Lost in a good book (26 page)

Miss Havisham looked sharply at me as the muffled crack of a small-caliber firearm sounded and there was the thud of a body falling.

“I thought as much!” she sneered. “A streak of yellow a mile wide all the way down your back! How did you think you were going to handle the
otherness
at Jurisfiction if you can’t handle a few crazed fiction-fanciers hell bent on finding bargains? Your apprenticeship is at an end. Good day, Miss Next!”

“Wait! This is a
test?
”

“What did you think it was? Think someone like me with all the money I have
enjoys
spending my time fighting for books I can read for free in the library?”

I resisted the temptation to say “Well, yes” and answered instead: “Will you be okay here, ma’am?”

“I’ll be fine,” she replied, tripping up a man near us for no reason I could see. “Now go!”

I turned and crawled rapidly across the carpet, climbed over the Police Procedurals to just beyond the registers, where the sales assistants rang in the bargains with a fervor bordering on messianic. I crept past them, through the empty returns department, and dived under the Chicklit table to emerge a scant two yards from the Daphne Farquitt special editions display; by a miracle no one had yet grabbed the boxed set. And it was
very
discounted—down from £300 to only £50. I looked to my left and could see the Red Queen fighting her way through the crowd. She caught my eye and dared me to try and beat her. I took a deep breath and waded into the swirling maelstrom of popular-prose-induced violence. Almost instantly I was punched on the jaw and thumped in the kidneys; I cried out in pain and quickly withdrew. I met a woman next to the J. G. Farrell section who had a nasty cut above her eye; she told me in a concussed manner that the Major Archer character appeared in both
Troubles
and
The Singapore Grip
. I glanced to where the Red Queen was cutting a swath through the crowd, knocking people aside in her bid to beat me. She smiled triumphantly as she head-butted a woman who had tried to poke her in the eye with a silver-plated bookmark. I took a step forward to join the fray, then stopped, considered my condition for a moment and decided that perhaps pregnant women shouldn’t get involved in bookshop brawls.

So instead I took a deep breath and yelled:
“Ms. Farquitt is signing copies of her books in the basement!”

There was a moment’s silence, then a mass exodus towards the stairs and escalators. The Red Queen, caught up in the crowd, was dragged unceremoniously away with them; in a few seconds the room was empty. Daphne Farquitt was notoriously private—I didn’t think there was a fan of hers anywhere who wouldn’t jump at the chance of actually meeting her. I walked calmly up to the boxed set, picked it up and took it to the counter, paid and rejoined Miss Havisham behind the discounted Du Mauriers, where she was idly flicking through a copy of
Rebecca
. I showed her the books.

“Not bad,” she said grudgingly. “Did you get a receipt?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And the Red Queen?”

“Lost somewhere between here and the basement.”

A thin smile crossed Miss Havisham’s lips, and I helped her to her feet. Together we walked slowly past the mass of squabbling book-bargainers and made for the exit.

“How did you manage it?” asked Miss Havisham.

“I told them Daphne Farquitt was signing in the basement.”

“She is?” exclaimed Miss Havisham, turning to head off downstairs.

“No, no, no,” I added, taking her by the arm and steering her to the exit. “That’s just what I
told
them.”

“Oh, I get it!” replied Havisham. “Very good indeed. Resourceful and intelligent. Mrs. Nakajima was quite right—I think you’ll do as an apprentice after all.”

She regarded me for a moment, making up her mind about something. Eventually she nodded, gave another rare smile and handed me a simple gold ring that slipped easily over my little finger.

“Here—this is for you.
Never take it off.
Do you understand?”

“Thank you, Miss Havisham, it’s very pretty.”

“Pretty nothing, Next. Save your gratitude for
real
favors, not baubles, my girl. Come along. I know of a very good bun shop in
Little Dorrit
—and I’m buying!”

Outside, paramedics were dealing with the casualties, many of them still clutching the remnants of the bargains for which they had fought so bravely. My car was gone—towed away, most likely—and we trotted as fast as we could on Miss Havisham’s twisted ankle, round the corner of the building until—

“Not so fast!”

The officers who had chased us earlier were blocking our path.

“Looking for something?
This,
I suppose?”

My car was on the back of a low loader being taken away.

“We’ll take the bus,” I stammered.

“You’ll take the car,” corrected the police officer. “
My
car— Hey! Where do you think
you’re
going?”

He was talking to Miss Havisham, who had taken the Farquitt boxed set and walked into a small group of women to disguise her bookjump—back to
Great Expectations
or the bun shop in
Little Dorrit
or somewhere. I wished I could join her but my skills in these matters were not really up to scratch. I sighed.

“We want some answers, Next,” said the policeman in a grim tone.

“Listen, Rawlings, I don’t know the lady very well. What did she say her name was? Dame-rouge?”

“It’s
Havisham,
Next—but you know that, don’t you? That ‘lady’ is
extremely
well known to the police—she’s racked up seventy-four outrageously
serious
driving offenses in the past twenty-two years.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. In June she was clocked driving a chain-driven Liberty-engined Higham Special automobile at 171.5 MPH down the M4. It’s not only irresponsible, it’s—Why are you laughing?”

“No reason.”

The officer stared at me.

“You seem to know her quite well, Next. Why does she do these things?”

“Probably,” I replied, “because they don’t have motorways where she comes from—or 27-liter Higham Specials.”

“And where would that be, Next?”

“I have no idea.”

“I could arrest you for helping the escape of an individual in custody.”

“She wasn’t arrested, Rawlings, you said so yourself.”

“Perhaps not, but you are. In the car.”

20.
Yorrick Kaine

In 1983 the youthful Yorrick Kaine was elected leader of the Whigs, at that time a small and largely inconsequential party whose desire to put the aristocracy back in power and limit voting rights to homeowners had placed it on the outer edges of the political arena. A pro-Crimean stance coupled with a wish for British unification helped build nationalist support, and by 1985 the Whigs had three MPs in Parliament. They built their manifesto on populist tactics such as reducing the cheese duty and offering dukedoms as prizes on the National Lottery. A shrewd politician and clever tactician, Kaine was ambitious for power—in whatever way he could get it.

A
.
J
.
P
.
MILLINER
,
The New Whigs: From Humble Beginnings to Fourth Reich

I
T TOOK TWO HOURS
for me to convince the police I wasn’t going to tell them anything about Miss Havisham other than her address. Undeterred, they thumbed through a yellowed statute book and eventually charged me with a little-known 1621 law about
permissioning a horse and carte to be driven by personn of low moral turpithtude,
but with the “horse and carte” bit crossed out and “car” written in instead—so you can see how desperate they were. I would have to go before the magistrate the following week. I started to sneak out of the building to go home, but—

“So there you are!”

I turned and hoped my groan wasn’t audible.

“Hello, Cordelia.”

“Thursday, are you okay? You look a bit bruised!”

“I got caught in a Fiction Frenzy.”

“No more nonsense, now—I need you to meet the couple who won my competition.”

“Do I have to?”

Flakk looked at me sternly.

“It’s
very
advisable.”

“Okay,” I replied. “Where are they?”

“I’m—um—not sure,” said Cordelia, biting her lip and looking at her watch. “They said they’d be here half an hour ago. Can you wait a few minutes?”

So we stood around for a bit, Cordelia looking at her watch and staring at the front door. After ten minutes of waiting and without her guests turning up, I made my excuses and nipped up to the Litera Tec’s office.

“Thursday!” said Bowden as I entered. “I told Victor you had the flu. How did you get on in Osaka?”

“Pretty well, I think. I’ve been inside books
without
a Prose Portal. I can do it on my own—more or less.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No,” I told him, “Landen’s almost as good as back. I’ve seen
The Trial
from the inside and have just been at the Swindon Booktastic closing-down sale with Miss Havisham.”

“What’s she like?” asked Bowden with interest.

“Odd—and don’t ever let her drive. It seems there is something very like SpecOps-27
inside
books—I’ve yet to figure it all out. How have things been out here?”

He showed me a copy of
The Owl
. The headline read:
New Play by Will Found in Swindon. The Mole
had the headline
Cardenio Sensation!
and
The Toad,
predictably enough, led with
Swindon Croquet Supremo Aubrey Jambe Found in Bath with Chimp
.

“So Professor Spoon authenticated it?”

“He did indeed,” replied Bowden. “One of us should take the report up to Volescamper this afternoon. This is for you.”

He handed me the bag of pinkish goo attached to a report from the SpecOps forensic labs. I thanked him and read the analysis of the slime Dad had given me with interest and confusion in equal measures.

“Sugar, fatty animal protein, calcium, sodium, maltodextrin, carboxy-methyl-cellulose, phenylalanine, complex hydrocarbon compounds and traces of chlorophyll.”

I flicked to the back of the report but was none the wiser. Forensics had faithfully responded to my request for analysis— but it told me nothing new.

“What does it mean, Bowd?”

“Search me, Thursday. They’re trying to match the profile to known chemical compounds, but so far, nothing. Perhaps if you told us where you got it?”

“I don’t think that would be safe. I’ll drop the
Cardenio
report in to Volescamper—I’m keen to avoid Cordelia. Tell forensics that the future of the planet depends on them—that should help. I
have
to know what this pink stuff is.”

I saw Cordelia waiting for me in the lobby with her two guests, who had finally, it seemed, turned up. Unluckily for them, Spike Stoker had been passing and Cordelia, eager to do
something
to amuse her competition winners, had obviously asked him to say a few words. The look of frozen jaw-dropping horror on her guests’ faces said it all. I hid my face behind the
Cardenio
report and left Cordelia to it.

I blagged a ride in a squad car up to the crumbling but now far busier Vole Towers. The mansion was besieged by the news stations, all keen to report any details regarding the discovery of
Cardenio
. Two dozen outside broadcast trucks were parked on the weed-infested gravel, all humming with activity. Dishes were trained into the afternoon sky, transmitting the pictures to an airship repeater station that had been routed in to bounce the stories live to the world’s eager viewers. For security, SpecOps- 14 had been drafted in and stood languidly about, idly chatting to one another. Mostly, it seemed, about Aubrey Jambe’s apparent indiscretion with the chimp.

“Hello, Thursday!” said a handsome young SO-14 agent at the front door. It was annoying; I didn’t recognize him. People I didn’t know hailing me as friends was something that had happened a lot since Landen’s eradication; I supposed I would get used to it.

“Hello!” I replied to the stranger in an equally friendly tone. “What’s going on?”

“Yorrick Kaine is heading a press conference.”

“Really?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. “What’s
Cardenio
got to do with him?”

“Hadn’t you heard? Lord Volescamper has
given
the play to Yorrick Kaine and the Whig party!”

“Why would,” I asked slowly, smelling a political rat of epic proportions, “Lord Volescamper have anything to do with a minor right-wing pro-Crimean Welsh-hater like Kaine?”

The SpecOps-14 agent shrugged. “Because he’s a lord and wants to reclaim some lost power?”

At that moment two other SpecOps agents walked past, and one of them nodded to the young agent at the door and said: “All well, Miles?”

The dashing young SO-14 agent said that all was well, but he was wrong. All was
not
well—at least it wasn’t for me. I’d thought I might bump into Miles Hawke eventually, but not unprepared, like this. I stared at him, hoping my shock and surprise wouldn’t show. He had spent time in my flat and knew me a lot better than I knew him. My heart thumped inside my chest and I tried to say something intelligent and witty, but it came out more like:

“Asterfobulongus?”

He looked confused and leaned forward slightly.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Nothing.”

“You seemed a bit upset when I called, Thursday. Is there a problem with our
arrangement?
”

I stared at him for a few seconds in numbed silence before mumbling: “No—no, not at all.”

“Good!” he said. “We must fix a date or two.”

“Yes,” I said, running on auto-fear, “yes we must.
Gottogo
— bye.”