SAOS: Chapter Sixteen: Spud's Feeling for Fruit.

      They got back to the station in plenty of time for their train.

      "Did you see that man I bumped into on the Underground?" Chas asked Nics.

      "No, why?"

      "Well, it was the oddest thing," he said. "But after I bumped into him it looked like he just kept on walking. And he walked straight into a wall, and kept on walking for a few steps, only he didn't get anywhere, because he was flat against the wall. He looked like one of those wind up toys that's got stuck."

      "He wasn't though - was he?" Nics asked.

      "Nope, 'cause he turned away from the wall after the steps or two he took into it weren't getting him anywhere. And he was back on track again. The damndest thing was, I bumped into him and apologised, but it was like he hadn't even noticed. Most people would at least give you a dirty look, but nothing from him."

      They had reached the big notice-board that gave the details of the train times, destinations and platforms.

      "That's odd," said Nics. "All the ds are gone from the words."

      And sure enough, Hereford was spelled Herefor, London, Lonon and so on.

      "Computer glitch," said Chas airily. "Might be a new type of virus."

      "That only attacks railway electronic notice boards," said Nics, in a disbelieving tone of voice.

      Chas shrugged.

      "Hey, it could happen."

      "Platform 2B again," said Nics. "Better go try to find it sooner rather than later."

      It took them a while of wandering, and trying to remember where they'd come from before they found themselves in front of the wall on which the sign for platform 2B hung. Chas, ever the opportunist, had swiped an abandoned paper on the way.

      "I know what to do," said Chas. "I've read Harry Potter."

      And taking a few steps back he ran headlong at the wall.

      Only to bounce off the very solid brickwork to land flat on his backside.

      "Ouch," he said.

      "You alright?"

      He nodded, rubbing his forehead where it had bashed the wall.

      "Silly sod," said Nics, half worried, half affectionate.

      A line of ducks came waddling past them, the one in the front wearing a train engineer's cap. Calmly they walked up to the wall, did a smart left turn, then a smart right turn and disappeared around a corner that neither of the humans had spotted before.

      Nics could have sworn that the last one in line looked her directly in the eye and winked at her.

      "They look like they know where they're going," she said to Chas, who was in the process of dusting himself off.

      And so they followed the ducks' example, walking up to the wall, turning smart left, then smart right. Lo and behold, there they were on platform 2B.

      Their train home was pulled by another steam engine, but this one was painted a jolly post box red. The engine that had brought them to London had been a nice shade of bottle green.

      "I wonder what the buffet car entertainment will be on this one..." mused Chas.

      A man in a very old-fashioned conductor's uniform with peaked cap was checking everyone's ticket before he let them onto the train. He was doing this very slowly and meticulously, so quite a queue had built up.

      The duck with the engineer's cap was sitting in the engine window, watching the crowd.

      "Hey," said Chas. "That's Spud! Hey! Spud!"

      Spud turned around and saw them, and his hand went straight to his upper lip, where a very fake moustache was clinging on by one end. His mouth widened in a gasp of pain as he quickly removed the not very convincing disguise, which he tried to cover by grinning widely and waving.

      He'd forgotten that the fake moustache was in the hand he was waving.

      "Meet you on the train!" yelled Chas as he and Nics joined the end of the queue.

      They found Spud in a carriage that had compartments, rather than the more usual airplane style rows of seats. The compartment had big old fashioned comfortable leather benches, with buttons on them like overstuffed armchairs.  He was the only one in there, besides a model of the Big Ben clock tower that looked like it was made out of Easter egg foil.

      Nics and Chas joined him.

      "So," said Spud looking at the cast on Chas' arm. "Guess it was broken after all."

      "Yeah, but the frozen peas helped," said Chas. "I'm stuck in plaster for a few weeks. And the itch is driving me mental. Still though, get time off work for it.

      "Didn't know you were in London," he continued.

      "Visiting my grandmother..." mumbled Spud.

      "What on earth have you got there?" asked Nics, waving one hand towards the clock tower.

      "Scale model of Big Ben made out of chocolate," mumbled Spud, even more indistinctly.

      "Why?" she asked, totally uncomprehending.

      "Long story..." he said, trailing off in the desperate hope she wouldn't ask.

      Chas, sensing Spud's discomfort, distracted Nics by pointing to a news story in the paper.

      "See?" he said. "New virus strikes huge numbers of computer systems all over the world. That's what caused the missing ‘d’s."

      "Give me that," she said, grabbing the paper and reading a bit further into the article.

      "It says here that it doesn't do anything like that - it emails images of scanned in squashed bananas to people, who then get infected and forward it on to everybody else. What sort of sick and twisted person would start off such a thing?"

      "I didn't mean to!" said Spud quickly. "I just hit the reply all button by accident... oops."

      He subsided into and embarrassed silence as Nics stared at him again. Abruptly, she sneezed.

      The silence was broken by a loud whistle and the train jerked as it started to move away from the platform. It took a good while to get up to speed, and then it would slow down again with a jerk, only to speed up again with another jerk.

      Nics gave up trying to read the paper after one of the jerks threw her across the compartment and landed her with one elbow in Spud's chocolate Big Ben.

      "Oh, I am sorry!" she said, eyeing the rather large smashed in hole in the side of the model.

      "It's alright," said Spud magnanimously. "I was just going to offer people some chocolate anyway."

      "They must be having engine trouble," said Chas, as all three were thrown about with yet another jerk. "Tell you what, I'm going to go try and find out what's going on."

      "Good luck," Nics wished him wryly. "Try not to break the other arm."

      "Very funny," Chas said as he careered around the compartment and bounced out the door.

      He was back in about five minutes.

      "There's a staging of Hamlet happening in the buffet car," he said. "And the train is acting so oddly because of, and I quote 'the wrong sort of trees on the line'"

      With his good hand he wiggled his fingers to indicate the quote marks, and then slumped into the seat next to Nics. He ran the back of his good hand along the bottom of his nose, and sniffed loudly.

      "Oh, for God's sake, use a hanky!" snapped Nics. It was one of his bad habits that really wound her up. She dug through her bag looking for one, taking the brown paper parcel out and putting it on the seat next to her.

      Another violent jerk sent the parcel flying off the edge of the seat, with one of the loops in the bow that was tied around it catching on one of the seat buttons. Neat as you'd like the string came undone, spilling the contents out onto the carpeted floor of the compartment.

      Nics made an abortive grab for the parcel, ending up with a handful of paper and the mother-of-pearl oval. Chas swore, and dived for the other pieces before they could do anything stupid like get lost underneath the seats, or down a crack in the floor. The empty locket half came to a stop in the middle of the floor, the new amulet that the silversmith had given Nics alongside it. The half of the locket with the photo in it ended up trapped firmly between the wall and Spud's foot.

      Spud leaned over to pick it up casually. He was about to hand it to Chas without a second thought, but he happened to glance down that the picture.

      All the blood drained out of his face and he looked like he'd been pole axed.

      "Where did you get this?" he asked, his voice shaking.

      "I found it, on the beach," replied Chas, the other half and the amulet clasped firmly in his hand.

      "On the beach?" asked Spud. "You're sure?"

      "Of course I am," said Chas. "Look, can I have it back now?"

      Spud handed it over, his hands visibly shaking.

      "Spud?" said Nics gently. "Spud?"

      He looked over at her and she continued.

      "Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."

      "No, not a ghost," he croaked, mouth dry. "I'm just trying to figure out how a picture of my grandmother ended up washing onto the beach, that's all."

      The train jerked again, and came to a complete stop.

      "Your grandmother?!" said Nics incredulously. "How on Earth?!"

      "Dunno," Spud said. He was looking a bit less grey now, but no less shook up.

      "Well, could we ring her up and ask her about it?" asked Nics, ever practical.

      "Um, no," he said, looking embarrassed again. "Thing is, when I said I was visiting my grandmother... I lied. My grandmother disappeared thirty five years ago, after a freak accident involving a rain of fish."

      "So, what were you doing in London then?" said Chas, handing the locket pieces plus the amulet to Nics. She wrapped them up carefully in the brown paper, all but the amulet, and put the parcel back in her bag. The amulet she put on the silver chain that she wore around her neck, and tucked it safely inside her shirt.

      "Um, I can't tell you," said Spud. "Sorry."

      "Oh-Kay," sighed Chas.

      There was an uncomfortable silence again.

      "Can you at least tell us her name?" asked Nics.

      Spud brightened visibly on being asked a question that he could answer, and might stop his friends from being mad at him.

      "Sure!" he said.

      There was another pause, and Nics prompted him:

      "Her name?"

      "Oh, sorry, April, April Upton-Baxter. Very old family that."

      Chas and Nics looked at each other.

      "The banana!" she said.

      "The sand at the beach!" he said.

      Spud leaned towards them, looking like he was going to let them both in on a big secret.

      "Very posh. My side of the family's a bit of a black sheep... but they did a lot, during the war and stuff."

      Down the other end of the carriage, a door could be heard swinging open.

      "Rumours have it," said Spud, "that Grandmother was working for the government, doing something very important indeed. Something that might even have been of grave importance to national security."

      He sat back smugly, waiting for the looks of awe from his friends. Neither of them looked particularly impressed.

      The door to the compartment swung open, and a pizza deliveryman stuck his head around it.

      "Pizza?" he asked. "Anyone here order pizza?"

      Chas and Nics just stared at Spud.

      "What sort?" he asked the pizza guy.

      "That'd be a medium, extra garlic, mushroom and banana pizza."

      Nics made a face at Chas, who nodded in shared disgust.

      "That'd be mine then," said Spud, and was handed the pizza.

      "Five fifty please mate," said the pizza deliveryman. Spud dug into his pockets and looked at the money he pulled out. He then turned to look beseechingly at the two opposite him.

      Chas relented. "Oh, alright, here," and handed him a few extra coins. "But don't expect me to eat any of the damn stuff."

      Paid, the pizza guy wandered off down the length of the carriage again. With a lurch, the train started to move, and this time it was the pizza that slid off the seat to land face down on the carpet. The box sprang open, sending a heavy waft of garlic through the air.

      "Probably the best thing for it," muttered Nics to herself. Not quietly enough though, because Chas nodded vigorously in agreement.

      Spud picked the pizza off the floor, and dusted it off before taking a big bite out of one slice, with every sign of enjoyment. Nics shuddered.

      "Excuse me for a minute," she said. "The shaking's making me feel a bit sick." And she fled out of the door off to the toilet.

      Chas looked after her like he wanted to follow, but instead restrained himself and just opened a window. Spud kept doggedly eating pizza.

      "Why are you so obsessed with banana on pizza anyway?" Chas asked him.

      Spud shrugged. "I just like banana. And pizza."

       "You're sick," said Chas.

SAOS: Chapter Fifteen: Mousescapades, or, Broadway in Miniature

      They both looked to see a youngish man walk in, lanky and awkward, all knees and elbows. His face still bore the traces of acne scars and his Adam's apple bounced prominently as he swallowed.

      "A-a-a-a-fternoon," he stuttered at Sven, nodded at Chas and Nicks, and lifting up a section of the counter disappeared into the back room of the shop.

      Nics looked back to Sven to find the locket pieces missing. Instead a tray of silver pendants lay on the countertop in front of them.

      "That is Jeremy Grandfather, my companion in the shop," explained Sven. "A very talented young man. I knew his grandfather."

      "What have you done with the...?" asked Chas.

      "Now," he interrupted firmly, his thin fingers picking a piece up from the velvet cushion on which it lay. "I strongly recommend this piece for your young lady."

      It was another piece of mother-of-pearl, backed in silver with a loop to hang from a chain. Nics took it from his hand carefully, turned to look at the engraving on the back.

      "It's an old Egyptian prayer," explained the jeweller. "God be between you and all harm, in all the dark places in which you must walk."

      A lump was in Nics throat. She coughed to loosen it enough to be able to speak.

      "That would be lovely," she said. "I'll take it."

      Chas looked at her totally confused.

      "Would you like it wrapped?" asked Sven.

      "Yes, please," she said.

      Carefully he got off his stool and walked slowly towards the closed door of the back room.

      He had just set hand to the door handle when a mouse jumped up into the countertop and squeaked urgently at him.

      "I don't know," he said to the mouse. "I shall have to ask them."

      The mouse squeaked again.

      "I am quite aware of my promise," said Sven mildly. He turned to the couple. Nics had started when she saw the mouse, but was now outwardly very calm.

      "I don't suppose you'd mind being an audience for a few minutes?" he asked. "Only they have been practising very hard lately, and they really do want to perform in front of someone new."

      "Who?" asked Chas. "The mouse?"

      "Mice actually," said Sven. "Would you mind terribly? It will only take a few minutes, and it will take me that long to wrap up the lady's pendant. These old hands..." He moved them slightly in a self-deprecating gesture.

      "I'm sure it will be lovely," said Nics in a tight voice.

      The mouse on the countertop squeaked in happiness, and bounded away. Sven disappeared for a moment into the back room, coming back with a roll of brown paper and some string. At the same time a group of half a dozen mice gathered together on the countertop, where the line where the counter hinged provided a convenient edge of stage.

      Out of nowhere the mice produced little sparkly top hats and matching tiny canes. They formed a chorus line and started to sing in very high pitched voices a surreally squeaky version of "New York, New York" while at the same time doing a very spirited and well choreographed high kicking dance number. Chas and Nics watched dumbfounded.

      It did only take a minute or two, the mice finishing off with a spectacular mouse pyramid. The human audience burst into genuine applause, and the mice lined up for a quick bow and even quicker encore. After that they were off the countertop and away again, top hats and canes vanishing back to where they'd come from.

      "That was amazing," said Nics. Chas nodded vigorously in agreement.

      "I'm glad you liked it," said Sven, a note of fondness in his voice. "They do practise so very hard, and it's nice for them to have a new audience."

      He pushed the completed parcel over to Nics.

      "Thank you very much for your custom," he said. His next few words were given a curious emphasis. "Please call again."

      "Thank you," said Nics, taking the parcel. Shushing Chas' protest and mutters about "but...locket..." she hustled him out the door, talking loudly.

      "I don't know about you," she said, "but I could murder a cup of herbal tea. Let's find a coffee shop somewhere for a cuppa."

      The bell jangled discordantly as they left. Inside the shop, Sven wiped a damp forehead with his handkerchief and settled back into his corner with a faint relieved smile.

      They ended up in a back street cafe, furnished with plastic chairs and tea served in mismatched and chipped mugs. They'd picked the cafe because, unlike the other coffee shops in the vicinity, it didn’t have a queue of over-caffeinated people yammering into their mobile phones spilling out the door. Nics thought the rabbit dressed in full climbing gear and with a miner's helmet on its head rappelling down the outside of the building was a bit unusual, but she needed some tea.

      "Why did you bundle me out so quickly?" asked Chas, frowning. "We haven't got the locket back. And why the hell did he get so spooked about the..."

      Nics shot him a warning look, flicking her head to the Hell's Angels that sat at another table.

      "...the other thing," Chas finished.

      "I don't know," she said, "but it was important."

      She took a swallow of her herbal tea.

      "And we do have the locket," she said.

      "How do you know?"

      She just smiled enigmatically and patted the side of her bag. Inside lay the brown paper parcel wrapped up with string that contained the silver and mother-of-pearl amulet.

      Chas sighed. It really wound him up when she decided to be all mysterious.

      Nics opened the banana that she had decided would make a good mid-afternoon snack, and bit into it. After her first mouthful she looked down, to see writing in black through the banana, similar to the writing that one might find going the length of a stick of rock from a popular seaside resort.

      "Take a look at that," she said, showing it to Chas.

      "April..." he read. "Must be an advertising stunt of some description."

      "Or a name," said Nics, putting the banana down gingerly. "Somehow I don't feel hungry anymore. Shall we go? If we move relatively quickly we might be able to get an earlier train."

      She gathered up her stuff, and looked puzzled for a moment, then sneezed. The waiter who'd been heading towards the Hell's Angels with a tray and several cups of coffee slipped on a bit of spilled sugar, but managed to recover before he spilled anything.

      The Hell's Angels gave him a round of applause.

      "Thank you, thank you," the waiter said, bowing. "I'd like to gratefully acknowledge the help of a lot of people, but especially Fi, without whom I wouldn't be doing this. And I'd like to thank God, without whom nothing would be possible, and my mum... hi Mum!"

      Nics rolled her eyes as the waiter carried on with his Oscar acceptance speech. She and Chas got the hell out of there before the waiter started crying.

      They walked part of the way back to the train station via Trafalgar square. The pigeons there, instead of pestering every single person they could for food, were performing intricate aerial manoeuvres. They were kind of like the red arrows, but in miniature and more pigeon-shaped, though Chas. A pair of men stood at each end of the square, blowing silent dog-whistles and waving table tennis paddles around.

      The pigeons had attracted quite a crowd. Chas and Nics watched them for a bit, and then walked on.

      "Hey, look," said Chas. "There's another man carrying a flamingo."

SAOS: Chapter Fourteen: The Good Silversmith Sven.

       Nics was waiting for him across the road from the building where she'd had her meeting. She was staring very intensely at a flock of pink plastic flamingos a hundred metres or so down the river from her. A single swan with one cygnet was swimming around in between them.

      "I thought I saw one of them move," she said, by way of an explanation. She sneezed suddenly, and across the river a hapless passer-by tripped and fell into the river.

      "How was the meeting?" asked Chas.

      "As always. Though at coffee there was discussion about this new show that's getting rave reviews. Theatre of the Absurd, it's called. It's supposed to be on tour soon."

      "Oh?" said Chas politely. Theatre did absolutely nothing for him; unless there were lots of car chases and explosions, he just wasn't interested.

      "Let's find some lunch," he said, in the hopes of diverting her before she suggested they go check the show out.

      They took the Tube to Camden town, Nics idly reading all the posters lined up along the escalator walls. One in particular caught her eye, an ad for a new musical on the West End, called "The Second Marriage, or, The Triumph of Hope (Over Experience)". From the pictures it looked like a Victorian melodrama.

      Chas's attention was caught, not by the ads, but by a small brown mouse that looked at him from the sidewall at the top of the escalator and wiggled its whiskers and twitched its nose at him. It opened its little mouth and quacked at him, just as the escalator took him out of sight of it.

      "That mouse just quacked," he said in surprise.

      "Must've been a ninja duck in disguise," said Nics absently, engrossed in looking at the posters for the latest films. There was a very large ad up among the usual movie posters. "London, City of Birds," it said. That was all.

      On the Tube she stared with a palpable hatred at a man wearing a bright red shiny satin zoot suit. He was carrying a trombone, and was totally oblivious to her stare.

      Chas poked her.

      "You're being rude..." he hissed.

      "He was in my dream," she said, scowling. But she stopped staring.

      Camden Town was busy, though not quite so busy as it had been the last time they were there, by virtue of it being a weekday rather than a Saturday. Still though, there were plenty of people walking around, most of whom would be classed as extremely funny looking, were they anywhere but in Camden Town.

      There were the punks with their studded leather and multicoloured Mohawks slouched idly against the railings on the bridge. There were people wandering around in platform trainers, wearing silver cat suits and with LEDs woven into their dreadlocks. There were people wandering around in full-length frock coats, men and women both androgynous and interchangeable.

      There were also lots of tourists. You could tell them, because they were the ones who were gawping openly at everything, the shops, the people, themselves. Japanese tourists viewed the market through the lenses of their cameras and camcorders, while Americans wandered the narrow aisles between stalls and clothes racks, dragging large suitcases on protesting wheels behind them, blocking anyone unfortunate to try and go anywhere behind them.

      Chas and Nics found a quiet bench and ate their lunch. Nics had sweet and sour chicken from a Chinese booth. Chas wolfed down the largest kebab he could find, and then finished Nics fried rice for her. A few opportunistic pigeons waited near them, beady eyes fixed on every morsel of food that could conceivably fall to the ground.

      In between mouthfuls he filled her in on his lack of success on the library research side of things.

      "It's alright," she said, wiping the sweet and sour sauce off the corners of her mouth. "Maybe this silversmith person can tell us something."

      It took them a while to find Pennybroke Lane, hidden as it was under the bridge and down another side street. The lane itself was tiny, overhung completely by the upper floors of the houses on either side. It was paved with tiny cobbles that were very uncomfortable to walk on in anything other than really thick boots.

      The door to the shop was old-fashioned and Victorian, the dark wood polished to a high sheen, and words in peeling gold leaf painted on the glass. It read:

            "Sven Jorgensson, Jeweller and Master Silversmith

                              And

            Jeremy Grandfather, Clockmaker"

      The bell attached to the door rang when Chas pushed it open.

      The shop was dark and gloomy, all heavy wood panelling, with a highly polished counter running the width of it. Every inch of wall space was taken up by clocks of all sizes, shapes and descriptions, from cuckoo clocks, to tiny watches, to huge grandfather clocks.

      The counter top was made from the same dark wood as the panelling, but had brightly lit display cases inside it, in which could be seen a beautiful array of gold, silver and gems.

      "Can I help you?" asked a wizened and dry voice that came from the wizened and dry old man who sat unnoticed in the corner behind the counter.

      "Hello, yes," said Nics, stepping forward. "We're looking for a Mr. Sven Jorgensson."

      "Yes?" said the old man.

      Nics and Chas looked at each other questioningly. Chas shrugged and Nics swallowed uncomfortably.

      "We need his opinion on a very old piece of silver that's come into our possession."     

      Silence from the old man. Nics tried once more.

      "A Mr Bradford recommended him to us. Is he here?"

      Silence for a moment or two more, and then the old man spoke.

      "I am Sven Jorgensson. Please, have a seat."

      With one wrinkled hand he indicated two high stools that stood against the wall at the far end of the countertop. Chas picked them both up, and brought them over to the silversmith, the pair sat down on them, Nics trying not to wriggle uncomfortably.

      "You have a piece of silver for me to view?" asked Sven.

      Nics flushed, she'd nearly forgotten, and tried to dig the locket out of her bag. It wasn't there. She started digging through the contents of her bag, looking very worried, until Chas placed the locket on the countertop and pushed it over to the silversmith.

      Nics sighed in relief. "Thought I'd lost it for a minute there."

      From behind them, a clock started chiming the hour.

      Sven took a jeweller's loupe from a pocket, and screwed it carefully into one eye socket. Picking up the locket with a very delicate touch, he lifted it to his eye.

      "Very badly damaged on the outside," he said.

      The clock that had been chiming sounded a bell three times.

      "I found it," said Chas. "At the seaside. It looked like it had been washed up by a storm."

      Carefully Sven set the locket down on the counter and opened it. He tsked when he saw the broken hinges, and carefully set all three pieces out in a line.

      The grandfather clock in the corner was next. Three sonorous bongs resounded through the shop.

      Nics sneezed, and the shop bell jangled glaringly.

      "Excuse me," she said, rooting through her bag for a tissue.

      "There's hallmarks on the inside of the piece without the photo," she continued, trying to be helpful. The old silversmith shot her a glance from one pale blue eye, and she quickly shut up.

      The hand that had been hovering over the half of the locket with the photo in it moved over to pick up the other half. Sven looked at it intently for a moment, then reached under the counter for a bottle and a cloth. A small bit of polishing by the cloth cleared away some of the tarnish, and he peered again at the locket half.

      "Sterling silver," he said, almost to himself, but with a quick glance at the couple to make sure they were still listening. "Made in 1935. Maker's mark is a duck, which I don't remember off the top of my head. Fairly average workmanship."

      A cuckoo clock chirped the hour of three o'clock.

      He put down the empty half of the locket, picked up the half with the photo in, and peered at it intently.

      "Engraving on the inside of the locket says 'Gloria Mundi'," he continued. "Outside very badly salt corroded, hinges snapped."

      He set the half of the locket down on the counter gently as a carriage clock on the shelf behind him rang a three note minor chord three times.

      "What it's worth, well, the silver alone is worth a few tens of pounds. Unfortunately, its condition is such that most collectors of such things wouldn't look twice at it. Unless you managed to find out who the woman in the photo is, and discover if her relatives or descendents would be interested in purchasing it."

     

      "We've been trying," said Chas. "No luck."

      Behind him an alarm clock rang, three short, sharp bursts.

      The jeweller lifted the piece of mother-of-pearl to his loupe and peered at it for the amount of time it took for the chimes to ring and hours to sound on five more clocks (Chas counted).

      When he put it down, it was with the utmost care. As soon as the mother-of-pearl was out of his hands they started shaking violently. He clasped one in the other, trying to hold them both steady.

      As if he'd just come to a decision, Sven reached out with one hand and tapped on the table - tap ti-tap tap tap.

      Nics hand were resting on the countertop as well. Her left hand tapped, as if in answer, tap tap ti-tap.

      A final clock sounded three, in tones that sounded like a duck quacking.

      "Have you told anyone about the locket," the silversmith asked, leaning forward with an expression of worried intensity on his face.

      Chas and Nics exchanged glances, confused at the sudden change in his demeanour from bored to terrified.

      "No," said Nics.

      "Yes," said Chas. "The old soldier on the train, and the librarian at the British Library."

      "And the woman in the chip shop saw it," chimed in Nics.

      "What did they see?" pressed the silversmith. "Did they see the mother-of-pearl?"

      "No," said Chas. "They all only saw the outside of the locket, or the picture of the woman. Not the mother-of-pearl."

      The silversmith leaned back with a sigh of relief.

      "Maybe, then..." he breathed to himself.

      "What's so important about it?" asked Nics.

      "You are modern people, yes?" asked the silversmith. "You believe in science and technology and such?"

      The two nodded.

      "Yes," said Chas. "But what has that got to do with it?"

      "Then," said Sven, "you would not believe me if I told you what this was, so I shall not tell you, or risk your disbelief. But let me impress on you, most strongly, that this is vitally important, and you must keep it hidden."

      Nics opened her mouth to ask the burning question that was on both their minds, "but why?" But, before she could do so, both herself and Chas jumped out of their skins as the door to the shop rang open.

SAOS: Chapter Thirteen: In the Library, or, Wagner Would've Wanted It That Way.

      To get to Whitehall, Chas walked past the Houses of Parliament. There was a protest happening outside, just a small one. The protesters were marching round and round in circles chatting quietly to themselves, carrying placards over their shoulders that were all completely blank.

      The receptionist at Whitehall had taken one look at Chas' t-shirt and jeans and had sniffily packed him off to the National Library. Chas just grinned at her, and that seemed to upset her very narrow sense of order even more.

      As he walked to the National Library, he was passed by another man in grey overalls carrying a flamingo shape, wrapped in brown paper and packing tape. A seagull, perched on a convenient railing, watched the removals man go past with one hard and beady eye.

      A librarian who looked like an owl showed Chas the section on military history. Spanning several centuries, and covering many yards of bookshelf space, it took him a while to find the section on World War Two, and even longer to locate a book which had the relevant drawings of insignias.

      Eventually, he gave up in disgust, and went back to find the librarian, in the hopes that he could help.

      Chas walked down many aisles between the bookcases, looking for the librarian's desk. He didn't find it immediately, but his eye was caught by the sight of a very large blonde woman wearing a horned Viking helmet standing in one of the alcoves. She had her mouth wide open, looking like an opera singer in the middle of her final aria, but not a single sound came from her mouth. Chas could see the flesh of her throat wobbling.

      A small distance away from her was an audience, arranged on chairs in a semi-circle around the soprano. It consisted of people carrying miniature sound recorders and notepads. One woman wore a trilby with a card saying "Press" shoved into the hatband.

      On the other side of the soprano was a greying man in a dirty lab coat with a pair of full ear headphones clamped over his ears. He was staring very intensely at a particularly Victorian looking piece of machinery that stood the size of a small writing desk in front of him, all knobs, dials and levers.

      The aria finished, and Chas could see the audience applauding, standing up and shouting bravo, and throwing carnations like darts at the soprano. She bowed, a smug grin on her face, milking the audience reaction for all it was worth. But at the same time, Chas heard nothing at all.

      He shook his head, wondering if perhaps his ears had got blocked, or he'd suddenly gone deaf, and walked away from the scene. But he could definitely hear his footsteps on the tile of the floor.

      He suddenly spotted the librarian, disappearing behind one of the many stacks of books ahead. Forgetting the silent opera, he rushed after him.

      It took them a good three hours to conclude that there was no record of any of the insignia or identifying marks on the locket woman's uniform. The librarian, who had started the search with good grace, grew more and more sour over the course of the few hours.

      Eventually, he shut the book he was looking in with what might have been roughness, for someone so used to venerating the tomes in his charge.

      "I'm sorry sir," he said. "But I'm afraid I can't help you with your search any more. Perhaps sir would like to try talking to some of the military history experts that reside in our universities."

      And he stood up, frowning.

      "I don't understand," said Chas. "How come there isn't any record of that insignia. Surely it can't be that hard to find references..."

      "Perhaps," said the librarian over his shoulder as he strode away in a huff. "Perhaps the lady in question was a spy."

      And he vanished round the corner, deep into the recesses of another stack of books.

      Chas looked at his watch. Time to go and meet Nics. He sighed, he really had been hoping to find something to tell her that would shed a bit of light on their little mystery.

      On his way out the door, the woman with the trilby and press ticket called to him.

      "Excuse me, this may seem a strange question to ask," she said with a disarming grin. "But you didn't happen to hear any strange noises in the library at all while you were in there?"

      Chas shook his head.

      "Like, say, an operatic soprano singing excerpts from Wagner's 'The Ring Cycle'?" she pressed.

      "No," said Chas. "I saw it alright, but I didn't hear a note. Thought I'd gone deaf for a minute."

      "Thank you very much," she said, standing back and making a note in her notebook.

       Chas hurried out the door. Any more distractions and he was going to be late. He just managed to squeeze out the door before the man in the lab coat and his arcane apparatus blocked it completely, necessitating lots of loud discussion and the use of a fire axe.