Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

‘It’s the boredom and the weather that get to you here,’ added Aurora, ‘especially when the temperature plunges, the snowfalls are thicker than soup and the wind chucks up drifts the size of mammoths. Even in a Sno-Trac it can take an age to get around, and a blizzard can strand you for weeks. Been in a white-out? Scary stuff. You a brave person?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’ll find out soon enough.’

We walked on another hundred yards in silence.

‘This is me,’ said Treacle as we reached a crossroads next to a large and slightly dilapidated billboard advertising ‘Ashbrook Garage – All makes of cars repaired, Land Rovers a speciality’. Treacle handed me his card. There wasn’t a phone number, just the time he’d be in the Wincarnis.

‘In case you need some ready cash. If you’re in a jam, call Treacle. I buy indulgences, too – Favours, Debts and so forth – so repayment doesn’t have to be like for like.’

I said that I’d be leaving almost straight away, but I’d bear that in mind.

He grinned and then headed towards a Dormitorium that was signposted Howell Harris.

‘Watch out for him,’ said Aurora once he was out of earshot. ‘A bondsman’s only motivating factor is cash. But he does take bribes, which makes him usefully compliant.’

We set off again, took a left at the advertising hoarding, walked past a petrol station, also closed and shuttered, and then took a right into what I think had once been the parkland of a stately home. We walked along a slight incline, past Summer residences, the shutters up. We were now on the other side of the valley from HiberTech, and although the facility was visible as a collection of sparkling lights, it was impossible to make out the shape in the darkness. As I was pondering this, an owl fell from the sky to the road beside us and twitched its wings feebly in the snow. Of the seven bird species on the Albion Peninsula that were hiburnal, owls weren’t one of them.

We walked further into the sleep district, where around us the Dormitoria rose out of the ground like a forest of giant toadstools. Each was larger than the Cambrensis , but all the traditional shape: circular, minimal windows, steep conical roof.

As we moved past the sunward towers and to the cheaper north-side buildings beyond, I noticed the quality of the Dormitoria become steadily worse. Six structures were no more than rubble to the third floor and two or three were merely empty concrete circles on the ground, the capped HotPot deep below still just active enough to keep the slab above from freezing. But just as I was beginning to think that Aurora would be putting me up in something no better than a Winterstock shed, she stopped and nodded towards a large Dormitorium that had loomed out of the snow-swirled gloom in front of us.

‘Welcome,’ she said, ‘to the Sarah Siddons .’

The Siddons was at least thirty storeys high and unusually broad, a sure sign of a once-desirable residence. The façade had been rendered and then scored to emulate Portland stone, with a decorative doorway that represented yawning night-satyrs and snow-nymphs. It was impressive but shabby, and not assisted by the location: light industrial units had been built on the cheaper land this far from the centre of town, and the area looked run down and depressed.

‘Yes, I know,’ said Aurora, ‘a bit of a dump. When built, it enjoyed full sun and wasn’t obscured at all, but more modern dorms have been built in front of it over the years.’

Once we’d hung up our outclothes and swapped our snow boots for slippers, I looked around. Someone had made an attempt to reinvigorate the scruffy interior, but it hadn’t really worked. Mismatched carpet and threadbare modernist furniture only made the once-impressive lobby look cheap and neglected, and the numerous coats of clumsily-applied paint stole the subtlety from the plasterwork. I sniffed the air. As in the John Edward Jones back in Merthyr, there was the subtle yet unmistakable odour of slumber in the air – gummy sweat and the eggy whiff of hibernation mixed with semi-stale air breathed out past unbrushed teeth.

The porter was waiting to receive us. He was impeccably dressed, quite bald and wore small, gold-framed spectacles upon a face that seemed as close to a sphere as a human head is ever likely to get. I was suddenly put in mind of Bunsen Honeydew [44] He works in Muppet Labs, if it’s slipped your mind. His assistant is Beaker. from the Muppets, and chuckled. He stared at me and narrowed his eyes.

‘You were just thinking of Bunsen Honeydew, weren’t you?’

‘No.’

He raised an eyebrow.

‘Yes – okay, a bit. Sorry.’

‘Deputy Worthing,’ said Aurora, ‘may I present Porter Lloyd?’

I must have looked surprised for he sighed and said: ‘Yes, that Porter Lloyd. Worst thing I ever did, being Volkbait for Ichabod.’

‘Because it was frightening?’

‘No, the endless repetition of the story. I’ve had the words to “Lonely Goatherd” running around in my head for two decades, and while sometimes annoying, on the plus side it does put a jaunty step in my stride when I’m feeling down.’

Aurora yodelled the chorus and gave us both a grin.

‘There’s always one,’ said the Porter good-humouredly, and walked around to embrace me. He smelled of lemon soap, Hoover bags and mothballs and was a head shorter than me.

‘Welcome to the Douzey,’ he said. ‘It’s not as bad as people say. I was sorry to hear about Moody. Who pulled the trigger?’

‘Mr Hooke,’ said Aurora, ‘and in self-defence, before you ask.’

‘News travels fast,’ I said.

‘There are seventy-six porters in the Sector,’ said Lloyd as he returned to his place behind the reception desk, ‘and none of us venture out in the Winter. Having a permanently open line on the telephone network helps. Pick up the receiver and just talk. There’s usually someone listening, and if there isn’t, there soon will be. If all else fails, you can always talk to yourself or listen to the static. To be honest, listening to static can be more relaxing than listening to many of the others – especially Mr Rubucon over at the George Melly. What can I help you with?’

‘A place to stay for one to three days,’ said Aurora, ‘billed to HiberTech.’

‘You’ve come to the right place,’ said Lloyd happily. ‘We’ve only had nine illegal bedroom incursions since 1990: three snaffles, one Dormicide and five incidents of Trespass – three visual, one tactile and an unspeakable. We’re not proud of that, obviously, but it’s the lowest rate of hiburnal outrage in the Sector. You’ll also be pleased to know that no resident has been eaten in their sleep here for almost thirty-seven years.’

The lights flickered for a moment, went out, then came back on again.

‘Hydro Twelve has been on the fritz recently,’ said Lloyd by way of explanation. ‘What sort of room had you in mind? Cell, Basic, Featured, Deluxe or Super-Deluxe?’

‘Do you dream?’ asked Aurora quite suddenly, while fixing me with a quizzical expression. It wasn’t usually the sort of question you asked, but she was the head of HiberTech Security.