Overtime. Part 20

He checked himself, flicked a fragment of custard-skin irritably out of the corner of his eye, and sighed. 'I think I see. It's because that ... he was just about to tell me the bit of information you lot know. And if he'd told me, you lot wouldn't have had any way of making me do those other confounded concerts.

Giovanni had the grace not to meet Blondel's eye. He nodded. 'After all,' he said, 'it's not our money we put up to arrange those gigs. We've got a duty to...'

Blondel held up his hand. 'Please,' he said, 'spare me all that. The important thing now is to get on with it. You lot get all this mess cleared up and ready to go. I think I'd better wash my hair.'

He shook his head once more and started to walk towards the bathroom. Then he turned to Guy, who was standing holding his revolver as if it was a dead fish and gave him a very significant look.

'Practise a lot, do you?' he said, and left the room.

'Are you sure we're going the right way?' Giovanni asked.

'Positive,' Blondel replied. 'If you'd rather navigate ...

Giovanni shrugged. Ever since the slight misunderstanding in the dressing room at the auditorium, there had been a slight coolness between Blondel and his agents, which the perennial map-reading debate wasn't helping. 'Not at all,' he said. 'Leave it entirely up to you. That way, if we end up in the Second Ice Age and get frozen to death, it won't be my fault.'

After that they went on in silence for a while, until they came to a quite indisputably dead end. The tunnel stopped leading anywhere, and there was just a wall.

'Well?' Giovanni said.

'Yes,' Blondel replied. 'Yes, on balance, I think you may have a point. Pity about that.'

They sat down and Giovanni produced a cigarette-lighter, by whose light Blondel studied his little book.

'I see,' he said after a while. 'What I thought was the Quattrocento was in fact the Enlightenment. One's marked blue on the map, you see, and the other's a sort of dark mauve. Easy to get them muddled up.'

Giovanni made a faintly contemptuous noise. 'So where are we, then?' he said.

'Well,' Blondel replied, 'if I'm right about where we went astray before, that wall is the Fall of Constantinople, so really we want to go back the way we came, turn left at the next interchange and keep on till we come out into the European Monetary System. How does that sound?'

There was a little muted grumbling, and Iachimo said something about next time it being easier just to go the long way round. They picked up their luggage and set off back down the tunnel. They had gone no more than a quarter of a mile when they came to another dead end.

'Oh, that's marvellous,' Giovanni said. 'Now what's happened?'

Blondel walked forwards and examined the obstruction. 'There's been a timeslip,' he said. 'We'll have to go back and find a way round.'

Guy asked what a timeslip was.

'Like a landslip,' Blondel explained, 'only more awkward if you' re in a hurry. All that's happened is that the roof of the tunnel's caved in, and a slice of some other period has fallen through and is blocking the way. Someone from the Work of the Clerks' office'll be along sooner or later to patch it all up. Meanwhile -'

'Don't you mean Clerk of the Works?' Guy asked.

'I mean what I said,' Blondel replied, nettled. 'This whole network, you'll recall, is the work of generations and generations of government clerks. They have an unofficial agreement that when something goes wrong with the fabric, they take it in turns to fix it. Just as well, really. If n.o.body looked after it and it all started falling to pieces, you'd have ma.s.sive timeslips all over the shop - it'd be chaos. Luckily they keep it all in quite good order. Now...'

He broke off and stared at the obstruction in front of him. 'h.e.l.lo,' he said, 'I don't like the sound of that.' He turned to Giovanni. 'What do you think?' he said.

'What?'

'Listen,' Blondel replied. 'Oh, how aggravating!'

Guy pushed his way past Iachimo and asked what was going on.

'I don't want to alarm you,' Blondel said, 'but I think this lot may be unstable. Listen.'

Guy listened. It was just as well, he told himself, that he had a firm grip on reality, because otherwise he might have believed that he was hearing little faint voices coming out of the wall of rubble in front of him.

'Hear them?' Blondel asked. Guy nodded. 'That's that, then,' he said firmly. 'Back the way we came, quick.'

They started to walk fast down the tunnel. The voices followed them, gradually getting louder; then, not so gradually, getting louder still. It was rather disturbing, in fact.

'Run!'

As he ran, Guy tried to hear what the voices were saying. Most of them were talking languages he couldn't understand - there was French, and a lot of Latin, and probably Spanish; just occasionally, though, someone said something in English. None of it sounded particularly cheerful, whatever it was. Guy ran faster.

'Come on,' Blondel was shouting, 'for pity's sake get a move on.' Guy looked up, but in the darkness of the tunnel he couldn't see where the others had gone. Meanwhile the voices were getting louder all the time. They seemed to fill up s.p.a.ce behind him. He stumbled over something and nearly lost his footing, and as he staggered along he distinctly felt something fly over his head, shrieking in French as it went. After it came some Italian, and some Latin, and what sounded like Turkish. Guy kept his head bent low and tried to run faster, but there was a limit to what his muscles could achieve.

'Dear Sir,' something was yapping behind him, 'Dear Sir, Dear Sir.' He could almost feel it, close on his heels. There were others with it, all saying the same thing, but in many different voices, high and low, old and young, male and female, friendly, unfriendly and very, very hostile.

'G. Goodlet Esquire,' they screamed, '37 Mayflower Avenue Sutton Surrey Our reference Jay Oblique Three Seven Nine Dee Four Six Thirteenth October Nineteen Seventy One Dear Sir...' Guy put his hands over his ears but it didn't seem to make any difference. Some of it was coming from over his head anyway. Something inside him told him that if they once managed to get in front of him, that would be it. He somehow managed to run faster.

'It has come to our attention,' they screamed, 'that you have failed to complete an annual return for any fiscal year since Nineteen Forty Two.' Guy started to howl, but he couldn't hear himself, only a lot of voices, very cold voices, saying 'You are reminded that interest at the statutory rate runs on all tax due and unpaid within thirty days of the date of the respective a.s.sessments.' Something was holding on to the lobe of his ear now, bending it back, and shouting directly at him, 'Unless the prescribed forms are completed and returned to this office within the next seven working days, we shall have no alternative but to ...' Then he lost his balance, crashed into the wall of the tunnel, lurched hopelessly and fell. A great wave of sound rolled over him, in every language ever heard or read, physically crushing him. He tried to move ...

Further up the tunnel, Blondel stopped and collapsed, gasping, against the bulkhead door he had just managed to slam shut. It was beautifully quiet here ...

'That was close,' he said.

Giovanni, huddled on the ground at his feet, interrupted his panting to make an indeterminate noise and then rolled over onto his back. Iachimo and Marco had fainted.

'Never mind,' Blondel said, 'all's that well that ... h.e.l.lo, where's Guy got to?'

Giovanni looked up. 'Who?'

'Guy Goodlet,' Blondel replied. 'You know, Englishman, doesn't like hats.'

'Oh,' Giovanni said, 'him. Lord knows. Fell over his feet, I think.'

Blondel sighed deeply and slid down the door to the ground. 'Oh bother,' he said. 'What a confounded nuisance.

'Well,' Giovanni replied, 'there's no point getting all emotional about it. These things happen in time, you know that.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Just as well he didn't take out any life cover after all,' he added.

Blondel gave him a disapproving look. 'What's that supposed to mean?' he asked.

Giovanni shrugged again. 'Look,' he said, 'the man's popped it. Got drowned in a timeburst. All very sad but there it is. There's absolutely nothing any of us can do about it.

'You reckon?'

'Yes,' Giovanni said, 'I do. It's just one of those things. Look, shouldn't we be ...?'