Seventy-Seven Clocks

∨ Seventy-Seven Clocks ∧

46

The Engineer

“You already apologized for being late,” Jerry said. “You don’t have to make any rash promises about the future.”

“They aren’t rash promises, I assure you,” said Charles, refilling her wine glass. True to his vow, he had arranged for the delivery of an Indian meal. The choice of nationality was fitting, for the apartment was filled with Indian carvings and tapestries. Ancient terracotta figures of Harappan women stood beside finely carved friezes of tigers and elephants. “I would love to show you India. My work there has only just begun. For a major industrial country, they export very little. It’s a situation we’re trying to help remedy. When I have time, I travel to the great plains beyond the cities, where the night skies are the deepest blue-black, so vast and dark that you think you’ll never see the dawn again.”

“It sounds beautiful,” she said, suppressing a shiver.

“Not as beautiful as you. You’re a woman now.” He reached forward and kissed her lightly. She tasted wine and spice on his lips. This was the moment she had been expecting. Everything in her life had taken on a contradictory quality, as though only part of it was real, and part hallucination. She was scared of becoming intimate with Charles, knowing that she might be forced to betray him.

“What’s the matter?” His face was still close to hers but he was looking at her oddly. She realized how tense her body had grown. When she failed to reply, he detached himself from her.

“Jerry, it’s okay. Nothing will happen that you don’t want, I promise.”

“I’m scared.” Finally the words emerged. She had not been able to speak them to Joseph, but was determined to say it now. “I haven’t done this before.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.” He gently took her hand in his. “I thought…well…”

“I’ve wanted to, but something…” She rubbed her hand across her forehead, trying to clear her thoughts. “It’s like the dark. I can’t – I panic.”

“That’s right; the dark scares you, doesn’t it? But that’s just a psychosomatic problem. It can be easily cured.”

“No, it can’t.” Jerry shook her head. She had spent too many therapy sessions discussing the problem.

“A phobia is a learned emotional response,” he replied, releasing her hand. “It’s an extension of the fear that’s produced at a time of emotional development. I know how you’re feeling, but it’s okay.” His pale still eyes were fixed on her, never moving. She saw the lamplight glinting on wet windowpanes, the softly lit carvings beside the fireplace. He was showing his faith in her.

He ran the tips of his fingers gently over her face. “Just relax and close your eyes. Think of times when you were happy, when you were young.” She heard Charles’s voice softly seesawing in the distance, like the droning of bees in June. His tone was low and mellifluous. She felt calmer now, and clearer. She could see inside herself.

She saw glimpses of a past she had long expelled from her mind. Bad behaviour at school. A teacher’s face, close, shouting. Gwen, furious, screaming. Something broken, blue china, water on a yellow rug, tears. Guests around a dinner table, staring at her. Wigmore Street in the rain. Alighting from a cab. Waiting in the therapist’s surgery.

She opened her eyes and found him holding the blindfold.

Suddenly alert, she sat up, moving her feet from the couch.

The room was shifting beneath her. Disoriented, she put out a hand to steady herself. She rose and slipped on her shoes.

“Wait, Geraldine, don’t leave – ”

But she had already managed to slip her arm into her coat sleeve, and was running from the room.

♦

“Sir, I fear you scared me far more than I scared you.” The face illuminated in the torchlight was old and Asian, thin and worn from a life of hard toil. Sparse grey hair straggled across a scarred bald dome. The man who stood before them was wearing a blue boiler suit, and looked like a maintenance engineer.

“If you would care to step through to my office…”

The old man gestured to a small recessed door in the rear of the wall. Startled beyond speech, Bryant silently complied with his request.

The antechamber beyond the room housing the astrolabe was fitted with an overhead light. A cheap desk and chair, filing cabinets, a stack of untended paperwork, a typewriter, a litter bin, a tea mug, a wall calendar with faded views of Norway.

Then Bryant noticed that the calendar was over forty years out of date, and that the paperwork was thick with mildew.

“You must excuse me, Sirs,” the little Indian man said, clearing the paperwork to the back of the desk. “I have never had visitors before. My name is Mr Malcolm Rand, and it is my duty to tend to the equipment you see in the next room.”

“How long have you been here?” asked May. “At the guild, most of my life, Sir, since I graduated from my apprenticeship. I took over the tending of the machinery in 1957 from my father’s brother, God rest his soul.”

“How do you get in here? You do go outside, don’t you?”

“Of course, Sir. I have seen you several times before, for I am also the head of the maintenance staff here at the guildhall. I visit the equipment twice a day, once in the morning and once before I leave at night, to ensure that it is well oiled and able to continue functioning correctly.” Now May remembered seeing Rand beside the staircase on his first visit to the Watchmakers. “Does anyone else know about this?” he asked.

“No, Sir, and nobody must know. It is written into the rules of my employment. You are not supposed to be down here. I could lose my job.”

“I’ll see to it that you don’t lose your job,” promised May. “Have there been other custodians here before you?”

“Most certainly. It is our duty to ensure that the equipment is never damaged.”

“But it is already, man. Do you know what it does?”

“Of course, Sir,” Rand quietly replied. “It is the great Imperial Financial Machine. When it calculates that the profits and shares from the Watchmakers’ Company have been spread unwisely, or are falling into the wrong hands, it pinpoints the guilty party. When the financial loss reaches a certain level, the machine ascertains the culprit and transmits the person’s fiscal details to the appropriate authority in the outside world.”

“Where to, though?” asked Bryant. “How does it do it?”

“The machine is electrically connected to the telephone system, Sir. I do not know where the messages go. Is there something wrong?”

“Do you know what happens after the machine transmits each message?” asked May.

The custodian shook his head uncertainly, puzzled by the air of tension in the room.

“It arranges the deaths of people in companies it has named.”

“No, no. How is that possible?” answered the shocked custodian. “It cannot be true.”

“I’m afraid it is, old chap,” said Bryant. “And I think Mr Charles Whitstable will be able to tell us all about it.” The detectives looked back toward the ticking astrolabe.