Earth, Air, Fire and Custard

by Tom Holt

  ‘Keep still,’ said a voice in his ear, or maybe inside his head. Then something hit him on the point of the jaw, and all the lights went out.

  He was a ship, drifting alone on a yellow sea. He was a hawk wheeling alone through yellow clouds, until he saw a gap and through it, far below, a flat green landscape and a grey stone tower. He swooped, and as he got closer to the ground the tower grew, reaching up to meet him like a stone arm pushing up out of the earth. He landed on a weathered battlement and folded his wings.

  Below him lay the main courtyard, where the tower’s garrison were busy with their chores: grooming horses, burnishing armour with handfuls of sand and straw, practising archery at the butts, carting hay, raking muck out of the stables, drying newly washed linen. Unnoticed by these busy people, he fluttered down and perched on the edge of an open door, next to a large grindstone on which someone was sharpening a wide-bladed axe. He recognised the axe, had a feeling that at some stage he might even have known its name. A few yards to his right, a pig had nosed and shouldered its way out of its pen, and was having a wonderful time being chased round the yard by half a dozen tired, angry men. They were shouting at it in a strange dialect of French; most of the vocabulary was unfamiliar to him, but that didn’t stop him getting the general idea.

  The main stable door swung open, and two men led out a fine black horse, tall and broad enough to pull a brewer’s dray but fine-boned and immaculately turned out. Over a rich red saddle-cloth lay a saddle of tooled green leather, highlighted in gold leaf, with gilded stirrups swinging from the straps. The grooms led the horse to a mounting block standing against the courtyard’s north wall, where a tall man in extravagantly ostentatious clothes was waiting, accompanied by half a dozen servants. The well-dressed man, clearly a great lord, swung himself easily into the saddle, picked up the reins in his left hand and held out his right arm, hand gauntleted and clenched. It was a gesture of invitation and summons; so he spread his wings and fluttered head-high across the yard, turned and dropped neatly onto the lord’s wrist, a suitably perfect landing. Today, the great man told him in a soft, firm voice, they were going out after doves, pheasant and woodcock on the edge of the large stand of pine on the southern boundary of the park; and he must make a special effort and hunt diligently, because tomorrow the king himself would be a guest at the castle, as he broke his journey east from Toronto to the capital—

  ‘You’re all wet,’ said the mermaid.

  This was true. Paul was very wet indeed. There was enough water in his socks alone to wash out all fourteen days of Wimbledon. When he opened his eyes they stung, and he rubbed them.

  ‘You fell in,’ the mermaid told him. ‘It was your own silly fault, you were walking backwards, so you couldn’t see where you were going. Can’t you swim?’

  ‘Yes,’ Paul said. ‘Well, a bit. I was doing fine, actually, till somebody hit me.’

  ‘Sure you were,’ the mermaid said. Her face was only inches away from his, and her thick, wavy brown hair seemed perfectly dry. It had golden highlights, so pale they were almost white. They reminded Paul of something, but he couldn’t for the life of him think what.

  ‘Professor Van Spee’s contract,’ he croaked. ‘Did I mention, it’s really urgent.’

  ‘Done,’ the mermaid replied. ‘While you were out cold. It’s all ready, top copy and two carbons. You need to get out of those wet things before you catch your death.’

  ‘No, really, I’m fine,’ Paul said, all together in a rush. ‘There’s a radiator in my office, I’ll dry off. I’d better be getting back or the professor’ll wonder why I’m taking so long.’

  She only smiled, and started peeling off his jacket. Her eyes were exactly the colour of the water, blue and deep enough to drown in, if you happened not to be a strong swimmer. ‘How’s your jaw?’ she was saying. ‘I didn’t mean to hit you quite so hard, but you were thrashing about like a gaffed shark.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Paul said, as the sleeves of his jacket slithered past his hands; then her fingers were at his throat, prising apart the knot of his tie.

  ‘Don’t you ever stop wriggling about?’ she asked him. ‘The way you’re carrying on, anybody’d think you were the fish out of water.’

  Good point. He was, he realised, on the tiled edge of the pool, and she was kneeling over him, something that ought not to be possible without something to kneel with. He made a point of not looking down, and mumbled, ‘Shouldn’t you be—?’

  She laughed. ‘Hans Christian Andersen to you,’ she said. ‘And it’s all right, you’re safe, you can look.’

  He ventured a quick, furtive glance, and saw that she was wearing a white blouse and a plain navy blue skirt. He relaxed a bit, but she was still very close, and her fingernails were brushing the skin of his neck.

  ‘I go walking three times a week,’ she said proudly. ‘Last Tuesday I walked seventeen lengths. And I borrowed Christine’s catalogue and sent off for a pair of shoes. The pointy ones with the big nail things sticking out of the back end.’ She frowned. ‘You probably know this,’ she went on, ‘but what’s the nail thing for, exactly? I’m guessing it’s like a sort of claw, for holding your prey still while you finish it off.’

  Paul smiled feebly. ‘Something like that,’ he said.

  ‘Thought so. And what about the net things you wear round your legs? What’re they for? Christine says you’re supposed to pull them right up over your thighs, but I can’t see what makes them stay up. And do men wear them, or only women?’

  She’d overcome his tie and started on his shirt buttons. First thing when I get home this evening, he promised himself, I’m going to make that medicine, and bugger giving back the crystals. ‘Look,’ he said, swiping her hand away as though swatting a huge fly, ‘it’s really kind of you, but I’ll, um, change when I get home. Bit of water never hurt anybody.’ Then he sneezed. ‘Anyway, thanks very much for saving me from drowning, but I really ought to get on. You wouldn’t happen to know the time, would you?’

  She frowned thoughtfully. ‘Time,’ she repeated. ‘No, can’t say as I do. What does it look like?’

  That’ll do me, Paul thought, I’m out of here. ‘Thanks again,’ he spluttered, jumped to his feet, slithered and bounded toward the door. Then he realised that he’d forgotten Van Spee’s stupid contract. The mermaid was standing behind him, smiling sweetly, holding it out for him. He took it from her - it weighed a ton, and he felt the tendons in his wrist twang like guitar strings - and fled, letting the door slam behind him.

  In the corridor he stopped, caught his breath and tucked the contract carefully under his arm.

  Water dripped from Paul’s trousers and puddled embarrassingly on the carpet. A fat drop trickled down his forehead and into his right eye. He looked at his watch, but of course it had stopped. Wearily, he squelched back the way he’d come, happily not meeting anybody on the way. They still hadn’t got around to replacing the blown light bulb on the third floor stairs. The world, Paul decided, was a wretched, miserable place.

  ‘You are wet,’ Theo Van Spee told him, as he shuffled through the door. ‘There is a towel on your chair, and dry clothes in the Marks & Spencer bag on the floor to your right, next to the waste-paper basket. You will wish to get changed in the lavatory at the end of the corridor. Nobody else will want to use it today, and you may therefore hang up your wet clothes to dry. You will just be in time to catch Mr Shumway before he leaves for the Bank. I shall not need you any more today.’

  Benny seemed preoccupied, and didn’t hang around to chat; Paul knew that even now he dreaded the daily banking run, and with good reason; so he dumped the contract on the desk and left, heading back to his office. When he got there, he found the new partner, Mr Laertides, sitting on the edge of his desk, eating an apple.

  ‘Your hair’s all wet,’ Mr Laertides said. ‘Raining out, is it?’

  For all I know, Paul decided, it could very well be. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’


  Mr Laertides took another bite of his apple; he sank his teeth into it, then pulled his hand away, so that a chunk of apple-flesh was torn off. Then he dumped the core in Paul’s bin. ‘So tell me,’ he said, ‘what was it really like, fighting it out with Countess Judy? Scary, I bet.’

  Paul nodded. ‘Would it be all right if I didn’t talk about it?’ he said.

  ‘Please yourself,’ Mr Laertides said with his mouth full. ‘Point is, you never actually finished your stint in Media and PR. I know you’re working with Theo Van Spee right now, and after that you’re booked for two months with Cas Suslowicz, castles in the air and so forth. Just thought, though, you might like to sandwich in a few weeks with me. Only, I’m building a rather juicy deal right now that’ll be starting to get interesting about the time you’re due to finish with Theo, and I thought you might like to be in on it. I saw in your personnel file, Judy reckoned you’ve got the knack. And say what you like about her, she was bloody good at the job. What do you say?’

  Difficult, Paul thought. The truth was, of course, that he’d rather scrub sewers with a toothbrush than have anything to do with magic of any sort; but, since he didn’t have that option, one form of unspeakableness was pretty much the same as any other. On the other hand, Mr Suslowicz had struck him as the least offensive of the JWW gang; on Paul’s first day in the job he’d sent him down a map of the building so that he could find his way about through the nightmare tangle of corridors and stair-cases. True, Mr Suslowicz’s map had turned out to be no more than forty per cent accurate, and where it was wrong it was usually disastrously wrong - the first floor small interview room had proved to be a store for eight-foot-tall man-shaped wicker cages, and Mr Suslowicz had marked the blue door opposite the window on the second floor landing as a stationery cupboard, when in fact it was a ladies’ toilet. In spite of that, Paul had been sort-of-looking-forward to two months in Civil Engineering, whereas Mr Laertides was very much an unknown quantity. Fortunately, inspiration struck; ‘I’ll ask Mr Tanner what he thinks,’ Paul said. ‘He’s sort of in charge of that kind of arrangement, so—’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Mr Laertides stood up. He moved jerkily, like bad animation. ‘Well, see you at Rosie’s later, for the rehearsal.’ On his way to the door, he paused. ‘One last thing,’ he added, rather in the style of Lieutenant Columbo. ‘Have you had a chance to brew up the medicine yet?’

  As far as Paul was concerned, his life over the last nine months had turned into the sort of experience you’d expect if Dante had designed the rides at Alton Towers. Mostly he seemed to be trapped in the one where you’re swept along down a pitch-dark underground river in an open boat, and the branches of overhanging trees keep smacking you in the face. ‘Medicine,’ he repeated.

  ‘You know,’ said Mr Laertides, with a hint of impatience, ‘the jollop. The stuff that’ll stop you falling in love every two minutes. Theo told me you went ferreting about in his old books one time when you thought he wasn’t looking. Then you nicked a load of his special patent wonder-crystals from the jar in his desk drawer, so Theo guessed you were planning on making the stuff. Bloody good idea, he thought, it’ll help you keep your mind on your work, instead of drooping round the place like a weasel with malaria. Well? Only if you haven’t done it yet, maybe you’d like a hand. It’s not exactly rocket science, chucking a few ingredients in a saucepan, but it’s not exactly defrosting an Asda cannelloni, either.’ Mr Laertides frowned; his whole face seemed to clench inwards, as if an invisible hand was squeezing it. ‘You want my help or don’t you? Up to you, of course, but I do happen to have a master’s degree in supernatural chemistry, whereas you can just about boil an egg without blowing up most of north-west London.’

  The last part was true enough. ‘Excuse me,’ Paul said cautiously, ‘but why would you, a partner and all, want to spend valuable fee-earning time helping me do something that’s nothing to do with work?’

  Mr Laertides’s face went blank for a moment; then he laughed. ‘Suspicious soul, aren’t you? No bad thing, either, in this trade, and after the Countess Judy business and all I don’t blame you. Always wise to have a gander at a gift horse’s teeth, just in case they’re about to meet in your neck.’ He reached out a hand - it was almost as though he had a telescopic arm that extended from the elbow - and dealt Paul a staggering blow on the shoulder. ‘But it’s okay,’ he said, ‘you don’t need to worry about me. Fact is, we’re going to be working together from now on, and I don’t hold with all that stuffy them-and-us crap, it’s completely counter-productive in my experience. If we’re going to be on the same team, I’d like us to be mates, and mates help each other, right? Or would you rather stick with the unappeasable-hatred school of industrial relations?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Paul said, when the silence got too much for him. ‘No, obviously. I just didn’t want to, um, trespass on your good nature or anything.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Mr Laertides, and his face dissolved and reformed into a jovial scowl. ‘You’re thinking, this bloke’s up to something, and he’s a partner, so he’s got to be a right bastard. Which is fine,’ he added, ‘but it’s not getting your medicine brewed, and you don’t even know where to buy crème fraiche. Whereas I just happen to have a spare half-hour and a pot of the stuff upstairs in the staffroom fridge. So, you up for it or not?’

  You can lead a horse to water, and even though you can’t necessarily make it drink, you can stick a hosepipe up its nose and turn on the tap. ‘Yes,’ Paul said. ‘I mean, thanks, that’d be really great. So long as you’re sure it’s no bother.’

  ‘No trouble at all.’ Mr Laertides immediately became a smile on legs. ‘You scratch my back, I scratch yours, that’s what makes the world go round.’ From the top pocket of his suit jacket, he pulled a piece of paper, a photocopy of a page from a book. ‘Now then, apart from the crystals and the crème fraiche, we need anchovies, floor wax, trichloroethylene, fresh cucumber, turpentine, paracetamol, mutton fat, charcoal, chalk dust, black lead, extra-virgin olive oil, salt, sulphur, cornflour, starch, Epsom salts, butter, eggs, flour, monosodium glutamate and permitted colourants and flavourings.’ He was ticking items off the list with a stub of pencil that had materialised behind his ear as soon as he reached up for it. ‘No problems there, we’ve got all of that in the stores. Equipment; let’s see, we’ll want a Groeninger crucible - well, that’s easy enough, just cut the neck off a plastic milk bottle - an ethane burner rated to 3,000,000 BTU, triple-action refractory chamber, yes, got that, all just standard lab kit really, and a tin-opener, of course. No,’ he concluded, folding the paper up and vanishing it into the palm of his hand, ‘no difficulties there. You’ve got the crystals, we’ll stop off at the staffroom and then press on to the lab on the fourth floor. Piece of cake, really.’

  As Paul followed Mr Laertides up the stairs it occurred to him, when he could spare a moment or two from trying to catch his breath, that 70 St Mary Axe didn’t have a fourth floor. He kept quiet, however, and that proved to be just as well, because he’d only have shown his ignorance. Mr Laertides led the way past Professor Van Spee’s office, down a corridor that Paul had never explored to a small door painted an improbable shade of primrose yellow. It opened onto a narrow circular staircase, the sort of thing you’d expect to find in a church steeple or a castle tower; at the top was another yellow door, on which someone had painted

  DEFENSE D’ENTRER

  in huge green letters. It opened a split second before Mr Laertides gave it a shove, and beyond it lay a long, bright, sparse room, lined with melamine-topped workbenches cluttered with retorts, Bunsen burners, fume cupboards, old-fashioned brass microscopes and all manner of scientific junk the likes of which Paul hadn’t seen since his last school chemistry lesson. On hooks on the butter-coloured wall hung a row of several dozen brown lab coats. Mr Laertides grabbed two as he swept past, tossed one over his shoulder to Paul and wriggled into the other without breaking stride.

  ‘Lots to do,’ he called out without looking r
ound; he was pulling open a huge store cupboard at the back of the room, hauling out jars and packets and bottles without needing to look at the labels. ‘Light up a Bunsen, would you, and fill a couple of those five-litre beakers with clean water.’

  After a long and frustrating search, Paul found a matchbox containing precisely one match, and lit the gas. By now, the pile of ingredients was so tall that he could only just see the top of Mr Laertides’s head. He drew the water from the tap in the middle of the centre bench. The room, he noticed, had a frosted-glass roof but no windows, and no electric light. No electric points, either, or electrical equipment of any kind; odd, surely, for a modern laboratory. Mr Laertides was humming as he worked, but he was a lousy hummer, and the tune sounded like nothing on Earth.

  Filling the beakers turned out to be the last chore assigned to him. Mr Laertides did everything else himself, shuffling and scuttling up and down the workbenches like a huge long-legged crab. Pretty soon he had no less than half a dozen Bunsens roaring away, each one warming a big glass vessel on a tripod stand. Fiddly arrangements of rubber and glass tube linked each vessel to its neighbours; there were filters, like yuppie coffee-makers, and things gripped in steel claws on clamps, and vents where waste gas was burned off. It all looked like a cross between a black-and-white Frankenstein’s workshop and the old Mousetrap game that Paul had played with as a kid. Presumably there was a point to it all.