Wish You Were Here (19 page)

Arms. Illegal arms shipments. Vaticangate.
They were shipping the stuff out in rocks
. That was why none of the consignments had ever been traced.

It was so beautifully simple. What the government were doing was encasing the arms in huge blocks of concrete, dressing them up to look like Sicilian marble, and then shipping them out on submarines via the Black Sea ports. God, it was so obvious a deranged child's imaginary friend could see it. And now she could, too. This was great!

(Behind her, a goblin crept stealthily forward, muttering something under its breath about third time lucky.)

Oh God, my kingdom for a fax machine! Not being able to get the story out right away was hurting her, physically, like a dagger in her heart or an ingrowing toenail. The biggest news story of the century, bigger even than her exposé of covert US involvement in the Trojan War, and here she was in the middle of the wilderness, unable to communicate with the office. Oh, life can be so
rotten
. Bewildered by the senseless cruelty of it all, she slumped down on a curiously shaped rock and buried her head in her hands.

‘This one,' hissed Goblin Corporal Snargh to Goblin Sergeant Gnazhgz, ‘is going to be a piece of duff. You watch. Dizzy bitch isn't even
looking
.'

‘Bit of meat on 'er, too,' Gnazhgz grunted back. ‘Left-overs'll do cold for Monday. I got the in-laws comin' over, it's her mum's malachite weddin'.'

Snargh's craggy, looming brow furrowed. ‘How many's malachite?' he asked.

‘Two hundred an' ninety-six. Y'know, whenever I think I got it rough, I look at her dad and I think, two hundred an' ninety-six years of
that
, I'd rather be boiled in lead. Still, wouldn't do if we were all the same.'

‘Yeah.' Tiny tumblers clicked into place inside Snargh's fallout-shelter-thick skull. ‘Jussa minute,' he whispered. ‘Granted she's a bit on the buxom side, but there's never going to be enough for all of us
and
your missus's family on Monday. Not even if you was to do a sort of pasta thing and grate the meat up small, like a carbonara or somethin'.'

Gnazhgz grinned, revealing a collection of teeth that would inspire passionate interest in a research dentist and blind terror in anyone else. ‘Sarge's perks,' he replied. ‘You lot can have the next one.'

‘Hey!'

‘Shurrup,' the sergeant hissed, clamping a betaloned paw over Snargh's mouth. ‘She'll hear you.'

Snargh pulled the paw aside. ‘Now just a minute, Sarge, that's not bloody well fair.'

‘Who said anything about fair? This is the army, son.'

‘Yeah, but.' Snargh's face contorted into an even more horrific expression than usual. ‘You said that the last time,' he growled. ‘All we got was a load of giblets and bits of pipe and stuff. I'm not standing for it, you hear?'

‘Keep your voice down, or the whole bloody world will.'

‘Don't care. Fair shares for all this time, OK? Or . . .' The tip of Snargh's noise began to quiver, a sure sign of high passion. ‘Or,' he said icily, ‘we'll damn well help ourselves and you don't get any.'

‘Huh! You and whose army?'

‘Yours. Hey, lads! Sarge is gonna rip us off again!'

Goblin heads turned. Goblin eyes filled with rage. If Linda hadn't been so completely submerged in self-pity that a bomb could have gone off in her shoe without her noticing it, let alone think of phoning through the exclusive story to the newsroom, she'd have had an unrivalled view of nine goblin warriors all whispering angrily at once.

‘Shove it, you 'orrible little goblins,' Gnazhgz rasped, in a voice like a cheese-grater on living flesh. ‘Any more of it an' I'll friggin' well eat
you
. Got that?'

Lance-corporal Zhlaghpf, five foot one at the shoulder and squat as a troll who's been caught in a junkyard car compressor, stood up, breathing hard through his snout. ‘You want me to take you up on that, Sarge?' he rumbled.

‘Any time, Zhlaghpf. Any time you like.'

‘Right.'

‘Right.'

‘Right.'

A moment later, instead of two goblins standing up and hissing at each other, there was a sort of goblin-rich cyclone-come-snowball rolling and whirling about among the rocks, into which the rest of the goblins were drawn one by one. Of the ten members of the squad, seven of them (namely Corporal Snargh, Lance-corporal Zhlaghpf and General Infantrygoblins Groghdng, Fluraghzd, Twlurgh, Shdlnog and Urghmpf) were trying their best to dismember Sergeant Gnazhgz and the Loyalist tendency, comprising General Infantrygoblins Brzhgnazh and Glarpfgh. Because the enthusiasm and sheer bulk of the mutineers exactly cancelled out the skill, experience and unspeakably dirty fighting habits of the loyalists, it was a completely even contest; and, since goblins invariably fight to the death, there could only be one outcome.

A quarter of an hour later, Linda pulled herself out of her self-induced slough of misery with the thought that if all else failed, she could scribble a note, shove it in a bottle and sling it in the Squash River, and rose to her feet for the long walk back up to the road. She'd taken about twelve steps when she realised she'd just trodden on something squishy. She looked down.

‘Urgh!' said the body at her feet.

‘Sorry,' Linda said. ‘Hey, you all right?'

‘I'm dying,' croaked the goblin painfully. ‘I got a hole in my lung, my head's caved in an' I think the buggers got half me liver.'

‘Good God,' Linda replied. ‘Ought I to call a doctor?'

The goblin shook his head feebly. ‘'Sall right,' he sighed, air wheezing through his punctured lung. ‘I'll be right as rain in the morning. They rebuild us, you know.'

‘Do they?'

‘Clever bleeders. Take it out of our pay, of course, but that's the army for you. Might even get promoted this rebuild, if I can make 'em think it was in the line of duty.'

‘Oh,' said Linda, reassured. ‘In that case, maybe you could help me. Submarines.'

‘You what?'

‘Submarines,' Linda repeated. ‘Nuclear submarines laden with huge blocks of marble. Have you seen any lately?'

‘No,' groaned the goblin. ‘Sorry. Why?'

‘All right, then,' Linda persevered. ‘How about Australians? Probably wearing hats with corks,' she added. ‘Maybe even open-toed plastic beach sandals.'

‘What you on about?' the goblin whimpered. ‘I'm a Sergeant of goblin fusiliers, not a friggin' mind-reader.'

‘Hats,' Linda repeated impatiently. ‘You know, like Australians wear. Only, the chances are that anybody wearing a hat with corks is likely to be the CIA in disguise. You see, I have conclusive proof that . . .'

‘Oh, tell it to the submarines,' snarled the goblin, and died.

Linda shrugged, stood up and looked around. There were other goblins lying about the place, she noticed, but they were apparently dead too. Very dead. She had no way of knowing just how clever the clever little buggers were, but as far as she could judge, the job facing them would have all the king's horses and all the king's men throwing up their hands in horror and sending for a plumber. A pity, but there it was. Even the most dedicated and imaginative journalists run into setbacks occasionally. By all accounts, Woodward and Bernstein thrived on them. She'd just have to keep plugging away. And in the meantime, she could always use the message-in-a-bottle idea, assuming she could find a bottle, a piece of paper, a cork and a pen.

She carried on up the hill.

 

‘This here,' said the tiresome old man, leaning back in his rocking chair and grinning a toothy grin, ‘is Lake Chicopee. They do say . . .'

‘Save it for the customers,' replied the stranger irritably. ‘I'm on a tight schedule. Now, what I'm basically interested in is productivity levels, turnaround times, cost-effectiveness ratios and any areas where costs can be cut without significantly reducing overall efficiency. So, if we can start with last year's budget outline and work forwards from that.'

Slowly the tiresome old man prised his pipe-stem off his lower lip and widened his eyes. ‘You're an inspector,' he said.

‘Didn't I mention that? I'm sorry.' The stranger pulled a sheet of paper from the file in his hand and fluttered it under the old man's nose. ‘You'll need to see this, I suppose. General requisition from the Area Manager's office, notifying you of a routine spot efficiency check. You're just about to tell me you never got a copy, right?'

‘We sure didn't, mister.'

The inspector sighed through his nose. ‘Marvellous, isn't it? Five hundred and seventy-four permanent administrative staff, and between them they can't manage to send a simple letter. Makes me look a complete fool, of course, but there you are. Anyway,' he added, cheering up slightly, ‘just because they're pathetic at head office doesn't mean you lot out here can afford to let things slip. Right then, those budget figures . . .'

With a shudder, the tiresome old man metamorphosed into a beautiful young girl. The inspector didn't even notice. ‘Ah,' she said, ‘the figures. Now if we'd only known you were coming . . .'

‘Not you as well,' replied the inspector, frowning. ‘Why is it that nobody seems capable of keeping a few bits of paper in order? You know, I think it's high time we had a bit of a blitz on filing systems generally. The regulations clearly state—'

‘Just a minute,' the girl interrupted hastily. ‘I'll just run indoors and fetch the shoebox.'

As she ran, she distinctly heard the inspector wailing, ‘Shoebox!' in a distressed voice, but she pretended she hadn't. Of all the lousy timing! Four customers roaming round the place needing looking after, and she had to have a goddamn inspector descend on her.

It was looking as if it was going to be a very long day.

She opened the door of the log cabin, rummaged around under a table and pulled a tatty old shoebox out from under a pile of dirty laundry and vintage washing-up. She opened it. It was empty.

‘Hat!' she shrieked. ‘Hat, you thieving little bastard! What have you done with my paperwork?'

Inside the cabin, there was a deathly hush and complete stillness; so deathly, in fact, and so complete that any fool would have known there was someone in the room, hiding and holding his breath. The girl counted slowly to ten.

‘Hat,' she said quietly. ‘One last chance, and then I set the cat on you.'

Slowly, the lid of the cookie-jar lifted. Under it was the head of Captain Hat, wearing a rather sheepish grin.

‘Look,' he said, ‘I can explain.'

With a movement that was both lightning fast and lissomly graceful, the girl reached over and grabbed Hat round the throat before he could dodge back down out of sight. ‘So can I,' she growled. ‘You're a thief and a smuggler, and I ought to pull your lousy head off right now. Am I warm?'

Being unable to speak, Hat nodded. The girl slackened her grip a trifle.

‘OK,' she said. ‘Give me my files back and we'll say no more about it. Of course, I reserve the right to break both your arms about it, but I won't
say
anything. Otherwise . . .'

‘Um,' Hat whispered, turning puce, ‘there may be a slight problem. You see . . .'

‘Hat, I'm warning you.'

‘I really am terribly sorry,' the smuggler gurgled. ‘Wouldn't inconvenience you for the world. It's just that on the Other Side, your accounts represent a form of higher pure mathematics beyond their wildest dreams, and some of the big West Coast universities have research budgets that'd fry your brain. So . . .'

‘Hat . . .'

‘So obviously,' Hat went on, choking a little, ‘I kept copies. Now, if you'll just let me go for five minutes . . .'

‘I'm gonna
kill
you, Hat. I'm gonna squeeze you like a tube of toothpaste till your guts come out your ears. And that's just my version of friendly persuasion. Now, where's this copy?'

‘In the crystal cave under the southern waterfall in a black tin box marked SWAG, oh Jesus, you're strangling me,' Hat replied. ‘The key to the box is in the right-hand drawer of the old roll-top desk in Grendel's mother's office, please let go, oh
shit
!'

‘Crystal cave?'

‘Aargh!'

‘Southern waterfall?'

‘Nggh.'

‘Black tin box marked SWAG?'

‘Ggggh . . .'

‘Key in right-hand desk drawer?'

‘G.'

‘Thank you,' said the girl, letting go. Hat fell back into the cookie jar, and she replaced the lid. Then she slammed out of the cabin and began to run.

 

‘I suppose,' said the lovely girl, ‘you could say that we've now completed Phase One.'

The sun, peering round a cloud, winked in the lake. A few ducks hopscotched on the reflected mountains, meeting themselves coming up as they crashed ripples into the face of the mirror.
What the hell do they wish for?
Wesley asked himself.

‘To carry on being ducks, of course,' the girl replied. ‘You just wouldn't believe how easy ducks have it.'

Wesley looked up. ‘Really?' he asked.

The girl nodded. ‘Masses to eat. No need to take thought for the morrow, what they shall wear and all that palaver. If they get right out into the middle of the lake, they're safe from every kind of predator, with the improbable exceptions of very large pike and -' the girl sniggered, though Wesley couldn't see why ‘- submarines. And so, every time they land on the water, they wish to carry on being ducks. These days I just leave them alone and let them get on with it. They know far more about being ducks than I do, so there's not a great deal they need me for.'