Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book

It took two hours for me to convince the police I wasn’t going to tell them anything about Miss Havisham other than her address. Undeterred, they thumbed through a yellowed statute book and eventually charged me with a little-known 1621 law about ‘Permissioning a horse and carte to be driven by personn of low moral turpithtude’, but with the ‘horse and carte’ bit crossed out and ‘car’ written in instead—so you can see how desperate they were. I would have to go before the magistrate the following week. I started to sneak out of the building to go home but—

‘—so there you are!’

I turned and hoped my groan wasn’t audible.

‘Hello, Cordelia.’

‘Thursday, are you okay’ You look a bit bruised!’

‘I got caught in a fiction frenzy.’

‘No more nonsense, now—I need you to meet the people who won my competition.’

‘Do I have to?’

Flakk looked at me sternly.

‘It’s very advisable.’

‘Okay,’ I replied, let me have a pee and I’ll be with you in five minutes. Okay?’

‘Right!’ Cordelia beamed.

But I didn’t have a pee, instead I nipped up to the LiteraTec office.

‘Thursday!’ said Bowden as I entered. ‘I told Victor you had the flu. How did you get on?’

‘Pretty well, I think. I’ve been inside books again without a Prose Portal. I can do it on my own—more or less.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No,’ I told him, ‘deadly serious. Landen’s almost as good as back. I met Miss Havisham.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘Odd. It seems there is something very like SpecOps 27 inside books—I’ve yet to figure it all out. How have things been out here?’

He showed me a copy of The Owl . The headline read: ‘New play by Will found in Swindon’. The Mole had the headline: ‘ Cardenio sensation!’ and The Toad , predictably enough, led with. ‘Swindon croquet supremo Aubrey Jambe found in bath with chimp’.

‘So Professor Spoon authenticated it?’

‘He did indeed,’ replied Bowden. ‘One of us should take the report up to Volescamper this afternoon. This is for you.’

He handed me the bag of pinkish goo attached to a report from the SpecOps forensic labs. I thanked him and read the analysis of the slime Dad had given me with interest and confusion in equal measures.

‘…sugar, fatty animal protein, calcium, sodium, maltodextrin, carboxy-methyl-cellulose, phenylalnine, complex hydrocarbon compounds and traces of chlorophyll.’

I flicked to the back of the report but was none the wiser. Forensics had faithfully interpreted my request for analysis—but it told me nothing new.

‘What does it mean, Bowd?’

‘Search me, Thursday. They’re trying to match the profile to known chemical compounds, but so far nothing. Perhaps if you told us where you got it?’

‘I don’t think that would be safe. I’ll drop the Cardenio report in to Volescamper—I’m keen to avoid Cordelia. Tell forensics that the future of the planet depends on them—that should help. I have to know what this pink stuff is.’

I saw Cordelia waiting for me in the lobby with her guest, who had a Finis Hotel carrier bag in one hand and a young daughter in the other. Unluckily for him Spike Stoker had been passing and Cordelia, eager to do something to amuse her competition winner, had obviously asked him to say a few words. The look of frozen, jaw-dropping horror on her guest’s face said it all. I hid my face behind the Cardenio report and left Cordelia to it.

I blagged a ride in a squad car up to the crumbling Vole Towers. The house had changed a lot since I was last there. The mansion was besieged by the news stations, all keen to report any details regarding the discovery of Cardenio . Two dozen outside broadcast trucks were parked on the weed-infested gravel, all humming with activity. Dishes were trained into the afternoon sky, transmitting the pictures to an airship repeater station that had been routed in to bounce the stories live to the world’s eager viewers. For security, SpecOps 14 had been drafted in and operatives stood languidly about, idly chatting to one another. Mostly, it seemed, about Aubrey Jambe’s apparent indiscretion with the chimp.

‘Hello, Thursday!’ said a handsome young SO-14 agent at the front door. It was annoying; I didn’t recognise him. People I couldn’t remember hailing me as friends was something that had happened a lot since Landen’s eradication; I supposed I would get used to it.

‘Hello!’ I replied to the stranger in an equally friendly tone. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Yorrick Kaine is giving a press conference.’

‘Really? What’s Cardenio got to do with him?’

‘Hadn’t you heard? Lord Volescamper has given the play to Yorrick Kaine and the Whig party!’

‘Why would Volescamper have anything to do with a minor right-wing pro-Crimean Welsh-hater like Kaine?’

‘Because he’s a lord and wants to reclaim some lost power?’

At that moment two other SpecOps operatives walked past and one of them nodded to the young agent at the door and said: ‘All well, Miles?’

The dashing young SO-14 agent said that all was well, but he was wrong—all was not well, at least it wasn’t for me. I thought I might bump into Miles eventually but not unprepared, like this. I stared at him, hoping my shock and surprise wouldn’t show. He had spent time in my flat and knew me a lot better than I knew him. My heart thumped inside my chest and I tried to say something intelligent and witty but it came out more like:

‘ Asterfobulongus? ’

‘I’m sorry, what was that?’

‘Nothing.’

Miles looked to left and right and leaned a little closer.

‘You seemed a bit upset when I called, Thursday. Is there a problem with our arrangement ?’

I stared at him for a few seconds in numbed silence before mumbling:

‘No—no, not at all.’

‘Good!’ he said. ‘We must fix a date or two.’

‘Yes,’ I said, running on auto-fear, ‘yes, we must Gottogo—bye.’

I trotted off before he could say anything else. I paused for breath outside the door to the library. Sooner or later I was going to have to ask him straight out. I decided on the face of it that later suited me better than sooner, so walked through the heavy steel doors and into the library. Yorrick Kaine and Lord Volescamper were sitting behind a table, and beyond them was Mr Swaike and two security guards who were standing either side of the play itself, proudly displayed behind a sheet of bullet-proof glass. The press conference was halfway through, and I tapped Lydia Startright—who happened to be standing quite near—on the arm.

‘Hey, Lyds!’ I said in a low whisper.

‘Hey, Thursday,’ replied the reporter. ‘I heard you did the initial authentication. How good is it?’

‘Very good,’ I replied. ‘Somewhere on a par with The Tempest . What’s happening here?’

‘Volescamper has just officially announced he is giving the play to Yorrick Kaine and the Whigs.’

‘Why?’

‘Who knows? Hang on, I want to ask a question.’

Lydia stood up and raised her hand. Kaine pointed at her.

‘What do you propose to do with the play, Mr Kaine? We understand that there has been talk of offers in the region of a hundred million pounds.’

‘Good question,’ replied Yorrick Kaine, getting to his feet. ‘We in the Whig party thank Lord Volescamper for his kind generosity. I am of the opinion that Cardenio is not for one person or group to exploit, so we in the Whig party propose offering free licences to perform the play to anyone who wishes to do so.’