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“Are you all right?” A young man, a commuter, put a hand on Billy’s arm. He was looking at him curiously, the same way that the young mother had a few moments earlier.
He thinks I’m crazy, thought Billy. They all do. They don’t understand.
“I’m fine,” he said patiently. “I’m on the phone.”
“There’s no reception here, mate,” the man kindly. “We’re in a tunnel. See?”
Billy looked through the grimy windows into the blackness. Panicked, he shouted into his handset.
“Hello? HELLO?”
The young man was right. The line had gone dead.
The voice was gone.
The Select Committee meeting was getting heated.
“With respect, Home Secretary . . .”
“Don’t talk to me about respect, Giles,” Alexia De Vere said curtly. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it? These people have no respect. Not for our values, not for our institutions, not for our flag. And we’re too cowardly to stand up to them.”
“Cowardly?” the minister for agriculture muttered under his breath. “What the hell would a woman know about fighting for the bloody flag.”
Alexia turned on him like a rattlesnake. “What was that, Charles?”
“Nothing.”
“No, please. If you have something to say, do share it with all of us.”
The six men seated around the table eyed one another nervously, like schoolboys who’d gotten on the wrong side of their teacher. They were here to discuss the problem of migrant agricultural workers demonstrating in Parliament Square. The protests were becoming increasingly unruly. Last week two Albanian beet pickers had urinated on the Union Jack, an incident that had made the national news and ignited a renewed debate on immigration that the Home Office could have done without. Everyone was on edge, but the home secretary seemed to be particularly waspish this morning. Poor Charles Mosely, the agriculture minister, looked as if he were about to have his balls cut off.
“Do you think I’m some sort of second-class citizen, Charles?”
“Of course not, Alexia.” I think you’re a first-class bitch, and so do the rest of the cabinet.
“Good. Because the last time I checked, women and men were considered equals in this country.”
“I appreciate that, Home Secretary. The point is that none of us feels that throwing the book at these two young men is going to solve anything.”
“They’re very poor.” The trade and industry secretary spoke slowly, as if explaining something very simple to a small child. “Destitute, effectively.”
“Irrelevant,” Alexia said witheringly. “They’re criminal vandals and they’re pissing on the hand that feeds them. They’re turning this government into a laughingstock.”
Walking over to the watercooler, she filled a plastic cup, willing herself to calm down. She knew she was overreacting. Taking everything too personally. But she’d had a frustratingly sleepless night, fretting over yesterday’s meeting with Commissioner Grant, and for some reason the six unfriendly, embittered faces watching her around the table this morning were bothering her more than usual.
Alexia had played things cool yesterday, refusing to show weakness in front of Sir Edward Manning and the commissioner. As a woman in politics, one couldn’t afford to let one’s guard down, ever. But the truth was, she was frightened, filled with a deep sense of foreboding that she couldn’t seem to shake. She’d received threats before, of course, as prisons minister. But this business with William Hamlin and the fire-and-brimstone voice on the phone was different.
And the dog. She felt awful about the dog.
Normally Alexia would have been completely unfazed chairing a meeting in which every man in the room was against her. The envy and hostility around the table this morning was palpable, but it was nothing new. But today she felt tired and vulnerable. To make matters worse, when she finally got to sleep last night, she had a terrible nightmare, of the kind she hadn’t had in years—the drowning dream. Strong, dark currents pulling her under. Lungs filling with water, unable to breathe. Poor Teddy had done his best to calm her down, fetching her a glass of water at four in the morning. Afterward he’d fallen back to sleep, but Alexia had lain awake, watching the dawn break over the river with exhausted, bloodshot eyes.
Parliament broke for the long summer recess in a couple of weeks’ time. It couldn’t come soon enough for Alexia. Just thinking about her summer house on Martha’s Vineyard and spending time with Lucy Meyer, her only real girlfriend, filled her with a longing she could hardly describe.
“Alexia? Are you with us?” Giles Fring, from the immigration think tank Borders, was talking to her.
“I’m sorry, Giles. What were you saying?”
“We need to draft a statement, Home Secretary.” Fring’s irritated sigh spoke volumes. “We must reach some sort of consensus.”
