Blue Ishiguro had survived Kobe, a disastrous earthquake his science had failed to foretell. Many of his family had died there. And now, here he was, surviving again, hale and healthy, even well-fed, where so many others had died.

He was, he thought, cursed with life.

So he laboured with the soldiers for hour on hour, burying himself in the dirt and stench of it, pausing only when his body betrayed him, and dry heaves racked his stomach.

12

The Prime Minister, Dave Holland was told, was up on the roof garden.

So Holland had to wheeze his way up the stairs past the Strangers” Gallery, then through a fire door to the roof. His thick gut gurgled as he climbed, laden with a good dinner and a couple of beers, and he was wheezing and red-faced by the time he stood in the glow of the central skylights that illuminated the chamber of the House of Commons below.

He took a minute to recover himself, and he dabbed at his sweating face with a huge, discoloured handkerchief. The House was working, even so late, as the members forced through one package of emergency legislation after another.

He could see Bob Fames standing by the balustrade at the far end of the terrace, looking north. The Prime Minister was alone up here — save for the discreet presences, in the shadows of the garden, of his PPS, Pearson, and a couple of Special Branch men.

Holland knew the roof garden well. The view was spectacular, even so late at night. To his right he could see the Thames, the crammed pleasure boats like bubbles of light on the black stream of the river. There were a lot of boats, in fact, reflecting the mood that seemed to be sweeping the country, like a rerun of the millennium.

To his left he overlooked the tiled roof of Westminster Hall, the oldest part of the Palace of Westminster, mostly shadowed now. And before him was the tower of Big Ben, its carved sandstone fascias glowing golden in the light of the spots at its feet, and the big translucent clockface shining from within. The traffic of London sent a subdued, continuing roar into the air, a river in itself.

He’d often used this spectacular place, high above the seat of British sovereignty, to host functions — the cocktail party for MPs he held when he was running for the Party leadership against Fames, for instance — and for more private conjunctions, with two or three of the prettier research assistants who still flocked to the Commons, attracted like moths to the fat old drunks who worked here.

But tonight, it wasn’t the same.