Chapter Eight

The phone call seemed in keeping with the day’s prevailing atmosphere of discomfort and bad timing. Sarah shifted her weight in the grey plastic chair and reached to pick up the phone, ringing out from an undisclosed number. When the short, stilted conversation was over, Sarah breathed a deep sigh, a resigned acceptance that her day was not going to go as planned but much, much worse. She would have expected to feel a great deal of shock in this situation, but her practical concerns took over, and she stumbled towards the taxi rank in the hope that her taxi was finally here and that the driver wouldn’t object to a detour, a detour she couldn’t begin to explain. The policeman on the phone had been mercifully swift and to the point; stating where she needed to be, but his words were distinctly lacking in the detail and explanation she craved. The taxi driver also looked as if he would have liked an explanation, giving her a curious appraising look when he heard the infamous address, the new drop off point. It chuckled to himself that the address was much more commonly used as a pick up point for people wishing to escape the country, than a destination for those who had just arrived.
Sarah was sat, yet again, in a plastic chair, surrounded by the institutional smell of lemon floor cleaner and the squeak of official shoes. The murmur of purpose and rustle of paper echoed the corridors. Sarah had initially glanced up at each passing official, and by the time the man stood at her side, asking, ‘Mrs Howard-Dobson?’ , he had to repeat the name twice in order to catch her attention, and even then it took her a slow five seconds to understand, and nod her head slowly. This gave the official the impression that Sarah was slightly slow, although this could only work to her advantage. The official took her into a room, sat her down, and gave her a cup of tea that they both watched get cold and grey. He informed her, with suitable gravity, that her husband had been caught deliberately and unashamedly flouting the protest law, outside the houses of parliament. He waited a beat, in order to let the news sink in, and to give Sarah the time to gasp, as family members usually did, and then explained the situation. He explained that the charges against him were defined as civilian, through the AFL, rather than criminal, and this meant that, although he was confined to the AFL cells, he had greater access to the outside world, and more specifically her, than he would in a conventional prison. Sarah was aware that this public presentation of leniency actually allowed the AFL to keep those confined in their cells for longer periods without a public outcry.
Sarah was presented with an ID card, which, she assumed, also contained a tracking device, and ushered through the corridors, past several security points. The guards glanced up, saw the official at her side and waved them through each one, until they reached the cell wing of the AFL building. After the swift progress through the building, the procedures before entering the cell block seemed arduous; metal detectors, finger prints, and ID cards. Finally, she was lead to a room where, at a table, Adam sat. They grinned at each other in natural reaction to seeing each other after all this time, but then the situation made them more stilted and formal.
‘Wh..?’, she began. With a slight nod towards the guards Adam interrupted.
‘I knew you’d come. Thanks. I really need to talk to you.’ He paused. He spoke as if he had prepared what he was going to say. And well he might. This meeting was highly important, and he knew it. He jiggled his leg nervously. It had been a big risk mentioning Sarah as his wife, but it was a calculated risk. His trust in her had been vindicated by her quick thinking in answering to Mrs Howard Dobson. He had half thought she would snort at the statement for its ridiculousness and put the whole operation in jeopardy. He hoped Jim wouldn’t mind too much either.
On the other side of London, Jen was sitting at one of the plastic tables, licking sauce off her fingers, absentmindedly picking the salad away from the meat, when Alex ran in. Alex was blind to all else; since her flight touched down in London, her mind had been focused on this moment. The moment when the dead weight of the coins in her hand would be exchanged for the hot savoury comfort of Golden Fryer chips, the tang of vinegar, pool of ketchup and savouring the soft, salty greasy potato. As she grabbed parcel of chips from the man, she spun on the back of her heels, catching sight of Jen at a table in the corner.