The Petitioners Read Online Free PDF Page B

bed. I glanced round for a box or a chest that he might keep valuables in.
    And there was the device itself, sitting in plain view on top of the shelves he and Fiona had made from bricks and planks to house books and crockery and so on. I hastily grabbed at it and shoved it in my pocket.
    It gave a sort of bleep but that was all.
    Back in the stables, I ate a cheese sandwich capsule. It was only marginally less disgusting than the cheese and gherkin sandwich I had once inadvertently bought at a train station somewhere in Europe. In many ways I looked back with nostalgia on the times when we were still able to travel, but in others it was more a case of looking back in anger, or at least mild irritation.
    If you bit the capsule in half it took a little longer to eat, giving the illusion of being actual food. I was raising the second half towards my mouth when the little black communication device said,
    ‘Mr Hepburn! I’m so glad you decided to get in touch.’
    Bad words flowed into my head and it was a struggle not to voice any of them. I waited.
    ‘You did decide, didn’t you?’ continued Ms Fairfax. ‘You didn’t activate it by accident again?’
    ‘Not exactly,’ I muttered, throwing the second half of the cheese sandwich capsule to the ground.
    ‘Because I’ve organized some assistance for you, and it should be arriving in about ten minutes.’
    ‘No, they can’t! I mean – I just wanted to talk things through with you a bit more – see what sort of assistance you had in mind. That sort of thing.’
    I could envisage a platoon – or whatever the military term was – of soldiers being airlifted into our cosy little camp. Dan would probably take up arms against them and be taken prisoner again, or worse, while Declan and Fiona would head for the Highlands without further discussion. I closed my eyes to try and clear my brain. It didn’t work. Her voice broke into my thoughts.
    ‘Oh, dear,’ she said, not sounding apologetic. ‘I hope this won’t cause any friction between you and your friends.’
    ‘It isn’t a case of friction,’ I said irritably. ‘I could handle that – it’s nothing new. We just needed more time to work out what to do with more man-power, that’s all.’
    ‘And woman-power,’ she said. ‘I’ll be accompanying the troops.’
    ‘Ah.’ She’d be leading them into battle. That figured. She was a dead ringer for Boadicea, now I came to think of it.
    It was the kind of thing Emma would have enjoyed, although I wasn’t sure how she would feel about another woman usurping her role, so to speak.
    ‘I’ll deal with the friction,’ she said. ‘I have my methods.’
    It was slightly unfortunate that Declan and the others came back early from their foraging expedition.
    ‘Bloody neighbourhood wardens,’ he complained, throwing down a couple of boxes. Fiona silently added another to the pile.
    ‘Where’s Dan?’ I enquired. I had to keep a close watch on him if the soldiers were on their way.
    ‘Helping Mrs Swan. Here they are now.’
    Mrs Swan was a woman, probably in late middle age – or not much older than me, in other words –  who liked to think of herself as indestructible because she had survived the great storm when some of her friends and neighbours hadn’t. She always tried to carry more than she could manage and had to be helped by somebody else in the group. Declan had given the others supposedly secret instructions that if she fell and seriously injured herself because of overdoing things, they had to leave her behind to take her chances. It seemed harsh to me, but luckily it wasn’t my responsibility to supervise raiding parties.
    On this occasion she was limping a bit as she and Dan came along. Lucky for her that Declan hadn’t just dumped her at the side of the road.
    ‘I’m sorry to hold you all up,’ she was saying. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t come along with you the next time. Is there anything I could do to help you, Mr Hepburn?’
    She could