Omega

All this was so different from the fastidious, precise man of letters he had once been. The dementia had assailed him in quantum leaps of increasing severity. Mrs Bayliss would phone to say that he’d spent the day in his pyjamas, had put his wallet in the refrigerator, had been found paddling in the stream at the bottof the garden in his slippers. By now the house in Bishopston had been sold and he was living exclusively in Oxford; but he kept muddling both places, looking for the bathroom in the wrong place, demanding to know why the Western Mail hadn’t been delivered.

To begin with these episodes did little to interrupt his work. He’d retired from lecturing and was writing what he described as a work of autobiographical historiography that would combine an account of his life and times with up-to-date reflections on the essence of his profession. To my surprise he was reading advanced texts on everything from cosmology to genetics. In his book, he told me, he intended to show how the insights of modern science could shed light on the interpretation of historical processes.

For a while I remained in denial about the growing eccentricities of his behaviour until finally there was an incident with a bus driver who my father had demanded should take him to Mumbles. Despite the diagnosis of dementia that followed, my father remained feverishly attached to his work, still spending hours in his study each day reading, researching, writing.

We employed a full-time nurse to assist the ever-stalwart Mrs Bayliss, but each time I visited I found that the waters lapping the shores of his rationality were growing ever more turbulent. Though Rees occasionally accompanied me, I preferred to see him on my own. My father often regarded my visits as unwelcome intrusions, as if I’d come to spy on him, was a busybody who wouldn’t leave well alone.

“Are you with me?” Tanya asked.

The traffic was moving sporadically again, the car lurching and weaving as Tanya negotiated speed bumps and pavement extensions.

“You don’t deserve this,” I said.

“What?”

“This—mess.”

She thought about it for an instant and shrugged. “If we can get through Wimbledon we’ll be fine.”

A hole appeared in the windscreen. Stradling slumped forward on to the wheel, the car swerving off the road, smashing at speed into the trees.

An explosion flung the Centaur in front of them into the air, sending it spiralling up and over in a slow-motion cartwheel, plunging down on to the Daimler.

Stradling pulled a gun and shot Owain and Giselle in the chest. Dead, pinafored with blood, they stared helplessly while the traitor chauffeur flipped open the hatch and began pumping shots into the rear of the car.

London had dwindled away and we were heading north-east along the motorway through a snowy wasteland interspersed with dark forestry plantations. Vast acreages had been planted over the last twenty years on abandoned land, but only birch and pine flourished in the harsh winters and summer droughts. The landscape resembled the forbidding expanses of the eastern terrur flis.

The road had plainly been cleared of all non-essential traffic, giving the convoy unhindered passage. Stradling was rock-solid behind the wheel, staring straight ahead with remorseless concentration. On the other side of Owain, Giselle Vigoroux kept tapping buttons on her hand device, the information on its screen not visible to him.

“Communication problems?” I made him say.

She didn’t reply, or look up.

“Where are we headed?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“Why didn’t we take the Ironside?”

The armoured train out of Liverpool Street. It ran through a custom-built tunnel on the old Underground Line track as far as Stratford. Easier for slipping out unnoticed.

“It’s already left.”

The cold shoulder was positively Siberian. Well, perhaps it was understandable, although for once he could have done with a little mindless conversation. Without being able to explain why, he had become obsessed with the conviction that the convoy was going to suffer attack. Probably from the air, where they were least well defended, a strafing by hostile fighters or the swift obliteration of a bomb. Or perhaps a missile strike from insurgents waiting in the woodlands. Maybe the train had already gone ahead as a decoy.

“Why didn’t we take a Shrike or a helicopter?” he asked bluntly. “This is like advertising a target.”

“Do you think we’re the only column?”