“Jesus, you’ve got a date for that already?” a worried Colin asked.
“Durr. It’s only the biggest event we’ve got left at Oakham. And it’s only six weeks away. Only total wanker losers don’t have anyone to go with. Haven’t you asked Vanessa yet?”
Colin and Tim swapped a mildly apprehensive glance. Tim knew this was all being done to distract him from smashing Simon into a pulp, but even so…
“I was going to ask Danielle, actually,” Colin said.
“Buzzt. Wrong answer. Philip’s taking her.”
“Shit! You’re kidding.”
Always happy to supply bad news, Simon smiled broadly. “He said he was asking her, he told me. If you’re desperate you could always ask Sophie; after all she’s not likely to have a male date, and we’re supposed to take a member of the opposite sex. How’s that for political incorrectness?”
Tim ignored the jibe about Sophie—that rumor had been flying for a long time now. He was wondering if it was too early to ask Annabelle if she’d go to the ball with him. It was the senior year’s last big social event. That put a lot of pressure on people to take part, and to do that you had to be a couple. Tim had two friends who’d made pacts with girls almost a year ago to go together. They weren’t dating or involved; they were just making sure they got in.
“Maybe I should ask Vanessa,” Colin muttered.
“You’re thinking of dumping Vanessa because she’s got tiny tits, aren’t you?” Martin said. “I know you.”
“So? She’s still a good laugh. I like her.”
“I thought you two were getting on all right,” Tim said.
“We are. It’s just I didn’t know Danielle was going with someone else.”
“Well, Zai’s certainly free these days,” Simon said. “Try asking her.”
Colin pulled a face. “I don’t think she likes me.”
“She never said that,” Tim assured him.
“And she’s certainly got bigger tits than Vanessa,” Martin said.
“Will you pack that in!” Colin said. “I don’t just go for their tits.”
“’Course not. There’s legs to consider as well.”
“Fuck off. Hey Tim, have they told you when your dad’s out yet?”
“Oh my,” Simon called out. “Did someone change the subject? It was all done so smoothly I can’t tell.”
“Four days,” Tim said. Lucy Duke had told them last night. It was the first time he’d spoken to her for more than thirty seconds, but he was desperate for every detail. The prospect of his father’s return left him elated and apprehensive at the same time. “We’ve got to take the Eurostar train over to Brussels on Tuesday. There’s going to be a big press briefing. The prime minister and the president will be there and everything.”
“Bloody hell,” Martin exclaimed. “You’re going to meet them?”
“Suppose so.”
“Well, make sure you tell them what we all think of them.”
7. AUNTIE
TIM HAD BEEN GIVEN the Honda e-trike for his sixteenth birthday. It was powered by a three-cell regenerator module, which gave it a top speed of eighty kilometers per hour; on a full tank of recombined electrolyte its range was six hundred fifty kilometers. The manor’s garage, with its solar panel roof and domestic regenerator module buried under the concrete floor, was capable of supplying enough electricity to keep three big cars running all year round. An e-trike barely registered on the supply monitor. Not that Tim used it much during the winter months: Riding in the icy insistent rain was difficult and dangerous. Now that April was here, ending the succession of miserable damp days that comprised England’s new wintertime, he was taking it out again.
It took him barely ten minutes to ride over to Manton on Sunday morning, and that was using the shabby D-class roads linking the villages around the vast reservoir, the Europol team following a constant hundred meters behind in their Ranger. Manton was perched on the brow of the slope above Rutland Water’s eastern shore. What once had been a small village had been bolstered over the last four decades by a sprawl of extensive houses that all looked out over the water. They were primarily retirement estates, closed and protected from the rest of the world by a solid foundation of wealth, providing for every domestic and health requirement.
Tim’s aunt Alison lived there. She’d bought a two-bedroom bungalow, one of the smallest homes on the estate, but with the best view across to the reservoir’s peninsula. Tim braked the e-trike beside the wide gates that guarded the entrance to the estate and flashed his identity smartcard at the sensor post. They swung open slowly, and he drove in past the sign warning that Livewire Security guarded the estate with an armed response team. The Ranger slid in behind him.
Every house along the avenue had an immaculate garden, as if that was a clause of occupancy. This season’s daffodils and tulips were in full flower, carpeting the borders between perfectly geometrical GM conifers that came in an astonishing variety of colors. Jet-black, hemispherical mower robots grazed slowly on the lawns, the only source of activity while the residents sat around on their patios, warding off the sunlight with big canvas parasols. They were all over fifty, their skin and hair belonging to people twenty years younger. It was their movements, methodical and considered, that gave away their age. That and what Tim regarded as a truly awful dress sense—circa nineteen fifties golfers—which seemed to afflict the whole community.
There was a small burgundy-red BMW 23 series parked on Aunt Alison’s drive. Tim pulled up behind it and locked the e-trike. He had his helmet under his arm as he rang the doorbell.
“Tim!” his aunt exclaimed as she swung the door back. Her eyes narrowed as she saw the Europol team in their Ranger. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? Oh.” A palm slapped theatrically against her forehead. “You did. Didn’t you? Come in, darling. Sorry about the mess. Do the police have to come in with you?”
“No,” Tim said firmly.
Aunt Alison was his father’s sister, ten years younger and, as far as Tim was concerned, a lot more lively. She had the huskiest voice he’d ever heard; a gin-and-forty-cigarettes-a-day voice, his mother called it. Her whole easygoing attitude, her casual old-fashioned dress sense (though infinitely superior to that of her neighbors), and complete lack of domesticity made it plain to Tim that she’d had one hell of a good time when she was younger—and not so young, as well. He really liked Aunt Alison; they’d always got on well together, mainly because she always seemed to treat him like an equal. The one time he’d run out of the manor, age thirteen and after a particularly bad fight with his mother, this was where he instinctively headed.
“Are we going out for lunch?” Alison asked as she led him through the chaos that was her living room. Every wall was covered in big stainless-steel poster frames, holding blowups of the fantasy books she used to write. Nubile women in brass bikinis—or less—clung to bronzed, muscle-bound men as they fought off wyrms and goblin hordes with magic glowing swords; gloomy forests and dark castles tended to feature heavily in the background. The scenes had always inspired Tim when he was younger. He’d even loyally read a couple of Alison’s books, though he preferred straight science fiction himself.
“No. I was just coming to see you about dad and next Tuesday.”
“Oh right.” Alison went out onto the patio. “You remember Graham, don’t you, Tim?”
“Sure.”
Graham Joyce was sitting in one of the sunloungers. He leaned forward and gave Tim a firm handshake. “Tim, greetings and salutations.” For a man in his eighties he retained a remarkably vigorous air, possessing a gaunt face that genoprotein treatments had never quite managed to soften and a shock of unruly snow-white hair. His voice was like a forceful foghorn.