I parked myself inside the porters’ lodge twenty minutes ahead of the scheduled time to ensure Burnett did not curry favour with a porter on duty via cash or other sundries and obtain advance entry. We most certainly did not want that odious man having unfettered access to the student body. In parallel I felt a nagging concern that I had heard nothing from the Archivist, the true Archivist. I had expected a tussle regarding the plan, with some unseemly knee-based pleading on my part: but I was not contacted.
On the hour, with shadows lengthening across Bottom Court, a thin-faced man with silver slicked-back hair and a sheepskin coat of a more prosperous era nosed his way into college grounds beside the lodge. He was not as I had imagined Burnett to appear: he was decidedly scrawnier. It was evident he hadn’t laughed since the dawn of the internet, and knew seven different ways to kill with bare nicotine hands. The porter scrambled to inquire his business, and then indicated towards me. Innards twisting, forcing a smile, I went to meet him.
“Mr… Burnett?” I asked.
“Wantage. Simon Wantage. Geoff’s busy.” He looked me up and down. Ordinarily I might have considered that a
sign
, but for this person I made a grateful exception.
“Mr Wantage. I see. And what is your role, may I ask, at the
Bugle
?”
“I’m Geoff’s deputy. Who the hell are you?”
A fair question. I apologised and introduced myself.
The walk to Top Court was fraught and rather tense, and was dominated on my part by elaborate gestures and throat-clearing. I attempted to describe some of college’s more impressive architectural features. Alas, he was uninterested. I was thankful no students crossed our path for impromptu interrogation.
We could not possibly allow Wantage near the true Archivist’s offices, and so I had arranged for a small function room to be set aside. It had a discreet camera mounted in a corner, of course: I could do nothing about that. The device would reveal our multiple forgeries to the Archivist, who I hoped would be amused, and quite possibly also to Amanda, who I hoped would be implicated.
I showed Wantage to the room, which was bare but for a central desk of some antiquity and three similarly aged chairs: two between desk and door for myself and our fake Archivist in case a getaway at some velocity might be required, and one for Wantage across from us behind the desk. The room was lit by two rather severe spotlights, one of which seared my scalp and I suspect illuminated me like Captain Kirk at a Klingon show trial.
As a function room it was only lightly functional, but served our purposes.
I did not dare leave Wantage alone for one moment, and so I made a short phone call to set rolling the ball while the newspaperman and I failed an examination in small talk.
It was a minute of some duration, with all the warmth and relaxed nature of a political show trial on a Neptunian satellite. I learned newspapermen have a hundred words for
grunt
, and little else.
Finally I heard the door behind me swing open, and I turned to see our fake Archivist, procured by me and briefed by Seb. I had called upon the only person I could trust: Claire.
It was a great risk, to say the least. Another great risk. We dared not use Seb himself as he was too young and insufficiently pallid, and it placed rather too much temptation in the hands of the noble Baroness Fate and the Lord Sod. It was imperative that Seb stay in the shadows until the time was right. And so Claire had been drafted, or press-ganged, as our guest star and saviour. Seb had filled the gaps in her knowledge, I hoped, and we would rely on her abilities upon the local stage to spin us through.
There was, of course, the issue of gender. Claire had taken the parts of males before, though perhaps only in Shakespeare and pantomime. She assured us she could adopt the manner and tone of a fellow of St Paul’s if need be, and given some of the fellows of my acquaintance I did not doubt her. Nevertheless that was a risk too far. I deliberately avoided the male pronoun on the phone with Burnett. We would not have to, as it were, man her up.
And now Claire stood before me, in a rather severe navy trouser suit, stripped of her usual soft regalia and enveloped in a college gown. Her face was wiped clean of make-up. No earrings, no finger rings, no jewellery whatsoever. The wayward hair was wrestled into an unforgiving fringe.
I barely recognised her.
“Ah, Archivist,” I said, a touch of nerves hinted in my voice. “Might I introduce Mr Wantage from the newspaper? He is very eager to meet you, very eager indeed.”
“Don’t go overboard, Flowers,” said Wantage and shook Claire’s hand. Claire took the spare chair and cleared her throat meaningfully. All good so far.
“Now then, Mr Wantage, is it?” she said, her accent disguised as well as her body. She’d gone for
generic northern
, which I hoped wouldn’t transmute into
comedy northern
under stress. It was in a pitch lower than the natural, but not booming pit-boss deep: it was sustainable, believable. Rather fierce, I thought.
I glanced at Wantage: he was peering closely at her. Perhaps trying to see through the disguise, perhaps trying to commit her face to memory. I worried suddenly that he might sport a hidden camera about his person, but had to admit it was a touch late for that all round.
She continued. “Spencer has requested I fish you out an exclusive for the next edition of your newspaper. I regret I am not a regular reader of the
Bugle
. I find local news all too… familiar.”
Wantage said nothing. It was a decent enough start, I thought.
“It’s been tricky locating summat suitable for you. I hauled these old legs up and down the stacks all morning, let me tell you.”
“Really,” said Wantage, apparently bored already. “What’s your name? I can’t call you ‘Archivist’.”
I stepped in. “That is the title of the office, and that is how we traditionally refer to the officeholder. The Archivist’s baptismal name is not widespread knowledge.”
“But you’ve let me see her face.”
“These are unprecedented circumstances, Mr Wantage. Do not presume that this gives you any hold over her, or over us. We are quite capable of defending ourselves.” I rejoiced that this was at least partially true, though my heart was battering away at my shirt and my fingers trembled like a virgin at another’s belt.
“You seem nervous. Worried.”
“Merely anxiousness, anxiety. I do not regularly deal with gentlemen of the press.” And I was not dealing with one then.
“Nor I,” said Claire. “I fear I am neither young enough nor… pretty enough to feature in your pages.”
“Listen, darlin’, if you’re as powerful as you make out we’ll find a space,” said Wantage.
“No!” I said. “Absolutely not. It is a matter of college policy.”
Wantage looked at me, blinked slowly once, and turned to Claire. “Tell me about this archive, then,” he said. “How big is it? When did it start?”
I held my breath.
“That is classified, Mr Wantage,” said Claire. “Above your pay grade.”
“Oh, is it now. You run it yourself, do you?”
“I do not think it is of any concern to you.”
“A secret room full of blackmail material, held by a Cambridge college? Nah,” he said sarcastically, “not of any concern to us at all.”
Claire said nothing. I still hadn’t breathed.
“I want to know everything,” said Wantage slowly, “and I want to know now. Unless, of course,” he leaned casually forward onto the desk, which emitted a frightened creak, “you’re trying to bullshit me.”
I breathed at last. “I can assure you,” I said, wilting mildly under the
tell-me-the-plans
spotlight, “we are not making this up.”
And strictly, we weren’t. There was a minor case of misrepresentation and impersonation to answer, but the core was sound.
I continued: “May I remind you, the agreement with your esteemed editor was for a single exclusive of the Archivist’s choice. Not unchecked access, and certainly not a biography of—” I almost said
Claire
— “of the Archivist herself. Unless you would care to return to your office clutching air, perhaps we might move to the matter in hand?”
Wantage sat back, almost slouching, and waved us on. His contempt was palpable, seeping from him and rising around us in the room. I hoped Claire could swim.
She reached into her pocket for two items: a sheet of A4 paper, folded into thirds, and a small square black-and-white photograph with a narrow white border. This was, I hoped, Seb’s masterpiece of fiction. I had not yet seen what he had produced. Claire unfolded the paper onto the table, facing Wantage, and set the photograph beside it.
He leaned across and inspected them closely, without making physical contact. “Oh, right. Him. Interesting choice,” he said.
Damn
, I thought: not Amanda.
Still without touching anything, Wantage read through what appeared to be the transcript of a conversation of a delicate and intimate nature between a contemporaneously prominent person and his paramour. Occasionally he showed distaste or winced at its contents. The accompanying photograph allegedly showed a…
moment
from the events transcribed. From my position, attempting nonchalance, the fakes appeared very high quality.
Finally Wantage sat back and coughed, and placed his hands behind his head. “Old news,” he said. “What else have you got?”
Claire looked at me.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“And I thought you toffs were supposed to be brainboxes. Listen: it’s not an exclusive if everyone knows already.”
This was, to say the least, awkward. As far as I knew, we’d made up the transcript entirely and it was a splendid and vigorous libel.
“I’m afraid that is all we have for you,” I said. “It is precisely what we agreed, and no more.”
“Then let me see these archives and I’ll find something for myself.”
“That is impossible.”
“It’s not
impossible
. Unless, like I said, you’re a bullshitter.”
“Mr Wantage, you performed your due diligence. You know there is an Archivist, you know there is an archive. We cannot allow you free rein to rummage within.”
“I think I’ve seen enough here. Archivist? Big fancy archive? Amateurs.” He waved dismissively at us and went to stand.
Simultaneously, the door opened.
“Ah, is this the man of papers?” It was Amanda. My heart raced anew.
“And who are you? Princess Purple? Gonna drag me down a bleedin’ rabbit hole? You certainly ain’t seen a bleedin’ looking glass recently, look at you.”
“Mr Wantage,” I said, with a trace of a tremble, “may I introduce Professor Amanda Chatteris. The Master of St Paul’s.”
“Indeed, Mr Wantage.
Indeed
.”
“Oh, right,” he said. “How’d you bleedin’ do. You come here thinking you can sell me this shit an’ all, have you?”
“I shit you not, Mr Wantage. I attend in assistance of Dr Flowers and our esteemed Archivist. When, I wonder, does he reveal himself? And which lady is this?”
My face became the very definition of a picture. A Dali, to be precise. My right eye surely jumped my nose, and my mouth was busy sliding off the end of my chin.
Wantage laughed. “Like I said: amateurs.” He stood.
I rose in a panic and grabbed the forged items. “You’re not going to print this?”
“You know we’re not going to print that. And you know what we
are
going to print. Enjoy the last few days in your job. No need to show me out of this godforsaken pit, I’ll find my own way.”
He slammed out, taking all the air with him, and I sagged, winded, into my chair. Claire’s head dropped.
“Was it something I said?” said Amanda.
I messaged Spencer on Gaydar when I got home on Thursday evening. I hadn’t heard a word from him. I had no idea whether the super-secret fake Archivist and Seb’s wonder document had done the trick, and Simon had been suckered right in, or not. Either Spencer was out celebrating, drowning himself in gin, or he was in commiserating, drowning himself in gin. All systems go, or computer says no?
Seb reached me first and gave me the bad news over the phone, as retrieved from a pretty miserable Claire in the debrief. Apparently, after Simon had run off snickering, the Master swept out in a puff of confusion and Spencer gave the forgery a good honest seeing-to and tinkered with the feng shui of the place a little. Then he’d clattered away to hide in his office and await the apocalypse.
“Should I go over there, do you think?” I asked Seb. “Give him a cuddle and a cup of warm milk and tell him it’s all gonna be alright, somehow, as the lava starts flowing through the letterbox?”
“Inadvisable. I suspect he would not be too coherent.” He sighed. “I assume the
Bugle
will train its sights on him and St Paul’s — you will no doubt discover tomorrow. We need to subvert this for next week’s edition.”
I shook my head sadly. “I hate to say it but are you sure you want to keep on with this? Our little conniving hasn’t exactly gone well so far.”
“It was a miscalculation. Poor research. Speed-libel is not my area of expertise, I admit. I take full responsibility of course.”
“That’s all fine but it doesn’t do Spencer a gram of good. This is his life, his career, we’re talking about. I freely admit I might have thought he was an arsehole before but he’s doing some good there, I’ve seen it.”
“But how can we walk away now? If we do nothing, if we let it go, then your editor, your paper, will crucify him.”
“I might be able to talk Geoff away from the edge.”
“You do not really believe that, I think. You know what he is like. We both do.”
He was right. Geoff might have had an air pump trained up his arse for the last two decades but the old killer instinct was still there. Once his fangs were fixed on a story he wouldn’t let go no matter how much you shook. I’d seen it a few months after I joined, when some local sports guy — in the soccerballs or the cuddleballs or whichever it was — drove his cockmobile a trifling thirty over the thirty limit and tried to celeb his way out of a ticket. Word got to Geoff by the usual channels and he was bang, bang, bang, a two-year-old with a hammer until he whacked him out of the team. Big headline,
DISGRACED
, by-line Geoff Burnett, naturally, even though most of the legwork was by Manish.