Overtime. Part 29

'Were they Wardens' officers?' the Warden asked.

'No idea,' the sentry replied.

The Chief Warden turned to the Galeazzo brothers. 'My men have orders to destroy these places on sight, no questions asked,' he explained. 'I know it seems hard, but you've got no idea the damage they can do.' He turned back to the sentry. 'They knocked you out, did they?'

The sentry nodded. 'b.l.o.o.d.y lucky they did, I guess,' he went on. 'I'd just come round when the whole lot blew up. No survivors, except me. I was lucky; a bit of the fence fell on me and s.h.i.+elded me from the blast, I suppose. About half an hour later a van turned up, more like an ambulance; they took the bodies of the soldiers away. Our blokes just sort of -'

'Yes,' said the Warden, who wasn't a cruel man. 'Yes, I wouldn't worry about that. No survivors, then?'

The sentry shook his head. 'None of our lot,' he said. 'No sign of the other one, either.'

The Warden raised an eyebrow. 'What other one?' he said.

'Blondel,' said the sentry.

There was a silence. It probably seemed longer than it actually was.

'Did you say Blondel?' the Chief Warden asked. 'Blondel the singer?'

The sentry nodded. 'That's right,' he said. 'I recognised the face when he thumped me.

'He thumped you...'

'When he broke into the rig,' the sentry explained. 'That was, oh, fifteen minutes before your blokes.'

Giovanni pushed his way past the Chief Warden. 'You can't be sure it was him,' he said. 'Just a quick glance ...'

'But I heard him,' replied the sentry. 'He sang, over the tannoy. I'd know that voice anywhere. He sang that big number from the 1189 White Alb.u.m. You know, goes like -'He hummed a few bars.

'L'Amours Dont Sui Epris?' the Chief Warden whispered. He had gone very pale all of a sudden.

'That's it,' the sentry said. 'Dead good, that, especially that bit where...'

n.o.body was listening. The Chief Warden turned to the Galeazzo brothers.

'Did you know,' he said softly, 'that Blondel was in the Archives?'

By a feat of great dexterity, Giovanni stood on the toes of both his brothers at once. 'I had no idea,' he said. 'That's awful.'

The Warden gave him an extremely unpleasant look. 'You're sure, are you?' he said. 'Well, what a coincidence. Because if you'd known he was here, and there had been a chance of saving him ... You realise that now none of his songs were ever written?'

'Really?' Giovanni raised both eyebrows. 'What a tragedy.'

'Well ...' The Warden shrugged his shoulders. 'You'd better help me get this man in the car. We'll need him for questioning.'

Together they lifted the sentry into the Land Rover. It wasn't till he was safely installed on the back seat and propped up on two cus.h.i.+ons that the Chief Warden produced a gun and ordered the brothers out of the car. Once they were out of it, but while they were still reacting strongly and making a variety of protests and appeals to his better nature, he slammed the door and told the driver to drive on.

The choice between being forcibly married to a beautiful but incompatible girl and remaining indefinitely in a coal cellar is not one that many people have to confront. Even Aristotle, whose works cover a wide range of possible moral dilemmas, glosses over it in a very perfunctory manner; and Guy wasn't exactly one of Aristotle's greatest fans in any event. He decided to rely on instinct.

'If it's all the same to you,' he shouted through the door, 'I'll stay where I am, thanks.'

'Mr Goodlet...'

'Thank you,' Guy repeated, politely but firmly. To reinforce the point, he piled coal against the door.

'You're being rather childish, Mr Goodlet.'

Maybe, Guy thought. So what's wrong with children all of a sudden? Clever people, children. Don't have to go to work.

'I'm sure that if we discussed this in a sensible manner,' said La Beale Isoud, 'we could easily sort matters out.'

'No, really,' Guy said, 'I like it here. So, if it's all the same to you ...'

'It is not all the same to me,' retorted La Beale Isoud, and there was something in her tone of voice which suggested that her previously inexhaustible-seeming reservoir of ladylike behaviour might be running a trifle low. 'Mr Goodlet,' she went on, 'whether you like it or not - whether either of us likes it or not, come to that - it would seem that at some time in the future we are to become man and wife. I really think that we should be trying to establish the groundwork for a mature and meaningful relations.h.i.+p, and I don't really see how that can be achieved with you in the coal cellar.'

Guy said nothing. Something or other ran lightly over his foot and up his leg as far as his knee. He shuddered slightly.

'Mr Goodlet. Guy,' said La Beale Isoud, 'I'm not going to plead with you indefinitely, you know. What will be, will be, and if you want to start off our relations.h.i.+p on this sort of note, then I for one will not be answerable for the consequences.'

Guy considered this for a moment; then, having reflected maturely on what Isoud had said, and also the way in which she had said it, scrabbled around for some more coal to pile against the door. The woman sounded exactly like his cousin Flora.

There was a long silence, but Guy wasn't going to be fooled. She might have gone away; on the other hand, she might be waiting outside the door, holding her breath and with an attendant clergyman and two bridesmaids standing behind her fingering sacrificial implements.

'Are you there, Mr Goodlet?'

'Yes.'

'It may interest you to know,' said La Beale Isoud, 'that I am none too happy about this idea myself. However, instead of shouting at each other through the door, perhaps we should be considering how we can prevent this thing happening?' A long pause. 'Mr Goodlet?'

'Still here.'

'Mr Goodlet, I'm rapidly running out of patience. Would you at least have the good manners to answer me when I speak to you?'

'Look,' Guy said, 'I really don't want to seem rude, but if there's a photograph of us on our wedding day, then I'm afraid I'm just going to stay put. The way I see it, we can't get married if I stay here. If you want to get on and do something else, please don't mind me.'

'Oh, for heaven's sake ...'

Guy heard the sound of bad-tempered heels clacking away across flagstones, and relaxed slightly. It might be that she'd gone to fetch a crowbar, but as far as he could remember it had seemed like a good, solid door, opening inwards. He lay back on the heap of coal and considered his situation in some detail.

He tried to puzzle out, from what Blondel had told him, how time worked. On the one hand, it seemed, you could whizz back and forwards through time as easily as catching a train. On the other hand, it stood to reason that if a photograph of him on his wedding day had been taken, then he'd had a wedding day at some time or other - some time in the future, of course - and in that case, the thing had already happened and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Except, of course, that it was in the future, so it couldn't already have happened. He could stop it happening by taking his revolver and shooting himself here and now - a.s.suming he didn't miss, which seemed on recent experience to be quite a large a.s.sumption - but since he wasn't seriously proposing to put it to the test, that one could be shelved for the time being.

Meanwhile, what he needed most of all, he decided, was a smoke; and to this end he produced from his pockets his last remaining cigarette, his last two matches and the remains of his matchbox, which had not been improved structurally by having been fallen on several times recently. He struck a match.

No Entry. Authorised Personnel Only.