And he never asks me about London or anywhere. His questions are usually focused on tea or events or timings.
“You’re back early from your holiday. We weren’t expecting you so soon.”
He doesn’t say anything.
I remain sitting down on the bed. Watching him. One of his hands is in his pocket, the other holding a piece of thick paper.
“Something came up. My friend’s house in London was broken into so he needed to return to check nothing had been taken.”
There it is. The truth.
I hadn’t fully believed Ben and Isaac’s theory that Franklyn was the traitor who had been selling my secrets to Goldsmith senior. Hadn’t wanted to. Franklyn was the person who had been the most consistent since I was a child, ever present. Ever there.
All knowing.
“I hope everything’s okay. Don’t you need the rest of the time to help out your friend?” I hope my innocence could be well-feigned.
“He’s come up here with me. Thought I’d show him some sights. Let him meet someone who’s family he knew of. Someone he thought was dead.”
Ben.
I suspect my heart has now stopped because I can no longer feel it in my chest.
Franklyn is meant to be stopped when he enters the castle, but not everyone will understand why and he has loyalty with the staff.
“I need to go get some breakfast.” I stand up, smile. “I promised cook I’d try her pancakes.” The spoiled princess act comes easier than I thought.
“I don’t think you’re going anywhere, Blair.”
It’s then I see the gun.
Isaac
The empty room is now full of suits. I sit down, my opponent in this ‘race’ is across the table from me, shaking hands with a few people, smiling. He’s a good man, an honest one and we share a lot of the same ideas and values.
Maybe it should be him.
I should pick up my surfboard and passport and live the life my fifteen-year-old self craved.
Four more years.
A promise. Made in haste to the one man other than Ben who meant something. A promise made in haste. Never forgotten.
A chance to change his legacy.
Silence gradually falls when Michael Denoue enters, the party’s secretary and the person who’ll make the announcement as to who takes residence at Downing Street.
My heart beats faster.
I swallow the nausea.
Don’t be me. Don’t be me.
If it isn’t my name that’s read out, I can be in Australia in a day. Or with Blair in Scotland. And Ben.
Blair and Ben and me. A family. A different life to the one I had.
Everyone is quiet, the secretary takes out an envelope and opens it, says a few words that reek of tradition and pomp and ceremony, but before he can open it, there’s a sharp knock at the door and it opens, an intern standing there, looking shell shocked and afraid.
