know who to run to when it all goes pear-shaped. Ethel, be so good as to play back the recording of my conversation with the Prime Minister.”
“Hold everything,” I said. “Ethel, since when have you been recording conversations inside Drood Hall?”
“Welcome back, Eddie! I knew it had to be you, once I heard all the alarms. This place is always so much more fun when you’re around. Run the question by me again. I must have missed something. Why shouldn’t I be recording conversations?”
“You’ve been recording everything?” I said pointedly.
“Well, not everything. Just the important things, that the Matriarch wanted an official record of, for the family files. I have eyes and ears everywhere, after all, and infinite capacity, so . . .”
“We are only talking about things that take place in a public setting,” said the Matriarch.
“I haven’t forgotten all those long, boring lectures of yours, about respecting people’s privacy, Eddie. Even if no one has properly explained the concept to me yet. Or what it’s for.”
“Show me the recording,” I said. “But we will be talking more about this later.”
“Oh joy. Wildly looking forward to it. I’ll bring popcorn.”
A vision appeared, floating on the air before us like a disembodied monitor screen. I didn’t ask Ethel how she was doing it. On the few occasions when I have been unwise enough to ask questions like that, I’ve rarely understood the answer. And when I have, I’ve usually ended up wishing I hadn’t. She is an other-dimensional entity, after all, a Power from Beyond. That’s all I need to know. Though I would quite like to understand exactly why Ethel has chosen to stick around here, in our limited reality, just to be near my family.
One side of the vision showed the Matriarch sitting calmly behind her desk, in her office, while the other showed the Prime Minister sitting at his desk in his office. She seemed entirely relaxed; he didn’t. The Prime Minister was trying hard to look like a man of High Office and a World Leader, but he couldn’t seem to meet the Matriarch’s steady gaze for more than a few moments at a time. I got the feeling he was more distressed about the situation he was in than about having to beg the Droods for help. Something had seriously upset the man. And not just because he must know that if we did agree to help him out, he was going to have to pay a high price for it in the future. The Prime Minister started speaking, and I listened carefully.
“You have to do something!” said the Prime Minister. “Important secret information is being leaked from our most secure listening centre.”
“I take it we’re talking about one of those places where the Government spies on people who’d be very upset if they ever found out they were being listened to,” said the Matriarch.
“Well, quite,” said the Prime Minister. “The majority of the information being leaked from this particular station is of a highly sensitive nature, and it seems clear that only a very important person could be doing it. Because only that sort of person would have access to this level of classified data. We need a Drood agent to go in undercover, find out what’s going on, and put an immediate stop to it.”
The Matriarch smiled, briefly. “I think we can arrange that. Which particular listening centre are we talking about?”
“The very latest, and most important,” the Prime Minister said quickly. “The most up-to-date establishment in the country. We spent a great deal of money on Lark Hill. We can’t afford for it to fail so soon. It’s our most wide-ranging eavesdropping operation, unofficially called the Big Ear. Their purpose is to monitor all forms of communication. They have a new extremely powerful and most secret device that allows them to listen in on absolutely everything without being detected. Phones, e-mails, computers—everything! Nothing is safe from this new device. The Big Ear is officially tasked and licensed to listen to everyone. Public and private, no exceptions. Including, of course, the most secret and secure information from every kind of source.”
“No wonder you came to us,” said the Matriarch. “If the people of this country find out that you’ve been spying on them . . .”
“It’s for their own good,” said the Prime Minister. “For their own protection.”
“They might not see it that way.”
“Which is why they must never know.” The Prime Minister tried a knowing smile, but quickly let it drop when