Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

‘ Does she kill people for kicks and giggles?’

‘You don’t get to ask questions, Consul. Does Toccata know Logan is dead?’

‘I’m guessing probably not yet ,’ said Lucy.

‘Who’s going to tell her?’ I asked.

‘Not me,’ said Lucy.

‘Nor me,’ said The Notable Goodnight, still staring at me. ‘What’s the deal with your head?’

I was taken aback by her directness, and put out a hand to touch the right side of my face, which bowed inwards and had a left-handed twist to it, which caused my right eye to sit lower than my left by about the width of an eyeball-and-a-half. To me and my friends and the sisters it was just me and unworthy of comment – indeed, not even noticed – but from the general public’s reactions I could gauge the societal view was somewhere between intriguing and what the physiotypical term ‘unsightly’.

‘It’s a congenital skull deformity,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ she said dismissively, making me think her interest was entirely from a medical curiosity point of view. ‘Not calcitic, then?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Bad luck on you,’ she said. ‘We’ve been working on reducing and even reversing the effects of calcium migration.’

‘I don’t see this as bad luck,’ I said.

‘Do you know what?’ she said. ‘I’m really not interested.’

And without warning she stuck an open safety pin into Mrs Tiffen’s forearm. A spot of crimson welled up. I was the only one that flinched; the dead woman didn’t even blink.

‘The sight of blood upset you, Consul?’ asked Goodnight. ‘Misplaced empathy will get you killed.’

‘With the greatest respect, ma’am, I thought that was curiosity.’

‘Maybe that’s what killed the cat,’ said Goodnight after a moment’s thought. ‘Curiosity… about empathy.’

She looked at Lucy, hoping for semantic assistance, but Lucy just shrugged.

‘Okay, then,’ said The Notable Goodnight, passing me her clipboard. ‘Sign on the dotted line.’

‘Do you get many?’ I asked, taking the clipboard. ‘Vacants that do really good tricks, I mean?’

The Notable Goodnight looked at me suspiciously.

‘We don’t give out stats,’ said Lucy.

‘Long-time company policy,’ said The Notable Goodnight as I signed the custody form. ‘RealSleep like to use our own stats to hang us, so we don’t release them – facts can really confuse people. But in answer to your question, we had a Tricksy once named Dorothy who could translate anything you said into Morse code. We renamed her “Dot the dash”. We redeployed her as a switchboard operator and in tests she could work seven-day, sixteen-hour shifts with only one break for toilet and dinner of thirty minutes. Now that’s productivity for you – don’t you agree?’

In truth, I found it all a little creepy.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘remarkable.’

‘Remarkable?’ she echoed disdainfully. ‘Beetles, trapeze artists, Rodin, hydrofoils and anything by Brunel are remarkable. What we do here is beyond remarkable.’

‘Inspiring?’ I suggested.

‘Unprecedented,’ said Goodnight, then took the clipboard, signed her name below mine, and my responsibility for Mrs Tiffen was over.

‘Here’s your bounty,’ said Lucy, passing me a five-hundred-euro voucher redeemable at Mrs Nesbit’s.

‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I know it’s usually cash, but HiberTech have got some sort of promotion going.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Goodnight, turning back to us, ‘were there any changes?’

‘Changes in what?’

‘In her ,’ snapped Goodnight, pointing towards the dead woman. ‘Changes in behaviour. Her playing, her demeanour. Got worse, got better, more fractious, less fractious, what?’

‘She used to only play “Help Yourself” but now she only plays “Delilah”. Is that normal?’

‘It’s not unusual. And we’re done. HiberTech thanks you.’

And so saying, Goodnight took the dead woman by the arm and steered her off down one of the corridors towards the cells. Tellingly and chillingly, without the bouzouki. At the same time, Lucy led me back towards the exit, and once aboard the golf cart, we were off again in as reckless a manner as before. We tore along the edge of the quad, the gardens within so wild and tall and overgrown that it was difficult to see the facility on the other side.

‘Used to be carefully manicured when Don Hector first arrived here,’ said Lucy, following my gaze, ‘miles of gravel paths among a variety of trees and manicured borders, it’s said. A restful place for patients to wander. There’s a waterfall known as the Witches’ Pool, hothouses – even a grotto, a bandstand and a temple to Morpheus. All overgrown now.’

We passed back into the warmth through the double doors, the tyres squealing on the polished linoleum flooring.

‘Don’t you find all that redeployed stuff a little creepy?’ I asked.

‘It’s challenging,’ she confessed, ‘but the possibility of actually having a usable workforce with a potential eight-and-a-half-million work-hours of productivity shouldn’t be sniffed at. Imagine having the redeployed skilled enough to work in factories – the price of goods would fall dramatically.’

‘And Morphenox-B?’ I asked.

‘For roll-out next Summer, and for everyone. It’ll be a game changer – but you didn’t hear that from me.’

She smiled, raised her eyebrows and commanded the golf-cart driver to stop.

He stopped obediently, and Lucy climbed out at the pharmaceutical manufacturing department.

‘Are you heading straight back?’ she asked. ‘From what I’ve heard, you really don’t want to get mixed up with the Consuls in Sector Twelve.’

‘Straight home once I’ve seen someone.’

I climbed out of the cart so we could hug.

‘May the Spring embrace you,’ I said.

‘And embrace you, too. See you next Fat Thursday. I’ll save you a burger.’

I climbed back on board, Lucy shouted ‘Reception’ to the driver, and we lurched off once more. Pretty soon Lucy’s form was lost from sight behind a corner and we carried on in the direction of reception in as dangerous a fashion as before.

My mind, however, was no longer worrying about death or fatal injury from golf-cart accidents, but Project Lazarus. Statistics about nightwalkers were always patchy but from what Lucy and The Notable Goodnight were saying, nightwalkers could be entering a new phase of usefulness. More annoyingly, my decision to take on an insanely dangerous overwintering gig simply to guarantee Morphenox rights might be rendered pointless if they were giving it away to all and sundry.

My thought trail petered out as we had quite suddenly slowed to a halt. I looked across at the driver. He was leaning forward and motionless, staring at the floor ahead. I put out a hand to touch him but as I did so he suddenly turned and fixed me with a confused stare.

‘Will you tell her I’m sorry?’ he said in a clear, lucid tone.

I was taken aback – it was as though he had suddenly forgotten he was a nightwalker.

‘Tell who?’

‘It was a huge mistake,’ he added with a look of bewilderment, as though he didn’t know what he was saying or quite why he was saying it, ‘and not a week goes by without me thinking about her.’

A frown crossed his brow as though he were attempting to pick up a lost thread. He looked confused, then lost, and his lower lip began to tremble. And then tears – of frustration , I think – welled up in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

I laid a hand on his shoulder.

‘Dave?’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’

But he said nothing and we were off again with a squeal of tyres. A minute or two later and we were back at reception.