Turning Point by Barbara Spencer Page B

That’s what takes the time.’
    â€˜I ride my dad’s bike, a Suzuki, a thousand cc. I’m pretty good with that.’ Scott couldn’t resist the boast.
    Still concerned, he swivelled round in his seat, wondering if somehow the Peugeot had duplicated their manoeuvre and was once again on their tail, only to find his view blocked by a bus.
    â€˜You won’t find many of those in Switzerland. Americans and English love their bikes. Swiss and Italians: their cars.’
    Expertly, their chauffeur steered the heavy vehicle into a narrow side road, more used to an average family-size saloon than a limousine. Scott guessed they were heading for the Embassy and taking the scenic route, the long way round; except it wasn’t scenic. The elegant mansions of the centre had been left behind, hopefully like their pursuers, and a bank of tall concrete structures now criss-crossed the skyline.
    Street after street fell behind the powerful vehicle, its speed reduced to a modest crawl unlikely to attract attention, although, Scott noticed, the driver kept a wary eye on his mirror. The streets narrowed further. Mostly empty of traffic and pedestrians, terraced houses lined both sides of the road. Cut from an identical pattern, with four windows and a door opening straight onto a narrow pavement, not even a clothes line with washing on it or a wall smeared with graffiti to break the monotony. At every junction identical blocks of apartments rose up, the shrubs in their communal gardens obliterated by a covering of snow. Even cars conformed to a rigid pattern, neatly parked in marked bays next to the kerb. Scott recognised the word
stationnement,
which meant parking in French, embossed on metal signs. Nervously, he checked the time. It was forty minutes since they had left the UN and for almost thirty of those they’d been locked among streets that seemed identical. Scott watched the driver indicating left and right with monotonous regularity and wondered if they had blundered into a maze and were trapped on a circular path that took them back to the beginning time and time again. No city could be this big – they had to be doubling back.
    Abruptly, the residential quarter vanished, replaced by a single-track roadway with gated factory units. The signs pinned to the walls meant little to Scott, a series of names mostly ending in the words:
et Cie
. Parked cars were dotted about, like dice on a board. All at once he remembered it was Wednesday – an ordinary, uneventful working day for everyone in this city, bar him and his dad. The idea that no one knew or cared what had happened to them seemed both illogical and unreal. It was difficult to accept that the momentous events at the UN had passed over the heads of the residents like a cloud of radiation, unseen and unfelt.
    At the far end, a forklift truck trundled back and forth unloading a lorry, drawn up alongside a raised loading bay, its cab facing outwards and blocking the roadway. Noticing the limousine approach, its driver swung up into the cab and started the engine, pulling the vehicle to one side. Abruptly, the limousine turned in through the factory gates and passed through a pair of double-doors, a mere thickness of paint between them.
    â€˜Apologies, this is the back entrance.’
    The building appeared to be a storage depot, though for what Scott hadn’t a clue, their chauffeur carefully manoeuvring the heavy vehicle along a narrow pathway between tall metal racks stacked with crates and boxes. As if by magic, sliding doors at the far end drew back. At first sight, it looked a dead end. Then Scott spotted a walkway, obviously intended for pedestrians and bicycles – not armour-plated vehicles. Edging slowly between high brick walls, they veered off into a second building and stopped. Behind them, doors slammed shut sealing them in. In the background, Scott caught the faint hum of machinery. Then, to his astonishment, railings grew