by Tom Holt
Paul nodded. “Sorry,” he said.
“That’s all right,” Sophie muttered. “It was worth a try. Just—”
“All right, yes.”
It was a very long train journey. Sitting perfectly still for hours on end made Paul itch in several places, but nothing on earth was going to induce him to scratch. Neither of them said a word, for fear of inviting a contribution from the goblin. A half-hour hold-up in a tunnel just outside Rugby didn’t help matters, either. At one point, Paul managed to slide into a light doze, but that was even worse, because he dreamed he was sitting there with no clothes on, and a diminutive Mr Tanner’s mum was sitting on his shoulder, blowing in his ear. He started awake—(“Actually,” said the crackly voice, “she’s my niece. God knows what she sees in you.”)
Paul whimpered, and opened his eyes. Sophie turned her head slightly and nodded, as if to say Yes, me too. Under other circumstances, he might have reflected on that, and the expression in her eyes, but as things stood he didn’t dare.
Because of the hold-up at Rugby, they had to sprint for their connection at Manchester, and caught it with fifteen seconds to spare. It was only when they’d flopped into their seats and caught their breath that Paul realised something was missing. Sophie must’ve shared the thought. They stared at each other.
“The file,” she said. “Have you got it?”
“I thought you—”
“We’ve left it,” Sophie whispered. “On the other train.”
There was a brief moment of unspeakable joy; then something landed with a soft thump on Sophie’s lap. No need to look down and see what it was.
“Oh,” she said, and Paul could see her brace herself for something extremely unpleasant. A second or so later she relaxed.
“It’s its lunch break,” she explained. “But it’s still listening.”
Paul nodded. “What about the bottle?” he said. “Have you got that?”
“In my bag. Which,” she added, “appears to have turned into a suitcase. Probably a change of clothes for the morning, or costumes if we’ve got to be in disguise or whatever. They think of every bloody thing,” she added bitterly.
Lunch break, Paul thought; and then, tiptoeing across the back of his mind so as to avoid attention, came the thought of the portable door. He spat the image out of his mind, then waited; but there came no little crackly voice in his ear, and he was pretty sure the goblin wouldn’t have been able to resist making some remark or other, if it’d noticed.
So; the goblin didn’t know about the door. So—It was very hard indeed to think in whispers. He managed it by thinking about other things, gingerly tacking on snippets of thought at the end. If the goblin didn’t know about the door, maybe they could use it to escape (assuming he could get the wretched thing set up before the goblin could stop him). Fine; but where or when could they go, and how could they stop the little bastard coming with them? That could be disastrous—if, for example, he tried to escape into the pre-J.W. Wells past, but managed to take the goblin back there too; would it be able to force them to go to the job interview? He couldn’t see any reason why not; and then they’d never be free, not even in the past. He flicked the very concept of the door out of his mind as quickly as he could, and concentrated on the colour and texture of elephants’ ears for the next two minutes, just in case.
In due course, the train dragged itself into Ventcaster, and they found a taxi to take them on the last stage of their journey. Cudsey turned out to be a rather pleasant grey stone village, genuinely picturesque in the soft haze of almost-rain. Sophie insisted on carrying the suitcase, which by now was extremely large and heavy. The pub was just the sort of place Paul would have enjoyed staying at, under other circumstances.
After they’d dumped the case in Sophie’s room, they took the file into the deserted games room behind the public bar and dumped it on the pool table. The goblin duly popped up out of the flap, yawning and stretching.
“We’re here,” Paul said. “Now, what have we got to do?”
The goblin scuttled across the green baize and nibbled a chunk out of the cue chalk before answering. “Nice easy job,” it told them. “Even you ought to be able to manage it without screwing up. Now, pay attention.”
It sounded simple enough. At a quarter to six that evening, according to the goblin, the pub landlord and his wife were going to fall fast asleep, at which point Sophie, wearing the outfit provided (Sophie’s expression suggested she didn’t like the sound of that) would take her place behind the bar and try to look like a barmaid. At five to six, a man would walk into the bar and ask for a pint of beer. This Sophie would provide, having first added the required dose of JWW Valentine Express; she would then clear out at once, for obvious reasons, and Paul would take her place. The customer would immediately fall asleep for twenty minutes, that being a side effect of the philtre. At a quarter past six, the client would turn up and be there when the customer woke up, and that would be that, as far as their involvement was concerned. The only other point to bear in mind was that while the victim was asleep, it’d be up to Paul to make sure that no female other than the client got into the bar, again for obvious reasons. And that, the goblin added, was all there was to it.
“Just to make sure there’s no fuck-ups,” the goblin went on, “you’d better know what these people look like.” It took a deep breath and vanished in the usual shower of sparks; a moment later, a woman materialised where the goblin had been—a thirty-something bottle redhead, attractive in a chrome-molybdenum-hard sort of way, wearing a short skirt and an obvious blouse. “The client,” she said, and vanished. Then a man appeared—Paul stared. “Bloody hell,” he said.
Sophie looked at him, and then at the man on the table. “You know him?” she asked.
“What? Oh, sorry,” Paul said, “I forgot, you don’t go to the pictures much. That’s Ashford Clent.”
“Who’s Ashford Clent?”
“The mark,” said the man on the table; then he vanished too, and was replaced by the goblin. “Your friend doesn’t get out much, does she?” it went on. “Mind you, hardly surprising. Award-winning Ashford Clent,” it continued, “is the third most highly paid movie star in the world. Thirty million bucks a picture, and if your girlfriend had just one hormone in her bony little body, she wouldn’t need to ask why. Anyhow, Mister Multiple-Oscars has just bought Cudsey Castle, which is very handy, saves you having to go to California.” Was it Paul’s imagination, or did the goblin wink at him as it said that? He could have sworn the little horror didn’t know about the door, but now he wasn’t quite so certain.
“Who’s the woman?” Sophie asked. “The client, I mean.”
The goblin pulled a face. “None of your business,” it said, “but I’ll tell you anyway, since you won’t like it. You don’t need to know her name, but she’s a very clever little lady, worked it all out by herself, bless her. Quite simple, as all the best scams are. She marries Clent; then, after a decent interval, she divorces him. JWW gets two million dollars off the top, she keeps the rest of the divorce settlement for herself, everyone’s a winner.”
Sophie’s expression would have blunted carbon steel. “Apart from what’s-his-name, the actor,” she said. “Or does the potion thing wear off after a bit?”
The goblin laughed. “No way,” it said. “Guaranteed for life, one hundred per cent. The poor fool’ll love her till the day he dies. No big deal,” it added, “when you think about it. After all, there’s five million women in fifty countries worldwide who’d gut their own mothers just for a chance to fondle Mr Clent’s discarded socks, so you don’t want to go feeling sorry for him. Poetic justice, if you ask me.”
Sophie shuddered. “Fine,” she said. “I like happy endings, anyway.”
“Oh, absolutely,” agreed the goblin. “Boy meets girl, girl poisons boy, they get married. Hardly original, but all true romance is just clichés anyhow.”
§
To Paul’s surprise and lasting regret, it a
ll went as smoothly as clockwork. At the appointed time, award-winning Ashford Clent strolled into the bar and asked for a beer. Sophie—actually, Paul thought she looked nice in her barmaid’s costume, but he’d no more have dared tell her so than he’d have confronted God on the eighth day of Creation and demanded to see the manager—Sophie managed to introduce two tablespoonfuls of the golden stuff into Clent’s glass without being noticed, and since the beer was traditional Yorkshire real ale, its inherent foul taste masked the presence of the philtre, at least until it was too late. Mr Clent fell asleep before Paul had a chance to ask him for his autograph, which was probably just as well.
The client was precisely on time, and Paul left her sitting opposite the sleeping screen god, smoking a cigarette and reading The Daily Telegraph Guide to Investment Management. The rest of the evening, according to the goblin, was his own.
Talking of which; the nasty little critter hadn’t bothered either of them, as far as he was aware, for some time, not since the briefing. Was it too much to hope that it had finally—?
“Yes,” said the scratchy voice in his ear.
“Oh,” Paul said. “Look, we’ve done our job, so why don’t you just push off and leave us alone?”
The goblin’s laugh sounded like someone chewing tinfoil. “Because I like you,” it said. “Both of you, the same way you like roast chicken. See, I don’t get out of the office as much as I’d like to, so I’ve got to make the most of it when I get the chance.”
Paul sighed, and climbed the stairs to the guest bedrooms. At the top of the staircase he went to turn right, but small, sharp nails tightened in his earlobe, and he stopped.
“Not that way,” he said. “Left.”
“But my room’s this way.”
“Yes. But you aren’t going there.”
“Aren’t I?”
“No. You’re going to see your girlfriend.”
In spite of the pain in his ear, Paul wrenched his head to the right. “She’s not my girlfriend,” he said.
“Ah,” said the goblin, in a tone of voice that Paul didn’t like one bit. “We’re going to fix that, right now.”
Paul felt as though his heart had been replaced with a bag of frozen peas. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he said.
“Oh, for crying out loud.” The goblin sounded annoyed. “You really are pathetic, aren’t you? All right, then.” Green sparkles cascaded in the air in front of Paul’s nose, and the goblin appeared. This time it was much larger; a head taller than Paul, and massively broad across the shoulders. “I’ll explain, shall I?” it said. “And then we can get on with it, whether you like it or not.”
Paul tried to back away, but the goblin reached out a long, muscular arm and gripped him round the throat, so firmly that he could scarcely breathe.
“Let’s see, now,” the goblin said. “There’s a good half-pint in one of them philtre bottles, and once they’re opened, they don’t keep. Waste not, want not, that’s what I say.”
Paul tried to pull the goblin’s hand away from his neck, and was given cause to regret it.
“What the bloody hell are you cribbing about?” the goblin said, and it sounded almost hurt. “You should be down on your flicking knees thanking me. You do want her, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Paul said. “But.”
The goblin picked him up without apparent effort and slammed him against the wall. He froze with terror, and the goblin went on; “Trouble with you is, you don’t really know what you want. So it’s just as well I’m here to sort things out. Otherwise you’d be in a hell of a mess. I’m just saying thank you, that’s all, for a really nice trip out. Well, I’ve enjoyed it, even if you haven’t. Also, I guess, I just like bringing young folks together. Whether they like it,” the goblin added, with a pure Tanner grin, “or not.”
“Please,” Paul whispered. “Don’t.”
But the goblin shook its head. “Sorry,” it said, “but the plain fact is, I know what’s best for the pair of you, and that’s that. You’ll thank me in years to come; you’ll probably want to name your first kid after me. Rumpelstiltskin Carpenter, got a ring to it, don’t you think? I like babies,” the goblin added, licking its lips.
Then the goblin picked Paul up by the scruff of his neck and carried him down the corridor. One of the bedroom doors was open, and round it a green scaly arm beckoned to them. “Another reason,” the goblin went on, “is our Rosacrucia—that’s my niece, you’ve met her. Not that I’ve got anything against you humans, you understand, but what that girl needs is a nice goblin boyfriend, one of her own kind. If you’re all safely hitched, maybe she’ll stop trailing round after you and settle down.”
Sophie was sitting on the bed, with her eyes shut. She was still wearing the barmaid outfit, with a tiny green head poking up out of her cleavage. “Have fun,” said the goblin, and it vanished in a swirl of glittering confetti. “I think I’ll watch this one from the stalls,” explained the little green head.
Paul tried to back away, but his legs weren’t working. On the bedside table, he saw the plastic bottle of Valentine Express, a spoon and a glass. “Sophie,” he said.
“I know,” she muttered.
Somehow his hand had got round the neck of the bottle, and he was unscrewing the cap. He tried to spill the philtre out of the spoon, but all of it landed in the glass. He handed it to her, and she took it.
“It won’t be so bad,” Sophie said, in a faint voice. “I’m sorry.”
And then the door burst open. Paul tried to look round but his head was stuck. Mr Wurmtoter crossed the room in two long strides. He had a glove on his right hand, and an empty hamburger box in his left. “Excuse me,” he said, and quick as electricity he yanked the goblin out of the front of Sophie’s dress, stuffed it in the box, and snapped the lid shut.
Paul staggered, and fell over; Sophie sagged back and hit her head against the wall. Mr Wurmtoter grabbed the glass from her hand before she could drop it, and emptied it down the washstand sink. Then he turned. “Are you two all right?” he asked. “No, um, harm done?”
Paul got to his knees, that being the best he could do. “I’m all right,” he said.
“And me,” Sophie mumbled, sitting up. “What are you doing here?”
Mr Wurmtoter pulled a serious face. “I came as soon as I could,” he said. “It was Rosie—sorry, Mrs Tanner—who thought there might be something wrong. She saw what was going on in that stone of hers.” He breathed in deeply, then added, “I really am most frightfully sorry; on behalf of the firm, I mean. It goes without saying, this is nothing to do with us.” He scowled, then opened the burger box a tiny crack. “You’re disgusting, you,” he snapped, as a green nose stuck out. “That’s it as far as trips out of the office go, you hear me?” He closed the box, snapped his fingers over the lid, and threw it on the floor. “It’s all right,” he said, “I’ve put a B-76J on the box, he won’t get past that in a hurry. Well,” he went on, looking like an overgrown schoolboy who’s just owned up to breaking a window, “I’d better be getting back, I’m due in a meeting at quarter past. And really, I’m very sorry about this. We’ll have to see if there’s some way we can sort of make it up to you.”
Sophie breathed out. “That’s all right,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. And thank you.”
Mr Wurmtoter grinned feebly. “All part of the service,” he said, and left the room. A few seconds later, Paul happened to glance through the window and thought he caught sight of a white horse with broad, feathery wings sailing up into the sky. But he could have been imagining it.
“Well,” he said, after a very long silence, “there you are, then.”
Sophie looked at him, and nodded. “Would you mind getting out?” she said. “No, I don’t mean it like that. I just want to get out of these disgusting clothes.”
Paul wandered out into the corridor and hung around there, not knowing whether he ought to go back to his own room, or wait for her. He’d just made up his mind that she couldn
’t possibly want to see him ever again when the door opened and she came out. She was still white as a sheet, but she gave him a little smile, enough to say that she was all right now.
“I need some fresh air, I think,” she said.
They went out into the village street, which was deserted. After they’d walked twenty yards or so, Paul turned to her and said, “You were very brave back there.”
She frowned at him. “Thank you so much,” she said. “Why, were you expecting me to faint or have a screaming fit or something?”
Paul didn’t say he was sorry, for once. “Well, anyway,” he said, “you were a bloody sight braver than I was. I was terrified.”
“Me too. It was all wriggly, like a dirty great big spider. I don’t like spiders.”
“Nor me.”
They walked on a little further before Paul said, “Did you believe him? Mr Wurmtoter, I mean. Do you think he saved us, or was it all part of some nasty scheme of theirs?”
She shrugged. “Don’t know and don’t care,” she said. “I think that horrible little thing was perfectly capable of dreaming the whole idea up on its own, but it’s also just the sort of thing Mr Wells’d do, if he thought there was something in it for him. But I can’t see how it’d help him, can you?”
Paul shook his head. It was in his mind to mention the Gilbert and Sullivan episode, but he didn’t. “I think Mr Wurmtoter was telling the truth,” he said. “I guess he was scared we’d take the firm to the industrial tribunal, or something like that.”
“Maybe.” Sophie stopped, and leaned her back against a wall. “Well,” she said, “at least we were luckier than that film star. I feel bad about that,” she added. “Not because of the money, but—”
Paul nodded. “I don’t suppose there’s anything we can do about it,” he said awkwardly; because of course he knew precisely what he could do about it: a quick trip through the door, back to six minutes to six that evening. Even if he had to bash award-winning Ashford Clent over the head with a shovel before he walked through the pub door, it’d set everything right again. But back then, the goblin would still be on the loose—“Probably not,” Sophie replied. “And it’s not like film stars are people, with feelings and stuff. Even so—” She sighed. “Oh, I don’t know,” she went on. “Thirty million dollars a film, and they get married and divorced every five minutes anyway. It could’ve been worse.” She turned her head and looked at him. “Could’ve been us,” she said quietly.