
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
by
Douglas Adams


     *What do a dead cat, a computer whiz-kid, an*
     *Electric Monk who believes the world is pink,*
     *quantum mechanics, a Chronologist over 200*
     *years old, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (poet), and*
     *pizza have in common?*

     Apparently not much; until Dirk Gently, selfstyled private
investigator,    sets    out    to    prove   the   fundamental
interconnectedness  of  all  things  by  solving  a  mysterious
murder,   assisting   a  mysterious  professor,  unravelling  a
mysterious mystery, and eating a lot of pizza - not to mentioon
saving the entire human race from extinction along the way  (at
no extra charge).

     To  find  out  more,  read this book (better still, buy it
then read it) - or contact  Dirk  Gently's  Holistic  Detective
Agency.

     *'A THUMPING GOOD DETECTIVE-GHOST-*
     *HORROR-WHO DUNNIT-TIME TRAVEL-*
     *ROMANTIC-MUSICAL-COMEDY-EPIC'*
     *-The author*
---------------------------------------------------------------
     Douglas  Adams  was  born  in  Cambridge  in  1952. He was
educated at Brentwood School in Essex, and  St  John's  College
Cambridge.  He originally created The Hitch Hiker's Guide to
the Galaxy as a radio series for the BBC, and then wrote it
again as a novel for Pan Books. He wrote  three  more  Hitch
Hiker novels: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe,
Life,  the  Universe  and  Everything,  and So Long, and
Thanks for all the  Fish.  Pan  Books  has  also  published
The  Original  Hitch  Hiker  Radio  Scripts.  Since then
Douglas   Adams   has   written   Dirk   Gently's   Holistic
Detective  Agency  and The Long Dark Tea- Time of
the Soul. He has also co-written The Meaning of Liff
with John Lloyd, and co-edited  The  Utterly  Utterly  Merry
Comic  Relief  Christmas  Book  with  Peter Fincham. At the
moment he is working on a wildlife travelogue - Last  Chance
to See...- with the zoologist Mark Carwardine, and planning
two  new novels. He is currently not certain where he lives, or
with whom.

     Also by Douglas Adams in Pan Books

     The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
     The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
     Life, the Universe and Everything
     So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish
     The Original Hitch Hiker Radio Scripts

     The Meaning of Liff (With John Lloyd)

     *Douglas Adams*
     *Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency*

     Pan Books in association with Heinemann

     First pubished 1981 by Willian Heinemann Ltd
     This edition pubished 1988 by Pan Books Ltd,
     Cavaye Piace, London SW10 9PG
     in assocation with Heinemann
     9 8
     Copyright (C) Douglas Adams 1987
     ISBN 0 330 30162 4

     Printed and bound in Great Britain by  Richard  Clay  Ltd,
Bungay, Suffolk

     This  book  is  sold  to subject to the condition that it
shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,  be  lent,  re-sold  ,
hired  out or otherwise circulated without the pubisher's prior
consent in any form of binding or  cover  other  than  that  in
which it is published and without a similar condition including
this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
---------------------------------------------------------------

                 to  my  mother,  who  liked  the bit about the
                 horse

        Author's Note

     The physical descriptions of St  Cedd's  College  in  this
book, in so far as they are specific at all, owe a little to my
memories  of  St  John's College, Cambridge, although I've also
borrowed indiscriminately from  other  colleges  as  well.  Sir
Isaac  Newton  was  at Trinity College in real life, and Samuel
Taylor Coleridge was at Jesus.
     The point is  that  St  Cedd's  College  is  a  completely
fictitious   assemblage,  and  no  correspondence  is  intended
between any institutions or characters in  this  book  and  any
real  institutions  or  people,  living, dead, or wandering the
night in ghostly torment.
     This book was written and typeset on  an  Apple  Macintosh
Plus  computer  and  LaserWriter  Plus  printer using MacAuthor
word-processing software.
     The completed document was then printed using  a  Linotron
100  at  The  Graphics  Factory, London SW3, to produce a final
high-resolution image of the text. My thanks to Mike Glover  of
Icon Technology for his help with this process.
     Finally,  my  very special thanks are due to Sue Freestone
for all her help in nursing this book into existence.

        Chapter One...

     This time there would be no witnesses.
     This time there was just  the  dead  earth,  a  rumble  of
thunder,  and the onset of that interminable light drizzle from
the north-east by which so many of the world's  most  momentous
events seem to be accompanied.
     The  storms of the day before, and of the day before that,
and the floods of the previous week, had now abated. The  skies
still  bulged  with  rain,  but  all  that actually fell in the
gathering evening gloom was a dreary kind of prickle.
     Some wind whipped across the  darkening  plain,  blundered
through  the low hills and gusted across a shallow valley where
stood a structure, a kind of tower, alone  in  a  nightmare  of
mud, and leaning.
     It  was  a  blackened  stump  of a tower. It stood like an
extrusion of magma from one of the more  pestilential  pits  of
hell,  and  it  leaned  at a peculiar angle, as if oppressed by
something altogether more terrible than  its  own  considerable
weight. It seemed a dead thing, long ages dead.
     The  only  movement  was that of a river of mud that moved
sluggishly along the bottom of the valley  past  the  tower.  A
mile  or  so  further  on,  the  river  ran  down  a ravine and
disappeared underground.
     But as the evening darkened it became  apparent  that  the
tower was not entirely without life. There was a single dim red
light guttering deep within it.
     The  light  was  only just visible - except of course that
there was no one to see, no witnesses, not this  time,  but  it
was  nevertheless  a  light. Every few minutes it grew a little
stronger and a little  brighter  and  then  faded  slowly  away
almost to nothing. At the same time a low keening noise drifted
out on the wind, built up to a kind of wailing climax, and then
it too faded, abjectly, away.
     Time  passed,  and then another light appeared, a smaller,
mobile light. It emerged at ground level and moved in a  single
bobbing  circuit  of the tower, pausing occasionally on its way
around. Then it, and the shadowy  figure  that  could  just  be
discerned carrying it, disappeared inside once more.

     An  hour  passed,  and  by  the end of it the darkness was
total. The world seemed dead, the night a blankness.
     And then the glow appeared again near  the  tower's  peak,
this  time  growing  in  power  more  purposefully.  It quickly
reached the peak of brightness it had previously attained,  and
then kept going, increasing, increasing. The keening sound that
accompanied  it  rose  in pitch and stridency until it became a
wailing scream. The scream screamed on and on till it became  a
blinding noise and the light a deafening redness.
     And then, abruptly, both ceased.
     There was a millisecond of silent darkness.
     An  astonishing  pale  new  light billowed and bulged from
deep within the mud beneath the  tower.  The  sky  clenched,  a
mountain  of  mud  convulsed,  earth  and  sky bellowed at each
other, there was a horrible pinkness,  a  sudden  greenness,  a
lingering  orangeness  that  stained  the  clouds, and then the
light sank and the night at last was  deeply,  hideously  dark.
There was no further sound other than the soft tinkle of water.
     But  in  the  morning  the  suri rose with an unaccustomed
sparkle on a day that was, or seemed to be, or at  least  would
have  seemed  to  be if there had been anybody there to whom it
could seem to be anything at all, warmer, clearer and  brighter
- an  altogether tivelier day than any yet known. A clear river
ran through the shattered remains of the valley.
     And time began seriously to pass.

        Chapter Two...

     High on a rocky promontory sat an Electric Monk on a bored
horse.  From  under  its  rough  woven  cowl  the  Monk   gazed
unblinkingly down into another valley, with which it was having
a problem.
     The  day  was  hot, the sun stood in an empty hazy sky and
beat down upon the grey rocks and the scrubby,  parched  grass.
Nothing  moved,  not  even  the  Monk. The horse's tail moved a
little, swishing slightly to try and move  a  little  air,  but
that was all. Otherwise, nothing moved.
     The  Electric  Monk  was  a  labour-saving  device, like a
dishwasher or a  video  recorder.  Dishwashers  washed  tedious
dishes  for  you,  thus  saving  you the bother of washing them
yourself, video recorders watched tedious television  for  you,
thus  saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric
Monks believed  things  for  you,  thus  saving  you  what  was
becoming  an  increasingly  onerous task, that of believing all
the things the world expected you to believe.
     Unfortunately this Electric Monk had  developed  a  fault,
and had started to believe all kinds of things, more or less at
random.  It  was  even  beginning to believe things they'd have
difficulty believing in Salt Lake City. It had never  heard  of
Salt  Lake  City,  of  course.  Nor  had  it  ever  heard  of a
quingigillion, which was roughly the number  of  miles  between
this valley and the Great Salt Lake of Utah.
     The  problem  with the valley was this. The Monk currently
believed that the valley  and  everything  in  the  valley  and
around  it, including the Monk itself and the Monk's horse, was
a  uniform  shade  of  pale  pink.  This  made  for  a  certain
difficulty  in  distinguishing  any  one  thing  from any other
thing, and therefore made  doing  anything  or  going  anywhere
impossible,  or  at  least  difficult  and dangerous. Hence the
immobility of the Monk and the boredom of the horse, which  had
had  to  put  up with a lot of silly things in its time but was
secretly of the opinion that this was one of the silliest.
     How long did the Monk believe these things?
     Well, as far as the Monk was concerned, forever. The faith
which moves mountains, or at least believes  them  against  all
the  available  evidence  to  be  pink, was a solid and abiding
faith, a great rock against which the world could hurl whatever
it would, yet it would not be shaken. In  practice,  the  horse
knew, twenty-four hours was usually about its lot.
     So  what of this horse, then, that actually held opinions,
and was sceptical about things? Unusual behaviour for a  horse,
wasn't it? An unusual horse perhaps?
     No.  Although  it  was certainly a handsome and well-built
example of its species,  it  was  none  the  less  a  perfectly
ordinary  horse,  such  as convergent evolution has produced in
many of the places that life is to be found. They  have  always
understood  a great deal more than they let on. It is difficult
to be sat on all  day,  every  day,  by  some  other  creature,
without forming an opinion about them.
     On  the  other  hand,  it is perfectly possible to sit all
day, every day, on top of another creature  and  not  have  the
slightest thought about them whatsoever.
     When  the  early  models of these Monks were built, it was
felt to be important that they  be  instantly  recognisable  as
artificial objects. There must be no danger of their looking at
all  like  real  people.  You wouldn't want your video recorder
lounging around on the sofa all day while it was  watching  TV.
You  wouldn't  want  it  picking  its  nose,  drinking beer and
sending out for pizzas.
     So the Monks were built with  an  eye  for  origiality  of
design  and  also  for practical horse-riding ability. This was
important. People, and indeed things, looked more sincere on  a
horse.  So  two  legs  were  held  to be both more suitable and
cheaper than the more normal primes of seventeen,  nineteen  or
twenty-three; the skin the Monks were given was pinkish-looking
instead of purple, soft and smooth instead of crenellated. They
were  also  restricted to just the one mouth and nose, but were
given instead an additional eye, making for a  grand  total  of
two. A strange-looking creature indeed. But truly excellent at
believing the most preposterous things.
     This  Monk  had  first gone wrong when it was simply given
too  much  to  believe  in  one  day.  It  was,   by   mistake,
cross-connected to a video recorder that was watching eleven TV
channels  simultaneously,  and this caused it to blow a bank of
illogic circuits. The video recorder only had to watch them, of
course. It didn't have to believe them all as well. This is why
instruction manuals are so important.
     So after a hectic week of believing that  war  was  peace,
that  good  was bad, that the moon was made of blue cheese, and
that God needed a lot of money sent to a  certain  box  number,
the  Monk  started  to  believe that thirty-five percent of all
tables were hermaphrodites, and then broke down. The  man  from
the  Monk shop said that it needed a whole new motherboard, but
then pointed out that the new improved Monk  Plus  models  were
twice  as powerful, had an entirely new multi-tasking, Negative
Capability feature that allowed them  to  hold  up  to  sixteen
entirely   different   and   contradictory   ideas   in  memory
simultaneously without generating any irritating system errors,
were twice as fast and at least three times as  glib,  and  you
could  have a whole new one for less than the cost of replacing
the motherboard of the old model.
     That was it. Done.
     The faulty Monk was turned out into the  desert  where  it
could  believe  what  it  liked, including the idea that it had
been hard done by. It was allowed  to  keep  its  horse,  since
horses were so cheap to make.
     For  a  number  of  days  and  nights,  which it variously
believed  to  be  three;  forty-three,  and  five  hundred  and
ninety-eight  thousand  seven  hundred and three, it roamed the
desert, putting its simple  Electric  trust  in  rocks,  birds,
clouds  and a form of non-existent elephant-asparagus, until at
last it fetched up here,  on  this  high  rock,  overlooking  a
valley  that  was  not,  despite the deep fervour of the Monk's
belief, pink. Not even a little bit.
     Time passed.

        Chapter Three...

     Time passed.
     Susan waited.
     The more Susan waited, the more the doorbell didn't  ring.
Or  the  phone.  She looked at her watch. She felt that now was
about the time that she could legitimately begin to feel cross.
She was cross already, of course, but that had been in her  own
time,  so to speak. They were well and truly into his time now,
and even allowing for traffic, mishaps, and  general  vagueness
and  diIatoriness,  it  was now well over half an hour past the
time that he had  insisted  was  the  latest  time  they  could
possibly afford to leave, so she'd better be ready.
     She tried to worry that something terrible had happened to
him, but  didn't believe it for a moment. Nothing terrible ever
happened to him, though she was beginning to think that it  was
time it damn well did. If nothing terrible happened to him soon
maybe she'd do it herself. Now there was an idea.
     She  threw  herself  crossly into the armchair and watched
the news on television. The news made her  cross.  She  flipped
the remote control and watched something on another channel for
a bit. She didn't know what it was, but it also made her cross.
Perhaps  she  should  phone. She was damned if she was going to
phone. Perhaps if she phoned he would phone  her  at  the  same
moment and not be able to get through.
     She refused to admit that she had even thought that.
     Damn him, where was he? Who cared where he was anyway? She
didn't, that was for sure.
     Three  times in a row he'd done this. Three times in a row
was enough. She angrily flipped channels one more  time.  There
was  a  programme  about  computers  and  some  interesting new
developments in the field of things you could do with computers
and music.
     That was it. That was really it. She  knew  that  she  had
told  herself  that  that was it only seconds earlier, but this
was now the final real ultimate it.
     She jumped to her feet and went to the phone, gripping  an
angry  Filofax.  She  flipped  briskly through it and dialled a
number.
     "Hello, Michael? Yes, it's Susan. Susan Way.  You  said  I
should  call  you  if  I  was  free this evening and I said I'd
rather be dead in a ditch, remember? Well, I suddenly  discover
that  I  am  free, absolutely, completely and utterly free, and
there isn't a decent ditch for miles  around.  Make  your  move
while  you've  goI  your chance is my advice to you. I'll be at
the Tangiers Club in half an hour."
     She  pulled  on  her  shoes  and  coat,  paused  when  she
remembered  that  it  was  Thursday  and  that she should put a
fresh, extra-long  tape  on  the  answering  machine,  and  two
minutes later was out of the front door. When at last the phone
did  ring  the  answering  machine  said sweetly that Susan Way
could not come to the phone just at the moment, but that if the
caller would like to leave a message, she  would  get  back  to
them as soon as possible. Maybe.

        Chapter Four...

     It was a chill November evening of the old-fashioned type.
     The  moon looked pale and wan, as if it shouldn't be up on
a night like this. It rose unwillingly and  hung  like  an  ill
spectre.  Silhouetted  against  it,  dim  and  hazy through the
dampness which  rose  from  the  unwholesome  fens,  stood  the
assorted  towers and turrets of St Cedd's, Cambridge, a ghostly
profusion of buildings thrown up over centuries, medieval  next
to Victorian, Odeon next to Tudor. Only rising through the mist
did they seem remotely to belong to one another.
     Between  them scurried figures, hurrying from one dim pool
of light to another, shivering, leaving wraiths of breath which
folded themselves into the cold night behind them.
     lt was seven o'clock. Many of the figures were heading for
the college dining hall which divided First Court  from  Second
Court,  and  from  which warm light, reluctantly, streamed. Two
figures in particular seemed ill-matched. One, a young man, was
tall, thin and angular; even muffled inside a heavy  dark  coat
he walked a little like an affronted heron.
     The  other was small, roundish, and moved with an ungainly
restlessness, like a number  of  elderly  squirrels  trying  to
escape  from  a  sack.  I-iis  own age was on the older side of
completely indeterminate. If you picked a number at random,  he
was  probably  a  little  older  than  that, but - well, it was
impossible to tell. Certainly his face was heavily  lined,  and
the  small  amount  of  hair  that  escaped  from under his red
woollen skiing hat was thin, white, and had very much  its  own
ideas about how it wished to arrange itself. He too was muffled
inside  a heavy coat, but over it he wore a billowing gown with
very faded purple trim, the badge  ofhis  unique  and  peculiar
academic office.
     As they walked the older man was doing all the talking. He
was pointing  at  items  of interest along the way, despite the
fact that it was too dark to see any of them. The  younger  man
was  saying  "Ah  yes,"  and  "Really?  How interesting..." and
"Well,  well,  well,"  and  "Good  heavens."  His  head  bobbed
seriously.
     They  entered,  not through the main entrance to the hall,
but through a small doorway on the east side of the court. This
led to the Senior Combination Room and a dark-panelled anteroom
where the Fellows of the college assembled to slap their  hands
and make "brrrrrr" noises before making their way through their
own entrance to the High Table.
     They  were  late and shook off their coats hurriedly. This
was complicated for the older man by  the  necessity  first  of
taking  off  his professorial gown, and then of putting it back
on again once. his coat was off, then of stuffing  his  hat  in
his  coat  pocket,  then of wondering where he'd put his scarf,
and then of realising  that  he  hadn't  brought  it,  then  of
fishing  in  his  coat  pocket  for  his  handkerchief, then of
fishing in his  other  coat  pocket  for  his  spectacles,  and
finally  of  finding  them  quite  unexpectedly  wrapped in his
scarf, which it turned out he had brought after all but  hadn't
been wearing despite the damp and bitter wind blowing in like a
witch's breath from across the fens.
     He  bustled the younger man into the hall ahead of him and
they took the last two vacant seats at the High Table,  braving
a  flurry  of  frowns  and raised eyebrows for interrupting the
Latin grace to do so.
     Hall was full tonight. It was always more popular with the
undergraduates in the colder months. More unusually,  the  hall
was  candlelit,  as  it  was  now  only  on  very  few  special
occasions. Two long, crowded  tables  stretched  off  into  the
glimmering  darkness.  By candlelight, people's faces were more
alive, the hushed sounds of their voices, the clink of  cutlery
and  glasses, seemed more exciting, and in the dark recesses of
the great hall, all the centuries  for  which  it  had  existed
seemed  present  at once. High Table itself formed a crosspiece
at the top, and was raised about a foot above the  rest.  Since
it  was  a  guest  night,  the  table  was set on both sides to
accommodate the extra numbers, and many  diners  therefore  sat
with their backs to the rest of the hall.
     "So, young MacDuff," said the Professor once he was seated
and flapping  his  napkin  open, "pleasure to see you again, my
dear fellow. Glad you could come. No  idea  what  all  this  is
about," he added, peering round the hall in consternation. "All
the  candles and silver and business. Generally means a special
dinner in honour of someone or something no  one  can  remember
anything about except that it means better food for a night."
     He  paused  and  thought  for a moment, and then said, "It
seems odd, don't you think, that the quality of the food should
vary inversely with the brightness of the lighting.  Makes  you
wonder what culinary heights the kitchen staff could rise to if
you  confined them to perpetual darkness. Could be worth a try,
I think. Got some good vaults in  the  college  that  could  be
turned  over  to  the  purpose. I think I showed you round them
once, hmmm? Nice brickwork."
     All this came as something of a relief to  his  guest.  It
was  the  first  indication  his host had given that he had the
faintest recollection who he was.  Professor  Urban  Chronotis,
the  Regius Professor of Chronology, or "Reg" as he insisted on
being called had a memory that he himself had once compared  to
the   Queen  Alexandra  Birdwing  Butterfly,  in  that  it  was
colourful, flitted prettily hither and thither,  and  was  now,
alas, almost completely extinct.
     When  he  had  telephoned  with  the invitation a few days
previously, he had seemed extremely  keen  to  see  his  former
pupil,  and yet when Richard had arrived this evening, a little
on the late side, admittedly, the Professor had thrown open the
door apparently in anger, had started  in  surprise  on  seeing
Richard,  demanded to know if he was having emotional problems,
reacted in annoyance to being reminded gently that it  was  now
ten  years  since  he  had  been  Richard's  college tutor, and
finally  agreed  that  Richard  had  indeed  come  for  dinner,
whereupon he, the Professor, had started talking rapidly and at
length  about  the  history of the college architecture, a sure
sign that his mind was elsewhere entirely.
     "Reg" had never actually taught Richard, he had only  been
his  college tutor, which meant in short that he had had charge
of his general welfare, told him when the exams were and not to
take drugs, and so on. Indeed, it was not entirely clear if Reg
had ever taught anybody at all and what, if anything, he  would
have  taught them. His professorship was an obscure one, to say
the least, and since he dispensed with his lecturing duties  by
the  simple  and  time-honoured technique of presenting all his
potential students with an exhaustive list  of  books  that  he
knew  for  a  fact had been out of print for thirty years, then
flying into a tantrum if they failed to find them, no  one  had
ever  discovered the precise nature of his academic discipline.
He had, of course, long ago taken the  precaution  of  removing
the  only  extant  copies of the books on his reading list from
the university and college libraries, as a result of  which  he
had plenty of time to, well, to do whatever it was he did.
     Since Richard had always managed to get on reasonably well
with the  old  fruitcake,  he had one day plucked up courage to
ask him what, exactly, the Regius Professorship  of  Chronology
was. It had been one of those light summery days when the world
seems  about to burst with pleasure at simply being itself, and
Reg had been in an  uncharacteristically  forthcoming  mood  as
they had walked over the bridge where the River Cam divided the
older parts of the college from the newer.
     "Sinecure,  my  dear fellow, an absolute sinecure," he had
beamed. "A small amount of money for a very small, or shall  we
say non-existent, amount of work. That puts me permanently just
ahead  of  the  game, which is a comfortable if frugal place to
spend your life. I recommend it." He leaned over  the  edge  of
the  bridge and started to point out a particular brick that he
found interesting. "But what sort of study is  it  supposed  to
be?"  Richard had pursued. "Is it history? Physics? Philosophy?
What?"
     "Well," said Reg, slowly, "since  you're  interested,  the
chair was originally instituted by King George III, who, as you
know,  entertained  a  number of amusing notions, including the
belief that one of the trees in Windsor Great Park was in  fact
Frederick the Great.
     "It  was his own appointment, hence `Regius'. His own idea
as well, which is somewhat more unusual."
     Sunlight played along  the  River  Cam.  People  in  punts
happily  shouted  at  each  other  to  fuck  off.  Thin natural
scientists who had spent months  locked  away  in  their  rooms
growing  white  and  fishlike, emerged blinking into the light.
Couples walking along the bank got so excited about the general
wonderfulness of it all that they had  to  pop  inside  for  an
hour.
     "The poor beleaguered fellow," Reg continued, "George III,
I mean,  was,  as  you may know, obsessed with time. Filled the
palace with clocks. Wound them incessantly. Sometimes would get
up in the middle of the night and prowl round the palace in his
nightshirt winding clocks. He  was  very  concerned  that  time
continued  to  go forward, you see. So many terrible things had
occurred in his life that he was terrified  that  any  of  them
might  happen again if time were ever allowed to slip backwards
even for a moment. A very understandable  fear,  especially  if
you're  barking  mad,  as  I'm  afraid  to  say,  with the very
greatest sympathy for the poor fellow, he undoubtedly  was.  He
appointed   me,  or  rather  I  should  say,  my  office,  this
professorship,  you  understand,  the  post  that  I   am   now
privileged  to  hold  to  -  where was I? Oh yes. He instituted
this,  er,  Chair  of  Chronology  to  see  if  there  was  any
particular  reason  why one thing happened after another and if
there was any way of stopping it.  Since  the  answers  to  the
three questions were, I knew immediately, yes, no, and maybe, I
realised I could then take the rest of my career off."
     "And your predecessors?"
     "Er, were much of the same mind."
     "But who were they?"
     "Who were they? Well, splendid fellows of course, splendid
to a man.  Remind  me to tell you about them some day. See that
brick? Wordsworth was once sick on that brick. Great man."
     All that had been about ten years ago.
     Richard glanced around the great dining hall to  see  what
had  changed  in  the  time,  and  the  answer  was, of course,
absolutely nothing. In the dark  heights,  dimly  seen  by  the
flickering  candlelight,  were  the  ghostly portraits of prime
ministers, archbishops, political reformers and poets,  any  of
whom might, in their day, have been sick on that same brick.
     "Well,"  said Reg, in a loudly confidential whisper, as if
introducing the subject of nipple-piercing  in  a  nunnery,  "I
hear  you've  suddenly  done  very  well for yourself, at last,
hmmm?"
     "Er, well,  yes,  in  fact,"  said  Richard,  who  was  as
surprised at the fact as anybody else, "yes, I have."
     Around the table several gazes stiffened on him.
     "Computers,"  he  heard somebody whisper dismissively to a
neighbour further down  the  table.  The  stiff  gazes  relaxed
again, and turned away.
     "Excellent,"  said  Reg.  "I'm  so  pleased  for  you,  so
pleased.
     "Tell me," he went on, and it was a moment before  Richard
realised that the Professor wasn't talking to him any more, but
had turned to the right to address his other neighbour, "what's
all  this  about,  this,"  he  flourished a vague hand over the
candles and college silver, "... stuff?"
     His neighbour,  an  elderly  wizened  figure,  tumed  very
slowly  and  looked at him as if he was rather annoyed at being
raised from the dead Iike this.
     "Coleridge," he said in a thin rasp, "it's  the  Coleridge
Dinner  you  old fool." He turned very slowly back until he was
facing the front again. His name was Cawley, he was a Professor
of Archaeology and Anthropology, and it was frequently said  of
him,  behind  his  back,  that  he regarded it not so much as a
serious  academic  study,  more  as  a  chance  to  relive  his
childhood.
     "Ah,  is  it,"  murmured  Reg, "is it?" and turned back to
Richard. "It's the Coleridge Dinner,"  he  said  knowledgeably.
"Coleridge  was  a  member  of the college, you know," he added
after a moment.  "Coleridge.  Samuel  Taylor.  Poet.  I  expect
you've  heard  of him. This is his Dinner. Well, not literally,
of course. It would be cold by now." Silence. "Here, have  some
salt."
     "Er,   thank  you,  I  think  I'll  wait,"  said  Richard,
surprised. There was no food on the table yet.
     "Go on, take it," insisted the Professor,  proffering  him
the heavy silver salt cellar.
     Richard  blinked  in bemusement but with an interior shrug
he reached to take it. In the moment that he blinked,  however,
the salt cellar had completely vanished.
     He started back in surprise.
     "Good one, eh?" said Reg as he retrieved the missing cruet
from behind  the  ear  of  his  deathly  right-hand  neighbour,
provoking a surprisingly girlish giggle from somewhere else  at
the table. Reg smiled impishly. "Very irritating habit, I know.
It's next on my list for giving up after smoking and leeches."
     Well,  that  was  another  thing that hadn't changed. Some
people pick their noses, others habitually beat up  old  ladies
on  the streets. Reg's vice was a harmless if peculiar one - an
addiction to childish conjuring tricks. Richard remembered  the
first  time he had been to see Reg with a problem - it was only
the normal Angst that periodically takes  undergraduates
into its grip, particularly when they have essays to write, but
it had seemed a dark and savage weight at the time. Reg had sat
and   listened   to  his  outpourings  with  a  deep  frown  of
concentration, and  when  at  last  Richard  had  finished,  he
pondered  seriously, stroked his chin a lot, and at last leaned
forward and looked him in the eye.
     "I suspect that your problem," he said, "is that you  have
too many paper clips up your nose."
     Richard stared at him.
     "Allow  me  to  demonstrate," said Reg, and leaning across
the desk he pulled from Richard's nose a chain of eleven  paper
clips and a small rubber swan.
     "Ah,  the  real  culprit,"  he  said, holding up the swan.
"They come in cereal packets, you know, and  cause  no  end  of
trouble.  Well,  I'm  glad  we've had this little chat, my dear
fellow. Please feel free to disturb me again if  you  have  any
more such problems."
     Needless to say, Richard didn't.
     Richard  glanced  around  the  table  to  see if there was
anybody else he recognised from his time at the college.
     Two places away to the left  was  the  don  who  had  been
Richard's  Director  of Studies in English, who showed no signs
of recognising him at all. This  was  hardly  surprising  since
Richard  had  spent  his  three years here assiduously avoiding
him, often to the extent of growing a beard and  pretending  to
be someone else.
     Next  to  him  was a man whom Richard had never managed to
identify. Neither, in fact, had anyone else. He  was  thin  and
vole-like and had the most extraordinarily long bony nose - it
really was very, very long and bony indeed. In fact it looked a
lot   like   the   controversial  keel  which  had  helped  the
Australians win the America's Cup in I983, and this resemblance
had been much remarked upon at the time, though not  of  course
to his face. No one had said anything to his face at all.
     No one.
     Ever.
     Anyone meeting him for the first time was too startled and
embarrassed by his nose to speak, and the second time was worse
because  of  the  first time, and so on. Years had gone by now,
seventeen in all. In all that time  he  had  been  cocooned  in
silence.  In  hall  it  had  long been the habit of the college
servants to position a separate set of salt, pepper and mustard
on either side of him, since no one could ask him to pass them,
and to ask someone sitting on the other side  of  him  was  not
only  rude  but completely impossible because of his nose being
in the way.
     The other odd thing about him was a series of gestures  he
made  and  repeated  regularly  throughout  every evening. They
consisted of tapping each of the fingers of his  left  hand  in
order,  and then one of the fingers of his right hand. He would
then occasionally tap some other part of his body,  a  knuckle,
an  elbow or a knee. Whenever he was forced to stop this by the
requirements of eating he would start blinking each of his eyes
instead, and occasionally nodding. No one, of course, had  ever
dared to ask him why he did this, though all were consumed with
curiosity.
     Richard couldn't see who was sitting beyond him.
     In  the  other  direction, beyond Reg's deathly neighbour,
was Watkin, the Classics Professor, a man of terrifying dryness
and oddity. His heavy rimless glasses were almost  solid  cubes
of  glass  within  which  his eyes appeared to lead independent
existences like goldfish. His  nose  was  straight  enough  and
ordinary,  but  beneath  it  he  wore  the  same beard as Clint
Eastwood. His eyes gazed swimmingly  around  the  table  as  he
selected  who was going to be spoken at tonight. He had thought
that his prey might be one of the guests, the  newly  appointed
Head   of   Radio   Three,  who  was  sitting  opposite  -  but
unfortunately  he  had  already  been  ensnared  by  the  Music
Director  of  the  college and a Professor of Philosophy. These
two were busy explaining to the harassed man  that  the  phrase
"too much Mozart" was, given any reasonable definition of those
three  words,  an inherently self-contradictory expression, and
that any sentence  which  contained  such  a  phrase  would  be
thereby  rendered  meaningless  and could not, consequently, be
advanced as  part  of  an  argument  in  favour  of  any  given
programme- scheduling  strategy.  The  poor  man  was  already
beginning to grip his cutlery  too  tightly.  His  eyes  darted
about  desperately  looking for rescue, and made the mistake of
lighting on those of Watkin.
     "Good evening," said Watkin with smiling charm, nodding in
the most  friendly  way,  and  then  letting  his  gaze  settle
glassily  on  to  his  bowl  of  newly arrived soup, from which
position it would not allow itself to be moved.  Yet.  Let  the
bugger  suffer  a  little.  He wanted the rescue to be worth at
least a good half dozeo radio talk fees.
     Beyond Watkin, Richard suddenly discovered the  source  of
the  little  girlish  giggle  that  had greeted Reg's conjuring
trick. Astonishingly enough it was a little girl. She was about
eight years old with blonde hair  and  a  glum  look.  She  was
sitting occasionally kicking pettishly at the table leg.
     "Who's that?" Richard asked Reg in surprise.
     "Who's what?" Reg asked Richard in surprise.
     Richard   inclined   a   finger   surreptitiously  in  her
direction. "The girl," he whispered,  "the  very,  very  little
girl. Is it some new maths professor?"
     Reg  peered  round  at  her.  "Do  you  know,"  he said in
astonishment,  "I  haven't  the  faintest  idea.  Never   known
anything like it. How extraordinary."
     At  that moment the problem was solved by the man from the
BBC, who suddenly wrenched himself out  of  the  logical  half=
nelson into which his neighbours had got him, and told the gir1
off  for  kicking the table. She stopped kicking the table, and
instead kicked the air with redoubled vigour. He  told  her  to
try and enjoy herself, so she kicked him. This did something to
bring a brief glimmer of pleasure into her glum evening, but it
didn't  last. Her father briefly shared with the table at large
his feelings about baby-sitters who let people down, but nobody
felt able to run with the topic.
     "A major season of Buxtehude,"  resumed  the  Director  of
Music,  "is  of course clearly long overdue. I'm sure you'll be
looking forward  to  remedying  this  situation  at  the  first
opportunity."
     "Oh,  er,  yes,"  replied  the girl's father, spilling his
soup, "er, that is. . . he's not the same one as Gluck, is he?"
     The little girl kicked  the  table  leg  again.  When  her
father  looked sternly at her, she put her head on one side and
mouthed a question at him.
     "Not now," he insisted at her as quietly as he could.
     "When, then?"
     "Later. Maybe. Later, we'll see."
     She hunched grumpily back in her  seat.  "You  always  say
later," she mouthed at him.
     "Poor  child,"  murmured  Reg.  "There isn't a don at this
table who doesn't behave exactly like that  inside.  Ah,  thank
you."  Their  soup  arrived,  distracting  his  attention,  and
Richard's.
     "So tell me," said Reg, after they had both had  a  couple
of  spoonsful and arrived independently at the same conclusion,
that it was not a taste explosion, "what you've been up to,  my
dear  chap.  Something  to do with computers, I understand, and
also to do with music. I thought you read English when you were
here-though only, I realise, in your spare time." He looked at
Richard significantly over the rim  of  his  soup  spoon.  "Now
wait,"  he  interrupted  before  Richard  even  had a chance to
start, "don't I vaguely remember that  you  had  some  sort  of
computer when you were here? When was it? 1977?"
     "Well, what we called a computer in 1977 was really a kind
of electric abacus, but..."
     "Oh,  now,  don't underestimate the abacus," said Reg. "In
skilled hands it's a  very  sophisticated  calculating  device.
Furthermore  it  requires  no  power,  can  be  made  with  any
materials you have to hand, and never goes bing in  the  middle
of an important piece of work."
     "So an electric one would be particularly pointless," said
Richard.
     "True enough," conceded Reg.
     "There  really wasn't a lot this machine could do that you
couldn't do yourself in half the time with a lot less trouble,"
said Richard, "but it was, on the  other  hand,  very  good  at
being a slow and dim-witted pupil."
     Reg looked at him quizzically.
     "I  had no idea they were supposed to be in short supply,"
he said. "I could hit a dozen with a bread roll from where  I'm
sitting."
     "I'm  sure.  But  look  at it this way. What really is the
point of trying to teach anything to anybody?"
     This question seemed to provoke a  murmur  of  sympathetic
approval from up and down the table.
     Richard continued, "What I mean is that if you really want
to understand  something, the best way is to try and explain it
to someone else. That forces you to sort it  out  in  your  own
mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you
have  to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And
that's really the essence of programming. By  the  time  you've
sorted  out  a  complicated  idea into little steps that even a
stupid  machine  can  deal  with,  you've   certainly   learned
something  about  it  yourself. The teacher usually learns more
than the pupil. Isn't that true?"
     "It would be hard to learn much less than my pupils," came
a low growl from somewhere on the table, "without undergoing  a
pre-frontal lobotomy."
     "So  I  used  to  spend days struggling to write essays on
this 16K machine that would have taken a couple of hours  on  a
typewriter,  but  what was fascinating to me was the process of
trying to explain to the machine what it was I wanted it to do.
I virtually wrote my own word  processor  in  BASIC.  A  simple
search and replace routine would take about three hours."
     "I forget, did you ever get any essays done at all?"
     "Well,  not as such. No actual essays, but the reasons why
not were absolutely fascinating.  For  instance,  I  discovered
that..."
     He broke off, laughing at himself.
     "I was also playing keyboards in a rock group, of course,"
he added. "That didn't help."
     "Now,  that  I  didn't  know,"  said  Reg.  "Your past has
murkier things in it than I  dreamed  possible.  A  quality,  I
might  add,  that it shares with this soup." He wiped his mouth
with his napkin very carefully. "I must go and have a word with
the kitchen staff on&#127; day. I would like to  be  sure  that
they  are  keeping  the right bits and throwing the proper bits
away. So. A  rock  group,  you  say.  Well,  well,  well.  Good
heavens."
     "Yes,"  said  Richard. "We called ourselves The Reasonably
Good Band, but in fact we weren't. Our intention was to be  the
Beatles of the early eighties, but we got much better financial
and legal advice than the Beatles ever did, which was basically
'Don't  bother', so we didn't. I left Cambridge and starved for
three years."
     "But didn't I bump into you during that period," said Reg,
"and you said you were doing very well?"
     "As a road sweeper, yes. There was an awful lot of mess on
the roads. More than enough,  I  felt,  to  support  an  entire
career.  However,  I  got  the sack for sweeping the mess on to
another sweeper's patch."
     Reg shook his head. "The wrong career for you,  I'm  sure.
There are plenty of vocations where such behaviour would ensure
rapid preferment."
     "I  tried a few - none of them much grander, though. And I
kept none of them very long, because I was always too tired  to
do  them properly. I'd be found asleep slumped over the chicken
sheds or filing cabinets - depending on what the job was.  Been
up  all  night  with  the computer you see, teaching it to play
`Three Blind Mice'. It was an important goal for me."
     "I'm sure," agreed  Reg.  "Thank  you,"  he  said  to  the
college  servant  who took his half-finished plate of soup from
him, "thank you very much. `Three Blind Mice', eh? Good.  Good.
So  no  doubt  you  succeeded eventually, and this accounts for
your present celebrated status. Yes?"
     "Well, there's a bit more to it than that."
     "I feared there might be. Pity you didn't  bring  it  with
you though. It might have cheered up the poor young lady who is
currently having our dull and crusty company forced upon her. A
swift  burst  of  `Three  Blind Mice' would probably do much to
revive her spirits." He leaned forward to  look  past  his  two
right- hand  neighbours  at  the  girl,  who was still sitting
sagging in her chair.
     "Hello," he said.
     She looked up in  surprise,  and  then  dropped  her  eyes
shyly, swinging her legs again.
     "Which  do you think is worse," enquired Reg, "the soup or
the company?"
     She gave a  tiny,  reluctant  laugh  and  shrugged,  still
looking down.
     "I  think you're wise not to commit yourself at this stage
" continued Reg. "Myself, I'm waiting to see the carrots before
I make any judgments. They've been boiling  them  since  the  '
weekend,  but  I fear it may not be enough. The only thing that
could possibly be worse than the carrots is  Watkin.  He's  the
man  with  the silly glasses sitting between us. My name's Reg,
by the way. Come over and kick me when you have a moment."  The
girl  giggled  and glanced up at Watkin, who stiffened and made
an appallingly unsuccessful attempt to smile good-naturedly.
     "Well, little girl," he said to her awkwardly,  and
she  had  desperately  to  suppress  a  hoot of laughter at his
glasses. Little conversation therefore ensued, but the girl had
an ally, and began to enjoy herself  a  tiny  little  bit.  Her
father gave her a relieved mile.
     Reg  turned  back  to Richard, who said, suddenly, "Do you
have any family?"
     "Er... no," said Reg, quietly. "But tell me. After  'Three
Blind Mice', what then?"
     "Well,  to cut a long story short, Reg, I ended up working
for WayForward Technologies..."
     "Ah, yes, the famous Mr Way. Tell me, what's he like?"
     Richard was  always  faintly  annoyed  by  this  question,
probably because he was asked it so often.
     "Both better and worse thn he's represented in the press.
I like him a lot, actually. Like any driven man he can be a bit
trying  at  times, but I've known him since the very early days
of the company when neither he nor I had a bean to  our  names.
He's  fine. It's just that it's a good idea not to let him have
your  phone  number  unless  you  possess  an  industrial-grade
answering machine.
     "What? Why's that?"
     "Well,  he's  one  of those people who can only think when
he's talking. When he has ideas, he has to  talk  them  out  to
whoever  will  listen.  Or,  if  the  people themselves are not
available, which is  increasingly  the  case,  their  answering
machines will do just as well. He just phones them up and talks
at  them.  He  has  one  secretary whose sole job is to collect
tapes from people he might have phoned, transcribe  them,  sort
them  and  give  him  the  edited  text  the next day in a blue
folder."
     "A blue one, eh? "
     "Ask me why he doesn't simply use a tape  recorder,"  said
Richard with a shrug.
     Reg  considered  this.  "I  expect  he  doesn't use a tape
recorder because he doesn't like talking to himself," he  said.
"There is a logic there. Of a kind."
     He  took  a  mouthful  of  his  newly  arrived  porc au
poivre and ruminated on it for a while before gently laying
his knife and fork aside again for the moment.
     "So what," he said at last, "is the role of young  MacDuff
in all this?"
     "Well,  Gordon  assigned  me  to  write  a  major piece of
software  for  the  Apple  Macintosh.  Financial   spreadsheet,
accounting, that so&#127; of thing, powerful, easy to use, lots
of  graphics.  I asked him exactly what he wanted in it, and he
just said, `Everything. I want the top  piece  of  all-singing,
all-dancing business software for that machine.' And being of a
slightly whimsical turn of mind I took him literally.
     "You  see, a pattern of numbers can represent anything you
like, can be used to map any surface, or modulate  any  dynamic
process  -  and  so on. And any set of company accounts are, in
the end, just a pattern of numbers. So I sat down and  wrote  a
program  that'll  take  those numbers and do what you like with
th&#127;m. If you just want a bar graph it'll do them as a  bar
graph,  if  you want them as a pie chart or scatter graph it'll
do them as a pie chart or scatter graph. If  you  want  dancing
girls  jumping  out  of  the  pie  chart  in  order to distract
attention from the figures the pie chart  actually  represents,
then  the  program  will  do that as well: Or you can turn your
figures into, for  instance,  a  flock  of  seagulls,  and  the
formation  they  fly  in and the way in which the wings of each
gull beat  will  be  determined  by  the  performance  of  each
division   of   your  company.  Great  for  producing  animated
corporate logos that actually mean something.
     "But the silliest feature of all was that  if  you  wanted
your company accounts represented as a piece of music, it could
do  that  as  well. Well, I thought it was silly. The corporate
world went bananas over it."
     Reg regarded him solemnly from  over  a  piece  of  carrot
poised  delicately  on  his  fork  in front of him, but did not
interrupt.
     "You see, any aspect of a piece of music can be  expressed
as  a  sequence  or  pattern  of  numbers,"  enthused  Richard.
"Numbers can express the pitch of notes, the length  of  notes,
patterns of pitches and lengths. . "
     "You mean tunes," said Reg. The carrot had not moved yet.
     Richard grinned.
     "Tunes  would  be a very good word for it. I must remember
that."
     "It would help you speak more easily."  Reg  returned  the
carrot  to  his  plate,  untasted. "And this software did well,
then?" he asked.
     "Not so much here. The yearly  accounts  of  most  British
companies   emerged   sounding   like   the   Dead  March  from
Saul, but in Japan they went for it like a pack of rats.
It produced lots of cheery company anthems that  started  well,
but if you were going to criticise you'd probably say that they
tended  to  get  a  bit  loud  and  squeaky  at  the  end.  Did
spectacular business in the States, which was the  main  thing,
commercially.  Though  the thing that's interesting me most now
is what happens if you leave the accounts out of it.  Turn  the
numbers  that represent the way a swallow's wings beat directly
into music.  What  would  you  hear?  Not  the  sound  of  cash
registers, according to Gordon."
     "Fascinating,"  said  Reg, "quite fascinating," and popped
the carrot at last into his mouth. He turned and leaned forward
to speak to his new girlfriend.
     "Watkin loses," he pronounced. "The carrots have  achieved
a  new  all-time  low. Sorry, Watkin, but awful as you are, the
carrots, I'm afraid, are world-beaters."
     The girl giggled more easily than last time and she smiled
at him. Watkin was trying to take all this good-naturedly,  but
it  was  clear as his eyes swam at Reg that he was more used to
discomfiting than being discomfited.
     "Please, Daddy, can I now?" With her new-found, if slight,
confidence, the girl had also found a voice.
     "Later," insisted her father.
     "This is already later. I've been timing it."
     "Well..." He hesitated, and was lost.
     "We've been to Greece," announced the girl in a small  but
awed voice.
     "Ah,  have  you  indeed,"  said Watkin, with a little nod.
"Well, well. Anywhere in particular, or just Greece generally?"
     "Patmos," she said decisively. "It was beautiful. I  think
Patmos  is  the most beautiful place in the whole world. Except
the ferry never came when it said  it  would.  Never,  ever.  I
timed it. We missed our flight but I didn't mind."
     "Ah,  Patmos,  I see," said Watkin, who was clearly roused
by the news. "Well, what you have to understand, young lady, is
that the Greeks, not content with dominating the culture of the
Classical world, are also responsible for  the  greatest,  some
would  say the only, work of true creative imagination produced
this century as well. I refer of  course  to  the  Greek  ferry
timetables.  A  work  of  the sublimest fiction. Anyone who has
travelled in the Aegean will confirm this. Hmm,  yes.  I  think
so."
     She frowned at him.
     "I found a pot," she said.
     "Probably  nothing,"  interrupted her father hastily. "You
know the way it is- Everyone who goes to Greece for  the  first
time thinks they've found a pot, don't they? Ha, ha."
     There  were  general  nods. This was true. Irritating, but
true.
     "I found it in the harbour,"  she  said,  "in  the  water.
While we were waiting for the damn ferry."
     "Sarah! I've told you..."
     "It's  just  what  you called it. And worse. You called it
words I didn't think  you  knew.  Anyway,  I  thought  that  if
everyone  here was meant to be so clever, then someone would be
able to tell me if it was a proper ancient Greek thing or  not-
I  think it's very old. Will you please let them see it,
Daddy?"
     Her father shrugged hopelessly and started to  fish  about
under his chair.
     "Did  you know, young lady," said Watkin to her, "that the
Book of Revelation was written on Patmos?  It  was  indeed.  By
Saint  John  the Divine, as you know. To me it shows very clear
signs of having been written while waiting  for  a  ferry.  Oh,
yes,  I  think so. It starts off, doesn't it, with that kind of
dreaminess you get when you're killing time, getting bored, you
know, just making things up, and then gradually grows to a sort
of  climax  of  hallucinatory  despair.  I   find   that   very
suggestive.  Perhaps you should write a paper on it." He nodded
at her.
     She looked at him as if he were mad.
     "Well, here it is," said her father,  plonking  the  thing
down on the table. "Just a pot, as you see. She's only six," he
added with a grim smile, "aren't you, dear?"
     "Seven," said Sarah.
     The  pot  was quite small, about five inches high and four
inches  across  at  its  widest  point.  The  body  was  almost
spherical,  with  a  very  narrow  neck extending about an inch
above the body. The neck a&#127;d about  half  of  the  surface
area  were  encrusted  with hard-caked earth, but the parts of
the pot that could be seen were of a rough, ruddy texture.
     Sarah took it and thrust it into  the  hands  of  the  don
sitting on her right.
     "You look clever," she said. "Tell me what you think."
     The  don  took  it,  and  turned  it  over with a slightly
supercilious air. "I'm sure if you scraped away  the  mud  from
the  bottom," he remarked wittily, "it would probably say `Made
in Birmingham'."
     "That old, eh?" said Sarah's father with a  forced  laugh.
"Long time since anything was made there."
     "Anyway,"  said  the  don,  "not my field, I'm a molecular
biologist. Anyone else want to have a look?"
     This  question  was  not  greeted  with  wild   yelps   of
enthusiasm,  but  nevertheless  the pot was passed from hand to
hand around the far end of the table in a desultory fashion. It
was goggled  at  through  pebble  glasses,  peered  at  through
horn-rims, gazed at over half-moons, and squinted at by someone
who  had left his glasses in his other suit, which he very much
feared had now gone to the cleaner's. No one seemed to know how
old it was, or to care very much. The young girl's  face  began
to grow downhearted again.
     "Sour  lot,"  said  Reg  to Richard. He picked up a silver
salt cellar again and held it up.
     "Young lady," he said, leaning forward to address her.
     "Oh,  not  again,  you  old  fool,"  muttered   the   aged
archaeologist  Cawley,  sitting back and putting his hands over
his ears.
     "Young lady," repeated Reg,  "regard  this  simple  silver
salt cellar. Regard this simple hat."
     "You haven't got a hat," said the girl sulkily.
     "Oh," said Reg, "a moment please," and he went and fetched
his woolly red one.
     "Regard,"  he said again, "this simple silver salt cellar.
Regard this simple woolly hat. I put the  salt  cellar  in  the
hat,  thus,  and  I  pass  the hat to you. The next part of the
trick, dear lady... is up to you."
     He handed the hat  to  her,  past  their  two  intervening
neighbours,  Cawley  and  Watkin.  She  took the hat and Iooked
inside it.
     "Where's it gone?" she asked, staring into the hat.
     "It's wherever you put it," said Reg.
     "Oh," said Sarah, "I see. Well... that wasn't very good."
     Reg shrugged. "A humble trick, but it gives me  pleasure,"
he said, and turned back to Richard. "Now, what were we talking
about?"
     Richard  looked  at  him  with a slight sense of shock. He
knew that the Professor had always been  prone  to  sudden  and
erratic  mood  swings,  but  it  was  as  if all the warmth had
drained out of  him  in  an  instant.  He  now  wore  the  same
distracted  expression  Richard had seen on his face when first
he had arrived at his door that evening, apparently  completely
unexpected.  Reg  seemed  then  to sense that Richard was taken
aback and quickly reassembled a smile.
     "My dear chap!" he said. "My  dear  chap!  My  dear,  dear
chap! What was I saying?"
     "Er, you were saying 'My dear chap'."
     "Yes,  but  I  feel  sure it was a prelude to something. A
sort of short toccata on the theme of what  a  splendid  fellow
you  are prior to introducing the main subject of my discourse,
the nature of which I currently forget. You have no idea what I
was about to say?"
     "No."
     "Oh. Well, I suppose I should be pleased. If everyone knew
exactly what I was going to say, then there would be  no  point
in  my saying it, would there? Now, how's our young guest's pot
doing?"
     In fact it had reached Watkin, who pronounced  himself  no
expert  on  what  the ancients had made for themselves to drink
out of, only on what they had written as a result. He said that
Cawley was the one  to  whose  knowledge  and  experience  they
should all bow, and attempted to give the pot to him.
     "I  said,"  he  repeated,  "yours  was  the  knowledge and
experience to which we should bow. Oh, for heaven's sake,  take
your hands off your ears and have a lok at the thing."
     Gently,  but  firmly, he drew Cawley's right hand from his
ear, explained the situation to him once again, and handed  him
the   pot.   Cawley  gave  it  a  cursory  but  clearly  expert
examination.
     "Yes," he said, "about two  hundred  years  old,  I  would
think.  Very  rough.  Very  crude  example of its type. Utterly
without value, of course."
     He put it down peremptorily and gazed  off  into  the  old
minstrel gallery, which appeared to anger him for some reason.
     The  effect  on  Sarah was immediate. Already discouraged,
she was thoroughly downcast by this. She bit her lip and  threw
herself  back  against her chair, feeling once again thoroughly
out of place and childish. Her father gave her a  warning  look
about misbehaving, and then apologised for her again.
     "Well,  Buxtehude,"  he  hurried on to say, "yas, good old
Buxtehude. We'll have to see what we can do. Tell me..."
     "Young   lady,"   interrupted   a   voice,   hoarse   with
astonishment,  "you  are  clearly a magician and enchantress of
prodigious powers!"
     All eyes turned to Reg, the old show-off. He was  gripping
the pot and staring at it with manic fascination. He turned his
eyes  slowly  to  the  little  girl,  as  if for the first time
assessing the power of a feared adversary.
     "I bow to you," he whispered. "I, unworthy though I am  to
speak  in  the  presence of such a power as yours, beg leave to
congratulate you on one of the finest feats of  the  conjurer's
art it has been my privilege to witness!"
     Sarah stared at him with widening eyes.
     "May  I show these people what you have wrought?" he asked
earnestly.
     Very faintly she  nodded,  and  he  fetched  her  formerly
precious,  but  now  sadly  discredited, pot a sharp rap on the
table.
     It split into two irregular parts,  the  caked  clay  with
which  it was surrounded falling in jagged shards on the table.
One side of the pot fell away, leaving the rest standing.
     Sarah's eyes goggled at  the  stained  and  tarnished  but
clearly  recognisable  silver  college  salt  cellar,  standing
jammed in the remains of the pot.
     "Stupid old fool," muttered Cawley.
     After the general disparagement and condemnation  of  this
cheap parlour trick had died down - none of which could dim the
awe in Sarah's eyes - Reg turned to Richard and said, idly:
     "Who  was  that friend of yours when you were here, do you
ever see him? Chap  with  an  odd  East  European  name.  Svlad
something. Svlad Cjelli. Remember the fellow?"
     Richard looked at him blankly for a moment.
     "Svlad?"  he  said. "Oh, you mean Dirk. Dirk Cjelli. No. I
never stayed in touch. I've bumped into him a couple  of  times
in  the street but that's all. I think he changes his name from
time to time. Why do you ask?"

        Chapter Five...

     High on his rocky promontory the Electric  Monk  continued
to  sit  on a horse which was going quietly and uncomplainingly
spare.  From  under  its  rough  woven  cowl  the  Monk   gazed
unblinkingly  down  into the valley, with which it was having a
problem, but the problem was a new and hideous one to the Monk,
for it was this
- Doubt.
     He never suffered it for long, but when he did, it  gnawed
at the very root of his being.
     The  day  was  hot; the sun stood in an empty hazy sky and
beat down upon the grey rocks and the scrubby,  parched  grass.
Nothing  moved,  not  even  the  Monk.  But strange things were
beginning to fizz in its brain, as they did from time  to  time
when  a  piece of data became misaddressed as it passed through
its input buffer.
     But then the Monk began to believe, fitfully and nervously
at first, but then with a great searing white  Hame  of  belief
which overturned all previous beliefs, including the stupid one
about the valley being pink, that somewhere down in the valley,
about  a  mile  from  where he was sitting, there would shortly
open up a mysterious doorway into a strange and distant  world,
a doorway through which he might enter. An astounding idea.
     Astoundingly  enough, however, on this one occasion he was
perfectly right.
     The horse sensed that something was up.
     It pricked up its ears and gently shook its head.  It  had
gone  into  a sort of trance looking at the same clump of rocks
for so long, and was on the verge of imagining them to be  pink
itself. It shook its head a little harder.
     A  slight  twitch on the reins, and a prod from the Monk's
heels and they were off, picking their way carefully  down  the
rocky  incline.  The  way  was  difficult. Much of it was loose
shale - loose brown and grey shale, with the  occasional  brown
and  green  plant clinging to a precarious existence on it. The
Monk noticed this without embarrassment. It was an older, wiser
Monk now, and had put childish things behind it. Pink  valleys,
hermaphrodite  tables,  these  were  all natural stages through
which one had to pass on the path to true enlightenment.
     The sun beat hard on them. The Monk wiped  the  sweat  and
dust  off  its  face and paused, leaning forward on the horse's
neck. It peered down through the  shimmering  heat  haze  at  a
large  outcrop  of  rock which stood out on to the floor of the
valley. There, behind that outcrop, was where the Monk thought,
or rather passionately believed to the core of its  being,  the
door  would  appear.  It  tried  to focus more closely, but the
details of the view swam confusingly in the hot rising air.
     As it sat back in its saddle, and was about  to  prod  the
horse onward, it suddenly noticed a rather odd thing.
     On  a flattish wall of rock nearby, in fact so nearby that
the Monk was surprised not to have noticed  it  before,  was  a
large  painting.  The  painting  was  crudely drawn, though not
without a certain stylish sweep of line, and seemed  very  old,
possibly  very,  very  old indeed. The paint was faded, chipped
and patchy, and it was difficult to discern  with  any  clarity
what  the  picture  was.  The  Monk approached the picture more
closely. It looked like a primitive hunting scene.
     The group of purple, multi-limbed creatures  were  clearly
early  hunters.  They  carried  rough  spears,  and were in hot
pursuit of a large horned and armoured creature, which appered
to have been wounded in the hunt already. The colours were  now
so dim as to be almost non-existent. In fact, all that could be
clearly  seen was the white of the hunters' teeth, which seemed
to shine with a whiteness whose  lustre  was  undimmed  by  the
passage of what must have been many thousands of years. In fact
they  even  put  the Monk's own teeth to shame, a&#127;d he had
cleaned them only that morning.
     The Monk had seen paintings like this before, but only  in
pictures or on the TV, never in real life. They were usually to
be  found in caves where they were protected from the elements,
otherwise they would not have survived.
     The Monk looked more carefully at the  immediate  environs
of  the  rock  wall  and  noticed that, though not exactly in a
cave, it was nevertheless protected by a large overhang and was
well sheltered from the wind and rain.  Odd,  though,  that  it
should have managed to last so long. Odder still that it should
appear  not  to  have  been  discovered. Such cave paintings as
there were were all famous and familiar images,  but  this  was
not one that he had ever seen before.
     Perhaps this was a dramatic and historic find he had made.
Perhaps  if  he  were  to  return to the city and announce this
discovery he would be welcomed back, given  a  new  motherboard
after  all  and allowed to believe - to believe - believe what?
He paused, blinked, and shook his head  to  clear  a  momentary
system error.
     He pulled himself up short.
     He  believed  in  a door. He must find that door. The door
was the way to... to...
     The Door was The Way.
     Good.
     Capital letters were always the best way of  dealing  with
things you didn't have a good answer to.
     Brusquely  he  tugged  the horse's head round and urged it
onward and downward.  Within  a  few  minutes  more  of  tricky
manoeuvring  they  had  reached  the  valley  floor, and he was
momentarily disconcerted to discover that the fine top layer of
dust that had settled on the brown parched earth was  indeed  a
very  pale  brownish  pink,  particularIy  on  the banks of the
sluggish trickle of mud which was all that remained, in the hot
season, of the river that flowed through the  valley  when  the
rains  came.  He dismounted and bent down to feel the pink dust
and run it through his fingers. It was very fine and  soft  and
felt  pleasant  as  he  rubbed it on his skin. It was about the
same colour, perhaps a little paler.
     The horse was  looking  at  him.  He  realised,  a  little
belatedly perhaps, that the horse must be extremely thirsty. He
was  extremely  thirsty himself, but had tried to keep his mind
off it. He unbuckled the water flask from the  saddle.  It  was
pathetically  light.  He  unscrewed the top and rook one single
swig. Then he poured a little into his cupped hand and  offered
it to the horse, who slurped at it greedily and briefly.
     The horse looked at him again.
     The  Monk  shook  his  head sadly, resealed the bottle and
replaced it. He knew, in that small part of his mind  where  he
kept  factual  and  logical information, that it would not last
much longer, and that, without it, neither would they.  It  was
only  his  Belief  that kept him going, currently his Belief in
The Door.
     He brushed the pink dust from his rough  habit,  and  then
stood  looking  at  the  rocky  outcrop,  a  mere hundred yards
distant.  He  Iooked  at  it  not  without   a   slight,   tiny
trepidation.  Although  the  major part of his mind was firm in
its eternal and unshakeable Belief that there would be  a  Door
behind the outcrop, and that the Door would be The Way, yet the
tiny  part  of his brain that understood about the water bottle
could not help but recall past disappointments  and  sounded  a
very tiny but jarring note of caution.
     If he elected not to go and see The Door for himself, then
he could  continue  to  believe  in it forever. It would be the
lodestone of his life (what little was left  of  it,  said  the
part of his brain that knew about the water bottle).
     If  on  the  other hand he went to pay his respects to the
Door and it wasn't there... what then?
     The horse whinnied impatiently.
     The answer, of course, was very simple.  He  had  a  whole
board  of  circuits  for  dealing with exactly this problem, in
fact this was the very heart of his function. He would continue
to believe in it whatever the facts turned out to be, what else
was the meaning of Belief?
     The Door would still be there, even if the door was not.
     He pulled himself together. The Door would be  there,  and
he must now go to it, because The Door was The Way.
     Instead  of  remounting  his horse, he led it. The Way was
but a short way, and he should enter the presence of  the  Door
in humility.
     He  walked,  brave  and  erect,  with  solemn slowness. He
approached the rocky outcrop. He  reached  it.  He  turned  the
corner. He looked.
     The Door was there.
     The horse, it must be said, was quite surprised.
     The  Monk  fell  to  his knees in awe and bewilderment. So
braced was he for dealing  with  the  disappointment  that  was
habitually  his  lot  that, though he would pever know to admit
it, he was completely unprepared for this.  He  stared  at  The
Door in sheer, blank system error.
     It  was  a  door such as he had never seen before. All the
doors he knew were great steel-reinforced  things,  because  of
all  the  video recorders and dishwashers that were kept behind
them, plus of course all the expensive Electric Monks that were
needed to believe in it all. This one was  simple,  wooden  and
small,  about  his  own  size. A Monk-size door, painted white,
with a single, slightly dented brass knob  slightly  less  than
halfway  up  one side. It was set simply in the rock face, with
no explanation as to its origin or purpose.
     Hardly knowing  how  he  dared,  the  poor  startled  Monk
staggered  to his feet and, leading his horse, walked nervously
forward towards it. He reached out and touched it.  He  was  so
startled  when  no  alarms  went  off  that  he jumped back. He
touched it again, more firmly this time.
     He let his hand drop slowly to  the  handle  -  again,  no
alarms. He waited to be sure, and then he turned it, very, very
gently.  He  felt  a  mechanism  release.  He  held his breath.
Nothing. He drew the door towards him, and it came  easily.  He
looked inside, but the interior was so dim in contrast with the
desert  sun  outside that he could see nothing. At last, almost
dead with wonder, he cntered, pulling the horse in after him.

     A few minutes later, a figure that had been sitting out of
sight around the next outcrop of rock finished rubbing dust  on
his  face,  stood up, stretched his limbs and made his way back
towards the door, patting his clothes as he did so.

        Chapter Six...

     "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
     A stately pleasure-dome decree:"

     The reader clearly belonged to the school of thought which
holds that a sense of the seriousness or greatness of a poem is
best imparted by reading it in a silly  voice.  He  soared  and
swooped  at  the  words  until  they seemed to duck and run for
cover.

     "Where Alph, the sacred river ran
     Through caverns measureless to man
     Down to a sunless sea."

     Richard relaxed back into his seat. The words  were  very,
very  familar  to  him,  as  they  could not help but be to any
English graduate of St Cedd's College, and they settled  easily
into his min l.
     The  association  of  the  college wit&#127;-Coleridge was
taken very  seriously  indeed,  despite  the  man's  well-known
predilection for certain recreational pharmaceuticals under the
influence  of  which his, his greatest work, was composed, in a
dream.
     The entire manuscript was lodged in  the  safe-keeping  of
the  college  library,  and  it  was  from  this itself, on the
regular occasion of the Coleridge Dinner,  that  the  poem  was
read.

     "So twice five miles of fertile ground
     With walls and towers were girdled round:
     And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
     Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
     And here were forests ancient as the hills,
     Enfolding sunny spots of greenery."

     Richard  wondered how long it took. He glanced sideways at
his former Director of Studies and was disturbed by the  sturdy
purposefulness  of  his  reading  posture.  The  singsong voice
irritated him at first, but after a while it began to lull  him
instead,  and he watched a rivulet of wax seeping over the edge
of a candle that was burning low now and throwing  a  guttering
light over the carnage of dinner.

     "But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
     Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
     A savage place! as holy and enchanted
     As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
     By woman wailing for her demon-lover!"

     The small quantities of claret that he had allowed himself
during  the course of the meal seeped warmly through his veins,
and soon his own mind began to wander, and  provoked  by  Reg's
question  earlier  in  the  meal,  he  wondered what had lately
become of his former... was friend the  word?  He  seemed  more
like  a  succession  of extraordinary events than a person. The
idea of him actually having friends as such seemed not so  much
unlikely, more a sort of mismatching of concepts, like the idea
of the Suez crisis popping out for a bun.
     Svlad  Cjelli.  Popularly  known  as  Dirk, though, again,
"popular" was hardly right. Notorious, certainly; sought after,
endlessly speculated about, those too were true.  But  popular?
Only in the sense that a serious accident on the motorway might
be  popular  -  everyone slows down to have a good look, but no
one will get too close to the flames. Infamous  was  more  like
it. Svlad Cjelli, infamously known as Dirk.
     He  was  rounder  than  the average undergraduate and wore
more hats. That is to say, there was just the one hat which  he
habitually wore, but he wore it with a passion that was rare in
one  so young. The hat was dark red and round, with a very flat
brim, and it appeared to move as if balanced on gimbals,  which
ensured  its  perfect  horizontality  at all times, however its
owner moved his head. As a hat it was a remarkable rather  than
entirely successful piece of persona! decoration. It would make
an  elegant  adornment, stylish, shapely and flattering, if the
wearer were a small bedside lamp, but not otherwise.
     People gravitated around him, drawn in by the  stories  he
denied  about  himself,  but  what  the source of these stories
might be, if not his own denials, was never entirely clear.
     The tales had to do with  the  psychic  powers  that  he'd
supposedly  inherited  from his mother's side of the family who
he claimed, had lived at the smarter end of Transylvania.  That
is  to  say,  he didn't make any such claim at all, and said it
was the most absurd nonsense. He strenuously denied that  there
were  bats  of  any kind at all in his family and threatened to
sue anybody who put about such malicious fabrications,  but  he
affected  nevertheless to wear a large and flappy leather coat,
and had one of those machines in his room which are supposed to
help cure bad backs if you hang upside down from them. He would
allow people to discover him hanging from this machine  at  all
kinds  of  odd  hours  of the day, and more particularly of the
night, expressly so that he could vigorously deny that  it  had
any significance whatsoever.
     By  means of an ingenious series of strategically deployed
denials of the most exciting and exotic things, he was able  to
create the myth that he was a psychic, mystic, telepathic, fey,
clairvoyant, psychosassic vampire bat.
     What did "psychosassic" mean?
     lt was his own word and he vigorously denied that it meant
anything at all.

     "And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
     As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
     A mighty fountain momently was forced:
     Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
     Huge fragments vaulted..."

     Dirk had also been perpetually broke. This would change.
     lt  was  his  room-mate who started it, a credulous fellow
called Mander, who, if the truth were known, had probably  been
specially selected by Dirk for his credulity.
     Steve  Mander  noticed that if ever Dirk went to bed drunk
he would talk in his sleep. Not only  that,  but  the  sort  of
things  he  would  say  in his sleep would be things like, "The
opening up of trade routes to the mumble mumble burble was  the
turning  point  for  the  growth  of empire in the snore footle
mumble. Discuss."
     "... like rebounding hail
     Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:"

     The first time this happened Steve Mander sat bolt upright
in bed. This was shortly before  prelim  exams  in  the  second
year,  and  what  Dirk  had  just said, or judiciously mumbled,
sounded remarkably like a very likely question in the  Economic
History paper.
     Mander  quietly  got  up,  crossed  over to Dirk's bed and
listened  very  hard,  but  other   than   a   few   completely
disconnected   mumblings   about   Schleswig-Holstein  and  the
Franco-Prussian war, the latter being largely directed by  Dirk
into his pillow, he learned nothing more.
     News,  however,  spread  -  quietly,  discreetly, and like
wildfire.

     "And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
     It flung up momently the sacred river."

     For the next month Dirk  found  himself  being  constantly
wined  and  dined  in the hope that he would sleep very soundly
that  night  and  dream-speak  a  few  more   exam   questions.
Remarkably, it seemed that the better he was fed, and the finer
the  vintage  of  the  wine  he was given to drink, the less he
would tend to sleep facing directly into his pillow.
     His scheme, therefore, was to exploit  his  alleged  gifts
without  ever  actually claiming to have them. ln fact he would
react  to  stories  about  his  supposed   powers   with   open
incredulity, even hostility.

     "Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
     Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
     Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
     And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
     And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
     Ancestral voices prophesying war!"

     Dirk  was  also,  he  denied,  a  clairaudient.  He  would
sometimes hum tunes in his sleep that  two  weeks  later  would
turn  out  to  be  a  hit  for  someone.  Not  too difficult to
organise, really.
     In fact, he had always done the bare minimum  of  research
necessary  to support these myths. He was lazy, and essentially
what he did was allow people's enthusiastic credulity to do the
work for him. The laziness was  essential  -  if  his  supposed
feats  of  the  paranormal had been detailed and accurate, then
people  might  have  been  suspicious  and  looked  for   other
explanations.  On  the other hand, the more vague and ambiguous
his "predictions" the more other people's own wishful  thinking
would close the credibility gap.
     Dirk never made much out of it - at least, he appeared not
to. In  fact,  the  benefit  to himself, as a student, of being
continually wined and dined at other people's expense was  more
considerable  than anyone would expect unless they sat down and
worked out the figures.
     And, of course, he never claimed - in  fact,  he  actively
denied-that any of it was even remotely true.
     He  was  therefore  well placed to execute a very nice and
tasty little scam come the time of finals.

     "The shadow of the dome of pleasure
     Floated midway on the waves;
     Where was heard the mingled measure
     From the fountain and the caves.
     It was a miracle of rare device,
     A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!"

     "Good heavens ...!" Reg suddenly seemed to  awake  with  a
start  from  the  light  doze  into which he had gently slipped
under the influence of the wine and the  reading,  and  glanced
about  himself  with  blank  surprise, but nothing had changed.
Coleridge's words sang through a  warm  and  contented  silence
that  had settled on the great hall. Afteranother quick frown,
Reg settled back into another doze, but this  time  a  slightly
more attentive one.

     "A damsel with a dulcimer
     In a vision once I saw:
     It was an Abyssinian maid,
     And on her dulcimer she played,
     Singing of Mount Abora."

     Dirk  allowed  himself  to  be  persuaded  to  make, under
hypnosis, a firm prediction about what questions would  be  set
for examination that summer.
     He  himself  first  planted the idea by explaining exactly
the sort of thing that he would never, under any circumstances,
be prepared to do, though in many ways he would like  to,  just
to  have  the  chance  to  disprove  his  alleged  and strongly
disavowed abilities.
     And it was on these grounds, carefully prepared,  that  he
eventually  agreed  -  only  because  it would once and for all
scotch the whole silly - immensely, tediously silly - business.
He would make his predictions by  means  of  automatic  writing
under  proper  supervision, and they would then be sealed in an
envelope and deposited at the bank until after the exams.
     Then they would be opened to see  how  accurate  they  had
been after the exams.
     He was, not surprisingly, offered some pretty hefty bribes
from a  pretty  hefty  number  of  people  to  let them see the
predictions he had written down, but he was absolutely  shocked
by the idea. That, he said, would be dishonest...

     "Could I revive within me
     Her symphony and song,
     To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
     That with music loud and long,
     I would build that dome in air,
     That sunny dome ! Those caves of ice ! "

     Then,  a short time later, Dirk allowed himself to be seen
around town wearing something of a vexed and solemn expression.
At first he waved aside enquiries as to what it  was  that  was
bothering  him,  but eventually he let slip that his mother was
going to have to undergo some extremely expensive  dental  work
which, for reasons that he refused to discuss, would have to be
done privately, only there wasn't the money.
     From  here,  the  path downward to accepting donations for
his mother's supposed medical  expenses  in  return  for  quick
glances   at   his   written  exam  predictions  proved  to  be
sufficiently steep and well-oiled for him to be  able  to  slip
down it with a minimum of fuss.
     Then it further transpired that the only dentist who could
perform  this  mysterious dental operation was an East European
surgeon now  living  in  Malibu,  and  it  was  in  consequence
necessary to increase the level of donations rather sharply.
     He  still  denied,  of course, that his abilities were all
that they were cracked up to be, in fact he  denied  that  they
existed  at all, and insisted that he would never have embarked
on the exercise at all if it wasn't to disprove the whole thing
- and also, since other people seemed, at their  own  risk,  to
have  a  faith in his abilities that he himself did not, he was
happy to indulge them to the extent of letting them pay for his
sainted mother's operation.
     He could only emerge well from this situation.
     Or so he thought.

     "And all who heard should see them there
     And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
     His flashing eyes, his floating hair!"

     The exam papers Dirk produced under hypnosis, by means  of
automatic  writing,  he had, in fact, pieced together simply by
doing the same minimum research that any student  taking  exams
would  do,  studying  previous exam papers, and seeing what, if
any, patterns emerged, and  making  intelligent  guesses  about
what  might  come  up. He was pretty sure of getting (as anyone
would be) a strike rate that was sufficiently high  to  satisfy
the  credulous,  and sufficiently low for the whole exercise to
look perfectly innocent.
     As indeed it was.
     What completely blew him out of the water,  and  caused  a
furore  which  ended  with him being driven out of Cambridge in
the back of a Black Maria, was  the  fact  that  all  the  exam
papers  he  sold  turned  out to be the same as the papers that
were actually set.
     Exactly. Word for word. To the very comma.

     "Wave a circle round him thrice
     And close your eyes with holy dread,
     For he on honey-dew hath fed,
     And drunk the milk of Paradise. . "

     And that, apart from a  flurry  of  sensational  newspaper
reports which exposed him as a fraud, then trumpeted him as the
real  thing  so  that they could have another round of exposing
him as a fraud again and then trumpeting him as the real  thing
again, &#127;ntil they got bored and found a nice juicy snooker
player to harass instead, was that.
     In  the  years  since then, Richard had run into Dirk from
time to time and had usually been greeted  with  that  kind  of
guarded  half smile that wants to know if you think it owes you
money before it blossoms into one that hopes you will  lend  it
some.  Dirk's regular name changes suggested to Richard that he
wasn't alone in being treated like this.
     He felt a tug of sadness that someone who  had  seemed  so
shiningly  alive  within  the  small  confines  of a university
community should have seemed to fade so much in  the  light  of
common  day.  And  he  wondered  at Reg's asking after him like
that, suddenly and out of the blue, in what  seemed  altogether
too airy and casual a manner.
     He  glanced  around  him  again,  at  his  lightly snoring
neighbour, Reg; at little Sarah rapt in  silent  attention;  at
the  deep  hall  swathed  in  darkly  glimmering  light; at the
portraits of old prime ministers and poets  hung  high  in  the
darkness  with  just  the odd glint of candlelight gleaming off
their teeth;  at  the  Director  of  English  Studies  standing
reading  in  his  poetry-reading  voice;  at the book of "Kubla
Khan" that the Director of English Studies held  in  his  hand;
and  finally,  surreptitiously,  at  his watch. He settled back
again.
     The voice continued, reading the  second,  and  altogether
stranger part of the poem...

        Chapter Seven...

     This was the evening of the last day of Gordon Way's life,
and he  was  wondering  if  the  rain  would  hold  off for the
weekend. The forecast had  said  changeable  -  a  misty  night
tonight  followed  by  bright  but  chilly  days  on Friday and
Saturday with maybe a few scattered showers towards the end  of
Sunday when everyone would be heading back into town.
     Everyone, that is, other than Gordon Way.
     The  weather  forecast  hadn't  mentioned that, of course,
that wasn 't the job of the  weather  forecast,  but  then  his
horoscope  had been pretty misleading as well. lt had mentioned
an unusual amount of planetary activity in  his  sign  and  had
urged  him  to  differentiate between what he thought he wanted
and what he actually  needed,  and  suggested  that  he  should
tackle  emotional  or  work  problems  with  determination  and
complete honesty, but had inexplicably failed to  mention  that
he would be dead before the day was out.
     He turned off the motorway near Cambridge and stopped at a
small  filling  station  for  some  petrol,  where he sat for a
moment, finishing off a call on his car phone.
     "OK, look, I'll call you tomorrow;"  he  said,  "or  maybe
later tonight. Or call me.1 should be at the cottage in half an
hour.  Yes,  I  know  how  important the project is to you. All
right, I know how important it is, full stop. You  want  it,  I
want  it.  Of  course  1  do.  And I'm not saying that we won't
continue to support it. I'm just saying it's expensive  and  we
should  look at the whole thing with determination and complete
honesty. Look, why don't you come out to the  cottage,  and  we
can talk it through. OK, yeah, yes, I know. I understand. Well,
think about it, Kate. Talk to you later. Bye."
     He hung up and continued to sit in his car for a moment.
     it was a large car. It was a large silver-grey Mercedes of
the sort   that  they  use  in  advertisements,  and  not  just
advertisements for Mercedes.  Gordon  Way,  brother  of  Susan,
employer  of  Richard  MacDuff, was a rich man, the founder and
owner of WayForward Technologies  II.  WayForward  Technologies
itself  had  of  course gone bust, for the usual reason, taking
his entire first fortune with it.
     Luckily, he had managed to make another one.
     The "usual reason" was that he had been in the business of
computer hardware when every twelve-year-old in the country had
suddenly got bored  with  boxes  that  went  bing.  His  second
fortune  had  been made in software instead. As a result of two
major pieces of software, one of which was  Anthem  (the
other,  more  profitable  one had never seen the light of day),
WFT-II was the only British  software  company  that  could  be
mentioned  in the same sentence as such major U.S. companies as
Microsoft or Lotus. The sentence would probably run  along  the
lines  of  "WayForward  Technologies,  unlike  such  major U.S.
companies as  Microsoft  or  Lotus..."  but  it  was  a  start.
WayForward was in there. And he owned it.
     He  pushed  a tape into the slot on the stereo console. It
accepted it with a soft and decorous click, and a moment or two
later Ravel's Bolro  floated  out  of  eight  perfectly
matched  speakers  with  fine-meshed  matte-black  grilles. The
stereo was so smooth and spacious you could  almost  sense  the
whole ice-rink. He tapped his fingers lightly on the padded rim
of  the  steering  wheel.  He  gazed at the dashboard. Tasteful
illuminated figures and tiny,  immaculate  lights  gazed  dimly
back at him. After a while he suddenly realised this was a self
service station and got out to fill the tank.
     This  took  a  minute or two. He stood gripping the filler
nozzle, stamping his feet in the cold night  air,  then  walked
over to the small grubby kiosk, paid for the petrol, remembered
to  buy  a  couple  of  local  maps,  and  then  stood chatting
enthusiastically to the cashier for a  few  minutes  about  the
directions  the  computer  industry  was  likely to take in the
following year, suggesting that parallel processing  was  going
to  be  the  key to really intuitive productivity software, but
also strongly doubting whether artificial intelligence research
per se, particularly  artificial  intelligence  research
based  on  the ProLog language, was really going to produce any
serious commercially viable products in the foreseeable future,
at least  as  far  as  the  office  desk  top  environment  was
concerned, a topic that fascinated the cashier not at all.
     "The  man  just  liked  to  talk," he would later tell the
police. "Man,I could have walked away to  the  toilet  for  ten
minutes  and  he  would've told it all to the till. If I'd been
fifteen minutes the till would have walked away too. Yeah,  I'm
sure  that's  him," he would add when shown a picture of Gordon
Way. "I only wasn't sure at first because in the  picture  he's
got his mouth closed."
     "And  you're  absolutely  certain  you didn't see anything
else suspicious?" the policeman insisted. "Nothing that  struck
you as odd in any way at all?"
     "No,  like  I said, it was just an ordinary customer on an
ordinary night, just like any other night."
     The policeman stared at him blankly. "Just for the sake of
argument," he went on  to  say,  "if  I  were  suddenly  to  do
this..."
- he  made  himself  go cross-eyed, stuck his tongue out of the
corner of his mouth and danced up and down twisting his fingers
in his ears - "would anything strike you about that?"
     "Well,  er,  yeah,"  said  the   cashier,   backing   away
nervously. "I'd think you'd gone stark raving mad."
     "Good,"  said  the  policeman,  putting his notebook away.
"It's just that different people  sometimes  have  a  different
idea  of  what  `odd' means, you see, sir. If last night was an
ordinary night just like any other night, then I am a pimple on
the bottom of the Marquess of Queensbury's aunt.  We  shall  be
requiring a statement later, sir. Thank you for your time."
     That was all yet to come.
     Tonight, Gordon pushed the maps in his pocket and strolled
back towards  his car. Standing under the lights in the mist it
had gathered a finely beaded coat of matte moisture on it,  and
looked  like  -  well,  it  looked  like an extremely expensive
Mercedes-Benz. Gordon caught himself, just for  a  millisecond,
wishing  that  he had something like that, but he was now quite
adept at fending off that particular  line  of  thought,  which
only  led  off  in  circles  and left him feeling depressed and
confused.
     He patted it in  a  proprietorial  manner,  then,  walking
around  it,  noticed  that  the boot wasn't closed properly and
pushed it shut. It closed with a good healthy clunk. Well, that
made it all worth it, didn't it? Good healthy clunk like  that.
Old-fashioned  values of quality and workmanship. He thought of
a dozen things he had to talk to Susan about and  climbed  back
into  the  car, pushing the auto-dial code on his phone as soon
as the car was prowling back on to the road.
     "...so if you'd like to leave a message,I'll get  back  to
you as soon as possible. Maybe."  Beep.
     "Oh,  Susan, hi, it's Gordon," he said, cradling the phone
awkwardly on his shoulder. "Just on my way to the cottage. It's
er, Thursday night, and it's, er...  8.47.  Bit  misty  on  the
roads.  Listen, I have those people from the States coming over
this weekend to thrash out the  distribution  on  Anthem
Version  2.00, handling the promotion, all that stuff, and look
you know I don't like to ask you this sort of  thing,  but  you
know I always do anyway, so here it is.
     "I  just  need to know that Richard is on the case. I mean
really on the case. I can ask him, and  he  says,
Oh  sure,  it's  fine, but half the time - shit, that lorry had
bright lights, none of these bastard lorry  drivers  ever  dips
them  properly, it's a wonder I don't end up dead in the ditch,
that would be something, wouldn't it, leaving your famous  last
words  on  somebody's  answering machine, there's no reason why
these lorries shouldn't have automatic  light-activated  dipper
switches.  Look, can you make a note for me to tell Susan - not
you, of course, secretary Susan at the office - to tell her  to
send  a  letter from me to that fellow at the Department of the
Environment saying we can provide  the  technology  if  he  can
provide  the  legislation? It's for the public good, and anyway
he owes me a favour plus what's the point in having  a  CBE  if
you  can't  kick  a  little ass? You can tell I've been talking
t&#127; Americans all week.
     "That reminds me, God, I hope I  remembered  to  pack  the
shotguns.  What  is it with these Americans that they're always
so mad to shoot my rabbits? I bought them some maps in the hope
that I can persuade them to go on long healthy walks  and  take
their minds off shooting rabbits. I really feel quite sorry for
the  creatures.  I  think 1 should put one of those signs on my
lawn when the Americans are coming, you know, like they have in
Beverly Hills, saying `Armed Response'.
     "Make a note to Susan, would you please, to get an  `Armed
Response'  sign made up with a sharp spike on the bottom at the
right height for rabbits to see. That's secretary Susan at  the
office not you, of course.
     "Where was I?
     "Oh yes. Richard and Anthem 2.00. Susan, that thing
has got  to  be  in beta testing in two weeks. He tells me it's
fine. But every time I see him he's got a  picture  of  a  sofa
spinning  on  his  computer  screen.  He says it's an important
concept, but all I see is  furniture.  People  who  want  their
company accounts to sing to them do not want to buy a revolving
sofa.  Nor do I think he should be turning the erosion patterns
of the Himalayas into a flute quintet at this time.
     "And as for what Kate's up to, Susan, well, I  can't  hide
the  fact  that I get anxious at the salaries and computer time
it's eating up. Important long-term research and development it
might  be.  but  there  is  also  the   possibility,   only   a
possibility, I'm saying, but nevertheless a possibility which I
think  we  owe  it  to ourselves fully to evaluate and explore,
which is that it's a lemon. That's odd, there's a noise  coming
from the boot, I thought I'd just closed it properly.
     "Anyway,  the  main thing's Richard. And the point is that
there's only one person who's really in a position to  know  if
he's getting the important work done, or if he's just dreaming,
and that one person is, I'm afraid, Susan.
     "That's you, I mean, of course, not secretary Susan at the
office.
     "So can you, I don't like to ask you this, I really don't,
can you  really  get on his case? Make him see how important it
is? Just make sure he realises that WayForward Technologies  is
meant  to be an expanding commercial business, not an adventure
playground for crunch-heads. That's the  problem  with  crunch=
heads  -  they have one great idea that actually works and then
they expect you to carry on funding them for years  while  they
sit  and calculate the topographies of their navels. I'm sorry,
I'm going to have to stop and close the boot properly. Won't be
a moment."
     He put the telephone down on the seat beside  him,  pulled
over  on  to  the  grass  verge, and got out. As he went to the
boot, it opened, a figure rose out of it, shot him through  the
chest  with  both  barrels of a shotgun and then went about its
business.
     Gordon Way's astonishment at being suddenly shot dead  was
nothing to his astonishment at what happened next.

        Chapter Eight...

     "Come in, dear fellow, come in."
     The door to Reg's set of rooms in college was up a winding
set of wooden stairs in the corner of Second Court, and was not
well lit,  or  rather  it was perfectly well lit when the light
was working, but the light was not working, so the door was not
well  lit  and  was,  furthermore,  locked.  Reg   was   having
difficulty  in  finding  the key from a collection which looked
like something that a fit Ninja warrior could hurl through  the
trunk of a tree.
     Rooms in the older parts of the college have double doors,
like airlocks,  and  like airlocks they are fiddly to open. The
outer door is a sturdy  slab  of  grey  painted  oak,  with  no
features  other than a very narrow slit for letters, and a Yale
lock, to which suddenly Reg at last found the key.
     He unlocked it and  pulled  it  open.  Behind  it  lay  an
ordinary white-panelled door with an ordinary brass doorknob.
     "Come  in,  come  in,"  repeated  Reg,  opening  this  and
fumbling for the light switch. For  a  moment  only  the  dying
embers  of  a fire in the stone grate threw ghostly red shadows
dancing around the room, but then electric light flooded it and
extinguished the magic. Reg hesitated on the  threshold  for  a
moment,  oddly  tense,  as  if  wishing to be sure of something
before he entered, then bustled in with at least the appearance
of cheeriness.
     It was a large panelled room, which a collection of gently
shabby furniture contrived to fill quite  comfortably.  Against
the far wall stood a large and battered old mahogany table with
fat  ugly  legs, which was laden with books, files, folders and
teetering piles of papers. Standing in its  own  space  on  the
desk,  Richard  was amused to note, was actually a battered old
abacus.
     There was a small Regency  writing  desk  standing  nearby
which  might  have  been quite valuable had it not been knocked
about so much, also a couple  of  elegant  Georgian  chairs,  a
portentous  Victorian  bookcase, and so on. It was, in short, a
don's room. It had a don's framed maps and prints on the  walls
a threadbare and faded don's carpet on the floor, and it looked
as  if little had changed in it for decades, which was probably
the case because a don lived in it.
     Two doors led out from either end of  the  opposite  wall,
and  Richard  knew from previous visits that one led to a study
which looked much like a smaller and more  intense  version  of
this room
- larger  clumps  of  books,  taller  piles  of  paper  in more
imminent danger of actually falling, furniture  which,  however
old  and  valuable, was heavily marked with myriad rings of hot
tea or  coffee  cups,  on  many  of  which  the  original  cups
themselves were probably still standing.
     The  other  door  led  to  a  small  and  rather basically
equipped kitchen, and a twisty internal staircase at the top of
which lay the Professor's bedroom and bathroom.
     "Try and make yourself comfortable on the  sofa,"  invited
Reg,  fussing around hospitably. "I don't know if you'll manage
it. It always feels to me as if it's been stuffed with  cabbage
leaves  and  cutlery."  He peered at Richard seriously. "Do you
have a good sofa?" he enquired.
     "Well, yes."  Richard  laughed.  He  was  cheered  by  the
silliness of the question.
     "Oh," said Reg solemnly. "Well; I wish you'd tell me where
you got  it.  I  have endless trouble with them, quite endless.
Never found a comfortable one in all my life. How do  you  find
yours?"  He encountered, with a slight air of surprise, a small
silver tray he had left out with a decanter of port  and  three
glasses.
     "Well,  it's odd you should ask that," said Richard. "I've
never sat on it."
     "Very wise," insisted Reg earnestly, "very, very wise." He
went through a palaver similar to his  previous  one  with  his
coat and hat.
     "Not  that  I  wouldn't like to," said Richard. "It's just
that it's stuck halfway up a long flight of stairs which  leads
up  into my flat. As far as I can make it out, the delivery men
got it part way up the stairs, got it stuck, turned  it  around
any  way  they  could,  couldn't  get  it any further, and then
found, curiously enough, that they couldn't get  it  back  down
again. Now, that should be impossible."
     "Odd,"  agreed  Reg. "I've certainly never come across any
irreversible mathematics involving sofas. Could be a new field.
Have you spoken to any spatial geometricians?"
     "I did better than that. I called in a neighbour's kid who
used to be able to solve Rubik's cube in seventeen seconds.  He
sat  on  a  step  and  stared  at  it  for  over an hour before
pronouncing it irrevocably stuck. Admittedly he's a  few  years
older  now  and  has  found  out  about  girls, but it's got me
puzzled."
     "Carry on talking, my dear fellow,  I'm  most  interested,
but  let  me know first if there's anything I can get you. Port
perhaps? Or brandy? The port I think is the  better  bet,  laid
down by the college in 1934, one of the finest vintages I think
you'll  find,  and  on the other hand I don't actually have any
brandy. Or coffee? Some more wine perhaps? There's an excellent
Margaux I've been Iooking for an  excuse  to  open,  though  it
should  of  course be allowed to stand open for an hour or two,
which is not to say that I couldn't... no," he said  hurriedly,
"probably best not to go for the Margaux tonight."
     "Tea  is  what I would really like," said Richard, "if you
have some."
     Reg raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure?"
     "I have to drive home."
     "Indeed. Then I shall be a moment or two in  the  kitchen.
Please carry on, I shall still be able to hear you. Continue to
tell  me  of your sofa, and do feel free in the meantime to sit
on mine. Has it been stuck there for long?"
     "Oh, only about three weeks," said Richard, sitting  down.
"I  could just saw it up and throw it away, but I can't believe
that there isn't a logical answer. And it also made me think  -
it  would  be  really  useful to know before you buy a piece of
furniture whether it's actually going to ht up  the  stairs  or
around  the  corner.  So  I've  modelled  the  problem in three
dimensions on my computer - and so far it just says no way."
     "It says what?" called Reg, over the noise of filling  the
kettte.
     "That  it  can't  be  done. I told it to compute the moves
necessary to get the sofa out, and it said there aren't any.  I
said `What?' and it said there aren't any. I then asked it, and
this  is  the  really  mysterious  thing,  to compute the moves
necessary to get the sofa into  its  present  position  in  the
first  place,  and it said that it couldn't have got there. Not
without fundamental restructuring  of  the  walls.  So,  either
there's  something  wrong with the fundamental structure of the
matter in  my  walls  or,"  he  added  with  a  sigh,  "there's
something wrong with the program. Which would you guess?"
     "And are you married?" called Reg.
     "What? Oh, I see what you mean. A sofa stuck on the stairs
for a month. Well, no, not married as such, but yes, there is a
specific girl that I'm not married to."
     "What's she like? What does she do?"
     "She's  a  professional  cellist. I have to admit that the
sofa has been a bit of a talking point.  In  fact  she's  moved
back to her own flat until I get it sorted out. She, well... "
     He  was  suddenly sad, and he stood up and wandered around
the room in a desultory sort of way and ended up  in  front  of
the  dying  fire.  He  gave  it  a bit of a poke and threw on a
couple of extra logs to try and ward off the chill of the room.
     "She's Gordon,s sister, in fact," he added at  last.  "But
they  are  very different. I 'm not sure she really approves of
computers very much. And she doesn't much like his attitude  to
money.  I  don't  think I entirely blame her, actually, and she
doesn't know the half of it."
     "Which is the half she doesn't know?"
     Richard sighed.
     "Well," he said, "it's to do with the project which  first
made the software incarnation of the company profitable. It was
called Reuson, and in its own way it was sensational."
     "What was it?"
     "Well,  it was a kind of back-to-front program. It's funny
how many of the best ideas are just an old idea  back-to-front.
You  see  there have already been several programs written that
help you to  arrive  at  decisions  by  properly  ordering  and
analysing  all  the  relevant  facts  so  that  they then point
naturally towards the right deeision. The clrawback with  these
is  that  the  decision  which  all  the  properly  ordered and
analysed facts point to is not necessarily the one you want."
     "Yeeeess..." said Reg's voice from the kitchen.
     "Well, Gordon's great insight  was  to  design  a  program
which  allowed  you  to  specify  in  advance what decision you
wished it to reach, and only then to give it all the facts. The
program's task, which it was able to accomplish with consummate
ease,  was  simply  to  construct   a   plausible   series   of
logical-sounding   steps  to  connect  the  premises  with  the
conclusion.
     "And I have to say that it worked brilliantly. Gordon  was
able  to buy himself a Porsche almost immediately despite being
completely broke and a hopeless driver. Even his  bank  manager
was  unable  to find fault with his reasoning. Even when Gordon
wrote it off three weeks later."
     "Heavens. And did the program sell very well?" .
     "No. We never sold a single copy."
     "You astonish me. It sounds like a real winner to me."
     "It was," said Richard hesitantly. "The entire project was
bought up, lock, stock and barrel, by the  Pentagon.  The  deal
put  WayForward on a very sound financial foundation. Its moral
foundation, on the other hand, is not something t would want to
trust my weight to. I,ve recently been analysing a lot  of  the
arguments  put  forward in favour of the Star Wars project, and
if you know  what  you're  looking  for,  the  pattern  of  the
algorithms is very clear.
     "So  much  so,  in fact, that looking at Pentagon policies
over the last couple of years I think I can be fairly sure that
the US Navy is using version 2.00 of the program, while the Air
Force for some reason only has the beta-test  version  of  1.5.
Odd, that."
     "Do you have a copy?"
     "Certainly  not,"  said Richard, "I wouldn't have anything
to do with it. Anyway, when  the  Pentagon  bought  everything,
they  bought everything. Every scrap of code, every disk, every
notebook. I was glad to see the back of it. If indeed we  have.
I just busy myself with my own projects."
     He  poked at the fire again and wondered what he was doing
here when he had  so  much  work  on.  Gordon  was  on  at  him
continually   about   getting   the   new,   super  version  of
Anthem ready for taking advantage of the  Macintosh  ll,
and  he was well behind with it. And as for the proposed module
for converting incoming Dow Jones stock-market information into
MIDI data in real time, he'd only meant that  as  a  joke,  but
Gordon,  of  course,  had flipped over the idea and insisted on
its being implemented. That too  was  meant  to  be  ready  but
wasn't. He suddenly knew exactly why it was he was here.
     Well,  it had been a pleasant evening, even if he couldn't
see why Reg had been quite so keen to see him. He picked  up  a
couple  of books from the table. The table obviously doubled as
a dining table, because although the piles looked  as  if  they
had  been  there  for  weeks,  the  absence of dust immediately
around them showed that they had been moved recently.
     Maybe, he thought, the need  for  amiable  chit-chat  with
someone  different  can become as urgent as any other need when
you live in a community as enclosed as a Cambridge college was,
even nowadays. He was a likeable old fellow, but it  was  clear
from   dinner   that   many   of   his   colleagues  found  his
eccentricities  formed  rather  a   rich   sustained   diet   -
particularly  when  they  had  so  many of their own to contend
with. A thought about Susan nagged him, but he was u&#127;ed to
that. He flipped through the two books he'd picked up.
     One of them,  an  elderly  one,  was  an  account  of  the
hauntings of Borley Rectory, the most haunted house in England.
Its spine was getting raggedy, and the photographic plates were
so  grey  and  blurry  as  to be virtually indistinguishable. A
picture he thought must be a very lucky (or faked)  shot  of  a
ghostly apparition turned out, when he examined the caption, to
be a portrait of the author.
     The  other book was more recent, and by an odd coincidence
was a guide to the Greek islands. He thumbed  through  it  idly
and a piece of paper fell out.
     "Earl  Grey  or  Lapsang  Souchong?"  called  out Reg. "Or
Darjeeling? Or PG Tips? It's all tea bags anyway.  I'm  afraid.
And none of them very fresh."
     "Darjeeling  will  do  fine,"  replied  Richard,  stooping
topick up the piece of paper.
     "Milk?" called Reg.
     "Er, please."
     "One lump or two?"
     "One, please."
     Richard slipped the paper back into the book, noticing  as
he  did  so  that  it had a hun-iedly scribbled note on it. The
note said,  oddly  enough,  "Regard  this  simple  silver  salt
cellar. Regard this simple hat."
     "Sugar?"
     "Er,  what?"  said  Richard,  startled.  He  put  the book
hurriedly back on the pile.
     "Just a tiny joke of mine," said Reg cheerily, "to see  if
people  are  listening."  He  emerged  beaming from the kitchen
carrying a small tray with two cups  on  it,  which  he  hurled
suddenly to the floor. The tea splashed over the carpet. One of
the  cups  shattered and the other bounced under the table. Reg
leaned against the door frame, white-faced and staring.
     A frozen instant of time slid silently  by  while  Richard
was  too startled to react, then he leaped awkwardly forward to
help. But the old man was already apologising and  offering  to
make him another cup. Richard helped him to the sofa.
     "Are  you  all  right?" asked Richard helplessly. "Shall I
get a doctor?"
     Reg waved him down. "It's all right,"  he  insisted,  "I'm
perfectly  well.  Thought  I heard, well, a noise that startled
me. But it was nothing. Just overcome with  the  tea  fumes,  I
expect. Let me just catch my breath. I think a little, er, port
will  revive me excellently. So sorry, I didn't mean to startle
you." He waved in the general direction of the  port  decanter.
Richard hurriedly poured a small glass and gave it to him.
     "What  kind  of  noise?" he asked, wondering what on earth
could shock him so much.
     At that moment came the sound of movement upstairs and  an
extraordinary kind of heavy breathing noise.
     "That..."  whispered  Reg. The glass of port lay shattered
at his feet. Upstairs someone seemed to be stamping.  "Did  you
hear it?"
     "Well, yes."
     This seemed to relieve the old man.
     Richard  looked  nervously  up  at  the ceiling. "Is there
someone up there?" he asked, feeling this was a lame  question,
but one that had to be asked.
     "No,"  said  Reg  in a low voice that shocked Richard with
the fear it carried, "no one. Nobody that should be there."
     "Then..."
     Reg was struggling shakily to  his  feet,  but  there  was
suddenly a fierce determination about him.
     "I  must  go  up  there," he said quietly. "I must. Please
wait for me here."
     "Look, what is this?" demanded Richard,  standing  between
Reg and the doorway. "What is it, a burglar? Look, I'll go. I'm
sure  it's  nothing,  it's just the wind or something." Richard
didn't know why he was saying this. It clearly wasn't the wind,
or even anything like the wind, because though the  wind  might
conceivably  make heavy breathing noises, it rarely stamped its
feet in that way.
     "No," the old man said, politely  but  firmly  moving  him
aside, "it is for me to do."
     Richard  followed him helplessly through the door into the
small hallway, beyond which lay the tiny kitchen. A dark wooden
staircase led up  from  here;  the  steps  seemed  damaged  and
scuffed.
     Reg turned on a light. It was a dim one that hung naked at
the top  of  the  stairwell,  and  he  looked  up  it with grim
apprehension.
     "Wait here," he said, and walked up  two  steps.  He  then
turned  and  faced  Richard  with  a  look of the most profound
seriousness on his face.
     "I am sorry," he said, "that you have become  involved  in
what  is...  the  more  difficult  side of my life. But you are
involved now, regrettable though that  may  be,  and  there  is
something  I  must  ask  you.  I  do not know what awaits me up
there, do not know exactly. I do not know if  it  is  something
which  I  have  foolishly  brought  upon  myself  with my... my
hobbies, or if it is  something  to  which  I  have  fallen  an
innocent  victim.  If it is the former, then I have only myself
to blame, for I am like a doctor who cannot give up smoking, or
perhaps worse still, like an ecologist who cannot give  up  his
car - if the latter, then I hope it may not happen to you.
     "What  I must ask you is this. When I come back down these
stairs, always supposing of  course  that  I  do,  then  if  my
behaviour  strikes you as being in any way odd, if I appear not
to be myself, then you must leap on me and wrestle  me  to  the
ground.  Do  you  understand?  You  must  prevent me from doing
anything I may try to do."
     "But how will  I  know?"  asked  an  incredulous  Richard.
"Sorry  I  don't  mean  it to sound like that, but I don't know
what...?"
     "You will know," said Reg. "Now please wait for me in  the
main room. And close the door."
     Shaking his head in bewilderment, Richard stepped back and
did as  he  was  asked.  From  inside  the large untidy room he
listened to the sound of the  Professor's  tread  mounting  the
stairs one at a time.
     He  mounted  them  with  a  heavy  deliberation,  like the
ticking of a great, slow clock.
     Richard heard him reach the top landing. There  he  paused
in  silence.  Seconds  went  by, five, maybe ten, maybe twenty.
Then came again the heavy movement and breath that had first so
harrowed the Professor.
     Richard moved quickly to the door but did not open it. The
chill of the room oppressed and disturbed  him.  He  shook  his
head to try and shake off the feeling, and then held his breath
as  the footsteps started once again slowly to traverse the two
yards of the landing and to pause there again.
     After only a few seconds; this time Richard heard the long
slow squeak of a door  being  opened  inch  by  inch,  inch  by
cautious  inch,  until  it  must surely now at last be standing
wide agape.
     Nothing further seemed to happen for a long, long time.
     Then at last the door closed once again, slowly.
     The  footsteps  crossed  the  landing  and  paused  again.
Richard  backed  a  few  slight  paces  from  the door, staring
fixedly at it. Once more the footsteps started to  descend  the
stairs;  slowly,  deliberately  and quietly, until at last they
reached the bottom. Then after a  few  seconds  more  the  door
handle  began  to rotate. The door opened and Reg walked calmly
in.
     "It's all right, it's just a horse in  the  bathroom,"  he
said quietly.
     Richard leaped on him and wrestled him to the ground.
     "No,"  gasped  Reg,  "no,  get  off  me,  let  me  go, I'm
perfectly all right, damn it. It's just a  horse,  a  perfectly
ordinary  horse." He shook Richard off with no great difficulty
and sat up, puffing and blowing and pushing his  hands  through
his limited hair. Richard stood over him warily, but with great
and mounting embarrassment. He edged back, and let Reg stand up
and sit on a chair.
     "Just  a  horse," said Reg, "but, er, thank you for taking
me at my word." He brushed himself down.
     "A horse," repeated Richard.
     "Yes," said Reg.
     Richard went out and looked up the stairs  and  then  came
back in.
     "A horse?" he said again.
     "Yes,  it is," said the Professor. "Wait -" he motioned to
Richard, who was about to go out again and investigate  -  "let
it be. It won't be long."
     Richard  stared  in disbelief. "You say there's a horse in
your bathroom, and all you can do is stand there naming Beatles
songs?"
     The Professor looked blankly at him.
     "Listen," he said, "I'm sorry if I... alarmed you earlier,
it was just a slight turn. These things happen, my dear fellow,
don't upset yourself about it. Dear me, I've known odder things
in my time. Many of them. Far odder. She's only  a  horse,  for
heaven's  sake.  I'll  go  and  let her out later. Please don't
concern yourself. Let us revive our spirits with some port."
     "But... how did it get in there?"
     "Well, the bathroom window's open. I expect  she  came  in
through that."
     Richard looked at him, not for the first and certainly not
for the  last  time,  through  eyes  that  were  narrowed  with
suspicion.
     "You're doing it deliberately, aren't you?" he said.
     "Doing what, my dear fellow?"
     "I don't believe there's a horse in your  bathroom,"  said
Richard  suddenly.  "I  don't  know what is there, I don't know
what you're doing, I don,t know what any of this evening means,
but I don't believe there's  a  horse  in.your  bathroom."  And
brushing aside Reg's further protestations he went up to look.

     The bathroom was not large.
     The  walls were panelled in old oak linenfold which, given
the  age  and  nature  of  the  building,  was  quite  probably
priceless,   but   otherwise   the   fittings  were  stark  and
institutional.
     There was old, scuffed, black-and-white  checked  linoleum
on  the  floor,  a small basic bath, well cleaned but with very
elderly stains and chips in the enamel, and also a small  basic
basin  with  a  toothbrush  and  toothpaste in a Duralex beaker
standing next to the taps. Screwed into the probably  priceless
panelling  above  the  basin  was a tin mirror-fronted bathroom
cabinet. It looked as if it had been repainted many times,  and
the  mirror  was stained round the edges with condensation. The
lavatory had an  old-fashioned  cast-iron  chain-pull  cistern.
There  was an old cream-painted wooden cupboard standing in the
corner, with an old brown bentwood chair next to it,  on  which
lay  some  neatly folded but threadbare small towels. There was
also a large horse in the room, taking up most of it.
     Richard stared at it, and  it  stared  at  Richard  in  an
appraising  kind  of  way.  Richard  swayed slightly. The horse
stood quite still. After a while  it  looked  at  the  cupboard
instead.  It  seemed,  if  not content, then at least perfectly
resigned to being where it was until it was put somewhere else.
It also seemed... what was it?
     It was bathed in the glow of the moonlight that  strearned
in  through  the window. The window was open but small and was,
besides, on the second floor, so the notion that the horse  had
entered by that route was entirely fanciful.
     There  was  something odd about the horse, but he couldn't
say what. Well, there was one thing that was clearly  very  odd
about  iI  indeed,  which was that it was standing in a college
bathroom. Maybe that was all.
     He reached out, rather tentatively, to pat the creature on
its neck. It felt  normal  -  firm,  glossy,  it  was  in  good
condition. The effect of the moonlight on its coat was a little
mazy, but everything looks a little odd by moonlight. The horse
shook  its mane a little when he touched it, but didn't seem to
mind too much.
     After the success of patting it, Richard stroked it a  few
times  and  scratched  it gently under the jaw. Then he noticed
that there was another door  into  the  bathroom,  in  the  far
corner. He moved cautiously around the horse and approached the
other  door.  He  backed  up  against  it  and  pushed  it open
tentatively.
     It just opened into the Professor's bedroom, a small  room
cluttered  with  books  and  shoes and a small single bed. This
room, too, had another door, which opened out on to the landing
again.
     Richard noticed that the floor of the  landing  was  newly
scuffed  and  scratched as the stairs had been, and these marks
were consistent with the idea that the horse had  somehow  been
pushed  up the stairs. He wouldn't have liked to have had to do
it himself. and he would have liked  to  have  been  the  horse
having  it  done  to  him  even  less,  but  it  was just about
possible.
     But why? He had one last look at the horse, which had  one
last look back at him, and then he returned downstairs.
     "I agree," he said. "You have a horse in your bathroom and
1 will, after all, have a little port."
     He poured some for himself, and then some for Reg, who was
quietly contemplating the fire and was in need of a refill.
     "Just   as   well  I  did  put  out  three  glasses  after
all,&#127;&#127; said Reg chattily. "I  wondered  why  earlier.
and now I remember.
     "You  asked if you could bring a friend, but appear not to
have dore so. On account of the sofa  no  doubt.  Never  mind,
these things happen. Whoa. not too much, you'll spill it."
     All horse-related questions left Richard's mind abruptly.
     "I did?" he said.
     "Oh  yes. I remember now. You rang me back to ask me if it
would be all right, as I recall. I said I would be charmed, and
fully intended to be. I'd saw the thing up if I were you. Don't
want to sacrifice your  happiness  to  a  sofa.  Or  maybe  she
decided   that   an  evening  with  your  old  tutor  would  be
blisteringly dull and opted for the more exhilarating course of
washing her hair instead. Dear me, I know  what  I  would  have
done.  It's  only  lack of hair that forces me to pursue such a
hectic social round these days."
     It was Richard's turn to be white-faced and staring.
     Yes, he had assumed that Susan would not want to come.
     Yes, he had said to her it would be terribly dull. But she
had insisted that she wanted to come because it  would  be  the
only way she'd get to see his face for a few minutes not bathed
in  the  light  of  a  computer  screen,  so  he had agreed and
arranged that he would bring her after all.
     Only he had completely forgotten this. He had  not  picked
her up.
     He said, "Can I use your phone, please?"

        Chapter Nine....

     Gordon Way lay on the ground, unclear about what to do.
     He  was  dead. There seemed little doubt about that. There
was a horrific hole in  his  chest,  but  the  blood  that  was
gobbing  out of it had slowed to a trickle. Otherwise there was
no movement from his chest at all, or, indeed, from  any  other
part of him.
     He  looked  up, and from side to side, and it became clear
to him that whatever part of him it was  that  was  moving,  it
wasn't any part of his body.
     The mist rolled slowly over him, and explained nothing. At
a few  feet distant from him his shotgun lay smoking quietly in
the grass.
     He continued to lie there, like  someone  lying  awake  at
four  o'clock in the morning, unable to put their mind to rest,
but unable to find anything to do with it. He realised that  he
had  just had something of a shock, which might account for his
inability to think clearly, but didn't account for his  ability
actually to think at all.
     In  the  great  debate  that has raged for centuries about
what, if anything, happens to you after death,  be  it  heaven,
hell,  purgatory  or  extinction.  one  thing has never been in
doubt - that you would at least know the answer when  you  were
dead.
     Gordon  Way  was  dead, but he simply hadn't the slightest
idea what he was meant to do about it. It wasn't a situation he
had encountered before.
     He sat up. The body that sat up seemed as real to  him  as
the  body  that  still  lay  slowly cooling&#127;on the ground,
giving up its blood heat in wraiths of steam that mingled  with
the mist of the chill night air.
     Experimenting a bit further, he tried standing up, slowly,
wonderingly  and  wobblingly.  The  ground  seemed  to give him
support, it took his weight. But then of course he appeared  to
have  no  weight that needed to be taken. When he bent to touch
the ground he could feel nothing save a kind of distant rubbery
resistance like the sensation you  get  if  you  try  and  pick
something  up  when  your  arm  has gone dead. His arm had gone
dead. His legs too, and his other arm, and all  his  torso  and
his head.
     His body was dead. He could not say why his mind was not.
     He  stood  in a kind of frozen, sleepless horror while the
mist curled slowly through him.
     He looked back down at the him, the  ghastly,  astonished=
looking  him-thing  lying  still and mangled on the ground, and
his Hesh wanted to creep. Or rather, he wanted flesh that could
creep. He wanted flesh. He wanted body. He had none.
     A sudden cry of horror escaped  from  his  mouth  but  was
nothing and went nowhere. He shook and felt nothing.
     Music  and  a pool of light seeped from his car. He walked
towards it. He tried to walk sturdily, but it was a  faint  and
feeble    kind    of    walking,    uncertain   and,&#127;well,
insubstantial. The ground felt frail beneath his feet.
     The door of the car was still open on the  driver's  side,
as  he had left it when he had leaped out to deal with the boot
lid, thinking he'd only be two seconds.
     That was all of two minutes ago now, when he'd been alive.
When he'd been a person. When he'd thought he was going  to  be
leaping  straight  back  in  and driving off. Two minutes and a
lifetime ago.
     This was insane, wasn't it? he thought suddenly.
     He walked around the door and bent down to peer  into  the
external rear-view mirror.
     He  looked exactly like himself; albeit like himself after
he'd had a terrible fright, which was to be expected, but  that
was  him,  that  was  normal.  This  must  be  something he was
imagining, some horrible kind of waking dream. He had a  sudden
thought and tried breathing on the rear-view mirror.
     Nothing. Not a single droplet formed. That would satisfy a
doctor,  that's what they always did on television - if no mist
formed on the mirror, there was no breath. Perhaps, he  thought
anxiously  to  himself,  perhaps  it  was  something to do with
having heated wing mirrors. Didn't this car  have  heated  wing
mirrors?  Hadn't the salesman gone on and on about heated this,
electric that, and servo-assisted the other?  Maybe  they  were
digital   wing   mirrors.   That   was   it.  Digital,  heated,
servo-assisted,  computer- controlled,  breath-resistant  wing
mirrors. . .
     He was, he realised, thinking complete nonsense. He turned
slowly and gazed again in apprehension at the body lying on the
ground  behind  him  with half its chest blown away. That would
certainly satisfy a doctor. The sight would be appalling enough
if it was somebody else's body, but his own. . .
     He was dead. Dead... dead... He tried  to  make  the  word
toll  dramatically  in  his mind, but it wouldn't. He was not a
film sound track, he was just dead.
     Peering at his body in appalled fascination, he  gradually
became distressed by the expression of asinine stupidity on its
face.
     It  was  perfectly  understandable, of course. It was just
such an expression as somebody who is in the  middle  of  being
shot  with  his  own shotgun by somebody who had been hiding in
the boot  of  his  car  might  be  expected  to  wear,  but  he
nevertheless  disliked  the  idea  that  anyone  might find him
looking like that.
     He knelt down beside it in  the  hope  of  being  able  to
rearrange  his  features  into some semblance of dignity, or at
least basic intelligence.
     It proved to be almost impossibly difficult. He  tried  to
knead  the  skin, the sickeningly familiar skin, but somehow he
couldn't seem to get a proper grip on it, or  on  anything.  It
was  like  trying to model plasticine when your arm has gone to
sleep, except that instead of his grip slipping off the  model,
it  would  slip  through  it.  In  this  case, his hand slipped
through his face.
     Nauseated horror and rage swept through him at  his  sheer
bloody  blasted impotence, and he was suddenly startled to find
himself throttling and shaking his own dead body  with  a  firm
and furious grip. He staggered back in amazed shock. All he had
managed  to  do was to add to the inanely stupefied look of the
corpse a twisted-up mouth and a squint. And  bruises  flowering
on its neck.
     He  started  to sob, and this time sound seemed to come, a
strange howling from deep within whatever  this  thing  he  had
become  was.  Clutching  his  hands  to  his face, he staggered
backwards, retreated to his car  and  flung  himself  into  the
seat. The seat received him in a loose and distant kind of way,
like  an aunt who disapproves of the last fifteen years of your
life and will therefore furnish you with a  basic  shecry,  but
refuses to catch your eye.
     Could he get himself to a doctor?
     To  avoid  facing  the  absurdity  of the idea he grappled
violently with  the  steering  wheel,  but  his  hands  slipped
through it. He tried to wrestle with the automatic transmission
shift  and  ended  up  thumping  it in rage, but not being able
properly to grasp or push it.
     The stereo was still playing light orchestral  music  into
the  telephone,  which  had  been  lying  on the passenger seat
listening patiently all this time. He stared at it and realised
with a growing fever of excitement that he was still  connected
to  Susan's  telephone-answering  machine. It was the type that
would simply run and run until he hung up.  lie  was  still  in
contact with the world.
     He tried desperately to pick up the receiver, fumbled, let
it slip,  and  was  in  the end reduced to bending himself down
over its mouthpiece. "Susan!" he cried into  it,  his  voice  a
hoarse  and  distant wail on the wind. "Susan, help me! Help me
for God's sake. Susan, I'm dead... I'm dead... I'm dead  and...
I  don't  know  what  to do.. " He broke down again, sobbing in
desperation, and tried to  cling  to  the  phone  like  a  baby
clinging to its blanket for comfort.
     "Help me, Susan... " he cried again.
     "Beep," said the phone.
     He  looked  down  at it again where he was cuddling it. He
had managed to push something after all. He had managed to push
the button which disconnected the call. Feverishly he attempted
to grapple the thing again, but it constantly  slipped  through
his  fingers  and eventually lay immobile on the seat. He could
not touch it. He could not push the buttons. In rage  he  flung
it  at  the windscreen. It responded to that, all right. It hit
the windscreen, careered straight back though him, bounced  off
the  seat  and  then  lay  still  on  the  transmission tunnel,
impervious to all his further attempts to touch it.
     For several minutes still he sat there, his  head  nodding
slowly as terror began to recede into blank desolation.
     A couple of cars passed by, but would have noticed nothing
odd -  a  car  stopped  by  the wayside. Passing swiftly in the
night their headlights would probably not have picked  out  the
body  lying  in  the grass behind the car. They certainly would
not have noticed a ghost sitting inside it crying to himself.
     He didn't know how long he sat there. He was hardly  aware
of  time  passing,  only  that  it didn't seem to pass quickly.
There was little external stimulus  to  mark  its  passage.  He
dicln't  feel  cold.  In fact he could almost not remember what
cotd meant or felt like, he just knew that it was something  he
would have expected to feel at this moment.
     Eventually  he  stirred from his pathetic huddle. He would
have to do something, though he didn't know  what.  Perhaps  he
should try and reach his cottage, though he didn't know what he
would  do  when  he  got there. He just needed something to try
for. He needed to make it through the night.
     Pulling himself together he slipped out of  the  car,  his
foot and knee grazing easily through part of the door frame. He
went to look again at his body, but it wasn't there.
     As  if the night hadn't produced enough shocks already. He
started, and stared at the damp depression in the grass.
     His body was not there.

        Chapter Ten...

     Richard made the hastiest departure that politeness  would
allow.
     He said thank you very much and what a splendid evening it
had been  and that any time Reg was coming up to London he must
let him, Richard, know and was there anything he  could  do  to
help about the horse. No? Well, all right then, if you're sure,
and thank you again, so much.
     He  stood there for a moment or two after the door finally
closed, pondering things.
     He had noticed during the short time that the  light  from
Reg's room flooded out on to the landing of the main staircase,
that  there  were  no marks on the floorboards there at all. It
seemed  odd  that  the  horse  should.only  have  scuffed   the
floorboards inside Reg's room.
     Well,  it all seemed very odd, full stop, but here was yet
another curious fact to add  to  the  growing  pile.  This  was
supposed to have been a relaxing evening away from work.
     On an impulse he knocked on the door opposite to Reg's. It
took such  a long time to be answered that Richard had given up
and was turning to go when at last  he  heard  the  door  creak
open.
     He  had a slight shock when he saw that staring sharply up
at him like a small and suspicious bird was the  don  with  the
racing-yacht keel for a nose.
     "Er,  sorry,"  said  Richard, abruptly, "but, er, have you
seen or heard a horse coming up this staircase tonight?"
     The man stopped his obsessive twitching of his fingers. He
cocked his head slightly on one side and then seemed to need to
go on a long journey inside himself to find a voice, which when
found turned out to be a thin and soft little one.
     He said, "That is the first thing anybody has sad  to  me
for  seventeen  years,  three  months and two days, five hours,
nineteen minutes and twenty seconds. I've been counting."
     He closed the door softly again.
     Richard virtually ran through Second Court.
     When he reached First Court he steadied himself and slowed
down to a walking pace.
     The chill night air was rasping in his lungs and there was
no point in running.  lie  hadn't  managed  to  talk  to  Susan
because  Reg's phone wasn't working, and this was another thing
that he had been mysteriously coy  about.  That  at  least  was
susceptible  of a rational explanation. He probably hadn't paid
his phone bill.
     Richard was about to emerge out  on  to  the  street  when
instead  he decided to pay a quick visit to the porter's lodge,
which was tucked away inside the great  archway  entrance  into
the  college.  It was a small hutchlike place filled with keys,
messages  and  a  single   electric   bar   heater.   A   radio
na&#127;tered to itself in the background.
     "Excuse  me,"  he  said  to  the  large  black-suited  man
standing behind the counter with his arms folded. "I..."
     "Yes, Mr MacDuff, what can I do for you?"
     In his present state of mind Richard would have been hard=
pressed himself to remember his own name and was startled for a
moment.  However,  college  porters  are  legendary  for  their
ability to perform such feats of memory, and for their tendency
to show them off at the slightest provocation.
     "Is there," said Richard, "a horse anywhere in the college
- that you know of? I mean, you would know if there was a horse
in the college, wouldn't you?"
     The porter didn't blink.
     "No, sir, and yes, sir. Anything else I can help you with,
Mr MacDuff, sir?"
     "Er,  no," said Richard and tapped his fingers a couple of
times on the counter: "No. Thank you. Thank you very  much  for
your  help.  Nice  to  see  you again, er... Bob," he hazarded.
"Good-night, then."
     He left.
     The porter remained perfectly still with his arms  folded,
but shaking his head a very, very little bit.
     "Here's some coffee for you, Bill," said another porter, a
short  wiry one, emerging from an inner sanctum with a steaming
cup. "Getting a bit colder tonight?"
     "I think it is, Fred, thanks," said Bill, taking the cup.
     He took a sip. "You can say what you  like  about  people,
they  don't  get  any  less  peculiar.  Fellow in here just now
asking if there was a horse in the college."
     "Oh yes?" Fred sipped at his own coffee, and let the steam
smart his eyes. "I had a chap in here earlier. Sort of  strange
foreign  priest.  Couldn't  understand a word he said at first.
But he seemed happy just to stand by the fire and listen to the
news on the radio."
     "Foreigners, eh."
     "In the end I told him to shoot off. Standing in front  of
my fire like that. Suddenly he says is that really what he must
do?  Shoot  off?  I  said, in my best Bogart voice, `You better
believe it, buddy.' "
     "Really? Sounded more like Jimmy Cagney to me."
     "No, that's my Bogart voice. This is my Jimmy Cagney voice
- `You better believe it, buddy.' "
     Bill frowned at him. "Is that your Jimmy Cagney  voice?  I
always thought that was your Kenneth McKellar voice."
     "You don't listen properly, Bill, you haven't got the ear.
This is  Kenneth McKellar. `Oh, you take the high road and I'll
take the low road...' "
     "Oh, I  see.  I  was  thinking  of  the  Scottish  Kenneth
McKellar. So what did this priest fellow say then, Fred?"
     "Oh,  he  just  looked  me straight in the eyes, Bill, and
said in this strange sort of..."
     "Skip the accent, Fred, just tell me what he said, if it's
worth hearing."
     "He just said he did believe me."
     "So. Not a very interesting story then, Fred."
     "Well, maybe not. I only mention it because he  also  said
that  he'd left his horse in a washroom and would I see that it
was all right."

        Chapter Eleven...

     Gordon Way drifted  miserably  along  the  dark  road,  or
rather, tried to drift.
     He felt that as a ghost - which is what he had to admit to
himself  he  had  become  - he should be able to drift. He knew
little enough about ghosts, but he felt that if you were  going
to  be one then there ought to be certain compensations for not
having a physical body to lug around, and that among them ought
to be the ability simply to drift. But no,  it  seemed  he  was
going to have to walk every step of the way.
     His  aim  was  to  try and make it to his house. He didn't
know what he would do when he got there, but even  ghosts  have
to  spend  the  night  somewhere,  and  he  felt  that being in
familiar surroundings might help. Help what, he didn't know. At
least the journey gave him an objective, and he would just have
to think of another one when he arrived.
     He  trudged  despondently  from  lamppost   to   lamppost,
stopping at each one to look at bits of himself.
     He was definitely getting a bit wraithlike.
     At  times &#127;he would fade almost to nothing, and would
seem to &#127; be little more than  a  shadow  playing  in  the
mist, a dream of himself that could just evaporate and be gone.
At  other  times  he  seemed to be almost solid and real again.
Once or twice he would try  leaning  against  a  lamppost,  and
would fall straight through it if he wasn't careful.
     At  last,  and with great reluctance, he actually began to
turn his mind to what it  was  that  had  happened.  Odd,  that
reluctance.   He   really   didn't  want  to  think  about  it.
Psychologists say that the mind will often try to suppress  the
memory  of traumatic events, and this, he thought, was probably
the answer. After all, if having a strange figure jump  out  of
the  boot  of your own car and shoot you dead didn't count as a
traumatic experience, he'd like to know what did.
     He trudged on wearily.
     He tried to recall the figure to his mind's  eye,  but  it
was  like  probing  a  hurting  tooth,  and he thought of other
things.
     Like, was his will up-to-date? He couldn't  remember,  and
made  a  mental note to call his lawyer tomorrow, and then made
another mental note that he would have to  stop  making  mental
notes like that.
     How  would his company survive without him? He didn't like
either of the possible answers to that very much.
     What about his obituary? There was a thought that  chilled
him  to  his bones, wherever they'd got to. Would he be able to
get hold of a copy? What would it say? They'd better give him a
good  write-up,  the  bastards.  Look  at   what   he'd   done.
Single-handedly  saved  the  British  software  industry:  huge
exports,  charitable  contributions,   research   scholarships,
crossing the Atlantic in a solar-powered submarine (failed, but
a good try) - all sorts of things. They'd better not go digging
up that Pentagon stuff again or he'd get his lawyer on to them.
He made a mental note to call him in the mor...
     No.
     Anyway,  can  a dead person sue for libel? Only his iawyer
would know, and he was not going to be able to call him in  the
morning. He knew with a sense of creeping dread that of all the
things  he had left behind in the land of the living it was the
telephone that he was going to  miss  the  most,  and  then  he
turned  his  mind  determinedly back to where it didn't want to
go.
     The figure.
     It seemed to him that the figure had been  almost  like  a
figure  of  Death  itself;  or was that his imagination playing
tricks with him? Was he dreaming that it was a  cowled  figure?
What would any figure, whether cowled or just casually dressed,
be doing in the boot of his car?
     At  that  moment  a  car  zipped  past him on the road and
disappeared off into the night, taking its oasis of light  with
it.  He  thought with longing of the warm, leather-upholstered,
climate-controlled comfort of his own  car  abandoned  on  the
road behind him, and then a sudden extraordinary thought struck
him.
     Was  there  any  way  he  could hitch a lift? Could anyone
actually see him? How would anyone react if they  could?  Well,
there was only one way to find out.
     He  heard another car coming up in the distance behind him
and turned to face it. The twin pools of hazy lights approached
through the mist and Gordon gritted his phantom teeth and stuck
his thumb out at them.
     The car swept by regardless.
     Nothing.
     Angrily he made an indistinct V sign at the  receding  red
rear  lights,  and  realised,  looking straight through his own
upraised arm, that he wasn't at his most visible at the moment.
Was there perhaps some effort of will he could make  to  render
himself more visible when he wanted to'? He screwed up his eyes
in  concentration, then realised that he would need to have his
eyes open in order  to  judge  the  results.  He  tried  again,
forcing  his  mind  as  hard  as he could, but the results were
unsatisfactory.
     Though it did seem  to  make  some  kind  of  rudimentary,
glowing difference, he couldn't sustain it, and it faded almost
immediately,  however  much he piled on the mental pressure. He
would have to judge the timing very carefully if he  was  going
to make his presence felt, or at least seen.
     Another  car  approached  from behind, travelling fast. He
turned again, stuck his thumb out, waited till the  moment  was
right and willed himselfvisible.
     The  car  swerved  slightly,  and then carried on its way,
only a little more slowly. Well, that was something. What  else
could  he  do?  He  would  go  and stand under a lamppost for a
stri, and he would practise. The next car  he  would  get  for
sure.

        Chapter Twelve...

     "... so if you'd like to leave a message, I'll get back to
you as soon as possible. Maybe."
     Beep.
     "Shit. Damn. Hold on a minute. Blast. Look... er... "
     Click.
     Richard  pushed the phone back into its cradle and slammed
his car into reverse for twenty yards to have another  look  at
the  sign-post by the road junction he'd just sped past in the
mist. He had  extracted  himself  from  the  Cambridge  one-way
system  by  the  usual  method,  which involved going round and
round it faster and faster until he achieved a sort  of  escape
velocity and flew off at a tangent in a random direction, which
he was now trying to identify and correct for.
     Arriving  back  at  the junction he tried to correlate the
information on the signpost with the information  on  the  map.
But   it   couldn't  be  done.  The  road  junction  was  quite
deliberately sitting on a page  divide  on  the  map,  and  the
signpost  was  revolving maliciously in the wind. Instinct told
him that he was heading in the wrong direction, but  he  didn't
want  to  go  back the way he'd come for fear of getting sucked
back into the gravitational whirlpool  of  Cambridge's  traffic
system.
     He  turned  left, therefore, in the hope of finding better
fortune in that direction, but after a while lost his nerve and
turned  a   speculative   right,,and   then   chanced   another
exploratory  left  and  after  a  few  more such manoeuvres was
thoroughly lost.
     He swore to himself and turned up the heating in the  car.
If  he had been concentrating on where he was going rather than
trying to navigate and telephone at  the  same  time,  he  told
himself,  he  would  at  least know where he was now. He didn't
actually like having a telephone in his  car,  he  found  it  a
bother and an intrusion. But Gordon had insisted and indeed had
paid for it.
     He  sighed  in  exasperation, backed up the black Saab and
turned around again. As he did so he nearly  ran  into  someone
lugging  a  body into a field. At least that was what it looked
like for a second to his overwrought brain, but in fact it  was
probably a local farmer with a sackful of something nutritious,
though  what  he  was  doing  with  it on a night like this was
anyone's guess. As his  headlights  swung  around  again,  they
caught  for  a  moment  a silhouette of the figure trudging off
across the field with the sack on his back.
     "Rather him than me," thought Richard  grimly,  and  drove
off again.
     After a few minutes he reached a junction with what looked
a little  more  like  a main road, nearly turned right down it,
but then turned left instead. There was no signpost.
     He poked at the buttons on his phone again.
     "... get back to you as soon as possible. Maybe."
     Beep.
     "Susan, it's Richard. Where do I start? What a mess.  Look
I'm  sorry, sorry, sorry. I screwed up very badly, and it's all
my fault. And look, whatever it takes to make up for  it,  I'll
do it, solemn promise..."
     He had a slight feeling that this wasn't the right tone to
adopt with an answering machine, but he carried straight on.
     "Honestly,  we  can go away, take a holiday for a week, or
even just this weekend if you like. Really, this weekend. We'll
go somewhere sunny. Doesn't matter  how  much  pressure  Gordon
tries  to  put  on me, and you know the sort of pressure he can
muster, he  is  your  brother,  after  all.  I'll  just...  er,
actually,  it  might have to be next weekend. Damn, damn, damn.
lt's just that I really have promised  to  get,  no,  look,  it
doesn't  matter.  We'll  just do it. I don't care about getting
Anthem finished for Comdex. It's  not  the  end  of  the
world.  We'll  just go. Gordon will just have to take a running
jump - Gaaarghhhh!"
     Richard swerved wildly to avoid the spectre of Gordon  Way
which suddenly loomed in his headlights and took a running jump
at him.
     He  slammed  on  the  brakes,  started  to  skid, tried to
remember what it was you were supposed to  do  when  you  found
yourself  skidding,  he  knew  he'd  seen it on some television
programme about driving  he'd  seen  ages  ago,  what  was  the
programme?  God,  he  couldn't  even  remember the title of the
programme, let alone - oh yes, they'd said you mustn't slam  on
the brakes. That was it. The world swung sickeningly around him
with  slow  and  appalling  force  as the car slewed across the
road, spun, thudded against the grass verge, then slithered and
rocked itself to a halt, facing the wrong  way.  He  collapsed,
panting, against the steering wheel.
     He picked up the phone from where he'd dropped it.
     "Susan," he gasped, "I'll get back to you," and hung up.
     He raised his eyes.
     Standing  full  in  the  glare  of  his headlights was the
spectral figure of Gordon Way staring straight in  through  the
windscreen  with ghastly horror in its eyes, slowly raising its
hand and pointing at him.

     He wasn't sure how long he just sat there. The  apparition
had  melted from view in a few seconds, but Richard simply sat,
shaking, probably for not more than a minute,  until  a  sudden
squeal of brakes and glare of lights roused him.
     He  shook  his  head.  He was, he realised, stopped in the
road facing the wrong way. The car that had just  screeched  to
an  abrupt  halt  almost bumper to bumper with him was a police
car. He took two or three deep  breaths  and  then,  stiff  and
trembling,  he climbed out and stood up to face the officer who
was walking slowly towards him, silhouetted in the police car's
headlights.
     The officer looked him up and down.
     "Er, I'm sorry,  officer,"  said  Richard,  with  as  much
calmness  as  he  could wrench into his voice. "I, er, skidded.
The roads are slippery and I, er... skidded. I spun  round.  As
you  see, I, I 'm facing the wrong way." He gestured at his car
to indicate the way it was facing.
     "Like to tell me why it was  you  skidded  then,  exactly,
sir?"  The  police  officer was looking him straight in the eye
while Qulling out a notebook.
     "Well, as I  said,"  xplained  Richard,  "the  roads  are
slippery because of the mist, and, well, to be erfectl honest,"
he  suddenly found himself saying, in spite of all his attempts
to stop himself, "I was  just  driving  along  and  I  suddenly
imagined that I saw my employer throwing himself in front of my
car."
     The officer gazed at him levelly.
     "Guilt complex, officer," added Richard with a twitch of a
smile,  "you  know  how  it  is. I was contemplating taking the
weekend off."
     The police officer seemed to hesitate, balanced on a knife
edge between sympathy and suspicion. His eyes narrowed a little
but didn't waver.
     "Been drinking, sir?"
     "Yes," said Richard, with a quick sigh, "but very  little.
Two  glasses  of  wine  max.  Er...  and a small glass of port.
Absolute max. It was really just a lapse of concentration.  I'm
fine now."
     "Name?"
     Richard gave him his name and address. The policeman wrote
it all  down  carefully  and neatly in his book, then peered at
the car registration number and wrote that down too.
     "And who is your employer then, sir?"
     "His name is Way. Gordon Way."
     "Oh,"  said  the  policeman  raising  his  eyebrows,  "the
computer gentleman."
     "Er, yes, that's right. I design software for the company.
WayForward Technologies II."
     "We've  got  one of your computers down the station," said
the policeman. "Buggered if I can get it to work."
     "Oh," said Richard wearily, "which model do you have?"
     "I think it's called a Quark II."
     "Oh, well that's simple," said Richard  with  relief.  "It
doesn't work. Never has done. The thing is a heap of shit."
     "Funny thing, sir, that's what I've always said," said the
policeman. "Some of the other lads don't agree."
     "Well,  you're  absolutely  right,  officer.  The thing is
hopeless. It's the major reason the original company went bust.
I suggest you use it as a big paperweight."
     "Well, I wouldn't like to do  that,  sir,"  the  policeman
persisted. "The door would keep blowing open."
     "What do you mean, officer?" asked Richard.
     "I  use  it  to  keep the door closed, sir. Nasty draughts
down our station this time of year. In the summer,  of  course,
we beat suspects round the head with it."
     He flipped his book closed and prodded it into his pocket.
     "My  advice to you, sir, is to go nice and easy on the way
back. Lock up the car and spend the weekend getting  completely
pissed. I find it's the only way. Mind how you go now."
     He returned to his car, wound down the window, and watched
Richard  manoeuvre  his car around and drive off into the night
before heading off himself.
     Richard took a deep breath, drove calmly back  to  London,
let  himself  calmly  into  his flat, clambered calmly over the
sofa, sat  down,  poured  himself  a  stiff  brandy  and  began
seriously to shake.
     There were three things he was shaking about.
     There  was the simple physical shock of his near-accident,
which is the sort of thing that always churns you up a lot more
than you expect. The body floods itself with adrenaline,  which
then hangs around your system turning sour.
     Then  there  was the cause of the skid - the extraordinary
apparition of Gordon throwing himself in front of  his  car  at
that  moment. Boy oh boy. Richard took a mouthful of brandy and
gargled with it. He put the glass down.
     It was well known that  Gordon  was  one  of  the  world's
richest  natural resources of guilt pressure, and that he could
deliver a ton on your doorstep fresh every morning, but Richard
hadn't realised he had let it get to  him  to  such  an  unholy
degree.
     He  took up his glass again, went upstairs and pushed open
the door to his workroom, which involved shifting  a  stack  of
BYTE magazines that had toppled against it. He pushed them away
with his foot and walked to the end of the large room. A lot of
glass  at  lhis  end  let  in  views over a large part of north
London, from which the mist was now clearing. St Paul's  glowed
in  the  dark  distance and he stared at it for a moment or two
but it didn't do anything special.  After  the  events  of  the
evening he found this came as a pleasant surprise.
     At  the other end of the room were a couple of long tables
smothered in, at th last count, six  Macintosh  computers.  In
the  middle  was  the Mac II on which a red wire-frame model of
his sofa was lazily revolving within a blue wire-frame model of
his narrow staircase, complete with banister rail, radiator and
fuse-box details, and of course the awkward turn halfway up.
     The sofa would start out spinning in one direction, hit an
obstruction,  twist  itself  in  another  plane,  hit   another
obstruction,  revolve  round  a third axis until it was stopped
again, then cycle through the moves again in a different order.
You didn't have to watch the sequence for very long before  you
saw it repeat itself.
     The sofa was clearly stuck.
     Three  other  Macs  were  connected up via long tangles of
cable to an untidy agglomeration of synthesisers - an  Emulator
11+ HD sampler, a rack of TX modules, a Prophet VS, a Roland JX
10,  a  Korg  DWROOO,  an Octapad, a left-handed Synth-Axe MIDI
guitar controller, and even an old drum machine stacked up  and
gathering dust in the corner - pretty much the works. There was
also  a  small  and rarely used cassette tape recorder: all the
music was stored in sequencer files  on  the  computers  rather
than on tape.
     He  dumped himself into a seat in front of one of the Macs
to see what, if anything, it was doing. It  was  displaying  a
"Untitled" Excel spreadsheet and he wondered why.
     He  saved  it  and  looked to see if he'd left himself any
notes and quickly discovered  that  the  spreadsheet  contained
some  of  the data he had previously downloaded after searching
the World Reporter and  Knowledge  on-line
databases for facts about swallows.
     He  now had figures which detailed their migratory habits,
their wing shapes, their  aerodynamic  profile  and  turbulence
characteristics,   and   some   sort   of  rudimentary  figures
concerning the patterns that a flock would adopt in flight, but
as yet he had orily the faintest idea as to how he was going to
synthesise them all together.
     Because  he  was   too   tired   to   think   particularly
constructively  tonight he savagely selected and copied a whole
swathe of figures from the spreadsheet at random,  pasted  them
into  his own conversion program, which scaled and filtered and
manipulated the  figures  according  to  his  own  experimental
algorithms,  loaded the converted file into Performer, a
powerful sequencer  program,  and  played  the  result  through
random  MIDI  channels to whichever synthesisers happened to be
on at the moment.
     The  result  was  a  short  burst  of  the  most   hideous
cacopttony, and he stopped it.
     He ran the conversion program again. this time instructing
it to  force-map  the  pitch  values  into  G minor. This was a
utility he was determined in the end to get rid of  because  he
regarded  it  as cheating. If there was any basis to his firmly
held belief that the rhythms and harmonies of  music  which  he
found  most  satisfying  could be found in, or at least derived
from,  the  rhythms  and  harmonies  of   naturally   occurring
phenomena,  then  satisfying  forms  of modality and intonation
should emerge naturally as well. rather than being forced.
     For the moment, though, he forced it.
     The result was a short burst of the most hideous cacophony
in G minor.
     So much for random shortcuts.
     The first task was a relatively simple one, which would be
simply to plot the waveform described by the tip of a swallow`s
wing as it flies, then synthesise that waveform.  That  way  he
would  end  up with a single note, which would be a good start,
and it shouldn't take more than the weekend to do.
     Except, of course, that he didn't have a weekend available
to do it in  because  he  had  somehow  to  get  Version  2  of
Anthem out of the door sometime during the course of the
next year, or "month" as Gordon called it.
     Which brought Richard inexorably to the third thing he was
shaking about.
     There  was  absolutely  no way that he could take the time
off this weekend or next to fulfil the promise he had  made  to
Susan's   telephone-answering   machine.   And  that,  if  this
evening's db[a^]cle had not  already  done  so,  would  surely
spell the final end.
     But  that was it. The thing was done. There is nothing you
can do about a message  on  someone  else's  answering  machine
other  than  let  events take their course. It was done. It was
irrevocable.
     An odd thought suddenly struck him.
     It took him by  considerable  surprise,  but  he  couldn't
really see what was wrong with it.

        Chapter Thirteen...

     A  pair  of  binoculars scanning the London night skyline,
idly, curious, snooping. A little  look  here,  a  little  look
there,  just  seeing  what's  going  on,  anything interesting,
anything useful.
     The binoculars settle on the back of one particular house,
attracted  by  a  slight   movement.   One   of   those   large
late-Victorian  villas,  probably flats now. Lots of black iron
drainpipes. Green rubber dustbins. But dark. No, nothing.
     The binoculars are just moving onwards when another stight
movement catches in the moonlight. The binoculars refocus  very
slightly,  trying  to  find  a  detail,  a  hard edge, a slight
contrast in the darkness. The mist  has  lifted  now,  and  the
darkness glistens. They refocus a very, very little more.
     There  it  is.  Something,  definitely.  Only  this time a
little higher up, maybe  a  foot  or  so,  maybe  a  yard.  The
binocuiars  settle  and  relax  -  steady, trying for the edge,
trying for the detail. There. The  binoculars  settle  again  -
they  have found their mark, straddled between a windowsill and
a drainpipe.
     It is a dark figure, splayed  against  the  wall,  looking
down,  looking for a new foothold, looking upwards, looking for
a ledge. The binoculars peer intently.
     The figure is that of a tall, thin man.  His  clothes  are
right  for  the  job,  dark  trousers,  dark  sweater,  but his
movements are awkward and angular.  Nervous.  Interesting.  The
binoculars wait and consider, consider and judge.
     The man is clearly a rank amateur.
     Look  at  his  fumbling.  Look at his ineptitude. His feet
slip on the drainpipe, his hands  can't  reach  the  ledge.  He
nearly  falls.  He  waits  to catch his breath. For a moment he
starts to climb back down again, but seems to  find  that  even
tougher going.
     He  lunges  again  for the ledge and this time catches it.
His foot shoots out to steady himself  and  nearly  misses  the
pipe. Could have been very nasty, very nasty indeed.
     But  now  the  way  is  easier  and progress is better. He
crosses to another pipe, reaches a  third-floor  window  ledge,
flirts  briefly with deth as he crawls painfully on to it, and
makes the cardinal error and looks down. He sways  briefly  and
sits back heavily. He shades his eyes and peers inside to check
that the room is dark, and sets about getting the window open.
     One  of  the  things that distinguish the amateur from the
professional is that this is the point when the amateur  thinks
it  would  have  been  a  good idea to bring along something to
prise the window  open  with.  Luckily  for  this  amateur  the
householder  is  an  amateur  too,  and  the sash window slides
grudgingly up. The climber crawls, with some relief, inside.
     He should be locked up for his own protection,  think  the
binoculars. A hand starts to reach for the phone. At the window
a  face  looks  back  out  and  for  a  moment is caught in the
moonlight, then it ducks back  inside  to  carry  on  with  its
business.
     The  hand  stays  hovering  over the phone for a moment or
two, while the  binoculars  wait  and  consider,  consider  and
judge.  The  hand  reaches  instead  for  the A-Z street map of
London.
     There is a long  studious  pause,  a  little  more  intent
binocular  work, and then the hand reaches for the phone again,
lifts it and dials.

        Chapter Fourteen...

     Susan's flat was small but spacious, which  was  a  trick,
reflected  Richard tensely as he turned on the light, that only
women seemed able to pull off.
     It wasn't  that  observation  which  made  him  tense,  of
course- he'd  thought  it  before, many times. Every time he'd
been in her flat,  in  fact.  It  always  struck  him,  usually
because  he  had  just  come  from his own flat, which was four
times the size and cramped. He'd just come from  his  own  flat
this  time,  only via a rather eccentric route, and it was this
that made his usual observation unusually tense.
     Despite the chill of the night he was sweating.
     He looked back out  of  the  window,  turned  and  tiptoed
across  the  room towards where the telephone and the answering
machine stood on their own small table.
     There was no point, he told himself, in  tiptoeing.  Susan
wasn't  in.  He would be extremely interested to know where she
was, in fact - just as she, he told himself, had probably  been
extremely  interested  in  knowing  where  he  had  been at the
beginning of the evening.
     He realised he was still tiptoeing. He hit his lg to make
himself stop doing it, but carried on doing it none the less.
     Climbing up the outside wall had been terrifying.
     He wiped his forehead with  the  arm  of  his  oldest  and
greasiest  sweater. There had been a nasty moment when his life
had flashed before his eyes but he  had  been  too  preoccupied
with falling and had missed all the good bits. Most of the good
bits had involved Susan, he realised. Susan or computers. Never
Susan  and  computers  -  those  had Iargely been the bad bits.
Which was why he was here, he told himself. He seemed  to  need
convincing, and told himself again.
     He looked at his watch. Eleven forty-five.
     It  occurred  to him he had better go and wash his wet and
dirty hands before he touched anything. It wasn't the police he
was worried about, but Susan's terrifying  cleaner.  She  would
know.
     He  went  into  the  bathroom, turned on the light switch,
wiped it, and then stared at his own stanled face in the bright
neon-lit mirror as he ran the  water  over  his  hands.  For  a
moment  he  thought  of  the  dancing,  warm candlelight of the
Coleridge Dinner, and the images of it weIled up out of the dim
and distant past of the earlier part of the evening.  Life  had
seemed  easy  then,  and  carefree. The wine, the conversation,
simpIe conjuring tricks. He pictured the  round  pale  face  of
Sarah, pop-eyed with wonder. He washed his own face.
     He thought:
     "...  Beware!  Beware!  His  flashing  eyes,  his floating
hair!"

     He brushed his own hair. He thought, too, of the  pictures
hanging  high in the darkness above their heads. He cleaned his
teeth. The low buzz of the neon light snapped him back  to  the
present  and he suddenly remembered with appalled shock that he
was here in his capacity as burglar.
     Something made him look himself directly in  the  face  in
the mirror, then he shook his head, trying to cIear it.
     When would Susan be back? That, of course, would depend on
what she was dotng. He quickly wiped his hands and made his way
back to  the  answering  machine. He prodded at the buttons and
his conscience prodded back at him. The  tape  wound  back  for
what  seemed to be an interminable time, and he realised with a
jolt that it was probabIy  because  Gordon  had  been  in  fulI
flood.
     He  had forgotten, of course, that there would be messages
on the tape other than his own, and listening to other people's
phone messages was tantamount to opening their mail.
     He explained to himself once again that all he was  trying
to  do  was  to undo a mistake he had made before it caused any
irrevocable damage. He would just  play  the  tiniest  snippets
till  he  found  his  own  voice.  That wouldn't be too bad, he
wouldn't even be able to distinguish what was being said.
     He groaned inwardly, gritted his teeth and stabbed at  the
Play  button  so  roughly  that  he  missed  it and ejected the
cassette by mistake. He put it back  in  and  pushed  the  Play
button more carefully.  Beep.
     "Oh,  Susan, hi, it's Gordon," said the answering machine.
I "Just on my way to the cottage. It's, er..." He wound on  for
a  couple  of  seconds. "...need to know that Richard is on the
case. I mean really on..." Richard set his mouth  grimly
and stabbed at the Fast Forward again. He really hated the fact
that  Gordon  tried  to  put  pressure  on him via Susan, which
Gordon always stoutly denied he  did.  Richard  couldn't  blame
Susan  for getting exasperated about his work sometimes if this
sort of thing was going on. '
     Click.
     "... Response. Make a note to Susan would you  please,  to
get  an `Armed Response' sign made up with a sharp spike on the
bottom at the right height for rabbits to see."
     "What?" muttered Richard to himself, and his finger
hesitated for a second over the Fast Forward button. He  had  a
feeling  that  Gordon  desperately  wanted  to  be  like Howard
Hughes, and if he could never hope to be remotely as  rich,  he
could at least try to be twice as eccentric. An act. A palpable
act.
     "That's  secretary  Susan  at  the  office,  not  you,  of
course," continued Gordon's voice  on  the  answering  machine.
"Where  was  I?  Oh yes. Richard and Anthem 2.00. Susan,
that thing has got to be in beta  testing  in  two..."  Richard
stabbed at the Fast Forward, tight-lipped.
     "... point is that there's only one person who's really in
a position  to know if he's getting the important work done, or
if he's just dreaming, and  that  one  person.  ."  He  stabbed
angrily  again.  He  had promised himself he wouldn't listen to
any of it and now here he was getting  angry  at  what  he  was
hearing.  He  should really just stop this. Well, just one more
try.
     When he listened again he just got music.  Odd.  He  wound
forward  again,  and  still  got  music.  Why  would someone be
phoning to play music to an answering machine? he wondered.
     The phone rang. He stopped the tape and answered it,  then
almost  dropped  the  phone like an electric eel as he realised
what he was doing.  Hardly  daring  to  breathe,  he  held  the
telephone to his ear.
     "Rule  One  in housebreaking," said a voice. "Never answer
the, telephone when you're in the middle of a job. Who are  you
supposed to be, for heaven's sake?"
     Richard froze. It was a moment or two before he could find
where he had put his voice.
     "Who is this?" he demanded at last in a whisper.
     "Rule  Two,"  continued the voice. "Preparation. Bring the
right tools. Bring gloves. Try to have the faintest  glimmering
of  an idea of what you're about before you start dangling from
window ledges in the middle of the night.
     "Rule Three. Never forget Rule Two."
     "Who is this?" exclaimed Richard again.
     The voice was unperturbed. "Neighbourhood Watch," it said.
"If you just look out of the back window you'll see..."
     Trailing the phone, Richard hurried over to the window and
looked out. A distant flash startled him.
     "Rule Four. Never stand where you can be photographed.
     "Rule Five... Are you listening to me, MacDuff?"
     "What? Yes..." said Richard in bewilderment. "How  do  you
know me?"
     "Rule Five. Never admit to your name."
     Richard stood silent, breathing hard.
     "I  run  a  little  course,"  said  the  voice, "if you're
interested..."
     Richard said nothing.
     "You're  learning,"  continued  the  voice,  "slowly,  but
you're  learning.  If you were learning fast you would have put
the phone down by now, of course.  But  you're  curious  -  and
incompetent -and so you don't. I don't run a course for novice
burglars  as  it happens, tempting though the idea is. I'm sure
there would be grants available. If we have to have  them  they
may as well be trained.
     "However,  if I did run such a course I would allow you to
enrol for free, because I too am curious. Curious to  know  why
Mr  Richard  MacDuff  who,  I  am given to understand, is now a
wealthy young  man,  somethfng  in  the  computer  industry,  I
believe,    should   suddenly   be   needing   to   resort   to
house-breaking."
     "Who -?"
     "So I do a little research, phone Directory Enquiries  and
discover  that  the flat into which he is breaking is that of a
Miss S. Way. I know that Mr Richard MacDuff's employer  is  the
famous  Mr  G.  Way  and  I wonder if they can by any chance be
related."
     "Who -?"
     "You are speaking with Svlad,  commonly  known  as  `Dirk'
Cjelli,  currently trading under the name of Gently for reasons
which it would be otiose, at this moment, to  rehearse.  I  bid
you  good  evening.  If  you wish to know more I will be at the
Pizza Express in  Upper  Street  in  ten  minutes.  Bring  some
money."
     "Dirk?"  exclaimed  Richard.  "You...  Are  you  trying to
blackmail me?"
     "No, you fool, for the pizzas." There was a click and Dirk
Gently rang off.
     Richard stood transfixed for a moment or  two,  wiped  his
forehead  again, and gently replaced the phone as if it were an
injured hamster. His brain began to buzz gently  and  suck  its
thumb.  Lots of little synapses deep inside his cerebral cortex
all joined hands and started dancing around and singing nursery
rhymes. He shook his head  to  try  and  make  them  stop,  and
quickly sat down at the answering machine again.
     He fought with himself over whether or not he was going to
push the  Play  button  again, and then did so anyway before he
had made up his mind. Hardly four seconds of  light  orchestral
music  had oozed soothingly past when there came the sound of a
key scratching in the lock out in the hallway.
     In panic Richard thumped  the  Eject  button,  popped  the
cassette  out,  rammed it into his jeans pocket and replaced it
from the pile of fresh cassettes that lay next to the  machine.
There was a similar pile next to his own machine at home. Susan
at the office provided them - poor, long-suffering Susan at the
office.  He  must  remember  to  feel  sympathy  for her in the
morning, when he had the time and concentration for it.
     Suddenly, without  even  noticing  himself  doing  it,  he
changed  his mind. In a flash he popped the substitute cassette
out of the machine again,  replaced  the  one  he  had  stolen,
rammed  down  the  rewind  button and made a lunge for the sofa
where, with two seconds to go before the door opened, he  tried
to arrange himself into a nonchalant and winning posture. On an
impulse  he  stuck  his  left  hand up behind his back where it
might come in useful.
     He was  just  trying  to  arrange  his  features  into  an
expression  composed in eyual parts of contrition, cheerfulness
and sexual allurement  when  the  door  opened  and  in  walked
Michael Wenton-Weakes.
     Everything stopped.
     Outside, the wind ceased. Owls halted in mid-flight. Well,
maybe  they  did,  maybe  they  didn't,  certainly  the central
heating chose that moment to shut down, unable perhaps to  cope
with  the  supernatural chill that suddenly whipped through the
room.
     "What are you doing here, Wednesday?" demanded Richard. He
rose from the sofa as if levitated with anger.
     Michael Wenton-Weakes was a large sad-faced man  known  by
some people as Michael Wednesday-Week, because that was when he
usually  promised  to  have things done by. He was dressed in a
suit that had been superbly well tailored when his father,  the
late Lord Magna; had bought it forty years previously.
     Michael  Wenton-Weakes  came  very  high  on the small but
select list of people whom Richard thoroughly dislikeu.
     He disliked him because he found the idea of  someone  who
was not only privileged, but was also sorry for himself because
he  thought  the world didn't really understand the problems of
privileged people, deeply  obnoxious.  Michae!,  on  the  other
hand,  disliked  Richard  for  the  fairly  simple  reason that
Richard disliked him and made no secret of it.
     Michael gave a slow and lugubrious look back out into  the
hallway  as  Susan  walked  through.  She  stopped when she saw
Richard.  She  put  down  her  handbag,  unwound   her   scarf,
unbuttoned  her  coat,  slipped  it  off, handed it to Michael,
walked over to Richard and smacked him in the face.
     "I've  been  saving  that  up  all  evening,"   she   said
furiously. "And don't try and pretend that's a bunch of flowers
you've forgotten to bring which you're hiding behind your back.
You tried that gag last t.ime." She turned and stalked off.
     "It's  a  box  of  chocolates  I  forgot  this time," said
Richard glumly and held out his empty hand  to  her  retreating
back. "I climbed up the entire outside wall without them. Did I
feel a fool when I got in."
     "Not  very  funny," said Susan. She swept into the kitchen
and sounded as if she was grinding coffee with her bare  hands.
For  someone  who  always looked so neat and sweet and delicate
she packed a hell of a temper.
     "It's true," said Richard, ignoring Michael completely. "I
nearly killed myself."
     "I'm not going to rise to that," said  Susan  from  within
the kitchen. "If you want something big and sharp thrown at you
why don't you come in here and be funny?"
     "I  suppose it would be pointless saying I'm sorry at this
point," Richard called out.
     "You bet," said Susan, sweeping back out  of  the  kitchen
again.  She  looked at him with her eyes flashing, and actually
stamped her foot.
     "Honestly, Richard," she said, "You're just going  to  say
you forgot again. How can you have the gall to stand there with
two  arms, two legs and a head as if you're a human being? This
is behaviour that a bout of amoebic dysentery would be  ashamed
of.  I  bet  that even the very lowest form of dysentery amoeba
shows up to take its girlfriend out for a quick trot around the
stomach lining once in a while. Well, I hope you  had  a  lousy
evening."
     "I  did," said Richard. "You wouldn't have liked it. There
was a horse in the bathroom, and you know  how  you  hate  that
sort of thing."
     "Oh,  Michael,"  said  Susan  brusquely, "don't just stand
there like a sinking pudding. Thank you very  much  for  dinner
and  the concert, you were very sweet and I did enjoy listening
to your troubles all evening because  they  were  such  a  nice
change  from mine. But I think it would be best if I just found
your book and pushed you out. I've got some serious jumping  up
and  down  and  ranting  to  do,  and I know how it upsets your
delicate sensibilities."
     She retrieved her coat from him and hung it up.  While  he
had  been  holding it he had seemed entirely taken up with this
task and oblivious to anything else. Without  it  he  seemed  a
little  lost and naked and was forced to stir himself back into
life. He turned his big heavy eyes back on Richard.
     "Richard," he said, "I,  er,  read  your  piece  in...  in
Fathom. On Music and, er..."
     "Fractal Landscapes," said Richard shortly. He didn't want
to talk  to  Michael, and he certainly didn't want to get drawn
into a  conversation  about  Michael's  wretched  magazine.  Or
rather, the magazine that used to be Michael's.
     That  was  the  precise  aspect  of  the conversation that
Richard didn't want to get drawn into.
     "Er, yes. Very interesting, of course,"  said  Michael  in
his silky, over-rounded voice. "Mountain shapes and tree shapes
and all sorts of things. Recycled algae."
     "Recursive algorithms."
     "Yes,  of  course.  Very  interesting.  But  so  wrong, so
terribly wrong. For the magazine, I mean. It is, after all,  an
arts review. I would never have allowed such a thing, of
course.  Ross has utterly ruined it. Utterly. He'll have to go.
Have to. He has no sensibilities and he's a thief."
     "He's not a thief, Wednesday, that's  absolutely  absurd,"
snapped  Richard,  instantly  getting drawn into it in spite of
his resolution not to. "He had nothing to do with your  getting
the push whatsoever. That was your own silly fault, and you..."
     There was a sharp intake of breath.
     "Richard,"  said  Michael in his softest, quietest voice -
arguing with him was like getting tangled in parachute  silk  -
"I think you do not understand how important..."
     "Michael,"  said Susan gently but firmly, holding open the
door.  Michael  Wenton-Weakes  nodded  faintly  and  seemed  to
deflate.
     "Your  book,"  Susan added, holding out to him a small and
elderly volume on the ecclesiastical architecture of  Kent.  He
took  it,  murmured  some slight thanks; looked about him for a
moment as if he'd suddenly realised something rather odd,  then
gathered himself together, nodded farewel! and left.
     Richard  didn't  appreciate  quite how tense he had become
till Michael left and he  was  suddenly  able  to  relax.  He'd
always  resented  the  indulgent  soft  spot that Susan had for
Michael even if she did try to disguise it  by  being  terribly
rude to him al! the time. Perhaps even because of that.
     "Susan, what can I say... ?" he started lamely.
     "You could say `Ouch' for a start. You didn't even give me
that satisfaction when I hit you, and I thought I did it rather
hard. God, it's freezing in here. What's that window doing wide
open?"
     She went over to shut it.
     "I told you. That's how I got in," said Richard.
     He sounded sufficiently as if he meant it to make her look
round at him in surprise.
     "Really,"  he  said.  "Like  in  the chocolate ads, only I
forgot the box of chocolates... " He shrugged sheepishly.
     She stared at him in amazement.
     "What on earth possessed you to do that?"  she  said.  She
stuck  her  head  out of the window and looked down. "You could
have got killed," she said, turning back to him.
     "Well, er, yes..." he said. "It just seemed the  only  way
to...  I  don't  know."  He rallied himself. "You took your key
back remember?"
     "Yes. I got fed up with you coming and raiding  my  larder
when you couldn't be bothered to do your own shopping. Richard,
you really climbed up this wall?"
     "Well, I wanted to be here when you got in."
     She  shook her head in bewilderment. "It would have been a
great deal better if you'd been here when I went out.  Is  that
why you're wearing those filthy old clothes?"
     "Yes.  You  don't think I went to dinner at St Cedd's like
this?"
     "Well, I no longer know what you consider to  be  rationai
behaviour."  She  sighed  and  fished  about in a small drawer.
"Here," she said, "if it's going to save your life," and handed
him a couple of keys on a ring. "I'm  too  tired  to  be  angry
anymore.  An  evening  of being lobbied by Michael has taken it
out of me."
     "Well, I'll never understand why you  put  up  with  him,"
said Richard, going to fetch the coffee.
     "I know you don't like him, but he's very sweet and can be
charming  in his sad kind of way. Usually it's very relaxing to
be with someone who's so self-absorbed, because it doesn't make
any demands on you. But he's obsessed with the idea that I  can
do  something  about  his  magazine.  I  can't, of course. Life
doesn't work like that. I do feel sorry for him, though."
     "I don't. He's had it very, very easy  all  his  life.  He
still  has it very, very easy. He's just had his toy taken away
from him that's all. It's hardly unjust, is it?"
     "It's not a matter of whether it's just  or  not.  I  feel
sorry for him because he's unhappy."
     "Well,   of  course  he's  unhappy.  AI  Ross  has  turned
Fathom into a really sharp,  intelligent  magazine  that
everyone  suddenly  wants  to  read.  It  was  just  a bumbling
shambles before. Its only real function was to let Michael have
lunch and toady about with whoever he liked on the pretext that
maybe they might like to write a little  something.  He  hardly
ever  got  an  actual issue out. The whole thing was a sham. He
pampered himself with it: I really don't find that charming  or
engaging.  I'm  sorry,  I'm going on about it and I didn't mean
to."
     Susan shrugged uneasily.
     "I think you overreact," she said, "though I think I  will
have to steer clear of him if he's going to keep on at me to do
something  I  simply  can't  do.  It's  too exhausting. Anyway,
listen, I'm glad you had a lousy evening. I want to talk  about
what we were going to do this weekend."
     "Ah," said Richard, "well..."
     "Oh, I'd better just check the messages first."
     She  walked  past  him to the telephone-answering machine,
played the first few  seconds  of  Gordon's  message  and  then
suddenly ejected the cassette.
     "I  can't be bothered," she said, giving it to him. "Could
you just give this straight to Susan at  the  office  tomorrow?
Save  her  a  trip. If there's anything important on it she can
tell me."
     Richard blinked, said, "Er, yes," and pocketed  the  tape,
tingling with the shock of the reprieve.
     "Anyway,  the  weekend  -" said Susan, sitting down on the
sofa.
     Richard wiped his hand over his brow. "Susan, I..."
     "I'm afraid I've got to work. Nicola's sick and I'm  going
to  have  to dep for her at the Wigmore on Friday week. There's
some Vivaldi and some Mozart I don't know  too  well,  so  that
means a lot ofextra practice this weekend, I'm afraid. Sorry."
     "Well,  in  fact," said Richard, "I have to work as well."
He sat down by her.
     "I know. Gordon keeps on at me  to  nag  you.  I  wish  he
wouldn't.  It's  none  of  my  business  and  it  puts me in an
invidious position. I'm tired of being pressurised  by  people,
Richard. At least you don't do that."
     She took a sip of her coffee.
     "But I'm sure," she added, "that there's some kind of grey
area between  being  pressurised and being completely forgotten
about that I'd quite like to explore. Give me a hug."
     He  hugged  her,  feeling  that  he  was  monstrously  and
unworthily  lucky.  An  hour  later  he  let  himself  out  and
discovered that the Pizza Express was closed.

     Meanwhile, Michael Wenton-Weakes made his way back to  his
home  in  Chelsea. As he sat in the back of the taxi he watched
the streets with a blank stare and tapped his  fingers  lightly
against the window in a slow thoughtful rhythm.  Rap tap tap
a  rap  tap  a  rap  a  tap.    He  was one of those
dangerous people who are soft,  squidgy  and  cowlike  provided
they have what they want. And because he had always had what he
wanted,  and  had  seemed  easily pleased with it, it had never
occurred to anybody that  he  was  anything  other  than  soft,
squidgy  and  cowlike.  You would have to push through a lot of
soft squidgy bits in order to find a bit that didn't give  when
you  pushed it. That was the bit that all the soft squidgy bits
were there to protect.
     Michael Wenton-Weakes was the younger son of  Lord  Magna,
publisher,  newspaper  owner  and  over-indulgent father, under
whose protective umbrella it had pleased Michael to run his own
little magazine at a magnificent loss. Lord Magna had  presided
over  the  gradual  but dignified and well-respected decline of
the publishing empire originally founded  by  his  father,  the
first Lord Magna.
     Michael  continued  to  tap  his  knuckles  lightly on the
glass.  A rap tap a rap a tap.  He remembered the
appalling,  terrible  day  when  his  father  had  electrocuted
himself  changing  a  plug,  and his mother, his mother,
took over the business. Not  only  took  it  over  but  started
running  it with completely unexpected verve and determination.
She examined the company with a very sharp eye as to how it was
being run, or walked, as she put it, and  eventually  even  got
around  to  looking  at the accounts of Michael's magazine. 
Tap tap tap.  Now Michael knew just enough about the
business side of things to know what the figures ought  to  be,
and  he had simply assured his father that that was indeed what
they were.
     "Can't allow this job just to be a sinecure, you must  see
that,  old  fellow,  you  have  to pay your way or how would it
look, how would it be?" his father used  to  say,  and  Michael
would nod seriously, and start thinking up the figures for next
month,  or whenever it was he would next manage to get an issue
out.
     His mother, on the other hand, was not so  indulgent.  Not
by a lorryload.
     Michael   usually   referred  to  his  mother  as  an  old
battleaxe, but if she was fairly to be compared to a  battleaxe
it  would  only  be  to  an  exquisitely  crafted,  beautifully
balanced battleaxe, with an elegant minimum of  fine  engraving
which  stopped  just  short  of  its gleaming razored edge. One
swipe from such an instrument and you wouldn't even know  you'd
been  hit until you tried to look at your watch a bit later and
discovered that your arm wasn't on.
     She had been waiting patiently -  or  at  least  with  the
appearance  of patience - in the wings all this time, being the
devoted wife, the doting but strict  mother.  Now  someone  had
taken  her  -  to  switch  metaphors  for a moment - out of her
scabbard and everyone was running for cover.
     Including Michael.
     It was her firm belief  that  Michael,  whom  she  quietly
adored,  had been spoiled in the fullest and worst sense of the
word, and she was determined, at this late stage, to stop it.
     It didn't take her more than a few minutes to see that  he
had been simply making up the figures every month, and that the
rnagazine was haemorrhaging money as Michael toyed with it, all
the  time  running up huge lunch bills, taxi accounts and staff
costs  that  he&#127;would  playfully  set  against  fictitious
taxes.  The  whole  thing  had simply got lost somewhere in the
gargantuan accounts of Magna House.
     She had then summoned Michael to see her.   Tap  tap  a
rap a tappa.  "How do you want me to treat you," she
said,  "as  my son or as the editor of one of my magazines? I'm
happy to do either."
     "Your magazines? Well, I am your son, but I don't see..."
     "Right. Michael, I want you to look at these figures," she
said briskly, handing over a sheet of computer  printout.  "The
ones  on  the  left  show the actual incomings and outgoings of
Fathom, the ones on the right are your own figures. Does
anything strike you about them?"
     "Mother, I can explain, I-"
     "Good," said Lady Magna sweetly, "I'm very glad of that."
     She took the piece of paper back. "Now. Do  you  have  any
views on how the magazine should best be run in the future?"
     "Yes, absolutely. Very strong ones. I-"
     "Good,"  said  Lady  Magna,  with  a  bright smile. "Well,
that's all perfectly satisfactory, then."
     "Don't you want to hear -?"
     "No, that's all right, dear. I'm just happy to  know  that
you  do have something to say on the matter to clear it all up.
I'm sure the new owner of Fathom will be glad to  listen
to whatever it is."
     "What?"  said a stunned Michael. "You mean you're actually
selling Fathom?"
     "No. I mean I've already sold it. Didn't get much for  it,
I'm afraid. One pound plus a promise that you would be retained
as editor for the next three issues, and after that it's at the
new owner's discretion."
     Michael stared, pop-eyed.
     "Well,  come  now,"  said his mother reasonably, "we could
hardly continue under the present arrangement,  could  we?  You
always  agreed  with  your  father that the job should not be a
sinecure for you. And since  I  would  have  a  great  deal  of
difficulty  in  either  believing  or resisting your stories, I
thought I would hand the problem on to  someone  with  whom.you
could  have  a more objective relationship. Now, I have another
appointment, Michael."
     "Well,  but...  who  have  you  sold  it  to?"  spluttered
Michael.
     "Gordon Way."
     "Gordon Way! But for heaven's sake, Mother, he's-"
     "He's very anxious to be seen to patronise the arts. And I
think  I  do mean patronise. I'm sure you'll get on splendidly,
dear. Now, if you don't mind "
     Michael stood his ground.
     "I've never heard of anything so outrageous! I "
     "Do you know, that's exactly  what  Mr  Way  said  when  I
showed  him these figures and then demanded that you be kept on
as editor for three issues."
     Michael huffed and puffed and  went  red  and  wagged  his
finger,  but  could think of nothing more to say. Except, "What
difference would it have made to all this if I'd said treat  me
as the editor of one of your magazines?"
     "Why,  dear,"  said Lady Magna with her sweetest smile, "I
would have called  you  Mr  Wenton-Weakes,  of  course.  And  I
wouldn't  now  be  telling you straighten your tie," she added,
with a tiny little gesture under her chin.  Rap tap tap  rap
tap tap.  "Number seventeen, was it, guv?"
     "Er... what?" said Michael, shaking his head.
     "It  was seventeen you said, was it?" said the cab driver:
"'Cause we're 'ere."
     "Oh. Oh, yes, thank you," said Michael. He climbed out and
fumbled in his pocket for some money.
     "Tap tap tap, eh?"
     "What?" said Michael handing over the fare.
     "Tap tap tap," said the cab driver, "all  the  bloody  way
here Got something on your mind, eh, mate?"
     "Mind   your   own   bloody   business,"  snapped  Michael
savagely&#127;
     "If you say so, mate. Just thought you might be going  mad
or something," said the cabbie and drove off.
     Michael  let himself into his house and walked through the
cold hall to the dining room, turned on the overhead light  and
poured  himself  a  brandy  from  the decanter. He took off his
coat, threw it across  the  large  mahogany  dining  table  and
pulled  a  chair  over  to  the window where he sat nursing his
drink and his grievances.  Tap tap tap, he went  on  the
window.
     He  had  sullenly  remained  as  editor for the stipulated
three issues and was then, with little ceremony, let go. A  new
editor  was  found, a certain A. K. Ross, who was young, hungry
and ambitious, and  he  quickly  turned  the  magazine  into  a
resounding success. Michael, in the meantime, had been lost and
naked. There was nothing else for him.
     He tapped on the window again and looked, as he frequently
did, at  the  small table lamp that stood on the sill. It was a
rather ugly, ordinary little lamp, and the only thing about  it
that  regularly  transfixed his attention was that this was the
lamp that had electrocuted his father, and this  was  where  he
had been sitting.
     The  old  boy  was  such  a  fool with anything technical.
Michael could just see him peering with profound  concentration
through his half moons and sucking his moustache as he tried to
unravel the arcane complexities of a thirteen-amp plug. He had,
it  seemed,  plugged it back in the wall without first scnewing
the caver back on and then tried to change the  fuse  in  situ.
From  this  he received the shock which had stilled his already
dicky heart.
     Such a simple, simple  error,  thought  Michael,  such  as
anyone could have made, anyone, but the consequences of it were
catastrophic. Utterly catastrophic. His father's death, his own
loss,  the  rise  of  the  appalling  Ross and his disastrously
successful magazine and...   Tap  tap  tap.    He
looked  at  the  window, at his own reflection, and at the dark
shadows of the bushes on the other side of it. He looked  again
at the lamp. This was the very object, this the very place, and
the  error  was  such  a  simple one. Simple to make, simple to
prevent.
     The only thing that separated him from that simple  moment
was  the  invisible  barrier  of  the months that had passed in
between.
     A sudden, odd calm descended on him as if something inside
him had suddenly been resolved.  Tap  tap  tap.  
Fathom  was his. It wasn't meant to be a success, it was
his life. His life had been taken from him, and that demanded a
response.
     Tap tap tap crack.  He surprised himself  by
suddenly  punching  his  hand  through  the  window and cutting
himself quite badly.

        Chapter Fifteen...

     Some of the less  pleasant  aspects  of  being  dead  were
beginning to creep up on Gordon Way as he stood in front of his
"cottage."
     It  was  in  fact  a  rather large house by anybody else's
standards but he had always wanted to have  a  cottage  in  the
country  and  so  when the time came for him finally to buy one
and he discovered that he had rather more money available  than
he  had ever seriously believed he might own, he bought a large
old rectory and called it a  cottage  in  spite  of  its  seven
bedrooms  and  its four acres of dank Cambridgeshire land. This
did little to endear him to people who only had  cottages,  but
then  if  Gordon  Way had allowed his actions to be governed by
what endeared him to people he wouldn't have been Gordon Way.
     He wasn't, of course, Gordon Way any longer.  He  was  the
ghost of Gordon Way.
     In his pocket he had &#127;he ghosts of Gordon Way's keys.
     It  was this realisation that had stopped him for a moment
in his invisible tracks. The  idea  of  walking  through  walls
frankly  revolted  him.  It  was  something  he had been trying
strenuously to avoid all night. He had instead been fighting to
grip and grapple with every  object  he  touched  in  order  to
render  it,  and  thereby  himself,  substantial.  To enter his
house, his own house, by any means other than that  of  opening
the front door and striding in in a proprietorial manner filled
him with a hurtling sense of loss.
     He wished, as he stared at it, that the house was not such
an extreme  example of Victorian Gothic, and that the moonlight
didn't play so coldly on its  narrow  gabled  windows  and  its
forbidding  turrets.  He had joked, stupidly, when he bought it
that it looked as if it ought to be haunted, not realising that
one day it would be - or by whom.
     A chill of the spirit gripped  him  as  he  made  his  way
silently  up  the  driveway, lined by the looming shapes of yew
trees that were far older than the rectory  itself.  It  was  a
disturbing thought that anybody else might be scared walking up
such  a  driveway on such a night for fear of meeting something
such as him.
     Behind a screen of yew trees off to  his  left  stood  the
gloomy  bulk  of  the  old  church,  decaying now, only used in
rotation with others in neighbouring villages and presided over
by a vicar who was always breathless from bicycling  there  and
dispirited by the few who were waiting for him when he arrived.
Behind the steeple of the church hung the cold eye of the moon.
     A glimpse of movement seemed suddenly to catch his eye, as
if a figure had moved in the bushes near the house, but it was,
he told  himself,  only  his  imagination,  overwrought  by the
strain of being  dead.  What  was  there  here  that  he  could
possibly be afraid of?
     He  continued onwards, around the angle of the wing of the
rectory, towards the front door  set  deep  within  its  gloomy
porch wn&#127;athed in ivy. He was suddenly startled to realise
that  there  was  light  coming from within the house. Electric
light and also the dim Hicker of firelight.
     It was a moment or two before he realised that he was,  of
course, expected that night, though hardly in his present form.
Mrs  Bennett,  the  elderly  housekeeper, would have been in to
make the bed, light the fire and leave out a light  supper  for
him.
     The  television,  too,  would be on, especially so that he
could tum it off impatiently upon entering.
     His footsteps  failed  to  crunch  on  the  gravel  as  he
approached.  Though  he  knew that he must fail at the door, he
nevertheless could not but go there first, to try if  he  could
open it, and only then, hidden within the shadows of the porch,
would  he close his eyes and let himself slip ashamedly through
it. He stepped up to the door and stopped.
     It was open.
     Just half an inch, but it was open. His  spirit  fluttered
in  fearful  surprise.  How  could  it be open? Mrs Bennett was
always so conscientious about such things. He stood uncertainly
for a moment and then with difficulty exerted  himself  against
the  door.  Under the little pressure he could bring to bear on
it, it swung slowly and unwillingly open, its  hinges  groaning
in   protest.   He   stepped  through  and  slipped  along  the
stone-flagged  hallway.  A  wide  staircase  led  up  into  the
darkness, but the doors that led off from the hallway all stood
closed.
     The  nearest  door led into the drawing room, in which the
fire was burning, and from which he could hear  the  muted  car
chases of the late movie. He struggled futilely for a minute or
two  with  its shiny brass door knob, but was forced in the end
to admit a humiliating defeat, and with  a  sudden  rage  flung
himself straight at the door - and through it.
     The room inside was a picture of pleasant domestic warmth.
He staggered  violently into it, and was unable to stop himself
floating on through a small occasional  table  set  with  thick
sandwiches  and  a Thermos flask of hot coffee, through a large
overstuffed armchair, into the  fire,  through  the  thick  hot
brickwork and into the cold dark dining room beyond.
     The  connecting  door  back into the sitting room was also
closed. Gordon fingered it numbly and then, submitting  himself
to  the  inevitable,  braced himself, and slid back through it,
calmly, gently, noticing for the first time the  rich  internal
grain of the wood.
     The  coziness  of the room was almost too much for Gordon,
and he wandered  distractedly  around  it,  unable  to  settle,
letting  the warm liveliness of the firelight play through him.
Him it couldn't warm.
     What, he wondered, were ghosts supposed to do all night?
     He  sat,  uneasily,  and  watched  the  television.  Soon,
however, the car chases drifted peacefully to a close and there
was  nothing  left  but grey snow and white noise, which he was
unable to turn off.
     He found he'd sunk too far into  the  chair  and  confused
himself  with  bits  of  it as he pushed and pulled himself up.
I-ie tried to amuse himself by standing  in  the  middle  of  a
table,  but it did little to alleviate a mood that was slidirlg
inexorably from despondency downwards.
     Perhaps he would sleep.
     Perhaps.
     He felt no tiredness or  drowsiness,  but  just  a  deadly
craving  for  oblivion.  He passed back through the closed door
and into the dark hallway, from which the wide heavy stairs led
to the large gloomy bedrooms above.
     Up these, emptily, he trod.
     It was for nothing, he knew. If you cannot open  the  door
to  a  bedroom  you  cannot  sleep  in its bed. He slid himself
through the door and lifted himself on to the bed which he knew
to be cold though he could not feel it. The moon seemed  unable
to  leave  him  alone  and  shone  full  on him as he lay there
wide-eyed and empty, unable now to remember what sleep  was  or
how to do it.
     The  horror  of hollowness lay on him, the horror of lying
ceaselessly and forever awake at four o'clock in the morning.
     He had nowhere to go, nothing to do when he got there, and
no one he  could  go  and  wake  up  who  wouldn't  be  utterly
horrified to see him.
     The  worst moment had been when he had seen Richard on the
road, Richard's face frozen white in  the  windscreen.  He  saw
again his face, and that of the pale figure next to him.
     That  had  been  the thing which had shaken out of him the
lingering shred of warmth at the back of his  mind  which  said
that  this  was just a temporary problem. It seemed terrible in
the night hours, but would be all right in the morning when  he
could see people and sort things out. He fingered the memory of
the rroment in his mind and could not let it go.
     He had seen Richard and Richard, he knew, had seen him.
     It was not going to be all right.
     Usually   when  he  felt  this  bad  at  night  he  popped
downstairs to see what was in the fridge, so he  went  now.  It
would be more cheerful than this moonlit bedroom. He would hang
around the kitchen going bump in the night.
     He  slid  down  -  and  partially through - the banisters,
wafted through the kitchen door without a  second  thought  and
then  devoted  all  his concentration and energy for about five
minutes to getting the light switch on.
     That  gave  him  a  real  sense  of  achievement  and   he
determined to celebrate with a beer.
     After  a minute or two of repeatedly juggling and dropping
a can of Fosters he gave  it  up.  He  had  not  the  slightest
conception  of  how  he  could  manage to open a ring pull, and
besides the stuff was all shaken up by now - and  what  was  he
going to do with the stuff even if he did get it open?
     He  didn't  have  a  body to keep it in. He hurled the can
away from him and it scuttled off under a cupboard.
     He began to notice something about himself, which was  the
way  in  which  his  ability to grasp things seemed to grow and
fade in a slow rhythm, as did his visibility.
     There was  an  irregularity  in  the  rhythm,  though,  or
perhaps  it  was just that sometimes the efPcts of it would be
much more pronounced than at others. That, too, seemed to  vary
according  to a slower rhythm. Just at that moment it seemed to
him that his strength was on the increase.
     In a sudden fever of activity he tried  to  see  how  many
things  in  the  kitchen he could move or use or somehow get to
work.
     He  pulled  open  cupboards,  he   yanked   out   drawers,
scattering  cutlery  on  the floor. He got a brief whirr out of
the food processor, he knocked over the electric coffee grinder
without getting it to work, he turned on the gas on the  cooker
hob but then couldn't light it, he savaged a loaf of bread with
a  carvig  knife.  He  tried  stuffing lumps of bread into his
mouth, but they simply fell through his mouth to the  floor.  A
mouse  appeared,  but  scumed  from the room, its coat electric
with fear.
     Eventually he  stopped  and  sat  at  the  kitchen  table,
emotionally exhausted but physically numb.
     How, he wondered, would people react to his death?
     Who would be most sorry to know that he had gone?
     For  a while there would be shock, then sadness, then they
would adjust, and he would be a fading memory as people got  on
with  their own lives without him, thinking that he had gone on
to wherever people go. That was a thought that filled him  with
the most icy dread.
     He had not gone. He was still here.
     He  sat facing one cupboard that he hadn't managed to open
yet because its handle was too stiff, and that annoyed him.  He
grappled awkwardly with a tin of tomatoes, then went over again
to the large cupboard and attacked the handle with the tin. The
door  flew  open  and  his  own  missing bloodstained body fell
horribly forward out of it.
     Gordon hadn't realised up till  this  point  that  it  was
possible for a ghost to faint.
     He realised it now and did it.
     He  was  woken a couple of hours later by the sound of his
gas cooker exploding.

        Chapter Sixteen...

     The following morning Richard woke up twice.
     The first time he assumed he had made a mistake and turned
over for a fitful few minutes more. The second time he  sat  up
with  a  jolt  as  the  events  of  the previous night insisted
themselves upon him.
     He  went  downstairs  and  had  a  moody   and   unsettled
breakfast,  during  which  nothing  went  right.  He burned the
toast, spilled the coffee, and realised that though he'd  meant
to  buy  some  mor&#127;  marmalade  yesterday,  he  hadn't. He
surveyed his feeble attempt at feeding himself and thought that
maybe he could at least allow himself the time  to  take  Susan
out for an amazing meal tonight, to make up for last night.
     If he could persuade her to come.
     There  was  a  rest.aurant  that Gordon had been enthusing
about at gre&#127;t length  and  recommending  that  they  try.
Gordon  was pretty good on restaurants - he certainly seemed to
spend enough time in them. He sat and tapped his teeth  with  a
pencil  for  a  couple  of  minutes,  and  then  went up to his
workroom and lugged a telephone directory out from under a pile
of computer magazines.
     L'Esprit d'Escalier.
     He phoned the restaurant and tried to book  a  table,  but
when  he  said  when  he  wanted  it for this seemed to cause a
little amusement.
     "Ah, non, m'sieur," said the mai^tre d', "I regret that it
is impossible.  At  this  moment  it  is  necessary   to   make
reservations at least three weeks in advance. Pardon. m'sieur."
     Richard  marvelled  at the idea that there were people who
actually knew what they wanted to do three  weeks  in  advance,
thanked  the  matre d' and rang off. Well, maybe a pizza again
instead. This thought connected back to the appointment he  had
failed  to  keep  last  night,  and  after  a  moment curiosity
overcame him and he reached for the phone book again.
     Gentleman...
     Gentles...
     Gentry.
     There was no Gently at all. Not a single one. He found the
other directories, except for the S-Z book which  his  cleaning
lady  continually  threw  away  for  reasons  he  had never yet
fathomed.
     There was certainly no Cjelli, or anything like it.  There
was no Jently, no Dgently, no Djently, no Dzently, nor anything
remotely similar. He wondered about Tjently, Tsentli or Tzentli
and  tried  Directory  Enquiries, but they were out. He sat and
tapped his teeth with a  pencil  again  and  watched  his  sofa
slowly revolving on the screen of his computer.
     How  very peculiar it had been that it had only been hours
earlier that Reg had asked after Dirk with such urgency.
     If you really wanted to find someone, how  would  you  set
about it, what would you do?
     He  tried phoning the police, but they were out too. Well,
that was that. He had done all he could do for the moment short
of hiring a private  detective,  and  he  had  better  ways  of
wasting his time and money. He would run into Dirk again, as he
did every few years or so.
     He found it hard to believe there were really such people,
anyway, as private detectives.
     What  sort  of  people were they? What did they look like,
where did they work?
     What sort of tie would you wear  if  you  were  a  private
detective?  Presumably  it would have to be exactly the sort of
tie tjat people wouldn't expect  private  detectives  to  wear.
lmagine  having to sort out a problem like that when you'd just
got up.
     Just out of  curiosity  as  much  as  anything  else,  and
because  the  only  alternative  was  settling  down  to Anthem
coding, he found himself leafing through the Yellow Pages.
     Private Detectives - see Detective Agencies.
     The  words  looked  almost  odd  in  such  a   solid   and
businesslike  context.  He  flipped  back through the book. Dry
Cleaners,   Dog   Breeders,   Dental   Technicians,   Detective
Agencies...
     At that moment the phone rang and he answered it, a little
curtly. He didn't like being interrupted.
     "Something wrong, Richard?"
     "Oh, hi, Kate, so no. I was. . my mind was elsewhere."
     Kate  Anselm  was  another  star  programmer at WayForward
Technologies.  She  was  working  on  a  long-term   Artificial
Intelligence  project,  the  sort of thing that sounded like an
absurd pipe dream until you heard her talking about it.  Gordon
needed  to  hear  her  talking about it quite regularly, partly
because he was nervous about  the  money  it  was  costing  and
partly  because, well, there was little doubt that Gordon liked
to hear Kate talking anyway.
     "I didn't want to disturb you," she said. "It's just I was
trying to contact Gordon  and  can't.  There's  no  reply  from
London  or  the  cottage,  or his car or his bleeper. It's just
that for someone as obsessively in contact as Gordon it's a bit
odd. You heard he's had a phone  put  in  his  isolation  tank?
True."
     "I  haven't  spoken to him since yesterday," said Richard.
He suddenly remembered the  tape  he  had  taken  from  Susan's
answering  machine, and hoped to God there wasn't anything more
important in Gordon's message than ravings  about  rabbits.  He
said,  "I  know  he  was going to the cottage. Er, I don't know
where he is.  Have  you  tried  "  Richard  couldn't  think  of
anywhere else to try - "...er. Good God."
     "Richard?"
     "How extraordinary..."
     "Richard, what's the matter?"
     "Nothing,  Kate.  Er,  I've  just nead the most astounding
thing."
     "Really, what ane you reading?"
     "Well, the telephone directory, in fact. . "
     "Really? I must rush out and buy one. Have the film rights
gone?"
     "Look, sorry, Kate, can I get back to you?  I  don't  know
where Gordon is at the moment and-"
     "Don't worry. I know how it is when you can't wait to turn
the next  page.  They  always  keep  you guessing till the end,
don't they? It must have been Zbigniew that did it. Have a good
weekend." She hung up.
     Richard  hung  up  too,  and  sat  staring  at   the   box
advertisement lying open in front of him in the Yellow Pages.

     * DIRK GENTLY'S*
     * HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY*
     * We solve the whole crime*
     * We find the whole person*
     *Phone  today  for  the  whole  solution  to your
problem*
     * (Missing cats and messy divorces a speciality)*
     * 33a Peckender St., London N1 O1-354 9112*

     Peckender Street  was  only  a  few  minutes'  walk  away.
Richard  scribbled  down  the  address,  pulled on his coat and
trotted downstairs, stopping to make another  quick  inspection
of  the  sofa.  There  must,  he thought, be something terribly
obvious that he was overlooking.  The  sofa  was  jammed  on  a
slight  turn  in  the  long  narrow stairway. At this point the
stairs were interrupted for a couple of yards of flat  landing,
which  corresponded  with  the  position  of  the flat directly
beneath Richard's. However,  his  inspection  produced  no  new
insights, and he eventually clambered on over it and out of the
front door.
     In  Islington  you can hardly hurl a brick without hitting
three antique shops, an estate agent and a bookshop.
     Even if you didn't actually hit them you  would  certainly
set  off  their  burglar  alarms,  which wouldn't be turned off
again till after the weekend. A police car played  its  regular
game  of  dodgems down Upper Street and squealed to a halt just
past him. Richard crossed the road behind it.
     The day was cold and bright, which  he  liked.  He  walked
across  the  top of Islington Green, where winos get beaten up,
past the site of the old Collins Music Hall which had got  bumt
down,  and  through  Camden Passage where American tourists get
ripped off. He browsed among  the  antiques  for  a  while  and
looked  at a pair of earrings that he thought Susan would like,
but he wasn't sure. Then he wasn't sure that he liked them, got
confused and gave up. He looked in at a  bookshop,  and  on  an
impulse  bought  an anthology of Coleridge's poems since it was
just lying there.
     From here he threaded his way  through  the  winding  back
streets,  over  the  canal, past the council estates that lined
the canal, through a number of  smaller  and  smaller  squares,
till  finally he reached Peckender Street, which had turned out
to be a good deal farther than he'd thought.
     It was the sort of street  where  property  developers  in
large  Jaguars  drive  around at the weekend salivating. It was
full of end-of-lease shops, Victorian industrial  architecture
and  a  short, decaying late-Georgian terrace, all just itching
to be pulled down so that sturdy  young  concrete  boxes  could
sprout in their places. Estate agents roamed the area in hungry
packs,  eyeing  each  other  warily, their clipboards on a hair
trigger.
     Number 33, when he eventually found it  neatly  sandwiched
between  37  and  45,  was in a poorish state of repair, but no
worse than most of the rest.
     The ground floor was a dusty travel agent's  whose  window
was  cracked  and  whose  faded  BOAC posters were probably now
quite valuable. The doorway next to the shop had  been  painted
bright red, not well, but at least recently. A push button next
to  the  door  said, in neatly pencilled lettering, "Dominique,
French lessons, 3me Floor".
     The most striking feature of the door,  however,  was  the
bold  and shiny brass plaque fixed in the dead centre of it, on
which was engraved the legend "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective
Agency".
     Nothing else. It looked brand new - even the  screws  that
held it in place were still shiny.
     The door opened to Richard's push and he peered inside.
     He  saw  a  short and musty hallway which contained little
but the stairway that led up from it. A door at the back of the
hall showed little sign of having been opened in recent  years,
and  had  stacks  of  old  metal  shelving, a fish tank and the
carcass of a bike piled up against  it.  Everything  else,  the
walls,  the  floor,  the  stairs themselves, and as much of the
rear door as could be got at,  had  been  painted  grey  in  an
attempt  to  smarten  it  up  cheaply, but it was all now badly
scuffed, and little cups of fungus were  peeking  from  a  damp
stain near the ceiling.
     The  sounds of angry voices reached him, and as he started
up the stairs he was able to  disentangle  the  noises  of  two
entirely  separate  but  heated  arguments  that  were going on
somewhere above him.
     One ended abruptly - or at least half of it did  -  as  an
angry  overweight  man  came clattering down the stairs pulling
his raincoat collar straight. The other half  of  the  argument
continued  in  a  torrent  of  aggrieved French from high above
them. The man pushed past  Richard,  said,  "Save  your  money,
mate,  it's  a  complete washout," and disappeared out into the
chilly morning.
     The other argument was more muffled.  As  Richard  reached
the  first  corridor  a door slammed somewhere and brought that
too to an end. He looked into the nearest open doorway.
     It led into a small ante-office.  The  other,  inner  door
leading  from it was firmly closed. A youngish plump-faced girl
in a cheap blue coat was pulling sticks of make-up and boxes of
Kleenex out of her desk drawer and thrusting them into her bag.
     "Is  this  the  detective  agency?"  Richard   asked   her
tentatively.
     The girl nodded, biting her lip and keeping her head down.
     "And is Mr Gently in?"
     "He  may  be," she said, throwing back her hair, which was
too curly for throwing back properly, "and then  again  he  may
not  be.  I am not in a position to tell. It is not my busiaess
to know of his whereabouts. His whereabouts  are,  as  of  now,
entirely his own business."
     She  retrieved  her  last pot of nail varnish and tried to
slam the drawer shut. A fat book sitting upright in the  drawer
prevented  it from closing. She tried to slam the drawer again,
without success. She picked up the book, ripped out a clump  of
pages  and  replaced  it.  This  time  she was able to slam the
drawer with ease.
     "Are you his secretary?" asked Richard.
     "I am his ex-secretary and I intend to stay that way," she
said, firmly snapping her bag shut. "If he intends to spend his
money on stupid expensive brass plaques rather than  on  paying
me,  then  let him. But I won't stay to stand for it, thank you
very much. Good for business, my  foot.  Answering  the  phones
properly  is  good  for  business and I'd like to see his fancy
brass plaque do that. If you'll excuse me  I'd  like  to  storm
out, please."
     Richard stood aside, and out she stormed.
     "And  good  riddance!"  shouted  a  voice  from  the inner
office. A phone rang and was picked up immediately.
     "Yes?" answered the voice from the inner  office,  testly.
The  girl  popped  back  for  her  scarf,  but  quietly, so her
ex-employer wouldn't hear. Then she was finally gone.
     "Yes, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. How can  we
be of help to you?"
     The  torrent of French from upstairs had ceased. A kind of
tense calm descended.
     Inside, the voice said,  "That's  right,  Mrs  Sunderland,
messy divorces are our particular speciality."
     There was a pause.
     "Yes,  thank  you,  Mrs Sunderland, not quite that messy."
Down went the phone again, to  be  replaced  instantly  by  the
ringing of another one.
     Richard  looked  around  the grim little office. There was
very little in it. A battered chipboard  veneer  desk,  an  old
grey filing cabinet and a dark green tin wastepaper bin. On the
wall  was a Duran Duran poster on which someone had scrawled in
fat red felt tip, "Take this down please".
     Beneath that another hand had scrawled, "No".
     Beneath that again the first hand had written,  "l  insist
that you take it down".
     Beneath that the second hand had written, "Won't!"
     Beneath that - "You're fired".
     Beneath that - "Good!"
     And there the matter appeared to have rested.
     He  knocked  on  the  inner  door,  but  was not answered.
Instead the voice continued, "I'm very glad you asked me  that,
Mrs Rawlinson. The term `holistic' refers to my conviction that
what   we   are   concerned   with   here  is  the  fundamental
interconnectedness of all things. I do not concern myself  with
such  petty  things  as  fingerprint powder, telltale pieces of
pocket fluff and inane footprints. I see the solution  to  each
problem  as  being  detectable  in  the  pattern and web of the
whole. The connections between causes  and  effects  are  often
much  more  subtle and complex than we with our rough and ready
understanding of the physical world  might  naturally  suppose,
Mrs Rawlinson.
     "Let me give you an example. If you go to an acupuncturist
with toothache  he  sticks a needle instead into your thigh. Do
you know why he does that, Mrs Rawlinson?
     No, neither do I, Mrs Rawlinson, but  we  intend  to  find
out. A pleasure talking to you, Mrs Rawlinson. Goodbye."
     Another phone was ringing as he put this one down.
     Richard eased the door open and looked in.
     It  was  the same Svlad, or Dirk, Cjelli. Looking a little
rounder about the middle, a little looser and redder about  the
eyes  and  the neck, but it was still essentially the same face
that he remembered most vividly smiling a  grim  smile  as  its
owner  climbed  into the back of one of the Black Marias of the
Cambridgeshire constabulary, eight years previously.
     He wore a heavy old light brown suit which looked as if it
has been worn extensively for bramble  hacking  expeditions  in
some  distant and better past, a red checked shirt which failed
entirely to harmonise with the suit, and a  green  striped  tie
which  refused  to  speak to either of them. He also wore thick
metal-rimmed spectacles, which probably accounted at  least  in
part for his dress sense.
     "Ah,  Mrs  Bluthall, how thoroughly uplifting to hear from
you," he was saying. "I was so distressed to  learn  that  Miss
Tiddles  has  passed  over.  This is desperate news indeed. And
yet, and yet... Should we allow black despair to hide  from  us
the  fairer  light  in  which  your  blessed  moggy now forever
dwells?
     "I think not. Hark. I think I hear Miss  Tiddles  miaowing
e'en  now.  She  calls  to  you,  Mrs Bluthall. She says she is
content, she is at peace. She says she'll be even more at peace
when you've paid some bill or other. Does that ring a bell with
you at all, Mrs Bluthall? Come to think of it I  think  I  sent
you one myself not three months ago. l wonder if it can be that
which is disturbing her eternal rest."
     Dirk  beckoned  Richard  in  with  a  brisk  wave and then
motioned him to pass the crumpled  pack  of  French  cigarettes
that was sitting just out of his reach.
     "Sunday  night, then, Mrs Bluthall, Sunday night at eight=
thirty. You know the address. Yes, I'm sure Miss  Tiddles  will
appear,  as  I'm  sure  will  your  cheque book. Till then, Mrs
Bluthall, till then."
     Another phone was already ringing as he  got  rid  of  Mrs
Bluthall.  He grabbed at it, lighting his crumpled cigarette at
the same time.
     "Ah, Mrs Sauskind," he said in answer to the  caller,  "my
oldest  and  may I say most valued client. Good day to you, Mrs
Sauskind, good day. Sadly, no sign as yet  of  young  Roderick,
I'm  afraid,  but  the  search is intensifying as it moves into
what I am confident are its closing stages, and I  am  sanguine
that  within mere days from today's date we wil1 have the young
rascal permanently restored to your arms and  mewing  prettily,
ah yes the bill, I was wondering if you had received it."
     Dirk's crumpled cigarette turned out to be too crumpled to
smoke,  so he hooked the phone on his shoulder and poked around
in the packet for another, but it was empty.
     He rummaged on his desk for a piece of paper and a stub of
pencil and wrote a note which he passed to Richard.
     "Yes, Mrs Sauskind,"  he  assured  the  telephone,  "I  am
listening
     with the utmost attention."
     The note said "Tell secretary get cigs".
     "Yes,"  continued  Dirk  into  the  phone,  "but as I have
endeavoured to explain to you, Mrs  Sauskind,  over  the  seven
years  of our acquaintance, I incline to the quantum mechanical
view in this matter. My theory is that your cat  is  not  lost,
but  that  his  waveform  has temporarily collapsed and must be
restored. Schrdinger. Planck. And so on."
     Richard wrote on the note "You haven't got secretary"  and
pushed it back.
     Dirk  considered  this  for  a while, then wrote "Damn and
blast" on the paper and pushed it to Richard again.
     "I grant you,  Mrs  Sauskind,"  continued  Dirk  blithely,
"that  nineteen years is, shall we say, a distinguished age for
a cat to reach, yet can we allow ourselves to  believe  that  a
cat such as Roderick has not reached it?
     "And  should we now in the autumn of his years abandon him
to his fate? This surely is the time that  he  most  needs  the
support of our continuing investigations. This is the time that
we  should  redouble our efforts, and with your permission, Mrs
Sauskind, that is what I intend to do. Imagine,  Mrs  Sauskind,
how  you  would  face him if you had not done this simple thing
for him."
     Richard fidgeted with the note, shrugged to  himself,  and
wrote "I'll get them" on it and passed it back once more.
     Dirk  shook his head in admonition, then wrote "I couldn't
possibly that would be most kind". As soon as Richard had  read
this,  Dirk  took  the  note  back  and  added  "Get money from
secretary" to it.
     Richard looked at the paper thoughtfully, took the  pencil
and  put  a  tick  next to where he had previously written "You
haven't got secretary". He pushed the  paper  back  across  the
table  to Dirk, who merely glanced at it and ticked "I couldn't
possibly that would be most kind".
     "Well, perhaps," continued  Dirk  to  Mrs  Sauskind,  "you
could just run over any of the areas in the bill that cause you
difficulty. Just the broader areas."
     Richard let himself out.
     Running  down  the  stairs, he passed a young hopeful in a
denim jacket and close-cropped hair peering  anxiously  up  the
stairwell.
     "Any good, mate?" he said to Richard.
     "Amazing," murmured Richard, "just amazing."
     He  found  a  nearby newsagent's and picked up a couple of
packets of Disque Bleu for Dirk, and a copy of the new  edition
of  Personal  Computer  World,  which  had  a picture of
Gordon Way on the front.
     "Pity about him, isn't it?" said the newsagent.
     "What? Oh, er... yes," said Richard. He often thought  the
same  himself, but was surprised to find his feelings so widely
echoed. He picked up a Guardian as well, paid and left.
     Dirk was still on the phone with his  feet  on  the  table
when  Richard  returned,  and it was clear that he was relaxing
into his negotiations.
     Yes, expenses were, well, expensive in  the  Bahamas,  Mrs
Sauskind,  it  is in the nature of expenses to be so. Hence the
name." He took the  proffered  packets  of  cigarettes,  seemed
disappointed  there  were  only  two,  but  briefly  raised his
eyebrows to Richard in acknowledgment of the favour he had done
him, and then waved him to a chair.
     The sounds of  an  argument  conducted  partly  in  French
drifted down from the floor above.
     "Of course I will explain to you again why the trip to the
Bahamas was so vitally necessary," said Dirk Gently soothingly.
"Nothing  could  give  me  greater  pleasure. I believe, as you
know, Mrs Sauskind, in the  fundamental  interconnectedness  of
all  things.  Furthermore  I  have plotted and triangulated the
vectors of the interconnectedness of all things and traced them
to a beach in Bermuda which it is therefore necessary for me to
visit from time to time in the course of my  investigations.  I
wish  it were not the case, since, sadly, I am allergic to both
the sun and rum punches, but then we all have  our  crosses  to
bear, do we not, Mrs Sauskind?"
     A babble seemed to break out from the telephone.
     "You sadden me, Mrs Sauskind. I wish I could find it in my
heart  to  tell  you  that I find your scepticism rewarding and
invigorating, but with the best will in the world I  cannot.  I
am  drained by it, Mrs Sauskind, drained. I think you will find
a&#127; item in the bill to that effect. Let me see."
     He picked up a flimsy carbon copy lying near him.
     "`Detecting   and    triangulating    the    vectors    of
interconnectedness   of  all  things,  one  hundred  and  fifty
pounds.' We've dealt with that.
     "`Tracing same  to  beach  on  Bahamas,  fare  and  accom=
modation'.  A  mere  fifteen hundred. The accommodation was, of
course, distressingly modest.
     "Ah yes, here we  are,  `Struggling  on  in  the  face  of
draining  scepticism  from  client,  drinks - three hundred and
twenty-seven pounds fifty.'
     "Would that I did not have to make such charges,  my  dear
Mrs  Sauskind,  would  that  the  occasion  did not continually
arise. Not blieving in my  methods  only  makes  my  job  more
difficult,   Mrs   Sauskind,   and   hence,  regrettably,  more
expensive."
     Upstairs, the sounds of argument were becoming more heated
by the moment.  The  French  voice  seemed  to  be  verging  on
hysteria.
     "I do appreciate, Mrs Sauskind," continued Dirk, "that the
cost of   the  investigation  has  strayed  somewhat  from  the
original estimate, but I am sure that you  will  in  your  turn
appreciate  that  a  job  which  takes  seven  years to do must
clearly be more difficult than one that can be pulled off in an
afternoon and must therefore be charged at  a  higher  rate.  I
have  continually  to  revise  my estimate of how difficult the
task is in the light of how difficult it has so far  proved  to
be."
     The babble from the phone became more frantic.
     "My dear Mrs Sauskind - or may I call you Joyce? Very well
then.  My  dear  Mrs  Sauskind,  let  me say this. Do not worry
yourself about this bill, do not let it alarm or discomfit you.
Do not, I beg you, let it become a source of  anxiety  to  you.
Just grit your teeth and pay it."
     He  pulled  his feet down off the table and leaned forward
over the desk, in&#127;hing the telephone  receiver  inexorably
back towards its cradle.
     "As  always, the very greatest pleasure to speak with you,
Mrs Sauskind. For now, goodbye."
     He at last put down the receiver, picked it up again,  and
dropped it for the moment into the waste basket.
     "My dear Richard MacDuff," he said, producing a large flat
box from under his desk and pushing it across the table at him,
"your pizza."
     Richard started back in astonishment.
     "Er,  no  thanks,"  he said, "I had breakfast. Please. You
have it."
     Dirk shrugged. "I told them you'd pop  in  and  settle  up
over  the  weekend,"  he  said.  "Welcome,  by  the  way, to my
offices."
     He waved a vague hand around the tatty surroundings.
     "The light works," he said, indicating  the  window,  "the
gravity  works,"  he  said,  dropping  a  pencil  on the floor.
"Anything else we have to take our chances with."
     Richard cleared his throat. "What," he said, "is this?"
     "What is what?"
     "This," exclaimed Richard, "all this. You appear to have a
Holistic Detective Agency and I don't even know what one is."
     "I provide a service that is unique in this  world,"  said
Dirk. "The term `holistic' refers to my conviction that what we
are  concerned  with here is the fundamental interconnectedness
of all -"
     "Yes, I got that bit earlier," said Richard.  "I  have  to
say  that  it  sounded  a  bit  like  an  excuse for exploiting
gullible old ladies."
     "Exploiting?" asked Dirk. "Well, I suppose it would be  if
anybody  ever  paid  me,  but I do assure you, my dear Richard,
that there never seems to be the remotest  danger  of  that.  I
live  in  what  are  known as hopes. I hope for fascinating and
remunerative cases, my secretary hopes that I will pay her, her
landlord hopes that she will produce some rent, the Electricity
Board hopes that he will settle their bill, and so on.  I  find
it a wonderfully optimistic way of life.
     "Meanwhile  I  give  a  lot of charming and sill&#127; old
ladies something  to  be  happily  cross  about  and  virtually
guarantee  the freedom of their cats. Is there, you ask - and I
put the question for you because I know you know I hate  to  be
interrupted - is there a single case that exercises the tiniest
part of my intellect, which, as you hardly need me to tell you,
is  prodigious?  No.  But  do  1  despair?  Am I downcast? Yes.
Until," he added, "today."
     "Oh, well, I'm glad of that," said Richard, "but what  was
all that rubbish about cats and quantum mechanics?"
     With  a  sigh  Dirk flipped up the lid of the pizza with a
single Hick of practised fingers. He surveyed  the  cold  round
thing  with  a  kind of sadness and then tore off a hunk of it.
Pieces of pepperoni and anchovy scattered over his desk.
     "I am sure, Richard," he said, "that you are familiar with
the notion of Schrdinger's Cat," and  he  stuffed  the  larger
part of the hunk into his mouth.
     "Ofcourse," said Richard. "Well, reasonably familiar."
     "What is it?" said Dirk through a mouthful.
     Richard   shifted   irritably   in   his  seat.  "It's  an
illustration," he said, "of the principle  that  at  a  quantum
level all events are governed by probabilities. . ."
     "At  a  quantum  level,  and  therefore  at  all  levels,"
interrupted  Dirk.  "Though  at  any  level  higher  than   the
subatomic  the  cumulative effect of those probabilities is, in
the normal course of events, indistinguishable from the  effect
of hard and fast physical laws. Continue."
     He put some more cold pizza into his face.
     Richard  reflected  that  Dirk's was a face into which too
much had already been put. What with that  and  the  amount  he
talked, the traffic through his mouth was almost incessant. His
ears,  on  the  other  hand,  remained almost totally unused in
normal conversation.
     It occurred to Richard that if Lamarck had been right  and
you  were  to  take  a  line through this behaviour for several
generations, the chances were that some radical  replumbing  of
the interior of the skull would eventually take place.
     Richard  continued,  "Not  only  are  quantum level events
governed by probabilities, but those probabilities aren't  even
resolved  into actual events until they are measured. Or to use
a phrase that I just heard you use in a rather bizarre context,
the act of measurement collapses the probability  waveform.  Up
until  that  point  all the possible courses of action open to,
say, an electron, coexist as probability wavefons. Nothing  is
decided. Until it's measured."
     Dirk  nodded.  "More  or  less,"  he  said, taking another
mouthful. "But what of the cat?"
     Richard decided that there  was  only  one  way  to  avoid
having  to  watch  Dirk eat his way through all the rest of the
pizza, and that was to eat the rest himself. He  rolled  it  up
and  took  a  token  nibble off the end. It was rather good. He
took another bite.
     Dirk watched this with startled dismay.
     "So," said Richard, "the idea behind Schrdinger's Cat was
to try and imagine a way in which the effects of  probabilistic
behaviour   at  a  quantum  level  could  be  considered  at  a
macroscopic level. Or let's say an everyday level."
     "Yes, let's," said Dirk, regarding the rest of  the  pizza
with  a  stricken look. Richard took another bite and continued
cheerfully.
     "So you imagine that you take a cat and put it  in  a  box
that  you  can seal completely. Also in the box you put a small
lump of radioactive material, and a phial of  poison  gas.  You
arrange  it  so  that within a given period of time there is an
exactly fifty-fifty chance that an atom in the radioactive lump
will decay and emit an electron.  If  it  does  decay  then  it
triggers  the  release  of  the  gas  and  kills the cat. If it
doesn't,  the  cat  lives.  Fifty-fifty.   Depending   on   the
fifty-fifty chance that a single atom does or does not decay.
     "The  point as I understand it is this: since the decay of
a single atom  is  a  quantum  level  event  that  wouldn't  be
resolved  either way until it was observed, and since you don't
make the observation until you open the box and see whether the
cat is alive or  dead,  then  there's  a  rather  extraordinary
consequence.
     "Until  you  do  open  the box the cat itself exists in an
indeterminate state. The possibility that it is alive, and  the
possibility  that  it  is  dead,  are  two  different waveforms
superimposed on each other  inside  the  box.  Schrdinger  put
forward  this  idea  to  illustrate  what he thought was absurd
about quantum theory."
     Dirk got up and padded over to the window, probably not so
much for the meagre view it afforded over an old  warehouse  on
which  an  alternative  comedian  was  lavishing his vast lager
commercial fees developing into luxury apartments, as  for  the
lack   of   view  it  afforded  of  the  last  piece  of  pizza
disappearing.
     "Exactly," said Dirk, "bravo!"
     "But what's all that got to do with this - this  Detective
Agency?"
     "Oh,  that.  Well,  some  researchers were once conducting
such an experiment, but,when they opened up the  box,  the  cat
was  neither alive nor dead but was in fact completely missing,
and they called me in to investigate. I was able to deduce that
nothing very dramatic had happened. The cat had merely got  fed
up  with  being  repeatedly locked up in a box and occasionally
gassed and had taken the first opportunity to hoof  it  through
the  window. It was for me the work of a moment to set a saucer
of milk by the window and call `Bernice' in an enticing voice -
the cat's name was Bernice, you understand "
     "Now, wait a minute - " said Richard.
     " - and the cat was soon restored. A simple enough matter,
but it seemed to create quite an impression in certain circles,
and soon one thing led  to  another  as  they  do  and  it  all
culminated in the thriving career you see before you."
     "Wait a minute, wait a minute," insisted Richard, slapping
the table.
     "Yes?" enquired Dirk innocently.
     "Now, what are you talking about, Dirk?"
     "You have a problem with what I have told you?"
     "Well,  I  hardly know where to begin," protested Richard.
"All right. You said  that  some  people  were  performing  the
experiment.  That's  nonsense.  Schrdinger's  Cat isn't a real
experiment. It's just an illustration  for  arguing  about  the
idea. It's not something you'd actually do."
     Dirk was watching him with odd attention.
     "Oh, really?" he said at last. "And why not?"
     "Well,  there's  nothing  you can test. The whole point of
the idea is to think about what happens before  you  make  your
observation.  You  can't  know  what's  going on inside the box
without looking, and the very instant you look the wave  packet
collapses  and  the probabilities resolve. It's self-defeating.
It's completely purposeless."
     "You are, of course, perfectly cornect as far as you  go,"
replied Dirk, returning to his seat. He drew a cigarette out of
the  packet,  tapped  it  several  times on the desk, and leant
across the desk and pointed the filter at Richard.
     "But think about this," he continued. "Supposing you  were
to  introduce  a psychic, someone with clairvoyant powers, into
the experiment - someone who is able to divine  what  state  of
health  the cat is in without opening the box. Someone who has,
perhaps, a certain eerie sympathy with cats. What  then?  Might
that  furnish us with an additional insight into the problem of
quantum physics?"
     "Is that what they wanted to do?"
     "It's what they did."
     "Dirk, this is complete nonsense."
     Dirk raised his eyebrows challengingly.
     "All right, all  right,"  said  Richard,  holding  up  his
palms,  "let's  just  follow  it  through. Even if I accepted -
which I don't for one second - that there was any basis at  all
for   clairvoyance,   it   wouldn't   alter   the   fundamental
undoableness of the experiment. As  I  said,  the  whole  thing
turns  on  what happens inside the box before it's observed. It
doesn't matter how you observe it whether you look into the box
with your eyes or - well, with your mind,  if  you  insist.  If
clairvoyance  works, then it's just another way of looking into
the box, and if it doesn't then of course it's irrelevant."
     "It might depend, of course,  on  the  view  you  take  of
clairvoyance. . . "
     "Oh  yes?  And  what  view  do you take of clairvoyance? I
should be very interested to know, given your history."
     Dirk tapped the cigarette on the  desk  again  and  looked
narrowly at Richard.
     There  was a deep and prolonged silence, disturbed only by
the sound of distant crying in French.
     "I  take  the  view  I  have  always  taken,"  said   Dirk
eventually.
     "Which is?"
     "That I am not clairvoyant."
     "Really," said Richard. "Then what about the exam papers?"
     The  eyes  of  Dirk Gently darkened at the mention of this
subject.
     "A coincidence," he said,  in  a  low,  savage  voice,  "a
strange   and   chilling  coincidence,  but  none  the  less  a
coincidence. One, I might add,  which  caused  me  to  spend  a
considerable  time  in  prison. Coincidences can be frightening
and dangerous things."
     Dirk gave Richard another of his long appraising looks.
     "I have been watching you carefully," he said.  "You  seem
to be extremely relaxed for a man in your position."
     This  seemed  to Richard to be an odd remark, and he tried
to make sense of it for a moment. Then the light dawned, and it
was an aggravating light.
     "Good heavens," he said, "he hasn't got to  you  as  well,
has he?"
     This remark seemed to puzzle Dirk in return.
     "Who hasn't got to me?" he said.
     "Gordon.  No, obviously not. Gordon Way. He has this habit
of trying to get other people to bring pressure on me to get on
with what he sees as important work. I thought for a  moment  =
oh, never mind. What did you mean, then?"
     "Ah. Gordon Way has this habit, has he?"
     "Yes. I don't like it. Why?"
     Dirk  looked  long  and  hard at Richard, tapping a pencil
lightly on the desk.
     Then he leaned back in his chair and said as follows: "The
body of Gordon Way was discovered before dawn this morning.  He
had  been  shot,  strangled,  and  then  his  house  was set on
fir&#127;. Police are working on the theory  that  he  was  not
actually  shot  m  the  house  because  no shotgun pellets were
discovered there other than those in the body.
     "However, pellets were found near to Mr Way's Mercedes 500
SEC, which was found  abandoned  about  three  miles  from  his
house.  This suggests that the body was moved after the murder.
Furthermore the doctor who examined the body is of the  opmiort
that  Mr  Way  was  in  fact strangled after he was shot, which
seems to suggest a &#127;ertain confusion in the  mind  of  the
killer.
     "By  a  startling  coincidence  it appears that the police
last night had occasion to interview  a  very  confused-seeming
gentleman  who  said  that  he  was suffering from some kind of
guilt complex about having just run over his employer.
     "That man was a Mr Richard MacDuff, and his  employer  was
the deceased, Mr Gordon Way. It has further been suggested thnt
Mr  Richard  MacDuff  is  one  of the two people most likely to
benefit from Mr  Way's  death,  since  WayForward  Technologies
would almost certainly pass at least partly into his hands. The
other  person is his only living relative, Miss Susan Way, into
whose flat Mr Richard MacDuff was observed to break last night.
The olice don't know that bit, of course. Nor, if we  can  help
it,  will  they.  However,  any relationship between the two of
them will naturally come under close scrutiny. The news reports
on the radio say that they are urgently seeking Mr MacDuff, who
they believe will be able to help them  with  their  enquiries,
but the tone of voice says that he's clearly guilty as hell.
     "My  scale  of charges is as follows: two hundred pounds a
day, plus  expenses.  Expenses  are  not  negotiable  and  will
sometimes  strike  those who do not understand these matters as
somewhat tangential. They are all necessary and are, as I  say,
not negotiable. Am I hired?"
     "Sorry,"  said Richard, nodding slightly. "Would you start
that again?"

        Chapter Seventeen...

     The Electric Monk hardly knew what to believe any more.
     He had been through a bewildering number of belief systems
in the previous few hours, most of which had failed to  provide
him with the long-term spiritual solace that it was his bounden
programming eternally to seek.
     He was fed up. Frankly. And tired. And dispirited.
     And  furthermore,  which caught him by surprise, he rather
missed his horse. A dull and menial creature, to be  sure,  and
as  such  hardly  worthy of the preoccupation of one whose mind
was destined forever to concem itself with higher things beyond
the underst.anding of  a  simple  horse,  but  nevertheless  he
missed it.
     He  wanted to sit on it. He wanted to pat it. He wanted to
feel that it didn't understand.
     He wondered where it was.
     He dangled his feet disconsolately from the branch of  the
tree  in  which  he  had  spent the night. He had climbed it in
pursuit of some wild fantastic dream and then had got stuck and
had to stay there till the moming.
     Even now, by daylight, he wasn't certain how he was  going
to get down. He came for a moment perilously close to believing
that he could fly, but a quick-thinking error-checking protocol
cut in and told him not to be so silly.
     It was a problem though.
     Whatever  burning  fire of faith had bome him, inspired on
wings of hope, upwards through the branches,of the tree in  the
magic   hours   of  night,  had  not  also  provided  him  with
instructions  on  how  to  get  back  down  again  when,   like
altogether  too  many of these burning fiery night-time faiths,
it had deserted him in the morning.
     And speaking - or  rather  thinking  -  of  burning  fiery
things,  there  had  been  a major burning fiery thing a little
distance from here in the early pre-dawn hours.
     It lay, he thought, in the direction from which he himself
had come when he had been drawn by a deep spiritual  compulsion
towards  this  inconveniently high but otherwise embarrassingly
ordinary tree. He had longed to go and worship at the fire,  to
pledge  himself  eternally  to its holy glare, but while he had
been struggling hopelessly to find a way downwards through  the
branches,  fire engines had arrived and put the divine radiance
out, and that had been another creed out of the window.
     The sun had been up for some hours now, and though he  had
occupied  the  time  as  best as he could, believing in clouds,
believing in twigs, believing in a  peculiar  fornt  of  flying
beetle,  he  believed  now that he was fed up, and was utterly
convinced, furthermore, that he was getting hungry.
     He wished he'd taken the precaution of  providing  himself
with  some  food  from the dwelling place he had visited in the
night, to which he had carried his sacred burden for entombment
in the holy broom cupboard, but he had left in the  grip  of  a
white passion, believing that such mundane matters as food-were
of no consequence, that the tree would provide.
     Well, it had provided.
     It had provided twigs.
     Monks did not eat twigs.
     In  fact,  now  he  came  to think of it, he felt a little
uncomfortable about some of the things  he  had  believed  last
night  and had found some of the results a little confusing. He
had been quite clearl instructed to "shoot off"  and  had  felt
strangely  compelled  to obey but perhaps he had made a mistake
in acting  so  precipitately  on  an  instruction  given  in  a
language  he had learned only two minutes before. Certainly the
reaction of the person he had shot off at had seemed  a  little
extreme.
     In  his  own world when people were shot at like that they
came back next week for another episode, but  he  didn't  think
this person would be doing that.
     A  gust  of  wind  blew  through  the tree, making it sway
giddily. He climbed down a  little  way.  The  first  part  was
reasonably  easy,  since  the  branches  were  all fairly close
together.  It  was  the  last  bit  that  appeared  to  be   an
insuperable  obstacle  -  a  sheer  drop  which could cause him
severe internal damage or rupture and might in turn  cause  him
to start believing things that were seriously strange.
     The  sound of voices over in a distant corner of the field
suddenly caught his attention. A lorry had  pulled  up  by  the
side  of  the  road.  He  watched  carefully  for a moment, but
couldn't see anything particular to believe in and so  returned
to his introspection.
     There  was, he remembered, an odd function call he had had
last night, which he hadn't encountered before, but  he  had  a
feeling  that  it  might  be  something  he'd  heard  of called
remorse. He hadn't felt at all comfortable about  the  way  the
person  he had shot at had just lain there, and after initially
walking away the Monk had returned to have another look.  There
was  definitely an expression on the person's face which seemed
to suggest that something was up, that this didn't fit in  with
the scheme of things. The Monk worried that he might have badly
spoiled his evening.
     Still,  he reflected, so long as you did what you believed
to be right, that was the main thing.
     The next thing he had believed to be right was that having
spoiled this person's evening he shouId at least convey him  to
his  home,  and  a  quick search of his pockets had produced an
address, some maps and some keys. The trip had been an  arduous
one, but he had been sustained on the way by his faith.
     The word "bathroom" floated unexpectedly across the field.
     He  looked  up  again  at  the lorry in the distant comer.
Thene  wa&#127;  a  man  in  a  dark  blue  uniform  explaining
something  to  a  man  in  rough  working clothes, who seemed a
little disgruntled about whatever it was. The words  "until  we
trace  the owner" and "completely batty, of course" were gusted
over on the wind. The man in the working clothes clearly agreed
to accept the situation, but with bad grace.
     A few moments later, a horse was led out of  the  back  of
the  lorry  and  into the field. The Monk blinked. His circuits
thrilled and surged with astonishment. Now  here  at  last  was
something  he  could  believe  in,  a truly miraculous event, a
reward  at  last  fr  his  unstinting  if  rather  promiscuous
devotion.
     The  horse  walked  with a patient, uncomplaining gait. It
had tong grown used to being wherever it was put, but for  once
it  felt  it didn't mind this. Here, it thought, was a pleasant
field. Here was grass. Here was a hedge it could look at. There
was enough space that it could go for a trot  later  on  if  it
felt  the  urge.  The  humans  drove off and left it to its own
devices, to which it was quite content to be left. It went  for
a  little  amble,  and  then,  just for the hell of it, stopped
ambling. It could do what it liked.
     What pleasure.
     What very great and unaccustomed pleasure.
     It slowly surveyed the whole field, and  then  decided  to
plan out a nice relaxed day for itself. A little trot later on,
it  thought,  maybe  around threeish. After that a bit of a lie
down over on the east side of the field  where  the  grass  was
thicker.  It  looked like a suitable spot to think about supper
in.
     Lunch, it rather fancied, could be taken at the south  end
of  the  field where a small stream ran. Lunch by a stream, for
heaven's sake. This was bliss.
     It also quite liked the notion of spending  half  an  hour
walking  alternately a little bit to the left and then a little
bit to the right,  for  no  apparent  reason.  It  didn't  know
whether  the  time  between  two  and three would be best spent
swishing its tail or mulling things over.
     Of course. it could always do both, if it so  wished,  and
go  for  its  trot a little later. And it had just spotted what
looked like a fine piece of hedge for watching things over, and
that would easily while away a&#127;pleasant pre-prandial  hour
or two.
     Good.
     An excellent plan.
     And  the  best  thing about it was that having made it the
horse eould now completely  and  utterly  ignore  it.  It  went
instead for a leisurely stand under the only tree in the field.
     From  out  of its branches the Electric Monk dropped on to
the horse's back, with a cry which  sounded  suspiciously  like
"Geronimo".

        Chapter Eighteen...

     Dirk  Gently  briefly ran over the salient facts once more
while Richard MacDuff's world crashed slowly and silently  into
a  dark,  freezing  sea  which  he hadn't even known was there,
waiting inches beneath his feet. When Dirk had finished for the
second time the room fell quiet while Richard stared fixedly at
his face.
     "Where did you hear this?" said Richard at last.
     "The radio," said Dirk, with a slight shrug, "at least the
main points. It's all over the news  of  course.  The  details?
Well.  discreet  enquiries among contacts here and there. There
are one or two  people  I  got  to  know  at  Cambridge  police
station, for reasons which may occur to you."
     "I  don't  even know whether to believe you," said Richard
quietly. "May I use the phone?"
     Dirk courteously picked a telephone receiver  out  of  the
wastepaper  bin  and  handed it to him. Richard dialled Susan's
number.
     The phone was answered almost immediately and a frightened
voice said, "Hello?"
     "Susan, it's Ri -"
     "Richard! Where are you? For God's sake, where  are
you? Are you all right?"
     "Don't tell her where you are," said Dirk.
     "Susan, what's happened?"
     "Don't you -?"
     "Somebody  told  me  that  something's happened to Gordon,
but..."
     "Something's happened -? He's dead, Richard,
he's been murdered- "
     "Hang up," said Dirk.
     "Susan, listen. I - "
     "Hang up," repeated Dirk, and then Ieaned forward  to  the
phone and cut him off.
     "The  police  will  probably have a trace on the line," he
explained. He took the receiver and chucked it back in the bin.
     "But I have to go to the police," Richard exclaimed.
     "Go to the police?"
     "What else can I do? I have to go to the police  and  tell
them that it wasn't me."
     "Tell  them  that it wasn't you?" said Dirk incredulously.
"Well I expect that will probably make it all right, then. Pity
Dr Crippen didn't think of that. Would have saved him a lot  of
bother."
     "Yes, but he was guilty!"
     "Yes,  so  it would appear. And so it would appear, at the
moment, are you."
     "But I didn't do it, for God's sake!"
     "You are talking to someone who has spent time  in  prison
for   something  he  didn't  do,  remember.  I  told  you  that
coincidences are strange and dangerous things. Believe  me,  it
is  a  great  deal  better  to find cast-iron proof that you're
innocent, than to languish in a cell  hoping  that  the  police
-who already think you're guilty-will find it for you."
     "I  can't  think straight," said Richard, with his hand to
his forehead. "Just stop for a moment and let me think this out
- "
     "If I may - "
     "Let me think - !"
     Dirk  shrugged  and  turned  his  attention  back  to  his
eigarette, which seemed to be bothering him.
     "It's  no good," said Richard shaking his head after a few
moments,  "I  can't  take  it  in.  It's  like  trying  to   do
trigonometry when someone's kicking your head. OK, tell me what
you think I should do."
     "Hypnotism."
     "What?"
     "It  is  hardly  surprising  in the circumstances that you
should be unable to gather your thoughts clearly.  However,  it
is  vital  that  somebody gathers them. It will be much simpler
for both of us if  you  will  allow  me  to  hypnotise  you.  I
strongly suspect that there is a very great deal of information
jumbled  up  in  your  head  that will not emerge while you are
shaking it up so - that might not emerge at all because you  do
not  realise  its  significance.  With  your  permission we can
short-cut all that."
     "Well, that's decided then," said  Richard,  standing  up,
"I'm going to the police."
     "Very  well,"  said  Dirk,  leaning back and spreading his
palms on the desk, "I wish you the very best of  luck.  Perhaps
on your way out you would be kind enough to ask my secretary to
get me some matches."
     "You haven't got a secretary," said Richard, and left.
     Dirk sat and brooded for a few seconds, made a valiant but
vain attempt  to  fold  the  sadly  empty  pizza  box  into the
wastepaper bin, and then went to look in  the  cupboard  for  a
metronome.

     Richard  emerged  blinking  into the daylight. He stood on
the top step rocking slightly, then plunged off down the street
with an odd kind of dancing walk which reflected  the  whirling
dance  of  his mind. On the one hand he simply couldn't believe
that the evidence  wouldn't  show  perfectly  clearly  that  he
couldn't have committed the murder; on the other hand he had to
admit that it all looked remarkably odd.
     He  found  it  impossible  to  think clearly or rationally
about it. The idea that Gordon had been murdered  kept  blowing
up  in  his  mind  and  throwing  all other thoughts into total
confusion and disruption.
     It occurred to him for a moment that whoever did  it  must
have  been  a  damn  fast shot to get the trigger pulled before
being totally overwhelmed by waves of guilt, but  instantly  he
regretted  the thought. In fact he was a little appalled by the
general quality of the thoughts that sprang into his mind. They
seemed inappropriate and unworthy and mostly had to do with how
it would affect his projects in the company.
     He looked about inside himself for any  feeling  of  great
sorrow  or regret, and assumed that it must be there somewhere,
probably hiding behind the huge wall of shock.
     He arrived back within sight of  Islington  Green,  hardly
noticing  the  distance  he had walked. The sudden sight of the
police squad car parked outside his house hit him like a hammer
and he swung on his heel and stared with furious  concentration
at the menu displayed in the window of a Greek restaurant.
     "Dolmades," he thought, frantically.
     "Souvlaki," he thought.
     "A  small  spicy Greek sausage," passed hectically through
his mind. He tried to reconstruct the scene in his  mind's  eye
without  turning  round.  There  had  been a policeman standing
watching the street, and as far as he  could  recall  from  the
brief  glance  he  had,  it  looked  as if the side door of the
building which led up to his flat was standing open.
     The police were in his flat. In his flat.  Fassolia
Plaki!  A  filling bowl of haricot beans cooked in a tomato and
vegetable sauce!
     He tried to shift his eyes  sideways  and  back  over  his
shoulder.  The policeman was looking at him. He yanked his eyes
back to the menu and tried to fill his mind with finely  ground
meat  mixed  with  potato, breadcrumbs, onions and herbs rolled
into small balls and fried. The policeman must have  recognised
him and was at that very moment dashing acruss the road to grab
him  and  lug him off in a Black Maria just as they had done to
Dirk all those years ago in Cambridge.
     He braced his shoulders against the  shock,  but  no  hand
came  to grab him. He glanced back again, but the policeman was
looking unconcernedly in another direction. Stifado.
     It was very apparent to him that  his  behaviour  was  not
that  of  one  who  was  about to go and hand himself in to the
police.
     So what else was he to do?
     Trying in a stiff,  awkward  way  to  walk  naturally,  he
yanked  himself away from the window, strolled tensely down the
road a few yards, and then  ducked  back  down  Camden  Passage
again,  walking  fast and breathing hard. Where could he go? To
Susan? No - the police would be there or watching. To  the  WFT
offices  in  Primrose Hill? No - same reason. What on earth, he
screamed silently at  himself,  was  he  doing  suddenly  as  a
fugitive?
     He  insisted  to himself, as he had insisted to Dirk, that
he should not be running away from the police. The  police,  he
told  himself,  as  he  had been taught when he was a boy, were
there to help and protect the innocent. This thought caused him
instantly to break into a run and he nearly collided  with  the
proud new owner of an ugly Edwardian floor lamp.
     "Sorry,"  he  said,  "sorry."  He was startled that anyone
should want such a thing,  and  slowed  his  pace  to  a  walk,
glancing  with sharp hunted looks around him. The very familiar
shop fronts full of old polished brass, old polished  wood  and
pictures  of Japanese fish suddenly seemed very threatening and
aggressive.
     Who could possibly have wanted to kill  Gordon?  This  was
the  thought  that  suddenly  hammered at him as he turned down
Charlton Place. All that had concerned him so far was  that  he
hadn't.
     But who had?
     This was a new thought.
     Plenty  of people didn't care for him much, but there is a
huge  difference  between  disliking  somebody  -  maybe   even
disliking  them  a lot - and actually shooting them, strangling
them, dragging them through the fields and setting their  house
on  fire.  It  was a difference which kept the vast majority of
the population alive from day to day.
     Was it just theft? Dirk hadn't  mentioned  anything  being
missing but then he hadn't asked him.
     Dirk.  The image of his absurd but oddly commanding figure
sitting like a large toad, brooding in his shabby office,  kept
insisting  itself  upon Richard's mind. He realised that he was
retracing the way he had come, and  deliberately  made  himself
turn right instead of left.
     That way madness lay.
     He just needed a space, a bit of time to think and collect
his thoughts together.
     All  right  -  so  where  was  he  going? He stopped for a
moment, turned around and  then  stopped  again.  The  idea  of
dolmades suddenly seemed very attractive and it occurred to him
that  the  cool, calm and collected course of action would have
been simply to walk in and have some.  That  would  have  shown
Fate who was boss.
     Instead,  Fate  was  engaged on exactly the same course of
action. It wasn't actually sitting in a Greek restaurant eating
dolmades, but it might  as  well  have  been,  because  it  was
clearly in charge. Richard's footsteps drew him inexorably back
through the winding streets, over the canal.
     He stopped, briefly, at a corner shop, and then hurried on
past the  council  estates,  and into developer territory again
until he was standing once more outside 33,  Peckender  Street.
At  about  the same time as Fate would have been pouring itself
the last of the retsina, wiping its mouth and wondering  if  it
had  any  room  left for baklavas, Richard gazed up at the tall
ruddy Victorian building with its soot-darkened  brickwork  and
its heavy, forbidding windows. A gust of wind whipped along the
street and a small boy bounded up to him.
     "Fuck off," chirped the little boy, then paused and looked
at him again.
     "'Ere, mister," he added, "can I have your jacket?"
     "No," said Richard.
     "Why not?" said the boy.
     "Er, because I like it," said Richard.
     "Can't see why," muttered the boy. "Fuck off." He slouched
off moodily down the street, kicking a stone at a cat.
     Richard entered the building once more, mounted the stairs
uneasily and looked again into the office.
     Dirk's  secretary was sitting at her desk, head down, arms
folded.
     "I'm not here," she said.
     "I see," said Richard.
     "I only came back," she said, without looking up from  the
spot  on  her  desk  at which she was staring angrily, "to make
sure he  notices  that  I've  gone.  Otherwise  he  might  just
forget."
     "Is he in?" asked Richard.
     "Who  knows?  Who  cares? Better ask someone who works for
him, because I don't."
     "Show him in!" boomed Dirk's voice.
     She glowered for a moment, stood up,  went  to  the  inner
door,  wrenched  it  open, said "Show him in yourself," slammed
the door once more and returned to her seat.
     "Er, why don't I just show myself in?" said Richard.
     "I can't even hear you," said Dirk's ex-secretary, staring
resolutely at her desk. "How do you expect me to  hear  you  if
I'm not even here?"
     Richard  made  a placatory gesture, which was ignored, and
walked through and opened the door to Dirk's office himself. He
was startled to find the room in  semi-darkness.  A  blind  was
drawn  down  over the window, and Dirk was lounging back in his
seat, his face bizarrely lit  by  the  strange  arrangement  of
objects  sitting  on  the desk. At the forward edge of the desk
sat an old grey bicycle lamp, facing backwards  and  shining  a
feeble  light  on a metronome which was ticking softly back and
forth, with a highly polished silver teaspoon strapped  to  its
metal rod.
     Richard  tossed  a  couple  of  boxes of matches on to the
desk.
     "Sit down, relax, and keep looking  at  the  spoon,"  said
Dirk, "you are already feeling sleepy..."

     Another  police  car pulled itself up to a screeching halt
outside Richard's flat, and a grim-faced man  climbed  out  and
strode  over to one of the constables on duty outside, flashing
an identity card.
     "Detective Inspector Mason, Cambridgeshire CID," he  said.
"'This the MacDuff place?"
     The  constable  nodded  and  showed  him  to the side-door
entrance which opened on to the long narrow  staircase  leading
up  to the top flat. Mason bustled in and then bustled straight
out again.
     "There's a sofa  halfway  up  the  stairs,"  he  told  the
constable. "Get it moved."
     "Some  of the lads have already tried, sir," the constable
replied anxiously. "It seems to be stuck. Everyone's having  to
climb over it for the moment, sir. Sorry, sir."
     Mason gave him another grim look from a vast repertoire he
had developed  which ranged from very, very blackly grim indeed
at the bottom of the scale, all the way up to tiredly  resigned
and  only  faintly  grim,  which he reserved for his children's
birthdays.
     "Get it moved," he repeated  grimly,  and  bustled  grimly
back  through  the door grimly hauling up his trousers and coat
in preparation for the grim ascent ahead.
     "No sign of him yet?" asked the driver of the car,  coming
over  himself.  "Sergeant  Gilks,"  he  introduced  himself. He
looked tired.
     "Not as far as I know," said the constable,  "but  no  one
tells me anything."
     "Know  how  you  feel,"  agreed  Gilks. "Once the CID gets
involved you just get relegated to driving them about. And  I'm
the  only one who knows what he looked like. Stopped him in the
road last night. We just came from Way's house. Right mess."
     "Bad night, eh?"
     "Varied. Everything from murder to hauling horses  out  of
bathrooms.  No,  don't  even  ask. Do you have the same cars as
these?" he added, pointing at his own. "This one's been driving
me crazy all the way up. Cold even  with  the  heater  on  full
blast, and the radio keeps turning itself on and off."

        Chapter Nineteen...

     The  same morning found Michael Wenton-Weakes in something
of an odd mood.
     You would need to know him fairly well to know that it was
an especially odd mood, because most  people  regarded  him  as
being  a  little  odd  to  start with. Few people knew him that
well. His mother, perhaps, but there  existed  between  them  a
state  of  cold  war and neither had spoken to the other now in
weeks.
     He  also  had  an  elder  brother,  Peter,  who  was   now
tremendously  senior  in  the  Marines.  Apart  from  at  their
father's funeral, Michael had not seen Peter since he came back
from the Falklands, covered in glory, promotion,  and  contempt
for his younger brother.
     Peter  had been delighted that their mother had taken over
Magna, and had sent Michael a regimental Christmas card to that
effect. His own greatest satisfaction still  remained  that  of
throwing  himself  into  a muddy ditch and firing a machine gun
for at least a minute, and he didn't  think  that  the  British
newspaper and publishing industry, even in its current state of
unrest,  was likely to afford him that pleasure, at least until
some more Australians moved into it.
     Michael had risen very late after a night of cold savagery
and then of troubled dreams which still disturbed  him  now  in
the late morning daylight.
     His dreams had been filled with the familiar sensations of
Ioss,  isolation,  guilt  and  so  forth,  but  had  also  been
inexplicably involved with large  quantities  of  mud.  By  the
telescopic  power  of  the  night,  the  nightmare  of  mud and
loneliness  had  seemed   to   stretch   on   for   terrifying,
unimaginable  lengths  of time, and had only concluded with the
appearance of slimy things with legs that had  crawled  on  the
slimy  sea.  This had been altogether too much and he had woken
with a start in a cold sweat.
     Though all the business with the mud had seemed strange to
him, the sense  of  loss,  of  isolation,  and  above  all  the
aggrievement,  the  need  to undo what had been done, these had
all found an easy home in his spirit.
     Even the slimy things with legs seemed oddly familiar  and
ticked  away  irritably  at  the back of his mind while he made
himself a late breakfast, a piece of grapefruit and some  China
tea,  allowed his eyes to rest lightly on the arts pages of the
Daily Telegraph for  a  while,  and  then  rather
clumsily changed the dressing on the cuts on his hand.
     These  small  tasks accomplished, he was then in two minds
as to what to do next.
     He was able to view the events of the previous night  with
a  cool detachment that he would not have expected. It had been
right, it had been proper, it had been correctly done.  But  it
resolved nothing. All that mattered was yet to be done.
     All what? He frowned at the odd way his thoughts ebbed and
flowed.
     Normally  he  would  pop  along  to his club at about this
time. It used to be that he would  do  this  with  a  luxurious
sense  of  the  fact  that there were many other things that he
should be doing. Now there was nothing else to do,  which  made
time  spent there, as anywhere else, hang somewhat heavy on his
hands.
     When he went he would do as he always did - indulge  in  a
gin  and  tonic and a little light conversation, and then allow
his eyes to rest gently on the pages of the  Times  Literary
Supplement,  Opera,  The New Yorker or whatever else
fell easily to hand, but there was no  doubt  that  he  did  it
these days with less verve and relish than previously.
     Then  there  would  be lunch. Today, he had &#127;no lunch
date planned - again - and would probably therefore have stayed
at his club, and eaten  a  lightly  grilled  Dover  sole,  with
potatoes garnished with parsley and boiled to bits, followed by
a large heap of trifle. A glass or two of Sancerre. And coffee.
And then the afternoon, with whatever that might bring.
     But today he felt oddly impelled not to do that. He flexed
the muscles in his cut hand, poured himself another cup of tea,
looked  with curious dispassion at the large kitchen knife that
still lay by the fine bone  china  teapot,  and  waited  for  a
moment to see what he would do next. What he did next, in fact,
was to wal&#127; upstairs.
     His  house  was rather chill in its formal perfection, and
looked n&#127;uch as  people  who  buy  reproduction  furniture
would  like  their  houses  to  look.  Except  of  course  that
everything here was genuine - crystal, mahogany  and  Wilton  -
and  only  looked  as  if it might be fake because there was no
life to any of it.
     He walked up into his workroom, which was  the  only  room
i&#127; the house that was not sterile with order, but here the
disorder  of books and papers was instead sterile with neglect.
A thin film of dust had settled over  everything.  Michael  had
not  been  into  it  in weeks, and the cleaner was under strict
instructions to leave it well alone. He  had  not  worked  hene
since  he  edited  the  last  edition of Fathom. Not, of
course, the actual last edition, but the last  proper  edition.
The last edition as far as he was concerned.
     He  set  his  chma  cup  down in the fine dust and went to
inspect his elderly record player. On it he  found  an  elderly
recording  of  some  Vivaldi wind concertos, set it to play and
sat down.
     He  waited  again  to  see  what  he  would  do  next  and
suddenl&#127;  found  to his surprise that he was already doing
it, and it was this: he was listening to the music.
     A bewildered look crept  slowly  across  his  face  as  he
realised   that   he   had  never  done  this  before.  He  had
heard it many, many times and thought  that  it  made  a
very  pleasant  noise. Indeed, he found that it made a pleasant
background against which to discuss the concert season, but  it
had  never  before  occurred  to  him  that  there was anything
actually to listen to.
     He sat  thunderstruck  by  the  interplay  of  melody  and
counterpoint  which  suddenly  stood  revealed  to  him  with a
clarity that owed nothing to the  dust-ridden  surface  of  the
record or the fourteen-year-old stylus.
     But with this revelation came an almost immediate sense of
disappointment,  which  confused  him  all  the more. The music
suddenly revealed to him was oddly unfulfilling. It was  as  if
his  capacity to understand the music had suddenly increased up
to and far beyond the music's ability to satisfy it, all in one
dramatic moment.
     He strained to listen for what was missing, and felt  that
the music was like a flightless bird that didn't even know what
capacity  it had lost. It walked very well, but it walked where
it should soar, it walked where  it  should  swoop,  it  walked
where  it  should  climb  and bank and dive, it walked where it
should thrill with the  giddiness  of  flight.  It  never  even
looked up.
     He looked up.
     After  a  while  he became aware that all he was doing was
simply staring stupidly at the ceiling. He shook his head,  and
discovered  that  the perception had faded, leaving him feeling
slightly sick and dizzy. It had not vanished entirely, but  had
dropped deep inside him, deeper than he could reach.
     The music continued. It was an agreeable enough assortment
of pleasant  sounds in the background, but it no longer stirred
him.
     He needed some clues  as  to  what  it  was  he  had  just
experienced,  and  a thought flicked momentarily at the back of
tris mind as to where he might find them.  He  let  go  of  the
thought  in  anger,  but  it  flicked at him again, and kept on
Hicking at him until at last he acted upon it.
     From under his desk he pulled out the large tin wastepaper
bin. Since he had barred his cleaning lady from even coming  in
here  for  the  moment,  the  bin had remained unemptied and he
found in it the tattered shreds of what he was looking for with
the contents of an ashtray emptied over them.
     He overcame  his  distaste  with  grim  determination  and
slowly  &#127;iggled around the bits of the hated object on his
desk, clumsily sticking them together with bits of sticky  tape
that curled around and stuck the wrong bit to the wrong bit and
stuck  the right bit to his pudgy fingers and then to the desk,
until at last there lay before him, crudely reassembled, a copy
of Fathom. As edited by the  execrable  creature  A.  K.
Ross.
     Appalling.
     He  turned  the  sticky lumpish pages as if he was picking
over chicken  giblets.  Not  a  single  line  drawing  of  Joan
Sutherland or Marilyn Horne anywhere. No profiles of any of the
major Cork Street art dealers, not a one.
     His series on the Rossettis: discontinued.
     "Green Room Gossip": discontinued.
     He  shook  his  head  in incredulity and then he found the
article he was after.
     "Music and Fractal Landscapes" by Richard MacDuff.
     He  skipped  over  the  first  couple  of  paragraphs   of
introduction and picked it up further on:

     Mathematical analysis and computer modelling are
     revealing to us that the shapes and processes we
     encounter in nature - the way that plants grow, the way
     that mountains erode or rivers flow, the way that
     snowflakes or islands achieve their shapes, the way that
     light plays on a surface, the way the milk folds and
     spins into your coffee as you stir it, the way that
     laughter sweeps through a crowd of people - all these
     things in their seemingly magical complexity can be
     described by the interaction of mathematical processes
     that are, if anything, even more magical irt their
     simplicity.
     Shapes that we think of as random are in fact the
     products of complex shifting webs of numbers obeying
     simple rules. The very word "natural" that we have
     often taken to m&#127;an "unstructured" in fact describes
     shapes and processes that appear so unfathomably
     complex that we cannot consciously perceive the simple
     natural laws at work.
     They can all be described by numbers.

     Oddly, this idea seemed less revolting now to Michael than
it had done on his first, scant reading.
     He read on with increasing concentration.

     We know, however, that the mind is capable of
     understanding these matters in all their complexity and
     in all their simplicity. A ball flying through the air is
     responding to the force and direction with which it was
     thrown, the action of gravity, the friction of the air
     which it must expend its energy on overcoming, the
     turbulence of the air around its surface, and the rate and
     direction of the ball's spin.
     And yet, someone who might have difficulty
     consciously trying to work out what 3 x 4 x 5 comes to
     would have no trouble in doing differential calculus and
     a whole host of related calculations so astoundingly fast
     that they can actually catch a flying ball.
     People who call this "instinct" are merely giving the
     phenomenon a name, not explaining anything.
     I think that the closest that human beings come to
     expressing our understanding of these natural
     complexities is in music. It is the most abstract of the
     arts - it has no meaning or purpose other than to be
     itself.
     Every single aspect of a piece of music can be
     represented by numbers. From the organisation of
     movements in a whole symphony, down through the
     patterns of pitch and rhythm that make up the melodies
     and harmonies, the dynamics that shape the
     performance, all the way down to the timbres of the
     notes themselves, their harmonics, the way they change
     over time, in short, all the elements of a noise that
     distinguish between the sound of one person piping on
     a piccolo and another one thumping a drum - all of
     these things can be expressed by patterns and
     hierarchies of numbers.
     And in my experience the more internal relationships
     there are between the patterns of numbers at different
     levels of the hierarchy, however complex and subtle
     those relationships may be, the more satisfying and,
     well, whole, the music will seem to be.
     In fact the more subtle and complex those
     relationships, and the further they are beyond the grasp
     of the conscious mind, the more the instinctive part of
     your mind - by which I mean that part of your mind that
     can do differential calculus so astoundingly fast that it
     will  put  your  hand in the right place to catch a flying
baIl
     - the more that part of your brain revels in it.
     Music of any complexity (and even "Three Blind
     Mice" is complex in its way by the time someone has
     actually performed it on an instrument with its own
     individual timbre and articulation) passes beyond your
     conscious mind into the arms of your own private
     mathematical genius who dwells in your unconscious
     responding to all the inner complexities and
     relationships and proportions that we think we know
     nothing about.
     Some people object to such a view of music, saying
     that if you reduce music to mathematics, where does the
     emotion come into it? I would say that it's never been
     out of it.
     The things by which our emotions can be moved - the
     shape of a flower or a Grecian urn, the way a baby
     grows, the way the wind brushes across your face, the
     way clouds move, their shapes, the way light dances on
     the water, or daffodils flutter in the breeze, the way in
     which the person you love moves their head, the way
     their hair follows that movement, the curve described by
     the dying fall of the last chord of a piece of music - all
     these things can be described by the complex flow of
     numbers.
     That's not a reduction of it, that's the beauty of it.
     Ask Newton.
     Ask Einstein.
     Ask the poet (Keats) who said that what the
     imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.
     He might also have said that what the hand seizes as a
     ball must be truth, but he didn't, because he was a poet
     and preferred loafing about under trees with a bottle of
     laudanum and a notebook to playing cricket, but it
     would have been equally true.

     This jogged a thought at the back of Michael's memory, but
he couldn't immediately place it.

     Because that is at the heart of the relationship between
     on the one hand our "instinctive" understanding of
     shape, form, movement, light, and on the other hand
     our emotional responses to them.
     And that is why I believe that there must be  a  fom&#127;
of
     music inherent in nature, in natural objects, in the
     pattems of natural processes. A music that would be as
     deeply satisfying as any naturally occumng beauty=
     and our own deepest emotions are, after all, a form of
     naturally occumng beauty...

     Michael  stopped  reading and let his gaze gradually drift
from the page.
     He wondered if he knew what such  a  music  would  be  and
tried  to  grope  in the dark recesses of his mind for it. Each
part of his mind that he visited seemed as if  that  music  had
been  playing  there  only seconds before and all that was left
was the last dying echo of something he was unable to catch  at
and hear. He laid the magazine limply aside.
     Then  he  remembered what it was that the mention of Keats
had jogged in his memory.
     The slimy things with legs from his dream.
     A cold calm came over him as he felt himself  coming  very
close to something.
     Coleridge. That man.

     Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
     Upon the slimy sea.

     "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
     Dazed,  Michael  walked  over  to the bookshelf and pulled
down his Coleridge anthology. He took it back to his  seat  and
with  a certain apprehension he riffled through the pages until
he found the opening lines.

     It is an ancient Mariner,
     And he stoppeth one of three.

     The words were very familiar to him, and yet as he read on
through them they awoke in him strange sensations  and  fearful
memories  that he knew were not his. There reared up inside him
a sense of loss and desolation of terrifying  intensity  which,
while  he  knew  it was not his own, resonated so perfectly now
with his own aggrievements that he could not but  surrender  to
it absolutely.

     And a thousand thousand slimy things
     Lived on; and so did I.

        Chapter Twenty...

     The  blind  rolled  up  with  a  sharp  rattle and Richard
blinked.
     "A fascinating evening you appear  to  have  spent,"  said
Dirk  Gently,  "even  though the most interesting aspects of it
seem to have escaped your curiosity entirely."
     He returned to his seat and lounged back  in  it  pressing
his fingertips together.
     "Please,"  he said, "do not disappoint me by saying `where
am I?' A glance will suffice."
     Richard looked around him in slow puzzlement and  felt  as
if  he  were  returning  unexpectedly  from  a  long sojourn on
another planet where all was peace and  light  and  music  that
went  on  for ever and ever. He felt so relaxed he could hardly
be bothered to breathe.
     The wooden toggle on the end of the blind cord  knocked  a
few times against the window, but otherwise all was now silent.
The  metronome  was still. He glanced at his wateh. It was just
after one o'clock.
     "You have been under hypnosis for a little  less  than  an
hour " said Dirk, "during which I have learned many interesting
things  and  been puzzled by some others which I would now like
to discuss with you. A Iittle  fresh  air  will  probably  help
revive  you  and I suggest a bracing stroll along the canal. No
one will be looking for you there. Janice!"
     Silence.
     A lot of things were still not clear to  Richard,  and  he
frowned to himself. When his immediate memory returned a moment
later,  it  was  like  an elephant suddenly barging through the
door and he sat up with a startled jolt.
     "Janice!" shouted  Dirk  again.  "Miss  Pearce!  Damn  the
girl."
     He  yanked  the  telephone receivers out of the wastepaper
basket and replaced them. An old and battered leather briefcase
stood by the desk, and he picked this  up,  retrieved  his  hat
from  the  floor and stood up, screwing his hat absurdly on his
head.
     "Come," he said, sweeping through the door to  where  Miss
Janice Pearce sat glaring at a pencil, "let us go. Let us leave
this  festering  hellhole. Let us think the unthinkable, let us
do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with  the  ineffable
itself, and see if we may not eff it after all. Now, Janice- "
     "Shut up."
     Dirk shrugged, and then picked off her desk the book which
earlier  she  had  mutilated when trying to slam her drawer. He
Ieafed through it, frowning, and then replaced it with a  sigh.
Janice  returned to what she had clearly been doing a moment or
two earlier, which was writing a long note with the pencil.
     Richard regarded all this in silence, still  feeling  only
semi-present. He shook his head.
     Dirk  said to him, "Events may seem to you to be a tangled
mass  of  confusion  at  the  moment.  And  yet  we  have  some
interesting  threads to pull on. For of all the things you have
told me that have happened, only two  are  actually  physically
impossible."
     Richard spoke at last. "Impossible?" he said with a frown.
     "Yes," said Dirk, "completely and utterly impossible."
     He smiled.
     "Luckily," he went on, "you have come to exactly the right
place  with your interesting problem, for there is no such word
as  `impossible'  in  my  dictionary.  In  fact,"   he   added,
brandishing  the abused book, "everything between `herring' and
`marmalade' appears to be missing. Thank you, Miss Pearce,  you
have once again rendered me sterling service, for which I thank
you  and  will,  in  the  event of a successful outcome to this
endeavour, even attempt to pay you. In  the  meantime  we  have
much  to  think on, and I leave the office in your very capable
hands."
     The phone rang and Janice answered it.
     "Good afternoon," she said, "Wainwright's Fruit  Emporium.
Mr  Wainwright  is not able to take calls at this time since he
is not right in the head and thinks he is a cucumber. Thank you
for calling."
     She slammed the phone down. She looked up again to see the
door closing softly behind her ex-employer  and  his  befuddled
client.

     "Impossible?" said Richard again, in surprise.
     "Everything  about  it,"  insisted  Dirk,  "completely and
utterly-well, let us say inexplicable. There is  no  point  in
using  the  word  `impossible'  to  describe something that has
clearly happened. But it cannot be  explained  by  anything  we
know."
     The  briskness  of the air along the Grand Union Canal got
in among Richard's senses and sharpened them up again.  He  was
restored  to  his  normal  faculties,  and  though  the fact of
Gordon's death kept jumping at him all  over  again  every  few
seconds,  he  was at least now able to think more clearly about
it. Oddly enough, though, that seemed for the moment to be  the
last thing on Dirk's mind. Dirk was instead picking on the most
trivial  of  the night's sequence of bizarre incidents on which
to cross-examine him.
     A jogger going one way and a cyclist going the other  both
shouted  at  each  other  to  get  out of the way, and narrowly
avoided hurling each other into the murky,  slow-moving  waters
of the canal. They were watched carefully by a very slow-moving
old lady who was dragging an even slower-moving old dog.
     On  the  other bank large empty warehouses stood startled,
every window shattered and glinting. A burned-out barge  lolled
brokenly  in the water. Within it a couple of detergent bottles
floated on the brackish water. Over the nearest  bridge  heavy=
goods lorries thundered, shaking the foundations of the houses,
belching  petrol  fumes  into  the air and frightening a mother
trying to cross the road with her pram.
     Dirk and Richard were walking along from  the  fringes  of
South  Hackney,  a  mile  from  Dirk's office, back towards the
heart of Islington, where Dirk knew the nearest lifebelts  were
positioned.
     "But  it  was  only a conjuring trick, for heaven's sake,"
said Richard. "He does them all the time. It's just sleight  of
hand.&#127;  Looks  impossible  but  I'm  sure if you asked any
conjurer he'd say it's easy once you know how these things  are
done. I once saw a man on the street in New York doing -"
     "I know how these things are done," said Dirk, pulling two
lighted  cigarettes  and a large glazed fig out of his nose. He
tossed the fig up in to the air, but it somehow failed to  land
anywhere.  "Dexterity, misdirection, suggestion. All things you
can learn if you have a little time to waste. Excuse  me,  dear
lady,"  he  said  to the elderly, slow-moving dog-owner as they
passed her. He bent down to the dog and pulled a long string of
brightly coloured flags from its bottom. "I think he will  move
more  comfortably  now," he said, tipped his hat courteously to
her and moved on.
     "These things, you see," he said to a  flummoxed  Richard,
"are easy. Sawing a lady in half is easy. Sawing a lady in half
and then joining her up together again is less easy, but can be
done  with  practice.  The  trick  you described to me with the
two-hundred-year-old vase and the college salt cellar is -" he
paused for emphasis - "completely and utterly inexplicable."
     "Well there was probably  some  detail  of  it  I  missed,
but... "
     "Oh,  without  question.  But  the  benefit of questioning
somebody under hypnosis is that it allows the questioner to see
the scene in much greater detail  than  the  subject  was  even
aware  of  at  the  time.  The girl Sarah, for instance. Do you
recall what she was wearing?"
     "Er, &#127;o," said Richard, vaguely,  "a  dress  of  some
kind, I suppose "
     "Colour? Fabric?"
     "Well,  I  can't  remember,  it  was dark. She was sitting
several places away from me. I hardly glimpsed her."
     "She was wearing a dark blue cotton velvet dress  gathered
to  a  dropped  waist.  It  had  raglan sleeves gathered to the
cuffs, a white Peter Pan collar and  six  small  pearl  buttons
down  the front - the third one down had a small thread hanging
off it. She had long dark hair pulled back with a red butterfly
hairgrip."
     "If you're going to tell me you know all that from looking
at a scuff mark on my shoes, like  Sherlock  Holmes,  then  I'm
afraid I don't believe you."
     "No,  no,"  said  Dirk,  "it's much simpler than that. You
told me yourself under hypnosis."
     Richard shook his head.
     "Not true," he said, "I don't even know what a  Peter  Pan
collar is. "
     "But I do and you described it to me perfectly accurately.
As you did the conjuring trick. And that trick was not possible
in the  form in which it occurred. Believe me. I know whereof I
speak. There are some other things I  would  like  to  discover
about  the  Professor, like for instance who wrote the note you
discovered on the table  and  how  many  questions  George  III
actually asked, but -"
     "What?"
     "-  but  I  think I would do better to question the fellow
directly.  Except..."  He  frowned  deeply  in   concentration.
"Except,"  he added, "that being rather vain in these matters I
would prefer to know the answers before I asked the  questions.
And  I do not. I absolutely do not." He gazed abstractedly into
the distance, and made a rough  calculation  of  the  remaining
distance to the nearest lifebelt.
     "And  the  second  impossible  thing,"  he  added; just as
Richard was about to get a word in edgeways, "or at least,  the
next  completely inexplicable thing, is of course the matter of
your sofa."
     "Dirk," exclaimed Richard in exasperation, "may  I  remind
you  that  Gordon  Way  is  dead, and that I appear to be under
suspicion of his murder! None of these things have the remotest
connection with that, and I- "
     "But I am extremely inclined  to  believe  that  they  are
connected."
     "That's absurd!"
     "I believe in the fundamental inter- "
     "Oh, yeah, yeah," said Richard, "the fundamental intercon=
nectedness of all things. Listen, Dirk, I am not a gullible old
lady and  you  won't be getting any trips to Bermuda out of me.
lf you're going to help me then let's stick to the point."
     Dirk bridled at this.  "I  believe  that  all  things  are
fundamentally   interconnected,   as  anyone  who  follows  the
principles of  quantum  mechanics  to  their  logical  extremes
cannot, if they are honest, help but accept. But I also believe
that  some  things  are  a  great deal more interconnected than
others.  And  when  two  apparently  impossible  events  and  a
sequence  of highly peculiar ones all occur to the same person,
and when that person suddenly becomes the suspect of  a  highly
peculiar  murder,  then  it seems to me that we should look for
the solution in the connection between these  events.  You  are
the connection, and you yourself have been behaving in a highly
peculiar and eccentric way."
     "I  have  not,"  said  Richard. "Yes, some odd things have
happened to me, but I-"
     "You were last night observed, by me, to climb the outside
of a building and break into the flat of your girlfriend, Susan
Way."
     "It may have been unusual," said Richard, "it may not even
have been wise. But it was perfectly logical  and  rational.  I
just  wanted  to undo something I had done before it caused any
damage."
     Dirk thought for a  moment,  and  slightly  quickened  his
pace.
     "And  what  you  did was a perfectly reasonable and normal
response to the problem of the message  you  had  left  on  the
tape- yes,  you told me all about that in our little session -
it's what anyone would have done?"
     Richard frowned as if to say that he couldn't see what all
the fuss was about. "I don't say anyone would have  clone  it,"
he  said,  "I probably have a slightly more logical and literal
turn of mind than  many  people,  which  is  why  I  can  write
computer software. It was a logical and literal solution to the
problem."
     "Not a little disproportionate, perhaps?"
     "It  was  very important to me not to disappoint Susan yet
again."
     "So you are absolutely satisfied with your own reasons for
doing what you did?"
     "Yes," insisted Richard angrily.
     "Do you know," said Dirk, "what my  old  maiden  aunt  who
lived in Winnipeg used to tell me?"
     "No,"  said  Richard.  He quickly took off all his clothes
and dived into the canal. Dirk leapt  for  the  lifebelt,  with
which  they  had  just drawn level, yanked it out of its holder
and flung it to Richard, who was floundering in the  middle  of
the canal looking completely lost and disoriented.
     "Grab hold of this," shouted Dirk, "and I'll haul you in."
     "it's all right," spluttered Richard, "I can swim-"
     "No, you can't," yelled Dirk, "now grab it."
     Richard tried to strike out for the bank, but quickly gave
up in  consternation  and  grabbed  hold  of the lifebelt. Dirk
pulled on the rope till Richard reached the edge, and then bent
down to give him a hand out. Richard came up out of  the  water
puffing and spitting, then turned and sat shivering on the edge
with his hands in his lap.
     "God,  it's  foul  in there!" he exclaimed and spat again.
"It's absolutely disgusting. Yeuchh. Whew. God. I'm  usually  a
pretty  good  swimmer.  Must have got some kind of cramp. Lucky
coincidence we were so close to the lifebelt. Oh thanks."  This
last  he  said in response to the large towel which Dirk handed
him.
     He rubbed himself down briskly,  almost  scraping  himself
with  the towel to get the filthy canal water off him. He stood
up and looked about. "Can you find my pants?"
     "Young man," said the old lady with the dog, who had  just
reached  them. She stood looking at them sternly, and was about
to rebuke them when Dirk interrupted.
     "A thousand apologies,  dear  lady,"  he  said,  "for  any
offence  my  friend may inadvertently have caused you. Please,"
he added, drawing a  slim  bunch  of  anemones  from  Richard's
bottom "accept these with my compliments."
     The  lady  dashed  them out of Dirk's hand with her stick,
and hurried off, horror-struck, yanking her dog after her.
     "That wasn't very nice of you," said Richard,  pulling  on
his   clothes   underneath   the  towel  that  was  now  draped
strategically around him.
     "I don't think she's a very  nice  woman,"  replied  Dirk,
"she's  always  down  here,  yanking  her  poor  dog around and
telling people off. Enjoy your swim?"
     "Not much, no," said Richard, giving his hair a quick rub.
"I hadn't realised how filthy it would be in there.  And  cold.
Here," he said, handing the towel back to Dirk, "thanks. Do you
always carry a towel around in your briefcase?"
     "Do you always go swimming in the afternoons?"
     "No, I usualIy go in the mornings, to the swimming pool on
Highbury  Fields,  just to wake myself up, get the brain going.
It just occurred to me I hadn't been this morning."
     "And, er - that was why you just dived into the canal?"
     "Well, yes. I just thought that getting a bit of  exercise
would pinbably help me deal with all this."
     "Not  a  little  disproportionate,  then, to strip off and
jump into the canal."
     "No," he said, "it may not have been wise given the  state
of the water, but it was perfectly-"
     "You  were  perfectly  satisfied with your own reasons for
doing what you did."
     "Yes-"
     "And it was nothing to do with my aunt, then?"
     Richard's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What on  earth  are
you talking about?" he said.
     "I'll  tell  you,"  said Dirk. He went and sat on a nearby
bench and opened his case again. He folded the towel away  into
it  and  &#127; took out instead a small Sony tape recorder. He
beckoned Richard over and then pushed the Play  button.  Dirk's
own  voice floated from the tiny speaker in a lilting sing-song
voice. It said, "In a minute I will click my  fingers  and  you
will  wake and forget all of this except for the instructions I
shall now give you.
     "In a little while we will go for a walk along the  canal,
and  when  you  hear  me  say the words `my old maiden aunt who
lived in Winnipeg'-"
     Dirk suddenly grabbed Richard's arm to restrain him.
     The tape continued, "You will take off  all  your  clothes
and  dive  into the canal. You will find that you are unable to
swim, but you will not panic or sink,  you  will  simply  tread
water until I throw you the lifebelt... "
     Dirk  stopped  the tape and looked round at Richard's face
which for the second time that day was pale with shock.
     "I would be interested to know exactly what  it  was  that
possessed  you  to climb into Miss Way's flat last night," said
Dirk, "and why."
     Richard didn't respond - he was continuing to stare at the
tape recorder in some confusion. Then  he  said  in  a  shaking
voice,"There  was  a  message  from  Gordon on Susan's tape. He
phoned from the car. The tape's in my flat. Dirk, I'm  suddenly
very frightened by all this."

        Chapter Twenty-one...

     Dirk  watched the police officer on duty outside Richard's
house from behind a van parked a few yards away.  He  had  been
stopping  and questioning everyone who tried to enter the small
side alley down which Richard's door was  situated,  including,
Dirk  was  pleased  to  note,  other  policemen  if  he  didn't
immediately recognise them. Another police car  pulled  up  and
Dirk started to move.
     A police officer climbed out of the car carrying a saw and
walked  towards the doorway. Dirk briskly matched his pace with
him, a step or two behind, striding authoritatively.
     "It's all right, he's with me," said Dirk,  sweeping  past
at  the  exact  moment  that the one police officer stopped the
other.
     And he was inside and climbing the stairs.
     The officer with the saw followed him in.
     "Er, excuse me, sir," he called up after Dirk.
     Dirk had just reached the point where the sofa  obstructed
the stairway. He stopped and twisted round.
     "Stay  here," he said, "guard this sofa. Do not let anyone
touch it, and I mean anyone. Understood?"
     The officer seemed flummoxed for a moment.
     "I've had orders to saw it up," he said.
     "Countermanded," barked Dirk. "Watch it  like  a  hawk.  I
shalI want a full report."
     He  turned back and climbed up over the thing. A moment or
two later he emerged into a large open area. This was the lower
of the two floors that comprised Richard's flat.
     "Have you searched that?" snapped Dirk at another  officer
who  was sitting at Richard's dining table looking through some
notes. The officer looked up in surprise and started  to  stand
up. Dirk was pointing at the wastepaper basket.
     "Er, yes-"
     "Search it again. Keep searching it. Who's here?"
     "Er, well-"
     "I haven't got all day."
     "Detective Inspector Mason just left, with- "
     "Good,  I'm having him pulled off. I'll be upstairs if I'm
needed, but I don't want any  interruptions  unless  it's  very
important. Understood?"
     "Er, who-"
     "I don't see you searching the wastepaper basket."
     "Er, right, sir. I'll- "
     "I want it deep-searched. You understand?"
     "Er- "
     "Get  cracking." Dirk swept on upstairs and into Richard's
workroom.
     The tape was lying exactly where Richard had told  him  it
would  be,  on  the long desk on which the six Macintoshes sat.
Dirk was about to pocket it when his curiosity  was  caught  by
the  image of Richard's sofa slowly twisting and turning on the
big Macintosh screen, and he sat down at the keyboard.
     He explored the program Richard had written  for  a  short
while,  but  quickly  realised  that in its present form it was
less than self-explanatory and he learned little.  He  managed
at  last  to  get  the  sofa  unstuck and move it back down the
stairs, but he realised that he had had to  turn  part  of  the
wall  off  in  order to do it. With a gnrnt of imtation he gave
up.
     Another computer he looked at was displaying a steady sine
wave. Around the edges of the screen were the small  images  of
other  waveforms  which could be seIected and added to the main
one or used to modify it in other ways. He  quickly  discovered
that  this  enabled you to build up very complex waveforms from
simple ones and he played with this for a  while.  He  added  a
simple  sine  wave  to itself, which had the effect of doubling
the height of the peaks and troughs of the wave. Then  he  slid
one  of  the  waves half a step back with respect to the other,
and the peaks and troughs of one simply cancelled out the peaks
and troughs of the other, leaving a completely flat line.  Then
he  changed  the  frequency of one of the sine waves by a small
extent.
     The result of this was that at some  positions  along  the
combined  waveform  the two waves reinforced each other, and at
others they cancelled each other out.  Adding  a  third  simple
wave  of  yet  another frequency resulted in a combined wave in
which it was hard to see any pattern at all. The line danced up
and down seemingly  at  random,  staying  quite  low  for  some
periods  and  then  suddenly building into very large peaks and
troughs as all three waves cante briefly into phase  with  each
other.
     Dirk  assumcd  that  there  must  be amongst this array of
equipment a means for translating the waveform dancing  on  the
Macintosh  screen  into an actual musical tone and hunted among
the menus available in the program.  He  found  one  menu  item
which invited him to transfer the wave sample into an Emu.
     This  puzzled him. He glanced around the room in search of
a large flightless bird, but was  unable  to  locate  any  such
thing.  He  activated  the  process anyway, and then traced the
cable which 1ed from the back of the Macintosh, down behind the
desk, along the floor, behind a cupboard, under a rug until  it
fetched  up  plugged  into  the  back  of a large grey keyboard
called an Emulator II.
     This, he assumed, was where his experimental waveform  has
just arrived. Tentatively he pushed a key.
     The  nasty  farting noise that surged instantly out of the
speakers was so loud that for a moment he didn't hear the words
"Svlad  Cjelli!"  that  were  barked  simultaneously  from  the
doorway.

     Richard  sat  in  Dirk's  office and threw tiny screwed-up
balls of paper at the wastepaper bin which was already full  of
telephones.  He broke pencils. He played major extracts from an
old Ginger Baker solo on his knees.
     In a word, he fretted.
     He had been trying to write down  on  a  piece  of  Dirk's
notepaper  all  that  he  could  remember  of the events of the
previous evening and, as far as he  could  pinpoint  them,  the
times  at  which  each  had  occurned. He was astonished at how
difficult it was, and how feeble his conscious memory seemed to
be in comparison with  his  unconscious  memory,  as  Dirk  had
demonstrated it to him.
     "Damn Dirk," he thought. He wanted to talk to Susan.
     Dirk  had  told  him  he  must not do so on any account as
there would be a trace on the phone lines.
     "Damn Dirk," he said suddenly, and sprang to his feet.
     "Have you got  any  ten-pence  pieces?"  he  said  to  the
resolutely glum Janice.

     Dirk turned.
     Framed in the doorway stood a tall dark figure.
     The  tall dark figure appeared to be not at all happy with
what it saw, to be rather cross about it, in fact. To  be  more
than cross. It appeared to be a talI dark figure who could very
easily  yank  the  heads off half a dozen chickens and still be
cross at the end of it.
     It stepped forward into the light and revealed  itself  to
be Sergeant Gilks of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary.
     "Do  you  know," said Sergeant Gilks of the Cambridgeshire
Constabulary, blinking with suppressed emotion,  "that  when  I
arrive back here to discover one police officer guarding a sofa
with  a  saw  and  another  dismembering an innocent wastepapet
basket I have to ask myself certain questions? And  I  have  to
ask them with the disquieting sense that I am not going to like
the answers when I find them.
     "I  then  find  myself mounting the stairs with a horrible
premonition, Svlad Cjelli, a very horrible premonition  indeed.
A premonition, I might add, that I now find horribly justified.
I  suppose  you can't shed any light on a horse discovered in a
bathroom as well? That seemed to have an air of you about it."
     "I cannot," said Dirk, "as yet.  Though  it  interests  me
strangely."
     "I  should  think  it bloody did. It would have interested
you strangely if you'd had to  get  the  bloody  thing  down  a
bloody winding staircase at one o'clock in the morning as well.
What  the  hell  are  you  doing  here?"  said  Sergeant Gilks,
wearily.
     "I am here," said Dirk, "in pursuit of justice."
     "Well, I wouldn't mix with me then," said  Gilks,  "and  I
certainly  wouldn't  mix  with  the  Met.  What  do you know of
MacDuff and Way?"
     "Of Way? Nothing beyond what is common knowledge.  MacDuff
I knew at Cambridge."
     "Oh, you did, did you? Describe him."
     "Tall.  Tall  and  absurdly  thin. And good-natured. A bit
like a preying mantis that doesn't prey - a non-preying  mantis
if  you  like. A sort of pleasant genial mantis that's given up
preying and taken up tennis instead."
     "Hmm," said Gilks gruffly, turning away and looking  about
the room. Dirk pocketed the tape.
     "Sounds like the same one," said Gilks.
     "And  of  course,"  said  Dirk,  "completely  incapable of
murder."
     "That's for us to decide."
     "And of couise a jury."
     "Tchah! Juries! "
     "Though, of course, it will not come to  that,  since  the
facts will speak for themselves long before it comes to a court
of law for my client."
     "Your  bleeding  client,  eh?  All right, Cjelli, where is
he?"
     "1 haven't the faintest idea."
     "I'll bet you've got a billing address."
     Dirk shrugged.
     "Look, Cjelli, this is a perfectly normal, harmless murder
enquiry, and I don't  want  you  mucking  it  up.  So  consider
yourself  wanred  off  as  of  now.  If I see a single piece of
evidence being levitated I'll hit you so hard you won't koow if
it's tomorrow or Thursday. Now get out, and give me  that  tape
on the way." He held out his hand.
     Dirk blinked, genuinely surprised. "What tape?"
     Gilks  sighed.  "You're  a clever man, Cjelli, I grant you
that," he said, "but you make the same mistake a lot of  clever
people  do  of thinking everyone else is stupid. If I turn away
it's for a reason, and the reason was to see  what  you  picked
up. I didn't need to see you pick it up, I just had to see what
was missing afterwards. We are trained you know. We used to get
half  an  hour Observation Training on Tuesday afternoons. Just
as a break after four hours solid of Senseless Brutality."
     Dirk hid his anger with himself behind a light  smile.  He
fished  in  the  pocket of his leather overcoat and handed over
the tape.
     "Play it," said Gilks, "let's see what you didn't want  us
to hear."
     "It  wasn't that I didn't want you to hear it," said Dirk,
with a shrug. "I just wanted to hear it first." He went over to
the shelf which carried Richard's hi-fi equipment  and  slipped
the tape into the cassette player.
     "So do you want to give me a little introduction?"
     "It's  a  tape,"  said  Dirk,  "from Susan Way's telephone
answering machine. Way apparently had  this  habit  of  leaving
long..."
     "Yeah,  I  know  about  that. And his secretary goes round
picking up his prattlings in the morning, poor devil."
     "Well, I believe there may be a message on the  tape  from
Gordon Way's car last night."
     "I see. OK. Play it."
     With a gracious bow Dirk pressed the Play button.
     "Oh,  Susan,  hi,  it's Gordon," said the tape once again.
"Just on my way to the cottage-"
     "Cottage!" exclaimed Gilks, satirically.
     "It's, er, Thursday night, and it's, er... 8.47. Bit misty
on the roads. Listen, I  have  those  people  from  the  States
coming over this weekend..."
     Gilks raised his eyebrows, looked at his watch, and made a
note on his pad.
     Both  Dirk  and the police sergeant experienced a chill as
the dead man's voice filled the room.
     "- it's a wonder I don't end up dead in  the  ditch,  that
would  be something wouldn't it, leaving your famous last words
on somebody's answering machine, there's no reason- "
     They listened in a tense silence as  the  tape  played  on
through the entire message.
     "That's  the  problem  with  crunch-heads  - they have one
great idea that actually works and  then  they  expect  you  to
carry  on  funding  them for years while they sit and calculate
the topographies of their navels. I'm sorry, I'm going to  have
to stop and close the boot properly. Won't be a moment."
     Next came the muffled bump of the telephone receiver being
dropped  on  the  passenger  seat,  and a few seconds later the
sound of the car door being opened. In the meantime, the  music
from the car's sound system could be heard burbling away in the
background.
     A  few  seconds later still came the distant, muffled, but
unmistakable double blam of a shotgun.
     "Stop the tape," said Gilks sharply  and  glanced  at  his
watch.  "Three minutes and twenty-five seconds since he said it
was
8.47." He glanced up at Dirk again. "Stay here. Don't move.
Don't touch anything. I've made a note of the position of every
particle of air in this room, so I shall know if you've been
breathing."
     He turned smartly and left. Dirk heard him  saying  as  he
went  down the stairs, "Tuckett, get on to WayForward's office,
get  the  details  of  Way's  carphone,  what   number,   which
network..." The voice faded away downstairs.
     Quickly Dirk twisted down the volume control on the hi-fi,
and resumed playing the tape.
     The  music continued for a while. Dirk drummed his fingers
in frustration. Still the music continued.
     He flicked the Fast Forward  button  for  just  a  moment.
Still  music.  It  occurred  to  him  that  he  was looking for
something, but that he didn't know what. That  thought  stopped
him in his tracks.
     He was very definitely looking for something.
     He very definitely didn't know what.
     The  realisation  that he didn't know exactly why he vtras
doing what he was doing suddenly chilled and  electrified  him.
He turned slowly like a fridge door opening.
     There was no one there, at least no one that he could see.
But he  knew  the chi!! prickling through his skin and detested
it above all things.
     He said in a low savage whisper, "If anyone can  hear  me,
hear  this.  My  mind  is my centre and everything that happens
there is my responsibility. Other people may  believe  what  it
pleases  them  to believe, but I will do nothing without I know
the reason why and know it clearly. If you want something  then
let me know, but do not you dare touch my mind."
     He  was  trembling  with  a  deep  and old rage. The chill
dropped stowly and almost pathetically from him and  seemed  to
move  off into the room. He tried to follow it with his senses,
but was instantly distracted by a sudde&#127; voice that seemed
to come at him on the edge of his hearing, on a distant howl of
wind.
     It was a hollow, terrified, bewildered voice, no more than
an insubstantial whisper, but it was  there,  audible,  on  the
telephone-answering machine tape.
     It  said,  "Susan! Susan, help me! Help me for God's sake.
Susan, I'm dead-"
     Dirk whirled round and stopped the tape.
     "I'm sorry," he said under his breath,  "but  I  have  the
welfare of my client to consider."
     He  wound  the  tape  back  a very short distance, to just
before where the voice began, twisted the Record Level knob  to
zero  and  pressed  Record. He left the tape to run, wiping off
the voice and anything that might follow it. If  the  tape  was
going  to  establish  the time of Gordon Way's death, then Dirk
didn't want any embarrassing examples  of  Gordon  speaking  to
turn  up  on  the tape after that point, even if it was only to
confirm that he was, in fact, dead.
     There seemed to be a grzat eruption of emotion in the  air
near  to  him.  A  wave  of  something surged through the room,
causing the furniture to flutter  in  its  wake.  Dirk  watched
where  it seemed to go, towards a shelf near the door on which,
he suddenly realised, stood Richard's  own  telephone-answering
machine.  The  machine started to jiggle fitfully where it sat,
but then sat still as Dirk  approached  it.  Dirk  reached  out
slowly  and  calmly and pushed the button which set the machine
to Answer.
     The disturbance in the air then passed  back  through  the
room to Richard's long desk where two old-fashioned rotary-dial
telephones  nestled  among  the piles of paper and micro floppy
disks. Dirk guessed what would happen,  but  elected  to  watch
rather than to intervene.
     One  of  the  telephone  receivers toppled off its cradle.
Dirk could hear  the  dialling  tone.  Then,  slowly  and  with
obvious  difficulty,  the dial began to turn. It moved unevenly
round, further round, slower  and  slower,  and  then  suddenly
slipped back.
     There  was  a moment's pause. Then the receiver rests went
down and up again to get a new dialling tone. The dial began to
turn again, but creaking even more fitfully than the last time.
     Again it slipped back.
     There was a longer pause this time, and  then  the  entire
process was repeated once more.
     When the dial slipped back a third time there was a sudden
explosion of fury - the whole phone leapt into th&#127; air and
hurtled across the room. The receiver cord wrapped itself round
an Anglepoise lamp on the way and brought it crashing down in a
tangle of cables, coffee cups and floppy disks. A pile of books
erupted off the desk and on to the floor.
     The  figure  of  Sergeant  Gilks  stood stony-faced in the
doorway.
     "I'm going to come in again," he said, "and when I  do,  I
don't want to see anything of that kind going on whatsoever. Is
that understood?" He turned and disappeared.
     Dirk  leapt  for  the  cassette  player and hit the Rewind
button. Then he turned and hissed at the empty  air,  "1  don't
know  who  you are, but 1 can guess. If you want my help, don't
you ever embarrass me like that again!"
     A few moments later, Gilks walked in again. "Ah, there you
are," he said.
     He surveyed the wreckage with an even gaze. "I'll  pretend
I  can't  see  any  of  this,  so  that I won't have to ask any
questions the answers to which would,  I  know,  only  irritate
me."
     Dirk glowered.
     In  the  moment  or two of silence that followed, a slight
ticking whirr could be heard which caused the sergeant to  look
sharply at the cassette player.
     "What's that tape doing?"
     "Rewinding."
     "Give it to me."
     The tape reached the beginning and stopped as Dirk reached
it. He took it out and handed it to Gilks.
     "Irritatingly, this seems to put your client completely in
the clear," said the sergeant. "Cellnet have confirmed that the
last call made from the car was at 8.46 pm last night, at which
point  your  client  was  lightly  dozing  in  front of several
hundred witnesses. I say witnesses, in fact  they  were  mostly
students,  but  we  will probably be forced to assume that they
can't all be lying."
     "Good," said Dirk, "well, I'm glad that's all cleared up."
     "We never thought he had  actually  done  it,  of  course.
Simply  didn't  fit.  But you know us - we like to get results.
Tell him we still want to ask him some questions, though."
     "I shall be sure to mention it if I  happen  to  run  into
him."
     "You just do that little thing."
     "Well,  I  shan't  detain  you any longer, Sergeant," said
Dirk, airily waving at the door.
     "No, but I shall bloody detain you if you're  not  out  of
here in thirty seconds, Cjelli. I don't know what you're up to,
but if I can possibly avoid finding out I shall sleep easier in
my office. Out."
     "Then I shall bid you good day, Sergeant. I won't say it's
been a pleasure because it hasn't."
     Dirk  swept  out  of the room, and made his way out of the
Hat, noting with sorrow that  where  there  had  been  a  large
chesterfield  sofa wedged magnificently in the staircase, there
was now just a small, sad pile of sawdust.

     With a jerk Michael Wenton-Weakes looked up from his book.
     His  mind  suddenly  was  alive  with  purpose.  Thoughts,
images,  memories, intentions, all crowded in upon him, and the
more they seemed to contradict each other the more they  seemed
to fit together, to pair and settle.
     The  match  at  last  was perfect, the teeth of one slowly
aligned with the teeth of another.
     A pull and they were zipped.
     Though the waiting had  seemed  an  eternity  ofeternities
when it was filled with failure, with fading waves of weakness,
with  feeble  groping and lonely impotence, the match once made
cancelled it all. Would cancel it all. Would undo what had been
so disastrously done.
     Who thought that? It did not matter, the match  was  made,
the match was perfect.
     Michael  gazed out of the window across the well-manicured
Chelsea street and did not care whether what he saw were  slimy
things  with  legs or whether they were all Mr A. K. Ross. What
mattered was what they  had  stolen  and  what  they  would  be
compelled  to return. Ross now lay in the past. What he was now
concerned with lay still further in it.
     His large soft cowlike eyes returned to the last few lines
of "Kubla Khan", which he had just been reading. The match  was
made, the zip was pulled.
     He closed the book and put it in his pocket.
     His  path  back now was clear. He knew what he must do. It
only remained to do a little shopping and then do it.

        Chapter Twenty-two...

     "You? Wanted for murder?  Richard  what  are  you  talking
about?"
     The telephone wavered in Richard's hand. He was holding it
about  half  an inch away from his ear anyway because it seemed
that somebody  had  dipped  the  earpiece  in  some  chow  mein
recently,  but  that wasn't so bad. This was a public telephone
so it was clearly an oversight that it was working at all.  But
Richard was beginning to feel as if the whole world had shifted
about  half  an inch away from him, like someone in a deodorant
commercial.
     "Gordon,"  said  Richard,   hesitantly,   "Gordon's   been
murdered
- hasn't he?"
     Susan paused before she answered.
     "Yes, Richard" she said in a distressed voice, "but no one
thinks you did it. They want to question you of course, but-"
     "So there are no police with you now?"
     "No,  Richard,"  insisted Susan, "Look, why don't you come
here?"
     "And they're not out searching for me?"
     "No! Where on earth did you get the  idea  that  you  were
wanted for - that they thought you had done it?"
     "Er - well, this friend of mine told me."
     "Who?"
     "Well, his name is Dirk Gently."
     "You've  never  mentioned  him.  Who  is  he?  Did  he say
anything else?"
     "He hypnotised me and, er, made me jump in the canal, and,
er, well, that was it really-"
     Thene was a terribly long pause at the other end.
     "Richard," said Susan at last with the  sort  of  calmness
that  comes  over  people  when  they  realise that however bad
things may seem to be, there is absolutely no reason  why  they
shouldn't  simply  get  worse and worse, "come over here. I was
going to say I need to see you, but I think  you  need  to  see
me."
     "I should probably go to the police."
     "Go  to  the  police  later.  Richard, please. A few hours
won't make any  difference.  I...  I  can  hardly  even  think.
Richard,  it's  so  awful. It would just help if you were here.
Where are you?"
     "OK," said Richard, "I'll be  with  you  in  about  twenty
minutes."
     "Shall  I  leave  the window open or would you like to try
the door?" she said with a sniff.

        Chapter Twenty-three...

     "No, please," said Dirk, restraining  Miss  Pearce's  hand
from  opening  a  letter  from  the  Inland Revenue, "there are
wilder skies than these."
     He had emerged from a  spell  of  tense  brooding  in  his
darkened  office  and there was an air of excited concentration
about him. It had taken  his  actual  signature  on  an  actual
salary  cheque  to  persuade Miss Pearce to forgive him for the
latest unwarrantable extravagance with which he had returned to
the office and he felt that just to sit there blatantly opening
letters from the taxman was to take his magnanimous gesture  in
entirely the wrong spirit.
     She put the envelope aside.
     "Come!"  he  said.  "I have something I wish you to see. I
shall  observe  your  reactions  with  the  very  greatest   of
interest."
     He bustled back into his own office and sat at his desk.
     She  followed him in patiently and sat opposite, pointedly
ignoring the new  unwarrantable  extravagance  sitting  on  the
desk.
     The  flashy  brass  plaque for the door had stirred her up
pretty badly but the silly phone with big red push buttons  she
regarded  as  being  beneath contempt. And she certainly wasn't
going to do anything rash like smile until she knew for certain
that the cheque wouldn't bounce. The  last  time  he  signed  a
cheque  for  her  he cancelled it before the end of the day, to
prevent it, as he explained, "falling into  the  wrong  hands".
The wrong hands presumably, being those of her bank manager.
     He thrust a piece of paper across the desk.
     She  picked  it  up  and  looked at it. Then she turned it
round and looked at it again. She looked at the other side  and
then she put it down.
     "Well?" demanded Dirk. "What do you make of it? Tell me!"
     Miss Pearce sighed.
     "It's a lot of meaningless squiggles done in blue felt tip
on a piece  of  typing paper," she said. "It looks like you did
them yourself."
     "No!" barked Dirk, "Well, yes,"  he  admitted,  "but  only
because I believe that it is the answer to the problem!"
     "What problem?"
     "The  problem," insisted Dirk, slapping the table, "of the
conjuring trick! I told you!"
     "Yes, Mr Gently, several times. I  think  it  was  just  a
conjuring trick. You see them on the telly."
     "With  this  difference  -  that  this  one was completely
impossible!"
     "Couldn't have been impossible or he  wouldn't  have  done
it. Stands to reason."
     "Exactly!" said Dirk excitedly. "Exactly! Miss Pearce, you
are a lady of rare perception and insight."
     "Thank you, sir, can I go now?"
     "Wait! I haven't finished yet! Not by a long way, not by a
bucketful!  You  have  demonstrated  to  me  the  depth of your
perception and insight, allow me to demonstrate mine!"
     Miss Pearce slumped patiently in her seat.
     "I think," said Dirk, "you  will  be  impressed.  Consider
this. An intractable problem. In trying to find the solution to
it  I  was  going round and round in little circles in my mind,
over and over the same maddening things. Clearly I wasn't going
to be able to think of anything else until I  had  the  answer,
but  equally clearly I would have to think of something else if
I was ever going to get the answer. How to break  this  circle?
Ask me how."
     "How?"   said   Miss   Pearce   obediently,   but  without
enthusiasm.
     "By writing down what the answer is!" exclaimed Dirk. "And
here it is!" He slapped the piece of paper triumphantly and sat
back with a satisfied smile.
     Miss Pearce looked at it dumbly.
     "With the result," continued Dirk, "that I am now able  to
turn  my  mind  to  fresh  and  intriguing  problems, like, for
instance..."
     He took the piece  of  paper,  covered  with  its  aimless
squiggles and doodlings, and held it up to her.
     "What  language,"  he  said in a low, dark voice, "is this
written in?"
     Miss Pearce continued to look at it dumbly.
     Dirk flung the piece of paper down, put his feet up on the
table, and threw his head back with his hands behind it.
     "You see what I have done?" he asked  the  ceiling,  which
seemed  to flinch slightly at being yanked so suddenly into the
conversation.  "I  have  transformed  the   problem   from   an
intractably  difficult  and  possibly quite insoluble conundrum
into a mere linguistic puzzle. Albeit," he  muttered,  after  a
long  moment of silent pondering, "an intractably difficult and
possibly insoluble one."
     He swung back to gaze intently at Janice Pearce.
     "Go on," he urged, "say that it's insane -  but  it  might
just work!"
     Janice Pearce cleared her throat.
     "It's insane," she said, "trust me."
     Dirk  turned  away and sagged sideways off his chair, much
as the sitter for The Thinker probably did when Rodin went  off
to be excused.
     He suddenly looked profoundly tired and depressed.
     "I  know," he said in a low, dispirited voice, "that there
is something profoundly wrong somewhere. And I know that I must
go to Cambridge to put it right. But I would feel less  fearful
if I knew what it was..."
     "Can I get on now, please, then?" said Miss Pearce.
     Dirk looked up at her glumly.
     "Yes," he said with a sigh, "but just - just tell me -" he
flicked  at  the  piece of paper with his fingertips - "what do
you think of this, then?"
     "Well,  I  think  it's  childish,"  said  Janice   Pearce,
frankly.
     "But  -  but  -  but!"  said  Dirk  thumping  the table in
frustration. "Don't you understand that we need to be  childish
in  order  to understand? Only a child sees things with perfect
clarity, because it hasn't developed all  those  filters  which
prevent us from seeing things that we don't expect to see?"
     "Then why don't you go and ask one?"
     "Thank  you, Miss Pearce," said Dirk reaching for his hat,
"once again you have rendered me  an  inestimable  service  for
which I am profoundiy grateful."
     He swept out.

        Chapter Twenty-four...

     The  weather  began  to bleaken as Richard made his way to
Susan's flat. The sky which had started out with such verve and
spirit in the morning was beginning to lose  its  concentration
and slip back into its normal English condition, that of a damp
and rancid dish cloth. Richard took a taxi, which got him there
in a few minutes.
     "They  should  all  be  deported," said the taxi driver as
they drew to a halt.
     "Er, who should?" said Richard,  who  realised  he  hadn't
been listening to a word the driver said.
     "Er-  "  said  the driver, who suddenly realised he hadn't
been listening either, "er, the whole lot of them. Get  rid  of
the  whole  bloody  lot,  that's  what  I say. And their bloody
newts," he added for good measure.
     "Expect you're right," said Richard, and hurried into  the
house.
     Arriving  at the front door of her flat he could hear from
within the sounds of Susan's  cello  playing  a  slow,  stately
melody.  He  was glad of that, that she was playing. She had an
amazing emotional self sufficiency  and  control  provided  she
could  play  her cello. He had noticed an odd and extraordinary
thing about her relationship with the music she played. If ever
she was feeling emotional or  upset  she  could  sit  and  play
so&#127;ne  music  with  utter concentration and emerge seeming
fresh and calm. ,
     The next time she played the same music, however, it would
all burst from her and she would go completely to pieces.
     He let himself in as quietly as  possible  so  as  not  to
disturb her concentration.
     He  tiptoed  past the small room she practised in, but the
door was open  so  he  paused  and  looked  at  her,  with  the
slightest  of  signals that she shouldn't stop. She was looking
pale and drawn but gave him a flicker of a smile and  continued
bowing with a sudden intensity.
     With  an  impeccable  timing  of  which  it is very rarely
capable the sun chose that moment to burst briefly through  the
gathering  rainclouds,  and  as  she  played her cello a stormy
light played on her and on the deep old brown of  the  wood  of
the  instrument.  Richard  stood transfixed. The turmoil of the
day stood still for a moment and kept a respectful distance.
     He didn't know the music, but it sounded like  Mozart  and
he  remembered  her  saying  she  had  some Mozart to learn. He
walked quietly on and sat down to wait and listen.
     Eventually she finished the piece, and there was  about  a
minute  of  silence  before  she  came through. She blinked and
smiled and gave  him  a  long,  trembling  hug,  then  released
herself  and  put  the  phone  back on the hook. It usually got
taken off when she was practising.
     "Sorry," she said, "I didn't want to  stop."  She  briskly
brushed  away a tear as if it was a slight irritation. "How are
you Richard?"
     He shrugged and gave her a bewildered  look.  That  seemed
about to cover it.
     "And  I'm  going  to  have  to carry on, I'm afraid," said
Susan with a sigh "I'm sorry. I've just been..." She shook  her
head. "Who would do it?"
     "I  don't  know. Some madman. I'm not sure that it matters
who."
     "No," she said. "Look, er, have you had any lunch?"
     "No. Susan, you keep playing and I'll see  what's  in  the
fridge. We can talk about it all over some lunch."
     Susan nodded.
     "All right," she said, "except..."
     "Yes?"
     "Well,  just  for  the  moment I don't really want to talk
about Gordon. Just till it sinks in. I feel sort of caught out.
It would be easier if I'd been closer to him, but I wasn't  and
I'm sort of embarrassed by not having a reaction ready. Talking
about  it  would  be  all right except that you have to use the
past tense and that's what's..."
     She clung to him for a moment  and  then  quieted  herself
with a sigh.
     "There's  not much in the fridge at the moment," she said,
"some yoghurt, I think, and a  jar  of  roll-mop  herrings  you
could  open.  I'm sure you'll be able to muck it up if you try,
but it's actually quite straightforward. The main trick is  not
to throw them all over the floor or get jam on them."
     She  gave  him  a  hug,  a  kiss and a glum smile and then
retreated back to her music room.
     The phone rang and Richard answered it.
     "Hello?" he said. There was nothing, just a faint sort  of
windy noise on the line.
     "Hello?" he said again, waited, shrugged and put the phone
back down.
     "Was there anybody there?" called Susan.
     "No, no one," said Richard.
     "That's  happened a couple of times," said Susn. "I think
it's a sort of minimalist heavy breather." She resumed playing.
     Richard went into the kitchen and opened  the  fridge.  He
was  less  of  a  health-conscious  eater  than  Susan  and was
therefore less than thrilled by what he  found  there,  but  he
managed  to put some roll-mop herrings, some yoghurt, some rice
and some oranges on a tray without difficulty and tried not  to
think  that a couple of fat hamburgers and fries would round it
off nicely.
     He found a bottle of white wine and carried it all through
to the small dining table.
     After a minute or two Susan joined him there. She  was  at
her most calm and composed, and after a few mouthsful she asked
him about the canal.
     Richard  shook his head in bemusement and tried to explain
about it, and about Dirk.
     "What did you say his name was?" said Susan with  a  frown
when he had come, rather lamely, to a conclusion.
     "It's, er, Dirk Gently," said Richard, "in a way."
     "In a way?"
     "Er,   yes,"  said  Richard  with  a  difficult  sigh.  He
reflected that just about anything you could say about Dirk was
subject to these kind of vague and shifty qualifications. There
was even,  on  his  letter  heading,  a  string  of  vague  and
shifty-looking qualifications after his name. He pulled out the
piece  of  paper on which he had vainly been trying to organise
his thoughts earlier in the day.
     "I...," he started, but the doorbell rang. They looked  at
each other.
     "If  it's the police," said Richard, "I'd better see them.
Let's get it over with."
     Susan pushed back her chair, went to the  front  door  and
picked up the Entryphone.
     "Hello?" she said.
     "Who?"  she  said  after  a  moment.  She  frowned  as she
listened then swung round and frowned at Richard.
     "You'd better come up," she said in a less  than  friendly
tone  of  voice  and then pressed the button. She came back and
sat down.
     "Your friend," she said evenly, "Mr Gently."

     The Electric Monk's day was going tremendously well and he
broke into an excited gallop. That is to say  that,  excitedly,
he  spurred  his  horse to a gallop and, unexcitedly, his horse
broke into it.
     This world, the Monk thought, was a good one. He loved it.
He didn't know whose it was or where it had come from,  but  it
was  certainly  a  deeply fulfilling place for someone with his
unique and extraordinary gifts.
     He was appreciated. All day he  had  gone  up  to  people,
fallen into conversation with them, listened to their troubles,
and  then  qwietly  uttered those three magic words, "I believe
you."
     The effect had invariably  been  electrifying.  It  wasn't
tbat  people  on  this world didn't occasionally say it to each
other, but they rarely, it seemed, managed to achieve that deep
timbre of  sincerity  which  the  Monk  had  been  so  superbly
programmcd to reproduce.
     On  his  own  world,  after all, he was taken for granted.
People would just expect him to get on and believe  things  for
them  without  bothering  them.  Someone would come to the door
with some great new ide or proposal or even  a  new  religion,
and the answer would be "Oh, go and tell that to the Monk." And
the  Monk would sit and listen and patiendy believe it all, but
no one would take any further interest.
     Only  one  problem  seemed  to  arise  on  this  otherwise
excellent  world.  Often, after he had uttered the magic words,
the subject would rapidly change to that of money, and the Monk
of course didn't have any -  a  shortcoming  that  had  quickly
blighted a number of otherwise very promising encounters.
     Perhaps he should acquire some - but where?
     He  reined his horse in for a moment, and the horse jerked
gratefully to a halt  and  started  in  on  the  grass  on  the
roadside  verge.  The horse had no idea what all this galloping
up and down was in aid of, and didn't care.  All  it  did  care
about  was  that it was being made to gallop up and down past a
seemingly perpetual roadside buffet. It made the  best  of  its
moment while it had it.
     The  Monk  peered  keenly  up and down the road. It seemed
vaguely familiar. He trotted a little further up it for another
look. The horse resumed its meal a few yards further along.
     Yes. The Monk had been here last night.
     He remembered  it  clearly,  well,  sort  of  clearly.  He
believed  that  he  remembered it clearly, and that, after all,
was the main thing. Here was where he had walked to in  a  more
than  usually  confused state of mind, and just around the very
next corner, if he was not very much mistaken, again,  lay  the
small  roadsido  establishment  at which he had jumped into the
back of that nie&#127;  man's  car  -  the  nice  man  who  had
subsequently reacted so oddly to being shot at.
     Perhaps they would have some money there and would let him
have it.  He  wondered.  Well, he would find out. He yanked the
horse from its feast once again and galloped towards it.
     As he approached the  petrol  station  he  noticed  a  car
parked  there  at  an  arrogant  angle. The angle made it quite
clear that the car was not there for anything so mundane as  to
have  petrol  put  into  it, and was much too important t park
itself neatly out of the way. Any other car  that  arrived  for
petrol would just have to manoeuvre around it as best it could.
The car was white with stripes and badges and important looking
lights.
     Amving  at  the forecourt the Monk dismounted and tethered
his horse to a pump. He walked towards the small shop  building
and  saw  that  inside  it there was a man with his back to him
wearing a dark blue uniform and  a  peaked  cap.  The  man  was
dancing  up  and down and twisting his fingers in his ears, and
this was clearly making a deep impression on the man behind the
till.
     The Monk watched in transfixed awe. The man,  he  believed
with  an instant effortlessness which would have impressed even
a Scientologist, must be a God of  some  kind  to  arouse  such
fervour.  He  waited  with  bated  breath  to worship him. In a
moment the man turned around and walked o&#127;t of  the  shop,
saw the Monk and stopped dead.
     The  Monk realised that the God must be waiting for him to
make an act of worship, so he reverently  danced  up  and  down
twisting his fingers in his ears.
     His  God  stared  at him for a moment, caught hold of him,
twisted him round, slammed him forward  spreadeagled  over  the
car and frisked him for weapons.

     Dirk burst into the flat like a small podgy tornado.
     "Miss  Way," he said, grasping her slightly unwilling hand
and doffing his absurd  hat,  "it  is  the  most  inexpressible
pleasure to meet you, but also the matter of the deepest regret
that  the  occasion  of our meeting should be one of such great
sorrow and one which bids me extend to  you  my  most  profound
sympathy  and  commiseration.  I  ask  you to believe me that I
would not intrude upon your private grief for all the world  if
it  were  not  on a matter of the gravest moment and magnitude.
Richard - I have solved the problem of the conjuring trick  and
it's extraordinary."
     He swept through the room and deposited himself on a spare
chair at the small dining table, on which he put his hat.
     "You will have to excuse us, Dirk- " said Richard, coldly.
     "No,  I  am  afraid  you will have to cxcuse me," returned
Dirk. "The puzzle is solved, and the solution is so  astounding
that it took a seven-year-old child on the street to give it to
me.   But   it  is  undoubtedly  the  correct  one,  absolutely
undoubtedly. `What, then, is the solution? '  you  ask  me,  or
rather  would ask me if you could get a word in edgeways, which
you can't, so I will save you the bother and ask  the  question
for  you,  and answer it as well by saying that I will not tell
you, because you won't believe me. I shall  instead  show  you,
this very afternoon.
     "Rest  assured,  however,  that it explains everything. It
explains the trick. It explains  the  note  you  found  -  that
should have made it perfectly clear to me but I was a fool. And
it  explains  what  the missing third question was, or rather -
and this is the  significant  point  -  it  explains  what  the
missing first question was!"
     "What  missing  question?"  exclaimed Richard, confused by
the sudden pause, and leaping in with the first phrase he could
grab.
     Dirk blinked as if at an idiot. "The missing question that
George III asked, of course," he said.
     "Asked who?"
     "Well, the Professor," said Dirk impatiently.  "Don't  you
listen  to  anything  you say? The whole thing was obvious!" he
exclaimed, thumping the table, "So obvious that the only  thing
which  prevented  me  from seeing the solution was the trifling
fact  that  it  was  completely  impossible.  Sherlock   Holmes
observed  that  once  you  have eliminated the impossible, then
whatever remains, however improbable, must be  the  answer.  I,
however,  do  not like to eliminate the impossible. Now. Let us
go."
     "No."
     "What?"  Dirk  glanced  up  at  Susan,  from   whom   this
unexpected
- or at least, unexpected to him - opposition had come.
     "Mr Gently," said Susan in a voice you could notch a stick
with,  "why  did you deliberately mislead Richard into thinking
that he was wanted by the police?"
     Dirk frowned.
     "But he was wanted by the police,"  he  said,  "and  still
is."
     "Yes,  but  just  to  answer questions! Not because he's a
suspected murderer."
     Dirk looked down.
     "Miss Way," he said, "the police are interested in knowing
who murdered your brother. I, with the very  greatest  respect,
am  not.  It  may, I concede, turn out to have a bearing on the
case, but it may just as likely turn out to be a casual madman.
I wanted to  know,  still  need  desperately  to  know,  why
Richard climbed into this flat last night."
     "I told you," protested Richard.
     "What  you  told  me  is  immaterial - it only reveals the
crucial fact that you do not  know  the  reason  yourself!  For
heaven's  sake I thought I had demonstrated that to you clearly
enough at the canat ! "
     Richard simmered.
     "It was perfectly clear to me watching you," pursued Dirk,
"that you had very little idea what you  were  doing,  and  had
absolutely no concern about the physical danger you were in. At
first  I  thought,  watching, that it was just a brainless thug
out on his first and yuite possibly last burgle. But  then  the
figure  looked  back and I realised it was you - and I know you
to be an  intelligent,  rational,  and  moderate  man.  Richard
MacDuff?  Risking his neck carelessly climbing up drainpipes at
night? It seemed to me that you would only  behave  in  such  a
reckless  and extreme way if you were desperately worried about
something of terrible importance. Is that not true, Miss Way?"
     He looked sharply  up  at  Susan,  who  slowly  sat  down,
looking at him with an alarm in her eyes which said that he had
struck home.
     "And  yet, when you came to see me this morning you seemed
perfectly calm and collected.  You  argued  with  me  perfectly
rationally  when I talked a lot of nonsense about Schrdinger's
Cat. This was not the behaviour of someone who had the previous
night been driven to extremes  by  some  desperate  purpose.  I
confess  that  it  was  at that moment that I stooped to, well,
exaggerating your predicament, simply in order to keep hold  of
you."
     "You didn't. I left."
     "With  certain  ideas  in  your  head. I knew you would be
back. I apologise  most  humbly  for  having  misled  you,  er,
somewhat, but I knew that what I had to find out lay far beyond
what  the police would concern themselves with. And it was this
- if you were not quite yourself when you climbed the wall last
night... then who were you, - and why?"
     Richard shivered. A silence lengthened.
     "What has it got to do with conjuring tricks?" he said  at
last.
     "That is what we must go to Cambridge to find out."
     "But what makes you so sure -?"
     "It  disturbs  me,"  said  Dirk, and a dark and heavy look
came into his face.
     For one so garrulous he seemed suddenly oddly reluctant to
speak.
     He continued, "It disturbs me very  greatly  when  I  find
that I know things and do not know why I know them. Maybe it is
the  same  instinctive  processing  of  data that allows you to
catch a ball almost before you've seen  it.  Maybe  it  is  the
deeper and less explicable instinct that tells you when someone
is  watching  you.  It  is a very great offence to my intellect
that the very things that I  despise  other  people  for  being
credulous  of  actually  occur  to me. You will remember the...
unhappiness surrounding certain exam questions."
     He seemed suddenly distressed and haggard. He had  to  dig
deep inside himself to continue speaking.
     He said, "The ability to put two and two together and come
up instantly  with  four  is  one thing. The ability to put the
square  root  of  five  hundred  and  thirty-nine  point  seven
together with the cosine of twenty-six point four three two and
come  up  with... with whatever the answer to that is, is quite
another. And I... well, let me give you an example."
     He leant forward intently. "Last night I saw you  climbing
into this flat. I knew that something was wrong. Today I
got  you  to  tell  me  every  last  detail you knew about what
happened last  night.  and  already,  as  a  result,  using  my
intellect  alone, I have uncovered possibly the greatest secret
lying hidden on this planet. I swear to you that this  is  true
and  that  I  can prove it. Now you must believe me when I tell
you that I know, I  know  that  there  is  something  terribly,
desperately.  appallingly  wrong and that we must find it. Will
you go with me now, to Cambridge?"
     Richard nodded dumbly.
     "Good," said Dirk. "What is this?" he added,  pointing  at
Richard's plate.
     "A pickled herring. Do you want one?"
     "Thank  you, no," said Dirk, rising and buckling his coat.
"There is," he added as he headed towards  the  door,  steering
Richard  with him, "no such word as `herring' in my dictionary.
Good afternoon, Miss Way. wish us God speed."

        Chapter Twenty-five. . .

     There was a rumble of  thunder,  and  the  onset  of  that
interminable tight drizzle from the north-east by which so many
of the world's most momentous events seem to be accompanied.
     Dirk  turned up the collar of his leather overcoat against
the weather, but nothing could dampen his demonic exuberance as
he and Richard approached the great twelfth-century gates.
     "St Cedd's College, Cambridge," he exclaimed,  looking  at
them  for  the  first time in eight years. "Founded in the year
something or other, by someone I forget in  honour  of  someone
whose name for the moment escapes me."
     "St Cedd?" suggested Richard.
     "Do  you  know,  I  think it very probably was? One of the
duller Northumbrian saints. His brother Chad was  even  duller.
Has  a cathedral in Birmingham if that gives you some idea. Ah,
Bill, how good to see  you  again,"  he  added,  accosting  the
porter  who  was  just  walking  into  the college as well. The
porter looked round.
     "Mr Cjelli, nice to see you back, sir.  Sorry  you  had  a
spot of bother, hope that's all behind you now."
     "Indeed,  Bill,  it  is.  You  find  me  thriving. And Mrs
Roberts? How is she? Foot still troubling her?"
     "Not since she had it off, thanks for asking, sir. Between
you and me, sir, I would've been just as happy to have had  her
amputated  and  kept  the foot. I had a little spot reserved on
the mantelpiece, but there we are, we have to take things as we
find them.
     "Mr MacDuff, sir," he added, nodding  curtly  at  Richard.
"Oh  that  horse  you  mentioned,  sir, when you were here last
night, I'm afraid we had to have it removed. It  was  bothering
Professor Chronotis."
     "I  was  only curious, er, Bill," said Richard. "I hope it
didn't disturb you."
     "Nothing ever disturbs  me,  sir,  so  long  as  it  isn't
wearing  a  dress.  Can't  abide it when the young fellers wear
dresses, sir."
     "If the horse bothers you again, Bill," interrupted  Dirk,
patting  him  on  the  shoulder,  "send it up to me and I shall
speak with it. Now, you mention the good  Professor  Chronotis.
Is he in at the moment? We've come on an errand."
     "Far  as  I  know,  sir.  Can't  check for you because his
phone's out of order. Suggest you go  and  look  yourself.  Far
left corner of Second Court."
     "I  know  it  well,  Bill,  thank you, and my best to what
remains of Mrs Roberts."
     They swept on through into First Court, or at  least  Dirk
swept,  and  Richard  walked  in  his  normal  heron-like gait,
wrinkling up his face against the measly drizzle.
     Dirk had obviously mistaken himself for a tour guide.
     "St Cedd's," he pronounced, "the college of Coleridge, and
the college of Sir  Isaac  Newton,  renowned  inventor  of  the
milled-edge coin and the catflap!"
     "The what?" said Richard.
     "The  catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity
and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a... "
     "Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small  matter  of
gravity."
     "Gravity,"  said  Dirk  with  a slightly dismissive shrug,
"yes, there was that  as  well,  I  suppose.  Though  that,  of
course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered."
     He  took  a penny out of his pocket and tossed it casually
on to the pebbles that ran alongside the paved pathway.
     "You see?" he said, "They even keep  it  on  at  weekends.
Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap...
ah,  there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative
invention."
     "I would have thought it was quite obvious.  Anyone  could
have thought of it."
     "Ah," said Dirk, "it is a rare mind indeed that can render
the hitherto  non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry `I could
have thought of that' is a very popular and misleading one, for
the fact is that  they  didn't,  and  a  very  significant  and
revealing  fact  it  is  too.  This if I am not mistaken is the
staircase we seek. Shall we ascend?"
     Without waiting for an answer he plunged on up the stairs.
Richard, following uncertainly, found him already  knocking  on
the inner door. The outer one stood open.
     "Come  in!"  called  a  voice from within. Dirk pushed the
door open, and they were just in time to see the back of  Reg's
white head as he disappeared into the kitchen.
     "Just  making  some  tea,"  he called out. "Like some? Sit
down, sit down, whoever you are."
     "That would be most kind," returned Dirk.  "We  are  two."
Dirk sat, and Richard followed his lead.
     "Indian or China?" called Reg.
     "Indian, please."
     There was a rattle of cups and saucers.
     Richard   looked  around  the  room.  It  seemed  suddenly
humdrum. The fire was burning quietly away to itself,  but  the
light  was  that of the grey afternoon. Though everything about
it was the same, the old sofa, the table burdened  with  books,
there  seemed nothing to connect it with the hectic strangeness
of the previous night. The room seemed to sit there with raised
eyebrows, innocently saying "Yes?"
     "Milk?" called out Reg from the kitchen.
     "Please," replied Dirk. He  gave  Richard  a  smile  which
seemed to him to be half-mad with suppressed excitement.
     "One lump or two?" called Reg again.
     "One,  please," said Dirk, "... and two spoons of sugar if
you would."
     There was a suspension  of  activity  in  the  kitchen.  A
moment or two passed and Reg stuck his head round the door.
     "Svlad  Cjelli!"  he  exclaimed. "Good heavens! Well, that
was quick work, young MacDuff, well done. My dear  fellow,  how
very excellent to see you, how good of you to come."
     He  wiped  his  hands  on  a  tea towel he was canying and
humied over to shake hands.
     "My dear Svlad."
     "Dirk, please, if you would," said Dirk, grasping his hand
warmly, "I prefer it. It has more of a sort of Scottish  dagger
feel  to it, I think. Dirk Gently is the name under which I now
trade. There are certain events in the past, I'm  afraid,  from
which I would wish to disassociate myself."
     "Absolutely,  I  know how you feel. Most of the fourteenth
century, for instance, was pretty grim," agreed Reg earnestly.
     Dirk was about to correct the misapprehension, but thought
that it might be somewhat of a long trek and left it.
     "So how have you heen, then, my dear Professor?"  he  said
instead,  decorously  placing his hat and scarf upon the arm of
the sofa.
     "Well," said Reg, "it's been an interesting time recently,
or rather, a dull time. But dull for interesting reasons.  Now,
sit down again, warm yourselves by the fire, and I will get the
tea  and  endeavour  to explain." He bustled out again, humming
busily, and left them to settle  themselves  in  front  of  the
fire.
     Richard leant over to Dirk. "I had no idea you knew him so
well," he said with a nod in the direction of the kitchen.
     "I  don't," said Dirk instantly. "We met once by chance at
some dinner, but there was an immediate sympathy and rapport."
     "So how come you never met again?"
     "He studiously avoided me, of course. Close rapports  with
people  are  dangerous  if  you  have  a secret to hide. And as
secrets go, I fancy that this is somewhat of a biggie. If there
is a bigger secret anywhere in the  world  I  would  very  much
care," he said quietly, "to know what it is."
     He  gave Richard a significant look and held his hands out
to the fire. Since Richard had tried before without success  to
draw him out on exactly what the secret was, he refused to rise
to  the bait on this occasion, but sat back in his armchair and
looked about him.
     "Did I ask you," said Reg, returning at that  moment,  "if
you wanted any tea?"
     "Er,  yes,"  said Richard, "we spoke about it at length. I
think we agreed in the end that we would, didn't we?"
     "Good," said Reg, vaguely, "by a happy chance there  seems
to  be  some ready in the kitchen. You'll have to forgive me. I
have a memory like a... like a... what  are  those  things  you
drain rice in? What am I talking about?"
     With   a   puzzled  look  he  turned  smartly  roound  and
disappeared once more into the kitchen.
     "Very interesting," said Dirk quietly, "I wondered if  his
memory might be poor."
     He  stood, suddenly, and prowled around the room. His eyes
fell on the abacus which stood on the only clear space  on  the
large mahogany table.
     "Is  this  the  table,"  he  asked Richard in a Iow voice,
"where you found the note about the salt cellar?"
     "Yes," said Richard, standing, and  coming  over,  "tucked
into  this  book."  He picked up the guide to the Greek islands
and flipped through it.
     "Yes, yes, of course," said Dirk,  impatiently.  "We  know
about  all  that. I'm just interested that this was the table."
He ran his fingers along its edge, curiously.
     "If you think it was  some  sort  of  prior  collaboration
between  Reg and the girl," Richard said, "then I must say that
I don't think it possibly can have been."
     "Of course it wasn't," said Dirk testily,  "I  would  have
thought that was perfectly clear."
     Richard shrugged in an effort not to get angry and put the
book back down again.
     "Well,  it's  an odd coincidence that the book should have
been..."
     "Odd coincidence!" snorted Dirk. "Ha!  We  shall  see  how
much  of  a coincidence. We shall see exactly how odd it was. I
would like you, Richard, to ask our friend how he performed the
trick."
     "I thought you said you knew already."
     "I do," said  Dirk  airily.  "I  would  like  to  hear  it
confirmed."
     "Oh, I see," said Richard, "yes, that's rather easy, isn't
it? Get  him  to explain it, and then say, `Yes, that's exactly
what I thought it was!' Very good, Dirk. Have we come  all  the
way up here in order to have him explain how he did a conjuring
trick? I think I must be mad."
     Dirk bridled at this.
     "Please  do as I ask," he snapped angrily. "You saw him do
the trick, you must ask how he did it. Believe me, there is  an
astounding  secret  hidden within it. I know it, but I want you
to hear it from him."
     He spun round as Reg re-cntered, bearing a tray, which  he
camed  round  the  sofa and put on to the low coffee table that
sat in front of the fire.
     "Professor Chronotis. . . " said Dirk.
     "Reg," said Reg; "please."
     "Very, well," said Dirk, "Reg. . ."
     "Sieve!" exclaimed Reg.
     "What?"
     "Thing you drain  rice  in.  A  sieve.  I  was  trying  to
remember  the  word,  though  I  forget  now the reason why. No
matter. Dirk, dear fellow, you look as  if  you  are  about  to
explode  about  something.  Why  don't  you  sit  down and make
yourself comfortable?"
     "Thank you, no, I would rather feel free to  pace  up  and
down fretfully if I may. Reg. . . "
     He  turned  to  face  him  square  on, and raised a single
finger.
     "I must tell you," he said, "that I know your secret."
     "Ah, yes, er - do you indeed?" mumbled Reg,  looking  down
awkwardly and fiddling with the cups and teapot. "I see."
     The  cups  rattled violently as he moved them. "Yes, I was
afraid of that."
     "And there are some questions that we would  like  to  ask
you.  I  must  tell  you that I await the answers with the very
greatest apprehension."
     "Indeed, indeed," Reg muttered. "Well, perhaps  it  is  at
last  time.  I hardly know myself what to make of recent events
and am ... fearful myself. Very well. Ask what  you  will."  He
looked up sharply, his eyes glittering.
     Dirk  nodded  curtly  at  Richard,  turned, and started to
pace, glaring at the floor.
     "Er," said Richard, "well. I'd be. . . interested to  know
how  you  did  the  conjuring  trick  with the salt cellar last
night."
     Reg seemed surprised and rather confused by the  question.
"The conjuring trick?" he said.
     "Er, yes," said Richard, "the conjuring trick."
     "Oh,"  said Reg, taken aback, "well, the conjuring part of
it, I'm not sure I should - Magic Circle rules, you know,  very
strict  about  revealing these secrets. Very strict. Impressive
trick, though, don't you think?" he added slyly.
     "Well, yes," said Richard, "it seemed very natural at  the
time, but now that I... think about it, I have to admit that it
was a bit dumbfounding."
     "Ah, well," said Reg, "it's skill. you see. Practice. Make
it look natural."
     "It did look very natural." continued Richard, feeling his
way, "I was quite taken in."
     "You liked it?"
     "It was very impressive."
     Dirk  was  getting  a  little impatient. He shot a look to
that effect at Richard.
     "And I can quite see,"  said  Richard  firmly,  "why  it's
impossible  for  you  to tell me. I was just interested, that's
all. Sorry I asked."
     "Well," said Reg in a sudden seizure of doubt, "I suppose.
. well, so long as you absolutely promise not  to  tell  anyone
else."  he carried on, "I suppose you can probably work out for
yourself that I used two of the salt cellars on the  table.  No
one was going to notice the difference between one and another.
The  quickness  of  the  hand,  you  know,  deceives  the  eye,
particularly some of the eyes around that table.  While  I  was
fiddling  with my woolly hat, giving, though l say so myself, a
very cunning simulation of  clumsiness  and  muddle,  I  simply
slipped the salt cellar down my sleeve. You see?"
     His  earlier  agitation  had been swept away completely by
his pleasure in showing off his craft.
     "It's  the  oldest  trick  in  the  world,  in  fact,"  he
continued,  "but  nevertheless  takes a great deal of skill and
deftness. Then a little later, of course, I returned it to  the
table with the appearance of simply passing it to someone else.
Takes  years  of  practice, of course, to make it look natural,
but I much prefer it to simply slipping the thing down  to  the
floor.  Amateur  stuff  that.  You  can't  pick  it up, and the
cleaners never notice it for at least a fortnight. l once had a
dead thrush under my seat for a month. No trick involved there,
of course. Cat killed it."
     Reg beamed.
     Richard felt he had done his bit, but hadn't the  faintest
idea  where  it  was  supposed  to have got them. He glanced at
Dirk, who gave  him  no  help  whatsoever,  so  he  plunged  on
blindly.
     "Yes,"  he  said, "yes, I understand that that can be done
by sleight of hand. What I don't understand  is  how  the  salt
cellar got embedded in the pot."
     Reg looked puzzled once again, as if they were all talking
at cross  purposes.  He  looked at Dirk, who stopped pacing and
stared at him with bright, expectant eyes.
     "Well, that's...  perfectly  straightforward,"  said  Reg,
"didn't  take  any  conjuring skill at all. I nipped out for my
hat, you remember?"
     "Yes," said Richard, doubtfully.
     "Well," said Reg, "while I was out of the room I  went  to
find the man who made the pot. Took some time, of course. About
three  weeks  of  detective  work to track him down and another
couple of days  to  sober  him  up,  and  then  with  a  little
difficulty I persuaded him to bake the salt cellar into the pot
for  me.  After  that  I  briefly stopped off somewhere to find
some, er, powder to disguise the suntan, and of course I had to
time the return a little carefully so as to make  it  all  look
natural.  I bumped into myseIf in the ante-room, which I always
find embarrassing, I never know where to look,  but,  er.  .  .
well, there you have it."
     He smiled a rather bleak and nervous smile.
     Richard tried to nod, but eventually gave up.
     "What on earth are you talking about?" he said.
     Reg looked at him in surprise.
     "I thought you said you knew my secret," he said.
     "I  do,"  said  Dirk, with a beam of triumph. "He, as yet,
does not, though he furnished all the information I  needed  to
discover  it.  Let  me,"  he added, "fill in a couple of little
blanks. In order to help disguise the fact that you had in fact
been away for weeks when as far as anyone sitting at the  table
was  concerned you had only popped out of the door for a couple
of seconds, you had to write down for your  own  reference  the
last thing you said, in order that you could pick up the thread
of  conversation  again  as naturally as possible. An important
detail if your memory is not what it once was. Yes?"
     "What it once was," said Reg,  slowly  shaking  his  white
head, "I can hardly remember what it once was. But yes, you are
very sharp to pick up such a detail."
     "And then there is the little matter," continued Dirk, "of
the questions that George III asked. Asked you."
     This seemed to catch Reg quite by surprise.
     "He   asked  you,"  continued  Dirk,  consulting  a  small
notebook he had  pulled  from  his  pocket,"if  there  was  any
particular  reason  why one thing happened after another and if
there was any way of stopping it. Did he not also ask you,  and
ask  youfirst, if it was possible to move backwards in time, or
something of that kind?" . Reg gave Dirk a long and  appraising
look.
     "I  was  right  about  you,"  he  said,  "you  have a very
remarkable mind, young man."  He  walked  slowly  over  to  the
window  that  looked out on to Second Court. He watched the odd
figures scuttling through it hugging themselves in the  drizzle
or pointing at things.
     "Yes,"  said  Reg  at  last  in  a subdued voice, "that is
precisely what he said."
     "Good," said Dirk, snapping shut his notebook with a tight
little smile which said that he lived for  such  praise.  "then
that  explains why the answers were yes, no and maybe - in that
order. Now. Where is it?"
     "Where is what?"
     "The time machine."
     "You're standing in it." said Reg.

        Chapter Twenty-six...

     A party of noisy people spilled into the train at Bishop's
Stortford. Some were  wearing  morning  suits  with  carnations
looking  a  little  battered by a day's festivity. The women of
the party were in smart dresses and hats, chattering  excitedly
about  how preny Julia had looked in all that silk taffeta, how
Ralph still looked like a smug oaf even  done  up  in  all  his
finery, and generally giving the whole thing about two weeks.
     One of the men stuck his head out of the window and hailed
a passing  railway  employee  just  to  check that this was the
right train and was stopping at Cambridge. The porter confirmed
that of course it bloody was. The  young  man  said  that  they
didn't  all  want  to  find  they  were  going off in the wrong
direction, did they, and made a sound a little like that  of  a
fish  barking,  as  if  to indicate that this was a pricelessly
funny remark, and then pulled his head back in, banging  it  on
the way.
     The alcohol content of the atmosphere in the carriage rose
sharply.
     There  seemed  to be a general feeling in the air that the
best way of getting  themselves  in  the  right  mood  for  the
post-wedding  reception  party that evening was to make a foray
to the bar so that any  members  of  the  party  who  were  not
already completely drunk could finish the task. Rowdy shouts of
acclamation  greeted  this  notion,  the train restarted with a
jolt and a lot of those still standing fell over.
     Three young men dropped into the three empty  seats  round
one  table,  of which the fourth was already taken by a sleekly
overweight man in an old-fashioned suit. He  had  a  lugubrious
face  and  his large, wet, cowlike eyes gazed into some unknown
distance.
     Very slowly his eyes began to refocus  all  the  way  from
infinity  and  gradually  to  home  in  on  his  more immediate
surroundings, his new and intrusive  companions.  There  was  a
need he felt, as he had felt before.
     The  three  men  were discussing loudly whether they would
all go to the bar, whether some of them would go to the bar and
bring back drinks for the others, whether the ones who went  to
the  bar would get so excited by all the drinks there that they
would stay put and forget to bring any back for the others  who
would  be  sitting  here  anxiously  awaiting their return, and
whether even if they did remember to come back immediately with
the drinks they would actually be capable of carrying them  and
wouldn't  simply  throw  them  all over the carriage on the way
back, incommoding other passengers.
     Some sort of consensus seemed to be  reached,  but  almost
immediately  none  of  them  could remember what it was. Two of
them got up, then sat down again as the third one got up.  Then
he  sat down. The two other ones stood up again, expressing the
idea that it might be simpler if they just  bought  the  entire
bar.
     The  third was about to get up again and follow them, when
slowly, but with unstoppable purpose, the cow-eyed man  sitting
opposite  him  leant  across,  and  gripped  him  firmly by the
forearm.
     The young man in his morning suit looked up as sharply  as
his  somewhat  bubbly  brain  would  allow and, startled, said,
"What do you want?"
     Michael Wenton-Weakes gazed into his  eyes  with  terrible
intensity, and said, in a low voice, "I was on a ship. . . "
     "What?"
     "A ship. . " said Michael.
     "What  ship,  what  are you talking about? Get off me. Let
go!"
     "We  came,"  continued  Michael,  in   a   quiet,   almost
inaudible, but compelling voice, "a monstrous distance. We came
to build a paradise. A paradise. Here."
     His  eyes  swam briefly round the carriage, and then gazed
briefly out through the  spattered  windows  at  the  gathering
gloom  of a drizzly East Anglian evening. He gazed with evident
Ioathing. His grip on the other's forearm tightened.
     "Look, I'm going for a drink,"  said  the  wedding  guest,
though feebly, because he clearly wasn't.
     "We  left  behind  those who would destroy themselves with
war," murmured Michael. "Ours was to be a world  of  peace,  of
music,  of  art, of enlightenment. All that was petty, all that
was mundane, all that was contemptible would have no  place  in
our world. . . "
     The  stilled  reveller  looked  at Michael wonderingly. He
didn't look like an old hippy. Of course, you never could tell.
His own elder brother had once spent a couple of  years  living
in  a Druidic commune, eating LSD doughnuts and thinking he was
a tree, since when he had gone on to become  a  director  of  a
merchant  bank.  The  difference, of course, was that he hardly
ever still thought he was a tree, except just occasionally, and
he had long ago learnt to avoid  the  particular  claret  which
sometimes triggered off that flashback.
     "There  were  those  who  said  we  would fail," continued
Michael  in  his  low  tone  that  carried  clearly  under  the
boisterous  noise  that filled the camage, "who prophesied that
we too carried in us the seed of  war,  but  it  was  our  high
resolve  and  purpose that only art and beauty should flourish,
the highest art, the highest beauty-music.  We  took  with  us
only those who believed, who wished it to be true."
     "But  what are you talking about?" asked the wedding guest
though not challengingly, for he  had  fallen  under  Michael's
mesmeric spell. "When was this? Where was this?"
     Michael  breathed hard. "Before you were born " he said at
last, "be still, and I will tell you."

        Chapter Twenty-seven...

     There was a long startled silence during which the evening
gloom outside seemed to darken appreciably and gather the  room
into its grip. A trick of the light wreathed Reg in shadows.
     Dirk  was,  for  one  of  the  few  times  in  a  life  of
exuberantly prolific loquacity, wordless. His eyes shone with a
child's wonder as they passed anew over  the  dull  and  shabby
furniture  of  the  room,  the  panelled  walls, the threadbare
carpets. His hands were trembling.
     Richard frowned faintly to himself for a moment as  if  he
was  trying  to  work  out  the square root of something in his
head, and then looked back directly at Reg.
     "Who are you?" he asked.
     "I have absolutely no idea," said Reg brightly,  "much  of
my   memory's   gone  completely.  I  am  very  old,  you  see.
Startlingly old. Yes, I think if I were to tell you how  old  I
was  it  would  be fair to say that you would be startled. Odds
are that so would I, because I can't  remember.  I've  seen  an
awful  lot,  you know. Forgotten most of it, thank God. Trouble
is, when you start getting to my  age,  which,  as  I  think  I
mentioned  earlier,  is  a  somewhat  startling one - did I say
that?"
     "Yes, you did mention it."
     "Good. I'd forgotten whether I had or not.  The  thing  is
that  your memory doesn't actually get any bigger, and a lot of
stuff just falls out. So you see, the major difference  between
someone  of my age and someone of yours is not how much I know,
but how much I've forgotten. And after a while you even  forget
what  it  is  you've  forgotten, and after that you even forget
that there was something to remember. Then you tend to  forget,
er, what it was you were talking about."
     He stared helplessly at the teapot.
     "Things you remember... " prompted Richard gently.
     "Smells and earrings."
     "I beg your pardon?"
     "Those  are things that linger for some reason," said Reg,
shaking his head in a puzzled way. He sat down  suddenly.  "The
earrings  that Queen Victoria wore on her Silver Jubilee. Quite
startling objects. Toned down in the pictures of the period, of
course. The smell of the streets  before  there  were  cars  in
them. Hard to say which was worse. That's why Cleopatra remains
so  vividly  in  the  memory,  of  course.  A quite devastating
combination of earrings and smell. I think that  will  probably
be  the last thing that remains when all else has finally fled.
I shall sit  alone  in  a  darkened  room,  sans  teeth,
sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything but
a  little  grey  old  head,  and in that little grey old head a
peculiar vision  of  hideous  blue  and  gold  dangling  things
flashing  in  the  light,  and  the smell of sweat, catfood and
death. I wonder what I shall make of it..."
     Dirk was scarcely breathing as he  began  to  move  slowly
round  the room, gently brushing his fingertips over the walls,
the sofa, the table.
     "How long," he said, "has this been- "
     "Here?" said Reg. "Just  about  two  hundred  years.  Ever
sinee I retired."
     "Retired from what?"
     "Search  me. Must have been something pretty good, though,
what do you think?"
     "You mean you've been in  this  same  set  of  rooms  here
for...  two  hundred  years?"  murmured  Richard.  "You'd think
someone would notice, or think it was odd."
     "Oh, that's one of the delights  of  the  older  Cambridge
colleges,"  said  Reg, "everyone is so discreet. If we all went
around mentioning what was odd about each other  we'd  be  here
till  Christmas. Svlad, er - Dirk, my dear fellow, please don't
touch that just at the moment."
     Dirk's hand was reaching out to touch the abacus  standing
on its own on the only clear spot on the big table.
     "What is it?" said Dirk sharply.
     "It's just what it looks like, an old wooden abacus," said
Reg. "I'll  show you in a moment, but first I must congratulate
you on your powers of perception. May I ask how you arrived  at
the solution?
     "I  have  to admit," said Dirk with rare humility, "that I
did not. In the end I asked a child. I told him  the  story  of
the trick and asked him how he thought it had been done, and he
said and I quote, `It's bleedin' obvious, innit, he must've 'ad
a  bleedin' time machine.' I thanked the little fellow and gave
him a shilling for his trouble. He kicked me rather sharply  on
the  shin  and  went about his business. But he was the one who
solved it. My only contribution to the matter was to  see  that
he  must  be  right.  He had even saved me the bother of
kicking myself."
     "But you had the perception to think of asking  a  child,"
said Reg. "Well then; I congratulate you on that instead."
     Dirk was still eyeing the abacus suspiciously.
     "How...  does  it  work?" he said, trying to make it sound
like a casual enquiry.
     "Well, it's really terribly simple," said Reg,  "it  works
any way you want it to. You see, the computer that runs it is a
rather  advanced  one. In fact it is more powerful than the sum
total of all the computers on this planet including - and  this
is the tricky part
- including itself. Never really understood that bit myself, to
be honest with you. But over ninety-five per cent of that power
is used in simply understanding what it is you want it to do. I
simply  plonk my abacus down there and it understands the way I
use it. I think I must have been brought up to  use  an  abacus
when I was a... well, a child, I suppose.
     "Richard, for instance, would probably want to use his own
personal  computer.  If you put it down there, where the abacus
is the machine's computer would simple take charge  of  it  and
offer  you  lots of nice user-friendly time-travel applications
complete with pull-down menus and desk accessories if you like.
Except that you point to 1066 on the screen and you've got  the
Battle  of  Hastings  going on outside your door, er, if that's
the sort of thing you're interested in."
     Reg's tone of voice suggested that his own  interests  lay
in other areas.
     "It's,  er,  really  quite  fun in its way," he concluded.
"Certainly better than television and a great  deal  easier  to
use  than  a  video  recorder. If I miss a programme I just pop
back in time and watch it. I'm hopeless fiddling with all those
buttons."
     Dirk reacted to this revelation with horror.
     "You have a time machine and you use  it  for...  watching
television?"
     "Well, I wouldn't use it at all if I could ge1 the hang of
the video recorder. It's a very delicate business. time travel,
you know.  Full  of  appalling traps and dangers, if you should
change the wrong thing in the past, you could entirely  disrupt
the course of history.
     "Plus,  of  course, it mucks up the telephone. I'm sorry,"
he said to Richard a little sheepishly, "that you  were  unable
to  phone  your  young  lady  last  night.  There  seems  to be
something  fundamentally   inexplicable   about   the   British
telephone  system, and my time machine doesn't like it. There's
never any problem with the plumbing, the electricity,  or  even
the  gas.  The  connection interfaces are taken care of at some
quantum level I don't entirely understand, and it's never  been
a problem.
     "The  phone  on  the  other  hand is definitely a problem.
Every time I use the time machine, which is, of course,  hardly
at all, partly because of this very problem with the phone, the
phone  goes  haywire and I have to get some lout from the phone
company to come  and  fix  it,  and  he  starts  asking  stupid
questions the answers to which he has no hope of understanding.
     "Anyway.  the point is that I have a very strict rule that
I must not change anything in the past at all "  Reg  sighed  -
"whatever the temptation."
     "What temptation?" said Dirk, sharply.
     "Oh,  it's  just  a  little, er, thing I'm interested in,"
said Reg, vaguely, "it is perfectly harmless  because  I  stick
very strictly to the rule. It makes me sad, though."
     "But you broke your own rule!" insisted Dirk. "Last night!
You changed something in the past- "
     "Well,  yes,"  said Reg, a little uncomfortably, "but that
was different. Very different. If you had seen the look on  the
poor  child's  face. So miserable. She thought the world should
be a marvellous place, and all those appalling  old  dons  were
pouring  their  withering  scorn  on her just because it wasn't
marvellous for them anymore.
     "I  mean,"  he  added,  appealing  to  Richard,  "remember
Cawley.  What  a  bloodless  old  goat. Someone should get some
humanity into him even if they have  to  knock  it  in  with  a
brick. No, that was perfectly justifiable. Otherwise, I make it
a very strict rule "
     Richard   looked   at  him  with  dawning  recognition  of
something.
     "Reg," he said politely, "may I give you a little advice?"
     "Of course you may, my dear fellow,  I  should  adore  you
to," said Reg.
     "If our mutual friend here offers to take you for a stroll
along the banks of the River Cam, don't go."
     "What on earth do you mean?"
     "He means," said Dirk earnestly, "that he thinks there may
be something   a   little  disproportionate  between  what  you
actually did, and your stated reasons for doing it."
     "Oh. Well, odd way of saying it-"
     "Well,  he's  a  very  odd  fellow.  But  you  see,  there
sometimes  may be other reasons for things you do which you are
not necessarily aware of.  As  in  the  case  of  post-hypnotic
suggestion-or possession."
     Reg turned very pale.
     "Possession-" he said.
     "Professor  -Reg-  I  believe  there  was  some reason you
wanted to see me. What exactly was it?"

     "Cambridge! this is... Cambridge!" came the lilting squawk
of the station public address system.
     Crowds of noisy revellers spewed out on  to  the  platform
barking and honking at each other.
     "Where's   Rodney?"  said  one,  who  had  clambered  with
difficulty from the carriage in which the bar was situated.  He
and his companion looked up and down the platform, totteringly.
The  large figure of Michael Wenton-Weakes loomed silently past
them and out to the exit.
     They jostled their way down the side of the train, looking
in through the dirty carriage windows. They suddenly saw  their
missing  companion  still  sitting, trance-like, in his seat in
the now almost empty compartment. They banged on the window and
hooted at him. For a moment or two he didn't react, and when he
did he woke suddenly in a puzzled way as if seeming not to know
where he was.
     "He's pie-eyed!" his companions bawled  happily,  bundling
themselves on to the train again and bundling Rodney back off.
     He  stood woozily on the platform and shook his head. Then
glancing up he saw through  the  railings  the  large  bulk  of
Michael  Wenton-Weakes  heaving  himself  and a large heavy bag
into a taxi-cab, and he stood for a moment transfixed.
     "Straordinary thing," he said, "that  man.  Telling  me  a
long story about some kind of shipwreck."
     "Har  har,"  gurgled  one  of his two companions, "get any
money off you?"
     "What?" said Rodney, puzzled. "No. No, I don't  think  so.
Except it wasn't a shipwreck, more an accident, an explosion -?
He seems to think he caused it in some way. Or rather there was
an  accident, and he caused an explosion trying to put it right
and killed everybody. Then he said there was an  awful  lot  of
rotting  mud  for  years  and years, and then slimy things with
legs. lt was all a bit peculiar."
     "Trust Rodney! Trust Rodney to pick a madman!"
     "I think he must have been mad. He suddenly went off on  a
tangent about some bird. He said the bit about the bird was all
nonsense. He wished he could get rid of the bit about the bird.
But  then  he  said  it would be put right. It would all be put
right. For some reason I didn't like it when he said that."
     "Should have come along  to  the  bar  with  us.  Terribly
funny, we-"
     "I also didn't like the way he said goodbye. I didn't like
that at all."

        Chapter Twenty-eight...

     "You remember," said Reg, "when you arrived this afternoon
I said   that   times   recently  had  been  dull,  but  for...
interesting reasons?"
     "I remember it vividly," said Dirk, "it  happened  a  mere
ten  minutes  ago. You were standing exactly there as I recall.
Indeed you were wearing the very clothes  with  which  you  are
currently apparelled, and-"
     "Shut  up,  Dirk,"  said  Richard, "let the poor man talk,
will you?"
     Dirk made a slight, apologetic bow.
     "Quite so," said Reg. "Well, the truth is  that  for  many
weeks,  months  even,  I have not used the time machine at all,
because I had the oddest feeling that someone or something  was
trying  to make me do it. It started as the very faintest urge,
and then it seemed to come  at  me  in  stronger  and  stronger
waves. It was extremely disturbing. I had to fight it very hard
indeed because it was trying to make me do something I actually
wanted  to  do. I don't think I would have realised that it was
something outside of me creating this pressure and not just  my
own  wishes asserting themselves if it wasn't for the fact that
I was so wary of allowing myself to do any such thing. As  soon
as  I  began  to  realise  that it was something else trying to
invade me things got really bad and the furniture began to  fly
about.  Quite  damaged my little Georgian writing desk. Look at
the marks on the- "
     "Is that what you were afraid of  last  night,  upstairs?"
asked Richard.
     "Oh  yes,"  said  Reg  in  a  hushed voice, "most terribly
afraid. But it was only that rather nice horse, so that was all
right. I expect it just wandered in when I was out getting some
powder to cover up my suntan."
     "Oh?" said Dirk, "And where  did  you  go  for  that?"  he
asked.  "I  can't  think of many chemists that a horse would be
likely to visit."
     "Oh, there's a planet off in  what's  known  here  as  the
Pleiades where the dust is exactly the right-"
     "You went," said Dirk in a whisper, "to another planet? To
get face powder?"
     "Oh, it's no distance," said Reg cheerfully. "You see, the
actual  distance  between  two  points  in  the  whole  of  the
space/time continuum is  almost  infinitely  smaller  than  the
apparent  distance  between  adjacent  orbits  of  an electron.
Really, it's a lot less far than the chemist,  and  there's  no
waiting  about  at  the till. I never have the right change, do
you? Go for the quantum jump is always my preference. Except of
course that you then get all the trouble  with  the  telephone.
Nothing's ever that easy, is it?"
     He looked bothered for a moment.
     "I think you may be right in what I think you're thinking,
though," he added quietly.
     "Which is?"
     "That I went through a rather elaborate bit of business to
achieve  a  very  small  result.  Cheering  up  a  little girl,
charming, delightful and sad though she was, doesn't seem to be
enough explanation for - well, it was a fairly major  operation
in time-engineering, now that I come to face up to it. There's
no  doubt  that it would have been simpler to compliment her on
her dress. Maybe the... ghost - we are talking of a ghost here,
aren't we?"
     "I think we are, yes," said Dirk slowly.
     "A ghost?" said Richard, "Now come on- "
     "Wait!" said Dirk, abruptly. "Please continue," he said to
Reg.
     "It's possible that the... ghost caught me off my guard. I
was fighting so strenuously against doing  one  thing  that  it
easily tripped me into another-"
     "And now?"
     "Oh, it's gone completely. The ghost left me last night."
     "And  where,  we  wonder,"  said Dirk, turning his gaze on
Richard, "did it go?"
     "No, please," said Richard, "not this. I'm not  even  sure
I've  agreed  we're  talking  about  time machines yet, and now
suddenly it's ghosts?"
     "So what was it," hissed Dirk, "that got into you to  make
you climb the wall?"
     "Well,  you  suggested  that  I  was  under  post-hypnotic
suggestion from someone-"
     "I did not! I  demonstrated  the  power  of  post-hypnotic
suggestion  to  you. But I believe that hypnosis and possession
work in very, very similar ways. You can  be  made  to  do  all
kinds  of  absurd  things,  and will then cheerfully invent the
most transparent rationalisations to explain them to  yourself.
But  - you cannot be made to do something that runs against the
fundamental grain of your character. You will fight.  You  will
resist!"
     Richard  remembered then the sense of relief with which he
had impulsively replaced  the  tape  in  Susan's  machine  last
night.  It had been the end of a struggle which he had suddenly
won. With the sense of another struggle that he was now  losing
he sighed and related this to the others.
     "Exactly!"  exclaimed Dirk. "You wouldn't do it! Now we're
getting somewhere!  You  see,  hypnosis  works  best  when  the
subject  has  some  fundamental sympathy with what he or she is
being asked to do. Find the right subject for your task and the
hypnosis can take a very, very deep hold indeed. And I  believe
the same to be true of possession. So. What do we have?
     "We  have a ghost that wants something done and is looking
for the right person to take possession of to do that for  him.
Professor-"
     "Reg-" said Reg.
     "Reg  -  may  I  ask  you  something  that may be terribly
personal? I will  understand  perfectly  ifyou  don't  want  to
answer,  but  I will just keep pestering you until you do. Just
my methods, you see. You said  there  was  something  that  yo
found to be a terrible temptation to you. That you wanted to do
but  would not allow yourself, and that the ghost was trying to
make you do? Please. This may be difficult for you, but I think
it would be very helpful if you would tell us what it is."
     "I will not tell you."
     "You must understand how important- "
     "I'll show you instead," said Reg.

     Silhouetted in the gates of St Cedd's stood a large figure
carrying a large heavy black nylon bag. The figure was that  of
Michael  Wenton-Weakes,  the  voice  that  asked  the porter if
Professor Chronotis was currently  in  his  room  was  that  of
Michael  Wenton- Weakes, the ears that heard the porter say he
was buggered if he knew because the phone seemed to be  on  the
blink  again  was that of Michael Wenton-Weakes, but the spirit
that gazed out of his eyes was his no longer.
     He  had  surrendered  himself   completely.   AIl   doubt,
disparity and confusion had ceased.
     A new mind had him in full possession.
     The spirit that was not Michael Wenton-Weakes surveyed the
college  which  lay before it, to which it had grown accustomed
in the last few frustrating, infuriating weeks.
     Weeks! Mere microsecond blinks.
     Although the spirit -  the  ghost  -  that  now  inhabited
Michael  Wenton-Weakes'  body  had  known  long periods of near
oblivion, sometimes even for centuries at a stretch,  the  time
for  which  it  had  wandered the earth was such that it seemed
only minutes ago that the creatures  which  had  erected  these
walls  had  arrived. Most of his personal eternity - not really
eternity, but a few billion years could easily seem like  it  -
had  been  spent  wandering  across  interminable  mud,  wading
through ceaseless seas, watching with stunned horror  when  the
slimy  things  with legs suddenly had begun to crawl from those
rotting seas - and here they were, suddenly walking  around  as
if they owned the place and complaining about the phones.
     Deep  in a dark and silent part of himself he knew that he
was now mad, had been driven mad almost immediately  after  the
accident  by  the  knowledge  of  what  he  had done and of the
existence he faced, by the memories of his fellows who had died
and who for a while had haunted him even as he had haunted  the
Earth.
     He  knew  that  what  he now had been driven to would have
revolted the self he only infinitesimally remembered, but  that
it  was  the only way for him to end the ceaseless nightmare in
which each second of billions of years had been worse than  the
previous one.
     He hefted the bag and started to walk.

        Chapter Twenty-nine...

     Deep  in the rain forest it was doing what it usually does
in rain forzsts, which was raining: hence the name.
     It was a gentle, persistent rain, not the  heavy  slashing
which  would  come  later  in  the  year, in the hot season. It
formed a fine dripping mist through which the occasional  shaft
of  sunlight  would  break, be softened and pass through on its
way towards the wet bark of a calvaria tree on which  it  would
settle  and  glisten.  Sometimes  it  would  do  this next to a
butterfly or a tiny motionless sparkling lizard, and  then  the
effect would be almost unbearable.
     Away  up  in  the  high  canopy  of  the  trees an utterly
extraordinary thought would suddenly  strike  a  bird,  and  it
would  go  flapping  wildly  through the branches and settle at
last in a different and altogether better tree where  it  would
sit  and  consider  things  again  more  calmly  until the same
thought came along and struck it again, or it was time to eat.
     The air was full  of  scents  -  the  light  fragrance  of
flowers, and the heavy odour of the sodden mulch with which the
floor of the forest was carpeted.
     Confusions  of  roots tangled through the mulch, moss grew
on them, insects crawled.
     In a space in the forest, on an empty patch of wet  ground
between a circle of craning trees, appeared quietly and without
fuss a plain white door. After a few seconds it opened a little
way  with  a  slight squeak. A tall thin man looked out, looked
around, blinked in surprise, and quietly pulled the door closed
again.
     A few seconds later the door opened again and  Reg  looked
out.
     "It's real," he said, "I promise you. Come out and see for
yourself."  Walking out into the forest, he turned and beckoned
the other two to follow him.
     Dirk stepped boldly through, seemed disconcerted for about
the length of time it takes to blink twice, and then  announced
that  he saw exactly how it worked, that it was obviously to do
with the  unreal  numbers  that  lay  between  minimum  quantum
distances  and  defined  the  fractal  contours of the enfolded
Universe and he was only astonished at himself for  not  having
thought of it himself.
     "Like  the  catflap," said Richard from the doorway behind
him.
     "Er, yes, quite so," said Dirk, taking off his  spectacles
and  leaning against a tree wiping them, "you spotted of course
that  I  was  lying.  A  perfectly  natural   reflex   in   the
circumstances  as  I think you'll agree. Perfectly natural." He
squinted slightly and put his spectacles back on. They began to
mist up again almost immediately.
     "Astounding," he admitted.
     Richard stepped through more hesitantly and stood  rocking
for a moment with one foot still on the floor in Reg's room and
the  other  on  the  wet  earth  of the forest. Then he stepped
forward and committed himself fully.
     His lungs instantly filled with the heady vapours and  his
mind  with the wonder of the place. He turned and looked at the
doorway through which he had walked. It was stiIl  a  perfectly
ordinary door frame with a perfectly ordinary little white door
swinging  open  in  it,  but  it  was standing free in the open
forest, and through it could clearly he seen the  room  he  had
just stepped out of.
     He  walked wonderingly round the back of the door, testing
each foot on the muddy ground, not so much for fear of slipping
as for fear that it might simply not be there. From  behind  it
was  just  a  perfectly  ordinary  open door frame, such as you
might fail to find in any perfectly ordinary  rain  forest.  He
walked  through  the  door  from behind, and looking back again
could once more see, as if he had  just  stepped  out  of  them
again,  the  college  rooms  of Professor Urban Chronotis of St
Cedd's College, Cambridge, which must  be  thousands  of  miles
away. Thousands? Where were they?
     He  peered  off  through the trees and thought he caught a
slight shimmer in the distance, between the trees.
     "Is that the sea?" he asked.
     "You can see it a  little  more  clearly  from  up  here,"
called  Reg,  who  had  walked  on  a  little way up a slippery
incline and was  now  leaning,  puffing,  against  a  tree.  He
pointed.
     The  other two followed him up, pulling themselves noisily
through  the  branches  and  causing  a  lot  of   cawing   and
complaining from unseen birds high above.
     "The Pacific?" asked Dirk.
     "The Indian Ocean," said Reg.
     Dirk wiped his glasses again and had another look.
     "Ah, yes, of course," he said.
     "Not Madagascar?" said Richard. "I've been there-"
     "Have  you?"  said  Reg.  "One  of  the most beautiful and
astonishing places on Earth, and one that is also full  of  the
most appalling... temptations for me. No."
     His voice trembled slightly, and he cleared his throat.
     "No,"  he  continued,  "Madagascar  is - let me see, which
direction are we - where's the sun?  Yes.  That  way.  Westish.
Madagascar  is  about  five hundred miles roughly west of here.
The island of Runion lies roughly in-between."
     "Er, what's the place called?" said Dirk suddenly, rapping
his knuckles on the tree and frightening a lizard. "Place where
that stamp comes from, er - Mauritius."
     "Stamp?" said Reg.
     "Yes, you must know," said Dirk, "very famous stamp. Can't
remember anything about it, but it comes from here.  Mauritius.
Famous for its very remarkable stamp, all brown and smudged and
you  could  buy  Blenheim  Palace  with it. Or am I thinking of
British Guiana?"
     "Only you," said Richard, "know what you are thinking of."
     "Is it Mauritius?"
     "It is," said Reg, "it is Mauritius."
     "But you don't collect stamps?"
     "No."
     "What on earth's that?" said Richard suddenly,  but
Dirk  carried  on with his thought to Reg, "Pity, you could get
some nice first-day covers, couldn't you?"
     Reg shrugged. "Not really interested," he said.
     Richard slithered back down the slope behind them.
     "So what's the great attraction here?"  said  Dirk.  "It's
not,  I have to confess, what I was expecting. Very nice in its
way, of course, all this nature, but I'm a city boy myself, I'm
afraid." He cleaned his glasses once again and pushed them back
up his nose.
     He started backwards at what he saw, and heard  a  strange
little  chuckle  from  Reg. Just in front of the door back into
Reg's room, the most  extraordinary  confrontation  was  taking
place.
     A  large cross bird was looking at Richard and Richard was
looking at a large cross bird. Richard was looking at the  bird
as  if  it was the most extraordinary thing he had ever seen in
his life, and the bird was looking at Richard as if defying him
to find its beak even remotely funny.
     Once it had satisfied itself that Richard did  not  intend
to  laugh,  the  bird  regarded him instead with a sort of grim
irritable tolerance and wondered if he was just going to  stand
there  or actually do something useful and feed it. It padded a
couple of steps back and a couple of steps to the side and then
just a single step forward  again,  on  great  waddling  yellow
feet. It then looked at him again, impatiently, and squarked an
impatient squark.
     The  bird  then  bent forward and scraped its great absurd
red beak across the ground as if to give Richard the idea  that
this might be a good area to look for things to give it to eat.
     "It eats the nuts of the calvaria tree," called out Reg to
Richard.
     The  big bird looked sharply up at Reg in annoyance, as if
to say that it was perfectly clear to any idiot what it ate. It
then looked back at Richard o&#127;ce more and stuck  its  head
on  one  side  as if it had suddenly been struck by the thought
that perhaps it was an idiot it had to deal with, and  that  it
might need to reconsider its strategy accordingly.
     "There  are  one  or two on the ground behind you," called
Reg softly.
     In a trance of astonishment Richard turned  awkwardly  and
saw  one  or  two  large  nuts lying on the ground. He bent and
picked one up, glancing up at Reg, who gave  him  a  reassuring
nod.
     Tentatively  Richard held the thing out to the bird, which
leant forward and pecked it sharply from between  his  fingers.
Then,  because Richard's hand was still stretched out, the bird
knocked it irritably aside with its beak.
     Once Richard had withdrawn to a  respectful  distance,  it
stretched  its neck up, closed its large yellow eyes and seemed
to gargle gracelessly as it shook the nut down  its  neck  into
its maw.
     It  appeared  then  to  be  at  least partially satisfied.
Whereas befone it had been a cross dodo, it was at least now  a
cross,  fed  dodo, which was probably about as much as it could
hope for in this life.
     It made a slow, waddling, on-the-spot turn and padded back
into the forest whence it had come, as if  defying  Richar  to
find  the  little tuft of curly feathers stuck up on top of its
backside even remotely funny.
     "I only come to look," said Reg  in  a  small  voice,  and
glancing  at him Dirk was discomfited to see that the old man's
eyes were brimming with tears which he  quickly  brushed  away.
"Really, it is not for me to interfere-"
     Richard came scurrying breathlessly up to them.
     "Was that a dodo?" he exclaimed.
     "Yes," said Reg, "one of only three left at this time. The
year is
1676. They will all be dead within four years, and after that no
one will ever see them again. Come," he said, "let us go."

     Behind  the  stoutly  locked  outer  door  in  the  corner
staircase in the Second Court of St Cedd's College, where  only
a  millisecond  earlier  there had been a slight flicker as the
inner door departed, there was another slight  flicker  as  the
inner door now returned.
     Walking  through  the  dark  evening  towards it the large
figure  of  Michael  Wenton-Weakes  looked  up  at  the  corner
windows.  If any slight flicker had been visible, it would have
gone unnoticed in the dim dancing firelight that  spilled  from
the window.
     The  figure  then  looked up into the darkness of the sky,
looking for what it knew to be there though there was  not  the
slightest chance of seeing it, even on a clear night which this
was  not. The orbits of Earth were now so cluttered with pieces
of junk and debris that one more item among them - even such  a
large  one  as  this  was  -  would pass perpetually unnoticed.
Indeed, it had done so, though its influence had from  time  to
time exerted itself. From time to time. When the waves had been
strong.  Not  for  nearly  two  hundred  years had they been so
strong as now they were again.
     And all at last was now in place. The perfect carrier  had
been found.
     The  perfect  carrier  moved his footsteps onwards through
the court.
     The Professor himself had seemed  the  perfect  choice  at
first,  but  that  attempt  had ended in frustration, fury, and
then-inspiration! Bring a Monk to Earth! They were designed to
believe anything, to  be  completely  malleable.  It  could  be
suborned to undertake the task with the greatest of ease.
     Unfortunately,   however,   this  one  had  proved  to  be
completely hopeless. Getting it to believe something  was  very
easy. Getting it to continue to believe the same thing for more
than  five  minutes  at  a  time  had proved to be an even more
impossible task than that of getting the Professor to  do  what
he fundamentally wanted to do but wouldn't allow himself.
     Then  another  failure and then, miraculously, the perfect
carrier had come at last.
     The perfect carrier had already proved that it would  have
no compunction in doing what would have to be done.
     Damply, clogged in mist, the moon struggled in a corner of
the sky to rise. At the window, a shadow moved.

        Chapter Thirty...

     From  the window overlooking Second Court Dirk watched the
moon. "We shall not," he said, "have long to wait."
     "To wait for what?" said Richard.
     Dirk turned.
     "For the ghost," he said, "to return to us. Professor  -,"
he added to Reg, who was sitting anxiously by the fire, "do you
have  ny  brandy,  French  cigarettes  or  worry  beads in your
rooms?"
     "No," said Reg.
     "Then I  shall  have  to  fret  unaided,"  said  Dirk  and
returned to staring out of the window.
     "I have yet to be convinced," said Richard, "that there is
not some other explanation than that of... ghosts to-"
     "Just  as  you  required actually to see a time machine in
operation before you could accept it," returned Dirk. "Richard,
I commend you on your scepticism, but even the  sceptical  mind
must  be  prepared  to accept the unacceptable when there is no
alternative. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like  a  duck,
we  have  at  least  to consider the possibility that we have a
small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands."
     "Then what is a ghost?"
     "I think that a ghost... " said Dirk, "is someone who died
either violently or unexpectedly with  unfinished  business  on
his,  her  - or its - hands. Who cannot rest until it has been
finished, or put right."
     He tumed to face them again.
     "Which is why," he said, "a time machine would have such a
fascination for a ghost once it knew of its existence.  A  time
machine  provides  the  means to put right what, in the ghost's
opinion, went wrong in the past. To free it.
     "Which is why it will be back.  It  tried  first  to  take
possession  of  Reg  himself,  but  he  resisted. Then came the
incident with the conjuring trick,  the  face  powder  and  the
horse  in  the  bathroom which I-" he paused - "which even I do
not understand, though I intend to if it  kills  me.  And  then
you,  Richard,  appear  on the scene. The ghost deserts Reg and
concentrates instead on you. Almost immediately there occurs an
odd but significant incident. You do something  that  you  then
wish you hadn't done.
     "I  refer,  of course, to the phone call you made to Susan
and left on her answerrng machine.
     "The ghost seizes its chance and tries to  induce  you  to
undo  it.  To, as it were, go back into the past and erase that
message - to change the mistake you had made. Just  to  see  if
you would do it. Just to see if it was in your character.
     "If  it  had  been,  you  would  now  be totally under its
control. But at the very last second your nature  rebelled  and
you would not do it. And so the ghost gives you up as a bad job
and deserts you in turn. It must find someone else.
     "How long has it been doing this? I do not know. Does this
now make  sense to you? Do you recognise the truth of what I am
saying?"
     Richard turned cold.
     "Yes," he said, "I think you must be absolutely right."
     "And at what moment, then,"  said  Dirk,  "did  the  ghost
leave you?"
     Richard swallowed.
     "When  Michael  Wenton-Weakes  walked out of the room," he
said.
     "So I wonder," said Dirk quietly, "what possibilities  the
ghost  saw  in him. I wonder whether this time it found what it
wanted. I believe we shall not have long to wait."
     There was a knock on the door.
     When it opened, there stood Michael Wenton-Weakes.
     He said simply, "Please, I need your help."
     Reg and Richard stared at Dirk, and then at Michael.
     "Do you mind if I put this down somewhere?" said  Michael.
"It's rather heavy. Full of scuba-diving equipment."

     "Oh,  I  see,"  said Susan, "oh well, thanks, Nicola, I'll
try that fingering. I'm sure he only put the E  flat  in  there
just  to  annoy  people.  Yes,  I've  been  at  it  solidly all
afternoon. Some of those semiquaver runs in the second movement
are absolute bastards. Well, yes, it helped take my mind off it
all. No, no news.  It's  all  just  mystifying  and  absolutely
horrible.  I  don't  want even to -look, maybe I'll give you a
call again later and see how you're feeling. I know,  yes,  you
never   know   which   is  worse,  do  you,  the  illness,  the
antibiotics,  or  the  doctor's  bedside  manner.  Look   after
yourself,  or at least, make sure Simon does. Tell him to bring
you gallons of hot lemon. OK. Well, I'll  talk  to  you  later.
Keep warm. Bye now."
     She  put the phone down and returned to her cello. She had
hardly started to reconsider the problem of  the  irritating  E
flat  when the phone went again. She had simply left it off the
hook for the afternoon, but had forgotten to do so again  after
making her own call.
     With  a  sigh  she propped up the cello, put down the bow,
and went to the phone again.
     "Hello?" she demanded.
     Again, there was nothing, just  a  distant  cry  of  wind.
Irritably, she slammed the receiver back down once more.
     She  waited  a few seconds for the line to clear, and then
was about to take the phone off the hook  once  more  when  she
realised that perhaps Richard might need her.
     She hesitated.
     She  admitted  to  herself  that she hadn't been using the
answering machine, because she  usually  just  put  it  on  for
Gordon's  convenience,  and that was something of which she did
not currently wish to be reminded.
     Still, she put the answering machine on, turned the volume
right down, and returned again to the E flat  that  Mozart  had
put in only to annoy cellists.

     In  the  darkness of the offices of Dirk Gently's Holistic
Detective Agency, Gordon Way  clumsily  fumbled  the  telephone
receiver  back  on  to  its rest and sat slumped in the deepest
dejection. He didn't even stop himself  slumping  all  the  way
through the seat until he rested lightly on the floor.
     Miss  Pearce  had  fled  the  office  the  first  time the
telephone had started actually using itself, her patience  with
all  this  sort  of  thing finally exhausted again, since which
time Gordon  had  had  the  office  to  himself.  However,  his
attempts to contact anybody had failed completely.
     Or rather, his attempts to contact Susan, which was all he
cared  about. It was Susan he had been speaking to when he died
and he knew he had somehow to speak to her again. But  she  had
left her phone off the hook most of the afternoon and even when
she had answered she could not hear him.
     He  gave  up.  He roused himself from the floor, stood up,
and slipped out and down into the darkening streets. He drifted
aimlessly for a while, went for a walk on the canal, which  was
a  trick that palled very quickly, and then wandered back up to
the street again.
     The houses with light and life streaming from  them  upset
him  most  particularly since the welcome they seemed to extend
would not be extended to him. He wondered if anyone would  mind
if  he  simply  slipped into their house and watched television
for the evening. He wouldn't be any trouble.
     Or a cinema.
     That would be better, he could go to the cinema.
     He turned with  more  positive,  if  still  insubstantial,
footsteps into Noel Road and started to walk up it.
     Noel  Road,  he  thought.  It  rang a vague bell. He had a
feeling that he had recently had some dealings with someone  in
Noel Road. Who was it?
     His  thoughts  were  interrupted  by  a terrible scream of
horror that rang through the street. He stood  stock  still.  A
few  seconds  later a door flew open a few yards from him and a
woman ran out of it, wild-eyed and howling.

        Chapter Thirty-one...

     Richard had never liked Michael Wenton-Weakes and he liked
him even less with a ghost in him. He couldn't say why, he  had
nothing against ghosts personally, didn't think a person should
be judged adversely simply for being dead, but - he didn't like
it.
     Nevertheless,  it  was hard not to feel a little sorry for
him.
     Michael sat forlornly on a stool with his elbow resting on
the large table and his head resting on his fingers. He  looked
ill  and  haggard.  He looked deeply tired. He looked pathetic.
His story had been a harrowing  one,  and  concluded  with  his
attempts to possess first Reg and then Richard.
     "You were," he concluded, "right. Entirely."
     He  said this last to Dirk, and Dirk grimaced as if trying
not to beam with triumph too many times in a day.
     The voice was Michael's and  yet  it  was  not  Michael's.
Whatever  timbre a voice acquires through a billion or so years
of dread and isolation, this voice  had  acquired  it,  and  it
filled  those  who  heard it with a dizzying chill akin to that
which clutches the mind and stomach when standing on a cliff at
night.
     He turned his eyes on Reg and on Richard, and  the  effect
of  the  eyes,  too,  was  one  that  provoked pity and terror.
Richard had to look away.
     "I owe you both an apology," said the ghost within Michael
"which I offer you from the depths of my heart, and  only  hope
that   as   you  come  to  understand  the  desperation  of  my
predicament, and the hope which this  machine  offers  me,  you
will  understand  why I have acted as I have, and that you will
find it within yourselves to forgive me. And to help me. I  beg
you."
     "Give the man a whisky," said Dirk gruffly.
     "Haven't  got  any whisky," said Reg. "Er, port? There's a
bottle or so of Margaux I could open. Very fine one. Should  be
chambrd  for  an  hour, but I can do that of course, it's very
easy, I -"
     "Will you help me?" interrupted the ghost.
     Reg bustled to fetch some port and some glasses.
     "Why have you taken over the body of this man?" said Dirk.
     "I need to have a voice with which to  speak  and  a  body
with which to act. No harm will come to him, no harm -"
     "Let  me  ask  the question again. Why have you taken over
the body of this man?" insisted Dirk.
     The ghost made Michael's body shrug.
     "He  was  willing.  Both  of  these  two  gentlemen  quite
understandably  resisted  being.  .  .  well, hypnotised - your
analogy is fair. This one? Well, I think his sense of  self  is
at  a low ebb, and he has acquiesced. I am very grateful to him
and will not do him any harm."
     "His sense of self," repeated Dirk thoughtfully, "is at  a
low ebb."
     "I suppose that is probably true," said Richard quietly to
Dirk.  "He seemed very depressed last night. The one thing that
was important to him had been taken away because he,  well,  he
wasn't  really very good at it. Although he's proud I expect he
was probably quite receptive to  the  idea  of  actually  being
wanted for something."
     "Hmmm,"  said  Dirk, and said it again. He said it a third
time with feeling. Then he whirled  round  and  barked  at  the
figure on the stool.
     "Michael Wenton-Weakes!"
     Michael's head jolted back and he blinked.
     "Yes?"  he  said, in his normal lugubrious voice. His eyes
followed Dirk as he moved.
     "You can hear me," said Dirk,  "and  you  can  answer  for
yourself?"
     "Oh, yes," said Michael, "most certainly I can."
     "This...  being,  this  spirit. You know he is in you? You
accept his presence? You are a willing party to what he  wishes
to do?"
     "That  is  correct.  I  was  much  moved by his account of
himself, and am very willing to help him. In fact I think it is
right for me to do so."
     "All right," said Dirk with a snap of  his  fingers,  "you
can go."
     Michael's  head slumped forward suddenly, and then after a
second or so it slowly rose again, as if being pumped  up  from
inside like a tyre.
     The ghost was back in possession.
     Dirk  took  hold of a chair, spun it round and sat astride
it facing the ghost in Michael, peering intently into its eyes.
     "Again," he said, "tell me again. A quick snap account."
     Michael's body tensed slightly. It reached out  to  Dirk's
arm.
     "Don't - touch me!" snapped Dirk. "Just tell me the facts.
The first time you try and make me feel sorry for you I'll poke
you in  the eye. Or at least, the one you've borrowed. So leave
out all the stuff that sounded like... er -"
     "Coleridge," said Richard suddenly,  "it  sounded  exactly
like  Coleridge. It was like `The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'.
Well bits of it were."
     Dirk frowned. "Coleridge?" he said.
     "I tried to tell him my story," admitted the ghost, "I -"
     "Sorry," said Dirk, "you'll have to excuse me - I've never
cross-examined a four-billion-year-old  ghost  before.  Are  we
talking  Samuel Taylor here? Are you saying you told your story
to Samuel Taylor Coleridge?"
     "I was able to enter his mind at... certain times. When he
was in an impressionable state."
     "You mean when he was on laudanum?" said Richard.
     "That is correct. He was more relaxed then."
     "I'll say," snorted Reg, "I sometimes encountered him when
he was  quite  astoundingly  relaxed.  Look,  I'll  make   some
coffee."
     He  disappeared  into the kitchen, where he could be heard
laughing to himself.
     "It's another world," muttered Richard to himself, sitting
down a&#127;d shaking his head.
     "But unfortunately when he  was  fully  in  possession  of
himself  I, so to speak, was not," said the ghost, "and so that
failed. And what he wrote was very garbled."
     "Discuss," said Richard, to himself, raising his eyebrows.
     "Professor," called out Dirk, "this may sound absurd. Did=
Coleridge ever try to... er... use your time machine? Feel free
ta discuss the question in any way which appeals to you."
     "Well, do you know," said Reg, looking round the door, "he
did come in prying around on one occasion, but I think  he  was
in a great deal too relaxed a state to do anything."
     "I  see,"  said  Dirk. "But why," he added turning back to
the strange figure of Michael slumped on its stool, "why has it
taken you so long to find someone?"
     "For long, long periods I am  very  weak,  almost  totally
non- existent,  and  unable  to influence anything at all. And
then, of course, before that time there  was  no  time  machine
here, and... no hope for me at all -"
     "Perhaps  ghosts  exist  like  wave  patterns,"  suggested
Richard, "like interference patterns between  the  actual  with
the  possible. There would be irregular peaks and troughs, like
in a musical waveform."
     The ghost snapped Michael's eyes around to Richard.
     "You..." he said, "you wrote that article..."
     "Er, yes -"
     "It moved me very greatly," said the ghost, with a  sudden
remorseful  longing  in  his voice which seemed to catch itself
almost as much by surprise as it did its listeners.
     "Oh. I see," said Richard, "Well, thank  you.  You  didn't
like  it  so much last time you mentioned it. Well, I know that
wasn't you as such -"
     Richard sat back frowning to himself.
     "So," said Dirk, "to return to the beginning -"
     The ghost gathered Michael's breath for  him  and  started
again. "We were on a ship -" it said.
     "A spaceship."
     "Yes. Out from Salaxala, a world in... well, very far from
here.  A  violent and troubled place. We - a party of some nine
dozen of us - set out, as people frequently did, to find a  new
world  for  ourselves.  All  the  planets  in  this system were
completely unsuitable for our purpose, but we stopped  on  this
world to replenish some necessary mineral supplies.
     "Unfortunately  our  landing  ship  was damaged on its way
into the atmosphere.  Damaged  quite  badly,  but  still  quite
reparable.
     "I  was  the  engineer  on  board  and  it  fell  to me to
supervise the task of repairing the ship and  preparing  it  to
return  to  our  main  ship.  Now,  in order to understand what
happened next you must  know  something  of  the  nature  of  a
highly-automated  society. There is no task that cannot be done
more easily with the aid of advanced computerisation. And there
were some very specific problems associated with a trip with an
aim such as ours -"
     "Which was?" said Dirk sharply.
     The ghost in Michael blinked as if the answer was obvious.
     "Well, to find a new and better world on  which  we  could
aIl  live in freedom, peace and harmony forever, of course," he
said.
     Dirk raised his eyebrows.
     "Oh,  that,"  he  said.  "You'd  thought  this   all   out
carefully, I assume."
     "We'd  had it thought out for us. We had with us some very
specialised devices for helping us to continue  to  believe  in
the  purpose  of  the trip even when things got difficult. They
generally worked very well, but I think  we  probably  came  to
rely on them too much."
     "What on earth were they?" said Dirk.
     "It's  probably  hard for you to understand how reassuring
they were. And that was why I made my  fatal  mistake.  When  I
wanted to know whether or not it was safe to take off, I didn't
want to know that it might not be safe. I just wanted to
be  reassured  that  it  was.  So instead of checking it
myself, you see, I sent out one of the Electric Monks."

        Chapter Thirty-two...

     The brass piaque on  the  red  door  in  Peckender  Street
glittered as it reflected the yellow light of a street lamp. It
glared  for a moment as it reflected the violent flashing light
of a passing police car sweeping by.
     It dimmed slightly as a pale, pale wraith slipped silently
through it. It glimmered as it dimmed, because the  wraith  was
trembling with such ten-ible agitation.
     In  the  dark  hallway  the ghost of Gordon Way paused. He
needed something to lean on for support, and  of  course  there
was  nothing.  He tried to get a grip on himself, but there was
nothing to get a grip on. He retched at the horror of  what  he
had  seen, but there was, of course, nothing in his stomach. He
half stumbled, half swam up the stairs,  like  a  drowning  man
trying to grapple for a grip on the water.
     He  staggered  through the wall, through the desk, through
the door, and tried to compose and settle himself in  front  of
the desk in Dirk's office.
     If anyone had happened into the office a few minutes later
- a night  cleaner  perhaps,  if  Dirk Gently had ever employed
one, which he didn't on the grounds that they wished to be paid
and he did not wish to pay them,  or  a  burglar,  perhaps,  if
there  had  been  anything  in the office worth burgling, which
there wasn't - they would have seen  the  following  sight  and
been amazed by it.
     The  receiver  of  the  large  red  telephone  on the desk
suddenly rocked and tumbled off its rest on to the desk top.
     A dialling tone started to burr. Then, one by  one,  seven
of  the  large, easily pushed buttons depressed themselves, and
after the very long pause which the  British  telephone  system
allows  you within which to gather your thoughts and forget who
it is you're phoning, the sound of a phone ringing at the other
end of the line eould be heard.
     After a couple of rings there was a click, a whirr, and  a
sound  as of a machine dravring breath. Then a voice started to
say, "Hello, this is Susan. I can't come to the phone right  at
the  moment  because  I'm trying to get an E flat right, but if
you'd like to leave your name..."

     "So then, on the say so of an - I can hardly bring  myself
to  utter  the  words  -  Electric  Monk," said Dirk in a voice
ringing with derision, "you attempt to launch the ship  and  to
your utter astonishment it explodes. Since when -?"
     "Since when," said the ghost, abjectly, "I have been alone
on this  planet. Alone with the knowledge of what I had done to
my fellows on the ship. All, all alone..."
     "Yes, skip that, I  said,"  snapped  Dirk  angrily.  "What
about  the main ship? That presumably went on and continued its
search for -"
     "No."
     "Then what happened to it?"
     "Nothing. It's still there."
     "Still there?"
     Dirk leapt to his feet and whirled off to pace  the  room,
his brow furiously furrowed.
     "Yes."  Michael's  head drooped a little, but he looked up
pitieously at Reg and at Richard. "All of us  were  aboard  the
landing  craft.  At  first  I  felt myself to be haunted by the
ghosts of the rest, but it was  only  in  my  imagination.  For
millions of years, and then billions, I stalked the mud utterly
alone. It is impossible for you to conceive of even the tiniest
part  of  the  torment of such eternity. Then," he added, "just
recently life arose on the planet. Life. Vegetation, things  in
the sea, then, at last, you. Intelligent life. I turn to you to
release me from the torment I have endured."
     Michael's  head sank abjectly on to his chest for some few
seconds. Then slowly, wobblingly, it rose and  stared  at  them
again, with yet darker fires in his eyes.
     "Take  me  back," he said, "I beg you, take me back to the
landing craft. Let me undo what was done. A word from  me,  and
it  can be undone, the repairs properly made, the landing craft
can then return to the main ship, we can  be  on  our  way,  my
torment  will  be extinguished, and I will cease to be a burden
to you. I beg you."
     There was a short silence while his plea hung in the air.
     "But that can't work, can it?" said  Richard.  "If  we  do
that,  then  this  won't  have  happened. Don't we generate all
sorts of paradoxes?"
     Reg stirred himself from thought. "No worse than many that
exist already," he said. "If the Universe came to an end  every
time  there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it,
it would never have got beyond the first picosecond.  And  many
of  course  don't.  It's like a human body, you see. A few cuts
and bruises here and  there  don't  hurt  it.  Not  even  major
surgery  if  it's  done  properly.  Paradoxes are just the scar
tissue. Time and space  heal  themselves  up  around  them  and
people  simply remember a version of events which makes as much
sense as they require it to make.
     "That isn't to say that if you get involved in a paradox a
few things won't strike you as being very odd,  but  if  you've
got  through life without that already happening to you, then I
don't know which Universe you've been living in, but  it  isn't
this one."
     "Well, if that's the case," said Richard, "why were you so
fierce about not doing anything to save the dodo?"
     Reg  sighed.  "You  don't  understand  at  all.  The  dodo
wouldn't have died if I hadn't  worked  so  hard  to  save  the
coelacanth."
     "The  coelacanth?  The prehistoric fish? But how could one
possibly affect the other?"
     "Ah. Now there you're asking. The  complexities  of  cause
and  effect  defy  analysis.  Not  only is the continuum like a
human body, it is also very  like  a  piece  of  badly  put  up
wallpaper.  Push  down  a bubble somewhere, another one pops up
somewhere  else.  There  are  no  more  dodos  because  of   my
interference. In the end I imposed the rule on myself because I
simply  couldn't  bear  it any more. The only thing that really
gets hurt when you try and change time is yourself." He  smiled
bleakly, and looked away.
     Then  he  added, after a long moment's reflection, "No, it
can be done. I'm just cynical because it's gone wrong  so  many
times.  This poor fellow's story is a very pathetic one, and it
can do no harm to put an end to  his  misery.  It  happened  so
very,  very  long  ago  on a dead planet. If we do this we will
each  remember  whatever  it  is  that  has  happened   to   us
individually.  Too  bad  if the rest of the world doesn't quite
agree. It will hardly be the first time."
     Michael's head bowed.
     "You're very silent, Dirk," said Richard.
     Dirk glared arigrily at him. "I want to see this ship," he
demanded.

     In the darkness, the red telephone  receiver  slipped  and
slid  fitfully  back across the desk. If anybody had been there
to see it they might just have discerned a shape that moved it.
     It shone only very faintly, less than would the hands of a
luminous watch. It seemed more as if the darkness around it was
just that much darker and the ghostly shape sat within it  like
thickened scar tissue beneath the surface of the night.
     Gordon  grappled  one  last  time  wth  the  recalcitrant
recever. At length he got a final grip and slipped it up on to
the top of the instrument.
     From there it fell back on to its  rest  and  disconnected
the  call. At the same moment the ghost of Gordon Way, his last
call finally completed, fell back to his own rest and vanished.

        Chapter Thirty-three...

     Swinging slowly round in the shadow of the Earth, just one
more piece of debris among that which  Hoated  now  forever  in
high  orbit,  was  one  dark  shape  that  was  larger and mre
regularly formed than the rest. And far, far older.
     For four billion years it had  continued  to  absorb  data
from  the  world  below  it,  scanning,  analysing, processing.
Occasionally it sent pieces back if it thought they would help,
if it  thought  they  might  be  received.  But  otherwise,  it
watched,  it  listened,  it recorded. Not the lapping of a wave
nor the beating of a heart escaped its attention.
     Otherwise, nothing inside it had moved  for  four  billion
years, except for the air which circulated still, and the motes
of  dust  within  the air that danced and danced and danced and
danced... and danced.
     It was only a very slight disturbance that  occurred  now.
Quietly,  without  fuss, like a dew drop precipitating from the
air on to a leaf, there appeared in  a  wall  which  had  stood
blank  and  grey  for  four  billion  years,  a  door. A plain,
ordinary white-panelled door with a small dented brass handle.
     This quiet event, too, was recorded  and  incorporated  in
the   continual   stream  of  data  processing  that  the  ship
ceaselessly performed. Not only the arrival of  the  door,  but
the  arrival of those behind the door, the way they looked, the
way they moved, the  way  they  felt  about  being  there.  All
processed, all recorded, all transformed.
     After a moment or two had passed, the door opened.
     Within  it  could be seen a room unlike any on the ship. A
room of wooden floors, of shabby upholstery, a room in which  a
fire danced. And as the fire danced, its data danced within the
ship's  computers, and the motes of dust in the air also danced
with it.
     A figure stood in the doorway - a large lugubrious  figure
with  a  strange  light that danced now in its eyes. It stepped
forward across the threshold into the ship, and  its  face  was
suddenly  suffused  with a calm for which it had longed but had
thought never again to experience.
     Following him stepped out a smaller, older man  with  hair
that  was white and wayward. He stopped and blinked with wonder
as he passed from out of the realm of his  room  and  into  the
realm  of  the  ship. Following him came a third man, impatient
and tense, with a large leather  overcoat  that  flapped  about
him.  He,  too,  stopped  and  was  momentarily  bewildered  by
something  he  didn't  understad.  With  a  look  of   deepest
puzzlement  on  his face he walked forward and looked around at
the grey and dusty walls of the ancient ship.
     At last came a fourth man, tall and thin. He stooped as he
walked out of the door, and then instantly stopped as if he had
walked into a wall.
     He had walked into a wall, of a kind.
     He stood transfixed. If anyone had  been  looking  at  his
face  at  that  moment,  it would have been abundantly clear to
them that the single  most  astonishing  event  of  this  man's
entire existence was currently happening to him.
     When  slowly  he began to move it was with a curious gait,
as if he was swimming very slowly. Each tiniest movement of his
head seemed to bring fresh floods of awe and astonishment  into
his  face.  Tears  welled in his eyes, and he became breathless
with gasping wonder.
     Dirk turned to look at him, to hurry him along.
     "What's the matter?" he called above the noise.
     "The... music..." whispered Richard.
     The air was full of music. So full  it  seemed  there  was
room  for nothing else. And each particle of air seemed to have
its own music, so that as Richard moved his head he heard a new
and different music, though the new and different music  fitted
quite perfectly with the music that lay beside it in the air.
     The   modulations  from  one  to  another  were  perfectly
accomplished  -  astonishing  leaps  to   distant   keys   made
effortlessly  in the mere shifting of the head. New themes, new
strands of melody, all perfectly and astoundingly proportioned,
constantly involved themselves into the  continuing  web.  Huge
slow  waves  of  movement,  faster dances that thrilled through
them, tiny scintillating scampers that danced  on  the  dances,
long  tangled  tunes  whose  ends were so like their beginnings
that they twisted around upon themselves,  turned  inside  out,
upside  down,  and  then  rushed  off  again on the back of yet
another dancing melody in a distant part of the ship.
     Richard staggered against the wall.
     Dirk hurried to grab him.
     "Come on," he said, brusquely, "what's the  matter?  Can't
you stand the music? It's a bit loud, isn't it? For God's sake,
pull  yourself  together.  There's something here I still don't
understand. It's not right. Come on -"
     He tugged Richard after him, and then had to  support  him
as   Richard's   mind   sank  further  and  further  under  the
overwhelming weight of music. The visions that  were  woven  in
his mind by the million thrilling threads of music as they were
pulled through it, were increasingly a welter of chaos, but the
more  the  chaos  burgeoned  the  more it fitted with the other
chaos, and the next greater chaos, until it all became  a  vast
exploding ball of harmony expanding in his mind faster than any
mind could deal with.
     And then it was all much simpler.
     A  single  tune  danced  through  his  mind  and  all  his
attention rested upon it. It was a tune  that  seethed  through
the  magical  flood,  shaped  it,  formed  it, lived through it
hugely, lived through it minutely, was  its  very  essence.  It
bounced  and  trilled  along,  at first a little tripping tune,
then it slowed, then it danced again but with more  difficulty,
seemed  to  founder  in eddies of doubt and confusion, and then
suddenly revealed that the eddies were just the  first  ripples
of a huge new wave of energy surging up joyfully from beneath.
     Richard began very, very slowly to faint.

     He lay very still.
     He  felt he was an old sponge steeped in paraffin and left
in the sun to dry.
     He felt like the body of an old horse  burning  hazily  in
the  sun. He dreamed of oil, thin and fragrant, of dark heaving
seas. He was on a white beach, drunk with fish, stupefied  with
sand,   bleached,  drowsing,  pummelled  with  light,  sinking,
estimating the density of vapour  clouds  in  distant  nebulae,
spinning  with dead delight. He was a pump spouting fresh water
in the springtime, gushing into  a  mound  of  reeking  newmown
grass. Sounds, almost unheard, burned away like distant sleep.
     He  ran and was falling. The lights of a harbour spun into
night. The sea like a dark spirit  slapped  infinitesimally  at
the  sand, glimmering, unconscious. Out where it was deeper and
colder he sank easily with the  heavy  sea  swelling  like  oil
around  his ears, and was disturbed only by a distant burr burr
as of the phoae ringing.
     He knew he had been listening to the music of life itself.
The music of light dancing on water that rippled with the  wind
and the tides, of the life that moved through the water, of the
life that moved on the land, warmed by the light.
     He  continued  to  lie  very  still.  He  continued  to be
disturbed by a distant burr burr as of a phone ringing.
     Gradually he became aware that the distant burr burr as of
a phone ringing was a phone ringing.
     He sat up sharply.
     He was lying on a small crumpled bed  in  a  small  untidy
panelled room that he knew he recognised but couldn't place. It
was  cluttered  with  books and shoes. He blinked at it and was
blank.
     The phone by the bed was ringing. He picked it up.
     "Hello?" he said.
     "Richard!" It was Susan's voice,  utterly  distraught.  He
shook his head and had no recollection of anything useful.
     "Hello?" he said again.
     "Richard, is that you? Where are you?"
     "Er, hold on, I'll go and look."
     He  put the receiver down on the crumpled sheets, where it
lay squawking, climbed shakily off the bed,  staggered  to  the
door and opened it.
     Here  was a bathroom. He peered at it suspiciously. Again,
he recognised it but felt that there was something missing.  Oh
yes. There should be a horse in it. Or at least, there had been
a  horse  in  it  the  last time he had seen it. He crossed the
bathroom tloor and went out of the other door. He found his way
shakily down the stairs and into Reg's main room.
     He was surprised by what he saw when he got there.

        Chapter Thirty-four...

     The storms of the day before, and of the day before  that,
and  the floods of the previous week, had now abated. The skies
still bulged with rain, but  all  that  actually  fell  in  the
gathering evening gloom was a dreary kind of prickle.
     Some  wind  whipped  across the darkening plain, blundered
through the low hills and gusted across a shallow valley  where
stood  a  structure,  a  kind of tower, alone in a nightmare of
mud, and leaning.
     It was a blackened stump of a  tower.  It  stood  like  an
extrusion  of  magma  from one of the more pestilential pits of
hell, and it leaned at a peculiar angle,  as  if  oppressed  by
something  altogether  more  temble  than  its own considerable
weight. It seemed a dead thing, long ages dead.
     The only movement was that of a river of  mud  that  moved
sluggishly  along  the  bottom  of the valley past the tower. A
mile or so  further  on,  the  river  ran  down  a  ravine  and
disappeared underground.
     But  as  the evening darkened&#127;it became apparent that
the tower was not entirely without life. There was a single dim
red light guttering deep within it.
     It was this scene that Richard was surprised to see from a
small white doorway set in the side of the valley wall,  a  few
hundred yards from the tower.
     "Don't  step  out!"  said  Dirk,  putting  up an arm, "The
atmosphere is poisonous.1'm not sure what's in it but it  would
certainly get your carpets nice and clean."
     Dirk  was standing in the doorway watching the valley with
deep mistrust.
     "Where are we?" asked Richard.
     "Bermuda," said Dirk. "It's a bit complicated."
     "Thank you," said Richard and walked groggily back  across
the room.
     "Excuse  me,"  he  said to Reg, who was busy fussing round
Michael Wenton-Weakes, making sure that the scuba  diving  suit
he  was  wearing  fitted  snuggly everywhere, that the mask was
secure and that the regulator for the air  supply  was  working
properly.
     "Sorry, can I just get past?" said Richard. "Thanks."
     He  climbed  back  up  the  stairs,  went  back into Reg's
bedroom, sat shakily on the edge of the bed and picked  up  the
phone again.
     "Bermuda " he said, "it's a bit complicated."
     Downstairs,  Reg  finished  smearing  Vaseline  on all the
joins of the suit and the few pieces of exposed skin around the
mask, and then announced that all was ready.
     Dirk swung himself away from the door and stood aside with
the utmost bad grace.
     "Well then," he said, "be off with you. Good  riddance.  I
wash  my  hands  of the whole affair. I suppose we will have to
wait here for you to send back the empty, for what it's worth."
He stalked round the sofa with an angry gesture. He didn't like
this. He didn't like any of it. He particularly didn't like Reg
knowing more about space/time than he did. It  made  him  angry
that he didn't know why he didn't like it.
     "My  dear  fellow,"  said  Reg  in  a  conciliatory  tone,
"consider what a very small effort it is for  us  to  help  the
poor  soul.  I'm  sorry if it seems to you an anti-climax after
all your extraordinary feats of deduction. I know you feel that
a mere errand of mercy seems not enough for you, but you should
be more charitable."
     "Charitable, ha!" said Dirk. "I pay my taxes, what more do
you want?"
     He threw himself on to the sofa, ran his hands through his
hair and sulked.
     The possessed figure of Michael shook hands with  Reg  and
said a few words of thanks. Then he walked stiffly to the door,
turned and bowed to them both.
     Dirk  flung  his  head  round  and glared at him, his eyes
flashing behind their spectacles and his  hair  flying  wildly.
The ghost looked at Dirk, and for a moment shivered inside with
apprehension.  A superstitious instinct suddenly made the ghost
wave. He waved Michael's hand round in a circle,  three  times,
and then said a single word.
     "Goodbye," he said.
     With  that  he  turned  again,  gripped  the  sides of the
doorway and stepped resolutely out into the mud, and  into  the
foul and poisonous wind.
     He  paused  for  a  moment to be sure that his footing was
solid, that he had his balance, and then without  another  look
back  he  walked  away from them, out of the reach of the slimy
things with legs, towards his ship.
     "Now, what on earth  did  that  mean?"  said  Dirk,
irritably mimicking the odd triple wave.
     Richard  came  thundering  down the stairs, threw open the
door and plunged into the room, wild-eyed.
     "Ross has been murdered!" he shouted.
     "Who the hell's Ross?" shouted Dirk back at him.
     "Whatsisname Ross, for  God's  sake,"  exclaimed  Richard,
"the new editor of Fathom."
     "What's Fathom?" shouted Dirk again.
     "Michael's bloody magazine, Dirk! Remember? Gordon chucked
Michael  off  the  magazine and gave it to this Ross guy to fun
instead. Michael hated him for that. Well, last  night  Michael
went and bloody murdered him!"
     He paused, panting. "At least," he said, "he was murdered.
And Michael was the only one with any reason to."
     He  ran  to  the door, looked out at the retreating figure
disappearing into the gloom, and spun round again.
     "Is he coming back?" said Richard.
     Dirk leapt to his feet and stood blinking for a moment.
     "That's it..." he said, "that's why Michael was the
perfect subject. That's what I should have been  Iooking
for.  The thing the ghost made him do in order to establish his
hold, the thing he had to be  fundamentally  willing  to
do,  the  thing that would match the ghost's own purpose. Oh my
dear God. He thinks we've supplanted them and  that's  what  he
wants to reverse.
     "He  thinks  this is their world not ours. This was
where they  were  going  to  settle  and  buiId  their  blasted
paradise. It matches every step of the way.
     "You  see," he said, turning on Reg, "what we have done? I
would not be surprised to discover that the accident your  poor
tormented soul out there is trying to reverse is the very thing
which started life on this planet!"
     He  turned  his  eyes suddenly from Reg, who was white and
trembling, back to Richard.
     "When did you hear this?" he said, puzzled.
     "Er,  just  now,"  said  Richard;  "on...  on  the  phone.
Upstairs."
     "What?"
     "It  was  Susan, I don't know how - said she had a message
on her answering machine telling her about  it.  She  said  the
message ... was from - she said it was from Gordon, but I think
she was hysterical. Dirk, what the hell is happening? Where are
we?"
     "We  are  four  bilIion  years in the past," said Reg in a
shaking voice, "please don't ask me why it is  that  the  phone
works  when  we  are  anywhere in the Universe other than where
it's actually connected, that's a matter you will have to  take
up with British Telecom, but -"
     "Damn  and blast British Telecom," shouted Dirk, the words
coming easily from force of habit.  He  ran  to  the  door  and
peered again at the dim shadowy figure trudging through the mud
towards the Salaxalan ship, completely beyond their reach.
     "How long," said Dirk, quite calmly, "would you guess that
it's going  to take that fat self deluding bastard to reach his
ship? Because that is how long we have.
     "Come. Let us sit down. Let us think. We have two  minutes
in  which to decide what we are going to do. After that, I very
much suspect that the three of us, and everything we have  ever
known,  including  the coelacanth and the dodo, dear Professor,
will cease ever to have existed."
     He sat heavily on  the  sofa,  then  stood  up  again  and
removed  MichaeI's  discarded  jacket from under him. As he did
so, a book fell out of the pocket.

        Chapter Thirty-five...

     "l think it's  an  appalling  act  of  desecration,"  said
Richard to Reg, as they sat hiding behind a hedge.
     The  night  was  full  of  summer  smells from the cottage
garden, and the occasional whiff of sea air which  came  in  on
the  light  breezes  that  were  entertaining themselves on the
coast of the Bristol Channel.
     There was a bright moon playing over the sea  off  in  the
distance,  and  by  its  light it was also possible to see some
distance over Exmoor stretching away to the south of them.
     Reg sighed.
     "Yes, maybe," he said, "but I'm  afraid  he's  right,  you
know,  lt  must  be  done.  It  was  the only sure way. All the
instructions were clearly contained in the piece once you  knew
what  you  were looking for. It has to be suppressed. The ghost
will always be around.  In  fact  two  of  him  now.  That  is,
assuming this works. Poor devil. Still, I suppose he brought it
on himself."
     Richard  fretfully  pulled  up  some  blades  of grass and
twisted them between his fingers.
     He held them up to the moonlight, turned them to different
angles, and watched the way light played on them.
     "Such music," he said. "I'm not religious, but if I were I
would say it was like a glimpse into the mind of  God.  Perhaps
it  was  and  I ought to be religious. l have to keep reminding
myself that they didn't create the music, they only created the
instrument which could read the score. And the score  was  life
itself. And it's all up there."
     He  glanced  into  the  sky.  Unconsciously  he started to
quote:

     "Could I revive within me
     Her symphony and song
     To such a deep delight 'twould win me
     That with music loud and long
     I would build that dome in air,
     That sunny dome, those caves of ice!"

     "Hmmm," said Reg to himself, "I wonder if he arrived early
enough."
     "What did you say?"
     "Oh, nothing. Just a thought."
     "Good God, he  can  talk,  can't  he?"  Richard  exclaimed
suddenly. "He's been in there over an hour now. I wonder what's
going on."
     He  got  up  and  looked  over the hedge at the small farm
cottage basking in the moonlight behind  them.  About  an  hour
earlier  Dirk had walked boldly up to the front door and rapped
on it.
     When the door had  opened,  somewhat  reluctantly,  and  a
slightly  dazed face had looked out, Dirk had doffed his absurd
hat and said in a loud voice, "Mr Samuel Coleridge?
     "I was just passing  by,  on  my  way  from  Porlock,  you
understand,  and  I  was  wondering  if  I might trouble you to
vouchsafe me an  interview?  It's  just  for  a  little  parish
broadsheet  I  edit.  Won't take much of your time I promise, I
know you must be busy, famous poet like you, but I do so admire
your work, and... "
     The rest was lost, because by that time Dirk had  effected
his entry and closed the door behind him.
     "Would you excuse me a moment?" said Reg.
     "What?  Oh  sure," said Richard, "I'm just going to have a
look and see what's happening."
     While Reg wandered off behind a tree Richard  pushed  open
the  little gate and was just about to make his way up the path
when he heard the sound of voices approaching  the  front  door
from within.
     He  hurriedly  darted  back,  as the front door started to
open.
     "Well, thank you very much  indeed,  Mr  Coleridge,"  said
Dirk,  as  he  emerged,  fiddling with his hat and bowing, "you
have been most kind and generous  with  your  time,  and  I  do
appreciate  it very much, as I'm sure will my readers. I'm sure
it will work up into a very nice  little  article,  a  copy  of
which you may rest assured I will send you for you to peruse at
your  leisure.  I  will most certainly welcome your comments if
you have any, any points  of  style,  you  know,  hints,  tips,
things of that nature. Well, thank you again, so much, for your
time, I do hope I haven't kept you from anything important -"
     The door slammed violently behind him.
     Dirk   turned   with  another  in  a  long  succession  of
triumphant beams and hurried down the path to Richard.
     "Well, that's put a stop to that," he  said,  patting  his
hands  together, "I think he'd made a start on writing it down,
but he won't remember another word, that's for certain. Where's
the egregious Professor? Ah, there you are. Good  heavens,  I'd
no idea I'd been that long. A most fascinating and entertaining
fellow,  our  Mr  Coleridge, or at least I'm sure he would have
been if I'd given him the chance, but I  was  rather  too  busy
being fascinating myself.
     "Oh,  but  I  did do as you asked, Richard, I asked him at
the end about the albatross and he said what  albatross?  So  I
said, oh it wasn't important, the albatross did not signify. He
said  what  albatross didn't signify, and I said never mind the
albatross, it didn't matter,  and  he  said  it  did  matter  -
someone  comes  to  his house in the middle of the night raving
about albatrosses, he wanted to know  why.  I  said  blast  the
bloody  albatross  and  he  said  he  had a good mind to and he
wasn't certain that that didn't give him an idea for a poem  he
was  working  on.  Much  better,  he said, than being hit by an
asteroid, which he thought was stretching credulity a bit.  And
so I came away.
     "Now. Having saved the entire human race from extinction I
could do with a pizza. What say you to such a proposal?"
     Richard  didn't  offer  an opinion. He was staring instead
with some puzzlement at Reg.
     "Something troubling you?" said Reg, taken aback.
     "That's a good trick," said Richard, "I could  have  sworn
you didn't have a beard before you went behind the tree."
     "Oh  -"  Reg  fingered  the  luxuriant three-inch growth -
"yes," he said, "just carelessness," he said, "carelessness."
     "What have you been up to?"
     "Oh,  just  a  few  adjustments.  A  little  surgery,  you
understand. Nothing drastic."
     A few minutes later as he ushered them into the extra door
that a nearby cowshed had mysteriously acquired, he looked back
up into  the sky behind them, just in time to see a small light
flare up and disappear.
     "Sorry, Richard," he muttered, and followed them in.

        Chapter Thirty Six...

     "Thank you, no," said Richard firmly,  "much  as  I  would
love  the  opportunity to buy you a pizza and watch you eat it,
Dirk, I want to go straight home. I have to see Susan. Is  that
possible,  Reg?  Just  straight  to  my  flat?  I'll come up to
Cambridge next week and collect my car."
     "We are already there," said Reg, "simply step out of  the
door,  and you are home in your own flat. It is early on Friday
evening and the weekend lies before you."
     "Thanks. Er, look, Dirk, I'll see you around, OK? Do I owe
you something`? I don't know."
     Dirk waved the matter aside airily. "You will hear from my
Miss Pearce in due course," he said.
     "Fine, OK, well I'll see you when I've had some rest. It's
been, well, unexpected."
     He walked to the door and opened it. Stepping  outside  he
found  himself  halfway  up  his  own staircase, in the wall of
which the door had materialised.
     He was about to start up the stairs when he  turned  again
as  a  thought struck him. He stepped back in, closing the door
behind him.
     "Reg, could we make one tiny detour?" he said. "I think it
would be a good move if I took Susan out for  a  meal  tonight,
only  the  place  I  have  in mind you have to book in advance.
Could you manage three weeks for me?"
     "Nothing could be easier," said Reg,  and  made  a  subtle
adjustment  to  the  disposition  of  the  beads on the abacus.
"There," he said, "We have travelled backwards  in  time  three
weeks. You know where the phone is."
     Richard hurried up the internal staircase to Reg's bedroom
and phoned  L'Esprit d'Escalier. The mai^tre d' was charmed and
delighted to take his reservation, and looked forward to seeing
him in three weeks' time. Richard went back downstairs  shaking
his head in wonder.
     "I  need  a  weekend  of solid reality," he said. "Who was
that just going out of the door?"
     "That," said Dirk, "was your sofa being delivered. The man
asked if we minded him opening the door so they could manoeuvre
it round and I said we would be delighted."

     It was only a few minutes later that Richard found himself
hunying up the stairs to Susan's flat. As he amved at her front
door he was pleased, as he always was, to hear the  deep  tones
of her cello coming faintly from within. He quietly let himself
in  and  then  as  he  walked  to the door of her music room he
suddenly froze in astonishment. The tune she  was  playing  was
one  he  had heard before. A little tripping tune, that slowed,
then danced again but with more difficulty...
     His face was  so  amazed  that  she  stopped  playing  the
instant she saw him.
     "What's wrong?" she said, alarmed.
     "Where did you get that music?" said Richard in a whisper.
     She  shrugged.  "Well,  from  the  music  shop," she said,
puzzled.  She  wasn't  being  facetious,  she   simply   didn't
understand the question.
     "What is it?"
     "It's from a cantata I'm playing in in a couple of weeks,"
she said, "Bach, number six."
     "Who wrote it?"
     "Well, Bach I expect. If you think about it."
     "Who?"
     "Watch   my   lips.  Bach.  B-A-C-H.  Johannes  Sebastian.
Remember?"
     "No, never heard of him. Who is he? Did he write  anything
else?"
     Susan put down her bow, propped up her cello, stood up and
came over to him.
     "Are you all right?" she said.
     "Er, it's rather hard to tell. What's..."
     He  caught  sight  of  a  pile of music books sitting in a
corner of the room with the same name on the top one. BACH.  He
threw  himself  at the pile and started to scrabble through it.
Book after book  -  J.  S.  BACH.  Cello  sonatas.  Brandenburg
Concertos. A Mass in B Minor.
     He looked up at her in blank incomprehension.
     "I've never seen any of this before," he said.
     "Richard  my  darling,"  she said, putting her hand to his
cheek, "what on  earth's  the  matter?  It's  just  Bach  sheet
music."
     "But  don't you understand?" he said, shaking a handful of
the stuff. "I've never, ever seen any of this before!"
     "Well," she said with mock gravity, "perhaps if you didn't
spend all your time playing with computer music..."
     He looked at her with wild surprise, then  slowly  he  sat
back against the wall and began to laugh hysterically.

     On Monday aftemoon Richard phoned Reg.
     "Reg!" he said. "Your phone is working. Congratulations."
     "Oh  yes,  my  dear  fellow," said Reg, "how delightful to
hear from you. Yes. A very capable young man arrived and  fixed
the  phone  a  little  earlier.  I don't think it will go wrong
again now. Good news, don't you think?"
     "Very good. You got back safely then."
     "Oh yes, thank you. Oh, we had high excitement  here  when
we  returned from dropping you off. Remember the horse? Well he
turned up again with his owner.  They'd  had  some  unfortunate
encounter  with  the  constabulary and wished to be taken home.
Just as well. Dangerous sort of chap to have  on  the  loose  I
think. So. How are you then?
     "Reg. . . The music "
     "Ah,  yes, I thought you'd be pleased. Took a bit of work,
I can tell you. I saved only  the  tiniest  tiniest  scrap,  of
course,  but even so I cheated. It was rather more than one man
could actually do in a lifetime, but I  don't  suppose  anybody
will look at that too seriously."
     "Reg, can't we get some more of it?"
     "Well, no. The ship has gone, and besides -"
     "We could go back in time -"
     "No, well, I told you. They've fixed the phone so it won't
go wrong again."
     "So?"
     "Well, the time machine won't work now. Burnt out. Dead as
a dodo.  I  think  that's it I'm afraid. Probably just as well,
though, don't you think?"

     On Monday, Mrs  Sauskind  phoned  Dirk  Gently's  Holistic
Detective Agency to complain about her bill.
     "I  don't  understand  what  all this is about," she said,
"it's complete nonsense. What's the meaning of it?"
     "My dear Mrs Sauskind," he said, "I can  hardly  tell  you
how  much I have been looking forward to having this exact same
conversation with you yet again. Where shall  we  begin  today?
Which particular item is it that you would like to discuss?"
     "None  of  them,  thank you very much, Mr Gently. I do not
know who you are or why you should think  my  cat  is  missing.
Dear  Roderick  passed away in my arms two years ago and I have
not wished to r&#127;place him."
     "Ah, well Mrs Sauskind," said  Dirk,  "what  you  probably
fail  to  appreciate  is  that  it  is as a direct result of my
efforts that - If I might explain about the  interconnectedness
of  all  "  He stopped. It was pointless. He slowly dropped the
telephone back on its cradle.
     "Miss Pearce!" he called out, "Kindly send out  a  revised
bill would you to our dear Mrs Sauskind. The new bill reads `To
saving human race from total extinction - no charge."'
     He put on his hat and left for the day.

