‘No, seriously, Max, by the time I realised what was happening, the damage was done.’
‘They’re historians, for God’s sake. What did you think would happen as soon as my back was turned? That they all would sit down and crochet something?’
My voice started to rise.
‘Yes, but …’
I gave him no chance.
‘And as for those idiots in Research and Development – how could you not guess?’
I knew he was laughing at me. It didn’t help.
‘I turn my back for one day. Just one bloody day. And when I get back my department – my entire bloody department – is blue!’
‘Not your entire department,’ he said, defensively. ‘Mrs Enderby and a couple of others from Wardrobe are still – pink. Or black in one case, of course. And a sort of brownish-coffee colour in another …’
I could hear Tim Peterson’s voice in the corridor. I snarled, ‘This discussion is not over,’ snapped off my com link, and turned to face my prey.
He stuck a blue head round the door. ‘Did you want me?’
Rosie Lee opened a file and pretended to read.
I drew a deep breath.
‘Before you start,’ he said, ‘it’s not my fault.’
‘You’re blue!’
‘Well, so is everyone else. Why are you picking on me?’
‘In my absence, you are supposed to be responsible for my department.’
‘And so I was. I responsibly did a risk-assessment thing-thingy …’
‘Which took the form of …?’
‘I asked Professor Rapson if he thought everything would be OK and he said yes,’ he said, with his what have I done now? expression. ‘And then,’ he continued, warming to his health and safety in the workplace theme, ‘I performed a safety check …’
‘Which took the form of …?
‘I kicked the big rock and it seemed OK.’
I breathed heavily. ‘Did you, at any point – any point at all – issue the instruction “do not paint yourselves blue”?’
‘No, I can’t say I did. I didn’t see the need.’
‘Why the fu – why ever not?’
‘They were already blue, Max. It was too late. They were blue when they turned up. It seemed a good idea at the time.’
‘So from whom did this idea originate?’
There was a bit of a silence.
I strode to the door, crossed the gallery, and thundered down to the blatantly listening throng of blue historians.
‘Bring me the head of Mr Markham!’
He turned up about ten minutes later, continuing the blue theme.
‘Hey, Max. How did it go?’
I’d been to Thirsk to see friend and ex-colleague, Kalinda Black, and attend a presentation. One day. I’d been away one day …
‘Never mind that. Explain to me, in terms I will understand, just what the hell happened yesterday.’
‘Well, it’s like this …’
Disregarding the digressions, excuses, and ramblings, it went something like this: Ignoring such previous disasters as the Icarus Experiment, (when Mr Markham had set the bar high by managing both to burst into flames and knock himself senseless), Professor Rapson had set up the Monolith Experiment. The idea was to transport a monolith across the lake to a pre-dug hole in Mr Strong’s cherished South Lawn, taking the opportunity to investigate the methods used to transport Stonehenge monoliths while doing so.
Obviously, the entire history section had volunteered, together with a good number of technicians and security personnel, for whom anything was better than working. A decision they would later come to regret. Many of them had entered into the spirit of the thing by dressing in what they considered appropriate costume, and – the crux of the matter, as far as I was concerned – painting themselves blue (on no historical grounds whatsoever, it should be said).
Tragically, according to Markham, Chief Farrell, head of the technical section, and Major Guthrie had both rained on the parade slightly by insisting on non-prehistoric orange lifejackets, which everyone felt detracted slightly from the realism of the experiment.
As frequently happened with the professor’s experiments, everything had started well. The monolith (represented by a large concrete block manufactured especially for the occasion), rolled down to the lake in a suspiciously well-behaved manner, but sadly blotted its copybook in the last few yards. An unforeseen increase in velocity led to a corresponding decrease in direction-control, and the whole thing, monolith, rollers, and those stupid enough to forget to let go of the ropes attached to it (which was all of them) hurtled down to the jetty, reached escape velocity, and crashed down onto the waiting raft, which immediately sank with all hands.
Permian-style extinction was only avoided by the Chief and Guthrie who managed to stop laughing long enough to fish bobbing blue people out of the chilly water with long sticks and deposit them on the bank, coughing up copious amounts of lake water.