Hurst - Robin Crumby (bookreader TXT) 📗

the head of the table. Its knotted wood was richly stained, a beautiful Victorian antique from Lyndhurst in the New Forest. The back and headrest were ornately carved with stags and holly.

Nathan’s body visibly stiffened with the responsibility conferred on him. He began to reel off the agenda items carefully noted on a pad of yellow lined paper. Terra yawned and looked out the small window of the upstairs room across the inner courtyard. Rain squalls were sheeting intermittently against the glass, her thoughts elsewhere. Nathan’s monotone droned on in the background. He worked through various day-to-day household matters ranging from how few eggs had been laid this past week to the perilously low stores of fuel for the generator. Even with the recent wet weather, the butts collecting rain water from every rooftop around the camp were close to empty. Nathan walked everyone through the rotas for night watches and scavenging duties for the following week.

The other heads of department took it in turns to give their own quick updates, going round the table, sharing their questions and concerns before Nathan handed things back to Terra.

She leaned forward, blinking rapidly as she tried to organise her thoughts. Each of the council members were loyal and true, hand-chosen by her or Jack, selected as much for their competence as for their alternative viewpoints, unafraid to challenge when opinions differed.

“There is one other matter I need to raise,” she began. “Last night, the door to the food store was forced and a number of items taken.” There was a small gasp from the two women at the far end. “The inventory we took last week confirms that we are missing the following…” Nathan passed her the yellow pad and she fumbled with the spectacles that hung around her neck. She peered down past her nose, running her finger along the listed items: “two packets of biscuits, one bar of chocolate, three bags of crisps and one tin each of pineapple and tuna.”

The two women at the far end exchanged glances and one of them, Liz, mumbled something Terra didn’t catch. It was Liz who ran the kitchen and was more than a little protective of the meagre stores and ingredients her team had at their disposal. Perhaps she had her suspicions already. There were several likely suspects; new arrivals who had not yet earned Terra’s trust.

Liz leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially with the woman to her left with flowing blonde hair that reached down to her shoulders, which she wore in plaits. Terra guessed Greta was around thirty. She spoke with only a hint of a Swedish accent in otherwise flawless English. Her short unsuccessful stint as a trainee detective in Gothenburg had earned her the position as keeper of keys at Hurst. That made investigating the theft her responsibility, but she looked affronted that Terra had not spoken to her first before speaking to the council. Let them sweat for a while, Terra thought, smiling to herself. She ignored their private discussion and continued undeterred.

“As you all know, theft is a very serious offence and one that must carry the most severe penalty. I want the whole place searched. Leave no stone unturned until these items are found and the culprit apprehended.”

“Can I ask why I was not consulted first, Terra?” asked Liz indignantly. “Last time I checked, the kitchen and stores were my responsibility.”

“This isn’t the first time food has gone missing, is it?”

Liz blushed, her eyes narrowed at this veiled slur, but she knew better than to push Terra too far, taking a moment to compose herself. “And what do you intend to do with them when you find them?” she asked instead.

Terra deflected the question to Nathan. “The rules are clear. Punishment for theft is banishment.”

Liz stared back at Greta and then Nathan. “I agree, but, Terra, banishment means almost certain death for the perpetrator. Should the council not be granted the opportunity to vote once the party responsible is discovered?”

Liz’s tilted head reminded Terra momentarily of Bella, her old Labrador. How she missed the dog she had raised from a puppy. Bella had been at the vet for an overnight stay when Terra got caught up in the evacuation. She spent three hours stuck in a line of traffic that crawled to a halt and then never moved again. She wondered whether someone had let Bella out of that kennel. Best not to think about it. Lock it away with all the other unpleasant memories from that time.

Liz went on, undeterred by Terra’s vacant expression. “There is a precedent after all. Remember that guy from Bournemouth? Robbie. The one who hit Tommy with the piece of driftwood. Needed nine stitches. Jack didn’t banish him, he just locked him up for three days, taught him a lesson. It was all handled with a handshake and an apology. So why do you think theft warrants banishment?”

Nathan cleared his throat. “It’s the code, that’s why. The code exists for this very purpose. It is written. It is known and public. All those who choose to stay within these walls and accept the sanctuary and security this community offers, agree to abide by the code. There can be no order without the code. Surely, as council members, we all understand this?”

All heads turned towards Cedric, or Scottie as he was affectionately known, as he roared with laughter, banging his coffee mug on the table with some theatricality. He had been silent to this point, listening absent-mindedly with a smile spreading across his face. He shook his head. “Your petty bureaucracy is laughable. People out there are dying by the thousands. Law and order have failed. Gangs roam the towns raping and murdering while we sit here arguing about stolen biscuits.”

Terra gripped her armrest a little tighter. This wasn’t the first time Scottie had undermined her authority. After a life on the stage, he was a consummate performer, intent on grabbing the limelight. It was said he had cut his teeth in Scotland’s smallest and pokiest theatres, treading the boards to a handful of spectators before getting his big break. Signed to play Macduff in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Macbeth in a nationwide tour that finished in Southampton, he had fallen madly in love with a local girl who worked in the foyer at the Mayflower Theatre and never left.

“Scottie,” interrupted Terra, “we have survived this far because of the code. Without law, there is chaos. The code is what binds us together. Without it there is anarchy. Is that what you prefer?”

“Of course not, but we are a civilised society, are we not? Context must be considered before sentence is passed. When all the facts are known should the matter not come before the council again? Whoever said that the code was absolute? It should be a guide, to be interpreted, with flexibility if needed. If extenuating circumstances exist, then some degree of leniency is called for.”

“We must make an example of whoever did this. The council demands it. Punishment is due.”

Nathan’s intransigence provoked another melodramatic outburst from Scottie, throwing his hands up in despair. He pushed back his chair and stood up, pacing the room in frustration. “I’m warning you. This will not play well with the people. Justice must be seen to be done. I put it to the vote that once the culprit is discovered, we assemble a court and a fair verdict reached by a jury of peers and equals.”

Terra considered the request and glanced at Nathan and the others sitting around the table.

“Very well. Those in favour of holding a trial raise your hands.” Terra counted the hands just to be one hundred per cent certain. “Motioned carried.” She shrugged. “So be it. Greta, I’ll leave it to you to find the individual or individuals responsible.”

Chapter Sixteen

Tommy helped Simon grab the last of the cardboard boxes stacked on the roof of the boat’s small cabin. Keeping one foot planted on the wide wooden slats of the pontoon, Simon raised his leg awkwardly as if he were practising t’ai chi, but without the grace or balance, tottering ungainly as the boat lurched towards him. He straddled the guardrail and reached for the box.

Toby stood silently with his back to his father, hands thrust deep in the pockets of his blue shorts. He was watching red mullet swim lazily around the polystyrene float of the jetty. The mullet sucked greedily at the seaweed that clung to the boat’s rudder. The brass propeller glinted invitingly, reflecting the beams of sunlight that danced in the flowing tide, a few feet below the surface. Lady Lucy III was stencilled in large green letters on the stern of the thirty-two-foot Contessa yacht, her home port of “Falmouth” written underneath in italics. Chipped and weather-worn, there was an incongruous graphic of a bath-time duck, faded as it was by sun and seawater, smiling bashfully, waddling through a cartoon puddle.

The main halyard that stretched from the top of the mast tapped out a light rhythm in the morning breeze. Small waves lapped against Lady Lucy’s hull, sending ripples radiating outwards. Toby watched as a long tail of seaweed tethered to the jetty float swam back and forth in the tidal flow. From the engine outlet, a thin slick of oil spawned multicoloured shapes and patterns on the surface of the water. A large bubble span, skating against the tide in the breeze.

Simon passed Tommy the box containing the last of their tinned food, rice and pasta over the guardrail. Stepping back down on to the jetty, Lady Lucy rolled back into equilibrium, its fenders and warps groaning their farewell.

“Come on, Toby,” Simon called over his shoulder.

Toby lifted his head, looked out across the salt marshes towards Keyhaven, kicked a small pebble into the water and ran after his dad. He fell into step, part supporting the weight of the box. Toby looked up wide-eyed, searching out his father’s smile.

They walked over a small wooden slatted bridge that spanned what would have been the original moat of the castle, now bone dry and no more than a grassy ditch. Above the rounded arch gateway was a large royal crest painted red with the monarch’s coat of arms and “V.R. 1873” in gold letters underneath. Toby paused to wonder what the initials stood for before skipping after Tommy and his father. An old-fashioned lantern in black gunmetal swung over the entrance. Toby tiptoed precariously along the narrow-gauge railway tracks that ran straight through the tunnel and into the courtyard beyond. They passed the guardhouse on the right-hand side, formerly a gift shop where visitors to the castle bought their entrance tickets.

Liz was waiting for them in the storeroom. She examined each item, calling out its contents to be noted in their inventory, sorting the tins and pasta onto one of the long trestle tables stacked high with supplies.

“Horse chestnuts?” said Tommy, picking up one of the more exotic-looking tins and reading the English translation on what looked like a Thai label. “Been a while since we had foreign food eh? Can’t say I’m a fan, always gives me the runs.”

“Don’t listen to him,” said Liz, snatching the tin from Tommy and nudging him out of the way with her shoulder. “What would you know? No taste, you lot. You wouldn’t know haute cuisine if it bit you on the nose.”

“A whole ocean of fish right on our doorstep. But we eat what we’re given, ain’t that right, Liz? Give me a nice piece of haddock any day of the week.”

“Just you remember it,” she responded defiantly, turning over the next tin in her short stubby fingers. “Baby carrots,” she called out to Connie, one of the teenagers who helped her in the kitchen.

Simon and Toby watched their exchanges in mild amusement, looking around the canteen. It was basic but functional. Liz knelt down so her face was level with Toby’s.

“I bet you didn’t know that a small garrison of soldiers lived here