The Archivist paced to and fro silently, his hair bobbing like a conductor"s arm. I indicated to the Master to sit, and thankfully she acquiesced mutely. I was too enraged to join her, bouncing on my toes and boggling repeatedly at the obsolescent recording device I held before my face.
"We cannot allow-" I began, pushing it towards the Archivist.
He wafted me to silence. "Professor Sauvage will be here shortly," he said. "Nothing can begin until he is here. And until he is here, neither of us can leave."
"Deniability," I said, and he nodded. "But are we not currently monitored, recorded?"
"Yes, of course," he said, his stride unwavering. "But everything can be falsified given sufficient inclination. One trail of evidence is necessary, but not always sufficient." He stopped, and glared witheringly at me. "I thought by now you might have learned that lesson, Dr Flowers."
I looked to the floor, desperate for a hole into which to cast myself.
It was four or five excruciating minutes before Dennis was shown in. He was pale and out of breath, and I fussed him quickly into a chair.
"Dear jeebus, at my age, at my age," he said, mopping his face with a light blue handkerchief from his left rear trouser pocket.
The elf returned once more with water, pounced upon eagerly by Dennis, and then left us in peace: perhaps to watch whatever was to happen next on the screens in the Hub, or perhaps to wind up the organ of gossip and transmit updates by jungle drum to the far corners.
My stomach began to cartwheel. I felt the fart of history upon me.
The Archivist brought Dennis - and everyone watching - up to speed. There had been a gross and unprecedented betrayal of trust, he said, and glanced at me before looking more fiercely upon the drawn, purple, mouldering face of Amanda. He explained how the college was in the midst of a great crisis, how its very future was in doubt, and that we must all work together to ensure its continuation. The Pink and the Grey had lasted two centuries, he cried, and while breath remained in his body he would make it last another two. It was a stirring, pa.s.sionate political manifesto sprinkled with flashing knives and vaguely h.o.m.oerotic imagery and had undoubtedly been circulating around his head for the previous several years.
The Archivist was relishing this chance to finally say his piece, and he laid into Amanda with some abandon.
"And so we have no alternative," he said finally. "We must, for the enduring good of the Holy and Glorious College of St Paul, for all that is right and true, for the pre-"
"Might I mitigate?" said Amanda quietly but firmly, her warble cutting through the Archivist"s waffle.
His ranting red face halted, arm aloft in splendid oratory, spittle frozen mid-arc.
Dennis had recovered sufficiently and regained what remained of his colour. "It would only be fair, Archivist," he said.
The Archivist"s arm dropped and reluctantly waved her to speak. He retreated to lean against a wall, his hair splaying out behind him.
"I thank. I speak trepidatally in fear of made-up minds. Yet speak I must, and heard be I must." She rose slowly as to confront the Archivist. "I am aware of my dispopularity, amongst the here and the there. It is impossible so to dispute. I have the screens, as does the Archivist. Yet these screens he may record and database without punity. I may, as it were, not. A simple action of dictaphone and the heft is upon me and all a-blister. How dare I! Betrayal! Such nuclear wording!"
"She rather has a point," I said. "Well, a fuzzy blob. The Archivist keeps records. Why cannot she?"
"It is my job!" said the Archivist. "Enshrined in our rules: a separation of concerns. I act purely in the future interests of our college."
"Do I not?" said the Master. "Do I work against such interests?"
"I do not claim that, Master. The fact remains that you have not explained your reason for this recording."
"Master," I said, "you wanted information about my dealings with the Archivist. Regarding the Bugle business."
"This did I," Amanda said, nodding. "Of this am I not ent.i.tled? Is it... secret from me?"
I looked away.
"I see," she continued. "Then perhaps I was right to record." She sat once more, her point I thought well and truly made, and not a biro in the vicinity.
"But to what end!" cried the Archivist. "Why would you think to do so? Is there a third party pressuring you? Have you begun your memoirs?"
"In my future interest, Archivist," she said with some intensity. "My future interest."
The Archivist could only huff uselessly at that. He went to the Praelector and muttered darkly to him. Dennis nodded and replied, and his face paled again. I could not hear what was said.
"These are pressing times," the Archivist began finally, "and I hope it is plain that we must all work together to ensure the continuation of St Paul"s. Any conflicts between us work against that goal. The Master has made some valid points, I willingly concede. But now is not the time for this debate. The external forces upon us are too great, too immediate, to allow for the niceties of a const.i.tutional subcommittee. That is for a better time, when the crisis is resolved and we may attend properly and respectfully to all matters arising. For now, under present circ.u.mstances, Professor Sauvage and I are agreed that we must declare, in common parlance, a temporary state of emergency."
I felt a ripple of events wash over me and begin to expand.
"You coup me?" the Master said, unbelieving. "Throw me over?"
"We do not, Master. We are placing you under temporary Lodge Arrest. Study leave, you might say, and we shall. Until this crisis is averted. You shall have no contact with the outside world."
"We do not do this lightly, Amanda," said Dennis.
"For the duration of the emergency Professor Sauvage, as Vice Master, shall take on the Master"s duties to the best of his abilities."
"Bar Lulu, Lulu," he said, unwisely attempting a joke.
Amanda began electric verbal exchanges of some vigour that led only to a rapid exit in the company of some trusted and toned elves and in the direction of her apartments, grandly called the Master"s Lodge, on the St Andrew"s Street side of Bottom Court. Here, I was told, she would be watched closely by cameras and eyes, and would not be allowed phones or computers. She would be isolated, for the good of the college.
It seemed to me a drastic step and I felt almost sorry for her. Dennis murmured in duplicated agreement, but believed we had no real choice. "She is a loose cannon, a loose cannon, my dear Spencer. We are already holed well below the waterline."
"Indeed, Dennis, indeed," I replied. "We flounder, sails askew, wheel spinning, at a dangerous list, low on rations, high on scurvy, pirates on our tail, sandbanks tickling our keel, and guided only by a faulty moral compa.s.s."
He laughed grimly and grabbed my arm. I helped him to his feet.
"You must excuse me, young man," he said, leaning in with a conspiratorial twinkle. "I believe it is time for me to walk the plank."
I watched him leave, hoping his words were neither prediction nor euphemism.
At around six that evening, with college still fizzing at the day"s events, I received a text from Conor. He was coming to see me on a matter of urgency.
My nerves were by then a boxed, plastic-wrapped thousand-piece jigsaw under the sofa bed and I had rather begun to top up my levels of adrenalin from the gin bottle as I relayed the news - in only the most circ.u.mspect of terms - to Claire on the phone.
I attempted to bat Conor away at least until the morning"s grey blast. He persisted, abusing exclamation marks like a twelve-year-old, and ultimately I gave way: I never could resist a ginger.
I met him at the front gate with, I hoped, a sober air.
"Jeez, pie-eyed already, Spencer?" he said before even a h.e.l.lo.
"It has been a day of some stress, which I hope fervently shall not be added to." I laid a hand on the curl of his shoulder and let it drift marginally south. "Gin? The bar will be-"
"No, please, no booze. I need your help. The Archivist"s help. I know youse lot have been in the office."
I failed to fake surprise. In my enhanced form I could merely affect a cartoonish goggle that I imagine should have been accompanied by a throaty klaxon sound effect from an animated cartoon.
"We have a situation," he said. "A s.h.i.tty situation. A s.h.i.tuation. Can I see the Archivist?"
I brought him through briskly into the poorly illuminated Bottom Court where pa.s.sers by might not hear the A-word.
"I suspect he might not be in the appropriate mind for a meeting," I said, and related the tale of the day with the strongest counsel regarding its sensitive nature.
He absorbed the news showing no surprise or shock. I supposed that once you"d attended a meeting of the Women"s Inst.i.tute you were incapable of such emotions.
"My turn," he said. "Manish saw your camp old porter at the Bugle office, pretending to be a maintenance man. We reckon he was adding some network doohickey, are we right?"
I nodded reluctantly and began to explain. He held up a hand to stop me.
"Now," he continued, "Manish was in the office that morning to set the Googles on our mutual friend. To find out whether he was all he cracked up to be. And when I did that, Geoff"s deputy Simon found out somehow or other and I d.a.m.n near got a fist up me. If Simon sees that Manish has done the same thing..." He trailed off.
"I understand," I said. "I am sure the Archivist can a.s.sist in some fashion."
I took him the few metres to the Archivist"s ground floor entrance on the east range of Bottom Court. This was A Staircase: that is, the staircase labelled A, rather than merely a capitalised indefinite. Through the doors we descended the stone steps, slightly bowed through use, toward the restricted area, the all-seeing bas.e.m.e.nt of knowledge.
Not half-way, yet already more than a few degrees warmer, we were met by an elf. It was Jay, the fresher I had seen frequently in the Hub in the last week.
"Mr Beardsley," I said. "Going up for some air?"
"Still on shift, sir. I am here to turn you both away, I"m afraid. I"m sorry, but-"
"We must see the Archivist urgently."
The lad"s gaze never raised above the nipple. "The Archivist says all is in hand, sir."
"This concerns the Bugle affair," I said, not wishing to say any more.
"Yes, he said all is in hand," Jay repeated in an apologetic tone. His arms were outstretched, barring further descent.
"Runs a tight little ship, does your Archivist," said Conor. "Do I have to beg on my hands and knees? I can be good at that."
Jay chanced a smile. "I"ll bear that in mind, sir. It"s unnecessary in this case."
"Am I given that the Archivist was, as it were, tuned in to our conversation a moment ago?" I said.
"I can tell you nothing else, Dr Flowers. It is all in hand."
"That"s three hands it"s in," said Conor. "Is it me, am I unclean? Do I smell of journalist? Do I need to be scrubbed down with antiseptic before I"m allowed in? The red doesn"t come off, you know."
"All I can do is repeat the message, sir. Four hands now." The boy blushed shyly, perhaps unsure whether he was allowed to joke with us.
"I believe we are wasting our precious, Conor. The Archivist is a busy man. He will set his elves upon the problem. A swift drink and then you can be on your way."
I led Conor back outside so the four-handed elf might return to his duties.
"Is it like that all the time?" Conor asked as we stood beside the lawn under orange light-polluted clouds. "Do you get half-way through a sentence and some poor undergrad runs up with the rest of it on a bit of parchment? Jeez, I hope you boys don"t have a quiz night here. He must win every week. Question one: what is- and he"ll shout out pomegranate and everyone will tut and moan."
"It is not quite as awful as that," I replied, a foot straightening the edge of gra.s.s. "In normal times, such as these most definitively are not, we go about our business with hardly a thought as to what occurs below ground. On occasion one might spot the blinking of a red eye in a public or private corner, a gentle prod to the cerebellum. I dare say it does not alter behaviour greatly. I scarcely believe there can be anything the Archivist has not already seen, in some variant or another, in some multiplication, and you must admit that some gentlemen even find the concept... attractive. On the whole we feel the value outweighs the cost. Technically, of course, it"s a great achievement and something the college is terribly proud of, in private that is."
Conor was thoughtful and about to respond when the Archivist"s double doors burst open and the same blond elf appeared once more.
"He has another message," said Jay, marginally breathless. "He doesn"t enjoy quizzes or pomegranates."
Conor accepted the offer of a drink.
eighteen.
The Research With the hot blood of a chase pounding through his veins Geoff insisted on a Tuesday morning quick meeting around his desk. Not surprisingly I kept my mouth shut about the insignificant matter of the Master of St Paul"s being locked up. Neither did I mention the camera that was sitting up in the far corner watching every tea break, or the mysterious device plugged into our network that I now knew secretly copied everything that went through it straight back to a bunch of geeks at the college.
Spencer had been on a full-on drunken blab the night before in the college bar. I"d had to drag him away from the students into a quiet corner in case they were taking notes. Of course, he"d thought I"d had other reasons for a little privacy, and I was forced to let him down gently. OK, not so gently.
It had been painful to watch. I"d told him he really ought to knock off the gin and dry out for a while, at least until everything that was going to happen, whatever it was, had happened. And he"d gone all maudlin, and switched on the woe-is-me fairy lights, and I"d kept wishing that the cute barman would wander over telling me to leave Spencer there for the cleaners to mop up in the morning while we had a drink by ourselves somewhere nice and cosy and preferably not with a camera looking at us. But it hadn"t been my night.
"The more I think about this," said Geoff, chewing on a pen since all the doughnuts had already gone, "the more I"m buying the immigrant angle. No wonder St Paul"s keeps a low profile. Don"t do anything too interesting, keep your heads down, here"s a few hundred grand and an Azerbaijani to put up for a few weeks until the coast is clear."
"Why do the race thing, then, and come to us for publicity?" asked Manish.
"It"s a cover, ain"t it," said Geoff as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "What you do is, you get everyone looking at a bunch of poofs running around Cambridge while you sneak coachloads of Muslims in the back door."
"It"s not just St Paul"s students taking part," I said. "They"re getting people from other colleges, and people who aren"t students at all."
"Careful, ginge, it sounds like you"ve been doing some research. I wouldn"t want you to overdo it, pull a muscle." He glanced across at Simon to get a smile of approval at the gag.
"Special occasion, boss," I said. "Don"t get used to it."
"I won"t. I"m spiking that story anyway."
"What? Why?"
I tensed, waiting for him or Simon to cackle and rub their hands and reveal they knew everything about everything and were going to help me to accidentally fall down the stairs if I would just come this way...
"Cos it"s a distraction from the real story," said Geoff. "I"m not gonna print a b.l.o.o.d.y great splash on illegal immigrants and have to make s.p.a.ce for your s.h.i.tty little piece on some tenners disappearing from bleedin" charity buckets. I want you to start hunting down the routes in and out. How do they do it: come in on a student visa and then jump into the back of a bus? Very handy, next to the bus station. No coincidence."
"Geoff," I said, trying not to laugh, "They didn"t build the college next to the bus station. I"m pretty sure it was the other way around."
"Well, how long has the bus station been there? f.u.c.king Chaucer might have come here for a day trip on the back of a bleedin" donkey for all I know. Find out."
I wrote "f.u.c.king Chaucer"s bleeding donkey" in my notebook for future generations to decipher, next to the growing collection of snowman-like spheres with steam rising from them that were my artist"s impressions of the editor.