The well of lost plots (34 page)

We returned to the elevator and Miss Havisham pressed the twenty-sixth subbasement button. We were going back into the Well.

“Good,” she said, “now that’s out of the way we can get on. Perkins and Mathias we can safely say were murdered; Snell might as well have been. We are still waiting for Godot and someone tried to kill you with an exploding hat. As an apprentice you have limited powers; as a full member of Jurisfiction you can do a lot more. You must be on your guard!”

“But why?”

“Because I don’t want you dead, and if you know what’s good for you, neither do you.”

“No, I mean why is someone trying to kill me?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Let’s suppose,” I said, “that Deane isn’t just missing — that he might have been murdered. Is there a link between Perkins, Deane, Mathias, and myself?”

“None that I can think of,” said Miss Havisham after a great deal of thought, “but if we consider that Mathias might have been killed because he was a witness, and that one of your Outlander friends might be trying to kill
you
, then that narrows the list to Perkins and Deane. And there
is
a link between those two.”

“Yes?”

“Harris Tweed, myself, Perkins and Deane were all given an Ultra Word™ book to test.”

“I didn’t know this.”

“No one did. I can only tell you now because you are a full agent — didn’t you hear what was in the pledge?”

“I see,” I said slowly. “What’s Ultra Word™ like?”

“As Libris states: ‘the ultimate reading experience.’ The first thing that hits you is the music and color.”

“What about the new plots?”

“I didn’t see that,” confessed Miss Havisham as the elevator doors opened. “We were all given a copy of
The Little Prince
updated with the new operating system — but PageGlow™, WordBuddy™, PlotPotPlus™ and ReadZip™ are all quite dazzling in their simplicity.”

“That’s good.”

“But something just doesn’t seem right.”

“That’s not so good.”

The doors of the elevator opened and we walked along the corridor to where the Text Sea opened out in front of us, the roof of the corridor lifting higher and higher until it had no discernible end, just swirling patterns of punctuation forming into angry storm clouds. Scrawltrawlers rode gently at their moorings at the dockside while the day’s wordcatch was auctioned off.

“Like what? A problem with the system?”

“I wish I knew,” said Miss Havisham, “but try as I might I couldn’t make the book do anything it shouldn’t. In BOOK V7.2 you could force an uncommanded translation into Esperanto by subjecting the book to a high-g maneuver. In BOOK V6.3 the verb
to eat
conflicted with any description of a pangolin and caused utter mayhem with the tenses. I’ve tried everything to get Ultra Word™ to fail, but it’s steady as a rock.”

We walked beyond the harbor to where large pipes spewed jumbled letters back into the Text Sea amidst a strong smell of rubber.
¹

“This is where the words end up when you erase them in the Outland,” mentioned Miss Havisham as we strolled past. “Anything the matter?”

“Junkfootnoterphones again,” I muttered, trying to screen the rubbish out, “a scam of some sort, I think. What makes you believe anything
is
the trouble with Ultra Word™?”

“Well,” said Havisham slowly, “Perkins called me the night before he died. He said he had a surprising discovery but didn’t want to talk over the footnoterphone.”

“Was it about Ultra Word™?”

Havisham shrugged. “To be truthful, I don’t know. It’s possible — but it could have been about Deane just as easily.”

The road petered out into a beach formed by shards of broken letters. This was where novels met their end. Beneath the leaden skies the books — here taking the appearance of seven-story buildings — were cast high upon the shore, any plot devices and settings of any use torn out to be sold as salvage. The remaining hulks were then pulled to pieces by Generics working in teams with nothing more high-tech than crowbars, cutting torches and chains, stripping the old novels back into words, which were tipped into the sea by wheelbarrow gangs, the words dissolving back into letters, their meaning burning off into a slight bluish haze that collected at the foreshore.

We arrived at the copy of
The Squire of High Potternews
. It looked dark and somber here on the shore of the Text Sea. Anyone trying to find a copy in the Outland would have a great deal of trouble; when Text Grand Central withdraw a book, they really mean it.

The book was resting on its end and was slightly open. A large tape had been run round the outside that read
Jurisfiction, Do Not Cross
.

“Looking for something?”

It was Harris Tweed and Uriah Hope; they jumped down from the book and looked at us curiously.

“Good evening, Harris,” said Miss Havisham. “We were trying to find Deane.”

“Me, too. Have a look around if you wish, but I’m damned if I can find a single clue as to his whereabouts.”

“Has anyone tried to kill you recently?” I asked.

“Me?” replied Harris. “No. Why, should they?”

I told him about the Ultra Word™ connection.

“It’s possible that there might be a link,” he mused, “but I gave UltraWord™ the fullest test; it seemed to work extremely well no matter
what
I did! Do you have any idea what Perkins had discovered?”

“We don’t know he found anything wrong at all,” said Havisham.

Harris thought for a moment. “I think we should definitely keep this to ourselves,” he said at last, “and take great care what we do. If Deane is about and had anything to do with Perkins’s death, he might be after you or I next.”

Havisham agreed, told me to go see Professor Plum to see if he could shed any more light on the failed Eject-O-Hat and vanished after telling me she had an urgent appointment to keep.

When she had gone, Harris said to me, “Keep an eye on the old girl, won’t you?”

I promised I would and made my way back towards the elevators, deep in thought.

///. .//. ./////. . . . . ./////. . ././. . . . . . .//. ./. ././//. . .//////. . . . . .///.///.///// /////. . . . . . . . . .///////. . . . . .////////. . . . . . .//. .

///////. . . . . ./////. . ././. . . . . . .//. ./. ././//. . .//////. . . . . .///.///.////////// . . . . . . . . . .///////. . . . . .///////. . . . . . . . . .///////. . . . . .////////. . . . . . .//. . ///////. . . . . ./////. . ././. . . . . . ./////////. ./////. . . . . . . . . .///////. . . . . ./////// /. . . . . . .//. . ///////. . . . . .///. . . .///////. . . . . .////////. . . . . . .//. . ///////. . . . . ./////. . ././. . . . . . .//. ./. ././//. . .//////. . . . . .///.///.////////// . . . . . . . . . .///////. . . . . ./

Macbeth for Yeast
, translated by . .////. .///. .

“AH!” SAID PLUM as I walked into his office. “Miss Next — good news and bad news.”

“Better give me the bad news first.”

Plum took off his spectacles and polished them.

“The Eject-O-Hat. I’ve pulled the records and traced the manufacturing process all the way back to the original milliner; it seems that over a hundred people have been involved in it’s manufacture, modification and overhaul schedules. Fifteen years is a long service life for an Eject-O-Hat. Add the people with the know-how and we’ve got a shortlist of about six hundred.”

“A broad net.”

“I’m afraid so.”

I went to the window and looked out. Two peacocks were strutting across the lawn.

“What was the good news?”

“You know Miss Scarlett at records?”

“Yes?”

“We’re getting married on Tuesday.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you. Was there anything else?”

“I don’t think so,” I replied, walking to the door. “Thanks for your help.”

“My pleasure!” he replied kindly. “Tell Miss Havisham she should get a new Eject-O-Hat — this one is quite beyond repair.”

“It wasn’t Havisham’s, it was mine.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re mistaken,” he said after a pause. “Look.”

He pulled the battered homburg from his desk and showed me Havisham’s name etched on the sweatband with a number, manufacturing details and size.

“But,” I said slowly, “I was wearing this hat in—”

The awful truth dawned. There must have been a mix-up with the hats. They hadn’t been trying to kill me that day —
they had been after Miss Havisham
!

“Problems?” said Plum.

“Of the worst sort,” I muttered. “Can I use your footnoterphone?”

I didn’t wait for a reply; I picked up the brass horn and asked for Miss Havisham. She wasn’t in the Well, nor
Great Expectations
. I replaced the speaking horn and jumped to the lobby of the Great Library, where the general stores were situated; if anyone knew what Havisham was up to, it would be Wemmick.

Mr. Wemmick wasn’t busy; he was reading a newspaper with his feet on the counter.

“Miss Next!” he said happily, getting up to shake my hand warmly. “What can I do for you?”

“Miss Havisham,” I blurted out, “do you know where she is?”

Wemmick squirmed inwardly. “I’m not sure she’d like me to tell—”

“Wemmick!” I cried. “Someone tried to kill Miss Havisham and they may try again!”

He looked shocked and bit his lip. “I don’t know
where
she is,” he said slowly, “but I know what she’s doing.”

My heart sank. “It’s another land speed attempt, isn’t it?”

He nodded miserably.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. She said the Higham wasn’t powerful enough. She signed out the Bluebird, a twin-engined, twenty-five-hundred horsepower brute of a car — it almost didn’t fit in the storeroom.”

“Do you have any idea where she’s going to drive it?”

“None at all.”

“Damn!” I yelled, slamming my hand against the counter. “Think, Thursday, think!”

I had an idea. I grasped the footnoterphone and asked to be put through to Mr. Toad from
Wind in the Willows
. He wasn’t in but Ratty was; and after I had explained who I was and what I wanted, he gave me the information I needed. Havisham and Mr. Toad were racing on Pendine sands, in the Socialist Republic of Wales.

I ran up the stairs and to the works of Dylan Thomas, picked up a slim volume of poetry and concentrated on my exit point in the Outland. To my delight it worked and I was catapulted out of fiction and into an untidy heap in a small bookshop in Laugharne, Thomas’s old village in the south of Wales. Now a shrine for Welsh and non-Welsh visitors alike, the bookshop was one of eight in the village selling nothing but Welsh literature and Thomas memorabilia.

There was a scream from a startled book buyer as I appeared, and I stepped backwards in alarm only to fall over a pile of Welsh cookery books. I got up and ran from the shop as a car screeched to a halt in front of me. Pendine sands with its ten miles of flat beach was down the coast from Laugharne and I would need transport to get me there.

I showed the driver my Jurisfiction badge, which
looked
official even if it meant nothing, and said, in my very best Welsh, “Esgipysgod fi ond ble mae bws i Pendine?”

She got the message and drove me along the road towards Pendine. Before we arrived I could see the Bluebird on the sands, together with Mr. Toad’s car and a small group of people. The tide was out and a broad expanse of inviting smooth sand greeted Miss Havisham. As I watched, my pulse racing, two plumes of black smoke erupted from the back of the record-breaker as the engines fired up. Even through the window I could hear the guttural cry of the engines.

“Dewch ymlaen!” I urged the driver, and we swerved onto the car park just near the statue of John Parry Thomas. I ran down onto the beach, arms waving and yelling, but no one heard me above the roar of the engines, and even if they had, there was little reason for them to take any notice.

“Hi!” I shouted. “Miss Havisham!”

I ran as fast as I could but only exhausted myself so that I ran slower with every passing step.

“Stop!” I yelled, getting weaker and breathless. “For pity’s sake — !”

But it was too late. With another deep growl the car moved off and started to gather speed across the sand. I stopped and dropped to my knees, trying to gulp deep lungfuls of air, my heart racing. The car hurtled away from me, the engine roar fading as she tore along the hard sand. I watched it go at medium speed to the far end of the beach, then turn in a large arc for the first of her two runs. The engine growled again, rising to a high scream as the car gathered speed, the driving wheels throwing a shower of sand and pebbles far behind it. I willed her to be safe and for nothing to happen, and indeed, nothing did until she was decelerating after the first run. I was breathing a sigh of relief when one of the front wheels broke loose and was dragged beneath the car, throwing it up into the air. The front edge of the bodywork dug into the sand and the car swerved violently sideways. I heard a cry of fear from the small crowd and a series of sickening thuds as the car rolled end over end down the beach, the engine screaming out of control as the wheels gripped nothing but air. It came to rest right way up not five hundred yards from me, and I ran towards it. I was three hundred yards away when the petrol tank ignited in a mushroom of fire that lifted the three-ton car from the sand. When I got there, I jumped onto the front of the car and pulled Miss Havisham from the burning wreck, dragged her clear and rolled her on the sand to extinguish the flames.

“Water!” I cried. “Water for her burns!”

The small crowd of onlookers were hopeless and could do nothing but stare at us in shock as I used my pocketknife to cut away the burnt remnants of her wedding veil. I winced as I worked — she was horribly burned.

“Thursday?” she murmured, although she couldn’t see me. “Please — please take me home.”

I’d never jumped dual, taking someone with me, but I did it now. I jumped clean out of Pendine and into
Great Expectations
, right into Miss Havisham’s room at Satis House, next to the rotting wedding party that never was, the darkened room, the clocks stopped at twenty to nine. It was the place where I had first seen her all those weeks ago, and it would be the place I saw her last. I laid her on the bed and tried to make her comfortable.