Alien Tongues (17 page)

"Look," McMahon continued, "I'm very sorry about what happened."  He glanced at Alice, but Séamus indicated with a wave that he could talk openly in front of her.  "Both that night, and with the lawsuit.  But I want to assure you that I had nothing to do with it.  We were caught completely unawares by the search warrant.  As for the lawsuit, Petra got pressured into it by some government agent.  She came to me and asked me what to do.  Apparently she has a brother who's on parole and if she didn't do what they said he was going back to prison.  What could I tell her?  We hoped you'd be kept out of it, but the agent made sure you weren't."  McMahon paused.  "What did I say about you working for the British government?  They'll destroy you, Man."

"Could you call Petra now on your phone?" Séamus asked.  McMahon immediately did so, then handed him the phone.  "Petra?  It's Séamus… Yes, I know it couldn't be helped, I'm not angry with you… Where are you?  OK.  What's your brother's name?... OK, don't worry.  I'll be in touch later… Thanks for your help.  Bye."  He returned the phone.  "OK, Ryan, it seems to check out.  I think I know where to go looking now."

"Well, let me know if there's something I can do to help," McMahon told him.  "Of course, I feel a bit guilty the way this has turned out, but I believe there's nothing else I could have done."  He then lowered his voice.  "By the way, there are still folks around here who aren't convinced you're just an auditor and who are worried you're snooping into their area of business.  Just wanted to let you know.  Not relevant to me, of course, because I know you're fine with my line of work." 

Séamus felt it unnecessary to return McMahon's grin.  "That depends upon how well you can keep the government out of it," he replied, deadpan, which only widened the other's smile.

Alice had returned with two fresh pints, and McMahon took his leave.  "So that confirms the search warrant was engineered by your Agency?" she asked.

Séamus nodded.  "McMahon knows I can verify Petra's brother – the story has to be genuine.  So that leads me to some very interesting conclusions.  First, the Agency is determined to keep me on this job, no matter what I wanted to do.  Second, it probably anticipated things would start going badly, so that I would be vulnerable to pressure to give the work up and go back home.  Third, it's much more optimistic about success than we are.  Otherwise it wouldn't have gone to all this trouble to frame me."

He could tell that Alice was deep in thought so waited for her to reply.  Finally she said, "I've been a fool, Séamus.  Now I realize I'm one of those mathematicians who just drives ahead with a single problem to solve, forgetting to ask if it's actually the right problem."

To illustrate her mistake, Alice placed her glass between them on the table. "'Dr Alice Turner, please analyze the primary ingredients of this glass of beer.'" She dipped her finger in the liquid and then tasted it. "'Let me see – water, hops, barley, malt, yeast.  Am I right?'  'No, Dr Turner, you forgot the heaviest ingredient of them all – the glass!"

Séamus shrugged.  "Most of us fail those trick questions."

Alice wagged a finger.  "But it's not always a trick question.  If I'm a visitor from Mars and have never seen the inside of a pub, the question I'm asking is perfectly reasonable.  My problem is that I failed to understand the reasonable perspective of the person asking."

A visitor from Mars.  That was certainly a new way of looking at things and, for a reason he could not put his finger on, seemed strangely apt.  But he immediately forgot this impression when he said, "OK, whose perspective did you fail to understand?"

"One moment, let me check those ingredients more carefully…" Alice drank for a good two seconds then continued, "The answer to that is, I don't know, because we don't know who wants our results.  We only know what Wilkie says he wants, which is a number-based language.  And I think my 6% is a reasonable estimate of our success,
based on our current methodology
.  But suppose the girls are right, and something really is missing?  Wilkie never said we couldn't change the methodology.  It's just that he and we have no idea what we should be changing.  We have no way of measuring our chances of success if we allow other methodologies, but it could be much greater."

Séamus frowned.  "Give me an example of another methodology."

"Oh, a different type of keypad."  Alice took out her smartphone and stared at it.  "I don't want to get tediously mathematical, but there are other ways of getting to numbers than by numbers themselves.  And numbers are a hierarchy, unlike letters.  We can't assume they'll be adopted just like letters.  We need some kind of hook to introduce them, one that the girls simply can't see just now because we haven't asked them to look for it."

"Shall we ask them to design their own keypad?" Séamus asked.  Alice shook her head.

"There's a reason Wilkie didn't invite them to do that."  She laughed. "The old devil.  Of course they would have asked for what suited them best, and he wants them to beg for an extra key or two.  He knows he must give something, but he wants to make sure it's as little as possible."

"I'll ask you more about why later," Séamus told her.  "For now, I just would like some idea of how much our chances may have gone up."

"Impossible to do anything very scientific.  But I suppose we may as well go back to our original 40%"

Séamus was not sure how he felt about this dramatic change.  On the one hand, he felt tempted to ask Alice why the hell this idea had only just occurred to her, but he quickly realized how hypocritical such a position would be.  Had he not recently attempted to bail after solemnly committing himself?  It was not surprising the project was playing tricks with their minds – a product of their isolation and ignorance of purpose.  If anyone was to blame, it was Wilkie for keeping her deliberately in the dark.  But even his sins were mere trifles compared with the dark nature of his own boss.

He decided to allow himself to feel pleased.  If he was going to lose Sheryl, it was better over a near-half chance than a near-hopeless one.  He proposed a toast to the project's success.  They both put down empty glasses.

"Can you handle another one?" he asked her.

"I think a little bit more celebration is in order, surely?  I might say let's go back, but I think we need to know what Mr Allsop has to say.  Make it a half."

When he went up to the bar, Allsop came over to him.  He stood next to him as Séamus watched each of the two pint glasses being filled half way.

"You made a bit of trouble for me," Allsop mentioned quietly.

"Oh?" Séamus said with faint surprise. "I had the impression you made that yourself.  You know, trespassing."

"Shortcut," Allsop growled.  "There are old rights of way here that aren't posted for the Ramblers' Association.  Any road, there's a code of behavior that's more important in these parts.  We don't go talking to the police just because a neighbor's in a hurry."

"Mr Allsop, I'm a government employee.  I had no choice except to find out why you might be trespassing.  I took no further action."

Allsop put a hand on Séamus's shoulder.  "And I need to make sure that there will be no further action from you again.  None at all, mind."

"Is that a threat?"  Séamus looked at the hand and then at Allsop.  The hand remained there.

"Call it protection.  Cute young Asian girls there could do with some, don't you think?"

"Listen, Allsop.  I think you're well out of line here."

"Oh, no, that would be you, Paddy Boy."  Allsop took his hand from Séamus's shoulder and now ran it down the edge of his jacket lapel.  It was a very common way to start intimidation. Take physical liberties which challenged dignity, daring the victim to respond physically.  "And I've just begun to get you back in line.  I'm also going to tell you not to appear in public with Alice Turner.  That's an order."

Séamus watched as a silver pin in his lapel buttonhole was removed.  "Did Dave Orwood send you?"

"Boy, you don't have to know who or why.  You just do as you're told."

Allsop wore a look of quiet confidence on his weather-beaten face.  He was perhaps ten years older than Séamus and had a muscular, manual-worker's build, perhaps an inch taller than Séamus and with longish, prematurely grey hair.  He was holding a pint glass in his hand and he tapped it against Séamus's chest.  A little beer slopped onto his jacket.

Séamus noticed that his two half-full, pint glasses were waiting for him.  The bartender was also waiting for his money, though eyeing Allsop with some alarm.  Séamus placed money on the counter and decided not to wait for change.  He thought that, if he returned to Alice quickly, Allsop would be forced to continue his argument in front of her, and her reaction would illustrate the absurdity of his demands.  Maybe the words "you just do as you're told" made him feel upset in a way that wasn't quite rational, and he unconsciously felt the need to escape from this bully.

It was the only reason he could think of, later, why he moved at that moment with unfortunate haste.  Since he was carrying two half-filled pint jugs, it allowed him to do so without slopping the beer, which would not have been the normal case with glasses filled to the brim.  Certainly, Allsop was not expecting him to move hastily, since he positioned himself directly behind Séamus, blocking his anticipated direction.  The older man had been amused at how his beer had stained the younger man's jacket, and so held his own glass in front of him, perhaps in the hope that Séamus would knock into it and be to blame for using up more of the beer with his clothes.  His glass was different, being what is typically referred to as a straight or a thin glass, a more comfortable pint to hold if the drinker is standing.  Publicans themselves prefer the thicker "dimple mugs" with handles, as Séamus carried in both hands, because these involve fewer breakages but are more suitable only if the drinker has a place to rest them.

The resilience of glass is unpredictable.  Sometimes it can withstand surprisingly hard blows, at other times shatter almost spontaneously.  The fact that one of the dimple mugs collided with Allsop's thin glass did not inevitably mean breakage, but that was certainly a possibility which, as it happened, came to pass.  The force of the collision was not strong but, given the result, must have seemed much greater.  The broken glass fell from Allsop's hand and onto his foot.  Beer soaked the bottom of his trouser-leg.

"I'm so terribly sorry," Séamus began, quickly returning his own drinks to the bar. "Please let me get you another."  He knew such a response was going to be wholly inadequate for someone like Allsop, but he needed at least to try and make clear that the breakage was an accident.  How had he been so clumsy?  Something had distracted him.  He had suddenly noticed Kevin Grant staring at him from across the room.  The man's look was fiercely penetrating, catching his attention and, for just a fraction of a moment, had reduced his focus on his immediate environment.  With Allsop's intention to be obstructive, little else was needed for an embarrassing accident.  Now Grant and the rest of the pub, including Alice and McMahon, would be riveted on what happened next.

Allsop would also have been keenly aware of his audience.  He had made a threatening approach to a stranger and had had his beer smashed in his hand.  No doubt blood would soon start to ooze from cuts.  For years in the future, this event could be used as a source of humorous humiliation for him, adding to his reputation for slow-wittedness.  Or he could deter that humiliation now with decisive action.  The second option was particularly appealing to a man of limited patience and restraint.

That, anyway, was Séamus's take on the man.  He felt there was near certainty that a blow was going to come, but could not be sure what type, and that made a big difference in such close proximity.  It was a bit like batting in cricket.  You watched your opponent's arm movement and had to make a decision between a short or long pitch, without fully committing yourself in case you chose wrong.  Séamus guessed a mild jab to his solar-plexus.  Mild, because it needed to be aimed quite carefully for proper effect, and also because it would suggest to the audience precision as opposed to aggression.  If done well with the point of the knuckles, a relative tap could reduce Séamus to a doubled-up, gasping but virtually noiseless victim.  Allsop could then claim the pint offered him even as his host remained unable to stand straight or talk, in a kind of paralysis of pain.

It turned out that his guess was correct.  Séamus's elbow and forearm moved into place quickly enough to block the left jab, but not so quickly as to suggest an aggressive defense.  Some pain and a later bruise, but nothing to give Allsop any visible revenge – in fact, stylistically, his choice of punishment appeared thwarted.  So Séamus had to assume there would be a follow-up punch, and this one would come from the right, wounded fist.  Chosen by a man of limited imagination, it would inevitably be an uppercut to the jaw.  After all, it was the "manly" punch for which aggressors are given the most tolerance by non-fighting audiences.  People imagine it as the clean, "knockout" blow apparently avoiding facial damage, even though the reality can be permanent jaw trouble for the recipient.

As Séamus watched the fist fly by his face, he chided himself for moving too early and permitting such a gap, something that no fighter would ever accept as being sheer luck.  All his drinking that evening had partly slowed his movements but also his intuitive sense of the smartest moves. It now also made him worry about his next step, as the outstretched arm presented him with only micro-seconds of opportunity.  That step had to be so quick as to be almost unconscious, just like his slip-fielding dives or the card-switch he showed the boy on the train.  If done correctly, it was almost a graceful ballet.  If done wrong, it would snap Allsop's elbow, requiring expert surgery to properly repair, and create such political stink that the Agency would dump him just as soon as they had managed to ruin his life.