‘Including me—one.’ Smith grinned. ‘Thought you were the most underfunded department in SpecOps? Think again. I’ve got six months to sort out the hackers, get the Japanese knotweed under control and find an acceptable plural form of narcissus.’
We reached the upstairs corridor.
‘I wish you luck.’
He thanked me and I left him to unpack in his small office, which had once been home to the SO-31 Good Taste Education Authority. The division had been disbanded a month earlier when the proposed legislation against stone cladding, pictures of crying clowns and floral-patterned carpets failed in the Upper House.
I was just walking past the office of SO-14 when I heard a shrill voice.
‘Thursday! Thursday, yoo-hoo! Over here!’
I sighed. It was Cordelia Flakk. She quickly caught up with me and gave me an affectionate hug.
‘The Lush show was a disaster!’ I told her ‘You said it was no holds barred! I ended up talking about dodos, my car and anything but Jane Eyre!’
‘You were terrific!’ she enthused. ‘I’ve got you lined up for another set of interviews the day after tomorrow.’
‘No more, Cordelia.’
She looked at me in a crestfallen manner.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘What part of no more don’t you understand?’
‘Don’t be like that, Thursday,’ she replied, beaming in an attempt to bring me round. ‘You’re good PR and, believe me, in an institution that routinely leaves the public perforated, confused, old before their time or, if they’re lucky, dead, we need every bit of good PR we can muster.’
‘Do we do that much damage to the public?’ I asked.
Flakk smiled modestly.
‘Perhaps my PR is not so bad after all,’ she conceded, then added quickly: ‘But every Joe that gets trounced in a crossfire is one too many.’
‘That’s as may be,’ I retorted, ‘but the fact remains that I’m done with SpecOps PR.’
Flakk seemed flustered, hopped up and down for a bit, pulled pleading expressions, wrung her hands, puffed out her cheeks and stared at the ceiling.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Well, we ran a competition.’
‘What sort of competition?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘We thought it would be a good idea if you met a few members of the public on a one-to-one basis.’
‘Did we. Now listen, Cordelia—’
‘Dilly, Thursday, since we’re pals.’
She sensed my reticence and added:
‘Cords, then. Or Delia. How about Flakky? I used to be called Flik-Flak at school. Can I call you Thurs?’
‘Cordelia!’ I said in a harsher tone, before she ingratiated herself to death. ‘I’m not going to do this! You said the Lush interview would be the last and it is.’
I started to walk away, but when God was handing out insistence Cordelia Flakk was at the head of the queue.
‘Thursday, this hurts me really personally when you’re like this. It attacks me right… right, er, here.’
She made a wild guess at where she thought her heart might be and looked at me with a pained expression that she probably learned off a springer spaniel.
‘I’ve got him waiting right here, now, in the canteen. It won’t take a moment, ten minutes tops Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease. I’ve only asked two dozen journalists and news crews—the room will be practically empty.’
I looked at my watch.
‘Ten minutes [1], then—who’s that?’
‘Who’s what?’
‘Someone calling my name. Didn’t you hear it?’
‘No,’ replied Cordelia, looking at me oddly.
I tapped my ears. It had sounded so real it was disconcerting [2].
‘There it goes again!’
‘There goes what again?’
‘A man’s voice!’ I said somewhat idiotically. ‘Speaking here inside my head!’
I pointed to my temple to demonstrate but Cordelia took a step backward, her look turning rapidly to one of consternation.
‘Are you okay, Thursday? Can I call someone?’
‘Oh. No, no, I’m fine I just realised I—ah—left a receiver in my ear. It must be my partner; there’s a 12-14 or a 10-30 or… something numerological in progress. Tell your competition winners another time. Goodbye!’
I dashed off. There wasn’t a receiver, of course, but I wasn’t having Flakk tell the quacks I was hearing voices. I walked off briskly towards the LiteraTec office [3]. I stopped and looked around The corridor was empty.
‘I can hear you,’ I said, ‘but where are you?’ [4]
‘Her name’s Flakk. Works over at SpecOps PR.’ [5]
‘What is this? SpecOps Blind Date? What’s going on?’ [6]
‘Case? What case? I haven’t done anything!’
My voice rose with injured pride. For someone who had spent their life enforcing law and order, it seemed a grave injustice that I should be accused of something—especially something I knew nothing about. [7]
‘For God’s sake, Snell, what is the charge?’
‘Are you okay, Next?’
It was Braxton Hicks. He had just turned the corner and was staring at me very oddly.
‘Fine, sir,’ I said, thinking fast ‘The SpecOps tensionologist said I should vocalise any stress regarding past experiences Listen: “GET AWAY FROM ME HADES, GO!” See? I feel better already.’
‘Oh!’ said Hicks doubtfully. ‘Well, the quacks know best, I suppose. Did you sign that picture for my godson Max?’
‘On your desk, sir.’
‘Miss Flakk ran a competition or something. Would you liaise with her over it?’
‘I’ll make it my top priority, sir.’
‘Good. Well, carry on vocalising, then.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
But he didn’t leave. He just stood there, watching me.
‘Sir?’
‘Don’t mind me,’ replied Hicks, ‘I just want to see how this stress vocalising works. My tensionologist told me to arrange pebbles as a hobby—or count blue cars.’
So I vocalised my stress there in the corridor for five minutes while my boss watched me.
‘Jolly good,’ he said finally, and walked off.
After checking I was alone in the corndor. I spoke out loud:
‘Snell!’
Silence.
‘Mr Snell, can you hear me?’
More silence.
I sat down and put my head between my knees. I felt sick and hot, both the SpecOps resident tensionologist and the stresspert had said I might have some sort of traumatic aftershock from tackling Acheron Hades, but I hadn’t expected anything as vivid as voices in my head. I waited until I felt better and then made my way, not towards Flakk and her competition winners, but towards Bowden and the LiteraTec office. [8]
I stopped.
‘Prepared for what? I haven’t done any thing!’ [9]
‘No, no!’ I exclaimed. ‘I really don’t know what I’ve done. Where are you!?![10]
‘Wait! Shouldn’t I see you before the hearing?’
There was no answer. I was about to yell again but several people came out of the elevator so I kept quiet. I waited for a moment but Mr Snell didn’t seem to have anything more to add, so I made my way into the high-ceilinged LiteraTec office, which more closely resembled a library than anything else. There weren’t many books we didn’t have—the result of bootleg seizures of literary works collected over the years. Bowden Cable, my partner, was already at his desk, which was as fastidiously neat as ever. His quiet and studious approach to his work contrasted strongly with my own directness. The partnership seemed to work well.
4
‘The name is Snell, Akrid Snell. Who was that disturbingly attractive woman in the tight pink sweater?’
7
‘Of course not! That’s our defence strategy in a nutshell. You are
8
‘Miss Next, I’m so sorry, I had to take a call. Portia again: she wanted to discuss the timing of her “drop of blood” defence. Bit of a feisty one, that Your hearing is next Thursday—so be prepared!’
9
‘That’s good, Thursday. Can I call you Thursday? Keep up that sort of wide-eyed innocent babe-in-the-woods stuff and we’ll have you off the hook quicker than you can say verruca.’
10
‘I’ll explain it all when we meet. Sorry to have to communicate with you in footnotes but I’m due in court in ten minutes. Don’t speak to