Liberation (I Am Margaret Book 3) (19 page)

You have until the 31st of January to comply with this condition, so I
do
hope this letter reaches you before then.

Yours Sincerely,

Reginald Hill

Reginald Hill (Minister for Internal Affairs)

***+***

17

KEEP THE FAITH

I felt the blood drain from my face, leaving my cheeks like ice. I stumbled to the bed and sank down on the edge of it, the letter shaking like a leaf in my grasp.

“Margo?” Bane reached anxiously for my free hand.

“You see why it’s probably all lies,” remarked Eduardo.

I didn’t. Didn’t see anything. What if it
wasn’t
lies?

“Margo?” Bane gently snagged the letter and read it out loud, his voice faltering occasionally.

“
Bastards
,” he breathed, when he’d finished.

“Where’s Kyle?” I asked thinly.

“Someone’s looking for him,” said Eduardo.

“They’re lying,” said Jon firmly. “It’s obvious.”

“Is it?” I’d be very happy to be convinced.

“Well, for one thing, Bane said your parents and mine were going to stick together. Doesn’t say a word about
my
parents.”

“There’s a thousand reasons why they could’ve split up, Jon.”

My heart drummed painfully in my chest. I pressed my hands to my temples, struggling to think. Jon opened his mouth again, but the door opened and Kyle looked in.

“Eduardo, did you want me…?
Margo?
Are you okay?”

I took the letter from Bane and tried to hold it out to him, but it slipped from my fingers and floated down onto the carpet. Kyle bent to pick it up as Eduardo carefully closed the door again.

By the time Kyle had read it, he was as white as I felt.

“But is it genuine?” he demanded.

“
No
,” said Jon. “They’re lying! Think about it! They just
happened
to catch your parents exactly when you started writing your Blog? Unlikely. And if they’d caught them before, they’d have killed them and made sure you heard all about it through the newspapers. It’s too convenient!”

“That’s not proof,” I said miserably.

“Well, speaking of
proof
!
Where’s the evidence?
Where are the photos of your parents miserable in some cell? Or dramatically strapped to a gurney? Where’s the lock of your mum’s hair for us to DNA test? There’s no
evidence
! ‘Cause they haven’t
got
them. They’re
lying
!”

Kyle sunk into a chair, kneading his forehead.

“Jon’s probably right,” said Bane slowly, “It’s just a clever lie. They’re trying to scare you into silence.”

“But we can’t know...” I whispered.

“No, we can’t
know
,” said Eduardo. “But I’ll do my best to find out. If they’re alive, in or out of the EuroBloc, we’ll find them.”

Bane nodded, giving me a look of encouragement, but I shook my head.

“No... don’t.”

“
Don’t?
”

“No. Father Mark used to say there were spies even in the Underground. I imagine he was right?”

Eduardo grimaced and nodded.

“Well then. If they haven’t got my parents, and we turn the Underground inside out looking for them – if we do find where they are, who’s to say the EuroGov won’t get to them first?”

Eduardo grimaced again.

“You’re right. But it does mean you’ll have to decide what to do about this without any hope of additional information.”

“They haven’t got them.” Jon sounded totally certain.

Bane frowned, though.

“I don’t really think they’ve got them either. But...” He met my eyes. “I think you should make your decision under the assumption... they have.”

“Huh?” said Jon.

“If Margo makes a decision based on the assumption her parents
aren’t
in danger, and she’s
wrong
,” Bane’s voice had gone even quieter, “well, she’s going to have to live with the consequences for the rest of her life, isn’t she?”

Eduardo opened his mouth to speak, frowned, and shut it again.

“It’s not going to make any difference either way,” said Kyle softly, staring at the wall.

Eduardo took the letter from him. “It’s up to you,” he told me. “No one’s going to be ordering you one way or the other, you know that.”

Up to me.
What to do
.

“I think...” They waited with baited breath – in other circumstances it would’ve been funny. “I think... I need a hug.”

A collective breath was let out behind me as I crawled into Bane’s arms and burrowed against him.

“Take your time,” said Eduardo. “I’ll get you a copy of the letter, I’d like to analyse this a bit more.”

He whisked the original away before I could reply. After a few more moments eyeballing the wall, Kyle got up abruptly and left.

I snuggled up to Bane, shivering – he tried to pull a blanket up from the end of the bed and winced.

“Careful, Bane...” I muttered, snagging the blanket myself – he wrapped it around me.

Thinking was impossible. My mind was just an icy maelstrom, seething numbly. Full of British seawater, by the temperature. We’d gone down to the sea on my birthday during our first weeks here, and even at this time of year it had been much warmer than our summer trip to the sea all those years ago with Mum and Dad...
Oh, Mum and Dad
... I shuddered and cuddled closer.

Jon must’ve heard the shudder.

“I’m going to make some hot chocolate.”

Two mugs of hot chocolate, a lot of cuddles, even more praying and finally lunch in Bane’s room, and I fetched the laptop and opened it up. The planning meeting had moved elsewhere today.

“Have you decided, then?” asked Jon, in a very neutral voice.

“No.” My voice was still rather thin. “I’m going to write a post, give me something to do. Then I’ll decide. Maybe in the morning. Sleep on it.”

“There’s no hurry,” said Bane. “Three weeks before the end of the month.”

“I could think about this for three months and it wouldn’t be any easier.”

I put my fingers to the keys and began.

Blog title:
Blackmail or Bluff?

Subtitle:
The EuroGov are being their usual charming selves.

I’m sorry to interrupt ‘The Three Most Wanted’ – I know from your comments a lot of you are enjoying it. However, my past self will have to remain starving in the wilderness for a little longer, because the EuroGov have put my current self in a truly horrible position.

I’m going to keep this short, because it’s very difficult to talk about. The EuroGov have sent me a letter. This is what it says:

I typed up the letter and made the formatting look something like, then went on:

So now you know as much as I do. And I feel like I know nothing. Do they really have my parents? The consensus of opinion here seems to be that they do not. But a wise person has advised me to only make this decision based on the assumption my parents’ lives are in fact at stake. And I think he’s right.

If this goes live, I imagine the EuroGov will take it as a declaration that I’m going on with the blog. I suppose it will be – you can probably tell I’m typing this not knowing if I’m ever going to click ‘post’.

My parents are in the Underground. Why should their fate be any different from anyone else in the Underground? If I were them, I’d object to being singled out for special treatment, especially special treatment that harmed our cause. But it’s different when it’s someone
else
’s life. It’s different when it’s someone you love. The thought of losing them...

I stopped typing, a tight knot of pain in my stomach.
What do I do
?

For now, just continue with this...

It’s hard to even write about it.

I know what I’d want. I
think
I know what they’d want. But I also know how different everything looks when you’re locked away waiting to die. So I don’t know how they feel
now
, if they really are prisoners. Perhaps they’re hoping I’ll save them.

Gulping back tears, I stopped again. Unbearable thought.
What do I do
?

Finally I carried on typing.

I realise there’s only one thing I
know
. And that’s what the last thing they said to me was.

The very last thing they both said to me was, “Keep the faith.”

I stared hard at the words, my breath catching.

“Are you okay, Margo?”

“I’m fine, Jon.” My voice was tight. I glanced at Bane, but he was asleep. All this had tired him out. “I’m... I’m going to the cathedral for a bit, okay?”

I closed the computer’s lid – keep that deadly little button from getting clicked on by accident – and slipped out of the room.

‘A bit’ turned into all night. I folded my arms on the sanctuary rail, rested my head on them and stayed like that for hours, too lost in misery even to keep an eye out for Brother Marcel and the camera.

I kind of knew what I
should
do. But every time I tried to make up my mind to it, the pain tried to claw my insides out and guilt crushed my heart to smithereens.
How could I? My own parents? How could I let any harm come to them?

But how could I throw aside everything they’d fought for their entire lives? Allow myself to be silenced, and the Underground with me.

Keep the faith
...

I hope you meant it, Mum, Dad. I really hope you did
...

I scarcely noticed morning Mass going on behind me in the main part of the cathedral. My thoughts and resolution still seesawed, slowly, ponderously, like a pendulum about to stop. The side where the seesaw threatened to finish up terrified me.

“Margaret...” The Holy Father stood in front of me.

I opened my mouth to receive the Host. Pope Cornelius placed a hand on my head and murmured a special blessing before returning to the main altar. Closing my eyes, I tried to concentrate on Our Lord.

When I finally opened them again, everything inside me was still. The seesaw had come to rest.
Lord have mercy
.

Kyle was there in Bane’s room, sitting on the windowseat, looking out, white-faced – the lid of the laptop was up, so he’d read the post. They probably all had; Bane was awake, and Jon sat in his usual chair.

I went straight to the laptop, ignoring their concerned greetings. Re-read my final line, and added one more.

The very last thing they both said to me was, “Keep the faith.”

So that is what I have to do.

I clicked ‘Post’.

The stillness cracked suddenly. I crumpled right down onto the floor and began to sob as though my heart was breaking. Kyle rose and hurried to me in a rush of black fabric, enfolding me in his arms. Like being swooped on by a giant bat. A very loving, very welcome giant bat.
He didn’t hate me for what I’d just done
...

“It’s what they’d want, Margo.” Even his whisper was choked.

“They haven’t
got
them.” Jon sounded frustrated. But after a moment he found Bane’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Bane loved my mum and dad almost as much as... well, I did. It sometimes felt like he’d spent more time growing up at our house than his own.

“It’s what they’d want,” murmured Kyle into my hair, rocking me to him.

The comments went ballistic. Most of them were in support, though a couple of the ‘inhuman bitch’ variety threw me into a terror of doubt and made my insides feel like they were in a blender. Bane got Jon to shut the laptop and take it away at that point.

The next day’s newspapers were silent. No way for them to avoid a Sedition charge if they betrayed knowledge of the matter. A relief, really. If I’d not wanted to show up the EuroGov’s inhumanity and probable deceit – and give them the finger – I’d much rather have kept the whole agonising business private.

But the following day Kyle was waiting at the door of the canteen when Jon and I arrived for breakfast, a paper in his hand and a crease on his brow.

“Kyle?”

“Hi, Margo.” Definitely unhappy. “Um... not sure you should show Bane the paper today.”

“
Bane?
” I came close to snatching the one he held, and just remembered to read it out loud for Jon’s benefit.

NO SON OF OURS –