had overtaken her but it seemed that our moment of intimacy had melted away as quickly as it had arrived. She asked if I’d like another coffee. I said yes, and whilst she was ordering at the counter my phone shuddered in my pocket to announce the arrival of a recent text message.
So glad you’re ok. Can’t wait to see you too.
Sorry I didn’t tell you about Joe.
I missed you holding me tonight.
Then, best of all, the letter
“Girlfriend?” Barbara asked, setting another coffee in front of me.
“Maybe,” I said. “Not sure, to be honest.”
“Is it the girl we met? I mean — that Barbara met. Your landlady?”
I nodded.
“Have a little happiness together, Henry. Grab it while you still can. You’re lucky.” Barbara stretched herself out felinely. “I know that’s not for me.”
“Surely,” I said, “looking like you do…”
She just stared ahead. “You know that they fought over me…”
“Who fought over you?”
“Dedlock and your grandfather. I can’t quite recall the details. Not yet. But I know that there was a struggle. Backstabbing. Treachery. Nothing changes. Jasper wanted me, too. He tried to touch me.”
“Jasper?”
“I say only that he tried, Henry. He made the attempt. That’s all you need to know.”
“And Barnaby? What about him?”
“Barnaby’s dead,” she said flatly. “They killed him.”
“Who?”
Rather disgustedly, she spat into her coffee. “You know their names.”
Suddenly, mercifully, Barbara’s PDA bleeped for attention. She seized it and grinned. Two small spots of black had reappeared on the screen.
“Gotcha.”
I felt a paroxysm of fear. “Where are they?”
“Oh, very good.” Barbara laughed, and this time it sounded almost natural. But there was no happiness in her laugh, no genuine mirth. “Very droll.”
“Barbara,” I said softly. “Where are the Prefects?”
“You know the address. We both do. They’re at One Twenty-Five Fitzgibbon Street.” Now Barbara’s laughter sounded a hairsbreadth from tears. “They’re at our old office.”
B the time we got to the Civil Service Archive Unit, it was almost nine o’clock and a stream of gray-faced men and women was slouching despairingly into work. The safety officer, Philip Statham, walked straight past and didn’t even recognize me.
Barbara was outlining the situation to Dedlock. His voice crackled in our ears. “What are they doing in there? What the hell are they doing?”
“I think this is it, sir,” Barbara said. “I think they’re here to find Estella.”
“You know something?”
“Nothing concrete. Just ghosts.”
Engrossed in their conversation, I slowly became aware that someone was shouting my name.
“Henry!” Miss Morning was walking along the pavement toward us, clutching a carrier bag. Strangely, she appeared to be smiling.
The croak of Dedlock in my head: “Who is it?”
Barbara told him.
“What does she want?” he spat.
Miss Morning reached us, still brandishing her plastic bag like she’d won it at bingo. “Tell that unhappy old man that I have our salvation in this bag. Are the Domino Men inside?”
“Yes,” we said, pretty much simultaneously.
“Thought so.”
I asked her why.
“You think your job was an accident, Henry? You think anything in your whole life has been left to chance?” She took the carrier bag out from under her arm. There was something heavy inside which she unwrapped with the reverential care of a priest opening a fresh delivery of wafers. “Your grandfather built this.”
What was in the carrier bag was an impossibility. Shaped like a revolver and constructed with perfect intricacy, it was formed entirely of glass, glinting in the early morning sun, the product of a technology so far out of step with contemporary thought that it almost qualified as science fiction.
“He hid it in your flat,” Miss Morning said. “I discovered it behind your television.”
“So I’ve heard,” I muttered. “What does it do?”
The old lady smiled again. “It’s going to stop the Prefects.”
“How will it do that?”
“Your grandfather promised it would work. But Henry?”
“Yes?”
“If anything goes wrong in there. If we get separated. Trust the Process, won’t you?”
“What?”
“When the time comes, you’ll know what I mean. Just promise me — trust the Process.”
With impeccable timing, my mobile phone began to trill. When I saw who it was, I think I might actually have groaned aloud. I turned away from the others, hit the answer key and sighed: “Hello, Mum.”
“Gordy’s a shit. He’s a shit like all the rest.”
“Are you still in Gibraltar?” I asked gently.
“God, no,” she said. “Back home now, thank Christ. Jesus, what a disaster. The man’s an absolute bastard.”
“Not a good holiday, then?”
“It was a catastrophe. His only topic of conversation was his exes…”
Barbara tapped me on the shoulder. “Time to go in now.”
“Mum?” I said. “I’m sorry. But I’ve got to get to work. I’ll call you later, OK? We can catch up then. Have a natter.”
Mum gave a protractedly theatrical sniff. “If a day at the office means more to you than a conversation with your mother-”
“Bye, Mum.” I finished the call and turned back to Barbara.
Miss Morning, still holding that insanely improbably weapon, had begun to walk toward the office, tottering heroically onward in little-old-lady steps. We easily caught up.
I spoke quietly so that only Barbara would hear me. “Something I’ve never understood… If Estella’s in there — the real Estella — then what do we do when we find her?”
“It’s not going to be nice,” she said. “Not nice at all.” Barbara’s face had turned chalk-pale and she seemed to move more mechanically than ever, propelled forward by some irresistible force. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to kill her.”
