The Doomsday Machine (Horatio Lyle) (26 page)

‘Mister Lyle, we do not have time for this.’

‘
Tell me
.’

She hesitated, then stared him in the eye. ‘To protect everyone: the whole, the mass; utilitarianism and all that - the ideals of Bentham - the good of the many - and so on and so forth. To stop the Machine.’

‘To let Berwick die?’

‘And to let you die if you knew how to make it work.’ There was no apology in her voice. ‘The knowledge of the thing must die. Now may I advocate your leaving here?’

‘Lin, I can make it work,’ he replied with a sad smile. ‘Now that I know what “it” is.’

She nodded. ‘I know. And I choose to let you live, Horatio Lyle.’

He sighed. ‘Not that I’m ungrateful, but one day you may regret that, miss. Promise me you’ll look after the children? And tell Tess . . .’ He hesitated, then smiled a little wider. ‘Tell her to have a proper bath after.’

She hesitated, then nodded. ‘I give you my word, Mister Lyle. For whatever that means.’

‘Thank you.’

He staggered upright, like a drunken man,
so tired
, pulled the door open a crack and peered out, closed it again and leant on it. ‘Miss,’ he said wearily, ‘I think you might consider leaving by the window.’

Footsteps on the stairs; shouting. Lin hesitated. ‘But . . .’

‘No killing of policemen, please. Whatever the consequences, no more killing.’

She nodded and moved swiftly towards the window. Behind Lyle, there came a hammering on the door. ‘Open up! Police!’

‘Lyle, you have knowledge, I can’t just
let
them come in here and . . .’

‘Miss Lin, I’m a copper, and this is a crime. I’m not running away this time!’

Lin hesitated, then tried again, pleading. ‘Havelock will come and he will . . .’

‘What would you have me do, miss? Be a fugitive for the rest of my life? Berwick was right. These things are not so easy; I do not have your talents.’

By the window she paused. The hammering became louder, and the door shuddered as if something heavy had smashed into it. She smiled, and bowed her head. ‘I wish you well, Mister Lyle.’

‘You too, Miss Lin.’

And she was gone.

Lyle rubbed his eyes and wondered if they’d let him sleep, just a little. He stepped back and opened the door, no matter what the consequences.

CHAPTER 14

At midnight there was a quiet knock on Thomas’s door.

He said, ‘Mmmnnn!’

From outside, Tess’s voice hissed in a dramatic whisper, ‘Get your lazy bottom ’ere, bigwig! There’s detecterin’ an’ all that sorta happenin’ tonight.’

 

It was perhaps a little past midnight when Lyle, seated in the Smithfield Police Station, folded his hands on the table, leant forward, and looked the youthful and somewhat confused detective straight in the eye. He said, ‘Lad, take it from a copper, trade secret, one to another. You’ve heard my story now three times, and the more you shout at me and the more you insist that I’ve pulled any damn trigger the more I’m going to clam up and the less the beak is going to be impressed when he demands evidence. So, if I were you, I’d switch tactics. You’ve been the tough copper very well, your guv would be proud - but right now I’d go for winning sympathy, and give your very tired suspect a clean blanket, a cup of tea brewed from leaves only used three or four times, no more, and a pot of boiled peas, and send him to bed with a reassurance that you’ll consider all the evidence before you rush to conclusions, right?’ Before the detective had a chance to reply, he added, ‘Oh, and while I’m on the subject, I’d be very careful who you tell that one of the corpses currently in your basement is bleeding white blood.’

The detective hesitated. ‘Isn’t there . . . a scientific explanation for that?’ he hazarded.

Lyle sat back and gave the young man a look that needed no translation.

The detective shifted in his chair and, for the fourth and last time, mumbled the desperate fall-back words, ‘Let’s go over it one more time, shall we?’

Lyle sighed, and began again. ‘My name is Special Constable Horatio Lyle, and for the last few days I have been investigating the disappearance of a man called Berwick . . .’

It wasn’t the whole truth he told that night. But, he reasoned, the whole truth could get a man killed.

 

Thomas found Tess and Lin Zi sitting by the fire in the second drawing room. Tate was curled up at Tess’s feet; Tess wore a nightgown ten years too big for her. Lin was looking, even to Thomas’s eye, a little flustered.

Still sleepy, Thomas mumbled, ‘What’s the matter?’

Tess said, ‘All hell breakin’ loose on the manure cart
again
, bigwig. Where do we get summat to eat right now?’

‘You’re hungry?’ he hazarded.

‘Just thinkin’ of how we might need food for our adventure an’ all what we’re goin’ to have to have ’cos of how no one else seems up to it.’

‘It’s a little more complicated . . .’ began Lin.

Tess turned to glare at her. ‘Miss, ain’t I never gone an’ told you what a
Good
brush with death and adventure involves?’

Lin raised one enquiring eyebrow. Tess opened her mouth to speak. But to her surprise, and his too, Thomas got there first. ‘It involves
preparation
, it involves
consideration
, it involves never rushing into things on an empty stomach, never permitting the gentlemen assigned to follow you to achieve their aims; it involves packing provisions and preparing food for the journey; it involves large quantities of ammonium nitrate and surprising amounts of magnesium and phosphorus; it involves a practical grasp of the nature of oxidization and an awareness that at all times, regardless of any strain being put upon the venture, all actions must be carried out with decency and decorum, correct?’

Tess gaped at Thomas, who responded uncertainly, ‘Is that right, Miss Teresa?’

‘Well . . . it’s good as how you’re learnin’, I suppose.’

Thomas beamed. ‘So what’s the adventure this time?’ He was beginning to feel more awake.

 

Lyle slept. Or rather, Lyle dozed; it was hard to tell which images in his mind were dreams, and which were a relentless reliving of events over the last few hours, a retreat through the mud of memory in search of the moment when things might have gone differently:
here
or perhaps
here -
a word, a warning, a thought, a different turning, a step taken in a different place. Sleep was too grand a word for the dark daze in which Horatio Lyle drifted, curled up on a hard bench in a cold cell beneath the police station. It is hard to say how long he lay in this state. The darkness gave no indication of time, and after such a long while moving and searching, a moment of sleep - a second in which the mind and body could begin to unclench from all the running and the arguing and the fighting and the fearing and the guilt - would have been worth an hour under normal circumstances.

Dreams and memories mixed together, not caring which one carried the title from this particular race. But even asleep, a part of Lyle didn’t close its eyes, and a thought loitered at the back of his mind, listening, despite the absence of consciousness, for the footsteps in the corridor, for the key in the lock, for the shadow in the door, for the voice to speak, for the enemy to work it out, as he always did, as he inevitably would.

Lyle slept, and Lyle waited.

 

Thomas was straining to sound like his father.

‘So ... to clarify. Lord Moncorvo is ... and Berwick is ... and Mister Lyle has been arrested on suspicion of all ...
that
... by the police and is being held until more evidence becomes available, or until no evidence comes at all. But the police serve the government and Havelock has infiltrated the government and he might go looking for Lyle and even if he doesn’t, the Machine is still down there and your kind can’t go close to it because it’s magnetic. So you’re here to
protect
,’ the word was a snowball rolling across a sheet of ice, ‘me and Miss Teresa until such time as Mister Lyle is released. At which point you’re expecting us to help you destroy the Machine.’

Lin studied the ceiling, and seemed to like what she saw. ‘That’s more or less it, funny little human thing,’ she agreed.

‘Except, of course, there is one minor problem that may assail us well before this moment of triumph.’

‘We’re gonna have a moment of triumph?’ asked Tess uncertainly.

‘Of course you are! You and the little Thomas person are going to save Mister Lyle, going to prevent the Machine; going, in short, to overcome your unfortunate evolutionary shortcomings and prove that despite how small you are, despite your complete lack of grammatical control, despite even a shocking propensity for pickpocketing . . .’

‘Is prop . . . propen . . . is that anything like “proper”?’ asked Tess.

‘Despite all of this,’ Lin went on, unflustered, ‘you are Mother Nature’s improbable final answer, and you are going to do your duty!’

There was silence while this sank in, before Thomas finally said, ‘Didn’t you mention some sort of minor problem, miss?’

‘Well,
yes
.’

‘May I ask whether you mean the word “minor” in the same way as we mean “small”, said Thomas primly, ‘or if your ki ... if you have another way of understanding it?’

‘
Well
,’ said Lin, ‘the problem is that Augustus Havelock has contacts throughout Her Majesty’s Government.’

‘Yesss . . .’ offered Tess. ‘An’ this is bad ’cos ... ?’

‘Augustus Havelock will probably soon be aware, if he is not already, that Mister Lyle is under arrest on suspicion of Berwick’s death.’

‘An’ . . . I’m guessin’ as how you’re buildin’ towards summat what’s gonna make me cry an’ all, so any time you say . . .’

‘Havelock will also be likely to realize that now Berwick is . . .’ Lin waved her hand as a tactful substitute for the word, the weighty, despairing word, ‘. . . and Moncorvo is . . .’ the same gesture, slightly less emphatic, ‘. . . there’s only one person left in the whole British Empire who is capable of completing the Machine.’

She waited for the realization to hit. Tess looked at Thomas; Thomas looked at Tess. Tate looked at the bowl of chestnuts by the fire and wondered if they were edible.

Thomas said, ‘I’m sorry, miss, who would that be?’

Lin rolled her eyes. ‘And this is the future of mankind.’

Tess nudged Thomas in the ribs.

‘Ow!’ said Thomas.

‘Don’t be a baby, bigwig,’ muttered Tess. ‘I think as how she might be lookin’ at us for a reason.’ She turned to Lin. ‘It’s that metaphor stuff again, ain’t it? The euphe ... euphemi ... that thing where you says one thing but you really mean another an’ you kinda think as how the person what you’re talkin’ to is goin’ to work it out ’cos they know what you’re talkin’ about even though you ain’t gone an’ said it an’ all.’

‘That makes even less sense, Miss Teresa. Not that you don’t make sense, I don’t mean to imply that - I’m sure the fault is entirely mine and wouldn’t want to cause offence at all, but ... could you please explain?’

Tess looked exasperated. To Lin she said, ‘You’re talkin’ about Mister Lyle, ain’t you? You thinkin’ as how Mister Havelock’s gonna want Mister Lyle to finish the Machine.’

Lin beamed. ‘And yet inside your respective skulls there ’s so little cranial space for brain!’

Tess looked at Thomas and shrugged. ‘If summat’s goin’ bad,’ she confided, ‘I always know to blame it on Mister Lyle really.’

Thomas frowned. ‘Mister Lyle is in trouble?’

‘Of course he’s in trouble,’ Lin exclaimed, ‘you strange little ape-descended creature, you!’

‘What . . . will this Havelock person do?’

Lin looked uncertain. ‘I’m hoping that Mister Lyle, acting
nicely
, won’t betray my people to an ignominious and cruel demise.’

‘What’d the big words mean, bigwig?’ hissed Tess.

‘Erm . . . something like unfair and nasty. Why shouldn’t he, miss?’ Thomas’s voice was very polite, but there was something hard behind his eyes. ‘Why shouldn’t he help Havelock finish the Machine? After all, from what you’re saying, Moncorvo’ - a scowl - ‘
killed
- he went and
killed -
Berwick, Mister Lyle’s friend. Why shouldn’t Lyle finish the Machine?’

Lin stared at him in surprise, then said in a calm voice, ‘If I were to die right now in front of you, young Master Thomas - if I were to fall down without a sound and die - would you not call for help? Would you stand back and watch and do nothing and have my body buried in an unmarked grave and give it no other thought, simply because of
what
I am? You are so young, and yet you have already seen such evil, and much of it, I confess, from my kind. I am older than I seem, older than I pretend, and I have seen evil performed by all the peoples of all the empires of this world - the Chinese murdering the Tibetans, the Hindus murdering the Sikhs, the Turks and the Russians fighting for a scrap of land the size of Wales, the English and the French slaughtering each other for a field of opium. Should all the Frenchmen die for fighting you? Should all the Russians be condemned for one Tsar’s interest in the Black Sea? Maybe you think they should. But I like to think, Master Thomas, that you have enough of that insight Mister Lyle values so preciously to see that I am not your enemy, and that if the Machine were to be completed, if I
were
to die right now in front of you, you would be as shocked and appalled as if a friend were dead.’