Caught in a Moment (The Alex Trueman Chronicles Book 1)

by Martin Dukes

  “You,” said Ganymede gravely, tilting his head to one side and continuing to regard Alex steadily.

  Alex laughed nervously. “What? You think I could take over from you?”

  Ganymede nodded. “It isn’t what I think that cuts the mustard. You heard what Tony said. You have very rare qualities for Intersticia. It could be you, Alex. Unless we lose the whole interstice, that is, and it could yet come to that. But if we hold onto the interstice it really could be you.”

  Alex swallowed hard. “Not me,” he said. “You can keep it, so far as I’m concerned. And best of luck to you.”

  It was Ganymede’s turn to laugh now, throwing his head back, a slow, sardonic laugh. “So you’ll help me then?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’ll help you,” agreed Alex, shaking the horny hand that Ganymede thrust out towards him.

  “But not for you mate,” thought Alex, as he held Ganymede’s hand. “For Kelly. Because 'Sticia’s all she’s got.”

  When Alex arrived home there was a note for him from Malcolm. As Will mentioned this to Alex, the notion of a glittering golden scroll came momentarily into his mind. Instead there was a handwritten note on a scrap of lined paper torn from a jotter.

  “Don’t use the ‘pager’ thing I gave you,” Alex read. “It’s Tony’s. I must have picked it up by mistake. Be in touch tomorrow. Malcolm.”

  “He was in a hurry,” said Will. “I said you might have gone to Ganymede’s but he didn’t want to go there after you. Said he had an appointment he was running late for.”

  “Right,” said Alex, absently feeling for the ‘pager’ stone in his pocket.

  “And where have you been all day, anyway?” asked Will. “There have been loads of people tooling about up at the park wanting to know what’s going on. Chad had a punch up with Jason Collingwood about something he said about Gill Lenkowicz. Mad Annie’s going about with a blanket over her head saying the world’s going to end…”

  “You didn’t say anything to anyone about…you know…the angel,” asked Alex, anxiously. “Or Kelly, or anything like that?”

  Will shook his head. “No. But I tell you what. Margaret Owen saw Paulo down by the golf course. And he was asking after you.”

  “Oh great!” said Alex, slapping his forehead. “That’s all I need. I bet he’s run out of fags. He’ll be back to grilling snarks unless he can get me to break out some more rations for him. I’d better tell Ganymede.”

  “Ganymede?” Will looked at him curiously. “What’s with you and Ganymede all of a sudden? I thought you were sworn enemies.”

  Alex told him all about his surprising interview with Ganymede, the making of the manna, the extraordinary request he had made. Will sat with his back against the wall and listened incredulously, the glow of a lightstick reflecting off his glasses. Tanya, came in, just as Alex was finishing, having spent most of her day at Margaret Owen’s.

  “You mustn’t say anything about this to anyone,” Will told her. “Top secret.”

  “So you’re working with Ganymede?” she said. “Doesn’t that make you a traitor?”

  “I’ve got to,” said Alex. “We’ve got to try to save the interstice. It’s mostly my fault it’s all messed up. Kelly’s definitely had it if the angels close it down.”

  Tanya nodded, her small eyes filling with tears. “Will you tell her?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  Alex shook his head. He put his arm around Tanya’s narrow shoulders. “No, Tan. There’s no point, is there? I wish I’d never told you now.”

  “Don’t you think we’ve a duty to tell her?” said Will, frowning.

  “What good will it do?” asked Alex. “There’s nothing we can do about it. It’d only freak her out.”

  “We don’t even know where she is,” observed Will.

  “Not now we don’t,” said Alex. “But when she and Paulo get to hear that Ganymede’s got other stuff to worry about other than rounding up Paulo, I think they’ll be coming to find me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next day, was theoretically Saturday. So Alex told himself; the third Saturday since his entry into ‘Sticia. Ganymede came to call for him, and they set to work repairing the worst of the damage that he and Paulo had caused. They began at Alex’s own house, where Ganymede stripped out the shards of broken glass from the kitchen window and replaced it with a new pane. Morlock and Minion served as errand boys, hurrying off to find tools and materials from wherever their absence would be least disruptive to the fabric of 'Sticia. The glass was carefully removed from a derelict factory unit on the industrial estate. Putty was taken, a little from each pot on the shelves in B&Q. When the work was done and even the tiniest fragment of broken glass removed, Ganymede stood back to admire his handiwork.

  “Well, it’s a start,” he said. “Although God knows there’s a whole lot more to do. We could do with your friend Malcolm here to tell us how we’re doing.”

  “I could have paged him,” said Alex regretfully. “But he gave me the wrong pager.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Ganymede dryly. “Angels aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.”

  They made their way to Stanton Post Office next, their journey taking them past the park, where knots of idle 'Sticians had gathered to talk and to speculate on the strange goings on in their world. Mrs Patterson and her friend Mrs Gurney accosted them in the street outside. Mrs Gurney, whose pelvis you could surely have driven a horse and cart through, was anxious to be reassured that manna supplies would be available as usual at the end of the week.

  “There have been thefts,” Mrs Patterson told him. “A number of the younger people are behaving in a very immature fashion. I suspect they are bored, Mr Ganymede. I assume you will take matters in hand in due course. All sorts of rumours are flying about.”

  “You may be assured that I shall deal with it,” said Ganymede, with more courtesy than might have been expected. “Think of this week as a holiday. Make the most of it. Next week I shall set more than usually exacting tasks.”

  He raised his hat to her politely and they resumed their journey, Alex almost jogging to keep up as Ganymede strode out along Love Lane.

  “See what happens,” said Ganymede, “When everyone’s got nothing better to do than mill about aimlessly. You’d think they’d appreciate it wouldn’t you, a little extra leisure? But how do they reward you, except by fighting, falling out with each other and generally getting themselves into a tizz. Can you see now why I try to keep everyone busy?”

  “I’m beginning to see,” admitted Alex, “But there’s more than that to it, isn’t there?”

  “Maybe,” said Ganymede, giving him a sidelong glance. “If you mean that I have to work like a damned slave to keep everyone alive, and I don’t see why everyone else shouldn’t have a piece of it too. Yes. There’s that too.”

  “And is that why you set everyone tasks that are guaranteed to wind them up?” asked Alex. “Like making Will do quadratic equations and such like.”

  “There might be a strand of truth in that,” conceded Ganymede. “But that’s not all. A little bit of perceived injustice and suffering brings people together, you see. Do you think Will did all those equations himself? No. He got someone to help him, didn’t he? Likewise poor old Mrs Patterson always has someone take pity on her and help her shift her sand. It’s part of the glue that holds our little society together. And if hating my guts gives everyone a shared interest, then so be it.”

  At the Post Office, Malcolm was waiting for them, which pleased Ganymede no end. The angel explained that he needed Alex to help him triangulate on a new spike he had detected. This was in the freezer. Alex had forgotten that Paulo had made him fetch out a couple of ice creams.

  “That’s one angel we could do with on the team,” said Ganymede out of the side of his mouth as they approached. “Being able to teleport us about would be more than a bit useful, given the time pressure we’re under.”

  “We’re not asking you to do anything that wou
ld get you into trouble,” Ganymede told Malcolm, after this had been outlined for him. “We’re only asking you to monitor anomalies, which is exactly what Tony wants you to do. I don’t suppose there’s anything in your brief that says you can’t keep on checking up on them as we try to correct them.”

  “No. I guess not,” said Malcolm frowning. “But I can tell you, Tony’s really gunning for you, Ganymede. Anything that comes between Tony and Tony chucking you out on your ear’s going to yank his chain, big time.” He grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Which is all the more reason for bringing it about. Come on then. Where do we start?”

  They began replacing as much as possible on the Post Office shelves, sending Morlock and Minion back into Cardenbridge to fetch replacement cans and packets from the supermarkets there. There was still doubt as to where they should be placed though. They experimented with various arrangements of cans in the chiller, whilst Malcolm stood by, taking readings off his transponder.

  “A bit more to the left,” he said, whilst Alex made minor adjustments to a four pack of lager. “That’s better. No. Stop. Too far. Back the other way. Hang it. This is going to take all day.”

  The three of them stood back, regarding each other glumly.

  “Well, it’s a bit better,” said Malcolm. “But there has to be a better way.” He scratched his chin, where a puny goatee beard looked as though it was trying to establish itself. “Got it! I could pop back to the previous interstice and have a look at things there. Wait a mo.”

  With this Macolm disappeared, shrinking rapidly into a tiny white dot, and then nothing. The vaguely electric smell was all that remained of him.

  “Angels can travel in time?” said Alex, looking hard at Ganymede.

  Ganymede shrugged. “So it would appear.”

  A few moments later and Malcolm was back, bearing with him a glossy A4 sheet with pictures of the chiller on it, all taken from slightly different angles. Using this they were able to position the cans with pinpoint accuracy. Malcolm took a new reading after this and punched the air in glee.

  “Look at that!” he said, brandishing his transponder in their direction entirely pointlessly. “Trace! Spike squashed flat. It’s hardly more than a blip now, no bigger than those down at the supermarket your pals filched those cans from.”

  The money in the till proved to be more problematic. Even a close look at a photo taken in the previous interstice failed to make clear exactly how many notes were taken.

  “I can’t interfere with Statica,” said Malcolm, when Alex suggested he should go back in time again, take out the notes and count them. “They’d be down on me like a ton of bricks if I got caught doing that. Like I said, I only monitor and report. That’s my job.”

  “We’re going to need Paulo for this, then,” said Ganymede. “Or more to the point, we’re going to need his pockets. I mean, I don’t suppose he’ll have been able to spend it.”

  “I just hope he hasn’t been lighting up with tenners,” said Alex gloomily. “Can’t you find him for us Malcolm. You are a super-being with wondrous powers after all.”

  “Kind of you to say so,” said Malcolm modestly. “But sadly I haven’t got the right kit. There’s a mate of mine works in Location but he’s off sick this week.” He frowned. “I could put in a request, I guess, but that has to go through Moira and she’ll probably tip Tony off. She knows he’s got his eye on this interstice.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to find him ourselves,” said Ganymede grimly.

  “He might find us,” said Alex, going on to explain that Paulo was likely enough to come looking for him when his lager stocks ran low.

  “It’d better be soon,” grunted Ganymede. “We’ve got that lousy review meeting to look forward to in a few days. Any news on that, Malcolm?”

  “Not yet,” said the angel. “He’s trying to get hold of Glenda, but she’s tied up with another review, somewhere back down in the eighteenth century.”

  “Weird,” said Alex, shaking his head. “Truly weird.”

  It struck him that the daydreams that had been so much a part of his life before his entry into ‘Sticia had hardly been more bizarre and inventive than the reality he faced here. And yet daydreams seemed to have quite slipped from his mental agenda. It was as though there was no need for them. Whichever part of his psyche had once demanded them found itself more than satisfied with the prevailing level of oddness.

  The following day, what Alex thought of as Sunday, Ganymede left he and Malcolm to get on with the job. Things were going seriously awry with the folk of 'Sticia, and Ganymede needed to get on top of the situation. An elderly friend of Mrs Gurney was refusing to come down from some scaffolding she had climbed up. In addition, Major Trubshaw’s unguarded thoughts had got him punched in the mouth by Will Evans, the rather boring little Welshman with the big nose. Ganymede had to start interviewing his subjects once more and get on with keeping them all usefully occupied for the following week. And of course there was manna to be prepared for the next day’s Gathering. Alex now had an idea how much effort this involved.

  Will and Tanya helped too, as they all did their best to repair the damage at the Hall. There were all sorts of objects to be set back in their proper places and a great deal of graffiti to remove. Fortunately, the spray can Paulo had used was of the sort used for colouring hair at parties and washed off without difficulty. Even so, Lord Maynard’s housekeeper was going to glance at herself in the mirror later that day and wonder if she was sickening for something. Some of the walls needed a thorough scrubbing, but silk emulsion proved resilient enough and by the end of the day only a very sharp eyed observer would have noticed anything amiss. Malcolm studied his transponder and pronounced himself satisfied. Alex, Will and Tanya set down their buckets and sponges and slumped on the floor in attitudes of exhaustion and relief.

  That night Alex and Malcolm reported on their progress to Ganymede. Ganymede looked tired too, and the delicious smell of freshly baked manna, permeated the rooms of his house. He told them he had also managed to interview thirty two 'Sticians, coax Mrs Gurney’s friend down from her perch and give the Major a large plastic bin liner to go over his thought bubble. He had a look at Malcolm’s transponder and slapped the angel cheerfully on the back when Malcolm told him the anomaly count was reduced by more than half.

  “Excellent,” he said, stretching for a yawn. “If we can get hold of Mr Potts in the next few days I’m thinking we may just get away with it.”

  “Maybe,” conceded Malcolm with a grin. “I’ll be off then.”

  He began to move his hands in the way he did before dematerialising, but then paused. “Oh, by the way,” he said. “Did you know that Atropos is back in this interstice? Someone in Personnel told me, earlier. Nothing significant is it?”

  “Who’s Atropos?” asked Alex.

  “Atropos...Oh, he’s the Cutter of Threads,” said Malcolm in a dramatically spooky voice. “You probably know him as Cactus Jack…..What’s the matter?”

  The colour had drained from Alex’s face. He sat down heavily on one of Ganymede’s office chairs. Ganymede looked at him curiously for a moment and then realisation sparked in his eyes.

  “He knows,” he said. “Damn it, he knows!”

  “Hmm? What?” asked the angel, his eyebrows creeping up his forehead.

  “I must have left the Census Returns out on my desk the other night when he was here. “ He turned on Alex, his eyes blazing. “How much did you see, lad? The truth now!”

  Ganymede had fallen back into cross old hectoring Ganymede mode. It was as if the last few days of sweet reasonableness had fallen away. His face was vivid red with rage.

  “Enough,” admitted Alex, momentarily frightened by Ganymede’s sudden fury. “I didn’t have time to get a proper look. I saw who was dead though. And it’s Kelly next isn’t it?” Alex’s fear ebbed away, to be replaced by cold indignation. “She’s for the chop isn’t she? Cactus Jack’s coming to get her.”

  �
��You’ve got no right to know that,” roared Ganymede.

  “But I do know.” Alex shouted back at him. “You shouldn’t have left it lying around if you didn’t want people looking. Anyway, what on earth do you think I’m going to do about it? Knowing isn’t a fat lot of use is it?”

  “You’d better not have told anyone else,” warned Ganymede, wagging his finger.

  “I told Will and Tanya. That’s all,” said Alex, resentfully.

  “You damn fool,” snapped Ganymede. “And I daresay they’ve blabbed it about to everyone else. That was confidential information.”

  “Well you should have kept it locked up,” Alex told him, feeling more and more confident. “Shouldn’t you?”

  “Hey!” said Malcolm, raising his hands in a placatory gesture. “Simmer down, both of you. There’s a problem here?”

  “You could say that,” said Alex bitterly. “Kelly’s my friend.”

  “Oh,” said the angel, looking awkwardly at Ganymede. ”I see.”

  “Can’t you do something to stop him? What’s his name…Atropos.”

  “I think you over-estimate my authority, friend,” said Malcolm. “Atropos is Death’s delegate in Intersticia. Death claims his own. There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. When your number’s up it’s up. End of story.” He drew a finger meaningfully across his throat. “It’s like it takes a while for Death to realise some folks keep on going in Intersticia, even when they popped their clogs in Reality. It may take time, but he catches up with them in the end. Doesn’t like loose ends, Death. Atropos snips them off, see… Sorry about your friend, Alex.” Malcolm put a hand on Alex’s shoulder, which made Alex want to cry. He cultivated anger to fight back tears.

  “But there must be something we can do!” he snapped.

  “Uh,huh,” said Malcolm, shaking his head sadly. “Better get used to it.”

  But Alex wasn’t going to get used to it. He walked briskly home, the taste of cold fury bitter in his mouth. It was dark, but there was as yet no vestige of fear on the breeze. Cactus Jack was far away. How had Kelly died? She was only fifteen? People that age didn’t just drop dead, did they? She evidently wasn’t in hospital, or she’d have been got up like Roger Bradley. Could she have been murdered, perhaps? But murder was hardly a commonplace occurrence in Cardenbridge. Which left accidental death, and as Alex approached the centre of Cardenbridge, a horrible idea occurred to him. Instead of cutting through the middle of town he took a more circuitous route around the ring road. It seemed a long time since he had walked this way, retracing the route he had first taken on his way with Will to the park that day, when he had fallen into 'Sticia for good. There was the police car, the skid marks behind it, and there the small sporty car with its outsized wheels, crumpled around the upright of the overhead sign gantry. It was dark, but there was enough moonlight to pick out the figure of the girl, frozen in the act of picking herself up from the road. There was pain and horror written in her features. Alex followed her gaze, and felt his throat tighten as he realised what ominous portent was written there. Twenty paces away, in the gutter, there was a dark patch. Alex crossed to that deeper puddle of darkness in the gloom, and stooped to place his trembling finger in it. It came away cold and wet and sticky. Alex turned to face the moon and its silvery touch glinted on a bloodied fingertip.