Days (43 page)

2.31 p.m.

OK,
YOU’RE NEARLY
there. It’s, I’d say twenty metres ahead. You should be able to see it.

Peering out through his swollen eyelids, Frank can just about make out the rectangular opening of the connecting passageway that joins Newspapers & Periodicals to Books, and through it, rows of bookcases. He can also see, in front of the connecting passageway, a small crowd – bloblike bodies on spindly legs, human-shaped silhouettes merging and overlapping. They are gathered around what seems to be a pile of rags, but as Frank comes closer the pile of rags glimmers into focus and he sees that it is a supine body, and as he comes closer still he recognises, by the clothing more than anything, the perpetrator. He can discern a wound in the young man’s stomach, a dark comet whose tail streaks the front of his shirt and trousers. Frank knows a bullet wound when sees one.

That’s him, isn’t it?
says the screen-jockey.
That’s the one we’ve been chasing.

That’s him
, Frank confirms.

Then you must have...

Yes.

It was, Frank supposes, inevitable, although he had hoped that his policy of using his gun only as a last resort would permanently postpone the day. The irony is, another couple of hours and he would have got through a thirty-three-year career without taking a life. Obviously it was not to be, and there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on might-haves and if-onlys.

More to the point, the gun fired when Frank collided with the customer in Clocks, so the perpetrator’s death can hardly be considered his fault. He is sorry that the young man is dead. He is sorry that anyone has to die violently. But there you go. Perhaps he ought to feel more than a mild sense of regret, and perhaps he will, later, but right now he is simply relieved that the chase is over.

Mr Hubble?
says the Eye.
Mr Bloom says to tell you, “Well done.”

Tell Mr Bloom that I still haven’t changed my mind.

About what?

He’ll know what I mean.

The screen-jockey relays the comment.
He says there’s still two and a half hours to go till closing time.

Frank had a feeling the answer would be something like that.
Well, we’ll see.
He takes out the handkerchief the woman gave him and has another dab at his face. The excruciating burn of the pepper spray is beginning to subside, to be replaced by an unpleasant but more tolerable itching. He blinks around. The world is foggy and speckled, but getting clearer.
Eye, I’m going to check the fellow’s ID. In the meantime, you have a look for that trolley.

Frank approaches the body, slipping through a gap in the crowd of onlookers. Kneeling down, he takes out his Sphinx and scans its infra-red eye over the perpetrator’s ID-badge barcode. Barely noticing him, the crowd continue to whisper and coo over the corpse.

A message appears on the Sphinx’s screen:

WORKING...

Then a picture appears of a young man with a huge forehead that bulges beneath a crop of wavy black hair and overshadows a pair of sunken, mournful eyes – eyes that seem to have known long in advance of the brutal, miserable fate awaiting their owner.

Even with his vision blurred, Frank can tell that the living face on the screen matches the dead face in front of him. He hits a key, and the Sphinx lists the employee’s name (Edgar Davenport, as on the badge), number, account status (Silver, and in good order), and the name of the department in which he works.

Frank frowns at the screen, then glances up at the connecting passageway leading to Books, his frown deepening.
Eye? Do you happen to know if one of the brothers came down to sort out the Books/Computers dispute this morning?

I’ve no idea. I’ll ask Mr Bloom.

A brief conversation ensues off-mic with Mr Bloom, and then the screen-jockey comes back with the reply.
He says the arbitration went ahead. One of the guards detailed to escort Master Sonny told him that Master Sonny said that the Computers Department should keep the extra floorspace. And he says why do you ask?

The perpetrator’s a Bookworm.

You think there’s a connection?

I’m not sure
, says Frank, switching off and pocketing his Sphinx.

Frank knows how notoriously militant the Head of Books, Rebecca Dalloway, is, and he knows, too, that it is almost entirely her fault that the territorial dispute between her department and Computers has dragged on so long and been so acrimonious. Surely, then, it is more than a coincidence that, on the same day that the dispute is resolved (and not in the Books Department’s favour), a Bookworm goes shopping with someone else’s card. And it is hard to believe that a Bookworm would do something like that if his head of department had not instructed him to. A Bookworm doesn’t sneeze without seeking Miss Dalloway’s permission first.

She is up to something. But what?

Eye? Run a sweep of Books. I’m betting that the trolley’s in there somewhere.

2.35 p.m.

H
UNT CALLS UP
feeds from the security cameras in the Books Department. One by one the images appear on successive screens: unfrequented alleyways of bookshelves, large tables slabbed with books, the sales counters.

Mr Bloom peers at the screens. Everything appears to be normal, except... “The sales counters. No one’s staffing the sales counters. Where are they all?”

“There. Look.” Hunt points to a screen showing one of the entrances to the department, just inside which a group of Bookworms are loitering. “And there.” Another entrance, and another group of Bookworms, all of them carrying thick hardbacks.

“What are they all standing there for?”

“Beats me. They look like they’re waiting for someone.”

As Hunt and Mr Bloom watch, a customer arrives. The Bookworms gather round him, words are exchanged, and the customer, with a puzzled and somewhat irritable gesture, about-faces and walks out again.

“They’re turning people away,” says Mr Bloom, running a hand over the top of his scalp as though temporarily forgetting that, apart from his foretuft, there is no hair up there. “Why the hell are they turning people away?”

“Sir?” Hunt points at the screen showing the huge, crescent-shaped stack of books around Miss Dalloway’s desk. “Activity.”

From behind the stack of books a figure has emerged. The long, bony physique is unmistakably that of Miss Dalloway, and in front of her she is pushing a trolley in which sits a squat grey cylindrical object.

“What’s that?” says Mr Bloom. “Get a close-up of that.”

Hunt’s fingers are already at work. The image on the screen expands, blurs, comes into focus again. He toggles the trolley into shot, keeping it there by means of delicate taps on the joystick.

“Some kind of barrel?” he suggests.

“Yes, but what’s that on top of it?”

“Looks to me like a clock.”

“Coming out of it – are those wires?”

“Maybe strings.”

“No, see the way they hang? Definitely wires.”

Hunt looks at Mr Bloom, Mr Bloom looks at Hunt, each seeing on the other’s face the same expression of disbelief that he knows must be on his own.

“It can’t be,” says Hunt, in stilled, chilled tones. “It just fucking can’t be.”

“Guards,” says Mr Bloom urgently. “Get guards there,
now
.”

“But all the guards in the vicinity are at the maul.”

“Then call them up from Orange and down from Green. Do it! And tell Mr Hubble to stay out of Books.”

2.36 p.m.

M
R
H
UBBLE.
T
HE
screen-jockey sounds anxious, agitated.
Mr Hubble, listen. She’s built a bomb.

What? Who’s built a bomb?

What’s-her-name. The Head of Books. I’m not shitting you. Mr Bloom says you’ve got to stay out of there.

You’re absolutely certain it’s a bomb?

Well, it sure as hell looks how a bomb ought to look.

And where is she?

Heading due east.

Of course
, thinks Frank.
Computers
.

Mr Hubble? Guards are on their way.

They won’t get here in time.

Frank sets off for the connecting passageway to Books.

2.36 p.m.

“H
E WOULDN’T LISTEN,
sir,” says Hunt. “He’s going in.”

“Tell him not to. Tell him I order him not to.”

“He has a point, though, sir. Guards aren’t going to get there for at least another five minutes. If anyone’s in a position to stop her, it’s him.”

Mr Bloom can see the sense in that. He sighs a sigh of resignation and slaps his hands against his thighs. “Yes, all right.”

“Sir, something else. Shouldn’t we let the brothers know what’s going on?”

“Yes,” says Mr Bloom. “Yes, you’re right, we should. Send them a priority e-memo.” He looks up again at the screens and murmurs softly to himself, “Frank, you bloody idiot. Be careful.”

2.37 p.m.

T
HE FIRST BOOK
comes hurtling past Frank’s left ear, flapping like a panicked duck. Another follows almost immediately, and also misses him, but a third hits him squarely just below his breast pocket. He hears a glassy crunch, and guesses that his Sphinx, which took the brunt of the impact, has been broken.

He reaches into his jacket and draws his gun. The green LED is still alight, the safety still off.

“Tactical Security. I don’t want to have to hurt anyone.”

There is a pause. Then someone shouts, “She said everyone, lads, so she meant
everyone
,” and books start flying at Frank from all sides.

Shielding his face, he wades into the barrage. He glimpses, through the hail of printed matter, Bookworms ducking behind shelves and darting between bookcases. No clear shot. Salvoes of books – novels and memoirs, collections of essays and short stories, biographies and autobiographies, self-help manuals and scientific treatises – rain down on him, their pages riffling and clattering. A spiral-bound children’s puzzle compendium glances off his hand. All three parts of a grandiose sword and sorcery trilogy smite his body, one after another in quick succession, like blows from a dull axe. An epic family saga spanning several generations strikes him in the thigh, just missing a more vulnerable region. Slim volumes of verse buzz through the air at him, their narrow edges packing a fierce sting.

Mr Hubble! Behind you!

Frank whirls around to find a figure lunging at him, swinging the L-M volume of an encyclopaedia. He fires reflexively, without aiming. The shot punches the book out of the Bookworm’s grasp and sends it sailing away, trailing flecks of charred paper from a singed bullet-hole, to land on the floor with a loud clop. The shocked Bookworm stares at his empty hands. Frank’s eyesight still hasn’t cleared enough for him to be sure of a wounding shot, so he simply lowers his head and charges the Bookworm. Shoulder butts chin, and the Bookworm goes down.

Left, Mr Hubble! To your left!

The warning from the Eye comes a fraction too late this time. As Frank turns, a
Complete Works of Shakespeare
crunches into his arm, filling it with numbing, vibrating pain from biceps to fingertip. He fires at the Bookworm, aiming deliberately high. The Bookworm drops the Shakespeare and scurries for cover.

A dictionary spirals out of nowhere to slam into the back of Frank’s skull. His teeth clack down on his tongue, and he tastes blood.

That’s it. The next Bookworm who attacks him can expect a bullet wherever it goes. If shooting these buggers is the only way to get them off his back, so be it.

He doesn’t see the bookcase behind him swaying and tottering until it is too late. Spilling the contents of its shelves in a great regurgitative rush, the bookcase falls, knocking him flat and burying him beneath several hundred kilograms of wood and woodpulp.

The toppled bookcase settles, a last few loose books slip and slither to the floor, and all is still.

38

The Case of the Seven Bishops
: seven bishops who protested against King James II’s Declaration of Indulgence.

2.39 p.m.

P
ERCH LEAVES HIS
pantry office and heads through the clatter of the kitchen, out and along the corridor to the Boardroom.

He judges his arrival perfectly, with an instinct born of decades of service. Just as he enters by the Boardroom’s double doors, the last morsels of a long lunch are being scraped up, knives are being set down on empty plates, glasses and coffee cups drained.

Throughout the meal much laughter has been issuing from the Boardroom, echoing down the corridor to the kitchen, and the atmosphere as Perch comes in is markedly relaxed and convivial. The brothers have treated themselves to a couple of bottles of fine wine to accompany their veal escallope with potatoes au gratin and steamed mange touts followed by champagne mousse and a selection of cheeses and biscuits, but wine alone cannot account for the merriment. Perch suspects that the real reason is the absence of Master Sonny. There is always less tension in the Boardroom when he is not around.

As Perch covers the distance between the doors and the table, another peal of laughter springs from six sibling throats. Perch is neither so self-conscious nor so naïve as to think that he is the object of the brothers’ amusement.

“I trust the meal was acceptable?” he enquires as he gathers up the first of the empty cheese plates, Mungo’s.

“More than acceptable, Perch,” says Chas.

“I don’t suppose there’s any more of that champagne mousse, is there?” asks Wensley.

The enquiry is greeted by barracking hoots and pig-like grunts from his brothers.

“My blood-sugar level’s low,” Wensley protests.