Something Rotten

42 Explanations

'It was touch and go for a moment,' said Landen, who was sitting by my hospital bed holding my hand. 'There was a moment when we really didn't think you'd make it.'

I gave a wan smile. I had regained consciousness only the day before and every movement felt like a dagger in my head. I looked around. Joffy and Miles and Hamlet were there, too.

'Hi, guys.'

They smiled and welcomed me back.

'How long?' I asked in a whisper.

'Two weeks,' said Landen. 'We really thought—

I gently squeezed his hand and looked around. Land divined my thoughts perfectly.

'He's with his grandmother.'

I raised a hand to touch the side of my head but could feel only a heavy bandage. Landen took my hand and returned it to the sheet.

'What—?'

'You were astonishingly lucky,' he said in a soothing tone. 'The doctors say you'll make a full recovery. The calibre was quite small and it entered your skull obliquely; by the time it had gone through most of the energy was gone.' He tapped the side of his head. 'It lodged between your brain and the inside of the skull. Gave us quite a fright, though.'

'Cindy died, didn't she?'

Joffy answered.

'Looked to be improving but then septicaemia set in.'

'They really loved one another, you know, despite their differences.'

'She was a hit-woman, Thursday, a trained assassin. I don't think she regarded death as anything more than an occupational hazard.'

I nodded. He was right.

Landen leaned forward and kissed my nose.

'Who shot me, Land?'

'Does the name "Norman Johnson" mean anything to you?'

'Yes,' I said, 'the Minotaur. You were right. He'd been trying to slapstick me to death all week — steamroller, banana skin, piano — I was a fool not to see it. Mind you, a gun's hardly slapstick, is it?'

Landen smiled.

'It had a large "bang" sign that came out of the barrel, as well as the bullet. The police are still trying to make sense of it.'

I sighed. The Minotaur was long gone but I'd still have to be careful. I turned to Landen. There was still something I needed to know.

'Did we win?'

'Of course. You pegged a foot closer than O'Fathens. Your shot has been voted "sporting moment of the century" — in Swindon, at any rate.'

'So we aren't at war with Wales?'

Landen shook his head and smiled.

'Kaine's finished, my darling — and Goliath have abandoned all attempts to become a religion. St Zvlkx does indeed work in mysterious ways.'

'Are you going to tell me?' I said with a wan smile. 'Or do I have to beat it out of you with a stick?'

Joffy unfolded the picture of St Zvlkx and Cindy's fatal pianoing on Commercial Road, the one from the Swindon Evening Globe that Gran had given me.

'We found this in your back pocket,' said Miles.

'And it got us to thinking,' continued Joffy, 'exactly where Zvlkx was heading that morning, and why he had the ticket for the Gravitube in his bedroom. He was cutting his losses and running. I don't think even Zvlkx — or whoever he was — believed that Swindon could possibly win the Superhoop. Dad always said that time wasn't immutable.'

'I don't get it.'

Miles leaned forward and showed me the picture again.

'He died trying to get to Tudor Turf Accounting.'

'So? Oldest betting shop in Swindon.'

'No — in the world. We made a few calls. It had been trading continually since 1264.'

I looked at Joffy quizzically.

'What are you saying?'

'That the Book of Revealments was nothing of the kind — it's a thirteenth-century betting slip!'

'A what?'

He pulled Zvlkx's Revealments from his pocket and opened it to the front page. There was a countersigned receipt for a farthing that we had thought was a bookbinder's tax or something. The small arithmetical sum next to each Revealment was actually the odds against that particular event coming true, each one countersigned by the same signature as on the front page. Joffy flicked through the slim volume.

'The Spanish Armada Revealment had been given the odds of six hundred to one, Wellington's victory at Waterloo four hundred and twenty to one.' He flicked to the final page. 'The outcome of the croquet match was set at 124,000 to one. The odds were generous because Zvlkx was betting on things centuries before they happened; indeed, centuries before croquet was even thought of No wonder the person who had underwritten the bet felt confident in offering such odds.'

'Well,' I said, 'don't hold your breath — 124,000 farthings only adds up to . . . up to . . .'

'One hundred and thirty quid,' put in Miles.

'Right. One hundred and thirty quid. Nelson's victory would net Zvlkx only, what — nine bob?'

I still didn't quite get it.

'Thursday — it's a totalizer. Each bet or event that comes true is multiplied by the winnings of the previous event — and any prophecy that didn't come true would would have negated the whole deal.'

'So . . . how much are the Revealments worth?'

Joffy looked at Miles, who looked at Landen, who grinned and looked at Joffy.

'One hundred and twenty-eight billion pounds.'

'But Tudor Turf wouldn't have that sort of cash!'

'Of course not,' replied Miles, 'but the parent company that underwrites Tudor Turf would be legally bound to meet all bets drawn up. And Tudor Turf are owned by Wessex Cashcow which is itself owned by Tails You Lose, the wholly owned gaming division of Consolidated Glee, which is owned by—

'The Goliath Corporation,' I breathed.

'Right.'

There was a stunned silence. I wanted to jump out of bed and laugh and scream and run around, but that, I knew, would have to be postponed until I was in better health. For now, I just smiled.

'So how much of Goliath does the Idolatry Friends of St Zvlkx actually own?'

'Well,' continued Joffy, 'it doesn't actually own any of it. If you recall we sold all his wisdom to the Toast Marketing Board. They now own fifty-eight per cent of Goliath. We told them what we wanted and they wholeheartedly agreed. Goliath have dropped their plans to become a religion and have decided to support a political party other than the Whigs. There was something in the deal about a new cathedral to be built, too. We won, Thursday — we won!'

Kaine's fall, I discovered, had been rapid and humiliating. Without Goliath's backing, and minus his ovinator, Parliament suddenly started wondering why they had been following him so blindly, and those who had supported him turned against him with the same enthusiasm. In less than a week he realised just what it was to be human. All the vanity and plotting and conniving that worked so well for him when fictional didn't seem to have the same power at all when spoken with a real tongue, and he was removed from office within three days of the Superhoop. Ernst Stricknene, questioned at length over calls made to Cindy Stoker from his office, decided to save as much of his skin as he could and talked at great length about his former boss. Kaine now had to face the biggest array of indictments ever heaped upon a public figure in the history of England. So many, in fact, that it was easier to list things he wasn't indicted for — which were: 'working as an unlicensed nanny' and 'using a car horn in a built-up area during the hours of darkness'. If found guilty on all charges he was facing over nine hundred years in prison.

'I feel almost sorry for him,' said Joffy, who was a lot more forgiving than me. 'Poor Yorrick.'

'Yes,' replied Hamlet sarcastically. 'Alas.'