It wasn’t quite that simple, but it was close – he was handed a silver tray with four bottles of champagne.
‘We have the French: Clos du Mesnil, twelve-year vintage,’ the wine butler explained, peering at Luke to make sure he was absorbing the information and could relay it. ‘And English, from the Sussex chalk downs on the estate of Ide. They’re relatives of the Jardines.’
Luke eyed the cold-beaded bottle with loathing. Had the heir enjoyed swigging some before he assaulted Dog’s poor wife?
He nearly came a cropper at the outset. He emerged via a concealed service corridor and was following his ears to the din of the East Wing when he nearly tripped over a dog pattering down the hallway at speed.
It was a small, ludicrous beast with a squashed face. As Luke’s feet collided with it, the creature yipped in outrage and unleashed a stomach-churning fart. Gagging, Luke hurried towards the immense bronze doors set into the glass wall ahead.
On the other side of the door was a familiar figure: Abi, in a plain navy dress. She was holding a clipboard and standing next to Jenner Jardine, both of them beside a bloke only a few years older than Luke. He was done up in the full penguin outfit of tux and tails. He wasn’t prepossessing, with a dodgy haircut and cheeks full of pimples. If Luke was the grandest aristo in the land, he wouldn’t put someone like that on the door, to be the first face your guests saw.
A few moments later, though, he realized the guy hadn’t been chosen for his face. Just a few steps behind Luke came a middle-aged Equal in black tie, escorting a much younger girl wearing a scarlet gown gaping wide across the breastbone. Even Luke’s seventeen-year-old brain thought the effect was somewhat desperate.
Jenner Jardine leaned over and whispered something in Abi’s ear. Abi consulted the clipboard then held it in front of Pimples, pointing with her pen. In an unexpectedly sonorous voice, he announced the new arrivals.
‘Lord Tremanton and Heir Ravenna of Kirton.’
A few guests looked up, but the entrance of lord and heir went largely unremarked. The girl’s head swivelled this way and that, searching the room, before her father gave her arm a discreet but not especially gentle tug. He led her down the few steps into the vast chamber.
The East Wing resembled an immense aviary, raucous with the squawk of conversation and the coo of a jazz singer at a microphone in one corner. It was filled from wall to wall with a multicoloured flock of Equals in their finery. Black-clad slaves darted unobtrusively here and there, like some dull, inferior species released among them by mistake.
You’d never know, thought Luke, gazing around, that there’d been some kind of coup that morning. That the Chancellor had been ousted by the host of tonight’s party, Lord Jardine. Was this the Equals’ idea of a revolution? They’d find it no party when the people rose up.
As glasses were thrust in his face for refilling, Luke’s thoughts took him to Millmoor. During the long, dull days with Albert he’d planned every detail of how he might return. How he’d hitchhike, striking away east up the country. Then he’d travel across to Sheffield, up to Leeds and over the top of the Peak District.
His microchip would presumably alert Security when he re-entered Millmoor’s perimeter. He hoped Leeds might hold the answer. In the rougher bits of the city he’d be able to find someone who’d escaped from its notoriously lawless slavetown, Hillbeck. They’d know what to do about the implant; could maybe get it out without the sort of butchery Renie had inflicted on herself.
‘You’re miles away, my lad,’ said a voice, not unkindly.
Luke snapped back in an instant. He couldn’t afford to be pulled up on anything now. Just get through this evening. Then get the decision made.
‘I’m so sorry, sir,’ he told the man who’d spoken to him, a dapper old dude with swept-back silver hair who smelled faintly of expensive tobacco. ‘Which can I get you, English or French?’
The Equal didn’t bother inspecting the bottles, gesturing towards the French champagne.
‘Interesting accent you have there,’ he said. ‘You’re not from round here. Somewhere up north?’
‘Near Manchester, sir. There you go, sir.’ He refilled the proffered glass.
‘There’s no need for all the “sir”s, my boy. I’m Lord Rix. And you’re the Millmoor lad – Luke, isn’t it?’
Luke didn’t like the idea of any of them knowing his name, or asking about Millmoor. Time to sidestep this nosy old cove and move on.
‘We have a mutual acquaintance,’ Rix continued as Luke lifted the tray higher, ready to make his exit. ‘A certain doctor.’
Luke stopped in an instant, and stared at the man.
This distinguished old parliamentarian was Jackson’s contact.