Unseen Academicals (38 page)

‘I’ll tell him what you said,’ said the luckless bledlow, backing away.

‘I would be very grateful if you did,’ said Glenda. ‘Now push off.’

Why do we tell one another that the leopard cannot change his shorts? she mused as she watched him scurry away. Has anyone ever seen a leopard wearing shorts? And how would they be able to put them on if they had them? But we go on saying it as if it was some kind of holy truth, when it just means that we’ve run out of an argument.

There was something she had to do, now what was it? Oh, yes. She went over once again to the cauldron on which she had chalked ‘Do Not Touch’ and lifted up the lid. The beady eyes stared up at her from the watery depths and she went away and got a few scraps of fish, which she dropped towards the waiting claws. ‘Well, I know what to do with you, at least,’ she said.

A fully working kitchen holds a great many things, not least of which is a huge collection of ways of committing horrible murder, plus multiple ways of getting rid of the evidence. This wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed her mind. She was quite glad about it. For now, she selected a really thick pair of gloves from a drawer, put her old coat on again, reached into the cauldron and picked up the crab. It snapped at her. She knew it would. Never, ever expect gratitude from those you help.

‘Tide’s turning,’ she told the crustacean, ‘so we’re going to take a little walk.’ She dropped it into her shopping bag and headed across the university lawns.

A couple of graduate wizards were working in the university boatyard nearby. One looked at her and said, ‘Are you supposed to be walking on the university lawns, madam?’

‘No, it is absolutely forbidden to kitchen staff,’ said Glenda.

The students looked at one another. ‘Oh, right,’ said one of them.

And that was it.

As easy as that.

It was only a metaphorical hammer. It only hit you if you allowed it to be there.

She pulled the crab out of her bag and it waved its claws irritably. ‘See
that over there?’ she said, waving her own spare hand. ‘That’s Hen and Chickens Field.’ It’s doubtful whether the crab’s beady eyes could focus on the grassy waste across the river, but at least she pointed it in the right direction. ‘People think it’s because there was chickens kept there,’ she went on conversationally while the two wizards looked at one another. ‘As a matter of fact, that’s not so. It used to be where people were hanged, and so when they walked out from the old gaol that used to be over there, the priest in front of the procession with his billowing robes seemed to lead the line of doomed men and gaolers like a hen leading its chicks. That sort of thing is what we call a droll sense of humour in these parts and I haven’t got the faintest idea why I’m talking to you. I’ve done my best. You now know more than any other crab.’

She walked down to the very edge of what passed for water as the river flowed through the city, and dropped the crab into it. ‘Stay clear of crab pots and don’t come back.’ She turned round and realized the wizards had been watching her. ‘Well?’ she snapped. ‘Is there any law about talking to crabs around here?’ She then gave them a little smile as she walked past.

Back in the long corridors she wandered, feeling a little light-headed, towards the vats. Some of its denizens eyed her nervously as she passed through, but there was no sign of Nutt, not that she was looking for him at all. As she walked on towards the Night Kitchen, Trev and Juliet appeared. Glenda couldn’t help but notice that Juliet had a somewhat bright-eyed and ruffled look. That is, she couldn’t help but notice because she made a point of noticing every time. Semi-parental responsibility was a terrible thing.

‘What are you
still
doing here?’ she said.

They looked at her and there was more in their expressions than mere embarrassment.

‘I come back to say goodbye to the girls and I ’ad to wait for Trev because of the training.’

Glenda sat down. ‘Make me a cup of tea, will you?’ And because old habits died hard she added, ‘Boil water in the kettle, two spoons of tea
in the pot. Pour water from kettle into pot when it boils. Do not put tea in kettle.’ She turned to Trev. ‘Where’s Mister Nutt?’ she said, nonchalance booming in her voice.

Trev looked down at his feet. ‘I don’t know, Glenda,’ he said. ‘I’ve been—’

‘Busy,’ Glenda completed.

‘But no hanky panky,’ said Juliet quickly.

Glenda realized that right now she would not have minded if there had been hanky panky or even spanky. There were things that were important and things that weren’t, and times when you knew the difference.

‘So, how did Mister Nutt get on, then?’

Trev and Juliet looked at one another. ‘We don’t know. He wasn’t there,’ said Trev.

‘We kind of thought ’e might be with you,’ said Juliet, handing her a cup of what you get when you ask for a cup of tea from someone who tends to confuse the recipe even at the best of times.

‘He wasn’t in the Great Hall?’ said Glenda.

‘No, ’e wasn’t there—Wait one moment.’ Trev ran down the steps and after a few seconds they heard his footsteps coming back. ‘His toolbox ’as gone,’ said Trev. ‘I mean, it wasn’t much. He made it outta bits he found in the cellars, but as far as I know it’s all ’e owned.’

I knew it, thought Glenda. Of course I knew it. ‘Where could he be? He’s got nowhere else to go but here,’ she said.

‘Well, there is that place up in Uberwald he talks about quite a lot,’ said Trev.

‘That’s getting on for about a thousand miles away,’ said Glenda.

‘Well, I suppose he thinks he might as well be there as here,’ said Juliet innocently. ‘I mean, Orc, I’d want to run away from a name like that if I was me.’

‘Look, I’m sure he’s just wandered off somewhere in the building,’ Glenda said, believing absolutely that he hadn’t. But if I believe he’s going to be around the next corner or has just nipped off to…powder his nose, or has just wandered away for half an hour–which, of course,
is his right; perhaps he needs to go and buy a pair of socks?–if I keep believing he’ll turn up any minute, he might, even though I know he won’t.

She put down the cup. ‘Half an hour,’ she said. ‘Juliet, you go and check around the Great Hall. Trev, you go down the tunnels that way. I’ll go down the tunnels this way. If you find anyone you can trust, ask ’em.’

A little more than half an hour later, Glenda was the last to turn up back in the Night Kitchen. She very nearly half expected that he would be there and knew that he wouldn’t. ‘Would he know about getting on a coach?’ she said.

‘I doubt ’e’s ever seen one,’ said Trev. ‘You know what I would do if I was ’im? I’d just run. It was like when Dad died, I spent all night walkin’ around the city. I wasn’t bothered where I went. Just went. Wanted to run away from bein’ me.’

‘How fast can an orc run?’ said Glenda.

‘Much faster than a man, I bet,’ said Trev. ‘An’ for a long time, too.’

‘Listen.’ This was Juliet. ‘Can’t you ’ear it?’

‘Hear what?’ said Glenda.

‘Nothing,’ said Juliet.

‘Well?’

‘What happened to Awk! Awk!?’

‘I think we’ll find them where we find him,’ said Trev.

‘Well, he can’t run all the way back to Uberwald,’ said Glenda. ‘
You
couldn’t.’

At last Glenda said it: ‘I think we should go after him.’

‘I’ll come,’ said Trev.

‘Then I’m goin’ to come, too,’ insisted Juliet. ‘Besides, I’ve still got the money and you’re goin’ to need it.’

‘Your money’s in the bank,’ said Glenda, ‘and the bank is shut. But I think I’ve got a few dollars in my purse.’

‘Then, excuse me,’ said Trev, ‘I won’t be a moment. I think there’s somethin’ we ought to take…’

The driver of the horse bus to Sto Lat looked down and said, ‘Two dollars fifty pence each.’

‘But you only go to Sto Lat,’ said Glenda.

‘Yes,’ said the man calmly. ‘That’s why it says Sto Lat on the front.’

‘We might ’ave to go a lot further,’ said Trev.

‘Just about every coach in this part of the world goes through Sto Lat,’ he said.

‘How long will it take to get there?’

‘Well, this is the late-night bus, okay? It’s for people who’ve got to be in Sto Lat early and haven’t got much money, and there’s the rub, see? The less the money, the slower the travel. We get there in the end. Somewhere around about dawn, in fact.’

‘All night? I think I could walk it faster.’

The man had the quiet, friendly air about him of someone who had found the best way to get through life was never to give much of a stuff about anything. ‘Be my guest,’ he said. ‘I’ll wave to you as we go past.’

Glenda looked down the length of the coach. It was half full of the kind of people who took the overnight bus because it wasn’t very expensive; the kind of people, in fact, who had brought their own dinner in a paper bag, and probably not a new paper bag at that.

The three of them huddled. ‘It’s the only one we can afford,’ said Trev. ‘I don’t think we can even afford travel for one on the mail coaches.’

‘Can’t we try and bargain with him?’ said Glenda.

‘Good idea,’ said Trev. He walked back to the coach.

‘Hello again,’ said the driver.

‘When are you gonna leave?’ said Trev.

‘In about five minutes.’

‘So everyone who’s gonna be riding is on the coach.’

Glenda glanced past the driver. The passenger behind him was very meticulously peeling a hardboiled egg.

‘Could be,’ said the driver.

‘Then why not leave right now,’ said Trev, ‘and go faster? It’s very important.’

‘Late-night,’
said the driver. ‘That’s what I said.’

‘Supposing I was to threaten you with this lead pipe, would you go any faster?’ said Trev.

‘Trevor Likely!’ said Glenda. ‘You can’t go around threatening people with lead pipes!’

The driver looked down at Trev and said, ‘Can you run that past me again?’

‘I told you that I had this length of lead pipe,’ said Trev, banging it gently against the bus’s door. ‘Sorry, but we really need to get to Sto Lat.’

‘Oh, right, yes,’ said the driver, ‘I see your lead pipe,’ and he reached down to the other side of his seat, ‘and I will raise you this battle-axe and would remind you that if I were to cut you in arf, the law would be on my side, no offence meant. You must think I am some kind of fool, but you’re all hopping about like nits on a griddle, so what’s this all about then?’

‘We’ve got to catch up with our friend. He could be in danger,’ said Trev.

‘And it’s very romantic,’ said Juliet.

The driver looked at her.

‘If you ’elp us catch up wiv him, I’ll give you a big kiss,’ she said.

‘There!’ said the driver to Trev. ‘Why didn’t
you
think of that?’

‘All right, I’ll give you a kiss as well,’ said Trev.

‘No thanks, sir,’ said the driver, clearly enjoying himself. ‘In your case I think I’ll go for the lead pipe, although please don’t try anything ’cos it’s a devil’s own job to get the bloodstains off the seats. Nothing seems to shift them.’

‘Okay, I’ll try to hit you with the lead pipe,’ said Trev. ‘We’re desperate.’

‘And we’ll give you some money,’ said Juliet.

‘Sorry?’ said the driver. ‘Do I get the kiss, the money
and
the lead pipe? I mean, I’d rather forgo the lead pipe for another kiss.’

‘Two kisses, a whole three dollars and no lead pipe,’ said Juliet.

‘Or just the lead pipe and I’ll take my chances,’ said Trev.

Glenda, who had been watching them with a fascinated horror, said,
‘And I’ll give you a kiss as well if you like.’ She couldn’t help noticing that this didn’t move the stakes either way.

‘But what about my passengers?’ said the driver.

All four of them looked into the back of the bus and realized that they were the subject of at least a dozen fascinated stares. ‘Go for the kiss!’ said a woman, holding a large laundry basket in front of her.

‘And the money!’ said one of the men.

‘I don’t give a stuff if she kisses him or hits him on the head with the lead pipe, so long as they drop us off first,’ said an old man towards the back of the bus.

‘Do any of us get kissed as well?’ said one half of a couple of giggling boys.

‘If you like,’ said Glenda viciously. They slumped back into their seats.

Juliet grabbed the driver’s face and there was, for what seemed slightly too long, by the internal clocks of both Glenda and Trev, the sound of a tennis ball being sucked through the strings of a tennis racket. Juliet stepped back. The driver was smiling, in a slightly stunned and cross-eyed way. ‘Well, that was pretty much of a lead pipe!’

‘Perhaps I’d better drive,’ said Trev.

The driver smiled at him. ‘I’ll drive, thank you very much, and don’t kid yourself, mister, I know a dicey one when I see one and you don’t come close. My old mum would be more likely to hit me with a lead pipe than you. Throw it away, why don’t you, or someone will give you a centre parting you won’t forget in a hurry.’

He winked at Juliet. ‘What with one thing or another it’s a good idea to give the horses a bit of a run every now and again. All aboard for Sto Lat.’

The horse buses did not usually travel very fast and the driver’s definition of a run was only marginally faster than what most people would call a walk, but he managed to get them up to something that at least meant they did not have the time to get bored by a passing tree.

The bus was for people, as the driver had pointed out, who couldn’t afford speed but could afford time. In its construction,
therefore, no expense had been attempted. It was really no more than a cart with double seats all the way along it from the driver’s slightly elevated bench. Tarpaulins on either side kept out the worst of the weather but fortunately still let in enough of the wind to mitigate the smell of the upholstery, which had experienced humanity in all its manifold moods and urgencies.

Glenda got the impression that some of the travellers were regulars. An elderly woman was sitting quietly knitting. The boys were still engaged in the furtive giggling appropriate to their age, and a dwarf was staring out of the window without looking at anything in particular. No one really bothered about talking to anybody, except a man right at the back, who was having a continuous conversation with himself.