Lost in a Good Book

trick; with a short and unearthly wail an entity emerged from Spike’s nostrils and coalesced into an ethereal version of an old dishcloth.

‘Good work!’ muttered Spike in a very uncertain voice as he took a step back. ‘Don’t let it get near you!’

I ducked as the wraith-like sprit moved in my direction.

‘Fooled!’ said a low voice. ‘Fooled by a mere mortal, how utterly depressing!’

The thumping had now increased and was also coming from the vestry door; I could see the hinge pins start to loosen in the powdery mortar.

‘Keep him talking!’ yelled Spike as he grabbed the holdall and pulled out the vacuum cleaner.

‘A vacuum cleaner!’ Sneered the low voice. ‘Spike you insult me!’

Spike didn’t answer but instead unravelled the hose and switched the battery-powered appliance on.

‘A vacuum cleaner won’t hold me!’ sneered the voice again. ‘Do you really believe that I can be trapped in a bag like so much dust?’

Spike sucked up the small spirit in a trice.

‘He didn’t seem that frightened of it,’ I murmured as Spike fiddled with the machine’s controls.

‘This isn’t any vacuum cleaner, Thursday. James over at R&D dreamt it up for me. You see, unlike conventional vacuum cleaners, this one works on a dual cyclone principle that traps dust and evil spirits by powerful centrifugal force. Since there is no bag there is no loss of suction—you can use a lower wattage motor; there’s a hose action—and a small brush for stair carpets.’

‘You find evil spirits in stair carpets?’

‘No, but my stair carpets need cleaning just the same as anyone else’s.’

I looked at the glass container and could see a small vestige of white spinning round very rapidly. Spike deftly placed the lid on the jar and detached it from the machine. He held it up and there inside was a very pissed- off spirit of the Evil One—well and truly trapped.

‘As I said,’ went on Spike, ‘it’s not rocket science. You had me scared, though, I thought you really were going to kill me!’

‘That,’ I replied, ‘was plan D!’

‘Spike you you you Bastard!’ said the small voice from inside the jar. ‘You’ll suffer the worst torments in hell for this!’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ replied Spike as he placed the jar in the holdall, ‘you and all the rest.’

He slung the bag round his body, replaced the spent cartridge in his shotgun with another from his pocket, and flicked off the safety.

‘Come on, those deadbeats are starting to get on my tits. Whoever nails the least is a sissypants.’

We flung open the door to a bunch of very surprised dried corpses who fell inward in a large tangled mass of putrefied torsos and stick-like limbs. Spike opened fire first, and after we had dispatched that lot we dashed outside, dodged the slowest of the undead and cut down the others as we made our way to the gates.

‘The Cindy problem,’ I said as the head of a long-dead carcass exploded in response to Spike’s shotgun. ‘Did you do as I suggested?’

‘Sure did,’ replied Spike, letting fly at another walking corpse ‘Stakes and crucifixes in the garage and all my back issues of Van Helsing’s Gazette in the living room.’

‘Did she get the message?’ I asked, surprising another walking corpse, which had been trying to stay out of the action behind a tombstone.

‘She didn’t say anything,’ he replied, decapitating two dried cadavers, ‘but the funny thing is, I now find copies of Sniper magazine in the toilet—and a copy of Great Underworld Hit-men has appeared in the kitchen.’

‘Perhaps she’s trying to tell you something?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Spike, ‘but what?’

I bagged ten that night, but Spike only managed eight—so he was the sissypants. We partook of a haddock chowder with freshly baked bread at a roadside eatery and joked about the night’s events while the SEB swore at us from his glass jar. I got my six hundred quid and my landlord didn’t get Pickwick. All in all, it was a good evening well spent.

24. Performance-related Pay, Miles Hawke & Norland Park

‘Performance-related pay was the bane of SpecOps as much then as it is now. How can your work be assessed when your job is so extraordinarily varied? I would love to have seen Officer Stoker’s review panel listen to what he got up to. It was no surprise to anyone that they rarely lasted more than twenty seconds and he was, as always, awarded an “A++”—“Exceptional service, monthly bonus recommended”.’

THURSDAY NEXT. A Life in SpecOps

Dog tired, I slept well that night. I had expected to see Landen but dreamt of Humpty Dumpty, which was odd. I went into work, avoided Cordelia again and then had to take my turn with the employment review board, which was all part of the SpecOps work-related pay scheme. Victor would have given us all ‘A++’, but sadly it wasn’t conducted by him—it was chaired by the area commander, Braxton Hicks.

‘Ah, Next!’ he said jovially as I entered. ‘Good to see you. Have a seat, won’t you?’

I thanked him and sat down. He looked at my performance file for the past few months and stroked his moustache thoughtfully.

‘How’s your golf?’

‘I never took it up.’

‘Really?’ he said with surprise. ‘You sounded most keen when we first met.’

‘I’ve been busy.’

‘Quite, quite. Well, you’ve been with us three months and on the whole your performance seems to be excellent. That Jane Eyre malarkey was a remarkable achievement; it did SpecOps the power of good and showed those bean-counters in London that the Swindon office could hold its own.’

‘Thank you.’

‘No, really, I mean it. All this PR work you’ve been doing. The Network is very grateful to you and, more than that, I’m grateful to you. I could have been on the scrapheap if it wasn’t for you. I’d really like to shake you by the hand and—I don’t do this very often, y’know—put you up for membership of my golf club. Full membership, no less—the sort usually reserved for men.’

‘That’s more than generous of you,’ I said, getting up to leave.

‘Sit down, Next—that was just the friendly bit.’

‘There’s more?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, his smile fading. ‘Despite all of that, your conduct over the past two weeks has been less than satisfactory. I’ve had a complaint from Mrs Hathaway34 to say that you failed to spot her forged copy of Cardenio.’

‘I told her it was a forgery in no uncertain terms.’

‘That’s your story, Next. I haven’t located your report on the matter.’

‘I didn’t think it was worth the trouble to write one, sir.’

‘We have to keep on top of paperwork, Next. If the new legislation on SpecOps accountability comes into force we will be under severe scrutiny every time we take a step, so get used to it—and what’s this about you hitting a Neanderthal?’

‘A misunderstanding.’

‘Hm. Is this also a misunderstanding?’

He laid a police charge sheet on the desk.

‘ “Pemissioning a car to be driven by personn of low moral