‘If there were another cheese riot following your Special Report we might look very carefully as to where to place responsibility.’
She looked at the Goliath representative as she said this. The implication wasn’t lost on Schitt-Hawse or Lush. I had heard enough.
‘So I won’t talk about cheese either.’ I sighed. ‘What can I talk about?’
The small group all looked at one another with perplexed expressions. Flanker clicked his fingers as an idea struck him.
‘Don’t you own a dodo?’
2. The Special Operations Network
‘…The Special Operations Network was instigated to handle policing duties considered either too unusual or too specialised to be tackled by the regular force. There were 32 departments in all, starting at the more mundane Horticultural Enforcement Agency (SO-32) and going on to Literary Detectives (SO-27) and Transport Authority (SO-21). Anything below SO-20 was restricted information although it was common knowledge that the ChronoGuard were SO-12 and SO-1 were the department that polices the SpecOps themselves. Quite what the others do is anyone’s guess. What is known is that the individual operatives themselves are mostly ex-military or ex-police. Operatives rarely leave the service after the probationary period has ended. There is a saying: “A SpecOps job isn’t for probation—it’s for life”.’
It was the morning after the transmission of The Adrian Lush Show. I had watched for five minutes, cringed, then fled upstairs to rearrange our sock drawer. I managed to file all the socks by colour, shape and how much I liked them before Landen told me it was all over and I could come back downstairs. It was the last public interview I’d agreed to give, but Cordelia didn’t seem to remember this part of our conversation. She had continued to besiege me with requests to speak at literary festivals, appear as a guest on 65 Walrus Street and even attend one of President Formby’s informal song-and-ukulele evenings. Job offers arrived daily. Numerous libraries and private security firms asked for my services as either ‘Active Associate’ or ‘Security Consultant’. The sweetest letter I got was from the local library asking me to come in and read to the elderly—something I delighted in doing. But SpecOps itself, the body to which I had committed much of my adult life, energy and resources, hadn’t even spoken to me about advancement. As far as they were concerned I was SO-27 and would remain so until they decided otherwise.
‘Mail for you!’ announced Landen, dumping a large pile of post on the kitchen table Most of my mail these days was fan mail—and pretty strange it was too. I opened a letter at random.
‘Anyone I should be jealous of?’ he asked.
‘I should keep the divorce lawyer on hold for a few more minutes—it’s another request for underwear.’
Landen grinned. ‘I’ll send him a pair of mine.’
‘What’s in the parcel?’
‘Late wedding present It’s a—’
He looked at the strange knitted object curiously.
‘—it’s a… thing.’
‘Good,’ I replied, ‘I always wanted one of those.’
Landen was a writer. We first met when he, my brother Anton and I fought in the Crimea. Landen came home minus a leg but alive—my brother was still out there, making his way through eternity from the comfort of a military cemetery near Sevastopol.
As Landen amused himself by trying to teach Pickwick to stand on one leg, I opened another letter and read aloud:
Dear Miss Next, I am one of your biggest fans I thought you should know that David Copperfield, far from being the doe-eyed innocent he is usually portrayed as, actually murdered his first wife Dora Spenlow in order to marry Agnes Wickfield. I suggest an exhumation of Miss Spenlow’s remains and a test for botulism and/or arsenic While we are on the subject, have you ever stopped to wonder why Homer changed his mind about dogs somewhere between The Iliad and The Odyssey? Was he, perhaps, given a puppy between the two?’ Another thing do you find Joyce’s Ulysses as boring and as unintelligible as I do? And why don’t Hemingway’s works have any smells in them?
‘Seems everyone wants you to investigate their favourite book,’ observed Landen. ‘While you’re about it, can you try and get Tess acquitted and Max DeWinter convicted?’
‘Not you as well!’
‘Up, Pickwick, come on, up, up, one leg!’
Pickwick stared at Landen blankly, eyes fixed on the marshmallow he was holding and not at all interested in learning tricks.
‘You’ll need a truck-load of them, Land.’
I got up, finished my coffee and put on my jacket.
‘Have a good day,’ said Landen, seeing me to the door. ‘Be nice to the other children. No scratching or biting.’
‘I’ll behave myself. I promise.’
I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him.
‘Oh, and Landen?’
‘Yuh?’
‘Don’t forget it’s Mycroft’s retirement party this evening.’
‘I won’t.’
It was late autumn or early winter—I wasn’t sure which. It had been mild and windless; the leaves were still brown on the trees and on some days it was hardly cold at all. It had to get really chilly for me to put the hood up on my Speedster, so I drove to the SpecOps divisional HQ with the wind in my hair and WESSEX-FM blaring on the wireless. The upcoming election was the talk of the airwaves; the controversial cheese duty had suddenly become an issue in the way things do just before an election. There was a snippet about Goliath declaring itself to be ‘the world’s favourite conglomerate’ for the tenth year running, whilst in the Crimean peace talks Russia had demanded Kent as war reparations. In sport, Aubrey Jambe had led the Swindon Mallets croquet team into SuperHoop ‘85 by thrashing the Reading Whackers.
I drove through the morning traffic in Swindon and parked the Speedster at the rear of the SpecOps HQ. The building was of a brusque no-nonsense Germanic design, hastily erected during the occupation; the facade still bore battle scars from Swindon’s liberation in 1949. It housed most of the SpecOps divisions, but not all. Our Vampire Disposal Operation also encompassed Reading and Salisbury and in return Salisbury’s Art Theft division looked after our area as well. It all seemed to work quite well.
‘Hello!’ I said to a young man who was taking a cardboard box out of the boot of his car. ‘New assignment?’
‘Er, yes,’ replied the young man, putting down his box for a moment to offer me his hand.
‘John Smith—Weeds & Seeds.’
‘Unusual name,’ I said, shaking his hand. ‘I’m Thursday Next.’
‘Oh!’ he said, looking at me with interest.
‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘that Thursday Next. Weeds & Seeds?’
‘Domestic Horticulture Enforcement Agency,’ explained John. ‘SO-32. I’m starting an office here. There’s been a rise in the number of hackers just recently. The Pampas Grass Vigilante Squad are becoming more brazen in their activities; pampas grass might well be an eyesore, but there’s nothing illegal in it.’
We showed our ID cards to the desk sergeant and walked up the stairs to the second floor.
‘I heard something about that,’ I murmured. ‘Any links to the Anti-Leylandii Association?’
‘Nothing positive,’ replied Smith, ‘but I’m following all leads.’
‘How many in your squad?’