The Petitioners by Perry Sheila

Author:Perry, Sheila [Perry, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-02-28T08:00:00+00:00

GAVIN

I hadn’t realised before that it was possible to feel frightened out of your wits while travelling in a narrow-boat.

I suppose it wasn’t usual to feel like this if you were navigating a shallow inland waterway that wasn’t all that deep, with locks to break the monotony and pretty little canal-side inns where you could spend a pleasant evening before going back and sleeping in your cosy bunk bed, rocked to sleep by the gentle movements of your boat.

On the other hand, shooting the rapids on a mighty torrent like the Almond wasn’t something a narrow-boat had originally been built for, and finding your way out on to the now much wider and more frightening River Forth while hoping not to collide with any concealed underwater artefacts, was quite a different matter too.

All that was before we found ourselves being pursued by people in official uniforms in a much faster, better equipped vessel than ours.

All in all I was relieved to be hauled off our own little boat somewhere just about where the Third Forth Bridge used to be before it crumbled into oblivion, and on to theirs before we got into much deeper waters. Metaphorically and physically.

At least I was relieved until the interrogation began.

They had a special room for that. Or maybe it was the captain’s cabin. I didn’t take in much information about my surroundings. I was too busy trying to keep my story straight in the face of a good deal of aggressive scepticism on the part of my interrogator, a man with an annoyingly smug face who wore his uniform in an unbending kind of way that suggested what kind of a person he might be.

‘So, you’ve set out to sail in restricted waters without a permit, in a vessel that in no way is suitable for the purpose, in contravention of so many laws that I can’t even begin to enumerate them,’ he said. For some reason the officials had identified me, and not Mark, as the leader of our tiny group, so they had brought me in here for questioning before the others.

‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘Was that a question?’

‘Not really,’ he sighed. ‘When I start asking questions, you’ll know… I’m summing up the situation for both our benefits and for the recording device I am obliged to inform you is in operation.’

I glanced around to see if I could spot the device, but of course it might have been smaller than the smallest microdot, for all I knew.

He put his hands on the table between us and leaned towards me. ‘Where did your journey originate?’

I understood at last that he was a customs official. I recognised him from his turn of phrase.

‘We were up in the Pentlands,’ I said. ‘In a group.’

‘What were you doing up there? Weren’t you aware that survivors have been told to head for the census at Balmoral?’

‘Balmoral?’ I echoed. The word set off an unpleasant resonance in my mind. I shook my head to try and get rid of it.

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