"Are you sure? I could set you up for another if you"d like." I was gambling that Seb would pay my expenses without a second thought. "And there"s plenty more where that came from. You might not get the decent stuff every time, mind. Times is hard, even in this town." Take the bait, take the bait.
"I"m sure I could manage another, if you"re offering," he said.
I signalled to the barman, who"d been watching, and he fetched another gla.s.s. My eyes remained on Quiff, and my mouth stayed zipped. It was simply a question of who broke the silence first. I was happily tripping on caffeine. For once, I was determined it wouldn"t be me.
"Well, there might be something," he said finally.
Buy a man a drink and you have a friend for the evening - but buy him two and he"ll stay the night. I think that"s how the saying goes. Not that I had designs on Cornelius Quiff, but I"d happily have given him a smacker on the lips right there and then.
He explained, softly and confidentially, how he"d happened to learn - by which I"m sure he meant overheard - of a problem in the money department at St Paul"s College along the road. The place was running on empty. Cashflow negative, despite apparently sitting on a gold mine of top quality gossip themselves, and with some idea of a compet.i.tion to raise money.
That sounded like a story Seb and I could make use of. It would mean talking with the poshos at St Paul"s, but from what Quiff told me it was pretty clear who the source was: that guy Spencer, who was some a.r.s.ewiper-in-chief up there. He was always in Humbug, falling-down drunk, and Quiff was always sitting-down listening. Made total sense.
So I"d need to get in touch with Spencer. As long as he didn"t throw himself at me again it"d be fine.
I didn"t have Spencer"s contact details. I sure as h.e.l.l wasn"t going to ask anyone back at the Bugle offices to find them. I could have called the college switchboard and got all their tongues wagging overtime, but I needed to keep this entirely under the radar - for my sake and for Seb"s. If we were to pull off the Give Him Enough Rope plan with Geoff, secrecy was paramount.
After paying for the drinks at Humbug - and remembering to get a receipt and keep it somewhere nice and safe - I spent the afternoon back in the office on the day job, the one that actually paid my wages, fending off excited questions from Manish about the non-existent aunt that I"d already forgotten about by then.
I waited until after work, back home in my hovel of a flat, before logging in to Gaydar. I wasn"t a regular user. I figured there"s more to life than tapping into a box and trying to figure out whether the guy you"re talking to is twenty-five like he says or fifty-five, and the photos are all filtered and photoshopped and generally d.i.c.ked around with anyway. But I knew Spencer had a profile there. I bet he could barely last ten minutes without having a sniff around.
The message was easy enough: "Spencer! How"s it going? I hear you"re having a few problems over at St Paul"s. Wanna chat about it?"
I figured that was about as upbeat and ambiguous as I could get. He probably wouldn"t remember I was a journalist. Chances are I"d told him when he was draping himself all over me, and the memory had never stuck and was flushed out of his kidneys about ten minutes later.
His reply came as I was in the kitchen fixing myself up some pasta. "Lovely to hear from you. A little local difficulty, all under control - who"s been gossiping?"
He wasn"t biting. I had to try harder. "I"ll tell you over a drink."
Fifteen long minutes pa.s.sed before he got back to me, the git. The paranoia was starting to set in: who was he gra.s.sing to? I"d said nothing incriminating, though, nothing that could derail the plan. He finally sent a single word: "OK".
nine.
The Agreement It had been a long day of hurried and occasionally fraught meetings across the city, variously informing and pleading and negotiating with all the relevant parties and some irrelevant but mistaken ones. As Dennis had suggested, I presented the race as all agreed with Amanda and kept my fingers crossed that her disreputation was well known and n.o.body would dare check with the woman herself.
The police were unusually compliant regarding possible road closures - especially at the urgent notice I had requested, just ten days or so - and merely asked for an early peek at the antic.i.p.ated route, which I gladly promised. I told a rouge-faced desk jockey I planned to select the two random colleges midweek and a.s.sured him of my cooperation in every available respect. His reaction to my verbal stroking led me to suspect I might hear from him again in some alternative capacity.
The university authorities rolled rapidly over when I a.s.sured them no decisions were required on their part, and we would not sully the university brand or present the logo at a disrespectfully jaunty angle.
My colleagues at St John"s presented a somewhat harder challenge. I had hoped they might agree to open their capacious purse and allow me to harvest a few of the more burdensome coins for the purchase of necessities such as printed sticky numbers and collection buckets for the race partic.i.p.ants. The response was better than a defenestration, which was pleasing. They were, however, of the opinion that if they footed the bill for everything it was arguably their event and so they should reap the accompanying publicity whirlwind. Hard to counter with anything other than a glum face and a near-tearful goodbye. Happily they were content to be part of the event as a whole, or else one would be well and truly up scuttle creek.
When young Conor popped up in my Gaydar inbox that evening I was considering how best to approach local businesses in the hunt for freebies. From behind, with a pop on the head? Brazenly, with a politician"s mile-wide smile? Where could one obtain a couple of thousand buckets anyhow? I realised that if anyone knew about such things, Claire"s husband Ken most certainly would. I was on the phone to her, tendering the usual sincere apology for my behaviour on Friday night, then badgering about her little salesman. The upshot: little salesman laughter.
I almost missed Conor"s second message, having drifted with Claire onto lighter topics and poured myself some well-deserved lubrication. The ginger gentleman was persistent and seemingly rather eager to meet. And who was I to turn down such an invitation? We agreed what appeared an unnecessarily cloak-and-dagger manoeuvre, a nine o"clock rendezvous on Magdalene Bridge. I considered telling him I"d be wearing a scarlet b.u.t.tonhole and that he should call me Yevgeny, but sense and propriety prevailed.
Cometh the hour, et cetera, Conor was easily visible in silhouette on the crest of the bridge as I approached along the wooden boardwalk hugging the river"s edge at Quayside. The evening was bl.u.s.tery and few others were out and about. As I got near I saw his hair, swept back, rippling like a bonfire on a moor as the wind whipped a froth along the Cam.
"Nice weather for ducks," he said on spotting me. In truth, the ducks huddled in and around the punts stationed here for the evening and they appeared no happier than us poor schmucks. He pointed a thumb at the pub just behind us: "Pickerel?"
An unusual choice of venue, but then this was an unusual choice of meeting place. I agreed, if only to escape the weather. The Pickerel was one of several pubs claiming to be the oldest by some arbitrary self-selected measure or other. It was sited almost by the bridge, opposite Magdalene College, and boasted low ceilings and long dark beams in authentic medieval style like all the neighbouring establishments. Were it not for the TV by the fire and the mobiles squawking and glaring - plus the modern clothing and the electric light and the fruit machine and painted slogans on the walls and all the rest of it - one might have felt transported back to Newton"s simpler, more syphilitic time.
Conor bought two authentically modern pints of some kind of mysterious dark beer, churning in the gla.s.s like a dirty protest. I eschewed my favoured spirit to appear more genial, I suppose.
We curled around the back of a large table onto an angled upholstered bench, avoiding the worst excesses of the present day.
"I like this place," said Conor, wiping some beer froth from his upper lip. His accent was strong, his voice perky. "Cosy. It"s an old man"s pub, you know what I mean?"
"Do you prefer older men, Conor?" Too easy.
He grinned. "Older men have their advantages. They"re generally not living with their parents, is one. That"s a morning-after conversation you don"t want. Younger"s good too though. It all depends what"s up here." He tapped his head.
"I can confirm I"m not living with my parents."
"I should hope not, man in your position. Bet you can"t fit stairlifts in ivory towers anyway."
He was smirking, and I took no offence and smiled in return. It coincided with a ball of noise from beside the television behind us: some team scoring against some other team, which was apparently vitally important for a reason I couldn"t fathom.
I ventured a sip of the bitter and estimated it would take approximately two hours to work through. "No ivory towers at St Paul"s I can a.s.sure you," I said.
"So how"s it going there? Money troubles, I hear."
"Who told you that?"
"Is it true?"
I considered bluffing my way out of it, spinning a joyous yarn of sunshine and fertile pastures, of gambolling lambs, and of Amanda smiling beneficently from a platinum throne held aloft by olive-skinned rugby players in jockstraps. "We are investigating several options for improving our-"
"Come on, Spencer, cut the bulls.h.i.t. Level with me. It might be to your advantage."
What a curious thing for him to have said, I thought. He was hardly in a position to write me out a cheque with several significant trailing zeroes there and then, unless he wasn"t the Irish chancer, albeit a charismatically attractive one, I thought he was.
"I confess you have me confused, Conor. What"s this about? Do you have a donation for the college?"
He nursed his pint for a few seconds: he was already nearly half-way through it. I was struggling, just a few centimetres in, wondering whether I should ask for a knife and fork.
"This is about honesty," he said slowly, and turned to me. "If you"re honest with me, I"ll be honest with you." His smile was bright, open, suspicious.
"I don"t know what you need to be honest about." An unsettling thought smacked me. "Has Amanda sent you?"
"Who?"
"Amanda Chatteris. The Master."
"Of St Paul"s? Now that"s interesting," he said, sitting back. "We talk about honesty, and you bring up your boss. You nick all the money, did you?"
"No!" An angry whisper.
"OK, then maybe you"re doing something behind her back? Maybe-" Forward again, on his elbows. "Maybe some kind of compet.i.tion?"
"She has sent you." This was not, evidently, going the way I had antic.i.p.ated. A commotion behind suggested a missed opportunity by a player decried as useless, which made me wonder why he had been selected to play.
"I promise you on my poor dead grammy"s life, your Master hasn"t sent me. I don"t know why you"re afraid of her, but she hasn"t sent me."
"I"m not afraid of her." I took a large gulp of the beer and a malty taste burst upon my tongue.
"Then why are you trying to subvert her? Come on. The college is skint, you"re trying to organise something to raise money, and for some reason you"re afraid of her finding out the truth. And- and for some other reason, you won"t use this amazing top-secret gossip you"ve got."
"We don"t have any gossip," I muttered. Where did that come from?
He looked at me disbelievingly. "Really? You"re really denying all this?"
This was all getting rather too odd for my liking. There I was, contemplating a light touch upon his knee to indicate a rising interest rate and an opportunity to make a deposit, and he"s blathering about honesty and advantages and accusing me of all manner of inaccurate and nearly inaccurate things.
I took a breath. "Conor, I think there might be a misunderstanding, of sorts. I- I didn"t think we were here for a discussion about St Paul"s. I was most certainly not antic.i.p.ating an interrogation about honesty, of all things."
"My message, I thought it was clear enough. Problems at St Paul"s, I said."
"You did, that is true. I believed that merely to be a convenient hook for a more general discussion with a view to..." I trailed off with some eye contact and a Spock eyebrow. "Apparently I was mistaken."
"Are you flirting with me? Is that it? Oh, right. I hadn"t noticed. Ah, the older man stuff. Yes. I get it now. No, this was a genuine attempt to talk about St Paul"s. You know, I"m not saying you"re not attractive, Spencer."
I shook my head. "Don"t hide behind a double negative. You were the one discussing honesty."
"OK, you"re right." He emphasised each word: "You"re just not my type."
I suppose I had asked for that. Ah well, it was good to know in which cow pat I stood.
A whistle blew on the television. Those watching considered this a grave error and gave vent to their feelings.
"But the college thing," said Conor, "that I am interested in. And there really might be something mutually beneficial going on here."
I took another mouthful of the beer. It was really rather pleasant, if excessively filling.
What the h.e.l.l, I thought. It would all trickle out soon enough: the buildings of Cambridge might be made of brick and ancient stone but - the Archivist excepted - gossip permeated the silent walls as if they were paper.
I told him about the Praelector"s unexpected discovery of my accompanied self in the shrubbery and my subsequent trampling under the purple moccasins of Amanda, plus the charity race idea I had proposed and - against Amanda"s wishes - was organising. I was reluctant to divulge too much about the Archivist, merely suggesting we had unusually detailed visitor records that occasionally proved useful: and judging by his creeping smile, he was in receipt of my drift.
I did not hold back on my dislike for Amanda. In fact, the further down the pint gla.s.s I reached, the more vehement I became. Perhaps there was something to this beer business after all.
Conor digested the information readily. And then, only then, did he inform me he was a journalist.
One to beam up, Captain.
To say I felt foolish is an injustice to good, honest cretins. I was sure I had just destroyed everything I was trying to save, ensured the fierce white light of transparency would burn and boil away everything that made St Paul"s unique, interesting - and safe. I would be condemned to h.e.l.l, or Oxford.
My face lost its colour and I began to rise to leave, head down, limbs weak. But he stopped me. A hand on my arm. A rea.s.suring look.
"Sit down and stop your flapping, you great a.r.s.ehole," he said.
"You cannot print this. It would be the end-"
"I"m not going to print any of it. I told you: you be honest, and I"ll be honest."
"I don"t understand."
"I think it"s about time I introduced you to someone."
"Wh-who?"
He knocked on the back of the bench on which he sat. Three short taps. Behind the bench was a wooden divider with a decorative carving along its top: and behind that, where I could not see it, was another table. The person sitting at this table rose and came quickly to join us. He was, I recognised in a few thumping heartbeats, the person Conor had been with at Bar Humbug a few days before.
He held out a hand: "Sebastian Greatsholme. Pleased to meet you, Dr Flowers."
"Count yourself lucky," said Conor. "It took me all night to get that out of him."
There was uproar behind as the correct team did whatever it was they were supposed to do. Such are the different tribes of man. Together and yet apart, with and without. Travelling a common path to an unknown future, decided by a boot or a racquet or a bat or a brain, or simply upon a coin toss.
I shook the gentleman"s hand.
Over the course of the next few hours - and the several gins that Conor kindly let me revert to, which Seb, as he wished to be known, generously subsidised - I learned what had happened to Seb"s family, and how the pair hoped to extract some form of reparation via the medium of revenge. Gradually I became aware that this was not simply a mutual opening of kimonos: not some collective unburdening, a bloodletting or soixante-neuf intellectuel. Should I care to scratch their backs, they would be generous enough to attend to mine. I emphasised the reach and intensity of my particular itch and was rea.s.sured that even if Seb couldn"t deal with it personally, his father could apply a topical cream of some ferocity.
It was a tempting prospect, becoming ever more so as the senses dulled. We groped and argued our way to a plan not without risk, and indeed overflowing with danger and foolhardiness. I was persuaded ultimately, my arm twisted that way and this, that the potential rewards would benefit college greatly in many aspects.
I began to feel in my somewhat gin-enhanced way the hand of our college founder, Dryb.u.t.ter, upon my b.u.t.tock. I pictured him making, in Kipling"s words, one heap of all his winnings and risking it on one turn of pitch-and-toss - a turn without which, perhaps, St Paul"s would not have existed. Might this be my turn? Two centuries on, a chance of renewal? Might New Court one day be renamed Flowers" Court in my memory, my portrait on a wall? As long as I did not follow too closely in Dryb.u.t.ter"s syphilitic footsteps I would not object greatly.
The agreed plan: we would forge a number of doc.u.ments incriminating someone provably of good standing and, pretending they originated from the unimpeachable source of gossip at St Paul"s, leak those doc.u.ments to the editor of the Bugle. They would undoubtedly be shown quickly as false and lead to the downfall and calamitous ruin of the editor.
In return, Seb - backed by his father - would gratefully underwrite the costs of our charity event and also make a substantial donation to the college for use however we saw fit.
The plan as it stood had a number of what might charitably be called unknowns. In particular, which person to select to be libelled by the forgery. I, of course, immediately volunteered Amanda. This would diminish the risk for the college, I argued: if by some happenstance some aspect of the libel held and the falling skittles included both the Bugle"s editor and Amanda, this would indeed be a grand day for Cambridge and St Paul"s.
But there was also the issue of the Archivist"s reputation to consider: it was critical to avoid unduly tarnishing his good if unknown name.
The plan needed some application and refinement, we agreed, and we would labour over those issues while proceeding at pace with the Band on the Run event.
I had one question for Seb. "Why, might I ask, does your father not simply expose the editor? He has money, he has influence. Is that not a simpler and more sensible route?"
He was unequivocal. "Those who live by the sword, Spencer."
I promised the pair that I would sleep on it and give them a decision the next morning. When that came, dark and wet and p.r.i.c.ked by the mildest of hangovers, I had determined to join their scurrilous adventure. There was no other route to fund the event, and despite the significant risk the opportunity to save the college, and to eject Amanda, was too great to pa.s.s up. I let Conor know that their conspiracy had a new member.