“Yes?” Brownlow listened. His grin faded by the second as he took on board the news. “When? ... And the cops?”
The voice at the other end garbled something. Brownlow had to interrupt and ask the caller to slow down and repeat. “Forgive me; my American ears didn’t quite catch that. You have not alerted the police? But you must. Thanks for the tip-off; I’ll handle things from here. You just make the call, okay? And touch nothing! You must know not to touch anything.”
He hung up. In that respect, smart phones with their touch screens were unsatisfactory. Brownlow preferred the decisiveness of snapping a clamshell shut. Or even the slamming down of an old landline receiver. Somehow pushing a picture of a button on a smooth surface lacked drama.
And Brownlow was one for drama. Spurned by academic peers and betters, he had forged a career in lurid non-fiction of the speculative variety. Was Scott of the Antarctic a Communist? With which hand did Julius Caesar masturbate? How many abortions did Elizabeth I undergo? That was Brownlow’s style: posit a theory, however outlandish, and then scour the world for material to support or deny the hypothesis. The mere act of posing the question somehow validated the supposition. People always thought there might be something in it, or else the handsome, telegenic historian would not be wasting his time on a wild goose chase.
That evening’s launch had been to celebrate the publication of his latest work in which he explored the idea that Napoleon was a hermaphrodite able to change gender at will. Bone Apart had been his life’s work for the past six months, and now thanks to a tie-in deal with his publisher, the BBC and The History Channel, it was about to be unleashed on an eager world in a simultaneous spaffing of printed and broadcast material across the continents and via the internet. Every episode of the series was available at once to premium-rate subscribers who were impatient with the weekly drip-feed of national networks. Enhanced e-books were due to go live at midnight - the more you paid, the more access you had to interactive content. Already a very wealthy man, Brownlow knew it was his biggest venture yet but, always with his eye on the next prize, what he had in mind for his next project, would cast a shadow over all his previous accomplishments.
He was going after the big one: the so-called Bard of Avon himself.
And, thanks to the call he had just received, it looked like things were on the move at last.
“Hank?” Isaac, Brownlow’s sweaty agent, looking uncomfortable in his dinner jacket, like a butler in the dock at the Old Bailey, appeared at Brownlow’s elbow. “It’s almost midnight. You can’t miss the countdown. For the, you know, publicity.”
“Fuck that,” Brownlow said. He awarded his agent a punch on the arm. “Far better the publicity for me to be absent, to miss the moment.”
Isaac looked stricken, on the verge of a cardiac episode.
“Tell them I’m off on another investigation. That will get their juices flowing and besides which, it happens to be true.”
Isaac opened his mouth to speak but Brownlow’s mobile rang in his pocket. Brownlow held up a finger in that rude and annoying manner people have of signalling that their incoming call is more important than the person in front of them. He answered, moving towards the fire escape as he spoke.
“Good evening, Inspector... Oh! Oh, really? That’s too bad. Yes, yes; I’m on my way.”
Isaac mopped his face with an already sodden handkerchief and went back to the launch to make a halting announcement. Fuck Hank Brownlow; he was always pulling stunts like this. Isaac wondered yet again why he continued to represent such a capricious and infuriating client. But then, as he made his way to the Perspex podium to address the expectant faces of the great and the good of London society and the world’s media, he remembered.
Oh yeah: the money. Fifteen per cent of Brownlow’s earnings had made Isaac Moss a very rich man. He sucked in his gut and made the announcement.
***
Brownlow tossed a £50 note in the general direction of his cab driver and stepped out into the rain. Inspector John Kipper was waiting on the museum steps with a black umbrella at the ready. Brownlow ignored the offer of shelter. He knew his hair looked great when wet.
“Hank,” said Kipper.
“Jack,” said Brownlow. “Back door?”
“Roof.”
Brownlow raised an eyebrow. The roof was unexpected.
The two men trotted up the steps but Kipper hung back to permit the historian to enter before him.
In the foyer, a security guard was stationed behind the reception desk. Uniformed officers milled around. Brownlow ignored them all and strode through to the exhibition room with the assurance of a man who knew where he was going. Kipper reminded himself that the famous historian spent a lot of time in museums, in London, in Italy, all over the world, really. He hurried to keep pace with Brownlow, following him into the Shakespeare exposition, where the bright lights of flashbulbs imitated the electric discharges in the sky. Scene-of-crime officers were busy at their job. Brownlow looked at the open display case, the indentation on the velvet cushion where a precious object had, until recently, been lying.
“And this is all that is missing.” It was a statement not a question.
Kipper pouted. “It looks that way. The curator’s on his way over right now. He’ll be able to tell us for sure. The security team don’t know shit. Why should they?”
Brownlow stroked his square jaw, pausing to finger the dimple in his chin. “One would be forgiven for hoping they would know how to do their jobs.”
“Well, we’re questioning the bloody lot of them. Checking that procedures were followed, routines were adhered to, that sort of thing. See if anything unusual happened this evening.”
“Or something usual that didn’t happen...”
Kipper thought about it. “I suppose so. So, what is it that’s gone?” He squinted at a card on which small print informed the observer about the precious object. “Says here, Burbage’s Staff... What’s that all about then?”
“Good old Dicky,” Brownlow caressed the display case with affection. “I’m sorry, Inspector; I’m not being clear. Richard Burbage was a big shot in his day. In the acting world, I mean. He was the first to play most of the great Shakespearean leading roles. The Scot, the Dane, you name it.”
“Little John?”
“I’m sorry?”
“With the staff. It was him what had the staff, wasn’t it? I’ve seen the films.”
Brownlow gave the inspector an exhibition of flawless American teeth. “You’re not far off, Inspector. This particular item belonged to a character called Prospero. From The Tempest? No?”
Inspector Kipper’s expression was blank.
“Kind of like Gandalf meets Robinson Crusoe.”
“Ah,” said Inspector Kipper, although it was clear he still didn’t get it.
“What has been stolen is actually only a remnant of the staff, the prop that was used by Burbage in the original production of the play.”
“So, not a real one, then? Not a proper magic wand?”
“Dear Inspector,” Brownlow looked upon the man with an expression that indicated he felt sorry for the detective and yet was greatly amused by him at the same time. “Who knows what properties that, um, property possesses?”
“Well, I was hoping you might. You’re supposed to be the expert.”
“Your thief is the expert, Inspector. He knew exactly what he was doing. No sign of forced entry. Straight in, get what he wants and off he pops again. This is not a crime prompted by financial gain. I suspect - No; I won’t say it.”
“What?” Inspector Kipper was on tenterhooks. Brownlow smiled in pity at the man.
“I suspect, Inspector, that your man is a very dangerous person indeed. Steps must be taken, Inspector, to ensure that the other remnants of the staff don’t fall into his hands.�
��
“Other...”
“The staff is no longer intact, Inspector. Bits of it survive and are preserved in institutions like this one all over the country. I’d bet my bottom dollar our guy will be after them too.”
Inspector Kipper assimilated this. “So, what you’re saying is, we must make sure that the wrong hands don’t get hold of the end of the stick.”
“Something along those lines, yeah.”
The security guard from the foyer appeared in the doorway. “Sir?” he said. “Mr Brownlow? There’s a call for you in Reception.”
“Probably my agent,” Brownlow rolled his eyes, “After me to make him even more money.” He chuckled and left Inspector Kipper to reread the card. This Richard Burbage fellow was long dead, apparently. It was probably safe to rule him out of the investigation.
The guard ushered Brownlow behind the desk, indicating where the telephone was, as if it wasn’t obvious. Brownlow picked up the receiver. The guard lifted a second receiver.
“Good work,” Brownlow whispered. “Expect the sum we agreed on tomorrow at the appointed place. Provided you bring me the object, of course.”
“Oops,” the guard’s voice squeaked in Brownlow’s ear.
“Oops? What do you mean, ‘oops’? I hope that’s some charming Cockney slang for ‘Yes, guv’nor.”
“Well, the thing is, you see...”
Brownlow felt like leaping over the desk and garrotting the man with the telephone cord. But there were too many policemen to make that a viable course of action.
“I think you’d better tell me in words plain enough for my American brain to understand, what the fuck happened.”
“It wasn’t me. It wasn’t us. The thing was gone before we could put the plan into operation.”
Brownlow’s grip tightened on the handle, threatening to crush the hard plastic in his fist. “Are you telling me somebody beat you to it?”
“Um...”
Brownlow slammed down the phone and shoved himself away from the desk. Ah yes, much more satisfying than switching off a smart phone. But Brownlow was still furious. He stormed out into the rain, threw back his head and swore. A peal of thunder snatched his words away but the guard saw enough to know it probably wasn’t the best time to bring up the touchy subject of payment.
Three.
“Closing time now, Miss.” The caretaker stood at the shallow end. The pool attendant was having trouble keeping awake. Callie Baines completed her length in lithe strokes of her slender arms, cutting through the water as smoothly as a shark’s fin. She climbed up the ladder, ignored both men and padded to the changing rooms.
The caretaker and the attendant exchanged long-suffering looks. The strange woman would probably stay all night if they let her. Just lock up and leave her in there, swimming to and fro, all night long, then come back in the morning and she’d stay there all day too. Who she was they didn’t know. It was a public pool; people didn’t need to identify themselves. She was not local to Oxford, they guessed, based on the fact that neither of them had seen her before considering she was such a keen and expert swimmer, and there was something about her, an otherness that set her apart from the kinds of women they were used to seeing. Her limbs were long and elegant, and so was her neck, but her skin was of a hue they had never encountered. It was light but not milky or what you might call ‘peaches and cream’. Unless the milk had gone off, that is. There was a pale luminescence to her, not quite green but almost. Of course, it could have been the chlorinated water and the fluorescent lighting.
The caretaker nudged the bleary-eyed attendant, pointing out the trail of footprints that led to the women’s changing room. The attendant frowned not sure what he was supposed to be looking at.
“I didn’t see her wearing no flippers, did you?” the caretaker marvelled. The attendant looked again. The most distinct of the footprints revealed it very clearly.
The strange woman’s feet were long, broadening at the toes, and those toes were webbed.
***
With her hair still wet and her blouse sticking to her undried back, Callie sat in the taxi that would take her back to the hotel. Had it been raining, she would have walked, regardless of the distance. The trip from London had energised her. She had burned off most of that energy in the swimming pool but she was still restless. Her room would have a shower. She could stand under that for an hour or so. Perhaps more importantly, the room also had a safe.
The object would be secure in there. She should have stashed it away already but her need for a swim had overridden her mother’s instructions.
She paid the driver without saying a word and didn’t wait for change. The driver knew better than to question a tip of such magnitude and sped away in case the woman changed her mind and realised some error had been made.
Callie went directly to her room and locked herself in. She opened the safe and delved in her bag. Wrapped in a cloth which was protected from her wet bathing suit by a ziplock bag was the item she had - what? - reclaimed from the London museum. She laid it on the shelf with reverence and care as though it were a tiny child she didn’t want to wake. She closed the safe and locked it, reprogramming the combination as advised by the printed instructions that were stickered on the door. As the lock tumbled into place, Callie breathed out in relief, expelling air from her lungs through her mouth in the usual manner but also, a close observer might notice, through tiny flukes on her neck.
She undressed as she moved to the en suite and turned on the shower. Her skin was itchy - she hadn’t sluiced off the chlorine from the pool; those men had been too impatient to permit her to shower there and now she was suffering for it. She turned the dial to its coldest extreme and stood beneath the head. The cold water soothed the burning sensation away in an instant. Callie sighed in an almost orgasmic fashion.
Ah, water! The love of her life.
This was supposed to be an island nation, as her home had been an island, but most of the people never saw the ocean from one month to the next. How they survived this deprivation Callie couldn’t begin to imagine. She needed the sea, psychologically as much as physically. It was essential to her wellbeing.
Her longing for the coast fuelled her desire to get her mother’s work done as quickly as possible. London had been easy. The security guard had been weak-willed and, Callie had found, was predisposed to criminality. The fool had done her bidding and had handed over the object with no fuss at all, just as Mother had said he would. And he would remember nothing of his encounter or his crime.
Was it too much to hope the custodians at the university would be so pliable?
With some reluctance, Callie shut off the shower. Without bothering to towel off, she pulled back the bedcovers and stretched out on the cool bed sheet, waiting for sleep to overcome her. Mother’s work was exhausting and it was not the kind of work to which Callie was accustomed.
She closed her almond-shaped eyes and lay still. A moment later the only movement was the rise and fall of her chest and the expansion and contraction of the gills at her throat.
***
Harry walked through Stratford with his hands in his coat pockets. The thin figure who called himself Ariel walked behind him in silence. Harry was ignoring him. He had told him to shut the fuck up and Ariel had obeyed. Harry had also told him to piss off but Ariel had merely frowned, unable to comply. He knew nothing of pissing, off or otherwise.
Harry let himself into the end of terrace house on Great William Street, closing the door before the weirdo could cross the threshold. Harry had met weirdoes before. If you ignore them, eventually they give up and go away - that was his experience.
He shucked off his coat and hung it on a peg. Then he gasped as he turned and almost walked into the weirdo who was inexplicably in the hall with him. Harry checked the front door; it was still shut, still locke
d.
Ariel grinned.
“So this is your cell, Master.”
“Remember when I told you to piss off?” Harry hurried up the stairs. He shut himself in his room only to turn and find Ariel standing by the bed.
“You have a window!” Ariel marvelled. “Much better than that dank and dismal cave! Do you remember how I used to shine for you? Shine brighter, you’d command me. Just so you could read your books. Do you remember, Master?”
It was obviously a fond memory but Harry did not share it.
“Please leave me alone,” he groaned, rubbing his eyes. Why wouldn’t the weirdo just disappear? Harry had the sinking feeling that he would have to go back to the doctor, go back on the medication. It was the last thing he wanted, to be back in the haze of happy pills. It was that haze, he was sure of it, that had fucked up so many auditions and lost him so many roles.
He sat on the bed and began to pull off his shoes without undoing the laces.
“Allow me!” Ariel was suddenly in front of him. The shoes slid off and arranged themselves neatly beside the bedside table. Harry groaned. His condition was worse than he thought; this time the hallucinations were not only walking through walls they were taking shoes off and behaving like some kind of imaginary butler.
“Listen, Jeeves,” Harry looked at the carpet rather than face the hallucination head on.
“Ariel, Master!” the hallucination corrected.
“Whatever. Please just leave me alone. I don’t want to see you.”
“You’re tired, Master; I understand. And look!”
Despite himself, Harry looked up. The hallucination was nowhere to be seen.
“I shall leave you to your rest,” the hallucination’s disembodied voice rang out. The pillows appeared to plump themselves. “Goodnight, Master.”
Harry climbed into bed without getting undressed. He couldn’t decide whether an invisible hallucination was preferable. Ooh, no; voices in the head - they were never a good thing, were they? He gripped the edge of the duvet and lay awake for hours.
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