Overtime Tom Holt Read online

  The prisoner thought for a moment and then said 'Pursuivant, Sergeant at Arms, 87658765.'

  'Come again?' said Blondel. 'Was that supposed to be a map reference or something?'

  'Name, rank and number,' Guy interrupted. 'It's all a prisoner of war has to tell you, under the Geneva Convention.

  'Which hasn't been signed yet,' Blondel replied. 'Mr Pursuivant, if you will insist on talking through your hat, perhaps you'll find it easier with a hole to talk through.'

  'Pursuivant, Sergeant at Arms, 8765 -'

  'Oh for pity's sake,' Blondel said. 'Go and make some custard, somebody.'

  There was a baffled silence for a moment. 'Custard?' Giovanni eventually enquired.

  'That's right,' Blondel said, 'custard.' He folded his arms, smiled, and leaned against the table.

  'What's going on?' Pursuivant demanded querulously. 'What are you playing at?'

  'You'll see,' Blondel replied. 'Now then, while we're waiting for the custard, would either of you two gentlemen care to tell me anything?'

  'Clarenceaux, Sergeant at Arms, 987665723,' mumbled the shorter of the other two prisoners. His companion said nothing.

  'Fine,' Blondel sighed. 'We'll do it the hard way if you wish. Anybody got any peanuts out there?'

  'Here,' said Clarenceaux, but his companion told him to shut up. Blondel's smile widened into a wicked grin.

  Giovanni came back with a large pudding-basin. 'You're in luck,' he said. 'Just by chance I found some in the kitchens of the Burger Knight stall. It's cold, I'm afraid, but...'

  'Oh that's all right,' Blondel said. 'Cold's fine. Now then, one last chance. Any offers?'

  Clarenceaux would have said something if his companion hadn't stamped viciously on his foot. Blondel made a sort of tutting sound and lifted Clarenceaux up by the collar of his cagoule.

  'Sorry about this,' he said, 'but that's how it is. To a certain extent, of course, I admire your courage.'

  'Courage?' Clarenceaux whimpered.

  'Sorry,' Blondel replied. 'I should have said heroism. You see,' he went on, as he lifted the borrowed hat off the prisoner's head, 'when you're dealing with people who, every time they get beaten up, mutilated or killed, are somehow magically restored to life and health by their bosses, there's clearly not much mileage in conventional torture. But,' he said, tipping a copious amount of custard out on to the top of Clarenceaux's head, 'pain and death aren't the only things we're afraid of in this life. Oh no. There's also,' he said, flexing his fingers and massaging the custard into Clarenceaux's scalp, 'humiliation, embarrassment and being made to look a right nana. I mean - anybody got any jam? - I expect your comrades in arms are a right little bunch of humorists, aren't they? Once they get hold of something they can be funny about, you'll never - blackcurrant'll do fine, thanks - hear the last of it. And correct me if I'm wrong, but since you're effectively immortal, and stuck doing the same job with the same bunch of people for effectively the rest of time - that ought to do it; now, I'll need some flour, some eggs, some feathers and, of course, the peanuts and a razor -the very worst thing I could do to you would be send you back to Headquarters all covered in horrible sticky mess with half your beard shaved off and a packet of peanuts down the back of your neck. Oh, I forgot the shoe polish.'

  'All right,' Clarenceaux squeaked, 'all right, I give up.' His companion tried to jump at him but Guy hit him with the fire extinguisher and he sat down again. 'Just let me wash all this off and I'll talk.'

  'After you've talked,' Blondel said. 'And any mucking about and it's the honey and feathers treatment for you. No, not honey,' he added. 'Treacle.'

  Clarenceaux made a sort of rattling noise in the back of his throat. 'You wouldn't do that,' he gargled. 'That's ... that's not fair.'

  Blondel grinned and shook his head. 'Let's have it,' he said. 'Where's the Chastel des Larmes Chaudes?'

  'I -'

  'Yes?'

  Clarenceaux gagged, spat out a mouthful of custard which had dripped down his nose into his mouth and said, 'I don't know.'

  'You don't know?'

  'Really I don't.'

  Blondel paused for a moment, while the prisoner watched him with big, round eyes.

  'Have you thought,' Blondel said at last, 'what your so-called mates are going to do to you when you turn up later on this evening all covered in rice pudding and with a banana shoved right up your -'

  'I don't know,' Clarenceaux screamed. 'We aren't allowed to know, just in case we're caught, see? There's this sort of bus thing picks us up and takes us to where we got to go, and then takes us back when we finish. They put paper bags over our heads while it's moving. Honest, I'm telling the truth.'

  Blondel stroked his chin with the custard-free back of his hand. 'I don't believe you,' he said. 'Guy, see if you can find some rice pudding. Lots of rice pudding, there's a good chap.'

  'Look, mister ...

  'And a banana, of course. Mustn't forget the banana.' Clarenceaux started to sob, but Blondel's face remained unchanged. 'The Chastel,' he said. 'Where is it?'

  'I don't ...

  'Got that rice pudding yet, Guy?' Blondel asked. Guy stood up. Where, he asked himself, was he expected to get rice pudding from at this...?

  'Leave him alone,' Pursuivant interrupted suddenly. 'Can't you see he's telling the truth?'

  Blondel turned slowly round and looked Pursuivant in the eye. 'Lots of rice pudding,' he said.

  'It's the truth, I tell you,' Pursuivant whined. 'We don't know nothing, any of us. The bus just comes, and then it takes us away again after. It's a big grey thing,' he added desperately, 'with a duff exhaust.'

  Blondel nodded and folded his arms, inadvertently getting custard on himself. 'Go on,' he said.

  'What do you want to know?' Pursuivant asked.

  'Well,' said Blondel, 'you could start with the number plate.

  'That's easy,' Pursuivant said. 'It's Z -'

  Then something happened which Guy didn't expect. Giovanni, who'd been standing behind Blondel holding the pudding-basin full of custard, suddenly lifted it up, turned it over, and shoved it down on top of Blondel's head. As Guy moved to strike him, one of the others - Iachimo, probably -threw the flour in his face and squirted an aerosol of whipped cream, which he apparently happened to have by him, in his eyes, leaving him momentarily blinded. The third brother, meanwhile, bundled the three prisoners to their feet and towards the door. Guy wiped cream furiously out of his eyes, gave Iachimo a shove that sent him reeling, pulled out his revolver and fired a shot at the retreating prisoners. There was a crash of splintering china, and the pudding-basin over Blondel's head split exactly in two and slid down over his shoulders to the floor. Giovanni was hit on the ear by a fragment of ceramic shrapnel, yelped and sat down heavily on a plate of mince pies. Iachimo had fallen into a laundry basket. The third brother, Marco, had jumped out of his skin when Guy fired his revolver, slipped on a patch of custard and collided with a standard-lamp, the shade of which fell down over his shoulders like a jousting-helm. The door closed with a bang, and from the corridor outside came the sound of hurried squelching, fading away into silence.

  Blondel found a towel and wiped the custard out of his eyes and ears. 'Right,' he said, 'that's quite enough of that for one evening. Now then.'

  He turned towards Giovanni, who cringed slightly, and Guy instinctively realised that, for all his dexterity with a pudding basin, the eldest Lombard was not primarily a man of action.

  'It's all right,' said Blondel wearily. 'But what the devil possessed you to do that? The so-and-so was just about to

  He checked himself, flicked a fragment of custard-skin irritably out of the corner of his eye, and sighed. 'I think I see. It's because that ... he was just about to tell me the bit of information you lot know. And if he'd told me, you lot wouldn't have had any way of making me do those other confounded concerts.

  Giovanni had the grace not to meet Blondel's eye. He nodded. 'After all,' he said, 'it's not our money we put up to
arrange those gigs. We've got a duty to...'

  Blondel held up his hand. 'Please,' he said, 'spare me all that. The important thing now is to get on with it. You lot get all this mess cleared up and ready to go. I think I'd better wash my hair.'

  He shook his head once more and started to walk towards the bathroom. Then he turned to Guy, who was standing holding his revolver as if it was a dead fish and gave him a very significant look.

  'Practise a lot, do you?' he said, and left the room.

  'Are you sure we're going the right way?' Giovanni asked.

  'Positive,' Blondel replied. 'If you'd rather navigate ...

  Giovanni shrugged. Ever since the slight misunderstanding in the dressing room at the auditorium, there had been a slight coolness between Blondel and his agents, which the perennial map-reading debate wasn't helping. 'Not at all,' he said. 'Leave it entirely up to you. That way, if we end up in the Second Ice Age and get frozen to death, it won't be my fault.'

  After that they went on in silence for a while, until they came to a quite indisputably dead end. The tunnel stopped leading anywhere, and there was just a wall.

  'Well?' Giovanni said.

  'Yes,' Blondel replied. 'Yes, on balance, I think you may have a point. Pity about that.'

  They sat down and Giovanni produced a cigarette-lighter, by whose light Blondel studied his little book.

  'I see,' he said after a while. 'What I thought was the Quattrocento was in fact the Enlightenment. One's marked blue on the map, you see, and the other's a sort of dark mauve. Easy to get them muddled up.'

  Giovanni made a faintly contemptuous noise. 'So where are we, then?' he said.

  'Well,' Blondel replied, 'if I'm right about where we went astray before, that wall is the Fall of Constantinople, so really we want to go back the way we came, turn left at the next interchange and keep on till we come out into the European Monetary System. How does that sound?'

  There was a little muted grumbling, and Iachimo said something about next time it being easier just to go the long way round. They picked up their luggage and set off back down the tunnel. They had gone no more than a quarter of a mile when they came to another dead end.

  'Oh, that's marvellous,' Giovanni said. 'Now what's happened?'

  Blondel walked forwards and examined the obstruction. 'There's been a timeslip,' he said. 'We'll have to go back and find a way round.'

  Guy asked what a timeslip was.

  'Like a landslip,' Blondel explained, 'only more awkward if you' re in a hurry. All that's happened is that the roof of the tunnel's caved in, and a slice of some other period has fallen through and is blocking the way. Someone from the Work of the Clerks' office'll be along sooner or later to patch it all up. Meanwhile -'

  'Don't you mean Clerk of the Works?' Guy asked.

  'I mean what I said,' Blondel replied, nettled. 'This whole network, you'll recall, is the work of generations and generations of government clerks. They have an unofficial agreement that when something goes wrong with the fabric, they take it in turns to fix it. Just as well, really. If nobody looked after it and it all started falling to pieces, you'd have massive timeslips all over the shop - it'd be chaos. Luckily they keep it all in quite good order. Now...'

  He broke off and stared at the obstruction in front of him. 'Hello,' he said, 'I don't like the sound of that.' He turned to Giovanni. 'What do you think?' he said.

  'What?'

  'Listen,' Blondel replied. 'Oh, how aggravating!'

  Guy pushed his way past Iachimo and asked what was going on.

  'I don't want to alarm you,' Blondel said, 'but I think this lot may be unstable. Listen.'

  Guy listened. It was just as well, he told himself, that he had a firm grip on reality, because otherwise he might have believed that he was hearing little faint voices coming out of the wall of rubble in front of him.

  'Hear them?' Blondel asked. Guy nodded. 'That's that, then,' he said firmly. 'Back the way we came, quick.'

  They started to walk fast down the tunnel. The voices followed them, gradually getting louder; then, not so gradually, getting louder still. It was rather disturbing, in fact.

  'Run!'

  As he ran, Guy tried to hear what the voices were saying. Most of them were talking languages he couldn't understand - there was French, and a lot of Latin, and probably Spanish; just occasionally, though, someone said something in English. None of it sounded particularly cheerful, whatever it was. Guy ran faster.

  'Come on,' Blondel was shouting, 'for pity's sake get a move on.' Guy looked up, but in the darkness of the tunnel he couldn't see where the others had gone. Meanwhile the voices were getting louder all the time. They seemed to fill up space behind him. He stumbled over something and nearly lost his footing, and as he staggered along he distinctly felt something fly over his head, shrieking in French as it went. After it came some Italian, and some Latin, and what sounded like Turkish. Guy kept his head bent low and tried to run faster, but there was a limit to what his muscles could achieve.

  'Dear Sir,' something was yapping behind him, 'Dear Sir, Dear Sir.' He could almost feel it, close on his heels. There were others with it, all saying the same thing, but in many different voices, high and low, old and young, male and female, friendly, unfriendly and very, very hostile.

  'G. Goodlet Esquire,' they screamed, '37 Mayflower Avenue Sutton Surrey Our reference Jay Oblique Three Seven Nine Dee Four Six Thirteenth October Nineteen Seventy One Dear Sir...' Guy put his hands over his ears but it didn't seem to make any difference. Some of it was coming from over his head anyway. Something inside him told him that if they once managed to get in front of him, that would be it. He somehow managed to run faster.

  'It has come to our attention,' they screamed, 'that you have failed to complete an annual return for any fiscal year since Nineteen Forty Two.' Guy started to howl, but he couldn't hear himself, only a lot of voices, very cold voices, saying 'You are reminded that interest at the statutory rate runs on all tax due and unpaid within thirty days of the date of the respective assessments.' Something was holding on to the lobe of his ear now, bending it back, and shouting directly at him, 'Unless the prescribed forms are completed and returned to this office within the next seven working days, we shall have no alternative but to ...' Then he lost his balance, crashed into the wall of the tunnel, lurched hopelessly and fell. A great wave of sound rolled over him, in every language ever heard or read, physically crushing him. He tried to move ...

  Further up the tunnel, Blondel stopped and collapsed, gasping, against the bulkhead door he had just managed to slam shut. It was beautifully quiet here ...

  'That was close,' he said.

  Giovanni, huddled on the ground at his feet, interrupted his panting to make an indeterminate noise and then rolled over onto his back. Iachimo and Marco had fainted.

  'Never mind,' Blondel said, 'all's that well that ... Hello, where's Guy got to?'

  Giovanni looked up. 'Who?'

  'Guy Goodlet,' Blondel replied. 'You know, Englishman, doesn't like hats.'

  'Oh,' Giovanni said, 'him. Lord knows. Fell over his feet, I think.'

  Blondel sighed deeply and slid down the door to the ground. 'Oh bother,' he said. 'What a confounded nuisance.

  'Well,' Giovanni replied, 'there's no point getting all emotional about it. These things happen in time, you know that.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Just as well he didn't take out any life cover after all,' he added.

  Blondel gave him a disapproving look. 'What's that supposed to mean?' he asked.

  Giovanni shrugged again. 'Look,' he said, 'the man's popped it. Got drowned in a timeburst. All very sad but there it is. There's absolutely nothing any of us can do about it.

  'You reckon?'

  'Yes,' Giovanni said, 'I do. It's just one of those things. Look, shouldn't we be ...?'

  But Blondel wasn't listening. He was very gingerly lifting the bar on the bulkhead door. Before Giovanni could stop him, he'd opened it. There was a sudden
deafening roar of voices, and then the door slammed again, with Blondel on the other side of it.

  'Hey ...' Iachimo had come round just in time to see. He tried to get to the door before it shut, but he was too late.

  'Forget it,' Giovanni said. He was very white in the face, and shaking slightly.

  'Giovanni,' Iachimo said, 'did you just see that? He deliberately -'

  'I said,' Giovanni interrupted, 'forget about it.'

  'Yes, but -'

  Giovanni slapped his brother across the face. It worked; Iachimo calmed down a little. 'He's had it, too,' Giovanni said. 'Pity, after all that trouble we've been to, but there it is. Gone. That's it. No more Blondel.'

  The three brothers sat there for some time, not saying a word, until at last Giovanni got to his feet and pulled the others to theirs.

  'Come on,' he said, 'we've got work to do.'

  'Work?' Iachimo looked at him with empty eyes. 'Giovanni, it was horrible, he just -'

  'Work,' Giovanni repeated. 'Now.' His mouth quivered slightly. 'Or had you forgotten?'

  'Forgotten what?'

  Giovanni was grinning now. 'Forgotten that we've insured the bastard's life for fifty billion livres. Come on, let's find a notary.

  They got up and walked slowly down the tunnel. After a while, they all started whistling.

  La Beale Isoud, having washed her hair and done her nails, wandered down into the Great Hall of the Chastel de Nesle and plugged in the hyperfax.

  There have been many inventions that might have revolutionised the world if only someone had had the vision to invest in them at the crucial moment; one thinks automatically of the frictionless wheel, the solar-powered night storage heater (stores up warm summer evenings for winter use) and the Wilkinson-Geary hingeless door. The hyperfax was no less remarkable, technologically speaking, than any of these; but it differed from them in never having had a chance to be neglected. The prototype and all the blueprints and design specifications had vanished mysteriously from an office in the Central Technology Department of the Oceanian Ministry of Science back in 2987, and the design team were so dispirited by this setback that they forgot all about the project and went back to designing sentient sleeping policemen for the Road Traffic Department. The only working hyperfaxes now in existence are the original prototype, installed in the Chastel de Nesle, and the Mark IIb. Nobody has ever been able to find out what happened to the Mark IIb.