The Eyre Affair

We sat in Jones’s parlour until it was dark, then spent a noisy and uncomfortable hour in the boot of Haelwyn the book’s Griffin-12 motor car. We heard the murmur of Welsh voices as she took us across the border and we were pummelled mercilessly by the potholed road on the trip into Merthyr. There was a second checkpoint just outside the capital, which was unusual; it seemed that English troop movements had made the military edgy. A few minutes later the car stopped and the boot creaked open. Haelwyn bade us jump out and we stretched painfully after the cramped journey. She pointed the way to the Penderyn Hotel and I told her that if we weren’t back by daybreak we wouldn’t be coming. She smiled and shook our hands, wished us good luck and headed off to visit her aunt.

Hades was in the Penderyn Hotel’s abandoned bar at that time, smoking a pipe and contemplating the view from the large windows. Beyond the beautifully lit Palace of Justice the full moon had risen and cast a cool glow upon the old city, which was alive with lights and movement. Beyond the buildings were the mountains, their summits hidden in cloud. Jane was on the other side of the room, sitting on the edge of her seat, angrily glaring at Hades.

‘Pleasant view, wouldn’t you say, Miss Eyre?’

‘It pales when compared to my window at Thornfield, Mr Hades,’ replied Jane in a restrained tone. ‘While not the finest view I had learned to love it as an old friend, dependable and unchanging. I demand that you return me there forthwith.’

‘All in good time, dear girl, all in good time. I mean you no harm. I just want to make a lot of money, then you can return to your Edward.’

‘Greed will get the better of you, I think, sir,’ responded Jane evenly. ‘You may think it will bring you happiness, but it will not. Happiness is fed by the food of love, not by the stodgy diet of money. The love of money is the root of all evil!’

Acheron smiled.

‘You are so dull, you know, Jane, with that puritanical streak. You should have gone with Rochester when you had the chance instead of wasting yourself with that drip St John Rivers.’

‘Rivers is a fine man!’ declared Jane angrily. ‘He has more goodness than you will ever know!’

The telephone rang and Acheron interrupted her with a wave of his hand. It was Delamere, speaking from a phone box in Swindon. He was reading from The Mole’s classified section.

‘Lop-eared rabbits will be available soon to good homes,’ he quoted down the line. Hades smiled and replaced the receiver. The authorities, he thought, were playing ball after all. He motioned to Felix8, who followed him out of the room, dragging a recalcitrant Jane with him.

Bowden and I had forced a window in the dark bowels of the hotel and found ourselves in the old kitchen: a damp and dilapidated room packed with large food preparation equipment.

‘Where now?’ hissed Bowden.

‘Upstairs—I would expect them to be in a ballroom or something.’

I snapped on a flashlight and looked at the hastily sketched plans. Searching for the real blueprints would have been too risky with Goliath watching our every move, so Victor had drawn the basic layout of the building from memory. I pushed open a swing door and we found ourselves on the lower ground floor. Above us was the entrance lobby. By the glimmer of the streetlights that shone through the dirty windows we made our way carefully up the water-stained marble staircase. We were close; I could sense it. I pulled out my automatic and Bowden did the same. I looked up into the lobby. A brass bust of Brodyr Ulyanov sat in pride of place in the large entrance hall opposite the sealed main doors. To the left was the entrance to the bar and restaurant, and to the right was the old reception desk; above us the grand staircase swept upstairs to the two ballrooms. Bowden tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. The doors to the main lounge were ajar, and a thin sliver of orange light shone from within. We were about to make a move when we heard footsteps from above. We pushed ourselves into the shadows and waited, breath bated. From the upstairs floor a small procession of people walked down the broad marble staircase. Leading the way was a man I recognised as Felix8; he held a candelabra aloft with one hand and clasped a small woman by the wrist with the other. She was dressed in Victorian nightclothes and had a greatcoat draped across her shoulders. Her face, although resolute, also spoke of despair and hopelessness. Behind her was a man who cast no shadows in the flickering light of the candles—Hades.

We watched as they entered the smoking lounge. We quickly tiptoed across the hall floor and found ourselves at the ornate door. I counted to three and we burst in.

‘Thursday! My dear girl, how predictable!’

I stared. Hades was sitting in a large armchair, smiling at us. Mycroft and Jane were looking dejected on a chaise-longue with Felix8 behind them holding two machine-pistols trained on Bowden and me. In front of them all was the Prose Portal. I cursed myself for being so stupid. I could sense Hades was here; did I suppose he could not do the same with me?

‘Drop your weapons, please,’ said Felix8. He was too close to Mycroft and Jane to risk a shot; the last time we met he had died as I watched. I said the first thing that popped into my head.

‘Haven’t I seen your face somewhere before?’

He ignored me.

‘Your guns, please.’

‘And let you shoot us like dodos? No way. We’re keeping them.’

Felix8 didn’t move. Our weapons were by our side and his were pointing straight at us. It wouldn’t be much of a contest.

‘You seem surprised that I was expecting you,’ said Hades with a slight smile.

‘You could say that.’

‘The stakes have changed, Miss Next. I thought my ten million ransom was a lot of money but I was approached by someone who would give me ten times that for your uncle’s machine alone.’

Mycroft shuffled unhappily. He had long ago ceased to complain, knowing it to be useless. He now looked forward only to the short visits he was permitted to Polly.

‘If that is the case,’ I said slowly, ‘then you can return Jane to the book.’

Hades thought for a minute.

‘Why not? But first, I want you to meet someone.’

A door opened to the left of us and Jack Schitt walked in. He was flanked by three of his men and they were all carrying plasma rifles. The situation, I noted, was on the whole less than favourable. I muttered an apology to Bowden then said:

‘Goliath? Here, in Wales?’

‘No doors are closed to the Corporation, Miss Next. We come and go as we please.’

Schitt sat down on a faded red upholstered chair and pulled out a cigar.

‘Siding with criminals, Mr Schitt? Is that what Goliath does these days?’

‘It’s a relativist argument, Miss Next—desperate situations require desperate measures. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. But listen, we have a great deal of money at our disposal and Acheron is willing to be generous in the use of Mr Next’s notable invention.’

‘And that is?’

‘Ever seen one of these?’ asked Schitt, waving the stubby weapon he held at us both.

‘It’s a plasma rifle.’

‘Correct. A one-man portable piece of field artillery, firing supercharged quanta of pure energy. It will cut through a foot of armour plate at a hundred yards; I think you will agree it is the high ground for land forces anywhere.’

‘If Goliath can deliver—‘ put in Bowden.

‘It’s a mite more complicated than that, Officer Cable,’ replied Schitt. ‘You see—it doesn’t work. Almost a billion dollars of funding and the bloody thing doesn’t work. Worse than that, it has recently been proved that it will never work; this sort of technology is quite impossible.’

‘But the Crimea is on the brink of war!’ I exclaimed angrily. ‘What happens when the Russians realise that