Lost in a Good Book

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mrs Hathaway34—’

‘Anne. Call me Anne.’

‘Anne. I’m afraid to say I believe this to be a forgery.’

She didn’t seem very put out.

‘Are you sure, my dear? You didn’t read very much of it’

‘I’m afraid so. The rhyme, metre and grammar don’t really match any of Shakespeare’s known works.’

‘Will was adaptable to the nth degree, Miss Next—I hardly think that any slight deviation from the norm is of any great relevance!’

‘You misunderstand me,’ I replied, trying to be as tactful as possible. ‘It’s not even a good forgery.’

‘Well!’ said Anne, putting on an air aggrieved indignation. ‘Such authentication is notoriously difficult. I may have to seek a second opinion!’

‘You are more than welcome to do that, ma’am,’ I replied slowly, ‘but whoever you consult will say the same as I. It’s not just the text. You see, Shakespeare never wrote on lined paper with a ballpoint, and even if he did, I doubt he would have had Cardenio seeking Lucinda in a Range Rover.’

‘And what of that?’ returned Mrs Hathaway34 angrily. ‘In Julius Caesar there are plenty of clocks yet they weren’t invented until much later. I think Shakespeare introduced the Range Rover in much the same way; a literary anachronism, that’s all!’

We walked towards the door.

‘I’d like you to come in and file a report. We’ll let you look at some mugshots; see if we can find out who pulled this.’

‘Nonsense!’ said the lady loftily. ‘I’m sorry to see that the LiteraTecs here in Swindon are obviously incapable of recognising a genuine masterpiece. I will seek a second opinion, and if necessary, a third and a fourth—or as many as it takes. Good day, Officers!’

And she opened the door, shoved us out and slammed it behind us. This wasn’t unusual. The week before I had almost been attacked when I dared to suggest that a crackly recording of William Hazlitt was certainly a forgery as recording devices were unknown in the early nineteenth century. The annoyed owner explained that, yes, he knew it was odd but it was on eight-track, but even so I had to be firm.

‘One born every minute,’ muttered Bowden as we walked to the car.

‘I’d say. Well—that’s interesting.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t look now but up the road there is a black Pontiac. It was parked outside the SpecOps building when we left.’

Bowden had a quick glance in its direction as we got into the car.

‘See it?’ I asked when we were inside.

‘Yup. Goliath?’

‘Could be. Think they’re still pissed off about losing Jack Schitt into that copy of The Raven?’

‘Probably,’ replied Bowden, pulling into the main road.

I looked in the vanity mirror at the black car four vehicles behind.

‘Still with us?’ asked Bowden.

‘Yup. Let’s find out what they want. Take a left here, then left again and drop me off. Carry on for a hundred yards and then pull up.’

Bowden dropped me off as instructed, sped on past the next corner and stopped, blocking the street. I ducked behind a parked car and, sure enough, the large black Pontiac swept past me. It drove round the next corner, stopped abruptly when it saw Bowden and started to reverse. The car was big and the road narrow, and with me tapping on the smoked-glass window and waving my badge, the driver obviously thought brazening it out would be a better course of action.

‘So here I am,’ I told him as soon as he had wound down the window. ‘What do you want?’

The driver looked at me.

‘We seem to have taken a wrong turning, miss. Can you tell me the way to Pete and Dave’s Dodo Emporium?’

I was unimpressed by their drab cover story, but I smiled anyway. They were SpecOps as much as I was.

‘We can lose you just as easily, boys. Why don’t you just tell me who you are so we can all get along a lot better?’

The two men looked at one another and then held up their badges for me to see. They were SO-5, the same Search & Containment unit I was at when we hunted down Hades.

‘SO-5?’ I queried. ‘Tamworth’s old outfit?’

‘I’m Phodder,’ said the driver. ‘My associate here is Kannon. SpecOps 5 has been reassigned.’

‘Does that mean Acheron Hades is officially dead?’

‘The case will always remain open, Miss Next—but Acheron was only the third most evil criminal mind on the planet.’

‘Then who—or what—are you after this time?’

‘Classified. Your name came up in preliminary enquiries. Tell me, has anything odd happened to you recently?’

‘What do you mean, odd?’

‘Unusual. Deviating from the customary. Something outside the usual parameters of normalcy. An occurrence of unprecedented weird.’

I thought for a moment.

‘No.’

‘Well,’ said Mr Phodder, ‘if it does, would you call me on this number?’

‘Sure.’

I took the card, bade them goodbye and returned to Bowden. We were soon heading north to the Cirencester road, the Pontiac nowhere in sight. I explained who they were to Bowden, who raised his eyebrows and said:

‘Sounds ominous. Someone worse than Hades?’

‘Perhaps. Where’s the next stop?’

‘Cirencester and Lord Volescamper.’

‘Really?’ I replied in some surprise. ‘Why would someone as eminent as Volescamper get embroiled in a Cardenio scam?’

‘Search me. He’s a golfing buddy of Braxton’s so this could be political. Better not dismiss it out of hand and make him look an idiot—we’ll only be clobbered by the chief.’

* * *

We swung in through the battered and rusty gates of Vole Towers and motored up the long drive, which was more weed than gravel. We pulled up outside the imposing Gothic Revival house which was clearly in need of repair, and Lord Volescamper came out to meet us. Volescamper was a tall man with grey hair and an exuberant manner. He was wearing an old pair of herringbone tweeds and brandished a pair of secateurs like a cavalry sabre.

‘Blasted brambles!’ he muttered as he shook our hands. ‘Look here, they can grow two inches a day, you know; inexorable little blighters that threaten to engulf all that we know and love—a bit like anarchists, really. You’re that Next girl, aren’t you? I think we met at my niece Gloria’s wedding—who did she marry again?’

‘My cousin Wilbur.’

‘Now I remember. Who was that sad old fart who made a nuisance of himself on the dance-floor?’

‘I think that was you, sir.’

Lord Volescamper thought for a moment and stared at his feet.

‘Goodness! It was, wasn’t it? Saw you on the telly last night. Look here, it was a rum business about that Bronte book, eh?’

‘Very rum,’ I assured him. ‘This is Bowden Cable, my partner.’