“Left over like the half,” I said. “A shard.”
“In physics,” Naz continued, “of what remains after a process of evaporation; in law, that which-again-remains of an estate after all charges, debts, etc. have been paid. Residuary legatee: one to whom the residue of an estate is paid. Resid…”
“Accrued,” I said.
“What?” Naz asked.
“Go on,” I said.
“Residual analysis: calculus substituting method of fluxions, 1801. Residual heat of a cooling globe, 1896. Residual error in a set of observations, 1871.”
“It’s because the time of year had changed. But that’s not how he used it.”
“Who?” asked Naz.
“The short councillor,” I said. “He used it like a…you know, like a thing. A residual.”
“A noun,” said Naz. “What short councillor?”
“Yes, that’s right: a noun. This strange, pointless residual. And he pronounced the s as an s, not as a z. Re-c-idual. Have it looked up with that spelling.”
“What spelling?” Naz asked.
“R-e-c-i-d-u-a-l.”
Naz tapped at his mobile again. I looked away, back up at the sky. A mile or so away, on the main runways, aeroplanes were taxying, turning and taking off, these huge steel crates all packed with people and their clutter moaning and tingling as they stretched their arms out, palms up, rising. Planes that had taken off earlier were dwindling to specks that hung suspended in the air’s outer reaches for a while, then disappeared. I thought back to my stairwell, then to the tyre and cascading sticky liquid re-enactment that we’d done in this same warehouse. I’d told Annie and Frank to come up with something, some device, that would stop the blue goop from falling on me-make all its particles go up instead, become sky, disappear. Frank had thought of feeding it up through a tube towards the ceiling and then through the roof, transforming it into a mist.
“We could do that,” I said.
“What’s that?” Naz asked.
“All vaporize and be sprayed upwards. When we have to disappear, like you said. Remove traces, all that stuff.”
Naz’s eyes went vacant while the thing behind them whirred. Another plane passed overhead, moaning and tingling.
“Or just take planes,” I said. “They’ll take us out of the picture.”
Naz’s whole body tensed. He was completely static for a while, his musculature suspended while the calculating part of him took all the system’s energy. After a while the body part switched back on and he said:
“Planes are a very good idea.” He thought for a while more, then added: “Two planes. No, three. We’ll have to separate the re-enactors who’ll have been at the bank from the others. They can’t mix before they board their flights.”
“Fine,” I said. “Whatever.”
“And then…” Naz began; his phone beeped. He looked at it, then slipped it back into his pocket and continued: “And then we’d also have to separate…”
“Is that the dictionary people?” I asked him. “What do they say?”
“Word not found,” he said.
“What do they mean, not found?”
“‘Recidual’: word not found,” he repeated.
I started to feel dizzy.
“It must be there,” I said. “A noun: r-e-c-i…”
“I spelt it that way,” Naz said; “just as you told me. They say there’s no ‘recidual’ in the dictionary.”
“Well tell them to go and find a bigger dictionary, then!” I said. I was really feeling bad now. “And if you see that short councillor here…”
“What short councillor?” Naz asked.
I leant against the replicated bank’s exterior, against a white stone slab. The stone was neither warm nor cold; it had an outer layer of grit that kind of slid against the solid stone beneath it. Nearby, the cars turned and cut.
“I should like…” I started. “Naz…”
Naz wasn’t paying attention to me. He was standing quite still, looking out across the runways. Luckily Samuels turned up just then, put his arm around my waist and held me upright.
“You should go home,” someone said.
I was driven back to my building. Naz came by a few hours later, in the middle of the night. He looked dreadfuclass="underline" sallow-cheeked and gaunt.
“What have you found?” I asked him.
“There’s just one way…” he began.
“One way to what?” I said. “What’s this got to do…”
“Just one way to stop information leakage. To be absolutely certain.”
“Yes, but what about ‘recidual’?” I asked.
“No: this is more important,” Naz said. “Listen.”
“No!” I said. I sat up on my sofa. “You listen, Naz: I say what’s important. Tell me what they found.”
Naz’s eyes rested on a spot vaguely near my head for a few seconds. I could see him running what I’d just said past his data-checkers, and deciding I was right: I did say what was important. Without me, no plans, no Need to Know charts, nothing. He turned his head sideways, reached into his pocket, took his mobile out and said:
“They found similar words, but not that one. They looked in the complete twelve-volume dictionary. Do you want me to read you what they found?”
“Of course I do!” I told him.
“Recision,” he read; “the act of rescinding, taking away (limb, act of parliament, etc.). Recidivate: to fall back, relapse-into sickness, sin, debt…”
“Matthew Younger thinks I’m too exposed,” I said. “But exposure is good. How could it all have happened in the first place if I hadn’t been exposed?”
“Recidivist: one who recidivates; recidivous, of or pertaining to a…and so on. But that’s all,” Naz said. “No recidual.” He put his mobile back into his pocket and continued: “I have to discuss a matter of the utmost…”
“I think it might be something to do with music,” I said. “A recidual. Hey! Call my pianist up. He’ll know.”
“I’ll do that after we’ve been through this matter I have to discuss with you,” he said. “It’s absolutely vital. I’ve realized there’s only one way to ensure that…”
“No. Call him up now!” I said.
Naz paused again, then realized he had no choice but to comply, stood up and made the necessary call. Five minutes later my pianist was in my living room. One of his two tufts of hair was flattened, while the other sprouted outwards from his temple. His eyes were puffy; one of them was caked with sleep. He shuffled slowly forwards, then stopped three or so yards from me.
“What’s a recidual?” I asked him.
He stared glumly at my carpet and said nothing. I could tell he’d heard my question, though, because the top of his bald pate whitened.
“A recidual,” I said again. “It must be something to do with music.”
He still didn’t say anything.
“Like capriccioso,” I continued, “con allegro-all those things that they write in the margins. The composers. Or a type of piece, its name, like a concerto, a sonata: a recidual.”
“Therz a rosotatof,” my pianist mumbled sadly.
“What?” I said.
“There’s a recitative,” he said in his dull monotone. “In opera. Recitatif. Recitativo. Half singing, half speaking.”
“That’s good,” I said, “but…”
“Or a recital,” he continued, his pate whitening still more.
“A recital,” I said. “Yes.”
I thought about that for a while. Eventually my pianist asked:
“Can I go now?”
“No,” I said. “Stay there.”
I stared at his bald pate more, letting my vision blur into its whiteness. I stared for a long time. I don’t know how long; I lost track. Eventually he was gone, and Naz was trying to grab hold of my attention.
“What?” I said. “Where’s my pianist?”
“Listen,” said Naz. “There’s only one way.”
“One way to what?” I asked.
“One way to guarantee there’ll be no information leakage.”
“Oh, that again,” I said.
“The only way,” Naz went on, his voice quiet and softly shaking, “is to eliminate the channels it could leak through.”