“Then don’t?” suggested Barbara Clench, with the hostile playfulness that had become our relationship.
“But I’ve got good news and bad news,” I finished.
“What kind of news?” asked Rhys Jones Bowen, who’d just appeared that second. “Sorry I’m late, got my dongle trapped in the hoover.”
Alex looked pained. “I say, how did you manage that?”
“Oh, you know, I was just cleaning up around the back of the old workstation and wouldn’t you know it, my dongle popped out, and before I could put it back in, it had shot up the hoover like a mouse up a skirting board.”
“You mean your Wi-Fi dongle?” I clarified, “which is why you couldn’t connect until now?”
Rhys Jones Bowen looked confused. “Well, what else would I mean?”
“Honestly,” replied Alex, “I thought you were talking about your old chap.”
“No.” Few people could give a drawn-outnolike Rhys Jones Bowen. “My old chap wouldn’t fit.”
“Doesn’t do to brag, Rhys,” Alex chided him.
And once again, Rhys Jones Bowen looked confused. “I’m not bragging. Just saying my old chap wouldn’t fit up a hoover. He’s not an especially large man, although he’s put on a bit of weight since he retired, but the nozzle isn’t that wide.”
“You might be thinking ofold man,” I told him.
To which Dr. Fairclough said, “Twelve minutes.”
“Right, right.” I tried to force myself back to professionalism. “So the bad news is that Saint’s band didn’t want anything to do with him, which means he isn’t going to keep funding us and we’ll probably lose our jobs.”
“That does seem likequitebad news,” Alex observed.
“So the good news,” added Barbara Clench, “better be pretty spectacular.”
“I know,” I said, a little meekly. “And if it’s any consolation, I really did try to keep Saint on board. I took my foster kid on an impromptu tour of the country to keep Saint on board. Hell, I nearly got fuckingarrestedto keep Saint on board.”
“Language, Luc,” said Barbara Clench.
Alex, on the other hand, seemed less bothered by the swearing and more inclined to gee me up. “Still,” he said, “chap does his best, that’s to a chap’s credit, eh what?”
“You tried,” Rhys Jones Bowen agreed, “and that’s the most important thing.”
“The most important thing,” said Dr. Fairclough, “is this country’s declining population of dung beetles. But I do agree it was irrational to expect Luc to reverse that trend single-handed.”
“Anyway,” continued Alex, with the air of a sunflower about to get shafted by a snap frost, “things could be worse. Luc has good news for us, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, suddenly aware that the good news sounded way less good in the context ofYou’re probably all still redundantthan I’d hoped. “The good news is that my mum has agreed to use CRAPPstonbury to launch her comeback tour, so we should actually have a good final year. Plus, it’s notcompletelyimpossible that we’ll do well enough that we won’t need Saint’s money at all.”
“Not completely impossible?” asked Rhys Jones Bowen.
“Notlikely,” I admitted. “But in a lot of ways, it’s the best shot we’ve had since the earl died.”
“Wait a minute,” replied Alex, completely and utterly predictably, “when did the earl die?”
“Last year?” I reminded him. “You were at his funeral?”
Alex frowned. “I’m sure I’d have remembered something like that. Old Hilary’s a friend of the family, you know. Although I hear his son’s afearfuloik.”
“Well,” I said, “then the good news is you’ll never have to deal with his fearful oik of a son again.”
Something attached to Dr. Fairclough’s computer, or possibly just to Dr. Fairclough, beeped. “Zero minutes,” she said. “I’m deeply sorry that we were unable to preserve the Coleoptera Research and Protection Project for future generations, but I take some comfort that when the inevitable mass extinction event eradicates humanity, the Blattodea at least are likely to outlast us.”
