‘Enough,’ Elspeth told him. She looked at Odette then – not with disapproval, Odette noticed, but with interest – and said, ‘We need to watch what happens next.’
The surveillance team watched their small monitor as Margaret entered the basement. Their night vision cameras captured four alternating views of the room. They would observe her death from every angle.
Margaret had slid the bolt across the basement door, and taken her gun from her bag. She stood motionless, with one side of her body pressed against the door.
‘What’s she doing?’ Odette asked.
‘Listening for anyone following her,’ the Techs Op manager said. ‘I wonder why, Odette.’
‘Hush,’ Elspeth said.
Suddenly, Margaret rattled at the bolt. The Candybox spat out half a dozen bullets. Her body jerked and crumpled with the impact. The Candybox smoked for a few seconds, then a final bullet flew from its mouth. The bullet caught the rim of the hole, shattering the box.
‘That’s weird. Why did she go there? Who turned the Candybox on?’ Odette asked.
‘Dunno,’ the Tech Ops manager said. ‘But we know one thing. She didn’t switch on the machine, or fire her gun into it.’
‘The bullets must have come from a previous player,’ Odette surmised.
The team watched the body onscreen, in silence. They’d identified the victim. Now they had to find the murderer.
51
NOVEMBER 2017
Grace
Grace was in her forties – she wasn’t quite sure where in her forties – when she sent Barbara the origami rabbit. She was prompted by a visit to one of the oldest Lucilles, who in late 2017 was dying of a brain tumour in a palliative unit.
Lucille had lost the use of her legs but her cognition was unimpaired by the tumour. She and Grace played gin rummy while they talked.
‘Not one of my greens has visited,’ Lucille commented.
Grace slid a five of hearts into the discard pile. She sympathised with Lucille’s younger selves. Time travellers could avoid grief with ease – it’s why they were so blasé with uncarved mourners – but they tended to be abnormally anxious about their own deaths. Every other dead person was reachable by time machine, which made one’s own death uniquely final and lonely.
But to say this seemed less than tactful. Instead, Grace said: ‘The other Lucilles probably think they’re being kind.’
‘Kind how?’
‘You might get upset, if you saw yourself how you were. In good health, everything ahead of you.’
‘Poppycock.’ Lucille picked up a card. ‘They’re terrified. I know from the inside – I remember well enough. I’m sure they tell you it’s kinder to leave me alone.’
‘Hm. Maybe.’
‘Do you know what that excuse reminds me of?’
‘No.’ Grace discarded again, and laid out her melds.
‘Barbara. D’you remember how we said it was kinder to leave her alone?’
‘I do.’
‘Did you believe it at the time?’
‘I believe it now.’
‘I suppose it might have been true, but that wasn’t why I stayed away from her. I felt guilty. Getting into that time machine fucked her head up, and we were all to blame.’
‘Bee would have been manic depressive whatever her job was. Angharad says so. Time travelling was a trigger but an air hostess would have the same problems. Are you going to show your melds, or what?’
Lucille did, and laid off a king of diamonds. ‘That’s gin. Angharad doesn’t know everything. We should have taken better safety precautions – we shouldn’t have sent the other workers away, we should have spaced out our missions, and we shouldn’t have rushed to the BBC. At least if we hadn’t been live on television Barbara’s breakdown would have stayed private. If I’d visited her afterwards I’d have to face my guilt. Much easier to say she was better off without us.’
Grace gathered the cards and shuffled them.
‘How’s Ruby?’ Lucille asked.
‘She’s great,’ Grace said. ‘Unless – hang on – where in the year are we?’
Lucille squinted at the calendar clock hanging on the wall. ‘November.’
‘Ah, then she’s not great, I don’t think. She’s busy plotting her revenge on Margaret.’
‘Geez, somebody has to. I wish Margaret wasn’t coming to my funeral.’
‘Don’t invite her if you don’t want her,’ said Grace.
‘She comes regardless. Might attract public attention if she snubs her old colleague. But she gets nothing in the will. Speaking of which…’ Lucille removed the ring from her wedding finger. ‘This once cost me and George a month’s salary. You might as well take it now. I know you won’t get another chance to come over before I kick the bucket.’
‘Lucille. You’re such a sweetheart.’ Grace kissed her friend on the cheek.
‘Don’t pretend you’re sad. You’ll keep seeing me anyway.’ Lucille laughed, but her eyes were wet. ‘Go see your silver selves, Grace. It’s terribly lonely, dying.’
‘I’ve already made arrangements for my death. I won’t be on my own. Do you want to play another round?’
‘Go on then. God, I’d kill for a cigar. With a nice single malt! I wish you’d smuggled some in.’
*
Grace went back to the Conclave, where she placed a call on Beeline to her secretary. She wanted inquest announcements from Southwark Coroner’s Court, for the month of February 2018.
As she’d told Lucille, Grace didn’t worry about her silver selves. Instead she was newly sorry for Bee. Lucille’s confession had sparked some recognition in Grace. She, too, had professed to acting in Bee’s interests by staying away from her old friend. There was nothing Grace could do to change that. But if Bee was anything like Lucille – if she was anything like Grace herself – she would be frightened of dying. Grace could do something about that. Now she knew why she sent the dates of their deaths – in August 2017, the last weeks of Bee’s life. Grace wanted to tell Bee that she wasn’t alone. Death wasn’t uniquely final to her. It was coming for them all.
Grace collected the inquest announcements from the mailroom, and threw away the irrelevant ones. Neither Grace nor Lucille’s deaths were embargoed, but Margaret’s was. That meant the messages would have to be anonymous. There, between the mail sacks and pigeonholes, she creased and folded her sheet of paper until the rabbit was complete. All it needed was Barbara’s name.
52
NOVEMBER 2017
Ruby
Ruby didn’t apply for a job at the Conclave. Grace’s reaction implied Ruby would fail, and that shook her confidence. But she didn’t abandon her plan to confront Margaret. She considered her options for a week. What could she offer Margaret, in exchange for an audience? Ruby laughed when she realised. Margaret had already suggested the perfect bargaining chip. It placed Ruby at risk of arrest, but she no longer cared.
She made the phone call from her flat, with a glass of red in her hand. It was only half ten in the morning but she needed to steady her nerves.
‘I’m afraid you can’t speak to her now,’ Margaret’s secretary said. ‘Her telephone calls are diarised some time in advance.’
‘It’s about Barbara Hereford’s legacy. She specifically asked me to call if I had information.’
‘One moment please.’
A few bars of muzak played.
‘Dr Rebello,’ Margaret said. ‘Did you find something in Barbara’s will after all?’
‘Not exactly. But you were right about the stolen atroposium. She was using it for experiments.’
‘I see. How much are we talking here?’
What had Bee said? A single brick was worth about five hundred thousand pounds. Which was a life-changing sum of money to Ruby, but probably peanuts to the Conclave. A little bit of embellishment would be required, if Ruby was to have any bartering power.
‘We have a suitcase of it. About fifty bricks, I’d say.’
‘Very well. Thank you for alerting us. You can make arrangements with my secretary for its safe return.’
‘Not so fast. I want something in exchange.’
Margaret laughed. ‘My dear, we’re talking about stolen property. If you don’t want to return it to its rightful owner, we can call the police.’