Little People

by Tom Holt

  ‘Can I see a lawyer, please?’

  A dab hand at non-verbal communication, this one; his look of weary distaste was quite remarkably eloquent. ‘Yeah, all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll ring the duty solicitor when I’ve got a minute.’

  Since I appeared to be the night’s only customer, and there didn’t seem to be anybody else in the place except him and me, I wasn’t sure what there was to keep him from ringing through right away. Still, I wasn’t going to say that to his face. ‘That’d be really kind and helpful,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

  Flattery got me somewhere in this instance; a small whitewashed apartment with a bed and a sink, and an extremely burglar proof front door. The view wasn’t up to much, but you can’t have everything. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’ I called out, just before he left me to it. The what-did-your-last-butler-die-of way in which he slammed the door on me put his previous efforts to shame.

  There’s a certain light-headed relief that comes with being locked up in a police cell; the feeling that it can’t possibly get any worse than this, so whatever happens next is bound to be an improvement. I guess that’s a warped echo of the eternal optimist in all of us, the man falling out of a plane at 50,000 feet and muttering ‘So far, so good,’ every second of his descent. Deceptive, of course; if there’s one unalterable truth in the universe, it’s that something, at least one aspect of your current situation, can always get worse, no matter how lousy everything may already seem. Nevertheless, I’ll admit that as I lay down on the bed I still had a few little snippets of hope left, wrapped up, as it were, in the table-napkin of innocence. All right, so Mum and Daddy George had vanished into the unchartable wastes of the telephone directory and it’d probably take Philip Marlowe five years, working full time, to find them. Could be worse; the silver lining was that now I wasn’t going to have to be beholden to them ever again. I was, in a sense, free.

  Odd choice of place to be free in, the nick; but that was a purely temporary thing, I felt sure, because after all I hadn’t actually done anything wrong, and this was England, a free country, cradle of parliamentary democracy and birthplace of trial by jury, habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence. Ten minutes after my solicitor arrived, I’d have my bootlaces back and be at liberty to go about my lawful occasions. No sweat.

  I guess the soothing nature of these reflections must’ve lulled me to sleep, because the next thing I remember was being woken up by the scraunch of the lock. The door swung open – you may find this distressing, but in police stations room service doesn’t knock before entering – and my friend the desk sergeant shuffled in.

  ‘You,’ he said. ‘This way.’

  After a short walk down a dreary-looking corridor (it seemed longer because of the pins and needles I’d woken up with) I ended up in a small room with a table and three chairs. As far as the aesthetics were concerned, I preferred the cell. The desk sergeant dumped me in one of the chairs, and a moment later we were joined by a young woman who was introduced to me as the duty solicitor.

  No introduction, however, was necessary. We’d already met.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘You bastard,’ she said.

  I smiled; or at least I twisted my face into something more or less smile-shaped. ‘Hello, Cru,’ I said. ‘Fancy meeting you like—’

  ‘You bastard!’ she repeated. ‘You horrible, thoughtless, worthless scumbag. What the hell are you doing here?’

  Well, I thought; fine solicitor she turned out to be if she didn’t know that. ‘I’ve been arrested,’ I explained.

  I think I may have missed the point of her question. ‘I know that, you moron,’ she snapped. ‘What I mean is, what the bloody hell happened to you? One minute you were there, the next you’d gone. We were looking for you for days, we thought you were dead. Where on earth did you go?’

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Do you really want me to answer that?’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ she said, snuffling through her rage. ‘What a stupid question. Of course, you always were singularly thick; in fact, you could build a three-masted schooner out of the short planks you’re as thick as. But even by your standards, that’s a very stupid question.’

  I nodded. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I got kidnapped.’

  ‘Really.’ She leaned back and folded her arms. Her eyes were a bit red; maybe someone had been smoking in the room earlier. ‘By aliens, I suppose.’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘By elves. Want me to go on?’

  She shrugged. Apart from a few superficial changes, most of which I approved of, she looked much the same. Exactly the same, as it were, apart from the differences. ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘why not? I like listening to deranged drivel. You were kidnapped by elves. What for?’

  I laughed. ‘They thought they were doing me a favour.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Well,’ I qualified, ‘one of them, the one who . . .’ The one who’s you on the other side was what I’d started to say, but I decided against it at the last moment. Weirdness, like soy sauce, should be introduced sparingly to anything you want someone else to swallow. ‘The one who did those maths answers,’ I said (Good recovery, I thought). ‘You remember, the ones I showed you . . .’

  A thoughtful look crossed her face. ‘I remember,’ she said. ‘But don’t sidetrack me. This elf.’

  ‘I was going to hide her in one of the sheds out back,’ I went on, ‘but instead she sort of grabbed me and next thing I knew we were in Elfland—’

  ‘She,’ Cru repeated.

  ‘What? Oh, right. It was a female elf, yes.’

  ‘I see. Sorry, you were saying.’

  Captain Scott could’ve survived in the same room as that I see, and possibly Amundsen or a fairly hardy yeti. Too chilly for me, though.

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ I said. ‘For crying out loud, she was only six inches tall. What do you take me for, a contortionist?’

  She frowned. ‘Let’s get this straight,’ she said. ‘You were overpowered and abducted against your will by a six-inch-tall female?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘And you’ve spent the last ten years in a faraway land entirely populated by tiny little people?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ I snapped. ‘Once you’re over there, everybody’s sort of normal-sized.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ she replied. ‘After all, like you said, you’re not a contortionist.’

  Of the two contests a man can never ever win, I think on balance, I prefer playing chess against a computer. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ I reiterated. ‘You see, they reckon I’m one of them.’

  ‘You’re an elf.’

  ‘Yes. Well, half an elf. You see—’

  ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘wouldn’t half of you be three inches tall? Or is it just certain parts of you that are very, very small? Like, for example—’

  ‘No.’

  She grinned. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I was going to say your brain. Anyhow, that’s beside the point. Well?’

  Awkward silence.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘you’re a solicitor now, then.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Enjoying it?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Oh. Is it boring? Stressful? You meet lots of disagreeable people?’

  ‘The worst part’s probably being dragged out of bed at two in the morning to listen to clinically insane, legally dead people babbling about being kidnapped by six-inch-tall nymphomaniacs,’ she said. ‘The rest of it isn’t so bad, actually. It’s my life that’s dreary and horrible and wretched and screwed up beyond all hope of redemption, rather than the job itself.’

  I kind of got the feeling that she was subtly steering the conversation back to the topic I didn’t really want to discuss any further at that point. ‘I’m sorry things aren’t going so well for you,’ I said – yes, I know, incredibly stupid thing to say. But dammit, the day before that I’d only been fifteen, how the hell was I supposed to know?

  ‘You’
re sorry,’ she repeated. ‘Oh, well then, that’s all right. I can stop sleepwalking through my life in a state of dull agony and have some fun now, I suppose. So kind of you.’

  The traditional cartoon light bulb started to glimmer faintly in my head, and I glanced down at her hands. Ring-free zones from knuckles to nails. Certainly not conclusive, but not without evidential value. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘can you get me out of here so we can talk properly? I really don’t feel right in here.’

  She shook her head. ‘Nope,’ she said, ‘I think I’m going to leave you here. After all, that way at least I’ll have some idea where you are.’

  Well, I couldn’t be sure: Cru did make jokes, from time to time, but she had the sort of deadpan delivery that made Buster Keaton look like Jim Carrey; and if anybody of my acquaintance was capable of leaving me in prison out of raw pique, it was her. ‘If it’s all the same to you,’ I said, ‘I’d really rather leave now, if that can be arranged.’

  She breathed out slowly, through her nose. ‘As it happens,’ she said, ‘there’s another element in the equation that you don’t know about yet; at least, I’m assuming you don’t. All right; stay there, keep your face shut, don’t go digging any tunnels. I’ll see what I can do.’

  She went out, and a copper with an expression you could’ve sharpened chisels on came in to keep me company. I asked him for a cup of tea, and he called me an uncouth name.

  Half an hour later, she came back. ‘All sorted,’ she said. ‘I explained that you’re an amnesiac millionaire, and if they don’t let you go, I’ll have no option but to wallpaper the place with QCs and file a hundred-million-pound harassment suit. Let’s get out of here before they change their minds.’

  I frowned. ‘They bought that?’ I queried, as we scuttled out into the corridor.

  ‘They did when I told them who you are,’ she replied.

  I didn’t quite get that, but I wasn’t going to argue. ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

  She sighed. ‘Back to the office,’ she said. ‘You can doss down in the stationery store for tonight. After that – well, there are various options, as you’ll find out. And stop dawdling, for God’s sake.’

  She had one of those Salvador-Dali-watch cars too; it was parked outside among the Pandas, like a solitary lamb in the middle of a pack of wolves. At first I felt extreme reluctance at getting in (after all, Cru was my age, far too young to drive a car . . .). But she explained that it was all right – ‘Get in, or I’ll leave you here’ – and it turned out she was quite a good driver. Very good indeed, in fact; only an expert could’ve judged a gap of ten thousandths of an inch between us and a parked Transit by eye alone. Nevertheless, I was too preoccupied trying to remember various prayers I’d learned in school assembly to chat much while the car was in motion.

  We stopped outside a big, impressive-looking glass tower. She got past the door by sticking something that looked like a library ticket in the lock. More progress, I assumed. After all, why bother with clumsy old metal keys when you can have a flimsy, easily scratched piece of plastic?

  The office proved to be on the twelfth floor, and the lift was out of order, so it was several minutes after we’d reached her firm’s office before I was fit to speak again.

  ‘So,’ I said, pushing my overdraft limit at the breath bank, ‘what’s all this about, then?’

  She raised an eyebrow at me. Of course, she wasn’t the least bit out of breath. ‘You’re asking me that?’ she said. ‘After vanishing into thin air and then suddenly materialising on a grass verge beside a major arterial road?’

  I shook my head, to save breath. ‘You said there was something I didn’t know.’

  ‘Loads of things,’ she replied pointedly. ‘But the main thing—’ She paused. Odd. Couldn’t ever remember seeing her at a loss for words before. ‘You mentioned it yourself, while we were in the interview room. Those maths questions.’

  ‘What? Oh, right, yes. What’ve they got to do with anything?’

  She grinned. ‘You’d be amazed,’ she said. ‘Look, when you disappeared, they scooped up all the papers in your desk, just in case there were any clues; and in due course, when they reckoned you must’ve snuffed it and there had to be an inquest, those equations of yours were included in the evidence bundle. Somehow or other, they got passed on to a mathematician of some description; and as soon as he saw them, he freaked out and got on the phone to Cambridge. Of course,’ she went on, ‘we both know that you contributed about as much to those answers as a footballer writing his autobiography; the maths wizards didn’t know that, though, which is how come you won the Nobel Prize.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘Oh yes. Twice. The father of modern mathematics, I think they called you the second time. Or was that the first one, and the second one was the greatest mathematical genius since Newton? Can’t remember. Anyway, it was something like that.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘That was just the start of it,’ she went on. ‘I mean, Nobel prizes, they’re all very fine and splendid but at the end of the day it’s just another bit of clutter on the mantelpiece every time you dust. The money, on the other hand—’

  ‘The money,’ I parroted.

  ‘Ah, you’ve woken up. And good morning to you, too. Now if you want precise details, I can fish around in the library for today’s Financial Times and we can see what Higginsoft shares were worth at close of business yesterday. If you’re prepared to make do with a quick and dirty estimate, I’d say your twenty per cent must be worth, oh, two billion. Give or take ten million. Will “lots” do to be going on with?’

  ‘Two billion pounds?’

  She shrugged. ‘Or thereabouts. Not,’ she added, ‘that it’ll do you much good. After all, like they say, you can’t take it with you.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, have I got to draw Venn diagrams? You’re dead, silly. Or had you forgotten?’

  I took that personally. ‘No, I’m not,’ I replied.

  ‘According to one coroner, one High Court judge and five Lords of Appeal in ordinary, you’re as dead as the Monty Python parrot – which may explain, come to think of it, why you will insist on repeating everything I say. You want to tell all those important people that they’ve cocked it up and they’re wrong, you go ahead. Of course,’ she added, ‘when your stepfather finds out, he’ll undoubtedly see to it that the Court was right after all. If only retrospectively. In case you didn’t know, Lord Higgins isn’t a very nice man.’

  ‘Lord Higgins?’

  She nodded. ‘For services to industry,’ she said. ‘Ten million of them, direct to party funds just before the last election. Cheap at half the price, everybody said at the time.’

  ‘My God,’ I whispered. ‘And I thought the shoe trade wasn’t doing too well.’

  She giggled. ‘Higginsoft doesn’t make shoes, you idiot,’ she said. ‘And neither does Higgins Integrated Systems or HiggInside. Your stepfather’s gone into the hi-tech business, thanks to your maths homework. In just over a month, he’ll be launching Higgins (tm)95, the biggest software event in history.’ She opened a desk drawer, took out a roll of peppermints and ate one. Didn’t offer me one, of course. ‘Can’t recall offhand what the projected sales figures are, but it’s a moderately safe bet that by this time next year, he’d be able to buy Australia out of his pocket change.’ She stopped to crunch the peppermint, then went on: ‘So you can see why he wouldn’t be terribly keen to have you show up again.’

  My head was spinning too much to allow me to do nuances of meaning and stuff like that. ‘Can I?’ I asked.

  She clicked her tongue, a manoeuvre that resulted in an atomiser-fine spray of peppermint juice. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘for a double Nobel laureate, you’re a bit slow on the uptake. Come on, think about it. You own twenty per cent of everything he’s got, plus the technology it’s all based on. You don’t get to be the third richest man in the world by caring and sharing. And from what I’ve hea
rd about him, his business methods are – well, businesslike.’

  I shrugged. ‘Oh well,’ I said. ‘What you’ve never had you’ll never miss, I guess.’ I stood up and walked a couple of steps, for no apparent reason. ‘Lucky for me you’re so clued up about high finance and stuff.’

  ‘I’m not, you fool. I just follow this one particular company.’

  I was touched. ‘What, because of me?’ I asked.

  She threw a typewriter at me.

  Well, I say typewriter; back in 1985, they still had them, you know. But what she threw was something a bit more advanced, though obviously not advanced enough to matter if it got bounced off a few walls. Screen printer, I think they call them.

  ‘Hey,’ I objected, reasonably enough.

  ‘Bastard,’ she replied, and tried to follow up the screen-thingummy with a telephone. Fortunately, they don’t make ideal medium-range missiles, on account of being tethered to the wall by a finite length of cable.

  ‘Sorry,’ I offered, ducking behind a filing cabinet. ‘Was it something I said?’

  Her next selection was a stapler; far more practical and aerodynamic. I can only assume that the reason she missed was the tears in her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she snuffled angrily. ‘Quite a few things, actually. God, I wish I’d left you in that cell. What did you have to go coming back for, anyhow? Everything was so much better without you.’

  Well, now she’d actually said it out loud, though of course I’d had my suspicions from the moment I saw her in the interview room. All perfectly reasonable, of course. There she’d been, getting on with her life after I went away; presumably she’d found someone else - well, she would, wouldn’t she? – and just when everything seemed to be coming together, I suddenly reappear like a Klingon bird of prey decloaking off the starboard bow. What’s she supposed to do about that? She can’t bring herself to tell me to get lost, she isn’t interested any more; not someone with a wonderful, compassionate nature like Cru. It must’ve cost her a lot in terms of emotional airmiles to say it straight out like that. I admired her for it, really.