Arcadia

36

The three people standing in Lytten’s porch were a mismatched bunch, and none of them looked particularly comfortable, despite the effusive welcome they received.

‘Do come in! So lovely to see you!’

‘Are you the lady I talked to on the phone?’

‘I am indeed. You must be Sergeant Maltby?’

‘Yes, ma’am. This is the man here.’

‘You don’t mind waiting while we have a chat with him?’

‘Ah, no. Glad to help.’

She nodded at her new visitor, who was staring at her in a way which many would have considered rude. She led him to the kitchen at the back of the house, shut the door, gestured for him to sit down and then sat herself on the other side of the table, cupped her face in her hands and studied him calmly.

‘Well, well, well,’ she said. ‘Alexander Chang. What a surprise! After such a long time, too. What brings you here?’

She could see that he was still in a state of shock. He recognised her, but she was so much older; he hadn’t taken that into account.

‘To find you, of course, Dr Meerson,’ he said.

‘Call me Angela. No point standing on ceremony here, eh?’

‘Do you have any idea the trouble you’re in?’

‘Nothing like the trouble you’re in.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You have been arrested as a suspected Soviet spy,’ she said, shaking her head in barely suppressed delight. ‘When did you get here?’

‘About a week ago.’

‘What have you been doing since?’

‘Getting my mind back. I didn’t realise...’

‘Yes, nasty, isn’t it? I was off my head for the better part of a year. It’s the implants. Without them, you’d be fine. So why now? I got fed up waiting years ago.’

‘Why would anyone think I’m a Soviet spy?’

‘You’ve just been exceptionally unlucky. No point explaining it; you wouldn’t understand the complications. At the moment they are wondering whether to lock you up, accidentally push you under a train, or send you back to the Soviet Union. This would, no doubt, be a great surprise to the Russians, who might just shoot you themselves to be on the safe side. Answer my question. Why now?’

‘It was the only link we could find. The reference in that article.’

‘What article?’

‘The one Lytten wrote on Shakespeare.’

‘I didn’t know anything about that,’ Angela said.

‘I was sent to check. It has implications for how they use your machine.’

‘Use my machine?’ she said. ‘They can’t use it.’

‘They can if they figure out where you hid the data.’

Angela thought for a long time. ‘I think we need to have a little understanding here.’

‘What?’

‘A little help for you, a little help for me.’

‘You scratch my backside, I’ll scratch yours,’ he said proudly.

‘Not quite,’ she said.

The door opened and Lytten came in. He glanced at the new arrival, then grunted and ignored him. ‘Half an hour,’ he said to her. ‘Then they’ll be coming to take him away. So we won’t need tea.’

Chang looked worried as Lytten disappeared once more.

‘Interrogation.’ Angela smiled, and shook her head sympathetically.

‘That sounds bad.’

‘Torture, beatings. Possibly a painful execution. Have you ever been in unbearable agony for days on end?’

‘No.’

‘The dark side of the age,’ she explained. ‘They can’t just fiddle with people’s brains, so they have to be more crude. Electrodes on sensitive bits of the body, that sort of thing. Pliers. We don’t have much time, so we need to get going. Use my machine, you say. They can’t. I wiped everything.’

‘You blacked out most of Europe and killed nearly ten thousand people.’

‘Did I? I didn’t mean to. I was in a hurry.’

‘You don’t sound very upset.’

‘What can I do? I will fix it in due course.’

‘Can you?’

‘I think so. Not that it matters at the moment. They can’t use the machine. As I said, I erased the data.’

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘No. I found two pages of your work in the Tsou script. A security man has been sent off to try and recover the rest of it.’

‘That’s simply not possible.’

Chang smiled. ‘Got you worried, eh? It’s true. It was buried in an article by this man Lytten, published last year. That and the reference to you in the article I found...’

‘That’s absurd.’

‘Here I am. And you, too.’

‘You say it may still exist?’

‘Yes. Hanslip assumed it was some devious fraud on your part. He still thinks that you are hiding with renegades and have concealed the data somewhere. I’ve been sent here just to make sure, and a security man called Jack More has been sent after the data.’

‘More? I remember him. Tall, strong, out of place. All dark and dangerous. I’m not convinced, though.’

‘The article says that the document was known as the Devil’s Handwriting and dates from the eighteenth century. There is a possibility that it is in Lytten’s papers, which went to some library on his death.’

‘When does he die?’

‘1979.’

‘Oh, poor Henry! At least he will miss Mrs Thatcher. He’d hate her.’ She thought for a moment about what she had heard so far. ‘Have they used the machine? Apart from sending you.’

‘I don’t think so. I don’t think they can. Someone said they’d have to recalibrate it after sending me, and couldn’t without the data.’

‘I wonder,’ she said after a moment, ‘if that is connected to the difficulties I am having with the universe in the cellar.’

‘The what?’

‘I’ve made a universe in the cellar,’ she said with a modest blush. ‘A prototype, little more than an outline, really, but a jolly good one. Except that I can’t shut it down. I was assuming it was a glitch, but maybe not.’

She now looked pointedly at her watch. ‘Oh, dear, time’s nearly up. They start with fingernails, you see,’ she explained kindly. ‘That’s what the pliers are for. It’s not very nice, but much better than what follows.’

‘Dr Meerson...’

‘Angela,’ she reminded him. ‘Or you can hide in Anterwold.’

‘What’s that?’

‘My universe. I really need someone to find out what it is. Perhaps to get a girl back as well. You could keep out of the way for a bit; until the coast is clear, as they say here.’

Chang’s mouth sagged. ‘I can’t go through that again,’ he said. ‘Not so soon. I just can’t. Don’t even suggest it.’

‘Rusty,’ Angela said. ‘The pliers they use, I mean. It will only be for a few hours. By the time here, I mean. You’ll be a bit longer there. Besides, remember: you work for me.’

‘What exactly do you want?’

‘I need to know the connection between Anterwold and here. What lies between them, historically speaking. What it is.’ She glanced at the clock again in a meaningful fashion.

‘Then what?’

‘I also need to know if the defences are holding. I built it to be static. Nothing should happen, because any event has a cause and a consequence. So I placed limits on them. I need to know if these still work, or whether the girl has broken them.’

‘What girl? What are you talking about?’

‘Rosie. A friend of Henry’s. She accidentally went into it and is still there. Sort of. It’s terribly interesting. She’s why I know you’ll be perfectly safe.’

‘You want me to get her back?’

‘I doubt you’ll have the chance. The machine’s set for a few years earlier at the moment, and I don’t have time to change it. You don’t want to stay for long, I imagine?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘So go, examine, come back. I can’t shut it down until we get Rosie out, but we can deal with her later. You can still work for me, if you like. I’ll need help. You can’t imagine how much fun it can be here, once you get the hang of the place. What on earth is the matter with you?’

Chang suddenly looked as though he was about to be sick. His face turned white, then red and blotchy, and he was breathing hard.

‘I...’ he began in a strange voice, rather like someone who had swallowed something too big for him. Then his voice changed completely. ‘Angela,’ he said. ‘Robert Hanslip here. You really must come back. I fear Oldmanter will make Emily will pay a heavy price if you refuse. I’m sure you know what that means.’

Then he stopped and his face recovered its colour. ‘I’m sorry. My mind was wandering.’

‘What did you just say?’

‘I said I didn’t want to stay long.’

Angela sat very still for a few moments. ‘You just spoke like Hanslip,’ she said.

Chang wrinkled his nose in slight distaste. ‘Did I? He said he was sending a message to you. It was meant to appear if I found you. Maybe that was it. Was it useful?’

‘No.’

There was a short silence as Angela — for once seeming quite unsettled — disappeared into herself.

‘Well, it doesn’t change anything,’ she said eventually. ‘I still have to find out what it is, and you still need somewhere to hide. It’s very simple, not like the other machine. Say you need the toilet, go downstairs. You’ll see an iron pergola against the far wall. Just walk through. I’ll reopen it in the same place in six days’ time. Your time, not the time here. Be back where you arrived without fail. If something goes wrong...’

‘Such as?’

‘I don’t know. I’m just being careful. I don’t want to lose another person in there. If you do miss it, go to the Circle of Esilio at Willdon. That gives me a place. Timing is more difficult. Aim for the evening of the fifth day of the fifth-year festival at Willdon. I’ve already done the calculations for that.’

‘I don’t know what that means.’

‘There are festivals to mark the accession of the rulers there. There’s no better way of calculating dates that I know of. They don’t have any rational or fixed system for counting time. Henry never devised one and I used the absence to keep it secure. Their attitude to time is one thing I need you to check.’

Chang opened his mouth to ask more questions, but she was spared the difficulty of answering by the door opening once more.

Wind peered round at the two people. ‘Who are you?’ he said to the unknown man. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. I just thought I’d tell you that the van will be here any moment now. I’ll be off as well.’

He glanced briefly at the other person in the room, who had raised a hand like a naughty schoolboy.

‘I need to, ah...’

‘Ah what?’

‘To go to the toilet.’

Wind grunted. ‘Good for you,’ he said. ‘I believe it’s on the half landing, if that’s what you want to know.’

‘Shouldn’t you go with him?’ Angela asked loudly.

‘Why on earth would I want to do that?’

‘I just thought... oh, no reason,’ she said. ‘Up to you, of course. I’m sorry.’

Wind stared at her. Odd woman, he thought to himself as he heard the sound of footsteps going towards Lytten’s cellar.