A Thursday Next Digital Collection: Novels 1-5 (95 page)

“Are you okay?” I said to the cubist driver, who looked blankly at me and attempted to change gear.

“I've been driving in
Caversham Heights
since the book was written and never had an accident,” carried on the Morris Marina driver indignantly. “This will play hell with my no-claims bonus—and what's more, I can't get any sense out of
him
at all!”

“I saw it all,” said another Spongg truck driver—a proper one this time. “Whoever he is he needs to go back to driving school and take a few lessons.”

“Well, the show's over,” I told them. “Mr. Morris Marina Driver, is your car drivable?”

“I think so,” replied the eight identical middle-aged drivers in unison.

“Then get it out of here. Generic Truck Driver?”

“Yes?”

“Find a towrope and get this heap of junk off the road.”

He left to do my bidding as the eight Morris Marina drivers drove off in their identically spluttering cars.

I was waving the cars around the stranded truck when there was a crackle in the air. The cubist truck vanished from the
roadside, leaving nothing but the faint smell of cantaloupes. I stared at the space left by the truck. The drivers were more than happy that this obstacle to their ordered lives had been removed, and they sounded their horns at me to get out of the way. I examined the area of the road carefully but found nothing except a single bolt made in the same style as the truck—no texture, just the same cubic shape. I walked back to my car, placed it in my bag and drove on.

Jack was waiting for me outside Mickey Finn's Gym, situated above a couple of shops in Coley Avenue. We were there to question a boxing promoter about allegations of fight fixing. It was the best scene in
Caversham Heights
—gritty, realistic—and with good characterization and dialogue. I met Jack slightly earlier while the story was off on a subplot regarding a missing consignment of ketamine, so there was time for a brief word together.
Caversham Heights
wasn't first person—which was just as well, really, as I didn't think Jack had the depth of character to support it.

“Good morning, Jack,” I said as I walked up, “how are things?”

He looked a lot happier than the last time I'd seen him and he smiled agreeably, handing me a coffee in a paper cup.

“Excellent, Mary—I should call you Mary, shouldn't I, just in case I have a slip of the tongue when we're being read? Listen, I went to see my wife, Madeleine, last night, and after a heated exchange of opinions we came to some sort of agreement.”

“You're going back to her?”

“Not quite.” Jack took a sip of coffee. “But we agreed that if I stopped drinking and never saw Agatha Diesel again, she would consider it!”

“Well, that's a start, isn't it?”

“Yes, but it might not be as simple as you think. I received this in the post this morning.”

He handed me a letter. I unfolded it and read:

Dear Mr. Spratt,

It has come to our attention that you may be attempting to give up the booze and reconcile with your wife. While we approve of this as a plot device to generate more friction and inner conflicts, we most strongly advise you not to carry it through to a happy reconciliation, as this would put you in direct contravention of Rule 11c of the Union of Sad Loner Detectives' Code, as ratified by the Union of Literary Detectives, and it will ultimately result in your expulsion from the association with subsequent loss of benefits.

I trust you will do the decent thing and halt this damaging and abnormal behavior before it leads to your downfall.

P.S. Despite repeated demands, you have failed to drive a classic car or pursue an unusual hobby. Please do so at once or face the consequences.

“Hmm,” I muttered, “it's signed Poi—”

“I know who it's signed by,” replied Jack sadly, retrieving the letter. “The union is
very
powerful. They have influence that goes all the way up to the Great Panjandrum. This could hasten the demolition of
Caversham Heights
, not delay it. Father Brown wanted to renounce the priesthood umpteen times, but, well, the union—”

“Jack, what do
you
want?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

He sighed. “It's not as simple as that. I have a responsibility for the seven hundred eighty-six other characters in this book. Think of it—all those Generics sold off like post-Christmas turkeys or reduced to text. It makes me shudder just to think about it!”

“That might happen anyway, Jack. At least this way we have a fighting chance. Do your own thing. Break
away
from the norm.”

He sighed again and ran his fingers through his hair. “But what about the
conflicts
? Isn't that the point of being a loner
detective? The appalling self-destruction, the inner battles within ourselves that add spice to the proceedings and enable the story to advance more interestingly? We can't just have setup–murder–interview–interview–second murder–conjecture–interview–more conjecture–false ending–third murder–dramatic twist–resolution, can we? Where's the interest if a detective
doesn't
get romantically involved with someone who has something to do with the first murder? Why, I might never have to make a choice between justice and my own personal feelings ever again!”

“And what if you don't?” I persisted. “It needn't be like that. There's more than one way to make a story interesting.”

“Okay, let's say I
do
live happily with Madeleine and the kids—what am I going to do for subplots? Conflict, for want of a better word, is good. Conflict is right. Conflict
works
.”

He gazed at me angrily, but I knew he still believed in himself—that we were even having this conversation proved that.

“It doesn't have to be marital conflicts,” I told him. “We could get a few subplots from the Well and sew them in—I agree the action can't always stay with you, but if we—Hello, I think we've got company.”

A pink Triumph Herald had pulled up with a middle-aged woman in it. She got out, walked straight up to Jack and slapped him hard in the face.

“How dare you!” she screamed. “I waited three hours for you at the Sad and Single wine bar—what happened?”

“I told you, Agatha. I was with my wife.”

“Sure you were,” she spat, her voice rising. “Don't patronize me with your pathetic little lies—who are you screwing this time? One of those little tarts down at the station?”

“It's true,” he replied in an even voice, more shocked than outraged. “I told you last night—it's all over, Agatha.”

“Oh, yes? I suppose
you
put him up to this?” she said, looking at me, scorn and anger in her eyes. “You come down here on a character exchange with your Outlander airs and
self-determination bullshit and think you can improve the story line? The supreme arrogance of you people!”

She stopped for a moment and narrowed her eyes. “You're sleeping together, aren't you?”

“No,” I told her firmly, “and if there aren't some improvements round here soon, there won't be a book. If you want a transfer out of here, I'm sure I can arrange something—”

“It's all so easy for you, isn't it?” she said, her face convulsing with anger and then fear as her voice rose. “Think you can just make a few footnoterphone calls and everything will be just dandy?” She pointed a long bony finger at me. “Well, I'll tell you, Miss Outlander, I will
not
take this lying down!”

She glared at us both, marched back to her car and drove off with a squeal of tires.

“How about that for a conflictual subplot?” I asked, but Jack wasn't amused.

“Let's see what else you can dream up—I'm not sure I like that one. Did you find out when the Book Inspectorate are due to read us?”

“Not yet.”

Jack looked at his watch. “Come on, we've got the fight-rigging scene to do. You'll like this one. Mary was sometimes a little late with the ‘If you don't know, we can't help you' line when we did the old good-cop/bad-cop routine, but just stay on your toes and you'll be fine.”

He seemed a lot happier having stood up to Agatha, and we walked across the road to where some rusty iron stairs led up to the gym.

It was a good job the door opened outwards. If it had opened inwards, I would not be here to tell the tale. Jack teetered on the edge and I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. The only part of Mickey Finn's that remained were short floorboards that changed to descriptive prose less than a foot out, the ragged ends whipping and fluttering like pennants in the wind. Beyond these remnants was nothing but a dizzying drop to a bleak and windswept sea, whipped up into a frenzy by a typhoon. The waves rose and fell, carrying with them small ships that looked like trawlers, the sailors on board covered in oilskins. But the sea wasn't water as I knew it, the waves here were made of
letters
. Every now and then they would coalesce and a word or sentence would burst enthusiastically from the surface, where it would be caught by the sailors who held nets on long poles.

“Blast!” said Jack. “Damn and blast!”

“What is it?” I asked as a word that spelled
saxophone
came barreling towards us, changing to a
real
saxophone as it crossed the threshold and hit the ironwork of the staircase with a crash. The clouds of individual letters in the sky above the wave-tossed sea contained punctuation marks that swirled in ugly patterns. Now and then a bolt of lightning struck the sea and the letters swirled near the point of discharge, spontaneously creating words.

“The Text Sea!” yelled Jack against the rush of wind. We attempted to close the door against the gale as a grammasite flew past with a loud “Gark!” and expertly speared a verb that had jumped from the sea at a badly chosen moment.

We pressed our weight against the door and it closed. The wind abated, the thunder now merely a distant rumble behind the half-glazed door. I picked up the bent saxophone.

“I had no idea the Text Sea looked like anything at all,” I said, panting. “I thought it was just an abstract notion.”

“Oh, it's real all right,” replied Jack, picking up his hat, “as real as anything is down here. The LiteraSea is the basis for all prose written in roman script. It's connected to the Searyllic Ocean somewhere, but I don't know the details. You know what this means, don't you?”

“That scene stealers have been at work?”

“It looks more like a deletion to me,” replied Jack grimly, “
excised
. The whole kerfuffle. Characters, setting, dialogue, subplot and the narrative-turning device regarding the fight-fixing that the writer had pinched from
On the Waterfront
.”

“Where to?”

“Probably to another book by the same author,” sighed Jack. “Kind of proves we won't be long for the Well. It's the next nail in the coffin.”

“Can't we just jump into the next chapter and the discovery of the drug dealer shot dead when the undercover buy goes wrong?”

“It would never work,” said Jack, shaking his head. “Let me see—I wouldn't have known about Hawkins's involvement with Davison's master plan. More importantly, Mickey Finn would have no reason to be killed if he didn't talk to me, so he would have been there to stop the fight before Johnson placed his three-hundred-thousand-pound bet—and the heartwarming scene in the last two pages of the book with the young lad will make no sense unless I meet him here first. Shit. There isn't a holesmith anywhere in the Well who can fill this one. We're finished, Thursday. As soon as the book figures the gym scene has gone, the plot will start to spontaneously unravel. We'll have to declare literary insolvency. If we do it quick, we might be able to get most of the major parts reassigned to another book.”

“There must be
something
we can do!”

Jack thought for a moment. “No, Thursday. It's over. I'm calling it.”

“Hang on. What if we come in again, but instead of us
both
walking up the stairs, you start at the top, meet me coming up and explain what you have just found out. We jump straight from there to chapter eight and . . . you're looking at me a bit oddly.”

“Mary—”

“Thursday.”

“Thursday. That would make chapter seven only a page long!”

“Better than nothing.”

“It won't work.”

“Vonnegut does it all the time.”

He sighed. “Okay. Lead on, maestro.”

I smiled and we jumped back three pages.