Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [14]
The receiver started sucking words out of the telephone line, feeding them straight into Kode’s skull. Kode experienced a moment’s disorientation, as he found himself suddenly involved in a hundred different conversations across the planet, random sentences plucked out of the network by the hardware. He was ordering a pizza in Maine, talking dirty to a man in Hanworth Park, listening to the cricket scores in New Delhi. For a moment, it was just like being back at home.
Then the words faded, and were replaced by a heavy throbbing sound, the ringing tone echoing through the fibres at the top of his spine. The receiver had found the right connection, at last. There was a click at one end of the line.
‘Hello?’ said a particularly weak-sounding voice. Kode could hear several dozen other voices, burbling away in the background.
‘Jeremy,’ said the voice of Sarah Bland. ‘It’s me. Sarah.’
‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Sarah. I’m actually quite busy at the moment.’ The man sounded nervous, as if he’d been born apologising. Kode detected what the local signals had told him was an upper-class English accent.
‘Don’t be silly, Jeremy. You’re in the Prince Leslie.’
‘Er. How did you –’
‘Because it’s almost half past five on a Monday afternoon. Please stop moaning, Jeremy. There are a couple of things I need to know.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Firstly… This isn’t the most important thing right now, but I’m curious. You’ve got friends in the Home Office, haven’t you?’
‘Um… no comment.
‘Thought so. Tell me something. A little bird told me that the police are in the process of testing forty-thousand‐volt electric riot shields. Is that true?’
‘Sarah! Even if I knew, I couldn’t possibly –’
‘Jeremy.’
Kode flinched. The woman had said the name as if it were some kind of warning. And if even Kode had flinched, the poor man in the pub must have been wetting himself.
‘Well, I’ve sort of heard –’ Jeremy began.
‘So it’s true.’
‘No! I mean… I’ve heard…’
‘That it’s true.’
Kode could hear Jeremy moping even from here. ‘All right. Yes. It’s true. But there’s nothing… you know. There’s nothing funny going on. They’re just testing them for use against dangerous dogs. That’s all.’
‘Dangerous dogs. That’s what Michael told you, is it?’
‘Um… yes.’
‘And you believed him?’
‘Yes. I think so. I mean, why would he lie?’
The man sounded serious, too. Sarah sighed at her end of the line. ‘I see. Like you believed the Royal Ordnance when they told you they definitely hadn’t supplied arms to any Middle Eastern terrorists.’
‘It was an accident! They said so.’
Sarah clicked her tongue down the phone. ‘All right, here’s my second question.’
‘Sarah –’ the man Jeremy whined.
‘Shush. This one isn’t in breach of the Official Secrets Act. I just haven’t got time to use the library. You’ve worked in the Middle East, haven’t you?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Suppose I gave you a name. A foreign-sounding name. Do you think you could tell me what country the owner’s likely to come from?’
‘Er… I could try I suppose.’
‘Good. The name’s “Badar”. I don’t know whether it’s a first name or a surname. Ring any bells?’
Badar? Kode wondered what the significance of that was. ‘Um, well,’ blustered Jeremy. ‘Um. It sounds Middle Eastern all right. It’s hard to say, you know. For certain.’
‘Could it be Saudi Arabian?’
‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘Yes, it could be. Why?’
‘Just a name a friend told me,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s not important.
‘Oh. So… that’s it, is it? That’s all you want to know?’
‘That’s all. Thank you, Jeremy. I would stop and talk about old times, but I’m really in a bit of a hurry right now.’
‘Ah… that’s all right. Listen, you won’t… you won’t tell anyone we had this conversation, will you? I mean, what with you being a journalist –’
‘Cross my heart,’ said Sarah. ‘Bye-bye.’
She hung up before Jeremy could respond. Straightaway, the receiver started to drag Kode back out of the phone system, pulling him up through the strata of conversation. His mind burst through the speaking clock, then was returned to his body, in the hotel