Bad to Worse

by Edeson, Robert;

  ‘Why would you do that, destroy the company?’

  ‘They shipped me assassins. The merchandise, as it were, was unsatisfactory and I’m returning it. Seeking a refund, you might say. Plus punitive damages.’

  The manager sipped his drink and continued to look into the mug as he spoke.

  ‘How can you help me?’

  ‘I know Spoiling.’

  There was another long stare into the mug.

  ‘What do you want me to tell you?’

  ‘Let’s start with something easy,’ said Worse. ‘Did Regan enjoy the sea shanty?’ It served as a simple honesty test.

  ‘I didn’t say it to her. No way could I do something like that.’

  ‘What did you mean when you spoke to the doorman about the La Ferste operation?’

  Docking in Fremantle was a slow operation, but an impressive display of old-fashioned seamanship. Their ship had clearly lost power to its thrusters, and was fully reliant on tugs to be brought alongside. In the calm of the harbour, and against the perpendiculars of land structures, the list of the ship was now obvious.

  When gangplanks had been attached, no one was allowed to disembark until Spoiling and a small forensic team boarded. A ship’s officer escorted them to the casino, where they met Worse. The manager and his doorman had been told to wait in the office. When Worse identified them as the two persons of interest and pointed out the eyebolt attaching the roof ladder, Spoiling spoke to the officer.

  ‘My compliments to the captain. You may proceed with disembarkation.’ He turned to Worse. ‘You may go as well, Worse. I will be in touch. Please give my regards to Doctor Blitt. I hope the luxury cruise has not been too arduous for you both. I have a car for you. A sergeant will meet you outside the immigration hall.’

  Worse returned to his stateroom, where Sigrid was using the delay to work on her paper. Hilario was there, rechecking the identity tags on their luggage. Worse motioned him out onto the balcony, closed the door, and invited him to sit down. They spoke for ten minutes. Sigrid concentrated on her writing, but she did notice when they both stood and shook hands. As they re-entered the suite, Hilario spoke to Sigrid.

  ‘Is there anything more I can do for you, Doctor Blitt?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Everything’s fine. Thank you again, Hilario.’ She offered her hand.

  ‘Then I will have your bags collected in five minutes. Thank you, Doctor Blitt.’

  When he had left the room, she spoke to Worse.

  ‘I see I am no longer Mrs Worse. That was a brief and blissless state of matrimony.’

  ‘I wanted to part with no lies,’ said Worse.

  ‘I know.’

  She didn’t ask about the conversation on the balcony.

  Spoiling’s sergeant drove them first to Sigrid’s house, where Worse helped carry her bags inside. They hugged as he left. At Grosvenor Apartments, where Worse lived, he was dropped off next to an elevator in the underground car park. When he entered the apartment, his housekeeper was there.

  ‘Did you have a wonderful time, Dr Worse?’

  She had no idea of the life Worse led.

  ‘I did, Mrs Brackedger. A very interesting time, thank you. You are well, I hope?’

  He opened his backpack and passed a small gift to her.

  ‘Open it now, if you like.’

  It was a silk scarf from one of the ship’s boutiques, and she was delighted by it. Worse felt he needed time to himself, and suggested she might like to leave early, given that the place hadn’t been lived in for days and the cleaning requirement was minimal. He saw her to the door.

  He had a lot of affection for Mrs Brackedger. She had been with him for years, but recently confided the demands of her husband’s illness and her own increasing tiredness from work. Reluctantly, she had decided to retire, and reluctantly, Worse had engaged a recruitment agency to find a replacement. Today was her third last visit, and Worse was sad to see her off.

  After she had gone, he checked the apartment security. Then he lay on his bed to think. When he closed his eyes, the motion of the sea replayed, and he was soon asleep.

  22 ENGLISH IN PERTH

  Dear Worse

  My plans for taking up the fellowship in Perth are starting to come together. I expect to arrive in mid-September for an October start, and was hoping that I could take up the offer of staying in your second apartment for a few weeks until I find somewhere of my own close to the university. Please say if this is no longer convenient. I also need to buy a car, or I was thinking maybe a motorbike, for the year.

  Rodney Thwistle sends his regards. He and I have been working on a paper looking at error distributions in certain divisibility problems (inspired by swints, you will be unsurprised to learn). The general case gives rise to some nice results that I think you will find interesting. I assume you have read Tertia Thurdleigh’s paper in J. Numerical Ornith., which started it all? She gave a Lindenblüten lecture at Nazarene a few weeks ago. Very impressive. Some of us thought it would be nice to take her and May Ball on a drive to the Broads for some birdwatching. I think TT enjoyed the day but it turns out she can’t see birds, let alone count them, because her eyesight is so poor. May Ball, on the other hand, can see a mosquito at ten metres.

  I spoke to Anna yesterday, at a college function with Edvard. They are well, and still looking forward to a holiday in Perth. They are thinking, if they do visit, of returning via the Ferendes to spend some time at the LDI station. The tentative plan is to incorporate an ocean cruise on the Perth–La Ferste sector, for some much needed relaxation.

  Nicholas is working hard, as usual. We were so relieved that he wasn’t hurt in that awful man’s attack inside the cave. My brother does seem to get himself into situations, as you well know. Who would have thought mathematical linguistics so dangerous an occupation? I suppose he’s told you about the amazing quartz-like stones they’ve found. They flew one to Cambridge for analysis and it turned out to have a liquid core of terencium sulphide, which apparently is extremely poisonous. I think I will never stop worrying about Nicholas. Famille Oblige.

  Well, that’s the Misgivingston news from Cambridge for now. I hope you have been getting the peace and quiet you need for your work.

  Best wishes

  Millie

  It was early evening when Worse was awakened by a call from Spoiling. He would interview the casino manager the following morning, and Worse was invited to be present.

  When the call was finished, Worse walked around his apartment. There were signs everywhere of Mrs Brackedger’s presence; cleaning and tidying habits that had once irritated him now formed part of his sense of home. He unpacked his bags from the cruise, sorted laundry, and returned various items to where they belonged, mostly in his workshop. Then he sat at his kitchen table checking flight schedules online.

  When Worse entered the interview room, the casino manager was seated across a table from Spoiling and a sergeant.

  ‘Good morning, Worse. We’ve been through the formalities with Mr Burlinger. I trust you are recovering from your prodigal days of luxury cruising.’

  ‘I doubt that I will ever recover, Victor. And my hostess Princess Namok certainly won’t.’

  Worse nodded at the sergeant, then smiled at Burlinger.

  ‘Sam.’

  He seated himself to one side, away from the table and from where he could see all three. Spoiling got straight to the point.

  ‘The main charge you are facing is harbouring a criminal. From that will follow hindering a police investigation, interfering with the course of justice, and other charges. What have you to say?’

  ‘I didn’t know Ben Jay had done anything wrong. He said it was a mix-up, that it wasn’t him the police were looking for.’

  ‘But it was unquestionably him for whom we were looking. That was clear from the photograph we circulated throughout the ship. Were you shown the photograph of the wanted person during the police operation?’

  ‘Yes.’


  ‘Did you recognize Ben Jay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why did you continue to harbour him?’

  ‘Because I believed what Ben Jay had said. And I was frightened.’

  ‘Frightened?’

  ‘Frightened of Regan, his sister. She was the one who said I had to take care of him.’

  ‘That is Regan Mortiss, of the company Mortiss Bros?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Explain to me why you should be so frightened of Regan Mortiss that you would not comply with Australian law, that you would fail to assist police in their enquiries when it was clearly in your capacity to do so.’

  ‘Regan would kill me. Since she took over, we all know how the rules work. If you harm the family, or lose money for the company, she sends a messenger. Or kills you herself, they say.’

  Spoiling looked at Worse, who nodded almost imperceptibly. He moved on.

  ‘You were overheard to be talking about a certain La Ferste operation. What did you mean by that?’

  ‘When we docked, I was to take on board a special consignment with the usual stores. I had a contact number of someone in the chandler’s office who would sort it all. After La Ferste, we were on-sailing to San Diego for a new casino fit-out, and the load was something to do with that. Big crystals for an artist to make a feature sculpture in the gaming room, they said. I told Mr Worse about it on the ship.’

  ‘Big crystals?’

  ‘Yes. Quartz, I think. Valuable, fragile, and obviously important to the company.’

  ‘Had you ever done that before?’

  ‘No. But I had heard from other managers that it had happened. Only when a ship was headed to the San Diego base, I think.’

  ‘Why would the company smuggle them, rather than import them legally?’

  ‘I didn’t know they were being smuggled. I thought it was just a convenience thing for the company.’

  Spoiling sat back, and looked at Worse.

  ‘Worse?’

  Worse didn’t alter his posture, but looked at Burlinger for several seconds before speaking.

  ‘Did you know that you would be transporting terencium into the United States?’

  ‘What’s terencium?’

  ‘An element. As in the periodic table.’

  ‘No. I’ve never heard of terencium. It was quartz.’

  ‘Have you ever met Regan Mortiss?’

  ‘No. I’ve only talked to her on the phone.’

  ‘Why have you not met her?’

  ‘Why? I’m no way senior enough, that’s why. If she came near me I would know I was in trouble.’

  ‘Has Camelline been in touch about what they want you to do, now the Princess Namok is bound for scrapping?’

  ‘Yes. They want to fly me to San Diego. Then, I guess, it will be another ship.’

  ‘Do you have a family, Sam?’

  ‘Yes, in San Diego.’

  Worse looked at Spoiling, indicating that he had no more questions.

  ‘Excuse us for a few minutes, Mr Burlinger,’ said Spoiling.

  He and Worse left the room. They spoke in the corridor.

  ‘What do you think, Worse?’

  ‘He’s unfortunate. I would get a full statement and contact details, issue a warning, and let him go.’

  Worse walked home from police headquarters. On the way, he stopped off in a city lunch bar for a fresh sandwich. It was a change for the ordinary after the sophistication and fussiness of cruise ship meals. He looked around at other customers, sitting alone or in pairs, reading financial papers or speaking on mobiles as they ate in their work breaks. It was a strange business, other lives; the thought made him pleased for Sam Burlinger, returning to his family.

  As he left, Worse bought another sandwich, to have later for his dinner.

  Dear Worse

  Please forgive me for not writing sooner.

  I was sorry to hear about your La Ferste cruise disaster. That was really bad luck. Paulo and I were looking forward to having you come west to LDI and spending some time with us.

  Obviously the Glimpse business was a huge shock to everyone here, but at least there seems to be nothing sinister happening at the moment. We have had to abandon mapping and recording the cave pictograms for now. Paulo considers it too dangerous until we know more about where that big crab hangs out. (The zoologists in Madregalo have labelled it the Shuffler crab until they sort out its species. They haven’t got very far with the DNA.) We also need much better lighting in there, not just for the project but for our own safety. It’s a pity because during our last visit with the police I think I saw an impressively large shadow picture of a human figure on one wall, and I’m keen to have a look at that. Then there is the processional (as I think of it) avenue of big josephites in the second chamber that I told you about. That needs an expert survey, but it’s too risky to go that far in for now. It’s where the Shuffler came from. I get a bit queasy whenever I think that I was exploring in there with nothing but a torch.

  At least all that has left me more time for the birdsong research, which is coming along quite well. We’ve always known that swints can count, or at least subitize, (because of thricing) and I am hopeful that by the end of the year I will have sorted out their low integer vocab. It appears almost certain that they effectively count mod 3 and have, you will be amazed to learn, a designator for zero (in the sense 3 0). From the language-theoretic point of view, I suspect we will need to generalize Edvard’s n-grammars to the mod n case, but we will see.

  One of the difficulties I’m discovering is that number element identification is complicated by regional accents, which seem to alter subtly during migration as well ( just as their blood does: I take it you know about that). I’m not aware of what other people working in the field are finding with this, but it hasn’t been mentioned as an issue in the literature. The funny thing is, accents might account for discrepancies I’ve noticed between some of my findings and those of our US colleagues working with American swints.

  Naturally, my concern is that the problem may turn out to be much bigger than one of just accents. If swints actually have more than one distinct language, we’re up against real challenges. I’m thinking we may have to use Parsan gap analysis just to separate language groups in the first place, and that’s never been tried in birdsong. Ideally, of course, we would find some polyglots to study, a Rosetta thrice one might say. The difficulty there is that if swints are interpreting, they will inevitably introduce translation errors. I expect these would show as verbal response or behavioural inconsistencies.

  The other big news I’ve already told you about is the possibility of a volcano somewhere on the plateau, if Glimpse’s map is to be believed. His annotation suggests that josephites are found there, and he seems to have been collecting them, as we found a sackful in his truck. It would be amazing if the Neolithic peoples transported the large ones that I saw any great distance to the cave.

  Anyway, while the cave project is on hold, Paulo and I are planning an expedition to find Glimpse’s volcano. I will let you know how successful we are.

  Regards

  Nicholas

  Nicholas

  I will come to La Ferste in the next few days and visit LDI by charter flight. Arrival details will follow when finalized. I would like to accompany you and Paulo on the volcano trip. If I can assist with bringing supplies from Madregalo, please let me know. From the Ferendes I will go direct to US on the Dante matter.

  Worse

  It is impossible to overstate the significance of Nicholas’s speculations, based soundly as they are on research in progress, regarding an arithmetic faculty in swints. In order to count modulo 3, they must possess signifiers for 0, 1 and 2. Given the discovery of so many linguistic elements already, identifying three more would not, in itself, be remarkable. What are remarkable are the conceptual implications of this, such as an awareness of cardinality, but most particularly the occurrence of zero. The invention of this notion (and symbol) is cons
idered a triumph in the history of human numerate thinking, and it occurred relatively recently. To discover that zero might have existed in avian calculation for millions of years is humbling in the extreme.

  The reader familiar with modular arithmetic will appreciate the special suitability and efficiency for swints of counting mod 3, given its primary purpose is presumably in the maintenance of thricing. Suffice it to point out that the numerical size of any flock (known as a tidings in the case of swints) is divisible by three with a remainder of 0, 1 or 2. It is important not to forget that enumeration in practice carries a chance of error; for example, determining a remainder to be 2 when the true value is 0 (signifying an erroneous surfeit of 2 or a deficit of 1, or any congruent magnitudes, being 5, 8, …; and -4, -7, …). These errors have probability distributions, which are the subject of a generalized study mentioned by Millie. Incidentally, the Thurdleigh paper referred to, ‘Prime factorization of avian flock counts’, is the classic in the field, and a recommended starting point for the student setting out.

  It is obvious that one method of reducing such error is to repeat the count, preferably multiple times. (This is equivalent to repetition in critical messaging, or the redundancy structured into grammar discussed in Appendix A, note to Chapter 7, where the concern is accuracy of information content, rather than of number specifically.) Thurdleigh has suggested that the phenomenon of murmuration, spectacular to us as a display, is really an exercise in census taking in which constant re-checking is occurring. If swints truly do use repetition as a strategy in error reduction, it would be evidence of a capacity for mathematical abstraction well in excess of counting.

  Of course, we should remember that varieties of intelligence might not be uniformly distributed; roles may be specialized, as in human culture. For example, there may be theologian swints or mathematician swints (and interpreters, if Nicholas’s multilingual concern is proven), each dedicated to discrete tasks. For researchers in avian linguistics, this possibility raises important considerations of sampling. Though potentially complicating, some comfort can be drawn from the fact that basic methodological principles and their theoretical underpinning apply universally; these include randomization, sample size adequacy, repeated sampling, and the central limit theorem.