‘I’m fine, thanks. How are you, David?’

‘Very well.’ He turned to Pod. ‘Did everything go as planned?’

‘Yes.’ Pod grinned. Pleased with himself. ‘I brought her up the back way, by the servants’ stairs. Nobody saw her come in. Nobody will see her go out. This meeting will be completely secret.’

Now David turned to Nicola. ‘You didn’t come all the way up here from Westminster by yourself, though, surely?’

‘No. I brought some friends and we paid some hunters to escort us. The others are waiting over the road in your safe house.’

‘Good. I think it’s best this way. No need for anyone else to know our business for now.’

‘I suppose so.’

David looked at Pod, who was standing there in a rugby shirt, the collar turned up. He wasn’t the brightest kid in the palace, but he was loyal and knew how to follow orders.

‘You can leave us now, Pod, thanks.’

‘Will do, boss.’ Pod said goodbye to Nicola and went out, pulling the door closed behind him.

‘That’s better. We’re alone now,’ said David, and instantly regretted it. It had come out creepy. He had to keep this businesslike. To cover his embarrassment he indicated that Nicola should sit at the table and he poured her a second glass of water.

‘So,’ he said, handing her the glass. ‘There’s a lot we need to talk about.’

‘Yes. I suppose there is.’

Nicola looked a little awkward and nervous too. That was good. David sat down. Drank some water. Wiped his lips. Looked up at her. Important to maintain eye contact.

‘Do you want to start or should I?’

‘Well, you invited me here,’ said Nicola, keeping her eyes fixed on his. He looked down before he could stop himself. Damn.

‘But it was you who originally suggested we should meet up,’ he said, and forced himself to look her in the eyes again.

‘Did I?’ Nicola shrugged. ‘Maybe. I can’t remember exactly how it came about.’

‘You sent Ryan Aherne over with that letter.’

‘Yes, but only after I got your letter …’

David forced a laugh. ‘Well, let’s not argue about that. It doesn’t really matter how it came about, does it? The thing is we both wanted a meeting.’

‘Sure,’ said Nicola.

‘I’ve tried to get you to meet me properly before,’ said David. ‘What changed your mind?’

‘I suppose it started the other day when those kids arrived from the Tower of London.’

‘Yes. You know they came here afterwards.’

‘Yeah. They seemed all right at first, I suppose. It was only after they’d gone that I started to think it was all a bit weird.’

‘Weird?’ David took another sip of water. His throat was dry.

‘Was it a coincidence that they came to ours?’ Nicola asked. ‘They had a story about looking for some friends, but … You don’t know, do you? You can never be too careful. Anyway, we had a sitting and it came up that perhaps they’d been spies of some sort.’

David tried not to smile. Of course it had come up. His plants at the Houses of Parliament had been told to bring it up. To spread unease. They were the real spies.

‘I agree,’ he said. ‘I don’t think they were all they seemed. When they came here, they immediately started poking around and asking a lot of questions. They were very curious, wanted to see everything. I knew them from before, you know?’

‘Yes, I think they told me that.’

‘I know their leader,’ said David. ‘A boy called Jordan Hordern. He’s – how can I put it? Well, if you met him, you’d know what I meant. Let’s just say he’s the kind of guy who wants to be in charge. From what I gather it’s a hard life over at the Tower of London. I wouldn’t put it past him to be thinking of looking for somewhere else to move to. He could well be probing our weaknesses, checking us out, planning to take over.’

‘That’s exactly what we were talking about in parliament,’ said Nicola, leaning towards David excitedly. ‘I think it’s getting more and more important that we establish some proper stability around here. It’s ridiculous that we’re all living so close to each other and yet it’s almost as if we’re enemies.’

‘You’re so right,’ said David seriously. ‘We must never forget that the real enemies are the grown-ups. We shouldn’t be competing with each other; we should be working together.’

Nicola drank some more water. David watched the movement of her throat as she swallowed. She carefully set her glass back down on the table.

‘The other thing is that gang in St James’s Park,’ she said.

‘The squatters?’ said David. ‘What about them?’

‘They’re raiding us nearly all the time now,’ said Nicola. ‘They come steaming in and take food, supplies, water. There’s nothing much we can do to stop them, except lock the doors. But we can’t stay cooped up inside forever. They wait for someone to come out and just …’

‘Steam in,’ said David.

‘Exactly. We don’t want to get into a fight with them, but they’re making things really difficult.’

‘It’s the same for us,’ said David. ‘We wanted to develop the park, you know, grow food there, and they just dug everything up and attacked our guys. I agree – we definitely need to do something about them.’

‘What can we do, though?’ asked Nicola. ‘We can’t attack them.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, they’re kids. I made some promises during the election.’

‘You had an election?’ said David, amused. ‘I didn’t notice.’

‘It was just an internal thing,’ said Nicola. ‘Every year the kids at Westminster vote on who’s going to be, you know, prime minister. This year they voted for me because I promised them a few things.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like never to attack other kids … And …’ Nicola laughed, embarrassed, unsure whether to go on.

‘You can tell me.’ David was still very amused by Nicola’s situation.

‘I promised never to have anything to do with you.’

Now David laughed. ‘Well, we all make promises we can’t keep, Nicola. Now that you’re in charge I suppose you’ve realized that it’s not as easy as it looks, is it? And sometimes you have to change your mind about things. They’ll get over it. If you sort things out for them, make their lives safe and secure, they’ll forget all the promises you made to get elected, and they’ll keep voting for you year after year after year.’

‘I hope so.’ Nicola frowned. ‘I mean, I think if I can stop the raids by the squatters, as you call them, then I’ll be popular. But how can we stop them? What can we do? We can’t go wading in there. They’re not adults. They’re not diseased. They’re just kids.’

‘They may be kids,’ said David, ‘but they’re not obeying the rule of law. As you say, we need to establish order round here, and they’re just pushing things towards chaos and anarchy. We can’t let that happen. You and I, we’ve worked hard to make things better, to rebuild. If they’re going to behave the way they do, then I think we’re justified in turning the water cannons on them.’

‘You’ve got water cannons?’

David laughed again. ‘No. It was a metaphor. I just mean there’s no reason why we shouldn’t come down heavily on them.’

‘You’d attack them?’

David crossed his arms and leant back in his chair. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’d only be doing to them what they’d like to do to me. What they have done to you. We need to bring them into line and we can only do that if we’re united.’

‘Even if we unite, though,’ said Nicola, ‘we don’t have enough fighters. Certainly not ones who’d be happy to attack other kids.’

‘Leave that to me,’ said David. ‘I’m working on something. But we have to think further ahead than just cleaning up the park. It’s about more than just attacking the squatters. Yes, they’re a common problem we share, but we share loads of other problems as well.’

‘Are you suggesting an alliance of some sort?’ asked Nicola.

‘I am. A union between your camp and ours. You wouldn’t have to change anything. You could keep all you’ve got and run things how you liked at Westminster, but we’d be working together. We could hold regular meetings, share resources, information, fighters.’