Vicious Circle

Dead ahead of me as I crested the top of the hill was the Oriflamme—or rather, the little island of raised ground at the center of the roundabout. The building itself was hidden from view from this angle by a small clump of trees at one edge of the island. As I got closer I could see a sign and the beginning of a path through the trees. The sign said SIR NORMAL TEBBITT MUSEUM OF LOCAL INDUSTRY. Bryant had never had it changed because he thought that was funny, although he never explained the joke to me and I never got it.

I crossed the road, which was deserted at this hour, and started along the path. It was only about ten yards long: a few steps brought me through to the clear space in the center of the island where the ruined shell of the Oriflamme stood. I hadn’t been here in years, but now it all came back to me. There was a ring of earth about four feet high all around the building, created by digging out a trench on the inside of the ring. Bryant, or maybe Steiner himself, had had the bottom of the trench paved, the small artificial hill planted with flowers. It had seemed a reasonably clever and artful way of keeping the traffic noise at bay. Now I saw it for what it was: ramparts of earth and air. Nicky had called it on the money. But those ramparts hadn’t saved the Oriflamme from the fourth element: like the bad fairy that never got invited to the christening, fire took the place apart.

The building was dark, as I’d expected it to be. If Peace was inside, he certainly wasn’t keen to advertise the fact. I walked over to the door, which I couldn’t see because the whole front of the building was in deep shadow. The streetlights were on the far side of the trees, and only a faint orange glow penetrated into the central clearing.

There was no door: just a gaping hole in the brickwork. But as I went forward, one step at a time, into the deeper darkness within, my hands touched something cold and smooth and slightly damp at chest height. I explored it gingerly, finding that it extended both up and down, and out to both sides. It was a plastic curtain, suspended over the doorway to keep out the wind. Wet with early morning condensation, it had an unpleasant, clammy feel.

If I pushed through it, I’d be announcing my arrival to anyone who was inside. Given the way Peace had reacted to my presence on board the Collective, and his promise about what would happen the next time we met, that didn’t seem like such a great idea.

I circled the building instead, looking for another way in. I had to watch my footing; in the aftermath of the fire, all that was left of the interior fixtures and fittings had been hauled out and dumped wherever there was room, and fly-tippers had added to the mess since, so the shell of the Oriflamme now had an additional rampart of rusting ironwork and rotting mattresses.

That worked in my favor, though, because as I went around to the back of the building I saw a possible way in. The rubbish was thickest and deepest here, piled against the wall to a height of ten feet or so—and at its apex it came to within spitting distance of an upstairs window, which like the front door had blown out and was now open to the night in a slack-jawed yawn. The only question was whether the mound of black bin bags, old fridges, and wheel-less bike frames would take my weight.

I climbed onto the lower margins of the scree, carefully, wishing I’d brought a flashlight so I could see what I was stepping in. The bin bags gave and squished under me, but they didn’t slide and I was able to keep my balance. Step by step, very slowly, and sideways on so that I could anchor myself on my trailing leg, I ascended the slope. There was a nasty moment halfway up when the whole mass settled a few inches under my weight and I almost slipped. But by that time I was close enough to the wall of the building to lean forward and rest the palms of my hands against it for a few seconds, until the rubbish mountain found a new point of equilibrium.

After that, I made it to the top without incident, sat on the windowsill and swung my legs over it one at a time. I was in.

I was about to step down off the sill into the pitch-black room beyond, but natural caution made me lower one leg first to test the ground. This turned out to be a wise precaution, because there wasn’t any. The floor of the room must have collapsed during the blaze, so there was nothing underneath me but a twelve-foot drop back down to the ground floor and probably a broken ankle or two.

I sat on the sill and let my eyes adjust to the dark. It wasn’t absolute, of course: on this higher level, more of the light from the street lamps made it through the foliage, and the interior of the room was lit up, after a minute or so, by a faint wash of orange light. It was enough to show me that the beams had survived when the floorboards gave in. I could tightrope walk along a beam to the door and see whether or not there were any stairs.