May Contain Traces of Magic (29 page)

He was disagreeably surprised, therefore, when a police car pulled him over ten minutes later; he hadn't been speeding, his brake lights and tyres were beyond reproach, and he had nothing to be afraid of, in theory.

There were two of them, a huge man and a short, grim woman. They arrested Chris in connection with the murder of Angela Schlager, loaded him into their car and drove him to a police station.

 

Chris knew the drill from cop shows - remarkably accurate, his hat off to them - but that didn't make it any better. Once he'd been processed (isn't that what they do to cheese, he asked himself, to deprive it of any vestige of identity) they dumped him in a cell and left him there, presumably to reflect on his moral shortcomings until they could excavate him a lawyer.

Human beings are made up of mind and heart. Chris's mind was pretty relaxed about the whole thing; after all, the simple fact was that he hadn't done it, so how could he possibly be in any real danger? The lawyer would come, he'd be questioned, they'd find out that at the time of the murder he'd been miles away with a perfect alibi, they'd turn him loose with apologies for any inconvenience, and that'd be that. Laughable misunderstanding, and, as a way of passing an afternoon, marginally better than work. Or, if not that, then Jill would turn up, with her official ID and supervening jurisdiction, and they'd have a drink in the pub before she drove him home. It was going to be all right. Really.

His heart wasn't so easily fooled. He had no idea when the bloody woman (how quickly she'd metamorphosed from tragic victim to insufferable pest) had managed to get herself killed, but the chances were that at the time in question Chris had either been on the road or at home alone in the flat. Furthermore, he had no idea where she'd been snuffed. If he could prove that he'd been on a call at the time, a hundred miles away from the crime scene, then fine. If it had happened just round the corner from where he'd been, he was probably in severe poo. And Jill - he was beginning to have his doubts about her. Heresy, yes, but having your trouser belt and shoelaces confiscated by the Vogons plays funny tricks on your judgement.

The best he could find to say about his cell was that it was very clean and white. There was a bed to lie down on - that or the floor, take your pick - with a splendid view of the ceiling, which was also clean and white: a cross between a bathroom and a starship, he decided, but hardly cosy. Lacks the homely touch, he thought, adding that if he ever managed to get out of there he'd never moan about Karen's carpets-and-curtains fixation again. Anything, even peach-painted woodchip and tapestry scatter cushions, had to be better than this.

Chris closed his eyes, mostly to keep from being dazzled by the hideous whiteness of it all, and tried to think of something nice. Nothing came immediately to mind, so he set about constructing a synthetic perfect memory. How about—?

A day off work, always a good starting point. The deep blue sea, lazily washing against an apron of sand the colour of perfect fish batter. Seagulls circling in a cloudless sky. The distant laughter of happy children—

Just a moment, he thought, this isn't my daydream, I hate bloody beach holidays. I want a saloon bar, a sodding great big wide-screen TV showing the footie, a tall frosted pint, dry-roasted peanuts . . . But the sea carried on rolling serenely in, a happy dog scampered after a tennis ball, a fat child kicked in another fat child's sandcastle, and Karen asked him for the suntan lotion, which he'd forgotten to bring. He got spoken to for that; he apologised but he might as well have saved his breath, and a sulk gradually formed, welling up out of the sand like a soft mist.

Fine, Chris thought, screw this, I'll have the cell back now, please.

He opened his eyes. Still the beach. Karen was lying on her stomach, her face turned pointedly away. There was a pebble digging into the small of his back.

Not real, he told himself; you're in a cell in a police station, accused of a crime you didn't commit, and any moment now they'll come and take you to a small, bleak room with a wobbly table and ask you nastily deceptive questions. Quite definitely you're not on a beach being sulked at. Just reach out with your hand and touch the floor tiles if you don't believe me.

So he did that. Sand. He scooped up a half-handful and let it run through his fingers.

Oh
hell
, he thought. Just when you think it can't get any worse.

‘This is no good,' Karen said, still facing away. ‘You know what I'm like when I burn. You can bloody well go back to the car and fetch the suntan lotion.'

‘Of course,' Chris said, ‘you're absolutely right. Remind me where we parked.'

She wriggled round and faced him. Her all right: that what-are-you-talking-about face was uniquely hers. ‘In the car park, of course,' she said. ‘Don't you remember?'

He smiled and tried to stand up. No problems. ‘Keys?'

‘In your pocket.'

He was wearing shorts. He never wore shorts, because there was too much misery in the world as it was. In the pocket of his shorts were the car keys, which he distinctly remembered handing over to the desk sergeant.

‘Sorry,' he said. ‘Which way's the car park?'

Karen scowled at him. ‘Left at the sea wall, then right by the post office. I told you to wear a hat, but you never listen.'

OK, not real; but in the real world they'd taken his car keys away from him, an act of symbolic castration that he bitterly resented. And it was real enough for the sand to feel squidgy between his toes (‘Well, put your shoes on, then'), real enough to walk on. He tried to calculate the dimensions of his cell: four paces and he should be banging his nose on the steel door. Apparently not. He walked slowly on up the beach, past the piglike pink carcasses of sunbathers and kiddies howling because they'd dropped their ice creams, until he reached the sea wall.

‘End program,' Chris said aloud. A middle-aged woman looked at him.

Beyond the wall, pavement, a road, on the far side of which were shops, burger stalls, a pub with people sitting outside. Chip papers, discarded burger boxes. He tried to identify the place - if it was just an illusion, it'd be logical for it to be set in one of his own memories - but he was absolutely sure he'd never been there before. And he had his car keys; they were in his hand, he could feel the chill of the metal.

He was aware of his heart beating very fast. So, he thought, define ‘real'. Or, better still, quantify the concept
real enough
.

The car. He turned left, carried on walking until he saw a post office; right-hand turning next to it, he took that, fifty yards and there was a car park, rows of windscreens shimmering like lakes in the perfect sun. He stopped and looked at the keys in his hand. He'd know them anywhere, down to the pattern of the serrations, and of course the Wallis and Grommit key fob.
His
keys; therefore, logically,
his
car; a pale blue Avensis—

And there it was.

Remember first love, when you could look at a crowded room and only see one face? Same effect, basically. There must've been several hundred cars in the park, but he could only see one. He moaned softly, and broke into a run.

Chris touched the door, warm from the sun and gloriously solid. He pressed the little button and heard the click as the doors unlocked. Inside it was greenhouse-hot, and it smelt of warm vinyl and air freshener.
His
car—

He sat in the driver's seat and tried to breathe. His car, undeniably real; in which case, so was everything else - beach, sand, flip-flops, Karen - and he was free and clear, safe, out of it all. He remembered something, and checked the rear-view mirror stem. No dangling plastic hummingbird. He flipped open the glove compartment; a bottle of suntan lotion and a few of Karen's CDs. So far, so—

He looked at the windscreen. Suckered to it by its rubber plunger thing was SatNav: whole, uncleaved by enchanted blade, just as she used to be before all the weirdness started.

Right, Chris thought. Now we're getting somewhere.

He checked that her lead was plugged into the lighter socket, then pressed her little button. The screen lit up. She said, ‘Please wait.'

‘SatNav,' he whispered. ‘Is that you?'

A long, long silence. Then she said, ‘Please enter your required destination.'

He frowned. ‘Not now, please,' he said. ‘I need to ask you something.'

He waited. No reply. Then he thought, sod it, music, she needs music before she can talk to me. He scrabbled a CD out of a case, flipped open the drawer and slotted it in. ‘Shake It Loose', by the Lizard-Headed Women.

Oh all right, then, he thought, if you absolutely must. But I'm turning the volume down.

‘Hello,' she said.

‘Is that really you?'

‘Yes. Please state your desired destination. Or would you rather just chat?'

‘Listen,' he said. ‘All this. Is it real?'

Pause. ‘I think so,' SatNav said. ‘Why wouldn't it be?'

‘You think so,' Chris repeated impatiently. ‘All right, how about this. Where am I?'

‘Weymouth.'

‘
Weymouth?
'

‘Yes. I can be more specific if you—'

‘What the hell am I doing in Weymouth, SatNav? Last I knew, I was in a police cell.'

‘This is your summer holiday,' SatNav replied. ‘You've been looking forward to it.'

‘Have I?'

‘Of course. You treasure the opportunity to spend quality time with your wife.'

‘Actually, she isn't—' he said automatically, but stopped himself; couldn't be bothered explaining right now. ‘So how did I get here from the police cell? Someone rescued me, right?'

Pause. ‘You would like me to retro-plot the route you took in order to arrive here. Please wait. Your route is being calculated.'

Chris waited, while the Lizard-Headed Women finally ran out of things to say about the human condition. At last the screen flickered and showed him a map: a red line running across the country, from his home to the south coast.

‘That's not what I meant,' he said. ‘Come on, SatNav, how did I get here? You must know. I mean—'

‘Your route is being calculated, please wait.'

Same again; at least, it was a slightly different route, avoiding major roadworks on the A303, but it amounted to the same thing. He stared at it for ten seconds.

‘SatNav,' he said, with a kind of frantic patience, ‘I think you're missing the point. What I need to know is—'

The words had an effect on him. Not the ringing of a bell, as in the cliché; it was more like firmly grabbing hold of a bit of wire that turns out to be an electric fence. No, he thought, I can't face all that again; and besides, it's not the sort of thing that'd be in there. I mean, it's not really
human knowledge
, is it? That's dates of battles and algebra and the human genome and how to make polymers. And even if it does work - well, personally like that, all it'll do is tell me about bloody Gandhi.

On the other hand—

The
Book
was in his jacket pocket (and he clearly remembered handing it over, along with his belt and his car keys). He shrugged, and opened it at random—

Clear as mud, Chris thought, and closed the
Book
; even when it's working it's bloody useless. It was mildly encouraging not to be lectured about Gandhi for a change, but the very most he reckoned he'd gleaned from all that was that this whatever-it-was he was in might possibly be just as valid as the one he'd left . . . He thought about the practicalities of that: stuff like PIN numbers and bank balances, did he have a job in this version of the universe, if he decided to stay here would he be able to bluff his way through or would it be a lifelong episode of
Quantum Leap
without the assistance of a friendly hologram to guide him? Well, he thought, this is a company car, so presumably I've still got my job; and Karen too, of course, mustn't forget her, and she seems pretty much the same.
Your wife
, SatNav had called her, and he'd assumed it was the usual conventional jump-to-conclusions, but what if . . .? Still, he thought, even so it's got to be better than being in prison.