Overtime. Part 25

'Would you care to see some photographs?' she said.

Drink generally made Iachimo rather maudlin. Usually that was no bad thing; he was, Giovanni had long since realised, one of Nature's accountants, and anything which let his long-repressed emotions out of their cage and let them walk around and stretch their legs was to be encouraged, in moderation, so long as he didn't actually start to sing.

'I mean,' Iachimo said, 'we shouldn't just have left him like that. Really nice bloke, he was. Do anything for you. Lovely voice. Generous.'

'Gullible,' Giovanni said. 'Very, very gullible.'

'The most gullible bloke,' Iachimo agreed, 'you could ever hope to meet. Could have sold him anything. Anything.' He sighed. 'And now it's too late. Poor Blondel.' He reached for his drink and drank it.

'Never mind,' Giovanni said firmly. 'We've got to think of the future. I'm sure that's what he'd have wanted.'

Iachimo looked up unsteadily. 'You think so?'

'Absolutely,' Giovanni said. 'Blondel,' he went on, fixing his brother with a businesslike look, 'was an artist ...

'Can you say that again?'

'An artist,' Giovanni repeated, 'and what do artists really want? They want -'

'Twenty-five per cent guaranteed return on capital,' said Marco. He was the dozy one, and they had had to teach him little set phrases, of which twenty-five per cent guaranteed return on capital was the longest by some way.

'No,' Giovanni said, 'that's where artists are different from you and me. Artists don't care about things like that, or at least,' Giovanni added, thinking of Andrew Lloyd Webber, 'most artists don't. What they care about is posterity, the opinion of future generations, their place in the gallery of fame.'

'Go on!'

'They do,' Giovanni said, 'and Blondel was an artist to his fingertips. Absolutely zilch use as a businessman, but give him a rebec and a ma.s.s audience, and there was n.o.body to touch him.'

'Too right,' Iachimo said. 'b.l.o.o.d.y genius, that's what he was.'

'Exactly,' Giovanni replied, 'a genius, which is why we have a duty to continue marketing his material just exactly the way we did while he was alive. In fact,' he added, thinking of Blondel's lapsed five per cent share of royalties, 'even more so. With a genius, you see, the real appreciation comes after they die.'

'Really?'

'You bet.' Giovanni rubbed his hands together involuntarily. 'It's only when they die that you can be absolutely sure there isn't going to be any more. When you get to that point, you're in a controlled supply marketing environment, and if you've been clever enough to get sole distribution rights -'

'Have we got sole distribution rights?'

'Yes, Iachimo, we have indeed.' Giovanni grinned. 'Go and get another jug of this stuff, will you, Marco? I think a modest celebration is in order.'

The Beaumont Street Partners.h.i.+p had long ago sorted out the problem of management role co-ordination. Giovanni did the thinking, Iachimo kept the books, Marco went to the bar. Usually, too, Marco paid.

'What it boils down to,' Giovanni said, when his cup was once more full, 'is that the only thing better than a sucker, from an investment management point of view, is a dead sucker. Cheers.'

'Pity he's dead, though,' said Iachimo with a sigh. 'Wrote some lovely songs, he did.'

'He did indeed,' Giovanni replied. 'And there's no reason why he shouldn't write plenty more.

'But he's ...'

'I know, Marco,' Giovanni said patiently. 'But he wasn't dead this morning, was he? All we have to do is go back to when he wasn't dead, get him to hum something, and there we go. No reason why we can't go on indefinitely. And no royalties, either.'

Marco looked up from his drink, most of which he'd managed to spill on his tie. 'No,' he said, 'you're wrong there.'

His brothers looked at him. 'Come again?' Iachimo said.

'He fell into a timeslip, right?' Marco said. The other two nodded. 'Well then,' he continued, 'stands to reason, doesn't it?'

'Ignore him,' Giovanni said. 'He still hasn't worked out what a Thursday is.'

'No, listen,' Marco protested. 'Look, if he fell into a time-slip, right, then it stands to reason he'll have drowned in time. Loose Cannons. Time Wardens.' Marco made an effort and marshalled his thoughts, which was a bit like trying to produce Die Frau Ohne Schatten with a cast of five-year-olds. 'What's a timeslip made of?' he asked.

Giovanni was about to interrupt, but he didn't. 'Unstable time,' he said. 'Like lava from a volcano, you might say. What of it?'

'Anything that gets trapped in a timeslip,' Marco ground on, 'gets taken away to the Archives, right?' He looked up, waiting for someone to interrupt him, but for once they were both listening. He smiled happily. This was good fun. 'And anything that gets taken to the Archives, right, it's like it never existed. So if Blondel's gone there, it's like he never existed.'

'Jesus Christ,' Giovanni said quietly.

'And if he never existed,' Marco continued - it was like watching a woodlouse climbing a wall, listening to Marco doing joined-up speaking - 'then he couldn't have made up any of those songs. Which means his songs don't exist any more. Which means they never existed to start with. Which means - where are you going, Giovanni?'

'Get your coat.

'But Giovanni...

'I said get your coat.

Marco pulled a face, but it was no good; they weren't listening to him any more. He got his coat.

'And this one,' said La Beale Isoud, 'is Blondel, my sister Mahaud and me at Deauville.' She squinted at the picture. 'Summer, 1438,' she added. 'It's changed a lot since then, of course.'

'Yes,' said Guy. He was beginning to have second thoughts about being in love with La Beale Isoud. She seemed to have enough photograph alb.u.ms to fill up at least seventy years of matrimony. 'Er...'

'And this one,' she continued, 'is Blondel, my sister Mahaud, my sister Ysabel and me in Venice. You can't see Ysabel terribly well, I'm afraid, because she moved just before the picture was taken. That's her, look, behind the prow of the gondola.'

'Ah yes. Would you mind terribly if -'

'And this one ...' La Beale Isoud stared at the alb.u.m for a moment. 'No,' she said, 'that one hasn't been taken yet. It's too bad of Blondel, he keeps getting them muddled up and out of order. Oh look,' she said, 'it's got you in it.'

Guy blinked. 'Me?'

'That is you, isn't it?' Isoud said. 'Standing there on the steps of the church with a bouquet of flowers in your hand. And who's that beside you?'

Guy examined the photograph. 'That's my friend George,' he said. 'Who's that?'

'That's my aunt Gunhilde,' Isoud replied. 'She's dead now, of course, but she comes back occasionally for visits. Christmas, you know, and weddings. That's the good thing about having all this time travel in the family, it means one can keep in touch.'