Something rotten n-4 Read online

  'Not overrated enough, Bradshaw,' I replied with a shrug. 'Sometimes the top job isn't the easiest one.'

  'Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,' murmured Bradshaw, who probably understood me better than most. He and his wife were the best friends I had in the BookWorld; Mrs Bradshaw and my son were almost inseparable.

  'I knew you wouldn't stay for good,' continued Bradshaw, lowering his voice so the others didn't hear. 'When will you go?'

  I shrugged.

  'Soon as I can. Tomorrow.'

  I looked around at the destruction that Zhark had wrought upon Death at Double-X. There would be a lot of clearing up, a mountain of paperwork — and there might be the possibility of disciplinary action if the Council of Genres got wind of what had happened.

  'I suppose I should complete the paperwork on this debacle first,' I said slowly. 'Let's say three days.'

  'You promised to stand in for Joan of Arc while she attended a martyrs refresher course,' added Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, who had tiptoed closer.

  I'd forgotten about that.

  'A week, then. I'll be off in a week.'

  We all stood in silence, I pondering my return to Swindon, and all of them considering the consequences of my departure — except Emperor Zhark, who was probably thinking about invading the Planet Thraal, for fun.

  'Your mind is made up?' asked Bradshaw. I nodded slowly. There were other reasons for me to return to the real world, more pressing than Zhark's gung-ho lunacy. I had a husband who didn't exist, and a son who couldn't spend his life cocooned inside books. I had retreated into the old Thursday, the one who preferred the black-and-white certainties of policing fiction to the ambiguous mid-tone greys of emotion.

  'Yes, my mind's made up,' I said, smiling. I looked at Bradshaw, the emperor and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle. For all their faults, I'd enjoyed working with them. It hadn't been all bad. Whilst at Jurisfiction I had seen and done things I wouldn't have believed. I'd watched grammasites in flight over the pleasure domes of Xanadu, felt the strangeness of listeners glittering on the dark stair. I had cantered bareback on unicorns through the leafy forests of Zenobia and played chess with Ozymandias, the King of Kings. I had flown with Biggies on the Western Front, locked cutlasses with Long John Silver and explored the path not taken to walk upon England's mountains green. But despite all these moments of wonder and delight, my heart belonged back home in Swindon and to a man named Landen Parke-Laine. He was my husband, the father of my son, he didn't exist, and I loved him.

  2

  No Place Like Home

  'Swindon, Wessex, England, was the place I was born and where I lived until I left to join the literary detectives in London. I returned ten years later and married my former boyfriend, Landen Parke-Laine. He was subsequently murdered at the age of two by the Goliath Corporation, who had decided to blackmail me. It worked, I helped them — but I didn't get my husband back. Oddly, I kept his son, my son, Friday — it was one of those quirky time-travel paradoxical things that my father understands but I don't. Two years farther on Landen was still dead, and unless I did something about it soon, he might remain that way for ever.'

  THURSDAY NEXT — Thursday Next, a Life in SpecOps

  It was a bright and clear morning in mid-July two weeks later when I found myself on the corner of Broome Manor Lane in Swindon, on the opposite side of the road to my mother's house, with a toddler in a pushchair, two dodos, the Prince of Denmark, an apprehensive heart and hair cut way too short. The Council of Genres hadn't taken the news of my resignation very well. In fact, they refused to accept it at all and gave me instead unlimited leave, in the somewhat deluded hope that I might return if actualising my husband 'didn't work out'. They also suggested I might like to deal with escaped fictionaut Yorrick Kaine, someone with whom I had crossed swords twice in the past.

  Hamlet had been a late addition to my plans. Increasingly concerned over reports that he was being misrepresented as something of a 'ditherer' in the Outland, he had requested leave to see for himself. This was unusual in that fictional characters are rarely troubled by public perception, but Hamlet would worry about having nothing to worry about if he had nothing to worry about, and since he was the indisputable star of the Shakespeare canon and had lost the 'Most Troubled Romantic Lead' crown to Heathcliff once again at this year's BookWorld awards, the Council of Genres thought they should do something to appease him. Besides, Jurisfiction had been trying to persuade him to police Elizabethan drama since Sir John Falstaff retired on grounds of 'good health', and a trip to the Outland, it was thought, might persuade him.

  '’Tis very strange!' he murmured, staring at the sun, trees, houses and traffic in turn. 'It would take a rhapsody of wild and whirling words to do justice to all that I witness!'

  'You're going to have to speak English out here.'

  'All this,' explained Hamlet, waving his hands at the fairly innocuous Swindon street, 'would take millions of words to describe correctly!'

  'You're right. It would. That's the magic of the book ImaginoTransference technology,' I told him. 'A few dozen words conjure up an entire picture. But in all honesty the reader does most of the work.'

  'The reader? What's it got to do with them?'

  'Well, each interpretation of an event, setting or character is unique to the person who reads it because they clothe the author's description with the memory of their own experiences. Every character they read is actually a complex amalgam of people that they've met, read or seen before — far more real than it can ever be just from the text on the page. Because every reader's experiences are different, each book is unique for each reader.'

  'So,' replied the Dane, thinking hard, 'what you're saying is that the more complex and apparently contradictory the character, the greater the possible interpretations?'

  'Yes. In fact, I'd argue that every time a book is read by the same person it is different again — because the reader's experiences are changed, or they are in a different frame of mind.'

  'Well, that explains why no one can figure me out. After four hundred years nobody's quite decided what, exactly, my inner motivations are.' He paused for a moment and sighed mournfully. 'Including me. You'd have thought I was religious, wouldn't you, with all that not wanting to kill Uncle Claudius when at prayer and suchlike?'

  'Of course.'

  'I thought so too. So why do I use the atheistic line there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so? What's that all about?'

  'You mean you don't know?'

  'Listen, I'm as confused as anyone.'

  I stared at Hamlet and he shrugged. I had been hoping to get some answers from him regarding the inconsistencies within his play, but now I wasn't so sure.

  'Perhaps,' I said thoughtfully, 'that's why we like it. To each our own Hamlet.'

  'Well,' snorted the Dane unhappily, 'it's a mystery to me. Do you think therapy would help?'

  'I'm not sure. Listen, we're almost home. Remember: to anyone but family you're . . . who are you?'

  'Cousin Eddie.'

  'Good. Come on.'

  Mum's house was a detached property of good proportions in the south of the town but of no great charm other than that which my long association had conferred upon it. I had spent the first eighteen years of my life growing up here, and everything about the old house was familiar. From the tree I had fallen out of, cracking a collar bone, to the garden path where I had learned to ride my bicycle. I hadn't really noticed it before but empathy for the familiar grows stronger with age. The old house felt warmer to me now than it ever had before.

  I took a deep breath, picked up my suitcase and trundled the pushchair across the road. My pet dodo Pickwick followed with her unruly son Alan padding grumpily after her.

  I rang Mum's doorbell and after about a minute a slightly overweight vicar with short brown hair and spectacles answered the door.

  'Is that Doofus—?' he said when he saw me, suddenly breaking into a broad grin. 'By the GSD, it is Doofus!'


  'Hi, Joffy. Long time no see.'

  Joffy was my brother. He was a minister of the Global Standard Deity religion, and although we had had differences in the past, they were long forgotten. I was pleased to see him, and he me.

  'Whoa!' he said. 'What's that?'

  'That's Friday,' I explained. 'Your nephew.'

  'Wow!' replied Joffy, undoing Friday's harness and lifting him out. 'Does his hair always stick up like that?'

  'Probably leftovers from breakfast.'

  Friday stared at Joffy for a moment, took his fingers out of his mouth, rubbed them on his face, put them in again and offered Joffy his polar bear, Poley.

  'Kind of cute, isn't he?' said Joffy, jiggling Friday up and down and letting him tug at his nose. 'But a bit, well, sticky. Does he talk?'

  'Not a lot. Thinks a great deal, though.'

  'Like Mycroft. What happened to your head?'

  'You mean my haircut?'

  'So that's what it was!' murmured Joffy. 'I thought you'd had your ears lowered or something. Bit, er . . . bit extreme, isn't it?'

  'I had to stand in for Joan of Arc. It's always tricky to find a replacement.'

  'I can see why,' exclaimed Joffy, still staring incredulously at my pudding-bowl haircut. 'Why don't you just have the whole lot off and start again?'

  'This is Hamlet,' I said, introducing him before he began to feel awkward, 'but he's here incognito so I'm telling everyone he's my cousin Eddie.'

  'Joffy,' said Joffy, 'brother of Thursday.'

  'Hamlet,' said Hamlet, 'Prince of Denmark.'

  'Danish?' said Joffy with a start. 'I shouldn't spread that around if I were you.'

  'Why?'

  'Darling!' said my mother, appearing behind Joffy. 'You're back! Goodness! Your hair!'

  'It's a Joan of Arc thing,' explained Joffy, 'very fashionable right now. Martyrs are big on the catwalk, y'know — remember the Edith Cavell/Tolpuddle look in last month's Femole?'

  'He's talking rubbish again, isn't he?'

  'Yes,' said Joffy and I in unison.

  'Hello, Mum,' I said, giving her a hug, 'remember your grandson?"

  She picked him up and remarked how much he had grown. It was unlikely in the extreme that he had shrunk but I smiled dutifully nonetheless. I tried to visit the real world as often as I could but hadn't been able to manage it for at least six months. When she had nearly fainted by hyperventilating with 'Ooohs' and 'Aaaahs' and Friday had stopped looking at her dubiously, she invited us indoors.

  'You stay out here,' I said to Pickwick, 'and don't let Alan misbehave himself

  It was too late. Alan, small size notwithstanding, had already terrorised Mordecai and the other dodos into submission. They all shivered in fright beneath the hydrangeas.

  'Are you staying for long?' enquired my mother. 'Your room is just how you left it.'

  This meant just how I left it when I was nineteen, but I thought it rude to say so. I explained that I'd like to stay at least until I got an apartment sorted out, introduced Hamlet and asked whether he could stay for a few days too.

  'Of course! Lady Hamilton's in the spare room and that nice Mr Bismarck is in the attic, so he can have the boxroom.'

  My mother grasped Hamlet's hand and shook it heartily.

  'How are you, Mr Hamlet? Where did you say you were the prince of again?'

  'Denmark.'

  'Ah! No visitors after seven p.m. and breakfast stops at nine a.m. prompt. I do expect guests to make their own bed and if you need washing done you can put it in the wicker basket on the landing Pleased to meet you. I'm Mrs Next, Thursday's mother.'

  'I have a mother,' replied Hamlet gloomily as he bowed politely and kissed my mother's hand. 'She shares my uncle's bed.'

  'They should buy another one in that case,' my mother replied, practical as ever. 'They do a very good deal at IKEA, I'm told. Don't use it myself because I don't like all that self-assembly — I mean, what's the point of paying for something you have to build yourself? But it's popular with men for exactly that same reason. Do you like Battenberg?'

  'Wittenberg?'

  'No, no. Battenberg.'

  'On the River Eder?' asked Hamlet, confused over my mother's conversational leap from self-assembly furniture to cake.

  'No, silly, on a doily — covered with marzipan.'

  Hamlet leaned closer to me.

  'I think your mother may be insane — and I should know.'

  'You'll get the hang of what she's talking about,' I said, giving him a reassuring pat on the arm.

  We walked through the hall to the living room where, after managing to extract Friday's fingers from Mum's beads, we managed to sit down.

  'So tell me all your news!' she exclaimed as my eyes flicked around the room, trying to take in all the many potential hazards for the two-year-old.

  'Where do you want me to begin?' I asked, removing the vase of flowers from the top of the TV before Friday had a chance to pull them over on himself. 'I had a flurry of things to do before I left. Two days ago I was in Camelot trying to sort out some marital strife and the day before — sweetheart, don't touch that — I was negotiating a pay dispute with the Union of Orcs.'

  'Goodness!' replied my mother. 'You must be simply dying for a cup of tea.'

  'Please. The BookWorld might be the cat's pyjamas for characterisation and explosive narrative, but you can't get a decent cup of tea for all the bourbon in Hemingway.'

  'I'll do it!' said Joffy. 'C'mon, Hamlet, tell me about yourself. Got a girlfriend?'

  'Yes — but she's bonkers.'

  'In a good way or a bad way?'

  Hamlet shrugged.

  'Neither — just bonkers. But her brother — hell's teeth! Talk about sprung-loaded . . . !'

  Their conversation faded as they disappeared into the kitchen.

  'Don't forget the Battenberg,' my mother called after them.

  I opened my suitcase and took out a few rattly toys Mrs Bradshaw had given me. Melanie had looked after Friday a lot as she and Commander Bradshaw had no children of their own, what with Melanie being a mountain gorilla, so she had doted on Friday. It had its upsides — he always ate his greens and loved fruit — but I had my suspicions that they climbed on the furniture when I wasn't about, and once I found Friday trying to peel a banana with his feet.

  'How's life treating you?' I asked.

  'Better for seeing you. It's quite lonely with Mycroft and Polly away at the fourteenth annual Mad Scientists Conference. If it wasn't for Joffy and his partner Miles popping round every day, Bismarck and Emma, Mrs Beatty next door, Eradications Anonymous, my panel-beating class and that frightful Mrs Daniels, I'd be completely alone. Should Friday be in that cupboard?'

  I turned, jumped up, grabbed Friday by the straps of his dungarees and gently took the two crystal wineglasses from his inquisitive grasp. I showed him his toys and sat him down in the middle of the room. He stayed put for about three seconds before tottering off in the direction of DH82, Mum's bone-idle Thylacine, who was asleep on a nearby chair.

  DH82 yelped as Friday tugged playfully at his whiskers. The Thylacine then got up, yawned, and went to find his supper dish. Friday followed. And I followed Friday.

  '—in the ear?' said Joffy as I walked into the kitchen. 'Does that work?'

  'Apparently,' replied the prince, 'we found him stone dead in the orchard.'

  I scooped up Friday, who was about to tuck into DH82's food, and took him back to the living room.

  'Sorry,' I explained, 'he's into everything at the moment. Tell me about Swindon. Much changed?'

  'Not really. The Christmas lights have improved tremendously, there's a Skyrail line straight through the Brunei Centre and Swindon now has twenty-six different supermarkets.'

  'Can the residents eat that much?'

  'We're giving it our best shot.'

  Joffy walked back in with Hamlet and placed a tray of tea things in front of us.

  'That small dodo of yours is a terror. Tried to peck me w
hen I wasn't looking.'

  'You probably startled him. How's Dad?'

  Joffy, to whom this was a touchy subject, decided not to join us but play with Friday instead.

  'C'mon, young lad,' he said, 'let's get drunk and shoot some pool.'

  'Your father has been wanting to get hold of you for a while,' said my mother as soon as Joffy and Friday had gone. 'As you probably guessed he's been having trouble with Nelson again. He often comes home simply reeking of cordite, and I'm really not keen on him hanging around with that Emma Hamilton woman.'

  My father was a sort of time-travelling knight errant. He used to be a member of SO-12, the agency charged with policing the timelines: the ChronoGuard. He resigned owing to differences over the way the historical timeline was managed and went rogue. The ChronoGuard decided that he was too dangerous and eradicated him by a well-timed knock at the door during the night of his conception; my aunt April was born instead.

  'So Nelson died at the Battle of Trafalgar?' I asked, recalling Dad's previous problems in the timeline.

  'Yes,' she replied, 'but I'm not sure he was meant to. That's why your father says he has to work so closely with Emma.'

  Emma, of course, was Lady Emma Hamilton, Nelson's consort. It was she who had alerted my father to Nelson's eradication. One moment she had been married to Lord Nelson for over ten years, the next she was a bankrupt lush living in Calais. Must have been quite a shock. My mother leaned closer.

  'Between the two of us I'm beginning to think Emma's a bit of a tram— Emma! How nice of you to join us!'

  At the doorway was a tall, red-faced woman wearing a brocade dress that had seen better days. Despite the rigours of a lengthy and damaging acquaintance with the bottle, there were the remains of great beauty and charm about her. She must have been dazzling in her youth.

  'Hello, Lady Hamilton,' I said, getting up to shake her hand, 'how's the husband?'

  'Still dead.'

  'Mine too.'

  'Bummer.'

  'Ah!' I exclaimed, wondering quite where Lady Hamilton picked up the word, although on reflection she probably knew a few worse. 'This is Hamlet.'