Jasper Fforde - The Well of Lost Plots

I jumped clean into Norland Park. Past the striking nursery characters and the frog-faced doorman to appear a little too suddenly in the Jurisfiction offices. I ran straight into the Red Queen, who collapsed and in turn knocked over Benedict and the Bellman. I quickly grabbed Benedict's pistol in case Tweed or Hope arrived ready for action and was consequently attacked from an unexpected quarter. Mistaking my intentions, the Red Queen grabbed my gun arm and twisted it around behind me while Benedict tackled me round the waist and pulled me down, yelling:

'Gun! Protect the Bellman!'

'Wait!' I shouted. 'There's a problem with UltraWord™!'

'What do you mean?' demanded the Bellman when I had surrendered the gun. 'Is this some sort of joke?'

'No joke,' I replied. 'It's Tweed—'

'Don't listen to her!' shouted Tweed, who had just appeared. 'She is an ambitious murderer who will stop at nothing to get what she wants!'

The Bellman looked at us both in turn.

'You have proof of this, Harris?'

'Oh yes.' He smiled. 'More proof than you'll ever need. Heep, bring it in.'

Uriah Hope — or Heep as he was now — had survived the mispeling but had been changed irrevocably. While before he had been adventurous he was, thanks to the vyrus, cadaverous; thin instead of lithe, fawning instead of frowning . But that wasn't the worst of it. Tweed had planned things well — Uriah was holding the stained pillowcase that contained Snell's head. Not his own, of course — the plot device he had paid so much for in the Well.

'We found this in Thursday's home,' announced Tweed, 'hidden in the broom cupboard. Heep, would you?'

The thin and sallow youth, whose hair was now oily rather than curly , laid the bag on a table and lifted the head out by its hair. A gasp came from Benedict's lips and the Red Queen crossed herself.

'Heavens above,' murmured the Bellman, 'it's Godot!'

Heep grasped me painfully by the arm and twisted it around, pushing me into a bookcase as he did so.

'I be ever so humbly sorry about this, Miss Next,' he whined, the mispeling having gone deeper than his skin and rotted his very soul. 'Imagine me, an A-7 arresting a pretty Outlander such as yourself!'

His breath smelt rotten; I breathed through my mouth to avoid gagging. He reached for my TravelBook and took the opportunity to slide his hand across my breast; I struggled harder — but to no avail.

'That head's not mine!' I shouted, realising how stupid it sounded straight away.

'That is one thing we are certain of,' replied Tweed quietly. 'Why did you kill him?'

'I didn't. It's Snell's,' I said somewhat uselessly. 'He bought it for use in his next book and asked me to keep it for him.'

'Snell insider-trading? Any other ills you'd like to heap on the dead? I don't think that's very likely — and how did it turn out to be Godot's? Coincidence?'

'I'm being framed,' I replied. 'UltraWord™ is—'

I stopped. I had been told many times by my SpecOps instructors that the biggest mistake anyone can make in a high-stress situation is to act too fast and say too much before thinking. I needed time — a commodity that was fast becoming a rarity.

'We have evidence of her involvement in at least three other murders, Mr Bellman,' said Tweed.

The Bellman turned abruptly to face him as I was relieved of my TravelBook and handcuffed to three anvils to stop me jumping out.

'Havisham?' he asked with a tremor in his voice.

'We believe so,' replied Tweed.

'They're fooling you, Mr Bellman, sir,' I said, trying to sound as normal as I could. 'Something is rotten in the state of the BookWorld.'

'That something is you, Next,' spat Tweed. 'Four Jurisfiction agents dead in the line of duty — and Deane nowhere to be found. I can't believe it — you'd kill your own mentor?'

'Steady, Tweed,' said the Bellman, drawing up a chair and looking at me sadly. 'Havisham vouched for her and that counts for something.'

'Then let me educate you, Mr Bellman,' said Tweed, sitting on the corner of a table. 'I've been making a few enquiries. Even discounting Godot, there is more than enough evidence of Next's perfidy.'

'Evidence?' I scoffed. 'Such as what?'

'Does the code word sapphire mean anything to you?'

'Of course.'

'Only eight Jurisfiction agents had access to The Sword of the Zenobians ,' said Tweed, 'and four of them are dead.'

'It's hardly a smoking gun, now, is it?'

'Not on its own,' replied Tweed carefully, 'but when we add other facts it starts to make sense. Bradshaw and Havisham eject from Zenobians leaving you alone with Snell — they arrive a few minutes later and he is mortally mispeled. Very neat, very clever.'

'Why?' I asked. 'Why would I kill Miss Havisham? Why would I want to kill any of these people?'

'You killed Havisham because she knew you cheated at your Jurisfiction multiple choice exam. Do you know how we know?'

'Surprise me.'

'Question fifty: Who wrote: “Toad of Toad Hall‘ ?:

'A.A. Milne.' I replied.

'Correct,' returned Tweed, 'but no one ever gets that. No one . Not even Miss Havisham. Not once in the last fifty years. They all say Kenneth Grahame. Swear blind on it, in fact. You've been using Jurisfiction as a springboard to feed your own burning ambition. It is a dangerous thing to possess. Ambition will sustain for a while — and then it kills indiscriminately.'

'What ambition? All I want to do is to have my child and go home.'

'The Bellman's job,' announced Tweed, as if producing a hidden tramp. 'You knew he was retiring, didn't you?'

'Everyone does.'

'As an Outlander you have seniority, but only after Bradshaw, Havisham, Perkins, Deane — and me. Bradshaw has been the Bellman already so that rules him out — were you going to kill me next?'

'I have no ambition to be the Bellman and didn't kill Miss Havisham,' I muttered, trying to think of a plan of action.

'Macbeth denied his ambition too,' said Tweed, leaning closer.

'What's Macbeth got to do with it?'

'Perhaps you don't know it but the three witches have to log all their prophecies. They don't like to do it, but they have to — no paperwork, no licence to read chicken entrails. Simple as that.'

He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket.

'The day after you arrived they filed a report for a prophecy given to one "Thursday Next". It says: "Prophecy one: You shall be a citizen of Swindon . Prophecy two: You shall be a full member of Jurisfiction . Prophecy three: Thou shalt be Bellman thereafter " '

He placed the paper on the table and slid it across to me.

'Do you deny this?'

'No,' I said glumly.

'We call it Macbeth’s syndrome ,' said the Bellman sadly. 'An insane desire to fulfil your own prophecies. It's nearly always fatal. Sadly, not only for the sufferer. Were you going to kill me or could you have waited long enough for me to resign?'