1953-1985

They say the job ages you—and it had aged Filbert a lot. Perhaps it had been for the best when he didn’t call after the accident. It couldn’t have worked and the break-up when it came—as it surely would—might have been too painful. I placed a small stone atop his headstone and bid him adieu.

‘You were lucky,’ said a voice. I turned and saw a short man in an expensive dark suit sitting on the bench opposite.

‘I’m sorry?’ I asked, taken aback by the intrusion into my thoughts. The small man smiled and stared at me intently.

‘I’d like to speak to you about Acheron, Miss Next.’

‘It’s one of the rivers that flow to the underworld,’ I told him. ‘Try the local library under Greek Mythology.’

‘I was referring to the person.’

I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out who he was. He wore a small porkpie hat balanced on top of a rounded head that had been crew-cut like a tennis ball. His features were sharp, his lips thin, and he was not what you’d call an attractive-looking human being. He sported heavy gold jewellery and a diamond tiepin that twinkled like a star. His patent-leather brogues were covered in white spats and a gold watch chain dangled from his waistcoat pocket. He was not alone. A young man also in a dark suit with a bulge where a pistol should be was standing next to him. I had been so wrapped up in my own thoughts I hadn’t noticed them approach. I figured they were SpecOps Internal Affairs or something; I guessed that Flanker and Co. weren’t finished with me yet.

‘Hades is dead,’ I replied simply, unwilling to get embroiled.

‘You don’t seem to think so.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve been given six months off due to work-related stress. The shrink reckons I’m suffering from false memory syndrome and hallucinations. I shouldn’t believe anything I say, if I were you—and that includes what I just told you.’

The small man smiled again, displaying a large gold tooth.

‘I don’t believe you’re suffering from stress at all, Miss Next. I think you’re as sane as I am. If someone who survived the Crimea, the police and then eight years of tricky LiteraTec work came to me and told me that Hades was still alive, I’d listen to them.’

‘And who might you be?’

He handed me a gold-edged card with the dark blue Goliath Corporation logo embossed on it.

‘The name’s Schitt,’ he replied, ‘Jack Schitt.’

I shrugged. The card told me he was head of Goliath’s internal security service, a shadowy organisation that was well outside government; by constitutional decree they were answerable to no one. The Goliath Corporation had honorary members in both houses and financial advisers at the Treasury. The judiciary was well represented with Goliath people on the selection panel for High Court judges, and most major universities had a Goliath overseer living within the faculty. No one ever noticed how much they influenced the running of the country, which perhaps shows how good at it they were. Yet, for all Goliath’s outward benevolence, there were murmurs of dissent over the Corporation’s continued privilege. Their public servants were unelected by the people or the government and their activities enshrined in statute. It was a brave politician who dared to voice disquiet.

I sat next to him on the bench. He dismissed his henchman.

‘So what’s your interest in Hades, Mr Schitt?’

‘I want to know if he’s alive or dead.’

‘You read the coroner’s report, didn’t you?’

‘It only told me that a man of Hades’ height, stature and teeth was incinerated in a car. Hades has got out of worse scrapes than that. I read your report; much more interesting. Quite why those clowns in SO-1 dismissed it out of hand I have no idea. With Tamworth dead you’re the only operative who knows anything about him. I’m not really concerned about whose fault it was that night. What I want to know is this: what was Acheron going to do with the manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit? ’

‘Extortion, perhaps?’ I ventured.

‘Possibly. Where is it now?’

‘Wasn’t it with him?’

‘No,’ replied Schitt evenly. ‘In your testimony you said he took it with him in a leather case. No trace was found of it in the burnt-out car. If he did survive, so did the manuscript.’

I looked at him blankly, wondering where all this was going.

‘He must have passed it to an accomplice, then.’

‘Possibly. The manuscript could be worth up to five million on the black market, Miss Next. A lot of money, don’t you think?’

‘What are you suggesting?’ I asked sharply, my temper rising.

‘Nothing at all; but your testimony and Acheron’s corpse don’t really add up, do they? You said that you shot him after he killed the young officer.’

‘His name was Snood,’ I said pointedly.

‘Whoever. But the burned corpse had no gunshot wounds despite the many times you shot him when he was disguised as Buckett or the old woman.’

‘Her name was Mrs Grimswold.’

I stared at him. Schitt continued.

‘I saw the flattened slugs. You would have got the same effect if you had fired them into a wall.’

‘If you have a point, why don’t you get to it?’

Schitt unscrewed the cap of a Thermos flask and offered it to me. I refused; he poured himself a drink and continued:

‘I think you know more than you say you do. We only have your word for the events of that night. Tell me, Miss Next, what was Hades planning to use the manuscript for?’

‘I told you: I have no idea.’

‘Then why are you going to work as a LiteraTec in Swindon?’

‘It was all I could get.’

‘That’s not true. Your work has been consistently assessed above average and your record states that you haven’t been back to Swindon in ten years despite your family living there. A note appended to your file speaks of “romantic tensions”. Man trouble in Swindon?’

‘None of your business.’

‘In my line of work I find there is very little that isn’t my business. There are a host of other things a woman with your talents could do, but to go back to Swindon? Something tells me you have another motive.’

‘Does it really say all that in my file?’

‘It does.’

‘What colour are my eyes?’

Schitt ignored me and took a sip of coffee.

‘Colombian. The best. You think Hades is alive, Next. I think you have an idea where he is and I’m willing to guess that he is in Swindon and that’s why you’re going there. Am I correct?’

I looked him straight in the eye. ‘No. I’m just going home to sort myself out.’

Jack Schitt remained unconvinced. ‘I don’t believe there is such a thing as stress, Next. Just weak people and strong people. Only strong people survive men like Hades. You’re a strong person.’

He paused. ‘If you change your mind, you can call me. But be warned. I’ll be keeping a close eye on you.’

‘Do as you will, Mr Schitt, but I’ve got a question for you.’

‘Yes?’

‘What’s your interest in Hades?’

Jack Schitt smiled again.

‘I’m afraid that’s classified, Miss Next. Good day.’

He tipped his hat, rose and left. A black Ford with smoked-glass windows pulled up outside the cemetery and drove him quickly away.

I sat and thought. I had lied to the police psychiatrist in saying I was fit for work and lied to Jack Schitt in saying that I wasn’t. If Goliath were interested in Hades and the Chuzzlewit manuscript, it could only be for financial gain. The Goliath Corporation was to altruism what Genghis Khan was to soft furnishings. Money came first to Goliath and nobody trusted them farther than they could throw them. They may have rebuilt England after the Second War, they may have re-established the economy. But sooner or later the renewed nation had to stand on its own and Goliath was seen now as less of a benevolent uncle than a despotic stepfather.