Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

‘Thank-you-for-travelling-with-HiberTech,’ said Dave mechanically, ‘have-a-pleasant-onward-journey.’

I walked over to the reception desk to return my visitor’s badge.

‘Charlie!’ said Josh. ‘Check out what I’ve made for you to lift your spirits, so to speak. I call it the “Full Spectrum Swizzle” and it features blackberry, mint, cola and lemon syrups. I’ve juiced seven lemons and an entire watermelon to make it using a new, efficient and incredibly unsafe technique that I’m calling hand-in-a-blender. If you find a hard chewy bit, it might be the tip of my little finger.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. In the forefront of culinary innovation,’ he added cheerfully, ‘there are always casualties.’

He held up a bandaged finger as if to demonstrate the fact, and I stared at the drink.

‘You could have sieved it to get the finger out,’ I said.

‘Then you’d lose all the fruity bits. It’s only the tip, mind, hardly anything at all.’

I tasted the drink, which was a cross between a smoothie and a mint latte. It was actually very good, and I told him so.

‘Glad,’ he said, ‘very glad.’

I drank the rest, picked out the tip of the finger before I swallowed it and found that it was indeed quite small, and laid the empty glass on the counter.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I should report that my driver said that he wanted to apologise to a woman he once knew.’

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘ Quite sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Didn’t imagine it?’

‘No.’

‘Well,’ he said, face falling, ‘how about that? I’ll make a note.’

He opened Dave’s trip ledger and made a note. Only it wasn’t a note, it was a black cross. Once this was done, he hastily shut the book and drew in a deep breath.

‘An artefact from a previous life,’ he muttered, ‘a lost memory bubbling to the surface. But a memory without a functioning mind to give it relevance and context is no more than random words on a scrap of paper. Wouldn’t you agree? It’s really important to agree, you know.’

He looked at me with a pained expression on his face.

‘I agree.’

‘Excellent,’ he said with a palpable sense of relief. ‘You can retrieve your weapon on the way out. Drop in again to see us real soon, and don’t forget about the Scrabble. Wincarnis, most mornings.’

I thanked him and made my way to the exit. I looked behind me and noticed that he was removing his picture from the ‘Employee of the Week’ panel. I was only really happy once I was safely out of the complex.

There was still plenty of time until my train departed, so I headed into town to meet Moody, as we’d arranged. I took a right at a shuttered apothecary’s, then crossed a bridge upon which an inept driver had wedged an articulated lorry which was now frozen into the bridge by a concretion of snow and ice. Beyond this was a main square of modest proportions, empty aside from two parked cars, a post box, a phone box and a bronze statue on a sandstone plinth.

Ahead of me and overlooking the square was the Winter Consulate, a domed granite-faced bunker that appeared to have been designed by someone whose architectural taste lay chiefly in harbour breakwaters. The style was termed Ultra-Permanence , and reflected the fashion for public buildings that could withstand the damage of glaciers, earthquakes and even a marble-sized meteorite. It reflected the mood of the Northern Fed: here to stay.

To my right there was a newly refurbished flour mill, closed, and a public convenience beneath a town hall, also closed. Opposite me there there was a wool shop – open , curiously enough, and then a Co-op and Ottoman takeaway – again, closed. There were a few people around but no one seem to be dawdling. Mostly heads-down against the cold, faces hidden in hooded parkas.

The Wincarnis Hotel was to my immediate left, the name of the establishment relating to a brightly coloured enamel sign advertising Wincarnis Restorative Tonics high above the door. The Edwardian lady depicted on the panel peered out at the world with a cheery grin, oblivious to the ice and snow, the enamelled colours appearing inordinately bright in the dullness of the gas lamps.

I stepped inside the lobby and walked across to the reception desk, where there was a girl probably no older than sixteen sitting behind the counter. She wore a gingham dress under two buttoned cardigans, and her straight brown hair was cut neatly into a pudding bowl. She was poring over a stack of open books, and writing in a small neat hand in a child’s exercise book.

‘Welcome to the Wincarnis,’ she said in a cheery voice. ‘Haven’t seen you here before.’

‘Passing through,’ I said. ‘I was to meet Moody. He here?’

‘Nope, probably off somewhere muttering about Buicks and suchlike. What did you want to talk to him about?’

‘Buicks and suchlike.’

‘Figures,’ she said.

She had what looked like schoolwork spread across the counter in front of her.

‘Homework?’ I asked.

‘It’s actually my doctoral thesis,’ she said with a mildly offended air. ‘Evidential confirmation of previously considered legendary or nebulous forms within the Winterstate.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means I’m trying to prove the existence of Wintervolk.’

She might as well be attempting to prove unicorns or capture fairies in traps.

‘That’ll be tricky, don’t you think?’ I asked.

‘It’s borderline impossible.’

‘Because they don’t exist?’

‘Oh, they exist all right – it’s gathering evidence that’s hard. But I wagered a local bondsman they existed, and Jim Treacle, well, he does like a wager.’

‘What was the wager?’ I asked, expecting a dozen Topics or something.

‘Fifty grand.’

‘Fifty grand?’ It would take me twenty years to save up that sort of money. ‘Why so much?’

‘Long story. What do you make of this?’

She opened her satchel and took out a small box and then, with the utmost care, opened it to reveal a tiny hat, less than five centimetres across.

‘Behold,’ she said, ‘the headgear of a Tonttu, one of the Winter little people.’

I stared at it for a moment. The stitching was undoubtedly fine, but the material was less like leather and more like… plastic .

‘I think it’s from a Barbie,’ I said, ‘one of her Western outfits.’

‘Yes, I think so too,’ she said with a sigh. ‘The maker’s name is stamped on the inside. Look.’

She showed me, then repacked the hat and placed it back in her bag.

‘It’s important to collect evidence,’ she said, ‘even if disproved. That’s how science works. Being proved wrong and then advancing. If I’m proved wrong a lot, I must be making headway, right?’

‘Works for me,’ I said, ‘but the Wintervolk are just stories, right? To frighten children into good behaviour and the sleep-shy into bedding down?’

‘I’m taking a broader approach to the traditional definition of “existence” or even “proof”,’ she said, ‘but I may have more luck here than anywhere else: the Gronk, Thermalovaur and Gizmo are pretty much only ever connected to Mid-Wales, and of those, the Gronk is pretty much brand new – the first mention of it was only twenty years ago, over near Rhayder.’