Jeff Noon - Automated Alice

"We are," the doll replied, "but we are going in the opposite direction. Why do you ask?"

"Because that is where my Great Aunt lives, or should I say once lived, and we have to find our way back there."

"But not just now, dear Alice."

"For once, dear Celia, I entirely agree with you."

The pair of them set off in pursuit of Whippoorwill, entering the hive of houses. They very quickly found themselves lost again, of course. The trouble was this: every house was identical, and every street was identical. And every street was tightly knotted around every other street. The whole world it seemed was identically identical and twisted around itself. It was yet another knotty problem for Alice to unravel. But the lights were flashing into the glistening morning sky and the siren-calls and the whistlings came trumpeting from the hidden streets. In the end, it was only by relying on Celia's superior judgement that Alice managed to find the place where the noises and the lights were coming from.

Imagine this scene, if you will, dear reader...

A drive of police-autos (horseless carriages belonging to the police) were parked inside the centre of these all-too-identical houses. A crowd of animal-people was clogging up the street: Goatboys and Sheepgirls, Elephantmen and Batwomen. Alice nudged her way through the strange zoo of spectators. "Can you please tell me what is happening here?" she asked of the nearest policeman.

"A second Jigsaw Murder has taken place," the policeman gravely replied, his furry body full of trembles. "A Catgirl this time."

It was only when Alice noticed the policeman's fur trembling that she realized that this policeman was really a policedog; or rather a policedogman. Yet another victim of the Newmonia, of course. Alice tried to push her way past the policedogman to where a lumpy something on the ground was lying quite still and morbid, under a white bedsheet. Only a single gingery furred cat's paw and claw protruded free, to rest, lifelessly, on the pavement.

"How sad," whispered Alice, in horror. (For Alice had a pet kitten of her own, far away in the distant past. Sweet, sweet Dinah of forgotten years!)

Just then another policedogman came loping towards Alice. This dogman was growling at the other dogmen, telling them all to get a move on, and at the double-quick! He was obviously in charge. Alice could tell this, not only from his barked-out orders, but also from the fact that he wore a suit, a tailored suit at that, whilst all the other policedogmen wore blue police uniforms over their canine bodies. "And who are you?" this boss-of-all-dogs asked of Alice. He had a face of finely furred colours; a broad and brown stripe running all the way along a creamy, whiskered snout.

"I'm Alice," replied Alice.

"And I am Inspector Jack Russell of the Greater Manchester Police. What are you doing here, Alice?"

"Well, Inspector Russell... I do believe that's my parrot on your shoulder."

Inspector Jack Russell did indeed have Whippoorwill perched on his shoulder. "This parrot is guilty of hindering the police in their inquiries," Jack Russell barked, "and I want him off my shoulder right this minute!

"Whippoorwill, come fly to me," Alice sang, only to see the parrot unlodge himself from Jack Russell's shoulder and then fly away, not towards her but to the ever-brightening morning sky that flittered above the houses; the parrot was heading for the centre of Manchester.

"Pardon me, my stripy horseman!" Jack Russell growled at the Zebraman who had suddenly appeared on the scene, nudging his wet nose at the dead Catgirl's bedsheet. "Don't you realize that you're hindering my investigation of a caticide?"

"Whatever's a catty side?" asked Alice.

"The murder of a Catgirl, of course," answered the Inspector. (Which gave Alice the answer to Whippoorwill's last riddle: Why did the Catgirl cross the road? To get to the catty side, of course!)

To get to her death.

"The victim's name," Jack Russell continued, "was Whiskers MacDuff. This is the second of the Jigsaw Murders. The first victim was a young Spiderboy, name of Quentin Tarantula. He was a Chimera artiste, famous for his violent, celebratory portrayal of the criminal life. I must admit that I won't be shedding any tears at his demise. That kind of Chimera show shouldn't be allowed."

"What is a Chimera show, exactly?" Alice asked.

"What's Chimera?!" howled Jack Russell. "Where have you been for the last five years?"

"I haven't been anywhere for the last five years," Alice replied. "In fact, I haven't been anywhere for the last one-hundred-and-thirty-eight years!"

Inspector Jack Russell ignored this remark. "Chimera is where they play the flutters, of course."

"The flutters!" Alice smiled. "That sounds like fun!"

"Fun!" yowled the Inspector. "Oh no! Chimera is a blatant pandering to the sickly needs of the common herd, a fluttering of evil pictures on a wall!"

"Is Chimera a little like a lantern show?" asked Alice.

"And the newspapers dare to ask why the crime numbers are soaring!" barked Jack Russell.

"What has this to do with the Jigsaw Murders?" requested Alice.

"Quentin Tarantula was a maker of Chimera. Surely I explained that already? He was murdered, and then all of his eight legs were sliced off and stitched to his head! Stitched, I say! And this pathetic Catgirl has suffered the same fate: her body parts have been rearranged."

Alice felt quite sick.

"This is why we call these killings the Jigsaw Murders. Take a look at this..." Inspector Jack Russell opened his paws to dangle a small piece of wood in front of Alice's face. "We found this clutched in the Spiderboy's legs." It was another jigsaw piece! Alice recognized the fragment: the missing picture of a deadly spider from her long-ago puzzle of London Zoo.

"That's my jigsaw piece!" Alice cried.

"Is it indeed?" Jack Russell replied. "Well then, take a look at this..." And with this ellipsis the policedogman prised open the only exposed claw of the currently dead Catgirl, revealing yet a further jigsaw piece hidden there. "Does this jigsaw piece also belong to you, I wonder?" he asked, brandishing a crooked portion of the golden eye of a cat.

"That is also mine!" Alice said.

"Alice the human-girl," Inspector Jack Russell coldly growled, "I am hereby arresting you for probable involvement in the Jigsaw Murders. I believe you to be in league with the Ramshackle Badgerman, our main suspect, and that together you have brought about these rearranging killings. The Civil Serpents will be most keen to interrogate you."

Just then it started to rain!

To rain and rain and rain.

An astonished (and drenched) Alice felt a pair of police manacles folding around her wrists, and at the very same time she saw Captain Ramshackle himself being led on leads by a cluster of policedogmen. The Badgerman looked at Alice as he passed by. "Alice, you know that I'm innocent," he muttered in the downpour. "Won't you please help me?"

"Good Captain, I will do my utmost to help you," Alice replied, whilst being dogmanhandled herself onto the back of a police-auto. "I shall prove us both innocent yet..."

The last thing that Alice saw as the auto-horse galloped off with her, was the porcelain look on Celia Doll's face from the crowd of dripping spectators. "Oh Celia!" Alice cried out, "I'm losing you all over again. Whatever shall become of us now?"

Alice's ride on the auto-horse's back was a terrifying rain-beaten gallop into the centre of Manchester. Wilmslow Road changed into Oxford Road, towards the centre, and many a wonder Alice passed on her journey into Manchester, surrounded as she was by a skidding and flashing drive of other auto-horses, all carrying their very own intrepid riders (or should that be drivers?). Alice passed the Infirmary and the University, she also passed the Central Library and the great Town Hall of Manchester.