The Eyre Affair

‘Her name was Mrs Grimswold.’

I stared at him. Schitt continued.

‘I saw the flattened slugs. You would have got the same effect if you had fired them into a wall.’

‘If you have a point, why don’t you get to it?’

Schitt unscrewed the cap of a Thermos flask and offered it to me. I refused; he poured himself a drink and continued:

‘I think you know more than you say you do. We only have your word for the events of that night. Tell me, Miss Next, what was Hades planning to use the manuscript for?’

‘I told you: I have no idea.’

‘Then why are you going to work as a LiteraTec in Swindon?’

‘It was all I could get.’

‘That’s not true. Your work has been consistently assessed above average and your record states that you haven’t been back to Swindon in ten years despite your family living there. A note appended to your file speaks of “romantic tensions”. Man trouble in Swindon?’

‘None of your business.’

‘In my line of work I find there is very little that isn’t my business. There are a host of other things a woman with your talents could do, but to go back to Swindon? Something tells me you have another motive.’

‘Does it really say all that in my file?’

‘It does.’

‘What colour are my eyes?’

Schitt ignored me and took a sip of coffee.

‘Colombian. The best. You think Hades is alive, Next. I think you have an idea where he is and I’m willing to guess that he is in Swindon and that’s why you’re going there. Am I correct?’

I looked him straight in the eye. ‘No. I’m just going home to sort myself out.’

Jack Schitt remained unconvinced. ‘I don’t believe there is such a thing as stress, Next. Just weak people and strong people. Only strong people survive men like Hades. You’re a strong person.’

He paused. ‘If you change your mind, you can call me. But be warned. I’ll be keeping a close eye on you.’

‘Do as you will, Mr Schitt, but I’ve got a question for you.’

‘Yes?’

‘What’s your interest in Hades?’

Jack Schitt smiled again.

‘I’m afraid that’s classified, Miss Next. Good day.’

He tipped his hat, rose and left. A black Ford with smoked-glass windows pulled up outside the cemetery and drove him quickly away.

I sat and thought. I had lied to the police psychiatrist in saying I was fit for work and lied to Jack Schitt in saying that I wasn’t. If Goliath were interested in Hades and the Chuzzlewit manuscript, it could only be for financial gain. The Goliath Corporation was to altruism what Genghis Khan was to soft furnishings. Money came first to Goliath and nobody trusted them farther than they could throw them. They may have rebuilt England after the Second War, they may have re-established the economy. But sooner or later the renewed nation had to stand on its own and Goliath was seen now as less of a benevolent uncle than a despotic stepfather.

8. Airship to Swindon

‘… There is no point in expending good money on the pursuit of an engine that can power aircraft without propellers. What is wrong with airships anyway? They have borne mankind aloft for over a hundred relatively accident-free years and I see no reason to impugn their popularity…”

Congresswoman Kelly, arguing against parliamentary funds for the development of a new form of propulsion, August 1972

I took a small twenty-seater airship to Swindon. It was only half full and a brisk tailwind allowed us to make good time. The train would have been cheaper, but like many people I love to fly by gasbag. I had, when I was a little girl, been taken on an immense clipper-class airship to Africa by my parents. We had flown slowly across France, over the Eiffel Tower, past Lyon, stopped at Nice, then travelled across the sparkling Mediterranean, waving at fishermen and passengers in ocean liners who waved back. We had stopped at Cairo after circling the Pyramids with infinite grace, the captain expertly manoeuvring the leviathan with the skilful use of the twelve fully orientable propellers. We had continued up the Nile three days later to Luxor, where we joined a cruise ship for the return to the coast. Here we boarded the Ruritania for the return to England, by way of the Straits of Gibraltar and the Bay of Biscay. Little wonder that I tried to return to the fond memories of my childhood as often as I could.

‘Magazine, ma’am?’ asked a steward.

I declined. In-flight airship magazines were always dull, and I was quite happy just to watch the English landscape slide past beneath me. It was a glorious sunny day, and the airship droned past the small puffy clouds that punctuated the sky like a flock of aerial sheep. The Chilterns had risen to meet us and then dropped away as we swept past Wallingford, Didcot and Wantage. The Uffington White Horse drifted below me, bringing back memories of picnics and courting. Landen and I had often been there.

‘Corporal Next—?’ enquired a familiar voice. I turned to find a middle-aged man standing in the aisle, a half-smile on his face. I knew instantly who it was, even though we had not met for twelve years.

‘Major—!’ I responded, stiffening slightly in the presence of someone who had once been my superior officer. His name was Phelps, and I had been under his command the day the Light Armoured Brigade had advanced into the Russian guns in error as they sought to repulse an attack on Balaclava. I had been the driver of the armoured personnel carrier under Phelps; it had not been a happy time.

The airship started the slow descent into Swindon.

‘How have you been, Next?’ he asked, our past association dictating the way in which we spoke to one another.

‘I’ve been well, sir. Yourself?’

‘Can’t complain.’ He laughed. ‘Well, I could, but it wouldn’t do any good. The damn fools made me a colonel, dontcha know it.’

‘Congratulations,’ I said, slightly uneasily.

The steward asked us to fasten our seat belts and Phelps sat down next to me and snapped on the buckle. He carried on talking in a slightly lower voice.

‘I’m a bit concerned about the Crimea.’

‘Who isn’t?’ I countered, wondering if Phelps had changed his politics since the last time we had met.

‘Quite. It’s these UN johnnies poking their noses where they’re not welcome. Makes all those lives seem wasted if we give it back now.’

I sighed. His politics hadn’t changed and I didn’t want an argument. I had wanted the war finished almost as soon as I got out there. It didn’t fit into my idea of what a just war should be. Pushing Nazis out of Europe had been just. The fight over the Crimean Peninsula was nothing but xenophobic pride and misguided patriotism.

‘How’s the hand?’ I asked.

Phelps showed me a lifelike left hand. He rotated the wrist and then wiggled the fingers. I was impressed.