolf yelled “Back! Reverse!” and tried to seize the wheel and gear-stick. Their hands locked. Theo thrust him aside and slammed the gears into reverse. The engine roared into life, the car shot back. They crashed to a stop with a violence which threw him forward. The Omegas must have moved quickly and silently, imprisoning them with a second obstruction. And now the faces were at the windows again. He stared into two expressionless eyes, gleaming, white-rimmed, in a mask of blue, red and yellow swirls. Above the painted forehead the hair was dragged back into a top-knot. In one hand the Omega held a flaming torch, in the other a club, like a policeman’s truncheon, decorated with thin pigtails of hair. Theo remembered with horror being told that when the Painted Faces killed they cut off the hair of the victim and braided it into a trophy, a rumour he had only half believed, part of the folklore of terror. Now he gazed in fascinated horror at the dangling plait and wondered whether it had come from the head of a man or a woman.

No one in the car spoke. The silence, which had seemed to last for minutes, could have been held for seconds only. And then the ritual dance began. With a great whoop the figures slowly pranced round the car, beating their truncheons on the sides and the roof, a rhythmic drumbeat to the high chanting voices. They were wearing shorts only but their bodies were unpainted. The naked chests looked white as milk in the flame of the torches, the rib-cages delicately vulnerable. The jerking legs, the ornate heads, the patterned faces slit by wide, yodelling mouths, made it possible to see them as a gang of overgrown children playing their disruptive but essentially innocent games.

Was it possible, Theo wondered, to talk to them, to reason with them, establish at least a recognition of common humanity? He wasted no time on the thought. He remembered once meeting one of their victims and a snatch of their conversation came into his mind. “They’re said to kill the single sacrificial victim, but on this occasion, thank God, they were satisfied with the car.” He had added: “Just don’t meddle with them. Abandon your vehicle and get away.” For him, escape hadn’t been easy; for them, encumbered with a pregnant woman, it seemed impossible. But there was one fact which might divert them from murder, if they were capable of rational thought and believed it: Julian’s pregnancy. The evidence was now sufficient even for an Omega. But he had no need to ask himself what Julian’s reaction to that would be; they hadn’t fled from Xan and the Council to fall into the power of the Painted Faces. He looked back at Julian. She was sitting with her head bowed. Presumably she was praying. He wished her good luck with her god. Miriam’s eyes were wide and terrified. It was impossible to see Luke’s face, but from his seat Rolf poured out a stream of obscenities.

The dance continued, the whirling bodies moving ever faster, the chanting louder. It was difficult to see how many there were but he judged there couldn’t be fewer than a dozen. They were making no move to open the car doors but the locks, he knew, provided no real safety. There were enough of them to overturn the car. There were torches to set it alight. It was only a matter of time before they were forced out.

Theo’s thoughts were racing. What chance was there of a successful flight, at least for Julian and Rolf? Through the kaleidoscope of prancing bodies he studied the terrain. To the left was a low crumbling stone wall, in parts, he judged, no more than three feet high. Beyond it he could see a dark fringe of trees. He had the gun, the single bullet, but he knew that even to show the gun could be fatal. He could kill only one; the rest would fall on them in a fury of retaliation. It would be a massacre. It was useless to think of physical force, outnumbered as they were. The darkness was their only hope. If Julian and Rolf could reach the fringe of trees there was at least a chance of concealment. To keep running, crashing dangerously and noisily through the undergrowth of an unfamiliar wood, would only invite pursuit, but it might be possible to hide. Success would depend on whether the Omegas bothered to pursue. There was a chance, if only a small one, that they would content themselves with the car and then remaining three victims.

He thought: They mustn’t see that we’re talking, mustn’t know that we’re scheming to get away. There was no fear that their words would be overheard; the whoops and cries which made the night hideous almost drowned his voice. It was necessary to speak loudly and clearly if Luke, Miriam and Julian in the back were to hear, but he was careful not to turn his head.

He said: “They’ll make us get out in the end. We’ll have to plan exactly what we’re going to do. It’s up to you, Rolf. When they pull us out, get Julian over that wall, then run for the trees and hide. Choose your moment. The rest of us will try to cover for you.”

Rolf said: “How? How do you mean cover? How can you cover for us?”

“By talking. By taking their attention.” Then inspiration came to him. “By joining the dance.”

Rolf’s voice was high, close to hysteria. “Dance with those fuckers? What sort of a gig d’you think this is? They don’t talk. These fuckers don’t talk and they don’t dance with their victims. They bum, they kill.”

“Never more than one victim. We have to see that it isn’t Julian or you.”

“They’ll come after us. Julian can’t run.”

“I doubt whether they’ll bother with three other possible victims and the car to burn. We’ve got to choose the right moment. Get Julian over that wall if you have to drag her. Then make for the trees. Understand?”

“It’s crazy.”

“If you can think of another plan, let’s have it.”

After a moment’s thought, Rolf said: “We could show Julian to them. Tell them she’s pregnant, let them see for themselves. Tell them I’m the father. We could make a pact with them. At least that would keep us alive. We’ll talk to them now, before they try to drag us from the car.”

From the back seat Julian spoke for the first time. She said clearly: “No.”

After that single word no one spoke for a moment. Then Theo said again: “They’ll make us get out in the end. Either that, or they’ll fire the car. That’s why we have to plan now exactly what we’re going to do. If we join the dance—if they don’t kill us then—we may distract their attention for long enough to give you and Julian a chance.”

Rolf’s voice was close to hysteria. “I’m not moving. They’ll have to drag me out.”

“That’s what they will do.”

Luke spoke for the first time. He said: “If we don’t provoke them perhaps they’ll get tired and go away.”

Theo said: “They won’t go away. They always burn the car. It’s a choice for us of being outside or in when they do.”

There was a crash. The windscreen shivered into a maze of cracks but didn’t break. Then one of the Omegas swung his club at the front window. The glass smashed, falling over Rolf’s lap. The night air rushed into the car with the chill of death. Rolf gasped and jerked back as the Omega thrust in his lighted torch and held it blazing against his face.

The Omega laughed, then said in a voice that was ingratiating, educated, almost enticing: “Come out, come out, come out, whoever you are.”

There were two more crashes and the rear windows went. Miriam gave a cry as a torch scorched her face. There was a smell of singeing hair. Theo had only time to say, “Remember. The dance. Then make for the wall,” before the five of them rumbled from the car and were seized and dragged clear.

They were at once surrounded. The Omegas, holding their torches high in their left hands, their clubs in their right, stood for a second regarding them, and then began again their ritual dance with their captives in the centre.

But this time their movements were at first slower, more ceremonial, the chanting deeper, no longer a celebration but a dirge. At once Theo joined in, raising his arms, twisting his body, mixing his voice with theirs. One by one the other four slipped into place in the ring. They were separated. That was bad. He wanted Rolf and Julian close so that he could give them the signal to move. But the first part of the plan and the most dangerous had worked. He had feared that, with his first move, they would have struck him down, had braced himself for the one annihilating blow that would have put an end to responsibility, an end to life. It hadn’t come.

And now, as if in obedience to secret orders, the Omegas began to stamp in unison, faster and faster, then broke out again into their whirling dance. The Omega in front of him twisted, then began to prance backwards with light delicate steps, like a cat, whirling his club above his head. He grinned into Theo’s face, their noses almost touching. Theo could smell him, a musty smell which was not unpleasant, could see the intricate whirls and curves of the paint, blue, red and black, outlining cheekbones, sweeping above the line of the brow, covering every inch of the face in a pattern which was at once barbaric and sophisticated. For a second he had a memory of the painted South Sea Islanders with their top-knots in the Pitt Rivers Museum, of Julian and himself standing together in that quiet emptiness.

The Omega’s eyes, black pools among the blaze of colour, held his. He dared not shift his glance to look for Julian or Rolf. Round and round they danced, faster and faster. When would Rolf and Julian make their move?

Even as he gazed into the Omega’s eyes his mind was willing them to make a dash for it, now, before their captors tired of this spurious comradeship. And then the Omega twisted away from him to dance forward and he was able to turn his head. Rolf, with Julian beside him, was at the far side of the ring, Rolf jigging in a clumsy parody of a dance, holding his arms stiffly aloft, Julian clasping her cloak with her left hand, her right hand free, her cloaked body swaying in time to the clamour of the dancers.

And then there was a moment of horror. The Omega prancing behind her put out his left hand and caught her plaited hair. He gave it a tug and the plait came apart. She paused for a second, then began dancing again, the hair swirling about her face. They were coming up now to the grass verge and to the lowest part of the wall. He could see it clearly in the torchlight, the fallen stones on the grass, the black shape of the trees beyond. He wanted to cry aloud: “Now. Make it now. Go! Go!” And at that moment Rolf acted. He grabbed Julian’s hand and together they dashed for the wall. Rolf jumped it first, then half-swung, half-dragged Julian across. Some of the dancers, absorbed, ecstatic, went on with their high wailing, but the Omega closest to them was swift. He dropped his torch and, with a wild cry, dashed after them and seized the end of Julian’s cloak as it brushed across the wall.

And then Luke sprang forward. Seizing the Omega he tried ineffectually to drag him back, crying out: “No, no. Take me! Take me!”

The Omega let go of the cloak and, with a cry of fury, turned on Luke. For a second Theo saw Julian hesitate, stretching out an arm, but Rolf jerked her away and the two fleeing figures were lost among the shadows of the trees. It was over in seconds, leaving Theo with a confused picture of Julian’s outstretched arm and beseeching eyes, of Rolf hauling her away, of the Omega’s torch flaming among the grasses.

And now the Omegas had their self-selected victim. A terrible silence fell as they closed around him, ignoring Theo and Miriam. At the first crack of wood on bone, Theo heard a single scream but he couldn’t tell whether it came from Miriam or Luke. And then Luke was down, and his murderers fell upon him like beasts round their prey, jostling for a place, raining their blows in a frenzy. The dance was over, the ceremony of death ended, the killing had begun. They killed in silence, a terrible silence in which it seemed to Theo that he could hear the crack and splinter of every single bone, could feel his ears bursting with the gushing of Luke’s blood. He seized Miriam and dragged her to the wall.

She gasped: “No. We can’t, we can’t! We can’t leave him.”

“We must. We can’t help him now. Julian needs you.”

The Omegas made no move to follow. When Theo and Miriam gained the outskirts of the wood they paused and looked back. And now the killing looked less like a frenzy of blood-lust than a calculated murder. Five or six of the Omegas were holding their torches aloft in a circle within which, silently now, the dark shapes of the half-naked bodies, arms wielding their clubs, rose and fell in a ritual ballet of death. Even from this distance it seemed to Theo that the air was splintered with the smashing of Luke’s bones. But he knew that he could hear nothing, nothing but the rasp of Miriam’s breathing and the thudding of his own heart. He was aware that Rolf and Julian had come up quietly behind them. Together they watched in silence as the Omegas, their work completed, broke again into a whoop of triumph and rushed to the captured car. In the torchlight Theo could make out the shape of a wide gate to the field bordering the road. Two of the Omegas held it open and the car lurched over the grass verge and through the gate, driven by one of the gang, the rest pushing it from behind. They must, Theo knew, have their own vehicle, probably a small van, although he couldn’t remember seeing it. But he had a moment’s ridiculous hope that they might temporarily abandon it in the excitement of firing die car, that there might be a chance, however small, that he could get to it, might even find that they had left the keys in the ignition. The thought, he knew, had never been rational. Even as it entered his mind he saw that a small black van was being driven up the road and through the gate into the field.

They didn’t go far, Theo judged no more than fifty yards. Then the whooping and the wild dancing began again. There was an explosion as the Renault burst into flames. And with it went Miriam’s medical supplies, their food, their water, their blankets. With it went all their hope.

He heard Julian’s voice: “We can get Luke now. Now, while they’re occupied.”

Rolf said: “Better leave it. If they find he’s gone it will only remind them that we’re still here. We’ll get him later.”

Julian tugged gently at Theo’s sleeve. “Please get him. There may be a chance that he’s still alive.”

Miriam spoke out of the darkness: “He won’t be alive, but I’m not leaving him there. Dead or alive, we’re together.”

She was already moving forward when Theo caught her by her sleeve. He said quietly: “Stay with Julian. Rolf and I will manage.”

Without looking at Rolf, he made for the road. At first he thought he was alone, but in a few moments Rolf had moved alongside him.

When they reached the dark shape huddled on its side as if asleep, Theo said: “You’re the stronger. You take the head.”

Together they turned the body over. Luke’s face had gone. Even in the distant ruddy light cast by the flaming car they could see that the whole head had been battered into a mess of blood, skin and cracked bones. The arms lay askew, the legs seemed to buckle as Theo braced himself to lift him. It was like trying to take hold of a broken marionette.

He was lighter than Theo had expected, although he could hear his and Rolf’s rasping breath as they crossed the shallow ditch between the road and the wall and eased the body over. When they joined the others Julian and Miriam turned without a word and walked ahead, as if part of a pre-arranged funeral procession. Miriam switched on the torch and they followed the tiny pool of light. The journey seemed endless but Theo judged that they could only have been walking for a minute when they came across a fallen tree.

He said: “We’ll lay him down here.”

Miriam had been careful not to shine the torch on Luke. Now she said to Julian: “Don’t look at him. You don’t need to look at him.”

Julian’s voice was calm. “I have to see. If I don’t see it will be worse. Give me the torch.”

Without another protest Miriam handed it over. Julian shone it slowly over Luke’s body then, kneeling at his head, tried to wipe the blood from his face with her skirt.

Miriam said gently: “It’s no use. There’s nothing there any more.”

Julian said: “He died to save me.”

“He died to save all of us.”

Theo was suddenly aware of a great weariness. He thought: We’ve got to bury him. We have to get him underground before we move on. But move on where and how? Somehow they must get hold of another car, food, water, blankets. But the greatest need now was water. He craved water, thirst driving out hunger. Julian was kneeling by Luke’s body, cradling his shattered head in her lap, her dark hair falling over his face. She made no sound.

Then Rolf bent down and took the torch from Julian’s hand. He shone it full on Miriam’s face. She blinked in the thin but intense beam, instinctively putting up her hand. His voice was low and harsh, and so distorted that it might have been forced through a diseased larynx. He said: “Whose child is she carrying?”

Miriam put down her hand and looked at him steadily but didn’t speak.

He repeated: “I asked you, whose child is she carrying?”

His voice was clearer now, but Theo could see that his whole body was shaking. Instinctively he moved closer to Julian.

Rolf turned on him. “Keep out of this! This is nothing to do with you. I’m asking Miriam.” Then he repeated more violently. “Nothing to do with you! Nothing!”

Julian’s voice came out of the darkness: “Why not ask me?”

For the first time since Luke had died he turned to her. The torchlight moved steadily and slowly from Miriam’s face to hers.

She said: “Luke’s. The child is Luke’s.”

Rolf’s voice was very quiet: “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

He shone the torch down on Luke’s body and scrutinized it with the cold professional interest of an executioner checking that the condemned is dead, that there is no need for the final coup de grace. Then, with a violent motion he turned away from them, stumbled between the trees and flung himself against one of the beeches, encircling it with his arms.

Miriam said: “My God, what a time to ask! And what a time to be told.”

Theo said: “Go to him, Miriam.”

“My skills aren’t any use to him. He’ll have to cope with this by himself.”

Julian still knelt by Luke’s head. Theo and Miriam, standing together, stared fixedly at that dark shadow as if afraid that, unmarked, it would disappear among the darker shadows of the wood. They could hear no sound but it seemed to Theo that Rolf was rubbing his face against the bark like a tormented animal trying to rid itself of stinging flies. And now he was thrusting his whole body against the tree as if venting his anger and agony on the unyielding wood. Watching those jerking limbs in their obscene parody of lust reinforced for Theo the indecency of witnessing so much pain.

He turned away and said quietly to Miriam: “Did you know that Luke was the father?”

“I knew.”

“She told you?”

“I guessed.”

“But you said nothing.”

“What did you expect me to say? It was never my practice to inquire who fathered the babies I delivered. A baby is a baby.”

“This one is different.”

“Not to a midwife.”

“Did she love him?”

“Ah, that’s what men always want to know. You’d better ask her.”

Theo said: “Miriam, please talk to me about this.”

“I think she was sorry for him. I don’t think she loved either of them, neither Rolf nor Luke. She’s beginning to love you, whatever that means, but I think you know that. If you hadn’t known it, or hoped for it, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Wasn’t Luke ever tested? Or did both he and Rolf give up going for their sperm test?”

“Rolf has, at least during the last few months. He thought that the technicians had been careless or that they’re just not bothering to test half the specimens they take. Luke was exempt from testing. He had mild epilepsy as a child. Like Julian, Luke was a reject.”

They had moved a little apart from Julian. Now, looking back at her dark kneeling shape, Theo said: “She’s so calm. Anyone would think she’s having this child under the best possible circumstances.”

“What are the best possible circumstances? Women have given birth in war, revolutions, famine, concentration camps, on the march. She’s got the essentials, you and a midwife she trusts.”

“She trusts in her God.”

“Perhaps you should try doing the same. It might give you some of her calm. Later, when the baby comes, I shall need your help. I certainly don’t need your anxiety.”

“Do you?” he asked.

She smiled, understanding the question. “Believe in God? No, it’s too late for me. I believe in Julian’s strength and courage and in my own skill. But if He gets us through this maybe I’ll change my mind, see if I can’t get something going with Him.”

“I don’t think He bargains.”

“Oh yes He does. I may not be religious but I know my Bible. My mother saw to that. He bargains all right. But He’s supposed to be just. If He wants belief He’d better provide some evidence.”

“That He exists?”

“That He cares.”

And still they stood, eyes watching that dark figure, hardly discernible against the darker trunk of which he seemed to be part, but quiet now, unmoving, resting against the tree as if in an extremity of exhaustion.

Theo said to Miriam, knowing the futility of the question even as he asked it: “Will he be all right?”

“I don’t know. How can I know?”

She moved from his side and walked towards Rolf, then stopped and stood quietly waiting, knowing that if he needed the comfort of a human touch, there was no one else to whom he could turn.

Julian got up from Luke’s body. Theo felt her cloak brush his arm but he did not turn to look at her. He was aware of a mixture of emotions, anger which he knew he had no right to feel, and relief, so strong that it was close to joy, that Rolf wasn’t the father of the child. But the anger was for the moment the stronger. He wanted to lash out at her, to say: “Is that what you were, then? Camp-follower to the group? What about Gascoigne? How do you know the child isn’t his?” But those words would be unforgivable and, worse, unforgettable. He knew that he had no right to question her but he couldn’t bite back the stark accusatory words nor hide the pain behind them.

“Did you love them, either of them? Do you love your husband?”

She said quietly: “Did you love your wife?”

It was, he saw, a serious question, not a retaliation, and he gave it a serious and truthful answer. “I convinced myself I did when I married. I willed myself into the appropriate feelings without knowing what the appropriate feelings were. I endowed her with qualities she didn’t have and then despised her for not having them. Afterwards I might have learned to love her if I had thought more of her needs and less of my own.”

He thought: Portrait of a marriage. Perhaps most marriages, good and bad, could be summed up in four sentences.

She looked at him steadily for a moment, then said: “That’s the answer to your question.”

“And Luke?”

“No, I didn’t love him, but I liked having him in love with me. I envied him because he could love so much, could feel so much. No one has wanted me with that intensity of emotion. So I gave him what he wanted. If I had loved him it would have been…” She paused for a moment, then said: “It would have been less sinful.”

“Isn’t that a strong word for a simple act of generosity?”

“But it wasn’t a simple act of generosity. It was an act of self-indulgence.”

It wasn’t, he knew, the time for such a conversation, but when would there be a time? He had to know, had to understand. He said: “But it would have been all right, ‘less sinful’ are the words you used, if you’d loved him. So you agree with Rosie McClure, love justifies everything, excuses everything?”

“No, but it’s natural, it’s human. What I did was to use Luke out of curiosity, boredom, perhaps to get back a little at Rolf for caring more for the group than he did for me, punishing Rolf because I’d stopped loving him. Can you understand that, the need to hurt someone because you can no longer love?”

“Yes, I understand that.”

She added: “It was all very commonplace, predictable, ignoble.”

Theo said: “And tawdry.”

“No. Not that. Nothing to do with Luke was tawdry. But it harmed him more than it gave him joy. But then you didn’t think I was a saint.”

“No, but I thought you were good.”

She said quietly: “Now you know that I’m not.”

Staring into the half-darkness, Theo saw that Rolf had detached himself from the tree and was walking back to join them. Miriam moved forward to meet him. The three pairs of eyes gazed at Rolf’s face, watching, waiting for his first words. When he got close, Theo saw that the left cheek and forehead were an open wound, the skin had been rubbed raw.

Rolf’s voice was perfectly calm but oddly pitched, so that, for one ridiculous moment, Theo thought a stranger had crept up on them in the darkness: “Before we move we must get him buried. That means waiting until it’s light. We’d better get his coat off before he stiffens too much. We need all the warm clothes we have.”

Miriam said: “Burying him won’t be easy without some kind of spade. The ground’s soft but we need to scrape a hole somehow. We can’t just cover him with leaves.”

Rolf said: “It can wait till morning. We’ll get the coat off now. It’s no use to him.”

Having made the suggestion, he took no action to carry it out and it was Miriam and Theo who between them rolled over the body and eased the coat from both arms. The sleeves were heavily bloodstained. Theo could feel them wet under his hands. They composed the body again on its back, the arms straight at the side.

Rolf said: “Tomorrow I’ll get hold of another car. In the meantime we’ll get what rest we can.”

They wedged themselves together in the wide fork of a fallen beech. A jutting branch, still thickly hung with the brittle bronze pennants of autumn, provided an illusion of security, and they huddled beneath it like children conscious of grave delinquencies, hiding ineffectively from the searching adults. Rolf took the outside place, with Miriam next to him, then Julian between Miriam and Theo. Their rigid bodies seemed to infect the air around them with anxiety. The wood itself was distraught; its ceaseless small noises hissed and whispered on the agitated air. Theo couldn’t sleep, and knew from the uneven breathing, suppressed coughs, and small grunts and sighs that the others shared his vigil. There would be a time for sleep. It would come with the greater warmth of the day, with the burial of that dark, stiffening shape which, out of sight on the other side of the fallen tree, was a living presence in all their minds. He was aware of the warmth of Julian’s body pressed against his and knew that she must feel from him a similar comfort. Miriam had tucked Luke’s coat around Julian and it seemed to Theo that he could smell the drying blood. He felt suspended in a limbo of time, aware of the cold, of thirst, of the innumerable small sounds of the wood, but not of the passing hours. Like his companions, he endured and waited for the dawn.

Daylight, tentative and bleak, stole like a chill breath into the wood, wrapping itself round barks and broken boughs, touching the boles of the trees and the low denuded branches, giving darkness and mystery form and substance. Opening his eyes, Theo couldn’t believe that he had actually dozed, although he must have momentarily lost consciousness since he had no recollection of Rolf getting up and leaving them.

Now he saw him striding back through the trees. Rolf said: “I’ve been exploring. This isn’t a proper wood, more a copse. It’s only about eighty yards wide. We can’t hide here for long. There’s a kind of ditch between the end of the wood and the field. That should do for him.”

Again Rolf made no move to touch Luke’s body. It was Miriam and Theo who managed between them to raise it. Miriam held Luke’s legs, parted, resting against her thighs.

Theo took the weight of the head and shoulders, sensing that he could already detect the onset of rigor. The body sagged between them as they followed Rolf through the trees. Julian walked beside them, her cloak clutched tightly round her, her face calm but very pale, Luke’s bloodstained coat and his cream stole folded over her arm. She carried them like trophies of battle.

It was only about fifty yards to the edge of the copse and they found themselves looking out over a gently rolling countryside. The harvest was over and bales of straw lay like pale bolsters haphazard on the distant uplands. The sun, a ball of harsh white light, was already beginning to dispel the thin mist which lay over fields and far hills, absorbing the autumn colours and merging them to a soft olive green in which the individual trees stood out like black cut-outs. It was going to be another mellow autumn day. With a lifting of the heart, Theo saw that there was a hedge of laden blackberry bushes edging the wood. It took all his self-control not to drop Luke’s body and fall on them.

The ditch was shallow, no more than a narrow gully between the copse and the field. But it would have been difficult to find a more convenient burial place. The field had recently been ploughed and the ridged earth looked relatively soft. Bending, Theo and Miriam let the body roll from their grasp and tumble into the shallow depression. Theo wished that they could have done it more reverently, less as if dumping an unwanted animal. Luke had come to rest face-downwards. Sensing that this wasn’t what Julian wanted, he jumped into the ditch and tried to turn the body over. The task was more difficult than he had expected, better not attempted. In the end Miriam had to help and they struggled together in the earth and leaves before what remained of Luke’s battered and mud-caked face was turned upwards to the sky.

Miriam said: “We can cover him first with leaves, and then with the earth.”

Still Rolf made no move to help, but the other three went back into the wood and came with armfuls of dried and mouldering leaves, the brown lightened by the bright bronze of the newly fallen beech leaves. Before they began the burial Julian rolled up Luke’s stole and dropped it into the grave. For a second Theo was tempted to protest. They had so little: their clothes, a small torch, the gun with the bullet. The stole could have been useful. But for what? Why grudge Luke what was his? The three of them covered the body with leaves, then began with their hands shifting the soil from the edge of the field on top of the grave. It would have been quicker and easier for Theo to kick the sliced clots of earth over the body and stamp them down but in Julian’s presence he felt unable to act with such brutal efficiency.

Throughout the burial Julian had been silent but perfectly calm. Suddenly she said: “He should lie in consecrated ground.” For the first time she sounded distressed, uncertain, plaintive as a worried child.

Theo felt a spurt of irritation. What, he nearly asked, did she expect them to do? Wait until dark then dig up the body, lug it to the nearest cemetery and reopen one of the graves?

It was Miriam who replied. Looking at Julian, she said gently: “Every place where a good man lies is consecrated ground.”

Julian turned to Theo. “Luke would want us to say the Burial Service. His prayer book is in his pocket. Please do it for him.”

She shook out the bloodstained coat and took from an inside breast pocket the small black leather prayer book, then handed it to Theo. It took only a little time to find the place. He knew that the service wasn’t long, but even so decided to truncate it. He couldn’t refuse her, but it wasn’t a task he welcomed. He began speaking the words, Julian standing on his left and Miriam on his right. Rolf stood at the foot of the grave, straddling it with his legs, his arms folded, gazing ahead. His ravaged face was so white, the body so rigid, that, looking up, Theo almost feared that he would crash forward over the soft earth. But he felt an increased respect for him. It was impossible to imagine the enormity of his disappointment or the bitterness of his betrayal. But at least he was still on his feet. He wondered if he would have been capable of such control. He kept his eyes on the prayer book but he was aware of Rolf’s dark eyes staring at him across the grave.

At first his voice sounded strange to his own ears, but by the time he got to the psalm the words had taken over and he spoke quietly, with confidence, seeming to know them by heart. “Lord, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: thou art God from everlasting, and world without end. Thou turnest man to destruction: again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday: seeing that is past as a watch in the night.”

He came to the words of the committal. As he spoke the sentence “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ,” Julian squatted down and threw a handful of earth over the grave. After a second’s hesitation Miriam did the same. With her graceless swollen body, it was difficult for Julian to squat, and Miriam put out a supporting hand. There came into Theo’s mind, unsought and unwelcome, the image of a defecating animal. Despising himself, he thrust it aside. When he spoke the words of the grace, Julian’s voice joined his. Then he closed the prayer book. Still Rolf neither moved nor spoke.

Suddenly, in one violent movement, he turned on his heel and said: “Tonight we’ll have to get hold of another car. Now I’m going to sleep. You’d better do the same.”

But first they made their way along the hedge, stuffing their mouths with the blackberries, hands and lips purple-stained. The bushes, unplundered, were heavy with the ripe berries, small plump grenades of sweetness. Theo marvelled that Rolf could resist them. Or had he already that morning eaten his fill? The berries, breaking against his tongue, restored hope and strength in beads of unbelievably delicious juice.

Then, with hunger and thirst partly assuaged, they returned to the copse, to the same fallen trunk which seemed to offer at least the psychological reassurance of a hiding place. The two women lay down closely together, Luke’s stiffening coat wrapped round them. Theo stretched himself at their feet. Rolf had already found his bed on the other side of the trunk. The earth was soft with the mulch of decades of fallen leaves but even had it been hard as iron Theo would still have slept.

It was early evening when he awoke. Julian was standing over him. She said: “Rolf’s gone.”

He was instantly wide awake. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

He believed her, yet even then he had to speak the spurious words of hope: “He could have gone for a walk, needed to be alone, wanted to think.”

“He has thought; now he’s gone.”

Still obstinately trying to convince her, if not himself, he said: “He’s angry and confused. He no longer wants to be with you when the child is born, but I can’t believe he’ll betray you.”

“Why not? I betrayed him. We’d better wake Miriam.”

But there was no need. Their voices had reached Miriam’s wakening consciousness. She sat up abruptly and looked across to where Rolf had lain. Struggling to her feet, she said: “So he’s gone. We ought to haveknown he would. Anyway we couldn’t have prevented him.”

Theo said: “I might have kept him with us. I’ve got the gun.”

It was Miriam who answered the question in Julian’s eyes. “We’ve got a gun. Don’t worry, it could be a useful thing to have.” She turned from Julian to Theo. “Kept him with us maybe, but for how long? And how? One of us holding the gun to his head night and day, taking it in turns to sleep, to guard him?”

“You think he’s gone to the Council?”

“Not to the Council, to the Warden. He’s changed his allegiance. He’s always been fascinated by power. Now he’s joined forces with the source of power. But I don’t think he’ll telephone London. This news is too important to be leaked. He’ll want to give it in person to the Warden alone. That gives us a few hours, maybe more-say five if we’re lucky. It depends when he left, how far he’s got.”

Theo thought: Five hours or fifty, what difference does it make? A weight of despair dragged at mind and limbs, leaving him physically weakened so that the instinct to sink to the earth almost overpowered him. There was a second—hardly more—in which even thought was numbed; but it passed. Intelligence reasserted itself and with thought came a renewal of hope. What would he do if he were Rolf? Make his way to the road, hail the first car, find the nearest telephone? But was it that simple? Rolf was a hunted man without money, transport or food. Miriam was right. The secret he carried was of such importance that it must be kept inviolate until it could be told to the one man to whom it would mean most and who would pay most for it: Xan.

Rolf had to reach Xan, and to reach him safely. He couldn’t risk capture, the casual bullet from some trigger-happy member of the State Security Police. Even arrest by the Grenadiers would be hardly less disastrous; the prison cell in which he would be at their mercy, his demands to see the Warden of England immediately meeting with laughter and contempt. No, he would try to make his way to London, travelling, as they were, under cover of night, living off the land. Once in the capital, he would show himself at the old Foreign Office, demand to see the Warden, secure in the knowledge that he had reached the place where that demand would be taken seriously, where power was absolute and would be exercised. And, if persuasion failed and access was denied, he would have that final card to play. “I have to see him. Tell him from me that the woman is pregnant.” Xan would see him then.

But once the news was given and believed, they would come quickly. Even if Xan thought that Rolf was lying or mad they would still come. Even if they thought that this was the final phantom pregnancy, the signs, the symptoms, the bulging womb, all destined to end in farce, they would still come. This was too important to chance a mistake. They would come by helicopter with doctors and midwives and, once the truth was established, with television cameras. Julian would be tenderly lifted away to that public hospital bed, to the medical technology of childbirth which had not been used for twenty-five years. Xan himself would preside and would give the news to an incredulous world. There would be no simple shepherds at this cradle.

He said: “I reckon we’re about fifteen miles south-west of Leominster. The original plan still holds. We find a refuge, a cottage or house, as deep in woodland as possible. Obviously Wales is out. We could strike south-east to the Forest of Dean. We need transport, water and food. As soon as it’s dark I’ll walk into the nearest village and steal a car. We’re only a few miles from one. I saw its lights in the distance just before the Omegas got us.”

He almost expected Miriam to ask how. Instead she said: “It’s worth a try. Don’t take more risks than you need.”

Julian said: “Please, Theo, don’t take the gun.”

He turned on her, biting back anger. “I shall take what I need to take and do what I have to do. How much longer can you go on without water? We can’t live on blackberries. We need food, drink, blankets, things for the birth. We need a car. If we can get into hiding before Rolf gets to the Council there’s still a hope. Or perhaps you’ve changed your mind. Perhaps you want to follow his example and give yourself up.”

She shook her head but didn’t speak. He saw that there were tears in her eyes. He wanted to take her in his arms. Instead he stood distanced, and, putting his hand in his inner pocket, felt for the cold weight of the gun.

He set off immediately darkness fell, impatient to be gone, resenting every wasted moment. Their safety depended on the speed with which he could get hold of a car. Julian and Miriam came to the edge of the wood and watched him out of sight. Turning to take a final glance he had to fight down a momentary conviction that this might be the last time he saw them. He remembered that the lights of a village or small town had lain to the west of the road. The most direct way might be to cross the fields, but he had left the torch with the women and to attempt a cross-country route with no light and in unknown country could invite disaster. He broke into a run and then, half-walking, half-running, followed the route they had travelled. After half an hour he reached a crossroads and, after a little thought, took the left fork.

It took him another hour’s brisk walking to get to the outskirts of the town. The country road, unlit, was bordered on one side by tall straggling hedges and on the other by a thin copse. He walked on that side and, when he heard a car approaching, stepped into the shadow of the trees, partly from an instinctive wish for concealment, partly from the fear, not wholly irrational, that a solitary man walking briskly through the darkness might arouse interest. But now hedgerow and copse were giving way to isolated houses, detached, set back from the road in large gardens. These would certainly have a car in their garage, probably more than one. But houses and garages would be well protected. This ostentatious prosperity was hardly vulnerable to a casual and inexperienced thief. He was looking for victims more easily intimidated.

And now he had reached the town. He walked more slowly. He could feel his heartbeat quickening, the strong rhythmic thump against the rib-cage. He didn’t want to penetrate too far into the centre. It was important to find what he needed as soon as possible and make a getaway. And then he saw, in a small close to the right of him, a row of semi-detached, pebble-dashed villas. Each pair was identical, with a bay window beside the door and a garage built on to the end wall. He moved up almost on tiptoe to inspect the first pair. The house on the left was empty, the windows boarded up and a sale board wired to the front gate. It had obviously been empty for some time. The grass was long and straggly and the single round flowerbed in the middle was a mass of overgrown rose bushes, spiky stems entwined, the last overblown flowers drooping and dying.

The house on the right was occupied and looked very different. There was a light in the front room behind the drawn curtains, the front garden had a neatly cut lawn with a bed of chrysanthemums and dahlias edging the path. A new fence had been nailed against the boundary, perhaps to conceal the desolation next door, or to keep the weeds at bay. It seemed ideal for his purpose. With no neighbours, there would be no one secretly to watch or hear, and with easy access to the road he could hope to make a relatively quick getaway. But was there a car in the garage? Walking to the gate, he looked intently at the gravel path and could make out the mark of tyres, a small stain of oil. The stain of oil was worrying, but the little house was so well kept, the garden so immaculate, that he couldn’t believe the car, however small and old, wouldn’t be in running order. But if not? Then he would have to start again and a second attempt would be twice as dangerous. As he paused beside the gate, glancing left and right to see that this loitering wasn’t observed, his mind explored the possibilities. He could prevent the people in this house giving the alarm; it would only be necessary to cut off the telephone and tie them up. But suppose he was equally unsuccessful in finding a car at the next house he tried, and then the next? The prospect of tying up a succession of victims was as risible as it was dangerous. At best he would have only two chances. If he were unsuccessful here the best plan might be to stop a car on the road and force the driver and passengers out. That way he would at least be certain that he had a vehicle that was running.

With one final quick glance round, he unlatched the gate quietly and walked swiftly, almost on tiptoe, to the front door. He breathed a small sigh of relief. The curtains had been only partially drawn over the side pane of the bow window and there was a gap of about three inches between the curtain edge and the frame of the window through which he could clearly observe what was happening in the room.

There was no fireplace and the room was dominated by a very large television set. In front of it were two armchairs and he could see the grey heads of an elderly couple, probably man and wife. The room was sparsely furnished with a table and two chairs set in front of a side window, and a small oak bureau. He could see no pictures, no books, no ornaments, no flowers, but on one wall hung a large coloured photograph of a young girl and beneath it was a child’s high-chair with a teddy bear wearing an immense spotted necktie.

Even through the glass he could hear the television clearly. The old people must be deaf. He recognized the programme: Neighbours, a low-budget television series from the late 1980s and early 1990s, made in Australia, and preceded by a jingle of unparalleled banality. The programme had apparently had a huge following when first shown on the old-type television sets and now, adapted for the modem high-definition sets, was enjoying a revival, becoming indeed something of a cult. The reason was obvious. The stories, set in a remote, sun-warmed suburb, evoked a nostalgic longing for a make-believe world of innocence and hope. But, above all, they were about the young. The insubstantial but glowing images of young faces, young limbs, the sound of young voices, created the illusion that somewhere under an antipodean sky this comforting, youthful world still existed and could be entered at will. In the same spirit and from the same need, people bought videos of childbirth, or nursery rhymes and old television programmes for the young, The Flower-Pot Men, Blue Peter.

He rang the doorbell and waited. After dark he guessed they would answer the ring together. Through the insubstantial wood he could hear the shuffle of feet and then the grating of the bolts. The door opened on the chain and through the inch gap he could see that the couple were older than he had expected. A pair of rheumy eyes, more suspicious than anxious, looked into his.

The man’s voice was unexpectedly sharp. “What do you want?”

Theo guessed that his quiet, educated voice would be reassuring. He said: “I’m from the Local Council. We’re doing a survey into people’s hobbies and interests. I have a form for you to fill in. It won’t take a moment. It has to be done now.”

The man hesitated, then took off the chain. With one swift shove Theo was inside, his back against the door, the revolver in his hand. Before they could speak or scream he said: “It’s all right. You’re in no danger. I’m not going to hurt you. Keep quiet, do what I say, and you’ll be safe.”

The woman had started a violent trembling, clutching at her husband’s arm. She was very frail, small-boned, her fawn cardigan drooping from shoulders which looked too brittle to bear the weight.

Theo looked into her eyes, holding her gaze of bewildered terror, and said, with all the persuasion he could command: “I’m not a criminal. I need help. I need the use of your car, food and drink. You have a car?”

The man nodded.

Theo went on: “What make?”

“A Citizen.” The people’s car, cheap to buy and economical to run. They were all ten years old now, but they had been well built, and were reliable. It could have been worse.

“Is there petrol in the tank?”

The man nodded again.

Theo said: “Roadworthy?”

“Oh yes, I’m particular about the car.”

“Right. Now I want you upstairs.”

The order terrified them. What did they suppose, that he planned to butcher them in their own bedroom?

The man pleaded: “Don’t kill me. I’m all she’s got. She’s ill. Heart. If I go it will be the Quietus for her.”

“No one’s going to harm you. There will be no Quietus.” He repeated violently: “No Quietus!”

They climbed slowly, step by step, the woman still clutching her husband.

Upstairs a quick glance showed that the plan of the house was simple. At the front was the main bedroom and, opposite it, the bathroom, with a separate lavatory next door. To the rear were two smaller bedrooms. With the gun he motioned them into the bigger of the two back bedrooms. There was a single bed and, stripping back the counterpane, he saw that it was made up.

He said to the man: “Tear the sheets into strips.”

The man took them in his gnarled hands and made an ineffectual attempt to rip the cotton. But the top hem was too strong for him.

Theo said impatiently: “We need scissors. Where are they?”

It was the woman who spoke: “In the front room. On my dressing table.”

“Please fetch them.”

She tottered stiffly out and was back in a few seconds with a pair of nail scissors. They were small but adequate. But it would waste precious minutes if he left the task to the old man’s trembling hands.

He said harshly: “Stand back, both of you, side by side, against the wall.”

They obeyed, and he faced them with the bed between them, the gun placed close to his right hand. Then he began tearing up the sheets. The noise seemed unusually loud. He seemed to be ripping apart the air, the very fabric of the house. When he had finished he said to the woman: “Come and lie on the bed.”

She glanced at her husband as if asking for his permission and he gave a quick nod.

“Do what he says, dear.”

She had some difficulty in getting on to the bed and Theo had to lift her. Her body was extraordinarily light and his hand under her thigh swung her upwards so quickly that she was in danger of being propelled over the bed on to the floor. After taking off her shoes, he bound her ankles strongly together, then tied her hands behind her back.

He said: “Are you all right?”

She gave a little nod. The bed was narrow and he wondered if there would be room for the man beside her, but the husband, sensing what was in his mind, said quickly: “Don’t part us. Don’t make me go next door. Don’t shoot me.”

Theo said impatiently: “I’m not going to shoot you. The gun isn’t even loaded.” The lie was safe enough now. The gun had served its purpose.

He said curtly: “Lie down beside her.”

There was room, but only just. He tied the man’s hands behind his back, then bound his ankles and, with a final strip of the cotton, bound their legs together. They lay both on their right sides, fitted closely together. He couldn’t believe that their arms were comfortable, wrenched as they were behind their backs, but had not dared to tie them in front of the body in case the man used his teeth to break free.

He said: “Where are the keys to the garage and the car?”

The man whispered: “In the bureau in the sitting-room. The top drawer, on the right.”

He left them. The keys were easily found. Then he went back to the bedroom. “I’ll need a large suitcase. Have you one?”

It was the woman who answered: “Under the bed.”

He dragged it out. It was large but light, made only of cardboard reinforced at the corners. He wondered whether the remnants of torn sheet were worth taking. While he was hesitating, holding them in his hand, the man said: “Please don’t gag us. We won’t call out, I promise. Please don’t gag us. My wife won’t be able to breathe.”

Theo said: “I’ll have to notify someone that you’re tied up here. I can’t do that for at least twelve hours, but I will do it. Are you expecting anyone?”

The man, not looking at him, said: “Mrs. Collins, our home help, will be here at half past seven tomorrow. She comes early because she has another morning job after us.”

“Has she a key?”

“Yes, she always has a key.”

“No one else is expected? No member of the family, for example?”

“We have no family. We had a daughter but she died.”

“But you’re sure Mrs. Collins will be here at half past seven?”

“Yes, she’s very reliable. She’ll be here.”

He parted the curtains of light flowered cotton and looked out into the darkness. All he could see was a stretch of garden and behind it the black outline of a hill. They could call out all night but it was unlikely that their frail voices would be heard. All the same, he would leave the television on as loudly as possible.

He said: “I won’t gag you. I’ll leave the television on loudly so that no one will hear you. Don’t waste energy trying to shout. But you’ll be released when Mrs. Collins comes tomorrow. Try to rest, to sleep. I’m sorry I have to do this. You’ll get your car back eventually.”

Even as he spoke it seemed a ridiculous and dishonest promise to make. He said: “Is there anything you want?”

The woman said feebly: “Water.”

The single word reminded him of his own thirst. It seemed extraordinary that, after the long hours of craving water, he could have forgotten his need even for a moment. He went into the bathroom, and taking a tooth mug, not even bothering to rinse it, gulped down cold water until his stomach could hold no more. Then he refilled the mug and went back to the bedroom. He raised the woman’s head on his arm and put the mug to her lips. She drank thirstily. The water spilled down the side of her face and on to the thin cardigan. The purple veins at the side of her forehead throbbed as if they would burst and the sinews of the thin neck were taut as cords. After she had finished he took a piece of linen and wiped her mouth. Then he refilled the glass and helped the husband to drink. He felt a strange reluctance to leave them. An unwelcome and malignant guest, he could find no appropriate words of farewell.

At the door he turned and said: “I’m sorry I had to do this. Try to get some sleep. Mrs. Collins will be here in the morning.”

He wondered whether he was reassuring them or himself. At least, he thought, they are together. He added: “Are you reasonably comfortable?” The silliness of the question struck him even as he asked it. Comfortable? How could they be comfortable, trussed up like animals on a bed so narrow that any movement might cause them to fall off. The woman whispered something which his ears couldn’t catch but which her husband seemed to understand. Stiffly he raised his head and looked straight at Theo who saw in the faded eyes a plea for understanding, for pity. He said: “She wants to go to the toilet.” Theo almost laughed aloud. He was an eight-year-old again hearing his mother’s impatient voice. “You should have thought of that before we started out.” What did they expect him to say? “You should have thought of that before I tied you up”? One of them should have thought of it. It was too late now. He had wasted too much time on them already. He thought of Julian and Miriam waiting in desperate anxiety in the shadow of the trees, ears strained for the approach of every car, pictured their disappointment as each one swept past. And there was so much still to be done: the car to be checked, the stores collected. It would take him minutes to untie these tight multiple knots and he hadn’t minutes to spare. She would have to lie there in her own mess until Mrs. Collins arrived in the morning.

But he knew he couldn’t do it. Trussed and helpless as she was, stinking with fear, lying in rigid embarrassment, unable to meet his eyes, there was one indignity which he couldn’t inflict on her. His fingers began scrabbling at the taut cotton. It was even more difficult than he had expected and in the end he took the nail scissors and cut her loose, freeing her ankles and hands, trying not to notice the weals on her wrists. Getting her off the bed wasn’t easy; her brittle body, which had seemed as light as a bird, was now set in the rigor of terror. It was nearly a minute before she could begin her slow shuffle to the lavatory with his arm around her waist supporting her.

He said, shame and impatience making his voice gruff: “Don’t lock the door. Leave it ajar.”

He waited outside, resisting the temptation to pace the landing, his heartbeats thudding out the seconds which lengthened into minutes before he heard the flush of the cistern and slowly she emerged. She whispered: “Thank you.”

Back in the bedroom, he helped her on to the bed, then ripped more lengths from the remainder of the sheet and bound her again, but this time less tightly. He said to her husband: “You’d better go too. You can hop there if I give you a hand. I’ve only time to free your hands.”

But this was no easier. Even with his hands free and one arm resting across Theo’s shoulders the old man lacked the strength and balance to give even the smallest jump, and Theo had almost to drag him physically to the lavatory.

At last he got the old man back on the bed. And now he must hurry. He had wasted too much time already. Suitcase in hand, he made his way quickly to the back of the house. There was a small kitchen, meticulously clean and tidy, an over-large refrigerator, and a small pantry leading from the kitchen. But the spoils were disappointing. The refrigerator, despite its size, held only a one-pint carton of milk, a packet containing four eggs, half a pound of butter on a saucer covered with foil, a slab of wrapped cheddar cheese and an opened packet of biscuits. In the freezer compartment above he discovered nothing but one small packet of peas and a slab of cod, frozen hard. The pantry was equally disappointing, yielding only a small quantity of sugar, coffee and tea. It was ridiculous that a house should be so underprovisioned. He felt a rush of anger against the old couple, as if his disappointment were their deliberate fault. Presumably they shopped once a week and he had been unlucky with the day. He grabbed everything, stuffing the provisions into a plastic bag. There were four mugs hanging on a stand. He took two and found three plates from a cupboard above the sink. From a drawer he took a sharp paring knife, a carving knife, three sets of table knives, forks and spoons; he put a box of matches in his pocket. Then he ran upstairs, this time to the front bedroom, where he lugged sheets, blankets and pillows from the bed. Miriam would need clean towels for the birth. He ran into the bathroom and found half a dozen towels folded in the airing cupboard. They should be enough. He stuffed all the linen into the suitcase. He had put the nail scissors in his pocket, remembering that Miriam had asked for scissors. In the bathroom cupboard he found a bottle of disinfectant and added that to his spoils.

He could spend no further time in the house, but one problem remained: water. He had the pint carton of milk; that was hardly enough to satisfy even Julian’s thirst. He searched for a suitable container. Nowhere was there an empty bottle. He found himself almost cursing the old couple as he hunted feverishly for any kind of receptacle that would hold water. All he could find was a small thermos flask. At least he could take Julian and Miriam some hot coffee. He needn’t wait for the kettle to boil. Better to make it with hot tap-water, however odd the taste. They would be frantic to drink it immediately. That done, he filled the kettle and the only two saucepans he could find which had close-fitting lids. They would have to be carried separately to the car, wasting more time. Last of all he again drank his fill from the tap, swilling the water over his face.

On the wall just inside the front door was a row of coat-hooks. They held an old jacket, a long woollen scarf and two raincoats, both obviously new. He hesitated for only a second before taking them down and slinging them over his shoulder. Julian would need them if she were not to lie on damp ground. But they were the only new things in the house and stealing them seemed the meanest act of his petty depredations.

He unlocked the garage door. The Citizen had only a small boot but he wedged the kettle and one of the saucepans carefully between the suitcase and the bedclothes and raincoats. The other saucepan, and the plastic bag containing the food and the mugs and cutlery he placed on the back seat. When he started the engine he found to his relief that it ran smoothly. The car had obviously been well maintained. But he saw that the tank was less than half full and that there were no maps in the pocket. Probably the old people only used the car for short journeys and for shopping. As he backed carefully into the drive, then closed the garage door behind him, he remembered that he had forgotten to turn up the volume on the television set. He told himself that the precaution was unimportant. With the house next door empty and the long garden stretching at the rear, the couple’s feeble cries were unlikely to be heard.

As he drove he pondered the next move. To go on or to double back? Xan would know from Rolf that they planned to cross the border into Wales and find wooded country. He would expect the plan to be changed. They might be anywhere in the West Country. The search would take time even if Xan sent out a large party of the SSP or the Grenadiers. But he wouldn’t. This quarry was unique. If Rolf succeeded in reaching him without revealing his news until that vital, final encounter, then Xan too would keep it secret until its truth was verified. He wouldn’t risk Julian falling into the hands of an ambitious or unscrupulous SSP or Grenadier officer. And Xan wouldn’t know how little time he had if he were to be there for the birth. Rolf couldn’t tell him what he didn’t know. How far, too, did he really trust the other members of the Council? No, Xan would come himself, probably with a small and carefully selected band. They would succeed in the end; that was inevitable. But it would take time. The very importance and delicacy of the task, the need for secrecy, the size of the search party, all would militate against speed.

So where and in what direction? For a moment he wondered whether it would be an effective ploy to double back to Oxford, hide in Wytham Wood, above the city, surely the last place which Xan would think of searching. Too dangerous a journey? But any road was dangerous and would be doubly so when the old people were discovered at seven-thirty and told their story. Why did it seem more hazardous to go back than to go on? Perhaps because Xan was in London. And yet for an ordinary fugitive London itself was the obvious place of concealment. London, despite its depleted population, was still a collection of villages, of secret alleyways, of vast, half-empty tower blocks. But London was full of eyes and there was no one there to whom he could safely turn, no house to which he had entry. His instinct—and he guessed it would be Julian’s—was to put as many miles as possible between them and London and to keep to the original plan to hide in deep and remote country. Every mile from London seemed a mile towards safety.

As he drove along the mercifully deserted road, carefully, getting the feel of the car, he indulged a fantasy which he tried to convince himself was a rational, attainable aim. He pictured a woodman’s cottage, sweet-smelling, the resinous walls still holding the warmth of the summer sun, rooted as naturally as a tree in deep woodland under the sheltering canopy of strong, leaf-laden boughs, deserted years ago and now decaying, but with linen, matches, tinned food enough to provide for the three of them. There would be a spring of fresh waiter, wood they could gather for the fires when autumn gave way to winter. They could live there for months if necessary, perhaps even for years. It was the idyll which, standing beside the car at Swinbrook, he had mocked and despised, but now he took comfort in it, even while knowing that the dream was a fantasy.

Somewhere in the world other children would be born; he made himself share Julian’s confidence. This child would no longer be unique, no longer in special danger. Xan and the Council would have no need to take him from his mother even if he were known to be the first-born of a new age. But all that was in the future and could be faced and dealt with when the time came. For the next few weeks the three of them could live in safety until the child was born. He could see no further and he told himself that he need see no further.

His mind and all his physical energies had for the last two hours been so fiercely concentrated on the task in hand that it hadn’t occurred to him that he might have difficulty in recognizing the fringes of the wood. Turning right from the lane on to the road, he tried to remember how far he had travelled before taking the turning to the town. But the walk had in memory become a turbulence of fear, anxiety and resolution, of agonizing thirst, of panting breath and an aching side, with no clear recollection of distance or time. A small copse came into view on the left, seeming at once familiar, raising his spirits. But almost immediately the trees ended, giving way to a low hedge and open ground. And then there were more trees and the beginning of a stone wall. He drove slowly, his eyes on the road. Then he saw what he had both feared and hoped to see: Luke’s blood spattered on the tarmac, no longer red, a black splurge in the headlights, and to his left the broken stones of the wall.

When they didn’t at once come forward out of the trees to meet him, he felt a moment of appalled anxiety that they weren’t there, that they had been taken. He drove the Citizen close against the wall, vaulted over and passed into the wood. At the sound of his footsteps they came forward and he heard Miriam’s muttered “Thank God, we were beginning to get worried. Have you got a car?”

“A Citizen. That’s about all I have got. There wasn’t much to take in the house. Here’s a thermos of hot coffee.”

Miriam almost snatched it from him. She unscrewed the top and poured the coffee carefully, every drop precious, then handed it to Julian.

She said, her voice deliberately calm: “Things have changed, Theo. We haven’t much time now. The baby has started.”

Theo said: “How long?”

“You can’t always tell with a first labour. It might be only a few hours. It could be twenty-four. Julian’s in the very early stages but we have to find somewhere quickly.”

And then, suddenly, all his previous indecision was swept away by a cleansing wind of certainty and hope. A single name came into his mind, so clearly that it was as if a voice, not his own, had spoken it aloud. Wychwood Forest. He pictured a solitary summer walk, a shadowed path beside a broken stone wall leading deep into the forest, then opening out into a mossy glade with a lake and, further up the path to the right, a wood-shed. Wychwood wouldn’t have been his first or an obvious choice: too small, too easily searched, less than twenty miles from Oxford. But now that closeness was an advantage. Xan would expect them to press on. Instead they would double back to a place he remembered, a place he knew, a place where they could be certain of shelter.

He said: “Get in the car. We’re turning back. We’re making for Wychwood Forest. We’ll eat on the way.”

There was no time for discussion, for weighing up possible alternatives. The women had their own immense preoccupation. It must be for him to decide when to go and how to get there.

He had no real fear that they would again be attacked by the Painted Faces. That horror now seemed the fulfillment of his half-superstitious conviction at the start of the journey that they were destined for a tragedy as inescapable as its time and nature were unpredictable. Now it had come, had done its worst; it was over. Like an air-traveller, terrified of flying and expecting to crash each time his plane soared, he could rest knowing that the awaited disaster was behind him and that there were survivors. But he knew that neither Julian nor Miriam could so easily exorcise their terror of the Painted Faces. Their fear possessed the little car. For the first ten miles they sat rigid behind him, their eyes fixed on the road, as if expecting at every turn, at every small obstruction, to hear again the wild whoops of triumph, and to see the flaming torches and the glittering eyes.

There were other dangers, too, and the one over-riding fear. They had no way of telling at what hour Rolf had actually left them. If he had reached Xan, the search for them might even now be under way, the road blocks being unloaded and dragged into place, the helicopters wheeled out and fuelled to await the first light of day. The narrow side roads twisting between straggling, untamed hedges and broken dry-stone walls seemed, perhaps irrationally, to offer their best hope of safety. Like all hunted creatures, Theo’s instinct was to twist and turn, to remain hidden, to seek the darkness. But the country lanes presented their own hazards. Four times, fearing the risk of a second puncture, he had to brake sharply at an impassable stretch of creviced tarmac and reverse the car. Once, soon after two o’clock, this manoeuvre was almost disastrous. The back wheels rolled into a ditch, and it took half an hour before his and Miriam’s joint efforts got the Citizen back on the road.

He cursed the lack of maps but, as the hours wore by, the cloud-base cleared to reveal more clearly the pattern of the stars and he could see the smudge of the Milky Way and take his bearings from the Plough and the Pole Star. But this ancient lore was no more than a crude calculation of his route and he was in constant danger of getting lost. From time to time a signpost, stark as an eighteenth-century gallows, would rear up out of the darkness and he would make his careful way over the broken road towards it, half-expecting to hear the clank of chains and see a slowly twisting body with its elongated neck, while the pinpoint of light from the torch, like a searching eye, traced the half-obliterated names of unknown villages. The night was colder now, with a foretaste of winter chill; the air, no longer smelling of grass and sun-warmed earth, stung his nostrils with a faint antiseptic tang, as if they were close to the sea. Each time the engine was switched off the silence was absolute. Standing under a signpost whose names might as well have been written in a foreign language, he felt disorientated and alienated, as if the dark, desolate fields, the earth beneath his feet, this strange, unscented air, were no longer his natural habitat and there was no security or home for his endangered species anywhere under the uncaring sky.

Soon after the journey began the progress of Julian’s labour had either slowed or stopped. This lessened his anxiety; delays were no longer disastrous and safety could take precedence over speed. But he knew that the delay dismayed the women. He guessed that they now had as little hope as he of eluding Xan for weeks, or even days. If the labour was a false alarm or was protracted, they might yet fall into Xan’s hands before the child was born. From time to time, leaning forward, Miriam asked him quietly to draw into the side of the road so that she and Julian could take exercise. He, too, would get out and, leaning against the car, would watch the two dark figures walking backwards and forwards along the verge, would hear their whispered voices, and know that they were distanced from him by more than a few yards of country road, that they shared an intense preoccupation from which he was excluded. They took little interest and showed small concern about the route, the mishaps of the journey. All that, then—very silence seemed to imply, was his concern.

But by the early morning Miriam told him that Julian’s contractions had started again and were strong. She couldn’t hide the triumph in her voice. And before dawn he knew exactly where they were. The last signpost had pointed to Chipping Norton. It was time to leave the twisting lanes and risk the last few miles by the main road.

At least they were now on a better surface… He had no need to drive in constant fear of another puncture. No other car passed them and, after the first two miles, his taut hands relaxed on the wheel. He drove carefully but fast, anxious now to get to the forest without delay. The petrol level was getting dangerously low and there was no safe way of filling up. He was surprised how little ground they had covered since the journey first began at Swinbrook. It seemed to him that they had been on the road for weeks: restless, unprovisioned, hapless travellers. He knew that there was nothing he could do to prevent capture on this surely final journey. If they came to an SSP roadblock there would be no hope of bluffing or arguing their way out; the SSP were not Omegas. All he could do was to drive and to hope.

From time to time he thought he heard Julian panting and Miriam’s low murmur of reassurance, but they spoke little. After about a quarter of an hour he heard Miriam stirring in the back and then the rhythmic clink of a fork against china. She handed him a mug.

“I’ve held back the food until now. Julian needs strength for her labour. I’ve beaten up the eggs in the milk and added sugar. This is your share, I get the same. Julian has the rest.”

The mug was only a quarter full and the frothy sweetness would normally have disgusted him. Now he gulped it down avidly, longing for more, feeling at once its strengthening power. He passed back the mug and received a biscuit smeared with butter and topped with a nugget of hard cheese. Never had cheese tasted so good.

Miriam said: “Two for each of us, four for Julian.”

Julian remonstrated. “We must share equally”—but the last word was caught up in a gasp of pain.

Theo asked: “You aren’t keeping some in reserve?”

“From a three-quarter packet of biscuits and half a pound of cheese? We need our strength now.” The cheese and the dry biscuits had increased their thirst and they finished the meal by drinking the water from the smaller saucepan.

Miriam handed him the two mugs and the cutlery in the plastic bag and he placed them on the floor. Then, as if fearing her words might have implied a rebuke, she added: “You were unlucky, Theo. But you got us a car and it wasn’t easy. Without it we wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

He hoped that she was saying, “We depended on you and you didn’t fail us,” and smiled ruefully at the thought that he, who had cared so little for anyone’s approbation, should want her praise and approval.

And at last they were on the outskirts of Charlbury. He slowed down, watching out for the old Finstock station, the curve in the road. It was immediately after the curve that he must look for the right-hand track leading towards the forest. He was used to approaching it from Oxford and even then it was easy to miss the turning. It was with an audible sigh of relief that he drove past the station buildings, took the curve and saw on his right the row of stone cottages which marked the approach to the track. The cottages were empty, boarded up, almost derelict. For a moment he wondered whether one of them would provide a refuge; but they were too obvious, too close to the road. He knew Julian wanted to be deep in the forest.

He drove carefully up the track between untended fields towards the distant curdle of the trees. It would soon be light. Looking at his watch he saw that Mrs. Collins would have arrived to release the old couple. Even now they were probably enjoying a cup of tea, telling of their ordeal, waiting for the police to arrive. Changing gear to negotiate a difficult part of the rising track, he thought he heard Julian catch her breath and give an odd little sound between a grunt and a groan.

And now the forest received them with its dark strong arms. The track became narrower, the trees closed in. On the right was a dry-stone wall, half demolished, its broken stones cluttering the path. He changed down into first gear and tried to keep the car steady. After about a mile Miriam leaned forward and said: “I think we’ll walk ahead for a little while. It’ll be easier for Julian.”

The two women got out and, with Julian leaning against Miriam, made their careful way over the ruts and stones of the track. In the car’s side lights a startled rabbit was for a moment petrified, then scampered before them, white-tailed. Suddenly there was an immense commotion and a white shape followed by another crashed through the bushes, just missing the bonnet of the car. It was a deer and her fawn. Together they lurched up the bank, tearing through the bushes, and disappeared over the wall, their hoofs clattering on the stones.

From time to time the two women stopped and Julian bent over with Miriam’s arm supporting her. After the third time this had happened, Miriam signalled Theo to stop. She said: “I think she might be better in the car now. How much further?”

“We’re still skirting open country. There should be a turning to the right fairly soon. After that it’s about a mile.”

The car shuddered on. The remembered turn revealed itself as a crossroads and for a moment he was irresolute. Then he drove to the right, where the track, narrower still, sloped downhill. Surely this was the way to the lake and, beyond it, the remembered wood-shed.

Miriam called out: “There’s a house, over to the right.”

He turned his head just in time to see it, a far dark shape glimpsed through a narrow gap in the great tangled heap of bushes and trees. It stood alone on a wide sloping field. Miriam said: “No good. Too obvious. No cover in the field. Better press on.”

They were now moving into the heart of the forest. The lane seemed interminable. With every lurching yard the path narrowed and he could hear the scratch and scrape of branches on the car. Overhead the strengthening sun was a white diffused light hardly visible above the tangled boughs of elder and hawthorn. It seemed to him, desperately trying to control the steering, that they were slithering helplessly down a tunnel of green darkness which would end in an impenetrable hedge. He was wondering whether memory had deceived him, whether they should have taken the left turn, when the path suddenly widened and opened on to a grassy glade. They saw before them the pale glimmer of the lake.

He stopped the car only yards from its edge and got out, then turned to help Miriam half lift Julian from her seat. For a moment she clung to him, breathing deeply, then let go, smiled, and walked to the edge of the water, her hand on Miriam’s shoulder. The surface of the pond—it was hardly a lake—was so thickly strewn with the green blades of fallen leaves and water weed that it looked like an extension of the glade. Beyond this green and shivering cover the surface was viscous as treacle, beaded with minute bubbles which gently moved and coalesced, broke apart, burst and died. In the patches of clear water between the weeds he could see the reflection of the sky as the morning mist cleared to reveal the opaque first light of day. Beneath this surface brightness, in the ochre depths, the sinews of water plants, tangled twigs and broken branches lay thickly encrusted with mud like the ribs of long-sunken ships. At the edge of the pond clumps of sodden rushes lay flattened on the water and in the distance a small black coot scurried in busy agitation and a solitary swan breasted her way majestically among the weeds. The pond was surrounded by trees growing almost to the water’s edge, oak, ash and sycamore, a bright backcloth of green, yellow, gold and russet which seemed in the first light, despite the autumnal shades, to hold some of the freshness and brightness of spring. A sapling on the far bank was patterned with yellow leaves, its thin boughs and twigs invisible against the first light of the sun, so that it seemed as if the air was hung with/delicate pellets of gold.

Julian had wandered along the edge of the lake. She called: “The water looks cleaner here and the bank’s quite firm. It’s a good place to wash.”

They joined her and, kneeling, thrust their arms into the lake and dashed the stinging water over their faces and hair. They laughed with the pleasure of it. Theo saw that his hands had swilled the water into greenish mud. This couldn’t be safe to drink even if it were boiled.

As they returned to the Citizen Theo said: “The question is whether we get rid of the car now. It may provide the best shelter we’re likely to get, but it’s conspicuous and we’ve nearly run out of petrol. It would probably only take us another couple of miles.”

It was Miriam who answered. “Let it go.”

He looked at his watch. It was just coming up to nine o’clock. He thought that they might as well listen to the news. Banal, predictable, uninteresting as it would probably be, to hear it was a small valedictory gesture before they finally cut themselves off from all news but their own. He was surprised that he hadn’t thought of the radio before, hadn’t bothered to turn it on during their journey. He had driven in such taut anxiety that the sound of an unknown voice, even the sound of music, would have seemed intolerable. Now he reached his arm through the open window and switched on the radio. They listened impatiently to details of the weather, information on the roads which were officially closed or which would no longer be repaired, to the small domestic concerns of a shrinking world.

He was about to turn off the set when the announcer’s voice changed, becoming slower and more portentous. “This is a warning. A small group of dissidents, one man and two women, are travelling in a stolen blue Citizen car somewhere on the Welsh border. Last night the man, who is thought to be Theodore Faron of Oxford, forced his way into a house outside Kington, tied up the owners and stole their car. The wife, Mrs. Daisy Cox, was found early this morning bound and dead on her bed. The man is now wanted for murder. He is armed with a revolver. Anyone seeing their car or the three persons is asked not to approach them but immediately to telephone the State Security Police. The registration of the car is MOA 694. I’ll repeat that number: MOA 694. I am asked to repeat the warning. The man is armed and dangerous. Do not approach.”

Theo wasn’t aware that he had switched it off. He was conscious only of the pounding of his heart and of a sick misery which descended and enveloped him, physical as a mortal illness, horror and self-disgust dragging him almost to his knees. He thought: If this is guilt, I can’t bear it. I won’t bear it.

He heard Miriam’s voice. “So Rolf has reached the Warden. They know about the Omegas, that there are only three of us left. But there’s one comfort, anyway. They still don’t know that the birth is imminent. Rolf couldn’t tell them the expected date of delivery. He doesn’t know. He thinks Julian still has a month to go. The Warden would never ask people to look out for the car if he thought there was a chance they’d find a new-born child.”

He said dully: “There is no comfort. I killed her.”

Miriam’s voice was firm, unnaturally loud, almost shouting in his ear. “You didn’t kill her! If she was going to die of shock it would have happened when you first showed her the gun. You don’t know why she died. It was natural causes, it must have been. It could have happened anyway. She was old and she had a weak heart. You told us. It wasn’t your fault, Theo, you didn’t mean it.”

No, he almost groaned, no, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to be a selfish son, an unloving father, a bad husband. When have I ever meant anything? Christ, what harm couldn’t I do if I actually started to mean it!

He said: “The worst is that I enjoyed it. I actually enjoyed it!”

Miriam was unloading the car, shouldering the blankets. “Enjoyed tying up that old man and his wife? Of course you didn’t enjoy it. You did what you had to do.”

“Not the tying up. I didn’t mean that. But I enjoyed the excitement, the power, the knowledge that I could do it. It wasn’t all horrible. It was for them, but not for me.”

Julian didn’t speak. She came near and took his hand. Rejecting the gesture, he turned on her viciously. “How many other lives will your child cost before she gets herself born? And to what purpose? You’re so calm, so unafraid, so sure of yourself. You speak of a daughter. What sort of life will this child have? You believe that she’ll be the first, that other births will follow, that even now there are pregnant women not yet aware that they are carrying the new life of the world. But suppose you’re wrong. Suppose this child is the only one. To what sort of hell are you condemning her? Can you begin to imagine the loneliness of her last years-over twenty appalling, endless years with no hope of ever hearing another live human voice? Never, never, never! My God, have you no imagination, either of you?”

Julian said quietly: “Do you think I haven’t thought of that, that and more? Theo, I can’t wish that she had never been conceived. I can’t think of her without joy.”

Miriam, wasting no time, had already pulled the suitcase and the raincoats from the boot and lifted down the kettle and the saucepan of water.

She spoke more in irritation than in anger: “For God’s sake, Theo, take hold of yourself. We needed a car; you got us a car. Maybe you could have chosen a better one and got it at less cost. You did what you did. If you want to wallow in guilt, that’s your affair, but leave it until later. OK, she’s dead and you feel guilty, and feeling guilt isn’t something you enjoy. Too bad. Get used to it. Why the hell should you escape guilt? It’s part of being human. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

Theo wanted to say: “In the past forty years there are quite a number of things I haven’t noticed.” But the words, with their ring of self-indulgent remorse, struck him as insincere and ignoble. Instead he said: “We’d better get rid of the car, and quickly. That’s one problem the broadcast has settled for us.”

He released the brake and put his shoulder to the back of the Citizen, scraping a foothold in the pebbled grass, grateful that the ground was dry and gently sloping. Miriam took the right-hand side and together they pushed. For a few seconds, inexplicably, their efforts were unsuccessful. Then the car began to move gently forward.

He said: “Give it a hard shove when I say the word. We don’t want it stuck in the mud nose-first.”

The front wheels were almost at the edge when he called out “Now,” and they both pushed with all their strength. The car shot over the rim of the lake and hit the water with a splash that seemed to wake every bird in the forest. The air was clamorous with calls and shrieks and the light branches of the high trees shook into life. The spray flew upwards, splattering his face. The cover of floating leaves shattered and danced. They watched, panting, as slowly, almost peacefully, the car settled and began to sink, the water gurgling through the open windows. Before it disappeared, on impulse, Theo took the diary from his pocket and hurled it into the lake.

And then there came for him a moment of dreadful horror, vivid as a nightmare, but one which he could not hope to banish by waking. They were all there together trapped in the sinking car, water pouring in, and he was searching desperately for the handle, trying to hold his breath against the agony in his chest, wanting to call out to Julian but knowing that he dare not speak or his mouth would be clogged with mud. She and Miriam were in the back drowning and there was nothing he could do to help. Sweat broke out on his forehead and, clenching his wet palms, he forced his eyes from the horror of the lake and looked up at the sky, wrenching his mind from imagined horror back to the horror of normality. The sun was pale and round as a full moon but blazing with light in its aureole of mist, the high boughs of the trees black against its dazzle. He closed his eyes and waited. The horror passed and he was able to look down again at the surface of the lake.

He glanced at Julian and Miriam, half expecting to see on their faces the stark panic which must momentarily have transformed his own. But they were looking down at the sinking car with a calm, almost detached interest, watching the clustered leaves bobbing and bunching on the spreading ripples, as if jostling for room. He marvelled at the women’s calmness, this apparent ability to shut away all memory, all horror in the concern of the moment.

He said, his voice harsh: “Luke. You never spoke of him in the car. Neither of you has mentioned his name since we buried him. Do you think about him?” The question sounded like an accusation.

Miriam turned her gaze from the lake and gave him a steady look. “We think of him as much as we dare. What we’re concerned about now is getting his child born safely.”

Julian came up to him and touched his arm. She said, as if he were the one who most needed comforting: “There will be a time to mourn Luke and Gascoigne, Theo, there will be a time.”

The car had sunk out of sight. He had feared that the water at the edge might be too shallow, that the roof would be visible even under the cover of reeds, but peering down into the murky darkness he could see nothing but swirling mud.

Miriam said: “Have you got the cutlery?”

“No. Haven’t you?”

“Damn, they’re in the front of the car. Still, it hardly matters now. We’ve no food left to eat.”

He said: “We’d better get what we have got to the wood-shed. It’s about a hundred yards up that path to the right.”

Oh God, he prayed, please let it still be there, let it still be there. It was the first time he had prayed in forty years, but the words were less a petition than a half-superstitious hope that somehow, by the strength of his need, he could will the shed into existence. He shouldered one of the pillows and the raincoats, then picked up the kettle of water in one hand, and the suitcase in the other. Julian slung a second blanket round her shoulders and bent for the saucepan of water only to have it taken from her hand by Miriam, who said: “You carry the pillow. I’ll manage the rest.”

Thus encumbered, they made their slow way up the path. It was then that they heard the metallic rattle of the helicopter. Half-imprisoned by the interlocking boughs they had little need for extra concealment but instinctively they moved from the path into the green tangle of the elder bushes and stood motionless, hardly breathing, as if every intake of breath could reach up to that glittering object of menace, to those watching eyes and listening ears. The noise grew to an ear-shattering clatter. Surely it must be directly overhead. Theo almost expected the sheltering bushes to shudder into violent life. Then it began to circle, the rattle receding then returning, bringing with it renewed fear. It was almost five minutes before the noise of the engine finally faded into a distant hum.

Julian said softly: “Perhaps they aren’t looking for us.” Her voice was faint and, suddenly, she doubled up with pain and grasped at Miriam.

Miriam’s voice was grim. “I don’t suppose they’re on a joy-ride. Anyway they haven’t found us.” She turned to Theo. “How far is this wood-shed?”

“About fifty yards, if I’ve remembered rightly.”

“Let’s hope you have.”

The path was wider now, making their passage easier, but Theo, walking a little behind the women, felt burdened by more than the physical weight of his load. His previous assessment of Rolf’s likely progress now seemed ridiculously optimistic. Why should he make his way slowly and by stealth to London? Why should he need to present himself personally to the Warden? All he required was a public telephone. The number of the Council was known to every citizen. This apparent accessibility was part of Xan’s policy of openness. You couldn’t always speak to the Warden but you could always try. Some callers even got through. This caller, once identified, once vetted, would get priority. They would tell him to conceal himself, to speak to no one until they’d picked him up, almost certainly by helicopter. He had probably been in their hands for over twelve hours.

And the fugitives wouldn’t be difficult to find. By early morning Xan had known about the stolen car, the amount of petrol in its tank, had known to a mile how far they could hope to travel. He had only to stab a compass point in a map and describe a circle. Theo had no doubt of the significance of that helicopter. They were already searching by air, marking out the isolated houses, looking for the gleam of a car roof. Xan would already have organized the search on the ground. But one hope remained. There might still be time for the child to be born, as her mother wanted, in peace, in privacy, with no one to watch but the two people she loved. The search couldn’t be quick; he had surely been right about that. Xan wouldn’t want to come in force or to attract public attention, not yet, not until he could personally check the truth of Rolf’s story. He would use only carefully selected men for this enterprise. He couldn’t even be certain that they would hide in woodland. Rolf would have told him that that had been the original plan; but Rolf was no longer in charge.

He was clinging to this hope, willing himself to feel the confidence that he knew Julian would need from him, when he heard her voice.

“Theo, look. Isn’t this beautiful?”

He turned and came up beside her. She was standing beside a tall overgrown hawthorn heavy with red berries. From its top bough there cascaded a white froth of travellers’ joy, delicate as a veil, through which the berries shone like jewels. Looking at her rapt face, he thought: I only know it’s beautiful; she can feel its loveliness. He looked beyond her to a bush of elderberries and seemed to see clearly for the first time their back glistening beads and the delicacy of the red stems. It was as if in one moment the forest was transformed from a place of darkness and menace, in which he was at heart convinced that one of them would die, into a sanctuary, mysterious and beautiful, uncaring of these three curious interlopers, but a place in which nothing that lived could be wholly alien from him.

Then he heard Miriam’s voice, happy, exultant. “The wood-shed is still here!”

The shed was larger than he had expected. Memory, contrary to its custom, had diminished, not enlarged. For a moment he wondered whether this dilapidated, three-sided building of blackened wood, fully thirty feet across, could be the wood-shed he remembered. Then he noticed the silver birch to the right of the entrance. When he had last seen it the tree had been only a sapling, but now its branches overhung the roof. He saw with relief that most of the roof looked sound, although some of the planks had slipped. Many at the side were missing or jagged and the whole shed, in its lopsided, solitary decrepitude, looked unlikely to weather more than a few more winters. A huge wood-transporter, grained with rust, had sunk down askew in the middle of the glade, its tyres split and rotting and one immense wheel lying free beside it. Not all the logs had been carted away when the forestry finally ended, and one stack still remained neatly piled beside two huge felled trees. Their denuded trunks gleamed like polished bone and chunks and slivers of bark littered the earth.

Slowly, almost ceremoniously, they entered the shed, heads turning, anxious-eyed, like tenants taking possession of a desired but unknown residence.

Miriam said: “Well, at least it’s a shelter and it looks as if there’s enough dry wood and kindling here to make a fire.”

Despite the thick surrounding hedge of tangled bushes and saplings and the rim of trees, it was less private than Theo had remembered. Their safety would have to depend less on the shed being unnoticed than on the improbability of any casual walker finding his way through the tangle of the forest. But it was not a casual walker he feared. If Xan decided to undertake a ground search in Wychwood it would only be a matter of hours before they were discovered, however secret their lair.

He said: “I’m not sure we ought to risk lighting a fire. How important is it?”

Miriam replied: “The fire? Not very at the moment but it will be once the baby’s born and the daylight goes. The nights are getting cold. The baby and her mother need to be kept warm.”

“Then we’ll risk it, but not before it’s necessary. They’ll be watching for smoke.”

The shed looked as if it had been abandoned in some hurry, unless, perhaps, the workers had expected to return and had been prevented or told that the enterprise was now shut down. There were two stacks of shorter planks to the back of the shed, a pile of small logs and part of a tree trunk standing level which had obviously been used as a table since it bore a battered tin kettle and two chipped enamel mugs. The roof here was sound and the trodden earth soft with shavings and sawdust.

Miriam said: “About here will do.”

She kicked and scraped the shavings into a rough bed, spread out the two raincoats and helped Julian to lie down, then slipped a pillow under her head. Julian gave a grunt of pleasure, then turned on her side and drew up her legs. Miriam shook out one of the sheets and placed it over her, covering it with a blanket and Luke’s coat. Then she and Theo busied themselves setting out their store: the kettle and one remaining saucepan of water, the folded towels, the scissors and bottle of disinfectant. The small stock seemed to Theo pathetic in its inadequacy.

Miriam knelt beside Julian and gently motioned her on to her back. She said to Theo: “You may as well take a short walk if you feel like it. I’ll be needing your help later, but not this minute.”

He went outside, feeling for a second unreasonably rejected, and sat on the felled tree trunk. The peace of the glade enfolded him. He shut his eyes and listened. It seemed to him after a moment that he could hear a myriad small sounds, normally inaudible to human ears, the scrape of a leaf against its bough, the crack of a drying twig: the living world of the forest, secret, industrious, oblivious of or unconcerned with the three intruders. But he heard nothing human, no footfall, no distant sound of approaching cars, no returning rattle of the helicopter. He dared to hope that Xan had rejected Wychwood as their hiding place, that they might be safe, at least for a few more hours, long enough for the child to be born. And for the first time Theo understood and accepted Julian’s desire to give birth in secret. This forest refuge, inadequate as it was, was surely better than the alternative. He pictured again that alternative, the high sterile bed, the banks of machines to meet every possible medical emergency, the distinguished obstetricians summoned from retirement, masked and gowned, standing together, because after twenty-five years there was a better hope of safety in their united memory and expertise, each one desperate for the honour of delivering this miraculous child, yet half-afraid of the terrifying responsibility. He could picture the acolytes, the gowned nurses and midwives, the anaesthetists, and beyond them, but dominant, the television cameras with their crews, the Warden behind his screen waiting to give the momentous news to an expectant world.

But it had been more than the destruction of privacy, the stripping-away of personal dignity, that Julian had feared. For her Xan was evil. The word had a meaning for her. She saw with clear and undazzled eyes through the strength, the charm, the intelligence, the humour into the heart, not of emptiness but of darkness. Whatever the future might hold for her child, she wanted no one evil to be present at the birth. He could understand now her obstinate choice and it seemed to him, sitting in this peace and quietness, to be both right and reasonable. But her obstinacy had already cost the lives of two people, one the father of her child. She could argue that good could come out of evil; it was surely more difficult to argue that evil could come out of good. She trusted in the terrible mercy and justice of her God, but what other option had she but to trust? She could no more control her life than she could control or stop the physical forces which even now were stretching and racking her body. If her God existed, how could He be the God of Love? The question had become banal, ubiquitous, but for him it had never been satisfactorily answered.

He listened again to the forest, to its secret life. Now the sounds, seeming to increase as he listened, were full of menace and terror: the scavenger scurrying and leaping on its prey, the cruelty and satisfaction of the hunt, the instinctive struggle for food, for survival. The whole physical world was held together by pain, the scream in the throat and the scream in the heart. If her God was part of this torment, its creator and sustainer, then He was a God of the strong, not of the weak. He contemplated the gulf fixed between Julian and himself by her belief, but without dismay. He could not diminish it but he could stretch his hands across it. And perhaps at the end of the bridge would be love. How little he knew her or she him. The emotion he felt towards her was as mysterious as it was irrational. He needed to understand it, to define its nature, to analyse what he knew was beyond analysis. But some things now he did know, and perhaps they were all he needed to know. He wished only her good. He would put her good before his own. He could no longer separate himself from her. He would die for her life.

The silence was broken by the sound of a groan followed by a sharp cry. Once it would have aroused his embarrassment, the humiliating fear that he would be found inadequate. Now, conscious only of his need to be with her, he ran into the shed. She was again lying on her side quite peacefully, and smiled at him, holding out her hand. Miriam was kneeling at her side.

He said: “What can I do? Let me stay. Do you want me to stay?”

Julian said, her voice as even as if there had never been the sharp cry: “Of course you must stay. We want you to stay. But perhaps you’d better build the fire now. Then it will be ready to light when we need it.”

He saw that her face was swollen, the brow damp with sweat. But he was amazed at her quietness, her calm. And he had something to do, a job at which he could feel confident. If he could find wood shavings which were perfectly dry there was hope that he could light a fire without too much smoke. The day was practically windless, but even so he must be careful to build it so that no smoke blew into Julian’s face or the face of the baby. A little towards the front of the shed would be best, where the roof was broken but close enough to warm mother and child. And he would need to contain it or there would be a danger of conflagration. Some of the stones from the broken wall would make a good fireplace. He went out to collect them, carefully selecting them for size and shape. It occurred to him that he could even use some of the flatter stones to produce a kind of funnel. Returning, he arranged the stones into a ring, filled it with the driest wood shavings he could find, then added a few twigs. Finally he laid flat stones across the top, directing the smoke out of the shed. When he had finished he felt some of the satisfaction of a small boy. And when Julian raised herself up and laughed with pleasure his voice joined hers.

Miriam said: “It would be best if you knelt at her side and held her hand.”

During the next spasm of pain she gripped so hard that his knuckles cracked.

Seeing his face, his desperate need for reassurance, Miriam said: “She’s all right. She’s doing wonderfully. I can’t make an internal examination. It wouldn’t be safe now. I haven’t sterile gloves and the waters have broken. But I’d estimate that the cervix is almost fully dilated. The second stage will be easier.”

He said to Julian: “Darling, what can I do? Tell me what I can do.”

“Just keep holding my hand.”

Kneeling there beside them, he marvelled at Miriam, at the quiet confidence with which, even after twenty-five years, she exercised her ancient art, her brown and gentle hands resting on Julian’s stomach, her voice murmuring reassurance: “Rest now, then go along with the next wave. Don’t resist it. Remember your breathing. That’s fine, Julian, that’s fine.”

When the second stage of labour began she told Theo to kneel at Julian’s back and support her body, then took two of the smaller logs and placed them against Julian’s feet. Theo knelt and took the weight of Julian’s body, his arms clasping her to him under her breasts. She rested against his chest, her feet clamped hard against the two logs of wood. He looked down at her face, at one moment almost unrecognizable, scarlet and distorted, as she grunted and heaved in his arms, the next at peace, mysteriously wiped free of anguish and effort while she panted softly, her eyes fixed on Miriam, waiting for the next contraction. At these moments she looked so peaceful that he could almost believe that she slept. Their faces were so close that it was his sweat mingled with hers that from time to time he gently wiped away. The primitive act, at which he was both participant and spectator, isolated them in a limbo of time in which nothing mattered, nothing was real except the mother and her child’s dark painful journey from the secret life of the womb to the light of day. He was aware of the ceaseless murmur of Miriam’s voice, quiet but insistent, praising, encouraging, instructing, joyfully enticing the child into the world, and it seemed to him that midwife and patient were one woman and that he, too, was part of the pain and the labouring, not really needed but graciously accepted, and yet excluded from the heart of the mystery. And he wished, with a sudden surge of anguish and envy, that it was his child with which such an agony of effort they were bringing into the world.

And then he saw with amazement that the head was emerging, a greasy ball plastered with strands of dark hair.

He heard Miriam’s voice, low but triumphant. “The head is crowned. Stop pushing, Julian. Just pant now.”

Julian’s voice was rasping like an athlete’s after a hard race. She gave a single cry, and with an indescribable sound the head was propelled into Miriam’s waiting hands. She took it, gently turned it; almost immediately, with a last push, the child slid into the world between his mother’s legs in a rush of blood, and was lifted by Miriam and lain on his mother’s stomach. Julian had been wrong about the sex. The child was male. Its sex, seeming so dominant, so disproportionate to the plump, small body, was like a proclamation.

Swiftly Miriam drew over him the sheet and blanket which covered Julian, binding them together. She said, “See, you have a son,” and laughed.

It seemed to Theo that the decrepit shed rang with her joyful and triumphant voice. He looked down at Julian’s outstretched arms and transfigured face, then turned away. The joy was almost too much for him to bear.

He heard Miriam’s voice: “I’ll have to cut the cord, and later there’ll be the afterbirth. You’d better light the fire now, Theo, and see if you can heat the kettle. Julian will need a hot drink.”

He went back to his makeshift fireplace. His hands were shaking so that the first match went out. But with the second the thin shavings burst into flame and the fire leapt like a celebration, filling the shed with the smell of wood smoke. He fed it carefully with the twigs and pieces of bark, then turned for the kettle. But that moment brought disaster. He had placed it close to the fire and, stepping back, kicked it over. The lid came off and he saw with sick horror the precious water seeping into the sawdust and staining the earth. They had already used the water in the two saucepans. Now they had none.

The sound of his shoe striking the metal had warned Miriam. She was still busy with the child and, without turning her head, said: “What happened? Was that the kettle?”

Theo said miserably: “I’m sorry. It’s appalling. I’ve spilt the water.”

And now Miriam stood up and came over to him. She said calmly: “We were going to need more water anyway, water and food. I have to stay with Julian until I’m sure it’s safe to leave her but then I’ll go to the house we passed. With luck the water will be still laid on, or there may be a well.”

“But you’ll have to cross an open field. They’ll see you.”

She said: “I have to go, Theo. There are things we need. I have to take that risk.”

But she was being kind. It was water they needed most and their need was his fault.

He said: “Let me go. You stay with her.”

Miriam said: “She wants you with her. Now that the baby’s born, she needs you more than she needs me. I have to make sure the fundus is well contracted and check that the afterbirth is complete. When that’s done it will be safe to leave her. Try to get the baby to the breast. The sooner he begins sucking the better.”

It seemed to Theo that she liked explaining the mysteries of her craft, liked using the words which for so many years had been unspoken but unforgotten.

Twenty minutes later she was ready to go. She had buried the afterbirth and had tried to clean the blood from her hands by rubbing them in the grass. Then she laid them, those gentle experienced hands, for the last time on Julian’s stomach.

She said: “I can wash in the lake on my way. I could face your cousin’s arrival with equanimity if I could be sure he’d provide me with a hot bath and a four-course meal before shooting me. I’d better take the kettle. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

On impulse he put his arms round her and held her close for a moment. He said, “Thank you, thank you,” then released her and watched as she ran with her long, graceful strides over the glade and passed out of sight under the overhanging boughs of the lane.

The baby had needed no encouragement to suck. He was a lively child, opening on Theo his bright unfocused eyes, waving his starfish hands, butting his head against his mother’s breast, the small open mouth voraciously seeking the nipple. It was extraordinary that anything so new could be so vigorous. He sucked and slept. Theo lay down beside Julian and placed an arm over them both. He felt the damp softness of her hair against his cheek. They lay on the soiled and crumpled sheet in the stench of blood, sweat and faeces but he had never known such peace, never realized that joy could be so sweetly compounded with pain. They lay half-dozing in a wordless calm and it seemed to Theo that there rose from the child’s warm flesh, transitory but stronger even than the smell of blood, the strange agreeable aroma of the new-born, dry and pungent like hay.

Then Julian stirred and said: “How long is it since Miriam left?”

He lifted his left wrist close to his face. “Just over an hour.”

“She shouldn’t take so long. Please find her, Theo.”

“It isn’t just water we need. If the house is furnished there are other things she’ll want to collect.”

“Only a few to begin with. She could always go back. She knows we’ll be anxious. Please go to her. I know something’s happened to her.” As he hesitated, she said: “We’ll be all right.”

The use of the plural, what he saw in her eyes as she turned them on her son, almost unmanned him. He said: “They could be very close now. I don’t want to leave you. I want us to be together when Xan comes.”

“My darling, we will be. But she could be in trouble, trapped, hurt, waiting desperately for help. Theo, I have to know.”

He made no further protest, but got up and said: “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

For a few seconds he stood silent outside the hut and listened. He shut his eyes to the autumn hues of the forest, to the shaft of sunlight on bark and grass, so that he could concentrate all his senses into listening. But he heard nothing, not even the sound of a bird. Then, almost leaping forward like a sprinter, he began pounding, past the lake, up the narrow tunnel of green towards the crossroads, leaping over the ruts and potholes, feeling the jar of the hard ridges under his feet, ducking and weaving beneath the low clutching branches. His mind was a tangle of fear and hope. It was madness to leave Julian. If the SSP were close and had captured Miriam there was nothing he could do to help her now. And if they were that close it was only a matter of time before they found Julian and her child. Better to have stayed together and waited, waited until the bright morning lengthened into afternoon and they knew that there was no hope of seeing Miriam again, waited until they heard on the grass the thud of marching feet.

But, desperate for reassurance, he told himself that there were other possibilities. Julian was right. Miriam could have had an accident, fallen, be lying there, wondering how long it was before he came. His mind busied itself with the images of disaster, the door of a pantry slamming fast behind her, a defective well-head which she hadn’t seen, a rotting floorboard. He tried to will himself into belief, to convince himself that an hour was a very little time, that Miriam was busy collecting everything they might need—calculating how much of the precious store she could carry, what could be left until later, forgetting in her foraging how long those sixty minutes would seem to those who waited.

Now he was at the crossroads and could see, through the narrow gap and the thinner bushes of the wide hedge, the sloping field and the roof of the house. He stood for a minute catching his breath, bending to ease the sharp pain in his side, then plunged through the tangle of high nettles, thorns and snapping twigs into the clearer light of the open countryside. There was no sign of Miriam. More slowly now, aware of his vulnerability and of a deepening unease, he made his way across the field and came to the house. It was an old building with an uneven roof of mossy tiles and tall Elizabethan chimneys, probably once a farmhouse. It was separated from the field by a low dry-stone wall. The wilderness which was once the rear garden was bisected by a narrow stream spurting from a culvert higher up the bank over which a simple wooden bridge led to the back door. The windows were small and uncurtained. Everywhere was silent. The house was like a mirage, the longed-for symbol of security, normality and peace which he had only to touch to see vanish. In the silence the ripple of the stream sounded as loud as a torrent.

The back door was of black oak banded with iron. It stood ajar. He pushed it wider and the mellow autumnal sunlight splashed gold over the stone slabs of a passage leading to the front of the house. Again he stood for a second and listened. He heard nothing, not even the ticking of a clock. To his left was an oak door leading, he presumed, into the kitchen. It was unlatched and gently he pushed it open. After the brightness of the day the room was dim and for a moment he could see little until his eyes accustomed themselves to a gloom made more oppressive by the dark oak beams, the small dirt-covered windows. He was aware of a damp coldness, of the hardness of the stone floor and of a tincture on the air, at once horrible and human, like the lingering smell of fear. He felt along the wall for a light switch, hardly expecting, as his hand found it, that there would still be electricity. But the light came on, and then he saw her.

She had been garrotted and the body dumped into a large wicker chair to the right of the fireplace. She lay there sprawled, legs askew, arms flung over the ends of the chair, the head thrown back with the cord bitten so deep into the skin that it was hardly visible. Such was his horror that after the first glance he staggered over to the stone sink under the window and vomited violently but ineffectively. He wanted to go to her, to close her eyes, to touch her hand, to make some gesture. He owed her more than to turn away from the appalling horror of her death and vomit his disgust. But he knew he couldn’t touch her and couldn’t even look again. With his forehead hard against the cold stone, he reached up to the tap and a gush of cold water flowed over his head. He let it flow as if it could wipe away the terror, the pity and the shame. He wanted to throw back his head and howl out his anger. For a few seconds he was helpless, in the thrall of emotions which left him powerless to move. Then he turned off the tap, shook the water from his eyes and took hold of reality. He had to get back to Julian as quickly as possible. He saw on the table the meagre gleanings of Miriam’s search. She had found a large wicker basket and had filled it with three tins, a tin-opener and a bottle of water.

But he couldn’t leave Miriam as she was. This mustn’t be the last vision he had of her. However great the need to get back to Julian and the child, there was a small ceremony he owed to her. Fighting terror and revulsion, he got up and made himself look at her. Then, bending, he loosened the cord from her neck, smoothed the lines of her face and closed her eyes. He felt the need to take her out of this awful place. He lifted her in his arms, carried her out of the house and into the sunlight, then laid her carefully down under a rowan tree. Its leaves, like tongues of flame, cast a glow on the pale brown of her skin as if her veins still pulsed with life. Her face now looked almost peaceful. He crossed her arms on her breast and it seemed to him that the unresponsive flesh could still communicate, was telling him that death was not the worst thing that could happen to a human being, that she had kept faith with her brother, that she had done what she set out to do. She had died but new life had been born. Thinking of the horror and cruelty of her death, he told himself that Julian would no doubt say that there must be forgiveness even for this barbarity. But that was not his creed. Standing for a moment very still and looking down at the body, he swore to himself that Miriam would be avenged. Then he retrieved the wicker basket and, without a backward look, ran from the garden across the bridge and plunged into the forest.

They were close, of course. They were watching him. He knew that. But now, as if the horror had galvanized his brain, he was thinking clearly. What were they waiting for? Why had they let him go? They hardly needed to follow him. It must be obvious that they were very close now to the end of their search. And he had no doubt of two things. The party would be small and Xan would be among them. Miriam’s murderers hadn’t been part of an isolated forward search party with instructions to find the fugitives, leave them unharmed and send back word to the main party. Xan would never risk having a pregnant woman discovered except by himself or by someone he trusted absolutely. There would be no general search for this valuable quarry. And Xan would have learned nothing from Miriam, he was sure of that. What he was expecting to find was not a mother and child but a heavily pregnant woman still with some weeks to go. He wouldn’t want to frighten her, wouldn’t want to precipitate a premature labour. Was that why Miriam had been garrotted, not shot? Even at that distance he didn’t want to risk the sound of gunfire.

But that reasoning was absurd. If Xan wanted to protect Julian, to ensure that she kept calm for the birth which he believed was close, why kill the midwife she trusted and kill her so horribly? He must have known that one of them, perhaps both, would go to seek her. It was only by chance that he, Theo, not Julian, had been faced by that swollen, protruding tongue, those bulging, dead eyes, the full horror of that awful kitchen. Had Xan convinced himself that with the child ready to be born nothing, however shocking, could really hurt it now? Or had he needed to get rid of Miriam urgently, whatever the risk? Why take her prisoner with all the consequent complications when one quick twist of cord could settle the problem forever? And perhaps even the horror was deliberate. Was he proclaiming: “This is what I can do, what I have done. There are now only two of you left who are part of the conspiracy of the Five Fishes, only two who know the truth about the child’s parentage. You are in my power absolutely and forever”?

Or was his plan even more audacious? Once the child was born he had only to kill Theo and Julian and it would be possible to claim the baby as his own. Had he really in his overweening egotism convinced himself that even this was possible? And then Theo remembered Xan’s words: “Whatever it is necessary to do, I shall do.”

In the shed Julian lay so still that at first he thought she was sleeping. But her eyes were open and she still had them fixed on her child. The air was rich with the pungent sweetness of wood smoke, but the fire had gone out. Theo put down the basket and, taking the bottle of water, unscrewed the top. He knelt down beside her.

She looked into his eyes and said: “Miriam’s dead, isn’t she?” When Theo made no reply, she said: “She died getting this for me.”

He held the bottle to her lips. “Then drink it and be thankful.”

But she turned her head away, releasing her hold on the child so that if he hadn’t caught the baby he would have rolled from her body. She lay still as if too exhausted for paroxysms of grief, but the tears gushed in a stream over her face and he could hear a low, almost musical moaning, like the keening of a universal grief. She was mourning for Miriam as she had never yet mourned the father of her child.

He bent and held her in his arms, clumsily because of the baby between them, trying to enfold them both. He said: “Remember the baby. The baby needs you. Remember what Miriam would have wanted.”

She didn’t speak but she nodded and again took the child from him. He put the bottle of water to her lips.

He took out the three tins from the basket. From one the label had fallen off; the tin felt heavy but there was no knowing what was inside. The second was labelled PEACHES IN SYRUP. The third was a tin of baked beans in tomato sauce. For these and a bottle of water Miriam had died. But he knew that was too simple. Miriam had died because she was one of the small band who knew the truth about the child.

The tin-opener was an old type, partly rusted, the cutting edge blunted. But it was adequate. He rasped open the tin, then wrenched back the lid and, cradling Julian’s head in his right arm, began feeding her the beans on the middle finger of his left hand. She sucked at it avidly. The process of feeding her was an act of love. Neither spoke.

After five minutes, when the can was half empty, she said: “Now it’s your turn.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Of course you’re hungry.”

His knuckles were too large for his fingers to reach the bottom of the tin, so it was her turn to feed him. Sitting up with the cradled child resting in her lap, she inserted her small right hand and fed him.

He said: “They taste wonderful.”

When the tin was empty she gave a little sigh, then lay back, gathering the child to her breast. He stretched himself beside her.

She said: “How did Miriam die?”

It was a question he knew that she would ask. He couldn’t lie to her. “She was strangled. It must have been very quick. Perhaps she didn’t even see them. I don’t think she had time for terror or pain.”

Julian said: “It could have lasted a second, two seconds, perhaps more. We can’t live those seconds for her. We can’t know what she felt, the terror, the pain. You could feel a lifetime’s pain and terror in two seconds.”

He said: “My darling, it’s over for her now. She’s beyond their reach forever. Miriam, Gascoigne, Luke, they’re all beyond the Council’s reach. Every time a victim dies it’s a small defeat for tyranny.”

She said: “That’s too easy a comfort.” And then, after a silence: “They won’t try to separate us, will they?”

“Nothing and no one will separate us, not life nor death, nor principalities, nor powers, nor anything that is of the heavens nor anything that is of the earth.”

She laid her hand against his cheek. “Oh, my darling, you can’t promise that. But I like to hear you say it.” After a moment she asked: “Why don’t they come?“ But there was no anguish in the question, only a gentle bewilderment.

He reached out and took her hand, winding his fingers round the hot, distorted flesh amazed that he had once found it repulsive. He stroked it but he didn’t answer. They lay motionless side by side. Theo was aware of the strong smell of the sawn wood and the dead fire, of the oblong of sunlight like a green veil, of the silence, windless, birdless, of her heartbeats and his own. They were wrapped in an intensity of listening which was miraculously devoid of anxiety. Was this what the victims of torture felt when they passed through the extremity of pain into peace? He thought: I have done what I set out to do. The child is born as she wanted. This is our place, our moment of time, and, whatever they do to us, it can never be taken away.

It was Julian who broke the silence: “Theo, I think they’re here. They’ve come.”

He had heard nothing but he got up and said: “Wait very quietly. Don’t move.”

Turning his back so that she couldn’t see, he took the revolver from his pocket and inserted the bullet. Then he went out to meet them.

Xan was alone. He looked like a woodman with his old corduroy trousers, open-necked shirt and heavy sweater. But woodmen do not come armed; there was the bulge of a holster under the sweater. And no woodman had stood blazing with such confidence, such an arrogance of power. Glittering on his left hand was the wedding ring of England.

He said: “So it is true.”

“Yes, it’s true.”

“Where is she?”

Theo didn’t answer. Xan said: “I don’t need to ask. I know where she is. But is she well?”

“She’s well. She’s asleep. We have a few minutes before she wakes.”

Xan threw back his shoulders and gave a gasp of relief like an exhausted swimmer emerging to shake the water from his eyes.

For a moment he breathed hard; then he said calmly: “I can wait to see her. I don’t want to frighten her. I’ve come with an ambulance, helicopter, doctors, midwives. I’ve brought everything she needs. This child will be born in comfort and safety. The mother will be treated like the miracle she is; she has to know that. If she trusts you, then you can be the one to tell her. Reassure her, calm her, let her know she has nothing to fear from me.”

“She has everything to fear. Where is Rolf?”

“Dead.”

“And Gascoigne?”

“Dead.”

“And I’ve seen Miriam’s body. So no one is alive who knows the truth about this child. You’ve disposed of them all.”

Xan said calmly: “Except you.” When Theo didn’t reply he went on: “I don’t plan to kill you, I don’t want to kill you. I need you. But we have to talk now before I see her. I have to know how far I can rely on you. You can help me with her, with what I have to do.”

Theo said: “Tell me what you have to do.”

“Isn’t it obvious? If it’s a boy and he’s fertile, he’ll be the father of the new race. If he produces sperm, fertile sperm, at thirteen—at twelve maybe—our female Omegas will only be thirty-eight. We can breed from them, from other selected women. We may be able to breed again from the woman herself.”

“The father of her child is dead.”

“I know. We got the truth from Rolf. But if there was one fertile male there can be others. We’ll redouble the testing programme. We’ve been getting careless. We’ll test everyone, the epileptic, deformed—every male in the country. And the child may be a male—a fertile male. He’ll be our best hope. The hope of the world.”

“And Julian?”

Xan laughed. “I’ll probably marry her. Anyway, she’ll be looked after. Go back to her now. Wake her. Tell her I’m here but on my own. Reassure her. Tell her you’ll be helping me to care for her. Good God, Theo, do you realize what power is in our hands? Come back on the Council, be my lieutenant. You can have anything you want.”

“No.”

There was a pause. Xan asked: “Do you remember the bridge at Woolcombe?” The question wasn’t a sentimental appeal to an old loyalty or the tie of blood, nor a reminder of kindness given and taken. Xan had in that moment simply remembered and he smiled with the pleasure of it.

Theo said: “I remember everything that happened at Woolcombe.”

“I don’t want to kill you.”

“You’re going to have to, Xan. You may have to kill her too.”

He reached for his own gun. Xan laughed as he saw it.

“I know it isn’t loaded. You told the old people that, remember? You wouldn’t have let Rolf get away if you’d had a loaded gun.”

“How did you expect me to stop him? Shoot her husband in front of her eyes?”

“Her husband? I didn’t realize that she cared greatly about her husband. That isn’t the picture he so obligingly gave us before he died. You don’t imagine you’re in love with her, do you? Don’t romanticize her. She may be the most important woman in the world but she isn’t the Virgin Mary. The child she is carrying is still the child of a whore.”

Their eyes met. Theo thought: What is he waiting for? Does he find that he can’t shoot me in cold blood, as I find I can’t shoot him? Time passed, second after interminable second. Then Xan stretched his arm and took aim. And it was in that split second of time that the child cried, a high mewing wail, like a cry of protest. Theo heard Xan’s bullet hiss harmlessly through the sleeve of his jacket. He knew that in that half-second he couldn’t have seen what afterwards he so clearly remembered: Xan’s face transfigured with joy and triumph; couldn’t have heard his great shout of affirmation, like the shout on the bridge at Woolcombe. But it was with that remembered shout in his ears that he shot Xan through the heart.

After the two shots he was aware only of a great silence. When he and Miriam had pushed the car into the lake, the peaceful forest had become a screaming jungle, a cacophony of wild shrieks, crashing boughs and agitated birdcalls which had faded only with the last trembling ripple. But now there was nothing. It seemed to him that he walked towards Xan’s body like an actor in a slow-motion film, hands buffeting the air, feet high-stepping, hardly seeming to touch the ground; space stretching into infinity so that Xan’s body was a distant goal towards which he made his arduous way held in suspended time. And then, like a kick in the brain, reality took hold again and he was simultaneously aware of his own body’s quick motion, of every small creature moving among the trees, every leaf of grass felt through the soles of his shoes, of the air moving against his face, aware most keenly of all of Xan lying at his feet. He was lying on his back, arms spread, as if taking his ease beside the Windrush. His face looked peaceful, unsurprised, as if he were feigning death but, kneeling, Theo saw that his eyes were two dull pebbles, once sea-washed but now left forever lifeless by the last receding tide. He took the ring from Xan’s finger, then stood upright and waited.

They came very quietly, moving out of the forest, first Carl Inglebach, then Martin Woolvington, then the two women. Behind them, keeping a careful distance, were six Grenadiers. They moved to within four feet of the body, then paused. Theo held up the ring, then deliberately placed it on his finger and held the back of his hand towards them.

He said: “The Warden of England is dead and the child is born. Listen.”

It came again, that piteous but imperative mew of the new-born. They began moving towards the wood-shed but he barred the path and said: “Wait. I must ask his mother first.”

Inside the shed Julian was sitting bolt upright, the child held tight against her breast, his open mouth now suckling, now moving against her skin. As Theo came up to her he saw the desperate fear in her eyes lightening to joyous relief. She let the child rest on her lap and held out her arms to him.

She said with a sob: “There were two shots. I didn’t know whether I should see you or him.”

For a moment he held her shaking body against his. He said: “The Warden of England is dead. The Council is here. Will you see them, show them your child?”

She said: “For a little while. Theo, what will happen now?”

Terror for him had for a moment drained her of courage and strength and for the first time since the birth he saw her vulnerable and afraid. He whispered to her, his lips against her hair.

“We’ll take you to hospital, to somewhere quiet. You’ll be looked after. I won’t let you be disturbed. You won’t need to be there long and we’ll be together. I shan’t leave you ever. Whatever happens, we shall be together.”

He released her and went outside. They were standing in a semicircle waiting for him, their eyes fixed on his face.

“You can come in now. Not the Grenadiers, just the Council. She’s tired, she needs to rest.”

Woolvington said: “We have an ambulance further down the lane. We can call up the paramedics; carry her there. The helicopter is about a mile away, outside the village.”

Theo said: “We won’t risk the helicopter. Call up the stretcher-bearers. And get the Warden’s body moved. I don’t want her to see it.”

As two Grenadiers immediately came forward and began dragging at the corpse, Theo said: “Use some reverence. Remember what he was only minutes ago. You wouldn’t have dared lay a hand on him then.”

He turned and led the Council into the wood-shed. It seemed to him that they came tentatively, reluctantly, first the two women, then Woolvington and Carl. Woolvington didn’t approach Julian but took a stand at her head as if he were a sentry on guard. The two women knelt, less, Theo thought, in homage than from a need to be close to the child. They looked at Julian as if seeking consent. She smiled and held out the baby. Murmuring, weeping, shaken with tears and laughter, they put out their hands and touched his head, his cheeks, his waving arms. Harriet held out a finger and the baby grasped it in a surprising grip. She laughed and Julian, looking up, said to Theo: “Miriam told me the new-born can grip like that. It doesn’t last very long.”

The women didn’t reply. They were crying and smiling, making their silly happy sounds of welcome and discovery. It seemed to Theo a joyous, female camaraderie. He looked up at Carl, astonished that the man had been able to make the journey, was still managing to stay on his feet. Carl looked down at the child with his dying eyes and spoke his Nunc Dimittis. “So it begins again.”

Theo thought: It begins again, with jealousy, with treachery, with violence, with murder, with this ring on my finger. He looked down at the great sapphire in its glitter of diamonds, at the ruby cross, twisting the ring, aware of its weight. Placing it on his hand had been instinctive and yet deliberate, a gesture to assert authority and ensure protection. He had known that the Grenadiers would come armed. The sight of that shining symbol on his finger would at least make them pause, give him time to speak. Did he need to wear it now? He had all Xan’s power within his grasp, that and more. With Carl dying, the Council was leaderless. For a time at least he must take Xan’s place. There were evils to be remedied; but they must take their turn. He couldn’t do everything at once, there had to be priorities. Was that what Xan had found? And was this sudden intoxication of power what Xan had known every day of his life? The sense that everything was possible to him, that what he wanted would be done, that what he hated would be abolished, that the world could be fashioned according to his will. He drew the ring from his finger, then paused and pushed it back. There would be time later to decide whether, and for how long, he needed it.

He said: “Leave us now,” and, bending, helped the women to their feet. They went out as quietly as they had come in.

Julian looked up at him. For the first time she noticed the ring. She said: “That wasn’t made for your finger.”

For a second, no more, he felt something close to irritation. It must be for him to decide when he would take it off. He said: “It’s useful for the present. I shall take it off in time.”

She seemed for the moment content, and it might have been his imagination that there was a shadow in her eyes.

Then she smiled and said to him: “Christen the baby for me. Please do it now, while we’re alone. It’s what Luke would have wanted. It’s what I want.”

“What do you want him called?”

“Call him after his father and after you.”

“I’ll make you comfortable first.”

The towel between her legs was heavily stained. He removed it without revulsion, almost without thought, and, folding another, put it in place. There was very little water left in the bottle, but he hardly needed it. His tears were falling now over the child’s forehead. From some far childhood memory he recalled the rite. The water had to flow, there were words which had to be said. It was with a thumb wet with his own tears and stained with her blood that he made on the child’s forehead the sign of the cross.