Lost in a Good Book

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 offences 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 m.p.h. up 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 twenty-seven-litre 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

It 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 people who won my competition.’

‘Do I have to?’

Flakk looked at me sternly.

‘It’s very advisable.’

‘Okay,’ I replied, let me have a pee and I’ll be with you in five minutes. Okay?’

‘Right!’ Cordelia beamed.

But I didn’t have a pee, instead I nipped up to the LiteraTec office.

‘Thursday!’ said Bowden as I entered. ‘I told Victor you had the flu. How did you get on?’

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

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No,’ I told him, ‘deadly serious. Landen’s almost as good as back. I met Miss Havisham.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘Odd. 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, phenylalnine, complex hydrocarbon compounds and traces of chlorophyll.’

I flicked to the back of the report but was none the wiser. Forensics had faithfully interpreted 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 guest, who had a Finis Hotel carrier bag in one hand and a young daughter in the other. Unluckily for him Spike Stoker had been passing and Cordelia, eager to do something to amuse her competition winner, had obviously asked him to say a few words. The look of frozen, jaw-dropping horror on her guest’s face 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 Vole Towers. The house had changed a lot since I was last there. 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 operatives 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 recognise him. People I couldn’t remember 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 giving a press conference.’

‘Really? 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!’