by Jodi Taylor
Lingoss took me to one side.
‘What?’ I said.
‘I have a message from Tim – sorry, Dr Peterson.’
‘What is it?’
‘Whatever you need – you will have. Just ask. And don’t worry about what’s happening at St Mary’s. He’s got your back. If you need him – he’ll be here as soon as he can climb into a pod.’
I smiled. Things suddenly didn’t seem quite so dark.
We divvied up the tag readers and all the other bits and pieces, divided ourselves into pairs, allocated areas and set off to comb the city.
I can’t describe the search in any great detail because all the days merged into one another. Endless hours tramping the crowded streets, being jostled by every man and his donkey, swallowing the dust. Pausing only for a quick bite to eat and a drink and then off again. Stopping only when it was too dark to see and respectable people had locked their doors and retired for their evening meal.
Seven long, long days later we’d covered every inch and found nothing so, gate by gate, we moved outside. There were thriving communities on the other side of the walls. Towns in their own rights. Nomads, merchant trains, slave markets, herds of animals, hide tents, barracks, barns, tatty houses – we covered it all and there was no sign. No one had had even a flash on their readers. We called continually – over our coms and more shouting in the streets – but no response. When we could safely do so, we chalked ‘St Mary’s’ on walls and gates. If they were dead then their bodies weren’t in this vicinity because theoretically, we’d still be able to read their tags. Not that our tag readers were particularly reliable. I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before. In general, it’s quicker and easier for the rescuers to shout, ‘Where are you?’ and the rescuees to shout, ‘Over here, idiots.’ But, in the end, we were forced to admit it: we couldn’t find them because they weren’t here.
We were running out of rations and water. We were exhausted. The mood was beyond despairing. I had to billet Hyssop and her team in a separate pod for their own safety.
Finally, I was obliged to call a halt and take us home.
Once back at St Mary’s, I sent everyone off to Sick Bay to have their sunburn and mosquito bites treated. I decontaminated and then went straight to Treadwell, massively resenting the fact he wasn’t there to meet us. Dr Bairstow would have been there on our arrival, demanding a verbal report and asking what my next plans were.
Hyssop, however, had got to him first. I hadn’t hung around so she must really have motored.
Treadwell looked up as I stormed into the office. ‘Dr Maxwell, this is very bad news. I take it you’re here to seek permission to . . .’
I cut him short. ‘I don’t need your permission. It was your people who screwed this up in the first place. We’re here for a few hours’ rest and a good meal and then we’re going straight back.’ I pointed at Hyssop. ‘I’ll tell you now, no one will ever work with her people again – but that’s your problem and I’m dumping it squarely in your lap.’
Hyssop flushed. Treadwell intervened. ‘I think you forget it is I who command St Mary’s.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ I said, ‘but my priority is rescuing my people from the situation caused by your Security Section, so I’ll leave you here asserting your authority.’
‘Captain Hyssop will have command of this situation.’
‘Over her dead body,’ I said. ‘Sorry, Commander, but unless you want to treat the world to the very unedifying sight of Hyssop trying to assert her authority over a bunch of people who think she’s not worth the shoes she’s standing in, then I advise you to leave her and her Half-Wits behind. Perhaps, since you’re so keen on women knowing their place in the world, she could do something useful in the kitchen.’
There was a rather nasty silence. I could hear my heart thumping in my head.
Treadwell came out from behind his desk. ‘Three jumps, Dr Maxwell.’
I blinked. Was he saying what I thought he was saying?
‘What?’
‘Three jumps. Of which you have already had one.’
I took a deep breath and assembled the last rags of my temper. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. You can’t possibly impose a finite number of jumps on a rescue mission. No one works like that. If an airliner goes down, no one says, “You can only search until next Thursday after which we’ll conveniently forget all about it and resume normal duties.” They search until there’s no hope of finding anyone. Dead or alive.’
‘Exactly my point, Dr Maxwell. If, after three exhaustive searches, you have failed to discover any trace of the missing historians, then it makes sense to move on.’
‘You mean forget my missing people, forget Hyssop’s blunder in losing them and forget your blunder in giving her more responsibility than she could handle.’
‘No, I mean we hold all the ceremonies appropriate and then, regretfully, resume the tasks for which we are paid.’
‘And what is this supposed jump I’ve already had?’
‘Your first search, Dr Maxwell. The one from which you have just returned. The one where you searched everywhere but were unable to find them. Face it – that was your best chance. If you failed then you’re not likely to succeed in any subsequent attempts, are you?’
‘Are you so blindly stupid that you think people here will just abandon their colleagues because you say so? And carry on as if nothing has happened?’
‘They will if you will, Dr Maxwell. It’s called leadership and it’s what I expect from the Head of the History Department.’
I made very sure to speak quietly. ‘Then I’m afraid you will have to brace yourself for some serious disappointment, Commander. My people are lost out there – courtesy of your people—’
‘There are no your people and my people—’
‘Unfortunately that is not true, because your people are a serious threat to my people and, if Hyssop has her way, very soon there won’t be any of my people left. This is your fault, Treadwell, and my report will make it very clear that I hold you responsible. You insisted on deploying untrained staff. You handed Scarfe a recorder to carry out a task he was supremely unqualified to do. Your incessant urge to cut corners and change the focus of St Mary’s has led Hyssop to overstep the very limited bounds of her expertise. You’ve taken a functioning, productive St Mary’s and flung them into chaos for no better reason than to make yourself look good. Congratulations, Commander. We have Us and we have Them and I am incredibly proud to belong to Team Us. In fact, let me give you some excellent advice for remedying this catastrophe of your making: fuck off. When you get there – fuck off again. And then fuck right off.’
I spun on my heel and stormed from the room. The wonderful Mrs Partridge already had the door open so nothing marred my magnificent exit.
Actually, I was so furious I could hardly see straight, but instinct must have led me to the dining room – clearly labelled Dining Room by Mrs Mack, who had been very unimpressed with the appellation ‘Mess Hall’. Where I found more trouble waiting for me. In fact, we stood on the brink of a pitched battle. Possibly in a foredoomed effort at self-preservation the new Security Section – excluding Evans and his team who were conspicuously absent – had pushed the tables together to form a reserved Security Section area. And trust me, there is no quicker way to annoy Mrs Mack than to change the layout of her beloved dining room. She was there too – sans battle ladle but it was only a matter of time – with St Mary’s lined up behind her, facing down Hyssop’s people. They stood chest to chest. Food had been forgotten – an indication of the seriousness of the situation. Battle lines had been drawn and things were looking ugly.
My first thought was to back out of the door and let them get on with it, but I’d seen them, and worse, they’d seen me.
I strode forwards. ‘What’s happening here?’
Mrs Mack turned. ‘They’ve moved t
he tables, Max. My people can’t get past with their trollies and they’re blocking the fire exit.’
I couldn’t resist. No one could have. ‘Relax,’ I said. ‘It’s only part of Hyssop’s cunning plan to kill us all off. Someone fetch our new Health and Safety officer – oh . . . wait . . .’
Hyssop’s Half-Wits stood in a tight, defensive group.
‘You don’t want to mess with us,’ said Scarfe and one or two St Mary’s people laughed outright.
‘Ooh,’ said Sykes. ‘Doesn’t he look funny without his mummy.’
Scarfe raised his fist and I stepped between them.
‘I’ll say this only once. For your own good, go and eat somewhere else. I mean it, and if you were blessed with a leader who had any brains, she’d say the same. Obviously, she’s not here – I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about that – but I’m telling you – no, I’m ordering you – fuck off and eat somewhere else. And don’t give me any crap about not taking orders from historians. Treadwell’s busy selling the myth that we’re all one St Mary’s, in which case you do take orders from me. If you don’t feel you’re part of St Mary’s – a feeling shared by everyone here – then you’ve no right to these facilities so just fuck off anyway.’
No one moved.
I honestly thought we were three seconds away from breaking the furniture over each other’s heads but Hyssop suddenly appeared in the doorway. She looked rather pale. I wondered if she’d been blasted by Treadwell – which he certainly should have done regardless of how he felt about me. I sighed. Here was another situation for her to impose herself on.
‘What’s going on here?’
It was Mrs Mack who answered. ‘The behaviour of your team is beyond what I can accept in this dining room. You will please remove them at once. If you phone through an order, your food will be brought down to you but until your team’s attitude changes, the dining room is off limits to you all.’
Without even bothering to make sure Hyssop complied, she wheeled away, back into the kitchen.
Hyssop stared around, read the situation correctly for once and made a gesture for her team to withdraw.
Mrs Mack’s team began to restore the original layout and, slowly, St Mary’s returned to their tables and resumed eating.
I stood for a moment, having a bit of a think, and then caught Mr Sands’ eye. And then Miss Van Owen’s. Senior historians, the pair of them. They nodded and I pushed off back to my own office to try to calm down a little.
They turned up about ten minutes later with a plate of sandwiches piled two storeys high.
‘You’ve just had lunch,’ I said.
‘They’re for you,’ said Sands, dumping the plate on my desk.
I suddenly realised I was starving.
Ham, cheese and tomato, tuna mayonnaise, beef and cold potato – I got stuck in. Van Owen made the tea. Rosie Lee was mercifully absent and I couldn’t be bothered to enquire where and why.
‘What’s up?’ said Sands. ‘Apart from the obvious, I mean.’
When I could speak again, I explained about Treadwell and his brilliant new idea concerning our search and rescue procedures.
‘I didn’t want to say anything in front of everyone else,’ I said. ‘We can’t have people knowing that, these days, St Mary’s does leave its people behind.’
‘God, no,’ said Van Owen and Sands nodded.
‘I’ve been having a bit of a think,’ I said, ‘and we can get round this. Picture a relay race.’
‘Brilliant, Max,’ said Sands, a phrase not uttered anything like often enough.
I nodded. ‘Apparently we’ve had one jump – he’s counting the original as our first – so according to him, we have two left. Except we don’t.’
‘Simple maths, Max,’ said Van Owen. ‘One from three equals two.’
‘Yes – except – he’s expecting us all to go at once. Which would constitute the second jump. I propose we tag each other. Four historians jump. After a period yet to be decided, two return and are replaced by another two. Then the other two return to be replaced by yet another two. And so on. Technically it’s still the same jump. We tag each other. We could go on for months like that. There’s a beginning but no end. It just rolls on and on.’
‘For how long can we do that?’
‘Until someone tells us to stop,’ I said, which is my answer to doing anything just a teensy bit naughty. ‘And the beauty of it is that even after Treadwell tumbles to it – which I expect he will sooner or later – there’s still one jump remaining. And by then I’ll have thought of something else.’
Van Owen grinned. ‘Bloody hell, Max – genius.’
Once Bashford and Atherton were back from their own assignment at Marsden Moor, I was able to organise us into four teams.
Team One – me, Roberts and Cox in Number Eight.
Team Two – Sykes, Sands and Gallacio in Number Six.
Team One – excluding me – would return to be replaced by Team Three – Van Owen, Bashford and Evans in Number Five.
Team Two would then return to be replaced by Team Four – Atherton, Kalinda and Keller in Number Eight.
Rinse and repeat. Ad infinitum. Or until Treadwell realised what we were doing and intervened.
Hyssop and her Half-Wits were on their own in Number Seven. No one would work with them. Once we’d got this sorted, Treadwell was going to have a real problem on his hands. Once we got this sorted.
And there were plenty of other volunteers should we need any additional teams although I hoped we wouldn’t. We festooned ourselves with equipment and rations and set off again.
I remained on site as the other teams came and went. We went through the city anti-clockwise this time. Each team took an area they hadn’t previously covered so we could approach it with fresh eyes and the result was exactly the same. Nothing. It was a bloody nightmare. We walked every street, every alleyway. We surveyed every square and open space. We lingered outside every temple, every shop, even every palace. Roofs were pretty much private but we accessed as many of them as we could before irate house owners or their dogs chased us away.
Every night we ticked off more squares on our map. My head was full of what could be happening to Clerk and Prentiss and I’m pretty sure everyone else’s was as well. We covered every inch of the city at least once – most of it twice – some of it three times or more – and there was not a flicker.
‘They’ve been taken away, Max,’ said Sands as St Mary’s all gathered together one evening. I’ve no idea where Hyssop and her gang of useless duckwits were. The sun was setting fast and we were squatting beneath a palm tree. It wasn’t safe to search at night. There was no curfew but there were a lot of other people in this city besides respectable homeowners and honest merchants. And there was no public lighting. If the homeowner didn’t put a lighted torch outside his front door then the streets were frighteningly dark, and I couldn’t afford to lose anyone else.
‘There’s no other explanation,’ Sands continued. He paused. ‘I think they’ve been sold. There are a lot of slave markets outside this city.’
I surveyed our teams. Hot, sunburned, dusty, tired. Especially tired. And tired people miss things. We’d had casualties too. Cox had been bitten by a street dog and I’d packed him straight back to St Mary’s for anti-rabies treatment. A very real risk, here. Atherton had tripped over a paving slap and sprained his ankle. He spent his days in the pod coordinating the search. And Bashford had scratched his mozzie bites with rather too much enthusiasm and one of them had turned nasty. He was oozing rather more pus than I was happy with.
And then the decision was taken out of my hands. The next team brought a written command from Treadwell. He’d finally recognised my little scheme and I was commanded to call a halt and return everyone to St Mary’s. The whole order was couched in terms even I couldn’t wilfully misinterp
ret.
Sighing, we complied.
It was a good job I did go back because Leon was waiting for me. As usual, I hadn’t realised how much I missed him until I saw him again. And Matthew, too. As soon as I was released from Sick Bay I walked into Leon’s arms and suddenly the world didn’t seem such a bad place. For a moment I allowed myself the luxury of thoughts that weren’t Clerk- and Prentiss-based.
And then a big hug for Matthew, whose head, I noticed, was now level with my chin. Not that my chin is very high off the ground but it was a reminder he was growing up.
‘Off to see Auntie Lingoss,’ he said, tearing himself away from his mother with no difficulty at all and shooting off.
‘You look dreadful,’ said Leon, St Mary’s nomination for the Supportive Husband of the Year Award.
I sighed. ‘One or two things have happened.’
He put his arm around me. ‘I know.’
‘About Dr Bairstow?’
‘Yes. Commander Treadwell told me.’
‘I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you myself but I’ve been in Babylon.’
‘It’s OK. We’ll talk about it another time. I gather you’ve got a bit on at the moment.’
‘Just a bit, yeah.’
We sat quietly in our room for a while, just enjoying being together, and then I asked him about Mikey and Adrian.
He rolled his eyes. ‘You’d think, wouldn’t you, that they couldn’t get themselves into any trouble in the back end of civilisation, but you’d be completely wrong.’
I enquired what sort of trouble. ‘I mean, yes, falling into rivers, getting lost, breaking an arm tumbling out of trees, that sort of thing, but as you say, you’ve been in the back end of civilisation. What on earth have they been up to?’
‘I came across this the other day.’
He passed me a piece of paper on which were a number of incomprehensible figures, diagrams and equations.
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, with great concern. ‘I can understand your anxiety.’
He tweaked it out of my hands and turned it the right way up.
