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The stage set and sound system arrived in the north of the island at night from France, so it was said, because the Jersey authorities refused to allow it in through official channels. Whether that was true, no one knew. The first bit was, but that might be because the authorities couldn’t get it across land with all the festival-goers. Lots of roads became inaccessible, and meanwhile the Jersey States claimed they were cooperating with the organisers – Hannah and her friends – to keep the event ‘safe for tourists’. No one really knew how deep that ran, or what, if anything, was going on behind the scenes that might compromise or even sabotage it. Tensions abounded. Whether the rock concert would be a success or a disaster or take place at all remained an open question almost to the last minute, and there came a point at which everyone involved wished it had never even been proposed.
In the end, money stepped in, ironically in the form of a local financier and philanthropist who agreed to provide security at his own personal expense, so that, as he put it ‘everyone could finally sleep at night’.
Back in London, the Director of Public Prosecutions struggled to discover a charge under which the six conspirators could be brought to trial. On one interpretation, they had colluded to breach the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014; but the legislation’s application was anything but clear cut. Could they be brought up on the older Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000? Possibly, but nothing was thought to proscribe the withholding of information by agents actually inside the institutional body responsible for gathering it. How far could allegations of professional misconduct be converted into charges of criminality? There were no precedents, hence no one knew. It might get quite a long way in court before a judge decided it couldn’t stand.
The problem was complicated by the discovery that a small group of Hollywood celebrities had apparently been corralled to deflect media attention in advance of the protests. Corralled by what or whom, no one knew – the BBC called it a ‘missing link’ - but the idea was that the protests would help create a world in which no one need ever cross the Mediterranean in a refugee boat again.
Finally, in the absence of any clear-cut plan of action, the Prime Minister ordered a judicial review, and, in the meantime, set up a public inquiry. Since everyone knew that public inquiries nearly always went on twice as long, and cost twice as much as expected, this was supposed to demonstrate his commitment whilst deferring at least some of the accountability. Meanwhile, a small group of senior intelligence officials at Fort Meade, Maryland, USA, gave themselves up to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Mordred flew in to meet his patents in Saint Helier and on 30 August at 2pm, the day before the festival commenced. They tried to get over to Plemont, but there seemed no way that didn’t involve a long hike across difficult terrain. Pleading concern at the probable lack of toilet facilities, his parents decided to watch events on TV at the hotel. “We’ll probably see much more there,” his father said. “We’ll look out for you. Give us a wave if you see a camera.”
Mordred made his way to Plemont alone, and spent the day watching band after band he’d never heard of and wishing he’d bought something more to drink.
The whole thing struck him as a little like the closing scenes of an American teen movie: the adventure was over, the good guys had triumphed, now it was time to rock a stadium. Twelve bands were scheduled, climaxing with Fully Magic Coal Tar Lounge at 10pm. At 11, Hannah and Soraya performed their two-song duet. Since Hannah couldn’t really sing, and since she was clearly too nervous to throw herself into it, this bit was refreshingly unlike any episode of Glee ever filmed.
Throughout the day, volunteers collected money to help the refugees in the Mediterranean. Film stars arrived from the United States, including Jennifer Hallowell and Roger Scheffler. Once it was clear there wasn’t going to be any violence, new bands, some of them quite famous, also started arriving, looking to play a set so they could tell their fans they’d been there.
After the long-awaited, now to be much-talked-about, Hannah-Soraya renditions of A Begging I Will Go and Bury Me Beneath the Willow, Hannah took the centre stage. Silence fell. Mordred’s heart went into his mouth. Mind-bogglingly odd, yet true: all these people – every last one – knew who she was.
She said it had been a long journey from when they arrived in Jersey to today, but that she now realised they were fighting more than tax evasion. They were fighting the way modern business, in its biggest manifestations, worked. They were fighting for the poor against the super-rich. They were even fighting for the middle-classes – of which she was a member – against the super-rich. They were fighting against privatisation and profiteering and social injustice and environmental destruction. All those things were interlinked.
“But I also realise,” she went on, “that any movement that wants to win against this sort of rapacious capitalism can’t stand still. Capitalism keeps re-inventing itself – that’s its greatest strength – and if we don’t at the very least match it in terms of creativity, we stand no chance. These quaint Jolly Rogers – I’ve become so attached to them, but in a month’s time, they’ll be as passé as a second-hand Che T-shirt – will have to go. What am I proposing for the future? This has been a great evening, and it might feel like the end to some of you people. But it’s only the beginning. Come gather round people, wherever you roam. Jersey, Guernsey, Caymans, the City of London, Delaware, Hong Kong, Singapore – remember: you heard it here first. May the first, next year: invasion two point nought. Get ready for the second round in World War O!”
She waved and left the stage. People cheered. Journalists wrote. Cameras filmed. Fireworks went off. Out at sea, ships blared their horns like animals unaware of what they were excited about, only that they had to join in. Invasion 2.0. Due to be the headline banner in a hundred newspapers the following day. Another band took the stage. Its lead singer asked if everyone was ready to rock. A cheer went up, and the cheesy teen movie resumed.
The bands ran out of life at 3am. Fully Magic Coal Tar Lounge played Hard Times of Old England and that was the end. The crowds thinned, the temperature seemed to drop, and the sky seemed to darken. Whatever happened now, everyone was finally going home. Until May 1 next year, possibly, but that might turn out to be pie in the sky. These things often were.
It was 6am before Mordred found his sister. She sat with Tim and the Coal Tars and Jennifer Hallowell around a camp fire. They all looked dead beat, but they were laughing and singing and apparently toasting bread. They cheered when they saw him. Hannah got up and hugged him and introduced him to the film star.
“Someone just gave us a loaf and some jam,” Olly told Mordred. “Do you want some?”
“Actually, yes,” Mordred said.
“Where are mum and dad?” Hannah said. “You haven’t lost them, have you?”
“Back at the hotel,” he replied. “Watching everything on TV. They’ll be in bed now, of course. I tried to get them to come over, but I think they’d have been miserable.”
“You did the right thing,” she said. “What did you think of the duet?”
“It was, er, good.”
“I like that. ‘Er’ good. About sums it up.”
“Nice speech.”
“Thanks.”
He sat down and felt someone take his hand. He turned to see who it was. Soraya. “Hi, Jim,” she said.
He laughed. “Hi.”
“I’m not trying to chat you up,” she said, “but could you put your arm round me? I’m freezing.”
“All put our arms round Soraya!” Gaz said.
Four men bundled on top of her. She yelled and laughed. “Just Jim! That’s all! Just Jim!”
He gave her his jacket and put his arm round her. There were probably better ways of keeping her warm: build the fire up, for a start. There must be quite a lot of fuel around. Litter generally burned, and if you scrunched it up really tight, you could make it last. But she didn’t want to be just kept warm. She wanted a pillow to fall asleep on.
A few minutes later, Elliot suggested a dip in the sea. They all ran off. Tim and Hannah stopped about twenty yards from the fire and kissed.
“Have you ever loved someone so much it actually feels really painful?” Soraya asked miserably. “Like a burning kind of empty feeling in your chest?”
He’d assumed she was asleep. But okay.
“Once or twice,” he said in an attempt to keep it vague.
She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Yet you know you can never be loved back by that person in exactly the same way?”
He wondered who she was talking about. Then he caught her sight line.
Hannah.
Bloody hell, he’d better be careful here. Whatever the precise nature of their feelings for each other, they probably both considered the relationship priceless. Don’t put your foot in it.
“‘Exactly the same way’ isn’t the point,” he said gently. “I know she loves you. It may be platonic, but at a certain level of intensity, the distinction between different ‘types’ of love breaks down. It’s rare, but it happens. I know it does.”
She chuckled. “Come on, let’s go in the sea.”
The next day Hannah and Tim went to meet her parents in one of the ‘friendly’ cafés on the east of the island. She still hadn’t shown them her pregnancy, not in the flesh, and Tim still hadn’t officially informed them, so they both had cause to be nervous. They took Mordred and Soraya to deflect the expected ire. Soraya dressed down to look much less glamorous, and seemed almost as nervous about the occasion as the soon-to-be parents.
“Put in a good word for me, Jim,” she said, in the taxi over.
“I think Hannah’s already done that a million times over,” he said. “There aren’t that many left.”
“I must remember to call you by your real name.”
“Right. It’s Reginald.”
“What – really?”
“No, it’s just John’s idea of a really hilarious joke,” Hannah put in irritably from the front.
Soraya didn’t smile. She looked out of the car window like she had more important things on her mind.
The café was more like a little guest-house than a simple eaterie. It stood above the tide break against a long stretch of white sand and a blue sea, with nothing but fields in the landward direction. The wind was full. The sun shone. When they went inside, they all talked as a group and ate scones and drank tea. After a while, the women stayed in the lounge with more tea and the men went to watch TV in the snooker room. A 24-hour news channel showed live proceedings of the Collingson inquiry from the House of Commons. In the dock: Sir Ashley Cavendish, looking as if someone had just reached into the back of his jacket and flicked an ‘off’ switch. Someone had discovered his takeover of Horvath, and the inquiry had called him in for a wide-ranging grilling.
“You say the financial and insurance sectors contributed a lot of money to the UK economy last year,” Dame Hilda said. “To what extent do you think it is better to have a thriving financial and insurance sector than, say, a thriving manufacturing base, or a thriving scientific and technical sector?”
“The others couldn’t exist without the first,” Cavendish replied. “Obviously, you only get science and manufacturing to the extent that someone’s prepared to invest in them. That requires a thriving financial sector.”
“So if our financial sector is doing so well,” she continued, “how do you explain our relative inadequacy in the other two areas?”
“I wasn’t aware that they were inadequate.”
She read him a set of facts and figures and asked, “Could it be that the ‘investment’ of which you speak is nearly always provided on terms overwhelmingly favourable to the financial industry itself, and rarely if ever, coincides with the public good?”
“I think that’s a gross over-exaggeration,” Cavendish replied, as if he didn’t much care.
“Could you explain to the inquiry,” Donald Wynter said, “why the Lord Mayor of London has to represent the financial, as opposed to some other industry?”
“Obviously, because there are a lot of such businesses in the City of London,” Cavendish replied.
“But isn’t that circular?” Wynter persisted. “They presumably come there because you’re their international champion, or say you are. If I advertised myself as the global fish and chip shop champion, I dare say I’d end up with a lot of fish and chip shops in my constituency. It still raises the question of why I would do that in the first place.”
“I didn’t do it,” Cavendish said. “I inherited it. We all did, all Lord Mayors.”
“Going back to when?” Dame Hilda asked.
Mordred felt almost sorry for Cavendish now. It was obvious he wanted to swing for them. Nevertheless, he’d get through this, no problem. In a few months, he’d sink back into complete obscurity and a new Lord Mayor would take over. It was an excellent way of preserving the low-key anonymity of the office. Frequent changes of personnel, a bit like The Prisoner. Who are you? I am the new Number 2. Who is Number 1? You are Number 6.
His phone rang. Ruby Parker. He stood up. “Sorry,” he told his dad and Tim. “Work. I’ll take it outside.”
Luckily, there was a fire exit at the far end of the room, so he wouldn’t have to go through the lounge.
“Mordred,” he said, when he got outside. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine. You’re due back here in two days.”
“I know.”
“And I understand you promised to visit Fenella Decristoforo-Salvaterra this year.”
“Er, yes. How did you know about that?”
“She told me, obviously.”
“You’ve been in contact with her then. Is she okay?”
“Very much so. I’m pleased to say, I’ve persuaded her to join us.”
“Join us? You mean, as an agent? We’re not losing anyone, are we?”
“I’m happy to report that Annabel’s both staying and fully committed to her marriage. Although the latter’s none of my business, I’m pleased for her sake. And Tariq’s, obviously.”
“What makes you think Fenella will be any good as a spy? I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s a very intelligent woman - ”
“Pretty soon we’ll be approaching the third decade of the twenty-first century, and we’ve got to keep moving forward. Edna was my first step in that direction. I hired her as Edna Watson superstar, she may have told you why. I hired Fenella Decristoforo-Salvaterra in the same spirit. If World War O is more than a flash in the pan – and I think it is – we’re going to need people who can get into the topmost echelons of high society. Edna can. And so can Fenella.”
“I thought she was in mourning.”
“She can’t waste the next fifty years of her life being Queen Victoria. I gave her a good talking-to and persuaded her to reinvent herself. She can give you the details. She’s very much looking forward to working with you. I’m only ringing to give you an option. Instead of flying back to rainy London in two days’ time, you can fly direct to Saint Martha’s Rock. Entirely at our expense.”
“Does she actually want to see me now? Have you told her I’m coming?”
“I was last in contact with her this morning. Peter died a few days ago. Which brings me to the other reason I’m ringing.”
“There’s more?”
“He made a significant bequest to your sister in his will.”
“He said he’d do something for her. What do you mean, ‘significant’?”
“Where are you now?”
“The Carteret Café on the east of the island. Why?”
“Look around yourself. You may be interested to know she now owns whatever you can see.”
“The café? She owns the café?”
“That’s just the beginning.”
He sat down on the step. “Carry on, then ...”
“She also owns a lot of the land you can probably see from the window. She owns the farmhouse in which you took shelter during the hurricane – or what remains of it: it’s being rebuilt - along with the farm itself. She owns ten properties in Saint Helier, a significant stretch of the north Jersey coast, and fourteen acres of mainly fields around Plemont. In short, she totality of Peter Decristoforo’s significant possessions on the island. On condition that she doesn’t sell them, and allows the existing tenants to continue living there in perpetuity.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Quite.”
“And Fenella isn’t going to contest it?”
“It was partly her idea.”
“Do you know how anyone’s intending to tell Hannah? I mean, in such a way that she doesn’t think it’s a practical joke, and she doesn’t have a coronary?”
“It’s customary for the family solicitor to break the news. I understand he’s on his way to the island now.”
“From where?”
“Heathrow.”
“Well, I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to prepare the ground for something like that. I just hope she isn’t standing on a cliff edge when she faints. Do you think you could ring the solicitor and tell him where we are? And I’ll try and keep her here?”
“I’m sure I can manage that. I now need to ask you explicitly. Are you going to Saint Martha’s Rock on Wednesday, or are you coming back here?”
“The former, please.”
“In that case, I’ll be in touch soon with the flight details. Have a pleasant remaining few days in Jersey.”
