Lies, Damned Lies, and History Page 15

  And hers, apparently. She said, ‘Hey,’ very softly and took him in her arms. He wrapped his own arms around her waist and rested his head against her, his little face a picture of misery. She leaned protectively over him, gently stroking his hair and murmuring something. He closed his eyes, and for that moment, they were the only two people in the whole world. I sneaked along the corridor to the door, leaving the two of them to comfort each other.

  Chapter Twelve

  It had to happen, of course. Thirsk turned up. Because, thanks to the three of us, they were our overlords now.

  There were two of them in the advance guard. I believe Dr Bairstow gave them the tour, introducing them to everyone. If they were impressed, then I had yet to hear of it. Not that they came anywhere near me. I heard their voices in the Library, and there was a cursory inspection of the Archive. I don’t know if Dr Dowson was protecting or concealing me, but I was grateful. I sat quietly until they went away and then continued with my work.

  The first I saw of them was in the dining room. The three of us were sitting at our usual table, the one at the back, out of the way, when they entered, stared around them, and sat down, waiting to be served.

  I stared curiously, not liking the look of either of them very much. She was small and mousey. With her slightly protruding teeth, she reminded me of a small mammal, perpetually poised for flight. I discovered later that she was romantically inclined. She would sit in the bar every night, reading books with such titles as The Prince and the Passion or The Secret Places of her Broken Heart, or Love’s Longings, the covers of which usually depicted a scantily clad young woman sprawled gracefully and adoringly at the feet of a muscle-bound colossus with a lunch box the size of Rushfordshire. That the heroine never caught her death of cold was explained by the city/castle/farmhouse behind them, exploding in a raging inferno which, inexplicably, neither of them appeared to have noticed.

  Today Miss Mousey sat quietly, all her attention on her boss, who was eye-catching for all the wrong reasons. I disliked him on sight. For the first time, I felt a little thankful I wasn’t Chief Ops Officer any longer. The thought of having to deal with him on a daily basis was not a pleasant one. He was tall and grey-haired with knobbly fingers, and he walked like a wading bird, his head and neck erect and unmoving as he thrust his legs out in front of him.

  ‘Like a disdainful flamingo with a stick up its arse,’ I said, a little more loudly than I intended.

  He showed no sign he had heard, but I bet he did. I tried to tell myself I was leaving anyway and it didn’t matter.

  I think that by now it had dawned on him that he wasn’t going to be served. I noticed Dr Bairstow making a rare appearance at one of the quiet tables, a newspaper and cup of tea in front of him. He hadn’t once looked up but he knew what was going on. The fact that he hadn’t strolled over with a friendly piece of advice about serving themselves was interesting.

  We sat watching, quietly enjoying the scene and laying bets on how long it would take them to get the message.

  ‘So,’ I said, pouring water for Markham, whose right hand was bruised and swollen, ‘do either of you know which is which?’

  ‘That’s Mr Halcombe and his assistant, Miss Dottle.’

  There was a thoughtful silence and then Peterson said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if his first name was Malcolm? He’d be Malcolm Halcombe.’

  We had a bit of a giggle because there wasn’t a lot to laugh about these days.

  ‘And,’ I said, grinning at them. ‘If he was born in Devon, he’d be Malcolm Halcombe from Salcombe.’

  Which set us off again. Oscar Wilde would have disowned us all.

  We both looked at Markham, who rose magnificently to the challenge.

  ‘And, if he’s particular about personal hygiene, he’d be talcum Malcolm Halcombe from Salcombe.’

  Yes, I know, but it felt so good to have something to laugh about again. I was just wiping my eyes when something rather nasty happened.

  Without looking at Miss Dottle, Halcombw said abruptly, ‘Get me a coffee.’

  She sat frozen, turning crimson with mortification. For a moment, I thought she was going to cry. She hesitated, looking around to see who was watching.

  St Mary’s stared, open mouthed at such discourtesy. I mean, it’s fine to call someone ‘a cack-handed pillock with all the personal charisma of a sea slug’, but you don’t just sit there and say, ‘Get me a coffee.’ Who did he think he was? Dr Bairstow always served himself. I’m sure Mrs Mack would happily have served him if he’d asked, but he always looked after himself, along with the rest of us.

  The room was filled with a silence that Halcombe didn’t seem to notice.

  Peterson, always soft hearted, pushed back his chair, but before he could move, Rosie Lee was there.

  ‘Allow me,’ she said sweetly, and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

  St Mary’s blinked and endeavoured to come to terms with the idea of Rosie Lee using her powers for good.

  The silence was complete as she made her way back again with a steaming cup and saucer. Past an uncharacteristically quiet History Department. Past Dr Bairstow who had, until that moment, been enjoying a rare moment of peace and quiet. He raised his eyes as she walked past, his face unreadable. She’d once been his PA – he knew her well. Well enough to shunt her on to me at the earliest opportunity, anyway. Catching my eye, he picked up his newspaper and limped slowly out of the dining room, to all appearances unaware of the drama going on around him. Wise move.

  Reaching Mr Halcombe’s table, Rosie Lee placed the cup and saucer before him with the careful reverence of a holy relic,

  I waited, holding my breath. If he said thank you, then there was still a chance she’d change her mind and say, ‘Oh sorry, I put sugar in it and you don’t, do you?’ and whip it away.

  He didn’t. Far from thanking her, he couldn’t even be bothered to look up. He was too busy making his statement. Sadly for him, he missed St Mary’s making theirs.

  She smiled sweetly, bobbed something that in a lesser woman might have been a curtsey, and backed off in a hurry.

  He reached out his hand for his cup. If anyone was going to say anything, now was the moment.

  No one said anything. It did briefly cross my mind that no matter how unhappy everyone was with us these days, at least no one had actually tried to poison us.

  He sat sipping his coffee, staring around him, watching us watching him. When he finished, he replaced the cup in the saucer and patted his lips with a napkin. Seeing Rosie Lee still seated at a nearby table, he pushed the cup a little way towards her and said, ‘I’ve finished.’

  To the huge astonishment of everyone present, as if she’d been waiting for this moment, she stood up, collected his cup and saucer, smiled angelically and said, ‘You’re a bit of an arsehole, aren’t you?’

  If he was taken aback, he made a quick recovery. Shrugging his shoulders dismissively, he said, ‘Nice coffee. Shame about the gob.’

  She smirked. ‘Oh, I don’t know. You drank it, didn’t you?’ Holding his eye just long enough to make sure he realised what she’d done, she plonked his cup back on the table and walked away.

  Abruptly, he pushed back his chair. Without even looking at Miss Dottle, he exited the room, leaving her there alone.

  She sat quietly for a while, obviously unsure what to do next. I felt so sorry for her. No wonder she dreamed of romance. Personally I’d be dreaming of homicide, but most people are much nicer than me.

  Peterson got to his feet, picked up his untouched cup of tea and took it to her table. He placed it gently in front of her, saying quietly, ‘We tend to serve ourselves here.’

  She smiled up at him and nodded her thanks. She did drink a few sips and then, obviously uncomfortable, she too got up and left.

  ‘Well,’ I said, watching her go.

  Markham shrugged. ‘Coffee drinker,’ he said. ‘What do you expect?’

  There was an all staff briefing a
day later. I didn’t attend. Actually, it would be more accurate to say I wasn’t invited. I sat in my little rabbit hole and pretended I didn’t care. The upshot, as reported to me by Peterson and Markham, was that normal service was to be resumed, but that there was to be a Thirsk presence on most jumps. That would mean just Halcombe and Dottle to begin with but there would soon be many more. With rotas and schedules. St Mary’s would be reduced to little more than chauffeurs.

  ‘Apparently, there’s a quota.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A quota. You know. A target.’

  ‘I know what a quota is – are you saying they’ve applied one to St Mary’s?’

  ‘Yep. Three jumps a week or thirteen a month. Minimum.’

  ‘But that’s preposterous. What about pod maintenance? What about rest periods?’

  ‘Rest periods at the end of every jump. Twenty-four hours. To be taken on site.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But what about fires, plagues, battles, etc. The need to get out in a hurry. What does he think he’s playing at? He’s an idiot.’

  ‘No Max, he’s been quite clever. Twenty-four hours at the end of every jump and before we return to St Mary’s means it’s on our own time. Suppose we jump on a Monday, spend one week observing, say, the Highland Clearances, rest for twenty-four hours but return on the Wednesday. That’s eight day’s work for only three day’s pay.’

  I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Even Dr Bairstow with his reluctance to part with any sum of money higher than double figures never dreamed up anything as unfair as that.

  ‘This guy has got to go.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  On that day, we didn’t even pretend to be cheerful.

  Two days later, I was sitting in the Library, compiling a list of establishments who might, at a push, be persuaded to have St Mary’s come and talk to them about History. Schools, colleges, local-history societies, re-enactment groups, authors, independent programme-makers – I was casting my nets wider than one of those commercial fishing ships, from whom not even the smallest fish could hope to escape.

  Dr Dowson appeared. ‘Telephone call for you Max.’

  I looked up. ‘For me? Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh yes. They were most insistent.’

  ‘But ...’

  ‘They’re waiting.’

  Sighing, I put down my scratchpad, wandered into his office and picked up the phone.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Max? Is that you? No, don’t ask questions. Just listen.’

  I did listen and then, very slowly and carefully, replaced the receiver. Laying my head on the desk, I took a minute or two to pray for patience.

  The god of historians, true to form, had wandered off.

  Why me?

  Well, that was easy. Clerk and Prentiss were off in Etruscan Rome, lucky devils. Atherton was prepping for the Monmouth Rebellion, and North was – somewhere. It didn’t really matter where – she certainly wasn’t the right person for this particular crisis.

  I had a quick think and then, picking up a file as camouflage, strolled casually upstairs to R&D. I needed to leave the unit, and under this new regime, I could only do that accompanied by a senior manager. Which officially, of course, he was. Something everyone always forgot. Including, probably, Professor Rapson himself.

  I explained why I needed him. He goggled and then, on my instructions, ordered us a taxi. We met it at the gates, walking slowly and casually down the long drive because Dr Bairstow doesn’t miss a thing. I had no idea whether anyone else was watching us, but it seemed safe to assume I was under close observation. Professor Rapson chatted amiably about everything under the sun, waving his arms around to illustrate his points, and I could only hope that from a distance, we looked comparatively unsuspicious. Looking normal was perhaps aiming a little high.

  ‘Well,’ he said, settling himself comfortably in the back of the taxi and looking around with the air of one who doesn’t get out much. ‘What’s all this about, then?’

  I took a deep breath and said as unemotionally as I could manage, ‘It would appear that Bashford, Miss Sykes and Miss Lingoss, have been arrested.’

  He was relatively unsurprised. ‘For what?’

  ‘Transportation of a dead body.’

  He was most indignant. ‘How did they manage to lay their hands on a dead body? I’ve been submitting applications for years. I tell people it’s for serious research and they just laugh at me. This is so unfair, Max. Why them and not me?’

  I rather thought he might have missed the point slightly. While I struggled for words to readjust his ideas, he carried on. ‘Is it the transportation or the dead body itself that’s causing the problem? You probably have to have all sorts of licences to move them around and I’m sure they won’t have had the foresight to ...’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s quite the issue here, Professor.’

  ‘Oh. Do we have any details?’

  ‘We do.’ I said grimly. ‘According to Miss Sykes, who had the sense to use their telephone call to inform me of this crisis rather than Dr Bairstow, it would seem that over lunch, members of both the History Department and R&D, obviously feeling that not enough damage had been done during the William Tell incident, saw fit to resume the discussion pertaining to myths and legends. They worked their way through the pet Chihuahua who turned out to be a rat, and then Lingoss questioned whether chickens really continue to run around after their head’s been chopped off. Someone said that was unlikely – imagine Bashford running around after his head had been chopped off, and then someone else said imagine Bashford running around before his head was chopped off, and Lingoss, in the interests of peace and goodwill, moved the conversation on to dead grandmothers on car roofs.’

  ‘As anyone would do,’ said the professor, loyally. She was one of his people, after all.

  I caught the driver’s eye in the rear-view mirror and said, ‘Indeed,’ very carefully. ‘Anyway, pausing only to allocate roles – Bashford was the body, Sykes the getaway driver, and Lingoss the instigator – or the observer, as she apparently prefers to be known – they set about checking the accuracy of this particular urban legend. Bashford donned a dress and wig, made himself up to resemble what he imagined a two-day-dead corpse would look like, and they lashed him to the roof rack on his car.’

  ‘Ingenious,’ he said, missing the point as usual. ‘Did they use bungee cords?’

  ‘That detail has yet to be ascertained,’ I said, nudging him back on track. ‘Astonishingly, they made it as far as Rushford before the police, alerted by an avalanche of panic-stricken 999 calls, were able to pull them over. The cavalcade ground to a police-induced halt outside Boots, where a furious argument ensued over their supposed possession of a dead body.

  ‘Matters were not improved when Bashford, in a doomed attempt to pour oil on troubled waters, climbed down off the car roof to reassure everyone. Apparently, several people fainted. The entire population of Rushford got the whole thing on their phones and our heroes made a brief appearance on the local lunchtime news: behind the one-legged jockey but ahead of the yodelling vicar. The only thing keeping them alive is Dr Bairstow’s complete and utter ignorance of the phenomenon known as YouTube, which he probably imagines to be some kind of personal plumbing-related apparatus.’

  Was it my imagination, or were we picking up speed?

  ‘Our mission, Professor, should we choose to accept it, is to liberate our colleagues, smooth down Rushford’s finest and get everyone back to St Mary’s before tea, and certainly before anyone realises what has happened.

  ‘What fun,’ he said, bouncing in his seat. ‘It’s just like old times, isn’t it? It’s all been rather quiet recently, don’t you think? So how do we set about this? Will we have to bail them out? I don’t think I’ve brought my wallet with me.’

  Since he was still in his stained and scorched lab coat and odd shoes, this didn’t surprise me in the slightest.
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br />   ‘Or are we organising a gaol-break?’ he continued with enthusiasm. ‘Do we ram the station and rescue them from the wreckage. I have to say, Max, if yes, we’re going to need a bigger car.’

  The taxi driver gave us to understand we should get out now.

  The police station in Rushford is not large. Perhaps there isn’t that much crime. We stood in the tiny reception area. I had explained the purpose of our visit – twice, because they didn’t seem to grasp things the first time around – while Professor Rapson immersed himself in posters about locking your car, not leaving parcels unattended, and not drinking and driving.

  Of course, with my usual luck, I got the female police sergeant who’d tried to arrest me on my wedding night. The police deal with loads of people all the time. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t recognise me.

  ‘You!’

  Bollocks.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ I said politely, because, of course, that always works with the police. ‘I’ve had a telephone call about some of our people.’

  She consulted a document. ‘Lingoss, Bashford, and Sykes.’

  ‘That’s them,’ I said, ungrammatically, but you can’t do everything at once. ‘Are they under arrest?’

  ‘No,’ she said, in a tone of voice that implied it was only a matter of time before they were, and probably they’d bang up the two of us as well, just because they could.

  Silence fell. The professor moved on to a cheerful little poster detailing the punishments incurred for not reporting Colorado beetle.

  I edged towards the sergeant and lowered my voice. ‘I wonder ...’

  ‘Yes?’

  I took out my wallet. ‘How much for you to keep them forever?’

  She raised an eyebrow.

  I raised two, because I’ve played poker with that cheating bunch of toe rags known as the Technical Section.

  She regarded me with no expression whatsoever. Obviously, she played poker with the Technical Section as well.

  I tried again. ‘If you like, I’ll take them away and have them shot.’

  She cheered up immediately. ‘That’s more like it. Wait here.’