Dead Lions полностью

Miles away, somewhere between the two ends of this phonecall, Kelly Tropper guided the blue-and-white Cessna Skyhawk through a clear blue sky. Ahead of her lay swathes of nothingness—that was how it felt; that she was cleaving an absence, which healed itself the moment she’d passed. And if a painful truth sometimes threatened to intrude, that the scars in her wake were as enduring as they were invisible, she generally managed to tamp this knowledge down, and smother it under the conviction that nothing so central to the core of her being could be evil.

She glanced at her companion, who’d agreed to accompany her mostly because he fancied her, and wondered if he knew she’d slept with Upshott’s newest resident the previous afternoon. It was possible he did. A village was porous when it came to private life. Either way, telling him would add to the frisson she already felt. Tomorrow, people would read about her in their newspapers. Read about her, picture her, and know she’d done something they were incapable of. Some, indeed, would remember watching her pass overhead.

Another frisson. Her companion turned to her, curious.

The ground was a memory, and Kelly Tropper was where she belonged: up in the brighter element, with a comrade in arms.

Just the two of them, and their inflammatory cargo.

As mid-morning bloomed, and only a few stray clouds, like the mildest twinges of conscience, ruffled central London’s skies, it became apparent that today would fulfil the forecasters’ promise, and be the warmest day of the year so far. A fact that few of the evening’s news reports would fail to mention.

The mob was heading east, mob being what others declared it. But it was moving, was mobilised, so that’s what it was, a mob, if for the most part a highly organised one; marshalled by policemen, but arranged according to its own lights, and eager to indicate to gathering camera crews that it represented a spontaneous outburst of public anger rather than a cynical manipulation of public concern. A vociferous and placard-wielding contingent headed it up, marching in time to a troupe of drummers; their stencilled placards read STOP THE CITY and SMASH THE BANKS and HALT THE CUTS, or showed cartoons of top-hatted fat cats lighting cigars with fifty-pound notes. Bobbing above head-height here and there were rag-and-plaster effigies, like out-of-season guys looking for bonfires; they wore bowler hats and pinstripes and expressions of unsatiated greed. Stewards with loudhailers chirped at random intervals, and flitting about on the flanks were diehards in donkey-jackets, peddling SOCIALIST WORKER. But for every dreadlocked, safety-pinned crusty in view there were half a dozen fresh-faced youths in summer casuals. It was a rainbow coalition of the pissed off, and their chanting grew in volume as the march progressed.

The middle group was more placid, their placards handcrafted, and replete with knowing cultural references—DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING, AND BANK BAIL-OUTS? NO THANKS! Dancing in and out among the throng were children who’d been facepainted in Hyde Park, and now were cats or witches, dogs or wizards, their pink and green faces alive with astonishment. They ran about in giggling bunches, begging the mounted policemen for rides, while their parents enjoyed the nostalgic frisson of public dissent, the occasional self-mocking call and response of Maggie! Maggie! Maggie!—Out! Out! Out! underlining the degree to which this was a rally down memory lane. There was even communal, if self-conscious, singing; Bob Marley songs mostly—“One World” and “Exodus” and even a ragged “Redemption Song.” When a helicopter hovered overhead, this section burst into cheers, though no one knew why.

And finally, dragging up the rear, came the seemingly less-committed, viewing the occasion not so much as an outlet for airing social outrage as an opportunity to stroll through a London cleared of traffic. They waved for the cameras, posed for tourists, chatted with police officers assigned to shepherding duties, and generally blew kisses to a watching world, but among this contingent—as among the others—marched some with masks in their pockets and larceny in their hearts, for banks are evil, and bankers self-serving bastards, and not a single soul-sucking money-magnet among them would mend their ways for the sake of a well-behaved procession. No: reformation required broken glass, and today would see plenty of it.

Though even the anarchists didn’t yet know how much.

The rally processed along Oxford Street, and up towards High Holborn.

“Mr. Pashkin.”

“Mr. Webb.”