The Great St Mary's Day Out (6 page)

Markham, grinning like an idiot, pushed his way through the crowd, pausing only to extricate himself from a not so young but very affectionate lady, who seemed to think physical contact of any kind constituted some sort of binding contract. We watched his struggles without sympathy and ignored his pathetic appeals for help.

Eventually, he emerged beside me, restored to what, for him, passed as normal, and bubbling with excitement. He passed me the sorry remains of my cloak.

‘Max, did you see me?'

‘Sorry, what?'

‘Did you see me?'

‘When?'

‘I was on stage. I was the Ghost. Did you see me?'

‘You were the Ghost?'

‘Yes. Did you see me?'

‘No, sorry. Must have missed that bit.'

‘What?'

‘Problem with my recorder. Maybe Lingoss got you.'

He turned to Lingoss. ‘Did you get me?'

Lingoss was shouldering her pack. ‘Get what?'

‘Me. On stage. I was the Ghost. I saved the day.'

‘When?'

‘Just now,' he said, hopping up and down with frustration. ‘I was the Ghost. In the play. The one you've just seen. Today.'

‘Oh, I'm sorry. My feet were killing me. These cobbles are murder to stand on for so long. I took a break and sat down. Must have missed it. Try Max.'

He turned back to me. ‘You
must
have seen me.'

‘What are you talking about? I'm seeing you now.'

‘No, not now. Then.'

‘When?'

‘When I was on the stage.'

‘What stage?'

We could probably have gone on like this all day, but at this point, he realised we were winding him up.

‘You're right,' he said, casually, taking his pack from Lingoss. ‘No big deal.'

Turning away, and the very picture of guilty furtiveness – although to be fair, that is his normal expression a lot of the time – he slipped something into his pack.

‘What was that?' I said, because we're not allowed to pick up souvenirs and he knew it.

‘Nothing,' he said nonchalantly, thus confirming my worst fears. ‘Shall we go? Don't want to be late at the rendezvous point.'

I held out my hand. ‘Give it to me.'

‘What?' he said, grinning and getting his own back.

‘The thing you just slipped into your pack.'

‘What pack?'

‘The one that will be referred to as Exhibit A when I'm being tried for your murder.'

He grinned and pulled out a recorder, waggling his eyebrows at us.

We stared at it, oblivious of the people pushing past us on their way out.

I said hoarsely, ‘What did you get?'

‘No idea. Exciting, isn't it?'

I nodded at the recorder. ‘Put that away. Very carefully. Miss Lingoss?'

‘Yes, Max.'

‘Your duty is clear. Should anything happen to Mr Markham between here and St Mary's, your one and only function is to save that recorder at all costs.'

‘Hey,' protested Markham.

‘Understood,' said Lingoss.

The first person I saw outside was Peterson, unscathed and unperturbed. Beside him, Miss Sykes, peered about her with bright-eyed curiosity. Professor Rapson and Dr Dowson stood nearby with Atherton and Evans stationed one on each side, ready to head them off at the pass should they stray, or intercede should they come to blows. Every single one of them looked as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. And all of them reeked of rum.

Peterson patted the pouch holding his recorder. ‘We've got some really good stuff here. You?'

This casual reference to my recording marathon did not endear him to me in any way.

‘Meh,' I said. ‘Just the usual stuff. Shakespeare, Burbage, deathless prose – same old, same old.'

He opened his mouth to respond, but at that moment, Dr Bairstow hove into view, his team trailing behind him, with Major Guthrie bringing up the rear and a definite contender in the Best Black Eye of the Year competition.

The curfew wasn't until nine o'clock but the sun had long since disappeared. I flung my scorched and burned cloak around my shoulders, ignored Mrs Enderby's reproachful stare, performed a quick head count and ordered everyone back to the pod.

Dr Bairstow said very little as we made our way back through the darkening streets. Southwark was, if anything, even livelier in the evening than during the day. Shouts and laughter could be heard through open doors and windows. Some torches and lanterns were being lit, but most streets and narrow alleyways were in deep shadow, and they really weren't places where we wanted to be.

Snatches of conversation drifted back to me.

‘It's a kind of a cross between a clove and hitch. I shall call it the clit.'

‘Couldn't think of anything else to do than shove it down the front of my trousers...'

‘And then Mrs Mack fetched him an almighty wallop...'

‘Scurvy, of course, which is why Americans refer to us as Limeys. Interesting isn't it that in these times one could journey to and from America far more easily than in our time today...'

I stood at the bottom of the ramp and counted them all into the pod, congratulated myself on not having lost anyone, and ruthlessly pulled rank to be first into the toilet. The bloody play was four hours long, for crying out loud, and while everyone else might have been happy to splash against the wall, I wasn't. Lingoss, herself obviously not a happy wall-splasher either, was hard on my heels.

I gave the word, the world went white, and still Dr Bairstow said nothing.

We landed with barely a bump. I made everyone stand still for decontamination, watching carefully as the cold blue light played over us all. Everyone was still babbling away about their own afternoon. The only person saying nothing was Dr Bairstow. It was very unnerving.

The ramp came down. Leon entered, smiled for me alone, bent over the console, and began to shut things down.

I don't know why I thought we might get away with it. We never had before. Just as he was leaving TB2, Dr Bairstow turned and spoke at last.

‘As soon as you have finished in Sick Bay, Doctors Maxwell, Peterson, and Mr Markham, please report to me in my office.'

I sighed.

We crept into Sick Bay and tried to hang around at the back of the queue – there were many people to process and I think our plan was to get lost in the crowd – but Helen Foster hoicked us to the head of the queue, threw us through the scanner and pronounced us fit for purpose. Well, no less fit for purpose than we were before, she said, and to get out of here now because she was very busy and had better things to do than hospitalise Markham for a couple of really very minor burns so stop waving them around Markham because no one was interested, and there was no point in Peterson hanging about because she was far too busy to talk to him at the moment, and why was Maxwell still here?

We know when we're not wanted.

We trailed to Dr Bairstow's office, hoping for divine intervention on the way, but we'd obviously used up our quota for the day, arriving at his door completely unengulfed by catastrophe. As Markham said gloomily, for a bunch of people overtaken by disaster far more often than was good for them, where was a good crisis when you needed one?

‘Actually,' I said, ‘I don't know why I'm standing around like a criminal. While everyone around me was stowing away on ships or brawling in the market or bursting into flames, I was the one who continued with the mission.'

‘That's a very good point, Max,' said Peterson. ‘And I saved the New World from Professor Rapson.'

‘Another good point. Lead with that.'

We both looked at Markham. ‘I'm the The Man Who Saved Shakespeare,' he said, and we could hear the capital letters.

‘Leave this to me,' I said, and they indicated their enthusiastic willingness to do that very thing.

We waited quietly until the Boss turned up, fresh and smart in clean clothes while we were still in our tatty Tudor gear. We followed him into his office, Markham taking care to display his burns prominently.

There's an accepted routine for this sort of thing. Dr Bairstow sits in silent majesty and the offenders – that's almost always the three of us, me, Peterson and Markham with a varying supporting cast – issue the standard blanket denial, offer up an unconvincing explanation, attempt to justify our actions, accept our reprimand, and hasten to the bar to nurse our wounds and our pride and have a well-deserved drink.

But maybe not today.

Dr Bairstow sat behind his desk. He didn't have enough hair to look dishevelled. He could stand in a Force Eight gale and literally not turn a hair, but he did have a certain battered look about him. His lip was split and a rather impressive bruise was forming under his left eye. I opened my mouth to make a bid for the moral high ground, but he beat me to it.

‘Why is it that after every assignment I look up to see you three standing in front of me?' Which since he'd particularly requested the pleasure of our company seemed a little unfair.

We indicated our own mystification.

‘So,' he said, ‘and I'm sure you will correct me if I go astray, Professor Rapson inadvisedly boards a boat...'

‘Ship,' murmured Peterson.

‘...bound for the New World. An altercation ensues and your solution, Dr Peterson, is to ply everyone present with cheap rum, which delays the sailing sufficiently to give the original passenger's wife and family time to intercept the boat...'

‘Ship.'

‘...remove said passenger and restore him to the bosom of his apparently enormous family.'

‘His enormous
grateful
family, sir.'

‘I gather that under the mellowing influence of a great deal of alcohol, moves to keelhaul Professor Rapson were circumvented.'

‘I think they were more of a threat than a promise and...'

‘Where was Miss Sykes during all this? And don't tell me she wasn't there?'

‘Miss Sykes heroically undertook to induce the second mate to release the professor.'

‘He was in the brig?'

‘Not as such, sir. He was actually sitting on a coil of rope demonstrating the er ... the um ... his new knot to an admiring crowd.'

‘And Mr Keller? What was the Security Section's role in this?'

‘Mr Keller suffered a slight loss of balance – no sea legs, sir – inadvertently falling on a couple of seamen. It was later agreed that his actions had been misinterpreted and there was general mirth and merriment over the misunderstanding.'

Peterson beamed at Dr Bairstow. Who turned his attention to me.

‘And you Dr Maxwell?'

‘I recorded the entire production sir,' I said firmly, feeling that not enough attention was being paid to the one person who had fulfilled her part of the assignment. ‘All bladder-straining four hours of it, together with footage of the audience, paying particular attention to the galleries.'

I placed my and Lingoss's recorders on the desk in front of him and stepped back, oozing virtuousness and eagerness to please. Both Peterson and Markham refused to catch my eye.

He turned his beaky nose towards Markham.

‘So, Mr Markham, it would seem that when I eventually take a moment from assisting my colleagues in the execution of their duties at the street market and request an update on the assignment, I find that, for some reason, William Shakespeare is engulfed in flames and that you have appropriated his role for yourself.'

I thought he was slightly overstating events but refrained from saying so. Markham could usually look after himself.

‘Well, Mr Markham?'

‘It all happened so suddenly, sir. One minute the Ghost is denouncing his brother and his queen and exhorting Hamlet to seek revenge and the next minute he's a raging inferno.'

Another one slightly overstating events. I stood back to let the two of them tough it out.

‘William Shakespeare was on fire?'

‘Not all of him, sir. Only his clothes.'

‘And you extinguished the flames and possibly saved his life.'

‘I did, sir,' he said, casually moving his burns to an even more prominent position and wincing with bravely concealed pain.

‘You interfered with History. Are you aware of our Standing Orders?'

‘Very much so, sir. Major Guthrie quotes them at me on a regular basis, but I didn't interfere, sir. We have no reports of William Shakespeare being injured or disfigured in a fire. In fact, he lives for many years and goes on to write even more plays. You could say sir, that it was necessary for me to interfere so that History
wasn't
changed.'

He had a point. History is like a living organism and it will always protect itself. If it thinks, even for one moment, that someone or something is about to alter events that have already taken place then, the offending virus – or historian as we prefer to be known – is wiped out without a second thought. The fact that our Mr Markham still lived and breathed was evidence that – just for once – he was completely blameless.

Dr Bairstow shifted in his chair. ‘To use a word in keeping with the situation – what exactly was your
role
in all of this?'

Markham assumed his hurt expression – the one resembling an abandoned puppy in a snowstorm. ‘Well, sir, if you mean did I actually set Shakespeare on fire then no, I didn't. The
part
I
played
– to continue your brilliant example, sir,' he said, slathering on the butter, ‘consisted simply of
acting
to assess the situation, identifying the appropriate measures to be taken,
staging
the Stop, Drop and Roll
programme
, and assisting the stricken Shakespeare to
exit
to an area under the stage so that I could
perform
any further assistance.'

‘Which consisted of appropriating the role of Ghost.'