The Brothers of Baker Street (21 page)

“From what?”

“Bloody satellites,” said the driver.

Nigel thought about that. “Global positioning?” he asked.

“Right. Every year for the past three years they’ve tried to push this down our throats. Every year we throw them back across the pond. You’d think they’d get tired trying.”

Ten minutes later they were at the London Transport Authority building in Penton. The meeting hall was quite ordinary: a large wooden emblem at the back wall behind the oak speaker’s dais tried to be ornate, but the lime-green plaster walls and the two hundred folding metal chairs made it clear that this was a working-class meeting hall. Nigel felt quite at home.

All of the chairs were already occupied; and almost all of them by cab drivers, judging by the style of their macs. Nigel and his cab driver stood along the wall near the entrance.

Three people were seated in chairs on a platform directly behind the speaker’s dais. One of them, farthest from the dais, was Edwards, apparently as the official representative for the cab drivers. The other two were not cab drivers: one was wearing a black blazer with an official gold insignia for the Carriage Office; the other man was wearing a corporate-gray suit, with the shade of pink shirt always worn by wearers of corporate-gray suits who want to demonstrate creativity.

A fourth person on the platform was seated unobtrusively in the dark of a full-length stage curtain at the far right corner of the platform. His face wasn’t visible, but he sat with a posture that seemed familiar to Nigel somehow. But Nigel couldn’t place it, and the man was probably just someone in charge of the hall facilities themselves.

The man from the Carriage Office stood, screeched the microphone, and then introduced Mr. Trimball from Transatlantic Software.

Mr. Trimball was a lean, trim man, in his late forties probably, according to his bearing, but possibly older from his face, which was both more lined and more tanned that those of the other people in the room.

An unwelcoming murmur rippled through the audience of cab drivers as he stepped to the microphone. He looked out over the crowd, paused for the noise to subside just a bit, and then began to speak.

“The Black Cabs of London are the safest mode of transportation in the world,” he began, quite loudly. From his accent it was immediately apparent that he was an American.

The murmuring stopped on those first words, as he must have hoped it would; there were even a couple of “hear, hears.” He continued: “So it is said. So has it been said for one hundred years, and it has always been true. But recent events compel us to realize that it is true no longer.”

Now the crowd emanated a tense silence.

“There was a time when you saw a Black Cab on the street and you knew what it was and the caliber of the person driving it, and if you were an elderly pensioner on holiday, or a stockbroker who had one or two too many after work, or even a honeymooning couple from America, you knew that if you took that Black Cab, your driver was licensed and bonded and had spent years achieving the Knowledge and the privilege of driving a Black Cab, and that you would be got safely home, without question, and with no wrong turns taken either.

“But no longer. Today, more Black Cabs are manufactured overseas than in the UK. We do not know where those cabs end up. Nor do we even know what has become of all the Black Cabs manufactured here at home. There is no legal prohibition against selling to anyone at all, whether at home or abroad. Gangster drug lords in the US can own Black Cabs if they choose to, and some do, I’ve seen them. Anyone who chooses to do so can own one here as well. And as we have seen, a person of ill intent can forge a license placard and claim to be a licensed Black Cab driver on the streets of London when in fact he is nothing of the kind.

“Is the driver of a Black Cab still the best taxi driver in the world? Yes. But can we still say with a certainty that every apparent Black Cab serving the streets of London is indeed what it seems? Clearly, we cannot. And if we cannot vouch for the cabs, can we possibly vouch for the persons driving them?”

A heavy murmur rolled through the hall now.

“But there is a solution. What I propose to you here today will solve not only the rare problem of the bad-apple Black Cab driver, but also the problem of the false Black Cab, being driven by a false Black Cab driver. And—even better—it will make all of your jobs easier to boot.”

Now, with a flourish, Trimball held up a small silver object, about the size of a cigarette case.

“Meet ‘highway,’” he announced. “That’s H-A-I-W-A-Y, otherwise known as “Here Am I, Where Are You?” A satellite navigation system so advanced that the US Department of Defense wouldn’t even let us tell you about it until now. With HAIWAY as a mandatory installation on every newly manufactured Black Cab and on every existing licensed Black Cab in the city, not only will you always know how to get where you’re going without even thinking about it, but also, no person of criminal intent will ever again be able to create a fake Black Cab and use the impeccable reputation of the honest Black Cab drivers to help him commit his crimes.”

Trimball paused just for a moment and smiled at the new round of murmurs.

“Why is that, you ask?” He looked back over his shoulder as he said this, and on this cue, the man seated at the curtain stood and flipped a switch at the back of the platform. The lights in the audience went dark, and a projection screen descended into place at the back of the platform.

“It’s because satellites are a two-way street,” continued Trimball, over a slick audiovisual presentation featuring shining Black Cabs, a blue-and-green Earth, and animated, smiling satellites.

“Not only does the central processing system tell every Black Cab where to go and how to get there, but every Black Cab is at all times sending a signal right back to the central processing system, saying where it actually is at that moment. And more—every metropolitan police car in London will be equipped with a client device that will ping every Black Cab for its identity—automatically—and the police will immediately know if any cab is false. Because HAIWAY will tell them.”

The presentation stopped now, and the lights came back up. Trimball looked out over his audience to gather their attention back in. He leaned forward on the podium.

“Think about it,” he said, earnestly. “No one will ever dare drive a fake Black Cab again. And no one—not the
Daily Sun,
not the Crown Prosecution Service, no one—will ever again, falsely or otherwise, be able to accuse a Black Cab driver of committing a crime.”

Now Trimball stopped and took a half step back from the podium to demonstrate that he was done, squaring his shoulders in anticipated triumph and looking out boldly over the crowd.

The man in the Carriage Office blazer immediately leaped to his feet. “Hear, hear!” he cried.

No one seconded it, but no one shouted it down either. There was a long silence in the hall. From his vantage point, standing near the doorway, Nigel could see the cab drivers, who had all seemed so certainly opposed on the way in, turning to each other in a confused state. By the look of things, they weren’t necessarily all seeing the proposal the same way.

Nigel himself had not yet formed an opinion about it. In fact, for the past five minutes of the presentation, he hadn’t been paying all that much attention to the content. He’d been trying to remember where he had seen Trimball before. The name wasn’t familiar at all—but he knew he had seen the face.

“Huh,” said the young driver standing next to Nigel. “Well, that’s not exactly what I expected now, is it?”

“How is it different?” said Nigel.

“Why, the whole tracking and identification thing. I thought it was just going to be something that would make the Knowledge unnecessary, so that any wanker or unlicensed minicab driver could drop in and pick up a Black Cab license on his way to lunch. But always knowing the real thing from the fake … well, that’s not a bad idea now, is it?”

“I’m not at all sure,” said Nigel. He was watching Edwards, who had slowly stood after the presentation, said nothing to anyone that Nigel could see, and was now making his way toward the door. As the man drew closer, it seemed to Nigel that all of the starch had gone out of him.

17

Laura rode in a cab from Baker Street, down along the east edge of Hyde Park, toward the solicitor’s home address in Mayfair.

In Mayfair, the cab turned onto a lovely street, lined with townhomes that by tradition had belonged to the likes of cabinet ministers and mercantile barons. All a bit stuffy for Laura’s taste. But she had to admit that even with her recent success, if she herself wanted one of these stately white-stone Edwardians, she would hardly be able to afford it.

So … great legs and family money, thought Laura, as the cab came to a stop. The more she learned of Reggie’s enigmatic solicitor, the less she liked her.

The home had a particularly nice front garden of pink and white roses. Great legs, family money, and good with a garden. Worse and worse.

Laura went up the short walkway and knocked. After a short moment, a servant girl answered the door. She opened it only a few inches.

“I’m looking for Darla Rennie,” said Laura. “Is this her residence?”

The servant girl hesitated. In a Russian accent, she said, “Yes. But she’s not at home.”

“Do you know when she is coming back?”

“No,” said the girl, looking about rather helplessly, as though she wished someone else were there to answer for her. “I think … perhaps she will be gone a long time.”

“It’s very important that I get in touch with her,” said Laura. “She is the solicitor for a friend of mine.”

The servant girl thought about that for a moment, then said, “Is a solicitor a professor?”

“Not necessarily. But I suppose one could be, if one were teaching.”

The servant girl thought about that, and then nodded. “I think she became one just recently.”

Laura had no idea what that might mean. And she wasn’t learning anything just standing on the doorstep.

“Do you suppose I might leave her a note?” Laura asked.

“Yes,” said the girl. She had relaxed her grip on the door just a bit.

“You’ve been so helpful,” said Laura, in her most soothing voice. “But I’ve nothing to write on out here. Might I come in just for a moment?”

The servant girl hesitated. Laura smiled kindly.

The door opened.

The servant girl escorted Laura quickly, as though to minimize the risk of letting a stranger in, through the front room, then the kitchen, and then out onto the back garden patio, where there was a nice wrought-iron table with a marble top.

“You can write here,” said the girl. “It’s where she always does. I’ll get some paper.”

The servant girl went away, and Laura sat down at the table.

Laura looked about. It was quite a pleasant place, really, a lovely garden, with a clear sweet scent from brilliant red roses. They were even more striking than the white and pink ones she had seen in front.

Near the patio door, on the cobblestone flooring, was a two-foot-high stack of newspapers, mostly tabloids. The one on top, Laura, could not help but notice, was the
Daily Sun.

Now the servant girl returned.

“Your employer enjoys the
Daily Sun
?” said Laura, indicating the stack by the door.

The Russian girl nodded. “I read the headlines to her at breakfast.”

“Really? Just the headlines, not the stories?”

“Sometimes she wants me to read the story, too.”

“I see. You scan the headlines for her and then read whatever she says sounds interesting. Leaving her hands free to concentrate on more important things, like scones.”

“Yes. Black Cabs and barristers.”

“Excuse me?”

“Those are the only stories she has asked me to read.”

Laura thought about that for a moment. “Perhaps you will show me a barrister story?”

But now a phone rang inside the house. The servant girl jumped up and went back inside to answer it. There was a brief conversation of some sort; Laura tried to hear what was said, but could not.

And then the servant girl came back outside.

“You must leave,” she said nicely, but quite firmly.

“Was that your employer? Perhaps I could have a word with her?”

“No, that wasn’t her.”

“Oh,” said Laura. “Who was it then?”

The servant girl gave Laura a startled look, and then clammed up tight.

“Of course,” said Laura. “Rude of me to pry, and right for you to not reveal identities without permission. But perhaps just a hint as to the general category … Was it a friend calling? A relative?”

The girl said nothing; she looked back at Laura with deer-caught-in-headlamps eyes and lips pressed so tightly together Laura was almost afraid she’d hurt herself.

“Business acquaintance? Professional services? Gardener?”

Now there was a response.

“I do the roses myself!” said the servant girl, with some pride.

“Ahh,” said Laura. That was just a bit comforting to know. Darla Rennie wasn’t perfect.