The Eyre Affair tn-1 Read online

  ‘… There are two schools of thought about the resilience of time. The first is that time is highly volatile, with every small event altering the possible outcome of the earth’s future. The other view is that time is rigid, and no matter how hard you try, it will always spring back towards a determined present. Myself, I do not worry about such trivialities. I simply sell ties to anyone who wants to buy one…’

  Tie seller in Victoria, June 1983

  My pager had delivered a disconcerting message; the unstealable had just been stolen. It was not the first time the Martin Chuzzlewit manuscript had been purloined. Two years before it had been removed from its case by a security man who wanted nothing more than to read the book in its pure and unsullied state. Unable to live with himself or decipher Dickens’s handwriting past the third page, he eventually confessed and the manuscript was recovered. He spent five years sweating over lime kilns on the edge of Dartmoor.

  Gad’s Hill Palace was where Charles Dickens lived at the end of his life, but not where he wrote Chuzzlewit. That was at Devonshire Terrace, when he still lived with his first wife, in 1843. Gad’s Hill is a large Victorian building near Rochester which had fine views of the Medway when Dickens bought it. If you screw up your eyes and ignore the oil refinery, heavy water plant and the ExcoMat containment facility, it’s not too hard to see what drew him to this part of England. Several thousand visitors pass through Gad’s Hill every day, making it the third-most popular area of literary pilgrimage after Anne Hathaway’s cottage and the Brontes’ Haworth House. Such huge numbers of people had created enormous security problems; no one was taking any chances since a deranged individual had broken into Chawton, threatening to destroy all Jane Austen’s letters unless his frankly dull and uneven Austen biography was published. On that occasion no damage had been done, but it was a grim portent of things to come. In Dublin the following year an organised gang attempted to hold Jonathan Swift’s papers to ransom. A protracted siege developed which ended with two of the extortionists shot dead and the destruction of several original political pamphlets and an early draft of Gulliver’s Travels. The inevitable had to happen. Literary relics were placed under bullet-proof glass and guarded by electronic surveillance and armed officers. It was not the way anyone wanted it, but it seemed the only answer. Since those days there had been few major problems, which made the theft of Chuzzlewit all the more remarkable.

  I parked my car, clipped my SO-2y badge into my top pocket and pushed my way through the crowds of pressmen and gawkers. I saw Boswell from a distance and ducked under a police line to reach him.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ I muttered. ‘I came as soon as I heard.’

  He put a finger to his lips and whispered in my ear: ‘Ground-floor window. Took less than ten minutes. Nothing else.’

  ‘What?’

  Then I saw. Toad News Network’s star reporter Lydia Startright was about to do an interview. The finely coiffured TV journalist finished her introduction and turned to us both. Boswell employed a neat sidestep, jabbed me playfully in the ribs and left me alone under the full glare of the news cameras.

  ‘—of Martin Chuzzlewit, stolen from the Dickens Museum at Gad’s Hill. I have with me Literary Detective Thursday Next. Tell me, Officer, how it was possible for thieves to break in and steal one of literature’s greatest treasures?’

  I murmured ‘Bastard!’ under my breath to Boswell, who slunk off shaking with mirth. I shifted my weight uneasily. With the enthusiasm for art and literature in the population undiminished, the LiteraTec’s job was becoming increasingly difficult, made worse by a very limited budget.

  ‘The thieves gained entrance through a window on the ground floor and went straight to the manuscript,’ I said in my best TV voice. ‘They were in and out within ten minutes.’

  ‘I understand the museum was monitored by closed-circuit television,’ continued Lydia. ‘Did you capture the thieves on video?’

  ‘Our enquiries are proceeding,’ I replied. ‘You understand that some details must be kept secret for operational purposes.’

  Lydia lowered her microphone and cut the camera. ‘Do you have anything to give me, Thursday?’ she asked. ‘The parrot stuff I can get from anyone.’

  I smiled. ‘I’ve only just got here, Lyds. Try me again in a week.’

  ‘Thursday, in a week this will be archive footage. Okay, roll VT.’

  The cameraman reshouldered his camera and Lydia resumed her report.

  ‘Do you have any leads?’

  ‘There are several avenues that we are pursuing. We are confident that we can return the manuscript to the museum and arrest the individuals concerned.’

  I wished I could share my own optimism. I had spent a lot of time at Gad’s Hill overseeing security arrangements, and I knew it was like the Bank of England. The people who did this were good. Really good. It also made it kind of personal. The interview ended and I ducked under a SpecOps Do Not Cross tape to where Boswell was waiting to meet me.

  ‘This is one hell of a mess, Thursday. Turner, fill her in.’

  Boswell left us to it and went off to find something to eat.

  ‘If you can see how they pulled this one off,’ murmured Paige who was a slightly older and female version of Boswell, ‘I’ll eat my boots, buckles and all.’

  Both Turner and Boswell had been at the LiteraTec Department when I turned up there, fresh from the military and a short career at the Swindon Police Department. Few people ever left the LiteraTec division; when you were in London you had pretty much reached the top of your profession. Promotion or death were the usual ways out; the saying was that a LiteraTec job wasn’t for Christmas—it was for life.

  ‘Boswell likes you, Thursday.’

  ‘In what sort of way?’ I asked suspiciously.

  ‘In the sort of way that he wants you in my shoes when I leave—I became engaged to a rather nice fellow from SO-3 at the weekend.’

  I should have been more enthusiastic, but Turner had been engaged so many times she could have filled every finger and toe—twice.

  ‘SO-3?’ I queried, somewhat inquisitively. Being in SpecOps was no guarantee you would know which departments did what—Joe Public were probably better informed. The only SpecOps divisions I knew about for sure below SO-12 were SO-9, who were antiterrorist, and SO-1, who were Internal Affairs—the SpecOps police; the people who made sure we didn’t step out of line.

  ‘SO-3?’ I repeated. ‘What do they do?’

  ‘Weird Stuff.’

  ‘I thought SO-2 did Weird Stuff?’

  ‘SO-2 do Weirder Stuff. I asked him but he never got round to answering—we were kind of busy. Look at this.’

  Turner had led me into the manuscript room. The glass case that had held the leather-bound manuscript was empty.

  ‘Anything?’ Paige asked one of the scene-of-crime officers.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Gloves?’ I asked.

  The SOCO stood up and stretched her back; she hadn’t discovered a single print of any sort.

  ‘No; and that’s what’s so bizarre. It doesn’t look like they touched the box at all; not with gloves, not a cloth—nothing. According to me this box hasn’t been opened and the manuscript is still inside!’ I looked at the glass case. It was still locked tight and none of the other exhibits had been touched. The keys were kept separately and were at this moment on their way from London.

  ‘Hello, that’s odd—‘ I muttered, leaning closer.

  ‘What do you see?’ asked Paige anxiously.

  I pointed to an area of glass on one of the side panels that undulated slightly. The area was roughly the size of the manuscript.

  ‘I noticed that,’ said Paige. ‘I thought it was a flaw in the glass.’

  ‘Toughened bullet-proof glass?’ I asked her. ‘No chance. And it wasn’t like this when I supervised the fitting, I can assure you of that.’

  ‘What, then?’

  I stroked the hard glass and felt the shiny surface ripp
le beneath my fingertips. A shiver ran up my back and I felt a curious sense of uncomfortable familiarity, the feeling you might get when a long-forgotten school bully hails you as an old friend.

  ‘The work feels familiar, Paige. When I find the perpetrator, it’ll be someone I know.’

  ‘You’ve been a LiteraTec for seven years, Thursday.’ I saw what she meant.

  ‘Eight years, and you’re right—you’ll probably know them too. Could Lamber Thwalts have done this?’

  ‘He could have, if he wasn’t still in hokey—four years still to go over that Love’s Labour’s Won scam.’

  ‘What about Keens? He could handle something as big as this.’

  ‘Milton’s no longer with us. Caught analepsy in the library at Parkhurst. Stone-cold dead in a fortnight.’

  ‘Hmm.’ I pointed at the two video cameras. ‘Who did they see?’

  ‘No one,’ replied Turner. ‘Not a dicky bird. I can play you the tapes but you’ll be none the wiser.’

  She showed me what they had. The guard on duty was being interviewed back at the station. They were hoping it was an inside job but it didn’t look like it; the guard had been as devastated as any of them.

  Turner shuttled the video back and pressed the Play button.

  ‘Watch carefully. The recorder rotates the five cameras and films five seconds of each.’

  ‘So the longest gap between cameras is twenty seconds?’

  ‘Got it. You watching? Okay, there’s the manuscript—‘ She pointed at the book, clearly visible in the frame as the VCR flicked to the camera at the front door. There was no movement. Then the inside door through which any burglar would have to come; all the other entrances were barred. Then came the corridor; then the lobby; then the machine flicked back to the manuscript room. Turner punched the Pause button and I leaned closer. The manuscript was gone.

  ‘Twenty seconds to get in, open the box, take Chuzzlewit and then leg it? It’s not possible.’

  ‘Believe you me, Thursday—it happened.’

  The last remark came from Boswell, who had been looking over my shoulder.

  ‘I don’t know how they did it, but they did. I’ve had a call from Supreme Commander Gale on this one and he’s being leaned on by the Prime Minister. Questions have already been asked in the House and someone’s head is going to roll. Not mine, I assure you.’

  He looked at us both rather pointedly, which made me feel especially ill at ease—I was the one who had advised the museum on its security arrangements.

  ‘We’ll be on to it straight away, sir,’ I replied, punching the Pause button and letting the video run on. The views of the building changed rhythmically, revealing nothing. I pulled up a chair, rewound the tape and looked again.

  ‘What are you hoping to find?’ asked Paige.

  ‘Anything.’

  I didn’t find it.

  3. Back at my desk

  ‘Funding for the Special Operations Network comes directly from the government. Most work is centralised, but all of the SpecOps divisions have local representatives to keep a watchful eye on any provincial problems. They are administered by local Commanders, who liaise with the national offices for information exchange, guidance and policy decisions. Like any other big government department, it looks good on paper but is an utter shambles. Petty in-fighting and political agendas, arrogance and sheer bloody-mindedness almost guarantees that the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.’

  Millon de Floss. A Short History of the Special Operations Network

  Two days of fruitless hunting for Chuzzlewit had passed without even the slightest clue as to where it might be. There had been ‘whispers’ of reprimands, but only if we could figure out how the manuscript was taken. It would seem a bit ludicrous to be chastised for leaving a loophole in the security arrangements but not know what it was. Now slightly despondent, I was sitting at my desk back at the station. Recalling my conversation with Dad, I phoned my mother to ask her not to paint the bedroom mauve. The call backfired slightly as she thought this a grand idea and hung up before I could argue. I sighed and flipped through the telephone messages that had accumulated over the past two days. They were mostly from informers and concerned citizens who had been robbed or cheated and wanted to know if we had made any headway. It was all small beer compared to Chuzzlewit— there were a lot of gullible people out there buying first editions of Byronic verse at knock-down prices, then complaining bitterly when they found out they were fakes. Like most of the other operatives, I had a pretty good idea who was behind all of this, but we never caught the big fish—just the ‘utterers’, the dealers who sold it all on. It smacked of corruption in high places but we never had any proof. Usually I read my messages with interest, but today none of it seemed terribly important. After all, the verses of Byron, Keats or Poe are real whether they are in bootleg form or not. You can still read them for the same effect.

  I opened the drawer of my desk and pulled out a small mirror. A woman with somewhat ordinary features stared back at me. Her hair was a plain mousey colour and of medium length, tied up rather hastily in a ponytail at the back. She had no cheekbones to speak of and her face, I noticed, had just started to show some rather obvious lines. I thought of my mother, who had looked as wrinkled as a walnut by the time she was forty-five. I shuddered, placed the mirror back in the drawer and took out a faded and slightly dog-eared photograph. It was a photo of myself with a group of friends taken in the Crimea when I had been simply Corporal T.E.Next, 33550336, Driver: APC, Light Armoured Brigade. I had served my country diligently, been involved in a military disaster and then honourably discharged with a gong to prove it. They had expected me to give talks about recruitment and valour but I had disappointed them. I attended one regimental reunion but that was it; I had found myself looking for the faces that I knew weren’t there.

  In the photo Landen was standing on my left, his arm around me and another soldier, my brother, his best mate. Landen lost a leg, but he came home. My brother was still out there.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Paige, who had been looking over my shoulder.

  ‘Whoa!’ I yelped. ‘You just scared the crap out of me!’

  ‘Sorry! Crimea?’

  I handed her the photo and she looked at it intently. ‘That must be your brother—you have the same nose.’

  ‘I know, we used to share it on a rota. I had it Mondays, Wednesd—‘

  ‘—then the other man must be Landen.’

  I frowned and turned to face her. I never mentioned Landen to anyone. It was personal. I felt kind of betrayed that she might have been prying behind my back.

  ‘How do you know about Landen?’

  She sensed the anger in my voice, smiled and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘You told me about him.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘Sure. The speech was slurred and for the most part it was garbage, but he was certainly on your mind.’

  I winced. ‘Last year’s Christmas bash?’

  ‘Or the year before. You weren’t the only one talking garbage with slurred speech.’

  I looked at the photo again. ‘We were engaged.’

  Paige suddenly looked uneasy. Crimean fiances could be seriously bad conversation topics.

  ‘Did he—ah—come back?’

  ‘Most of him. He left a leg behind. We don’t speak too much these days.’

  ‘What’s his full name?’ asked Paige, interested in finally getting something out of my past.

  ‘It’s Parke-Laine. Landen Parke-Laine.’ It was the first time I had said his name out loud for almost longer than I could remember.

  ‘Parke-Laine the writer?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Good-looking bloke.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I replied, not quite knowing what I was thanking her for. I put the photograph back in my drawer and Paige clicked her fingers.

  ‘Boswell wants to see you,’ she announced, finally remembering what she had come over to say.
r />   Boswell was not alone. A man in his forties was waiting for me and rose as I entered. He didn’t blink very much and had a large scar down one side of his face. Boswell hummed and hawed for a moment, coughed, looked at his watch and then said something about leaving us to it.

  ‘Police?’ I asked as soon as we were alone. ‘Has a relative died or something?’

  The man closed the Venetian blinds to give us more privacy.

  ‘Not that I heard about.’

  ‘SO-1?’ I asked, expecting a possible reprimand.

  ‘Me?’ replied the man with genuine surprise. ‘No.’

  ‘LiteraTec?’

  ‘Why don’t you sit down?’

  He offered me a seat and then sat down in Boswell’s large oak swivel chair. He had a buff file with my name on the cover which he flopped on the desk in front of him. I was amazed by how thick the file was.

  ‘Is that all about me?’

  He ignored me. Instead of opening my file, he leaned forward and gazed at me with his unblinking eyes.

  ‘How do you rate the Chuzzlewit case?’

  I found myself staring at his scar. It ran from his forehead down to his chin and had all the size and subtlety of a ship-builder’s weld. It pulled his lip up, but apart from that his face was pleasant enough; without the scar he might have been handsome. I was being unsubtle. He instinctively brought up a hand to cover it.

  ‘Finest Cossack,’ he murmured, making light of it.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s hard not to gawp.’ He paused for a moment.

  ‘I work for SpecOps 5,’ he announced slowly, showing me a shiny badge.

  ‘SO-5?’ I gasped, failing to hide the surprise in my voice. ‘What do you lot do?’

  ‘That’s restricted, Miss Next. I showed you the badge so you could talk to me without worrying about security clearances. I can okay that with Boswell if you’d prefer—?’

  My heart was beating faster. Interviews with SpecOps operatives farther up the ladder sometimes led to transfers—