‘If the press found out, it wasn’t from us,’ said Victor. ‘We have nothing to gain from press coverage and everything to lose.’ He glanced over at Jack Schitt, who shrugged.
‘Don’t look at me,’ said Schitt non-committally, ‘I’m just an observer, here at the behest of Goliath.’
Braxton got up and paced the room. Bowden, Victor and I watched him in silence. We felt sorry for him; he wasn’t a bad man, just weak. The whole affair was a poisoned chalice, and if he wasn’t removed by the regional SpecOps commander, Goliath would as likely as not do the job themselves.
‘Does anyone have any ideas?’
We all looked at him. We had a few ideas, but nothing that could be said in front of Schitt; since he was so willing to let us be killed that evening at Archer’s place, not one of us would have given Goliath so much as the time of day.
‘Has Mrs Delamare been traced?’
‘We found her okay,’ I replied. ‘She was delighted to discover that she had a motorway services named after her. She hasn’t seen her son for five years but is under surveillance in case he tries to make contact.’
‘Good,’ murmured Braxton. ‘What else?’
Victor spoke.
‘We understand Felix has been replaced. A young man named Danny Chance went missing from Reading; his face was found in a waste basket on the third floor of the multistorey. We’ve distributed the morgue photos of Felix; they should match the new Felix.’
‘Are you sure Archer didn’t say anything but “Felix” before you killed him?’ asked Hicks.
‘Positive,’ assured Bowden in his best lying voice.
We returned to the LiteraTec office in a glum mood. Braxton’s removal might provoke a dangerous shake-up in the department, and I had Mycroft and Polly to think of. Victor hung up his coat and called across to Finisterre, asking him if there had been any change. Finisterre looked up from a much-thumbed copy of Chuzzlewit. He, Bailey and Herr Bight had been rereading it on a twenty-four-hour relay basis since Acheron’s escape. Nothing seemed to have changed. It was slightly perplexing. The Forty brothers had been working on the only piece of information we had that SO-5 or Goliath didn’t. Sturmey Archer had made a reference to a Dr Mьller before expiring and that had been the subject of a rigorous search on SpecOps and police databases. A rigorous yet secretive search; that was what had taken the time.
‘Anything, Jeff?’ asked Victor, rolling up his shirtsleeves.
Jeff coughed.
‘There are no Dr Mьllers registered in England or on the Continent, either in medicine or philosophy–‘
‘So it’s a false name.’
‘—who are alive.’ Jeff smiled. ‘However, there was a Dr Mьller in attendance at Parkhurst prison in 1972.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘It was at the same time that Delamare was banged up for fraud.’
This is getting better.’
‘And Delamare had a cellmate named Felix Tabularasa.’
‘There’s a face that fits,’ murmured Bowden.
‘Right. Dr Mьller was already under investigation for selling donor kidneys. He committed suicide in ‘74 shortly before the hearing. Swam into the sea after leaving a note. His body was never recovered.’
Victor rubbed his hands together happily.
‘Sounds like a faked death. How do we go about hunting down a dead man?’
Jeff held up a fax.
‘I’ve had to use up a lot of favours at the English Medical Council; they don’t like giving out personal files whether the subject is alive or dead, but here it is.’
Victor took the fax and read out the pertinent points.
‘Theodore Mьller. Majored in physics before pursuing a career in medicine. Struck off in ‘74 for gross professional misconduct. He was a fine tenor, a good Hamlet at Cambridge, Brother of the Most Worshipful Order of the Wombat, keen train-spotter and a founder member of the Earthcrossers.’
‘Hmm,’ I murmured. ‘It’s a good bet that he might continue to indulge himself in old hobbies even if he was living under an assumed name.’
‘What do you suggest?’ asked Victor. ‘Wait until the next steam train extravaganza? I understand the Mallard is defending her speed record next month.’
‘Not soon enough.’
‘The Wombats never disclose membership,’ observed Bowden.
Victor nodded. ‘Well, that’s that, then.’
‘Not exactly,’ I said slowly.
‘Go on.’
‘I was thinking more about someone infiltrating the next Earthcrossers meeting.’
‘Earthcrossers?’ said Victor with more than his fair share of incredulity. ‘You’ve got no chance, Thursday. Weird lunatics doing strange things privately on deserted hillsides? Do you know what you have to go through to be admitted to their exclusive club?’
I smiled.
‘It’s mostly distinguished and respected professional people of mature years.’
Victor looked at Bowden and myself in turn.
‘I don’t like that look you’re giving me.’
Bowden quickly scoured a copy of the current Astronomer’s Almanac.
‘Bingo. It says here that they meet on Liddington Hill at two p.m. the day after tomorrow. That gives us fifty-five hours to prepare.’
‘No way,’ said Victor indignantly. ‘There is no way, I repeat, no way on God’s own earth that you are going to get me to pose as an Earthcrosser.’
26. The Earthcrossers
‘An asteroid can be any size from a man’s fist to a mountain. They are the detritus of the solar system, the rubbish left over after the workmen have been and gone. Most of the asteroids around today occupy a space between Mars and Jupiter. There are millions of them, yet their combined mass is a fraction of the Earth’s. Every now and then an asteroid’s orbit coincides with that of Earth. An Earthcrosser. To the Earthcrossers Society the arrival of an asteroid at a planet is the return of a lost orphan, a prodigal son. It is a matter of some consequence.’
Liddington Hill overlooks the RAF and later Luftwaffe airfield of Wroughton. The low hill is also home to an Iron Age fort, one of several that ring the Marlborough and Lambourn downs. The antiquity of the site, however, was not what attracted the Earthcrossers. They had gathered in almost every country of the globe, following the peculiar predictions of their calling in an apparently random fashion. They always observed the same routine: name the site, do a very good deal with the owners for exclusivity, then move in the month before using either local security or more junior members of the group to ensure that no infiltrators find their way in. It was perhaps due to this extreme secrecy that the militant astronomical group managed to keep what they did absolutely quiet. It seemed an almost perfect hiding place for Dr Mьller, who co-devised the society in the early fifties with Samuel Orbiter, a notable television astronomer of the time. Victor parked his car and walked nonchalantly up to two huge gorilla-sized men who were standing next to a Land Rover. Victor looked to the left and right. Every three hundred yards was a group of armed security men with walkie-talkies and dogs, keeping an eye out for trespassers. There was no way on earth that anyone could slip by unseen. The best means of entering anywhere you aren’t allowed to go is to walk in the front door as though you own the place.
‘Afternoon,’ said Victor, attempting to walk past. One of the gorillas stepped into his way and put a huge hand on his shoulder.
‘Good afternoon, sir. Fine day. May I see your pass?’