Ten Days. Gillian Slovo

      ‘It’s your daughter.’ Before she had time to press him, he was gone.

      She went after him as fast as she could, weaving her way past knots of people still picking over what had been discussed. She had to stop herself from knocking some of them to the ground. It was a short distance to the hall, but it seemed to take an age to get there. Then she found her progress even more impeded. People were moving forward but so slowly. She could not understand it. She stood on her tiptoes and looked over their heads to see that the crowd, instead of dispersing, was standing just outside the door.

      What had this to do with Lyndall? She’d been in and out during the meeting – bored, Cathy had assumed.

      ‘Excuse me.’ One last push and she was over the threshold.

      ‘Look.’

      Pius was smiling, and when she looked to the place he was pointing at, she understood why.

      The night was aglow. Not with a fire that burnt – that had been her first thought – but with a soft, shimmering light. It was like looking at a cluster of stars, except this light came not from the sky but from down below.

      ‘Your daughter and her friend did this.’

      So that’s why Lyndall and Jayden had been out so early. They must have gone to the wholesalers to buy tealights, which, in their glass containers, they had placed at regular intervals across the Lovelace. Down one of the gangways the river of light went and up another, as if following a route. And, yes, that’s what they were doing. The kids had marked out Ruben’s last walk with light and, yes again, her eyes confirmed it because there, in front of the community centre, was a great cluster, so many of them that it was from here that the impression of burning had come. A great flowing mass of light.

      She looked and she looked. Her vision seemed to blur.

      ‘Magnificent.’ Pius’s voice in her ear. ‘And to think they keep lecturing us that we have a problem with our youth.’

      She nodded but could not speak.

      Lyndall must be here somewhere. She had to find her. She scanned the crowd and sure enough there was her daughter standing next to Jayden.

      She could not speak, but she could do something better. She clasped her hands together and she put them over her heart and lowered her head and held it there, not in prayer but in appreciation of the great gift that they had been given.

       Saturday

       8 a.m.

      With his wife and daughters away for the weekend, Chief Inspector Billy Ridgerton, cadre-trained in public order critical incidents, had done a fellow officer a favour by agreeing to take his place on call.

      Last time he’d volunteered, there’d been major and almost simultaneous ructions in four different locations. He couldn’t be that unlucky again. To reinforce this conviction he’d got up late – late for him, that is – and made himself a cup of instant coffee that he drank standing up.

      The sun had yet to round the building, and for one glorious moment, as clouds swept across the sky, it looked as if the heatwave might be about to break. An illusion: the clouds soon dissolved, leaving a sky so blue it was clear they were in for another scorcher. He’d promised Angie he’d have a go at the unruly hedge that was strangely flourishing in the heat. Better start before it got too hot. But first he should check the available intel, just in case his services were going to be required.

      There were the usual football fixtures, all of which looked to be, in policing terms, well under control. There were also a couple of fairs in London’s parks which, barring the spontaneous immolation of a bouncy castle, shouldn’t cause much trouble, and a vintage car race that might at worst lead to a bit of a traffic build-up. The only item of concern was the vigil that was due in Rockham.

      Billy already knew of the death – an awful misfortune and one every copper dreaded – and he was familiar enough with Rockham to know that when things got hairy there, they really got hairy. Before he set to on the hedge, he decided to check if there were any issues by phoning the station and asking to speak to Rockham’s Commander, CS Gaby Wright.

      ‘She’s up north at a conference,’ he was told. ‘Policing for change or some such bollocks.’

      ‘Okay, so are there any issues?’

      ‘Issues?’ The sergeant sounded clueless: he must have been an acting, and a new one at that.

      ‘Any likelihood of things going pear-shaped?’ How much more clearly did Billy need to put it? ‘Any reason for me to get my kit? Come over? Lend a hand?’

      ‘Hold on a mo.’ Maybe he was a pretender rather than an acting, because he now covered the phone rather than putting Billy on hold, so that Billy could hear a muffled conversation, the bozo who’d answered consulting one of his colleagues and then at last coming back to say, ‘We’ve done a risk assessment and there’s no reason to be concerned.’

      There was always a reason in Rockham, but it wasn’t Billy’s job to point this out. He’d asked and they’d answered, and they’d ring if things started to go wrong. Shoving his mobile into a pocket, he went to the shed to fetch the clippers and a spade – he needed also to pull out all those bastard shoots which were coming up through the dried-up lawn – and then he set to dealing with the hedge.

       11 a.m.

      ‘Excellent choice.’ Peter made his way to the back of the garden to where Frances was sitting in the shade of the oak. ‘It’s far too stuffy inside.’ He leant over to kiss Frances. The dog, who had been lying under her chair, barked and would have nipped his leg had he not jumped smartly back. ‘What’s got into her?’

      ‘She’s hot like the rest of us.’ Frances laid the stack of Saturday papers she’d been leafing through onto the table. ‘How was Cabinet?’

      ‘Bloody.’ He sat down heavily in one of the wrought-iron chairs, nodding his thanks as Frances poured him a tumbler of iced tea. ‘Coventry wouldn’t be nearly far enough for them; they’d have sent me to Timbuktu if they could.’ He drank the tea in one and stretched out his glass for a refill. ‘The full Cabinet and not a single person as much as glanced my way. And when it was over, they evaporated faster than the clouds.’

      ‘I wouldn’t worry.’ Frances dropped ice from an ice bucket into his glass: ‘They’re only trying to figure out when to jump.’

      ‘Perhaps that’s it.’ He put his glass back on the table, and in doing so displaced one of the newspapers. ‘Oh. There’s my mobile. I wondered where it had got to.’ Despite the cooling effect of Frances’s iced tea, he was still desperately hot. He undid his laces and removed his shoes, checking that Patsy was out of biting distance before peeling off his socks. Such a relief. He stretched out his legs, feeling the dry grass prickle the soles of his feet. ‘The PM was off to the summit as soon as it was over. He made a point of saying that. Three times in fact. I guess he thinks that the sight of him grinning in a sea of world leaders will give him a boost.’

      ‘Too late for that. He’s already haemorrhaged too much support.’

      ‘I expect you’re right. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, though. At one point when he passed a note to the Foreign Secretary, his hands were visibly trembling.’

      When Frances did not reply, he looked across at her. Her gaze, he saw, was focused on his feet, or more accurately on his white socks, yellowed by perspiration, that he had taken off. Although her face was partly shaded by the oak, he wondered whether that was distaste in her expression. But, no, he must have been mistaken. When she raised her head, her blue eyes were clear and calm, and she was smiling as she said, ‘The PM’s lost it.’

      ‘So it seems.’ Politics was such a cruel game. ‘And so quickly. I can’t help wondering why.’

      ‘Who knows.