Geoff added, "I doubt the prat realises it"ll be ten times worse for him now. He tried to palm us off with some celebrity c.r.a.p or other, reckoning it was all hush-hush doncha-know. Open bleedin" secret, weren"it." He made a cackle-wheeze-cough noise and his face reddened.
I tried my best to act nonchalant as my heart rate thudded back down through the stratosphere. "So, that s.e.x pest piece. That"s the lead next week?"
"Early doors, ginge. I reckon we can have a bit of fun with St Paul"s. Looks as though there might be two or three stories to choose from. Candy from a baby."
"What are the other stories?" asked Manish.
"You got St Paul"s itself - dodgy reputation, bit too queer for its own good. And this race - who"s actually gonna benefit? Bound to be something going on there. Bit of a bung, a back-hander, thank you very much? Then there"s this "Archivist" fella. Not the fake bird Psych saw, the real one we"ve heard about. Who is he? Snooping on students? Is this how the college gets funded, by blackmailing people?"
I took notes like a good boy. In all honesty the questions weren"t that unreasonable. It couldn"t hurt to dig a little, just in case.
"Do we get straight on it?" I asked. "Who"s doing what?"
"Keen, all of a sudden, ain"t you?"
"Big story, Geoff. My first expose. I"d be happy to look into the race, since I"m pretty clued up on that already."
He held up his chubby hands. "Hold your horses, son. No good you fart-arsing around town on a chase right now. You"ve got to clean the toilet before you take a dump, as my old mother used to say."
I nodded as if I had the faintest clue.
"I reckon you should go after Flowers. You"re both, you know- that way. He can trust you. You can commiserate over a bleedin" Babycham."
"n.o.body has drunk Babycham in a hundred years, Geoff, not since you were a wee slip of a lad."
"Well, whatever you lot drink then. Go and hunt him down and get drunk together. He"s paying."
Simon cut in. "Geoff, he can"t do both Flowers and the race. He"s right, he should concentrate on the race. Twiglet can do Flowers. He"s prettier anyway. Closer to jailbait."
"You know I am still here, guys," I said. "I could do both."
Geoff weighed it up. "OK, Psych, point taken. Twiglet, you"re on Flowers. Ginge, the race - once you"ve done your ch.o.r.es. Simon and I will sort out the college between us and see if we can"t make head or tail of this Archivist bloke."
That plan lasted about five minutes. I"d barely started breaking the templates when Simon crouched beside me, knees cracking, and whispered nicotine nothings in my ear. "I think you and I are going to stick together on this one, Mr Geraghty."
"What do you mean?" I said quietly.
"I mean, I want to keep my eyes on you. Make sure you remain objective."
"There"s no such thing as objective, it"s-"
"I"m not sure I can trust you, you see. And I think you know why."
"You can trust me. I"m a Bugle boy through and through. All for one and all that. Was that the ninja turtles? Anyway. I"m your man."
He patted my shoulder. "I hope so," he said, and grunted to his feet and back to his desk.
Manish immediately shone a hypothetical bright light on my face and began an interrogation. I replied using the medium of shrug, until he realised he wasn"t getting anywhere and changed tack.
"This Flowers man," he said. "Who is he? Where do I start?"
I threw him a few bones, a couple of dollops of info - objective, trustworthy, ninja, Simon-friendly nuggets. Technically I might have missed out the middle third of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
"So you reckon I should, you know, go down the gay bar and chat him up?" He made the frown-smile of a child watching a cat vomit.
"You might not be his type, Twiglet. He might prefer a Twix or a Bounty."
"Sod off, I"m everybody"s type. I"ve had so much interest from men it"s not true."
"Have you ever actually been to a gay bar?"
"There"s a place back home-"
"I"ll ask again. Have you ever, actually, walked through the door into a gay bar?"
Two, one, zero. "No, but-"
"Right. I think I ought to come along and help you out a little. I"m a pretty decent chaperone, I won"t try it on or anything, and I won"t desert you if someone gives me the eye. Not unless, you know, he"s really hot."
He thought quickly. "OK. Yeah. Cool."
I left it until the early afternoon, when the post-lunch lazy times were kicking in and n.o.body was paying me much attention, before I slid out my phone and texted Seb one word: call. Although it was my own phone, and I paid my own bill, I didn"t want Bugle airs.p.a.ce invaded by any incriminating radio waves if I could help it. For all I knew Simon had had a portable 3G cell inserted in the s.p.a.ce where he"d never had a heart, and he"d fart out transcriptions every night before bed.
Seb called a few minutes later and I bundled myself out of the room. I told Manish it was a man about a man, you know, and made what my grammy would call a suspicious gesticulation. It"s the ideal way to kick one of those insecure macho types off your tail.
I made small talk about weather and c.o.c.ks until I was downstairs and outside on the street with a 360-view and a red plastic beanie marked paranoid on my head. I told him I had to keep it brief or Simon would be sniffing after me, and rattled off the outcome of the editorial meeting. I waited for a few words of considered reason, some Greatsholme insight to guide us, but all I got back was "Right", which might have been considered and might have been reasonable but it wasn"t particularly insightful.
So I let him know I"d volunteered to hold Manish"s hand down at Bar Humbug that night to stop him being dragged away to see a wonderful wizard and a wicked witch and a couple of other W words, and he said "Right" again.
And at this point I thought he was either not listening too closely or he was giving me directions somewhere, so I asked him whether he"d been paying any attention at all, and I felt two firm taps on my shoulder from behind.
I"ve never been much for ballet, apart from the men in tights, but right then I could have pas"d de f.u.c.king deux for Ireland. I jumped and spun round, thrusting out my crystal jaw ready to be splintered into a thousand pieces by Simon"s baseball bat.
And it was Seb.
Which was almost worse.
"What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?" I said into the phone, hearing it echo from his a fraction later.
"I"m here to see Burnett," he said into his, ditto. Both voices were firm, tight, holding back. "Would you like to show me in?"
"I"m afraid Mr Burnett"s busy right now. I think he"s eviscerating a small child. Can I take a message?"
"In here, is it?" He hung up and pointed into the dreary, fifties-era building behind me. Eyes darting, jaw tensed, decision made.
"Listen, you can"t go up there, Seb," I said.
"You were right. Last night. We have been remarkably foolish." He started to pull open a door. "We really should not drag St Paul"s into this, and we especially should not risk Spencer"s career. This is not his war."
I followed him through the door, past the faux-marble reception and its faux-marble receptionist. "It"s too late for that," I said in a kind of stage whisper, trying not to echo. "They"re not going to agree to another deal."
"Who said anything about a deal? Up here?" Two flights to climb, two flights to stop him. "I"m going to threaten him." Matter-of-factly, breathing more heavily.
"Seb, don"t do this." He started climbing the steps.
"I will simply say: drop the stories about Spencer and St Paul"s, or I will go public about what you did to my family."
I chased and ranted, with a tight tinny echo. "Listen to me, that won"t work. Trust me. You know what they"ll do? Print the stories anyway, and add a bonus one about you trying to blackmail and besmirch the good name of a free press, and how they"re shocked, shocked to the very core. They"ll get to dictate the story about you just like they dictated the story about your dad twenty years ago."
I grabbed his arm, and he stopped. First floor: some little s.h.i.tty software start-up, all gla.s.s and chrome and skateboards and hipster t.w.a.ts pretending they"re gonna change the world with their beards and their cat videos.
I continued, more softly. "Let"s just... talk to Spencer, at least. See what he wants to do in the cold light of day. You never know, he might want a career change. It"s not long to Christmas, John Lewis will need a Santa." I tried a smile and received a flicker of eye contact.
He relaxed, his jaw slackening, his blazing eyes cooling. Reluctantly I let his arm go. It was the most emotional, pa.s.sionate, I"d seen him, even more so than the night we met. Not the cold, calculating Seb he normally showed to the world. It was good to see, in a bad sort of way.
He nodded, slowly, almost sadly.
"Good," I said. "You know I"m right. It"s one of those annoying things about me that you like."
He turned and started downstairs again, and the calculator was back. "I shall contact Spencer. Let"s all meet up this evening."
"Do I not get a hug? I"d like a hug." I held out my arms.
"I bet you would." He kept walking. I was sure I could see the glimmer of a smile.
thirteen.
The Lie I awoke at a distressingly late hour on Friday morning with the Adam and Steve of all heads. I was sprawled in my college room, approximately on the sofa. I had either been viciously mugged or had fallen into a dead sleep on the two-metre journey from my desk, scattering various items to the four winds as I descended. I eventually located my mobile phone nestling up to an unread copy of Gibbon"s Decline and Fall, and grunted at the brash, unsubtle ingenuity of smartphones.
The device glared the time at me through the orange bus-depot gloom and I swore inventively. I knew a student was due within half an hour for an earnest discussion about a subject of no importance, and although I was an adept at failing to prepare this was bordering on magisterial. I was proud I had never yet bailed entirely from a supervision - on two occasions I had excused myself briefly and swiftly as I felt a tsunami rising - and had no intention of cancelling this one. The show, as it were, must go on.
I cleaned up the room as best I could with the timpani accompaniment belting out an old favourite in my frontal lobe. I managed a half-hearted wash in the miniature bathroom along the wonky hall and was grateful that the morning"s stubble was camouflaged by the beard. At the arrival of the student, precisely on time, I was at least half-present and correct and hoping terribly that the emergency instant coffee would enable me - and the poor boy - to survive the hour. The lad was vocally furnished neither with a hypnotic monotone nor a piercing squawk, which was a source of much solace. For an hour, musings upon the upcoming Bugle disaster were temporarily banished. I almost enjoyed myself.
At the student"s departure my thoughts returned immediately to sleep and the abandonment of the day. Perhaps I could forge some kind of maternal letter excusing me from whichever games were planned. It couldn"t, I observed with the day"s nth grunt, be any less discoverable a fake than the transcript provided to Wantage by Seb. Though, brutally, our failures there were multiple. Circular finger-pointing would help us little.
A knock at the door interrupted my attempt to shut my eyes. It was, I was startled to learn, the Archivist. I let out a short moan, which was at least a change from a grunt, as I saw from his expression how the conversation was likely to proceed.
"Dr Flowers, I should like a word, if it is convenient."
I ushered him in to the chair recently warmed by the student.
"I suppose you have heard of yesterday"s events," I said glumly.
"Heard, and saw." He was efficiently brusque. "I was off shift, of course, asleep, and despite in hindsight the obvious urgency I was alerted by an elf only as I arrived for duty last evening. Otherwise I would have come sooner. Preferably a day sooner, before the nonsense occurred. If only I had known of this!" He struggled to contain a whirlwind of anger.
"I thought you might find it acceptable or even tolerably amusing under the circ.u.mstances. Needs did must, if that"s a phrase."
He huffed and fidgeted, and his hair shuddered. "Good G.o.d man, protocol, protocol. I wish you had come to me first. We have contingencies for precisely this scenario. And you instead b.u.mble along and present a false Archivist! With a concocted story well known to be true! And allow the Master to bl.u.s.ter forth and bring the house of cards tumbling down!"
"Protocol, contingencies. How was I to know?" My defensive shields were raising. All hands on deck. Red alert.
He puffed out his cheeks and calmed a little, then glanced up at the camera watching over my room. "Now there is a question, Dr Flowers. A question indeed. Come with me. Swiftly."
He jumped up and went to the door, his gown billowing. I followed meekly behind clinging grimly to the struggle bus. There was no speaking as we walked at speed in procession across New Court into Bottom, students scattering before us, and directly to his secure underground facility.
"I apologise if I have done wrong," I attempted after the external doors were locked. "And I suppose you would now normally be in bed after your shift."
"That is of no consequence at the moment. Come through."
He led me to one of the other, heavily secured doors I had seen on my previous visit, and paused to allow an instrument to identify his retinal pattern. A green light shone above the door, which clicked open easily despite being of some implausible thickness. He beckoned me through after him, like a parent to a child on the first day of school.
It was an anteroom of some kind, of a generous size: warm, softly lit, with the college"s familiar wood panelling. The carpet was, I suspected, the most luxurious within a large radius. The wall along my left held a number of portraits, the right-most being the familiar face of the man before me. I realised with a throb these were all the Archivists of college history, faces I had never seen, burdened with truths I could never know. The opposite wall held a large pinboard near-overwhelmed by photographs: black and white, colour, small, large, all neatly annotated either by hand or by typewriter or by, I surmised, laser printer. A third wall included two further unmarked doors to destinations unknown.
There were also four large purple-leather chesterfield armchairs, empty until the Archivist took one and indicated I should take another.
"I have never seen this room before," I said, unable to hide the wonder in my voice. I had a curious, lopsided feeling, as if I had stepped out of my flat in town and found myself in Times Square in New York. "Those photographs-"
"Try not to look too closely. Viewer discretion advised, is I believe the phrase. An old tradition, not unlike maternity wards in which photographs of newborns rea.s.sure new admissions about to pop that the staff do, in fact, know how to deliver a baby. It is a record of our success, you might say."
"That"s... a lot of success," was all I could manage.
"A large fraction. Some information is still too sensitive even for this room." He rattled off the next sentence at well-rehea.r.s.ed speed. "Incidentally, please be a.s.sured that in this room we are not being seen or heard or recorded in any way by anyone or anything, within or without." He coughed. "Now to business. Dr-"
"Wait. Why am I suddenly granted access to all this?"
He sighed. "Because, Dr Flowers, if I might be savagely blunt, you have recklessly and needlessly endangered the college by potentially exposing us to unfettered outside scrutiny. And, in particular," he hesitated and looked around as if forgetting where he was, "because the Master didn"t stop you."
"Of course not. The woman has a vendetta against me."
"You must admit you have not done yourself very many favours. Remember, there is little that escapes the elves and me. There is a file of some thickness."
I hung my head in agreement, though a gremlin hidden on my shoulder giggled and let off a celebratory party popper.
"But you are correct. She knows the protocol. She knows there are contingencies. And yet she only half-heartedly counselled you on your blundering counter-strike against the newspaper. Worse still, she intervened personally. And all while I slept. This is worrying, Dr Flowers, I make no bones about it."
"Why did an elf not wake you?" I asked.
He grimaced. It was a sore point. "A confluence of unfortunate coincidences. A shift was swapped, an alarm failed, and an inexperienced elf was given a little too many s.p.a.ces to cover. I am unhappy, to say the least. Elf-herding can be similar to cat-herding, you understand. I must make allowances. And I cannot personally attend twenty-four hours a day."
I nodded in sympathy. "I am sure you do your best. It must be especially difficult and confusing to monitor Amanda. Dear G.o.d, how fed up you must be of Lulu."