Before the war’s end, Rosie Hammond, who had been such a good friend to Gavriela at Bletchley Park, had finally married her ‘Jaunty Jack’, who had survived the torpedoing of HMS Royal Oak unlike so many of his friends and comrades, helped take revenge in the strike against Narvik harbour that took out German destroyers and cargo vessels, not to mention Rear Admiral Bonte himself, and escaped the German reinforcements that sailed out of neighbouring fjords like long-boats of old, but after a millennium of progress, with so many better ways to kill.

And as Mrs Rosie Gould, a little heavier but happy-looking, she was proud of her daughter Anna, and happy when Carl came to visit, and the two went off to somewhere like the theatre, as they had tonight.

‘Bloomin’ Macbeth,’ Jack said. ‘Poncey thing you’d know about, Gabs.’

‘It’s got sword fights.’ Gavriela grinned at him. ‘Plus the king of Scotland gets murdered. I thought you’d approve.’

‘And do they install a fair and classless society afterwards? Do they buggery.’

‘Jack . . .’ said Rosie. ‘So, Gabby, how was your conference?’

Everyone else but Rupert called her Gabrielle these days.

‘As boring as I thought it would be.’

It was easy to sound cynical. The reality was as unsuccessful as the imaginary conference, with Dmitri back in East Berlin and nothing different, except that Gavriela’s newfound niece was the right side of the Iron Curtain, and maybe some day they would get to know each other.

‘Anna’s school report was all As,’ said Rosie. ‘Trying to keep up with Carl.’

‘Except for a C-minus in R.E.’ Jack looked proud. ‘For proving God doesn’t exist, on the basis of Russell’s bleeding Teapot.’

‘Good for her,’ said Gavriela. ‘Did she mention Occam’s bloody Razor, and dispose of Pascal’s blooming Wager?’

‘I wouldn’t be bloomin’ surprised.’ Then, as if conversational momentum had allowed him to jump an obstacle, he added, ‘I’ve left the CP, you know. Bloody Hungary.’

Gavriela put down her teacup.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, meaning it. ‘The Reds could never live up to your ideals.’

Forty thousand dead Hungarians had caused a flood of exits from the British Communist Party.

‘He’ll join Labour,’ said Rosie, ‘and everything will be fine. You’ll stay the night, of course.’

‘’Course she will,’ said Jack.

Gavriela relaxed into her chair. ‘Can’t bloomin’ argue with that.’

Next morning, after Jack had left for the factory but before Anna or Carl had risen, Gavriela told Rosie she needed to go for a walk.

‘Not a headache, is it?’

‘The start of one,’ said Gavriela. ‘But a brisk walk and it’ll disappear. Anything I can get you from the newsagent’s?’

‘Not for me. Maybe some Spangles for the kids.’

‘They’re getting too old for sweets.’

‘Probably,’ said Rosie.

Outside, Gavriela walked the quiet streets until she came to a corner telephone box, and went inside. She extracted pennies and a brass-coloured thrupenny bit from her purse, thought about what she needed to say, then lifted the receiver, shoved the coins in, and dialled. Wrapping the braided brown cord around her forefinger – a nervous tic – she listened to the ring, and stood straighter when a voice answered: ‘Goodridge Haberdashery, Peterson speaking.’

‘I’m checking on order number ZK927. This is Mrs Woods.’

‘One moment, Mrs Woods.’ There was a heavy click, silence, then a second click. ‘Duty officer.’

‘Reporting on a BCP affiliation. Jack Gould, G-O-U-L-D, resident Abingdon, resigned membership. Reason is disaffection over Hungary action. Gould is working-class, and continues to have no contact, that is zero contact, with CP-oriented intellectuals in Oxford.’

‘All right, I’ve got that.’

‘End of report.’

‘Acknowledged, and thank you.’

She pressed Button B for the change, and went out into the morning air, feeling lighter than before. Of the CP’s forty-three thousand members – the number before the recent haemorrhage – three thousand were named on a special list maintained by Five and Special Branch. On receipt of codeword HILLARY, police across the country would swoop, and if Jack were on the list – and living near Oxford intellectuals and attending Oxford meetings was a risk factor – he would end up with his fellow British internees in Epsom, the race course commandeered and transformed into a prison camp, while foreign-born Communists were imprisoned in Ascot, and those captured further north would end up in Rhyl.

Spying on her friends was the only way to remain in contact with them: the alternative was to exclude them from her life; and she did not want that.

Yet she wondered, as she walked past new council houses, heading for Rosie’s place, whether ants or termites, in their implacable aggression, ever spied on each other or caused an enemy to turn, to begin working for the other side; or whether it took sentience and civilisation to develop the concept of betrayal.

THIRTY-ONE

LUNA, 655003 AD

Fenrisulfr woke from the dream of life, and stared down at his crystalline hands. It had been so long since he had voyaged in the spirit world this way, but there was a strange ease in the way he stood, accepted that breathing was unnecessary here amid these shining halls, and set off to find the war queen Kenna, assuming she still ruled.

—You answered the call, brave Ulfr.

She was in the war-chamber he remembered, where she and her fellow warrior-leaders planned the final battles. Now, though, she was alone.

—You know better than to call me that.

—But something has changed, has it not?

He shrugged.

—I slew Stígr.

—And has killing him helped you?

—Yes, it has.

Kenna’s crystalline face shimmered. Perhaps he had not told her what she was expecting to hear. He added:

—He might have welcomed death. I do not know.

Had Stígr failed to fight back because of Fenrisulfr’s speed, coming out of nowhere? Or had the dark poet been slowed down by fatalism or the need to end his pain?

—Where are the others, War Queen?

She beckoned with one transparent hand.

—Come and see.

They walked through gleaming arched thoroughfares among giant halls, for this place had grown vast, until they finally came out on something like the balcony he had seen before. It overlooked the grey-black plain beneath the night sky, while the shining white disc, banded with scarlet, was the Middle World seen from this other realm . . . except that ‘realms’ meant something different here, and he would need to give himself fully to Kenna’s cause in order to understand.

Silver specks moved against the night.

—Those are our friends, good Ulfr. Flying vessels to the Middle World.

Fenrisulfr shook his head, for it seemed to him that such vessels were unnecessary, though he had no idea how he could know such a thing. Kenna forestalled his question by adding:

—For the armies we raise there. For the billions who will fight against the darkness.

Such numbers could not be imagined.

—Then you do not need me, War Queen.

—Every individual can help, and you are a leader.

Even without air, it was possible to laugh, or something like it. Fenrisulfr shook his head and spread his crystal arms.

—Some leader. Is there room for butchers in this realm of yours?

Again Kenna surprised him.

—I think perhaps there might be. I wish it were not so.

Fenrisulfr expanded his chest, then compressed it, though there was nothing to exhale in this strange place.

—I name the nine realms on the three levels, War Queen. They are first, Ásgarth, Alfheim and Vanaheim. Then Mithgarth hangs there in front of us, level with Utgarth, Jötunheim, Svartalfheim and Nithavellir. And finally, below or beyond, lies cold Niflheim, where Hel rules over the dead who will wage war on us, come Ragnarökkr.