Once it had satisfied itself that Richard did not intend to laugh, the bird regarded him instead with a sort of grim irritable tolerance and wondered if he was just going to stand there or actually do something useful and feed it. It padded a couple of steps back and a couple of steps to the side and then just a single step forward again on great waddling yellow feet. It then looked at him again, impatiently, and squarked an impatient squark. It then bent forward and scraped its great absurd red beak across the ground as if to give Richard the idea that this might be a good area to look for things to give it to eat.
“It eats the nuts of the calvaria tree,” called out Reg to Richard.
The big bird looked sharply up at Reg in annoyance, as if to say that it was perfectly clear to any idiot what it ate. It then looked back at Richard once more and stuck its head on one side as if it had suddenly been struck by the thought that perhaps it was an idiot it had to deal with, and that it might need to reconsider its strategy accordingly.
“There are one or two on the ground behind you,” called Reg softly.
In a trance of astonishment Richard turned awkwardly and saw one or two large nuts lying on the ground. He bent and picked one up, glancing up at Reg, who gave him a reassuring nod. Tentatively he held the thing out to the bird, which leaned forward and pecked it sharply from between his fingers. Then, because Richard’s hand was still stretched out, the bird knocked it irritably aside with its beak.
Once Richard had withdrawn to a respectful distance, it stretched its neck up, closed its large yellow eyes and seemed to gargle gracelessly as it shook the nut down its neck into its maw. It appeared then to be at least partially satisfied. Whereas before it had been a cross dodo, it was at least now a cross, fed dodo, which was probably about as much as it could hope for in this life.
It made a slow, waddling, on-the-spot turn and padded back into the forest whence it had come, as if defying Richard to find the little tuft of curly feathers stuck up on top of its backside even remotely funny.
“I only come to look,” said Reg in a small voice, and glancing at him, Dirk was discomfited to see that the old man’s eyes were brimming with tears which he quickly brushed away, “really, it is not for me to interfere—”
Richard came scurrying breathlessly up to them.
“Was that a dodo?” he exclaimed.
“Yes,” said Reg, “one of only three left at this time. The year is 1676. They will all be dead within four years, and after that, no one will ever see them again. Come,” he said, “let us go.”
Behind the stoutly locked outer door in the corner staircase in the Second Court of St Cedd’s College, where only a millisecond earlier there had been a slight flicker as the inner door departed, there was another slight flicker as the inner door now returned.
Walking through the dark evening toward it the large figure of Michael Wenton-Weakes looked up at the corner windows. If any slight flicker had been visible, it would have gone unnoticed in the dim dancing firelight that spilled from the window.
The figure then looked up into the darkness of the sky, looking for what it knew to be there though there was not the slightest chance of seeing it, even on a clear night, which this was not. The orbits of Earth were now so cluttered with pieces of junk and debris that one more item among them—even such a large one as this was—would pass perpetually unnoticed. Indeed, it had done so, though its influence had from time to time exerted itself. From time to time. When the waves had been strong. Not for nearly two hundred years had they been so strong as now they were again.
And all at last was now in place. The perfect carrier had been found.
The perfect carrier moved his footsteps onward through the court.
The Professor himself had seemed the perfect choice at first, but that attempt had ended in frustration, fury, and then—inspiration! Bring a Monk to Earth! They were designed to believe anything, to be completely malleable. It could be suborned to undertake the task with the greatest of ease.
Unfortunately, however, this one had proved to be completely hopeless. Getting it to believe something was very easy. Getting it to continue to believe the same thing for more than five minutes at a time had proved to be an even more impossible task than that of getting the Professor to do what he fundamentally wanted to do but wouldn’t allow himself.
Then another failure and then, miraculously, the perfect carrier had come at last. The perfect carrier had already proved that it would have no compunction in doing what would have to be done.
Damply, clogged in mist, the moon struggled in a corner of the sky to rise. At the window, a shadow moved.
30
FROM THE WINDOW overlooking Second Court Dirk watched the moon.
“We shall not,” he said, “have long to wait.”
“To wait for what?” said Richard.
Dirk turned.
“For the ghost,” he said, “to return to us. Professor,” he added to Reg, who was sitting anxiously by the fire, “do you have any brandy, French cigarettes or worry beads in your rooms?”
“No,” said Reg.
“Then I shall have to fret unaided,” said Dirk and returned to staring out of the window.
“I have yet to be convinced,” said Richard, “that there is not some other explanation than that of . . . ghosts to—”
“Just as you required actually to see a time machine in operation before you could accept it,” returned Dirk. “Richard, I commend you on your skepticism, but even the skeptical mind must be prepared to accept the unacceptable when there is no alternative. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidæ on our hands.”
“Then what is a ghost?”
“I think that a ghost,” said Dirk, “is someone who died either violently or unexpectedly with unfinished business on his, her—or its—hands. Who cannot rest until it has been finished, or put right.”
He turned to face them again.
“Which is why,” he said, “a time machine would have such a fascination for a ghost, once it knew of its existence. A time machine provides the means to put right what, in the ghost’s opinion, went wrong in the past. To free it.
“Which is why it will be back. It tried first to take possession of Reg himself, but he resisted. Then came the incident with the conjuring trick, the face powder and the horse in the bathroom which I—” he paused “—which even I do not understand, though I intend to if it kills me. And then you, Richard, appear on the scene. The ghost deserts Reg and concentrates instead on you. Almost immediately there occurs an odd but significant incident. You do something that you then wish you hadn’t done.
“I refer, of course, to the phone call you made to Susan and left on her answering machine.
“The ghost seizes its chance and tries to induce you to undo it. To, as it were, go back into the past and erase that message—to change the mistake you had made. Just to see if you would do it. Just to see if it was in your character.
“If it had been, you would now be totally under its control. But at the very last second your nature rebelled and you would not do it. And so the ghost gives you up as a bad job and deserts you in turn. It must find someone else.
“How long has it been doing this? I do not know. Does this now make sense to you? Do you recognize the truth of what I am saying?”
Richard turned cold.
“Yes,” he said, “I think you must be absolutely right.”
“And at what moment, then,” said Dirk, “did the ghost leave you?”
Richard swallowed.
“When Michael Wenton-Weakes walked out of the room,” he said.
“So I wonder,” said Dirk quietly, “what possibilities the ghost saw in him. I wonder whether this time it found what it wanted. I believe we shall not have long to wait.”
There was a knock on the door.
When it opened, there stood Michael Wenton-Weakes.
&
nbsp; He said simply, “Please, I need your help.”
Reg and Richard stared at Dirk, and then at Michael.
“Do you mind if I put this down somewhere?” said Michael. “It’s rather heavy. Full of scuba-diving equipment.”
“Oh, I see,” said Susan, “oh well, thanks, Nicola, I’ll try that fingering. I’m sure he only put the E flat in there just to annoy people. Yes, I’ve been at it solidly all afternoon. Some of those semiquaver runs in the second movement are absolute bastards. Well, yes, it helped take my mind off it all. No, no news. It’s all just mystifying and absolutely horrible. I don’t want even to— Look, maybe I’ll give you a call again later and see how you’re feeling. I know, yes, you never know which is worse, do you, the illness, the antibiotics, or the doctor’s bedside manner. Look after yourself, or at least, make sure Simon does. Tell him to bring you gallons of hot lemon. OK. Well, I’ll talk to you later. Keep warm. Bye now.”
She put the phone down and returned to her cello. She had hardly started to reconsider the problem of the irritating E flat when the phone went again. She had simply left it off the hook for the afternoon, but had forgotten to do so again after making her own call.
With a sigh she propped up the cello, put down the bow, and went to the phone again.
“Hello?” she demanded.
Again there was nothing, just a distant cry of wind. Irritably, she slammed the receiver back down once more.
She waited a few seconds for the line to clear, and then was about to take the phone off the hook once more when she realized that perhaps Richard might need her.
She hesitated.
She admitted to herself that she hadn’t been using the answering machine, because she usually just put it on for Gordon’s convenience, and that was something of which she did not currently wish to be reminded.
Still, she put the answering machine on, turned the volume right down, and returned again to the E flat that Mozart had put in only to annoy cellists.
In the darkness of the offices of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Gordon Way clumsily fumbled the telephone receiver back onto its rest and sat slumped in the deepest dejection. He didn’t even stop himself from slumping all the way through the seat until he rested lightly on the floor.
Miss Pearce had fled the office the first time the telephone had started actually using itself, her patience with all this sort of thing finally exhausted again, since which time Gordon had had the office to himself. However, his attempts to contact anybody had failed completely.
Or rather, his attempts to contact Susan, which was all he cared about. It was Susan he had been speaking to when he died, and he knew he had somehow to speak to her again. But she had left her phone off the hook most of the afternoon and even when she had answered she could not hear him.
He gave up. He roused himself from the floor, stood up, and slipped out and down into the darkening streets. He drifted aimlessly for a while, went for a walk on the canal, which was a trick that palled very quickly, and then wandered back up to the street again.
The houses with light and life streaming from them upset him most particularly since the welcome they seemed to extend would not be extended to him. He wondered if anyone would mind if he simply slipped into their house and watched television for the evening. He wouldn’t be any trouble.
Or a cinema.
That would be better, he could go to the cinema.
He turned with more positive, if still insubstantial, footsteps into Noel Road and started to walk up it.
Noel Road, he thought. It rang a vague bell. He had a feeling that he had recently had some dealings with someone in Noel Road. Who was it?
His thoughts were interrupted by a terrible scream of horror that rang through the street. He stood stock-still. A few seconds later a door flew open a few yards from him and a woman ran out of it, wild-eyed and howling.
31
RICHARD HAD NEVER liked Michael Wenton-Weakes and he liked him even less with a ghost in him. He couldn’t say why, he had nothing against ghosts personally, didn’t think a person should be judged adversely simply for being dead, but—he didn’t like it.
Nevertheless, it was hard not to feel a little sorry for him.
Michael sat forlornly on a stool with his elbow resting on the large table and his head resting on his fingers. He looked ill and haggard. He looked deeply tired. He looked pathetic. His story had been a harrowing one, and concluded with his attempts to possess first Reg and then Richard.
“You were,” he concluded, “right. Entirely.”
He said this last to Dirk, and Dirk grimaced as if trying not to beam with triumph too many times in a day.
The voice was Michael’s and yet it was not Michael’s. Whatever timbre a voice acquires through a billion or so years of dread and isolation, this voice had acquired it, and it filled those who heard it with a dizzying chill akin to that which clutches the mind and stomach when standing on a cliff at night.
He turned his eyes on Reg and on Richard, and the effect of the eyes, too, was one that provoked pity and terror. Richard had to look away.
“I owe you both an apology,” said the ghost within Michael, “which I offer you from the depths of my heart, and only hope that as you come to understand the desperation of my predicament, and the hope which this machine offers me, you will understand why I have acted as I have, and that you will find it within yourselves to forgive me. And to help me. I beg you.”
“Give the man a whisky,” said Dirk gruffly.
“Haven’t got any whisky,” said Reg. “Er, port? There’s a bottle or so of Margaux I could open. Very fine one. Should be chambréd for an hour, but I can do that of course, it’s very easy, I—”
“Will you help me?” interrupted the ghost.
Reg bustled to fetch some port and some glasses.
“Why have you taken over the body of this man?” said Dirk.
“I need to have a voice with which to speak and a body with which to act. No harm will come to him, no harm—”
“Let me ask the question again. Why have you taken over the body of this man?” insisted Dirk.
The ghost made Michael’s body shrug.
“He was willing. Both of these two gentlemen quite understandably resisted being . . . well, hypnotized—your analogy is fair. This one? Well, I think his sense of self is at a low ebb, and he has acquiesced. I am very grateful to him and will not do him any harm.”
“His sense of self,” repeated Dirk thoughtfully, “is at a low ebb.”
“I suppose that is probably true,” said Richard quietly to Dirk. “He seemed very depressed last night. The one thing that was important to him had been taken away because he, well, he wasn’t really very good at it. Although he’s proud, I expect he was probably quite receptive to the idea of actually being wanted for something.”
“Hmmm,” said Dirk, and said it again. He said it a third time with feeling. Then he whirled round and barked at the figure on the stool.
“Michael Wenton-Weakes!”
Michael’s head jolted back and he blinked.
“Yes?” he said, in his normal lugubrious voice. His eyes followed Dirk as he moved.
“You can hear me,” said Dirk, “and you can answer for yourself?”
“Oh, yes,” said Michael, “most certainly I can.”
“This . . . being, this spirit. You know he is in you? You accept his presence? You are a willing party to what he wishes to do?”
“That is correct. I was much moved by his account of himself, and am very willing to help him. In fact I think it is right for me to do so.”
“All right,” said Dirk with a snap of his fingers, “you can go.”
Michael’s head slumped forward suddenly, and then after a second or so it slowly rose again, as if being pumped up from inside like a tire. The ghost was back in possession.
Dirk took hold of a chair, spun it around and sat astride it facing the ghost in Michael, peering intently into its
eyes.
“Again,” he said, “tell me again. A quick snap account.”
Michael’s body tensed slightly. It reached out to Dirk’s arm.
“Don’t—touch me!” snapped Dirk. “Just tell me the facts. The first time you try and make me feel sorry for you I’ll poke you in the eye. Or at least, the one you’ve borrowed. So leave out all the stuff that sounded like . . . er—”
“Coleridge,” said Richard suddenly, “it sounded exactly like Coleridge. It was like ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’ Well, bits of it were.”
Dirk frowned.
“Coleridge?” he said.
“I tried to tell him my story,” admitted the ghost, “I—”
“Sorry,” said Dirk, “you’ll have to excuse me—I’ve never cross-examined a four-billion-year-old ghost before. Are we talking Samuel Taylor here? Are you saying you told your story to Samuel Taylor Coleridge?”
“I was able to enter his mind at . . . certain times. When he was in an impressionable state.”
“You mean when he was on laudanum?” said Richard.
“That is correct. He was more relaxed then.”
“I’ll say,” snorted Reg, “I sometimes encountered him when he was quite astoundingly relaxed. Look, I’ll make some coffee.” He disappeared into the kitchen, where he could be heard laughing to himself.
“It’s another world,” muttered Richard to himself, sitting down and shaking his head.
“But unfortunately when he was fully in possession of himself I, so to speak, was not,” said the ghost, “and so that failed. And what he wrote was very garbled.”
“Discuss,” said Richard, to himself, raising his eyebrows.
“Professor,” called out Dirk, “this may sound absurd. Did, er, Coleridge ever try to . . . er . . . use your time machine? Feel free to discuss the question in any way which appeals to you.”
“Well, do you know,” said Reg, looking round the door, “he did come in prying around on one occasion, but I think he was in a great deal too relaxed a state to do anything.”
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