‘That’s it,’ replied Miss Havisham ‘Not much to it, is there? Wait! Look there!’
   She pointed to the side of the prison hulk where a strange creature had attached itself to one of the gunports It had large bat-like wings folded untidily across the back of its body, which was covered by patchy tufts of matted fur. It had a face like a fox, sad brown eyes and a long, thin beak that was inserted deep into the wood of the gunport. It was oblivious to us both and made quiet sucky noises as it fed.
   There was a loud explosion and a bullet struck close to the strange creature. It immediately unfolded its large wings in alarm and flew off into the night.
   ‘Blast!’ said Miss Havisham, lowering her pistol and pushing the safety back on. ‘Missed!’
   The noise had alerted the guards on the deck.
   ‘Who’s there?’ yelled one. ‘You had better be on the King’s business or by St George you’ll feel the lead from my musket!’
   ‘It’s Miss Havisham,’ replied Havisham in a vexed tone, ‘on Jurisfiction business, Sergeant Wade.’
   ‘Begging your pardon, Miss Havisham,’ replied the guard apologetically, ‘but we heard a gunshot!’
   ‘That was me,’ yelled Havisham. ‘You have grammasites on your ship!’
   ‘Really?’ replied the guard, leaning out and looking around. ‘I don’t see anything.’
   ‘It’s gone now, you dozy idiot,’ said Havisham to herself, quickly adding. ‘Well, keep a good look out in future—if you see any more I want to know about them immediately!’
   Sergeant Wade assured her he would, bade us both goodnight then disappeared from view.
   ‘What on earth is a grammasite?’ I asked, looking nervously about in case the strange-looking creature should return.
   ‘A parasitic life form that lives inside books and feeds on grammar,’ explained Havisham. ‘I’m no expert, of course, but that one looked suspiciously like an adjectivore. Can you see the gunport it was feeding on?’
   ‘Yes.’
   ‘Describe it to me.’
   I looked at the gunport and frowned. I had expected it to be old or dark or wooden or rotten or wet, but it wasn’t. But then it wasn’t sterile or blank or empty either—it was simply a gunport, nothing more nor less.
   ‘The adjectivore feeds on the adjectives describing the noun,’ explained Havisham, ‘but it generally leaves the noun intact. We have verminators who deal with them, but there’s not enough grammasites in Dickens to cause any serious damage—yet.’
   ‘How do they move from one book to the next?’ I asked, wondering whether Mycroft’s bookworms weren’t some sort of grammasite-in-reverse.
   ‘They seep through the covers using a process called oozemosis. That’s why individual bookshelves are never more than six feet long in the Library—you’d be well advised to follow the same procedure at home. I’ve seen grammasites strip a library to nothing but indigestible nouns and page numbers—ever read Sterne’s Tristram Shandy?’
   ‘Yes.’
   ‘Grammasites.’
   ‘I have a lot to learn,’ I said softly.
   ‘Agreed,’ replied Havisham. ‘I’m trying to get the cat to write an updated travel book that includes a bestiary, but he has a lot to do in the Library—and holding a pen is tricky with paws. Come on, let’s get out of this fog and see what this motor launch can do.’
   As soon as we were clear of the prison ship, Havisham started the engines and slowly powered back the way we had come, once again keeping a careful eye on the compass, but even so nearly running aground six times.
   ‘How did you know Sergeant Wade?’
   ‘As the Jurisfiction representative in Great Expectations it is my business to know everybody. If there are any problems, then they must be brought to my attention.’
   ‘Do all books have a rep?’
   ‘All the ones that have been brought within the control of Jurisfiction.’
   The fog didn’t lift. We spent the rest of that cold night steering in amongst the moored boats at the side of the river. Only when dawn broke did we see enough to manage a sedately ten knots.
   We returned the boat to the jetty and Havisham insisted I jump us both back to her room at Satis House which I managed to accomplish at the first attempt, something that helped to recover some lost confidence. I lit some candles and saw her to bed before returning myself to the stores, and Wemmick. I had the second half of the docket signed, filled out a form for a missing life vest and was about to return home when a very scratched and bruised Harris Tweed appeared from nowhere and approached the counter where I was standing. His clothes were tattered and he had lost one boot and most of his kit. It looked like The Lost World hadn’t really agreed with him. He caught my eye and pointed a finger at me.
   ‘Don’t say a word. Not a single word!’
   Pickwick was still awake when I got in even though it was nearly six a.m. There were two messages on the answer machine—one from Cordelia, and another from a very annoyed Cordelia.

27. Landen and Joffy Again

   ‘George Formby was born George Hoy Booth in Wigan in 1904. He followed his father into the music hall business, adopted the ukulele as his trademark and by the time the war broke out he was a star of variety, pantomime and film. During the first years of the war, he and his wife Beryl toured extensively for ENSA, entertaining the troops as well as making a series of highly successful movies. By 1942 he and Gracie Fields stood alone as the nation’s favourite entertainers. When invasion of England was inevitable, many influential dignitaries and celebrities were shipped out to Canada. George and Beryl elected to stay and fight—as George put it: “To the last bullet on the end of Wigan pier!” Moving underground with the English resistance and various stalwart regiments of the Local Defence Volunteers, Formby manned the outlawed “Wireless St George” and broadcast songs, jokes and messages to secret receivers across the country. Always in hiding, always moving, the Formbys used their numerous contacts in the North to smuggle Allied airmen to neutral Wales and form resistance cells that harried the Nazi invaders. Hitler’s order of 1944 to “have all ukuleles and banjos in England burnt” was a measure of how much he was considered a threat. George’s famous comment after peace was declared, “Ee, turned out nice again!”, became a national catch-phrase. In postwar republican England he was made non-executive President for life, a post he held until his assassination.’

JOHN WILLIAMS. The Extraordinary Career of George Formby


   It was after two or three days of plain LiteraTec work and a dull weekend without Landen that I found myself lying awake and staring at the ceiling, listening to the clink-clink of milk bottles and the click-click of Pickwick’s feet on the linoleum as she meandered around the kitchen. Sleep patterns never came out quite right in re-engineered species; no one knew why. There had been no major coincidences over the past few days, although on the night of Joffy’s exhibition the two SpecOps 5 agents who had been assigned to watch Slaughter and Lamb died in their car as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. It seemed their car had a faulty exhaust. Lamb and Slaughter had been following me around very indiscreetly for the past two days. I just let them get on with it; they weren’t bothering me—or my unknown assailant. If they had, they’d as likely as not be dead.
   But there was more than just SO-5 to worry about. In three days the world would be reduced to a sticky mass of sugar and proteins—or so my father said. I had seen the pink and gooey world for myself, but then I had also seen myself shot at Cricklade Skyrail station, so the future wasn’t exactly immutable—thank goodness. There had been no advance on the forensic report; the pink slime matched to no known chemical compound. Coincidentally, the following Thursday was also the day of the general election, and Yorrick Kaine looked set to make some serious political gains thanks to his ‘generous’ sharing of Cardenio. Mind you, he was still taking no chances—the first public unveiling of the text was not until the day after the election. The thing was, if the pink gunge got a hold, Yorrick Kaine could have the shortest career as a prime minister ever. Indeed, next Thursday could be the last Thursday for all of us.
   I closed my eyes and thought of Landen. He was there as I best remembered him; seated in his study with his back to me, oblivious to everything, writing. The sunlight streamed in through the window and the familiar clacketty-clack of his old Underwood typewriter sounded like a fond melody to my ears. He stopped occasionally to look at what he had written, make a correction with the pencil clenched between his teeth, or just pause for pause’s sake. I leaned on the door frame for a while and smiled. He mumbled a line he had written, chuckled to himself and typed faster for a moment, hitting the carrriage return with a flourish. He typed quite animatedly in this fashion for about five minutes until he stopped, took out the pencil and slowly turned round to face me.
   ‘Hey, Thursday.’
   ‘Hey, Landen. I didn’t want to disturb you; shall I—?’
   ‘No, no,’ he said hurriedly, ‘this can wait. I’m just pleased to see you. How’s it going out there?’
   ‘Boring,’ I told him despondently. ‘After Jurisfiction, SpecOps works seems as dull as ditchwater. Flanker at SO-1 is still on my back, I can feel Goliath breathing down my neck, and this Lavoisier character is using me to get to Dad.’
   ‘Would sitting on my lap help?’
   So I did, and hugged him tightly.
   ‘How’s Junior?’
   ‘Junior is smaller than a broad bean but making himself known. The Lucozade keeps the nausea at bay most of the time—I must have drunk a swimming pool of it by now.’
   There was a pause.
   ‘Is it mine?’ he asked.
   I held him tightly again but said nothing. He understood and patted my shoulder.
   ‘Let’s talk about something else. How are you getting along at Jurisfiction?’
   ‘Well,’ I said, blowing my nose loudly, ‘I’m not a natural at this book-jumping lark. I want you back, Land, but I’m only going to get one shot at The Raven and I need to get it right. I’ve not heard from Havisham for nearly three days—I don’t know when the next assignment will be.’
   Landen shook his head slowly.
   ‘Sweetness, I don’t want you to go into The Raven.’
   I looked up at him.
   ‘You heard. Leave Jack Schitt where he is. How many people would have died for him to make a packet out of that Plasma rifle scam? One thousand? Ten thousand? Listen, your memory may grow fuzzy, but I’ll still be here, the good times—’
   ‘But I don’t want just the good times, Land. I want all the times. The shitty ones, the arguments, that annoying habit you had of always trying to make the next filling station and running out of petrol. Picking your nose, farting in bed. But more than that, I want the times that haven’t happened yet—the future. Our future! I am getting Schitt out, Land—make no mistake about that’
   ‘Let’s talk about something else again,’ said Landen. ‘Listen—I’m a bit worried about someone trying to kill you with coincidences.’
   ‘I can look after myself.’
   He looked at me solemnly.
   ‘I don’t doubt it for one moment. But I’m only alive in your memories—and some mewling and puking ones of my mum’s, I suppose—and without you I’m nothing at all, ever. So if whoever is juggling with entropy gets lucky next time, you and I are both for the high jump—but at least you get a memorial and a SpecOps regulation headstone.’
   ‘I see your point, however muddled you might make it. Did you see how I used the last entropy lapse to find Mrs Nakyima? Clever, eh?’
   ‘Inspired. Now, can you think of any linking factor—except the intended victim—that connects the three attacks?’
   ‘No.’
   ‘Are you sure?’

   ‘Positive. I’ve thought it through a thousand times. Nothing.’
   Landen thought for a moment, tapped a finger on his temple and smiled.
   ‘Don’t be so sure. I’ve been having a little peek myself, and, well, I want to show you something.’
   And there we were, on the platform of the Skyrail station at South Cerney. But it wasn’t a moving memory, like the other ones I had enjoyed with Landen, it was frozen like a stilled video image—and like a stilled video image, it wasn’t very good; all blurry and a bit jumpy.
   ‘Okay, what now?’ I asked as we walked along the platform.
   ‘Have a look at everyone. See if there is anyone you recognise.’
   I stepped on to the shuttle and walked round the players in the fiasco, who were frozen like statues. The faces that were most distinct were the Neanderthal driver-operator, the well-heeled woman, the woman with Pixie Frou-Frou and the woman with the crossword. The rest were vague shapes, generic female human forms and little else—no mnemonic tags to make them unique. I pointed them out.
   ‘Good,’ said Landen, ‘but what about her?’
   And there she was, the young woman sitting on the bench in the station, doing her face in a make-up mirror. We walked closer and I looked intently at the fuzzy, nondescript face that loomed murkily out of my memory.
   ‘I only glimpsed her for a moment, Land. Slightly built, mid-twenties, red shoes. So what?’
   ‘She was here when you arrived, she’s on the southbound platform, all trains go to all stops—yet she didn’t take the Skyrail. Suspicious?’
   ‘Not really.’
   ‘No,’ said Landen, slightly crestfallen. ‘Not exactly a smoking gun, is it? Unless’—he smiled—’unless you look at this.’
   And in a trice we were at the Uffington White Horse on the day of the picnic. I looked up nervously. The large Hispano-Suiza automobile was hanging motionless in the air not fifty feet up.
   ‘Anything spring to mind?’ asked Landen.
   I looked around carefully. It was another bizarre frozen vignette. Everyone and everything was there—Major Fairwelle, Sue Long, my old croquet captain, the mammoths, the gingham tablecloth—even the bootleg cheese. I looked at Landen.
   ‘Nothing, Land.’
   ‘Are you sure? Look again.’
   I sighed and scanned their faces. Sue Long, an old schoolfriend whose boyfriend set his own trousers on fire for a bet, Sarah Nara, who lost her ear at Bilohirsk on a training accident and ended up marrying General Pearson, croquet pro Alf Widdershaine, who taught me how to ‘peg out’ all the way from the forty-yard line. Even the previously unknown Bonnie Voige was there, and—
   ‘Who’s this’’ I asked, pointing at a shimmering memory in front of me.
   ‘It’s the woman who called herself Violet De’ath,’ answered Landen. ‘Does she seem familiar?’
   I looked at her blank features. I hadn’t given her a second thought at the time but something about her was familiar.
   ‘Sort of,’ I responded. ‘Have I seen her somewhere before?’
   ‘You tell me, Thursday.’ Landen shrugged. ‘It’s your memory—but if you want a clue, look at her shoes.’
   And there they were. Bright red shoes that just might have been the same as those on the girl at the Skyrail platform.
   ‘There’s more than one pair of red shoes in Wessex, Land.’
   ‘You’re right,’ he observed. ‘I did say it was a long shot.’
   I had an idea, and before Landen could say another word we were in the square at Osaka with all the Nextian-logoed Japanese, the fortune-teller frozen in mid-beckon, the crowd around us an untidy splash of visual noise which is the way crowds appear to the mind’s eye, the logos I remembered jutting out in sharp contrast to the unremembered faces. I peered through the crowd as I anxiously searched for anything that might resemble a young European woman.
   ‘See anything?’ asked Landen, hands on hips and surveying the strange scene.
   ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Wait a minute. Let’s come in a bit earlier.’
   I took myself back a minute and there she was, getting up from the fortune-teller’s chair the moment I first saw him. I walked closer and looked at the vague shape. I squinted at her feet. There, in the haziest corner of my mind, was the memory I was looking for. The shoes were definitely red.
   ‘It’s her, isn’t it?’ asked Landen
   ‘Yes,’ I murmured, staring at the wraith-like figure in front of me. ‘But it doesn’t help; none of these memories is strong enough for a positive ID.’
   ‘Perhaps not on their own,’ observed Landen. ‘But since I’ve been in here I’ve figured out a few things about how your memory works. Try and superimpose the images.’
   I thought of the woman on the platform, placed her across the vague form in the market and then added the spectre who had called herself De’ath. The three images shimmered for a bit before they locked together. It wasn’t great. I needed more. I pulled from my memory the half-shredded picture that Lamb and Slaughter had shown me. It fitted perfectly, and Landen and I stared at the result.
   ‘What do you think?’ asked Landen. ‘Twenty-five?’
   ‘Possibly a little older,’ I muttered, looking closer at the amalgam of my attacker, trying to fix it in my memory. She had plain features, a small amount of make-up and blonde hair cut in an asymmetric bob. She didn’t look like a killer. I ran through all the information I had—which didn’t take long. The failed SpecOps 5 investigations allowed me a few clues: the recurring name of Hades, the initials ‘A.H.’, the fact that she did resolve on pictures. Clearly it wasn’t Acheron in disguise but perhaps—
   ‘Oh, shit.’
   ‘What?’
   ‘It’s Hades.’
   ‘It can’t be. You killed him.’
   ‘I killed Acheron. He had a brother named Styx—why couldn’t he have a sister?’
   We exchanged nervous looks and stared at the mnemonograph in front of us. Some of her features did seem to resemble those of Acheron now I stared at her. For a start, she was tall. And the way her lips were thin, and the eyes—they had a sort of brooding darkness to them.
   ‘No wonder she’s pissed off with you,’ murmured Landen ‘You killed her brother.’
   ‘Thanks for that, Landen,’ I said. ‘You always know how to relax a girl.’
   ‘Sorry. So we know the “H” in “A.H.” is Hades—what about the “A”?’
   ‘The Acheron was a tributary of the river Styx,’ I said quietly, ‘as were the Phlegethon, Cocytus, Lethe—and… Aornis.’
   I’d never felt so depressed at having identified a suspect before. But something was niggling at me. There was something here that I couldn’t see, as if I were listening to a TV from another room, hearing dramatic music but having no idea what was going on.
   ‘Cheer up.’ Landen smiled, rubbing my shoulder. ‘She’s ballsed it up three times already—it might never happen!’
   ‘There’s something else, Landen.’
   ‘What?’
   ‘Something I’ve forgotten. Something I never remembered. Something about… I don’t know.’
   ‘It’s no good asking me,’ replied Landen. ‘I may seem real to you but I’m not—I can’t know any more than you do.’
   Aornis had vanished and Landen was starting to fade.
   ‘You’ve got to go now,’ he said in a hollow-sounding voice. ‘Remember what I said about Jack Schitt.’
   ‘Don’t go!’ I yelled. ‘I want to stay here for a bit. It’s not much fun out here at the moment. I think it’s Miles’s baby, Aornis wants to kill me, and Goliath and Flanker—!’
   But it was too late. I’d woken up I was still in bed, undressed, bedclothes rumpled. The clock told me it was a few minutes past nine. I stared at the ceiling in a forlorn mood, wondering how I could have got myself into such a mess, and then wondering whether there was anything I could have done to prevent it. I decided, on the face of it, probably not. This, to my fuddled way of thinking, I took to be a positive sign. So I slipped on a T-shirt and shuffled into the kitchen, filled the kettle and put some dried apricots in Pickwick’s bowl after trying and failing to get her to stand on one leg.

   I shook the entroposcope just in case, was thankful to find everything as normal, and was just checking the fridge for some fresh milk when the doorbell rang. I trotted out to the hall, picked up my automatic from the table and asked:
   ‘Who is it?’
   ‘Open the door, Doofus.’
   I put the gun away and opened the door. Joffy smiled at me as he entered and raised his eyebrows at my dishevelled state.
   ‘Half-day today?’
   ‘I don’t feel like working now that Landen’s gone.’
   ‘Who?’
   ‘Never mind. Coffee?’
   We walked into the kitchen. Joffy patted Pickwick on the head and I emptied the old grounds out of the coffee jug. He sat down at the table.
   ‘Seen Dad recently?’
   ‘Last week. He was fine. How much did you make on the art sale?’
   ‘Over two thousand pounds in commission. I thought of using the cash to repair the church roof but then figured what the hell—I’ll just blow it on drink, curry and prostitutes.’
   I laughed.
   ‘Sure you will, Joff’
   I rinsed some mugs and stared out of the window.
   ‘What can I do for you, Joff?’
   ‘I came round to pick Miles’s things up.’
   I stopped what I was doing and turned to face him.
   ‘Say that again.’
   ‘I said I came—’
   ‘I know what you said, but… but—how do you know Miles?’
   Joffy laughed, saw I was serious, frowned at me and then remarked:
   ‘He said you didn’t recognise him that night at Vole Towers. Is everything okay?’
   I shrugged.
   ‘Not really, Joff—but tell me: how do you know him?’
   ‘We’re going out, Thurs—surely you can’t have forgotten?’
   ‘You and Miles?’
   ‘Sure! Why not?’
   This was very good news indeed.
   ‘Then his clothes are in my apartment because—’
   ‘We borrow it every now and then.’
   I tried to grasp the facts.
   ‘You borrow my apartment because it’s… secret?’
   ‘Right. You know how old fashioned SpecOps are when it comes to their staff fraternising with clerics.’
   I laughed out loud and wiped away the tears that had sprung to my eyes.
   ‘Sis?’ said Joffy, getting up. ‘What’s the matter?’
   I hugged him tightly.
   ‘Nothing’s the matter, Joff. Everything’s wonderful. I’m not carrying his baby!’
   ‘Miles?’ said Joff. ‘Wouldn’t know how. Wait a minute, sis—you’ve got a bun in the oven? Who’s the father?’
   I smiled through my tears.
   ‘It’s Landen’s,’ I said with renewed confidence. ‘By God it’s Landen’s!’
   And I jumped up and down with the sheer joy of the fact, and Joffy, who had nothing better to do, joined me in jumping up and down until Mrs Scroggins in the apartment below banged on the ceiling with a broom handle.
   ‘Sister dearest,’ said Joffy as soon as we had stopped, ‘who in St Zvlkx’s name is Landen?’
   ‘Landen Parke-Laine,’ I gabbled happily. ‘The ChronoGuard eradicated him but something other happened and I still have his child, so it’s all meant to come out right, don’t you see? And I have to get him back because if Aornis does get to me then he’ll never exist, ever, ever, ever—and neither will the baby and I can’t stand that idea and I’ve been farting around for too long so I’m going to go into The Raven no matter what—because if I don’t I’m going to go nuts!’
   ‘I’m very happy for you,’ said Joffy. ‘You’ve completely lost your mind, but I’m very happy for you.’
   I ran into the living room, rummaged on my desk until I found Schitt-Hawse’s calling card and rang the number. He answered in less than two rings.
   ‘Ah, Next,’ he said with a triumphant air. ‘Changed your mind?’
   ‘I’ll go into The Raven for you, Schitt-Hawse. Double-cross me and I’ll maroon both you and your half-brother in the worst Daphne Farquitt novel I can find. Believe me, I can do it—and will do it, if necessary.’
   There was a pause.
   ‘I’ll send a car to pick you up.’
   The phone went dead and I placed the receiver back on the cradle. I took a deep breath, shooed Joffy out of the door once he had collected Miles’s stuff, then had a shower and got dressed. My mind was set. I would get Landen back, no matter what the risks. I still didn’t have a coherent plan, but this didn’t bother me that much—I seldom did.

28. The Raven

   ‘The Raven was undoubtedly Edgar Allan Foe’s finest and most famous poem, and was his own personal favourite, being the one he most liked to recite at poetry readings. Published in 1845, the poem drew heavily on Elizabeth Barrett’s Lady Geraldine’s Courtship, something he acknowledged in the original dedication but had conveniently forgotten when explaining how he wrote The Raven in his essay “The Philosophy of Composition”—the whole affair tending to make a nonsense of Poe’s attacks on Longfellow for being a plagiarist. A troubled genius, Poe also suffered the inverse cash/fame law—the more famous he became, the less money he had. “The Gold Bug”, one of his most popular short stories, sold over 300,000 copies but netted him only $100. With The Raven he fared even worse. The total earnings for one of the greatest poems in the English language were only $9.’

MILLON DE FLOSS. Who Put the Poe in Poem?


   The doorbell rang as I was putting my shoes on. But it wasn’t Goliath. It was Agents Lamb and Slaughter. I was really quite glad to see that they were still alive; perhaps Aornis didn’t regard them as a threat. I wouldn’t.
   ‘Her name’s Aornis Hades,’ I told them as I hopped up and down, trying to pull the other shoe on, ‘sister of Acheron. Don’t even think of tackling her. You know you’re close when you stop breathing.’
   ‘Wow!’ exclaimed Lamb, patting his pockets for a pen. ‘Aornis Hades! How did you figure that out?’
   ‘I’ve glimpsed her several times over the past few weeks.’
   ‘You must have a good memory,’ observed Slaughter.
   ‘I have help.’
   Lamb found a pen, discovered it didn’t work and borrowed a pencil from his partner. The point broke. I lent him mine.
   ‘What was her name again?’
   I spelt it out for him and he wrote it down painfully slowly.
   ‘Good!’ I said once they had finished. ‘What are you guys doing here anyway?’
   ‘Flanker wants a word.’
   This was interesting. He’d obviously not found the cause of tomorrow’s armageddon.
   ‘I’m busy.’
   ‘You’re not busy any more,’ replied Slaughter, looking very awkward and wringing her hands. ‘I’m sorry about this—but you’re under arrest.’
   ‘What for now?’
   ‘Possession of an illegal substance.’
   I didn’t have time for this.
   ‘Listen, guys, I’m not just busy, I’m really busy, and Flanker sending you along with some bullshit trumped-up charge is just wasting your time and mine.’
   ‘Cheese,’ said Slaughter, holding out an arrest warrant. ‘Illegal cheese. SO-1 found a block of flattened cheese under a Hispano-Suiza with your prints all over it. It was part of a cheese seizure, Thursday. It should have been consigned to the furnaces.’
   I groaned. It was just what Flanker wanted. A simple internal charge which usually meant a reprimand—but could, if needed, result in a custodial sentence. A solid gold arm-twister, in other words. Before the two agents could even draw breath I had slammed the door in their faces and was heading out on to the fire escape. I heard them yell at me as I ran on to the road, just in time to be picked up by Schitt-Hawse. It was the first and last time I would ever be pleased to see him.
   So there I was, unsure whether I had just got out of the frying pan and into the fire or out of the fire and into the frying pan. They had taken my automatic, keys and Jurisfiction travel book. Schitt-Hawse drove and I was sitting in the back seat—wedged tightly between Chalk and Cheese.
   ‘I’m kind of glad to see you, in a funny sort of way.’
   There was no answer so I waited ten minutes and then asked:
   ‘Where are we going?’
   This didn’t elicit a response either so I patted Chalk and Cheese on the knees and said:
   ‘You guys been on holiday this year?’
   Chalk looked at me for a moment, then looked at Cheese and answered: ‘We went to Majorca,’ before he lapsed back into silence.
   The Goliath establishment we arrived at an hour later was their Research & Development Facility at Aldermaston. Surrounded by triple fences of razor wire and armed guards patrolling with full-sized sabre-tooths, the complex was a labyrinth of aluminium-clad windowless buildings and concrete bunkers interspersed with electrical substations and large ventilation ducts. We were waved through the gate and parked in a lay-by next to a large marble Goliath logo where Chalk, Cheese and Schitt-Hawse offered up a short prayer of contrition and unfailing devotion to the Corporation. That done, we were on our way again past thousands of yards of pipework, buildings, parked military vehicles, trucks and all manner of junk.
   ‘Be honoured, Next,’ said Schitt-Hawse. ‘Few are blessed with seeing this far into the workings of our beloved Corporation.’
   ‘I can feel myself more humbled by the second, Mr Schitt-Hawse.’
   We drove on to a low building with a domed concrete roof. This had even higher security than the main entrance, and Chalk, Cheese and Schitt-Hawse had to have their half-Windsor tie knots scanned for verification. The guard on duty opened a heavy blast door that led to a brightly lit corridor which in turn contained a row of elevators. We descended to Lower Ground 12, went through another security check, and then along a shiny corridor past doors either side of us which had brass placards screwed to the polished wood explaining what went on inside. We walked past Electronic Computing Engines, Tachyon Communications, Square Peg in a Round Hole and stopped at The Book Project. Schitt-Hawse opened the door and we entered.
   The room was quite like Mycroft’s laboratory apart from the fact that the devices seemed to have been built to a higher benchmark of quality. Where my uncle’s machines were held together with baler twine, cardboard and rubber-solution glue, the machines in here had all been crafted from high-quality alloys. All the testing apparatus looked brand new and there was not a single atom of dust anywhere. There were about a half-dozen technicians, all of whom seemed to have a certain pallid disposition, and they looked at me curiously as we walked in. In the middle of the room was a doorway a little like a walk-through metal detector; it was tightly wrapped with thousands of yards of fine copper wire. The wire ended in a tight bunch the width of a man’s arm which led to a large machine that hummed and clicked to itself. A technician pulled a switch, there was a crackle and a puff of smoke, and everything went dead. It was a Prose Portal, but more relevant to the purpose of this narrative, it didn’t work.
   I pointed to the copper-bound doorway in the middle of the room. It had started to smoke and the technicians were now trying to put it out with CO2 extinguishers.
   ‘Is that thing meant to be a Prose Portal?’
   ‘Sadly, yes,’ admitted Schitt-Hawse. ‘As you may or may not know, all we managed to synthesise was a form of curdled stodgy gunge from Volumes One to Eight of The World of Cheese.’
   ‘Jack Schitt said it was Cheddar.’
   ‘Jack always tended to exaggerate a little, Miss Next. This way.’
   We walked past a large hydraulic press which was rigged in an attempt to open one of the books that I had seen at Mrs Nakajima’s apartment. The steel press groaned and strained but the book remained firmly shut. Farther on, a technician was valiantly attempting to burn a hole in another book with similar poor results, and after that another technician was looking at an X-ray photograph of the book. He was having a little trouble as two or three thousand pages of text and numerous other ‘enclosures’ all sandwiched together didn’t lend themselves to easy examination.
   ‘What do these books do, Next?’
   ‘Do you want me to get Jack Schitt out or not?’
   In reply, Schitt-Hawse walked past several other experiments, down a short corridor and through a large steel door to another room that contained a table, chair—and Lavoisier. He was reading a copy of The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe as we entered, and looked up.
   ‘Monsieur Lavoisier, I understand you already know Miss Next?’ said Schitt-Hawse.
   Lavoisier smiled and nodded his head in greeting, shut the book, laid it on the table and got up. We stood in silence for a moment.
   ‘So go on,’ said Schitt-Hawse, ‘do your booky stuff and Lavoisier will reactualise your husband as though nothing had happened. No one will ever know he had gone—except you, of course.’
   ‘I need more than just your promise, Schitt-Hawse.’
   ‘It’s not my promise, Next, it’s a Goliath guarantee—believe me, it’s riveted iron.’
   ‘So was the Titanic,’ I replied. ‘In my experience a Goliath guarantee guarantees nothing.’
   He stared at me and I stared back.
   ‘Then what do you want’’ he asked.

  ‘One: I want Landen reactualised as he was. Two: I want my travel book back and safe conduct from here. Three: I want a signed confession admitting that you employed Lavoisier to eradicate Landen.’
   I gazed at him steadily, hoping my audacity would strike a nerve.
   ‘One: agreed. Two: you get the book back afterwards. You used it to vanish in Osaka and I’m not having that again. Three I can’t do.’
   ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘Bring Landen back and the confession is irrelevant because it never happened—but I can use it if you ever try anything like this again.’
   ‘Perhaps,’ put in Lavoisier, ‘you would accept this as a token of my intent.’
   He handed me a brown hardback envelope I opened it and pulled out a picture of Landen and me at our wedding.
   ‘I have nothing to gain from your husband’s eradication and everything to lose, Miss Next. Your father… well, I’ll get to him eventually. But you have my word—if that’s good enough.’
   I looked at Lavoisier, then at Schitt-Hawse, then at the photo.
   ‘I need a sheet of paper.’
   ‘Why?’ asked Schitt-Hawse
   ‘Because I have to write a detailed description of this charming dungeon to be able to get back.’
   Schitt-Hawse nodded to Chalk, who gave me a pen and paper, and I sat down and wrote the most detailed description that I could. The travel book said that five hundred words was adequate for a solo jump, a thousand words if you were intending to bring anyone with you, so I wrote fifteen hundred just in case. Schitt-Hawse looked over my shoulder as I wrote, checking I wasn’t describing another destination.
   ‘I’ll take that back, Next,’ he said, retrieving the pen as soon as I had finished. ‘Not that I don’t trust you or anything.’
   I took a deep breath, opened the copy of The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe and read the first verse to myself



Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,






O’er a plan to venge myself upon that cursed Thursday Next—






This Eyre affair, so surprising, gives my soul such loath despising,






Here I plot my temper rising, rising from my jail of text.






‘Get me out!’ I said, advising, ‘pluck me from this jail of text—






or I swear I’ll wring your neck!’


   He was still pissed off, make no mistake about that. I read on:



Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in my bleak September






When that loathsome SpecOps member tricked me through ‘The Raven’s’ door






Eagerly I wished the morrow would release me from this sorrow,






Then a weapon I will borrow, sorrow her turn to explore—






I declare that obnoxious maiden who is little but a whore—






Darkness hers—for evermore!


   ‘Still the same old Jack Schitt,’ I murmured.
   ‘I won’t let him lay a finger on you, Miss Next,’ assured Schitt-Hawse. ‘He’ll be arrested before you can say ketchup.’
   So, gathering my thoughts, I offered my apologies to Miss Havisham for being an impetuous student, cleared my mind and throat and then read the words out loud, large as life and clear as a bell.
   There was a distant rumble of thunder and the flutter of wings close to my face. An inky blackness fell and a wind sprang up and whistled about me, tugging at my clothes and flicking my hair into my eyes. A flash of lightning briefly illuminated the sky about me, and I realised with a start that I was high above the ground, hemmed in by clouds filled with the ugly passion of a tempest in full spate. The rain struck my face like a heavy damp cloak and I saw in the feeble moonlight that I was being swept along close to a large storm cloud, illuminated from within by bolts of lightning. Just when I thought that perhaps I had made a very big mistake by attempting this feat without proper instruction, I noticed a small dot of yellow light through the swirling rain. I watched as the dot grew bigger until it wasn’t a dot but an oblong, and presently this oblong became a window, with frames, and glass, and curtains beyond. I flew closer and faster, and just when I thought I must collide with the rain-splashed glass I was inside, wet to the skin and quite breathless.
   The mantel clock struck midnight in a slow and steady rhythm as I gathered my thoughts and looked around. The furniture was of highly polished dark oak, the drapes a gloomy shade of purple, and the wall coverings, where not obscured by bookshelves or morbid mezzotints, were a dismal brown colour. For light there was a solitary oil lamp that flickered and smoked from a poorly trimmed wick. The room was in a mess; a bust of Pallas lay shattered on the floor and the books that had once graced the shelves were now scattered about the room with their spines broken and pages torn. Worse still, some books had been used to rekindle the fire, a choked profusion of blackened paper had fallen from the grate and now covered the hearth. But to all of this I paid only the merest attention. Before me was the poor narrator of The Raven himself, a young man in his mid-twenties seated in a large armchair, bound and gagged. He looked at me imploringly and mumbled something behind the gag as he struggled with his bonds. As I removed the gag the young man burst forth in speech as though his life depended upon it.
   ‘ ‘Tis some visitor,’ he spoke urgently and rapidly, ‘tapping at my chamber door—only this and nothing more!’
   And so saying, he disappeared from view into the room next door.

   ‘Damn you, Sebastian!’ said a chillingly familiar voice from the adjoining room. ‘I would pin you to your chair if this poetical coffin had seen so fit as to furnish me with hammer and nails!’
   But the speaker stopped abruptly as he entered the room and saw me. Jack Schitt was in a wretched condition. His previously neat crew cut had been replaced by straggly hair and his thin features were now covered with a scruffy beard; his eyes were wide and haunted and hung with dark circles from lack of sleep. His sharp suit was rumpled and torn, his diamond tiepin lacking in lustre. His arrogant and confident manner had given way to a lonely desperation, and as his eyes met mine I saw tears spring up and his lips tremble. It was, to a committed Schitt-hater like myself, a joyous spectacle.
   ‘Thursday!’ he croaked in a strangled cry. ‘Take me back! Don’t let me stay one more second in this vile place! The endless clock staking midnight, the tap-tap-tapping, the raven—oh my good God, the raven!’
   He fell to his knees and sobbed as the young man bounded happily back into the room and started to tidy up as he muttered:
   ‘ ‘Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door!’
   ‘I’d be more than happy to leave you here, Mr Schitt, but I’ve cut a deal. C’mon, we’re going home.’
   I grasped the Goliath agent by the lapel and started to read the description of the vault back at Goliath R&D. I felt a tug on my body and another rush of wind, the tapping increased and I just had time to hear the student say: ‘Sir or madam truly, your forgiveness I implore…’ when we found ourselves back in the Goliath lab at Aldermaston. I was pleased with this, as I hadn’t thought it would be that easy, but all my feelings of self-satisfaction vanished when, instead of being arrested, Jack was hugged warmly by his half-brother.
   ‘Jack!’ said Schitt-Hawse happily. ‘Welcome back!’
   ‘Thank you, Brik—how’s Mum?’
   ‘The trouble with you, Miss Next,’ said Schitt-Hawse, ‘is that you are far too trusting. Did you really think for one moment that we were going to give up on such an important man as Jack?’
   ‘You promised!’ I said somewhat uselessly.
   ‘Goliath doesn’t keep promises,’ replied Schitt-Hawse. ‘The profit margin is too low.’
   ‘Lavoisier!’ I yelled. ‘You promised!’
   Lavoisier walked from the room without looking back.
   ‘Thank you, Monsieur!’ shouted Schitt-Hawse after him. ‘The wedding picture was a touch of genius!’
   I leaped forward to grab Schitt-Hawse but was pinned down by Chalk and Cheese. I struggled long, hard—and hopelessly. My shoulders sagged and I stared at the ground. How could I have been so stupid as to think they would keep to their part of the deal? Delusive hope, so often the partner of strong love, had blinded me. Landen had been right. I should have walked away.
   ‘I want to wring her ghost upon the floor,’ said Jack Schitt, staring in my direction, ‘to still this beating of my heart. Mr Cheese, your weapon.’
   ‘No, Jack,’ said Schitt-Hawse. ‘Miss Next and her unique attributes could open up a large and highly profitable market to exploit.’
   Schitt rounded on his half-brother.
   ‘Do you have any idea of the fantastic terrors I’ve just been through? Tapping… I mean trapping me in The Raven is something Next is not going to live to regret. No, Brik, the book slut will surcease my sorrow!’
   Schitt-Hawse held Jack by the shoulders and shook him.
   ‘Snap out of that Raven talk, Jack. You’re home now. Listen: the book slut is potentially worth billions.’
   Schitt stopped and gathered his thoughts.
   ‘Of course,’ he murmured finally, ‘a vast untapped resource of consumers. How much useless rubbish do you think we can offload on those ignorant masses in nineteenth-century literature?’
   ‘Indeed,’ replied Schitt-Hawse, ‘and our unreprocessed waste—finally an effective disposal location. Untold riches await the Corporation. And listen—if it doesn’t work out, then you can kill her.’
   ‘When do we start?’ asked Schitt, who seemed to be growing stronger by the second.
   ‘It depends,’ said Schitt-Hawse, looking at me, ‘on Miss Next.’
   ‘I would sooner die than be a party to your foul plans,’ I said angrily.
   ‘Oh!’ said Schitt-Hawse. ‘Hadn’t you heard? As far as the outside world is concerned you’re dead already! Did you think you could see all that was going on here and live to tell the tale?’
   I tried to think of some way to escape but there was nothing to hand—no weapon, no book, nothing.
   ‘I really haven’t decided,’ continued Schitt-Hawse in a patronising tone, ‘whether you fell down a lift shaft or blundered into some machinery. Do you have any preferences?’
   And he laughed a short and very cruel laugh. I said nothing. There didn’t seem to be anything I could say.
   ‘I’m afraid, my girl,’ said Schitt-Hawse as they started to file out through the vault door, taking my travel book with them, ‘that you are a guest of the Corporation for the rest of your natural life. But it won’t all be bad. We will be willing to reactualise your husband. You won’t actually meet him again, of course, but he will be alive—so long as you co-operate, and you will, you know.’
   I glared at the two Schitts.
   ‘I will never help you, as long as I have breath in my lungs.’
   Schitt-Hawse’s eyelid twitched.
   ‘Oh, you’ll help us, Next—if not for Landen then for your child. Yes, we know about that. We’ll leave you for now. And you needn’t bother looking for any books in here to pull your vanishing trick—we made quite sure there were none!’
   He smiled again and stepped out of the vault. The door slammed shut with a reverberating boom that shook me to the core. I sat down on one of the chairs, put my head in my hands and cried tears of frustration, anger and loss.

29. Rescued

   ‘…Miss Havisham’s extraction of Thursday from the Goliath vault is the stuff that legends are built on. The thing was, not only had no one ever done it before, no one had even thought of doing it before. It put them both on the map and earned Havisham her eighth cover on the Jurisfiction trade paper, Movable Type, and Thursday her first. It cemented the bond between them. In the annals of Jurisfiction there were notable partnerships such as Beowulf & Sneed, Falstaff & Tiggywinkle, Voltaire & Flark. That night Havisham & Next emerged as one of the greatest pairings Jurisfiction would ever see…’

UA OF W CAT. Jurisfiction Journals


   The first thing I noticed about being locked in a vault twelve floors below ground at the Goliath R&D lab was not the isolation, but the silence. There was no hum of air-conditioning, no odd snatch of conversation heard through the door, nothing. I thought about Landen, about Miss Havisham, Joffy, Miles and then the baby. What, I wondered, did Schitt-Hawse have in store for him? I sighed, got up and walked around the vault. It was lit by harsh striplights and had a large mirror on the wall which I had to assume was some kind of watching gallery. There was a toilet and shower in a room behind, and a bedroll and a few toiletries that someone had left out for me. I spent twenty minutes searching in all the nooks and crannies of the room, hoping to find a discarded trashy novel or something that might effect me an escape. There was nothing. Not so much as a pencil shaving, let alone a pencil. I sat down, closed my eyes and tried to visualise the library, to remember the description in my travel book, and even recited aloud the opening passage of A Tale of Two Cities, something I had learned at school many years ago. I then tried every quote I could think of, every passage, every poem I had ever committed to memory from Ovid to De La Mare. When I ran out of those I switched to limericks—and ended up telling Bowden’s jokes out loud. Nothing.
   Not so much as a flicker.
   I unravelled the bedroll, lay on the floor and closed my eyes, hoping to remember Landen again and discuss the problem with him. It wasn’t to be. At that moment the ring that Miss Havisham had given me grew almost unbearably hot, there was a sort of fworpish noise and a figure was standing next to me. It was Miss Havisham, and she didn’t look terribly pleased.
   ‘You, young lady, are in a lot of trouble!’
   ‘Tell me about it.’
   This wasn’t the sort of careless remark she liked to hear from me, and she certainly expected me to jump to my feet when she arrived, so she rapped me painfully on the knee with her stick.
   ‘Ow!’ I said, getting the message and rising. ‘Where did you spring from?’
   ‘Havishams come and go as they please,’ she replied imperiously. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
   ‘I didn’t think you’d approve of me leaping into a book on my own—especially not Poe.’
   ‘I couldn’t care less about that,’ remarked Miss Havisham haughtily. ‘What you do in your own time to cheap reprints is no concern of mine!’
   ‘Oh,’ I said, contemplating her stern features and trying to figure out what I had done wrong.
   ‘You should have said something.’ she said, taking another pace towards me.
   ‘About the baby?’ I stammered.
   ‘No, idiot—about Cardenio!’
   ‘Cardenio?’
   ‘Yes, yes, Cardenio. Just how likely was it for a pristine copy of a missing play to just pop up out of the blue like that?’
   ‘You mean,’ I said, the penny finally dropping, ‘it’s a Great Library copy?’
   ‘Of course it’s a library copy—that fog-headed pantaloon Snell only just reported it. What’s that noise?’
   There was a faint clank from the door as someone fiddled with the lock. Havisham’s arrival, it seemed, had been observed.
   ‘It’ll be Chalk and Cheese,’ I told her. ‘You’d better jump out of here.’
   ‘Absolutely not!’ replied Havisham. ‘We go together. You might be a complete and utter imbecile but you are my responsibility. Trouble is, fourteen feet of concrete is slightly daunting—I’m going to have to read us out. Quick, pass me your travel book!’
   ‘They took it from me.’
   ‘Never mind. Any book will do.’
   ‘They’ve removed everything from in here, Miss Havisham.’
   She looked around.
   ‘How about a pamphlet?’
   ‘No.’
   ‘Anything with text printed on it? Paper and pen?’
   ‘No.’
   ‘Then we might,’ exclaimed Havisham, ‘have a problem.’
   The door opened and Schitt-Hawse entered; he was grinning fit to burst.
   ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Lock up a book-jumper and another soon joins her!’
   He took one look at Havisham’s old wedding dress and put two and two together.
   ‘Goodness! Is that… Miss Havisham?’
   As if in answer, Havisham whipped out her small pistol and fired it in his direction. Schitt-Hawse gave a yelp and leaped back out through the door, which clanged shut.
   ‘Are you sure there is nothing to read in here?’ asked Havisham in a more urgent manner. ‘There must be something!’
   ‘I’ve told you—they’ve removed everything!’
   Miss Havisham raised an eyebrow and looked me up and down.
   ‘Take off your trousers, girl—and don’t say “what?” in that impudent manner. Do as you’re told.’
   So I did, and Havisham turned the garment over in her fingers as she searched for something.
   ‘There!’ she cried triumphantly as the door opened and a hissing gas canister was lobbed in. I followed her gaze but she had found only—the washing label. I must have looked incredulous for she said in an offended manner: ‘It’s enough for me!’ and then repeated out loud: ‘Wash inside out, wash and dry separately, wash inside out, wash and dry separately…’
   We surfed in on the pungent smell of washing detergent and overheated iron. The landscape was dazzling white and was without depth; my feet were firmly planted on the ground yet I could see nothing but white surrounding my shoes when I looked down, the same as the view above me and to either side. Miss Havisham, whose dirty dress seemed even more shabby than usual in the white surroundings, was looking around the lone inhabitants of this strange and empty world: five bold icons the size of garden sheds that stood neatly in a row like standing stones. There was a crude tub with a number sixty on it, an iron shape, a tumble-dryer shape, and a couple of others that I wasn’t too sure about. I touched the first icon, which felt warm to the touch and very comforting; they all seemed to be made of compressed cotton.
   ‘Iconographic representations of washing instructions,’ muttered Havisham as I put my trousers back on. ‘This could be tricky. How many other washing labels do you think there are?’
   ‘I’m not sure,’ I replied. ‘Several billions, certainly.’
   ‘I thought as much. We need to narrow our jump parameters, girl. I’m no expert when it comes to washing—what’s the least abundant form of garment that might have washing instructions?’
   ‘Dressing gown?’ I hazarded. ‘Ra-ra skirt? But does it have to be a label?’
   Havisham raised an eyebrow so I carried on.
   ‘Washing machine instructions always carry these icons, explaining what they mean.’
   ‘Hmm,’ said Miss Havisham thoughtfully. ‘Do you have a washing machine?’
   Fortunately, I did—and more fortunately still, it was one of the things that had survived the sideslip. I nodded excitedly.
   ‘Good. Now, more importantly, do you know the make and model?’
   ‘Hoover Electron 1000… No! 800 Deluxe—I think.’

  ‘Think? You think? You’d better be sure, girl, or you and I will be nothing more than carved names on the Boojumorial! Now. Are you sure?’
   ‘Yes,’ I said confidently. ‘Hoover Electron 800 Deluxe.’
   She nodded, placed her hands on the tub icon and muttered to herself between clenched teeth. I took hold of her arm and after a moment or two, in which I could feel Miss Havisham shake with the effort, we had jumped out of the washing label and into the Hoover instructions.
   ‘Don’t allow the drain hose to kink as this could stop the machine from emptying,’ said a small man in a blue Hoover boiler suit standing next to a brand-new washing machine. We were standing in a sparkling clean washroom that was barely ten feet square. It had neither windows nor door—just a Belfast sink, a tiled floor, hot and cold inlet taps and a single plug on the wall. For furniture a bed was pushed against the corner and next to it were a chair, table and cupboard.
   ‘Do remember that to start a programme you must pull out the programme control knob. Sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m being read at the moment. I’ll be with you in a sec. If you have selected white nylon, minimum iron, delicate or…’
   ‘Thursday!’ said Miss Havisham, who suddenly seemed weak at the knees. ‘That took quite some—’
   I just managed to catch her as she collapsed; I gently laid her down on the small truckle bed.
   ‘Miss Havisham? Are you okay?’
   She closed her eyes and breathed slowly. The jump had worn her out.
   I pulled the single blanket over her, sat on the edge of the low bed, pulled my hair tie out and rubbed my scalp.
   ‘…until the drum starts to rotate. Your machine will empty and spin to complete the programme… Hello!’ said the man in the boiler suit. ‘The name’s Cullards—I don’t often get visitors!’
   I introduced myself and explained who Miss Havisham was.
   ‘Goodness!’ said Mr Cullards, scratching his shiny bald head and smiling impishly. ‘Jurisfiction, eh? You are off the beaten track. The only visitor I’ve had was… excuse me—Control setting “D”: whites economy, lightly soiled cotton or linen articles which are colour fast to boiling—was the time we had a new supplement regarding woollens—but that would have been six or seven months ago. Where does the time go?’
   He seemed a cheerful enough chap. He thought for a moment and then said:
   ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
   I thanked him and he put the kettle on.
   ‘So what’s the news?’ asked Mr Cullards, rinsing out his one and only cup. ‘Any idea when the new washing machines are due out?’
   ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I have no idea—’
   ‘I’m about ready to move on to something a bit more modern,’ continued Cullards, ‘I started on vacuum cleaner instructions but was promoted to Hoovermatic T5004, then transferred to the Electron 800 after twin-tub obsolescence. They asked me to take care of the 1100 Deluxe but I told them I’d sooner wait until the Logic 1300 came out.’
   I looked around at the small room.
   ‘Don’t you ever get bored?’
   ‘Not at all!’ said Cullards, pouring the hot water into the teapot. ‘Once I’ve put in my ten years I’m eligible to apply for work in all domestic appliance instructions: food mixers, liquidisers, microwaves—who knows, if I work really hard I could make it into television or wireless. That’s the future for an ambitious manual worker. Milk and sugar?’
   ‘Please.’
   He leaned closer.
   ‘Management have this idea that only young ‘uns should do Sound & Vision instructions but they’re wrong. Most of the kids in VCR manuals barely do six months in Walkmans before they’re transferred. It’s little wonder no one can understand them.’
   ‘I never thought of that before,’ I confessed.
   We chatted for the next half-hour. He told me he had begun French and German classes so he could apply for work in multilingual instructions, then confided in me his fondest feelings for Tabitha Doehooke, who worked for Kenwood. We were just talking about the sociological implications of labour-saving devices within the kitchen and how they related to the women’s movement when Miss Havisham stirred awake, drank three cups of tea, ate the biscuit that Mr Cullards was reserving for his birthday next May, and announced that we should be on our way.
   We said our goodbyes and Mr Cullards made me promise I would clean out the powder dispenser on my washing machine; in an unguarded moment I had let slip I had yet to do so, despite the machine being nearly three years old.
   The short trip to the non-fiction section of the Great Library was an easy jump for Miss Havisham, and from there we fworped back into her dingy ballroom in Great Expectations, where the Cheshire cat and Harris Tweed were waiting for us, talking to Estella. The cat seemed quite relieved to see us both, but Harris simply scowled.
   ‘Estella!’ said Miss Havisham abruptly ‘Please don’t talk to Mr Tweed.’
   ‘Yes, Miss Havisham,’ replied Estella meekly.
   Havisham replaced her trainers with her less comfortable wedding shoes.
   ‘I have Pip waiting outside,’ said Estella slightly nervously. ‘If you will excuse me mentioning it—Ma’am is a paragraph late.’
   ‘Dickens can just flannel for a bit longer,’ replied Havisham. ‘I must finish with Miss Next.’
   She turned to me with a grim look; I thought I’d better say something to soothe her—I hadn’t yet seen Havisham lose her temper ‘like Vesuvius’, as the Red Queen had so graphically described it, and I was in no hurry to do so.
   ‘Thank you for my rescue, ma’am,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m very grateful to you.’
   ‘Humph!’ replied Miss Havisham. ‘Don’t expect salvation from me every time you get yourself into a jam, my girl. Now, what’s all this about a baby?’
   The Cheshire cat, sensing trouble, vanished abruptly on the pretext of some ‘cataloguing’, and even Tweed mumbled something about checking Lorna Doone for grammasites and went too.
   ‘Well?’ asked Havisham again, peering at me intensely.
   I didn’t feel quite as frightened of her as I once did, so I told her all about Landen and why I went into The Raven to begin with.
   ‘For love? Pah!’ she responded, dismissing Estella with a wave of her hand in case the young woman got any odd ideas. ‘And what, in your tragically limited experience, is that?’
   ‘I think you know, ma’am. You were in love once, I believe?’
   ‘Stuff and nonsense, girl!’
   ‘Isn’t the pain you feel now the equal to the love you felt then?’
   ‘You’re coming perilously close to contravening my rule two, girl!’
   ‘I’ll tell you what love is,’ I said ‘It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter!’
   ‘That was quite good,’ said Havisham, looking at me curiously. ‘Could I use that? Dickens won’t mind.’
   ‘Of course.’
   ‘I think,’ said Miss Havisham after five minutes of silent thought as I stood waiting, ‘that I shall categorise your complex marital question under widowed, which sits with me well enough. Upon reflection—and quite possibly against my better judgment—you may stay as my apprentice. That’s all. You are needed to help retrieve Cardenio. Go!’
   So I left Miss Havisham in her darkened chamber with all the trappings of her wedding that never was. In the few days I had known her I had learned to like her a great deal, and hoped someday I might repay her kindness and fortitude.

30. Cardenio Rebound

   ‘PageRunner: Name given to any character who is out of his or her book and moves through the back-story (or more rarely the plot) of another book. They may be lost, vacationing, part of the Character Exchange Programme or criminals, intent on mischief. (See: Bowdlerisers.)
   Texters: Slang term given to a relatively harmless PageRunner (q.v.) (usually juvenile) who surfs from book to book for adventure, rarely appears in the front-story but who does, on occasion, cause small changes to text and/or plot lines.’

UA OF W CAT. The Jurisfiction Guide to Book-jumping (glossary)

 
   Harris Tweed and the Cheshire cat took me back to the Library. We sat on a bench in front of the Boojumorial and Harris stared at me while the cat—who was nothing if not courteous—went and bought me a pasty from the snack bar just next to Mr Wemmick’s storeroom.
   ‘Where did she find you?’ snapped Harris. I was getting used to his aggressive mannerisms by now. If he thought as little of me as he made out, then I wouldn’t be here at all. The cat popped its head up between us and said:
   ‘Hot or cold pasty?’
   ‘Hot, please.’
   ‘Okay, then,’ he said, and vanished again.
   I explained Havisham’s leap from the Goliath vault to the washing label; Tweed was clearly impressed. He had been apprenticed to Commander Bradshaw many years previously, and Bradshaw’s accuracy in book-jumping was as poor as Havisham’s was good—hence the commander’s interest in maps.
   ‘A washing label. Now that is impressive,’ mused Harris. ‘Not many PROs would even attempt to jump blind into less than a hundred words. Havisham took quite a risk with you, Miss Next. Cat, what do you think?’
   ‘I think,’ said the cat, handing me a steaming-hot pasty, ‘that you’ve forgotten the Moggilicious cat food you promised, hmm?’
   ‘Sorry,’ I replied. ‘Next time.’
   ‘Okay,’ said the cat.
   ‘Right,’ said Harris, ‘to business. Tell me, who are the chief players in Cardenio’s, discovery?’
   ‘Well,’ I began, ‘there’s Lord Volescamper, an hereditary peer—he said he found it in his library. Amiable chap—bit of a duffer. Then there’s Yorrick Kaine, a Whig politician who hopes to use the free distribution of the play to sway the Shakespeare vote in his favour at tomorrow’s election.’
   ‘I’ll see if I can find which book they’re from—if any at all,’ said the cat, and vanished.
   ‘Is that really likely?’ I asked. ‘Volescamper has been around since before the war, and Kaine has been on the political scene for at least five years.’
   ‘It means nothing, Miss Next. Mellors had a wife and family in Slough for two decades and Heathcliff worked in Hollywood for three years under the name of Buck Stallion—no one suspected a thing in either case.’
   ‘So tell me about Cardenio,’ I said. ‘It is the Library’s copy, yes?’
   ‘Without a doubt. The disappearance a month ago was quite embarrassing—despite elaborate security arrangements someone managed to swipe it from under the cat’s whiskers. He’s very upset about it.’
   ‘Did you saying fig or whig?’ enquired the cat, who had reappeared.
   ‘I said Whig,’ I replied; ‘and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.’
   ‘All right,’ said the cat; and this time he vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of his tail and ending with his grin.
   ‘He doesn’t seem terribly upset,’ I observed.
   ‘Looks can be deceptive—in the cat’s case, trebly so. The news of Cardenio’s discovery in your world nearly gave the Bellman a fit. He was all for putting together one of his madcap and typically boojum-ridden expeditions. As soon as I found out that Kaine was going to make Cardenio public property, I knew we had to act and act fast.’
   ‘But listen,’ I said, my head spinning slightly with all this new intelligence, ‘why is it so important that Cardenio remains lost? It’s a brilliant play.’
   ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand,’ replied Tweed, ‘but once a play or book is lost, it’s lost. There is always a reason. Besides, if the rest of the book world figures out there is something to gain by swiping library books, then we could be in one hell of a state.’
   I mused over this for a moment.
   ‘Okay, so why am I here?’
   ‘Clearly, this is no place for an apprentice but you know the layout of Vole Towers as well as having met the key suspects—do you know where Cardenio is kept?’
   ‘In a combination-and-key safe within the library itself.
   ‘Good. But first we need to get in. Can you remember any of the other books in the library?’
   I thought for a moment.
   ‘There was a rare first edition of Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh.’
   ‘Come on,’ Tweed said abruptly. ‘We’re off.’
   We took the elevator to Floor ‘W’ of the Library, found the copy we were looking for and were soon within the book, tiptoeing past a noisy party in the quad at Scone College. Tweed concentrated on the outward jump and a few moments later we were standing inside the locked library at Vole Towers.
   ‘Cat,’ said Harris, looking around at the untidy library, ‘you there?’ [21]
   ‘A simple “yes” will do. Send the safe-crackers in by way of Decline and Fall. If they come across Captain Grimes, they are not to lend him money on any account. Anything on Volescamper or Kaine?’ [22]
   ‘Blast!’ exclaimed Tweed. ‘Too much to hope they’d be stupid enough to use their own names.’
   Two men suddenly appeared next to us and Harris pointed them in the direction of the safe. One wore a fine evening dress over which he had casually tossed a cloak. The other was attired in a more sober woollen suit and carried a holdall that, once opened, revealed an array of beautifully crafted safe-cracking tools. After running an expert eye over the safe for a few moments, the elder of the two removed his cloak and jacket, took the stethoscope proffered to him by his companion, and listened to the safe as he gently turned the combination wheel.
   ‘Is that Raffles?’ I whispered. ‘The gentleman thief?’
   Harris nodded, checking his watch.
   ‘With his assistant, Bunny. If anyone can, they can.’
   ‘So who do you think stole Cardenio?’
   ‘It’s definitely someone from inside books, that much we are sure of. The trouble lies in narrowing it down—there are several million possible contenders and any one of them could have gone rogue, jumped out of their book, swiped Cardenio and legged it over here.’
   ‘So how do you tell whether someone is an impostor or not?’
   Harris looked at me.
   ‘With great difficulty. Do you think I belong here, in your world?’
   I looked at the short man with the elegant tweed herringbone suit and touched him gently on the chest with a finger. He was as real to me as anyone I had ever met, either within books or without. He breathed, smiled, scowled—how was I meant to tell?
   ‘I don’t know. Are you from a twenties detective novel?’
   ‘Wrong,’ replied Harris. ‘I’m as real as you are. I work three days a week for Skyrail as a signals operator. But how could I prove that? I could just as easily be a minor character in an obscure novel somewhere. The only sure way to tell would be to place me under observation for two months—that’s about the limit of time any book person can stay outside their book. But enough of this. Our first priority is to get the manuscript back. After that, we can start figuring out who is who.’
   ‘There’s no quicker way?’