Page 142 of Crocodile Tears

“Yes, sir.” Josiah snapped off a smart salute. “Uh…” He glanced around, wondering how best to improvise.

“My pack.” Peter rummaged in his knapsack and pulled out some Vaseline. Josiah remembered him using it to soothe his chapped hands after working on the convoy’s engines.

They made love slowly, under the moon and stars, on Rosengarten’s parched earth. Afterwards, Josiah lay cradled in Peter’s arms with Hattie’s solid weight on his feet, gazing up at the night sky.

“Was that better than fighting?” Peter asked.

Josiah smiled and brushed a lock of Peter’s dark hair away from his eyes. “Oh yes,” he whispered. “Much better.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

JUNE 2088

Alex

The trial was a formality. Alex pleaded guilty, and the press turned out in force to watch the latest tawdry episode in the Lytton family drama.

He was accustomed to the massed ranks of the media jostling him, the camera flashes blinding him, and the vicious questions they hurled at him, hoping to provoke a reaction, but even so, it was harrowing.

Keeping his gaze resolutely on his shoes, he was escorted through the press scrum on his way into court, but they managed to get shots of him anyway.

Within minutes, one particular image had gone viral. It showed him looking gaunt and lost as he was thrust through the crowds, his head hanging down and his disgrace tangible. It was captioned with the wordsHang Dog – and the double meaning wasn’t lost on him.

He’d lost so much weight that his jacket hung from his shoulders. As he had no money to pay for a lawyer, he had been assigned one by the state – a useless, bumbling idiot called Tobias Bailey, who was entirely out of his depth.

The judge was a patrician, thin-faced woman with flared nostrils. She seemed to hate him from the start, and he knew why.

He was one of the privileged, and his disgrace was in direct proportion to his status. The country existed in a fragile state of peace, and ifthe poor and dispossessed were to be kept in their place, then the rich and privileged had to know theirs:noblesse oblige.

Much was made of the fact that he’d stolen from the IS account, as if he’d personally snatched food from the mouths of every single indentured servant in the country.

He said nothing in his defence; he knew that what he’d done was indefensible. Bailey huffed and puffed, dropped his nanopad, and made such a fool of himself in court that Alex wished he could dispense with the man altogether.

Charles was there, managing to smile wanly for the press despite everything. George Tyler attended every day, too, taking copious notes, looking thoughtful but troubled. Alex couldn’t bring himself to meet the man’s eye. Solange wasn’t present; she hadn’t been in contact since his arrest.

Neil was called to the stand. He looked straight ahead, refusing to meet Alex’s eye.

“Mr Grant – please explain, in your own words, what Mr Lytton instructed you to do,” the prosecuting counsel prompted.

“Alex… um, I mean, Alexander Lytton ordered me to move the money into his account, so I did,” he said in a rushed monotone.

“Didn’t you think it was a strange request?”

“Well, yes, but…” Neil shrugged. “He’s the director’s son, and I’m just an indentured servant. He gave me an order, so I obeyed it. What was I supposed to do?”

Alex stared at him, but Neil steadfastly looked the other way. He decided not to correct Neil’s version of events. His former flatmate might be twisting the truth to save his own skin, but there was no point in them both going down.

Bailey expressed surprise that Neil had obeyed without query, but the matter was dropped. The nation had their villain in this particular drama – nobody else was required.

His father was called to give evidence. Alex sneaked a peek at him from under his eyelashes. Noah was cold and distant – he looked straight through his son as if he didn’t know him and then turned away. He gave his account in clipped, precise tones.

“Can you tell us upon whose authority your son was acting when hetransferred the money out of the Lytton AV indentured servant account to invest in the new project?” the prosecuting counsel asked.

The court’s gaze fell on Noah, waiting for his reply.

Alex crossed his fingers and closed his eyes. Would his father sell him or save him? He hoped it was the former. He couldn’t live with the latter.

“He was not acting for Lytton AV – the funds were misappropriated to fund his own vanity project. He stole the money,” Noah replied in a firm, decisive voice.

---