Something rotten (33 page)

“Well . . .” Spike smiled as we reached his car. “Chesney really lost his—”

“No,” I said, “don’t say it. It’s too corny.”

“Is this some sort of theme park?” asked Formby as we bundled him into Spike’s car.

“Of a sort, Mr. President,” I replied as we reversed out of the parking lot with a squealing of tires and tore towards the exit ramp. No one tried to stop us, and a couple of seconds later, we were blinking in the daylight—and the rain—of the M4 westbound. The time, I noticed, was 5:03—lots of time to get the President to a phone and oppose Kaine’s vote in parliament. I put out my hand to Spike, who shook it happily and returned my gun, which was still covered in the desiccated dust of Chesney’s hoodlum friend.

“Did you see the look on his face when his head started to come off?” Spike asked, chuckling. “Man, I live for moments like that!”

29.

The Cat Formerly Known as Cheshire

Danish King in Tidal Command Fiasco

In another staggering display of Danish stupidity, King Canute of Denmark attempted to use his authority to halt the incoming tide, our reporters have uncovered. It didn’t, of course, and the dopey monarch was soaked. Danish authorities were quick to deny the story and rushed with obscene haste to besmirch the excellent and unbiased English press with the following lies: “For a start it wasn’t Canute—it was
Cnut,
” began the wild and wholly unconvincing tirade from the Danish minister of propaganda. “You English named him Canute to make it sound less like you were ruled by foreigners for two hundred years. And Cnut didn’t try to command the sea—it was to demonstrate to his overly flattering courtiers that the tide wouldn’t succumb to his will. And it all happened nine hundred years ago—if it happened at all.” King Canute himself was unavailable for comment.

Article in
The Toad,
July 18, 1988

W
e told the President that yes, he was right—the whole thing was some sort of motorway services theme park. Dowding and Parks were genuinely pleased to get their President back, and Yorrick Kaine canceled the vote in parliament. Instead he led a silent prayer to thank providence for returning Formby to our midst. As for Spike and me, we were each given a postdated check and told we would be sure to receive the Banjulele with Oak Clusters for our steadfast adherence to duty.

Spike and I parted after the tiring day’s work and I returned to the SpecOps office where I found a slightly annoyed Major Drabb waiting for me near my car.

“No Danish books found again, Agent Next!” he said through clenched teeth, handing me his report. “More failure and I will have to take the matter to higher authority.”

I glared at him, took a step closer and prodded him angrily in the chest. I needed Flanker off my back until the SuperHoop at the very least.

“You blame me for your failings?”

“Well,” he said, faltering slightly and taking a nervous step backwards as I moved even closer, “that is to say—”

“Redouble your efforts, Major Drabb, or I will have you removed from your command. Do you understand?”

I shouted the last bit, which I didn’t want to do—but I was getting desperate. I didn’t want Flanker on my back in addition to everything else that was going on.

“Of course,” croaked Drabb. “I take full responsibility for my failure.”

“Good,” I said, straightening up, “tomorrow you are to search the Australian Writers’ Guild in Wooten Bassett.”

Drabb dabbed his brow and made another salute.

“As you say, Miss Next.”

I tried to drive past the mixed bag of journalists and TV news crews, but they were more than insistent so I stopped to say a few words.

“Miss Next,” said a reporter from ToadSports, jostling with the five or six other TV crews trying to get the best angle, “what is your reaction to the news that five of the Mallets team members have withdrawn following death threats?”

This was news to me but I didn’t show it.

“We are in the process of signing new players to the team—”

“Miss Manager, with only five players in your team, don’t you think it better to just withdraw?”

“We’ll be playing, I assure you.”

“What is your response to the rumor that the Reading Whackers have signed ace player Bonecrusher McSneed to play forward hoop?”

“The same as always—the SuperHoop will be a momentous victory for Swindon.”

“And what about the news that you have been declared ‘unfit to manage’ given your highly controversial move of putting Biffo on defense?”

“Positions on the field are yet to be decided and are up to Mr. Jambe. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”

I started the engine again and drove away from the SpecOps Building, the news crews still shouting questions after me. I was big news again, and I didn’t like it.

I arrived home just in time to rescue Mother from having to make more tea for Friday.

“Eight fish fingers!” she muttered, shocked by his greed. “Eight!”

“That’s nothing,” I replied, putting my paycheck into a novelty teapot and tickling Friday on the ear. “You wait until you see how many beans he can put away.”

“The phone’s been ringing all day. Aubrey somebody-or-other about death threats or something?”

“I’ll call him. How was the zoo?”

“Ooh!” she cooed, touched her hair and tripped out of the kitchen. I waited until she was gone then knelt down close to Friday.

“Did Bismarck and Gran . . . kiss?”

“Tempor incididunt ut labore,” he replied enigmatically, “et do-lore magna aliqua.”

“I hope that’s a ‘definitely not,’ darling,” I murmured, filling up his beaker. As I did so, I caught my wedding ring on the lip of the cup, and I stared at it in a resigned manner. Landen was back again. I clasped it tightly and picked up the phone.

“Hello?” came Landen’s voice.

“It’s Thursday.”

“Thursday!” he said with a mixture of relief and alarm. “What happened to you? I was waiting for you in the bedroom, and then I heard the front door close! Did I do something wrong?”

“No, Land, nothing. You were eradicated again.”

“Am I still?”

“Of course not.”

There was a long pause. Too long, in fact. I looked at my hand. My wedding ring had gone again. I sighed, replaced the receiver and went back to Friday, heavy in heart. I called Aubrey as I was giving Friday his bath and tried to reassure him about the missing players. I told him to keep training and I’d deliver. I wasn’t sure how, but I didn’t tell him that. I just said it was “in hand.”

“I have to go,” I told him at last. “I’ve got to wash Friday’s hair and I can’t do it with one hand.”

That evening, as I was reading
Pinocchio
to Friday, a large tabby cat appeared on the wardrobe in my bedroom. He didn’t appear instantly, either—he faded in from the tip of his tail all the way up to his very large grin. When he first started working in
Alice in Wonderland,
he was known as the Cheshire Cat, but the authorities moved the Cheshire county boundaries, and he thus became the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat, but that was a bit of a mouthful, so he was known more affectionately as the Cat formerly known as Cheshire or, more simply, the Cat. His real name was Archibald, but that was reserved for his mother when she was cross with him.

He worked very closely with us at Jurisfiction, where he was in charge of the Great Library, a cavernous and almost infinite depository of every book ever written. But to call the Cat a librarian would be an injustice. He was an überlibrarian—he knew about all the books in his charge. When they were being read, by whom—everything. Everything, that is, except where Yorrick Kaine was a featured part. Friday giggled and pointed as the Cat stopped appearing and stared at us with a grin etched on his features, eagerly listening to the story.

“Hello!” he said as soon as I had finished, kissed Friday and put out the bedside light. “I’ve got some information for you.”

“About?”

“Yorrick Kaine.”

I took the Cat downstairs, where he sat on the microwave as I made some tea.

“So what have you found out?” I asked.

“I’ve found out that an alligator isn’t someone who makes allegations—it’s a large reptile a bit like a crocodile.”

“I mean about Kaine.”

“Ah. Well, I’ve had a careful trawl, and he doesn’t appear anywhere in the character manifests, either in the Great Library or the Well of Lost Plots. Wherever he’s from, it isn’t from published fiction, poetry, jokes, nonfiction or knitting patterns.”

“I didn’t think you’d come out here to tell me you’ve failed, Chesh,” I said. “What’s the good news?”

The Cat’s eyes flashed, and he twitched his whiskers. “Vanity publishing!” he announced with a flourish.

It was an inspired guess. I’d never even considered he might be from there. The realm of the self-published book was a bizarre mix of quaint local histories, collections of poetry, magnum opuses of the truly talentless—and the occasional gem. The thing was, if such books became officially published, they were welcomed into the Great Library with open arms—and that hadn’t happened.

“You’re sure?”

The Cat handed me an index card. “I knew this was important to you, so I called in a few favors.”

I read the card aloud. “ ‘
At Long Last Lust
. 1931. Limited-edition run of one hundred. Author: Daphne Farquitt.’ ”

I looked at the Cat. Daphne Farquitt. Writer of nearly five hundred romantic novels and darling of the romance genre.

“Before she got famous writing truly awful books, she used to write truly awful books that were self-published,” explained the Cat. “In
At Long Last Lust,
Yorrick plays a local politician eager for advancement. He isn’t a major part either. He’s only mentioned twice and doesn’t even warrant a description.”

“Can you get me into the vanity-publishing library?” I asked.

“There is no vanity library,” he said with a shrug. “We have figures and short reviews gleaned from vanity publishers’ manifests and
Earnest Scribbler Monthly,
but little else. Still, we need only to find one copy and he’s ours.”

He grinned again, but I didn’t join him.

“Not that easy, Cat. Take a look at this.”

I showed him the latest issue of
The Toad
. The Cat carefully put on his spectacles and read, “ ‘Danish book-burning frenzy reaches new heights, with Copenhagen-born Farquitt’s novels due to be consigned to flames.’

“I don’t get it,” said the Cat, placing a longing paw on a Moggilicious Cat Food advert. “What’s he up to, burning all her books?”

“Because,” I said, “he obviously can’t find all the original copies of
At Long Last Lust
and in desperation has whipped up anti-Danish feeling as a cover. With luck his book-burning idiots will do the job for him. I’m a fool not to have realized. After all, where would you hide a stick?”

There was a long pause.

“I give up,” said the Cat. “Where would you hide a stick?”

“In a forest.”

I stared out the window thoughtfully.
At Long Last Lust
. I didn’t know how many of the hundred copies still remained, but with Farquitt’s books still being consigned to the furnaces, I figured there had to be at least one. An unpublished Farquitt novel the key to destroying Kaine. I couldn’t make this stuff up.

“Why would you hide a stick in a forest?” asked the Cat, who had been pondering over this question for some moments in silence.

“It’s an analogy,” I explained. “Kaine needs to get rid of every copy of
At Long Last Lust
but doesn’t want us to get suspicious, so he targets the Danes—the
forest,
rather than Farquitt—the
stick.
Get it?”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

“Well, I’d better be off then,” announced the Cat and he vanished.

I was not much surprised at this for the Cat usually left in this manner. I poured the tea, added some milk, and then put some mugs on a tray. I was just pondering where I might find a copy of
At Long Last Lust
and, more important, calling Julie again to ask her how long her husband flicked on and off “like a lightbulb,” when the Cat reappeared balanced precariously on the Kenwood mixer.

“By the by,” he said, “the Gryphon tells me that the sentencing for your Fiction Infraction is due in two weeks’ time. Do you want to be present?”

This related to the time I changed the ending of
Jane Eyre
. They found me guilty at my trial but the law’s delay in the BookWorld just dragged things on and on.

“No,” I said after a pause. “No, tell him to come and find me and let me know what my sentence will be.”

“I’ll tell him. Well, toodle-oo,” said the Cat, and vanished, this time for good.

I pushed open the door of Mycroft’s workshop with my toe, held it open for Pickwick to follow me in, then closed it before Alan could join us and placed the tray on a worktop. Mycroft and Polly were staring intently at a small and oddly shaped geometric solid made of brass.

“Thank you, pet,” said Polly. “How are things with you?”

“Fair to not very good at all, Auntie.”

Polly was Mycroft’s wife of some forty-two years and, although seemingly in the background, was actually almost as brilliant as her husband. She was a bouncy seventy and managed Mycroft’s often irascible and forgetful nature with a patience that I found inspiring. “The trick,” she told me once, “is to regard him like a five-year-old with an IQ of two hundred sixty.” She picked up her tea and blew on it.

“Still thinking about whether to put Smudger on defense?”

“I was thinking of Biffo, actually.”

“Smudger and Biffo would both be wasted on defense,” muttered Mycroft, making a fine adjustment on one face of the brass polyhedron with a file. “You ought to put Snake on defense. He’s untried, I admit, but he plays well and has youth on his side.”

“Well, I’m really leaving team strategy to Aubrey.”