7. The Goliath Corporation

   ‘… No one would argue that we owe a debt of gratitude to the Goliath Corporation. They helped us to rebuild after the Second War and it should not be forgotten. Of late, however, it seems as though the Goliath Corporation is falling far short of its promises of fairness and altruism. We are finding ourselves now in the unfortunate position of continuing to pay back a debt that has long since been paid—with interest…”

Speech to Parliament by English Goliathsceptic Samuel Pring


   I was in the SpecOps Memorial Cemetery in Highgate looking at Snood’s headstone. It read:


FILBERT R. SNOOD
A fine operative who gave his years in the line of duty
—Time waits for no man–
SO-12 & SO-5
1953-1985

   They say the job ages you—and it had aged Filbert a lot. Perhaps it had been for the best when he didn’t call after the accident. It couldn’t have worked and the break-up when it came—as it surely would—might have been too painful. I placed a small stone atop his headstone and bid him adieu.
   ‘You were lucky,’ said a voice. I turned and saw a short man in an expensive dark suit sitting on the bench opposite.
   ‘I’m sorry?’ I asked, taken aback by the intrusion into my thoughts. The small man smiled and stared at me intently.
   ‘I’d like to speak to you about Acheron, Miss Next.’
   ‘It’s one of the rivers that flow to the underworld,’ I told him. ‘Try the local library under Greek Mythology.’
   ‘I was referring to the person.’
   I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out who he was. He wore a small porkpie hat balanced on top of a rounded head that had been crew-cut like a tennis ball. His features were sharp, his lips thin, and he was not what you’d call an attractive-looking human being. He sported heavy gold jewellery and a diamond tiepin that twinkled like a star. His patent-leather brogues were covered in white spats and a gold watch chain dangled from his waistcoat pocket. He was not alone. A young man also in a dark suit with a bulge where a pistol should be was standing next to him. I had been so wrapped up in my own thoughts I hadn’t noticed them approach. I figured they were SpecOps Internal Affairs or something; I guessed that Flanker and Co. weren’t finished with me yet.
   ‘Hades is dead,’ I replied simply, unwilling to get embroiled.
   ‘You don’t seem to think so.’
   ‘Yeah, well, I’ve been given six months off due to work-related stress. The shrink reckons I’m suffering from false memory syndrome and hallucinations. I shouldn’t believe anything I say, if I were you—and that includes what I just told you.’
   The small man smiled again, displaying a large gold tooth.
   ‘I don’t believe you’re suffering from stress at all, Miss Next. I think you’re as sane as I am. If someone who survived the Crimea, the police and then eight years of tricky LiteraTec work came to me and told me that Hades was still alive, I’d listen to them.’
   ‘And who might you be?’
   He handed me a gold-edged card with the dark blue Goliath Corporation logo embossed on it.
   ‘The name’s Schitt,’ he replied, ‘Jack Schitt.’
   I shrugged. The card told me he was head of Goliath’s internal security service, a shadowy organisation that was well outside government; by constitutional decree they were answerable to no one. The Goliath Corporation had honorary members in both houses and financial advisers at the Treasury. The judiciary was well represented with Goliath people on the selection panel for High Court judges, and most major universities had a Goliath overseer living within the faculty. No one ever noticed how much they influenced the running of the country, which perhaps shows how good at it they were. Yet, for all Goliath’s outward benevolence, there were murmurs of dissent over the Corporation’s continued privilege. Their public servants were unelected by the people or the government and their activities enshrined in statute. It was a brave politician who dared to voice disquiet.
   I sat next to him on the bench. He dismissed his henchman.
   ‘So what’s your interest in Hades, Mr Schitt?’
   ‘I want to know if he’s alive or dead.’
   ‘You read the coroner’s report, didn’t you?’
   ‘It only told me that a man of Hades’ height, stature and teeth was incinerated in a car. Hades has got out of worse scrapes than that. I read your report; much more interesting. Quite why those clowns in SO-1 dismissed it out of hand I have no idea. With Tamworth dead you’re the only operative who knows anything about him. I’m not really concerned about whose fault it was that night. What I want to know is this: what was Acheron going to do with the manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit? ’
   ‘Extortion, perhaps?’ I ventured.
   ‘Possibly. Where is it now?’
   ‘Wasn’t it with him?’
   ‘No,’ replied Schitt evenly. ‘In your testimony you said he took it with him in a leather case. No trace was found of it in the burnt-out car. If he did survive, so did the manuscript.’
   I looked at him blankly, wondering where all this was going.
   ‘He must have passed it to an accomplice, then.’
   ‘Possibly. The manuscript could be worth up to five million on the black market, Miss Next. A lot of money, don’t you think?’
   ‘What are you suggesting?’ I asked sharply, my temper rising.
   ‘Nothing at all; but your testimony and Acheron’s corpse don’t really add up, do they? You said that you shot him after he killed the young officer.’
   ‘His name was Snood,’ I said pointedly.
   ‘Whoever. But the burned corpse had no gunshot wounds despite the many times you shot him when he was disguised as Buckett or the old woman.’
   ‘Her name was Mrs Grimswold.’
   I stared at him. Schitt continued.
   ‘I saw the flattened slugs. You would have got the same effect if you had fired them into a wall.’
   ‘If you have a point, why don’t you get to it?’
   Schitt unscrewed the cap of a Thermos flask and offered it to me. I refused; he poured himself a drink and continued:
   ‘I think you know more than you say you do. We only have your word for the events of that night. Tell me, Miss Next, what was Hades planning to use the manuscript for?’
   ‘I told you: I have no idea.’
   ‘Then why are you going to work as a LiteraTec in Swindon?’
   ‘It was all I could get.’
   ‘That’s not true. Your work has been consistently assessed above average and your record states that you haven’t been back to Swindon in ten years despite your family living there. A note appended to your file speaks of “romantic tensions”. Man trouble in Swindon?’
   ‘None of your business.’
   ‘In my line of work I find there is very little that isn’t my business. There are a host of other things a woman with your talents could do, but to go back to Swindon? Something tells me you have another motive.’
   ‘Does it really say all that in my file?’
   ‘It does.’
   ‘What colour are my eyes?’
   Schitt ignored me and took a sip of coffee.
   ‘Colombian. The best. You think Hades is alive, Next. I think you have an idea where he is and I’m willing to guess that he is in Swindon and that’s why you’re going there. Am I correct?’
   I looked him straight in the eye. ‘No. I’m just going home to sort myself out.’
   Jack Schitt remained unconvinced. ‘I don’t believe there is such a thing as stress, Next. Just weak people and strong people. Only strong people survive men like Hades. You’re a strong person.’
   He paused. ‘If you change your mind, you can call me. But be warned. I’ll be keeping a close eye on you.’
   ‘Do as you will, Mr Schitt, but I’ve got a question for you.’
   ‘Yes?’
   ‘What’s your interest in Hades?’
   Jack Schitt smiled again.
   ‘I’m afraid that’s classified, Miss Next. Good day.’
   He tipped his hat, rose and left. A black Ford with smoked-glass windows pulled up outside the cemetery and drove him quickly away.
   I sat and thought. I had lied to the police psychiatrist in saying I was fit for work and lied to Jack Schitt in saying that I wasn’t. If Goliath were interested in Hades and the Chuzzlewit manuscript, it could only be for financial gain. The Goliath Corporation was to altruism what Genghis Khan was to soft furnishings. Money came first to Goliath and nobody trusted them farther than they could throw them. They may have rebuilt England after the Second War, they may have re-established the economy. But sooner or later the renewed nation had to stand on its own and Goliath was seen now as less of a benevolent uncle than a despotic stepfather.

8. Airship to Swindon

   ‘… There is no point in expending good money on the pursuit of an engine that can power aircraft without propellers. What is wrong with airships anyway? They have borne mankind aloft for over a hundred relatively accident-free years and I see no reason to impugn their popularity…”

Congresswoman Kelly, arguing against parliamentary funds for the development of a new form of propulsion, August 1972


   I took a small twenty-seater airship to Swindon. It was only half full and a brisk tailwind allowed us to make good time. The train would have been cheaper, but like many people I love to fly by gasbag. I had, when I was a little girl, been taken on an immense clipper-class airship to Africa by my parents. We had flown slowly across France, over the Eiffel Tower, past Lyon, stopped at Nice, then travelled across the sparkling Mediterranean, waving at fishermen and passengers in ocean liners who waved back. We had stopped at Cairo after circling the Pyramids with infinite grace, the captain expertly manoeuvring the leviathan with the skilful use of the twelve fully orientable propellers. We had continued up the Nile three days later to Luxor, where we joined a cruise ship for the return to the coast. Here we boarded the Ruritania for the return to England, by way of the Straits of Gibraltar and the Bay of Biscay. Little wonder that I tried to return to the fond memories of my childhood as often as I could.
   ‘Magazine, ma’am?’ asked a steward.
   I declined. In-flight airship magazines were always dull, and I was quite happy just to watch the English landscape slide past beneath me. It was a glorious sunny day, and the airship droned past the small puffy clouds that punctuated the sky like a flock of aerial sheep. The Chilterns had risen to meet us and then dropped away as we swept past Wallingford, Didcot and Wantage. The Uffington White Horse drifted below me, bringing back memories of picnics and courting. Landen and I had often been there.
   ‘Corporal Next—?’ enquired a familiar voice. I turned to find a middle-aged man standing in the aisle, a half-smile on his face. I knew instantly who it was, even though we had not met for twelve years.
   ‘Major—!’ I responded, stiffening slightly in the presence of someone who had once been my superior officer. His name was Phelps, and I had been under his command the day the Light Armoured Brigade had advanced into the Russian guns in error as they sought to repulse an attack on Balaclava. I had been the driver of the armoured personnel carrier under Phelps; it had not been a happy time.
   The airship started the slow descent into Swindon.
   ‘How have you been, Next?’ he asked, our past association dictating the way in which we spoke to one another.
   ‘I’ve been well, sir. Yourself?’
   ‘Can’t complain.’ He laughed. ‘Well, I could, but it wouldn’t do any good. The damn fools made me a colonel, dontcha know it.’
   ‘Congratulations,’ I said, slightly uneasily.
   The steward asked us to fasten our seat belts and Phelps sat down next to me and snapped on the buckle. He carried on talking in a slightly lower voice.
   ‘I’m a bit concerned about the Crimea.’
   ‘Who isn’t?’ I countered, wondering if Phelps had changed his politics since the last time we had met.
   ‘Quite. It’s these UN johnnies poking their noses where they’re not welcome. Makes all those lives seem wasted if we give it back now.’
   I sighed. His politics hadn’t changed and I didn’t want an argument. I had wanted the war finished almost as soon as I got out there. It didn’t fit into my idea of what a just war should be. Pushing Nazis out of Europe had been just. The fight over the Crimean Peninsula was nothing but xenophobic pride and misguided patriotism.
   ‘How’s the hand?’ I asked.
   Phelps showed me a lifelike left hand. He rotated the wrist and then wiggled the fingers. I was impressed.
   ‘Remarkable, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘They take the impulses from a sensor—thin gummy strapped to the muscles in the upper arm. If I’d lost the blasted thing above the elbow I’d have looked a proper Charlie.’
   He paused for a moment and returned to his first subject.
   ‘I’m a bit concerned that public pressure might have the government pulling the plug before the offensive.’
   ‘Offensive?’
   Colonel Phelps smiled. ‘Of course. I have friends higher up who tell me it’s only a matter of days before the first shipment of the new plasma rifles arrives. Do you think the Russians will be able to defend themselves against Stonk?’
   ‘Frankly, no; that is unless they have their own version.’
   ‘Not a chance. Goliath is the most advanced weapons company in the world. Believe me, I’m hoping as much as the next man that we never have to use it, but Stonk is the high ground this conflict has been waiting for.’
   He rummaged in his briefcase and pulled out a leaflet.
   ‘I’m touring England giving pro-Crimea talks. I’d like you to come along.’
   ‘I don’t really think—‘ I began, taking the leaflet anyway.
   ‘Nonsense!’ replied Colonel Phelps. ‘As a healthy and successful veteran of the campaign it is your duty to give voice to those that made the ultimate sacrifice. If we give the peninsula back, every single one of those lives will have been lost in vain.’
   ‘I think, sir, that those lives have already been lost and no decision we can make in any direction can change that.’
   He pretended not to hear and I lapsed into silence. Colonel Phelps’s rabid support of the conflict had been his way of dealing with the disaster. The order was given to charge against what we were told would be a ‘token resistance’ but turned out to be massed Russian field artillery. Phelps had ridden the APC on the outside until the Russians opened up with everything they had; a shell-burst had taken his lower arm off and peppered his back with shrapnel. We had loaded him up with as many other soldiers as we could, driving back to the English lines with the carrier a mound of groaning humanity. I had gone back into the carnage against orders, driving among the shattered armour looking for survivors. Of the seventy-six APCs and light tanks that advanced into the Russian guns, only two vehicles returned. Out of the five hundred and thirty-four soldiers involved, fifty-one survived, only eight of them completely uninjured. One of the dead had been Anton Next, my brother. Disaster doesn’t even begin to describe it.
   Fortunately for me the airship docked soon after and I was able to avoid Colonel Phelps in the airfield lounge. I picked up my case from baggage retrieval and stayed locked in the ladies’ until I thought he had gone. I tore his leaflet into tiny pieces and flushed them down the loo. The airfield lounge was empty when I came out. It was bigger than was required for the amount of traffic that came to town; an off-white elephant that reflected the dashed hopes of Swindon’s town planners. The concourse outside was similarly deserted except for two students holding an anti-Crimea war banner. They had heard of Phelps’s arrival and hoped that they could turn him from his pro-war campaigning. They had two chances: fat and slim.
   They looked at me and I turned quickly away. If they knew who Phelps was, they might quite conceivably know who I was as well. I looked around the empty pick-up point. I had spoken on the phone to Victor Analogy—the head of the Swindon LiteraTecs—and he had offered to send a car to pick me up. It hadn’t arrived. It was hot, so I removed my jacket. A looped recording came over the Tannoy exhorting non-existent drivers not to park in the deserted white zone, and a bored-looking worker came by and returned a few trolleys. I sat down next to a Will-Speak machine at the far end of the concourse. The last time I was in Swindon the airship park had been simply a grass field with a rusty mast. I guessed that much else had changed too.
   I waited five minutes, then stood and paced impatiently up and down. The Will-Speak machine—officially known as a Shakespeare Soliloquy Vending Automaton—was of Richard III. It was a simple box, with the top half glazed and inside a realistic mannequin visible from the waist up in suitable attire. The machine would dispense a short snippet of Shakespeare for ten pence. They hadn’t been manufactured since the thirties and were now something of a rarity; Baconic vandalism and a lack of trained maintenance were together hastening their demise.
   I dug out a ten-pence piece and inserted it. There was a gentle whirring and clicking from within as the machine wound itself up to speed. There had been a Hamlet version on the corner of Commercial Road when I was small. My brother and I had pestered our mother for loose change and listened to the mannequin refer to things we couldn’t really understand. It told us of ‘the undiscovered country’. My brother, in his childish naivetй, had said he wanted to visit such a place, and he did, seventeen years later, in a mad dash sixteen hundred miles from home, the only sound the roar of engines and the crump-crump-crump of the Russian guns.
   Was ever woman in this humour wooed? asked the mannequin, rolling its eyes crazily as it stuck one finger in the air and lurched from side to side.
   Was ever woman in this humour won?

   It paused for effect.
   I’ll have her, but I’ll not keep her long…
   ‘Excuse me—?’
   I looked up. One of the students had walked up and touched me on the arm. He wore a peace button in his lapel and had a pair of pince-nez glasses perched precariously on his large nose.
   ‘You’re Next, aren’t you?’
   ‘Next for what?’
   ‘Corporal Next, Light Armoured Brigade.’
   I rubbed my brow.
   ‘I’m not here with the Colonel. It was a coincidence.’
   ‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’
   ‘Neither do I. That’s a coincidence, isn’t it?’
   The student looked at me oddly as his girlfriend joined him. He told her who I was.
   ‘You were the one who went back,’ she marvelled, as though I were a rare stuffed parakeet. ‘It was against a direct order. They were going to court-martial you.’
   ‘Well, they didn’t, did they?’
   ‘Not when The Owl on Sunday got wind of your story. I’ve read your testimony at the inquiry. You’re anti-war.’
   The two students looked at one another as if they couldn’t believe their good fortune.
   ‘We need someone to talk at Colonel Phelps’s rally,’ said the young man with the big nose. ‘Someone from the other side. Someone who has been there. Someone with clout. Would you do that for us?’
   ‘No.’
   ‘Why not?’
   I looked around to see if, by a miracle, my lift had arrived. It hadn’t.
   … Whom I, continued the mannequin, some three months hence, stabbed in my angry mood at Tewkesbury?
   ‘Listen, guys, I’d love to help you, but I can’t. I’ve spent twelve years trying to forget. Speak to some other vet. There are thousands of us.’
   ‘Not like you, Miss Next. You survived the charge. You went back to get your fallen comrades out. One of the fifty-one. It’s your duty to speak on behalf of those that didn’t make it.’
   ‘Bullshit. My duty is to myself. I survived the charge and have lived with it every single day since. Every night I ask myself: why me? Why did I live and the others, my brother even, die? There is no answer to that question and that’s only just where the pain starts. I can’t help you.’
   ‘You don’t have to speak,’ said the girl persistently, ‘but better for one old wound to open than a thousand new ones, eh?’
   ‘Don’t teach me morality, you little shit,’ I said, my voice rising.
   It had the desired effect. She handed me a leaflet, took her boyfriend by the arm, and departed.
   I closed my eyes. My heart was beating like the crump-crump-crump of the Russian field artillery. I didn’t hear the squad car pull up beside me.
   ‘Officer Next—?’ asked a cheery voice.
   I turned and nodded gratefully, picked up my case and walked over. The officer in the car smiled at me. He had long dreadlocked hair and a pair of overly large dark glasses. His uniform was open at the collar in an uncharacteristically casual way for a SpecOps officer, and he wore a goodly amount of jewellery, also strictly against SpecOps guidelines.
   ‘Welcome to Swindon, Officer! The town where anything can happen and probably will!’
   He smiled broadly and jerked a thumb towards the rear of the car.
   ‘Boot’s open.’
   The boot contained a lot of iron stakes, several mallets, a large crucifix and a pick and shovel. There was also a musty smell, the smell of mould and the long dead—I hurriedly threw in my bag and slammed the boot lid down. I walked round to the passenger door and got in.
   ‘Shit–! ’ I cried out, suddenly noticing that in the back, pacing the rear seats behind a strong mesh screen, was a large Siberian wolf. The officer laughed loudly.
   ‘Take no notice of the pup, ma’am! Officer Next, I’d like you to meet Mr. Meakle. Mr. Meakle, this is Officer Next.’
   He was talking about the wolf. I stared at the wolf, which stared back at me with an intensity that I found disconcerting. The officer laughed like a drain and pulled away with a lurch and a squeal of tyres. I had forgotten just how weird Swindon could be.
   As we drove off, the Will-Speak machine came to an end, reciting the last part of its soliloquy to itself:
   … Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass, that I might see my shadow, as I pass.
   There was a clicking and whirring and then the mannequin stopped abruptly, lifeless again until the next coin.
   ‘Beautiful day,’ I commented once we were under way.
   ‘Every day is a beautiful day, Miss Next. The name’s Stoker—‘
   He pulled out on to the Stratton by-pass.
   ‘—SpecOps 17: Vampire and Werewolf disposal operations. Suckers and biters, they call us. My friends call me Spike. You,’ he added with a broad grin, ‘can call me Spike.’
   By way of explanation he tapped a mallet and stake that were clipped to the mesh partition.
   ‘What do they call you, Miss Next?’
   ‘Thursday.’
   ‘Pleased to meet you, Thursday.’
   He proffered a huge hand that I shook gratefully. I liked him immediately. He leaned against the door pillar to get the best out of the cooling breeze and tapped a beat out on the steering wheel. A recent scratch on his neck oozed a small amount of blood.
   ‘You’re bleeding,’ I observed.
   Spike wiped it away with his hand.
   ‘It’s nothing. He gave me a bit of a struggle—!’
   I looked in the back seat again. The wolf was sitting down, scratching its ear with a hind leg.
   ‘—but I’m immunised against lycanthropy. Mr. Meakle just won’t take his medication. Will you, Mr. Meakle?’
   The wolf pricked up its ears as the last vestige of the human within him remembered his name. He started to pant in the heat. Spike went on:
   ‘His neighbours called. All the cats in the neighbourhood had gone missing; I found him rummaging in the bins behind SmileyBurger. He’ll be in for treatment, morph back and be on the streets again by Friday. He has rights, they tell me. What’s your posting?’
   ‘I’m—ah—joining SpecOps 27.’
   Spike laughed loudly again.
   ‘A LiteraTec!? Always nice to meet someone as underfunded as I am. Some good faces in that office. Your chief is Victor Analogy. Don’t be fooled by the grey hairs—he’s as sharp as a knife. The others are all Ai Ops. A bit shiny-arsed and a mite too smart for me, but there you go. Where am I taking you?’
   ‘The Finis Hotel.’
   ‘First time in Swindon?’
   ‘Sadly, no,’ I replied. ‘It’s my home-town. I was in the regular force here until ‘75. You?’
   ‘Welsh Border guard for ten years. I got into some darkness at Oswestry in ‘79 and discovered I had a talent for this kind of shit. I trannied here from Oxford when the two depots merged. You’re looking at the only Staker south of Leeds. I run my own office but it’s mighty lonesome. If you know anyone handy with a mallet—?’
   ‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ I replied, wondering why anyone would consciously wish to fight the supreme powers of darkness for a basic SpecOps salary, ‘but if I come across anyone, I’ll let you know. What happened to Chesney? He ran the department when I was here last.’
   A cloud crossed Spike’s usually bright features and he sighed deeply.
   ‘He was a good friend but he fell into shadows. Became a servant of the dark one. I had to hunt him down myself. The spike ‘n’ decap was the easy part. The tricky bit was having to tell his wife—she wasn’t exactly overjoyed.’
   ‘I guess I’d be a bit pissed off, too.’
   ‘Anyway,’ continued Spike, cheering up almost immediately, ‘you don’t have to tell me shit, but what is a good-looking SpecOps doing joining the Swindon LiteraTecs

   ‘I had a spot of bother in London.’
   ‘Ah,’ replied Spike knowingly.
   ‘I’m also looking for someone.’
   ‘Who?’
   I looked over at him and made an instant judgment call. If I could trust anyone, I could trust Spike.
   ‘Hades.’
   ‘Acheron? Flatline, sister. The man’s toast. Crashed and burned on the four.’
   ‘So we’re led to believe. If you hear anything—?’
   ‘No problem, Thursday.’
   ‘And we can keep this between ourselves?’
   He smiled.
   ‘After staking, secrets is what I do best.’
   ‘Hang on—‘
   I had caught sight of a brightly coloured sports car in a secondhand car lot on the other side of the road. Spike slowed down.
   ‘What’s up?’
   ‘I—er—need a car. Can you drop me over there?’
   Spike executed an illegal U-turn, causing the following car to brake violently and slew across the road. The driver started to hurl abuse until he saw that it was a SpecOps black & white, then wisely kept quiet and drove on. I retrieved my bag.
   ‘Thanks for the lift. I’ll see you about.’
   ‘Not if I see you first!’ said Spike. ‘I’ll see what I can dig up on your missing friend.’
   ‘I’d appreciate it. Thanks.’
   ‘Goodbye.’
   ‘So long.’
   ‘Cheerio,’ said a timid-sounding voice from the back. We both turned and looked into the rear of the car. Mr Meakle had changed back. A thin, rather pathetic-looking man was sitting in the back seat, completely naked and very muddy. His hands were clasped modestly over his genitals.
   ‘Mr. Meakle! Welcome back!’ said Spike, grinning broadly as he added in a scolding tone: ‘You didn’t take your tablets, did you?’
   Mr. Meakle shook his head miserably.
   I thanked Spike again. As he drove off I could see Mr. Meakle waving to me a bit stupidly through the rear window. Spike did another U-turn, causing a second car to brake hard, and was gone.
   I stared at the sports car on the front row of the lot under a banner marked ‘Bargain’. There could be no mistake. The car was definitely the one that had appeared before me in my hospital room.
   And I had been driving it.
   It was me who had told me to come to Swindon. It was me who had told me that Acheron wasn’t dead. If I hadn’t come to Swindon then I wouldn’t have seen the car and wouldn’t have been able to buy it. It didn’t make a great deal of sense, but what little I did know was that I had to have it.
   ‘Can I help you, madam?’ asked an oily salesman who had appeared almost from nowhere, rubbing his hands nervously and sweating profusely in the heat.
   ‘This car. How long have you had it?’
   ‘The 356 Speedster? About six months.’
   ‘Has it ever been up to London in that time?’
   ‘London?’ repeated the salesman, slightly puzzled. ‘Not at all. Why?’
   ‘No reason. I’ll take it.’
   The salesman looked slightly shocked.
   ‘Are you sure? Wouldn’t you like something a little more practical? I have a good selection of Buicks which have just come in. Ex-Goliath but with low mileage, you know—‘
   ‘This one,’ I said firmly.
   The salesman smiled uneasily. The car was obviously at a giveaway price and they didn’t stand to make a bean on it. He muttered something feeble and hurried off to get the keys.
   I sat inside. The interior was spartan in the extreme. I had never thought myself very interested in cars, but this one was different. It was outrageously conspicuous with curious paintwork in red, blue and green, but I liked it immediately. The salesman returned with the keys and it started on the second turn. He did the necessary paperwork and half an hour later I drove out of the lot into the road. The car accelerated rapidly with a rasping note from the tailpipe. Within a couple of hundred yards the two of us were inseparable.

9. The Next family

   ‘… I was born on a Thursday, hence the name. My brother was born on a Monday and they called him Anton—go figure. My mother was called Wednesday but was born on a Sunday—I don’t know why—and my father had no name at all—his identity and existence had been scrubbed by the ChronoGuard after he went rogue. To all intents and purposes he didn’t exist at all. It didn’t matter. He was always Dad to me…’

Thursday Next. A Life in SpecOps


   I took my new car for a drive in the countryside with the top down; the rushing air was a cool respite from the summer heat. The familiar landscape had not changed much; it was still as beautiful as I remembered. Swindon, on the other hand, had changed a great deal. The town had spread outwards and up. Light industry went outwards, financial glassy towers in the centre went up. The residential area had expanded accordingly; the countryside was just that much farther from the centre of town.
   It was evening when I pulled up in front of a plain semi-detached house in a street that contained forty or fifty just like it. I flipped up the hood and locked the car. This was where I had grown up; my bedroom was the window above the front door. The house had aged. The painted window frames had faded and the pebbledash facing seemed to be coming away from the wall in several areas. I pushed open the front gate with some difficulty as there was a good deal of resistance behind it, and then closed it again with a similar amount of heaving and sweating—a task made more difficult by the assortment of dodos who had gathered eagerly around to see who it was and then plocked excitedly when they realised it was someone vaguely familiar.
   ‘Hello, Mordacai!’ I said to the oldest, who dipped and bobbed in greeting. They all wanted to be made a fuss of after that, so I stayed a while and tickled them under their chins as they searched my pockets inquisitively for any sign of marshmallows, something that dodos find particularly irresistible.
   My mother opened the door to see what the fuss was about and ran up the path to meet me. The dodos wisely scattered, as my mother can be dangerous at anything more than a fast walk. She gave me a long hug. I returned it gratefully.
   ‘Thursday—!’ she said, her eyes glistening. ‘Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?’
   ‘It was a surprise, Mum. I’ve got a posting in town.’
   She had visited me in hospital several times and bored me in a delightfully distracting manner with all the minutiae of Margot Vishler’s hysterectomy and the Women’s Federation gossip.
   ‘How’s the arm?’
   ‘It can be a bit stiff sometimes and when I sleep on it, it goes completely numb. Garden’s looking nice. Can I come in?’
   My mother apologised and ushered me through the door, taking my jacket and hanging it up in the cloakroom. She looked awkwardly at the automatic in my shoulder holster so I stuffed it in my case. The house, I soon noticed, was exactly the same: the same mess, the same furniture, the same smell. I paused to look around, to take it all in and bathe in the security of fond memories. The last time I had been truly happy was in Swindon, and this house had been the hub of my life for twenty years. A creeping doubt entered my mind about the wisdom of leaving the town in the first place.
   We walked through to the lounge, still poorly decorated in browns and greens and looking like a museum of Dralon. The photo of my passing-out parade at the police training college was on the mantelpiece, along with another of Anton and myself in military fatigues smiling under the harsh sun of the Crimean summer. Sitting on the sofa were an aged couple who were busy watching TV.
   ‘Polly—! Mycroft—! Look who it is!’
   My aunt reacted favourably by rising to meet me, but Mycroft was more interested in watching Name That Fruit! on the television. He laughed a silly snorting laugh at a poor joke and waved a greeting in my direction without looking up.
   ‘Hello, Thursday, darling,’ said my aunt. ‘Careful, I’m all made up.’
   We pointed cheeks at each other and made mmuuah noises. My aunt smelled strongly of lavender and had so much make-up on that even good Queen Bess would have been shocked.
   ‘You well, Aunty?’
   ‘Couldn’t be better.’ She kicked her husband painfully on the ankle. ‘Mycroft, it’s your niece.’
   ‘Hello, pet,’ he said without looking up, rubbing his foot. Polly lowered her voice.
   ‘It’s such a worry. All he does is watch TV and tinker in his workshop. Sometimes I think there’s no one at home at all.’
   She glared hard at the back of his head before returning her attention to me.
   ‘Staying for long?’
   ‘She’s been posted here,’ put in my mother.
   ‘Have you lost weight?’
   ‘I work out.’
   ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
   ‘No,’ I replied. They would ask me about Landen next.
   ‘Have you called Landen?’
   ‘No, I haven’t. And I don’t want you to either.’
   ‘Such a nice lad. The Toad did a fantastic review of his last book: Once Were Scoundrels. Have you read it?’
   I ignored her.
   ‘Any news from Father—?’ I asked.
   ‘He didn’t like the mauve paint in the bedroom,’ said my mother. ‘I can’t think why you suggested it!’
   Aunt Polly beckoned me closer and hissed unsubtly and very loudly in my ear: ‘You’ll have to excuse your mother; she thinks your dad is mixed up with another woman!’
   Mother excused herself on a lame pretext and hurriedly left the room.
   I frowned.
   ‘What kind of woman?’
   ‘Someone he met at work—Lady Emma someone-or-other.’
   I remembered the last conversation with Dad; the stuff about Nelson and the French revisionists.
   ‘Emma Hamilton?’
   My mother popped her head around the door from the kitchen.
   ‘You know her?’ she asked in an aggrieved tone.
   ‘Not personally. I think she died in the mid-nineteenth century.’
   My mother narrowed her eyes.
   ‘That old ruse.’

   She steeled herself and managed a bright smile.
   ‘Will you stay for supper?’
   I agreed, and she went to find a chicken that she could boil all the taste out of, her anger at Dad for the moment forgotten. Mycroft, the gameshow ended, shuffled into the kitchen wearing a grey zip-up cardigan and holding a copy of New Splicer magazine.
   ‘What’s for dinner?’ he asked, getting in the way. Aunt Polly looked at him as you might a spoilt child.
   ‘Mycroft, instead of wandering around wasting your time, why don’t you waste Thursday’s and show her what you’ve been up to in your workshop?’
   Mycroft looked at us both with a vacant expression. He shrugged and beckoned me towards the back door, changing his slippers for a pair of gumboots and his cardigan for a truly dreadful plaid jacket.
   ‘C’mon then, m’girl,’ he muttered, shooing the dodos from around the back door where they had been mustering in hope of a snack, and strode towards his workshop.
   ‘You might repair that garden gate, Uncle—it’s worse than ever!’
   ‘Not at all,’ he replied with a wink. ‘Every time someone goes in or out they generate enough power to run the telly for an hour. I haven’t seen you about recently. Have you been away?’
   ‘Well, yes; ten years.’
   He looked over his spectacles at me with some surprise.
   ‘Really?’
   ‘Yes. Is Owens still with you?’
   Owens was Mycroft’s assistant. He was an old boy who had been with Rutherford when he split the atom; Mycroft and he had been at school together.
   ‘A bit tragic, Thursday. We were developing a machine that used egg white, heat and sugar to synthesise methanol when a power surge caused an implosion. Owens was meringued. By the time we chipped him out the poor chap had expired. Polly helps me now.’
   We had arrived at his workshop. A log with an axe stuck in it was all that was keeping the door shut. Mycroft fumbled for the switch and the striplights flickered on, filling the workshop with a harsh fluorescent glow. The laboratory looked similar to the last time I had seen it in terms of untidiness and the general bric-a-brac, but the contraptions were different. I had learned from my mother’s many letters that Mycroft had invented a method for sending pizzas by fax and a 2B pencil with a built-in spell-checker, but what he was currently working on, I had no idea.
   ‘Did the memory erasure device work, Uncle?’
   ‘The what?’
   ‘The memory erasure device. You were testing it when I last saw you.’
   ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, dear girl. What do you make of this?’
   A large white Rolls-Royce was sitting in the centre of the room. I walked over to the vehicle as Mycroft tapped a fluorescent tube to stop it flickering.
   ‘New car, Uncle?’
   ‘No, no,’ said Mycroft hurriedly. ‘I don’t drive. A friend of mine who hires these out was lamenting about the cost of keeping two, one black for funerals and the other white for weddings—so I came up with this.’
   He reached in and turned a large knob on the dashboard. There was a low hum and the car turned slowly off-white, grey, dark grey and then finally to black.
   ‘That’s very impressive, Uncle.’
   ‘Do you think so? It uses liquid crystal technology. But I took the idea one step farther. Watch.’
   He turned the dial several more notches to the right and the car changed to blue, then mauve, and finally green with yellow dots.
   ‘One-colour cars a thing of the past! But that’s not all. If I switch on the car’s Pigmentiser like so, the car should… yes, yes, look at that!’
   I watched with growing astonishment as the car started to fade in front of my eyes; the liquid crystal coating was emulating the background greys and browns of Mycroft’s workshop. Within a few seconds the car had blended itself perfectly into the background. I thought of the fun you could have with traffic wardens.
   ‘I call it the “ChameleoCar”; quite fun, don’t you think?’
   ‘Very.’
   I put out my hand and touched the warm surface of the camouflaged Rolls-Royce. I was going to ask Mycroft if I could have the cloaking device fitted to my Speedster but I was too late; enthused by my interest he had trotted off to a large roll-top bureau and was beckoning me over excitedly.
   ‘Translating carbon paper,’ he announced breathlessly, pointing to several piles of brightly coloured metallic film. ‘I call it Rosettionery. Allow me to demonstrate. We’ll start with a plain piece of paper, then put in a Spanish carbon, a second slip of paper—must get them the right way up!—then a Polish carbon, more paper, German and another sheet and finally French and the last sheet… there.’
   He shuffled the bundle and laid it on the desk as I pulled up a chair.
   ‘Write something on the first sheet. Anything you want.’
   ‘Anything?’
   Mycroft nodded so I wrote: Have you seen my dodo?
   ‘Now what?’
   Mycroft looked triumphant.
   ‘Have a look, dear girl.’
   I lifted off the top carbon and there, written in my own handwriting, were the words: їHa visto mi dodo?
   ‘But that’s amazing!’
   ‘Thank you,’ replied my Uncle. ‘Have a look at the next!’
   I did. Beneath the Polish carbon was written: Gdzie jest moje dodo?

   ‘I’m working on hieroglyphics and demotic,’ Mycroft explained as I peeled off the German translation to read: Haben sie meinen dodo gesehen?
   ‘The Mayan Codex version was trickier but I can’t manage Esperanto at all. Can’t think why.’
   ‘This will have dozens of applications!’ I exclaimed as I pulled off the last sheet to read, slightly disappointingly: Man aardvark n’a pas de nez.
   ‘Wait a moment, Uncle. My aardvark has no nose? ’
   Mycroft looked over my shoulder and grunted.
   ‘You probably weren’t pressing hard enough. You’re police, aren’t you?’
   ‘SpecOps, really.’
   ‘Then this might interest you,’ he announced, leading me off past more wondrous gadgets, the use of which I could only guess at. ‘I’m demonstrating this particular machine to the police technical advancement committee on Wednesday.’
   He stopped next to a device that had a huge horn on it like an old gramophone. He cleared his throat.
   ‘I call it my “Olfactograph”. It’s very simple. Since any bloodhound worth its salt will tell you that each person’s smell is unique like a thumbprint, then it follows that a machine that can recognise a felon’s individual smell must be of use where other forms of identification fail. A thief may wear gloves and a mask, but he can’t hide his scent.’
   He pointed at the horn.
   ‘The odours are sucked up here and split into their individual parts using an “Olfactroscope” of my own invention. The component parts are then analysed to give a “pongprint” of the criminal. It can separate out ten different people’s odours in a single room and isolate the newest or the oldest. It can detect burned toast up to six months after the event and differentiate between thirty different brands of cigar.’
   ‘Could be handy,’ I said, slightly doubtfully. ‘What’s this over here?’
   I was pointing to what looked like a trilby hat made from brass and covered in wires and lights.
   ‘Oh yes,’ said my uncle, ‘this I think you will like.’
   He placed the brass hat on my head and flicked a large switch. There was a humming noise.
   ‘Is something meant to happen?’ I asked.
   ‘Close your eyes and breathe deeply. Try to empty your mind of any thoughts.’
   I closed my eyes and waited patiently.
   ‘Is it working?’ asked Mycroft.
   ‘No,’ I replied, then added: ‘Wait!’ as a stickleback swam past. ‘I can see a fish. Here, in front of my eyes. Wait, there’s another!’
   And so there was. Pretty soon I was staring at a whole host of brightly coloured fish all swimming in front of my closed eyes. They were on about a five-second loop; every now and then they jumped back to the starting place and repeated their action.
   ‘Remarkable!’
   ‘Stay relaxed or it will go,’ said Mycroft in a soothing voice. ‘Try this one.’
   There was a blur of movement and the scene shifted to an inky-black starfield; it seemed as though I were travelling through space.
   ‘Or how about this?’ asked Mycroft, changing the scene to a parade of flying toasters. I opened my eyes and the image evaporated. Mycroft was looking at me earnestly.
   ‘Any good?’ he asked.
   I nodded.
   ‘I call it a Retinal Screen-Saver. Very useful for boring jobs; instead of gazing absently out of the window you can transform your surroundings to any number of soothing images. As soon as the phone goes or your boss walks in you blink and bingo!— you’re back in the real world again.’
   I handed back the hat.
   ‘Should sell well at SmileyBurger. When do you hope to market it?’
   ‘It’s not really ready yet; there are a few problems I haven’t quite fixed.’
   ‘Such as what?’ I asked, slightly suspiciously.
   ‘Close your eyes and you’ll see.’
   I did as he asked and a fish swam by. I blinked again and could see a toaster. Clearly, this needed some work.
   ‘Don’t worry,’ he assured me. ‘They will have gone in a few hours.’
   ‘I preferred the Olfactroscope.’
   ‘You haven’t seen anything yet!’ said Mycroft, skipping nimbly up to a large work desk covered by tools and bits of machinery. ‘This device is probably my most amazing discovery ever. It is the culmination of thirty years’ work and incorporates biotechnology at the very cutting edge of science. When you find out what this is, I promise you, you’ll flip!’
   He pulled a tea towel off a goldfish bowl with a flourish and showed me what appeared to be a large quantity of fruitfly larvae.
   ‘Maggots?’
   Mycroft smiled.
   ‘Not maggots, Thursday, bookworms!’
   He said the word with such a bold and proud flourish that I thought I must have missed something.
   ‘Is that good?’
   ‘It’s very good, Thursday. These worms might look like a tempting snack for Mr Trout, but each one of these little fellows has enough new genetic sequencing to make the code embedded in your pet dodo look like a note to the milkman!’
   ‘Hold on a sec, Uncle,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you have your Splicence revoked after that incident with the prawns?’
   ‘A small misunderstanding,’ he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Those fools at SpecOps 11 have no idea of the value of my work.’
   ‘Which is—?’ I asked, ever curious.

   ‘Ever smaller methods of storing information. I collected all the finest dictionaries, thesauri and lexicons, as well as grammatical, morphological and etymological studies of the English language, and encoded them all within the DNA of the worm’s small body. I call them “HyperBookworms”. I think you’ll agree that it’s a remarkable achievement.’
   ‘I agree. But how would you access this information?’
   Mycroft’s face fell.
   ‘As I said, a remarkable achievement with one small drawback. However, events ran ahead of themselves; some of my worms escaped and bred with others that had been encoded with a complete set of encyclopaedic, historical and biographical reference manuals; the result was a new strain I named HyperBookwormDoublePlusGood. These chaps are the real stars of the show.’
   He pulled a sheet of paper from a drawer, tore off a corner and wrote the word ‘remarkable’ on the small scrap.
   ‘This is just to give you a taster of what these creatures can do.’
   So saying, he dropped the piece of paper into the goldfish bowl. The worms wasted no time and quickly surrounded the small scrap. But instead of eating it they merely conglomerated around it, squirmed excitedly and explored the interloper with apparent great interest.
   ‘I had a wormery back in London, Uncle, and they didn’t like paper either—‘
   ‘Shh!’ murmured my uncle, and beckoned me closer to the worms.
   Amazing!
   ‘What is?’ I asked, somewhat perplexed; but as soon as I looked at Mycroft’s smiling face I realised it wasn’t him speaking.
   Astonishing! said the voice again in a low murmur. Incredible! Astounding! Stunning!
   I frowned and looked at the worms, which had gathered themselves into a small ball around the scrap of paper and were pulsating gently.
   Wonderful! mumbled the bookworms. Extraordinary! Fantastic!
   ‘What do you think?’ asked Mycroft.
   ‘Thesaurean maggots—Uncle, you never cease to amaze me!’
   But Mycroft was suddenly a lot more serious.
   ‘It’s more than just a bio-thesaurus, Thursday. These little chaps can do things that you will scarce believe.’
   He opened a cupboard and pulled out a large leather book with ‘PP’ embossed on the spine in gold letters. The casing was richly decorated and featured heavy brass securing straps. On the front were several dials and knobs, valves and knife switches. It certainly looked impressive, but not all Mycroft’s devices had a usefulness mutually compatible with their looks. In the early seventies he had developed an extraordinarily beautiful machine that did nothing more exciting than predict with staggering accuracy the number of pips in an unopened orange.
   ‘What is it?’ I asked.
   ‘This,’ began Mycroft, smiling all over and puffing out his chest with pride, ‘is a—‘
   But he never got to finish. At that precise moment Polly announced ‘Supper!’ from the door and Mycroft quickly ran out, muttering something about how he hoped it was snorkers and telling me to switch off the lights on my way out. I was left alone in his empty workshop. Truly, Mycroft had surpassed himself.
   Dazzling! agreed the bookworms.
   Supper was a friendly affair. We all had a lot of catching up to do, and my mother had a great deal to tell me about the Women’s Federation.
   ‘We raised almost seven thousand pounds last year for ChronoGuard orphans,’ she said.
   ‘That’s very good,’ I replied. ‘SpecOps is always grateful for the contributions, although to be fair there are other divisions worse off than the ChronoGuard.’
   ‘Well, I know,’ replied my mother, ‘but it’s all so secret. What do all of them do?’
   ‘Believe me, I have no more idea than you. Can you pass the fish?’
   ‘There isn’t any fish,’ observed my aunt. ‘You haven’t been using your niece as a guinea-pig have you, Crofty?’
   My uncle pretended not to hear; I blinked and the fish vanished.
   ‘The only other one I know under SO-20 is SO-6,’ added Polly. ‘That was National Security. We only know that because they all looked after Mycroft so well.’
   She nudged him in the ribs but he didn’t notice; he was busy figuring out a recipe for unscrambled eggs on a napkin.
   ‘I don’t suppose a week went by in the sixties when he wasn’t being kidnapped by one foreign power or another,’ she sighed wistfully, thinking of the exciting old days with a whiff of nostalgia.
   ‘Some things have to be kept secret for operational purposes,’ I recited parrot fashion. ‘Secrecy is our biggest weapon.’
   ‘I read in The Mole that SpecOps is riddled with secret societies. The Wombats in particular,’ murmured Mycroft, placing his completed equation in his jacket pocket. ‘Is this true?’
   I shrugged.
   ‘No more than in any other walk of life, I suppose. I’ve not noticed it myself, but then as a woman I wouldn’t be approached by the Wombats anyway.’
   ‘Seems a bit unfair to me,’ said Polly in a tut-tutting voice. ‘I’m fully in support of secret societies—the more the better—but I think they should be open to everyone, men and women.’
   ‘Men are welcome to it,’ I replied. ‘It means that at least half the population won’t have to make complete idiots of themselves. It surprises me that you haven’t been approached to join, Uncle.’
   Mycroft grunted.
   ‘I used to be one at Oxford many years ago. Waste of time. It was all a bit silly; the pouch used to chafe something awful and all that gnawing played hell with my overbite.’
   There was a pause.
   ‘Major Phelps is in town,’ I said, changing the subject. ‘I met him on the airship. He’s a colonel now but is still blasting the same old line.’
   By an unwritten rule, no one ever spoke of the Crimea or Anton in the house. There was an icy hush.
   ‘Really?’ replied my mother with seemingly no emotion.
   ‘Joffy has a parish up at Wanborough these days,’ announced Polly, hoping to change the subject. ‘He’s opened the first GSD church in Wessex. I spoke to him last week; he says that it has been quite popular.’
   Joffy was my other brother. He had taken to the faith at an early age and tried all sorts of religions before settling for the GSD.
   ‘GSD?’ murmured Mycroft. ‘What in heaven’s name is that?’
   ‘Global Standard Deity,’ answered Polly. ‘It’s a mixture of all the religions. I think it’s meant to stop religious wars.’
   Mycroft grunted again.

   ‘Religion isn’t the cause of wars, it’s the excuse. What’s the melting point of beryllium?’
   ‘180.57 degrees Centigrade,’ murmured Polly without even thinking. ‘I think Joffy is doing a grand job. You should call him, Thursday.’
   ‘Maybe.’
   Joffy and I had never been close. He had called me Doofus and smacked me on the back of my head every day for fifteen years. I had to break his nose to make him stop.
   ‘If you are calling people why don’t you call—‘
   ‘Mother!’
   ‘He’s quite successful now, I understand, Thursday. It might be good for you to see him again.’
   ‘Landen and I are finished, Mum. Besides, I have a boyfriend.’
   This, to my mother, was extremely good news. It had been of considerable anguish to her that I wasn’t spending more time with swollen ankles, haemorrhoids and a bad back, popping out grandchildren and naming them after obscure relatives. Joffy wasn’t the sort of person who had children, which kind of left it up to me. In all honesty I wasn’t against the idea of kids, it was just that I wasn’t going to have them on my own. And Landen had been the last man to have remotely interested me as a possible life partner.
   ‘A boyfriend? What’s his name?’
   I said the first name that popped into my head.
   ‘Snood. Filbert Snood.’
   ‘Nice name.’ My mother smiled.
   ‘Daft name,’ grumbled Mycroft. ‘Like Landen Parke-Laine, come to that. Can I get down? It’s time for Jack Spratt’s Casebook.’
   Polly and Mycroft both got up and left us. Landen’s name didn’t come up again and neither did Anton’s. Mum offered me my old room back but I quickly declined. We had argued ferociously when I had lived at home. Besides, I was almost thirty-six. I finished my coffee and walked with my mother to the front door.
   ‘Let me know if you change your mind, darling,’ she said. ‘Your room is the same as it always was.’
   If that were true the dreadful posters of my late teenage crushes would still be up on the wall. It was a thought too hideous to contemplate.

10. The Finis Hotel, Swindon

   ‘Miltons were, on the whole, the most enthusiastic poet followers. A flick through the London telephone directory would yield about four thousand John Miltons, two thousand William Blakes, a thousand or so Samuel Coleridges, five hundred Percy Shelleys, the same of Wordsworth and Keats, and a handful of Drydens. Such mass name-changing could have problems in law enforcement. Following an incident in a pub where the assailant, victim, witness, landlord, arresting officer and judge had all been called Alfred Tennyson, a law had been passed compelling each namesake to carry a registration number tattooed behind the ear. It hadn’t been well received—few really practical law-enforcement measures ever are.’

Millon de Floss. A Short History of the Special Operations Network


   I pulled into a parking place in front of the large floodlit building and locked the car. The hotel seemed to be quite busy, and as soon as I walked into the lobby I could see why. At least two dozen men and women were milling about dressed in large white baggy shirts and breeches. My heart sank. A large notice near reception welcomed all comers to the I I2th Annual John Milton Convention. I took a deep breath and fought my way to the reception desk. A middle-aged receptionist with oversize earrings gave me her best welcoming smile.
   ‘Good evening, madam, welcome to the Finis, the last word in comfort and style. We are a four-star hotel with many modern features and services. Our sincere wish is to make your stay a happy one!’
   She recited it like a mantra. I could see her working at SmileyBurger just as easily.
   ‘The name’s Next. I have a reservation.’
   The receptionist nodded and flicked through the reservation cards.
   ‘Let’s see. Milton, Milton, Milton, Milton, Milton, Next, Milton, Milton, Milton, Milton, Milton, Milton. No, sorry. It doesn’t look like we have a booking for you.’
   ‘Could you check again?’
   She looked again and found it.
   ‘Here it is. Someone had put it with the Miltons by accident. I’ll need an imprint of a major credit card. We take: Babbage, Goliath, Newton, Pascal, Breakfast Club and Jam Roly-Poly.’
   ‘Jam Roly-Poly?’
   ‘Sorry,’ she said sheepishly, ‘wrong list. That’s the choice of puddings tonight.’ She smiled again as I passed over my Babbage charge-card.
   ‘You’re in Room 8128,’ she said, handing me my key attached to a key-ring so large I could barely lift it. ‘All our rooms are fully air-conditioned and are equipped with mini-bar and tea-making equipment. Did you park your car in our spacious three-hundred-place self-draining carpark?’
   I hid a smile.
   ‘Thank you, I did. Do you have any pet facilities?’
   ‘Of course. All Finis hotels have full kennel facilities. What sort of pet?’
   ‘A dodo.’
   ‘How sweet! My cousin Arnold had a great auk once called Beany—he was Version 1.4 so didn’t live long. I understand they’re a lot better these days. I’ll reserve your little friend a place. Enjoy your stay. I hope you have an interest in seventeenth-century lyrical poets.’
   ‘Only professionally.’
   ‘Lecturer?’
   ‘LiteraTec.’
   ‘Ah.’
   The receptionist leaned closer and lowered her voice. ‘To tell you the truth, Miss Next, I hate Milton. His early stuff is okay, I suppose, but he disappeared up his own arse after Charlie got his head lopped off. Goes to show what too much republicanism does for you.’
   ‘Quite.’
   ‘I almost forgot. These are for you.’
   She produced a bunch of flowers from under the desk as if in a conjuring trick.
   ‘From a Mr Landen Parke-Laine—‘
   Blast. Rumbled.
   ‘—and there are two gentlemen waiting in the Cheshire Cat for you.’
   ‘The Cheshire Cat?’
   ‘It’s our fully stocked and lively bar. Tended to by professional and helpful bar staff, it is a warm and welcoming area in which to relax.’
   ‘Who are they?’
   ‘The bar staff?’
   ‘No, the two gentlemen.’
   ‘They didn’t give any names.’
   ‘Thank you, Miss—?’