“No luck there,” Collingswood said. She did the French breathing thing with her smoke. Disgusting as it was, Billy couldn’t take his eyes off it.
“Sweet FA,” said Baron. “A little bit of silly buggery, but the big Y2K explosion of… well, millennialism, that we’d been expecting… didn’t happen.”
“Not then,” said Collingswood.
“Do you even remember the millennium?” Billy said. “Weren’t you watching Teletubbies?” She smirked.
“She’s right,” Baron said. “Stuff was delayed. It came after. Eventually we ended up busier than ever. Look, I don’t care what these groups want to do, so long as they keep to themselves. Paint yourself blue and boff cactuses, just do it indoors and don’t involve civilians. Live and let live. But that’s not what causes the trouble.” He tapped the table with each word that followed. “All these groups are all about revelations, apocrypha…”
“Always boils down to the same thing,” Collingswood said.
“It does a bit,” said Baron. “Any holy book, it’s the last chapter that gets us interested.”
“John the fucking Divine,” Collingswood said. “Bish bash fucking bosh.”
“What my colleague is getting at,” Baron said, “is we’re facing a wave of St. Johns. A bit of an epidemic of eschatologies. We live,” he said, too flatly for any humour to be audible, “in the epoch of competing ends.”
Collingswood said, “Ragnarok versus Ghost Dance versus Kali Yuga versus Qiyamah yadda yadda.”
“That’s what gets converts these days,” Baron said. “It’s a buyers’ market in apocalypse. What’s hot in heresy’s Armageddon.”
“It was all chat, for ages,” Collingswood said. “But since suddenly, something’s actually going on.”
“And they’re all still insisting it’s their apocalypse that’s going to happen,” Baron said. “And that means trouble. Because they’re fighting about it.”
“What do you mean something’s going on?” Billy said, but what with his head all over the place and the blatantly actual fact of impossibilities, the scorn he tried to put in it didn’t really take. Collingswood prodded the air, rubbed her fingers together to indicate that she felt something, as if the world had left residue on her.
“You got to be worried when they’re agreeing about anything,” she said. “Prophets. That’s the last bloody thing you want prophets to do. Even if, especially if, they still don’t agree on details. Heard about them hoodies and asbos rucking in East London?” She shook her head. “Brothers of Vulpus went at it with a bunch of druids. Nasty. Them sickles are sharp. And all over how the world’s going to end.”
“We’re overstretched, Harrow,” said Baron. “’Course we do other stuff; sacrificed kiddies, animal cruelty, whatnot. But it’s ends-of-the-world where the action is. It’s harder and harder to deal with the apocalypse rumbles. We can’t cope,” he said. “I’m being frank with you. Let alone now something this big has happened. Don’t get me wrong-I got no more time for fortune cookies than you have. Still though. Little while ago, half the prophets in London began to know-know-that the world’s on its way out.” He did not sound as if he was mocking the knowledge. “And I am utterly buggered if I know what that’s about, but then it suddenly got a lot more definite. Round about when you-know-what happened.”
“Your squid went poof,” Collingswood said.
“It is not my squid.”
“Oh it is, though,” she said. “Come on, it is, though.” It felt like his, when she said that. “It happened again,” she said to Baron. “It got closer again.”
“They brought the public into it,” Baron said. “And that is not on. We go out of our way to keep civies out. But if someone like you, someone with knowledge I mean, does get his face rubbed in it, well, we take advantage.”
“Some people make better recruits’n others,” Collingswood said. She watched Billy closely. She leaned closer. “Open your gob a minute,” she said. He did not consider saying no. She peered past his teeth. “You shouldn’t have told your mates about the squid,” she said. “You shouldn’t have could.”
“Vardy doesn’t need me,” Billy said. “He can research all this himself. And I don’t need you.”
“The professor can be a touch off-putting, I know,” Baron said. He took one of Collingswood’s cigarettes.
“The way he was talking,” Billy said. “About the squid people. It was like he was one of them.”
“You’ve put your finger on it,” Baron said. “It is just like he’s one of them. He has a little revelation.”
“Takes one to know one,” said Collingswood. “Oh yeah.”
“What?” said Billy. “He was one of…?”
“Man of faith,” Baron said. “Grew up one of your ultra-born-agains. Creationist, literalist. His dad was an elder. He was in it for years. Lost his faith but not his interest, lucky for us, and not his nous, neither. Every group we look at, he gets it like a convert”-Baron thumped his chest-“because for a moment or two he is.”
“It’s more than that,” Collingswood said. “He don’t just get it,” she said. She grinned smoke at Billy. She put her hand to her lips, as if she were whispering, though she was not. “He misses it. He’s miserable. He didn’t used to have to put up with none of this random reality cack. He’s pissed off with the world for being all godless and pointless, get me? He’d go back to his old faith tomorrow if he could. But he’s too smart now.”
“That’s his cross to bear,” said Baron. “Boom-boom! I thank you.”
“He knows religion is bollocks,” Collingswood said. “He just wishes he didn’t. That’s why he understands the nutters. That’s why he hunts them. He misses pure faith. He’s jealous.”
Chapter Eight
IN LATE DRAB RAIN, BARON DROVE BILLY BACK TO HIS FLAT. “KATH’S going to take a look at your security,” he said.
“Haven’t got any.”
“Well quite.”
“I don’t want to let nothing happen to you now,” she said. “Not now you’re precious.” He looked at her sideways. “And don’t let anyone in you don’t know for a few days, either.”
“Are you joking?”
“Look, they’re not stupid,” Baron said. “They’re going to know we’re watching. But they’ve got some questions about you, for obvious, and curiosity can be a bit of a millstone. So safety first, eh?” He turned to look at Billy in the backseat. “I don’t like it any more than you. Alright, perhaps you like it even less than me.” He laughed.
“Shouldn’t you be protecting me?” Billy said.
“Wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang,” Collingswood sang.
“Gary Glitter?” Billy said. “Really?”
“I wouldn’t say danger,” said Baron. “I’d say at the very worst it’s dangish. We’re not saying don’t have anyone over-”
“I bloody am,” said Collingswood, but Baron continued, “if it’s someone you trust, that’s all peachy. Just being cautious. You’re small fry. They’ve got what they want.”
“The squid,” said Billy.
“Collingswood’s going to install a good solid security set. You’ll be fine. And you know, if you take us up on our offer, we might upgrade it.”
Billy stared at them. “This isn’t a job offer. It’s a protection racket. Literally, protection.”
Collingswood tutted. “Little drama queen, ain’t you?” she said. She patted his cheek. “It’s benefits, innit? All jobs have them.”
Baron steered Billy toward the kitchen while Collingswood milled by the front door. She looked thoughtfully around the hallway, the cabinet on which Billy left his keys and post. She made a sight, trendily unkempt, up on tiptoe, cigarette loose between her lips as if in a French film, prodding at the upper corner of his doorway with confidence and precision Billy did not associate with someone so young.