Falling Sideways (18 page)

A puzzled frown crossed the Chief Inspector's face. ‘You mean to say you haven't figured that out? Sorry, I assumed you'd have tumbled to that one straight away. He's
him
, or at least Him Mark 2 – I'd done all the groundwork back in the 1580s, so all I had to do was arrange for a throwback four hundred years later. Don't you get it? He's Philippa's boyfriend.'

CHAPTER EIGHT

I
t'll be fine, they'd told him. We'll look after you, don't you worry; everything's been taken care of. Just hang on here for an hour or so, and someone'll be along to pick you up.

It was starting to get dark. David was still sitting where they'd left him, in the carnivorous armchair. As far as he could tell he was alone in the house: there was nobody to stop him getting up or leaving or doing whatever the hell he wanted to do. But what he wanted to do was sit in the chair, so that's what he did.

We've arranged a whole new life for you, they said, in British Columbia. New name, nice house, in the middle of nowhere so nobody'll even know you're there; nice flash computers for you to play with – that's the joy of your line of work, you can do it anywhere. Soon as you've settled in, you'll be as happy as a pig in muck. And it's not as if you had a life here to speak of. In a year or so, you'll be thanking us.

David was no geographer, and wasn't really sure where British Columbia was, though the conflicting resonances within the name itself intrigued him. (
British
Columbia: stronghold of bowler-hatted tea-drinking cocaine barons?) Of course, where it was didn't matter at all, because one place is very much like another once you edit out background trivia such as weather and scenery and which side of the road they drive on. A place is a landscape dotted with people, and all the people he'd met so far in thirty-odd years had sooner or later kicked him in the teeth.

On the wall opposite the chair was a bookshelf, and on the bookshelf was a copy of
The Times Atlas
, and in it was everything there was to know about British Columbia: its mountains and rivers and valleys and cities and principal exports. All he had to do was stand up, walk two yards and pull the book down off the shelf.

Couldn't be bothered.

Instead, he closed his eyes and dropped back into his own mind. The consensus of opinion there was that he should have known, the same way that a rabbit standing in the fast lane of a motorway at night ought to realise that the massive steel object with eyes of fire hurtling towards him isn't an amorous lady rabbit or a self-propelled giant carrot. Damn it, he should have figured it out from the start, because all his life, ever since he'd been old enough to have his own watch, Destiny had been grooming him for the role of servant, straight man and foil to his far-more-interesting-and-talented cousin, why-can't-you-be-more-like-Alex. Therefore it was inevitable, so glaringly obvious that a blindfolded bat in an electric storm would've seen it, that if he were ever to fall in love, it could only possibly be so that Alex's girlfriend could get cloned back into existence. The thought that his own aspirations towards happiness might have something to do with it was so dumb as to be laughable.

Once he'd realised that, everything else slotted into place as neatly as a well-designed modem card into a motherboard – and, of course, it was just plain stupid to resent it. The match doesn't resent the gas ring just because its purpose in life is to have its head ground against an abrasive surface and burnt to a crisp; and the match ends up in the ashtray or the trash, not in a snug little studio apartment in British Columbia. Like the man had said, really he should be grateful.

So: he snuggled his head against the back of the chair and synthesised gratitude. It was all exactly as the nice man had said; there was nothing for him here in England except the small, circumscribed place he'd fenced in for himself, and the prospect of fifty more annual colds. Furthermore, he'd done his job now, served his purpose; the rest of his life was his own. Either his family would believe he was a murderer and turn his picture to the wall, or else Alex would explain it all to them and they'd nod their heads and say that they'd been sure there must have been a good reason for having him, just as well they'd finally found out what it was. Most people don't get to step off the hamster-wheel of responsibilities until they're grey and wrinkly, but he was being turned loose in the prime of life, while he was still young enough to enjoy himself. Nothing more would ever be expected of him, he'd never be a disappointment or a trial to anybody ever again; he could spend the rest of his days unshaven and unironed, eating pizza out of the box, wearing odd socks and watching
Star Trek
videos without causing a moment's pain to another living creature. Anybody else would have to spend thirty years sitting cross-legged in an ashram to get where he was going, so what in God's name was he whining about?

And then something happened. It was as dynamic as the division of the first living cell, as subversive as the offer of a half-eaten apple in Eden, and it came prefaced with the fatal words
What if
—

In the back of his wallet was a little plastic envelope, containing the rest of the lock of Philippa Levens's hair. Now then: the policemen had said they were going to take Honest John's lock-up apart brick by brick, so there was Buckley's chance that any of the cloning gear would still be there, just left lying about. But what if they hadn't, and it was? Needless to say, only a highly skilled and knowledgeable cloning technician could carry out the procedure, you couldn't just sprinkle bits of dead person into the green glop like cocoa powder on a cappuccino and expect to fish a live human being out of the tank a few hours later. But what if it really was as easy as that? What if he didn't go to British Columbia after all?

A smile worked its way into his face, like a stray convolvulus seed lodging in a wall. What would she think, Philippa Levens II, on emerging from her tank like a sticky green Aphrodite, when she heard that she wasn't going to get her time-crossed lover after all, because after so many patient, dreary centuries of being dead another Philippa, identical except for being a few days older, had nipped in ahead of her and beaten her to it?

She'd be pissed off.

The smile widened, like a crack in a flyover. If his judgement of Philippa's character had been anything near accurate, she'd be very pissed indeed. She'd also be an extremely powerful supernatural entity, with a temper and a grudge, in the wake of whose wrath small, fragile things like planets might well get dropped on the floor and broken – which (David decided) would suit him just fine.

There was a knock at the door. He ignored it.

More to the point, he reflected, her annoyance would be focused, like as not, on one specific individual, namely the faithless, treacherous lover who'd betrayed her centuries of silent trust by running off with some bimbo who just happened to have identical DNA. David hadn't met many girls, but he'd read a lot of books, and they all said that compared with a woman scorned, an overheated plutonium reactor is a friend indeed. Visions of little bits of Alex drifting down out of the sky like the confetti at God's wedding danced in front of his inner eye, and he grinned till his face hurt.

A key turned in the front door. British Columbia. Buggery.

He jumped up like a jack-in-the-box and looked round for somewhere to hide. Fortunately, the decor left him spoilt for choice. He dived behind a sofa, tucked his feet in, and waited.

‘Hello?' someone called out. He recognised the voice; chances were, he knew the owner's brother. ‘Dave? Where are you?'

Of course, he particularly hated being called Dave.

Footsteps: in the hall, approaching, getting closer. In the gap between the end of the sofa and the wall he caught sight of a grey-worsted-trousered leg culminating in a mirror-buffed black shoe. Somehow he managed to hold his breath until it went away again.

It's all right, he reassured himself, they won't expect me to be hiding. If they can't find me, they'll assume I've left the house. All I've got to do is hold still and try not to breathe in any dust.

He sneezed.

‘Dave? Is that you?' The voice was getting nearer. He peered through the gap between sofa and wall and saw the window. Jump out, sprint, tear open sash, hop out, run: James Bond could have done it, but James Bond always had a director, a writing team, half a dozen stunt-men and the props department in his corner, whereas all David had was a dead spider. Interesting parallel, nonetheless, between himself and Jimbo: two men called into existence to do dirty jobs, face oppressively challenging obstacles; neither of them having any degree of choice in the matter. Neither of them mattering a damn to the people who yanked them into existence. Neither of them real.

‘Come on, Dave, we're on a schedule.' And David couldn't help thinking: if this being is as supreme as he says he is, isn't it a bit odd that he can't simply see through the furniture or scan for humanoid life-signs or pick up on noisy emotions such as fear and resentment? If this really was God, David was prepared to bet that on the seventh day the cosmos was still knee-deep in little plastic cones. And if this wasn't God— Quite where all this left him, David wasn't sure. Except that he was: it left him hiding behind a sofa, in very real danger of being found and hauled off to British Columbia. Regardless of the big theological issues, that was something he didn't want to happen.

The footsteps were getting closer again, and instinctively David crawled back a little, until his heels were up against the wall. It was over a second before he realised that he was kneeling on something uncomfortably sharp; unfortunately, he'd backed himself in so tightly that he didn't dare move for fear of giving himself away. Ouch, he thought, loudly.

‘Bloody hell,' said the voice; he could picture its owner standing with hands on hips, looking round and scowling. He knew the feeling, the baffled anger when something isn't where it should be. Come on, he urged, figure it out; if I'm not here, I must've gone. The longer you stand there like a prune, the less chance you've got of catching up with me. Go on, shoo—

Abruptly, the door slammed, suggesting that the Voice had left the room, probably in a bad mood. David counted up to a hundred and fifty, just to be on the safe side, and tried to wriggle his way out. It wasn't easy, a bit like trying to get the ship back out of the bottle using only a feather and a stick of boiled spaghetti, and as soon as he put his weight on his left knee—

This time, it had to be admitted, his thoughts were way, way past ‘Ouch'. He rocked back on to his heels and scrabbled about until he'd got his fingers round the offending object. Didn't dare drop it, for fear of kneeling on it again, so he folded it into his palm and continued his backing and filing manoeuvres.

It was just as well you didn't have to pass a driving test before you were allowed to take your own body out on the public roads. David was neither built for nor accustomed to squirming around in confined spaces, and it took him far more time, effort and ingenuity to get out than he'd expended getting in. Eventually, however, he scrawled/squeezed/flolloped out on to open carpet, reached back to retrieve his legs (which had been impounded by the frontier guards at the last minute) and lay still and quiet for a moment, catching his breath.

He opened his hand. Almost buried in his palm was a little gold locket, about the size of a tenpenny piece. He frowned; while he'd been talking with the Chief Inspector, Pippa Levens had been sitting on the same sofa, fidgeting with something on a chain round her neck. He felt round the outside for a catch of some sort, and after a moment or so his fingernail brushed against a raised burr and the locket sprang open. Inside was a lock of hair.

Wonderful, David thought. A few hundred more like this and I'll have enough for a cushion. He squeezed the locket shut and dropped it into his top pocket; it might fetch a bob or two, and sooner or later he was going to need money—

He'd been hiding inside his mind from that thought with the curtains drawn, hoping it would assume he wasn't in and pass him by. No money – at least, no cash, and all his other money was on the wrong side of a hole-in-the-wall machine. If he tried getting it out, at the very least his card would be swallowed and a billet-doux sent to the national police computer. In practice, therefore, no money. Also no home, no food, no change of clothes – what the hell was the matter with him, anyway? Right now, he could be sitting in a fast car on his way to British Columbia (delightful place, or so he'd heard: prairies, pine forests, softly crooning moose, maple syrup with everything) and instead he was planning to break into a crime scene and clone more witches, presumably because he believed that it'd somehow make things
better
 . . .

Yes, but it didn't matter, because everything was going to work out all right.

Relieved, he stood up and brushed bits of fluff off himself. Now then, he decided, going to have to walk to the nearest railway station, at the very least; once we're there, need to figure out how to stow away aboard a train. Can't be too difficult, people do it all the time, or else why do the railway companies make such a big fuss about it?

He was two-thirds of the way to the door when the PFLDP stopped him dead in his tracks and asked, Everything's going to work out all right, says who? There's absolutely no reason to believe—

The voice in his mind cut out abruptly, as if someone had just pulled a plug out of the wall. For a split second there was a vacuum; then normal service was resumed. Everything was going to work out all right. Impossible to doubt that; it'd be like having doubts about the existence of Loughborough. It wasn't a matter of opinion, it was a
fact
—

Just as well he'd got that sorted out, wasn't it?

As luck would have it, David was able to hitch a lift from a passing frozen-chicken lorry as far as the nearest town. Getting on board the train was much easier than he'd imagined; nobody at the ticket barrier on these funny little rural stations, the poor fools actually trusted you. A guard came round once on the way in to London, but he hid in the toilet with the door ever so slightly ajar, and the guard went away again. From Marylebone he caught a bus as far as Hammersmith; couldn't be bothered to hide from the conductor, just stared at her as if daring her to ask to see his ticket. She went away again, too. Bus from Hammersmith to Ravenscourt Park, same routine. One of these days, he said to himself, it'd be fun to find out just how far you could get without parting with any money. Judging from what he'd seen today, Proxima Centauri.