Lost in a Good Book

2. The Special Operations Network

It was the morning after the transmission of The Adrian Lush Show. I had watched for five minutes, cringed, then fled upstairs to rearrange our sock drawer. I managed to file all the socks by colour, shape and how much I liked them before Landen told me it was all over and I could come back downstairs. It was the last public interview I’d agreed to give, but Cordelia didn’t seem to remember this part of our conversation. She had continued to besiege me with requests to speak at literary festivals, appear as a guest on 65 Walrus Street and even attend one of President Formby’s informal song-and-ukulele evenings. Job offers arrived daily. Numerous libraries and private security firms asked for my services as either ‘Active Associate’ or ‘Security Consultant’. The sweetest letter I got was from the local library asking me to come in and read to the elderly—something I delighted in doing. But SpecOps itself, the body to which I had committed much of my adult life, energy and resources, hadn’t even spoken to me about advancement. As far as they were concerned I was SO-27 and would remain so until they decided otherwise.

‘Mail for you!’ announced Landen, dumping a large pile of post on the kitchen table Most of my mail these days was fan mail—and pretty strange it was too. I opened a letter at random.

‘Anyone I should be jealous of?’ he asked.

‘I should keep the divorce lawyer on hold for a few more minutes—it’s another request for underwear.’

Landen grinned. ‘I’ll send him a pair of mine.’

‘What’s in the parcel?’

‘Late wedding present It’s a—’

He looked at the strange knitted object curiously.

‘—it’s a… thing.’

‘Good,’ I replied, ‘I always wanted one of those.’

Landen was a writer. We first met when he, my brother Anton and I fought in the Crimea. Landen came home minus a leg but alive—my brother was still out there, making his way through eternity from the comfort of a military cemetery near Sevastopol.

As Landen amused himself by trying to teach Pickwick to stand on one leg, I opened another letter and read aloud:

Dear Miss Next, I am one of your biggest fans I thought you should know that David Copperfield, far from being the doe-eyed innocent he is usually portrayed as, actually murdered his first wife Dora Spenlow in order to marry Agnes Wickfield. I suggest an exhumation of Miss Spenlow’s remains and a test for botulism and/or arsenic While we are on the subject, have you ever stopped to wonder why Homer changed his mind about dogs somewhere between The Iliad and The Odyssey? Was he, perhaps, given a puppy between the two?’ Another thing do you find Joyce’s Ulysses as boring and as unintelligible as I do? And why don’t Hemingway’s works have any smells in them?

‘Seems everyone wants you to investigate their favourite book,’ observed Landen. ‘While you’re about it, can you try and get Tess acquitted and Max DeWinter convicted?’

‘Not you as well!’

‘Up, Pickwick, come on, up, up, one leg!’

Pickwick stared at Landen blankly, eyes fixed on the marshmallow he was holding and not at all interested in learning tricks.

‘You’ll need a truck-load of them, Land.’

I got up, finished my coffee and put on my jacket.

‘Have a good day,’ said Landen, seeing me to the door. ‘Be nice to the other children. No scratching or biting.’

‘I’ll behave myself. I promise.’

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him.

‘Oh, and Landen?’

‘Yuh?’

‘Don’t forget it’s Mycroft’s retirement party this evening.’

‘I won’t.’

It was late autumn or early winter—I wasn’t sure which. It had been mild and windless; the leaves were still brown on the trees and on some days it was hardly cold at all. It had to get really chilly for me to put the hood up on my Speedster, so I drove to the SpecOps divisional HQ with the wind in my hair and WESSEX-FM blaring on the wireless. The upcoming election was the talk of the airwaves; the controversial cheese duty had suddenly become an issue in the way things do just before an election. There was a snippet about Goliath declaring itself to be ‘the world’s favourite conglomerate’ for the tenth year running, whilst in the Crimean peace talks Russia had demanded Kent as war reparations. In sport, Aubrey Jambe had led the Swindon Mallets croquet team into SuperHoop ‘85 by thrashing the Reading Whackers.

I drove through the morning traffic in Swindon and parked the Speedster at the rear of the SpecOps HQ. The building was of a brusque no-nonsense Germanic design, hastily erected during the occupation; the facade still bore battle scars from Swindon’s liberation in 1949. It housed most of the SpecOps divisions, but not all. Our Vampire Disposal Operation also encompassed Reading and Salisbury and in return Salisbury’s Art Theft division looked after our area as well. It all seemed to work quite well.

‘Hello!’ I said to a young man who was taking a cardboard box out of the boot of his car. ‘New assignment?’

‘Er, yes,’ replied the young man, putting down his box for a moment to offer me his hand.

‘John Smith—Weeds & Seeds.’

‘Unusual name,’ I said, shaking his hand. ‘I’m Thursday Next.’

‘Oh!’ he said, looking at me with interest.

‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘that Thursday Next. Weeds & Seeds?’

‘Domestic Horticulture Enforcement Agency,’ explained John. ‘SO-32. I’m starting an office here. There’s been a rise in the number of hackers just recently. The Pampas Grass Vigilante Squad are becoming more brazen in their activities; pampas grass might well be an eyesore, but there’s nothing illegal in it.’

We showed our ID cards to the desk sergeant and walked up the stairs to the second floor.

‘I heard something about that,’ I murmured. ‘Any links to the Anti-Leylandii Association?’

‘Nothing positive,’ replied Smith, ‘but I’m following all leads.’

‘How many in your squad?’

‘Including me—one.’ Smith grinned. ‘Thought you were the most underfunded department in SpecOps? Think again. I’ve got six months to sort out the hackers, get the Japanese knotweed under control and find an acceptable plural form of narcissus.’

We reached the upstairs corridor.

‘I wish you luck.’

He thanked me and I left him to unpack in his small office, which had once been home to the SO-31 Good Taste Education Authority. The division had been disbanded a month earlier when the proposed legislation against stone cladding, pictures of crying clowns and floral-patterned carpets failed in the Upper House.

I was just walking past the office of SO-14 when I heard a shrill voice.

‘Thursday! Thursday, yoo-hoo! Over here!’

I sighed. It was Cordelia Flakk. She quickly caught up with me and gave me an affectionate hug.

‘The Lush show was a disaster!’ I told her ‘You said it was no holds barred! I ended up talking about dodos, my car and anything but Jane Eyre!’

‘You were terrific!’ she enthused. ‘I’ve got you lined up for another set of interviews the day after tomorrow.’

‘No more, Cordelia.’

She looked at me in a crestfallen manner.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘What part of no more don’t you understand?’

‘Don’t be like that, Thursday,’ she replied, beaming in an attempt to bring me round. ‘You’re good PR and, believe me, in an institution that routinely leaves the public perforated, confused, old before their time or, if they’re lucky, dead, we need every bit of good PR we can muster.’

‘Do we do that much damage to the public?’ I asked.

Flakk smiled modestly.

‘Perhaps my PR is not so bad after all,’ she conceded, then added quickly: ‘But every Joe that gets trounced in a crossfire is one too many.’

‘That’s as may be,’ I retorted, ‘but the fact remains that I’m done with SpecOps PR.’

Flakk seemed flustered, hopped up and down for a bit, pulled pleading expressions, wrung her hands, puffed out her cheeks and stared at the ceiling.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Well, we ran a competition.’

‘What sort of competition?’ I asked suspiciously.

‘We thought it would be a good idea if you met a few members of the public on a one-to-one basis.’

‘Did we. Now listen, Cordelia—’

‘Dilly, Thursday, since we’re pals.’

She sensed my reticence and added:

‘Cords, then. Or Delia. How about Flakky? I used to be called Flik-Flak at school. Can I call you Thurs?’

‘Cordelia!’ I said in a harsher tone, before she ingratiated herself to death. ‘I’m not going to do this! You said the Lush interview would be the last and it is.’

I started to walk away, but when God was handing out insistence Cordelia Flakk was at the head of the queue.

‘Thursday, this hurts me really personally when you’re like this. It attacks me right… right, er, here.’

She made a wild guess at where she thought her heart might be and looked at me with a pained expression that she probably learned off a springer spaniel.

‘I’ve got him waiting right here, now, in the canteen. It won’t take a moment, ten minutes tops Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease. I’ve only asked two dozen journalists and news crews—the room will be practically empty.’

I looked at my watch.

‘Ten minutes [1], then—who’s that?’

‘Who’s what?’

‘Someone calling my name. Didn’t you hear it?’

‘No,’ replied Cordelia, looking at me oddly.

I tapped my ears. It had sounded so real it was disconcerting [2].

‘There it goes again!’

‘There goes what again?’

‘A man’s voice!’ I said somewhat idiotically. ‘Speaking here inside my head!’

I pointed to my temple to demonstrate but Cordelia took a step backward, her look turning rapidly to one of consternation.

‘Are you okay, Thursday? Can I call someone?’

‘Oh. No, no, I’m fine I just realised I—ah—left a receiver in my ear. It must be my partner; there’s a 12-14 or a 10-30 or… something numerological in progress. Tell your competition winners another time. Goodbye!’

I dashed off. There wasn’t a receiver, of course, but I wasn’t having Flakk tell the quacks I was hearing voices. I walked off briskly towards the LiteraTec office [3]. I stopped and looked around The corridor was empty.

‘I can hear you,’ I said, ‘but where are you?’ [4]

‘Her name’s Flakk. Works over at SpecOps PR.’ [5]

‘What is this? SpecOps Blind Date? What’s going on?’ [6]

‘Case? What case? I haven’t done anything!’

My voice rose with injured pride. For someone who had spent their life enforcing law and order, it seemed a grave injustice that I should be accused of something—especially something I knew nothing about. [7]

‘For God’s sake, Snell, what is the charge?’

‘Are you okay, Next?’

It was Braxton Hicks. He had just turned the corner and was staring at me very oddly.

‘Fine, sir,’ I said, thinking fast ‘The SpecOps tensionologist said I should vocalise any stress regarding past experiences Listen: “GET AWAY FROM ME HADES, GO!” See? I feel better already.’

‘Oh!’ said Hicks doubtfully. ‘Well, the quacks know best, I suppose. Did you sign that picture for my godson Max?’

‘On your desk, sir.’

‘Miss Flakk ran a competition or something. Would you liaise with her over it?’

‘I’ll make it my top priority, sir.’

‘Good. Well, carry on vocalising, then.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

But he didn’t leave. He just stood there, watching me.

‘Sir?’

‘Don’t mind me,’ replied Hicks, ‘I just want to see how this stress vocalising works. My tensionologist told me to arrange pebbles as a hobby—or count blue cars.’

So I vocalised my stress there in the corridor for five minutes while my boss watched me.

‘Jolly good,’ he said finally, and walked off.

After checking I was alone in the corndor. I spoke out loud:

‘Snell!’

Silence.

‘Mr Snell, can you hear me?’

More silence.

I sat down and put my head between my knees. I felt sick and hot, both the SpecOps resident tensionologist and the stresspert had said I might have some sort of traumatic aftershock from tackling Acheron Hades, but I hadn’t expected anything as vivid as voices in my head. I waited until I felt better and then made my way, not towards Flakk and her competition winners, but towards Bowden and the LiteraTec office. [8]

I stopped.

‘Prepared for what? I haven’t done any thing!’ [9]

‘No, no!’ I exclaimed. ‘I really don’t know what I’ve done. Where are you!?![10]

‘Wait! Shouldn’t I see you before the hearing?’

There was no answer. I was about to yell again but several people came out of the elevator so I kept quiet. I waited for a moment but Mr Snell didn’t seem to have anything more to add, so I made my way into the high-ceilinged LiteraTec office, which more closely resembled a library than anything else. There weren’t many books we didn’t have—the result of bootleg seizures of literary works collected over the years. Bowden Cable, my partner, was already at his desk, which was as fastidiously neat as ever. His quiet and studious approach to his work contrasted strongly with my own directness. The partnership seemed to work well.

‘Morning, Bowden.’

‘Good morning, Thursday I saw you on the TV last night.’

‘How did I look?’

‘Fine. They didn’t let you talk about Jane Eyre much, did they’!

I gave him a withering look and he understood.

‘Never fear—some day the full story will be told. Are you okay? You look a little flushed.’

‘I’m okay,’ I told him, then added in a quieter voice: ‘Actually I’m not. I’ve been hearing voices.’

‘Stress, Thursday. It’s not unusual. Anyone specific?’

‘A lawyer named Snell. Akrid Snell. He said he was representing me.’

‘On what charge?’

‘He wouldn’t say.’

‘Sounds like an inner guilt conflict, Thursday. In policing we have to sometimes close off our emotions. Could you have killed Hades if you’d been thinking clearly?’

‘I don’t think I would have been able to kill him if I wasn’t. I’ve not lost a single night’s sleep over Hades, but poor Bertha Rochester bothers me a bit.’

‘Maybe that’s it,’ replied Bowden. ‘Perhaps you secretly want to be held accountable for her death. I heard Crometty talking to me for weeks after his murder—I thought I should have been there to back him up, but I wasn’t.’

This made me feel a lot better and I told him so.

‘Good. Anything else you want me to reassure you about while we’re on the subject?’

‘The Goliath Corporation?’

Bowden’s face fell.

‘Sometimes you ask too much.’

‘Ah, there you are!’ said a booming voice. It was Victor Analogy, the head of the LiteraTec office. He was in his mid-seventies and possessed a mind as sharp as a razor. He was a natural buffer between us at SO-27 and Commander Braxton Hicks, who was strictly a company man. Analogy guarded our independence closely, which was the way we all liked it.

We all said our good mornings and Victor sat on my desk.

‘How’s the PR stuff going, Thursday?’

‘More tedious than Spenser, sir.’

‘Too right. I saw you on the telly last night. Rigged, was it?’

‘Just a little.’

‘I hate to be a bore but it’s all important stuff. Have a look at this fax.’

He handed me a sheet of paper and Bowden read over my shoulder.

‘Ludicrous,’ I said, handing the fax back. ‘What possible benefit could the Toast Marketing Board get from sponsoring us?’

Victor shrugged.

‘Not a clue. But if they have cash to give away we could certainly do with some of it.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Braxton’s speaking to them this afternoon. He’s very big on the idea.’

‘I bet he is.’

Braxton Hicks’s life revolved around his precious SpecOps budget. If any of us even thought of doing any sort of overtime, you could bet that Braxton would have something to say about it—and something in his case meant ‘no’. Rumour had it that he had spoken to the canteen about giving out smaller helpings for dinner. He had been known as ‘Small Portions’ in the office ever since—but never to his face.

‘Did you find out who’s been forging and trying to sell the missing ending to Byron’s Don Juan?’ asked Victor.

Bowden showed him a black-and-white photo of a dashing figure climbing into a parked car.

‘Our prime suspect is a fellow named Byron2.’

Victor looked at the picture carefully.

‘He’s Byron number two? Must have been pretty quick to get in when the name changing ident law came into effect. How many Byrons are there now?’

‘Byron2620 was registered last week,’ I told him. ‘We’ve been following Byron2 for a month but he’s smart. None of the forged scraps of Heaven and Earth can be traced back to him.’

‘Wiretap?’

‘We tried but the judge said that even though Byron2’s surgery to make his foot clubbed in an attempt to emulate his hero was undeniably strange, and then getting his half-sister pregnant was plainly disgusting, those acts only showed a fevered Byronic mind, and not necessarily intent to forge. We have to catch him inky fingered, but at the moment he’s off on a tour of the Mediterranean. We’re going to attempt to get a search warrant while he’s away.’

‘So you’re not that busy, then?’

‘What had you in mind?’

‘Well,’ began Victor, ‘it seems there have been a couple more attempts to forge Cardenio. Would you go and have a look?’

‘Shouldn’t take long,’ I told him. ‘Got the addresses?’

He handed over a sheet of paper and bade us luck. We rose to leave, Bowden studying the list carefully.

‘We’ll go to Roseberry Street first,’ he said, ‘it’s closer.’