No Place of Safety by Robert Barnard

around.
    The other trouble was, her mind was really quite ordinary.
    But, duty done, Randolph could have fun.
    â€˜And who do you expect to support you?’
    â€˜Luke Fossett, for one.’
    â€˜The secretary? But it was the secretary’s job you were thinking of standing for only a couple of months ago. You said that Luke was useless.’
    She brushed this aside with a wave of her spoon, which left red spots like bloodstains over the white tablecloth.
    â€˜He’s a senior constituency party member. His endorsement will carry weight. And I think Rebecca Thane will support me.’
    Randolph pressed a button.
    â€˜She has a first-rate brain, and would be a good person to have,’ he said.
    Pressing this button never failed to amuse him. His wife was unable to listen to praise of other people, particularly of their brains, without some sort of disclaimer. Sometimes there was a long pause, followed by ‘Ye-e-es’; at other times there was a long pause followed by a forthright statement of the person’s weak points in Alicia’s opinion. Or alternatively there would just be an endless pause.
    Tonight, because she wanted to emphasize the strength of her support, Alicia made the pause shorter, followed by: ‘She’s a very good sort of person,’ which in her language was a mild put-down.
    Randolph set down his spoon and wiped his mouth.
    â€˜I’m not really sure why you’re bothering,’ he said.
    Alicia threw up her chin.
    â€˜I’d be a very good councillor.’
    â€˜I’d be the last to say you wouldn’t.’ I wouldn’t dare, hethought to himself. ‘But what value has the nomination? It may not be true that there’s no safe Conservative seat in the country, but I’d say it was true that there is no safe Conservative ward in Leeds at the moment.’
    Alicia shook her head dismissively.
    â€˜Oh, the voters will come back. Conservative Leeds is true blue. All they need is someone who will fight.’
    â€˜Oh, you’ll fight all right.’
    The chin went up again. Then she thought for a moment.
    â€˜What I’ll need is an issue.’
    Randolph Ingram mimed thought.
    â€˜All the issues seem to be with the other side at the moment: the privatized water companies, the closing down of Barry Proctor School, the emergency ward closures in Leeds hospitals . . .’
    He almost seemed to say all this with relish.
    â€˜Don’t be so defeatist, Randolph!’ She pursed her lips, as she did when she was being crossed. ‘Something will come to me. It always does.’ She closed her eyes for a moment or two. ‘Hasn’t someone said something about a hostel for druggies?’
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    A boy who had come to the refuge the night before was proving a problem. Young man, rather. He was very large, but not in a physically threatening way. He was six feet tall, but his bulk was largely fat, and he made no aggressive gestures. Even Katy felt no nervousness about being alone with him. The amount he had eaten at supper – and he would have eaten more if there had been more – had shown how the fat had accumulated. While forking it in he had said that his name was Simon, but that was the only thing he said. He had shown no interest in the talk going on around him – the talk of the day’s events, of the dossers and drunks known to all those who sleep rough, of police tactics that for some was harassment, for others an elaborate and good-natured game. He had sat dull-eyed through all that. Afterwards he had gone up to his bedroom (which was the biggest bedroom in number twenty-two), and apparently had gonestraight to bed, because Alan had gone up there to talk to another refugee and had heard snores.
    In the morning Ben had talked to him in the hallway, as he was on his way out.
    â€˜Do you beg in town?’ he asked, in the neutral tones he was so good