Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

‘He was going to kidnap me into domestic service,’ I said, ‘working up from the scullery to become a pastry chef. Then there was a giggle in the air and the Winter took him.’

‘Took him?’

‘I think so. I didn’t see anything. I was unconscious.’

They all exchanged glances, their expressions making quite clear that they thought I was involved.

‘What did the Villain look like?’ asked Toccata, pulling a wallet from the pocket of his folded jacket.

‘He had a scar across his eye,’ I said, ‘bad teeth, about fifty, weather-beaten, no nose, monocle.’

Toccata stood up and handed me a long-expired season ticket to the Oval.

‘Shit, Wonky,’ she said, handing me the season ticket, ‘you just killed Lucky Ned.’

I looked at the ticket. It said ‘Edward Nodds’, but he was better known amongst his people and law enforcement agencies as the Rt Hon. Edward Warchester Stamford Noddington, 13th Earl of Farnesworth. ‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘ Somebody did.’

‘His family won’t be happy,’ said Jonesy.

‘We shouldn’t tell anyone that Wonky killed him,’ said Fodder.

‘I didn’t kill him,’ I said in an increasingly exasperated fashion, ‘there was something there – something that could sense me through the snow. Once Ned had gone I was suddenly hearing “So Long, Farewell” running around my head. It’s still there now.’

‘“So Long, Farewell”?’ asked Fodder.

‘From The Sound of Music. The Gronk is very fond of Rodgers and Hammerstein.’

‘Are you suggesting the Gronk took him?’

‘The Gronk’s a myth,’ said Jonesy, ‘you’re still narced.’

We all stood for a while in silence, staring at the folded clothes.

‘The one thing we’re sure of is this,’ said Toccata. ‘The Winter has seen the end of a particularly unpleasant individual. But it means the truce is busted and Lady Farnesworth won’t be happy. With a bit of luck, perhaps they’ll accept he got lost. But Fodder’s right: we don’t tell anyone that Wonky was the last person that saw him alive.’

She looked at us all in turn.

‘And we’re done. I’ll want a full report on my desk by say, oh, I don’t know – suit yourself.’

Toccata trudged off back in the direction of the Sno-Trac; we saw the lights swing around in the semi-dark, then vanish into the greyness.

‘So,’ said Jonesy, ‘now that the Chief’s gone: what really happened?’

‘Yes,’ said Fodder, ‘spill the beans, Wonk.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said in a quiet voice.

‘Is this something to do with Laura’s wager?’ asked Jonesy as we retraced our steps back towards the museum. ‘I’d be overjoyed if Treacle lost the bet, but think very carefully before bearing false witness against a bondsman. Treacle has a seriously overstuffed Debt-bank, and every single one of those Favours could be used to make your life a misery.’

I told them again that I didn’t know what had happened, but that wasn’t strictly true. The child’s laugh I’d heard was uncannily similar to the one I’d heard in my dream: the kid with the beach ball. Parts of my dream were trying to get out.

Fodder and I headed home to the Siddons , which we reached without any further drama. We found Lloyd at the reception desk, darning a sock that was a great deal of darn and very little sock. He nodded a greeting and Fodder looked at his watch.

‘We’re done, Wonk. If you’re in the lobby at oh-nine-hundred tomorrow morning either myself or Jonesy will take you out on patrol.’

He tapped me on the chest.

‘You may want to bulk up a little. The cold can really suck out the reserves.’

I thanked him, told him I’d stuff myself stupid with whatever food was to hand, and he walked off across the lobby towards the elevators.

‘How are you getting on with the big fella?’ asked Lloyd once Fodder had gone.

‘Okay, I think. He kissed me on the ear when we were embracing.’

‘I shouldn’t read anything into it. He does that to everyone. Were there many nightwalkers alive in the basement this morning?’

‘Three. I met up with Aurora down there. Did that happen wholly by chance?’

I was looking for a sign that he’d been rumbled. That he was somehow involved.

‘Why would she plan that?’ he asked, seemingly without the telltale sign I was looking for.

‘I don’t know.’

‘If this is a Toccata/Aurora politics issue, there’s one rule,’ he said. ‘Don’t get caught in the middle. How did you get along with Toccata?’

‘I think she hates me – and no one told me that she and Aurora were the same person.’

‘I thought everyone knew,’ he said. ‘That would explain why you took the clinically insane decision to off-season with Aurora.’

‘You heard about that?’

‘No one’s talking about much else on the Open Network. There’s also a rumour going around that someone was killed in the Pleasure Gardens just now. Is that true?’

I took a deep breath and told Lloyd what had happened out in the snow, behind the museum, every detail. He’d lived the Winter for over thirty seasons, had been there when Ichabod was taken; I wanted to know what he thought.

‘She’s back,’ he said once I’d finished. ‘When they find the body he’ll be missing his little finger. The Gronk does that. Sort of like a trophy. Did you hear a gurgle of child’s laughter just before Lucky Ned was taken?’

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise again, and told him that, yes, I had.

He nodded sagely.

‘The reason Wintervolk can’t be sensed, hunted, cornered or killed is because they exist only as dreams that have survived beyond the vessel that gave them life. They swirl amongst us, flitting from host to host, then make landfall occasionally to wreak havoc, and once they have done so, depart, back into the collective subconscious.’

‘That’s quite far-fetched.’

‘Maybe. Some say the entity that we know as the Gronk is actually the orphaned nightmare of Gretl, the daughter of Ichabod Block, the one he murdered in her sleep. Gr etl Blo ck, Gronk, get it?’

‘That’s pretty tenuous.’

‘The Gronk first appeared twenty years ago, not long after Gretl died – and she was a huge fan of Rodgers and Hammerstein.’

‘ Still pretty tenuous.’

‘Agreed,’ said Lloyd, staring at the desk.

We’d been told to invoke the Rule of Least Astonishment [57] Simply put: the easiest and most likely explanation, however mundane, is probably correct. when assessing aberrant Winter phenomena, and this seemed a good time to do so, because everything was less astonishing than suggesting the Gronk took Lucky Ned. It could have been a nightwalker, Consul, winsomniac, sleepwalker – even someone in a modern Mk XXII shock-suit, the one with an H4S built in. And what better way to cover one’s tracks than by making it look as if it was the Gronk? Lucky Ned might have engineered the whole thing to put the fear of Morpheus up us. Villains like to mess with your head.

I thanked Lloyd and walked towards the elevator with, I admit, a dull feeling in my stomach. But it wasn’t just the hunger, the stresses of the day, meeting Toccata or even that I’d been there when the Gronk appeared and took Lucky Ned – no, there was something else, something that had been nagging at my conscience all afternoon, something that just wouldn’t go away.

Birgitta.