Angelmaker (48 page)

Polly Cradle turns her smile on Mr. Long again, and he goes back to his theme. “And then there’s the Abel Jasmine collection. That’s the problem for today, I’m afraid. We allowed an exhibit to be taken away for cleaning by one of the original donors—though on examination it appears she did not donate this specific item—and I rather fear it’s gone for good. It was supposed to come back days ago. A very pretty item, too—unique, so far as I know.”

Joe looks at Polly, and she nods. “A mechanical book,” he says.

“Yes! However … oh, well, of course you know, otherwise why would I be here? We did place an advertisement offering a reward for its safe return. I don’t suppose you have it?”

“We may know where it is,” Mercer says judiciously, then holds up a hand as Mr. Long hoots again through his restricted airway. “I need to make further inquiries. But out of curiosity, what is it? Where does it come from?”

“Well, we don’t really know. Very hush-hush, we think. Mr. Jasmine, you know, was a very senior fellow. Deeply involved. Meetings with Mountbatten and even Churchill himself. Bath meetings. You are aware …”

“That Churchill took meetings in his bath. Yes.”

“Well, these were often two- or even three-tub meetings!”

“Remarkable.”

“Oh, it is, it is.”

“But you have no idea what it might actually be?”

“Well … one doesn’t wish to speculate …” He’s dying to, actually, flirting with them, daring them to ask. Mercer makes a face of utmost interest.

“There are
rumours
,” Long says. “Quite
unsubstantiated
, so one can hardly call it serious research … the book, now … we fancied that was quite special. All that code along the edges …” He looks at them hopefully:
Have you seen it?
Joe suppresses the urge to nod. “Well, in a way, it’s the Crown jewels for some of us, because it harks to a time when Britain was at the pinnacle of science and everyone else was just … well.” Mr. Long leans close, with the air of one imparting a tremendous secret.

“We think … it’s a command set … for the British space effort!” He smiles triumphantly. There is a long, uncomfortable pause.

“British …” Mercer says faintly.

“… Space effort!” Mr. Long repeats. “Von Braun was working for German dominance in space! We couldn’t let that happen in the long run, could we? Of course, it was all covered up later.” He puts a finger alongside his nose and shows them his septum a few times.

Mutinous glares flow in two directions while Mr. Long sips oblivious at his coffee and makes another weird little noise.

Polly rolls her eyes at her brother and perches on the arm of Joe’s chair. He does not pay attention to the way her backside compresses firmly against his arm. He listens to Mr. Long.

Mostly.

The theft was deftly accomplished. It was probably done to order. It was particularly vexing because a gentleman representing a large company had recently inquired about taking the item on loan for a substantial sum. Joe describes Rodney Titwhistle and then Arvin Cummerbund, and even the Ruskinite who visited his shop, but Mr. Long does not recognise them. Nor is he familiar with the Apprehension Engine—though the mention of an engine intrigues him, of course—or the word “Angelmaker.” Then Mercer shows him a picture of Billy Friend.

“Oh, yes, he was there, definitely. Oh, dear, is he a criminal?”

“Yes,” Mercer says, at the same time that Joe Spork says “No.”

“He’s dead,” Polly says gently.

“Oh, dear,” Mr. Long says again. “His poor mother.”

“His mother?” Mercer repeats.

“Very respectable lady! I hardly think she was involved. Rather too old to go shinning up a balcony, ahah
aknuu
hahaha. And who’d take care of the terrible dog?”

Joe Spork is abruptly paying very close attention. “What dog?”

“Right little monster,
aknuu
, yes, with pink glass eyes, if you can credit it.”

“A pug,” Joe suggests, “with only one tooth.”

“Horrible! Mind you,
aknuu
, you have to admire the tenacity, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes. I suppose you do.”

Mercer asks a few questions and then bundles Mr. Long gently out of the door with a promise of vague assistance down the line. When he has gone, his expression speaking somewhat of disappointment at their reaction to his revelation, Joe Spork introduces Mercer to the name of Edie Banister, and Bethany adds her to the list.

“To recap,” Polly Cradle says, in a tone Joe Spork finds both school-marmish and extremely sexy, “it would seem that at some time between 1945 and 1980, Joe’s grandfather and grandmother built a bee-machine which is either a rocket ship, a mobile sculpture, or a brain-melting lie detector. They were assisted in this questionable enterprise by the Order of John the Maker, at that time under licence from the British Government to create objects of philosophically and militarily efficacious art. Sadly, during the testing phase, the item in question immolated the town of Wistithiel and the project was discontinued. Subsequently, the Ruskinites were co-opted by a sinister personage determined to attract God’s attention—to wit, one Brother Sheamus—who ousted the Keeper at that time, Theodore Sholt, but was unable to lay his nasty mitts on the Apprehension Engine itself, being blocked by person or persons unknown. We shall hypothesise a combination of the aforementioned government entities and the good Keeper himself, who then removed to a greenhouse to look after the item personally until such time as Joe’s grandmother should choose to resume its purpose, which as far as we know she never did.

“At some point in the recent past, it would seem that an old lady living in Hendon took it into her head to unleash the Apprehension Engine and in doing so save or possibly destroy the world. She
deployed Billy Friend as a catspaw, roped Joe in to do the technical bit, and gulled poor Mr. Long out of his prize exhibit. Joe activated the machine, the bees flew, and both the Ruskinites and some shady bit of the Civil Service, possibly but probably not known as the Legacy Board, realised what was going on and pounced, acting for the moment in concert—though we should not take that to mean that they are united in their goals. They grabbed Sholt and the machine under the appearance of a fire in an old house, traced the whole thing to Billy and he got killed either under interrogation or because someone is very keen to keep this from getting out. From Billy they found Joe, and would have vanished him also without the intervention of Mercer Cradle of the old established et cetera, et cetera. And here we all are. Does anyone have anything to add?”

“Yes,” her brother says. “It’s getting a lot bigger very, very fast.”

He thumbs on the television, without the sound, and they watch as bulletins interrupt regular programming. Parliaments debate and leaders demand explanations from one another. The UN is in session, and so is NATO. Britain is on high alert; the government’s misdeeds in Congo have become painfully public. Israel and Egypt, once friendly, now nervous, are positively spitting. So are Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. A swarm of bees in Santiago has revealed secrets: excesses, debauches, and betrayals. The United States, China, India, and Pakistan have all announced their intention to destroy the bees, though what they will do—Shoot them? Nuke them?—is unclear. To the leaders of the world, though, they are bad bees. They are bees of aggression, not bees of honey and peace. They are evil bees, and cannot be tolerated.

Too much truth cannot be allowed.

In London—stung, perhaps, by the implication that all this originated here—a nasty red-topped anger is building. Bee-keepers are told they must register, must submit their hives for inspection. No, of course, these are no ordinary bees, but it pays to be safe. It helps to rule people out. Any bee-keeper, after all, might be a sympathiser, a fifth columnist. Meanwhile the people growl back at Westminster: Who is responsible? Who is answerable? Who must give back his pension? (Not that anyone ever is, or does.)

Who will be held to account?

Who did this?

Who must be thrown to the beast?

“It’s getting much bigger,” Mercer Cradle repeats.

E
die wakes, still cold from
Cuparah
’s icy salvation of decades gone. It’s earlier than she intended, and the effort of getting vertical is for the moment too much to contemplate. Her body is old, and the bones themselves have taken up a kind of muttering. Even Bastion, she sometimes thinks, is in better overall repair than she is.

She ruffles his ears gently, and he makes a sound in his belly like a lawnmower but does not wake. Almost, Edie lifts him up for a hug, but a dog must be allowed his dreamtime. She refrains, and curls around him instead, hoping his hot-water-bottle body will draw her down into her own sleep. She gets, instead, the strange, meandering kaleidoscope which has recently been her mind’s recourse: the weird pageant of her life.

Alas, without many of the dirty bits.

Edie Banister could never decide if it was a dream or a nightmare, that long, strange fugue which carried her—and, incidentally, His (and then Her) Majesty’s United Kingdom—from 1946 to the end of the century. The Cold War framed everything, the great Soviet steamroller looming to the East and the plucky Yanks to the West—but Edie fought an altogether different war of her own: a long, shadowy, personal one against an enemy who somehow never went away. It did not matter how many times she beat Shem Shem Tsien. He
always came back, and each defeat served only to make him more cruel.

Sleep clearly isn’t an option. With the assistance of the headboard and being careful not to disturb Bastion where he lies, Edie rises and stands naked in front of the mirror in the attic of the Pig & Poet. Not twenty any more, alas. Not even thirty or forty or fifty, or any of those comfortable landmarks which come before people call you “old.” And yet there is muscle, still, in her narrow arms, and though her joints protest, they will move, will serve, will—in absolute necessity, and on the understanding that the following day will be a world of pain—glide through the steps and swirls of the featherlight
hiji waza
Mrs. Sekuni recommended for senior combatants.

She brushes out her hair and trims it, then puts on her next identity: a severe grey suit and flat shoes—Sunday School Edie, complete with ugly handbag big enough to conceal Bastion and some other items she has recently cooked up.

The arrival of Mr. Biglandry at Rallhurst Court implies, of course, that Billy Friend has been interrogated, and if he gave her up he has likely also yielded the name of Joshua Joseph Spork. Assassins, though … Edie did not anticipate that. An arrest warrant, for sure—but killers, no. If Shem Shem Tsien were still alive, that would be a different matter, but age and cumulative injury have by now surely achieved what she never could. The Opium Khan would be a hundred and twenty-five this year. No. Shem is dead, and good riddance. Which implies either someone new, or that her own country’s secret service has just attempted to erase her.

She has seen the news, of course, knows that there are golden bees in the air over warships and cities and stock exchanges and homes, knows that governments are screaming blue murder. All the same, she had expected something more subtle. But perhaps she is simply sugar-coating the past. Maybe Abel Jasmine would have ordered her death: former agent launches one-woman revolution, engages doomsday device.

Edie stares back down the tunnel of the years, and feels the urge to shout advice to herself. Follow your heart, make the world you believe in. Governments promise everything, but change nothing. Beyond anything else, trust Frankie.

At last, she wakes the dog and ladles him gently into position, ignoring a burble of profound betrayal. Bastion does not approve of
the handbag as a method of conveyance. Edie slips her hand between the leather straps and gentles him. Thinking about it, she realises it may not be the handbag
per se
, but the three or four Tupperware containers on which he sits, which smell of strange chemicals and plastic tape. Bastion most especially does not approve of Tupperware. He views it as a means to keep him from things rightfully his own, such as liver. The list of things of which he does not approve is long and complex, embracing such varied sinners as cats, thugs, wellington boots, brightly coloured umbrellas, cows, and unlicensed taxi cabs. But things which keep him from liver are near the top.

Edie catches the bus in Camden and lets it take her all the way west, then waits for the Catholic school in Goldmartin Street to disgorge its students and teachers, equally dressed in grey uniforms, so that she is suddenly just one of a great throng of severe women striding along the wide pavement. If anyone is following her, she has just made their lives almost impossibly difficult and annoying.

In the Underground she doubles back on herself and heads towards Harriet Spork’s convent. Sooner or later, she’s fairly sure, Joe will go there, and that is a calculation others will make, too.

Love causes people to do stupid things. That does not, she realises now, make them the wrong things.