‘So you see,’ I said, ‘in reality, I’ve got nothing. Certainly nothing tangible to take to the Boss.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Let’s listen to this before we succumb to despair and despondency.’ He activated the recorder, listened for a while, then pulled out his scratchpad and got busy.
‘OK, listen. Keywords. Horses. House. Gates. Eagles. Guthrie. Me. You. A grand room elsewhere. A performance of some kind that’s important. We could use this. We could work this up into a scenario for an assignment. He switched on the recorder again and we listened. I saw little pictures in my mind.
If the Chief’s recollections were not just dreams then this was an absolute gift. This was a scenario. The personnel would be right. These were the people I’d take, plus a few more, maybe. It was cold and rainy – that would be Scotland in early summer. And we already had Edinburgh in the 16th century. If you followed that logically, you got summer 1567. After Darnley’s murder but before Bothwell. Peterson was right, if you looked at it in those terms then it was easy.
On the other hand, they might be just dreams and my Mary Stuart-soaked mind was reading too much into this. In the old days, the old, confident me would have built a house on these rocky foundations. I was still missing something. But, it was a starting point.
I fired up my data table and started working up a scenario. He moved to David’s and did the same. After thirty minutes he said, ‘I’m done.’
‘Me too, just about.’
‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’
We swapped – the two were reasonably similar. We merged the two, combined the common points, and picked and mixed the rest. There were several vigorous exchanges of views and a free and frank discussion at the end, but, hours and hours later, we finally had something. We worked it through again until at last we were satisfied and then went for a late supper.
I was up bright and early the next morning, too wound-up to stay in bed.
Early though I was, others were up before me. There were a number of historians milling around the hall, examining the displays, pointing and arguing. Standard historian behaviour. I stood at the back, watching. Arranged along the back wall were piles of working papers, secondary source stuff, background details, and a few maps. I picked one up at random. The 1852 Ordnance Survey map. The familiar landmarks were there, Holyrood House, Princes Street, John Knox House, Greyfriars, the castle. I looked at it for a moment and then knew, with absolute, total, complete, unqualified certainty that I was right. The knowledge made my head swim.
I took a moment to try and think clearly. The human brain is programmed to find patterns in a random world. Was that what I was doing? The unending human struggle to bring order into chaos? I leaned back against the table, feeling my heart pound while I tried to pull myself together and think this through calmly. I breathed deeply and found a point on which to focus. Now was not the time to go all wobbly.
I saw Dr Dowson enter the library and followed him in.
‘Good morning, Max, you’re an early bird this morning.’
‘Good morning, Doctor. I need some information urgently, please. Now, if possible.’
He looked at me over his half-moon spectacles. Possibly I still looked a little shell-shocked because he nodded.
‘I’ll get it for you myself. What do you want to know?’
I told him.
‘Well, that seems straightforward enough.’
He bashed a few keys and waited, frowned, bashed a few more, frowned again, went to a data table and fiddled there for a while.
I felt my heart pick up. I was right. I knew it.
‘Well, that’s a little odd … Just a minute, Max …’ He consulted an old-fashioned card index. At the end of the table, a printer hummed and spat out a sheet of paper. He brought it over. We surveyed it together.
‘Is that all you’ve got?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Can’t you get any more?’
‘There isn’t any more. What you see is all there is.’
‘What, anywhere?’
‘So it would seem.’
‘But how could that be? There must be more somewhere, surely?’
‘No, Max, that’s it. My only explanation is that it’s classed as sensitive information and restricted under the 30 Year Rule, or something similar. Although why is a bit of a mystery. It seems a perfectly innocuous request to me.’
I gave him back the paper.
‘Yes, I expect that’s it. Oh well, never mind. Thanks very much anyway, Dr Dowson.’
He wasn’t fooled for a minute.
‘If you say so, Max.’
I shot out of the library and ran headlong into Chief Farrell. He steadied me, realised who it was, and quickly dropped his hands.
‘Dr Maxwell?’
I decided to push my luck.
‘I’m not sure whether to be pleased to see you or not, Chief Farrell. I was just on my way to steal your pod. Do you want to come too?’
‘To steal my own pod?’
‘Only if you want to, of course. I’ll quite understand if you have other plans for the morning.’ I tried to get past him. He caught my arm.