Players at the Game of People (14 page)

No, it was not to be thought about, even now. How the hell could Bill bear
to count his birthdays? He gulped the rest of his tea and reverted to a
simpler but more pressing matter. There was no doubt at all why it was
wrong to let somebody know both who he was and where he was living.
All this was explicable on the plain human level. There were things like
taxes, justifying your expenditure, keeping medical records, entering
data in computers, applying for passports, driving cars, and more and
ever more interlocking networks of information between the interstices
of which he must continue to keep slithering. All this was automatic --
or had been. Suddenly, dismayingly, he was faced with the need to take
even more action than just using the flex. Until he had done so, he knew
he would continue to feel . . . would the right term be uncomfortable?
Maybe that was why his attempt to enjoy a reward chosen at random had
failed. Maybe it was because he had been less-than-consciously aware of
the risk he was running from the moment he saw the blond woman talking to
the commissionaire and nonetheless drove the Urraco out of the car-park
in full sight of where they were standing. Now there were so few cars
in London, the mere possession of one was a marker. Having chosen such
a rare model compounded the difficulty.
Simultaneously he felt relief and renewed dismay: the former, because
he had reasoned out his predicament and decided to take action, even
though as yet he did not know what kind; the latter, because as he rose
and headed for the exit -- where the one-legged man was leaning on both
crutches and extending a hand for the tip which was his due for saving
the customers from being importuned by beggars -- something reported
from his stomach the need to visit Luke. Scarcely surprising. Hygiene
here was rudimentary. Flies swarmed on sugar bowls; food was handed to
purchasers with unwashed hands; cups and dishes were rinsed in cold and
often greasy water because of the cost of fuel; the display of sandwiches
and salads remained until someone was fool enough to buy because it was
prohibitively costly to throw away anything remotely edible.
Why the hell had he come here, anyway? Already memory of the state he
had been in when he rose had receded to the same blur as those other
memories, masked and blanketed and overlaid, which he was so determined
to hide from himself, the reasons why he would never take the least sip
of alcohol except in the security of his home.
He was suffused with a pang of gratitude for the good care that was
being taken of him. But he had no money to tip the door guard.
Oh, never mind! He had just realized he knew where to go from here.
Not directly to Luke, because underused though they were, his body's
immune reactions and other defenses were in fine fettle, thanks to
Irma's regular attention, so for a while he could afford to disregard
that particular impulse.
No. He must visit Hamish.
The decision clicked in his mind and he strode past the guard as though
the man did not exist, nor anybody else who could not contribute to
making their encounter more immediate.
Dense and stinking fog that made the eyes water -- a real London
pea-souper -- closed in around Godwin as he approached the home-cum-office
of Hamish Kemp. Here and there gas lights glimmered, though it was
midafternoon, creating fragile bubbles of luminance lost almost as
soon as sighted through the murk. The air resounded with the clatter
of hooves, the rattle of iron-tired cab wheels over cobblestones, the
continuing tintinnabulation of bicycle bells madly rung by errand boys
terrified of punishment were they late with a single delivery. Now and
then there was an accident, invisibly far away; old ladies screamed and
cats yowled and shouts were raised to find the nearest chemist's shop
for the injured. Small wonder. Godwin could literally not see his own
hand at arm's length.
Fortunately his feet remembered better than his head, and at no worse
cost than a sense of clammy chill due to fog droplets penetrating
his unsuitable clothes and being half blinded with tears owing to the
sulfurous reek of a million coal fires, he attained Hamish Kemp's door.
It opened to his touch . . . naturally.
The air inside was crystal clear. He stepped onto deep-piled Persian rugs;
on either side enormous overstuffed chairs with leather or tapestry
upholstery stood ready to welcome visitors, grouped around low tables
set with tantaluses and wire-encaged refillable soda syphons. Paintings
by Landseer and -- daringly -- Alma-Tadema hung on walls papered with
designs by William Morris. Here stood a whatnot with the indefinable
stamp of Mackintosh of Edinburgh, on which reposed a humidor containing
fine Havana cigars; there, a radiant electric heater with five elements
-- each containing a twisted red-glowing wire within an evacuated glass
envelope like an oversize and misshapen banana -- shed welcome warmth
across a tiled hearth innocent of ashes. A glass-fronted cabinet, with
locked doors, stood against one wall, containing an Afghan jezail, a
Snyder, a pair of dueling pistols with ivory-inlaid handles, a snaphaunce
flintlock, and a blunderbuss. More practical weapons were stored, of
course, out of sight.
There appeared to be no one in the gas-lit room. Godwin, whose meal was
now more and more insistently announcing that it was about to disagree
with him and who consequently was more and more driven to leave at once
and go consult Luke, lost patience and shouted at the top of his voice.
" Hamish!"
Panels at the far end of the room folded back to reveal a white-walled,
stark, chrome-and-stainless-steel-and-glass laboratory where Hamish,
clad in a green surgical gown and mask, was rising from a revolving
chair before a complex instrument board, beset with TV screens, switches,
buttons, scales, analogue dials, warning lights, and digital counters.
He was a portly man with a somewhat florid face, sporting muttonchop
whiskers. When he doffed his gown it was to reveal a striped-on-white
flannel shirt minus its collar and studs, the trousers of a brown tweed
suit, and brown boots.
Sighing, he said, "Yes, God. I deduced you or somebody was about to
bother me. It had better be urgent or else -- "
A shrill noise interrupted him, which came from the far end of the lab.
Both men reflexively glanced that way. A section of wall had slid aside,
revealing clear black sky beyond . . . or its image. Across the velvet-dark
oblong a bright disc wavered, for all the world like a paper plate tossed
Frisbee-fashion. Suddenly it plunged toward them. The shrill noise ceased.
A deep-toned bell chimed once. The wall closed again. There was a
succession of loud clicks, which Hamish, head on one side, counted in
anxious fashion.
At length he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Lucky I just finished automating that part of the machinery!" he said
in a loud and accusing tone. "Not for you nor anyone would I forgo
the pleasure I derive from my sole hobby nowadays, pointless though
it may seem to you and your kind! Have a chota peg?" he added, as by
afterthought, and waved Godwin to one of the overstuffed chairs.
Godwin shook his head, while -- seeming to have forgotten the offer --
Hamish served himself a generous four fingers of whisky and baptized
the glass with a sprinkle of soda-water.
Sitting down in turn, while the laboratory faded from view, Hamish said,
"Now have you the least idea where that -- that disc you saw had been to?"
Godwin shook his head, wondering how long this preamble would last.
This wasn't the Hamish he remembered --
Correction. It could be no one else.
We register change.
Conceivably he had made one of the stupidest mistakes of his entire life
by coming here.
But who else could he possibly have turned to?
And Hamish was saying with a kind of triumph, "No more do I! But I
shall know, tomorrow at the latest! I send out hundreds of them all
the time, and some of them are smashed by storms and some go on such a
huge and random trajectory they may not find their way home for years
-- for decades! Some may come back in the far and distant future,
because when I say they were driven down by storms that is, remember,
only an assumption! My current record is one which went on flying for
over eleven years, signaling in emergency mode for most of the time --
that makes them luminous, you understand! That one informed me precisely
where it had visited! You appreciate they carry no instrumentation? They
are simply what they are -- discs cast out into the wild blue yonder,
to fly and home as chance decrees. And each that returns bears with it
clues to where it wandered. By tonight I shall know whether that latest
one to arrive has crossed the Arctic ice or the grainfields of Canada or
the industrial Ruhr. Ah, you've no idea how fascinating, how endlessly
fascinating it is to deduce from such tiny hints, such scraps of data,
the entire course of an object which has traveled thousands upon thousands
of miles."
He sounded as though he were trying to convince himself as much as his
listener. But when he had gulped down the last of his drink, he set the
glass aside and at once became briskly businesslike.
"Well! It doesn't take a detective to work out that you came here because
something has gone wrong. Conceivably something to do with your last
assignment? In which case, obviously, I can't intervene."
"No, it isn't that. I want you to trace somebody for me. A woman."
Hamish raised one bushy eyebrow. "A woman, eh? I had no idea you were
so susceptible. I understood you were always well provided for."
"You don't generally jump to conclusions," Godwin said cuttingly.
"Shall I explain?"
Hamish sighed and leaned back, closing his eyes.
When he had heard his visitor out, he gradually began to smile. By the
time he finally reopened his eyes he was positively beaming.
"This is a problem worthy of my mettle, indeed! You know of only two
people that this woman knows: the commissionaire, who may have met her
on a single occasion and never have heard mention of her name, and this
policeman Roadstone -- perhaps. In the ordinary run of events we could
simply ask him. But this is not ordinary. You have used the flex on him
and his colleagues, and in consequence they are no longer even able to
think about the matter. But you're quite right. You do need to trace
her and, as it were, eliminate any threat."
"I don't want to eliminate her. Why should I?"
"I said eliminate any threat," Hamish corrected. "Use the flex on her too,
perhaps. With the techniques that the forces of the ungodly have at their
disposal nowadays, it would be fatal if even a breath of suspicion were
to get about." He had no need to describe what kind of suspicion. Witch
burnings might be out of date; witch hunts most definitely were not.
"Still," he continued, hoisting himself ponderously to his feet, "we have
resources of our own. Come into the laboratory and we'll work out a
portrait of her."
Godwin complied. Standing in front of a computer-controlled image-creation
system, Hamish called up detail on a screen while Godwin corrected his
approximations. He muttered as he worked.
"Fair -- slim -- about how tall? Five six, seven? Hair not so far down
the forehead, right . . . Nose not so long? How about that?"
Within a matter of minutes there was a full-color picture on the screen
which matched Godwin's recollection almost flawlessly. Relieved, and
increasingly in a hurry to visit Luke, he nonetheless hesitated before
turning away.
"There's one thing still not right," he admitted reluctantly.
Hamish chuckled. "I know," he said, and made some minute adjustments
to the face. "What you were asking for was the face of a little girl,
a mere child. That makes her look her age, doesn't it?"
Godwin nodded, suppressing a shiver.
"Fine!" Hamish tapped an instruction into the keyboard below the screen,
and the image vanished. "We have something to work from, at any rate.
There's a chance her picture may be on file -- I have over a million news
photographs, to start with, and the machines are already sifting through
them. But it's bound to be a slow job, I'm afraid. Now if you take my
advice" -- ushering Godwin toward the door -- "you won't go home for the
next few days. Find somewhere else to put up. The fact that she actually
saw you coming out of the house is what disturbs me most. Incidentally,
how about the car?"
"Still where I left it. Did you expect me to drive here?"
"No, but . . . Well, I'm sure you can detect whether or not you're being
followed, particularly in light traffic. Put it in a popular garage --
the Soho Lex would do -- and make a detour through some large and busy
department store with several exits. And do it as soon as possible."
"I need to visit Luke first," Godwin said after a brief pause. Hamish threw
up his hands.
"Dear, oh dear! And I understood Irma took such good care of you! At least
she always boasts that she does when I call on her. Well, as and when you
can. And I'll contact you as soon as I have anything definite to report."
"Have you any idea how long it might take?"
"None whatever, my dear fellow -- none whatever! After all, on the
information you've given me she may perfectly well be an Australian
visitor in London for a couple of days."
"Why should an Australian come with the police to find me?"
"Perhaps she works for Melbourne CID and you're the going-double of
a wanted drug smuggler! How should I know? Really, God, you do expect
miracles, don't you? I grant, I'm often in a position to work one, but
on something this flimsy -- no, I must have time. But I promise you,
I shall get on with it straight away, and it will enjoy my undivided
attention. That is, unless I unexpectedly find myself otherwise engaged,
as it were."
"Is that likely?"
"Well, it has been quite some while, so there's rather a high probability.
However, there's no need for you to worry about that."
His tone meant "pry into that." Godwin, slightly embarrassed, shook hands
and left. Hamish called after him, "Give my regards to Luke, won't you?"
"Yes, of course. And thank you!"
Dr. Luke Powers received his client in a room completely bare except for
a couch draped in white, a green carpet on the floor, and on one wall
a beautifully hand-lettered scroll with illuminated margins bearing the
full text of the Hippocratic oath in the original Greek. He was a lean,
ascetic man whose age might have been anything from thirty to fifty but
almost certainly wasn't, with piercing gray eyes deep-set above a neatly
trimmed brown beard.