Century Rain Part 24

Everything she saw, she realised, must have come through the link-even the bubble itself. The first few journeys must have been interesting, if not fatal.

"Let's get you freshened up," Skellsgard said, leading Auger to one of the cubicles. "There's a shower and washroom in there, and a wardrobe full of indigenous clothes. Help yourself, but remember you need to be comfortable wearing what you choose."

"I'm comfortable with what I'm wearing now."

"And you'd stick out like a sore thumb as soon as you entered Paris. The idea is to be as inconspicuous as possible. Any hint of strangeness and Blanchard may get other ideas about handing over the goods."

Auger showered, rinsing away the musty smell of the transport. She felt oddly alert. During the past thirty hours she had only slept intermittently, but the novelty of her situation served to hold tiredness at bay.

As Skellsgard had promised, the wardrobe was well equipped with clothes from the same time period as the E2 artefacts she had already examined. Trying them on in various permutations, she couldn't help but remember the ludicrous fancy-dress party she had attended on the Twentieth Century Limited in a desperate bid to ward off boredom. At least the garments here all originated from the same period, even if there was no guarantee that she was putting them on in anything resembling a sensible combination. It was trickier than she had expected. Lately, Tanglewood fas.h.i.+ons had tended towards the utilitarian and consequently Auger was not used to things like dresses and skirts, stockings and heeled shoes. Even at the kind of academic functions where everyone else made an effort to dress up, she'd always been the one who made a point of showing up in work-stained coveralls. Now she was expected to pa.s.s as a woman from the mid-twentieth century, a time when even the wearing of trousers was uncommon.

It took half an hour, but eventually she settled on a mix that didn't strike her as glaringly off key, and which-equally importantly-she could still just about walk around in without looking drunk. She chose the shoes with the flattest heels amongst those on offer, which were still higher than she would have liked. She added black stockings and a knee-length skirt in navy blue with fine silver pinstripes that allowed her to walk without too much trouble, and paired these items with a pale-blue blouse and a jacket in the same fabric as the skirt. Rummaging in the back recesses of the wardrobe, she found a hat that completed the ensemble. She tugged here and shrugged there, settling the unfamiliar garments in place. She then stood in front of the mirror and toyed with the angle of the hat, trying to see herself as an anonymous woman rather than as Verity Auger in fancy dress. Only one thing mattered: if she saw herself in the background of some pre-Void Century photograph, would she merit a second glance?

She couldn't tell. She didn't think she looked disastrous, but neither was she certain that she was about to blend in with anything or anyone.

"You ready in there?" Skellsgard called from outside.

Auger shrugged and let herself out. Skellsgard, to her surprise, had also put on clothes from the same period. They seemed to suit her about as well as they suited Auger.

"Well?" Augur asked, self-consciously executing a little twirl.

"You'll do," Skellsgard said, c.o.c.king her head as she appraised the outfit. "Main thing is not to worry about it too much. Look confident, as if you know you belong, and no one will give you a second glance. You hungry?"

They'd eaten rations on the way over, but the weightlessness had done nothing for her appet.i.te. "A bit," she decided.

"Barton's fixed us some food. While we're eating we can go over the rest of the stuff you need to know. Before that, though, we need to put you through the censor."

"I was wondering when we'd get to that."

ELEVEN.

When they had finished eating, Floyd left Greta smoking a cigarette while he persuaded the waiter to let him use the telephone. Fis.h.i.+ng out his notebook, he called Blanchard's number and waited for the landlord to answer.

"I need to speak to Monsieur Custine," Floyd said, after they'd exchanged pleasantries. "He should be waiting for my call."

Without another word, Blanchard pa.s.sed the receiver to Custine. "Floyd," he said excitedly, "I'm glad you called."

Floyd picked at his teeth with a fresh toothpick. "You've got something?"

"Possibly."

"Get rid of the old man. I don't want him listening in on your latest piece of speculation." Floyd had his back to the bar, but a mirror offered an excellent view of the patrons. He watched them idly while he listened to Custine and Blanchard having an animated discussion at the other end of the line. Presently he heard the click as a door was closed.

"I'm alone now," Custine said. "He'll give me a minute, no more."

"Let's make the most of it, then. Did you get the wireless to work?"

"Yes, rather to my surprise."

"Mine as well. How did you manage that?"

"Trial and error, Floyd. I identified the severed wires and the contact points where they needed to be reattached. It was then merely a question of some very delicate and methodical soldering, trying out the various permutations until something happened. We're lucky that whoever sabotaged that wireless was in a great hurry, or they could have done a much more thorough job."

"All right," Floyd said. "I'm officially impressed. Consider yourself in line for a promotion the next time a vacancy appears."

"Very droll, Floyd, considering that I am your only employee. I will confess that I was a little impressed with myself, if truth be told. But what is truly interesting is that the wireless still did not pick up any of the usual stations."

"Then it's still broken."

"Not quite. I tuned it to the wavelength you noted on our first visit, and then made careful adjustments around that position. Eventually I found a signal. It was weak, but it may be that the wireless has suffered some more permanent damage that I couldn't see. Then I moved the needle all the way up and down the dial, but that was all I found: just a single station."

"And what were they transmitting?"

"Noises, Floyd, just as we were led to expect. Short tones and long tones, like Morse code."

"I hope you made a note of them."

"I did my best. I became aware that the pattern was repeating, with a minute or so of silence after each

repet.i.tion. I attempted to scribble down the sequence of tones, but I couldn't record them all before the

station stopped transmitting."

"Then they went off the air for good?"

"So it would seem. It must have been sheer luck that I stumbled on the end of a sequence of transmissions."

"All right. See what else you can get out of it, without making Blanchard too suspicious."

"Do you think this is significant?"

"It might be," Floyd said. "Greta's turned up something interesting in that paperwork." He checked his

watch. "How much longer do you think you need?"

"Give me until four. That should be sufficient."

"All right. I'll meet you there-I want to ask the tenants a few follow-up questions. In the meantime,

keep a lid on what you've discovered."

Custine lowered his voice. "We'll have to tell him at some point."

"I know," Floyd said, "but let's make sure we have a clear idea of what she was up to first."

Floyd put down the receiver, drawing a frosty glance from the waiter. He went back to the table where

he had left Greta, then snapped at his fingers at another waiter and settled the bill, adding a modest tip.

"I'll drive you back to your aunt's place," he said.

Greta gathered her gloves. "What did Custine have to say for himself?"

"He might just have earned his Christmas bonus."

They returned to the Mathis. Floyd ripped a political pamphlet from underneath a winds.h.i.+eld wiper and

drove Greta back to Montparna.s.se, stopping so that she could pick up some groceries along the way.

"Give my regards to Marguerite," he said as Greta got out of the car.

"I will."

"I'd like to see you again. How does this evening sound?"

She reached for the bag of groceries. "Floyd, we can't keep dancing around the one subject you don't

want to talk about."

"Then we'll talk about it this evening."

"Until you change the topic."

"Humour me."

She closed her eyes in weary resignation. "Call me later. I'll see how things go with Marguerite."

Floyd nodded: anything was better than a rejection. "I'll call you this evening."

"Floyd...take care, all right?"

"I will."

She pulled an apple from the bag of groceries and threw it at him. Floyd caught it and slipped it into his

pocket. He started up at the Mathis again and drove back across town to rue des Peupliers. He got Blanchard to buzz him in, then walked up to the fifth floor and knocked on the door to Susan White's apartment.

"It's Floyd," he announced.

Custine opened the door cautiously and then let him in. He had pushed the wireless set back against the wall, leaving no sign that it had been tampered with. Even his tools were packed away.

"Anything new?" Floyd asked.

"Nothing. Whoever was transmitting those signals is still off the air." Custine made a tiny adjustment to

the dial. He sat down cross-legged on a pillow in front of the wireless, his unlaced shoes placed neatly side by side next to him. "I'll keep trying."

"Good. In the meantime, I need to talk to whoever it was you said saw that child hanging around the place."

"The little girl? Floyd, you don't seriously think-"

"I'm not ruling anything out."

"Then speak to the gentleman on the second floor. The room next to the broom cupboard. But he'll only tell you what he told me."

"Maybe I can jog his memory." Floyd looked guiltily down at his friend. Custine had been in here working hard while Floyd had been promenading through the gardens and eating ice cream. "You want anything? I can fetch you a coffee."

"I'm all right, thanks."

"You eaten?"

"Not since breakfast."

Floyd reached into his pocket. "Have an apple on me."

Floyd took the stairs down to the chequered linoleum of the second-floor landing. He knocked on the door next to the broom cupboard, waited a few moments and then knocked again. He pressed his ear against the door and listened for signs of life, but there was no sound of anyone inside. He tried the handle, but the door was locked. Floyd shrugged: it was the middle of the day and therefore quite likely that the tenant was out earning a respectable wage. He'd been the only one to mention the odd child to Custine, but that didn't mean none of the others had seen something. Perhaps they just needed to be asked the right question.