Joe shudders. He will have nightmares about French philosophers and Ruskinites—whatever they are, with their alarming birdlike walk—but most of all about not knowing, about not ever knowing anything for sure. And to be honest, he supposes it could have been the metal bees, after all. He would just prefer very much that it wasn’t.
Mercer nods. “Yes. I refer you to the usual pithy folk wisdom regarding assuming anything. So what do we know about your machine?”
“Titwhistle said it was a sort of evil lie-detector.” Joe tries to make this sound risible, but Mercer isn’t in a laughing mood.
“Don’t parse, Joe, please. Don’t paraphrase. His words, as far as you can remember them.”
“He said that it might be a way for the human mind to recognise truth, perfectly. That someone built a machine to make it possible.”
Mercer makes an uncertain gesture with his hand, this way, that way. “Hm.”
“What ‘hm’? What does ‘hm’ mean?”
“Well, I can see why he’s worried. I’m amazed they let you go, after telling you that.”
Joe Spork smiles a feral smile, out of nowhere; a savage, biting grin. For a moment, he looks dangerous. “You mean the nice man lied to me?”
Mercer stares at him. “Maybe,” he says watchfully, “or maybe he told you something because he didn’t expect you to see the light of day again. It was touch and go, there, when we came to pick you.” He studies his friend’s face for signs of … something. But the unnerving smile has vanished as swiftly as it came. Joe continues.
“Sholt said—”
“Sholt? Oh, this ‘Keeper.’ ”
“A sort of a hermit. I liked him.”
“You would.”
“He said the world would change. He said it was …”
“He said it was what? Come on, Joe!”
“He called it ‘Angelmaker’. I nearly told them everything, when I realised what that could mean.”
Mercer Cradle stares at him, then picks up the phone and speaks very clearly and rapidly. “Bethany? Would you please be so kind as to add the following to your researches: ‘Ted Sholt’—I don’t know whether that’s Edward or Theodore or what, so do them all, and try ‘Keeper’ as well, could be a name or a title; Wistithiel; and the word ‘angelmaker’ and all related terms. And cross-reference with Daniel, Mathew, and J. Joseph Spork and everything we have on whatever Rodney Titwhistle does when he isn’t incubating a brood of vipers or eating his own young. Thank you.”
“Mercer, he was crazy.”
“Which makes it all the more imperative to recall things he said which might imply that this item you have resurrected for him is some kind of weapon of mass destruction.”
“For God’s sake, it’s a clockwork toy in a greenhouse!”
“Joe. You are neck-deep in denial. All right? Here is the news. You switched on a machine, and you have no real notion of what it is. You are now pursued by the earthbound fiend who goes in the mortal realm by the name of Rodney Titwhistle, and the homunculus Cummerbund, men who are most probably employed—and let us be very clear about this, because hilarious though they are to look upon they are less funny than Typhoid Mary and more serious than the whole of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs—at the shadiest end of the non-deniable civil service. By the looks of things, they are the interface between the world which draws a pay cheque openly and the one which holds the key to the barn in Suffolk where they hide the corpses of people murdered by members of the royal family. These men do not have any notion at all of gadding about. They do not grab people for a lark. They have absolutely no sense of fun. So when I find that they are involved, and you tell me it’s all a ghastly mistake but you have no real notion of what’s going on, what I take away from that is that we are in even more trouble than it might at first appear. So please, go on.”
“They came to my shop this morning. They said they were from a museum. They wanted to buy everything. And then later, one of those monks was in my shop. A Ruskinite. He wanted … I don’t know. Whatever they wanted.”
“Which would be?”
“He said he wanted the Book of the Hakote. And everything which went with it.”
“Presumably the book brought to you by Billy.”
Joe nods his head. “And the tools, I suppose.”
Mercer picks up the phone again, and adds “Ruskinite” and “Hakote” to Bethany’s list. Then he turns back to Joe.
“Small mercies. Your uncharming callers wanted this Book et alii. Which you don’t have, though you were briefly in possession of a book which might have been it. I don’t like the capital letter, do you? Well. It’s not too much to assume that he wanted it because of what was happening in Cornwall. In which case—” The phone buzzes sharply. Mercer scoops it up and sighs. “Thank you. I’m afraid I anticipated … yes. Well, only just, to be honest. Thank you, Bethany.” He puts down the handset. “There’s been a massive police deployment in the West Country. I imagine when the smoke clears we’ll find someone’s paid a visit to your friend Ted. They’re very fast, Joe. They worried about the machine first and you second. I did the opposite, which is why you’re here. I suspect an hour later I wouldn’t have found you.”
“I know.”
“But if they had the book already, they didn’t really need your tools.”
“It would make things easier.”
“But not more than that.”
“No.”
“Is there anything else? More parts? An instruction manual?”
“No. I don’t know. Not that I ever saw.”
Mercer paces. “All right, go on.”
“I asked Fisher about the Ruskinites.”
“Fisher? Not the Fisher I’m thinking of who is a Night Market irregular?”
“Yes. I was worried.”
“I should think so, talking to a twerp like Fisher. What did he say?”
“That they’re a heavy mob. They scare the crap out of him. And something weird. He said one of them asked him something once about Napoleon. Some sort of riddle.”
“ ‘If I have the memories of Napoleon, but the body of Wellington, who am I?’ ”
“Yes! What does it mean?”
“It’s a philosophical puzzle. An unsolved one. The question is what constitutes identity. Is it the memory, the body, or some combination of the two? Very donnish. You seem to have fallen into a well-educated personal crisis.”
“How reassuring.”
Mercer bares his teeth. “Quite so. To finish … you found yourself in Billy Friend’s flat in Soho, where you discovered the body of your dear chum of many years, childhood mentor and fornicator, in a state of extremely dead. You are uncertain, at this point, whether you called for the myrmidons of the law in the person of the wheedler Patchkind—who is, by the way, a liar of the first class and has no nieces of any stripe. You gathered your resources, however, and summoned the font of wisdom which is Cradle’s to take charge of the emergency.”
“Yes.”
“Always assuming that one can be said to summon a font, which, on sober consideration, I find unlikely.”
At this attempt to lift the mood, Joe Spork has somehow had enough. He loves Mercer like a brother, but sometimes the plummy, playful verbiage is obnoxious. It conceals emotion. Actually, it mocks emotion, the better to pretend to be above it. Joe Spork jackknifes to his feet and grabs his coat. He has no clear idea of where he will go, but he wants out, out of this ludicrous mayhem and back to his old cosy life. Perhaps he will take a ship to India and open a shop in Mumbai. Perhaps he will shave his head and make clocks in a monastery, or marry a Muslim girl and move to Dubai, where they have a decent respect for clockwork and automata and the men who produce them. Perhaps he will just run through the wet, uncaring streets of London until this furious confusion abates. He doesn’t know what he will do, but being locked up in this cellar is no answer to what rides him, that much he is certain of. He wants Ari to sell him cat poison. He needs to call Joyce and tell
her Billy Friend is dead. He needs to see his mother. He needs to sleep.
It would be very nice if someone would hug him, just for a minute.
He piles through the door into the front offices, with every intention of letting himself out and continuing in an approximate straight line until he can come to some arrangement with himself about what to do next. He is prevented from doing this by a toe.
The toe catches him in the upper-thigh region, quite hard, so that he jolts to a stop. In other circumstances, the presence of a toe in this area might well be erotic, even sexual, and indeed, it’s a very sexual toe. It is pale, and round; of perfect size—if one were so inclined—to slip into one’s mouth and suck. It is smooth and buffed, with the nail polished in a bright, glossy red, except for a slender strip of tiny black fishnet which has been set into the polish at the tip. It is a toe which knows the world, which has done the wicked, secret things other toes only fantasise about.
The toe is accompanied by four others in a bright patent-leather mule. The whole segment is then attached to a muscular but quite slender calf. Around the ankle is an item which briefly arrests his attention: a stylish women’s watch threaded on a narrow gold chain. It is pricey but not extortionate, with a single glinting crystal set at the top. He doubts that the designer ever intended it to be worn around the leg, but is reasonably certain that he or she would approve mightily of the effect. He also considers, briefly, that this woman either does not need to know the time or is able and willing to read the watch where it is, which implies a supple and frankly sexual movement of her body.
Above the calf is a strong but not offensive knee, and an upper leg which vanishes almost immediately into a grey pencil skirt. Joe adjudges this is technically a knee-length item, but the act of sitting has raised it to a more intriguing status. The leg has, as is customary, a mirror image on the other side, making a total of two, the matched pair belonging to a bold-eyed woman resting in the receptionist’s chair. She speaks.
“Sit, please.”
She smiles up at him, then, when he does not smile back, she scowls, and repeats the instruction. Joe, not really knowing why, perches himself on the edge of a modern red cloth stool, and wobbles. The woman in front of him gives an encouraging smile.
“Mercer asked me to wait around in case I was needed. This almost certainly isn’t what he had in mind, but that’s the thing with Mercer. His genius is extremely obscure, even to himself. Perhaps particularly.”
“Bethany?”
Her mouth quirks for a moment, whether in annoyance or approbation he cannot tell. “Not me. Bethany is still in the control room arranging a night of intense confusion at the London traffic-management centre, which will alas preclude the charming Mr. Titwhistle from locating you by speed-enforcement camera. Tomorrow will not be a good day to drive in London. No, I do some investigative work. However, at present I am here for menial tasks. I have, for example, more coffee. And sandwiches. Would you like a sandwich?”
It’s a perfectly innocent question. It must be the faint sound of her stocking as she removes her toe from his thigh and puts her feet neatly together which makes the word “sandwich” sound rude. Joe has never found it so before. He tries it now, in his mouth.
“Sandwich.” No. Nothing rude about that. He tries again. “Saaan-d-witt-cha.” Yes, that’s more like it. He gives it a couple more goes.
“Yes,” the bold receptionist says, “a sandwich. In this case, avocado and bacon between two slices of granary bread. I can also arrange for other,” she smiles at him, “sandwiches.”
“Anything goes,” Joe says, and watches the words spiral out of his mouth and settle. I am a berk.
“Yes,” she says brightly, “it often does, with sandwiches. I, however, hold very clear beliefs on this subject. I do not believe in allowing tomato to soak into the bread, for example. Tomato, in a sandwich, should be applied latest of all ingredients and sealed between pieces of lettuce or salami, to prevent,” and here she purses her lips, “leakage.”
There it is again. A perfectly ordinary word, but she’s done something to it. A shiver passes down Joe’s spine. Leakage.
It ought to be a disgusting expression, but actually, as it passes her front teeth, which are briefly exposed as she enunciates the second syllable, it becomes a vibrant, enticing notion. This is not slurry from a rusted pipe, this is the beads of honey emerging languorously from a slice of baklava. Joe shuts his eyes for a second to stop himself from staring at her mouth. Red lips. Pale, sharp teeth. Very precise diction. The tip of her tongue. What a woman. For the second time tonight, he is rescued by Mercer.
“I see you’ve found Polly.”
“Oh, um, yes.”
“Polly, were you listening in?”
Polly nods at a notepad on her desk, covered in scribbles and question marks. “Of course.”
“Any thoughts?”
“What’s a book?”
“I had hoped for something a bit more—”
“Mercer. Seriously. What is a book? Is it a collection of papers bound like something by Dickens? Or is it a gathering of information, an archive? In this context, particularly, it seems to me it’s the latter. Joe’s book wasn’t just paper, it was an ignition key. The book gives control of the machine—except, somehow, it doesn’t. There’s a missing page or a cog or another volume. I don’t know. The point is, they thought they’d have it all by now and they don’t. So they need Joe.”
Joe finds himself thinking of the Recorded Man again. The book of someone’s life, of their every waking sense. He shivers.
Mercer nods, conceding Polly’s point. “Well, they need Joe for something. By the way, did I hear you mention more coffee?”
“Indeed you did.”
“Is it the particularly aggressive kind?”
“It has potential in that direction.”
“You could coach it?”
“I believe so.”
“And then we can get to the business of seriously examining what’s going on while Joe catches another forty winks.”
“Ideal.”
“Then by all means, Polly, please do.”
“I shall.”
And off she goes, leaving Joe to wonder whether she is Mercer’s girlfriend, and when his tongue will cease to adhere to the roof of his mouth, and whether it is obvious that he finds this woman frantically attractive, albeit for no doubt complex and inappropriate reasons owed in part to his state of fight-flight agitation.
“You still want to leave?” Mercer demands.
“No.”
“Good. Then come back in here and let’s go through it in detail, please.” He pauses. “Joe? I can almost certainly get you out of this. It’s going to be okay. But it’s going to get harder from here and you have to do what I say and live very, very small for a while. Maybe even take a holiday. All right?”
Holiday. He has an image of Polly in the shade of a beach umbrella. “All right.”
It is all right. Mercer always gets him out of it. Mercer always can. And with the bold receptionist somewhere around, Joe Spork feels suddenly very content in the Raspberry Room of Noblewhite Cradle.
VII
Cuparah;
dinner with the Opium Khan;
close encounters with insects and bananas.
In the fitful dreams of Edie Banister, crazy old punk lady and dogbearing fugitive, the broad black deck of Cuparah is slick with brine, and she reels as another wave strikes the bow. The ship yaws hugely, lurching in the swell. Edie swallows bile, but even the sense of imminent vomiting can’t dampen her delight.
Cuparah is a submarine.
More than that, it is a Ruskinite submarine, a nacred, seaswell ghost which cuts through one wave and plays on the next. The shape is functional—a whale-ish blunt-headed shape, swirled with weird water patterns for camouflage, asymmetrical and misleading—but every detail is splendid. The conning tower is swept back dramatically, not bolted on but seemingly grown from the body, and inside, a
stair unfolds from the main body to the hatchway which makes the tower look like the entrance to a ballroom. The hatch itself is trimmed on the underneath with oiled brown leather, tooled with the names of the men who built it, and despite years of use the principal odour wafting from below is leather and varnish: warm, living smells.
“For Christ’s sake, get up here and in,” Amanda Baines says. Corporal Albert Pritchard—known mostly as Songbird, and last seen gasping in Mrs. Sekuni’s Number 4 wristlock—gamely grips Edie by the shoulder and buttock and boosts her over the guard rail to the hatch. Songbird is one of Edie’s lads, a team of veteran uglies who will support her by breaking heads and blowing things up should she require it. The others are already on board and no doubt arguing over bunks.
Edie peers down into the depths of Cuparah. There’s red light in the depths, and a cool scent of unwashed male rises out of the dark. Curiously, her nausea ebbs. She climbs down inside the hatch, and Songbird follows.
“Welcome aboard,” Amanda Baines says, passing Edie a waxed canvas grip filled with something heavy and soft. Behind her, the rest of Songbird’s squad nod greetings and grin shyly. Edie’s command. Her boys. Lethal and wicked and noble as the day.
Edie nods, stares at the narrow gang and breathes in the air. A Ruskinite, draped in black, hurries past with a strange brass tool in one hand and a concentrated expression on his face. As he passes through a hatch, she sees in the cabin beyond a familiar bank of valves and vacuum tubes. Of course. What could be more mobile, or more difficult to destroy, than a submarine code-breaking station?
The dead man’s hatches between compartments are fitted out in brass, and the cut steel is scrolled with elegant spirals and curlicues, a maker’s mark stamped into the upper left quadrant. Mockley fecit. “Mockley made me.” Edie grins. Nice to know who created the machine on which your life depends. She trusts Mockley, and hence also Cuparah. When she looks up, she finds a wide sky above her, a beautiful illusion of clouds and air. Cuparah is a thing to lift the heart, even down here in the dark beneath the waves.