Noel was the one they would send, Peter knew. He thought about escape. He had an emergency Hinton Cube address that he could thought-travel to, given to him by George in case he needed extraction. But he was dangerously low on vim for thought-travel, and if this was going to be where they took him, there would be expert spirit Watchers everywhere, able to track him anywhere with hypersight.
He pretended it was a logic problem. Had they known he was going to use Astrid? Was it possible that West himself had set a trap for him? It seemed absurd, but not completely impossible. The CAMLANN file burned in his mind.
‘How are you, old boy?’ Noel asked.
Peter sighed. ‘Worn out. C is sulking, and now I have to hand my entire operation over to the grubby hands of the Winter Court, gift-wrapped with a bow on top. I don’t even want to know how badly they are going to bungle it.’
‘Well, Harriet is bringing you some vim to perk you up. How’s the love life?’
‘Drier than a desert, I’m afraid.’
‘I know what you mean.’ Noel sighed wistfully. ‘It’s a complete monkey show here, and Father is trying to pull me back into the soup business, would you believe it? I thought I left it all behind. People say some things you can’t escape even in death, but I didn’t think soup was one of them.’
‘How about your writing?’
‘Oh, I tried to get that book of photographs published but it didn’t work out. The editor was worried that encouraging Cambridge students to do things like climb on rooftops at night was not kosher. I may just put it out with my own money in the end.’
‘I’d love to see it. For old times’ sake.’
Noel smiled. ‘You’ll be the first one I’ll call when it’s done.’
He turned his back to the window, leaned against the glass and folded his arms.
He is about to lie politely, or get to the real business now, Peter thought.
‘Listen, there is something I would like to run past you. There is a young chap at Blenheim who occasionally tells me things, on the q.t., you know.’ Noel tapped the side of his nose. ‘So, a month back, the Winter Court catch themselves a big fish and forget to tell us about it. A defector does a walk-in. It’s all kept very hush-hush, only Section heads and the deputy director involved, and a couple of Watchers. Except it doesn’t work out. The man just tells them things they already know, strings them along for weeks.’
Peter laughed, masking his relief. ‘That sounds like business as usual at the good old Water Closet.’
‘Indeed. In any case, they are getting ready to throw the fish to the cousins for some chickenfeed, and suddenly the defector decides to off himself in his hotel. Just like that. Doesn’t have a Ticket. Disappears like a fart. The cousins get angry. Heads roll. It’s a terrible mess.’
George had killed himself? Peter reeled. He really had not known the man at all.
‘Does C know?’ he managed. ‘We should take this to the PM, to argue he can’t give our Spanish operation to these bunglers.’
‘We should! But here’s the rub. My man told me something else. Apparently the last thing the defector said was that somebody over here is playing for the wrong team. What do you think about that, old boy?’
Peter and Noel Symonds became friends seven years ago, on the same day he had attended Unschlicht’s lecture.
He spent the evening wandering around town in shock, trying to gather his thoughts. It was late when he returned and he had to pay the porters some gate money to get in.
As he stomped across the grounds towards the corner staircase where his small room was located, he heard a rasp from above. He looked up, expecting to see one of the black squirrels that lived in the college grounds.
A young man in a Trinity Hall scarf and a suit hung suspended between two thick pillars that bulged from the brick wall. It appeared he had been shimmying up the groove between them, with his back against one pillar and his feet against the other. But now he was stuck halfway up.
‘Ho, there,’ Peter whispered. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing,’ came a pained response.
‘You had better not be trying to get into my room. I will call the porters.’
‘I’m not, honest! I’m just climbing.’
‘You don’t appear to be going upwards at the moment.’
‘That’s a good point.’
‘It’s Noel, right? Noel Symonds?’ Noel had borrowed Peter’s notes once after missing a class, for ‘an important engagement,’ he’d said. Peter now suspected it had involved scaling vertical surfaces.
Noel grimaced. ‘Hullo, Blooms. Say, do you see a coil of rope there, on the ground? I don’t suppose you could be a nice chap, take it up to that window, tie one end somewhere and toss the other end to me? I don’t think I can hold on much longer.’
His legs were shaking now, and he was quite high up.
‘All right,’ Peter said. ‘But then we are both going to the roof.’
* * *
‘Like this?’ Peter asked and leaned against the rope.
He was trying to get around a statue of a saint protruding from the wall. He was high up, nearly thirty feet from the ground. He was sweating and his arms ached, but it did not seem to matter. It was all so irrational that it was as if he was outside his body, weightless.
‘Yes. No. Move your feet to that ledge. There is a drainpipe next to you, grab it with your other hand. Now let go of the rope and take my hand. Don’t worry, I’ll catch you. One, two, three—’
Peter released the rope and reached for Noel. For a terrifying moment, he clung to the wall by his toes and the drainpipe. Then their palms smacked together and Noel gripped his hand firmly. Balancing on the ledge, Peter let go of the drainpipe and caught the roof’s edge with his other hand. He pulled himself up while Noel strained under his weight, red-faced. Finally, Peter got one of his feet onto the roof, squirmed over the edge and collapsed next to Noel. A tile slid off and fell to the courtyard below with a terrific clatter. They both froze and held their breath for a moment. When no porters appeared, Noel grinned at Peter.
‘That was not bad for a first timer,’ he said appreciatively. ‘We usually do it like this, in twos, but Bunny, that bounder, thought he saw the porter coming and bolted.’
They leaned their backs against a large chimney. It was silent and the air was cool, and the lights of Cambridge shone all around.
‘So how do you get started?’ Peter asked.
‘You need to have proper gear. A smooth, good quality jacket is a must—it won’t get caught on things. And rubber-soled shoes, if you want to be serious.’
‘My God, you do this it a lot, don’t you?’
‘Nearly every night. I’m even writing a book about it.’ Noel grinned. ‘It may be the high point of my life.’
Noel was the unofficial chief of a dozen climbers who, between them, had scaled every building of note in Cambridge. Peter listened to his stories with wry amusement.
‘Why do you do it? Isn’t all this stupidly dangerous?’
‘Of course it is! But, you know, it’s not like we have that much to look forward to. I’m going to end up running a soup business, can you imagine that? I’ve been trying to write poetry, but let’s be honest, I’m no good. There’s always politics, but that sounds like an awful bore. I am, however, pretty good at climbing, in spite of the state you caught me in. It is nice to be good at something.’
Noel looked at the city lights thoughtfully. ‘You know, they say that the state you are in when you die affects what happens to you in Summerland. Sometimes I imagine it would be nice to fall, hit the ground and just keep falling, straight through the Earth. I could spend eternity trying to climb back up. That would not be so bad.’