A Thursday Next Digital Collection: Novels 1-5 (55 page)

“Listen, Rawlings, I don't know the lady very well. What did she say her name was? Dame-rouge?”

“It's
Havisham,
Next—but you know that, don't you? That ‘lady' is
extremely
well known to the police—she's racked up seventy-four outrageously
serious
driving offenses in the past twenty-two years.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. In June she was clocked driving a chain-driven Liberty-engined Higham Special automobile at 171.5 MPH down the M4. It's not only irresponsible, it's—Why are you laughing?”

“No reason.”

The officer stared at me.

“You seem to know her quite well, Next. Why does she do these things?”

“Probably,” I replied, “because they don't have motorways where she comes from—or 27-liter Higham Specials.”

“And where would that be, Next?”

“I have no idea.”

“I could arrest you for helping the escape of an individual in custody.”

“She wasn't arrested, Rawlings, you said so yourself.”

“Perhaps not, but you are. In the car.”

In 1983 the youthful Yorrick Kaine was elected leader of the Whigs, at that time a small and largely inconsequential party whose desire to put the aristocracy back in power and limit voting rights to homeowners had placed it on the outer edges of the political arena. A pro-Crimean stance coupled with a wish for British unification helped build nationalist support, and by 1985 the Whigs had three MPs in Parliament. They built their manifesto on populist tactics such as reducing the cheese duty and offering dukedoms as prizes on the National Lottery. A shrewd politician and clever tactician, Kaine was ambitious for power—in whatever way he could get it.

A
.
J
.
P
.
MILLINER
,
The New Whigs: From Humble Beginnings to Fourth Reich

I
T TOOK TWO HOURS
for me to convince the police I wasn't going to tell them anything about Miss Havisham other than her address. Undeterred, they thumbed through a yellowed statute book and eventually charged me with a little-known 1621 law about
permissioning a horse and carte to be driven by personn of low moral turpithtude,
but with the “horse and carte” bit crossed out and “car” written in instead—so you can see how desperate they were. I would have to go before the magistrate
the following week. I started to sneak out of the building to go home, but—

“So there you are!”

I turned and hoped my groan wasn't audible.

“Hello, Cordelia.”

“Thursday, are you okay? You look a bit bruised!”

“I got caught in a Fiction Frenzy.”

“No more nonsense, now—I need you to meet the couple who won my competition.”

“Do I have to?”

Flakk looked at me sternly.

“It's
very
advisable.”

“Okay,” I replied. “Where are they?”

“I'm—um—not sure,” said Cordelia, biting her lip and looking at her watch. “They said they'd be here half an hour ago. Can you wait a few minutes?”

So we stood around for a bit, Cordelia looking at her watch and staring at the front door. After ten minutes of waiting and without her guests turning up, I made my excuses and nipped up to the Litera Tec's office.

“Thursday!” said Bowden as I entered. “I told Victor you had the flu. How did you get on in Osaka?”

“Pretty well, I think. I've been inside books
without
a Prose Portal. I can do it on my own—more or less.”

“You're kidding.”

“No,” I told him, “Landen's almost as good as back. I've seen
The Trial
from the inside and have just been at the Swindon Booktastic closing-down sale with Miss Havisham.”

“What's she like?” asked Bowden with interest.

“Odd—and don't ever let her drive. It seems there is something very like SpecOps-27
inside
books—I've yet to figure it all out. How have things been out here?”

He showed me a copy of
The Owl
. The headline read:
New Play by Will Found in Swindon. The Mole
had the headline
Cardenio Sensation!
and
The Toad,
predictably enough, led with
Swindon Croquet Supremo Aubrey Jambe Found in Bath with Chimp
.

“So Professor Spoon authenticated it?”

“He did indeed,” replied Bowden. “One of us should take the report up to Volescamper this afternoon. This is for you.”

He handed me the bag of pinkish goo attached to a report from the SpecOps forensic labs. I thanked him and read the analysis of the slime Dad had given me with interest and confusion in equal measures.

“Sugar, fatty animal protein, calcium, sodium, maltodextrin, carboxy-methyl-cellulose, phenylalanine, complex hydrocarbon compounds and traces of chlorophyll.”

I flicked to the back of the report but was none the wiser. Forensics had faithfully responded to my request for analysis— but it told me nothing new.

“What does it mean, Bowd?”

“Search me, Thursday. They're trying to match the profile to known chemical compounds, but so far, nothing. Perhaps if you told us where you got it?”

“I don't think that would be safe. I'll drop the
Cardenio
report in to Volescamper—I'm keen to avoid Cordelia. Tell forensics that the future of the planet depends on them—that should help. I
have
to know what this pink stuff is.”

I saw Cordelia waiting for me in the lobby with her two guests, who had finally, it seemed, turned up. Unluckily for them, Spike Stoker had been passing and Cordelia, eager to do
something
to amuse her competition winners, had obviously asked him to say a few words. The look of frozen jaw-dropping horror on her guests' faces said it all. I hid my face behind the
Cardenio
report and left Cordelia to it.

I blagged a ride in a squad car up to the crumbling but now far busier Vole Towers. The mansion was besieged by the news stations, all keen to report any details regarding the discovery of
Cardenio
. Two dozen outside broadcast trucks were parked on the weed-infested gravel, all humming with activity. Dishes were trained into the afternoon sky, transmitting the pictures to an airship repeater station that had been routed in to bounce the stories live to the world's eager viewers. For security, SpecOps- 14 had been drafted in and stood languidly about, idly chatting to one another. Mostly, it seemed, about Aubrey Jambe's apparent indiscretion with the chimp.

“Hello, Thursday!” said a handsome young SO-14 agent at the front door. It was annoying; I didn't recognize him. People I didn't know hailing me as friends was something that had happened a lot since Landen's eradication; I supposed I would get used to it.

“Hello!” I replied to the stranger in an equally friendly tone. “What's going on?”

“Yorrick Kaine is heading a press conference.”

“Really?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. “What's
Cardenio
got to do with him?”

“Hadn't you heard? Lord Volescamper has
given
the play to Yorrick Kaine and the Whig party!”

“Why would,” I asked slowly, smelling a political rat of epic proportions, “Lord Volescamper have anything to do with a minor right-wing pro-Crimean Welsh-hater like Kaine?”

The SpecOps-14 agent shrugged. “Because he's a lord and wants to reclaim some lost power?”

At that moment two other SpecOps agents walked past, and one of them nodded to the young agent at the door and said: “All well, Miles?”

The dashing young SO-14 agent said that all was well, but he
was wrong. All was
not
well—at least it wasn't for me. I'd thought I might bump into Miles Hawke eventually, but not unprepared, like this. I stared at him, hoping my shock and surprise wouldn't show. He had spent time in my flat and knew me a lot better than I knew him. My heart thumped inside my chest and I tried to say something intelligent and witty, but it came out more like:

“Asterfobulongus?”

He looked confused and leaned forward slightly.

“I'm sorry, what was that?”

“Nothing.”

“You seemed a bit upset when I called, Thursday. Is there a problem with our
arrangement?
”

I stared at him for a few seconds in numbed silence before mumbling: “No—no, not at all.”

“Good!” he said. “We must fix a date or two.”

“Yes,” I said, running on auto-fear, “yes we must.
Gottogo
— bye.”

I trotted off before he could say anything else. I paused for breath outside the door to the library. Sooner or later I was going to have to ask him straight out. I decided on the face of it that later suited me better than sooner, so I walked through the heavy steel doors and into the library. Yorrick Kaine and Lord Volescamper were sitting behind a table, and beyond them was Mr. Swaike and two security guards who were standing on either side of the play itself, proudly displayed behind a sheet of bulletproof glass. The press conference was halfway through, and I tapped Lydia Startright—who happened to be standing quite near—on the arm.

“Hey, Lyds!” I said in a low whisper.

“Hey, Thursday,” replied the reporter. “I heard you did the initial authentication. How good is it?”

“Very good,” I replied. “Somewhere on par with
The Tempest
. What's happening here?”

“Volescamper has just officially announced he is
giving
the play to Yorrick Kaine and the Whigs.”

“Why?”

“Who knows? Hang on, I want to ask a question.”

Lydia stood up and raised her hand. Kaine pointed at her.

“What do you propose to do with the play, Mr. Kaine? We understand that there has been talk of offers in the region of a hundred million pounds.”

“Good question,” replied Yorrick Kaine, getting to his feet. “We in the Whig party thank Lord Volescamper for his kind generosity. I am of the opinion that
Cardenio
is not for one person or group to exploit, so we at the Whig party propose offering free licenses to perform the play to anyone who wishes to do so.”

There was an excited babbling from the attendant journalists as they took this in. It was an act of unprecedented generosity, especially from Kaine, but more than that, it was the
right
thing to do, and the press suddenly warmed towards Yorrick. It was as if Kaine had never suggested the invasion of Wales two years ago or the reduction of the right to vote the year before; I was instantly suspicious.

There were several more questions about the play and a lot of well-practiced answers from Kaine, who seemed to have reinvented himself as a caring and sharing patriarch and not the extremist of yore. After the press conference had ended, I made my way to the front and approached Volescamper, who looked at me oddly for a moment.

“The Spoon report,” I told him, handing him the buff-colored file, “about the authentication ... we thought you might want to see it.”

“What? Of course!”

Volescamper took the report and glanced at it in a cursory manner before passing it to Kaine, who seemed to show more
interest. Kaine didn't even look at me, but since I obviously wasn't going to leave like some message girl, Volescamper introduced me.

“Oh yes! Mr. Kaine, this is Thursday Next, SpecOps-27.”

Kaine looked up from the report, his manner abruptly changed to one of charm and gushing friendship.

“Ms. Next, delighted!” he enthused. “I read of your exploits with great interest, and believe me, your intervention improved the narrative of
Jane Eyre
considerably!”

I wasn't impressed by him or his faux charm.

“Think you can change the Whig party's fortunes, Mr. Kaine?”

“The party is undergoing something of a restructuring at present,” replied Kaine, fixing me with a serious stare. “Old ideology has been retired and the party now looks forward to a fresh look at England's political future. Rule by informed patriarch and voting restricted to responsible property owners is the future, Miss Next—ruling by committee has been the death of common sense for far too long.”

“And Wales?” I asked. “Where do you stand on Wales these days?”

“Wales is historically part of greater Britain,” announced Kaine in a slightly more guarded manner. “The Welsh have been flooding the English market with cheap goods, and this has to stop—but I have no plans
whatsoever
for forced unification.”

I stared at him for a moment.

“You have to get in power first, Mr. Kaine.”

The smile dropped from his face.

“Thank you for delivering the report, Miss Next,” put in Volescamper hurriedly. “Can I offer you a drink or something before you go?”

I took the hint and made my way to the front door. I stood and looked at the outside broadcast units thoughtfully. Yorrick Kaine was playing his hand well.