“What fishiness?”
Mercer sighs. “I can’t find Tess.”
Joe stares at him. “What?”
“It’s perfectly simple. The barmaid who by your own admission had the hots for you is not available for comment. I cannot find her.”
“I don’t see—”
“I sent a man down to Wistithiel to retrace your steps. It seemed like a good idea. No one can find her, Joe. She’s missing.”
“What do you mean, ‘missing’?” Joe demands, but Mercer considers this question too ridiculous to deserve an answer. Joe shakes his head. “She’s probably gone off on a trip or something. Visiting an old boyfriend.”
“Almost certainly. Her credit card was used at the railway station. All perfectly normal. But then, as well, there has apparently been a fire at Hinde’s Reach House. An old wartime agricultural facility, you’ll be pleased to know, and presently mothballed. The place seems to have been completely immolated. Brother Theodore Sholt, a hermetic monk, was rescued by firemen and taken to a medical facility for the treatment of mild smoke-inhalation. Which medical installation is a matter of some confusion. The paperwork has been misfiled. Do you not smell the fish, Joe? Honestly? Because they seem pretty ripe to me.”
“All right, I smell them.”
Mercer hesitates. “In your own right, Joe, there are people you could call on regarding the extra-legal aspects of all this. People with their ears to the ground who have connections in shady places.”
“No.”
“I realise you’re not fond of being Mathew’s son, and that you might incur liabilities as a result, but at the same time—”
“No. I’m not going down that road. I’m me, not him. Not his shadow or his remnant. Not their bloody crown prince, to bring back the glory days. Me.”
Mercer raises his hands, palms up. “Well. If you will not exert yourself to your own advantage, can I at least take it that you will not work to your detriment?”
Joe shrugs. Mercer apparently takes this as a yes. “So as I say, if you will forgive the repetition, I will talk to Joyce.”
“I can do it.”
“Of course you can. But no one is looking for me with a view to arrest and interrogation.”
“Well, no one’s looking for me, either.”
“Yes, they are.”
“But—”
“It is a ruse.”
“But—”
“Joe, listen. Please. The fact that there is no paperwork means one of two things. It could theoretically mean that you are home free. It could mean that Rodney Titwhistle has looked more closely into the matter and realised that you are a cog in someone else’s machine, and not a very interesting one. Or it could mean that he has ascertained that you are absolutely dead centre of his bullseye, and he has vanished you from the official files so as to facilitate his next officially unofficial but unofficially official move.”
“And you think it’s the latter.”
“Did he give you any reason to think he was likely to go away? Do you honestly, cross your heart, look back on last night and think it could possibly all be okay this morning?”
“… No,” Joe Spork mutters at last.
“Then I will call Joyce.” Mercer pauses, as if reviewing the conversation. “When did you get so gung-ho?”
“I’m not. I don’t want this. I want to be left alone.”
“Then keep your head down.”
Joe scowls mulishly. “What about my VAT?”
Mercer stares at him. “What?”
“My VAT. I’ve got to get my papers in order for the shop. Otherwise it all comes down. I could lose the warehouse.”
“Joe, please—”
Joe Spork hunkers down upon himself. For all the world, he looks like a human tortoise, and might remain in his shell for another fifty years, until Mercer’s arguments have dried up and blown away. “It’s my home, Mercer.”
“I will send someone for your papers. We’ll get them done and delivered through the firm. But this is not the time to worry about VAT. All right?”
“I have obligations, Mercer.”
Mercer contemplates him for a moment with an odd expression.
“Obligations.”
“Yes.”
“To yourself? To Joyce? I need to know about these obligations.”
“Why?”
“Because your obligations are germane. I need to take them into account. I thought I was only protecting you. If there’s more to it than that, I need to know.”
“He was my friend!” Joe yells abruptly. “That’s all I mean. I suppose that doesn’t really matter very much now, does it? He was annoying and loud and he got me into trouble. But I never had to be alone if I didn’t want to. There was always Billy and he’s dead. All right?” He has risen to his feet, fingers curled and palms up, legs about a shoulder width apart. A pugilist, rooting himself for a fight. He stops, glances down, sees his hands and puts them away. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I liked him, too. Infuriating little berk.” Mercer blows air through his teeth. “But that is all, isn’t it? You haven’t got some other stake in all this?”
“That’s all.”
The Bold Receptionist shifts in her chair. Something hosiery-related makes a shuddering sound which draws the eye. “What would you do if you were free to act, Mr. Spork?”
“I am free.”
“Well. Assume there is no threat. What would you do?”
“I’d get some sleep. And a shower. Go to Harticle’s and find out about my grandfather. Get his jazz recordings from the lock-up, and the bloody golden bee! I want to know what’s going on!”
Oh.
“All right,” Mercer says. “Thank you, Polly. Joe… There are rules to your situation. All right? And these are they: do not look for new faces in your life. Be paranoid. You have been shown the stick. At some point they will show you the carrot. It is a lie. There is no carrot. Polly and I are your only friends. We are all the carrot you have. Is that understood?”
“Yes.”
“For twelve hours or so, we are quite possibly in hiatus. Something big is going on and you are touched by it, but unless you are actively deceiving me, which would be very bad…”—Joe shakes his head vigorously—“then you have a chance of dealing yourself out. If you can be demonstrably dense and unexciting—if after your recent brush with the very wide and alarming world of power, you dive like a mole into your hill and do not emerge—then there is a vanishingly small but pleasing possibility that you may be bothered no further. I suspect that is greatly to be desired… But for it to happen… you need to be a small person.”
Joe ponders. Then, with a reluctance he himself finds very curious, he nods. He understands the argument, understands it in fact far better than meteoric Mercer, whose own life is strewn with moments of significance, public showmanship, and occasional catastrophe. It is the chosen path of Mathew’s son: be quiet, be compliant, let the world slip over you and around you unnoticed. Bend with the wind. Because the tall tree gets hit by lightning and the high corn breaks in a gale. A child’s promise: I will have a life, not a legend.
And yet here, today, it feels like cowardice instead of prudence. Billy is dead and Joe has been assailed by myrmidons from a sort of shadow Britain where the rules do not apply. Some unacknowledged part of him is angry and combative, wants answers and confrontations, wants to be judged and found rightful, and doesn’t want to look like a small person in front of the Bold Receptionist.
“You need a shower,” Polly says. “Mercer, he’s just lost a friend and he wants to do something about it. He needs to wash and have a cup of tea and he needs to sit there and let it settle a bit.”
“That’s right,” Joe says, because Polly says it, and then realises that it may also be true. His skin is twinging at the thought of hot water.