Lost in a Good Book

What happened to Walken’s case notes? Accidentally destroyed?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Lamb laughed. ‘When recovered they were totally intact— they were then put through the shredder by a new member of staff who mistook it for a photocopier.’

‘Do you have anything at all to go on?’

‘As soon as they realised it was a shredder, I… sorry, they stopped and we were left with these.’

He handed two half-documents over. One was a picture of a young woman striding out of a shop laden down with carrier bags and parcels. Her face, tantalisingly enough, had been destroyed by the shredder. I turned the picture over. On the back was a pencilled note: ‘A.H. leaves Camp Hopson having shopped with a stolen credit card.’

‘The “AH” means Acheron Hades,’ explained Lamb in a confident tone. ‘We were allowed to read part of his file. He can lie in thought, deed and action.’

‘I know. I wrote it. But this isn’t Hades. Acheron doesn’t resolve on film.’

‘Then who is it that we’re after?’ asked Slaughter.

‘I have no idea. What was on the other document?’

This was simply a handwritten page of notes, compiled by Walken about whoever it was they were watching. I read:

‘…9.34: Contact with suspect at Camp Hopson sales. 11.03: Elevenses of carrot juice and flapjack—leaves without paying. 11.48: Dorothy Perkins. 12.57: Lunch. 14.45: Continues shopping. 17.20: Argues with manager of Tammy Girl about returned leg warmers. 17.45: Lost contact. 21.03: Re-established contact at the HotBox nightclub. 23.02: AH leaves the HotBox with male companion. 23.16: Contact lost…’

I put down the sheet.

‘It’s not exactly what I’d describe as the work of a master criminal, now, is it?’

‘No,’ replied Slaughter glumly.

‘What were your orders?’

‘Classified,’ announced Lamb, who was getting the hang of SpecOps 5 work, right at the point where I didn’t want him to.

‘Stick to you like glue,’ said Slaughter, who understood the situation a lot better, ‘and reports every half an hour sent to SO-5 HQ in three separate ways.’

‘You’re being used as live bait,’ I told them. ‘If I were you I’d go back to SO-23 and 28 just as quick as your legs can carry you.’

‘And miss all this?’ asked Slaughter, replacing her dark glasses and looking every bit the part. SO-5 would be the highest office for either of them. I hoped they lived long enough to enjoy it.

By 10.30 the exhibition was pretty much over. I sent Gran home in a cab fast asleep and a bit tipsy. Saveloy tried to kiss me goodnight but I was too quick for him, and Duchamp2924 had managed to sell an installation of his called The id within VII—in a jar, pickled. Zorf refused to sell any paintings to anyone who couldn’t see what they were, but to the Neanderthals who could see what they were, he gave them away, arguing that the bond between a painting and an owner should not be sullied by anything as obscenely sapien as cash. The flattened tuba was sold too, the new owner asking Joffy to drop it round to him, and if he wasn’t at home to just slip it under the door.

I went home via Mum’s place to collect Pickwick, who hadn’t come out of the airing cupboard the entire time I was in Osaka.

‘She insisted on being fed in there,’ explained my mother, ‘and the trouble with the other dodos! Let one in and they all want to follow!’

She handed me Pickwick’s egg wrapped in a towel. Pickwick hopped up and down in a very aggravated manner and I had to show her the egg to keep her happy, then we both drove home to my apartment at the same sedate 20 m.p.h. and I placed the egg safely in the linen cupboard with Pickwick sitting on it in a cross mood, very fed up with being moved about.

22. Travels with My Father

‘The first time I went travelling with my father was when I was much younger. We attended the opening night of King Lear at the Globe theatre in 1602. The place was dirty and smelly and slightly rowdy, but for all that it was not unlike a lot of other opening nights I had attended. We bumped into someone named Bendix Scintilla, who was, like my father, a lonely traveller in time. He said he hung around in Elizabethan England to avoid ChronoGuard patrols. Dad said later that Scintilla had been a truly great fighter for the cause but his drive had left him when they eradicated his best friend and partner. I knew how he felt but did not do as he did.’

THURSDAY NEXT—private journals

Dad turned up for breakfast, which was unusual for him. I was just flicking through that morning’s copy of The Toad when he arrived. The big news story was the volte-face in Yorrick Kaine’s fortunes. From being a sad, politically dead no-hoper he was polling ahead of the ruling Teafurst party. The power of Shakespeare. The world suddenly stopped, the picture on the TV froze and the set gave out a dull hum, the same tone and pitch as the moment Dad arrived. He had the power to stop the clock like this, time ground to a halt when he visited me. It was a hard-won skill—for him there was no return to normality.

‘Hello, Dad,’ I said gloomily. ‘Did you hear about Landen’s eradication?’

‘No, I didn’t—I’m sorry to hear that, Sweetpea. Any particular reason?’

‘Goliath want Jack Schitt out of The Raven.’

‘Ah!’ he exclaimed. ‘The old blackmail routine. How’s your mother?’

‘She’s well. Is the world still going to end next week?’

‘Looks like it. Does she ever talk about me?’

‘All the time. I got this report from SpecOps forensics.’

‘Hmm,’ said my father, donning his glasses and staring at the report. ‘Carboxy-methyl-cellulose, phenylalnine and hydrocarbons. Animal fat? Doesn’t make any sense at all!’

He handed back the report.

‘I don’t get it,’ he said quietly, sucking the end of his spectacles. ‘That cyclist lived and the world still ended. Maybe it’s not him. But nothing else happened at that particular time and place. Maybe it’s something to do with—’ He frowned and looked at me oddly. ‘Maybe it’s something to do with you.’

‘Me? Listen, I didn’t do anything.’

‘You were there. Perhaps me handing you the bag of slime was the key event and not the death of the cyclist—did you tell anyone where that pink goo came from?’

‘No one.’

He thought for a bit.

‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘see what else you can find out. I’m sure the answer is staring us in the face!’

He picked up the paper and read: ‘Chimp merely pet, claims croquet supremo,’ before putting the paper down and looking at me with a twinkle in his eye.

‘This non-husband of yours—’

‘Landen.’

‘Right. Shall we try to get him back?’

‘Schitt-Hawse told me they had the summer of 1947 sewn up so tight not even a trans-temporal gnat could get in without being seen.’

My father smiled. ‘Then we will have to outsmart them! They will expect us to arrive at the right time and the right place—but we won’t. We’ll arrive at the right place but at the wrong time, then