‘No. I’ll only be a couple of minutes. Pour us some more drinks.’
The agent nodded.
Ward stepped out of the room.
Outside, a brilliant white shaft of lightning tore through the clouds and illuminated the sky.
Think hard and consider the situation in which you now find yourself.
Contemplate the possibilities and mull them over in your mind for there is but one outcome. When first our union was sublimated there was no questioning.
There were no doubts or remonstrations. The terms were accepted. The price was set. A valuation put upon that which is ordinarily thought to be above remuneration. Consider this and also contemplate what has been given and accepted without question. For all deeds and acts there is a manifest set of circumstances. An outcome. Irrevocable and irretrievable in its finality.
Terms were set. Accepted. Acted upon. Now is the time for payment.
Many others have walked the same path. Many more will do so. There are others.
Others who seek what you have sought. Who will attain what you have attained and who will pay as you must pay. With the passing of the years has come no remembrance. No recollection of what was desired and what was offered in
return. Something offered more priceless than the treasures of the ages.
Consider the following and prepare to settle that which must be accounted tor: 12 12 84 the choice was made. Now must come the reckoning.
COMMUNICATION
Martin Connelly heard a sound from inside the study. He approached the door slowly.
‘Chris,’ he called.
No answer. Just that insistent noise he’d heard a moment earlier. Like …
Like what?
Like the mechanical and electronic sound made by a printer as it transfers the images from a computer screen on to paper.
He pushed the door wider and stepped inside the room.
The computer was indeed on. The monitor was active. Connelly could see words spreading across it. He crossed to the machine and stood staring at the screen.
Names. Hundreds of them.
And the printer dutifully transferring them on to paper.
Connelly read them:
Dante Alighieri Ludwig van Beethoven Adolf Hitler Napoleon Bonaparte Bram Stoker Hieronymus Bosch Christopher Marlowe And still they continued.
He was still gazing at the screen when Ward walked in, his hair and clothes dripping. A single sheet of paper gripped in his fist.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ Ward said, looking at the names dancing across the screen.
Connelly could only shake his head.‘It just started,’ he said, indicating the computer.
Ward stared at the names.
Edgar Allan Poe Caravaggio Frank Sinatra John Dillinger Stalin He was still staring half an hour later.
The rapidity and profusion with which the names continued to appear showed no signs of stopping.
‘What do we do?’ Connelly asked.
Ward could only shake his head. He held out the piece of handwritten paper he’d found in his office.
Connelly took it and read it.
‘It was there when I got to the computer,’ Ward told him.
‘Any idea what it means?’ said Connelly.
Ward shook his head.
The computer continued to rattle off an increasingly long list of names. And it showed no signs of stopping.
AN INVENTORY
9.34 p.m.
‘Seventy-six pages,’ said Ward.
The names on the sheaf of paper he held were in non-alphabetical, random order. Many he recognised, many more he didn’t.
Connelly was also flicking through some of the printed sheets.
‘These names don’t have anything in common,’ Ward said.‘Not as a whole. There are groups of them that you can match up. Musicians. Writers. Artists. Even some sportsmen. Some are old, some are new.’
‘What do you make of it?’
‘Christ knows. What the fuck do Edgar Allan Poe and Madonna have in common? Or Christopher Marlowe and Lenny Bruce for that matter? Joseph Goebbels and Bill Gates?’ He shook his head. ‘There are hundreds of names on here that I don’t recognise either. They’re not well-known people.’
‘Perhaps if we looked them up,’ Connelly offered.
‘Where, Martin?’
Connelly merely shrugged.
Ward continued looking at the names. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered.
‘What is it?’
‘These names sound familiar,’ said the writer. ‘Declan Leary. Melissa Blake.
Joe Hendry.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘They were all characters in that book I’ve just finished. They all died.’
Connelly stared at the list. ‘What was that about imagination becoming reality?’ he said quietly. ‘In one of those handwritten sheets.’
Ward nodded. ‘But I created those characters. Why are they on this list?’ he asked. ‘They weren’t real.’
‘Somewhere they might be. Somewhere in this world there are probably people with the names Declan Leary, Melissa Blake and Joe Hendry. The names aren’t that uncommon, Chris.’
‘We’ll see,’ Ward snapped and hurried out to the hall. He returned with a copy of the phone book and flipped it open, running his index finger down the list of names. ‘There’s an M Blake,’ he said. ‘A J Hendry and a D Leary.’
‘I said they weren’t uncommon.’
Ward scribbled down the numbers.
‘What are you doing?’ Connelly wanted to know.
‘I want to speak to them.’
‘Chris, what for?’
Ward was already heading for the hallway. He snatched up the phone and dialled the first number. And waited.
No answer.
He tried the number for J Hendry. It rang.
And rang.
Then was finally answered. ‘Hello.’ The voice at the other end was that of a woman. Subdued, barely audible.
‘I’d like to speak to Mr J Hendry, please,’ said Ward.
Silence.
‘Hello, I said I’d like to speak to—’
‘Yes, I heard you,’ the woman said softly. ‘I’m sorry. Joe died two days ago.’
Ward put down the phone. He tried the number for Leary.
A young man told him that Declan Leary had been killed in an accident two weeks earlier.
Ward exhaled and wandered back into the sitting room. ‘Two of them are dead,’
he said.
‘It must be a coincidence,’ Connelly told him.
‘What if these other names are names of characters I’ve created in the past?
Characters I’ve killed off.’
Connelly shook his head. ‘Art mirrors life?’ he said. ‘Not that literally.
Anyway, you didn’t create all the names on this list. Also a lot of them are still alive.’
Ward ran a hand through his hair. ‘Perhaps there’s an answer in this,’ he said, holding up the piece of handwritten paper. ‘Like this date. Twelve, twelve, eighty-four. Twelfth of December, 1984.’
‘Does that date have any significance for you?’ asked Connelly.
‘Not that I can remember.’
‘What about some of the other things mentioned?’
‘“The terms were accepted,’” Ward murmured. ‘Terms of what? “Now is the time for payment”.’ He took a sip of his drink. ‘“Many others have walked the same path.” Which path?’
‘You work it out.’
‘Twelve, twelve, eighty-four,’ Ward whispered. ‘Jesus Christ. If those numbers are a date, then I recognise
them and so should you. It was the date I signed to your agency. The day you became my agent.’
‘Can you remember what you said when you signed? You said you wanted to be so rich it was obscene. You said you wanted everything. The world.’
‘I was rich. But not any more.’
‘Terms were set,’ Connelly said quietly. ‘Nothing lasts for ever, Chris.’
‘That still doesn’t explain the names on this list.’