City of Death

by Douglas Adams

  The worst thing about the Count’s smile was that it never ever reached the eyes. His eyes focused on you with the cold accuracy of a microscope or the sights of a gun, and let the rest of the face get on with the smiling. Today, that smile said that it was thoroughly bored.

  ‘But . . .’ These days Kerensky began most sentences with but. The Count found it a tiresome habit that he really should be bothered to correct. ‘I can proceed no further, Count! Research costs money. If you want results we must have money.’

  Money? Ah yes, thought the Count. Who had invented money in the first place? Well, that had been a mistake. Here was Kerensky waving some pieces of paper at him and the only way to make him shut up (short of shooting him) was to give him some more pieces of paper. How utterly dull.

  ‘I assure you, Professor . . .’ Count Scarlioni spoke with a drawl that told you how much better educated he was than you. It was a voice that came with a mind that was already firmly made up. ‘Money is no problem.’

  Rather like Kerensky himself, that wouldn’t work any more. ‘But, so you tell me, Count, so you tell me every day!’ He waved the sheaf of bills around again, warming to his subject as though he were delivering a lecture at the university. He paused then, thinking fondly of the formal dinners and less fondly of his colleagues. He imagined they were all wondering how they could possibly cope without him. ‘Money is no problem? What do you want me to do about these equipment invoices? Write “money is no problem” across them and send them back?’

  Would that work? wondered the Count briefly. He leaned back against a piece of equipment which, judging by Kerensky’s horrified expression, really shouldn’t be leaned against. Good. Languidly he reached into his jacket pocket, removing a bundle of paper that had been causing a rather irritating bulge. It was as fat as a cookbook. ‘Will a million francs ease the “immediate cash flow problem”?’ Like most things the Count said, you could hear the ironic quotation marks. He peeled off just enough to render the bulge less annoying and handed them casually over to Kerensky. He resisted the impulse to fold them into paper aeroplanes. Now, that would be fun.

  The tiny fool’s face lit up as if the Count had done something not boring. He even made a strange little clucking noise. You could always tell people who’d never got used to being around money. They grew so tiresomely excited by the sight of it. ‘But yes Count! Yes! That will help admirably!’ Struck by a mundane thought, Kerensky paused and waggled a finger at him. The Count toyed with biting it off. ‘But I will shortly need a great deal more.’

  Just like a peasant. If you gave them bread they only came back and asked for more. Much better to just let them starve. ‘Of course, Professor, of course.’ He twitched his smile up a notch. ‘Nothing must stand in the way of the Work!’

  He strode away to the corner of the laboratory, his hands tapping idly away on the side of the computer before making the tiniest of alterations to a dial. It annoyed Kerensky when he did that. It annoyed him even more that, invariably, it turned out to be right. Kerensky had long ago reached the horrid realisation that Count Scarlioni simply employed him because he couldn’t be bothered doing it himself. It pulled him up. He, Kerensky, was an acclaimed genius, fought over by universities, wined and dined by conference organisers. He was a man whose opinion mattered, whose contribution to science was vital. Here, in this miserable cave in Paris he was about to make a breakthrough that would change the world for ever. And yet, and yet, he felt as if he’d been hired to tidy an overgrown garden while the owner sat dozing in a deckchair with a long, cool drink. What would that drink be? His mind wandered dreamily away.

  Yawning, Count Scarlioni reached a rope pull set into the wall and tugged it. Because the Count was in the cellar, it was answered immediately. The door at the top of the stone staircase creaked open and Hermann, the Count’s darkly suited butler descended.

  Kerensky had never dared strike up a conversation with Hermann. The man had a cultured, but recognisably German accent. His shoulders were broad, his hair had once been blonde, he had an athletic build which was untroubled by his advanced age. Kerensky had made a few educated guesses about how Hermann had spent his late teens and had swiftly decided against confirming them. He did not enjoy being alone in a room with Hermann.

  Whereas the Count greeted Hermann like an old and valued friend, watching with delight as the timid figure of the Professor scuttled away to fuss around his computer.

  Hermann approached, bowing. ‘Your Excellency?’

  The Count patted the slimmed-down bulge in his jacket as though it were a regrettably empty cigarette case. ‘The Gainsborough didn’t fetch enough,’ he murmured. ‘I think we’ll have to sell one of the bibles.’

  ‘Sir?’ Hermann queried.

  ‘Yes, the Gutenberg.’ The Count was unable to keep a trace of sadness out of his voice.

  ‘I think we should tread carefully.’ Hermann was one of the few people who ever spoke plainly to the Count. Never excitingly, but always wisely. Hermann had, after all, quite a lot of experience in dealing with art. ‘It would not be in our interests to draw too much attention to ourselves. Another rash of priceless art treasures on the market . . .’ Hermann rubbed his neatly trimmed beard with regret. His lowered tone managed to convey that he thought it both careless and also tasteless.

  Hermann was the only man the Count would take such criticism from. ‘Yes. I know Hermann, I know. Sell it . . .’ He paused, and flicked his smile into a grin. ‘Discreetly.’

  ‘Discreetly, sir?’ Hermann raised both eyebrows. ‘Sell a Gutenberg Bible discreetly?’

  Hermann had a point. The Gutenberg Bible was the first bestseller in the history of publishing. Up until the 1450s bibles had been laboriously hand-doodled by bored, cold monks. Gutenberg changed all that. His were printed. It was the most exciting thing to happen to the Bible since it got a sequel.

  These days the Gutenbergs were so rare that even the discovery of a stray page was a sensation. Only twenty-one complete copies were known to exist. Nestling next to the teasmade on the Count’s bedside table was a twenty-second.

  The Count mustered a noble smile. ‘Well, sell it as discreetly as possible, Hermann. Just do it, will you?’

  Knowing better than to argue, Hermann bowed. ‘Yes, sir, of course, sir.’ And climbed the stone stairs, closing the cellar door behind him. Because the Count was still down there, his exit was not followed by the click of the lock.

  The regrettable bit of the day dealt with, the Count turned back to Kerensky. Neither knowing nor caring what a Gutenberg Bible was, the old fool was still burying himself in the wiring of a circuit board. Looked at from a few paces away, it was actually quite impressive what Kerensky had managed to put together. Not how he would have done it himself, but then, so few things were. The Count rubbed his hands together, his mood approaching glee. ‘Good Professor, excellent. I do hope we are now ready to perform the next stage of the experiment.’

  Concentrating on his circuit board, Kerensky entirely missed the vague threat. ‘In two minutes, Count. Just two minutes,’ he muttered, waving a hand in the Count’s direction.

  The Count drummed his fingers against a work bench, mildly impatient. A more patient man would have said, if you’ve waited so long for something, a couple more minutes cannot hurt. But the Count had long ago run out of patience.

  3

  A PAINTING LIKE . . .

  They never did find that place that did the bouillabaisse, but Romana didn’t mind. The Doctor claimed that the streets of Paris were like the rooms of the TARDIS, always rearranging themselves when you weren’t looking. Romana wasn’t convinced about the analogy. She did think the Paris Metro could teach the Doctor’s ship a few things about arriving late but stylishly.

  Stepping into one of the Metro’s stations was like running into the mouth of a metal Medusa, her copper green tentacles spun up into a ticket hall. The trains themselves
wailed and hooted like busy behemoths as they raced between stations called things like Marcadet-Poissonniers, Tuileries and Trocadéro. Names that were so much fun the TARDIS’s telepathic circuits simply refused to translate them.

  Outside, the boulevards stretched before them, clogged with motorcars honking to each other. Only Paris, marvelled Romana, could make a traffic jam look festive. Each car was a little tin sculpture, eschewing efficiency for sweeping lines, fussy details and cheery colours. Every road was blocked as though the cars had poured onto them in a tearing hurry to go somewhere and then decided ‘but where, where is better than here?’ before settling happily in for the long haul.

  The leafy pavements were a delightful muddle of trees, dogs, cobbles and footworn steps that wound up to other streets, to cathedrals, or simply to a door with a cat cleaning itself slowly in the sun. The Doctor told Romana that they’d arrived at that blissful point between the invention of drains and wheelie luggage, so the streets of Paris would be at their best, and for once, he wasn’t even fibbing slightly.

  All in all, she was enjoying their holiday enormously. They dashed down the Champs-Élysées, for once running somewhere without deadly robots in pursuit. They considered taking in an exhibition (‘Three million years of human history’ said the over-dramatic poster. ‘Poppycock,’ said the Doctor). They stopped off at a bookshop, looking for Ernest Hemingway (the Doctor was evasive whether it was a book by him or the actual author). There was a poetry reading going on outside. Seemingly recognised by the owner, the Doctor couldn’t resist a pressing invitation to give a performance of a Betelgeuse love song to rather polite applause. ‘Don’t drink the wine,’ hissed the Doctor as drinks were passed around in unusual metal goblets which turned out to be tuna tins.

  Finally they found themselves climbing the steps to Montmartre. The domes of the Sacré-Cœur smiled down on an impossibly quaint square filled with impossibly quaint cafés. Somehow they picked one and Romana found herself, for the first time in her life, forming the thought ‘Quick bite to eat and then a spot of shopping later?’

  The Doctor was in a similarly joyous mood.

  ‘It’s taken years off you,’ Romana confided. ‘You barely look 750.’

  He’d settled down in a quiet corner of the café, banging his legs up onto a chair and leaning far far back in his own. As a waiter wandered past, the Doctor murmured something which the waiter could not possibly have heard, and yet he came back automatically with a carafe of red wine, two glasses and some bread. Ignoring the wine, the Doctor pulled the book he’d just bought from his pocket, cut the leaves with a butter knife and flicked idly through it.

  ‘Any good?’ asked Romana, doing the French crossword.

  ‘Not bad, bit boring in the middle.’ The Doctor put the book back into his pocket and peered vaguely at Romana’s crossword. He suggested a couple of answers, and, when they turned out to be wrong, helped himself to bread, and made a loud harrumph. The Doctor often made this noise. Usually it was the prelude to a pronouncement of doom, or to a confession about a small rewiring disaster. But, just this once, it was the terribly happy harrumph of a truly contented man.

  The Doctor had the look of a man contemplating a nap. The café itself, like much of Paris, felt like an old friend who hadn’t bothered tidying up when you’d popped round. Warm, welcoming and a slight smell of wet dog in the air.

  The Doctor waved away the returning waiter, unfolded a hat and placed it over his face. Seeing him like this, Romana could barely believe that, when they’d first met, she’d found him a little intimidating. Also, worrying. It was still a bit frightening to realise that the fate of the universe was quite often in the hands of a man with no formal qualifications. Well, none worth counting. The Doctor tried out a gentle snore, seemed satisfied with the results, and produced another one.

  Romana smiled and poured herself a glass of wine. She’d heard so much about wine. She wondered what it would be like.

  ‘Don’t move,’ muttered the Doctor from underneath his hat.

  Romana froze, worried. Normally when the Doctor said that one of them (usually the Doctor) had stepped on a landmine or pulled a trip wire. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘You might destroy a priceless work of art,’ was the Doctor’s puzzling response.

  ‘What?’

  The Doctor slid the hat from his face, speaking urgently to her from the corner of his mouth. ‘That man over there.’ The last time he’d used that tone, Davros had been threatening to unravel the universe. ‘No! Don’t look!’ warned the Doctor.

  ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘Sketching you,’ came the exciting answer.

  Romana couldn’t stop herself from turning around. As she did so, her sleeve caught her glass, knocking wine over the table. As she sprang to her feet to try and sort out the mess, she caught a brief glimpse of a man in a serious jumper, sat across from them in the café. He was scribbling furiously with charcoal on a pad of art paper.

  He glanced up from his pad and noticed that Romana, instead of sitting serenely in her chair, was now scrubbing the floor with a napkin. A scowl crossed his face. Romana scrambled to get back into her chair, but she was too late. The man was already on his feet. Angrily, he tore the sheet from his pad, crumpling it up and throwing it at Romana’s feet as he stomped from the café in disgust, without paying his bill.

  ‘I told you not to look round.’ Well, she’d not missed the Doctor’s I-told-you-so tone.

  ‘But I just wanted to see!’ Romana, left with nothing but a dirty wet napkin, felt miserable.

  ‘Well, it’s too late, he’s gone now.’ Squinting, the Doctor tossed a handful of coins expertly onto the artist’s table.

  ‘Pity. I wonder what he thought I looked like,’ mused Romana.

  She and the Doctor had the same thought at the same time. ‘Well, he threw the drawing over there, so we can see how far he

  got.’ The Doctor finished the sentence, feeling that he’d missed something.

  Well, for one thing, the artist was sat back at his table, sketching away. Romana’s glass of wine was also resolutely not spilt. She was staring at it in puzzled alarm.

  ‘What?’ she said as the Doctor spoke in a gabble.

  ‘Romana, he’s there again. The artist! We just saw him walk out but he’s still there.’

  Startled, Romana spun round in her chair, knocking over her glass again as she did so. Hearing the noise, the artist glanced up from his pad and noticed that Romana was staring at him, mouth agape. A scowl crossed his face. He jumped to his feet, tore the sheet out of his pad, crumpling it up and throwing it at Romana’s feet as he stomped from the café in disgust, without paying his bill.

  Romana let the wine get on with spilling itself while she stared at where the artist had been. ‘Doctor, what’s happening?’ she asked, slowly and carefully. The answer would probably be wrong, but it would at least be somewhere to start.

  ‘I don’t know.’ The Doctor was shaking his head, trying to clear it. ‘It was as if time slipped a groove for a second.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Romana said, bending down to pick up the drawing, saving it from the advancing puddle of wine. ‘I’m going to have a look,’ she ventured as she unfolded the crumpled sheet of paper. And stopped.

  The Doctor stared at the sheet of paper.

  Romana stared at the sheet of paper.

  ‘Well,’ said the Doctor after a bit too much of a pause, ‘for a portrait of a Time Lady, that’s not at all a bad likeness.’

  The artist had drawn Romana with skill, getting her hat, her shoulders and even her hair beautifully correct. But he’d replaced her face with the shattered dial of a clock.

  ‘That’s extraordinary.’ Romana smoothed out the creases of the picture.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ the Doctor agreed casually.

  A trace of worry crept into Roman
a’s voice. ‘I wonder why he did it like that. The fractured face of the clock.’

  ‘Yes.’ The Doctor nodded. ‘It looks almost like he was trying to draw . . .’ He stumbled and then found the phrase: ‘Trying to draw a crack in time.’

  * * *

  Kerensky was, for once, too excited to feel tired. The expensive equipment in his laboratory was finally working. Perhaps not working properly, but definitely on the road to properly. If he could bear to stay here maybe another six months, then there was a chance of a real breakthrough. It would be expensive, but worth it. The Count had deep pockets. Kerensky stood back, marvelling at the machinery he’d built. They’re going to name cities after me, he thought. He had so nearly done it.

  ‘Time, Count, it will take time.’

  ‘Time, time, time . . .’ Count Scarlioni was thinking of anything but the future. He patted the Professor almost fondly on the shoulder. They’d nearly done it. He straightened up, tidying the corner of his expensive silk cravat. ‘Nevertheless, Professor, a very impressive, if flawed, demonstration.’ He watched the fool’s face fall a little and cheered up. ‘I am relying on you to make very fast progress now. The fate of many people is in our hands.’

  Kerensky, clearly thinking of his own destiny, muttered solemnly, ‘The world will have much to thank you for.’

  ‘It will, Professor, it will indeed.’ For once, the Count’s smile was purely for his own amusement. He scratched idly at a spot over his right eye which had, strangely, begun to itch. ‘Now, how soon before we can run the next test?’

  ‘The next one, Count?’ Kerensky looked suddenly miserable. ‘Well . . .’ He ran some calculations through his exhausted brain. Allowing for a few hours of sleep, and some rewiring maybe—

  ‘I want to see it today.’ Count Scarlioni was very firm, his smile dangerous.

  ‘Today?’ Kerensky stared at a fused circuit. Why, to mend that alone would take . . .