The Well of Lost Plots n-3

by Jasper Fforde

  He was smitten good and proper.

  'Randolph,' I said slowly, 'you have to tell her your feelings, if only for your own sake. This will prey on your mind for years!'

  'What if she laughs at me?'

  'What if she doesn't? There's a good chance she actually quite likes you!'

  Randolph's shoulders slumped.

  'I'll speak to her as soon as she gets back.'

  'Good.' I looked at my watch. 'I've got roll-call in twenty minutes. Let the engine run for ten minutes and then shut her down. I'll see you tonight.'

  'Who are we waiting for?' asked the Bellman.

  'Godot,' replied Benedict.

  'Absent again. Anybody know where he is?'

  There was a mass shaking of heads.

  The Bellman made a note in his book, tingled his bell and cleared his throat.

  'Jurisfiction session number 40320 is now in session,' he said in a voice tinged with emotion. 'Item one. Perkins and Snell. Fine operatives who made the ultimate sacrifice for duty. Their names will be carved into the Boojumorial to live for ever as inspiration for those who come after us. I call now for two minutes’ silence. Perkins and Snell!'

  'Perkins and Snell,' we all repeated, and stood in silent memory of those lost.

  'Thank you,' said the Bellman after two minutes had ticked by. 'Commander Bradshaw will be taking over the bestiary. Mathias’ mare has been contacted and asked me to say thank you to all those who sent tributes. The Perkins & Snell detective series will be taken over by B-2 clones from the tribute book, and I know you will join me in wishing them the very best in their new venture.'

  He paused and took a deep breath.

  'These losses are a great shock to us all, and the lessons to be learned must not be ignored. We can never be too careful. Okay, item two.'

  He turned over a page on his clipboard.

  'Investigation of Perkins' death. Commander Bradshaw, doesn't this come under your remit?'

  'Investigations are proceeding,' replied Bradshaw slowly. 'There is no reason to suppose that their deaths were anything other than an accident.'

  'So what stops you closing the case?'

  'Because,' replied Bradshaw, trying to think up an excuse quickly, 'because — um — we still want to speak to Vernham Deane.'

  'Deane is somehow involved?' asked the Bellman.

  'Yes — perhaps.'

  'Interesting turn of events,' said the Bellman, 'which brings us neatly on to item three. I'm sorry to announce that Vernham Deane has been placed on the PageRunners list.'

  There was a sharp intake of breath. To be classed as a PageRunner meant only one thing: illegal activities.

  'We've known Vern since he was written, guys, and hard as it might be, we think he's done something pretty bad. Tweed, haven't you got something to say about this?'

  Harris Tweed stood up and cleared his throat.

  'Vernham Deane is familiar to all of us. As the resident cad in The Squire of High Potternews, he was well known for his cruelty towards the maidservant who he ravages and then casts from the house. The maid returns eight chapters later but three days ago — the morning following Perkins' death, I might add — she didn't.'

  He placed a picture of an attractive dark-haired woman on the board.

  'She's a C-3 Generic by the name of Mimi. Twenty years old, identification code: CDT/2511922.'

  'What did Deane say about her disappearance?'

  'That's just it,' replied Tweed grimly, 'he vanished at the same time. The Squire of High Potternews has been suspended pending further enquiries. It's been removed to the Well and will stay there until Deane returns. If he returns.'

  'Aren't you leaping to conclusions just a little bit early?' asked Havisham, obviously concerned by the lack of objectivity in Tweed's report. 'Do we even have a motive?'

  'We all liked Vern,' said Tweed, 'me included. Despite being a villain in Potternews, he never gave us any cause for alarm. I was surprised by what I found, and you might be too.'

  He pulled a piece of paper from his top pocket and unfolded it.

  'This is a copy of a refusal by the Council of Genres narrative realignment subcommittee to agree to Deane's application for an Internal Plot Adjustment.'

  He pinned it to the board next to the picture of the maidservant.

  'In it he requests that the maidservant die in childbirth, thus saving his character from the traumatic scene at the end of chapter twenty-eight when the maidservant turns up with the infant, now aged six, to his wedding to Ellen O'Shaugnessy, the wealthy mill-owner's daughter. With the maidservant out of the way he can marry O'Shaugnessy and not suffer the degrading slide into alcoholism and death that awaits him in chapter thirty-two. I'm sorry to say that he had motive, Miss Havisham. He also had the opportunity — and the Jurisfiction skills to cover his tracks.'

  There was silence as everyone took in the awful possibility of a Jurisfiction agent gone bad. The only time it had happened before was when David Copperfield murdered Dora Spenlow so he could marry Agnes Wickfield.

  'Did you search his book?' asked Falstaff.

  'Yes. We subjected The Squire of High Potternews to a word-by-word search and we found only one person who was not meant to be there — a stowaway from Farquitt's previous book, Canon of Love, hiding in a cupboard in Potternews Hall. She was evicted back to the Well.'

  'Have you tried the bookhounds?' enquired the Red Queen, running a cleaner through the barrel of her pistol. 'Once they get on to a scent, there's no stopping them.'

  'We lost them at the fence-painting sequence in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.'

  'Tell them about the Perkins connection, Harris.'

  'I think that is assumption, Bellman, if you please,' answered Tweed.

  'Tell them,' repeated the Bellman, his shoulders sagging. 'I think everyone needs to know the full facts if we are to hunt Deane down.'

  'Very well,' replied Tweed, upending a box and depositing a huge quantity of full stops, commas and semicolons on to the table.

  'We found these hidden at the back of Deane's locker. We had them analysed and found traces of Guinness.'

  'Ulyssesl' gasped Benedict.

  'So it would appear,' replied Tweed gravely. 'Perkins mentioned something about a surprising discovery in a report filed the day before he died. We're working on the theory that Deane was involved in stealing or handling stolen punctuation. Perkins finds out so Deane releases the minotaur and vyrus to cover his tracks. Flushed with success and knowing he will have to vanish, he kills the maidservant, something he has been wanting to do since first publication.'

  'Isn't Perkins my investigation?' asked Bradshaw.

  'My apologies,' replied Tweed. 'I will give you a full copy of my report.'

  He stopped and sat down.

  'I hate to say this,' began the Bellman sadly, 'but it seems as though we have underestimated Deane. Until I am shown otherwise I have no choice but to declare him a PageRunner. He is to be arrested on sight — and exercise extreme caution. If he has killed twice he will not hesitate to kill again.'

  We exchanged anxious glances. Being declared a PageRunner was serious — few were captured alive.

  'Item four,' continued the Bellman, 'the minotaur. We've got an APB out on him at present but until he turns up or does something stupid, we won't know where he is. There was a report he had crossed over into non-fiction, which I would love to believe. Until we know otherwise, everyone should keep a good lookout.'

  He consulted his clipboard again.

  'Item five. The 923rd annual BookWorld Awards. Because we are launching UltraWord™ at the same time, all serving members of the BookWorld have been invited. Obviously we can't leave books unmanned, so a skeleton staff will be left in charge. The venue will be the Starlight Room again, although with a displacement field technology we've borrowed from SF, so everyone can attend. This will mean extra security and I have allocated Falstaff to look after it. Any questions?'

  There weren't, so he moved
on.

  'Item six. Thursday Next has been made a probationary Jurisfiction member. Where are you?'

  I put up my hand.

  'Good. Let me be the first to welcome you to the service — and not before time; we need all the extra hands we can get. Ladies and gentlemen, Thursday Next!'

  I smiled modestly. There was a round of applause and the people nearest me patted me on the arm.

  'Well done!' said Tweed, who was close by.

  'Miss Next will be afforded full rights and privileges although she will remain under Miss Havisham's watchful eye for twenty chapters or a year, whichever be the longer. Will you take her up to the Council of Genres and have her sworn in?'

  'Happily,' replied Miss Havisham.

  'Good. Item seven. The had had and that that problem. Lady Cavendish, weren't you working on this?'

  Lady Cavendish stood up and gathered her thoughts.

  'Indeed. The use of had had and that that has to be strictly controlled; they can interrupt the ImaginoTransference quite dramatically, causing readers to go back over the sentence in confusion, something we try to avoid.'

  'Go on.'

  'It's mostly an unlicensed usage problem. At the last count David Copperfield alone had had had had sixty-three times, all but ten unapproved. Pilgrim's Progress may also be a problem owing to its had had / that that ratio.'

  'So what's the problem in Progress?'

  'That that had that that ten times but had had had had only thrice. Increased had had usage had had to be overlooked but not if the number exceeds that that that usage.'

  'Hmm,' said the Bellman. 'I thought had had had had TGC's approval for use in Dickens? What's the problem?'

  'Take the first had had and that that in the book by way of example,' explained Lady Cavendish. 'You would have thought that that first had had had had good occasion to be seen as had, had you not? Had had had approval but had had had not; equally it is true to say that that that that had had approval but that that other that that had not.'

  'So the problem with that other that that was that—?

  'That that other-other that that had had approval.'

  'Okay,' said the Bellman, whose head was in danger of falling apart like a chocolate orange, 'let me get this straight: David Copperfield, unlike Pilgrim’s Progress, which had had had, had had had had. Had had had had TGC's approval?'

  There was a very long pause.

  'Right,' said the Bellman with a sigh. 'That's it for the moment. I'll be giving out assignments in ten minutes. Session's over — and let's be careful out there.'

  'Never would have thought it of Vernham, by George!' exclaimed Bradshaw as he walked up. 'He was like a son to me!'

  'His character in Potternews wasn't that pleasant,' I observed.

  'We usually try and keep our book personalities separate from our Jurisfiction ones,' said Havisham. 'Think yourself lucky I don't carry over any of my personality from Great Expectations — if I did I'd be pretty intolerable!'

  'Yes,' I said diplomatically, 'I'm very grateful for it.'

  'Ah!' said the Bellman as he joined us. 'Miss Havisham. You're to go and swear Agent Next at the C of G, then get yourself to the Well and see if you can find any clues inside The Squire of High Potternews. If possible I want him alive. But,' he added, 'take no risks.'

  'Understood,' replied Miss Havisham.

  'Good!' enthused the Bellman, clapping his hands together and departing to talk to the Red Queen.

  Havisham beckoned me over to her desk and indicated for me to sit.

  'Firstly, congratulations on becoming a full Jurisfiction agent.'

  'I'm not ready for this!' I hissed. 'I'm probably going to fall flat on my face!'

  'Probably has nothing to do with it,' replied Havisham. 'You shall. Failure concentrates the mind wonderfully. If you don't make mistakes you're not trying hard enough.'

  I started to thank her for her faint praise but she interrupted.

  'This is for you.'

  From the bottom drawer of her desk she had withdrawn a small green leather box of the sort that might contain a wedding ring. She passed it over and I opened it. As I did I felt a flash of inspiration move through me. I knew what it was. No bigger than a grain of rice, it had value far in excess of its size.

  'From the Last Original Idea,' murmured Havisham, 'a small shard from when the whole was cleaved in 1884, but a part nonetheless. Use it wisely.'

  'I can't accept this,' I said, shutting the case.

  'Rubbish,' replied Havisham, 'accept with good grace that which is given with good grace.'

  'Thank you very much, Miss Havisham.'

  'Don't mention it. Why do you have "Landen" written on your hand?'

  I looked at my hand but had no idea why. Gran had put it there — she must have been having one of her fuzzy moments.

  'I'm not sure, Miss Havisham.'

  'Then wash it off — it looks so vulgar. Come, let us adjourn to the Council of Genres — you are to sign the pledge!'

  24

  Pledges, the Council of Genres

  and searching for Deane

  'Bookhound/booktracker: Name given to a breed of bloodhound peculiar to the Well. With a keen sense of smell (almost unheard of in the BookWorld) and boundless energy, a bookhound can track a PageRunner not only from page to page but from book to book. The finest bookhounds, diligently trained, have also been known to track trans-genre PageRunners — on occasion, to the Outland. They drool and slobber a lot. Not recommended as pets.'

  UA OF W CAT — The Jurisfiction Guide to the Great Library (glossary)

  We took the elevator. Miss Havisham told me that it was considered the height of poor breeding and vulgarity to jump all the way to the lobby at the Council of Genres — and it was impossible to jump straight into the council chambers for security purposes. The chambers were situated on the twenty-sixth floor of the Great Library. Like the seventeenth floor, it was almost deserted; authors whose names begin with Q and Z are not that abundant. The doors opened and we stepped out. But it wasn't like the previous Library floors I had visited, all sombre dark wood, moulded plaster ceilings and busts of long-dead writers — the twenty-sixth floor had a glazed roof. Curved spans of wrought iron arched high above our heads, supporting the glass through which we could see clouds and a blue sky beyond. I had always thought that the Library was created conceptually to contain the books and had no use or existence outside that. Miss Havisham noticed me staring up at the sky and drew me towards a large window. Although it was the twenty-sixth floor it seemed a lot higher — and the Library, inwardly shaped like a fine cross many miles in length, was far squatter when seen from the outside. I looked down the rain-streaked exterior and beyond the stone gargoyles to a tropical forest far below us, where wispy clouds flecked the tops of the lush foliage.

  'Anything is possible in the BookWorld,' murmured Miss Havisham. 'The only barriers are those of the human imagination. See the other libraries?'

  Not more than five miles distant, just visible in the aerial haze, was another tower like ours, and beyond that, another — and over to my right, six more. We were just one towering library among hundreds — or perhaps thousands.

  'The nearest one to us is German,' said Miss Havisham, 'beyond that French and Spanish. Arabic is just beyond them — and that one over there is Welsh.'

  'What are they standing on?' I asked, looking at the jungle far below. 'Where exactly are we?'

  'Getting all philosophical, are we?' murmured Miss Havisham. 'The long and short answer is we really don't know. Some people claim we are just part of a bigger story that we can't see. Others maintain that we were created by the Great Panjandrum, and still others that we are merely in the mind of the Great Panjandrum.'

  'Who,' I asked, my curiosity finally getting the better of me, 'is the Great Panjandrum?'

  'Come and see the statue,' she said.

  We turned from the window and walked along the corridor to where a large lump of marble rested on a plin
th in the middle of the lobby. The marble was roped off and below it was a large and highly polished plaque proclaiming: 'Our Glorious Leader'.

  'That's the Great Panjandrum?' I asked, looking at the crude block of stone.

  'No,' replied Miss Havisham, 'that's only the statue of the great P — or at least it will be, when we figure out what he or she looks like. Good afternoon, Mr Price.'

  Mr Price was a stonemason but he wasn't doing anything; in fact, I don't think he had ever done anything — his tools were brightly polished, unmarked, and lying in a neat row next to where he was sitting, reading a copy of Movable Type.

  'Good afternoon, Miss Havisham,' he said, politely raising his hat.

  Havisham indicated the surroundings. 'The Great Panjandrum is meant to be the architect of all this and control everything we do. I'm a little sceptical myself; no one controls my movements.'

  'They wouldn't dare,' I whispered.

  'What did you say?'

  'I said: they couldn't care. Not a great deal, given the violence in books.'

  She looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

  'Perhaps. Come along and see the Council at work.'

  She steered me down the corridor to a door that opened into a viewing gallery above a vast council chamber with desks arranged in concentric circles.

  'The main genres are seated at the front,' whispered Miss Havisham. 'The sub-genres are seated behind and make up a voting group that can be carried forward to the elected head of each genre, although they do have a veto. Behind the sub-genres are elected representatives from the Congress of Derivatives who bring information forward to the Sub-genres Inspectorate — and behind them are the subcommittees who decide on day-to-day issues such as the Book Inspectorate, new words, letter supply and licensing the reworkings of old ideas. The Book Inspectorate also license plot devices, Jurisfiction agents and the supply and training schedules for Generics.'

  'Who's that talking now?' I asked.

  'The Thriller delegate. She's arguing against Detective having a genre all of its own — at present Detective is under Crime, but if they break away the genres at Thriller will want to split themselves three ways into Adventure, Spy and Thriller.'