The UnTied Kingdom (40 page)

No one saluted him. Without headgear, weapons, or even his jacket, he wasn’t in uniform and couldn’t salute back.

A path had been cleared along the centre of London Bridge. Harker sat in the wagon, smoking his last few cigarettes and ducking the rotten vegetables occasionally thrown his way. General Wheeler was waiting at the entrance to the tunnels, and she marched ahead of him into the torchlit darkness.

‘Very dramatic,’ he said, following, and was ignored.

In places, the tunnel walls had collapsed in and been re-dug. As part of his trial Wheeler had insisted on coming to see the exact spot where Tallulah had died and Sholt and Eve had gone missing.

At least that bastard was dead. Some good had come out of that horrible night.

He recognised a few faces in the guards standing around the slightly larger cavern where he’d last seen Eve. Only of course he hadn’t last seen her there – she’d been through a portal, on the platform of what Harker had eventually worked out was something to do with a train. Eve had talked about trains, and Daz had animatedly passed on information gleaned from his American books. Some metal monster moving faster than light. Harker hadn’t believed them, but now he’d seen proof. Real proof of Eve’s world. Now there was a wall of earth there instead, impossible to shift, according to engineers, without destroying the whole tunnel.

There was Coop, standing half-hidden in the shadows, and as Harker nodded at him he was suddenly yanked into the darkness, a hand over his mouth, and someone else was shoved out in his place, a man whose head was covered by a hood.

A prisoner from Newgate, according to Saskia’s note, one condemned to die anyway. Harker watched, still and silent, as he was led out to the approximate spot where Tallulah had died, and as the firing squad trooped out and took position, someone shoved a private’s jacket and helmet at Harker and jammed a gun into his hands.

He pulled the helmet low, lurked back in the shadows, and watched as Saskia herself gave the order to fire.

Through it all Wheeler stood stiff and straight, but she flinched ever so slightly when the prisoner fell.

She gave a nod and said to Saskia, ‘I am sorry, you know.’

Saskia looked down at the dead man – Harker hoped like hell he’d at least deserved it – and said, ‘Not as sorry as I am, sir.’

Then she ordered all the men out, and Coop murmured under the noise of marching feet, ‘You stay here, sir. Reckon we’re even now, eh?’

If it wasn’t for you, Mister Harker, I wouldn’t have nobody to marry
.

‘Thank you,’ Harker mouthed, falling back into the shadows and waiting for the cavern to clear. Saskia remained, along with a couple of men who lit the fuses as she directed. Then they went, and she followed, lingering in the cavern entrance to set down her lantern and say, ‘Goodbye, Will,’ without looking at him.

Something good should come of all this
, she’d written at the bottom of her note. She really was a better person than him.

Then she was gone, and Harker hit the ground as the first charge went off. When he opened his eyes, he was looking at a hard, flat platform and a circular tunnel with tiled walls. He rolled through the gap, just as another charge went off, and another, cascading earth down through the hole and sealing it again.

The ground was hard beneath him. The air was warm, with a slight breeze and that strange metallic smell. His last match illuminated a maintenance hatch in the tiles above.

For the first time in a month, Harker smiled.

It was harder with one hand mostly useless. Everything was. Constantly afraid she’d fall before she found the hole in the sky, and even more afraid someone would see her and try to bring her down, Eve stood on the roof of the Tower Bridge walkway, and looked out across the river to London Bridge.

High up here. Very high. The wind was fierce. Dropping to her knees to steady herself, Eve unfastened her bag with frozen fingers and took out the first of many pebbles.

She threw one up high, into the air, and watched it fall to the river below. Then she threw another, a little higher.
How high was I? And how far over to the side?

Below her, the traffic moved on, unconcerned. Eve threw more stones, her teeth chattering. How many more did she have? Enough?

Maybe the portal wasn’t there any more. Maybe it moved, and she’d never find it again. After all, if it’d been there a hundred-odd years ago, surely some of the men building the bridge would have found it?

Desperation mounting in her, Eve didn’t pay attention to the shouts or the sirens until the loudspeaker got her attention. First a policeman, then a negotiator who gave his name as Tristram. Eve ignored them both.

Her phone rang. Her personal, up-to-the-minute, shiny pink, un-military phone.

‘Eve, when I said don’t jump, I was joking, I mean, I didn’t want to put ideas into your head,’ Jen babbled.

‘I’m not going to jump,’ Eve said.
At least, not until I’ve found the right place to jump through. And figured out how to get that high.

I probably should have thought this through more
.

‘But … what are you doing up there?’

‘I’m just looking for something.’

‘But that’s what the walkways are for, that’s why–’

‘Not that kind of something,’ Eve said, distracted. ‘Look, Jen, tell them to go away. I’m not going to jump. They don’t need to worry.’

‘They’re sending someone up to bring you down.’

‘No!’ Eve yelped, because she still hadn’t found the doorway. ‘Not
yet
.’

‘Eve–’

‘Jen, I’m busy,’ Eve said, and ended the call. She threw another pebble. It fell down to the river. Her phone rang again, and she switched it off.

Below her, a fire engine rumbled into place. Great, now they were going to bring her down and probably stick her in an asylum somewhere.

I’m not crazy. I know where I was. I just want to get back there
.

Something whirred, the hydraulic lift, she supposed, a cherry-picker or something, or did they have those extending ladders? Maybe if she talked to them nicely, they’d extend it out over the water, and she could see if the hole was there.

Although people would follow her. Nosey people. Journalists and scientists. The Untied Kingdom would be swamped with people from this world, like something out of a Hollywood blockbuster. Like
Stargate
or something. They’d try to clean it up and probably fail horribly. Armies of big men with guns, politicians who never listened, packs of tabloid hacks who wanted to see Queen Diana. It would be a huge mess.

But if she found Harker, it would be worth it.

The cherry-picker whirred closer, and Eve’s shoulders slumped. No, it wouldn’t. She couldn’t let anyone else find that world. What good would interfering do? Banks, and Charlie, and Tallulah’s grieving family; they’d turn into fairground attractions. Come and see what Britain would have been like without the Empire! Look how sorry we’d all have been! Marvel at a country with no television!

You’ve never had it so good!

Eve could almost hear Harker’s voice saying her name. If she brought that upon the country he loved so fiercely, he’d never forgive her.

She threw one last pebble, and turned.

And nearly fell off the roof.

‘Eve,’ said Harker. He was black with dirt, eyes blazing, clothes tattered. Harker, standing next to a fireman in the bucket of the cherry-picker. ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t jump.’

Eve’s head whipped around. She hadn’t found the hole, how had he got here? How had he found her?

Snapping her gaze back to him, she opened and closed her mouth half-a-dozen times before she managed to get her brain wired back in. Eventually, without taking her eyes off Harker, she said to the fireman, ‘Excuse me, do you see a tall man with black hair and extremely dirty clothes standing next to you?’

Looking a little nervous, the fireman nodded. ‘He said he knew you. Said he could bring you down.’

Harker’s eyes bored into Eve’s. ‘I crawled out of a hole in the ground,’ he said, his voice as soft as it could be under the howling wind. ‘I heard people talking to – to –’ he mimed holding something to his ear.

‘A phone?’ Eve said faintly. ‘A mobile phone?’

‘I don’t know. They were talking about Crazy Eve Carpenter. Someone said you were going to jump. As if it was entertainment. So I came.’

‘You said you would,’ Eve whispered.

‘Eve, for the love of God, please don’t jump.’

Eve’s hand flew to her mouth. She suddenly felt like laughing. ‘You bloody idiot,’ she said, and gestured to the fireman to bring the bucket closer. To Harker she said, ‘This is where I fell from. Into the river. Into your world.’

Sudden understanding dawned in his eyes.

‘The only place I was jumping was towards you,’ Eve said, reaching for him, taking his cold, dirty hand and gripping it as tight as she could. Then she giggled, light-headed with relief. ‘That’s a terrible line. Remind me to use it in a song.’

Harker smiled more genuinely, and opened the gate for her.
He said he’d come, I knew he’d come
, Eve thought.

‘You took your damn time,’ she said, and fell into his arms.

About the Author

Kate Johnson is a prolific writer of romantic and paranormal fiction. Born in 1982, Kate is Choc Lit’s youngest author and lives near Stansted. She is a self-confessed fan of Terry Pratchett, whose fantasy fiction has inspired her to write her own books. Kate worked in an airport and a laboratory before escaping to write fiction full time. She is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and has previously published short stories in the UK and romantic mysteries in the US. She’s a previous winner of the WisRWA’s Silver Quill and Passionate Ink’s Passionate Plume award.

The Untied Kingdom
was her UK debut novel and was shortlisted for the 2012 RoNAs (Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Award for Romantic Contemporary Novel category.

For more information visit:
www.katejohnson.co.uk
 

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Find out more and purchase in the kindle store
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