I thanked him, left my automatic in the desk drawer and walked down the corridor. I knocked twice and was invited into the outer office by a young clerk. I told him my name and he asked me to wait.
‘The Commander won’t be long. Fancy a cup of coffee?’
‘No thanks.’
The clerk looked at me curiously.
‘They say you’ve come from London to avenge Jim Crometty’s death. They say you killed two men. They say your father’s face can stop a clock. Is this true?’
‘It depends on how you look at it. Office rumours are pretty quick to get started, aren’t they?’
Braxton Hicks opened the door to his office and beckoned me in. He was a tall, thin man with a large moustache and a grey complexion. He had bags under his eyes; it didn’t look as though he slept much. The room was far more austere than any commander’s office I had ever seen. Several golf bags were leaning against the wall, and I could see that a carpet putter had been hastily pushed to one side.
He smiled genially and offered me a seat before sitting himself.
‘Cigarette?’
‘I don’t, thank you.’
‘Neither do I.’
He stared at me for a moment and drummed his long fingers on the immaculately clear desk. He opened a folder in front of him and read in silence for a moment. He was reading my SO-5 file; obviously he and Analogy didn’t get on well enough to swap information between clearances.
‘Operative Thursday Next, eh?’ His eyes flicked across the pertinent points of my career. ‘Quite a record. Police, Crimea, rejoined the police, then moved to London in ‘75. Why was that?’
‘Advancement, sir.’
Braxton Hicks grunted and continued reading.
‘SpecOps for eight years, twice commended. Recently loaned to SO-5. Your stay with the latter has been heavily censored, yet it says here you were wounded in action.’
He looked over his spectacles at me.
‘Did you return fire?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
‘I fired first.’
‘Not so good.’
Braxton stroked his moustache thoughtfully.
‘You were Operative Grade I in the London office working on Shakespeare, no less. Very prestigious. Yet you swap that for a Grade III Operative assignment in a backwater like this. Why?’
‘Times change and we change with them, sir.’
Braxton grunted and closed the file.
‘Here at SpecOps my responsibility is not only with the LiteraTecs, but also Art Theft, Vampirism & Lycanthropy, the ChronoGuard, Antiterrorism, Civil Order and the dog pound. Do you play golf?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Shame, shame. Where was I? Oh yes. Out of all those departments, do you know which I fear most?’
‘I’ve no idea, sir.’
‘I’ll tell you. None of them. The thing I fear most is SpecOps regional budget meetings. Do you realise what that means, Next?’
‘No, sir.’
‘It means that every time one of you puts in for extra overtime or a special request, I go over budget and it makes my head hurt right here.’
He pointed to his left temple.
‘And I don’t like that. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He picked up my file again and waved it at me.
‘I heard you had a spot of bother in the big city. Other operatives getting killed. It’s a whole new different alternative kettle of fish here, y’know. We crunch data for a living. If you want to arrest someone then have uniform do it. No running about shooting up bad guys, no overtime and definitely no twenty-four-hour surveillance operations. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Now, about Hades.’
My heart leaped; I had thought that would have been censored, if anything.
‘I understand you think he is still alive?’
I thought for a moment. My eyes flicked to the file Hicks was holding. He divined my thoughts.
‘Oh, that’s not in here, my dear girl. I may be a hick commander in the boonies, but I do have my sources. You think he is still alive?’
I knew I could trust Victor and Bowden, but about Hicks I was not so sure. I didn’t think I would risk it.
‘A symptom of stress, sir. Hades is dead.’
He plonked my file in the out-tray, leaned back in his chair and stroked his moustache, something he obviously enjoyed.
‘So you’re not here to try and find him?’
‘Why would Hades be in Swindon if he were alive, sir?’
Braxton looked uneasy for a moment.
‘Quite, quite.’
He smiled and stood up, indicating that the interview was at an end.
‘Good, well, run along. One piece of advice. Learn to play golf; you’ll find it a very rewarding and relaxing game. This is a copy of the department’s budget account and this is a list of all the local golf courses. Study them well. Good luck.’
I went out and closed the door after me.
The clerk looked up.
‘Did he mention the budget?’
‘I don’t think he mentioned anything else. Do you have a waste bin?’
The clerk smiled and pushed it out with his foot. I dumped the heavy document in it unceremoniously.
‘Bravo,’ he said.
As I was about to open the door to leave a short man in a blue suit came powering through without looking. He was reading a fax and knocked against me as he went straight through to Braxton’s office without a word. The clerk was watching me for my reaction.
‘Well, well,’ I murmured, ‘Jack Schitt.’
‘You know him?’
‘Not socially.’
‘As much charm as an open grave,’ said the clerk, who had obviously warmed to me since I binned the budget. ‘Steer clear of him. Goliath, you know.’
I looked at the closed door to Braxton’s office.
‘What’s he here for?’
The secretary shrugged, gave me a conspiratorial wink and said very pointedly and slowly:
‘I’ll get that coffee you wanted and it was two sugars, wasn’t it?’
‘No thanks, not for me.’
‘No, no,’ he replied. ‘Two sugars, TWO sugars.’
He was pointing at the intercom on his desk.
‘Heavens above!’ he exploded. ‘Do I have to spell it out?’
The penny dropped. The clerk gave a wan smile and scurried out of the door. I quickly sat down, flipped up the lever marked Two on the intercom and leaned closer to listen.
‘I don’t like it when you don’t knock, Mr Schitt.’
‘I’m devastated, Braxton. Does she know anything about Hades?’ ‘She says not.’
‘She’s lying. She’s here for a purpose. If I find Hades first we can get rid of her.’
‘Less of the we, Jack,’ said Braxton testily. ‘Please remember that I have given Goliath my full co-operation, but you are working under my jurisdiction and have only the powers that I bestow upon you. Powers that I can revoke at any time. We do this my way or not at all. Do you understand?’
Schitt was unperturbed. He replied in a condescending manner: ‘Of course, Braxton, as long as you understand that if this thing blows up in your face the Goliath Corporation will hold you personally responsible.’
I sat down at my empty desk again. There seemed to be a lot going on in the office that I wasn’t a part of. Bowden laid his hand on my shoulder and made me jump.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t wish to startle you. Did you get the commander’s budget speech?’
‘And more. Jack Schitt went into his office as though he owned the place.’
Bowden shrugged.
‘Since he’s Goliath, then the chances are he does.’
Bowden picked his jacket up from the back of his chair and folded it neatly across his arm.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘Lunch, then a lead in the Chuzzlewit theft. I’ll explai
n on the way. Do you have a car?’
Bowden wasn’t too impressed when he saw the multicoloured Porsche.
‘This is hardly what one might refer to as low profile.’
‘On the contrary,’ I replied, ‘who would have thought a LiteraTec would drive a car like this? Besides, I have to drive it.’
He got in the passenger seat and looked around slightly disdainfully at the spartan interior.
‘Is there a problem, Miss Next? You’re staring.’
Now that Bowden was in the passenger seat I had suddenly realised where I had seen him before. He had been the passenger when the car had appeared in front of me at the hospital. Events had indeed started to fall into place.
14. Lunch with Bowden
‘Bowden Cable is the sort of honest and dependable operative that is the backbone of SpecOps. They never win commendations or medals and the public has no knowledge of them at all. They are all worth ten of people like me.’
Thursday Next. A Life in SpecOps
Bowden guided me to a transport cafe on the old Oxford road. I thought it was an odd choice for lunch; the seats were hard orange plastic and the yellowing Melamine-covered table-tops had started to lift at the edges. The windows were almost opaque with dirt and the nylon net curtains hung heavily with deposits of grease. Several flypapers dangled from the ceiling, their potency long worn off, the flies stuck to them long since desiccated to dust. Somebody had made an effort to make the interior slightly more cheery by sticking up a few pictures hastily cut from old calendars; a signed photo of the 1978 England soccer team was hung above a fireplace that had been filled in and then decorated with a vase full of plastic flowers.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked, sitting gingerly at a table near the window.
‘The food’s good,’ responded Bowden, as though that was all that mattered.
A gum-chewing waitress came up to the table and put some bent cutlery in front of us. She was about fifty and was wearing a uniform that might have been her mother’s.
‘Hello, Mr Cable,’ she said in a flat tone with only a sliver of interest in her voice, ‘all well?’
‘Very well, thank you. Lottie, I’d like you to meet my new partner, Thursday Next.’
Lottie looked at me oddly.
‘Any relation to Captain Next?’
‘He was my brother,’ I said loudly, as if wanting Lottie to know that I wasn’t ashamed of the connection, ‘and he didn’t do what they said he did.’
The waitress stared at me for a moment, as if wanting to say something but not daring.
‘What will you lot have, then?’ she asked instead with forced cheerfulness. She had lost someone in the Charge; I could sense it.
‘What’s the special?’ asked Bowden.
‘Soupe d’Auverge au Fromage,’ replied Lottie, ‘followed by Rojoes Cominho.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘It’s braised pork with cumin, coriander and lemon,’ replied Bowden.
‘Sounds great.’
‘Two specials please and a carafe of mineral water.’
She nodded, scribbled a note and gave me a sad smile before departing.
Bowden looked at me with interest. He would have guessed eventually that I was ex-military. I wore it badly.
‘Crimea veteran, eh? Did you know Colonel Phelps was in town?’
‘I bumped into him on the airship yesterday. He wanted me to go to one of his rallies.’
‘Will you?’
‘You must be kidding. His idea of the perfect end to the Crimean conflict is for us to fight and fight until there is no one left alive and the peninsula’s a poisoned and mined land no good for anything. I’m hoping that the UN can bring both governments to their senses.’
‘I was called up in ‘78,’ said Bowden. ‘Even got past basic training. Fortunately it was the same year the Czar died and the Crown Prince took over. There were more pressing demands on the young Emperor’s time, so the Russians withdrew. I was never needed.’
‘I was reading somewhere that since the war started, only seven years of the one hundred and thirty-one have actually been spent fighting.’
‘But when they do,’ added Bowden, ‘they certainly make up for it.’
I looked at him. He had taken a sip of water after offering the carafe to me first.
‘Married? Kids?’
‘No,’ replied Bowden. ‘I haven’t really had time to find myself a wife, although I am not against the idea in principle. It’s just that SpecOps is not really a great place for meeting people and I’m not, I confess, a great socialiser. I’ve been short-listed for a post opening the equivalent of a LiteraTec office in Ohio; it seems to me the perfect opportunity to take a wife.’
‘The money’s good over there and the facilities are excellent. I’d consider it myself given the opportunity,’ I replied. I meant it, too.
‘Would you? Would you really?’ asked Bowden with a flush of excitement that was curiously at odds with his slightly cold demeanour.
‘Sure. Change of scenery,’ I stammered, wanting to change the subject in case Bowden got the wrong idea. ‘Have you—ah—been a LiteraTec long?’
Bowden thought for a moment.
‘Ten years. I came from Cambridge with a degree in nineteenth-century literature and joined the LiteraTecs straight away. Jim Crometty looked after me from the moment I started.’
He stared out of the window wistfully. ‘Perhaps if I’d been there—‘
‘—then you’d both be dead. Anyone who shoots a man six times in the face doesn’t go to Sunday school. He’d have killed you and not even thought about it. There’s little to be gained in what ifs; believe me, I know. I lost two fellow officers to Hades. I’ve been over it all a hundred times, yet it would probably happen exactly the same way if I had another chance.’
Lottie placed the soup in front of us with a basket of freshly baked bread.
‘Enjoy,’ said Lottie, ‘it’s on the house.’
‘But—!’ I began. Lottie silenced me.
‘Save your breath,’ she said impassively. ‘After the charge. After the shit hit the fan. After the first wave of death—you went back to do what you could. You went back. I value that.’ She turned and left.
The soup was good; the Rojoes Cominho even better.
‘Victor told me you worked on Shakespeare up in London,’ said Bowden.
It was the most prestigious area in which to work in the LiteraTec office. Lake poetry was a close second and Restoration comedy after that. Even in the most egalitarian of offices, a pecking order always established itself.
‘There was very little room for promotion in the London office so after a couple of years I was given the Shakespeare work,’ I replied, tearing at a piece of bread. ‘We get a lot of trouble from Baconians in London.’
Bowden looked up.
‘How do you rate the Baconian theory?’
‘Not much. Like many people I’m pretty sure there is more to Shakespeare than just Shakespeare. But Sir Francis Bacon using a little-known actor as a front? I just don’t buy it.’
‘He was a trained lawyer,’ asserted Bowden. ‘Many of the plays have legal parlance to them.’
‘It means nothing,’ I replied, ‘Greene, Nashe and especially Ben Jonson use legal phraseology; none of them had legal training. And don’t even get me started on the so-called codes. ‘
‘No need to worry about that,’ replied Bowden. ‘I won’t. I’m no Baconian either. He didn’t write them.’
‘And what would make you so sure?’
‘If you read his De Augmentis Sdentarium you’ll find Bacon actually criticising popular drama. Furthermore, when the troupe Shakespeare belonged to applied to the King to form a theatre, they were referred to the commissioner for suits. Guess who was on that panel and most vociferously opposed the application?’
‘Francis Bacon?’ I asked.
‘Exactly. Whoever wrote the plays, it wasn’t Bacon. I’ve formulated a few theories o
f my own over the years. Have you ever heard of Edward De Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘There is some proof that, unlike Bacon, he could actually write and write quite well—hang on.’
Lottie had brought a phone to the table. It was for Bowden. He wiped his mouth with a napkin.
‘Yes?’
He looked up at me.
‘Yes, she is. We’ll be right over. Thanks.’
‘Problems?’
‘It’s your aunt and uncle. I don’t know how to say this but… they’ve been kidnapped!’
There were several police and SpecOps cars clustered around the entrance to my mother’s house when we pulled up. A small crowd had assembled and was peering over the fence. The dodos had gathered on the other side and were staring back, wondering what the fuss was all about. I showed my badge to the officer on duty.
‘LiteraTec?’ he said scornfully. ‘Can’t let you in, ma’am. Police and SpecOps 9 only.’
‘He’s my uncle—!’ I said angrily, and the officer reluctantly let me through. Swindon was the same as London: a LiteraTec’s badge held about as much authority as a bus pass. I found my mother in the living room surrounded by damp Kleenex. I sat beside her and asked her what had happened.
She blew her nose noisily.
‘I called them in for dinner at one. It was snorkers, Mycroft’s favourite. There was no answer so I went down to his workshop. They were both gone and the double doors wide open. Mycroft wouldn’t have gone out without saying anything.’
This was true. Mycroft never left the house unless it was absolutely necessary; since Owens had been meringued Polly did all his running around.
‘Anything stolen?’ I asked a SpecOps 9 operative who stared at me coldly. He didn’t relish being asked questions by a LiteraTec.
‘Who knows?’ he replied with little emotion. ‘I understand you’d been in his workshop recently?’
‘Yesterday evening.’
‘Then perhaps you can have a look around and tell us if there is anything missing?’
I was escorted to Mycroft’s workshop. The rear doors had been forced and I looked around carefully. The table where Mycroft had kept all his bookworms had been cleared; all I could see was the massive two-pronged power lead that would have slotted into the back of the Prose Portal.
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