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'Hades?'
'Linoleum.'
We sat in silence for a moment.
'Does Hades have the sort of powers that might be necessary to manipulate coincidences?' asked Bowden.
I shrugged.
'Perhaps,' said Bowden thoughtfully, 'it was a coincidence after all.'
'Perhaps,' I said, wishing I could believe it. 'Oh – I almost forgot. The world's going to end on the twelfth of December at 20.23.'
'Really?' replied Bowden in a disinterested tone. Apocalyptic pronouncements were nothing new to any of us. The imminent destruction of the world had been predicted almost every year since the dawn of man.
'Which one is it this time?' asked Bowden. 'Plague of mice or the wrath of God?'
'I'm not sure. I've got to be somewhere at five. Do us a favour, would you?'
I handed him the small evidence bag my father had given to me. Bowden stared at the goo inside.
'What is it?'
'Exactly. Will you have the labs analyse it?'
We bade each other goodbye and I trotted out of the building, bumping into John Smith, who was manoeuvring a wheelbarrow with a carrot the size of a vacuum cleaner in it. There was a big label attached to the oversized vegetable that read 'evidence'. I held the door open for him.
'Thanks,' he panted.
I jumped in my car and pulled out of the carpark. My appointment at five was at the doctor's, and I wasn't going to miss it for anything.
6
Family
* * *
'Landen Parke-Laine had been with me in the Crimea in '72. He lost a leg to a landmine and his best friend to a military blunder. His best friend was my brother, Anton – and Landen testified against him at the hearing that followed the disastrous "Charge of the Light Armoured Brigade". My brother was blamed for the debacle, Landen was honourably discharged, I was awarded the Crimea Star for gallantry, I didn't speak to him for ten years, and now we're married. It's funny how things turn out.'
THURSDAY NEXT – Crimean Reminiscences
'Honey, I'm home!' I yelled out. There was a scrabbling noise from the kitchen as Pickwick's feet struggled to get a purchase on the tiles in his eagerness to greet me. I had engineered him myself when you could still buy home cloning kits over the counter. He was an early-version 1.2, which explained his lack of wings – they didn't complete the sequence for two more years. He made excited plock-plock noises and bobbed his head in greeting, rummaged in the wastebasket for a gift and eventually brought me a discarded junk-mail flyer for Lorna Doone merchandising. I tickled him under the chin and he ran to the kitchen, stopped, looked at me and bobbed his head some more.
'Hell-ooo!' yelled Landen from his study. 'Do you like surprises?'
'When they're nice ones!' I yelled back.
Pickwick returned to my side, plock-plocked some more and tugged the leg of my jeans. He scuttled off into the kitchen again and waited for me at his basket. Intrigued, I followed. I could see the reason for his excitement. In the middle of the basket, amongst a large heap of shredded paper, was an egg.
'Pickwick!' I cried excitedly. 'You're a girl!'
Pickwick bobbed some more and nuzzled me affectionately. After a while she stopped and delicately stepped into her basket, ruffled her feathers, tapped the egg with her beak and then walked round it several times before gently placing herself over it. A hand rested on my shoulder. I touched Landen's fingers and stood up. He kissed me on the neck and I wrapped my arms round his chest.
'I thought Pickwick was a boy,' he said.
'So did I.'
'Is it a sign?'
