The well of lost plots (23 page)

THE MINOTAUR HAD given Havisham the slip and was last seen heading towards the works of Zane Grey; the semibovine wasn’t stupid — he knew we’d have trouble finding him amidst a cattle drive. Snell lasted another three hours. He was kept in an isolation tent made of fine plastic sheeting that had been overprinted with pages from the
Oxford English Dictionary
. We were in the sick bay of the Anti-mispeling Fast Response Group. At the first sign of any deviant mispeling, thousands of these volumes were shipped to the infected book and set up as barrages either side of the chapter. The barrage was then moved in, paragraph by paragraph, until the vyrus was forced into a single sentence, then word, then smothered completely. Fire was not an option in a published work; they had tried it once in Samuel Pepys’s
Diary
and burnt down half of London.

“Does he have any family?” I asked.3.0

“Snell was a loner detective, Miss Next,” explained the doctor. “Perkins was his only family.”

“Is it safe to go up to him?”

“Yes — but be prepared for some mispelings.”

I sat by his bed while Havisham stood and spoke quietly with the doctor. Snell lay on his back and was breathing with small, shallow gasps, the pulse on his neck racing — it wouldn’t be long before the vyrus took him away and he knew it. I leaned closer and held his hand through the sheeting. His complexion was pail, his breething labored, his skein covered in painful and unsightly green pastilles. As I wotched, his dry slips tried to foam worlds but all he could torque was ninsense.

“Thirsty!” he squeeked. “Wode — Cone, udder whirled — doughnut Trieste — !”

He grisped my arm with his fungers, made one last stringled cry before feeling bakwards, his life force deported from his pathotic mispeled boddy.

“He was a fine operative,” said Havisham as the doctor pulled a sheep over his head.

“What will happen to the Perkins and Snell series?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied softly. “Demolished — saved with new Generics — I don’t know.”

“What ho!” exclaimed Bradshaw, appearing from nowhere. “Is he — ?”

“I’m afraid so,” replied Havisham.

“One of the best,” murmured Bradshaw sadly. “When they made Snell, they threw away the mold.”

“I hope not,” added Havisham. “If we
do
replace him, it might make things a bit tricky.”

“Figure of speech,” countered Bradshaw. “Did he say anything before he died?”

“Nothing coherent.”

“Hmm. The Bellman wanted a report on his death as soon as possible. What do you think?”

He handed Havisham a sheet of paper, and she read:

“ ‘Minotaur escapes, finds captor, eats captor, captor dies. Horse mispeled in struggle. Colleague dies attempting rescue. Minotaur escapes.’ ”

She turned over the piece of paper, but it was blank on the other side.

“That’s it?”

“I didn’t want it to get boring,” replied Bradshaw, “and the Bellman wanted it as simple as possible. I think he’s got Libris breathing down his neck. The investigation of a Jurisfiction agent so close to the launch of Ultra Word™ will make the Council of Genres jittery as hell.”

Miss Havisham handed the report back to Bradshaw. “Perhaps, Commander, you should lose that report in the pending tray for a bit.”

“This sort of stuff happens in fiction all the time,” he replied. “Do you have any evidence that it was
not
accidental?”

“The key to the padlock wasn’t on its hook,” I murmured.

“Well spotted,” replied Miss Havisham.

“Skulduggery?” Bradshaw hissed excitedly.

“I fervently hope not,” she returned. “Just delay the findings for a few days — we should see if Miss Next’s observational skills hold up to scrutiny.”

“Righty-o!” replied Bradshaw. “I’ll see what I can do!”

And he vanished. We were left alone in the corridor, the bunk beds of the DanverClones stretching off to the distance in both directions.

“It might be nothing, Miss Havisham, but—”

She put her fingers to her lips. Havisham’s eyes, usually resolute and fixed, had, for a brief moment, seemed troubled. I said nothing but inwardly I felt worried. Up until now I had thought Havisham feared nothing.

She looked at her watch. “Go to the bun shop in
Little Dorrit
, would you? I’ll have a doughnut and a coffee. Put it on my tab and get something for yourself.”

“Thank you. Where shall we meet?”

“
Mill on the Floss
, page five hundred twenty-three in twenty minutes.”

“Assignment?”

“Yes,” she replied, deep in thought. “Some damn meddling fool told Lucy Deane that Stephen and not Philip will be boating with Maggie — she may try to stop them. Twenty minutes and not the jam doughnuts, the ones with the pink icing, yes?”

Thirty-two minutes later I was inside
Mill on the Floss
, on the banks of a river next to Miss Havisham, who was observing a couple in a boat. The woman was dark-skinned with a jet-black coronet of hair. She was lying on a cloak with a parasol above her as a man rowed her gently downriver. He was of perhaps five-and-twenty years old, quite striking, and with short dark hair that stood erect, not unlike a crop of corn. They were talking earnestly to each other. I passed Miss Havisham a cup of coffee and a paper bag full of doughnuts.

“Stephen and Maggie?” I asked, indicating the couple as we walked along the path by the river.

“Yes,” she replied. “As you know, Lucy and Stephen are a hairsbreadth from engagement. Stephen and Maggie’s indiscretion in this boat causes Lucy Deane no end of distress. I told you to get the ones with pink icing.”

“They’d run out.”

“Ah.”

We kept a wary eye on the couple in the boat as I tried to remember what actually happened in
Mill on the Floss
.

“They agree to elope, don’t they?”

“Agree to — but don’t. Stephen is being an idiot and Maggie should know better. Lucy is meant to be shopping in Lindum with her father and Aunt Tulliver, but she gave them the slip an hour ago.”

We walked on for a few more minutes. The story seemed to be following the correct path with no intervention of Lucy’s we could see. Although we couldn’t make out the words, the sound of Maggie’s and Stephen’s voices carried across the water.

Miss Havisham took a bite of her doughnut.

“I noticed the missing key, too,” she said after a pause. “It was pushed under a workbench. It was murder. Murder . . . by Minotaur.”

She shivered.

“Why didn’t you tell Bradshaw?” I asked. “Surely the murder of a Jurisfiction operative warrants an investigation?”

She stared at me hard and then looked at the couple in the boat again.

“You don’t understand, do you?
The Sword of the Zenobians
is code-word-protected.”

“Only Jurisfiction agents can get in and out,” I murmured.

“Whoever killed Perkins and Mathias was Jurisfiction, and
that’s
what frightens me. A rogue agent.”

We walked in silence, digesting this information.

“But why would anyone want to kill Perkins and a talking horse?”

“I think Mathias just got in the way.”

“And Perkins?”

“Not just Perkins. Whoever killed him tried to get someone else that day.”

I thought for a moment and a sudden chill came over me.

“My Eject-O-Hat. It failed.”

Miss Havisham produced the homburg from a carrier bag, slightly squashed from where several Mrs. Danvers had trodden on it. The frayed cord looked as though it might have been cut.

“Take this to Professor Plum at Juris Tech and have him look at it. I’d like to be sure.”

“But . . . but why am
I
a threat?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Miss Havisham. “You are the most junior member of Jurisfiction and arguably the least threatening — you can’t even bookjump without moving your lips, for goodness’ sake!”

I didn’t need reminding, but I saw her point.

“So what happens now?” I asked at length.

“We have to assume whoever killed Snell might try again. You are to be on your guard. Wait — there she is!”

We had walked over a small rise and were slightly ahead of the boat. A young woman was lying on the ground in a most unladylike fashion, pointing a sniper’s rifle towards the small skiff that had just come into view. I crept cautiously forward; she was so intent on her task that she didn’t notice me until I was close enough to grab her. She was a slight thing, and her strugglings, whilst energetic, were soon overcome. I secured her in an armlock as Havisham unloaded the rifle. Maggie and Stephen, unaware of the danger, drifted softly past on their way to Mudport.

“Where did you get this?” asked Havisham, holding up the rifle.

“I don’t have to say anything,” replied the angelic-looking girl in a soft voice. “I was only going to knock a hole in the boat, honestly I was!”

“Sure you were. You can let go, Thursday.”

I relaxed my grip and the girl stepped back, pulling at her clothes to straighten them after our brief tussle. I checked her for any other weapons but found nothing.

“Why should Maggie force a wedge between our happiness?” she demanded angrily. “Everything would be so
wonderful
between my darling Stephen and I — why am I the victim? I, who only wanted to do good and help everyone — especially Maggie!”

“It’s called drama,” replied Havisham wearily. “Are you going to tell us where you got the rifle or not?”

“Not. You can’t stop me. Maybe they’ll get away, but I can be here ready and waiting on the next reading — or even the one after that! Think you have enough Jurisfiction agents to put Maggie under constant protection?”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” replied Miss Havisham, looking her squarely in the eye. “Is that your final word?”

“It is.”

“Then you are under arrest for attempted Fiction Infraction, contrary to Ordinance FMB/0608999 of the Narrative Continuity Code. By the power invested in me by the Council of Genres, I sentence you to banishment outside
Mill on the Floss
. Move.”

Miss Havisham ordered me to cuff Lucy and, once I had, held on to me as we jumped into the Great Library. Lucy, for an arrested ad-libber, didn’t seem too put out.

“You can’t imprison me,” she said as we walked along the corridor of the twenty-third floor. “I reappear in Maggie’s dream seven pages from now. If I’m not there, you’ll be in more trouble than you know what to do with. This could mean your job, Miss Havisham! Back to Satis House — for good.”

“Would it mean that?” I asked, suddenly wondering whether Miss Havisham wasn’t exceeding her authority.

“It would mean the same as it did the last time,” replied Havisham, “absolutely
nothing
.”

“Last time?” queried Lucy. “But this is the first time I’ve tried something like this!”

“No,” replied Miss Havisham, “no, it most certainly is not.”

Miss Havisham pointed out a book entitled
The curious experience of the Patterson Family on the island of Uffa
and told me to open it. We were soon inside, on the foreshore of a Scottish island in the late spring.

“What do you mean?” asked Lucy, looking around her as her earlier confidence evaporated to be replaced by growing panic. “What is this place?”

“It is a prison, Miss Deane.”

“A prison? A prison for whom?”

“For them,” said Havisham, indicating several identically youthful and fair-complexioned Lucy Deanes, who had broken cover and were staring in our direction. Our Lucy Deane looked at us, then at her identical sisters, then back to us again.

“I’m sorry!” she said, dropping to her knees. “Give me another chance — please!”

“Take heart in that this doesn’t make you a bad person,” said Miss Havisham. “You just have a repetitive character disorder. You are a serial ad-libber and the seven hundred and ninety-sixth Lucy we have had to imprison here. In less civilized times you would have been reduced to text. Good day.”

And we vanished back to the corridors of the Great Library.

“And to think she was the most pleasant person in
Floss
!” I said, shaking my head sadly.

“You’ll find that the most righteous characters are the first ones to go loco down here. The average life of a Lucy Deane is about a thousand readings; self-righteous indignation kicks in after that. No one could believe it when David Copperfield killed his first wife, either. Good day, Chesh.”

The Cheshire Cat had appeared on a high shelf, grinning to us, itself and anything else in view.

“Well!” said the Cat. “Next and Havisham! Problems with Lucy Deane?”

“The usual. Can you get the Well to send in the replacement as soon as possible?”

The Cat assured us he would, seemed crestfallen that I hadn’t brought him any Moggilicious cat food and vanished again.

“We need to find out anything unusual about Perkins’s death,” said Miss Havisham. “Will you help?”

“Of course!” I enthused.

Miss Havisham smiled a rare smile. “You remind me of myself, all those years ago, before that rat Compeyson brought my happiness to an end.”

She moved closer and narrowed her eyes. “We keep this to ourselves. Knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Start poking around in the workings of Jurisfiction and you may find more than you bargained for — just remember that.”

She fell silent for a few moments.

“But first, we need to get you fully licensed as a Jurisfiction agent — there’s a limit to what you can do as an apprentice. Did you finish the multiple choice?”

I nodded.

“Good. Then you can do your practical exam today. I’ll go and organize it while you take your Eject-O-Hat to Juris Tech.”

She melted into the air about me and I walked off down the library corridor towards the elevators. I passed Falstaff, who invited me to dance around his maypole. I told him to sod off, of course, and pressed the elevator call button. The doors opened a minute later and I stepped in. But it wasn’t empty. With me were Emperor Zhark and Mrs. Tiggy-winkle.

“Which floor?” asked Zhark.

“First, please.”

He pressed the button with a long and finely manicured finger and continued his conversation with Mrs. Tiggy-winkle.