Zero history

“I’m sorted,” said Clammy, turning into Oxford Street, “just don’t crush my gear.”

›››

When the lift descended, answering her call, she found it occupied by a short, older, oddly broad man of indeterminately Asian aspect, his thinning gray hair brushed neatly back. He stood very upright in the middle of the cage, a bobble-topped tartan tam in his hands, and thanked her, accent crisply British, when she hauled open the cage’s gate. “Good evening,” he said with a nod, stepping past her, turning on his heel, and marching for Cabinet’s door as he settled his tam.

Robert opened and held the door for him.

The ferret was in its vitrine.

When she reached Number Four’s door, she remembered she hadn’t taken her key. She rapped with her knuckles, softly. “It’s me.”

“Moment,” she heard him say.

She heard the chain rattle. Then he opened the door, leaning on his four-legged cane, something she took to be a glossy black LP sleeve tucked under his arm.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“The ugliest T-shirt in the world,” he said, and kissed her cheek.

“The Bollards will be disappointed,” she said, coming in and closing the door. “I thought they’d had me sleeping in that.”

“So ugly that digital cameras forget they’ve seen it.”

“Shall we have a look at it, then?”

“Not yet.” He showed her the black square, which she now saw was a sort of plastic envelope, its edges welded shut. “We might contaminate it with our DNA.”

“No, thank you. We might not.”

“A single stray hair would be enough. Material like this has to be handled very carefully, given what forensics are, these days. It’s nothing you want to be associated with at all, ever. In fact, there really isn’t much material like this. Something of a one-off, in the field.”

“Pep’s going to wear it?”

“And contaminate it, no doubt, with Catalan DNA.” He grinned. “But then we’ll put it in a bag, seal it, and incinerate the bag. No photographs of the ugliness, though. We don’t want that.”

“If cameras can’t see it, how could we photograph it?”

“Cameras can see it. The surveillance cameras can all see it, but then they forget they’ve seen it.”

“Why?”

“Because their architecture tells them to forget it, and anyone who’s wearing it as well. They forget the figure wearing the ugly T-shirt. Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure. That which the camera sees, bearing the sigil, it deletes from the recalled image. Though only if you ask it to show you the image. So there’s no suspicious busy-ness to be noticed. If you ask for June 7, camera 53, it retrieves what it saw. In the act of retrieval, the sigil, and the human form bearing it, cease to be represented. By virtue of deep architecture. Gentlemen’s agreement.”

“Are they doing that now? Really?”

“Answering that would require a very woolly discussion of what ‘they’ can mean. I imagine it’s literally impossible to say who’s doing it. It’s enough to say it’s being done. In a sort of larval way, though it works quite well. We’re quite far ahead, here, with this camera culture. Though we aren’t a patch on Dubai. I’m still getting bits and pieces of my freeway performance, mailed in. Downside of having obsessive friends who like computers. But none of those friends, I’d gladly wager, know about the ugly T-shirt. The ugly T-shirt is deep. As deep as I’ve ever gotten, really. Deep and bad to know. After this is over, regardless of outcome, you know nothing of the ugly T-shirt.”

“You’re really making me want to see it.”

“You will. I’m keen myself. Where did you go?”

“Back to the store that was the first place I asked anyone about Hounds.” She put the designer’s gift on an armchair, took her jacket off, and went to sit close beside him, her arm across his shoulders. “I met her. The designer.”

“She’s here?”

“Just leaving.”

“Big End’s been looking for something right under his nose?”

“I think there may have been some hiding in plain sight going on, but I’m sure she’s enjoyed that. She’s the only person I’ve met who’s had the same job I have, so he’s something of an issue for her.”

“You bonded?”

“I hope I never become as aware of him as she is. I suspect that not being on his side has actually become a big part of who she is.”

“Sufficiently perverse and titanic arseholes,” he said, “can become religious objects. Negative saints. People who dislike them, with sufficient purity and fervor, well, they do that. Spend their lives lighting candles. I don’t recommend it.”

“I know. I’ve never really disliked him. Not the way some people do. He’s like some peculiar force of nature. Not a safe one to be around. Like those rogue waves you told me about, when we were in New York. I like him less now, but I imagine that’s because he’s vulnerable, somehow. Has he told you what it is with Chombo?”

“No idea. Otherwise, I agree with you. He’s vulnerable. Gracie and Foley and Milgrim and Heidi, and you and the others, have formed a rogue wave without meaning to, and none of it could have been predicted. He has one great advantage, though.”

“What’s that?”

“He already believes that that’s how the world is. Show him a wave, he’ll try to surf it.”

“I think you’re like that. It worries me. I think you’re doing it right now.”

He touched the hair above her ear, smoothed it back. “Because you’re in it.”

“I know,” she said, “but also because you can. Isn’t that true?”

“Yes. It is. Though after this, it won’t be true in the same way. That’s obvious to me, and was obvious before you called me. I’d already seen it, on hospital ceilings. Same for the old man. I knew when he told me about this.” He tapped the black square. “This is a big one. Probably the biggest he had. I’d no inkling about this. The potential, for one grand exploit, is fabulous. But he’s given it to me to make it easier to get my girlfriend, and her freak of an employer, out of trouble.”

She noticed the Blue Ant figurine on the bedside table, beside the phone. “Where’s that GPS thing? I don’t want to lose track of it.”

He looked at his watch. “It should be headed up the Amazon by now. By boat.”

“The Amazon?”

He shrugged, put his arm around her. “By courier. Slowly. If Mr. Big End is tracking it, he’ll know we’ve played a joke. If it’s someone else, they may think you’re headed up the Amazon.”

“Someone put it in my bag when I went to Paris.”

“Staff.”

“Here?”

“Of course.”

“That’s scary.”

“But I’ve thought of it. And I’m always here, which simplifies things.”

“Who was here, earlier?”

“Charlie.”

“Graying, Asian, plaid tam?”

“Charlie.”

“He’s almost as wide as he’s tall.”

“Ghurka. Tapers toward the waist. Jewel, Charlie. How do you ever manage to do anything intimate in here, with all of these heads and things staring?”

“I have absolutely no idea. Never having tried.”

“Really,” he said.