She threw herself at Oz, as if she could hold him up all by herself. She couldn’t, of course. Renie pushed the messy tangle of the three of them in the direction of the van, then yanked Jessica’s arm away so Luke had room to fold Oz onto the backseat. Jess gave a sob and pressed her face against his soiled boilersuit, and from the darkness of the van a large, mangled paw reached out to pet her hair. Jessie grabbed it and kissed it.
‘We’ve got to get moving, Jess.’
Then Renie’s face was lit up by a freakish glare, as a plume of chemical fire shot high over buildings several blocks away. Foul, acrid smoke drifted towards them, and Luke tasted it as he heard the patter of debris raining down on a rooftop nearby.
‘Time to go,’ said a voice from the driver’s seat. ‘Close it up, Renie.’
Angel. Luke had forgotten all about her. Looking at her face as she leaned out of the window, he wondered how that had been possible. Her blonde hair was stuffed up under a beanie hat and both hands gripped the wheel.
‘He’s safe now, I promise. Don’t worry about Jackson; he’ll be fine, too. Just look out for yourselves. Split up. Go home. Take different routes – not that direction, obviously.’
Angel nodded at where the smoke was still pluming upwards. The sky was lit with unpleasant shades of blue and orange, resembling a firework show for the colour-blind.
The engine was already running. As she tested the accelerator Luke stayed stupidly where he was, staring through the open cab window.
Then she reached out and – unbelievably – touched her fingers to his cheek. He felt that electric tingle again, and couldn’t take his eyes from her perfect face.
‘Be safe, Luke Hadley,’ Angel said.
She gunned the engine and the vehicle tore away into the night.
13
Bouda
‘They used Skill?’
‘That’s what I said.’
Her future husband crossed his arms, his face reddening at her scepticism.
Bouda sighed. Was this how married life would be? Gavar getting truculent at the slightest provocation: ‘Was it the marmalade you wanted, darling?’ Glower. ‘That’s what I said.’ ‘Is your great-aunt coming for tea today, my love?’ Scowl. ‘That’s what I said.’
She’d find out soon enough. Tomorrow was the Second Debate, at Grendelsham. They would be married at Kyneston after the Third. Three more months.
How would it have been if fate had delivered her one of the other Jardine sons: Jenner, or Silyen? Jenner would have been out of the question, she supposed. If he’d been the eldest, Whittam would have disinherited him. And Silyen? Well . . . maybe there were worse things than Gavar’s short temper.
And perhaps the strategies she learned for dealing with him would come in useful when they had babies.
‘But I understand from your father’ – she looked over at Whittam to enlist his support, and he gave a confirmatory nod – ‘that the escape can be explained entirely by Millmoor’s own lax security protocols.’
She counted off their failings on her fingers, wincing at the garish turquoise polish on each nail. Dina had returned from Paris in the small hours, spilling noisily through the door with bags of designer nonsense and exorbitantly priced cosmetics. She had insisted on giving her sister a manicure after breakfast, even though there were slaves for that sort of thing – ‘Because politicians can be pretty, too!’ There was another fortunate accident of birth, Bouda supposed. Just imagine if DiDi had been the Matravers heir.
‘The perpetrators wore valid identity bands. And because they posed as Administration Security, the fact that they were unknown to the prison guards didn’t raise suspicion.’ She folded down two fingers, counting. ‘Your father has just received confirmation that they compromised the CCTV cameras, too. They were also monitoring Security’s communications channels, which is how they knew you were coming.
‘And above all, they held their nerve. If Walcott’s escape weren’t so exasperating, I’d applaud their brazenness. Walking out with the prisoner, while telling the imbeciles on duty that you were the breakout team.’ She folded down the last finger. ‘All in all, more than enough reasons to explain how they extracted the prisoner from under the noses of such incompetents.’
Gavar held his ground, looming over her where she sat on the sofa. She wasn’t intimidated. They were in the snug sitting room of Daddy’s little Mayfair bolt-hole. Everything here was as cosily over-upholstered as Daddy himself, and Bouda felt secure. This was home territory.
‘It was more than that,’ Gavar insisted. ‘I daresay slavetown Security aren’t recruited for their intelligence, but for those guards to have fallen for such a simple trick? And me? I walked straight past them. Didn’t spare them a glance.’