He shook his head. ‘The boy’s file is nothing to do with me. I’m sorry, Margaret, but I do have to go now. Perhaps we could discuss this some other time.’
‘He was found with a ring, apparently,’ Mrs Pincent continued, her eyes now boring into Stephen’s, which she noticed visibly widen as she spoke. ‘A gold signet ring with a flower engraved on the top and “AF” engraved on the inside. Do you remember a ring like that, Stephen?’
Stephen’s face went pale.
‘There are lots of rings around, Margaret,’ he said quickly, and stood up. ‘I really think it’s time for me to go.’
Mrs Pincent took a deep breath.
‘Stephen, you are not going anywhere until I know the truth.’
‘The truth?’ Stephen asked, his face now reddening in anger. ‘Don’t talk to me like that. What does someone like you need with the truth?’
‘My grandfather’s initials were AF,’ Mrs Pincent continued, her voice now tense. ‘He had them engraved on a gold signet ring with a flower on it. A ring he gave to me, Stephen.’
Stephen said nothing.
Mrs Pincent turned back to the window, pulling back the blind slightly to view the grey landscape outside. It was a fitting place to live, she’d thought to herself when she first arrived at Grange Hall. A fitting place to live out a half-life, taking out her misery on the creatures she hated above all others.
‘Stephen, I want to know the truth.’
Stephen stood up. ‘There’s nothing to say. I’m leaving now.’
He walked towards the door and grasped the handle, then shook it. He turned back angrily. ‘Margaret, unlock the door,’ he said. ‘Unlock it right now.’
Mrs Pincent ignored him.
‘Sit down, Stephen,’ she said calmly. ‘Our business is not yet finished.’
‘Oh yes it is,’ Stephen said angrily, marching over to Mrs Pincent and grabbing her arms. ‘Our business was finished years ago. Give me the key or I will be forced to break this door down.’
‘No!’ Margaret spat. ‘No. I will not give you the key. Why should I give you anything, Stephen? Why should I, when you took away the only thing that mattered to me in the whole wide world? When your slut, your treacherous mistress, killed my child.’
Stephen shook his head. ‘Come on, Margaret. Enough now. It was the rules, you know that. There was nothing I could do. Now give me the key, will you?’
‘Nothing you could do?’ Margaret hissed, feeling the bile rising up the back of the throat. ‘You and your slut stole my son’s life.’
Stephen dropped Mrs Pincent’s arms and slapped her around the face.
‘I will not listen to this,’ he shouted. ‘I will not tolerate these words. You will give me the key, or . . . or . . .’
‘Or what?’ Mrs Pincent asked again. ‘You’ll kill me like you killed our son?’
Stephen went white and reached for the desk to steady his feet.
‘Sit down, Stephen,’ Mrs Pincent instructed. ‘I want to know the truth, Stephen. I demand to know. So you can tell me the background of this Surplus Peter, or I can go to London and tell the Authorities about our son, the one you murdered. Which would you prefer?’
Stephen’s face was white and haggard.
‘Are you blackmailing me?’ he asked, his face incredulous. ‘You have as much to lose as I do.’
‘I have nothing to lose,’ Mrs Pincent said, in a low voice. ‘I lost everything years ago.’
‘This is hopeless. You know it’s hopeless,’ Stephen said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. ‘Why can’t you leave this alone?’
‘Tell me why this Surplus was found with my ring. Tell me how some Surplus dirt came to have the Pincent ring with him. Did they dig up my child? Did they rob our son’s grave? Tell me, Stephen. Who are his parents? I want them dead. I want them found, and . . . My son, Stephen. My . . .’
She started to weep. ‘He knew, Stephen. Our son knew his fate before he was even born. He refused to turn, refused to let the midwife deliver him. He didn’t want to be born, Stephen. And why would he, when the world no longer wanted him. When you no longer —’
‘Pull yourself together, Margaret,’ Stephen said angrily. ‘This happened years ago. It’s over.’
Feeling her chest constricting and her breaths shorten, Mrs Pincent wrapped her arms around her stomach, her eyes searching for the truth in her ex-husband’s face.
‘If someone has ransacked my son’s grave, I will search them down and kill them. My son was denied legality and then life, and he will not be denied his heirloom.’ She stared into Stephen’s eyes. ‘The Surplus boy, Stephen. Why did he have my ring? And where is it now? What happened to it?’
‘Margaret, you’re hysterical,’ Stephen said, the tension showing in his voice. ‘And I have no idea where the ring is. I can barely remember it.’
‘The boy was found with a ring. My ring. And his file is classified. I want to know why, Stephen.’ Mrs Pincent had moved to the front of her desk now, and was leaning forwards menacingly.
‘I won’t listen to this any more,’ Stephen said, standing up hurriedly. ‘I won’t put up with this from you of all people. You are nothing, Margaret. You will not talk to me like that. What I did with our son or your ring is no longer your business. And if you tell a single soul, I will have you committed to a mental institution. Now, open this door, or I’ll knock it down myself.’
‘Tell me where my ring is,’ Mrs Pincent said.
‘I’ll tell you nothing,’ Stephen said bitterly and moved towards her. ‘Now give me the key.’
Immediately, as if by reflex, Mrs Pincent opened her desk draw, took something out of it. ‘Tell me, Stephen,’ she screamed. ‘You will tell me!’
Stephen’s eyes widened and the look of irritation on his face was suddenly replaced with something much closer to fear.
‘What are you doing, Margaret?’ he asked incredulously, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead. ‘What on earth are you doing with that?’
‘Just tell me.’ Mrs Pincent’s voice was raw now. In her hands, aimed directly at Stephen’s face, was a revolver. A revolver that she’d kept in her desk from her very first day at Grange Hall. Just in case it all got too much.
‘You’re insane,’ Stephen stammered, but he sat back down.
‘Just tell me what happened,’ Mrs Pincent said, ‘or I swear to you I’ll pull the trigger.’
Anna was alone in the cellar, and she was making a plan. Peter had been called up to the house to help write some coded messages for her parents’ Underground friends. She’d been given the Small – Ben – to look after until they were ready to leave.
Protectively, she held him to her, and smiled at him, feeling an incredible spark of love and exhilaration when he smiled back at her. He was the most perfect thing in the whole world, she thought. How could he be Surplus? Why would Mother Nature make something so beautiful if She didn’t need it and want it? It didn’t make any sense.
Having a plan made her feel better, like she was back in charge. Anna’s plan was to get caught and sent back to Grange Hall. If she was caught, she reasoned, the Catchers wouldn’t worry about chasing the others. The Authorities had only had Peter in Grange Hall for a few weeks, so they’d barely miss him, whereas she was going to be a Valuable Asset. If she went back, Peter would be safe. Ben would be safe.
She’d die before letting the Catchers take her brother away. She’d never known you could feel anything but disdain for Smalls, but now all she wanted was for Ben to grow up surrounded by love and affection, not the grey walls and discipline of Grange Hall.
As she tenderly stroked Ben’s head, she heard the trapdoor open and saw Peter’s face appear at it. He climbed down the ladder into the cellar, followed by her mother.
‘This is for you,’ he said proudly, offering her a yellow flower. ‘It’s a daffodil,’ he continued, then leant down to whisper in her ear. ‘When we’re in the country, we’ll have flowers everywhere. Flowers for my butterfl
y.’
Anna took the flower and gazed in wonderment at it – it was so bright, so fragrant. Then she took a deep breath.
‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I was thinking that I wouldn’t go. To the country.’
Peter frowned. ‘Don’t be stupid. You have to.’
‘No, I don’t,’ Anna said seriously, standing up and looking at her mother and Peter pleadingly. ‘You have to leave me here. Then you can all escape and they won’t come after you, and you’ll be safe. They’ll never stop looking for me because I’m nearly a Valuable Asset, and if they find me, they’ll find you, and Ben —’
‘I’m not going anywhere without you,’ Peter said hotly. ‘Stop being stupid. If anyone should stay behind, it’s me. This is your family, not mine.’
‘I’m not being stupid,’ Anna retorted. ‘And it’s my fault the Catchers are coming, not yours. I’m being sensible. I’m being —’
‘Anna, sit down a moment, will you?’ Her mother, who had been looking at them both sadly, came over to the sofa and sat down with Peter and Anna either side of her, taking their hands in hers.
‘Let me tell you both a story,’ she said, her voice soft and kind. ‘This story is about a man and a woman who loved each other very much, and who wanted to have children, because, contrary to what you were taught at Grange Hall, Anna, Nature is not about preserving old things, but about creating new ones. New life. New ideas. Like your daffodil. It will die, eventually, but in its place will come new daffodils. That’s the way things should be.
‘Now, this man and woman went to the Authorities, and said that they would like to Opt Out of Longevity, so that they could have a child. But the Authorities said that they couldn’t, because you had to Opt Out when you were sixteen, and if you didn’t, you were deemed to have agreed to the Declaration. The man and woman said that they hadn’t known they’d want to Opt Out when they were sixteen, that they’d been too young. But the Authorities told them that it was still impossible to Opt Out now, and that they couldn’t have a child.
‘So they were very sad, but then they started to meet other people who weren’t allowed to have children. And they found out that not everyone thinks that Longevity drugs are a good thing after all, but that the drugs companies were so powerful that no one was allowed to question Longevity, and if they did, they ended up in prison. And so they joined something called the Underground Movement, and they decided to have a baby, even though they weren’t allowed to, because they believed that if they didn’t have children, the Authorities would have won, because if there weren’t any children, people would forget about them, and everyone would have signed the Declaration, so there would never be any children again.
‘So they had a child, and she was the most beautiful little girl, and she made them so happy they thought they would burst, even though they had to keep her a secret. They loved that little girl more than anything in the world, but they made a mistake. They met a woman, who said she wanted to join the Underground Movement, who said she and her husband wanted to have a baby. They trusted her, and they told her about their little girl, and a week later, the Catchers arrived and took their baby away, and put the man and the woman in prison, and they screamed and screamed for their little girl, but it was no use.
‘A few years later, they were let out of prison, and they changed their names and joined the Underground Movement again, and the Movement gave them a new house to live in, here in Bloomsbury. And then one day, they were lucky enough to meet a boy called Peter, whom they loved very much and who agreed to live with them. And then they became even happier when they had another baby, this time a little boy. But all that time, they were still very sad, because they didn’t have their little girl. They hadn’t protected her. And now she was paying the price, locked away in Grange Hall.
‘Now, Peter, here, was a very brave and wonderful boy, and he decided that he was going to save their little girl. The man and woman were worried for him, but he refused to take no for an answer, and they told him what their little girl looked like, that her name was Anna, and that she had a butterfly on her stomach, a little mark from Mother Nature to show the world that she should be free . . .’
Anna’s mother squeezed her hand.
‘You see, my darling,’ she said, her voice catching slightly, ‘none of this is your fault. And if you go back to Grange Hall, then everything will have been a waste. You and Peter and Ben are what matter. You are the future. You’re what everyone in the Underground is fighting for – young people, new blood and new ideas. That’s what Renewal should be about, not keeping old people alive.
‘The Authorities don’t want people to Opt Out, they don’t want any new children, because that might change the balance of power. They like things the way they are, and they’re afraid of change, so they suppress it. They kill it off at the roots. You are the revolution, Anna. You, Peter and now Ben. And you have to keep yourself safe because you have a responsibility to live, for all our sakes.’
Anna nodded seriously, and looked at Peter, whose eyes were flashing with determination.
‘You see?’ he said, his voice strangled. ‘Now do you see?’
‘I see,’ Anna whispered, then she turned to face her mother.
‘Do you still take Longevity?’ she asked.
Her mother nodded.
‘We take Longevity because we don’t want to stand out. And because we didn’t want to get ill, not whilst you were still locked away in Grange Hall. But now . . . well, now things are different. We don’t need it any more. Not so long as you’re safe with us.’
Anna bit her lip. ‘Mrs Pincent told me my parents were selfish,’ she said, feeling a lump appear in her throat. ‘She said I should hate you. And I did . . .’ She swallowed furiously. ‘But now,’ she continued, ‘now I’m proud to be your daughter. I’m so proud. And I won’t let you down. I promise.’
Her mother smiled, and Anna could see tears in her eyes.
‘You could never let us down,’ she whispered. ‘None of you could. Now don’t worry, my darlings. We’ll get away, far away from here, and everything is going to be fine. Just wait and see.’
Chapter Twenty-five
Frank smiled as Bill held his knife over Mrs Parkinson’s fingers.
‘Now, Christopher,’ he said to her husband. ‘You don’t mind me calling you Christopher, do you? Christopher, you know we don’t want to hurt your wife. Don’t want her mutilated, any more than we’d want our own wives mutilated. Fingers come in handy, Christopher, we know that. It’s just that we’ve got a job to do here, same as anyone else, and we’re not sure you’re really telling us what we need to know. Look at it from our perspective. Here we are, trying to track down some Surpluses, some escaped Surpluses, in fact, and we know they’re hiding with some neighbours of yours. Next door, for all we know. But you tell us you know nothing about it. And we find that hard to believe, Christopher. You see what I’m saying? Odd that you’d never have heard a single sound, or suspected anything at all . . .’
Slowly, Bill brought the knife down on Mrs Parkinson’s little finger, and Mr Parkinson shouted out.
‘No! Please, God, no! I think they might live at number fifty-three. Or number fifty-five. One or the other. That’s all I know – you hear rumours, that’s all. Please, oh my God, what have you done?’
‘There, that wasn’t too hard, was it?’ Frank said, beaming, as Bill put his knife away in a small leather box. ‘You’ve been a pleasure to do business with, Christopher. We’ll let ourselves out, shall we?’
Running to his wife’s side to stem the blood that was pouring out of her hand, Mr Parkinson barely noticed them leave.
‘I couldn’t kill him. I couldn’t kill the boy.’
Mrs Pincent reached behind her for her chair, all the time holding the gun straight at Stephen, all the time keeping her arms steady, even though the rest of her was shaking violently.
‘You couldn’t kill him?’ she asked hoarsely. It was the conclusion she’d refused to
draw, the truth she hadn’t been able to face. Now that it had been uttered she felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. Her son was alive. Her son was . . .
Mrs Pincent gasped as the awful truth hit her. Her son, alive. Her son, the Surplus, the boy with the eyes that bore into her with hatred. The boy she had . . . No, no, it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.
‘I never agreed with you that we should kill the boy. A life is a life, Margaret, however it’s lived,’ Stephen was saying. ‘But I couldn’t stand him being a Surplus. So I left him outside a house known to have Underground sympathisers living in it. Faked a burial. Margaret, I couldn’t kill the boy . . .’
He was sobbing now, his large body juddering as he wept, his eyes seeking hers for what – forgiveness? Sympathy? He would get none from her.
‘With the ring?’ Somehow she managed to keep her voice steady, her mind too. She had to, she told herself. For her son. For everything she’d promised him and failed to deliver.
Stephen looked at her, then continued to weep.
‘Did you leave the ring with him?’ she asked again. She had to know for sure. ‘Did you or not?’
‘Yes.’ His voice was pathetic. ‘Yes, I did.’
‘And now? Where is it now?’
‘It was sent to your father for safe keeping when the boy was apprehended.’
‘My father? He knew? You both knew?’ Margaret’s head was throbbing and her body almost convulsing with the shock, the pain, but her mind was clear. Clearer than it had been for many years.
‘You turned my child into a Surplus,’ she said quietly, her eyes full of hatred as they rested on her ex-husband. ‘Then you took him away, and you gave him to criminals to raise. My son . . .’
‘I didn’t think —’
‘Quiet!’ Mrs Pincent screamed. ‘You do not talk to me unless I ask you to. You don’t deserve to talk to me. You . . .’
She started to sob quietly, but immediately stiffened again. Stephen was sly and strong, and if he saw her weaken, he would take full advantage, she knew that. The minute the gun was not trained at his head, this would be over.