Europe in Winter (The Fractured Europe Sequence)(31)

“I tried,” said Mr Pasquinel. “It’s locked.”

Rudi smiled and took from his pocket something that looked like a little battery-powered screwdriver. “No it’s not,” he said.

The little device opened the door with a faint click, and they stepped inside. Mr Pasquinel looked around. A double line of pews led towards an altar on which stood a diptych showing what appeared to be an angel with a flaming sword defeating a dragon. He thought that might date from the Flu Year. The interior of the church smelled of incense, which was unusual for Suffolk Anglicans. He thought he might like to come back here one day, to see what a service was like.

Rudi was wandering around the church, taking small matt-black boxes from his rucksack and placing them on the pews, where they sat apparently not doing anything at all. Finally, he came back to Mr Pasquinel and they sat together.

“Thank you for coming,” Rudi said. “It’s good to meet you at last.”

“And you,” said Mr Pasquinel. Close up, he realised he had been wrong about the newcomer. He wasn’t young; he had a young face, but there was grey in his hair.

“Did you have any trouble getting away?” asked Rudi.

Mr Pasquinel shook his head. “They forced me to go, in the end. Threatened me with Human Resources. I’m sorry it took so long.”

“Please don’t apologise,” Rudi said. “I can guess how difficult things have been for you.”

“It has been busy, it’s true,” Mr Pasquinel allowed.

“How are things in the Republic?”

“We’re running a limited service through most of Western and Central Europe, as you know. Greater Germany is proving stubborn, but they will come round. Further East...” Mr Pasquinel shrugged. “The explosion severed the Republic; we could run an eastbound service from the Consulate in Chelyabinsk, but Sibir refuses to allow our trains to run across its territory.”

“They can’t stop you, can they?”

Mr Pasquinel scowled. “It’s a complex thing. We are a sovereign nation which does not grow a single item of produce. Not one potato, not one orange. We could run out to Chukotka tomorrow, but the Siberians would embargo our supplies. We have a population to feed. Some nations were starting to squeeze us, even before the incident.”

“Squeeze you?”

“You’d only see it if you had a regional overview. At a local level, suppliers have been putting their prices up, or even just ceasing to trade with us. Head Office suspects a cartel operation, which is an interesting development.” Mr Pasquinel bent down and rummaged in his rucksack. “It seems the awe in which people held us is finally wearing off. Sandwich?”

Rudi looked at the shrink-wrapped package in Mr Pasquinel’s hands. “What are they?”

“Chicken salad.”

Rudi shook his head.

“I also have roast beef and horseradish,” Mr Pasquinel offered. “I was going to save them for the return journey, but we could eat them now and I can have the chicken later.”

Rudi chuckled. “I’m fine. Really.” He looked around the church. “Why is this place deserted, by the way?”

“Church of England,” Mr Pasquinel said, unwrapping his sandwiches. “Minority religion, these days.”

“Really?”

“The congregation here is probably no more than ten or fifteen strong. Most English people are Catholic or Muslim or Jewish. The ones who’re religious at all. Didn’t you know this?”

Rudi shook his head. “It’s not something I’ve thought very much about.”

“There’s talk of a resurgence. The Community is Church of England. Well, a variant, but close enough.” Mr Pasquinel took a bite of sandwich and looked about him. “I hate to see these places unused; they’re quite lovely.” He washed the mouthful of sandwich down with a sip of water from a plastic bottle. “You should see some of the Saxon churches. All Saints at Brixworth is extraordinary. Over a thousand years old, imagine that.” He put his sandwich and its wrapping carefully down on the pew beside him and took a little plastic envelope from a breast pocket of his jacket. “Here you are.”

Rudi took the envelope and looked at the object it contained, a hard drive the size of his thumbnail.

“There’s no way to be certain what happened,” Mr Pasquinel said. “The site is under about a billion tonnes of rubble, telemetry tells us nothing useful, surveillance footage is inconclusive; we can’t even establish for sure whether the explosion happened on the train or in the tunnel itself.”

“But you have a theory.”

“Pennington,” said Mr Pasquinel. “Kenneth and Amanda. Originally from London, lately resident in Paris. She had one of those T-shirt businesses, he did some media consulting.” He picked up his sandwich again and started to eat.

“Are you sure?” asked Rudi.

“No, we’re not. The list of possibilities is quite long; God only knows we get some shady characters taking out citizenship. But there’s something...” He shrugged.

“They’re too good to be true,” Rudi suggested.

Mr Pasquinel shrugged again. “Their cover – if it was a cover – was exquisite. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He sighed. “She was pregnant. Two of our staff processed them privately – it seemed inhumane to make her queue in her condition. There was an anomaly on the scan.”