‘I’ll get that coffee you wanted and it was two sugars, wasn’t it?’
‘No thanks, not for me.’
‘No, no,’ he replied. ‘Two sugars, TWO sugars.’
He was pointing at the intercom on his desk.
‘Heavens above!’ he exploded. ‘Do I have to spell it out?’
The penny dropped. The clerk gave a wan smile and scurried out of the door. I quickly sat down, flipped up the lever marked Two on the intercom and leaned closer to listen.
‘I don’t like it when you don’t knock, Mr Schitt.’
‘I’m devastated, Braxton. Does she know anything about Hades?’ ‘She says not.’
‘She’s lying. She’s here for a purpose. If I find Hades first we can get rid of her.’
‘Less of the we, Jack,’ said Braxton testily. ‘Please remember that I have given Goliath my full co-operation, but you are working under my jurisdiction and have only the powers that I bestow upon you. Powers that I can revoke at any time. We do this my way or not at all. Do you understand?’
Schitt was unperturbed. He replied in a condescending manner: ‘Of course, Braxton, as long as you understand that if this thing blows up in your face the Goliath Corporation will hold you personally responsible.’
I sat down at my empty desk again. There seemed to be a lot going on in the office that I wasn’t a part of. Bowden laid his hand on my shoulder and made me jump.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t wish to startle you. Did you get the commander’s budget speech?’
‘And more. Jack Schitt went into his office as though he owned the place.’
Bowden shrugged.
‘Since he’s Goliath, then the chances are he does.’
Bowden picked his jacket up from the back of his chair and folded it neatly across his arm.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘Lunch, then a lead in the Chuzzlewit theft. I’ll explain on the way. Do you have a car?’
Bowden wasn’t too impressed when he saw the multicoloured Porsche.
‘This is hardly what one might refer to as low profile.’
‘On the contrary,’ I replied, ‘who would have thought a LiteraTec would drive a car like this? Besides, I have to drive it.’
He got in the passenger seat and looked around slightly disdainfully at the spartan interior.
‘Is there a problem, Miss Next? You’re staring.’
Now that Bowden was in the passenger seat I had suddenly realised where I had seen him before. He had been the passenger when the car had appeared in front of me at the hospital. Events had indeed started to fall into place.
14. Lunch with Bowden
‘Bowden Cable is the sort of honest and dependable operative that is the backbone of SpecOps. They never win commendations or medals and the public has no knowledge of them at all. They are all worth ten of people like me.’
Bowden guided me to a transport cafe on the old Oxford road. I thought it was an odd choice for lunch; the seats were hard orange plastic and the yellowing Melamine-covered table-tops had started to lift at the edges. The windows were almost opaque with dirt and the nylon net curtains hung heavily with deposits of grease. Several flypapers dangled from the ceiling, their potency long worn off, the flies stuck to them long since desiccated to dust. Somebody had made an effort to make the interior slightly more cheery by sticking up a few pictures hastily cut from old calendars; a signed photo of the 1978 England soccer team was hung above a fireplace that had been filled in and then decorated with a vase full of plastic flowers.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked, sitting gingerly at a table near the window.
‘The food’s good,’ responded Bowden, as though that was all that mattered.
A gum-chewing waitress came up to the table and put some bent cutlery in front of us. She was about fifty and was wearing a uniform that might have been her mother’s.
‘Hello, Mr Cable,’ she said in a flat tone with only a sliver of interest in her voice, ‘all well?’
‘Very well, thank you. Lottie, I’d like you to meet my new partner, Thursday Next.’
Lottie looked at me oddly.
‘Any relation to Captain Next?’
‘He was my brother,’ I said loudly, as if wanting Lottie to know that I wasn’t ashamed of the connection, ‘and he didn’t do what they said he did.’
The waitress stared at me for a moment, as if wanting to say something but not daring.
‘What will you lot have, then?’ she asked instead with forced cheerfulness. She had lost someone in the Charge; I could sense it.
‘What’s the special?’ asked Bowden.
‘Soupe d’Auverge au Fromage,’ replied Lottie, ‘followed by Rojoes Cominho.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘It’s braised pork with cumin, coriander and lemon,’ replied Bowden.
‘Sounds great.’
‘Two specials please and a carafe of mineral water.’
She nodded, scribbled a note and gave me a sad smile before departing.
Bowden looked at me with interest. He would have guessed eventually that I was ex-military. I wore it badly.
‘Crimea veteran, eh? Did you know Colonel Phelps was in town?’
‘I bumped into him on the airship yesterday. He wanted me to go to one of his rallies.’
‘Will you?’
‘You must be kidding. His idea of the perfect end to the Crimean conflict is for us to fight and fight until there is no one left alive and the peninsula’s a poisoned and mined land no good for anything. I’m hoping that the UN can bring both governments to their senses.’
‘I was called up in ‘78,’ said Bowden. ‘Even got past basic training. Fortunately it was the same year the Czar died and the Crown Prince took over. There were more pressing demands on the young Emperor’s time, so the Russians withdrew. I was never needed.’
‘I was reading somewhere that since the war started, only seven years of the one hundred and thirty-one have actually been spent fighting.’
‘But when they do,’ added Bowden, ‘they certainly make up for it.’
I looked at him. He had taken a sip of water after offering the carafe to me first.
‘Married? Kids?’
‘No,’ replied Bowden. ‘I haven’t really had time to find myself a wife, although I am not against the idea in principle. It’s just that SpecOps is not really a great place for meeting people and I’m not, I confess, a great socialiser. I’ve been short-listed for a post opening the equivalent of a LiteraTec office in Ohio; it seems to me the perfect opportunity to take a wife.’
‘The money’s good over there and the facilities are excellent. I’d consider it myself given the opportunity,’ I replied. I meant it, too.
‘Would you? Would you really?’ asked Bowden with a flush of excitement that was curiously at odds with his slightly cold demeanour.
‘Sure. Change of scenery,’ I stammered, wanting to change the subject in case Bowden got the wrong idea. ‘Have you—ah—been a LiteraTec long?’
Bowden thought for a moment.
‘Ten years. I came from Cambridge with a degree in nineteenth-century literature and joined the LiteraTecs straight away. Jim Crometty looked after me from the moment I started.’
He stared out of the window wistfully. ‘Perhaps if I’d been there—‘
‘—then you’d both be dead. Anyone who shoots a man six times in the face doesn’t go to Sunday school. He’d have killed you and not even thought about it. There’s little to be gained in what ifs; believe me, I know. I lost two fellow officers to Hades. I’ve been over it all a hundred times, yet it would probably happen exactly the same way if I had another chance.’
Lottie placed the soup in front of us with a basket of freshly baked bread.
‘Enjoy,’ said Lottie, ‘it’s on the house.’
‘But—!’ I began. Lottie silenced me.
‘Save your breath,’ she said impassively. ‘After the charge. After the shit hit the fan. After the first wave of death—you went back to do what you could. You went back. I value that.’ She turned and left.