Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [13]
The woman was coming back downstairs as Christian stepped out of his prison uniform. He crouched behind the bed, pul ing the suit trousers down to him, but she walked past the door. He waited a couple of seconds, but the woman didn't go back downstairs. Instead he heard pipes rattling, and a shower splutter then burst into life.
Christian pulled the trousers on, and half-buttoned up his shirt. He took the provisions he had taken from the kitchen and distributed them around the pockets of the jacket. He slipped the jacket on and tested that the weight of the items was evenly spread-out and that nothing rattled when he moved.
He moved back over to the windowsil . Out across the rol ing country, the straight line of the A2 was visible, sunlight glinting off the windscreens of a string of cars. There was also a good view of the woodland from here: the crash-site had been surrounded by emergency vehicles. Shouts and engine noises drifted across the fields from time to time. Their efforts seemed concentrated towards the crash itself, no-one was looking for him yet. It was only a matter of time. He plucked fifty pence in change from the ashtray. The coins were odd, and at first he thought they were foreign. The five and ten pennies were smaller, there was a twenty pence piece that was a peculiar shape.
Christian tiptoed over to the door. The shower was still running, he could hear the woman moving around underneath it. He pulled down the bedroom door handle, guiding it open with his other hand. Then he edged forward.
The bathroom door was wide open.
Christian could have frozen, but he didn't, he carried on past the doorway and down onto the first of the stairs. He tensed, prepared to grab the woman when she came to investigate. Only when he was ready for that did he allow himself to piece together what had happened. He'd glimpsed her: the first woman he'd seen for nineteen years, in the shower stal , water dripping from her back and down the side of her breast. She'd been half-facing away from the door, bent over to rinse off her hair. She hadn't seen him.
Christian wanted to talk to her, he wanted to explain things, to tell her the truth. He wanted to see her again. He hesitated.
The shower shut off. Christian lurched down the stairs, forgetting at first the noise the boards made when they had weight on them. He reached the bottom without a plan. He had a minute to collect his thoughts: the woman was going to have to dry herself and get dressed before she came down. He couldn't get out through the kitchen door, the husband was out there. He opened up one of the other doors and discovered that it led down a short corridor into a hal way. Christian followed it, finding the front door just as the woman was coming downstairs.
***
'A coup? I find that very difficult to believe, Home Secretary.'
'That's what this information suggests to me, H. There are elements within society that are planning the overthrow of the British government.
'Call me Veronica,' the Director General of MI5 replied sweetly.
'Ha ha,' the Home Secretary chuckled. The man was an idiot.
Home Secretaries tended to be idiots, Veronica Halliwel reflected, or they wouldn't have accepted the job. There were three top cabinet posts below the Prime Minister himself, and nominally they were of equal rank. The Foreign Secretary flew around the world for free enjoying five star hotels and banquets at least three times a week. The Foreign Office staff and the network of Embassy staff did most of the actual work, and it was difficult to be unpopular at home or with your party unless you accidentally started a war, which happened, but not that often.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer had ultimate control of the economy. He set the levels of interest rates and taxation, and he also had the final say on public expenditure. That meant that he could tell his Cabinet col eagues exactly how much money they had to spend that year. It also meant that he'd retire to a dozen directorships