A Catalogue of Catastrophe, page 13
part #13 of Chronicles of St. Mary's Series
‘Interesting,’ was all he said at the end of it. ‘You’re sure they didn’t recognise you?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘because I think they got the timeline wrong. I was thinking about it during the interview.’
‘Glad to see you giving the mission your full attention.’
‘I’m an historian. I can multitask.’
‘Not with any visible success.’
‘Do you want to hear or not?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Anyway, I’m certain I’ll get the job. Obviously – I don’t know how – perhaps I’ll never know – I do something that gives the game away. Somehow, they realise who I am. Or who I work for. They do some digging – they’re an historical research organisation, for heaven’s sake – and come after us. But they get the dates wrong. You know what Dr Bairstow always says – sometimes you get effect before cause. This is one of those instances. They try to kill us before we manage to do the thing for which they want to kill us. And the thing is – I can’t do anything to prevent discovery, because if I do, then they won’t jump back to kill us, so I won’t be investigating them, and we’ll have paradoxes jumping all over us.’
He put his head in his hands. ‘Oh God, why do historians have to make everything so bloody complicated?’
‘I don’t know. It’s a gift.’
‘It’s a bloody curse.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘at least it solves the problem of who they came to kill. You all sneered at me because I wasn’t important enough and now it turns out I am.’
‘Max – stop. Listen a moment. This changes things somewhat. At some point – we don’t know when or how – but at some point, it’s all going to go pear-shaped. Are you sure you still want to continue with this?’
‘Well, yes,’ I said. ‘So something goes wrong – it would be more unusual if it didn’t. And whatever it is, I obviously survive, otherwise they wouldn’t be coming after me at Home Farm, would they?’
‘I can see so many things wrong with that fallacious piece of reasoning.’
‘Come on,’ I said, getting up. ‘You can buy me lunch. I’ve earned it.’
The message flashed up on my scratchpad at around half past six that evening. Not Bridget – someone from Personnel. I’d got the job. They’d need to get me security cleared first – and there was a ton of other bureaucratic stuff – but my provisional start date was the first of next month.
As easy as that. How good am I?
My first day nearly killed me. I don’t mean assassins leaped out of the stationery cupboard or a rack of shelving mysteriously fell on me or they poisoned my food or anything like that – I mean I probably walked the equivalent of Land’s End to John o’ Groats. Twice. Uphill both ways. Bridget had been right about the comfortable shoes – which I had – and the lifts not working – which they didn’t – and it being a big building – which it certainly was. As I had suspected, there was far more of it than was visible from the street and it went back a long way as well.
I arrived bright and early. The new girl making a good impression. I left Markham in bed. Self-defence, he said. Apparently, I’m not all bright and sparkly first thing in the morning. I crashed around the tiny kitchen making as much noise as I could, and then opened the chiller and found he’d made sandwiches and a drink to take with me so I didn’t slam the front door on my way out.
The walk to work was pleasant. The day was crisp and clear and I strode along, swiping my card for the energy-generating walkway along Great Russell Street because it was still a novelty for me. I walked briskly, building up a nice credit – or so I hoped – to offset our power bill back at the flat, and eventually swung in through Insight’s doors, all ready to begin my new job.
They were very efficient. My ID card was ready and waiting for me – and on a lanyard, too, because I think we’d all learned from our previous experience. I used it to swipe open my allocated locker, deposited my backpack and spare shoes, and went downstairs.
Bridget was waiting for me. I’d been right about mine being the desk opposite Eddie Middleditch.
‘Right,’ she said, sitting me down and activating my data table. ‘This password is temporary. Just for today. You’ll need to set up your own. You’ll be prompted to change it every twenty-eight days. File requests – we call them File Forms – are routed to you almost continually. The standard procedure is to print out a bunch of forms, curse all researchers and leap to your feet with well-simulated enthusiasm that will be gone by this time next week.
‘Now – the first thing to remember is No Form – No File. Verbal requests are not accepted. From anyone. You must have a paper trail. If only to cover your arse when some idiot researcher loses his file and tries to blame you. Clear?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Secondly – and this is important . . .’ She nodded towards the Cave. ‘No one goes in there but us. No matter how prettily they plead – and they will. No one but us. They all know that so don’t be taken in by I just need a quick look – I won’t be a moment. Tell them to fill out the requisition and get it authorised. It’s the usual conflict between professional and admin staff, I’m afraid. Apparently, we’re too stupid to file properly but that’s all right because they’re too stupid to put the files back in the right place. The different file colours do make it easy to spot a misplaced file, but on the other hand it is practically another country back there. Trust me, trawling through that lot looking for a lost file is not something you want to spend your weekend doing.’
‘No indeed,’ I said. ‘So, no one in or out but us.’
‘You’ve got it,’ she said. ‘A couple of times a day you print out your lists – you’ll soon identify peak and trough periods – grab your trusty trolley, assemble said files, deliver them and pick up the ones that are being returned. Take no nonsense from anyone. You are File Queen and don’t let anyone forget it.’
‘File Queen,’ I said. ‘Gotcha.’
She looked at me. ‘I may be wrong but I don’t think you’ll have any trouble handling troublesome historians.’
‘None whatsoever. Professional historians – pains in the arses, all of them.’
‘Oh God – I’m going to love having you here. Come on – let me introduce you to . . .’ She paused dramatically. ‘The Cave.’
I leaped to my feet in well-simulated enthusiasm that was gone by the end of the day, let alone by the end of the week.
She showed me how to access the Cave using my Insight card and in we went.
The smell was much stronger here. Too strong to be ignored.
I stopped. ‘Um . . . I don’t want to be rude but what is that smell?’
‘The chemical smell?’
I nodded.
‘Every piece of paper in the place is treated with fire retardant. We’re terrified of fire here.’
‘Oh, yes. I can understand that.’
The Cave was vast. And it had grown organically so there were no nice neat rows of files all logically arranged. ‘You’ll just have to learn the layout as you go,’ she said. ‘Sorry – but if it was easy then researchers could do it.’
I was given a smart red file trolley – which was a great deal better behaved than a supermarket trolley, believe me, with four working wheels and no squeaks. It was divided into two – incoming and outgoing files.
‘Don’t get the two mixed up,’ said Bridget. ‘Triumphantly presenting a file to someone who’s just returned it makes you look such an arse. We’ve all done it.’
I nodded.
‘Each file has an out card,’ she continued, pulling one off a shelf to show me. ‘You take it out, enter your initials here, the date, and the initials of the person for whom it’s intended and leave it in place of the file so we know who’s got it. Then, when you get the file back, you do the whole thing in reverse. As you can see, this one . . .’ she showed me the card, ‘is something to do with Tesla and was taken out last week by Eddie – who must have actually done some work that day – and is still upstairs with KAd – Kofi Adomako, one of our senior researchers.’
I nodded.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘You see that central desk over there?’
I nodded again.
‘That’s the work table. Use it to collate files, get your breath back, whatever. It’s also a useful landmark because everything behind that is BC. Everything this side is AD. It’s not strictly chronological, I’m afraid – there are a few endearing quirks where we ran out of space or started a new category or something. Each row of shelves is clearly marked. Don’t lay down a trail of breadcrumbs because it attracts mice. If you’re not out in an hour, Eddie and I will rope ourselves together and come and get you. Here’s your first list. Only five files. Take your time. Files in your trolley and lock the door behind you when you leave. Then I’ll show you what to do next. Off you go.’
And off I went. I found the first two files easily enough, was inclined to think she’d overstated the difficulties, found the third by accident, and the fourth and fifth not at all.
What I did find was a small, caged room she hadn’t mentioned. I knew my file wasn’t in there because the covers of these files were all black but I tried the door anyway. Locked.
‘Those are the black files,’ said Bridget, appearing from nowhere and frightening me half to death. ‘You’ll never be asked for one of those.’
‘OK,’ I said, turning away, careful to show no interest at all. ‘I’m still looking for Prague 1432.’
‘Over there,’ she said. ‘Second row along – the section runs chronologically upwards instead of downwards like all the others. Don’t ask why – no one knows. And the Garibaldi files are over there.’
I assembled my five files and we left the Cave. Back at my desk she pulled up a building plan for me.
‘You’ll usually have fifteen or twenty files to deliver and the same number to pick up so save your feet,’ she said. ‘Arrange your files in order of floors otherwise you’ll be criss-crossing the building all day long and wear your legs down to stumps.’
‘God forbid,’ I said, shuffling files. ‘I’m short enough. I have to say, it’s nice to see old-fashioned paper files like this. Digitisation is all very well but . . .’ I tailed away, invitingly.
‘No, we don’t digitise,’ she said. ‘Researchers like to lay everything out on a long table and have an overview. They think that makes them look important. And this way we control access to the files. There’s only ever one copy of anything and we always know who’s looking at it.’
By lunchtime, I’d have paid for the whole bloody lot to be digitised myself. I was nearly on my knees. Requests came through thick and fast. I was scampering about all over the place. And I had a suspicion the lovely Eddie was routing a lot of his stuff my way as well. He didn’t seem to be a big fan of mobility, our Eddie. He came in, sat down, fired up his data table, and apart from the occasional comfort break, that was it for him. I was the one racing around like a lunatic.
On the other hand, this job was brilliant for getting around the building. And as a newbie I could legitimately go anywhere and then pretend I’d lost my bearings. I was politely turned away from the top floor which was no surprise because only senior managers and the Board had access.
And it wasn’t a straightforward building, either. There were narrow corridors that didn’t seem to go anywhere, changing levels, strange staircases that ended in locked doors, tiny rooms with just one desk, and vast open rooms full of desks with everyone beavering away doing God knows what.
I trotted around with my trolley, giving and receiving files, in and out of the Cave, ate my lunch in the small canteen next to the locker room, remembered to change my shoes, drank copious amounts of water, discovered the whereabouts of all the loos pretty damn quick, and cursed the almost perpetually non-working lifts.
Eddie was out of the door like a whippet on the stroke of five. Fastest I’d seen him move all day. He didn’t say goodnight. I lay back in my chair and wondered if I’d ever move again. Bridget came out of her office and laughed at me but not in a nasty way.
I remembered to clear my desk, locked everything away, handed the key to Bridget and took myself off home. Although not without a quick spot check by security on the way out. Because I was the newbie, I suppose. They wanded away and checked my backpack and then, finally, I was free.
Except I had another forty-minute walk home. I never before realised how lucky I’d been to live and work at the same location. Still, at least it was walkable. I didn’t have to battle the ancient Underground system or queue for the clippers or water taxis. And I was offsetting our power bill so it could have been worse. And it wasn’t an unpleasant walk – past squares with parks and gardens and attractive houses. Not our block of flats, obviously. Our brick monstrosity and its partner stood out like massive carbuncles. I was almost ashamed to let myself in through the front door.
Markham was waiting for me. I kicked off my shoes, dropped everything and sprawled in a chair. He handed me a cup of tea on which, I was prepared to bet, no duty had been paid. Yes, the tea tax was criminal but only if you actually paid it. We preferred to be criminal by not paying it. Trust me, illegal tea tastes even better.
‘Well? How did it go?’
‘I think I died about three this afternoon. After I’d had to traipse up to the fourth floor for the fourth time. I hate bloody stairs. If they had any bloody sense, they’d kick their listed building status into touch and install half a dozen escalators. Can I have a refill?’
‘Did you find anything interesting?’
‘There’s a locked area containing what they call the black files that I can’t access.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. There aren’t many of them. Only just over thirty.’
‘You counted them?’
‘Didn’t have to. Ten files to a shelf. Three and a bit shelves. Basic maths.’
‘If an historian’s doing maths, then it would have to be basic.’
‘I’m too tired to get up and slap you.’
‘That’s what I was banking on. Plus, dinner’s nearly ready and you have to keep me alive to open the oven door because you won’t know how.’
‘I hate you. You know that, don’t you?’
‘You have, once or twice, subtly conveyed that message. Go and have a shower because you’re getting dust and God knows what all over everything and I tidied today.’
Meekly, I did as I was told while Mrs Markham crashed around in the kitchen.
I managed to stay awake through his lasagne. Which wasn’t bad although there’s no need to tell him that.
I left him watching the football – some kind of punishment, I could only assume – and went to bed.
The next few weeks were all repeats of Day One. With the exception of the lasagne. Actually, Markham wasn’t a bad cook. No need to tell him that, either. In fact, he was turning out to be quite a domestic goddess. You can tell him that.
I did once enquire how he was spending his days while I was slowly killing myself in the cause of taking down an evil empire and earning us a great deal of dosh at the same time.
He sipped his tea and reached for another chocolate biscuit – disappointingly still not available on the English National Health.
‘Well, after the echoes of your departure have died away – that usually takes about an hour – I rise gently, tidy the environment, do a little mild shopping and check the pod. Then I enjoy an historian-free lunch, take a spot of quiet exercise in the nearby park, returning in time to prepare yet another delicious meal, watch as much TV as I can absorb with an historian yammering in my ear the whole time and then retire, exhausted, to my sleeping cupboard.’
By which he meant he was keeping an eye on the pod and familiarising himself with the area in the not unlikely event of us needing to make a run for it.
He was scoping out Insight, as well. He’d presented himself to their librarian, seeking to avail himself of Insight facilities. He was a freelance researcher, he said, investigating the Princes in the Tower. He’d been welcomed with great enthusiasm, the appropriate expert had been summoned, and he’d received a full tour of the public parts of the building, together with a list of the services offered. And their price list.
‘You can walk around quite freely,’ he’d reported. ‘I didn’t even have to use the “looking for the Gents” excuse. The clerical areas are out of bounds, of course, together with the top floor and the basement. Although I can easily see why they’d want to keep you away from the paying public.’
He’d even walked around the block to suss out the back of the building, where he reported the usual bog-standard loading bay and storage areas. Absolutely nothing that shouldn’t be there. Well, there wouldn’t be, would there?
According to his account, he’d actually taken a few steps into the yard and been politely but firmly turned back on the grounds of Health and Safety. Bloody Health and Safety – sucking the joy out of life since the day they’d been invented.
I was pursuing a theory of my own. The basement, vast though it was, was smaller than the floors above. Considerably smaller. It wasn’t immediately apparent – the layout of the Cave might have been designed deliberately to mask its dimensions. As I said to Markham, there might be any number of good reasons for this, of course – although I couldn’t think of any and neither could he – but I still remembered the place that pod had whipped me off to. I’d been in no state to carry out a methodical survey, but I couldn’t help wondering if it was the other half of the Insight basement. Discrete, separate, inaccessible to all but the favoured few. It might only be on the other side of the wall, and if it was, how could I get in there?
Under the pretence of searching for obscure files, I’d wandered all around the Cave and had completely failed to discover any hidden doors or secret passages, which I think everyone will agree was pretty disappointing. It was only when I was handing Bridget my key one evening that it came to me – her door. The door in the wall behind her desk. Perhaps it didn’t, as I’d assumed, lead to a little bathroom, or a cupboard, or a safe – perhaps it was access to the hidden basement and Bridget was the gatekeeper and that was the real reason her office wasn’t on the top floor with the others.
