Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

‘Because,’ I began, ‘Birgitta had said she was married to someone named Charlie and I was trying to figure out… figure out… think, think… probate .’

‘Probate?’

‘Yes, probate. Who to give all her paintings to when she died.’

Toccata stared at me, her one eye unblinking. It was a heavy stare like treacle, which seemed to pour heavily down my neck and pool in my armpits.

‘What are you, her executor or something?’

‘It’s a hobby,’ I said, ‘sort of like that TV programme where they look for relatives who have been left stuff. What’s it called?’

‘Heir Hunters?’

‘That’s the one. Heir Hunters .’

‘You’re lying again,’ said Toccata, ‘but I’ve no idea why. Birgitta married to Webster, you say?’

‘Yes,’ I replied, flushing a deep shade of crimson.

Jonesy had pulled her file as I had been stammering out my pathetic attempt to extricate myself from the jam.

‘If they were,’ she said, ‘it was off grid – which might point towards her being Campaign for Real Sleep, too. He must have been made of pretty stern stuff to not give her up, and Hooke must have gone seriously to town to reduce him to little more than a nightwalker.’

‘Hooke’s an animal,’ agreed Toccata. ‘No one I know has ever withstood a prolonged Dreamspace attack.’

I think I knew that, too, through the memory I shared with Webster: that Birgitta had been RealSleep too, and that, yes, Webster didn’t give her up and instead of legging it off-sector she had stayed, her cover burned, in a scuzzy out-of-the-way corner of nowhere, waiting for an instruction that might never come out of loyalty to the cause she loved. Hoping, perhaps, to make a difference if the need arose.

‘Okay, then,’ said Jonesy, turning to Toccata, ‘but what do we do?’

Toccata sucked her lip and tapped the fax that had just come in.

‘They’ll probably have cc-ed this to HiberTech Security,’ she said, ‘but unlike us, they don’t know Webster’s connection to Birgitta.’

‘We should check her room,’ said Jonesy, ‘in case there is anything incriminating to be found there.’

The words didn’t register at first. I had to ask her to say them again.

‘I said,’ she repeated in a testy fashion, ‘that we should check Birgitta’s room. It might throw up something of interest.’

It would throw up a lot more than just something of interest. It would throw up Birgitta, exactly where I’d left her: clean and tidy and fed and oh-so-obviously harboured.

‘Any objections, Wonky?’

I tried to look like the sort of person who wasn’t about to be professionally, legally and socially destroyed before the hour was out.

‘Me? None at all.’

‘I can’t make up my mind about you,’ said Toccata, staring at me intently, head on one side, her lone eye unblinking. ‘Most Novices we get are either burned-out ex-military with a thousand-yard stare, gung-ho idiots or saddos who might as well have Kill Me Now printed on their forehead. You’re not any of those. But I can’t figure out if you’re a clever person pretending to be thick, a thick person pretending to be clever, or just a chancer stumbling through the Winter without any sort of plan or thought at all.’

‘Can I vote for option “C”?’ I asked, trying to lighten the mood.

‘But one thing we do know,’ added Toccata, ignoring me, ‘is that we can’t let you out of our sight.’

‘Ah,’ I said; my only plan – running away when their backs were turned, but details not yet worked out – was now tattered and broken. ‘Can I ask a question?’

‘A question?’ said Toccata. ‘Of course – actually, no. Be quiet and do as you’re told or I’ll make good on the tongue-coming-out promise. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.’

In less than a minute I was driving Jonesy towards the Siddons in the falling snow, Toccata having elected to stay in the Consulate. The light was muted by the coming storm, and aside from the occasional street light that glowed a yellowy-orange, the sky had an angry blackness about it. I was fifteen minutes away from arrest, and no amount of talking would get me out of the charges that would undoubtedly follow.

‘After all those years we spent together,’ said Jonesy, finally finding something to say as we drove past the wrought-iron gates to the museum, ‘you might have taken me into your confidence. Just shows that even when you pretend to think you know someone, you actually don’t pretend to know them at all.’

‘Can we have a break on the whole invented histories deal?’ I asked.

‘Absolutely not. For one thing the only way through the Winter is continuity, and for the other, I don’t back out of a long and happy make-believe union just when things start getting rocky.’

A squall hit the Sno-Trac and the vehicle seemed to shake down to its smallest rivets. I instinctively throttled back to a slow crawl, and increased the speed of the wipers.

‘This is nasty,’ I said, attempting to distract myself from Birgitta’s impending discovery, ‘a blizzard.’

‘This isn’t a blizzard,’ she replied, ‘this is just crystallised water with a smattering of wind. When you open the door and know that going out is certain death, that’s a blizzard.’

We continued on, the weather steadily worsening until by the time we had pulled up outside the Siddons , the visibility was down to less than ten yards.

‘Are we in a blizzard now?’

‘Nope,’ said Jonesy, ‘but we take precautions as if we were. You’re leading.’

I broke a light-stick, clipped it to my coat, then moved to the back of the Sno-Trac and grasped one end of a steel cable that fed off a drum mounted near the rear exit and attached it to the loop on my belt. I pulled down my goggles and opened the door, allowing the wind and weather to blow inside. I paused and climbed out but it wasn’t a time to dally; I let go of the vehicle and stepped out into the blinding void.

I’d practised this many times in a fog chamber – there was one the size of two football pitches at the Academy – but doing it for real was quite different: the noise and wind-blown snow added a raucous hostility that I hadn’t expected, and despite the lack of visibility in a fog chamber, it doesn’t have the disorientating effect of the snow constantly moving about you. I held my hand out in front of me and walked in the direction in which I hoped the Siddons would lie.

It took thirty-two-and-a-half paces to reach one of the statues that adorned the entrance. I was close enough to see it was a sleep-nymph, and I moved to the right until I found the door, then transferred the cable to the hefty eyelet bolted to the masonry. I tugged the cable twice, waited for Jonesy to emerge from the swirling emptiness, and once we were inside I shut the front door against the blizzard. The noise and wind ceased abruptly and the snowflakes, released from their wind-borne activity, floated gently to the floor.

Porter Lloyd and two cadaverous-looking winsomniacs were holding blankets and mugs of hot chocolate when we opened the inner door. Only they weren’t waiting for us.

‘Oh,’ said Lloyd, ‘Worthing. Thanks for the custom. Most grateful.’

‘Custom?’

He pointed to the door of the Winterlounge, where I could see several winsomniacs warming themselves around the coal fire. Shamanic Bob was amongst them and waved a weak greeting. They must have left almost the moment I told them about the blue Buick dream.

‘How many?’

‘Eight have checked in out of the thirty-two who left the Wincarnis,’ replied Lloyd, ‘and the way things are looking, I won’t expect many more. That was quite ruthless, if you don’t mind me saying, sir. Didn’t expect it of you.’