by Tim Neilson
All this had been agreed the previous night at dinner. However, torn between the emotion of hope and the calculated expectation of further failure, they went over their plans again as they walked, with Tina trailing dejectedly behind.
“What are you going to do?” Anna asked Tina as they settled into their seats and waited for the train to start moving southwards.
“I dunno,” Tina responded listlessly. Anna paused, feeling a degree of frustration with Tina’s attitude and not quite sure how to respond.
“The library isn’t exactly your scene, is it,” James sympathised. Tina smiled slightly in confirmation.
“We’ll get a tourist map at King’s Cross and you can work out what you want to see,” Anna suggested. “But stay in touch by text, especially if you’re going to go very far away.”
“But you could have a look around UCL,” James continued. “Go and see Jeremy Bentham.”
“Who’s he?” asked Tina.
“He was a famous philosopher who lived about two hundred years ago, and …”
“Then how can I see him?” Tina enquired.
“After he died, they used his skeleton as the basis for a life-size doll of his body, which is dressed in some of his clothes. It’s on display in the main building. Nowadays the head is a waxwork, but …”
“That’s just so weird,” Tina responded with slight revulsion, but a conspicuous flicker of interest.
“I suppose so,” admitted James, “but it has a practical side to it. When the UCL Council meets, they have Bentham’s body with the waxwork head in the room, staring at them, so …”
“That’s even more weird,” Tina protested.
“Well, superficially, yes,” James conceded, “but if they’re ever in danger of taking too short-term a view of things, having someone there from two centuries ago who was involved in setting up the College reminds them that decisions can have some very long-term ramifications.”
To Tina, anything that might occur at any time after the next weekend usually seemed highly theoretical, so she found it hard to comprehend the utility of such an approach to life. But an analogy helped her to understand how the technique might work.
“Sort of like if I carried around a picture of Anna with a talk bubble drawn on it saying, ‘don’t even think about it’?” she suggested to James, before remembering that Anna was in fact present, which prompted her to glance sideways, furtively, in Anna’s direction.
“No comment. Absolutely no comment at all,” James smiled, as Anna pretended to glare malevolently at her sister.
“Anyway,” continued James, “I’m going to call into the Library first to pay homage before going to UCL.”
“Another dead body?” asked Tina.
“Come with me and see,” he replied.
The train glided through London’s northern suburbs and soon they were disembarking at King’s Cross. It was peak hour in the metropolis, so they waded slowly through the massive throngs on the platform, inside the station and on the forecourt at the front, before being swept along in the equally dense mass of humanity heading westward on the footpath on the northern side of Euston Road.
Soon they reached the broad red-brick plaza fronting the British Library. They turned into it, escaping the purposeful hordes on the pavement, and strolled more casually towards the glass doors which, large though they were, were dwarfed by the imposing bulk of the great building. Inside was a vast atrium where there were a few small groups of backpackers talking loudly, some small children protesting at being towed around such a place, and enough other people milling aimlessly to create some degree of bustle. Yet the overall ambience was one of genteel decorum, as would be expected in a public library.
James entered first, pausing to drop some money in the donation box, before heading left towards a small doorway. Anna followed, slightly behind him, but kept walking towards the lifts. With a brief gesture of farewell to Anna, Tina followed James. She found herself leaving the vast soaring light-filled vault at the entrance and entering into a low-ceilinged and very dimly lit cavern full of glass cabinets. James slowed his walk to glance at a few of them and Tina did likewise. They were full of ancient leather-bound books, parchment scrolls, or cloths made of silk or linen, all bearing screeds of indecipherable text, and similar artefacts from the long history of the written word.
Fascinating, an unimpressed Tina thought, disdainfully. James gestured to her to follow him into an even more cramped and dingy alcove. He pointed to one of the exhibits under the glass, a frayed parchment almost completely covered with dense, illegible handwriting.
“Doesn’t look much, does it?” James asked. Tina was glad that James had made that remark, so that she could concur with both politeness and total honesty.
“But that bit of parchment …” James continued, “was a vital step on the road to a democratic England, and eventually Australia, being like they are and not being like North Korea or Nazi Germany. It’s called ‘Magna Carta’, and it’s more than eight hundred years old.”
It certainly looks like it, thought Tina, unconvinced that the seemingly unintelligible words on a grubby decaying sheet of insignificant size could really be that important.
But then James began to explain to her about how, shortly before the document was written, what was supposed to be the government had become just like an organised crime syndicate. He told her how at that time normal people, like small farmers, were effectively victims of extortion with no way of redressing the atrocities the armed minions of the powerful inflicted on them. She was reminded of her father, Uncle Joe and the rest of the family living in a state of vigilance in case one of the Melbourne crime syndicates attempted to impose some new protection racket or other shakedown on the district’s vegetable growers or the stallholders at the markets. It occurred to her that although the government in Australia might not be totally effective in stopping the crime gangs, life would be a whole lot worse if the government was actually one of the gangs itself.
Listening to James more intently, she learned to her surprise that Richard the Lionheart and his brother the evil Prince John were real historical figures and not just characters in Robin Hood films. And by the end of James’s description she understood the significance of John, after he had become King and resumed the tyranny that the Robin Hood films depicted, being forced to concede that the ruler had to obey rules as well as make them. She had rarely paid great attention to political news, but she was inevitably aware of political leaders being caught in various scandals but somehow always evading any serious punishment.
“Pity our politicians don’t get forced to sign something like that,” she remarked. James concurred, appraising her with a surprised respect that Tina noticed with pleasure.
“Time for me to go to UCL,” James announced. “There’s some sort of exhibition on in the next gallery. You could check that out if you’re just looking for a way to kill time. I don’t know how long I’ll be at UCL, so if you get too bored try texting me later.” He turned to make his way back to the street.
Tina was sure that she wouldn’t have the patience to spend much time in another room full of old literary artefacts, at least not without James there to tell her about them. Besides, it had been a superb morning when they had arrived, so she was quite happy to select an outdoor attraction on her map and enjoy the sunshine. She followed James back into the brightness of the large vaulted entrance area. There she saw something that interested her much more than any tourist attraction. She slowed to allow James to get a few yards ahead, gazed around with apparent casualness for a few seconds, and then began moving cautiously towards the exit.
Meanwhile, Anna had commenced her work in the long gallery on an upper floor full of massive shelves flanked by large writing tables with their accompanying rows of chairs. She toiled diligently until she’d exhausted all possible leads in the library’s collection. Then she headed along the corridor, making for the exit. It hadn’t been an unpleasant environment at all, but a
fter yet another dull trawl through old papers she felt like taking a few minutes’ break from the fruitless quest before moving on to the next location on their list. In deference to the library’s rules she had switched off her phone; she was tempted to leave it off and spend a brief time gazing at the displays on the ground floor before notifying James of her progress. However, she turned it back on, just in case. There was a missed call, but only from Tina. A missed text, too. Good, again only from Tina. But what did she want? Anna sighed, and wearily clicked the text message open.
James is still in the UCL library. You need some kind of permit to go in, so they are both still outside. So am I. I’ve texted him to stay in there till he hears from us.
Anna wondered what on earth the message was about. She checked the time of the text. Pretty recent, she noted. She scrolled up and found an earlier message.
Two men followed James out of the British Library. I didn’t see them till after you had gone upstairs, so I don’t know whether there’s anyone tailing you. Be careful.
Bruno Rischelli had taught his daughters everything he knew about spotting trouble before it happened. “That man over there reading a magazine – notice how long it’s been since he turned a page? Why is it taking so long?” Or, “Pretty much everyone in a train carriage will naturally choose a seat facing forwards if there is one. There are plenty in here. So why did those people further up the railway carriage choose a seat facing backwards but towards us?” Ninety-nine times out of one hundred there would be a perfectly benign explanation for such occurrences. But Bruno wanted his girls to be unerring in noticing the one in one hundred for which the explanation wasn’t harmless. Local organised crime gangs could pose danger to members of a hard-working, independent, market-gardening family. Bruno had hoped his daughters would use the skills he drilled into them to avoid those kinds of perils. In Tina’s case that hope had been an illusion. But she’d been an excellent pupil. Anna knew that if Tina said there were potential enemies in sight, there would be.
Where are you? Have you seen them before? Have they spotted you? Did James get the message? she texted in response.
The reply came quickly.
First time I’ve seen them, and they don’t know I’m watching them. Pretty sure they don’t know me. Just guessing but maybe they didn’t see James till after we split up just before going into the library. Yes, James texted back. Come through the front gate of UCL main building in Gower Street.
Anna hastily asked directions from one of the library staff, hurried out and along Euston Road and turned down Gower Street, past the tube station entrance on the corner and along the broad footpath, soon flanked on her left by the towering limestone walls of UCL’s main buildings. She reached two massive iron railing gates with a small security guard’s office between them, beyond which were pathways and lawns between her and the great dome and portico on the far side of the spacious quadrangle. She thought briefly of asking the security guards for help, but realised that there wasn’t yet anything specific about which she could legitimately ask them to intervene. She scanned the scene. Tina was there, just to the right of the vast steps leading up to the portico. Any casual observer would think that she was just staring vacantly into space, but to Anna’s experienced eye Tina was clearly dividing her attention between the gate and a doorway leading into the southeast wing of the building next to which she was lounging.
“Sorry, I had to have the phone off at the Library,” Anna explained after strolling up to her sister. “What’s happening?”
“James is downstairs,” Tina explained. “You go through that door just to your right, turn left, and when you’re at the wider space near the centre there’s a flight of steps downwards. At the bottom you’ll see the entrance where some official checks people’s ID or whatever. James is still in there. There’s two guys … let’s walk,” she concluded suddenly, backing off, turning away from her sister and meandering apparently aimlessly around the portico steps towards the northern side of the quadrangle. Anna waited until Tina was some way away before making a wide survey of the scene with an air of negligent indifference.
She was fairly confident that she knew immediately who had caused Tina to retreat, but she forced herself to scan everyone in the vicinity. There was a young student type lounging near a sign identifying the doorway in the north wing that led to the Slade School of Fine Art. He was scrutinising Tina intently. Anna could see, though, that the nature of his interest in Tina was obvious enough and wasn’t anything to be concerned about. No one else seemed particularly intent on surveying either her or Tina, including the man she had marked out as the potential problem.
Good, thought Anna. It occurred to her that it was strange there were people following James, but they apparently had no idea of her and Tina’s connection with him. No time to worry about that now, she thought, and ambled as unobtrusively as she could towards Tina.
“Jeans, T-shirt, enough jewellery to start his own shop?” she asked when she was near enough to communicate quietly. Tina assented.
“The other one looks the same. They obviously realise they’d look a bit conspicuous hanging around together at one spot in a busy downstairs corridor, so they’re staying apart and moving around from time to time, but I’ll bet there’s always one with a line of vision to the entrance of the library James is in.”
“Any idea whether they’re real trouble, or just watching?”
“No,” Tina responded, then glanced downwards. She retrieved her phone, which sensibly she’d switched to silent, from a pocket. She remained wordless and motionless as she read a text, but Anna could see surges of emotion flickering on her face.
“From James,” Tina said, and passed her phone across.
Just got a text from Claudia, the screen revealed. Cam is hurt. OK, but it wasn’t an accident. He thinks we should drop it. Be careful. I’ll text Anna as well but tell her if you can.
Anna remained impassive as she passed Tina’s phone back, desultorily scanned the incoming message on her own phone and replied to let James know that they had both got his warning. Beneath the surface, though, she could feel her heart pounding. She would have to defer thinking about how James had been identified and why she and Tina hadn’t. Their immediate task was to get James to safety.
She thought again about security guards or even the police, but she surmised that their pursuers wouldn’t be stupid enough to do anything to attract action from the professionals. She reasoned their stalkers hadn’t struck yet, though they could have if they’d wanted to, so they probably wouldn’t try to inflict harm while James was among crowds of witnesses, even if he wasn’t being guarded. But if they did try, who could predict whether or not they would succeed before they were stopped? In any case, the problem would continue to exist for as long as the pursuers were around. It was common sense to plan for the likelihood that when James appeared they would keep following him and wait for an opportunity to act. James would have to shake off the pursuit. She shared her thoughts with Tina, who agreed. They both pondered the problem for a short while, then Anna put a plan to Tina. Although Tina was dubious, she couldn’t think of a better option. Anna composed a long text to James.
“OK,” came James’s response. Anna was relieved that he’d had the sense not to bother her with a lot of questions. Perhaps, she thought, he’ll be steady enough to carry it off.
“Down you go,” she instructed Tina. “And stick to the script,” she warned forcefully. Whatever worries she had about James’s temperament paled into insignificance compared with her fears about Tina’s recklessly instinctive impulses in a ‘friends and enemies’ situation.
She allowed herself an occasional glance towards Tina, who was walking with deliberately inconspicuous slowness back to the door in the southeast wing. Soon she had vanished from sight. Anna knew that there would be a delay before anything happened to which she might need to respond, because she had told James that before making any move he should wait for Tina to check out the
entrance to the library and text him an all clear. However, that knowledge didn’t make the waiting any less nerve wracking.
There was James. Next out the door was Tina, with the jewelled men close behind. Good, she’d managed to interpose herself between them and James. She’d judged it well, too, giving James a few metres start, but not so much that the stalkers got impatient and barged past her. Even on the open lawn they weren’t charging towards James, so it seemed that for the present they were content to keep James under observation. But, of course, that might change at any second.
James walked past. He didn’t turn his head towards her but his eyes met hers. She didn’t dare to try to communicate any reassurance, hoping that the casualness she had on show for the benefit of the pursuers would be sufficient to ease James’s mind. He was doing his best to walk with a natural unhurried rhythm, and rigidly refraining from looking behind him, as he headed towards the main gate.
Tina joined Anna and they too ambled towards the gate, well behind James. They forced themselves not to hurry when he passed through on to the footpath outside and turned left, so that they nearly lost sight of him just before they themselves reached the gate. No need to panic, Anna reminded herself, we’re between him and trouble. The pursuers didn’t feel the same way, scurrying to catch up so they were close behind, risking the sacrifice of their low profile in favour of maintaining constant surveillance.
As Anna and Tina emerged onto the footpath a bus pulled up at a stop just to the south of the gates.
Excellent, thought Anna. She had hoped that if James had to hang around for a bus to come, their antagonists would wait patiently rather than taking the opportunity to do something more aggressive, but it was good not to have to put that hope to the test. A couple of passengers disembarked. Then James, who had, as instructed, been idling next to the wall looking uninterested in the bus, suddenly skipped across the footpath and leapt inside the rear doors. Anna and Tina instantly jumped on to the bottom step of the rear entrance and stood still as if hesitating about boarding.
