Read Online Fifty-First State by Hilary Bailey - Free Book Online Page B

trying to scrape a piece of egg from the pavement, which brokeunder the pressure of his nails, he began to cry again. ‘I threw my bird’s egg away. It’s my fault – I threw it away.’
    Rory’s grandfather did the only thing he could think of. He knelt down and began to lift tiny pieces of crushed eggshell from the pavement with his penknife. The photographer began to approach them from across the road. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ Kim’s grandfather told the boy. He dropped a few pieces into an old envelope he had in his inside pocket. ‘Mr Arthur!’ the photographer called. ‘Are you Mr Arthur?’
    â€˜We’d better go, Matt,’ urged Mrs Arthur.
    â€˜Just a minute,’ said Matt Arthur. He lifted up another tiny scrap of blue and dropped it in the envelope. ‘That’s it, I think. Do you think that’s all of it, Rory?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said the boy in a low voice.
    â€˜Mr Arthur?’ asked the photographer, on the pavement now.
    â€˜Go away,’ said Matt Arthur. The photographer backed away as Rory and his grandparents advanced towards the car. He bent down, ‘Are you Rory Durham?’ he asked.
    Matt Arthur pushed him. ‘Get out of the way.’
    â€˜Mr Arthur,’ called one of the hurrying men. But the Arthurs’ car was moving. Inside, Rory wept over his palm, in which three little pieces of blue eggshell lay. Kim’s mother burst into tears herself. A car followed them for a while, then gave up and turned back.
    43 Basing Street, London. June 12th, 2015. 4.30 p.m.
    Julia Baskerville put a mug of tea in front of the Deputy Leader of her party and said, ‘I wouldn’t have asked you round if it wasn’t important.’
    She and Mark Moreno were in the sitting room of her small house in Whitechapel. This room, because of the size of the house, a former workman’s cottage, was also the dining room. The dining table stood against the back wall, covered in files and papers. Mark was on the couch, in front of the TV, Julia leaning towards him on a low, buttoned chair. Mark, a very tall, thin and balding forty-year-old, looked weary.
    â€˜The point is,’ Julia said urgently, ‘We all know Muldoon’s on his way out unless there’s a miracle. And Petherbridge is likely to be the next PM. He’s tough and right wing. And who’ve we got? Carl Chatterton. So I and the usual suspects want to put you up.’
    â€˜You always want to put me up, Julia,’ Moreno said. ‘And I always refuse.’
    â€˜It matters, Mark. More than ever—’
    â€˜I know. But I don’t want to split the party. That matters, too, now, more than ever.’
    â€˜The last time I saw Chatterton he couldn’t even remember my name.’
    â€˜I’m not saying he’s got spectacular people skills—’
    â€˜He hasn’t got any spectacular skills—’
    â€˜He’s a good number cruncher. He did an excellent job in the Treasury.’
    â€˜And then he got promoted above his capacity,’ Julia said. ‘Mark, we all know what happened. It was between you and Blackwood. Half the Party didn’t want Blackwood. The other half didn’t want you—’
    â€˜That’s how it works,’ Moreno said.
    â€˜That’s how it worked. But the party in the House is with you now, ever since Blackwood backed US and British troops landing in the tribal areas in Pakistan, because they thought the Pakistan government hadn’t done enough to root out Al Qaeda there. And now they can’t find them if they were ever there and casualties are heavy – and that’s one good reason why Chatterton and Blackwood are discredited – more and more so, day by day, with every squaddie who dies out there. Come on, Mark – we should challenge now.’
    Mark Moreno looked at the thin, animated face opposite him. Hesmiled. ‘Leave