10. The Finis Hotel, Swindon

I pulled into a parking place in front of the large floodlit building and locked the car. The hotel seemed to be quite busy, and as soon as I walked into the lobby I could see why. At least two dozen men and women were milling about dressed in large white baggy shirts and breeches. My heart sank. A large notice near reception welcomed all comers to the I I2th Annual John Milton Convention. I took a deep breath and fought my way to the reception desk. A middle-aged receptionist with oversize earrings gave me her best welcoming smile.

‘Good evening, madam, welcome to the Finis, the last word in comfort and style. We are a four-star hotel with many modern features and services. Our sincere wish is to make your stay a happy one!’

She recited it like a mantra. I could see her working at SmileyBurger just as easily.

‘The name’s Next. I have a reservation.’

The receptionist nodded and flicked through the reservation cards.

‘Let’s see. Milton, Milton, Milton, Milton, Milton, Next, Milton, Milton, Milton, Milton, Milton, Milton. No, sorry. It doesn’t look like we have a booking for you.’

‘Could you check again?’

She looked again and found it.

‘Here it is. Someone had put it with the Miltons by accident. I’ll need an imprint of a major credit card. We take: Babbage, Goliath, Newton, Pascal, Breakfast Club and Jam Roly-Poly.’

‘Jam Roly-Poly?’

‘Sorry,’ she said sheepishly, ‘wrong list. That’s the choice of puddings tonight.’ She smiled again as I passed over my Babbage charge-card.

‘You’re in Room 8128,’ she said, handing me my key attached to a key-ring so large I could barely lift it. ‘All our rooms are fully air-conditioned and are equipped with mini-bar and tea-making equipment. Did you park your car in our spacious three-hundred-place self-draining carpark?’

I hid a smile.

‘Thank you, I did. Do you have any pet facilities?’

‘Of course. All Finis hotels have full kennel facilities. What sort of pet?’

‘A dodo.’

‘How sweet! My cousin Arnold had a great auk once called Beany—he was Version 1.4 so didn’t live long. I understand they’re a lot better these days. I’ll reserve your little friend a place. Enjoy your stay. I hope you have an interest in seventeenth-century lyrical poets.’

‘Only professionally.’

‘Lecturer?’

‘LiteraTec.’

‘Ah.’

The receptionist leaned closer and lowered her voice. ‘To tell you the truth, Miss Next, I hate Milton. His early stuff is okay, I suppose, but he disappeared up his own arse after Charlie got his head lopped off. Goes to show what too much republicanism does for you.’

‘Quite.’

‘I almost forgot. These are for you.’

She produced a bunch of flowers from under the desk as if in a conjuring trick.

‘From a Mr Landen Parke-Laine—‘

Blast. Rumbled.

‘—and there are two gentlemen waiting in the Cheshire Cat for you.’

‘The Cheshire Cat?’

‘It’s our fully stocked and lively bar. Tended to by professional and helpful bar staff, it is a warm and welcoming area in which to relax.’

‘Who are they?’

‘The bar staff?’

‘No, the two gentlemen.’

‘They didn’t give any names.’

‘Thank you, Miss—?’

‘Barrett-Browning,’ said the receptionist, ‘Liz Barrett-Browning.’

‘Well, Liz, keep the flowers. Make your boyfriend jealous. If Mr Parke-Laine calls again, tell him I died of haemorrhagic fever or something.’

I pushed my way through the throng of Miltons and on to the Cheshire Cat. It was easy to find. Above the door was a large red neon cat on a green neon tree. Every couple of minutes the red neon flickered and went out, leaving the cat’s grin on its own in the tree. The sound of a jazz band reached my ears from the bar as I walked across the lobby, and a smile crossed my lips as I heard the unmistakable piano of Holroyd Wilson. He was a Swindon man, born and bred. He could have played any bar in Europe with one phone call, but he had chosen to remain in Swindon. The bar was busy but not packed, the clientele mostly Miltons, who were sitting around drinking and joking, lamenting the Restoration and referring to each other as John.

I went up to the bar. It was happy hour in the Cheshire Cat, any drink for 52.5 p.

‘Good evening,’ said the barman. ‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’

‘Because Poe wrote on both?’

‘Very good.’ He laughed. ‘What’s it to be?’

‘A half of Vorpal’s special, please. The name’s Next. Anyone waiting for me?’

The barman, who was dressed like a hatter, indicated a booth on the other side of the room in which two men were sitting, partially obscured by shadows. I took my drink and walked over. The room was too full for anyone to start any trouble. As I drew closer I could see the two men more clearly.

The elder of the two was a grey-haired gentleman in his mid-seventies. He had large mutton-chop sideburns and was dressed in a neat tweed suit with a silk bow tie. His hands were holding a pair of brown gloves on top of his walking stick and I could see a deerstalker hat on the seat next to him. His face had a ruddy appearance, and as I approached he threw back his head and laughed like a seal at something the younger man had said.

The man opposite him was aged about thirty. He sat on the front of his seat in a slightly nervous manner. He sipped at a tonic water and wore a pin-stripe suit that was expensive but had seen better days. I knew I had seen him before somewhere but couldn’t think where.

‘You gentlemen looking for me?’

They both got up together. The elder of the two spoke first.

‘Miss Next? Delighted to make your acquaintance. The name’s Analogy. Victor Analogy. Head of Swindon LiteraTecs. We spoke on the phone.’

He offered his hand and I shook it.

‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’

‘This is Operative Bowden Cable. You’ll be working together.’

‘I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, madam,’ said Bowden quite grandly, slightly awkwardly and very stiffly.

‘Have we met before?’ I asked, shaking his outstretched hand.

‘No,’ said Bowden firmly. ‘I would have remembered.’

Victor offered me a seat next to Bowden, who shuffled up making polite noises. I took a sip of my drink. It tasted like old horse blankets soaked in urine. I coughed explosively. Bowden offered me his handkerchief.

‘Vorpal’s special?’ said Victor, raising an eyebrow. ‘Brave girl.’

‘Th-thank you.’

‘Welcome to Swindon,’ continued Victor. ‘First of all I’d like to say how sorry we were to hear about your little incident. By all accounts Hades was a monster. I’m not sorry he died. I hope you are quite recovered?’

‘I am, but others were not so fortunate.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, but you are very welcome here. No one of your calibre has ever bothered to join us in this backwater before.’

I looked at Analogy and was slightly puzzled. ‘I’m not sure I understand what you’re driving at.’

‘What I mean—not to put too fine a point on it—is all of us in the office are more academics than typical SpecOp agents. Your post was held by Jim Crometty. He was shot dead in the old town during a book buy that went wrong. He was Bowden’s partner. Jim was a very special friend to us all; he had a wife, three kids. I want… no, I want very badly the person who took Crometty from us.’

I stared at their earnest faces with some confusion until the penny dropped. They thought I was a full and pukka SO-5 operative on a rest-and-recuperation assignment. It wasn’t unusual. Back at SO-27 we used to get worn-out characters from SO-9 and SO-7 all the time. Without exception they had all been mad as pants.

‘You’ve read my file?’ I asked slowly.

‘They wouldn’t release it,’ replied Analogy. ‘It’s not often we get an operative moving to our little band from the dizzy heights of SpecOps 5. We needed a replacement with good field experience but also someone who can… well, how shall I put it—?’

Analogy paused, apparently at a loss for words. Bowden answered for him.

‘We need someone who isn’t frightened to use extreme force if deemed necessary.’

I looked at them both, wondering whether it would be better to come clean; after all, the only thing I had shot recently was my own car and a seemingly bullet-proof master criminal. I was officially SO-27, not SO-5. But with the strong possibility of Acheron still being around, and revenge still high on my agenda, perhaps it would be better to play along.

Analogy shuffled nervously.

‘Crometty’s murder is being looked after by Homicide, of course. Unofficially we can’t do a great deal, but SpecOps has always prided itself on a certain independence. If we uncovered any evidence in the pursuit of other enquiries, it would not be frowned upon. Do you understand?’

‘Sure. Do you have any idea who killed Crometty?’

‘Someone said that they had something for him to see, to buy. A rare Dickens manuscript. He went to see it and… well, he wasn’t armed, you know.’

‘Few LiteraTecs in Swindon even know how to use a firearm,’ added Bowden, ‘and training for many of them is out of the question. Literary detection and firearms don’t really go hand in hand; pen mightier than the sword and so forth.’

‘Words are all very well,’ I replied coolly, suddenly enjoying the SO-5 women-of-mystery stuff, ‘but a nine-millimetre really gets to the root of the problem.’

They stared at me in silence for a second or two. Victor drew out a photograph from a buff envelope and placed it on the table in front of me.

‘We’d like your opinion on this. It was taken yesterday.’

I looked at the photo. I knew the face well enough. ‘Jack Schitt.’

‘And what do you know about him?’

‘Not much. He’s head of Goliath’s Internal Security Service. He wanted to know what Hades had planned to do with the Chuzzlewit manuscript.’

‘I’ll let you into a secret. You’re right that Schitt’s Goliath but he’s not Internal Security.’

‘What, then?’

‘Advanced Weapons Division. Eight billion annual budget and it all goes through him.’

‘Eight billion?’

‘And loose change. Rumour has it they even went over that budget to develop the plasma rifle. He’s intelligent, ambitious and quite inflexible. He came here two weeks ago. He wouldn’t be in Swindon at all unless there was something here that Goliath found of great interest; we think Crometty went to see the original manuscript of Chuzzlewit and if that is so—‘

‘—Schitt is here because I am,’ I announced suddenly. ‘He thought it suspicious that I should want an SO-27 job in Swindon of all places—no offence meant.’

‘None taken,’ replied Analogy. ‘But Schitt being here makes me think that Hades is still about—or at the very least Goliath think so.’

‘I know,’ I replied. ‘Worrying, isn’t it?’

Analogy and Cable looked at one another. They had made the points they wanted to make: I was welcome here, they were keen to avenge Crometty’s death, and they didn’t like Jack Schitt. They wished me a pleasant evening, donned their hats and coats and were gone.

The jazz number came to an end. I joined in the applause as Holroyd got shakily to his feet and waved at the crowd before leaving. The bar thinned out rapidly once the music had finished, leaving me almost alone. I looked to my right, where two Miltons were busy making eyes at one another, and then at the bar, where several suited business reps were drinking as much as they could on their overnight allowance. I walked over to the piano and sat down. I struck a few chords, testing my arm at first, then becoming more adventurous as I played the lower half of a duet I remembered. I looked at the barman to order another drink but he was busy drying a glass. As the intro for the top part of the duet came round for the third time, a man’s hand reached in and played the first note of the upper part exactly on time. I closed my eyes; I knew who it was instantly, but I wasn’t going to look up. I could smell his aftershave and noticed the scar on his left hand. The hair on the back of my neck bristled slightly and I felt a flush rise within me. I instinctively moved to the left and let him sit down. His fingers drifted across the keys with mine, the two of us playing together almost flawlessly. The barman looked on approvingly, and even the suited salesmen stopped talking and looked around to see who was playing. Still I did not look up. As my hands grew more accustomed to that long-unplayed tune I grew confident and played faster. My unwatched partner kept up the tempo to match me.

We played like this for perhaps ten minutes, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I knew that if I did I would smile and I didn’t want to do that. I wanted him to know I was still pissed off. Then he could charm me. When the piece finally came to an end I continued to stare ahead. The man next to me didn’t move.

‘Hello, Landen,’ I said finally.

‘Hello, Thursday.’

I played a couple of notes absently but still didn’t look up.

‘It’s been a long time,’ I said.

‘A lot of water under the bridge,’ he replied. ‘Ten years’ worth.’

His voice sounded the same. The warmth and sensitivity I had once known so well were still there. I looked up at him, caught his gaze and looked away quickly. I had felt my eyes moisten. I was embarrassed by my feelings and scratched my nose nervously. He had gone slightly grey but he wore his hair in much the same manner. There were slight wrinkles around his eyes, but they might just as easily have been from laughing as from age. He was thirty when I walked out; I had been twenty-six. I wondered whether I had aged as well as he had. Was I too old to still hold a grudge? After all, getting into a strop with Landen wasn’t going to bring Anton back. I felt an urge to ask him if it was too late to try again, but as I opened my mouth the world juddered to a halt. The D sharp I had just pressed kept on sounding and Landen stared at me, his eyes frozen in mid-blink. Dad’s timing could not have been worse.

‘Hello, Sweetpea!’ he said, walking up to me out of the shadows. ‘Am I disturbing anything?’

‘Most definitely—yes.’

‘I won’t be long, then. What do you make of this?’

He handed me a yellow curved thing about the size of a large carrot.

‘What is it?’ I asked, smelling it cautiously.

‘It’s the fruit of a new plant designed completely from scratch seventy years from now. Look—‘

He peeled the skin off and let me taste it.

‘Good, eh? You can pick it well before ripe, transport it thousands of miles if necessary and it will keep fresh in its own hermetically sealed biodegradable packaging. Nutritious and tasty, too. It was sequenced by a brilliant engineer named Anna Bannon. We’re a bit lost as to what to call it. Any ideas?’

‘I’m sure you’ll think of something. What are you going to do with it?’

‘I thought I’d introduce it somewhere in the tenth millennium before the present one and see how it goes—food for mankind, that sort of thing. Well, time waits for no man, as we say. I’ll let you get back to Landen.’

The world flickered and started up again. Landen opened his eyes and stared at me.

‘Banana,’ I said, suddenly realising what it was that my father had shown me.

‘Pardon?’

‘Banana. They named it after the designer.’

‘Thursday, you’re making no sense at all,’ said Landen with a bemused grin.

‘My dad was just here.’

‘Ah. Is he still of all time?’

‘Still the same. Listen, I’m sorry about what happened.’

‘Me too,’ replied Landen, then lapsed into silence. I wanted to touch his face but I said instead:

‘I missed you.’

It was the wrong thing to say and I cursed myself; too much, too soon. Landen shuffled uneasily.

‘You should take aim more carefully. I missed you a lot, too. The first year was the worst.’

Landen paused for a moment. He played a few notes on the piano and then said: ‘I have a life and I like it here. Sometimes I think that Thursday Next was just a character from one of my novels, someone I made up in the image of the woman I wanted to love. Now… well, I’m over it.’

It wasn’t really what I was hoping to hear, but after all that had happened I couldn’t blame him.

‘But you came to find me.’

Landen smiled at me. ‘You’re in my town, Thurs. When a friend comes in from out of town, you look them up. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?’

‘And you buy them flowers? Does Colonel Phelps get roses too?’

‘No, he gets lilies. Old habits die hard.’

‘I see. You’ve been doing well for yourself

‘Thanks,’ he replied. ‘You never answered my letters.’

‘I never read your letters.’

‘Are you married?’

‘I can’t see that’s any of your business.’

‘I’ll take that as a no.’

The conversation had taken a turn for the worse. It was time to bale out. ‘Listen, I’m bushed, Landen. I have a very big day ahead of me.’

I got up. Landen limped after me. He had lost a leg in the Crimea but he was well used to it by now. He caught up with me at the bar.

‘Dinner one night?’

I turned to face him. ‘Sure.’

‘Tuesday?’

‘Why not?’

‘Good,’ said Landen, rubbing his hands. ‘We could get the old unit back together—‘

This wasn’t what I had in mind. ‘Hang on. Tuesday’s not very good after all.’

‘Why not? It was fine three seconds ago. Has your dad been round again?’

‘No, I just have a lot of things that I have to do and Pickwick needs kennelling and I have to pick him up at the station as airships make him nervous. You remember the time we took him up to Mull and he vomited all over the steward?’

I checked myself. I was starting to blabber like an idiot.

‘And don’t tell me,’ added Landen, ‘you have to wash your hair?’

‘Very funny.’

‘What work are you doing in Swindon anyway?’ asked Landen.

‘I wash up at SmileyBurger.’

‘Sure you do. SpecOps?’

I nodded my head. ‘I joined Swindon’s LiteraTec unit.’

‘Permanently?’ he asked. ‘I mean, you’ve come back to Swindon for good?’

‘I don’t know.’

I placed my hand on his. I wanted to hug him and burst into tears and tell him I loved him and would always love him like some huge emotional dumb girlie, but time wasn’t quite right, as my father would say. I decided to get on the question offensive instead so I asked:

‘Are you married?’

‘No.’

‘Never thought about it?’

‘I thought about it a lot.’

We both lapsed into silence. There was so much to say that neither of us could think of any way to start. Landen opened a second front: ‘Want to see Richard III?

‘Is it still running?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’m tempted but the fact remains I don’t know when I will be free. Things are… volatile at present.’

I could see he didn’t believe me. I couldn’t really tell him I was on the trail of a master criminal who could steal thoughts and project images at will; who was invisible on film and could murder and laugh as he did so. Landen sighed, dug out a calling card and placed it on the counter.

‘Call me. Whenever you’re free. Promise?’

‘Promise.’

He kissed me on the cheek, finished his drink, looked at me again and limped out of the bar. I was left looking at his calling card. I didn’t pick it up. I didn’t need to. The number was the one I remembered.

My room was exactly like all the other rooms in the hotel. The pictures were screwed to the walls and the drinks in the mini-bar had been opened, drunk, then resealed with water or cold tea by travelling reps too mean to pay for them. The room faced north; I could just see the airship field. A large forty-seater was moored on the mast, its silver flanks floodlit in the dark night. The small dirigible that had brought me in had continued on to Salisbury; I briefly thought about catching it again when it called on its return the day after tomorrow. I turned on the television just in time to catch Today in Parliament. The Crimean debate had been raging all day and wasn’t over yet. I emptied my pockets of loose change, took my automatic out of its shoulder holster and opened the bedside drawer. It was full. Apart from the Gideon’s Bible there were the teachings of Buddha and an English copy of the Koran. There was also a GSD volume of prayer and a Wesleyian pamphlet, two amulets from the Society for Christian Awareness, the thoughts of St Zylkx and the now mandatory Complete Works of William Shakespeare. I removed all the books, stuffed them in the cupboard and placed my automatic in the drawer instead. I unzipped my case and started to organise my room. I hadn’t rented out my apartment in London; I didn’t know if I was staying here or not. Oddly, the town had started to feel very comfortable and I wasn’t sure whether I liked that or not. I laid everything on my bed and then put it carefully away. I placed a few books on the desk and the life-saving copy of Jane Eyre on to the bedside table. I picked up Landen’s photo and walked over to the bureau, thought for a moment and then placed it upside down in my knicker drawer. With the real thing around I had no need for an image. The TV droned on:

‘… despite intervention by the French and a Russian guarantee of safe habitation for English settlers, it looks as though the English government will not be resuming its place around the table at Budapest. With England still adamant about an offensive using the new so-called Stonk plasma rifle, peace will not be descending on the Black Sea peninsula…’

The anchorman shuffled some papers.

‘Home news now, and violence flared again in Chichester as a group of neo-surrealists gathered to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the legalisation of surrealism. On the spot for Toad News Network is Henry Grubb. Henry, how are things down there?’

A shaky live picture came on to the screen, and I stopped for a moment to watch. Behind Grubb was a car that had been overturned and set on fire, and several officers were in riot gear. Henry Grubb, who was in training for the job of Crimean correspondent and secretly hoped that the war wouldn’t end until he had had a chance to get out there, wore a navy blue flak jacket and spoke with the urgent, halting speech of a correspondent in a war zone.

‘Things are a bit hot down here, Brian. I’m a hundred yards from the riot zone and I can see several cars overturned and on fire. The police have been trying to keep the factions apart all day, but the sheer weight of numbers has been against them. This evening several hundred Raphaelites surrounded the N’est pas une pipe public house where a hundred neo-surrealists have barricaded themselves in. The demonstrators outside chanted Italian Renaissance slogans and then stones and missiles were thrown. The neo-surrealists responded by charging the lines protected by large soft watches and seemed to be winning until the police moved in. Wait, I can just see a man arrested by the police. I’ll try and get an interview.’

I shook my head sadly and put some shoes in the bottom of the wardrobe. There was violence when surrealism was banned and there was violence as the same ban was lifted. Grubb continued his broadcast as he intercepted a policeman marching away a youth dressed in sixteenth-century garb with a faithful reproduction of the Hand of God from the Sistine chapel tattooed on his face.

‘Excuse me, sir, how would you counter the criticism that you are an intolerant bunch with little respect for the value of change and experimentation in all aspects of art?’

The Renaissancite glanced at the camera with an angry scowl.

‘People say we’re just Renaissancites causing trouble, but I’ve seen Baroque kids, Raphaelites, Romantics and Mannerists here tonight. It’s a massive show of classical artistic unity against these frivolous bastards who cower beneath the safety of the word progress. It’s not just—‘

The police officer intervened and dragged him away. Grubb ducked a flying brick and then wound up his report.

‘This is Henry Grubb, reporting for Toad News Network, live from Chichester.’

I turned off the television with a remote that was chained to the bedside table. I sat on the bed and pulled out my hair tie, let my hair down and rubbed my scalp. I sniffed dubiously at my hair and decided against a shower. I had been harder than I intended with Landen. Even with our differences we still had more than enough in common to be good friends.