Something Rotten

by Jasper Fforde

  'When did you get back?'

  'This morning.'

  'And how are you finding things?'

  I brought her up to date with current events. She made 'tut-tutting' noises when I told her about Hamlet and Lady Hamilton, then even louder 'tut-tut' noises when I mentioned my mother and Bismarck.

  'Risky business, that.'

  'Mum and Bismarck?'

  'Emma and Hamlet.'

  'He's fictional and she's historical – what could be wrong about that?'

  'I was thinking,' she said slowly, raising an eyebrow, 'about what would happen if Ophelia found out.'

  I hadn't thought of that, and she was right. Hamlet could be difficult but Ophelia was impossible.

  'I always thought the reason Sir John Falstaff retired from policing Elizabethan drama was to get away from Ophelia's sometimes unreasonable demands,' I mused, 'such as having petting animals and a goodly supply of mineral water and fresh sushi on hand at Elsinore whenever she was working. Do you think I should insist Hamlet return to Hamlet?'

  'Perhaps not right away,' said Gran, coughing into her hanky. 'Let him see what the real world is like. Might do him good to realise it needn't take five acts to make up one's mind.'

  She started coughing again so I called the nurse, who told me I should probably leave her. I kissed her goodbye and walked out of the rest home deep in thought, trying to work up a strategy for the next few days. I dreaded to think what my overdraft was like and if I was to catch Kaine I'd be better off inside SpecOps than outside. There were no two ways about it: I needed my old job back. I'd attempt that tomorrow and take it from there. Kaine certainly needed dealing with, and I'd play it by ear at the TV studios tonight. I'd probably have to find a speech therapist for Friday to try to wean him off the Lorem Ipsum, and then, of course, there was Landen. How could I even begin to get someone returned to the here-and-now after they were deleted from the there-and-then by a chroirupt official from the supposedly incorruptible ChronoGuard?

  I was jolted from my thoughts as I approached Mum's house. There appeared to be someone partially hidden from view in the alleyway opposite. I nipped into the nearest front garden, ran between the houses, across two back gardens, and then stood on a dustbin to peek cautiously over a high wall. I was right. There was someone watching my mother's house. He was dressed too warmly for summer and was half hidden in the buddleia. My foot slipped on the dustbin and I made a noise. The lurker looked round, saw me and took flight. I jumped over the wall and gave chase. It was easier than I thought. He wasn't terribly fit and I caught up with him as he tried rather pathetically to climb a wall. Pulling the man down, I upset his small duffel bag and out poured an array of battered notebooks, a camera, a small pair of binoculars and several copies of the SpecOps 27 gazette, much annotated in red pen. 'Ow, ow, ow, get off!' he said. 'You're hurting!' I twisted his arm round and he dropped to his knees. I was just patting his pockets for a weapon when another man, dressed not unlike the first, came charging out from behind an abandoned car, holding aloft a tree branch. I spun, dodged the blow and, as the second man's momentum carried him on, I pushed him hard with my foot and he slammed head first into a wall and collapsed unconscious.

  The first man was unarmed so I made sure his unconscious friend was also unarmed – and wasn't going to choke on his blood or teeth or something.

  'I know you're not SpecOps,' I observed, 'because you're both way too crap. Goliath?'

  The first man got slowly to his feet. He was looking curiously at me, rubbing his arm where I had twisted it. He was a large man but not an unkindly looking one. He had short dark hair and a large mole on his chin. I had broken his spectacles; he didn't look Goliath but I had been wrong before.

  'I'm very pleased to meet you, Miss Next. I've been waiting for you for a long, long time.'

  'I've been away.'

  'Since January 1986. I've waited nearly two and a half years to see you.'

  'And why would you do a thing like that?'

  'Because,' said the man, producing an identity badge from his pocket and handing it over, 'I am your officially sanctioned stalker.'

  I looked at the badge. It was true enough, he was allocated to me. All 100 per cent legit, and I didn't have a say in it. The whole stalker thing was licensed by SpecOps 33, the Entertainments Facilitation Department, which had drawn up specific rules with the Amalgamated Union of Stalkers as to who was allowed to stalk who. It helped to regulate a historically dark business and also graded stalkers according to skill and perseverance. My stalker was an impressive Grade I, the sort who are permitted to stalk the really big celebrities. And that made me suspicious.

  'A Grade I?' I queried. 'Should I be flattered? I don't suppose I'm anything above a Grade 8.'

  'Not nearly that high,' agreed my stalker, 'more like a Grade 12. But I've got a hunch you're going to get bigger. I latched on to Lola Vavoom in the sixties when she was just a bit part in The Streets of Wootton Bassett and stalked her for nineteen years, man and boy. I only gave her up to move on to Buck Stallion. When she heard she sent me a glass tankard with "Thank you for a great stalk, Lola" etched on it. Have you ever met her?'

  'Once, Mr . . .' I looked at the pass before handing it back. '. . . de Floss. Interesting name. Any relation to Candice?'

  'The author? In my dreams,' replied the stalker, rolling his eyes. 'But since I'd like us to be friends, do please call me Millon.'

  'Millon it is, then.'

  And we shook hands. The man on the ground moaned and sat up, rubbing his head.

  'Who's your friend?'

  'He's not my friend,' said Millon, 'he's my stalker. And a pain in the arse he is too.'

  'Wait – you're a stalker and you have a stalker?'

  'Of course!' Millon laughed. 'Ever since I published my autobiography, A Stalk on the Wild Side, I've become a bit of a celebrity myself. I even have a sponsorship deal with Compass Rose™ duffel coats. It is my celebrity status that enables Adam here to stalk me. Come to think of it, he's a Grade 3 stalker so it's possible he's got a stalker of his own – haven't you heard the poem?'

  Before I could stop him he started to recite:

  '. . . And so the tabloids do but say,

  that stalkers on other stalkers prey,

  and these have smaller stalkers to stalk ’em

  and so proceed, ad infinitum . . . '

  'No, I hadn't heard that one,' I mused as the second stalker placed a handkerchief on his bleeding lip.

  'Miss Next, this is Adam Gnusense. Adam, Miss Next.'

  He waved weakly at me, looked at the bloodied handkerchief and sighed mournfully. I felt rather remorseful all of a sudden.

  'Sorry to have hit you, Mr Gnusense,' I said apologetically, 'I didn't know what either of you was up to.'

  'Occupational hazard, Miss Next.'

  'Hey, Adam,' said Millon, suddenly sounding enthusiastic, 'do you have your own stalker yet?'

  'Somewhere,' said Gnusense, looking around, 'a Grade 34 loser. The sad bastard was rummaging through my bins last night. Passe or what!'

  'Kids – tsk,' said Millon. 'It might have been de rigueur in the sixties but the modern stalker is much more subtle. Long vigils, copious notes, timed entry and exits, telephoto lenses.'

  'We live in sad times,' agreed Adam, shaking his head sadly. 'Must be off. I said I'd keep a close eye on Adrian Lush for a friend.'

  He stood up and shambled slowly away down the alley, stumbling on discarded beer cans.

  'Not a great talker is old Adam,' said Millon in a whisper, 'but sticks to his target like a limpet. You wouldn't catch him rummaging through dustbins – unless he was giving a masterclass for a few of the young pups, of course. Tell me, Miss Next, where have you been for the past two and a half years? It's been a bit dull here – after the first eighteen months of you not showing up, I'd reduced my stalking to only three nights a week.'

  'You'd never believe me.'

  'You'd be surprised what I can believe. Aside from st
alking I've just finished my first book: A Short History of the Special Operations Network. I'm also editor of Conspiracy Theorist magazine. In between pieces on the very tangible link between Goliath and Yorrick Kaine and the existence of a mysterious beast known only as "Guinzilla", we've run several articles devoted entirely to you and that Jane Eyre thing. We'd love to do a piece on your uncle Mycroft's work, too. Even though we know almost nothing, the conspiracy network is alive with healthy half-truths, lies and supposition. Did he really build an LCD cloaking device for cars?'

  'Sort of.'

  'And translating carbon paper?'

  'He called it rossetionery.'

  'And what about the ovinator? Conspiracy Theorist devotes several pages of unsubstantiated rumours to this one invention alone.'

  'I don't know. Some sort of machine for cooking eggs, perhaps? Is there anything you don't know about my family?'

  'Not a lot. I'm thinking of writing a biography of you. How about: Thursday Next – A Biography?'

  'The title? Way too imaginative.'

  'So I have your permission?'

  'No, but if you can put a dossier together on Yorrick Kaine I'll tell you all about Aornis Hades.'

  'Acheron's little sister? It's a deal! Are you sure I can't write your biography? I've already made a start.'

  'Positive – if you find anything, knock on my door.'

  'I can't. There's a blanket restraining order on all members of the Amalgamated Union of Stalkers. We're not allowed within a hundred yards of your place of residence.'

  I sighed.

  'All right, just wave when I come out.'

  De Floss readily agreed to that plan and I left him rearranging his notebook, binoculars and camera and starting to make copious notes on his first encounter with me. I couldn't get rid of the poor deluded fool but a stalker just might – might — be an ally.

  3

  Evade the Question Time

  PERFIDIOUS DANES 'HISTORICALLY OUR ENEMY', CLAIMS INSANE HISTORIAN

  'Quite frankly, I was yim-pim-pim appalled,' said England's leading mad history scholar yesterday. 'The eighth-century Danish attack on our flibble-flobble sceptred isle is a story of invasion, subjugation, plunder and exploitation that would remain bleep-bleep-baaaaa unequalled until we tried it ourselves many years later.' The confused and barely coherent historian's work has been authenticated by another equally feeble-minded academic, who told us yesterday: 'The Danish invasion began in 786 when the Danes set up a kingdom in East Anglia. They didn't even use their own names either. They preferred to do their brutal work cowardly hiding beneath the pseudonyms of Angles, Bruts, and Flynns.' Further research has shown that the Danes stayed for over four hundred years and were only driven home by the crusading help of our new close friends the French.

  Article in the New Oppressor, the official mouthpiece of the Whig Party

  'How did Kaine rise so quickly to power?' I asked incredulously as Joffy and I queued patiently outside Swindon's Toad News Network studios that evening. 'When I was here last Kaine and the Whig Party were all but washed up after the Cardenio debacle.'

  Joffy looked grim and nodded towards a large crowd of uniformed Kaine followers who were waiting in silence for their glorious leader.

  'Things haven't been good back here, Thurs. Kaine regained his seat after Samuel Pring was assassinated. The Whigs formed an alliance with the Liberals and elected Kaine as their leader. He has some sort of magnetism, and the numbers that attend his rallies increase all the time. His 'British Unification' stance has had much support – mostly among stupid people who can't be bothered to think for themselves.'

  'War with Wales?'

  'He hasn't said as such but a leopard doesn't change its spots. He won by a landslide after the previous government collapsed over the "cash for llamas" scandal. As soon as he was in power he proclaimed himself Chancellor. His Unreform Act last year restricted the vote to people with property.'

  'How did he get Parliament to agree to that?' I muttered, aghast at the thought of it.

  'We're not sure,' said Joffy sadly. 'Sometimes Parliament does the funniest things. But he's not happy just being Chancellor. He's arguing that committees and accountants only slow things down and if people really want trains to run on time and shopping trolleys to run straight, it can only be done by one man wielding unquestionable executive power – a dictator.'

  'So what's stopping him?'

  'The President,' replied Joffy quietly. 'Formby has told Kaine that if he pushes for a dictatorial election he will stand against him, and Yorrick knows full well that Formby would win – he's as popular now as he ever was.'

  I thought for a moment.

  'How old is President Formby?'

  'That's the problem. He was eighty-four last May.'

  We fell silent for a moment, and shuffled with the queue up to the stage door, had our identities checked by two ugly men from SO-6 and were then ushered in. We took our seats at the back and waited patiently for the show to begin. It seemed hard to believe that Kaine had managed to inveigle his way to the top of English politics but, I reflected, anything can happen to a fictional character – a trait that Yorrick obviously exploited to the full.

  'See that nasty-looking man on the edge of the stage?' asked Joffy.

  'Yes,' I replied, following the line of Joffy's finger to a stocky man with short hair and no visible neck.

  'Colonel Fawsten Gayle, Kaine's head of security. Not a man to trifle with. It's rumoured he was expelled from school for nailing his head to a park bench for a bet.'

  Standing next to Gayle was a cadaverous man with pinched features and small round spectacles. He was holding a battered red briefcase and was dressed in a rumpled sports jacket and corduroy trousers.

  'Who's that?'

  'Ernst Stricknene. Kaine's personal adviser.'

  I stared at them both for a while and noticed that, despite being barely two feet from one another, they didn't exchange a single word or look. Things in the Kaine camp were far from settled. If I could get close I'd just grab Yorrick and jump him straight to one of Jurisfiction's many prison books and that would be that. It looked as though I had got back home just in time.

  I consulted the complimentary copy of The New Oppressor I had found on my seat.

  'Why is Kaine blaming the nation's woes on the Danish?' I asked.

  'Because economically we're in a serious mess after losing to Russia in the Crimean War. They didn't just get Tunbndge Wells as war reparations but a huge chunk of cash, too. The country is near bankruptcy, Kaine wants to stay in power, so—'

  '—misdirection.'

  'Bingo. He blames someone else.'

  'But the Danish?'

  'Shows how desperate he is, doesn't it? As a nation we've been blaming the Welsh and the French for far too long, and with the Russians out of the frame he's come up with Denmark as public enemy number one. He's using the Viking raids of AD 800 and the Danish Rule of England in the eleventh century as an excuse to whip up some misinformed xenophobia.'

  'Ludicrous!'

  'Agreed. The papers have been full of anti-Danish propaganda this past month. All Bang & Olufsen entertainment systems have been withdrawn owing to "safety" concerns and Lego has been banned pending "choking hazard" investigations. The list of outlawed Danish waters is becoming longer by the second. Kierkegaard's works have already been declared illegal under the Undesirable Danish Literature Act and will be burned. Hans Christian Andersen will be next, we're told – and after that, maybe even Karen Blixen.'

  'They can pull my copy of Out of Africa from my cold dead fingers.'

  'Mine too. You'd better make sure Hamlet doesn't tell anyone where he's from. Shhh. I think something's happening.'

  Something was happening. The floor manager had walked out on to the set and was explaining to us exactly what we should do. After a protracted series of technical checks, the host of the show walked on to applause from the audience. This was Tudor Webastow of The Owl, who had made
a career out of being just inquisitive enough to be considered a realistic political foil for the press but not so inquisitive that he would be found in the Thames wearing concrete overshoes.

  He sat down at the middle of a table with two empty chairs either side of him and sorted his notes. Unusually for Evade the Question Time the show had two speakers instead of four, but tonight was special: Yorrick Kaine would be facing his political opposition, Mr Redmond van de Poste, of the Commonsense Party. Mr Webastow cleared his throat and began.

  'Good evening and welcome to Evade the Question Time, the nation's premier topical talk show. Tonight, as every night, a panel of distinguished public figures generally evade answering the audience's questions and instead tow the party line.'

  There was applause at this, and Webastow continued:

  'The show tonight comes from Swindon in Wessex. Sometimes called the third capital of England or the "Venice on the M4", the Swindon of today is a financial and manufacturing powerhouse, its citizens a cross-section of professionals and artists who are politically indicative of the country as a whole. I'd also like to mention at this point that Evade the Question Time is brought to you by Neat-Fit® Exhaust Systems, the tailpipe of choice.'

  He paused for a moment and shuffled his papers.

  'We are honoured to have with us tonight two very different speakers from opposite ends of the political spectrum. First I would like to introduce a man who was politically dead two years ago but has managed to pull himself up to the second-highest political office in the nation with a devoted following of many millions, not all of whom are deranged. Ladies and gentlemen, Chancellor Yorrick Kaine!'

  There was a mixed reception as Kaine walked on to the stage, and he grinned and nodded his head for the benefit of the crowd. I leaned forward in my seat. He didn't appear to have aged at all in the two years since I had last seen him, which is what I would expect from a fictioneer. Still looking to be in his late twenties with black hair swept neatly to the side, he might have been a male model from a knitting pattern. I knew he wasn't. I'd checked.