Rationalise as one might, it was still helpful to believe, particularly in an occupation which required him to carry a laser gun at all times. In his jacket pocket lay his new orders, folded. He was doubly thankful; they would take him out of the palace frying pan (though that was unfair, the King was a kind and undemanding master), but at least, not into the fire. It was not North Africa, this time. The climate change which had wreaked havoc on Mediterranean vineyards had rendered the Magreb virtually uninhabitable. The sub-Saharan region had become a furnace in which nothing could survive outdoors at noon longer than twenty minutes. Why anyone should bother to fight over its empty wastes was beyond him; but they did, and had to be kept at bay.
Asia was not much better, but he was familiar with it. A command there was no picnic, especially if the Chinese decided to cut up rough. If he were to meet his Maker, Mike Thompson’s main reaction would be polite curiosity. Until then, he professed the religion of his forefathers. Especially just before his second posting to Outer Mongolia.
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me …
The television studio was, to Princess Io’s surprise, no more than a black-painted box hardly large enough for herself, the interviewer and the paraphernalia of camera, video and sound equipment. In deference to her royal status and her age, the lights had been dimmed slightly but still they burned and made her skin itch. Maybe her son Marius had been right: he had recommended refusing this interview. But it was her favourite fibre optic channel and her favourite star, ‘Flash’ Harry Docherty. And she was flattered to have been asked. So why not? Why shouldn’t an elderly Princess, who passed far too many days bored to stupefaction, have her moment on the airwaves?
A flicker of disappointment nagged at her. Flash Harry was shorter and portlier than she had imagined and far less respectful of her than he should have been. He sat hunched, drumming his fingers, eyes half closed while his face was powdered. He was taking no notice of her whatsoever, despite her foray at a few words of genteel conversation. When the makeup girl had finished he began tapping buttons on his powerbook, presumably to check his notes.
A voice in the darkness called out that they were ready. The Princess smoothed her cream silk-and-linen tunic with the tiny pearl embroidery, and tweaked her skirt. Her legs
were still shapely and she crossed them neatly at the ankles, before realising that the camera would show only her head and shoulders. She sat up, hands folded in her lap, and allowed that enigmatic little smile her friends said was her hallmark to play about her exquisitely crimsoned lips.
‘Well, hi to you all!’ Flash Harry leaned roguishly into the camera. To the Princess it was disconcerting: she half expected a cheering audience somewhere to shout ‘HI, HARRY!’ back. They did, when the programme was broadcast.
‘Today we gotta special guest. Princess Io.’ He pronounced it with emphasis –’I-O’ to rhyme with Hi-ho, as if she had been named for a song in an ancient Disney cartoon. ‘Born in Japan, the great-granddaughter of the last Japanese Emperor. When the Chinese invaded, she fled with her parents. Picture if you will, leddies and gennlemen, this tiny child – nine years old, terrified and clinging to her mother – brought out of the land of her fathers to an alien world. Ours.’
That was not quite accurate: Io sniffed impatiently. The invasion had certainly taken place in 2022 when she was young, and, temporarily, the family had thought it wise to move. But they had returned. It was not until her twenties that she had left for good. And then it had been for freedom from her family, and for romance.
Flash Harry turned to her. ‘Princess, welcome.’ His eyes burned with sincerity. They were so blue they must be coloured contact lenses. He didn’t look like an NT. ‘It must have been a very traumatic event for you, Princess, to see your country overrun in that way? You, a small girl, forced to leave your homeland?’
The Princess inclined her head with the utmost delicacy. ‘Indeed it was. Dreadful. And to know that we could never go back …’ She sighed and lowered her eyes. It was a supremely Japanese gesture, so much in contrast to the arrogant glares of China’s leaders to which news-watching westerners were accustomed.
‘Right. You must feel anxious still for your own country, Princess. Japanese culture is in danger of disappearing altogether, isn’t it?’
‘One country, two systems, they say.’ The Princess gave a diplomatic flutter of the eyelids. ‘One does not know how far to trust their intentions. The Chinese are remarkable people. They say they are keen to develop the economic strength of the Japanese islands, but they do not understand that business success comes from the liberty to make decisions without the state setting obstacles at every step.’
Flash Harry cleared his throat. This might be a bit esoteric for him, the Princess reflected. She waved a beringed hand dismissively. ‘I have lived in the West for over sixty years, Mr Docherty. I married a Hungarian prince, may his soul rest in peace. My children are second cousins to dear King William. I have established my home here and been made to feel so welcome. I love the European Union, and would not go back.’
That was more like it. The pucker on Flash Harry’s brow vanished and was replaced with a broad grin, as if she had paid him a personal compliment. ‘Well, Princess, that’s what we like to hear. And your family was born in Britain too.’
‘Not quite. My younger children, yes. Prince Marius was born in Budapest. We left when Hungary voted to become a republic, otherwise he would be king there now. But, like myself, he has opted for the modern world, not the world as we might wish it to be. His service as an elected member of the House of Lords here in London gives me great pride.’
She smiled sweetly.
They spoke of how much had changed in her lifetime – the weather, the disappearance of traffic jams, new-fangled gadgets such as the vidphone and self-wash laundry unknown in her youth. The studio clock showed that the allotted seven minutes were nearly up. ‘Princess, you know we ask our guests to choose a favourite piece of music and a favourite book,’ Flash Harry said. He was looking relieved: the thinking part of the interview was over. He gazed at her intently. ‘What are your choices, ma’am?’
‘Mr Docherty, that was so difficult,’ Princess Io cooed. ‘I like all music. But the concerto for bamboo pipes and zithers by the renowned Japanese composer Michiko Hirano would give me great pleasure, and for my book, the collected works of Kazuo Ishiguro. You know he wrote in English, of course?’
It gave her great and wicked pleasure to see the blank expression on Flash Harry’s face. There was no
of course
about it: he hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about. The courtesies were concluded and she was invited to remain in her seat until the recording was finished.
‘That’s it, we have a clear,’ came an authoritative voice from the darkness. Another anonymous hand touched her arm and led her to the side. Flash Harry nodded a curt ‘Thanks, Princess, ’bye,’ before rummaging for his powerbook. He had already wiped from his limited brain the Princess’s details and was immediately engaged in absorbing the bare facts about his next distinguished interviewee, who was waiting in the wings and fiddling nervously with his necktie.
It had not been an uplifting experience, the Princess confided later to her son. What she did not tell him, however, was her horror as she watched herself that evening from the comfort of her boudoir.
She looked old. She
was
old, but that was not itself a nuisance. Not normally. Her body was in fair condition: it has never been denied whatever care and treatment it required. She had never abused it with alcohol, tobacco or psychotropic drugs. Her clothes emphasised her birdlike fragility; her hair was as black and glossy as in her youth. And she had prided herself that her most recent face-lift, at the age of seventy-five, would last her till her natural end.
But the face looked haggard and wizened. The eyes sagged. Turkey skin disfigured the chin-line. On her fine bone structure the result was appalling, a stark contrast to the featureless inscrutability she had cultivated both as a princess and as an oriental.
As the programme credits rolled to the sound of enthusiastic applause from the mystery audience, the Princess reached for the vidphone. She might not be able to exchange her birth certificate, but she could tackle its unwanted outcome, and at once.
The office of Rottweiler Security Services, situated in the heart of political London, was busy. On the wall the big vidscreen zizzed, untuned. A radio crackled; a voice could be heard, gruff and staccato, barking out orders in a drill room nearby. Mugs of instant coffee steamed untouched as Captain Wilt Finkelstein stood scratching his head.
For all that he cultivated the style and manners of a New York police chief (which, in another incarnation, Finkelstein was convinced he had been), he was purebred Essex Man, born Charlie Cooper. He had retired from the Met with a medal, a pension and a bullet-hole
in his groin. Active service, despite the bulging holster on his hip, was out of the question. The Met, however, looked after its own. What the public services could not provide was the fiefdom of private security firms. The best and biggest was Rottweiler, known for the splendid beast’s head on its leather jackets and for the uniformly stolid appearance of their guards. RSS operatives had a reputation as hard men who fulfilled orders efficiently and without haggling, a necessary consideration for the government contracts in which it specialised. Its chief executive, a former Met commander, was delighted to ensure that heroes such as Cooper/Finkelstein could continue in lucrative and respectable employment.
The door crashed open. In came the colleague Finkelstein thought of as his sidekick, Dave ‘Dozy’ Kowalsky. His real surname was Manningham-Buller, but the two men had agreed that it did not have quite the right ring. The adoption of another, harmless identity was quite common when men joined RSS. Kowalsky was carrying a chipped china plate piled high with pastries.
‘I shouldn’t,’ Finkelstein muttered, as he helped himself. ‘I’m not an NT, you know. My doctor says if I carry on like this my arteries will fur up, and it’s a bypass next. Maybe even a new heart.’
‘Sod it.’ Kowalsky was already chewing. ‘We need the energy. And we’re both in our prime.’ Since both men’s bellies sagged over their belts, that was not strictly true.
‘I won’t be if the big jobs keep coming in at this rate.’ Finkelstein indicated the electronic telefax machine. ‘Where do they think we’re going to get the staff? Protecting Parliament from outside is one thing. Uniforms, laser weapons, shoulders back: we’re used to that. Putting our men on the inside needs a different type altogether. Undercover, they say. I don’t like it. What for?’
Kowalsky wiped his chin with the back of his hand. ‘I shouldn’t bother your head about it, Wilt,’ he advised. ‘Ours not to reason why. They pay the bills, we do the contract. Maybe recruit a couple of smart girls, yeah? Kit ’em out in posh tunics from Harrods. Then they’ll look the part, blend into the background with all them MPs.’
Finkelstein glowered. ‘We’ll lose ’em. They’ll want to become MPs themselves. Or marry one. Lord knows what they see in politicians – must be the whiff of power. They don’t get no prettier.’ He paused. ‘And what about this? New American Ambassador. Got to keep an eye on him too.’
Kowalsky peered over his shoulder at the photograph and DNA details. ‘No problem.’ He shrugged. ‘Standard stuff, that. Nothing he’ll get up to that we won’t know about. And the automatic eyes keep most things in sight. Those cameras give me the creeps, so God knows what effect they have on the criminal fraternity.’
‘The eyes are the main reason for the fall in recorded crime as you well know, which is why you and me have reason to be grateful for these security jobs.’ Finkelstein was permitted by his rank to be portentous.
‘But Jeez, Wilt, d’you think anybody ever actually checks out the stuff we dig up?’
‘Nah,’ his captain agreed. ‘You’re right. It’s for show, and to keep the natives docile. Mostly, you an’ me, we’re wasting our time. So let’s get on with it, shall we?’
The dark-skinned man backed away, his face working. Outside the sun blazed; in the dank hospital, the air hung chill with death.
He waved helplessly at the flies that buzzed over the corpse. Already the orderly was disconnecting the drip lines; what remained on the stained bed was a disintegrating collection of organic molecules, not a human being.
Yet this had been his friend, someone he had learned to trust, to care about. That had been against the odds; for a prison official to befriend an inmate was most unusual, and probably forbidden. Even here in Kashi, on the edge of the unknown, somewhere between the borders of the enlarged Union and the vast brooding might of China.
Not that he, Ranjit Singh Mahwala, was the usual run of warder, any more than the dead man was a typical convict. His friend had been a cool, dedicated man, a political prisoner, who had lifted the lids on Ranjit’s eyes and guided him as to the true nature of the programme, the Union, and what its leaders were attempting to do. Those discussions, under cover of prisoner re-education, had been a revelation. Answers had been summoned for many of the tangled dilemmas in the Sikh’s brain: not least, the white child born of his brother’s wife, and the pinch of green powder that was added to every prisoner’s daily diet.
And then this man, with his tattooed thumb, his whimsical smile and his passion for truth, had sickened; here in the desert steppes the latest medical science did not reach, though genuine efforts had been made. But saving a lifer was hardly a top priority. Only one blood transfusion had been sanctioned by the Minister and it had been insufficient. Ranjit suspected that the prisoner’s name was significant. He was obviously a high-bred NT and had once, he told Ranjit, been in government himself. They were probably happy to see him dead.
Who would mourn? Not the hospital staff. Not the other guards. Indeed, he would have to hide his own grief. He was surprised he felt so bitter, both over the loss and the discoveries, those insights he had gained in recent months from the dead man.