40. The Man With a Plan
forty
The Man With a Plan
Liam
So, here I am, walking into the Metropolitan Police station with absolutely no game plan.
The sky’s darkened to a blue-grey verging on navy, and the wind’s blowing in pre-storm gusts that fling scraps of broken autumn leaves up into my eyes.
It’s cold outside, but preferable to the sterile grey carpet, flickering fluorescent lights, and droning low phone-speak in the background.
I did try to think of something to say on the way over.
But what? And what if he’s not even here?
Do I demand they show me their files? As if that would happen.
They’ll send me on a wild goose chase, filling out forms, requesting information, only to tell me their documents are sealed for fifty years or something.
It’s not as though I can afford a lawyer to take them to court over this.
The man on the desk ignores us for a while. Doesn’t look up. Taps away at his keyboard.
It’s the kind of thing that makes me want to ask if he’s noticed me, but of course he has. He’s just being a dick, and I’m just standing here, and he has no idea who I am, or why I’m here, or how traumatised I might be, and it strikes me as so incredibly disrespectful.
Archer’s little finger catches mine, briefly, then he walks straight up to the guy. “Detective Peter Marsden called us in to see him. I don’t think he wants to be kept waiting.”
My breath stutters at the easy audacity of the lie, but Archer doesn’t even blink when the guy fixes a thick stare on him.
It’s a few seconds the man’s brain spends working over the instruction.
I guess the thought of annoying his superior wins out over inconveniencing us, because eventually, “Who should I tell him is here?”
“Liam Locke,” Archer answers.
My anxiety doubles—the thought of being presumptuous or an upstart—that I don’t deserve this time or attention on this case. Probably the result of years of being shown exactly that.
The man types a little, then taps some buttons on his phone, then we wait. “Liam Locke to see you. Says you have an appointment.”
We wait in the busy hum of the police station until finally, “Right.” He hangs up. “He says you don’t have…”
Archer’s already pulling me away to the other side of the room before I can mumble up some excuse. He leans in close and says, “We know he’s here. That’s the first step.”
“First step?” I whisper back. “So what’s the second? Wait here until he comes out?”
Archer gives a half-scoff-chortle sort of laugh and says, “Hold my beer.”
His eyes close, right there in the middle of the room, and he just stands there.
“Archer?”
His lips are moving, but no sound is coming out. His hands shake just a little. It’s like he’s slipped into some sort of trance with no—or very little—warning.
The guy at the desk is back to his busy-work, or playing solitaire, or whatever he was doing, and is paying no attention to us. Which is good because Archer then opens his eyes, stares at absolutely nothing, and says, “See that guy at the desk behind me?”
“Yes,” I reply, confounded. “Yes, I’m aware of his existence.”
Still staring into space, he replies, “Is there any chance you could hop in there and give me some help?”
I glance back at the guy. “What? Like into his office?”
Archer’s head turns, and I get a slight shock when his warm eyes focus on me. “Just a second, honey.”
“What?”
“What?” he says, face snapping forward again. “No, I know he’s not very handsome. That isn’t really the point.”
I wait another moment in pure befuddlement, then, “Oh, thank you! It’ll just take a second.”
He swivels around, settles eyes on the man behind the desk, and watches with a grin on his face.
I cast my gaze back and forth between the two of them. Then something odd happens.
The lights flicker overhead.
The officer reels back from his screen, throws his gaze to the overhead lights, and he stops just like that. Staring upwards. Like he’s frozen.
He convulses, twice and dramatically, then his head drops back to its normal position, his hands stretching out in front as though he’s examining them.
“Wow,” he utters. He jumps to his feet and passes those hands over his body as if he were…
smoothing a dress? “Wow!” he repeats. “Look at me.” Then, beaming over at us, “Look at me, Archer! I’m a man! ”
“And a vast improvement to him,” Archer replies, running over to the desk. “Okay, I won’t keep you long. All I need you to do is take that fob and push it against that little black box, then come out here and let us in there with you.”
“All right.” The man looks around excitedly. “What’s a fob?”
“What’s going on?” I whisper.
“Don’t you recognise me, darling?” The man smiles at me in a way that I do, weirdly, kind of recognise. Some shift of the head, some movement of the lips.
But I plead, “Archer?”
Before he can answer, the officer gives a little bounce and says, “It’s me! Helena! And I’m in a man!”
Archer chuckles while my understanding of reality, for about the sixth time this week, breaks all apart and reforms itself.
“Y-you’ve…” I stutter. “You’ve possessed him?”
“Just for a second,” Archer answers swiftly. “We need to be in there, and this guy can take the blame for it if we get in trouble.” He raises his chin towards Helena’s belt. “That little round thing there. That’s a fob. When you press it to that black box, it will beep, and the door will unlock.”
She looks around like life is one giant puzzle, which I can relate to pretty hard right now. “Well, isn’t that clever?”
I can’t speak, so I just nod.
She steps away towards the door, then falls flat on the carpet. “Oh dear. Might take me a second to get the hang of his. Hold on.”
It does indeed take her a second. Several. Verging on a minute that I spend riddled with worry we’re somehow going to get found out for this, even as the logical part of me screams that this is brilliant.
How could we possibly get caught? I know there are CCTV cameras on us this whole time, but besides Archer slightly talking to himself for a moment, none of it looks remotely unusual.
Other than the man flailing on the floor…
But eventually he gets to his feet, or she does, and the body does a few paces of the room.
Very proper shoulders up and back, an exaggerated swaying of the hips, but for all intents and purposes, it’s a relatively successful walk across the room.
She pulls the fob on its string, taps it against the black box, blinks when it beeps, and, “It worked!”
She yanks the handle back, and indeed it did. A second later, we hear another beep, and another door opens, and that’s it. We’re in. Greatest heist ever. So far.
I can see why Archer’s so good at this antiquing business.
He’s swift, moving for the open door, holding it for her.
“This is so much fun!” she squeals.
“Shh!” Archer hisses, a bit. He’s clearly enjoying her enthusiasm, I can tell.
She tries to calm herself with a fast nod, pressing her hands too daintily for the stubby fingers she currently owns. “What do we do now?”
“If you could just stay with us, we’ll find his office, then you can wait at the desk again. Is that okay?”
“Yes.” For the first time since she took over the body, the expression falls to serious. “I’m not sure how long I can hold him, though.”
“Then let’s move fast.” Archer looks to me when he says it.
My brain finally snaps into gear. He’s done all this for me. Opened a pathway to a ghost and handed me this golden opportunity, right now, tonight, to get to the bottom of the nightmare that’s been haunting me for half a decade. “I know where his office is.”
We head straight over there, me trying to slow my urgency to let Helena keep up while she drives the body on, people looking at us as we pass through the open-plan workspace.
I can’t tell if they know we shouldn’t be here, or if it’s just that Helena keeps bumping desks, accidentally dragging the heavy-looking shoes on occasion.
But we keep on, all the way to the office that I remember from so many visits.
Good thing there’s clearly been no funding to redecorate or reorganise this place.
The door’s hanging open, and he sees us before we get there. The way his expression turns immediately to ‘oh shit’ tells me he recognises me on sight. I quicken my pace to get inside that door before he can even stand up.
“Mr Locke.” He stumbles, holding out his hand. I stare at it. A lifetime of being polite almost makes me take it, but it sets my stomach on edge to even think about.
Archer swipes my hand up so I couldn’t shake even if I wanted to. He knows instinctively. And that means the world to me.
Marsden pulls his hand back, his eyes locking onto our two joined hands. “There seems to be some misunderstanding—”
“No misunderstanding,” Archer cuts in. “Liam needs to discuss his brother’s case, and we were told you’d see us now.”
Marsden’s eyes narrow on Helena’s meat suit. “I’m afraid I don’t have time this evening.”
“It won’t take long,” Archer says. Then, to Helena, “Would you mind closing the door on your way out?”
“Oh! No. Yes. No. I will… I can do that!” She pulls the door far too hard, slamming it, then whirls away back to her desk. I think. I hope she can find it okay.
Archer pulls a chair out for me, and I take a seat quickly, another bold move I wouldn’t have had the wherewithal to pull on my own. But it’s worked. Marsden’s fallen back on the professional politeness such an awkward situation demands, and he takes a seat opposite me.
“I really wasn’t expecting you,” he says. “I don’t have much time. I was just about to—”
“Did you get my message?” I ask, hoping that will do ninety percent of the work getting this started.
His eyes turn hard, politeness slipping to something a little more menacing. “I did. I found it rather confusing, some of your language. Perhaps there was a breakdown in communication—”
“I know he’s dead,” I tell him bluntly. “And I know you know that.”