Early Riser_The new standalone novel from the Number One bestselling author

by Jasper Fforde

‘I concur,’ said Aurora with a laugh. ‘You shouldn’t waste your thoughts on spooks and ghoulies, Charlie.’

  I suddenly felt slightly foolish, but there was no TV at the Pool, and stories had made up a fair proportion of our entertainment.

  ‘You must give the legend some credence, Mr Treacle,’ I said, ‘or why stop at fifty thousand for your wager? Why not a million?’

  ‘Because any wager has to be able to be met by both sides.’

  Aurora and I exchanged glances. Laura didn’t look like she had anything near that sort of cash.

  ‘Jim,’ said Aurora, suddenly intrigued, ‘what actually was her side of the bet?’

  ‘Her secondborn in the fullness of womanhood.’

  There was a sudden shocked silence.

  ‘For God’s sake, Jim,’ said Aurora, ‘she’s only sixteen. That makes you less of a bondsman and something closer to a trafficker, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I forgive you your gross impudence,’ replied Treacle in an even tone, ‘but she instigated the wager. Pleaded with me to take it. It’s all perfectly legal. You’d not bat an eyelid if she brokered her reproductive futures through Wackford’s for some upfront cash.’

  This was quite possibly true and we trudged on in silence, the still air illuminated by the warm orange glow of the gas lamps. We passed the Talgarth Pleasure Gardens and boating lake, the beds and borders invisible beneath the drifts. Beyond the wrought-iron gates I could see the statue of Gwendolyn VII and a fountain which had frozen solid while still running, so was now simply a misshapen chrysanthemum of ice.

  ‘See the lump in the snow under the statue?’ said Aurora. ‘Roscoe Smalls. Took the Cold Way Out over that viral dream nonsense. Did you learn anything new from Fodder?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘I liked Roscoe,’ said Jim Treacle, ‘and Suzy too, although Moody could be, well, moody. Luckily, none of them were insured, so no loss to the company.’

  Jim Treacle didn’t just offer loans, it seemed.

  Behind the statue of Gwendolyn VII and the freeze-paused fountain was a large building of dark, rain-streaked stone. The entranceway was framed by four massive Doric columns stretching down from a triangular tympanum, and above and behind this was a copper-sheathed dome, dark green with verdigris. The building was dark and silent, already locked in the icy grip of Winter.

  ‘That’s the regional museum,’ said Aurora. ‘It’s very good. There’s Bob Beamish’s running shoes, the gown Sylvia Syms wore for the 1959 Academy Awards, lots of Don Hector memorabilia, and the remains of the first bicycle to go twice the speed of horse. Lots of stamps, too, including the “Anglesey” 2d Lloyd-George Mauve.43 It’s the only one in the world. You can see the funfair just beyond.’

  She was right. Just visible in the gathering gloom was a helter-skelter, a parachute drop and a roller coaster, the heavy wooden lattice covered by a thick blanket of snow.

  We moved on and immediately on our right, once past a frozen stream, was the first of the Dormitoria. It was set back from the road and difficult to see in any detail other than that it was circular, made of stone and had a steeply pitched conical slate roof. It must have been about sixteen storeys – diminutive by modern standards – and the only sign of life was a single porter’s oil lamp outside the main entrance.

  ‘The Geraldus Cambrensis,’ said Aurora. ‘Built in 1236, it’s the oldest continuously-occupied Dormitorium in Wales. Worth a visit to the area on its own.’

  We continued up the hill.

  ‘Do you get much mischief out here in the Winter?’ I asked.

  ‘Skirmishes with Villains are the most dramatic,’ said Jim Treacle. ‘Lucky Ned operates in the area but prefers quiet thievery rather than frontal assault – there’s a truce, apparently, brokered by Toccata. They’ve been doing some kidnapping, but not from the Sector, as per the terms of the truce.’

  ‘For ransom or domestic service?’ I asked, recalling Dai Powell’s experience.

  ‘Domestic service. Cooking and cleaning and housework and so forth. We also have pseudo-hibernatory sneak thieves,’ continued Treacle, ‘never less than two stowaways and Snuffling and Puffling is not unknown. There’s a serial roomsneaker who’s been dubbed “The Llanigon Puddler” and usually a motley collection of winsomniacs and nightwalkers, but other than that, not much.’

  ‘It’s the boredom and the weather that get to you here,’ added Aurora, ‘especially when the temperature plunges, the snowfalls are thicker than soup and the wind chucks up drifts the size of mammoths. Even in a Sno-Trac it can take an age to get around, and a blizzard can strand you for weeks. Been in a white-out? Scary stuff. You a brave person?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’

  We walked on another hundred yards in silence.

  ‘This is me,’ said Treacle as we reached a crossroads next to a large and slightly dilapidated billboard advertising ‘Ashbrook Garage – All makes of cars repaired, Land Rovers a speciality’. Treacle handed me his card. There wasn’t a phone number, just the time he’d be in the Wincarnis.

  ‘In case you need some ready cash. If you’re in a jam, call Treacle. I buy indulgences, too – Favours, Debts and so forth – so repayment doesn’t have to be like for like.’

  I said that I’d be leaving almost straight away, but I’d bear that in mind.

  He grinned and then headed towards a Dormitorium that was signposted Howell Harris.

  ‘Watch out for him,’ said Aurora once he was out of earshot. ‘A bondsman’s only motivating factor is cash. But he does take bribes, which makes him usefully compliant.’

  We set off again, took a left at the advertising hoarding, walked past a petrol station, also closed and shuttered, and then took a right into what I think had once been the parkland of a stately home. We walked along a slight incline, past Summer residences, the shutters up. We were now on the other side of the valley from HiberTech, and although the facility was visible as a collection of sparkling lights, it was impossible to make out the shape in the darkness. As I was pondering this, an owl fell from the sky to the road beside us and twitched its wings feebly in the snow. Of the seven bird species on the Albion Peninsula that were hiburnal, owls weren’t one of them.

  We walked further into the sleep district, where around us the Dormitoria rose out of the ground like a forest of giant toadstools. Each was larger than the Cambrensis, but all the traditional shape: circular, minimal windows, steep conical roof.

  As we moved past the sunward towers and to the cheaper north-side buildings beyond, I noticed the quality of the Dormitoria become steadily worse. Six structures were no more than rubble to the third floor and two or three were merely empty concrete circles on the ground, the capped HotPot deep below still just active enough to keep the slab above from freezing. But just as I was beginning to think that Aurora would be putting me up in something no better than a Winterstock shed, she stopped and nodded towards a large Dormitorium that had loomed out of the snow-swirled gloom in front of us.

  ‘Welcome,’ she said, ‘to the Sarah Siddons.’

  The Sarah Siddons

  * * *

  ‘… The profession of nightwatchman from which the porter had evolved was by long tradition filled by eunuchs. Although no longer mandatory, the Worshipful Guild of Nightwatchmen clung doggedly to the practice, and still enjoyed popular support: sixteen weeks pacing corridors was a job that most thought better to entrust to someone who had unequivocally committed themselves to the calling …’

  – Handbook of Winterology, 6th edition, Hodder & Stoughton

  The Siddons was at least thirty storeys high and unusually broad, a sure sign of a once-desirable residence. The façade had been rendered and then scored to emulate Portland stone, with a decorative doorway that represented yawning night-satyrs and snow-nymphs. It was impressive but shabby, and not assisted by the location: light industrial units had been built on the cheaper land this far from the centre of town, and the a
rea looked run down and depressed.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Aurora, ‘a bit of a dump. When built, it enjoyed full sun and wasn’t obscured at all, but more modern dorms have been built in front of it over the years.’

  Once we’d hung up our outclothes and swapped our snow boots for slippers, I looked around. Someone had made an attempt to reinvigorate the scruffy interior, but it hadn’t really worked. Mismatched carpet and threadbare modernist furniture only made the once-impressive lobby look cheap and neglected, and the numerous coats of clumsily-applied paint stole the subtlety from the plasterwork. I sniffed the air. As in the John Edward Jones back in Merthyr, there was the subtle yet unmistakable odour of slumber in the air – gummy sweat and the eggy whiff of hibernation mixed with semi-stale air breathed out past unbrushed teeth.

  The porter was waiting to receive us. He was impeccably dressed, quite bald and wore small, gold-framed spectacles upon a face that seemed as close to a sphere as a human head is ever likely to get. I was suddenly put in mind of Bunsen Honeydew44 from the Muppets, and chuckled. He stared at me and narrowed his eyes.

  ‘You were just thinking of Bunsen Honeydew, weren’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes – okay, a bit. Sorry.’

  ‘Deputy Worthing,’ said Aurora, ‘may I present Porter Lloyd?’

  I must have looked surprised for he sighed and said: ‘Yes, that Porter Lloyd. Worst thing I ever did, being Volkbait for Ichabod.’

  ‘Because it was frightening?’

  ‘No, the endless repetition of the story. I’ve had the words to “Lonely Goatherd” running around in my head for two decades, and while sometimes annoying, on the plus side it does put a jaunty step in my stride when I’m feeling down.’

  Aurora yodelled the chorus and gave us both a grin.

  ‘There’s always one,’ said the Porter good-humouredly, and walked around to embrace me. He smelled of lemon soap, Hoover bags and mothballs and was a head shorter than me.

  ‘Welcome to the Douzey,’ he said. ‘It’s not as bad as people say. I was sorry to hear about Moody. Who pulled the trigger?’

  ‘Mr Hooke,’ said Aurora, ‘and in self-defence, before you ask.’

  ‘News travels fast,’ I said.

  ‘There are seventy-six porters in the Sector,’ said Lloyd as he returned to his place behind the reception desk, ‘and none of us venture out in the Winter. Having a permanently open line on the telephone network helps. Pick up the receiver and just talk. There’s usually someone listening, and if there isn’t, there soon will be. If all else fails, you can always talk to yourself or listen to the static. To be honest, listening to static can be more relaxing than listening to many of the others – especially Mr Rubucon over at the George Melly. What can I help you with?’

  ‘A place to stay for one to three days,’ said Aurora, ‘billed to HiberTech.’

  ‘You’ve come to the right place,’ said Lloyd happily. ‘We’ve only had nine illegal bedroom incursions since 1990: three snaffles, one Dormicide and five incidents of Trespass – three visual, one tactile and an unspeakable. We’re not proud of that, obviously, but it’s the lowest rate of hiburnal outrage in the Sector. You’ll also be pleased to know that no resident has been eaten in their sleep here for almost thirty-seven years.’

  The lights flickered for a moment, went out, then came back on again.

  ‘Hydro Twelve has been on the fritz recently,’ said Lloyd by way of explanation. ‘What sort of room had you in mind? Cell, Basic, Featured, Deluxe or Super-Deluxe?’

  ‘Do you dream?’ asked Aurora quite suddenly, while fixing me with a quizzical expression. It wasn’t usually the sort of question you asked, but she was the head of HiberTech Security.

  ‘Not since I was eight.’

  She looked at me for a moment.

  ‘Suzy Watson was recently gathered into the night,’ said Aurora, ‘why not hers? The positive energy of a young sleeper will drive the bad dreaming from the room.’

  ‘O-kay,’ said the porter.

  ‘Why did you ask if I’d dreamed?’

  ‘No reason. Worthing here will also need to hire your Sno-Trac,’ she said to Lloyd. ‘We’ll get it back to you as soon as we can. And this next bit’s delicate: we’re hoping to keep Worthing’s presence as something not to be broadcast any wider than between ourselves. Worthing here was partially to blame for Jack Logan’s death and you know what Toccata’s like.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I wasn’t really—’

  ‘I heard about Logan on the Open Network, too,’ interrupted Lloyd, ‘a great loss. Might be wiser keeping quiet. Do you need anything else?’

  I thought for a moment.

  ‘I’d like to fax my office back in Cardiff, tell them I’m delayed.’

  ‘Leave that to me,’ said Aurora. ‘I’ll say you’ll be back in three days, five at the outset. I have to report about Jack Logan anyway – and absolve you of any wrongdoing. Least I can do. Get a good night’s sleep – the first few days in the Winter can be tough.’

  I thanked her and she wished me well, gave us both a cheery wave, and was gone.

  Once the front door had clicked shut, Lloyd had me sign for the Sno-Trac keys.

  ‘It’s in the basement,’ he said. ‘Do you want to take it now?’

  ‘Aurora didn’t think travelling at night wise,’ I said.

  ‘True,’ said Lloyd, suddenly looking a little uncomfortable, ‘but, well, things in Sector Twelve have a way of getting complicated very quickly. You might think the risk of a night journey less than a stay in Sector Twelve.’

  ‘You think I should get out?’

  He looked to left and right and lowered his voice.

  ‘Entirely a matter for you.’

  I considered it seriously, until I looked outside. The wind was getting up and visibility, while not yet zero, could make driving very tricky – and I had no desire to be stuck in a Sno-Trac somewhere between nowhere and nowhere.

  ‘I’ll see how it looks in the morning.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Lloyd picked my room key off the board and we walked towards the lift. As we crossed the semi-circular lobby under the watchful eye of the ever-present portraits of Gwendolyn XXXVIII and Don Hector, I peered into the dark, wood-panelled Winterlounge, and could see a half-dozen individuals scattered around either reading, playing board games or talking quietly. All of them boasted the beautifully corpulent curves of healthy Autumn weight, and were languid in movement and manner.

  ‘That’s a lot of yawners,’45 I said to Lloyd. ‘What’s keeping them up?’

  ‘This viral dream stuff has spooked the residents, and none of them want to go to sleep in case they dream the Buick dream and then go the way of Watson, Smalls and Moody. Mind you, this bunch are fighting a losing battle anyway.’

  As if to punctuate his statement, the most healthily bloated of the sleep-ready residents yawned. When you get to that size and the ambient cools to fifteen degrees Celsius or below, it takes a Herculean46 effort to stave off the slumber.

  The paternoster lift started up as soon as we stepped in and slowly hauled us upwards with a gurgling of water from the auto-ballast. There were no doors on the elevator and the view of the corridors as we drifted upwards was dull, but uniform. Offerings to Morpheus were at the foot of most doors, along with fair dreaming candles freshly lit. There were a lot of them, too – the corridors were alive with hundreds of little lights, flickering in the faint breeze that occasionally wafted through the building.

  There was nothing like this in the Melody Black back in Cardiff, but that was Alpha payscale and Morphenox – without pharmaceutical means to mitigate the fat-burning ferocity of the Dreamstate, the residents of the Siddons had retained their superstitious beliefs. Those of us on Morphenox no longer needed a deity to enter our dreams and watch over us, for the drug had rendered the god redundant. Veneration had moved from the spiritual to the pharmaceutical – and if wha
t Lucy had suggested was true, all of this might be gone by next Winter.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said as Lloyd and I passed the third floor at a speed that was probably only marginally faster than taking the stairs, ‘do the yawners in the Winterlounge really think they’re going to catch the viral dream?’

  ‘They do – and I kind of agree with them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’ve dreamt scraps of the dream too. Hands, an oak tree, scratched boulders, the blue Buick. But this is what’s weird: when I compared my dream with Moody and Smalls, there were other similarities, details we’d never discussed that were the same. Something is going on.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go nuts the way of Moody, Roscoe and Suzy?’ I asked. ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘No idea at all. But as I say, I only got scraps. I have this feeling that I dream more than I remember, and that I never left the rocks. If you do dream, you’d be advised to do the same.’

  ‘But I don’t dream.’

  ‘I know that, but if you do. This is our floor.’

  We stepped off the lift, which carried on for a couple of seconds before the delicate balance system sensed it was no longer under load, and stopped.

  ‘Okay, then,’ he said, clapping his hands together, ‘in an emergency I’m in 801, below you, one floor down. Oh, and since HiberTech are footing the bill, will you make good use of room service?’

  I said I would. He wished me goodnight and stepped onto the ‘down’ side of the paternoster, which gurgled for a moment, then sank with him out of sight.

  Room 901 was halfway around the corridor on the southern side of the building, opposite the stairs. Pictures of a young woman had been laid at the bottom of the door along with condolence cards. I’d taken over a dead person’s room or bed or even shoes or best friend before – we all have – but this time it felt odd, and I shivered.

  Room 901

  * * *

  ‘… The Sarah Siddons was thirty-three storeys high, eighty yards overall diameter, floor to ceiling three yards, eight rooms to a floor. The central hollow core where the rising heat would be ducted was exactly five yards wide, including stairs. Built in 1906, it is very typical of many Dormitoria of the period …’