Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book

‘What do you think?’ I asked them.

‘I don’t know,’ began the first agent nervously. ‘I’m… I’m… not really up on art.’

‘Even if you were it wouldn’t help here,’ I replied drily. ‘SpecOps 5?’

‘Yes, how did—’

He checked himself quickly and rummaged for a pair of dark glasses.

‘I mean no . Never heard of SpecOps, much less SpecOps 5. Don’t exist. Oh, blast . I’m not very good at this, I’m afraid.’

‘We’re looking for someone named Thursday Next,’ said his partner in a very obvious whisper from the side of her mouth, adding, in case I didn’t get the message: ‘ Official business.’

I sighed. Obviously, SO-5 were beginning to run out of volunteers. I wasn’t surprised.

‘What happened to Dedmen and Walken?’ I asked them.

‘They were—’ began the first agent, but the second nudged him in the ribs and announced instead:

‘Never heard of them.’

‘ I’m Thursday Next,’ I told them, ‘and I think you’re in more danger than you realise. Where did they get you from? SO-14?’

They took their sunglasses off and looked at me nervously.

‘I’m from SO-22,’ said the first. ‘The name’s Lamb. This is Slaughter; she’s from—’

‘SO-28,’ said the woman. ‘Thank you, Blake, I can talk, you know—and let me handle this. You can’t open your mouth without putting your foot in it.’

Lamb sank into a sulky silence.

‘SO-28? You’re an income tax assessor?’

‘So what if I am?’ retorted Slaughter defiantly. ‘We all have to risk things for advancement.’

‘I know that only too well,’ I replied, steering them towards a quiet spot next to a model of a matchstick made entirely out of bits of the Houses of Parliament. ‘Just so long as you know what you’re getting into. What happened to Walken and Dedmen?’

‘They were reassigned,’ explained Lamb.

‘You mean dead?’

‘No,’ exclaimed Lamb with some surprise. ‘I mean reas—Oh my goodness! Is that what it means?’

I sighed. These two weren’t going to last a day.

‘Your predecessors are both dead, guys—and the ones before that. Four agents gone in less than a week. What happened to Walken’s case notes? Accidentally destroyed?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Lamb laughed. ‘When recovered they were totally intact—they were then put through the shredder by a new member of staff who mistook it for a photocopier.’

‘Do you have anything at all to go on?’

‘As soon as they realised it was a shredder, I… sorry, they stopped and we were left with these.’

He handed two half-documents over. One was a picture of a young woman striding out of a shop laden down with carrier bags and parcels. Her face, tantalisingly enough, had been destroyed by the shredder. I turned the picture over. On the back was a pencilled note: ‘A.H. leaves Camp Hopson having shopped with a stolen credit card.’

‘The “AH” means Acheron Hades,’ explained Lamb in a confident tone. ‘We were allowed to read part of his file. He can lie in thought, deed and action.’

‘I know. I wrote it. But this isn’t Hades. Acheron doesn’t resolve on film.’

‘Then who is it that we’re after?’ asked Slaughter.

‘I have no idea. What was on the other document?’

This was simply a handwritten page of notes, compiled by Walken about whoever it was they were watching. I read:

‘…9.34: Contact with suspect at Camp Hopson sales. 11.03: Elevenses of carrot juice and flapjack—leaves without paying. 11.48: Dorothy Perkins. 12.57: Lunch. 14.45: Continues shopping. 17.20: Argues with manager of Tammy Girl about returned leg warmers. 17.45: Lost contact. 21.03: Re-established contact at the HotBox nightclub. 23.02: AH leaves the HotBox with male companion. 23.16: Contact lost…’

I put down the sheet.

‘It’s not exactly what I’d describe as the work of a master criminal, now, is it?’

‘No,’ replied Slaughter glumly.

‘What were your orders?’

‘Classified,’ announced Lamb, who was getting the hang of SpecOps 5 work, right at the point where I didn’t want him to.

‘Stick to you like glue,’ said Slaughter, who understood the situation a lot better, ‘and reports every half an hour sent to SO-5 HQ in three separate ways.’

‘You’re being used as live bait,’ I told them. ‘If I were you I’d go back to SO-23 and 28 just as quick as your legs can carry you.’

‘And miss all this?’ asked Slaughter, replacing her dark glasses and looking every bit the part. SO-5 would be the highest office for either of them. I hoped they lived long enough to enjoy it.

By 10.30 the exhibition was pretty much over. I sent Gran home in a cab fast asleep and a bit tipsy. Saveloy tried to kiss me goodnight but I was too quick for him, and Duchamp 2924had managed to sell an installation of his called The id within VII—in a jar, pickled . Zorf refused to sell any paintings to anyone who couldn’t see what they were, but to the Neanderthals who could see what they were, he gave them away, arguing that the bond between a painting and an owner should not be sullied by anything as obscenely sapien as cash. The flattened tuba was sold too, the new owner asking Joffy to drop it round to him, and if he wasn’t at home to just slip it under the door.

I went home via Mum’s place to collect Pickwick, who hadn’t come out of the airing cupboard the entire time I was in Osaka.

‘She insisted on being fed in there,’ explained my mother, ‘and the trouble with the other dodos! Let one in and they all want to follow!’

She handed me Pickwick’s egg wrapped in a towel. Pickwick hopped up and down in a very aggravated manner and I had to show her the egg to keep her happy, then we both drove home to my apartment at the same sedate 20 m.p.h. and I placed the egg safely in the linen cupboard with Pickwick sitting on it in a cross mood, very fed up with being moved about.

Dad turned up for breakfast, which was unusual for him. I was just flicking through that morning’s copy of The Toad when he arrived. The big news story was the volte-face in Yorrick Kaine’s fortunes. From being a sad, politically dead no-hoper he was polling ahead of the ruling Teafurst party. The power of Shakespeare. The world suddenly stopped, the picture on the TV froze and the set gave out a dull hum, the same tone and pitch as the moment Dad arrived. He had the power to stop the clock like this, time ground to a halt when he visited me. It was a hard-won skill—for him there was no return to normality.

‘Hello, Dad,’ I said gloomily. ‘Did you hear about Landen’s eradication?’

‘No, I didn’t—I’m sorry to hear that, Sweetpea. Any particular reason?’

‘Goliath want Jack Schitt out of The Raven .’

‘Ah!’ he exclaimed. ‘The old blackmail routine. How’s your mother?’