The Conduit (5)

“Right,” Jeremy said, rising from his seat, “let’s go.”

 

“Go. Go where?”

 

“We need to track this Conduit down.”

 

“But we’ve only just got rid of him.”

 

“What I don’t like,” Jeremy said, barging out of the pub at pace and expecting Suzi to keep up, “is that we only ever meet him on his own terms, in his own private time bubble – he dictates what is said, what we know.”

 

“Well, there’s nothing we can do. He comes and goes as he pleases, we’ll never find him.”

 

But her words went unheard, as Jeremy was already a long way ahead of her. She was wearing interview heels and struggling to walk, let alone stride along at his pace.

 

Eventually Jeremy noticed that she wasn’t with him, and paused, impatiently, for her to catch up.

 

“Where are we going?” she said, when she eventually caught up with him.

 

“We’re going to find the Conduit’s elephant.”

 

“His elephant?”

Jeremy explained that the second time he had seen the Conduit was by a fluke chance, when he had seen him inside a house he passed every day, pushing an elephant into a wardrobe.

 

 

“An elephant doesn’t fit into a wardrobe.”

 

 

“He said it wasn’t really an elephant, it was some sort of conduit between the dimensions. Essentially I think he uses it to travel between worlds.”

 

“So that’s where we’re going? To find this elephant?”

 

“That’s right.”

 

“In that case we’re getting a taxi. It’s over a mile to the station from here, I’ll never make it in these shoes.”

 

Even as Suzi spoke a taxi was passing by, so there was no need for an argument, it would clearly be quicker than walking.

 

During the taxi ride Jeremy told her more about the visits he had received from The Conduit, about the elephant he’d seen disappearing into a wardrobe, and about the woman claiming to be his mother.

 

“She told me that I had to come here because there were people on my home world who wanted to kill me.”

 

“Who wants to kill you? Why?”

 

“Exactly. The Conduit cut her off before she could tell me any of that. So that’s the real reason I followed The Conduit in the pub, it’s the reason I persuaded you not to go to your job interview. I need to know who’s trying to kill me. It doesn’t matter that it’s a different, non-human me they’re trying to kill, that it’s in a different world, a different universe. I still want to know about my enemies.”

 

“And The Conduit?”

 

“Is the conduit to my enemies.”

 

They reached the house in just a few minutes, just avoiding the snake of traffic that led on to the station. Jeremy paid and they stood in front of the house for a while, trying to see through the thick net curtains.

 

“Is this the house?” Suzi ask. “You saw The Conduit here?”

 

“I do tend to remember where I’ve seen elephants pushed into wardrobes. It tends to stick in the memory.”

 

“Do you think he’s here now?”

 

Jeremy shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out.” He rang the bell.

 

There was a tense wait. What happens, Suzi wondered, if The Conduit answers. What would they say to him? Would he want an answer to his question? What was her answer anyway?   

 

But there was no answer. Not even after Jeremy had rang the bell for a second time.

 

“Excellent,” he said. “No-one home.”

 

“So what are we going to do?”

“Break in.”

 

“Break in?”

 

“It’s the only way. If we want to find out what’s in this other world, the only way we can get there is to find The Conduit’s magic elephant and get a lift there.”

 

“You think the elephant is still in the house?”

“In the wardrobe, yes.”

 

“Great. So I turn down the offer of the perfect man, and instead I end up with a would-be burglar who wants to search in wardrobes for mythical elephants.”

 

“I know. Exciting isn’t it.”

 

“How are we supposed to get in?”

 

Jeremy grinned mischievously. “We’re in luck. I’ve got my medical bag with me and one of the tools I use is perfect for picking locks.”

 

“How can you possibly know that?”

 

“I haven’t always been a doctor,” he said.

 

“You haven’t?”

 

“Oh no. Before I became a doctor I was a junior doctor. And you can hardly pull off a decent prank if you can’t pick a lock, forge a signature or hotwire a car.”

 

“Remind me never to ask you about your student days.”

 

The front door was double-locked, with a yale and standard lock, but after fiddling around for just a few seconds with a credit card and a long piece of sharp and nasty-looking metal whose medical use Suzi didn’t want to contemplate, the door opened.

 

“Right, in we pop. The elephant should be through here.”

 

As Jeremy had described, the front room was empty bar for a single wardrobe. He strolled right over, opened the door and searched thoroughly. “There’s no elephant in here,” he announced, disappointed, but he continued to look, walking around and around the wardrobe, banging on the panels as if in search of a secret passage.

 

Finally he stepped into the wardrobe himself. Suzi watched as he disappeared from view.