Thursday 13 July 2023

The Apprentice

The Apprentice The Apprentice title
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Episode 1

 

Gramophone Noise filled the canteen. Knives, forks, spoons, cups and plates were being thrown into dishwashing machines or taken out of them, chinking against each other and being wheeled around the kitchen on trolleys. The loud sizzle of frying breakfasts and the shouts of the arriving day shift ordering food added smells to the noise.

Ellis, Professor Ellis, looked as though he was in his mid fifties, and was dressed from head to foot in black overalls emblazoned Sunlight. Escorted by the standard issue personnel officer and carrying a plate of hot breakfast, the twenty year old trainee arrived, looking out of place in a charcoal grey suit, Bengal striped shirt and Miró tie. He sat opposite Ellis. The personnel officer said, ‘Morning, Professor Ellis. This is Theodore Williams,’ and disappeared.

The canteen supervisor had kindly scrawled ‘Reserved’ on the formica™ table-top with a marker pen. Ellis was close to finishing his bacon and eggs. The new arrival put his plate onto the table and began eating.

‘Welcome to The Works,’ Ellis began. ‘I suppose I should begin by apologising for the noise in here, but firstly it’s the only place for several miles in any direction where you can get breakfast without cooking it yourself, and secondly, the noise is so loud that we’re unlikely to be overheard.’
‘It’s a very good breakfast, sir.’
‘Don’t call me sir,’ said Ellis, ‘I insist. It’s Professor Ellis. Most important things first: have they offered you a decent salary?’
‘More than decent, Professor. I was surprised…’
‘Then you’ll pay for your own breakfast tomorrow. Bring a credit card or something because they don’t understand about money.’ The Professor paused for a second and sighed. ‘How simple life used to be when you carried money around with you and you bought things with it. So, I’m Professor Ellis and you’re Williams, have I got the right name there?’
‘Yes, Professor. Theodore Williams. Theodore Williams BSc, I suppose.’
‘And you’re the new hire.’
‘Yes, Professor.’
‘What in God’s name made you want to work for Sunlight? Most of the guys you’ll meet today are probably trying to get paroled out of Sunlight.’
‘Someone at Sunlight wrote to the head of the maths department and he recommended me. Jobs are hard to come by— I mean, I want to work for a socially conscientious small business with potential for growth that offers a realistic prospect of promotion and at the same time respects my interests and abilities and puts them to good use. And of course Rosentyre

Maps of Rosentyre
is one of the most remote, unspoiled and beautiful places in the whole of Scotland.’
‘Spoken like a true Dalek. You’ve spent hours rehearsing that speech, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, Professor. I mean, no, Professor. I mean—’
‘Don’t be too modest. You showed imagination, persistence and fortitude, you anticipated a hard question and you prepared for it, and you didn’t even have the job when you wrote your answer. Why do you think Sunlight chose you?’
‘I’d like to pretend that I had no idea to what I owe the honour of being offered the chance to work here, but someone probably noticed that I got a first class degree in maths, my father went to Chamberlain School and both my parents voted Conservative.’
‘You’re completely right. I wrote to him. Your former Headmaster and I were at St Hubert’s University together.’ Professor Ellis paused and looked serious. ‘Well, here’s your first lesson. Your name is Horatio, your name is not Williams. As long as you are on Sunlight premises, talking to anyone about Sunlight or speaking to customers on Sunlight business, your name is Horatio. Horatio because it begins with H and the last person we hired got the G. You never use your real name even if your mother phones you at work. What do you think…’
‘May I change the name, Professor? It’s a bit nineteenth-century Admiral of the Fleet, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know. Have they given you your identity card yet?’
‘Yes, Professor. Here, I’m wearing it already.’
‘Oh, so you are. Then you can change your name when your card expires, not before.’

Ellis looked up at the clock. Eight twenty-five.

‘You’d best finish your breakfast because we have to go and watch an important event at eight thirty-eight and it’s downstairs at the other end of the corridor. While you eat, I’ll get the formalities out of the way. You are now a member of staff at Sunlight. This place is governed by the State Secrets Act. You never talk about your work except to people — like him, over there — wearing Sunlight overalls and with a Sunlight identity card.’
‘Who is that over there? Anyone I should try to curry favour with?’
‘He’s Dr Paul Eaks, brilliant genetic engineer. Developed the Eaks Test for… some disease or other. But as there are only eight scientific practitioners in the entire company, including you, you’re bound to meet him sooner or later.’
‘Panic instability,’ said Horatio.
‘What?’
‘Panic instability. The disease that the Eaks Test detects. Runs in families. Mental illness, rare but crippling. Sandeep Tolhurst suffered from it and ended up in—’
‘Well, you can talk about that to Eaks, but if anyone else asks, Sunlight is a nineteenth century Quaker business that makes horse shoes, harrows and ploughs. Your job is to put our products into cardboard cartons, carry them to the Post Office and send them to all those steaming jungles and frozen wastes where the British Empire used to be. What you see and hear and smell and read while you’re here stays with you and you alone. No photography, no drawings, no maps, no phones except the one that we issue to you, no using the public internet, any notes you take stay in this building, and

This building does not exist
this building does not exist.’
‘What? How can our colleagues send us postcards while they’re on holiday in Spain in the summer?’
‘That’s no great problem,’ said Ellis, ‘They address them to the Sunlight Traditional Farm Implement Company on Oxygen Street, Edinburgh, it’s a trap street. Now, back to what matters. Have you had enough to eat?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Horatio wiped the grease off his lips with the paper napkin, dropped it onto the table and stood up, ready to go.
‘Come with me, then. Have you been given an idea of what Sunlight does?’
‘No, sir.’ Ellis glared at him. ‘I mean, no, Professor. Sorry. Only that they do advanced—’
‘You are forgiven this time. I worked damned hard for my title and you will use it. Now, come along, our demonstration will not wait. We’re going downstairs, on the double.’

 

Ellis and Horatio left the canteen, walked along the corridor of grey walls, rooflights and anonymous brushed steel doors, until they reached an electric gate. Specific authorisation required for entry. The gate opened ahead of them and closed after them. Down one floor in a lift, then along another corridor was another gate, and this time it didn’t open.

‘Who’s there?’ asked a loudspeaker at head height.
‘Is that you, Gresham?’
‘Yes, it’s me, Professor. I see you’ve got someone with you.’
‘Horatio, he’s the new hire. I’ve got his authorisation—’

The gate opened.

‘Thanks.’

Ellis and Horatio walked into a large, low ceilinged room with powerful forced air ventilation making a continuous hiss and half the room freezing cold. There were six chairs in a half circle, each placed behind a desk and a screen. Five of the chairs were occupied by men in black Sunlight overalls, which made them look like identical quintuplets. The computer displays were more varied than the people. In front of the half circle of desks, two straight yellow lines were painted on the floor about three feet apart. The yellow lines led from a roll-up door on the left to another roll-up door on the right. Both doors were rolled down, closed. No Exit.

‘Are these people clones?’ Horatio whispered to Ellis.

‘No, of course not.’ Ellis spoke normally, as though the question was nothing out of the ordinary and everybody asked it sooner or later. He gestured toward the empty chair. ‘You can have my seat, Horatio. You’ll probably need it and I need the exercise.’

One of the overalls spoke with neither emotion nor interest. Horatio thought it was the one on the right, but he wasn’t sure. They all looked the same.

‘Eight thirty-four and… three seconds, and all’s well.’

A second overall added, in the same flat tone of voice, ‘Vital signs, heart, respiration, blood pressure all on target.’
The first overall spoke to the microphone on his desk. ‘Send the patient in. Stand away from the yellow lines.’
Someone said, ‘Why do you always say that?’
‘Because it’s in the script. Gas masks on.’
Horatio turned anxiously to the Professor. ‘Where’s my gas mask?’
‘There aren’t any. He’s having a joke.’

The left hand roll-up door lifted and, almost silently, a lidless plywood coffin rolled in, apparently under its own power, between the yellow lines. Inside the coffin lay a man, wearing a hospital gown, skeletally thin, several teeth missing, covered in bruises and bleeding heavily. There was a large and spreading blood stain on the gown. There was blood oozing from his mouth and nose, and some stinking mess on the floor of the coffin.

‘What the devil happened to him, Professor?’ Horatio asked Ellis.
‘Virus infection.’
‘Are we all going to catch it?’
‘No, Horatio, don’t worry, you can’t catch it and neither can anybody else.’

The tortured soul in the coffin moaned weakly.

‘Are we going to cure him?’ Horatio asked.
Professor Ellis thought about that, and eventually he said ‘Yes, in a manner of speaking.’

First Overall spoke to the computer again, ‘Patient number one-two-two, Avner Gilbert, 48 year old male.’

On First Overall’s desk, the computer started beeping out the heart rate of the patient. First Overall spoke to nobody in particular, ‘When was this guy infected?’
‘Midnight yesterday, Gresham.’
‘Isn’t that a bit late to wake the medics up?’
‘Yes. But it means we don’t have to do take-away sums to work out the time elapsed to—’

‘Does anyone want a chip? Are you a bit peckish, Gresham?’ One of the overalls was unwrapping the newspaper from a pile of chips.
‘No thanks, Falstaff. I have to concentrate for the next couple of minutes.’
‘I missed breakfast, Falstaff,’ said another. ‘I’ll take one.’
‘Here you are, Digger. Catch!’ Falstaff took a chip out of the newspaper and threw it to his hungry colleague.
‘Thanks… Oh, God, it’s got brown sauce on it.’
‘Then you’ll have to get WFK in to clean the keyboard, Digger, like I do. They’re good at it, and it’s what we pay them for. Trust you to—’
‘Who’s WFK?’ asked Horatio.
‘We Fix Keyboards. Little Polish techno shop in the town,’ Ellis told him.
Falstaff announced expressionlessly, ‘Sorry to interrupt, boys, but it’s eight thirty-five and five seconds, and the BP is dropping.’

The pulse beeps stopped for a couple of seconds and resumed.

‘Heart is slowing,’ said Falstaff.
Digger read out, ‘Heart 49, pulse intermittent, respiration shallow, BP sixty on forty one.’

A moan came from the plywood coffin. Blood was welling up in the patient’s eyes and under his finger nails.

‘Give us another chip,’ said Digger.
‘Sure. Shall I lick the brown sauce off first?’
‘No, thanks. I can cope with it.’
‘Catch!’ The chip flew across the room. Digger reached up for it, but missed. The chip ricocheted off his fingers and landed in the coffin. The patient did not notice it.

‘Wide! No ball!’ cried Ellis, holding his arms out sideways.
‘Do you want a chip?’
‘No, thanks. I just had breakfast.’

Horatio told Professor Ellis that he was feeling a bit queasy, and the Professor replied that everybody did, the first couple of times they watched it happen, without mentioning what it was.

‘Are you sure I’m not about to catch whatever he’s suffering from?’ asked Horatio.
‘I thought that might be on your mind,’ said Ellis. ‘Yes, I am sure. No, you can’t catch it. It won’t affect you or anyone else.’
Falstaff spoke. ‘Sorry, guys, I forgot to watch the clock. It is now eight thirty-seven and forty-five seconds. Quiet, please.’
The room fell silent apart from the newspaper rustling and Horatio retching and the ventilator hissing and the patient moaning and making a last feeble effort to lie in a comfortable position.
‘Have this newspaper,’ said Falstaff, holding it out to Horatio. ‘Sorry, I’ve eaten all the chips.’
Falstaff led the chant, and apart from Horatio, the rest joined in, in unison. Countdown video ‘Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five…’
‘Are you feeling all right?’ Ellis asked Horatio.
‘Four, three, two…’
‘No, I feel sick.’
‘One.’

The irregular pulse beep stopped and a high pitched, continuous note replaced it.

‘Zero.’
Meeeeeep!

The patient spluttered and fell into an awkward position, his head twisted at an impossible angle, eyes open, tongue lolling out. Apart from Horatio, who was now sitting bent forwards, vomiting into the newspaper in his lap, everyone clapped, cheered and congratulated each other.

‘Flat-line,’ said Gresham, raising his voice to be heard over the hubbub.‘The patient has flat-lined.’
‘Flat-line at eight thirty-eight and zero seconds,’ said Falstaff.
‘Another triumph for British engineering,’ cried Digger.
‘Welcome to Sunlight, Horatio,’ said Falstaff, as the roll-up door on the right side opened and the coffin rolled through it out of the room. ‘Have a nice career.’

 

 
Chapter 2

Theo had been working at Sunlight for a bit over three weeks. They gave him something harmless to do, he did it, and everyone told him — correctly — that he was doing it well. He took the Scottish Public Holiday long week-end off, mainly to reassure his mother Margaret that the job he had accepted really existed, he was not sleeping freezing cold under a bridge in constant terror of the bailiffs and without enough money for the train fare home, and nor had he starved to death due to living by himself and not knowing how or where to buy food.

Theo arrives at his Mum's house Theo arrives at his Mum's house

Slipping away early and unremarked from The Works on the Friday, he managed to arrive at his family’s large and nearly empty house in Craigkeld a few minutes before midnight. His mum had plainly already gone to bed. She was barefoot and wearing her dressing gown when she opened the front door.

‘Theo!’ she beamed at him. ‘At last. I thought you’d missed the train. Come in, come in.’ She thought for a second and added, ‘I’m overjoyed to see you.’
‘Why’s that? Has everything been all right?’
‘Oh, yes, absolutely. It was just so late that I thought you might have decided to travel tomorrow, or maybe you missed the train somewhere along the way.’

When Theo had been given the job and set off for Waverley Station a month earlier carrying a canvas sports bag of essentials, the house was exactly the same as it had been when Mum and Dad had first moved into it together in 1970 or thereabouts. Furniture, decorations, everything that they had bought for their house when they moved into it was still standing in the same place, and little had been added since. The dining room, with its carved table and matching chairs and hand painted crockery hung on the walls, far too big for one woman and her occasional visitor, looked as though for the whole month Mum had not so much as stood in it. Years ago the room had been arranged as if for an antique furniture catalogue and, apart from a couple of photographs of his father’s funeral, left undisturbed thereafter,.

‘The trains were on time, pretty much.’ Theo recounted the long journey. ‘It’s just a long way. The train that leaves Rosentyre at six doesn’t get to Edinburgh until eleven, and then…’
‘You must be very tired. I cooked sausage and mash earlier but it was so late that I ate my share and then I left the rest to cool. It’s still on the stove if you want some.’
‘Yes, please. I haven’t eaten since lunch time.’
‘Well, I can heat it up, I suppose.’
‘Don’t bother. I can eat it cold.’

Margaret brought a plate laden with cold dinner out of the kitchen, set it in front of her son with a knife and fork, and watched him start to eat.

‘It’s not much,’ Margaret said, apologetically, ‘but as it’s so late…’
‘It’s my favourite, and they almost never cook it in the canteen.’
‘What’s the food like?’ Margaret asked.
‘Not bad, considering.’ Theo thought about the canteen food. ‘They make us a cheap cooked breakfast, lunch and a hot dinner in the evening. If you live alone it’s a lot less trouble than cooking for yourself.’
‘You haven’t found a girlfriend yet?’ Margaret drew the obvious conclusion.
‘ ’Fraid not, mum. I’m signed up to this internet thing. Modjool Dates web site Medjool Dates. You never know.’
‘How much did that cost you?’
‘Thirty quid a month.’
‘And how many women have you…’
‘I’ve had three phone calls.’
‘I know a waste of time and money when I hear about one.’ Margaret dismissed Medjool Dates with blistering scepticism. ‘Go to Church and look. All the lonely women go to Church. They think God can’t be bothered sending them a husband and if they don’t suck up to Him, they’ll wake up one morning and realise they’ve turned into creaking elderly spinsters with grey hair and walking sticks. You don’t want to be all alone for the rest of your life, now.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that. I did think of launderettes and art galleries, but there aren’t any.’
‘How do you manage without a launderette?’
‘I got a second-hand washing machine. It works most of the time, I’ve only had the repair-man in twice. Anyway, I can hardly tell my date that the reason I’m trying to find a girlfriend is because I haven’t got a washing machine, can I?’
‘No,’ said Margaret after careful consideration. ‘You’ll need to get your story straight. “I need an angel to brighten up my dull and aimless existence.” Girls love that sort of nonsense.’

Theo had eaten everything on his plate.

‘Your room’s just how you left it,’ said Margaret. ‘By the way, how’s the job?’
‘It’s all right. I’ve not got any life altering decisions to take, or anything. I’m not supposed to talk about what I do…’
‘That’s the management fad of the week, is it? Make them keep everything a secret and they’ll work more for less wages, is that it?’
‘Well, Mum, it breaks no secrets to tell you that they knew I was a mathematician so they put me onto estimating demand. For the last three weeks I’ve been trying to work out how to predict the number of customers who’ll come knocking on the door, if they can find it, and how much money they’ll spend when they do. I told them to buy me a crystal ball and ask that, but they said no, we want to get accurate predictions without crossing any palms with any more silver than we already do. So after a Fourier analysis that fills more paper than the Daily Mirror does in a week, I’ve got half a dozen relevant correlations and some seasonal cycles—’
‘That’s further above my head than a flight to Bermuda,’ said Margaret, ‘and I need my sleep, I’m afraid. I’m really pleased that you’ve found a niche for yourself. Good-night, see you tomorrow.’

 

Theo awoke while it was still dark. The room was silent, for the clanks and hoots of Rosentyre Harbour were many miles away. He thought for a few seconds that he heard voices, but then realised that his mother was lying in bed listening to her radio, or more likely she had fallen asleep without first turning the radio off. He lay still for a while and then realised that as long as the radio was playing, he wouldn’t get another wink of sleep. Late night radio presenters were expert at keeping their listeners awake. The jingles, the shouts of feigned surprise and well rehearsed delight, the hoots of laughter, the forty year old pop records, the sound effects, the scripted phone calls, were all added to the waffle in carefully measured numbers like currants to a fruit cake, one every eight minutes, just enough to keep sleepy listeners awake.

‘Mum?’ he whispered as he tip-toed into her bedroom, not wanting to wake her if she was asleep.
‘It’s all right, I’m awake.’
‘Can you not sleep?’
‘Something’s keeping me awake,’ she said. ‘You’re troubled. I can tell. There’s something not quite right about the job, isn’t there.’
‘Mum, I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you.’
‘Ah, you’re a good man but you’re no Tom Cruise. So there is something. Do you want to throw the job in and come home? Everybody makes false starts sometimes — look at me, for instance. You’d be welcome to come and live here, you know.’

Theo found the prospect of living at home with someone he had known and loved all his life in the town he had known and loved all his life more attractive than it had appeared when he was actually living there.

‘What would we live on?’ he asked.
‘I’ve still got my lifelong annuity, my works pension, the state pension if I’m desperate, and you’ll get some Nash, I expect.’
‘We can live on that if we both stop eating.’
‘Don’t sneer too loudly. Your grandfather was a good and generous man. So why do you stay at… wherever you are? Sunlight?’
‘Mum, I don’t want to sound more exasperated than I really am, but you do realise my job, and everything connected with it, is top secret?’
‘Guessing how many customers will come into a farrier’s shop is top secret? Pull the other one.’
‘It’s the truth. I really have been asked to estimate future sales. But what worries me…’

Theo tailed off.

‘Yes? You don’t think I sat up until this hour for to listen to Moss and Myra’s Late Night Lorry Driver Sing-Along, did you? Can a horse-shoe factory afford a sales estimate from a St Hubert’s graduate mathematician, even if it needed one? Come on, I’ve let this banal drivel keep me awake all night in order to hear this.’

‘I’ve seen them removing dead bodies from the stock yard.’
‘Well, there’s a thing. Thanks for telling me. Shall I go to sleep now or will you—’
‘That’s all I know. There isn’t much more I could tell you. I don’t know what they’re doing and I don’t know how deep in the mire I already am.’

 

 
Chapter 3

On the other side of the street from the railway station, in the middle of Rosentyre stood the village’s finest pub, The King’s Unicorn. The building dated back to some year in the nineteenth century, at which time it was called The King’s Field and it served cheap beer, blended whisky, smoked fish and hot beef stew with dumplings to a small clientele of porters, shunters, engine drivers, ticket collectors and train passengers. The pub had now, as they say, been re-imagined, refurbished, given a new name, roof, central heating system and sign on the street outside.

Theodore alighted from the last train of the day, dragging his suitcase packed with things he needed, like socks and a bottle opener, and things his Mum wanted him to have just in case, like window cleaning fluid. Eternally a train-spotter, he stood mesmerised on the platform and watched the signal turn green, the carriage doors hiss shut and the red tail lights of the train shrink into the distance and disappear around a curve. Theo left the station as someone was switching off the lights.

Many years of watching television programmes had convinced Theo that in a small town the only way to become accepted, to hear people say Good Morning to him as they passed him in the street, or to lend him a couple of teaspoons of Nescafé if he ran out of it, was to drink in the same public house as everyone else, and that was the King’s Unicorn, opposite the station entrance.

Standing on the street in the evening chill, Theodore steeled himself to deal with the hostile reception which he thought probably awaited every newcomer. This was the only way to become a full member of the village in good standing, rather than a foreigner and an intruder. He took a deep breath, opened the heavy hardwood door, hoped that the first time would be the worst and walked gingerly into the bar.

The room was large, warm, light, and full of people without being crowded.

The people did not look in his direction, hold its collective breath and fall silent. No fights broke out. Nobody yelled abuse at him. The conversations continued, in the corner two old men carried on playing draughts, and the barman pulled pints.

‘What may I get you, sir?’
‘Brown ale, please.’

The barman put a bottle and a glass in front of Theo and nipped the cap off the bottle.

‘Two pounds ninety.’

Theodore poured the beer into the glass and carried it over to a bookcase at the side of the room, where a handwritten notice read, ‘Please take a book.’

As he looked along the shelves, ‘The Ebony Mirror,’ ‘His and Her Rules,’ ‘The Mathematics of Guesswork,’ ‘Leviathan Among the Seërs,’ ‘Grasses and Crustaceans,’ he heard a Tyneside accent that he recognised saying, ‘Take the black one on the right.’
‘Gresham! What are you doing here?’
‘What am I doing here?’ Gresham was a short man, slender, darker skinned than many, the progeny of seven generations of coal miners and locomotive engineers. ‘I am steeling mysel’ for another week of stoking the refrigerators, shoein’ weasels, ploughin’ the marshmallow fields and gettin’ covered from head to foot in pig-swill. Such is the fate of yer lowly employee at the Sunlight Historic Agricultural Implement Company.’
Theo pointed to a well worn and scruffy black paperback that looked as though it had passed through many hands. ‘Did you mean this book?’
‘Aye. That’n ’ll fascinate ye. I guarantee it.’
Theo pulled the book off the shelf. It did not look like a riveting read. ‘Why? It doesn’t look so interesting that I need to read it before anything else.’
‘Bring it ower here an’ come and sit wi’ me, Horatio. I hate drinkin’ alone, but if I stop, I won’t consume my recommended daily alcohol intake and then I’ll die of beer deficiency by about Wednesday. What are you doin’ here?’
‘Just back from spending the holiday week-end at my mum’s, and I’ve been on the train since lunch time.’
‘Well, now you’re back, and after you’ve taken a long swig of the brown ale, you ought to start reading that book, because the author was the drivin’ force behind—’
‘Hush! Don’t spoil the surprise, Gresham.’ Theodore settled down, opened the book and began to read.

Small scale warfare, the lessons of David and Goliath
By Prof Daniel Newman
‘What’s this have to do with me?’ Theo asked.
‘Quite a lot. You’ll see.’
Chapter One: Strength is Weakness

It is said that someone once asked the great theoretical physicist Albert Einstein what weapons would be used to fight the Third World War. According to legend, he replied, ‘I know not with what weapons the Third World War will be fought, but the Fourth World War will be fought with sticks and stones.’ Einstein’s opinion was widely shared, although later commentators have cast doubt on the authenticity of the quotation.

‘I think, on the whole,’ Theo ruminated, ‘I’d prefer to take home “Leviathan Among the Seërs.” ’
‘If you work here for long enough, you’ll read it sooner or later. There’s little enough else to do here. An’ Leviathan Among the Seërs is tosh. By the same author that wrote The Prey with Two Faces.
‘Gruesome. Thanks for warning me,’ Theo said, mentally adding that there was indeed nothing else to do if you didn’t count going to the pub and drinking.
‘Except go to the pub and drink,’ Gresham said out loud, ‘and you’re already doing that.’
Theo opened the paperback and read.
Before two atomic bombs were dropped, one on Hiroshima and the other on Nagasaki, the extent of the destruction which the bombs would wreak was universally under-estimated. In 1945, for instance, George Orwell, writing in an essay entitled You and the Atom Bomb, imagined an atomic bomb dropping on the Stock Exchange in London and life in the capital continuing as normal afterwards. Once two atomic bombs had been dropped, it became clear that the truth was much closer to that later envisaged by Douglas Adams. There was no conceivable consequence of not setting the bomb off that was worse than the known consequence of setting it off. In other words, the atomic bomb was a useless weapon. Despite the huge amounts spent on designing, developing and testing bigger and better atomic bombs, none has been dropped in anger since 1945. Two atomic explosions were sufficient to show that the bomb could never be used again.

As soon as the military realised that atomic bombs powerful enough to devastate an entire city were useless in war, they asked the physicists to build a small atomic bomb. Their answer was not that for which they were hoping. It was No. You cannot build a small atomic bomb. You can only build a big one. The bomb must weigh at least the critical mass, or it will not explode.

The immediate consequence of this realisation…

‘It’s my turn to buy the beers,’ said Gresham. ‘Another glass?’
‘I think I ought to be going home,’ Theo said after a little consideration. ‘I haven’t slept much.’
‘That’s a very sensible idea.’ Gresham upended his glass and drained it. ‘I’ll help with the suitcase. I can see it’s too heavy for you.’
‘Yes, please do, but I live on Nicholson Close, right across town.’
‘7 Nicholson Close, perhaps?’
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘I stayed there too, when I first arrived. Mrs MacKechnie’s still going, then. Of course I’ll carry the suitcase. You carry the book and try not to get it wet.’

 

A quarter of an hour later, they arrived at 7 Nicholson Close.

‘Looks like she’s out.’ Theo made the observation first.
‘We can do as we like, then.’ Gresham followed Theo upstairs and lay the heavy suitcase down on the floor.
‘Mrs MacKechnie has a boyfriend, I think,’ said Theo, ‘She’s sometimes out until the small hours and I don’t think they have overnight lock-ins at the bingo hall.’
‘There isn’t a bingo hall,’ Gresham shook his right arm to get rid of the cramps. ‘And there isn’t a night shift at the fish factory, so it’s got to be the boyfriend.’
‘Lucky woman.’
There was a pause. ‘Mm.’ Gresham looked as though he might have been wrestling with a difficult decision.
‘Go ahead,’ said Theo. ‘Say it.’
‘All right, then. Have you ever had a boyfriend?’
‘Yes.

Map of St Hubert's university
St Huberts University:
St Huberts University:
St Huberts University:
St Huberts University:
St Hubert’s University
I went to St Hubert’s University. We all had one, the girls too. I thought you knew.’
‘I did. That’s why I asked. I think I remembered there being a raid or something at St Hubert’s, years ago?’
‘2 am on Wednesday, 20 September 2013. I was lucky. I heard the noise and I hid. There were doors banging, dogs barking, shouts. They took a moment—’
‘Dogs barking?’ Gresham seemed surprised to hear about them. ‘Looking for drugs, were they?’
‘Yes, but none of us had any, but only because we didn’t know how to get them. Anyway, the Proctors took a little while to reach the room I was in. I clambered onto the top of the wardrobe and knelt there trying to be invisible. The man looked in the wardrobe but he didn’t look up.’
‘You’re joking. You got away with it, as easy as that?’
‘No, it works. Psychology 101. People don’t look up when they’re searching for something, that’s why you can hide up trees. The room was dark. The guy got the door open, turned the light on, glanced around, opened the wardrobe and shut it again, looked under the bed, said sorry and shut the door behind him. I climbed back down and turned the light off. Mr Beattie was embarrassed but apart from that, he had a lucky escape. They didn’t have anything to arrest him for. He went back to sleep. I went back to halls after the noise died down. By the time I woke up, I’d missed a lecture and the newspapers were having a field day.’
Gresham drew breath. ‘Do you want to sleep together?’
‘I think that’s a marvellous idea. Yes, when I’ve had a bath and relaxed.’
‘Bring on the bubble bath!’
‘It’s in the blue bottle. I need lashings of it. All that talk about the raid made me nervous.’
‘Don’t worry. They don’t go out on midnight raids here.’
‘That’s a great relief,’ said Theo. ‘The funny thing is, the man stank of aftershave and cigarette smoke. I swear I could see a faint trace of lipstick as well. He must have been as gay as a midsummer may-pole.’

 

 
Chapter 4

Horatio stood nervously at the table in the small meeting room upstairs in The Works, in front of Ellis, whom he knew, Gresham, whom he had fallen three quarters of the way in love with, and two men whom Horatio did not recognise. The one looked around mid-career age and his name badge read Earle (Medicine,) and the other was around the same age as Horatio and his name was Dustan (Admin.)

‘Th- Thanks for coming,’ he began. ‘After a c- couple of weeks of number crunching, I’m in a position—’
‘I don’t know everyone here,’ said Ellis, who knew everyone. ‘Could we perhaps introduce ourselves? It won’t take a minute.’ Horatio was grateful to the Professor for easing the tension in the room. He realised that he had a small pile of name cards that he hadn’t given out and also that he hadn’t tested the projector. ‘I’m Professor Ellis. I’m an expert on viruses. Product development. Horatio, why don’t you go next?’
‘I’m Horatio, I’m the new boy. First in mathematics from St Hubert’s.’ He was still shaking slightly with stage fright. ‘I’ve spent my first month working on sales estimates. I had a crystal ball imported specially from ancient Rome and installed in my office. Drop by if you need a weather forecast.’ He turned to his friend. ‘Gresham, it’s your turn. You’re good at introducing yourself.’

A round of introductions was enough to relax Horatio a little, ‘I should have said thank you for coming. I appreciate being trusted to produce useful results. Given a choice between being useful and being interesting, most mathematicians prefer to be interesting.’

The attempt at witticism warmed the audience to him.

‘I’ll start with the important results and then I’ll tell you how I got them,’ Horatio continued. Dates and numbers appeared on the screen behind him. ‘It might take half an hour.’ Professor Ellis wrote the numbers down as Horatio continued, ‘These are the estimated sales volumes for the next six months.’
‘How accurate are these numbers?’ asked Falstaff.
‘Ten thousand dollars either way, I guess. Paradoxically, the smaller numbers have higher probability of errors than the big numbers. So you can see from the big numbers that our salaries are well provided for…’

The gentle laughter relaxed the meeting further.

‘…the company stays out of overdraft and we’re all on course for a massive Christmas bonus—’ and then there was a knock on the door. ‘Come in.’

The policewoman who walked in was young and obviously bewildered by the endless steel doors and warning notices. ‘Police.’

Nobody answered but, imbued with the secretiveness which is the fellow traveller of security, Horatio turned the projector off.

The policewoman looked around and asked, ‘Is there a Theodore Williams here?’
Horatio turned to the officer and said, ‘That’s me, Officer.’
‘You’re Theodore Williams?’
‘I am. But only in real life. Not in here. Inside this building, I’m Horatio.’
She held up her identity card. ‘I’m W P C Rayner Shaw,’ she said, ‘from Dunnabeg police station. I need a word with you. Can we go and talk somewhere quiet?’
‘There’s a little store room next door,’ said Horatio. ‘I think my key opens it.’

Gresham asked, ‘Is everything all right?’
‘It probably is,’ Horatio answered, ‘but if I end up in prison, come and visit me.’

The store room door clunked open when it saw Horatio’s name badge. The room had obviously not been used for a while but, among the junk, Horatio found a brush and cleaned the dust off the two wooden chairs. Horatio and W P C Shaw sat down and he asked her the obvious question. ‘Pardon my asking, Officer, but what’s this about?’
‘I can’t find the stockyard,’ she said in a whisper, as though she were embarrassed about not being able to find it. ‘Where’s the stockyard?’

It was Horatio’s turn to be bewildered. ‘There isn’t a stockyard. Deliveries come to the front door. There’s nothing stored outside this building. At the front it faces the road and at the back there’s a little flower garden.’
‘We’ve had a report of a dead body in the stockyard here. Do you know anything about it?’
‘It wasn’t me!’ Without thinking, and without any idea what Ms Shaw was talking about, Horatio added in rapid succession, ‘I didn’t do it. I wasn’t there. Nobody saw me do it. You can’t prove anything.’
Ms Shaw pretended not to be amused. ‘Mr Williams, you’re no Bart Simpson.’
‘Sorry. But if I’d known you were coming I’d have put the kettle on.’
Sigh. ‘Let’s for a moment pretend that we occupy the same universe.’ W P C Shaw had dealt with tiresome comedians before. ‘What did you mean when you told your mother that a dead body had been taken out of the stockyard? You did say that to her?’

Like a wicker basket of homing pigeons, the late night conversation with his Mum came back to him. ‘Oh,’ he said as realisation dawned. Horatio checked that the door was shut. ‘I didn’t think she’d tell anybody. Let me rattle you a yarn.’

They sat and stared at each other while Horatio wondered where to start his story. Ms Shaw broke the ice.

‘I’ve never seen so many security precautions in one place,’ said Ms Shaw, ‘and I’ve been on duty in Bute House. What on earth do you do here?’
‘I’m not allowed to talk about it. Besides, to tell the truth, I don’t know. I’ve been here a month and the only thing I’ve been allowed to do is slave over a hot calculator, a 2B pencil and two books about cyclic and progressive time sequences, with occasional breaks to go to the toilet, get a cup of tea and use the pencil sharpener.’
‘But you did tell your mother that there was something suspicious going on and it had to do with the stockyard?’
‘I did tell her that. She’d sensed that I was worried about something, and it was something to do with work. I said someone’d found a dead body in the stockyard. Truth is, I was worried about a mathematical problem that I didn’t have a solution for.’
‘Why didn’t you just say, “I’m stressed ’cause I can’t find a solution to a maths problem” ?’
‘Because then I would’ve had to explain the problem to her, and poor soul, she thinks mathematics is borrowing and paying back when you do a take-away sum.’
‘And the problem was what, exactly?’ W P C Shaw produced her notebook as if to write down Horatio’s answer.
‘Fourier analysis of approximate data. It doesn’t breach any secrets to say that I’m trying to predict future sales volumes from past data. Until I found a solution, the standard error of the predictions was too high by an order of magnitude. But Cooley and Tukey’s method runs into trouble, it gives wrong answers, when some of the data points—’
‘Okay. I get the idea,’ said Ms Shaw, although she didn’t. She put the pencil back into the clip on the notebook without writing anything. ‘I’ll tell the sergeant that there’s nothing to worry about and your Mum’s an old lady, easily confused and she might have dreamed the whole story. Don’t worry about it. I doubt you’ll hear any more of this.’
‘Pleased to hear it.’

Ms Shaw thought for a moment and added, ‘Just one other thing. Do all mathematicians talk like you?’
‘No. Most of us are like the famous piece of cod that passes all understanding. Thanks for helping to ease my mum’s worries. Can I do anything else to help?’
W P C Shaw looked at her wristwatch and answered, ‘Yes. I’ve got five minutes if you have.’
‘I think the crowd has picked its things up and gone home by now. I certainly have five minutes.’
‘I’ve never understood…’ Ms Shaw was trying to find the words for her question, ‘Can you show me how borrowing and paying back works when you do a take-away sum?’

 

An hour later, Horatio arranged a new time and place to announce the expected sales volumes, and he took Small Scale Warfare from his desk and opened it somewhere near the page where he left off.

Chapter Two: The Past is the Future

As Goliath learned to his cost, a stone, perhaps weighing one pound and neither explosive nor particularly dangerous, is a death dealing weapon in the right hands. Goliath’s adversary was David, armed with five stones, a sling and a sharp stick. David had spent the last several years as a shepherd and was used to killing wolves by flinging stones at them from the sling. Doubtless he had also honed his skill by taking pot shots at trees, rocks, tin cans, lemonade bottles, camels, greenhouses and policemen. Doubtless his skill was such that he could hit the head of a pin from a hundred yards away. David’s first slingshot knocked Goliath to the ground, and there David cut Goliath’s head off with the stick.

The development of more and more powerful explosives ended with the invention of the atomic bomb. The search turned instead to firing the old explosives, but more precisely.

It is now possible to guide a missile to Nº 5 Charlotte Square so accurately that the gunner can choose whether the missile should fly into the building through a window, fall down the chimney or knock on the door and ask whether the First Minister is at home—

Professor Ellis flung the office door open without knocking. He looked a little panicky and he appeared to have been running. ‘Horatio! Stop what you’re doing and come with me. We need you.’
‘First time for everything,’ said Horatio. Ellis glared at him. Horatio put the book down and stood up to leave. ‘What happened?’
They were rushing along the back corridor. ‘One of them survived.’
‘One of what?’ Horatio didn’t grasp the issue.
‘We’ve had a failure. You’re conducting the investigation.’
‘I’ll do my best, of course,’ Horatio said, with unusual diffidence.
‘Of course you will,’ said Ellis. ‘What do you think you’ll need?’
‘Well… a team of people who understand what the product does, how the product works, would be a good start. Medicine, virology…’
‘Who do you want on the team?’
‘I don’t really know anyone in the scientific team yet. I’d like to have Gresham with me. He keeps me grounded. Apart from him, well…’
‘Gresham. Good. Ask around the labs and put a team together as a matter of the utmost urgency,’ said Professor Ellis. ‘You’ll have all the budget you need.’
‘The first thing the team will need,’ Horatio scrabbled for ideas, ‘is all the test results of any kind relating to that patient and results of the same tests on a collection of patients on which the product, err—’
‘Data on a random selection of successes. Tell I T to give you database privileges and if they piss you about, ask them to talk to me about it. How many cases do you think you’ll need?’
‘To find outliers with a Z test, if there are any outliers? More the merrier but twenty ought to be enough.’

The electric gate at the end of the corridor opened, and Ellis ushered Horatio into the auditorium in which he had spent most of his first day at The Works.

‘Are you carrying your company ID?’
‘Yes, Professor, it’s in my shirt pocket.’
‘Good, you’ll need it because if you don’t have it, the doors won’t open and Security will appear from under a rock, like a shoal of piranhas. Now, watch this. This is live video.’ Ellis sat down at the nearest desk and the computer lit up. He typed something, and a video opened. They saw a man wearing an overcoat, carrying a bag of groceries and ambling down a shopping street. ‘See? That’s him, there, Patient one five five, Jory Hodgson, age forty-three.’
‘Looks like he’s out shopping,’ Horatio observed.
‘Crew member on the ferry. Lives on Sandpiper Terrace…’
‘I’d love to know where he found the money for a house there.’
Professor Ellis continued, ‘The house has four bedrooms and a garden the size of Hampden Park. He bought it with half a million pounds that he inherited from his grandparents, so choose your grandparents with care. Married to Bonny-Lee, two children, middle income, studied performing arts at Montrose, pollen allergy…’
Horatio stared at the video. ‘That’s the main street in Lochkeld, isn’t it, Professor. I recognise it. So what’s wrong with Mr Hodgson?’
‘Yes, it’s Lochkeld. The cameras identify themselves over here,’ he pointed, ‘Farmer’s Way, Lochkeld Nº 3. And what’s wrong with Jory Hodgson is, he’s alive. He should have been far too weak to stand up by now. Nothing’s happening to him. I need to know what we did wrong.’
‘So when do I start investigating?’
‘You’ve already started. Get everyone and everything together tomorrow morning. Make sure you check your e-mail because you’re running the show.’
‘Well, Professor, I’m touched by the faith you have in me, but—’
‘This is an emergency, Horatio. You are quite likely the best mathematician in Scotland. Find the problem, fix it, stop it happening again and you can bath in modesty later on.’
‘I fully intend to,’ said Horatio. ‘I shall be more modest than you or anyone else can imagine.’
‘One other thing,’ the Professor thought for a moment, ‘This is absolutely secret, at least until you’ve fixed the problem. Understand?’
‘Yes, Professor.’
‘Nobody’s going to buy a product that doesn’t work.’

 

 

If you believed the Shore Street name plate in Gaelic, RosentyreGramophone street sign, the name of the street that ran beside Rosentyre harbour was Sràid a’Chladaich. The original name plate, Shore Street, had been painted over and later removed altogether by the fervent nationalists of the late nineteen-fifties. The County Council, probably wisely, had not replaced it, arguing that had the English language name plate been removed during the War, and the Gaelic one left in place, it would have been easy to catch German spies because they would have to ask which street they were on, or how to pronounce it, or pronounced it comically wrongly.

Actually, during the war the English language name plate had indeed been removed, and not a single German spy had been detained as a result. Somewhere there is the gun barrel of a Centurion tank or the fuselage of a Spitfire made in part from the melted down name plate that once gazed down upon Shore Street, Rosentyre.

Theodore was walking home. As he often did, he chose to go along Shore Street, beside the harbour, where he could look out to sea, watch the seagulls eating spilt curry and chips off the street, see the small boats in the harbour riding the waves, hear the bells of the boats, the waves breaking on the rocks, the honks of the birds and the rumble of occasional aeroplanes departing Inverness Airport on the opposite side of the firth. He watched for the small passenger ferry that sailed every couple of hours from Rosentyre to Nairn, storms permitting. He thought of this way home as going the pretty way, walking for a quarter of an hour longer than necessary in exchange for the calm that the view of the harbour conferred upon his soul after a day of difficult work.

Shore Street, Rosentyre Rosentyre was far too far north to benefit much from tourist traffic, but the shopkeepers on Shore Street (or Sràid a’Chladaich if you know how to say it) did their utmost to provide everything the tourists would have demanded, if there were any. There was an ice cream café, a fish and chip shop, a post office, a grocer, a herbalist who told fortunes as a side hustle, an expensive whisky off-licence, an Indian take-away and a sign pointing to the railway station.

Theodore was passing the post office when he heard the kerfuffle inside. He heard one voice, a male voice, cursing and hollering threats and another voice repeating ‘Don’t hurt us, don’t hurt us.’ The door flew open and a young man ran out. He was unshaven, untidy, wearing a black bomber jacket and leather jeans, and carrying a butcher’s knife in one hand and a pile of notes and coins in both.

Instinctively, Theodore stuck one foot out. The young man tripped over it and fell hard. Reaching out to try to stop himself falling, he cut his hand deeply and let go the knife. With the other hand he released a cloud of banknotes and a shower of coins to the four winds. He landed face down on the pavement shouting, ‘You’re dead, you bastard!’

The force of the collision knocked Theodore off balance. He stumbled and landed heavily on top of the thief just as he was trying to stand up and grab hold of the fluttering cloud of banknotes. Theodore managed to kneel on the small of the thief’s back and hold his wrists.

He heard applause from the Post Office clerks, a man and a woman, both in their fifties, who had spilled out onto the street, and cheers — ‘Well done, sir, well held’ — from a tourist in a Burberry overcoat and a sou’wester who had been standing looking out at the harbour and taking photographs with an impressive big, black and silver Leica.

‘Do you have your phone?’ said Male Post Office Clerk.
‘It’s in the shop,’ said Female Post Office Clerk. ‘I’ll dial nine-nine-nine.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ said W P C Rayner Shaw. ‘I’m here already. Theodore! It’s all right, I’ll take over from here—’
‘Pig! Bloody pig!’ came a shout from the felled man.
‘Hamish Todd,’ said Ms Shaw as she grabbed the thief’s arms and wrestled them into handcuffs. ‘I’d know that incoherent swearing anywhere. Now, you just lie still for a few minutes, and I’ll call for a van.’

As she found the mobile phone in a jacket pocket, she double checked, ‘That is you, Theodore, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Well spotted. How did you get here so quickly?’
‘I’ve been here for an hour or so. Coastguard reported two men acting suspiciously on the ferry pier, so I hitched a ride on a prison bus going to Inverness Airport. Turned out, the two men were civil engineers checking the stonework.’

The Post Office clerks said their thanks to W P C Shaw. They assured her that they would make witness statements in the next day or two and they didn’t need an ambulance, and they traipsed back into the Post Office and put the ‘Closed’ sign on the door. The photographer was nowhere to be seen.

‘You rode here in an empty seat on a bus-load of deportees?’ Theo asked. ‘That must’ve been more fun than calling a taxi.’
‘No,’ Ms Shaw shook her head, ‘it was half a dozen long sentences on an educational visit to Spain. Language, Landscape and Liquor,’ sort of thing, but not necessarily in that order. It keeps them out of trouble.’

‘Lucky sods!’ Hamish railed loudly, still face down on the pavement. ‘When’s this sodding van going to arrive? I’m getting goddamned mud up my nose.’
‘I quite forgot.’ Ms Shaw turned her attention to the matter in hand. ‘Mr Todd, do you want to be cautioned in English or Gaelic?’
‘You can pissin’ say it in Siamese, for all I bloody care,’ grunted Mr Todd.
Ms Shaw took a deep breath and recited in Siamese for half a minute or so.
‘That was an impressive performance,’ said Theo, open mouthed in astonishment. ‘I’m really grateful to you for turning up so promptly. I don’t think I could have held the man down for much longer.’
‘I’m impressed too.’ Ms Shaw admitted. ‘I’d never have guessed that I’d find you moonlighting as a Superman super-hero. Where are the bright red cape, the blue shirt and the red underpants?’
‘They don’t fit me any more.’ Theo explained. ‘I’ve lost weight.’

Blue lights flashing, a police car arrived and its driver helped Ms Shaw to stand Mr Todd on his feet — ‘Well. Hamish Todd. What a surprise.’ — and load him into the back seat of the car hollering ‘Pigs! Leave me alone, pigs!’ at the top of his voice. The car drove off, leaving Ms Shaw and Theo standing, laughing, on the pavement outside the Post Office.

‘On days like today,’ Theo surmised, ‘you must really enjoy your job.’
‘I’m not allowed to do this in uniform,’ Ms Shaw giggled. She took her peaked cap off and kissed Theo. ‘We both need to cool down. Fancy a cup of coffee and an ice cream? I’m buying.’
‘That’s a very kind invitation, Ms Shaw,’ said Theo, ‘and I’d love to.’
‘Rayner. You can call me Rayner, even if I put my cap back on.’

 

‘Where did you learn Siamese, Rayner?’ Theo asked as they waited for their order in the ice cream café.
‘I didn’t. I’m not entirely sure that Siamese is a language at all. I was just wiggling my tongue and singing “Roll Out the Barrel.” ’

The waitress, who was also the chef, the dish washer and the proprietor, brought two Viennese coffees on a tray along with two large glass dishes each holding a pint or so of ice cream covered with diced fruit.

‘I‘m glad it sounded convincing.’
‘Very convincing for a minute and a half of unrehearsed soliloquy, I’d say.’
‘Well, not quite unrehearsed,’ Rayner admitted, ‘I go to a Pentecostal church occasionally.’
‘Let me ask your opinion about something.’ Theo weighed his words and spoke with care. ‘You say that you occasionally go to Church. My Mum says I should go to Church to look for a girlfriend, because I haven’t got one. Do you think it’s a good idea?’
‘You never know who might come and sit beside you,’ said Rayner. ‘Come to think of it, I’ll be escorting the Revolt Party march tomorrow. If you want to talk to me about the Pentecostals, why don’t you join them? There won’t be any trouble, and you never know who you might meet.’
‘I’ve never really paid much attention to the Revolt Party. As they’re competing for my vote, I really ought to find out what they’ll do if they’re elected.’
‘The first thing they’ll need to do is to set light to the Lake of Fire again,’ Rayner predicted, ‘because Hell will have frozen over from bank to bank. Did you like the ice cream?’
‘Very good indeed.’
‘Well,’ said Rayner, ‘I have to pay the bill, put my cap back on and start wandering around the town again, telling people the time and the way to the Town Hall. I swear that half the people in this town have left their wristwatch at home. Tomorrow at six in the evening, come wind, rain, shine or earthquake, I have to be standing in the car park of the King’s Unicorn watching half a dozen wannabe kingpins mooch quietly around the town.’
‘Six o’clock at the King’s Unicorn,’ Theo repeated. ‘Don’t let them start the revolution without me. May I bring Lois Lane with me?’
‘No,’ said Rayner. ‘She might inhibit you.’

 

 

Newspaper Front Page By the next morning, the only thing about the incident outside the Post Office that Horatio hadn’t forgotten about was that W P C Shaw had let him call her Rayner, bought him an ice cream and kissed him. It came, therefore, as a surprise when he saw The Scottish Daily which some helpful soul had put on his office desk. He was the lead story on the front page. ‘Have-a-go Hero foils knife raid,’ it read.

Yesterday must have been a slow news day. He imagined the editorial conference held just before midnight, choosing tomorrow’s front page lead from a small pile of stories off the wires.

Faced with the choice of (a) King stays in bed, (b) Delia Smith eats deep fried jam sandwich in Norwich, (c) All quiet on the eastern front and (d) Passer-by trips up robber in Scottish town that reader couldn’t find on a map at gunpoint, the trip hazard story would have been their automatic choice.

Horatio guessed with reasonable certainty who the tourist with the big camera worked for and what his job was.

He wondered whether it was worth trying to smuggle the paper out of the office and decided that the risk of being banged up for a breach of the State Secrets Act justified the small cost and big inconvenience of putting it in the waste paper basket, buying another copy in town and carrying it straight to a joiner who would frame it.

‘Sorry,’ ran the message that arrived in Horatio’s mail, ‘I haven’t found anyone else to help you investigate yesterday’s failure. You can work with Gresham for the moment so you’re not struggling on your own. Ellis.

‘I’m not much surprised,’ Horatio said out loud, ‘because that’s my job.’

‘P. S. Well done, O righter of wrongs and virtuous defender of the law-abiding citizen.’

Horatio realised that he had forgotten to ask Gresham his official issue phone number. There was no piece of paper bearing a list of names and numbers. Using the secure internal telephone directory was legendarily time consuming, especially considering that he could just go into the corridor and shout ‘Gresham!’ as loudly as he could, but sooner or later he would have to use the telephone and it would be as well not to put off finding out how it worked until he needed to fetch the Fire Brigade.

Horatio picked up the phone and an irritating synthesised female voice said ‘Name badge.’
‘What?’
‘Name badge.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Horatio asked, knowing full well that the irritating voice would not tell him.
‘Name badge.’
‘This is getting me nowhere.’ You could only get away with speaking in such an excruciating voice, Horatio thought, if you were saying something that people wanted to hear, like ‘You are due a refund of income tax’ or ‘I have found your cat’ or ‘Nigel Farage has fallen down a hole.’ If you were saying something annoying—
The irritating voice said, ‘Time limit exceeded. Goodbye!’ and the phone stopped talking.
‘Hello? HELLO!’

The phone did not answer. Horatio hung up and glowered at it. ‘Bloody computers. They can’t do anything right.’

Gresham knocked on the door and walked in.

‘Hey, sweety pie, have you seen the papers?’
‘Yes. I’ve been elevated to the rank of Hero.’
‘In fact, I know you’ve seen the papers, because I bought two and I put one on your desk.’
‘It’s going to take me a lifetime to live this down. All I did was stand there while everything happened around me. Anyway, I’m glad you came along, because the phone didn’t let me ring you up. All the phone did was say “Name badge,” and then it cut me off.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Gresham explained, ‘you’ve got ten seconds to hold your name badge near the phone or it switches itself off. I had to work that out all by myself, you know.’
‘Your ability to talk to computers duly dazzles me. When you’ve done that, can you make a phone call?’
‘Yes. One phone call, then you have to start again.’
‘How I long for an ordinary phone so I can dial the number I want and, Bob’s your uncle, the person I want answers. Anyway, you and I’ve got some serious investigating to do. Where do you want to start?’
‘I’d say we should see what records and test results we have of this patient,’ said Gresham.
‘Jory Hodgson,’ Horatio put in, ‘His name’s Jory Hodgson.’
‘And we also need to gather some data on successes,’ said Gresham. ‘There are about a hundred, I think.’
‘I reckoned that twenty’d be enough to cast around for possible causes.’
‘Which means,’ Gresham said, ‘that we need to get some help out of I T. Not to mention some sense.’
‘This should be good,’ said Horatio. ‘I think I know where their office is. Come on.’

In the canteen at lunch time, Horatio chose chicken and Gresham chose fish. Tavin from I T had been more helpful than either had expected.

Gresham looked up and asked, ‘Where do we go from here?’
‘We sit and bash the data until we find some characteristic of Jory Hodgson that nobody else shares.’
‘Nobody else so far,’ said Gresham.
‘Well, yes, there’s always…’ He pointed to the sign. Do not discuss work. We aren’t allowed to talk about work in here.’
‘All right, then: Is the chicken nice?’
‘Not bad. This chicken must’ve been starving. Beats a Foodmaster Meal in a Box, all the same. What sort of fish is that?’
‘Fried fish,’ said Gresham. ‘Batter on the outside, fish on the inside, handful of chips.’

There was a pause.

‘You know,’ said Horatio, ‘the other thing I think we should get is a blood sample.’
‘What? Do you think this fish had some sort of disease?’
‘No.’ Horatio laughed. ‘I’m sure the fish is perfectly healthy, apart from being dead. I mean Jory Hodgson’s blood. We need a sample of Jory Hodgson’s blood for analysis, to see if there’s any sort of immune reaction or anything.’
‘Shall we sneak up on him with a cut-throat razor and a milk bottle? Like this.’ Gresham mimed sneaking up on what remained of his battered cod to the tune of the shark in Jaws and then stabbing it repeatedly with the point of his fish knife while mouthing the staccato violin shrieks from the stabbing scene in Psycho. ‘Der-dup, der-dup, der-der-der-dup, Eek, eek, eek, eek…’
‘That’s a brilliant idea but I think it needs a bit more tomato ketchup on it,’ said Horatio.

Back in his office, Horatio found himself devoid of ideas for drawing blood from Jory Hodgson without him noticing. Maybe Gresham would think of something. In the meanwhile, he picked up Small Scale Warfare once more, and carried on reading from where he left off.

 

Chapter Three: The Arrow is the Target

The use of infectious diseases as weapons of war suffers similar limitations to the use of nuclear explosives. Its effects are too widespread and it kills the wrong people. In the Middle Ages, armies laying siege to a town fouled the drinking water by throwing animal carcasses into the wells. All the people of the town became too ill to fight, even though to force a surrender it was sufficient to force a handful of decision takers to surrender.

Is there an infectious disease which could stop an army? The British spread anthrax over Gruin-Árd island off the west coast of Scotland, killing every sheep there. The island was still uninhabitable fifty years after the event, and the British never used anthrax spores as a weapon.

Other diseases also became candidates for biological warfare. Yet the problem was not the lack of sufficiently lethal infectious diseases, but the same problem that had beset nuclear explosives. The diseases were so highly infectious and so lethal that they were useless as weapons of war. Killing one person whose death might improve the outcome of the war would likely entail killing hundreds of others whose deaths would serve no tactical purpose.

The hope for changing the nature of warfare comes from an obscure branch of genetic science. It is the simple observation that two patients may be exposed to the identical bacterium, or to the identical virus, or the identical prion, and one patient will have no symptoms while the other is severely affected, perhaps even killed by it. The difference between different patients’ vulnerability to an infection arises out of differences between the patients’ immune systems specified in the patients’ DNA.

 

Suddenly it was ten minutes past five, and the King’s Unicorn was half an hour distant.

 

 

Theodore couldn’t see Rayner. He looked around the car park and saw a young man standing on a box behind a Revolt Party poster. Vote Rose X, the poster read. Mr Rose was warming to his subject.

‘When you find rabbits in your cabbage patch, what do you do about them?’

Eight people stood in the car park, listening disconsolately to Man making a speech Turner Rose, the man who was to be the Revolt Party candidate in the next election. They wore brown and black badges and they buttoned their coats and pulled their collars up to keep out the evening chill. It would have been hard, Theodore mused, to imagine a less revolutionary crowd, or a smaller one.

‘Do you welcome them, let them eat as much as they want, and build a luxury hutch with air conditioning and maid service to make sure that they enjoy their stay?’

The crowd shook their heads. They didn’t and they wouldn’t. A man in a grey overcoat ventured, ‘Shoot them,’ and a middle aged lady with ginger hair added, ‘Make them into a casserole with onions and carrots.’
‘Well, that’s a bit of an extreme remedy,’ said Mr Rose. ‘Perhaps—’
‘And a couple of tablespoons of peas,’ said a younger lady with a black and brown scarf.
‘No,’ said the overcoat. ‘Peas don’t go with rabbit. You could try tomato.’
‘A dash of worcester sauce might give it a bit more taste,’ said a young man whose black hair looked as though a bird had made his nest in it.
Realising too late that his chosen metaphor wasn’t evoking the imagery that he expected from his audience, Mr Rose tried to continue. ‘I mean, you don’t want to kill them, just to keep them out—’
‘No, you don’t,’ said the overcoat. ‘You’ve never so much as seen a rabbit, have you? You’ve got to shoot ’em. You can’t run after them with a catapult, grab ’em by the back legs and ping them away over the hills and into the Cromarty Firth. If you don’t shoot ’em, they’ll eat everythin’ in the entire allotment an’ then they’ll start on the plot next door to yours.’
‘I still say you should put peas in it,’ said the scarf. ‘Listen to authority. “No casserole can be considered complete unless it’s got peas in it.” It was Egon Ronay what said that, I think.’
‘Gordon Ramsay,’ said a man who looked about forty and wore a cricket club blazer. ‘I saw him sayin’ it on TV.’ He nodded sagely and went on, ‘Egon Ronay died in 2010.’
‘Well, he said it before he died,’ said the scarf.
‘Let me take a different example,’ Mr Rose began, but a cry of ‘Don’t change the subject’ from the overcoat un-nerved him.

‘This is as lively as I’ve ever seen them,’ said Rayner.

Theo jumped. He hadn’t noticed her in the crowd. ‘Hello! I wondered where you were.’
‘I was keeping an eye on things,’ she said, ‘and this is as lively as they’ve ever been, so I don’t think they’ll be marching around the town with blazing torches, smashing windows, setting fire to buildings and impaling one another on pitchforks.’

‘Let us march around the town,’ called Mr Rose, evidently having abandoned his speech for the evening, ‘chanting as always, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!” ’
‘I’m as mad as a hatter, he means,’ Rayner muttered. ‘One seat on South Lanarkshire Council and he thinks he holds the world in thrall.’
‘I’m sure I’ve heard that mantra before somewhere,’ said Theo.
‘It’s not original,’ said Rayner, ‘but it’s rhythmic and it’s what they want people to hear.’
‘Forward together! Follow me!’ cried Mr Rose, leading the chant. ‘I’m as mad as hell…” ’

A light drizzle began. The small crowd took up the chant and began to amble gently down the road, looking mostly at their shoes and muttering, ’I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!’ as if they didn’t want anyone to notice.

‘You and I,’ Rayner explained to Theo, ‘walk around after them, just in case all hell breaks loose.’
‘I don’t think it will.’
‘Neither do I, but it beats standing in the rain outside Bute House.’
‘You mean, you actually turned down the chance to stand in the rain outside Bute House in order to come here?’
‘Only because you were going to be here.’
‘That’s very kind. Did they give you a scarlet tunic and a bearskin hat?’
‘They’re safe in my locker in Dunnabeg,’ said Rayner, ‘beside the bagpipes.’
‘Do they suit you?’
‘Yes. Well, if they really existed, they would make me look like the

Guardian of the Underworld
Guardian of the Underworld
Guardian of the Underworld, shouting “Halt! Who goes there? Friend or foe?” at the milkman.’

 

Theodore walked back from the bar. He put the glass of amber wine onto the table in front of Rayner, stood the brown ale in front of his chair, and sat down.

‘Thanks,’ Rayner said. As she relaxed, a smile lit up her face.

They touched their glasses. ‘Cheers!’
‘So, Theo, now that you’ve trudged around town for half an hour in the company of the Revolt Party, what do you think of them?’
Walking around town in the drizzle, Theodore had been thinking more about whether the rain was going to become colder or heavier, and about whether Rayner would make time to have a drink together afterwards, and he hadn’t really thought about the Revolt Party. ‘They know how to make casseroles, they don’t know how to keep rabbits out of their cabbage patches, they think Egon Ronay was a controversial orator unless it was Gordon Ramsay, and… I guess… they’re as mad as hell and they’re not going to take it any more, but I don’t really know what “it” is, and I’m not sure I’d have noticed how angry they were about it if they hadn’t told me.’
Rayner sipped the wine. ‘Delicious. Now that really is something special.’
‘Malmsey. It’s a specialty here. Noah’s wife got herself so tanked up on it that Noah, Shem and Japheth had to carry her onto the Ark.’
‘Why didn’t they just put her onto a taxi?’
‘Because there weren’t any taxis back in those days,’ Theo explained, ‘only Arks. It tootled around the floodwater for forty days and eventually landed beside the kerb at Number Three Uruk Gardens, Gilgamesh, where the driver charged her fifteen bob for the ride and ten shillings extra for taking all her pets with her.‘
‘Plus the traditional fifteen per cent tip,’ Rayner added.
‘Making a total of £1 8s 9d,’ said Theodore before he could stop himself, still the mathematics graduate hours after the end of his shift.
’God’s truth!‘ Rayner was astonished. ’How did you do that?‘
‘I didn’t,’ said Theo. ‘I mean, I didn’t really do anything. I can see the numbers. They’re still there, in digits like the neon signs you see in hairdressers’ shop windows, except instead of “No appointment necessary,” it says “£1 8s 9d.” ’ He pointed at the invisible numerals in the empty space on the table, two feet in front of him, in between the beer mat and the bottle of brown ale. ‘Pound sign, one, eight, nine.’
‘There’s some dust floating in the air, sparkling a bit, but…’
‘It’s a gift,’ said Theo, ‘like other people see ghosts or unidentified flying objects or sure fire business opportunities. I’ve always had it.’
Rayner took a couple of deep breaths. ‘I’ve never come across anything like this. What happens if she pays the driver with a five pound note?’
‘£3 11s 3d change, and, yes, I can see it.’
‘And you could do that ever since your first day at school?’ Rayner asked.
‘I remember the boy who sat next to me asking me what the answer to some simple question was. Five plus four, that sort of thing, and I told him to read the question and write down the numbers that appeared in front of him. He had no idea what I was talking about. That was when I found out that nobody else could see them.’
‘What happened?’
‘The little bastard asked the teacher about the numbers that appeared in front of me, and they dragged me off for a drug test.’

 

 
Chapter 8

The walkie-talkie in Rayner’s pocket began to squawk.

‘Is that you off somewhere?’ Theo asked, as she fumbled with the zippered pocket from which the squawks came.
Rayner pulled the walkie-talkie out of the pocket and held it without answering it. ‘I’m on duty until midnight,’ she told Theo. ‘Wait a second while I find out what sort of cataclysm is next in line for Superwoman and her beloved have-a-go caped crime fighter Batman.’ She pushed a button on the black box with her thumb, and the squawking stopped. ‘Shaw.’ she said, trying to sound professional.
‘Evening, Rayner. Sorry to call on you this late in the evening but I think you’re nearby. Damn it, I dropped the note…’
‘It’s probably on the floor somewhere, sir,’ she said.
‘Yes… Ah, here we are. Automatic alarm operating. Can you go and have a look? Paper Pusher, the newsagent on, er,’ he struggled with the pronunciation, ‘Sràid a’Chladaich. Is that -ch as in loch or itch?’
‘It rhymes with… Actually, I can’t think of anything. I’ll go straight away, sir.’

Rayner put the walkie-talkie down onto the table and turned to Theo. ‘Those damned alarms go off all the time. Fancy a short walk in the cold and dark? We can hold hands.’ She fumbled the radio into the zippered pocket and added, ‘If there’s anyone breaking in, no heroics. OK?’

An alarm bell was ringing loudly and a brilliant lamp was flashing above the doorway of Paper Pusher.

‘Oh, crikey, this is all I need.’ Rayner let go Theo’s hand, ‘Sorry, honey, you stay over here,’ and she walked up to the shabby youth who was standing in the shop doorway cursing and trying ineffectively to prise the lock open with a screwdriver. He might have been fourteen, she thought, or thirteen and on the tall side.

Thief ‘Why don’t you just ring the doorbell?’
‘ ’Cause there’s nobody in,’ he said, spinning around.
‘Give me the screwdriver,’ Rayner asked, calmly.
‘Eff off.’
‘Come on, have some common sense. You wouldn’t want to do six months for carrying an offensive weapon. Not in Dunnabeg Youth Correction Institute, anyway. Truly, it’s a grim place. Most of the cells are without windows, the meals are awful, half an hour of telly a week, church on Sunday, no mobile phones, and bullying is out of control — those guys would punch a kid like you in the face without a second thought, steal your food, smash your radio, raid your stash.’
Rayner’s description had worried the lad. ‘Can you not hide from them?’
‘Well, you might be able to hide from them, because you can see them coming from a distance. They’re the ones wearing Y C I uniforms.’

The youth handed over the screwdriver, holding it courteously by the blade.

‘Thanks. I can see we’re going to get along fine,’ said Rayner. ‘I’m sure I recognise you from your mugshot. What’s your name?’
‘John Smith,’ growled the youth.
‘Are you sure it’s not Ewan Turner?’
‘Completely,’ said Ewan Turner, with a snarl that would have done credit to a hungry Rottweiler.
‘And you don’t live in Flat 15, Waldegrave House, Falgour?’
‘No,’ said Ewan Turner, who lived in Flat 15, Waldegrave House, Falgour, ‘I live over there.’
‘Which one?’ Rayner asked him. ‘What’s the door number?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t see it from here.’
‘Have you tried going to Specsavers?’ Rayner suggested.
‘No, it’s pointless, ’cause they take all the cash to the bank every night.’
‘Incidentally,’ Rayner continued, ‘while I think of asking, which school do you go to?’
‘I don’t go to school.’
‘Because someone might ask me which school you go to. When you did go to school, which one was it?’
‘Carpenter’s.’
‘Carpenter’s School in Falgour. I must’ve got you confused with someone else. I’m sorry. We all make mistakes. So how about I take you to that house over the way and you let yourself in with your key, and you’ll hear no more about it. Do you think I can trust you not to do anything silly like this again?’
‘I wasn’t doing anything silly at all. I was trying to get some fags.’
‘ ’Cause you can get into an awful lot of trouble if anyone sees you and thinks that you’re trying to break in.’
‘Hey, I just remembered,’ said Ewan, ‘I left my door key at my mate’s house in Falgour.’
Rayner looked up at the clock on the harbour tower. ‘If we rush, you’ll just make the train to Falgour.’
‘I would, but I haven’t got any money.’
‘Oh, you poor soul. And it’s a long walk, too. Is that why you were trying to break the lock on the newsagent’s door?’
‘No, I wanted a packet of fags.’
‘Without money?’ Rayner looked at her watch. ‘Giving them away free now, are they? Let’s get you onto the train. We’ve got five minutes. I don’t know how you’re going to get back home after you’ve picked your keys up, though. Do you think we should knock on the door of your house and see whether there’s anyone at home? Or we could break the lock with that screwdriver of yours. You could fetch your key from your mate’s house in the morning. Your Mum will surely lend you the train fare.’
‘I need to bloody go to Falgour.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’ She looked at the harbour clock in the distance. ‘We can just get you on the train, I think, but we’ll have to rush.’

Theo came out from the shadows and caught up with Rayner and Ewan. ‘Six minutes, actually,’ he said.
‘You don’t mind if my friend comes with us, I hope?’ said Rayner to both of them, and neither objected.


Rosentyre station at night

Rosentyre station at night

As they crossed the footbridge at the station, the last train of the day grumbled in. They were the only departures. The guard stood on the platform watching three late night travellers leave the train. Rayner beckoned him across.

‘A child’s single to Falgour, please.’
‘Don’t you need one for yourself as well?’
‘No, thank you. I’m going home. The ticket’s for my friend John here. He left his door keys and his money at his mate’s house and he needs to go back and get them.’
‘One pound fifty.’ Rayner paid for the ticket and the guard issued it, asking quietly, ‘Are you sure I won’t find him stumbling around first class, smoking dope, like he was a couple of days ago?’
‘Oh, I hope not.’ said Rayner. ‘It would upset me dreadfully if my John did anything like that. He’d be letting me down awfully.’

With a reply of, ‘I hope you’re right,’ the guard returned to the back cab and rang the bell. The engines revved and the train moved off.

 

‘Was that the last train?’ Rayner asked Theo.
‘Yes. No more trains either way until five thirty in the morning.’
‘I reckon we’ve both earned a rest.’ Rayner pushed open the door of the Ladies Only Waiting Room. It was a room with three benches covered with dull coloured vinyl, a fireplace that hadn’t been lit for years, grubby windows, unwashed peach coloured curtains along one wall and a couple of lights hanging from the ceiling. ‘Nobody ever comes in here,’ she said as they walked in.
‘You mean, like we just did?’
Rayner took off her cap and laid it on one of the benches. ‘I’m not in uniform now,’ she said, as she turned the lights off. ‘I reckon we could spend a couple of hours in here.’

Rayner unwound her tie, took off her uniform jacket and shirt, and laid them beside the cap.

Entranced by her, Theo wrapped his arms around her and was tussling with her bra clip when a train pulled into the platform. It was about two thirds full. The guard came over and opened the waiting room door.

‘You’re lucky I saw you. Sorry we’re late. Last train for— Oh!’ he called, and he looked the other way as he continued quietly, ‘I am sorry. Switch everything off when you leave.’

With that, he closed the door quietly, returned to the back cab and sent the train on its way.

 

 
Episode 9

The phone on Horatio’s desk trilled. ‘Horatio,’ said Horatio.
‘Who was that lady I saw ye with last neet?’ The voice was Gresham’s.
‘What?’
‘Was she yer date?’
‘I’m sorry, Gresham, I’m not really with you.’
‘Ah was in the King’s Unicorn last neet, but ye didn’t notice me. Was she yer date?’
‘Yes. Yes, she was. We had a drink, we chatted for a few minutes…’
‘It’s okay, she’s really nice, and Ah divven’t need the full after action report. The forst thing Ah need to know is, are ye still going to date me?’
‘Of course. Any time.’
‘Well, that’s all right, then. I didn’t want to think that ye’d found someone else.’
‘I’ll always have time for you, sweety,’ said Horatio. ‘So why is Jory Hodgson still alive?’
‘Ah divven’t know.’
‘I thought you said…’
‘Ah said, Ah think ah’ve gorra solution to wor problem. You got ten minutes?’
‘Um… to a problem that isn’t what went wrong?’
‘No, to yer what to tell the management problem. That would do, wouldn’t it?’
‘Well, I haven’t worked out why Jory Hodgson is still alive, so any port in a storm, really.’
Gresham thought for a moment. ‘Are ye thorsty?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘See ye in the canteen in ten minutes, then. I could morder a cup of tea.’

 

Horatio and Gresham sat opposite each other behind cups of tea and far enough from the admonition on the wall not to discuss work to forget that it existed.

‘So, ye see,’ Gresham began, ‘Ah was home about midnight, and Ah was watching Fraud Squad on telly, when I had this idea.’
‘Sounds excellent so far.’
‘Ah have my best ideas when I’m watching crime shows, and fortunately there’s not much else.’
‘So what are we going to do?’
‘We write a report saying that Hodgson was never infected.’
‘That’s taking a bit of a risk, isn’t it?’
‘Not if we have evidence,’ Gresham enthused, ‘I can get two samples of my own blood, put Hodgson’s labels on both of them, in two different handwritings, with different dates. That’ll do for evidence.’
‘Well, it’s the best idea we’ve had between us so far. What could possibly go wrong?’
‘Quite a lot, now Ah come to think of it.’
‘But it’s the only idea we have, apart from investigating exactly what went wrong and reporting on how to fix it, of course. Let’s cut your idea loose from its moorings,’ Horatio continued, ‘take it for a sail across the Cromarty Firth, and see whether it floats. The first problem I can see is, how would you get two samples of your own blood, in NHS pattern containers?’
‘Ah was wondering that as well,’ said Gresham, ‘but then I thought, there must be some old sample tubes lying around somewhere.’
‘I see.’ Horatio thought for a moment. ‘I have to admit it’s a good idea. You hand over two vials of your own blood and we pass them off as Jory Hodgson’s blood, one before he was inoculated with the product and one after we thought he had been inoculated with it but really he hadn’t. Have I got the idea?’
‘You certainly have,’ said Gresham, ‘that’s exackly reet.’
‘I’d still feel a lot happier if we had the answers to some fairly basic questions, though. So, since we’re not under any great pressure to have an answer by going home time this evening, I’d like to call the plan that we haven’t thought of yet Plan A and call the brilliant idea that you’ve just suggested Plan B.’
‘Whass the B stand for?’
‘It doesn’t stand for anything. It means the second.’
‘You mean, you divvent have a Plan A so mine has to be Plan B.
‘Yes, that’s it. I don't have a fully formed Plan A but yours is good enough for an emergency, so I’m going to call it Plan B.
‘Supposin’ you didn’t have a Plan A or a Plan B, then my plan would have to be Plan C, is that reet?’
‘No, your plan would still be Plan B, and the second plan that we haven’t got would be Plan C, I think. To be honest, I’m becoming a trifle confused. Before we start putting paint to paper and turning out the masterpiece that Plan A is sure to be, let’s try to draw some preliminary pencil sketches of Plan A. What questions do we need answers to?’
‘Well, for a start…,’ Gresham thought for a moment, ‘there’s “If Hodgson wasn’t injected with the stuff, who was? What happened to him?” ’
‘And then,’ Horatio took up the theme, “Who mistakenly injected it into the wrong person?” and “If nobody injected it into the wrong person, where is the dose of product now?” You can see that some people might possibly worry about that sort of thing.’
Gresham asked, ‘Do ye have a Plan A?
‘No,’ said Horatio, ‘not yet.’
‘How about Plan C?
‘No, I haven’t got that either.’

Gresham stared out of the window for a moment. Two huge crows were chasing each other in circles above the moorland that separated the Works from the town.

He sighed, ‘Ah, if only they could talk.’
‘Who?’ Horatio hadn’t seen the crows.
‘Them crows there. If only they could talk.’
‘But crows can talk,’ Horatio pointed out. ‘They can learn to speak, like parrots.’
‘Well,’ Gresham proposed, ‘Ah’ll open the window, an’ maybe one of them will fly in here and talk to us.’

The crows landed in a tree and looked around them. Gresham didn’t open the window.

‘Supposing it did?’ Even though it stopped at all stations and in between them as well, Horatio was, as sometimes happened, unable to guess the destination of Gresham’s train of thought.
‘Well, maybe one of ’em saw somethin’. ’
‘Supposing one of them did. Where would that get us?’
‘Well, the one that saw it would tell all the others. They’d all have heard the story by now. One or other of the crows could tell us the gossip. Why Jory Hodgson is still alive.’
Horatio thought that unlikely. ‘I think he’d just make a wild guess.’
‘Aye. He’d just say “Some interferin’ bustard must’ve done it.” ’

‘Which would have us all barking up the wrong tree.’

‘There is a proverb,’ Gresham said after a pause for thought. ‘The people singin’ the wrong words are the people what wrote the reet ones.’
‘Does that help us?’
‘It’s a Ukrainian proverb I just made up. Who started this line of research in the first place, years ago?’
‘Daniel Newman,’ said Horatio. ‘Last I heard, he was still at St. Hubert’s doing the odd spot of work whenever he felt like it.’
‘Perhaps he can spare us ten minutes,’ said Gresham.

 

Like the Victorian prisons and the Victorian schools and the Victorian lunatic asylums, the buildings that comprised St Hubert’s University were intended to uplift, soothe and delight the souls of their occupants, as well as to impress visitors and passers-by. ‘Here, in these buildings,’ you felt as you walked along the sonorously named Maxwell Highway or across the Golden Bridge, ‘men and women become great by achieving great things.’

Theodore and Gresham left the Glentinny Hotel in Balgour the next morning and struck out along the riverside path to the Life Science Palace.

Every academic building in St Hubert’s University was famously either a reconstruction of an impressive Scottish building, or an original Scottish building transported brick by brick and re-assembled on site. The design of the Glentinny Hotel was squarely based on the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, although a lot smaller, and the Life Science Palace was pretty much a replica of Brodie Castle in Morayshire, with the addition of lifts, fire escapes, whiteboards, a ground floor burger bar with vegetarian options and electricity.

Prof Daniel Newman in his office

Professor Newman was pleased to see them. A bearded figure, either approaching retirement or already retired but unable to stop working, he welcomed Horatio and Gresham into his office. He talked to them while staring out of the window at the Lonnen Burn. Patch, his large and somnolent golden retriever lay on the floor. Patch looked up as the two former students entered the office, then lay down again and closed his eyes.

‘I haven’t seen either of you for a while. How have you been getting along?’
‘We’re both working for Sunlight, Professor,’ said Gresham, ‘so we can’t say that much.’
‘You can tell me more or less anything,’ said Prof Newman. ‘I helped to set the place up. The research they’re doing is my idea. Did you get a chance to read my book?’
‘Small Scale Warfare, yes. I’ve read the first three chapters,’ said Theodore.
‘And Ah telled him to read it,’ said Gresham.
‘Three down, five to go, then. It’s reassuring that you understand the need for secrecy, but fortunately I still have Sunlight staff ID. I hope your jobs suit you, ’cause nothing is worse than a job that you don’t like. Go ahead, tell me what’s on your mind. And call me Daniel, for goodness’s sake. ’
‘We’re trying to find out how a patient survived—’
‘Ssh! Quiet for a moment.’ From his desk, Prof Newman picked up an old and well-worn notepad, a pencil and a small silver telescope. ‘I can hear the nine thirty from Stirling.’

Patch stood up slowly and with great effort.

‘Come on,’ The Professor urged the dog towards the window. ‘You’ll miss it.’

Patch parked his lower jaw on the window-ledge and looked out of the window while Prof Newman stared out of it through the small telescope. A train approached the station on the farther bank of the Burn, and he wrote something on the notepad.

‘What is it, Daniel?’ Horatio asked. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘It’s one oh seven, four two six. Class 107 — it ought to be in a museum by now.’ The Professor put the pad, pencil and telescope back onto the desk and turned back to his visitors. ‘Honestly, they keep these old war-horses going until they fall to pieces.’

Patch wandered back to his place on the carpet, lay down and closed his eyes.

‘You’re trying to find out how a patient survived,’ Prof Newman reminded himself.
‘Survived a weapons test,’ Horatio said, and realised immediately from the expression on Daniel’s face that he had said the wrong thing.
‘Never call it a weapons test,’ he growled, ‘even though it is one. It’s a drug trial.’
‘We’re trying to find out how a patient survived a drug trial.’
‘Well, let’s see. What do you know about the patient?’
‘Serial number one five five, male, age forty three, lives in a big house on Sandpiper Terrace in Lochkeld,’ Horatio volunteered. He paused for breath and went on, ‘Wife, two children,’
‘Is that all you know about him?’
‘Except that he’s still alive, yes, and he has a degree in performing arts.’
‘Fat lot of good that is. Ah, well, everybody has to start somewhere.’

Prof Newman asked them to ‘Hold on a moment,’ and rummaged in his desk. Eventually he took a sheet of paper from the lowest drawer. ‘Serial number one five five, you say?’

‘One five five,’ said Horatio.
‘He was on my list, see? Here.’ He pointed at the entry. ‘Is. Now, I had one of my students administer the drug. Wayne Crawford. He’ll be in tomorrow.’
‘Could we go and visit him at home? Or at work?’
‘There wouldn’t be much point,’ said Daniel, ‘because he’ll be off his face on some exotic substance. No, come in tomorrow and I’ll make sure he speaks to you. I don’t think I can do much else to help, but if I think of anything… Meantime, find something interesting to do this afternoon. This is a great university with a unique history.’

Suddenly Patch barked loudly twice.

‘Thanks,’ Daniel said to the dog, ‘I’ll take a look.’

Both he and the dog returned to the window, and Daniel scoured the landscape through his telescope. ‘Yes, Patch, you’re absolutely right as always. It’s a train of four container wagons headed by a Class Sixty-six. Six six five oh two, it looks like. Remember that for me, because I forgot my pencil. ’ He turned to Horatio and Gresham as Patch carried on gazing out of the window. ‘Patch loves these trains. I’d guess it’s another building being brought CKD from some faraway hill or valley and ready to be turned into a thriving university department. That locomotive has enough horse-power to pull St Mary’s Cathedral.’ Patch opened his eyes for a few seconds. ‘Yes, Patch, perhaps it is hauling St Mary’s Cathedral. The spirit of Victoria Vincent lives on, God rest her immortal soul, now appearing in the shape of six clones of Mr Bumble who live in a room marked Board of Trustees.

 

 
Episode 10

In the burger bar on the ground floor of the Life Science Palace, Theodore and Gresham were the only customers. They sat at a table by the plate glass window looking out at the terrace of tiny shops that lined the opposite side of Argyle Furlong. News and Fags, TV Paradise, Hair Today, Everything For Dogs.


Shops

‘Sorry,’ said Gresham, ‘it was all they had left. The chef’s taken the rest of the day off to gan on TV. He’s got himself onto Sundae Superman.
‘How do you know that?’ Theo asked.
‘Kate told me. Check-out operator. An’ before you ask me how Ah know, Ah read her name badge.’
Theodore read the scrap of paper which Kate had left on the tray. ‘Healthy cheese and nut cutlet burgers on wholemeal bread, £5·23. Each! I knew I should’ve eaten more for breakfast. Still, I don’t want to appear ungrateful. Thank you for buying it.’ More gingerly than necessary, Theodore bit off a piece of his healthy lunch. ‘Actually, it’s quite nice.’
‘Unless there’s a fire, stop talkin’, ’ said Gresham. ‘Ah’m thinkin’. ’
Theodore turned pale. ‘What thought is going through your mind? Should I hide under the table?’
‘If ye dee, I’ll steal the tomato slices out of your nut cutlet cheeseburger.’
‘Does your nut cutlet cheeseburger have tomato slices in it?’
‘Naa. It’s defective in manufacture. Thass why I want to steal yours while you’re not lookin’. ’
‘Have you thought of a Plan A?’
‘No, but Ah have a plan for gettin’ a couple of tomatoes. I can go into Everything For Dogs, over there, and say that my dog wants a tomato.’
‘What happens if your dog doesn’t eat the tomato?’
‘That’s not a problem. I’ll eat it mesel’.’
‘You’ll eat the dog?’
‘Naa, the tomato.’
‘Forgive me if my memory is at fault, but you haven’t got a dog, have you, Gresham?’
‘Naa, I haven’t. I was just thinkin’ out loud. So, where was Ah? Oh, yes. Ah thought, where can Ah get an idea for Plan A.’
‘Lots of places.’ Theo considered. ‘The library, the genetics laboratory, the archivist, the laundrette, the Poisons Bureau?’
‘Naa. Look, it’s nearly mid-day. Almost time for Crime Ship. Crime Ship opening credits See that phone over there?’

There was a phone on the table near the cash desk, just in case Kate ever needed to call the Police or the Fire Brigade. (‘Help, help! We ran out of steak and kidney pie, a riot broke out, and one of them’s set fire to the toaster!’)
Gresham stood up, ‘There’s nobody lookin’, ’ and he walked to the check-out and picked up the phone.
‘Whass the phone number of the TV shop?’
The number was painted in big bright green numerals on the sign above the window of TV Paradise. Theodore shouted it and Gresham dialled it. After a few seconds, he started to talk.
‘You haven’t done what I told you,’ he said with fake anger and in a fake posh accent.
‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ Theodore asked.
‘Brutus from Head Office in Edinburgh,’ said Gresham, ‘that’s who the hell I am.’

There was a pause of a few seconds while the person at the farther end of the phone call said something indistinct. Then Gresham continued,

‘Well, read your messages more carefully. If I have to come to your house with your P45, I shall expect you to pay for the taxi. I told you to put your finest ninety-six inch television right at the front in the shop window and tune it to The Renfrew Channel. Think you can manage that?’

Gresham paused as the reply came from the further end.

‘I hope so, for your sake, and one other thing. Turn the sub-titles on. Customers love sub-titles. Even the ones who can’t read love sub-titles. They think any words that flash on and off are a neon sign advertising low calorie fizzy drink.’

Though the voice on the far end of the call was indistinct, Theo could tell that it had asked a question.

‘Yes, and with sales figures like yours, you’d better. Now get back to work. Good afternoon.’

‘Oi! Put my phone down!’ Wearing her burger bar brown overalls, Kate rushed across the room and hollered at Gresham, who immediately put the phone down and went back to sit with Theodore. ‘That’s there so as I can call an ambulance if anyone chokes on a fishbone.’
‘Nobody’s going to choke on a fishbone,’ Theodore called across the room, ‘because we’re the only customers, and we’re not eating fish.’
‘You’re too clever by half,’ said Kate, grudgingly.
‘See?’ said Gresham, taking a long, slow munch on his healthy cheese and nut cutlet burger as the old shopkeeper in TV Paradise fired up a jumbo size television set in the shop window, where Theodore and Gresham could see it clearly. ‘Telled you so. Crime Ship is just starting.’
‘I think I got lost somewhere,’ said Theodore. ‘Why are we watching Crime Ship? Is it a tense, authentic, vivid and imaginative drama set in a deceptive and malign world where nothing is what it appears to be?’
‘Naa,’ said Gresham, ‘it’s about a magic ship that solves mysterious crimes and then throws the bad guys in jail. Typical daytime TV. It’s tripe. But Ah telled ye, Ah get all my best ideas while watching crime shows on TV.’
As Theodore watched the opening titles, he wondered whether there wasn’t any wet paint that he could watch drying.

Kate shouted to them from the cash desk. ‘Are you two watching Crime Ship?’
‘Yes,’ Theo shouted back, ‘Is that all right?’
‘Of course. May I come over there and sit with you? It’s my favourite programme.’

Kate walked sedately over to them and pulled up a chair. ‘Let’s be friends. Where’s the telly?’
‘Over there, in the shop window. I’m Theodore and that’s Gresham. We were students here.’
‘Goodness me,’ said Kate, ‘that takes me back. Weren’t you two caught up in that raid on the dormitories back in…’
‘I can’t read the words on the screen from here,’ Theo complained in the hope of changing the subject.
‘This episode is called In the Sand Long Ago,’ said Gresham, squinting. ‘Should ye not’ve gone to Specsavers, like Ah said?’
‘I know this one.’ A smile spread across Kate’s face. ‘This is the one where they find some ancient Egyptian artefact in a passenger’s luggage and the ship takes them to an excavation in the Jamibian Desert in 1932 and they…’
‘Don’t spoil it for me.’ Theo interrupted, ‘Crime Ship is a waste of good electricity at the best of times, but watching it and knowing exactly what’s going to happen would be insufferable.’
‘How can a ship take ye to the middle of a desert?’ Gresham was mystified. ‘There isn’t any water. That’s the whole point of a desert.’
‘May I tell him?’ Kate asked Theo. ‘You may put your fingers in your ears.’
‘Suppose the fire alarm goes off?’
‘You’ll see me running hell for leather towards the fire escape,’ said Kate, reassuringly.

Theo put his fingers in his ears.

‘It takes them to a fishing port,’ she explained to Gresham sotto voce, ‘and it puts them on a camel and gives it a map of where to take them.’ Kate turned around to Theo and mimed pulling her fingers out of her ears.
Theo took his fingers out of his ears and Gresham got as far as saying, ‘It takes them to a fishin’ port on the western Mediterranean coast…’ before Theo yelled at him to shut up. ‘And camels can’t read,’ he went on.
‘Poetic licence,’ said Gresham, ‘of Category Z, for zoölogy.’

They watched the programme almost until the end. Three midshipmen trekked to the site of an excavation in the desert in 1932. An archæologist who was working on the excavation identified the antiquity in the luggage as the priceless handbag of a mummified ancient noblewoman, containing a lipstick, half a dozen papyrus handkerchiefs and a couple of those syrup-flavoured biscuits wrapped in plastic that the kahwas give you on the saucer with your cup of coffee.

Magic glasses that translate Egyptian hieratics
Magic glasses that translate Egyptian hieratics
Thanks to a magic pair of glasses which enabled whoever wore them to read and understand Egyptian hieratics, the crew restored the bag to the present heir and successor of the noblewoman, a Ms Karen Abbas, who lived in a modest three storey residence in Alessandria and worked as a portrait photographer. So grateful was she for her heirloom that she sent its finder an International Money Order for three silver aggry beads and twelve camels with gold rings in their noses.

When the Egyptian police heard the tale, they were at last able to take an ancient file out of the cupboard, blow the dust off and tick the box marked ‘Solved.’

The episode ended, as every episode of Crime Ship did, with Captain Rochard Bligh Captain Bligh wearing distinguished, freshly laundered and ironed uniform, sunlit, smiling, standing behind the wheel of R M S Kildale, giving the order to weigh anchor, and saluting the harbour wall while intoning his sonorous catch-phrase, ‘Nothing escapes the Crime Ship.’

The credits rolled. Theo was complaining, ‘But there wasn’t any crime in it,’ when an old man in dusty overalls, who smelled of warm bakelite, clouds of dust and the odour of overheated and badly tuned television sets, entered the burger bar.

 

 
Episode 11

The old man had TV Paradise stitched onto his shirt. ‘Is Brutus here?’ Nobody answered, and he tried again. ‘Is there anyone here called Brutus?’ he demanded.
Theo spoke. ‘Him,’ he said, pointing. ‘Wake up, Brutus.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ muttered Gresham. He assumed his fake voice and turned again into his adopted alter ego Brutus, a man in his fifties who had only ever felt quite at home in the Army, sitting up straighter than Gresham did, noticing how much his Army uniform felt like being wrapped up in a coconut hair doormat, barking orders at anyone who needed to have an order barked at him, wilting in the relentless, debilitating heat on the esplanade of the विंदाललू (Vindaloo) hill fort, feeling older Camp Coffee than Gresham, sitting in the foreground like Sir Hector Macdonald on the Camp coffee bottle, bidding a servant to make the elevenses while he planned the defeat of the enemy. Was the shopkeeper seeking revenge on the trickster?

Theo was engulfed by a vision of his boyfriend being seized on a charge of impersonation for fraudulent reasons, overpowered, dragged out of the room and hurled violently into prison by four large and heavily armed policemen.
‘You don’t look like Brutus,’ said the shopkeeper.
Gresham thought quickly. ‘I am the other Brutus,’ he said in the other Brutus’s voice, ‘there’s two of us.’
‘Could you see the screen all right from all the way over here, sir?’ the man asked.

‘Yes. Thank you. It was readily visible.’
‘Does anything need to be improved, sir?’
‘Yes,’ said Gresham, still in the other Brutus’s voice, ‘the programmes, they’re dreadful.’

Theodore remarked quietly to Kate, ‘God’s truth, is he going to get away with this?’
‘Looks like it,’ said Kate, twice as quietly.

‘I’ll see what I can do about the programmes, sir,’ said the man.

Kate found that hard to swallow. ‘Can you really improve the programmes, Mr., er…’
‘Jacobs. Jonah Jacob’s Crackers Jacobs, Jacob’s as in “crackers,” ’ he said. ‘I can but try. I’ll have a word with God about it.’

Before she could stop herself, Kate asked, ‘Do you think God can improve the programmes?’
‘I doubt He’ll help much,’ said Mr Jacobs, ‘He used to appear as a burning bush or a still, small voice, but these days He’s like everyone else. When you need His help, he gives you a leaflet. Which among you gives your son a stone when he asks for bread, or a leaflet when he asks for help?’
‘Have you got the leaflet?’ Gresham asked him, ‘Is it any use?’
‘Not much,’ Mr Jacobs shook his head, ‘although Corinthians is all right.’
‘By the way,’ Gresham asked Mr Jacobs, ‘how did you know I’d be here?’
‘I thought you were the first Brutus and not the other Brutus,’ he explained. ‘Isn’t this where he always comes? I remember, he said they do an awesome cheese and nut cutlet burger on wholemeal bread.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Gresham, ‘I only came here because the other Brutus told me about it.’
The brief lull in the conversation gave Kate a moment to look up at Mr Jacobs and ask, ‘Would you like to try one of our speciality burgers?’
‘Oh, definitely yes.’

Kate went to the kitchen door and disappeared through it, and Mr Jacobs continued, ‘I’m surprised that the first Brutus didn’t tell you that he’d been here, ’cause it was only last week.’
‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ said Gresham, still speaking as the other Brutus, ‘but I haven’t been to the office. I’ve been in China looking for a supplier of battery-powered television sets for cyclists that screw on the handlebars.’
Mr Jacobs misunderstood. ‘Eh?’
‘I mean, television sets that screw onto the handlebars. How many of those could you sell at £40 each or so?’
‘They would fly off the shelves like hot cakes,’ said Mr Jacobs, ‘if I had any shelves.’ He paused for a second and added, ‘And if cakes could fly.’

Kate returned from the kitchen with a cheese and nut cutlet burger on a blue plastic plate. ‘Here, this is what Brutus eats when he comes here.’

Mr Jacobs looked a bit shocked when Kate asked him for £5·23. He paid up, bit a chunk off and said, ‘Ish very tashty,’ through a mouthful of nut cutlet.

 

Back in the Glentinny Hotel that evening, Theodore suggested to Gresham that they spend a while in the hotel bar, The Taproom, talking about the case.

The Tap Room The Tap Room at the Glentinny Hotel, Balgour
‘Where did that leave us?’ Theo ordered two double Lochdarisaigs. ‘Have you thought of a Plan A?’ Theodore asked Gresham as they sat side by side on a couch in the bar. The barman brought the drinks in cut crystal glasses on a silver tray. The Taproom was the kind of bar that has a hundred single malts, but even in the middle of the day it was so dark that if you put your whisky down, you couldn’t find it again afterwards.
‘Aye,’ said Gresham in his own voice.
‘Inspired by Crime Ship?’
‘Yes, I have been and it was.’
‘Don’t keep me in suspense.’
‘Supposin’ Wayne Crawford had a handbag,’ Gresham began, ‘and he put the loaded syringe in that, and then he left it on a bus or somewhere. What do ye think?’
‘Does it come to light five thousand years later,
In the seventieth century, a traveller finds a handbag whose owner left it on a bus five thousand years previously In the seventieth century, a traveller finds a handbag whose owner left it on a bus five thousand years previously
in the seventieth century?’
‘I don’t think so. I think someone finds it and gives it to the bus driver,’ Gresham said.
‘Well, it’s a good story, so who knows, maybe we can follow it and it’ll lead us somewhere.’
‘Probably to a lost property office in the bus garage.’
‘So you’ve almost solved the problem,’ said Theo in a tone of voice that meant “But not quite.” ‘The problem I see is that the person who was asked to carry the syringe went by the name Wayne. Wayne is a boy’s name so he probably doesn’t have a handbag.’
Gresham thought for a moment. ‘I see what ye’re getting at. But it doesn’t have to be a handbag. It could be a carrier bag, or his pocket. If your name was Wayne, and ye were told to carry a loaded syringe somewhere, what would you put it into?’
‘My coat pocket, I expect.’
‘So either the syringe is lying around at the bottom of Wayne’s wardrobe, or somewhere a dry cleaner is carefully lookin’ after a couple of tablespoonful of a genetically engineered poison which, injected into the right sort of person, is about twenty times more lethal than potassium cyanide.’
Theodore shook his head as though trying to keep the nightmare visions at bay. ‘Not looking good, is it?’
‘Yer greatest fears are like yer most fervent wishes, Theodore. Neither of ’em is ever goin’ to happen. Thass what me Auntie used to say, an’ she was right.’ Gresham looked directly into Theo’s eyes and spoke softly, ‘Aa think wor job’s finished for the day.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I just noticed that the bar is nigh-on empty and naebody’s lookin’ at us.’ He leaned closer to Theo and kissed him.

They held each other close. They heard a man and a woman walking along the corridor towards The Taproom. Gresham recognised one of the voices. ‘Thass Turner Rose’s voice,’ he said, ‘Aa’d recognise it anywhere.’

Turner Rose was saying, as only he could, ‘It’s pretty obvious that the only way to speed up traffic in towns is to abolish all the zebra crossings and all the traffic lights, and then make bicycles go on the pavements,’ and a woman’s voice replied, ‘It might work, but don’t forget who has to scrape the casualties off the tarmac.’

Theo cried out in panic, ‘Quick! Hide me!’
‘Why, what’s happened?’ said Gresham.
‘Because that’s Rayner! The woman I went on a date with!’

 

 
Episode 12

Turner Rose came into The Taproom with Rayner Shaw, in uniform, beside him. ‘Well, I just happened to hold the winning ticket that day,’ she was explaining. ‘You’re a prominent person in need of Police protection, and the sergeant thought that since I’d been escorting your march through the streets of Rosentyre a few days ago, I would probably know what you looked like, and so I was the ideal person to look after security at the big Revolt Party meeting here.’
‘Are you looking forward to it as much as I am?’
‘May I be honest?’ she asked. Mr Rose nodded. ‘Thanks. I’d rather be at the football match.’

Mr Rose sat down on one of the couches. ‘Caley fan, are you?’
‘No.’

‘Cold outside,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘Not at all the weather you want in the week before an election.’ He waited for Rayner to take a seat beside him. When she sat on a bar stool facing him, his disappointment showed in his face. ‘They do a twelve year old Lochdarisaig here,’ he said, waving at the bottles on the shelves behind the bar. ‘Do you want to try it?’
‘Which one is it?’ Rayner asked.
‘I think it’s that one,’ said Mr Rose, pointing to a bottle so far away that he couldn’t have read it with a telescope.
‘I can’t. I’m on duty. A double fresh orange juice will have to do me. But do have one yourself.’ The waiter brought the drinks without being asked, and Mr Rose showed his key fob. Rayner looked around her. ‘How the other half lives,’ she mused, looking at the cut crystal tumblers glinting in the warm light of the ’fifties pendant electroliers.
Mr Rose hesitated for an instant and then suggested, ‘You don’t have to sit in the corridor outside my room, you know. You could come inside. I wouldn’t mind.’
Rayner looked shocked, although she had heard similar invitations many times before. ‘Are you saying what I think you might be saying?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Rose, ‘or at least I think I am.’
‘It would be best,’ she said, ‘if I phoned the station and asked whether there’s a male officer still on shift—’
A crash, the crash of a table and two heavy cut crystal tumblers landing on the floor, interrupted her. One of the two tables farther along the bar had fallen sideways, sending flying the two Lochdarisaigs that had been standing on it. Theo straightened half-way up, slipped awkwardly to the side as his muscles found themselves, and then stood up completely, while Gresham tried to avoid attention by making himself as small as possible. ‘You, sir,’ yelled Theo, pointing at Rose, ‘had best find somewhere else to stay.’
Shocked and shaking, Rose resorted to outright lying. ‘I was only concerned that Ms Shaw might be cold and uncomfortable in the night.’
‘Then book a room for her. A single room, I suggest.’

‘Yes, yes. Good idea,’ said Rose, grateful for being shown a way out of a fight. ‘I’ll go to Reception and sort it out straight away.’

While Rose was out of hearing, Rayner said to Theo, ‘You’re my knight in shining armour. How did you know I was here?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Theo. ‘I was here to see Daniel Newman about a problem at The Works. But I did notice the placard tied to the lamp post in the car park. A caricature of Rose with a toothbrush moustache. Very well drawn. Instantly recognisable. Whoever drew it must have been practising for weeks.’
‘That might mean trouble.’
‘I thought that, too. What sort of trouble? Water cannon, mounted Police, rubber bullets, machine guns?’
‘You watch too much television,’ Rayner concluded. ‘At worst it might be three second year sociology students asked politely to keep their opinions to themselves and piss off.’

Rose came back into the bar carrying a room key on a hotel fob. ‘This is for you,’ he said, giving the key to Rayner, ‘Room 277. Not too far from mine.’
‘Thanks, that’s very kind.’

For half an hour or so, Theo and Gresham sat on the couches, drank double Lochdarisaigs and talked about Jory Hodgson and what they were going to ask Professor Newman in the morning, while Turner Rose talked to Rayner Shaw about the miraculous transformation that was to befall the economy of Scotland on the day after Mr Shaw was, in the teeth of all the evidence, elected First Minister by a landslide. Theo overheard him saying, ‘People of all stripes are fed up to the back teeth with politicians,’ and he breathed to Gresham, ‘You don’t know how right you are, Jimmy.’

Theo and Gresham went to their room first, leaving Rayner to enjoy Rose’s company. She had learned as a teen-ager that the best way to deal with bores in a bar was to let them drink as much as they wanted, because then they fell asleep.

As the clock of St Bridget’s Kirk struck two, Room Service walking along the corridor with a tray of rattling cut crystal tumblers woke Theo, who noticed that Gresham was fast asleep beside him. He remembered that Rayner was booked into room 277. He slipped into the hotel fluffy dressing gown, closed the room door very carefully so as not to wake his boyfriend, padded quietly along the corridor, and lightly tapped door number 277. A very annoyed elderly male voice hollered ‘Piss off,’ in a yell that could have been heard, and probably was, a mile away. Perhaps, knowing that in Scotland the assassination of ambitious minor politicians simply isn’t done, Rayner had gone home and was at that very moment sitting in her kitchen in her pyjamas eating cornflakes out of the box.

Under his breath, without realising that he was speaking out loud, Theo sighed, ‘How I longed for you.’
‘I told you to piss off,’ said the angry male voice, ‘that’s twice you’ve woken me up.’

Going back to the room he was supposed to be sharing with Gresham, Theo discovered that he had forgotten to put the key into his fluffy dressing gown pocket before closing the door, and he had to wake Gresham in order to get back into bed with him.
‘I’ll explain in the morning,’ he said.
‘I think I worked it out already,’ Gresham replied, yawning. ‘Divvent be embarrassed. I would have done exactly the same if it’d been me.’

In the morning, there she was. Rayner was almost ready to check out, dressed in civvies, breakfasting on scrambled egg and kippers. ‘Sorry to disappoint. I would’ve enjoyed your company. I went to Reception and changed the key for another room, so that Turner wouldn’t find me in the night, but as he was still sitting in the bar, I couldn’t tell you where to look for me.’

Ten minutes later, Gresham arrived and sat beside Theo. Rayner looked at him and smiled, unable to think what to say in the circumstances.

‘I didn’t know you were such a gifted political cartoonist,’ Gresham said.
‘I try my hand occasionally. When the Devil blows his bugle, there I am, riding among the reinforcements… Just a minute. How did you know?’
‘That poster tied to the lamp post in the car park. It’s drawn with a Sharpie on the back of a letter from your Mum. Good likeness, that is.’

 

 
Episode 12

Daniel Newman was standing by the window, staring out at the street and smoking a churchwarden pipe. Sitting on the wooden chair near the desk was a smiling and happy looking student in jeans and a T shirt printed with the St Hubert’s stag Cervus. Dwayne Crawford His arms were in constant motion, waving, and he shifted awkwardly in his seat, as though sitting made him uncomfortable.

Wayne introduced himself briefly. ‘Hi, I’m Wayne Crawford. I’m a second year student of genetic engineering. I’m from Zimbabwe and I’m funded by the Scottish Fund for Technology Transfer.’
‘What sort of fund is that?’ Gresham asked.
‘It’s part of the detritus of the British Empire,’ Wayne continued. ‘It pays for students in Commonwealth countries to study science and engineering in Scottish universities. I had the job—’
‘I know your name,’ said Theo, ‘You’re the student who…’
‘Yes, he is, Horatio,’ said the Professor, reminding Theo just in time to use his approved pseudonym for as long as they had company, ‘From what I remember, I had other work to do, and the last post was due, so I asked Crawford to post the dose of product to Lochkeld clinic.’
‘And I did it the next day,’ Wayne interrupted. ‘I remember clearly. You gave me a padded envelope, a plastic bottle the size of my little finger, a note addressed to the doctor and a cheque payable to the National Health Service.’ He drew breath and went on, ‘The bottle had the numbers MB2 and 155 hand-written on it. I’ve got the certificate of posting somewhere.’ Cheque, medicine and envelope
‘I don’t think we’ll need that,’ the Professor smiled. ‘Not at the moment, anyway, but if you come across it again, don’t throw it away.’
‘MB2’s the batch number and 155 is the patient number,’ Horatio observed unnecessarily.
‘So, what happened?’ Gresham too was keen to hear the story from beginning to end. ‘Did you fall over and drop it in front of a rapidly oncoming steam-roller, or did the wind blow it over a cliff and send it crashing onto the rocks below, which dashed it to pieces?’
Wayne giggled. ‘No, of course not. I told you, I have a certificate of posting. I put the stuff into the envelope… Woops, that’s a sequence error. I copied the address off the letter onto the envelope, then I put the plastic bottle, the letter and the cheque into the envelope, and I stuck the flap down with parcel tape. Then I took it into the post office and sent it first class. Two pounds forty.’ He hesitated, and went on, ‘Which incidentally you haven’t paid me back.’
‘Oh, gosh, sorry.’ Professor Newman felt in his pocket and found two pound coins, which he handed over. ‘Here’s… some of it.’

A sudden change came over the professor. His eyes lit up. He looked like a boardroom executive energetically cracking an urgent and difficult problem, even to the point of taking his pipe out of his mouth. He grabbed the phone and keyed four digits, an internal extension. Theo and Gresham stared at him, and then at each other. They had never before seen him in that state.

‘Victoria, can you have a look and see whether the cheque to that clinic in Lochkeld was ever cashed. Thanks.’

He put the phone down and the pipe back, and became once again the university don with the reading glasses and the leather elbow patches, whom nothing ever seemed to trouble.

‘Why didn’t I think of that,’ Theo asked.
‘You probably didn’t realise that we have to pay the clinics for their services,’ Newman replied. ‘Once you know that, it’s an obvious enquiry to make. I wouldn’t worry about it.’
‘So, as far as you know,’ Theo asked Wayne, ‘the product was in the post and should have arrived in the clinic at Lochkeld a couple of days later.’
‘Yes,’ said Wayne, ‘that’s all I know.’

There was a silence.

Professor Newman turned to Horatio and Gresham. ‘Well, unless you two have any more questions…,’ the two shook their heads, ‘Thank you very much indeed for dropping in, Wayne, because we need to resolve this matter as quickly as possible.’

‘See you later.’

As Wayne left the office, the phone on the desk rang.

‘Newman… It was. That’s helpful. Most helpful. Thank you.’

He returned to staring out of the window. ‘It appears that the cheque was cashed. It’s on the Department’s bank statement.’
‘So what happened to the product that was in the same envelope?’
Professor Newman continued to look out at the window. ‘The train from Glasgow should arrive in a minute or two. I always like to watch it. It’s a minute or two late.’ He picked up the little telescope and pointed it at the railway station. ‘Expected 11:13. Ten minutes late,’ he read aloud. ‘They must have been having problems.’ He collapsed the telescope and put it back on the desk. ‘As for what happened to the vial of product, I’m afraid that’s your problem. I don’t think I can help you any more with that. But if you think I can, do phone me. I’m quite often here.’

 

 

 
Episode 14

As they left the Life Science Palace, Theo and Gresham heard the noise of a highly emotional orator bellowing into a tinny but powerful amplifier addressing a supportive audience, coming from the Peace Hall.

Peace Hall

The Peace Hall, St Hubert’s University

‘Ah, yes,’ Theo breathed, looking in the direction from which the noise was coming, ‘Rose’s Revolt Party meeting. Put your fingers in your ears, fellow citizen, lest you be subliminally brainwashed into voting for Rose.’

Like most of the buildings that made up St Hubert’s University, the Peace Hall was a near-copy of an older building which Victoria Vincent had thought interesting. It had been based on Achcolm House, as re-drawn and brought up to date by a first class honours architecture graduate, Joël Fletcher. The design had been his first job, and he had now set up his own partnership, designed an all-weather tennis court and a couple of motorway service stations and he was well on his way to becoming a millionaire.

‘When I was starting my second year,’ Gresham remarked, ‘they held Freshers' Week in the Peace Hall. I was recruiting for the English Language Society. I know my way around the place. It’s a surprising building.

Isometric diagram of Peace Hall

Floor plan of the Peace Hall

Looks like nothing more than a Victorian music hall with a stage, thirty seats or thereabouts, windows and doors, but behind the stage it’s all over secret doors, hidden rooms and stairways and corridors. There’s even a revolving book-case in it somewhere. Fletcher must have been intrigued by all the hidden bits, otherwise why would he have included them in the replica?’
‘Why on earth did Achcolm House — the original Achcolm House — have all those hidden features?’
‘I’ll tell you what I know,’ said Gresham. ‘I met Joël Fletcher during that Freshers’ Week. He was here recruiting for the Architecture degree. The story behind the original building was that back in the eighteenth century, Achcolm town council wanted to recruit a sheriff. They hit on the idea of building a courthouse that was also a decent size town-house for their Judge, in a good part of town.’
‘So that the new recruit could live above the shop, you mean?’
‘Yes. It worked. They recruited Justice Lucius Sutherland LLB. Now, his mother was a French Catholic. The Catholics were not emancipated in Scotland until 1829, so Justice Sutherland—’
‘You’re saying that he wanted the Catholics that he sent to the jail to have an escape route.’
‘Quite literally. Yes. He bribed the builders to make the courthouse and the cells easy places to escape from. Not in as many words, of course. He told them he needed hidden corridors and stairways for the servants. Then Justice Sutherland would turn up in the cell of a Catholic prisoner in the early hours, lead him out to the drinking fountain and send him on his way with his blessing, five shillings and a pickled beef sandwich.’
‘He actually got away with that?’
‘Nobody ever noticed,’ said Gresham.

Theo shook his head, as though disbelieving, and asked, ‘What do you think we’d find if we took a look around?’
‘We would find one crazed politician holding forth to fifteen grannies and granddads waving let’s-cut-taxes style slogans written in crayon on the back of a seaside postcard and shouting “Throw them out,” ’ said Gresham, ‘but that isn’t a reason for not going in and having a look.’
‘Well, I’m game,’ said Theo, ‘I’ve got nothing more interesting to do before we catch the train tomorrow.’
‘Well, we start on the street. See that stone column, beside the road, that looks like a drinking fountain?’
‘It is a drinking fountain,’ said Theo.
‘Well, yes, it is,’ Gresham conceded, ‘I mean, you can get clean drinking water out of the tap on the top, but if you open the hatch at the back, there’s a false floor that hinges upwards. You can squeeze through the hatch and there’s a ladder that leads down. Fourteen rungs, and be careful because it’s dark, the rungs are only beechwood and they haven’t seen a tin of Creosote™ since the War.’
‘That’s seventy-odd years ago. Plenty of time for wood to rot.’
‘No, the First World War. Tread carefully.’

Gresham went first. ‘Stay outside until I’ve reached the bottom,’ he told Theo. ‘I’ve done this before. When you do come in here, close the hatch after you and put the false floor back.’
‘How many times?’
‘You only need to close it once. Push it shut and lift the handle, then get hold of the— Oh, I see what you mean. I’ve only been down here once.’

Two minutes later, Gresham called up that he had reached the bottom of the ladder.

Wailing McQuail

Wailing McQuail haunts
the grounds of the Peace Hall

Theo replied from the top of the ladder, ‘I had an extraordinary vision of a man in grubby Highland dress watching me standing beside the water fountain, staring into the hatch and telling me ‘That ladder is dangerous. It needs a coat of creosote.’ in a Caithness accent.
‘That must be Wailing McQuail. You saw him?’
‘Who’s he?’
‘He’s the ghost of Sandy McQuail. He was a labourer who fell into the deep earthworks in the grounds of Achcolm House and died. His grave is in the grave-yard of the parish church in Achcolm. I didn’t know you were a sensitive.’
‘Neither did I ’ said Theo, ‘but I saw him as clear as day. I heard him, too.’
‘Either you’re a sensitive or you’ve chosen a fine time to tell me you’ve been experimenting with mind-expanding pharmaceuticals.’
‘McQuail seemed to have reservations about us going into the hidden passages.’
‘I can understand why his ghost would want to haunt Achcolm House,’ said Gresham, ‘but why would he show himself at the Peace Hall at St Hubert’s University?’
‘Wait while I climb down there.’

Theo remembered to close the hatch and put the false floor back into place, but on his climb down, he slipped awkwardly on the last rung but two, landed with a thump and almost fell flat. He grabbed the ladder and pulled himself up. He and Gresham were standing in a narrow passageway with bare brick walls and a low ceiling. Although the replica building had not been opened until 1980 there was already dust and mud everywhere.

Gresham asked, ‘Is McQuail still up there?’
‘No,’ said Theo. ‘That’s the thing about visions. He’s in my head, not really in the grounds, and now he’s standing in the passageway over there and I can hear him saying, “Told you so.” ’

Memorial stone to Alexander McQuail
‘Wailing McQuail’s’ memorial stone in the grounds of the Peace Hall

Theo looked around. ‘How come it’s light down here?’
‘There are glass tiles that let some moonlight in. You can’t see them in the grounds because they’re covered by the shrubbery. Come on, it’s this way. This passage comes out into the back corridor. I’ll lead the way because there’s not enough room for us to pass each other. Tread carefully and watch your step.’
Theo was still curious. ‘Why on earth is there a secret passageway that leads to a university auditorium?’
‘Fletcher copied all the hidden passages for some reason,’ said Gresham in a whisper. ‘Down here somewhere there was a secret sanctuary in which a priest could hold a Catholic service of Mass. Those who knew about it could get into and out of the chapel through the drinking fountain. Now shush, or they’ll hear us in the meeting.’

A flight of steps led from the passage up into a broom cupboard. The door into the cupboard was hidden behind a layer of towels and linen, and anyone who looked into the broom cupboard without knowing that the door was there would have been unlikely to see it, although he might have asked why there were so many sheets and towels in the broom cupboard.

‘So far, so good,’ said Gresham. ‘We’re inside the Peace Hall. Honestly I didn’t think we’d get this far. Now, straight ahead and we’re in the guest lecturer’s office, turn left and that’s the theatre, turn right and we’re in the seminar room, and upstairs is the guest room. Which way shall we go?’
Theo listened carefully. ‘It sounds as though the meeting is on our right, in the seminar room. We’d best turn left.
‘That’s the strange acoustics of the place. All those passageways and invisible doors make sounds appear to come from all over. Nah, Rose is a narcissist. He wouldn’t hire the small meeting room even if the only souls attending his meeting were his mother and her Pekinese dog. He’d hire the theatre. So we turn right, and as I promised, Theo, here is the revolving book-case.’

‘It just looks like a door,’ said Theo, ‘like any other door.’
‘Trust me,’ said Gresham. ‘This door was built to deceive the Roundheads. Roundheads retreating from Achcolm House Or, at least, the original was. Had they ridden into the seminar room, their leader would have shaken his head, put his sledgehammer back in his tool-bag and said, “Waste of time coming in here, lads. No way a Catholic fugitive could be hidden in that book-case.” And then the whole platoon would turn around and gallop off along the A761 in search of a decent pub and a bit of the old iconoclasm.’

Gresham took hold of the door-handle and pushed. The door did not move. On the farther side, the door was indeed disguised as a black oak book-case. It weighed several hundredweight. Theo and Gresham put their shoulders against the door and shoved. With a loud creak, the door moved a couple of feet, the hinges parted company with the door-frame, the book-case on the other side of the door swayed, tipped over and crashed onto the floor, sending blocks of wood painted to resemble books in all directions, and broke into half a dozen black-painted planks of wood. Gresham fell flat on his face and Theo tripped over Gresham’s leg and landed beside him.

 

Inside the seminar room, Rose stopped mid-sentence and wheeled around to face the intruders as they struggled to their feet.

‘That’s why,’ he was saying, ‘anyone can join the Revolt Party, everyone is welcome to attend our—’
‘Erm,’ said Gresham.
‘Good evening,’ Theo added.

The audience, two rows of party faithful wearing brown rosettes, Brown 'Vote Rose, Revolt' turned towards Theo and Gresham. All of them looked as though they of an age to draw their old age pensions. One man, who wore a rosette on each lapel of his verdigris overcoat, muttered, Man with rosettes ‘Get out,’ and a woman who was eating popcorn out of a cardboard box cried out, ‘What are you doing in here?’ and very nearly choked.

‘This is a public meeting,’ said bald man in a clerical collar. ‘They’ve every right to be here.’
‘Have they?’ said the two rosettes. ‘Have they? I had to pay for my ticket,’ in a tone that suggested that the ticket had cost three months’ wages.
‘Oh, if that’s what’s on your mind,’ said the clerical collar, ‘I'll pay for their tickets.’ He reached into his pocket and held a handful of coins out to Mr Rose. ‘Here’s two pound coins, Rose. Keep the change.’

Rose was furious. Ignoring the money, he advanced on Gresham growling, ‘I will not be made a fool of,’ and punched him in the stomach. As Gresham staggered backwards, retching, the cleric somehow climbed onto the stage and stood between him and Rose.

‘Mr Rose,’ the cleric began, ‘do not seek revenge. “Say not thou, I will recompense evil; But wait on the LORD, and he shall save thee.” Proverbs, chapter twenty, verse twenty-two.’
‘Get out of my way,’ said Rose, now threatening. ‘They broke into my meeting, they don’t have tickets, and I am going to throw them out.’
‘Violent actions are a terrible thing, Mr Rose…’
‘For everything there is a season, Reverend’ said Rose.
‘Ecclesiastes three, verse one,’ said the cleric, ‘and indeed there is, for some people understand nothing else,’ and with that he thumped Rose in the face with a right hook and the force of a jumbo jet making a crash landing.

Then Two Rosettes threw himself on the Reverend rather in the manner of a suet pudding falling off the lunch table and landing on the dog, while Popcorn Lady ran out of the meeting room screaming for a constable and leaving a trail of half-eaten popcorn.

‘Where’s the nearest exit?’ Theo asked, quite in general.
‘Over there,’ said Gresham, pointing to the main door.

Theo and Gresham left the Peace Hall through the main door and walked down the path to the road. The faint figure of Wailing McQuail stood before them shaking his head. ‘Told you so.’

‘I should have brought a crucifix,’ said Theo.
‘Aye,’ McQuail replied, ‘that would have dealt with Turner Rose. His name is most apt. He would’ve turned and fled.’

The following morning, as they boarded the train from Balgour to Inverness, change here for all stations to Rosentyre and Lochkeld, Theo and Gresham looked up at the Life Sciences Building across the beck and waved to Professor Newman, who was standing at the window looking at them through the telescope. The Professor waved to them and Patch barked twice.

 

A view of Achcolm Achcolm Main Road
Achcolm Council Justice Sutherland

 

 
Episode 15

‘What have we learned from that?’

It was a rhetorical question, but one that they expected to be asked sooner rather than later.

Horatio and Gresham were sitting in Horatio’s office. Gresham had a bandage on his nose and a bruise on his left cheek. Horatio was sitting in the comfortable swivel chair and Gresham was sitting beside him, on the wooden visitor’s chair, a little closer to Horatio than might have been necessary. Horatio was holding his mathematician’s 2H pencil and both men were staring at the spiral bound notebook that lay open on the desk. Nothing was written on the page.

‘Divvent walk into Revolt Party meetings if you’re not expected,’ Gresham suggested.

Horatio wrote the suggestion down. He had written as far as ‘Revolt’ when Gresham asked, ‘What are ye writing that down for?’
‘You never know,’ Horatio shook his head. ‘Sometimes writing something down triggers a thought. Writing takes longer than speaking. You have time to think about what you write, phrase it carefully so you don’t say something else by mistake, and ponder the first half of the sentence while you’re writing the second half. When you speak it, a sentence passes so quickly that you put all the effort into getting the words out. Remember the proverb, Sign in factory: Ensure brain is engaged before operating mouth “Ensure brain is engaged before operating mouth?” When you’re writing, sometimes, suddenly, an idea bursts into your head like one of those flowers that blossoms in five minutes, and after that you have some new insight, maybe so much insight that you can solve the problem. Although usually, it doesn’t.’
‘We know that Wayne posted the kit to a doctor at the clinic in Rosentyre and he must have received it because he cashed the cheque.’ Gresham paused.
‘That’s about it,’ Horatio nodded in agreement.
‘We’re only a mile or two from the clinic,’ said Gresham, ‘so we could gan there and ask them.’
Horatio thought for a moment. ‘We might have some questions for them,’ he said after an interval, ‘but first, let’s work out what the questions are. Maybe we could start by asking—’

The phone rang.

‘Is Theodore there?’
‘Yes,’ said Horatio, ‘it’s me.’
‘It’s your mother speaking.’
‘Yes,’ said Horatio, ‘I recognise your voice. You sound a bit panicked. Is everything all right?’
‘What happened up there, Theo?’ asked his mother.
‘Mom,’ said Horatio, ‘firstly, when you ring me at work, please call me Horatio. It’s my cover name. Just humour them. Secondly, I don’t understand. What happened that made you worry about what happened?’
‘Oh, my God,’ Gresham sighed as the full extent of the problem dawned on him, ‘last night’s scuffle has got into the—’
‘Have you seen the newspapers?’ The Scottish Daily: Fight erupts at party rally There was a rustling noise as Mum picked the newspaper up. ‘Listen. “Fight erupts at party rally.” That’s you in the picture, isn’t it? Front row, third person from the left.’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Horatio. He knew that his mother was probably right, even though he couldn’t actually see the newspaper down the perfectly ordinary telephone. ‘There was a bit of a kerfuffle because we knew how to get into the hall and watch the show without paying for a ticket.’
‘You mean, you broke in.’
‘Not really broke in, Mum, just sort of…’
‘Just sort of broke in.’
‘Well, yes. One of the audience asked us to leave, a surly goon in a black Group Five uniform started coming towards us, and then Rose punched me.’
‘Did you punch him back?’
‘No. Actually I was already leaving.’
‘Well, you should have done.’ Mom gave an exasperated cry of ‘Honestly. The number of times I’ve told you. Never start a fight that you can’t finish. Are you all right?’
‘We’re both all right,’ said Horatio, ‘nothing broken that I’ve noticed, a bit shaken but not very stirred. How are you?’
‘Seeing red. Not angry at yourself. Angry at the robot that answers your phone. I’ve spent at least ten minutes trying to get some sense out of her. For God’s sake, did nobody think that sometimes somebody might need to speak to you in an emergency?’
‘No, mum,’ said Horatio, ‘I don’t think they did.’
‘She kept on about “In order to satisfy this company’s security requirements, you must do this, that and the other.” ’
‘Drives you to distraction, doesn’t it, mum.’ Horatio put his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered to Gresham, ‘I think Mum’s found out something useful.’
‘Eventually I told it, “Listen, if you don’t let me speak to Theodore Williams pronto, I shall make my way to your major data banks and reprogram the lot of them with a very large axe,” and do you know what it said?’
‘No,’ said Horatio, ‘What did it say?’
‘The programmer must’ve been a Douglas Adams fan. It said, “Security over-ride activated,” and it put me straight through to you.’
‘Miracles never cease,’ said Gresham. ‘Aa never knew ye could dee that.’
‘So what was Rose talking about?’ Mum asked.
‘Potholes in the roads, I think, Mum.’ He put his hand over the mike and whispered to Gresham, ‘I can’t remember. What was he talking about?’
‘He was sayin’ how much the Revolt Party welcomes all its new members and anyone else who showed interest,’ said Gresham. ‘Always listen to people who disagree with you. He definitely said that. “You don’t persuade your supporters to vote for you. You have to persuade your opponents. The people who like someone else more than you.” And he said, “If you want to win an election, you’ve first and foremost got to listen.” I can remember that much. ’

 

‘Stirring stuff,’ said Horatio in the tone of voice that the Sovereign would have used to re-open Parliament if the Palace of Westminster had fallen down and been rebuilt ten years later, ‘so, what have we learned from that?’
‘How to get around the security on the phones,’ said Gresham.
‘And very valuable that will be too, until somebody realises they’ve left a trap-door in the software.’
‘Trap-door?’
‘Yes. A trap-door: it’s a trick that helps them to test the software before it goes live. Programmes like telephone branch exchanges are as long as your arm and written by teams of people, so no one person knows exactly how they work. If you’re the engineer, testing the end half of the software, you can skip the beginning half by going through the trap-door. You remove all the trap-doors when the software goes into production, but sometimes the launch date is so close that nobody ever takes the trap-doors away. Mom seems to have found a trap-door that skips over a security procedure. Don’t tell anybody that you know about the trap-door and maybe nobody will ever nail it shut like they’re supposed to.’
‘D’ye think there might be other trap-doors?’
‘It’s very likely,‘ said Horatio. ’It’s very difficult to test a complicated chunk of software without putting trap-doors and break-points into it. So there are very likely some more trap-doors hidden in there somewhere. We’re unlikely to find them, though, and even if we did, someone might take them out any time.’
Gresham was new to the world of designing and testing computer software. ‘What’s a break-point?’
‘It’s some event that suspends the entire system so that the engineer can examine it and find a fault. More powerful than a trap-door but of less use.’
‘Horatio,’ Gresham was obviously thinking this out, ‘Do you think that one of these invisible landmines—’
‘Undocumented features, Gresham.’
‘That one of these undocumented features could possibly cause a patient to miss a scheduled dose of product?’
‘Well, yes,’ Horatio nodded, ‘If every telephone in the Works broke down at the same time, and stayed broken down for a day or two, that would obviously cause considerable inconvenience. But I can’t see how it would happen.’
‘Can you talk me through it?’ asked Gresham. ‘What is a break-point?’
‘Well, supposing that when they were testing the new phone system, they found that if you tried to make an international phone call, the phone system couldn’t make the connection through a satellite. It could connect by submarine cable or optical relay stations, but when it tried to connect over a satellite link, the call never went through.’
‘How often might that happen?’
‘Nobody’s using the phone system yet, it’s being tested. Then the engineer puts a break-point just before the stage when the call fails, and then he tries to make a phone call through a satellite. The phone system stops just before the failure is about to happen, and the engineer can look around and see what is going wrong. Look at the magic numbers, see what’s ready to go and what isn’t. That’s why you need a break-point.’
‘And when the test is finished…’
‘When all the tests are finished and everything is working properly,’ said Horatio confidently, ‘the engineer takes all the break-points out.’
‘And he takes all the trap-doors out as well,’ said Gresham, ‘so either the phones were never put in properly, or somebody left in such a rush that he forgot to take the self-tests out.’
Theo saw the obvious. ‘That sounds like something that might be helpful to you and me.’

 

 
Episode 16

At seven in the evening Theo and Gresham were sitting side by side on the couch in Theo’s room in Mrs MacKechnie’s boarding house on Nicholson Street, quietly watching Crime Ship, when someone knocked on the front door of the house. Mrs MacKechnie answered the door, the caller spoke too indistinctly for Theo and Gresham to understand, and Mrs MacKechnie said, ‘Yes, he’s home. I’m sure he’ll want to help. That’s his room, there.’

Theo heard his visitor climb the stairs. He was expecting to hear a knock, but instead he heard Rayner Shaw talking to him quietly through the door.

‘Theo, are you home?’
‘Yes. Yes, wait a moment.’

Gresham seemed to realise what was expected of him in this circumstance. Without Theo so much as pointing to the wardrobe, Gresham went and hid in it. Theo whispered ‘Thanks, hun,’ pushed the wardrobe door shut and tidied his clothes up, ready to open his door.

‘Hi,’ he said. Rayner was in uniform and carried a manila envelope. ‘Sorry, my love, but… But first I want you to kiss me.’
‘Don’t let me stop you.’
‘Hold my cap, then, so I’m not in uniform.’

Theo kissed Rayner lightly, as one might kiss a pet cat.

In a whisper, Rayner asked ‘Are we alone?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Well, Theo, I don’t want someone walking in on us while we’re in the throes of passion, do I?’
‘Yes, Rayner, I can see that would be a bit embarrassing. We are alone. You can stay the night if you want.’

Rayner kissed him back with real passion, pausing only to take breath and whisper, ‘I’ve missed you a lot.’

Then Rayner held up the envelope. ‘Sorry, darling, but we’ve got some paperwork to do. Do you remember seeing family favourite Hamish Todd rob the post office on Sràid a’Chladaich a week ago or thereabouts?’ Her pronunciation of Sràid a’Chladaich was exemplary.
‘I don’t really need to remember it. I still have a bruise on my leg which talks about it all the time.’
‘Great. For the next week or two, make sure that other people can see it from a distance of ten or fifteen feet.’
‘Why, what’s going on?’
‘You’re a wanted man.’
‘Wanted? By whom for what?’
‘You’re wanted as a witness in Court. You saw what Todd did. The Court just wants you to tell the story.’
‘Fine. I can do that.’ Theo began his tale with the formula which once began every respectable children’s story. ‘Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Once upon a time there was a bad man who wanted a lot of money…’
‘That’s exactly the idea.’
‘Yes, sweetheart, I’ll do that for you.’

Rayner kissed Theo again, reached into the envelope and pulled a massive wodge of papers out of it. She held out a cheap ball-point pen.

Theo baulked. ‘Lord God almighty, look at it — it’s the size of a self assessment, an application for social security, an appeal against a decision of the Egg Marketing Board not to stamp little lions on eggs from your chickens and a recipe for tomato soup thrown in for good measure.’

‘All it really says is, “Please come and tell us all about it.” Sign here at the bottom,’ Rayner said, pointing to the red box and the dotted line at the bottom of page seventeen, ‘in between Yes, all right, if you insist and Cross my heart and hope to die in a cellar full of rats.

Theo tried to sign the form, but the pen didn’t work. Rayner took the pen and shook it vigorously. The pen slipped out of her hand and flew across the room, striking the wardrobe door with a loud clatter. Gresham pushed the wardrobe door open and stuck his head out. ‘ ’Strewth! I thought she’d never— Oh!’ he smiled and turned bright red in the face, ‘Hello, Ms Shaw, nice to see you again.’

Rayner was speechless, though not for very long. ‘Were you listening to us all the time?’
‘Not really,’ said Gresham, ‘I could hear what ye were both sayin’, of course, but I wasn’t snooping. I was just innocently hiding in the wardrobe.’
‘What about you, Theo?’ Rayner continued, ‘did you know that your friend was hiding in the wardrobe?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Theo said, ‘because I put him in there.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Theo,’ Rayner sighed, ‘I’d end our affaire here and now if I didn’t love you. Theo, if you want a boyfriend I won’t be unduly upset about it. I’ve endured worse. Just keep him out of my hair and out of my life, don’t catch anything and don’t ever ask me me to get into bed with both of you.’ She paused and screwed her eyes closed for a few seconds. ‘Now I really must take a few deep breaths and recover as much of my composure as I can manage. Give me the form.’
Gresham sat on the couch beside Rayner, who was sitting as still as she could and breathing through her mouth at a slow, measured pace. ‘Theo still hasn’t signed it.’ He picked the pen up off the floor and scribbled on the back of his hand. ‘It works now.’
Theo took the pen, found the form and signed it in the red box. ‘Here you are, Rayner. I’m sorry. I’ve made myself look a fool.’
‘You’re not sorry, you just have egg on your face for being caught doing something a bit silly.’ Rayner kissed Theo again, smiled and said ‘And you don’t look a fool. You are a fool. Try not to look like one. Don’t get caught again.’ Rayner breathed deliberately: in, one, two, three, out, one, two, three. ‘I’ve got a day off coming soon. Want to spend it together?’
‘Yes. Very much.’
‘Just you and nobody else.’
‘Yes. I promise.’

Rayner’s radio squawked. ‘Shaw?’
Hiss, snap, crackle. ‘Hasn’t he signed it yet?’
‘Yes, sergeant. He just wanted to read it before he signed it.’
Pop, crunch, whistle. ‘How far did he get?’
‘Halfway down page three.’
Click, sput, plink. ‘That’s some sort of record, I’m sure. If you’re still within hailing distance, >fizzle< his court date is the day after tomorrow at one in the afternoon.’
‘Your court date’s the day after tomorrow at thirteen hundred hours.’
‘Sounds not too difficult. Where do I go to?’
‘The Sherriff Court in Dunnabeg,’ said Rayner. ‘Come alone and you might get to stay late.’
The radio squawked back into life. ‘Shaw, if you can, please get around to Number 35, Distillery Alms Houses? Little old lady, Mrs McBarmside, says she’s seen >crackle< jewellery thieves off Shop Your Neighbour going into Millum’s for a haircut.’
‘Haircut? It’s gone eight o’clock at night.’
‘Mrs McBarmside eats lots of carrots,’ crackled the sergeant.
‘Damn it,’ Gresham cursed and banged his fist on his knee. ‘I missed the end of Crime Ship.’

 
Episode 17

Dunnabeg Sheriff Court was an ugly, ochre coloured building, all concrete blocks, bristling with video cameras and built around an asphalt parking place big enough for six prison vans surrounded by iron gates and razor wire. Exterior view of Dunnabeg court It had been designed and built to impress upon any person who went in past the Protected by Group Six Security signs and through the plate glass and sheet steel doors that they were not particularly important and they should expect a thoroughly miserable experience, and they should abandon any hope of spending ten minutes chatting to the Sheriff and the lawyers in a beautifully furnished, well lit courtroom and coming out again a minute or so afterwards feeling energised and ready for anything. This was true not only of people who visited because they were accused of a crime, but also included the staff who worked there, the advocates who drifted in and out like seaweed with the tide and, of course, the witnesses, who were directed by a sign and an arrow to a counter where a thin, unhelpful looking official in black Group Six uniform stood behind a sheet of glass puffing on a cigarette. The word Reception was stitched in sky blue on his overalls.

Theo followed the arrow and stood at the counter.

It took the receptionist a few seconds to realise that somebody was waiting to talk to him. Then, without taking the cigarette out of his mouth, he asked, ‘Name?’
‘Williams. Theodore Williams.’
The receptionist picked up a clipboard bearing a few sheets of paper. ‘What have you been up to?’
‘I’m a witness,’ said Theo, ‘and I’m looking for the trial of Hamish Todd.’
Reception leafed through the sheets of paper. ‘Hamish Todd before Sheriff Bernice Wright in Room Two. Robbery. Go and sit in the waiting room and someone will call you when it’s your turn. Don’t discuss the case, don’t be scared, and good luck.’

In the waiting room, Theo saw Rayner Shaw looking impressively decorous in a suit jacket and a skirt. She smiled at him, and he took a seat next to her. She took his hand and squeezed it.

‘Thanks for coming,’ she said.
‘What happens now?’ Theo asked. ‘I’ve never done this before.’
‘The courtroom is through that door there.’ Rayner pointed at a wooden door labelled Courtroom 2. Press button and wait. You wait until someone opens the door and calls your name, and then you go inside, stand where they tell you, read the oath, they ask you questions and you tell your story. I’ve done it hundreds of times.’

A man and a woman came into the waiting room and sat down together. Both were about fifty and dressed as for a cold day. Theo recognised them as Hutchinson and Lorilee, the staff of the Post Office. The man said ‘Thank you for helping us’ to Theo, and the woman looked from Theo to Rayner. ‘Both of you deserve medals.’
‘Thank you,’ said Rayner, ‘although it was really Mr Williams here who did the difficult bit.’
‘I just stuck my foot out,’ said Theo, ‘and Todd fell over it.’
The receptionist yelled at them from his desk. ‘Don’t discuss the case!’
‘Ah… It’s a nice day,’ said Theo.
‘No, it isn’t,’ said Hutchinson, ‘it’s too cold.’
‘And it’s a really bad day if you’re on trial for robbery,’ said Lorilee.

Theo, Rayner and the store-keepers sat and waited, stared at the wooden door, waited, and waited. It was more than an hour later that a Group Six uniform opened the door and came out into the waiting room.
‘Witnesses in the Hamish Todd case?’
‘That’s us,’ said Theo. Rayner didn’t seem to mind him speaking for both of them. Hutchinson and Lorilee looked up.
‘Sorry about the long wait. Good news.’
Knowing that when used by officialdom the phrase good news very often meant the exact opposite, Theo asked, ‘Why, what’s happened?’ while Rayner had already guessed.
‘Mr Todd pled guilty,’ said the official. ‘Can’t say I blame him, being as there were four witnesses to the robbery and a brilliant, clear photograph of him doing it, so your evidence will not be required.’
‘That’s a weight off my mind,’ Theo breathed. ‘I feel as though a great boulder had been lifted off my chest. What do I do now?’
‘That,’ said the official, ‘is entirely up to you. Have a nice day.’

Hutchinson and Lorilee gathered their things together and made for the door.

Theo and Rayner walked behind them, but as they passed the counter, the receptionist called them over. ‘Mr Williams! Ms Shaw! Take these forms with you and when you get home, fill in your expenses, put the tickets and receipts in the envelope and post it back to us. Your bus fares and so on.’

Theo felt in his pocket to re-assure himself that he still had his return ticket. They shoved the door open and stepped out onto the street.

‘Are you in a hurry to be back at work?’ Rayner asked.
‘Not specially,’ he answered. ‘I don’t really have much idea what I’m supposed to do when I get there.’
‘Well… we can claim travelling expenses, so how about spending the afternoon going home the pretty way?’
‘Sounds good to me.’

 

‘This is the most spectacular scenic ferry trip in Europe,’ said Rayner.

Countess of Cromarty ferry boat She and Theo sat at a table on the deck of the good ship Countess of Cromarty which was ferrying them and a couple of dozen other passengers the eight miles from Inverness to Rosentyre. The sun was shining, but there was a chilly breeze blowing. They were eating cheese and pickle sandwiches from the refreshments counter and washing them down with brown ale.
‘How do you know?’ Theo put in.
‘The most scenic ferry trip in Europe, according to the County Nairn Tourist Board.’ Co. Nairn Tourist Board logo
‘I’ll take their word for it,’ said Theo, ‘they ought to know. It’s been an hour and a half well spent. If you hadn’t suggested coming back on the ferry, I would have spent most of that time staring at my desk. Thanks for inviting me.’

Some previous passenger had left her (it probably was her) copy of Metropolitan Metropolitan magazine open on the table. Rayner picked it up and thumbed her way to a story entitled Are You Right For Each Other? The Questions You Need to Ask.

‘This magazine has alerted me to the chance we have to learn a bit more about each other,’ she said as she read the first couple of sentences.
Theo thought about that. ‘What were you hoping to learn?’
‘Just the things that women always want to know about men, it says here. Are you emotionally available for a long lasting exclusive relationship? Have you burdened yourself with any irrevocable commitments which may later turn into obstacles? Are you suffering any news-worthy mental disorder like autism, psychopathy or narcissism? Then there are the run-of-the-mill issues, do you like cheese and pickle sandwiches? Do you ever get sea-sick?’
‘The last two I can answer. Yes and no, in that order. Why did you ask whether I like cheese and pickle sandwiches?’
‘ ’Cause they’re the only things I can cook.’
‘I’ll be fit and healthy on the Whole Life Cheese and Pickle Sandwich Diet, provided you don’t charge as much as the refreshments counter does, and if the relentless diet of cheese and pickle sandwiches begins to pall, I know how to work a tin opener. I could treat both of us to baked beans and frankfurters. But for now, I’ll have to give you a definite maybe on the first three.’
‘And then there’s the question of whether I like you.’
‘That’s very important. You do,’ said Theo with conviction, ‘or hadn’t you noticed?’

The Countess of Cromarty slowed and steered towards the stone jetty that served as the ferry terminal of Rosentyre Harbour.

‘Is your flat empty?’ Rayner asked.
‘Yes,’ said Theo, ‘completely.’
‘Good. Let’s go there.’

 
Episode 18

Horatio arrived in The Works just before nine o’clock the next morning. He was making himself a cup of tea when Gresham arrived a few minutes later.

‘How did ye get on with Rayner?’
‘Better than I expected, to be honest. I feel alive, elated, relaxed.’
‘Did you miss me? I was at home, hiding, because you didn’t invite me.’
‘On balance, yes, but don’t tell that to Rayner. She’s not better than you. Just different.’
‘You can kiss me if you want, you know. Nobody’s looking.’

Horatio kissed Gresham and thought that if they were going to accomplish anything at work today, it would be best to change the subject.

‘Rayner told me something interesting,’ he said, searching in his pockets for a scrap of paper that Rayner had given him.
‘Was this before, or after?’ Gresham smirked.
‘After. You know how you lie together while you get your breath back, and you talk in whispers about whatever comes into your head. Rayner said she’d heard something odd from a detail who’d been sent to Todd’s council flat with a search warrant, to try and recover any stolen goods that were lying about. They didn’t find much loot, Todd probably sold most of it as soon as he nicked it, but they found that he had a wardrobe of women’s clothes. And they found a piece of paper with the names of several women. The sergeant sat with the electoral rolls of half a dozen counties and a couple of population data bases, and he couldn’t trace any of them. He found some women with the same names as were on the list, but none of them had any known connection with Hamish Todd. So, as of now, nobody knows who they are, whether they exist or not, nor why Todd kept a list of their names.’
‘Let’s see it.’

Horatio gave Gresham the scrap of paper, two inches by two or so, and dusty from having lain on the floor for a while. Gresham read the handwritten names out loud.

‘Sarah Parsons. Norma Haynes Stanier. Christine Charlotte Cussons. Sandra Harmony Isherwood. Probably just false identities that he assumed while going about as a woman.’
‘Nowt so queer as folk,’ quoth Horatio. ‘Why have four different female identities, when one would do everything you need?’
Gresham thought deeply for a moment, struggling to remember some event long past. ‘Well, Horatio, I’m going to change my answer. I have an eerie feeling that I recognise the name Sarah Parsons. Fancy a walk in the fresh air? Does Hamish Todd live anywhere near Greengates Church, by any chance?’
‘Just across the road, more or less. How did you know?’
‘Shot in the dark. Come on, there’s no point sitting in the office. Nobody ever achieved anything by sitting in an office.’
‘What’s that have to do with Sarah Parsons?’
‘I think,’ Gresham said, tentatively, ‘I knaa where she’s buried.’

The road to Rosentyre
The wind was almost still and the sun was shining. The road downhill from The Works ran almost straight. There was no traffic on it. Cars came up this hill only to carry their drivers to The Works and downhill only to carry their drivers away from it. On either side of the road, sheep grazed. It was so quiet that you could hear the sheep ripping up the grass. The whole of Rosentyre was spread across the landscape beneath Theo and Gresham as they walked down towards the harbour and the bay.

Gresham asked Theo, ‘Do ye remember The Shingle?

The Shingle sand-side night club
That late night place beside the bay?’
‘Yes,’ said Theo. ‘I took you there once, didn’t I? All loud music and single malts. It lasted a few weeks in the height of summer. The owners must’ve thought that in July the town would be warm and full of tourists.’
‘They must’ve thought the neighbours were deaf, as well.’

The road took them to the shore.

‘The Shingle used to be over there.’ Theo pointed to the ferry pier, now a place of dark former warehouses and boat repair yards. ‘We danced and had a couple of whiskies. Then we left and walked towards Nicolson Square, but I felt that we needed a few minutes alone together so we went to Greengates Church and into the churchyard there.’
Gresham looked through the church gate, Cemetery gate where a rusting sign, leaning so far backwards that it was about to fall over, informed them that This gate is LOCKED at SUNSET. ‘Why did they build walls around graveyards?’ he mused, recalling David Allen’s enigma. ‘The people outside don’t want to go in, and the people inside aren’t going to come out.’ He pushed the gate open. ‘I can remember this place. It looks so different in daylight. You and I went to the far end, over there, in the dark. Nobody could’ve seen us.’

At the back of the churchyard were some small tombstones. ‘These horrible things,’ Gresham explained unnecessarily, ‘are the graves of little children. God be praised, after two thousand years of medicine, some anonymous floor scrubber realised that buying the occasional bottle of disinfectant at Sainsbury’s would scare even the biggest and most fearsome bacterium into running away in a blind panic, so kids don’t die like these ones did any more.’ Gresham found tears forming in his eyes as he scanned the names of dead children whom in life he had never known. ‘Look along the line, I’m sure she’s here.’ He walked along the row. ‘There,’ Gresham pointed to one stone and read it out loud. ‘I thought I remembered it. Sarah Parsons, 21 January 1894, 21 July 1899. Poor soul. Just old enough to pick up a catapult and ping stones at the boys playing football in the park. See, I remembered right.’
Theo thought about it. ‘Yeah. We did it here that night. Want to do it again?’
‘Yes. For you, my love, anything, but in daylight people will see us, and if we wait until dark, we’ll be locked in. And, important though it undoubtedly isn’t, we have work to do. I think I can show you what happened to Newman’s cheque. Do you have the company phone card? The phone box down by the street corner might be working.’
‘Why, is it dinner time already? Shall I send for two pizzas, a plastic bottle of fizzy cola and two paper cups?’
‘No. It’s time to phone a friend.’