Doughnut - By Tom Holt Page 0,43
They usually did.
So, instead, he grabbed the nearest sheet, swung it through the air, like a Roman gladiator casting his net, and threw it as precisely as he could over Matasuntha’s head. For a split second it floated, parachute-fashion; then it dropped, like a bursting bubble.
Matasuntha squealed like a pig and lashed out frantically with her arms. Theo was just wishing he hadn’t embarked on this venture when suddenly the sheet collapsed and fell, quite empty, to the floor. Theo grabbed at it but he wasn’t quick enough. Then something hit him on the back of the head, and the world went offline for a while.
When normal service was resumed, he found himself lying on the floor, face downwards, with his nose in a sheet. For a moment or so he simply couldn’t think how he could possibly have got there. Then his aching head filled up with memories and he twisted himself over on to his back and looked up.
Matasuntha was standing over him, holding an ironing board. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” she yelled.
His head was swimming. “You hit me.”
“You chucked a sheet over my head.”
“You vanished.”
Slowly, she lowered the ironing board. “Yes, well. What was I supposed to do? You attacked me.”
“One moment you were there, the next—”
“Yes, all right. Oh, get up off the floor, for pity’s sake. I can’t hold a civilised conversation if you’re going to lie there all day.”
He stood up. About halfway, a great wave of pain surged through his head and crashed against the back of his eyes, making him whimper. “Serves you right,” Matasuntha said. “You scared the life out of me.”
But not, apparently, for very long. “All right, I’m sorry,” he mumbled, leaning hard against the cupboard door. “If I’d known you were going to dematerialise, I wouldn’t have done it.”
At that point, his knees gave way, and he slithered down the door and sat heavily on the floor, jarring his spine. All in all, he decided, he wasn’t cut out to be an action hero. Apparently she thought so too; she clicked her tongue and said, “Just sit still for a minute or so, you’ll be fine. Try and keep your head still, and if you throw up on my nice clean towels I’ll stove your head in. All right?”
He nodded. The great surge of energy brought on by terror, confusion and frustration had all been used up in the failed attack. Now all he wanted to do was sit very still and quiet for the rest of his life, doing exactly what he was told and not getting hit with ironing boards.
“Out of interest,” Matasuntha said, “why did you try and strangle me with a sheet?”
“I wasn’t trying to strangle you,” he said sadly. “I just want some answers, that’s all.”
“Answers?”
“Mphm.”
She sighed. “Here’s a tip for you. If you want answers, there’s these things called questions. You ask them. It’s the recognised procedure.”
“Yes, but—” He couldn’t find the energy to complete the sentence. “I said I’m sorry.”
She was looking at him. “You reckoned,” she said, “that the only way to get a straight answer out of someone around here was threats of physical violence.”
“Something like that.”
“Well.” She sat down next to him on the floor. “I have days like that,” she said. “It’s when people keep giving you bizarre things to do and making completely arbitrary decisions that affect you directly, and when you ask for a reason they pretend they haven’t heard you. I think that’s called management. You get it in a lot of businesses, including,” she added, “the hotel trade.”
He nodded. “But we’re not in the hotel trade, are we?”
She was perfectly still for a moment. Then she said, “No.”
Once, many years ago when he was a kid, he bet his friend he could hold his breath for ninety seconds. He could remember the feeling of relief when he gave up on eighty-three seconds and breathed in. That was nothing compared to this. “Not the hotel trade.”
“No. It’s just a cover.”
He took a deep breath, savoured it and let it go slowly. “What for?”
She was looking straight ahead. “You knew Pieter van Goyen.”
“Oh yes.”
“Fine. Well, Bill and me, we were his business partners.”
“YouSpace?”
“I what?”
“Sorry,” Theo said. “Ignore me. What business were you partners in?”
She frowned. “You know, I’m not entirely sure. It was something scientific and technical, and it was going to make us all very, very rich, but it was a bit against the law.”
“A bit.”
“Yup. Actually, that was