Lost in a Good Book

public think that ChronoGuard work is straightforward, confidence might be shaken.’

‘Quite correct,’ asserted Flanker

‘Perhaps you’d like to do this interview?’ I asked him.

‘Hey!’ said Flanker, standing up and jabbing a finger in my direction. ‘There’s no need to get snippy with us, Next. You’re here to do a job in your capacity as a serving SpecOps officer. You are not here to tell the truth as you see it!’

Lush looked uneasily at me, I raised my eyebrows and shrugged.

‘Now look here,’ said Lush in a strident tone, ‘if I’m going to interview Ms Next I must ask questions that the public want to hear—’

‘Oh, you can!’ said Flanker agreeably. ‘You can ask whatever you want Free speech is enshrined in statute and neither SpecOps nor Goliath have any business coercing you in any way. We are just here to observe, comment and enlighten.’

Lush knew what Flanker meant and Flanker knew that Lush knew. I knew that Flanker and Lush knew it and they both knew I knew it too. Lush looked nervous and fidgeted slightly. Flanker’s assertion of Lush’s independence was anything but. A word to Network Toad from Goliath and Lush would end up presenting Sheep World on Lerwick TV, and he didn’t want that. Not one little bit.

We fell silent for a moment as Lush and I tried to figure out a topic that was outside their broad parameters.

‘How about commenting on the ludicrously high tax on cheese?’ I asked. It was a joke but Flanker and Co. weren’t terribly expert when it came to jokes.

‘I have no objection,’ murmured Flanker. ‘Anyone else?’

‘Not me,’ said Schitt-Hawse.

‘Or me,’ added Rabone.

‘I have an objection,’ said a woman who had been sitting quietly at the side at the studio. She spoke with a clipped Home Counties accent and was dressed in a tweed skirt, twinset and pearls.

‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ she said in a loud and strident voice. ‘Mrs Jolly Hilly, governmental representative to the television networks.’ She took a deep breath and carried on: ‘The so-called “unfair cheese duty burden” is a very contentious subject at present. Any reference to it might be construed as an inflammatory act.’

‘Five hundred and eighty-seven per cent duty on hard cheeses and six hundred and twenty per cent on smelly?’ I asked. ‘Cheddar Classic Gold Original at ?9.32 a pound—Bodmin Molecular Unstable Brie at almost ?10! What’s going on?’

The others, suddenly interested, all looked to Mrs Hilly for an explanation. For a brief moment, and probably the only moment ever, we were in agreement.

‘I understand your concern,’ replied the trained apologist, ‘but I think you’ll find that the price of cheese has, once adjusted for positive spin, actually gone down measured against the retail price index in recent years. Here, have a look at this.’

She passed me a picture of a sweet little old lady on crutches.

‘Old ladies who are not dissimilar to the actress in this picture will have to go without their hip replacements and suffer crippling pain if you selfishly demand cut-price cheese.’

She paused to let this sink in.

‘The Master of the Sums feels that it is not for the public to dictate economic policy, but he is willing to make concessions for those who suffer particular hardship in the form of area-tactical needs-related cheese coupons.’

‘So,’ said Lush with a smile, ‘wheyving cheese tax is out of the question?’

‘Or he could raise the custard duty,’ added Mrs Hilly, missing the pun. ‘The pudding lobby is less—well, how should I put it—militant.’

‘Wheyving,’ said Lush again, for the benefit of anyone who had missed it. ‘Wheyv—oh, never mind. I’ve never heard a bigger load of crap in all my life. I aim to make the extortionate price of cheese the subject of an Adrian Lush Special Report.’

Mrs Hilly flustered slightly and chose her words carefully.

‘If there were another cheese riot following your Special Report we might look very carefully as to where to place responsibility.’

She looked at the Goliath representative as she said this. The implication wasn’t lost on Schitt-Hawse or Lush. I had heard enough.

‘So I won’t talk about cheese either.’ I sighed. ‘What can I talk about?’

The small group all looked at one another with perplexed expressions. Flanker clicked his fingers as an idea struck him.

‘Don’t you own a dodo?’

2. The Special Operations Network

‘…The Special Operations Network was instigated to handle policing duties considered either too unusual or too specialised to be tackled by the regular force. There were 32 departments in all, starting at the more mundane Horticultural Enforcement Agency (SO-32) and going on to Literary Detectives (SO-27) and Transport Authority (SO-21). Anything below SO-20 was restricted information although it was common knowledge that the ChronoGuard were SO-12 and SO-1 were the department that polices the SpecOps themselves. Quite what the others do is anyone’s guess. What is known is that the individual operatives themselves are mostly ex-military or ex-police. Operatives rarely leave the service after the probationary period has ended. There is a saying: “A SpecOps job isn’t for probation—it’s for life”.’

MILLON DE FLOSS. A Short History of the Special Operations Network (revised)

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