6

SpecOps

I pushed open the door to the station and walked in. The building was shared with Swindon's regular force and seemed slightly shabbier than I remembered. The walls were the same dismal shade of green and I could smell the faint aroma of boiled cabbage from the canteen on the second floor. In truth, my stay here in late '85 had not actually been that long — most of my SpecOps career had been undertaken in London.

I walked over to the main desk, expecting to see Sergeant Ross. He had been replaced by someone who seemed too young to be a police officer, much less a desk sergeant.

'I'm here to get my old job back,' I announced.

'Which was?'

'Literary Detective.'

He chuckled. Unkindly, I thought.

'You'll need to see the commander,' he replied without taking his gaze from the book he was scribbling in. 'Name?'

'Thursday Next.'

A hush descended slowly on the room, beginning with those closest to me and moving outwards with my whispered name like ripples in a pool. Within a few moments I was being stared at in silence by at least two dozen assorted police and SpecOps officers, a couple of Gaskell impersonators and an ersatz Colendge. I gave an embarrassed smile and looked from blank face to blank face, trying to figure out whether to run, or to fight, or what. My heart beat faster as a young officer quite close to me reached into his breast pocket and pulled out . . . a notebook.

'Please,' he said, 'I wonder if I might have your autograph?'

'Well, of course.'

I breathed a sigh of relief, and pretty soon I was having my back slapped and being congratulated on the whole Jane Eyre adventure. I'd forgotten the celebrity thing but also noticed that there were officers in the room who were interested in me for another reason — SO-1, probably.

'I need to see Bowden Cable,' I said to the desk sergeant, realising that if anyone could help, it was my old partner. He smiled, picked up a phone, announced me and wrote out a visitor's pass, then told me to go to interview suite sixteen on the third floor. I thanked my new-found acquaintances, made my way to the elevators and ascended to the third floor. When the lift doors rattled open I walked with a hurried step towards room sixteen. Halfway there I was accosted by Bowden, who slid his arm in mine and steered me into an empty office.

'Bowden!' I said happily. 'How are you?'

He hadn't changed much in the past two years. Fastidiously neat, he was wearing the usual pinstripe suit but without a jacket, so he must have been in a hurry to meet me.

'I'm good, Thursday, real good. But where the hell have you been?'

'I've been—'

'You can tell me later. Thank the GSD I got to you first! We don't have a lot of time. Goodness! What have you done to your hair?'

'Well, Joan of—'

'You can tell me later. Ever heard of Yorrick Kaine?'

'Of course! I'm here to—'

'No time for explanations. He's not fond of you at all. He has a personal adviser named Ernst Stncknene who calls us every day to ask if you've returned. But this morning — he didn't call!'

'So?'

'So he knows you're back. Why is the Chancellor interested in you, anyway?'

'Because he's fictional and I want to take him back to the BookWorld where he belongs.'

'Coming from anyone but you I'd laugh. Is that really true?'

'As true as I'm standing here.'

'Well, your life is in danger, that's all I know. Ever heard of the assassin known as the—'

'Windowmaker?'

'How did you know?'

'I have my sources. Any idea who took out the contract?'

'Well, they've killed sixty-seven people — sixty-eight if they did Samuel Pring — and they definitely did the number on Gordon DuffRolecks, whose death really only benefited—'

'Kaine.'

'Exactly. You need to take particular care. More than that, we need you back as a full serving member of the Literary Detectives. We've got one or two problems that need ironing out in our department.'

'So what do we do?'

'Well, you're AWOL at best and a cheese smuggler at worst. So we've concocted a cover story of such bizarre complexity and outrageous daring that it can only be true. Here it is: in a parallel universe ruled entirely by lobsters you—'

But at that moment the door opened and a familiar figure walked in. I say familiar but he was not exactly welcome. It was Commander Braxton Hicks, head of SpecOps here in Swindon.

I could almost hear Bowden's heart fall — mine too.

Hicks still had a job because of me but I didn't expect that to count for much. He was a company man, a bean counter — more fond of his precious budget than anything else. He had never given me any quarter and I didn't expect any now.

'Ah, found you!' said the commander in a senous tone. 'Miss Next. They told me you'd arrived. Been giving us the run-around, haven't you?'

'She's been—' began Bowden.

'I'm sure Miss Next can explain for herself, hmm?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Good. Close the door behind you, eh?'

Bowden gave a sickly smile and slunk out of the interview room.

Braxton sat, opened my file and stroked his large moustache thoughtfully.

'Absent without leave for over two years, demoted eighteen months ago, non-return of SpecOps weapon, badge and ruler, pencil, eight pens and a dictionary.'

'I can explain—'

'Then there is the question of the illegal cheese we found under a Hispano-Suiza at your picnic two and a half years ago. I have sworn affidavits from everyone present that you were alone, met them up there and the cheese was yours.'

'Yes, but—'

'And the traffic police said they saw you aiding and abetting a known serial dangerous driver on the A419 north of Swindon.'

'That's—'

'But what's worse was that you lied to me systematically from the moment you came under my command. You said you would learn to play golf and you never so much as picked up a putter.'

'But—'

'I have proof of your lies, too. I personally visited every single golf club and not one of them had ever let someone of your description play golf there — not even on the practice ranges. How do you explain that, eh?'

'Well—'

'You vanish from sight two and a half years ago. Not a word. Had to demote you. Star employee. Newspapers had a field day. Upset my swing for weeks.'

'I'm sorry if it upset your golf, sir.'

'You're rather in the soup, young lady.'

He stared at me in exactly the sort of way my English teacher used to at school, and I had that sudden and dangerously overpowering urge to laugh out loud. Luckily, I didn't.

'What have you got to say for yourself?'

'I can explain, if you'll let me.'

'My girl, I've been trying to get you to tell me for five—'

The door opened again and in walked Colonel Flanker of SO-1 with another officer. Flanker ran Internal Affairs, the SpecOps police. About as welcome as worms and another old bête noire of mine. If Hicks was bad, Flanker was worse. Braxton only wanted me to undergo some sort of disciplinary nonsense — Flanker would want to lock me up for good, after I had led them to my father.

'So!' he said as soon as he saw me. 'It's true. Thank you, Braxton, my prisoner. Officer Jodrell, cuff her.'

Jodrell walked over to me, took one of my wrists and placed it behind my back. There didn't seem to be much point in running; I could see at least three other SO-1 agents hovering near the door. I thought of Friday. If only Bowden had got to me a few minutes earlier—!

'Just a minute, Mr Flanker,' said Braxton, closing my file. 'What do you think you're doing?'

'Arresting Miss Next on charges of being AWOL, dereliction of duty and illegal possession of bootleg cheese — for starters.'

'She was on assignment for SO-23,' said Braxton, staring at him evenly, 'undercover for the Cheese Squad.'

I couldn't believe my ears. Braxton lying? For me?

'The Cheese Squad?' echoed Flanker with some surprise.

'Yes,' replied Braxton, who once started clearly found the subterfuge and reckless use of his authority somewhat exciting. 'She's been in deep cover in Wales for two years on a clandestine espionage operation monitoring illegal cheese factones. The cheese with her fingerprints on was part of an illegal cross-border shipment that she helped seize.'

'Really?' said Flanker, his confidence rattled.

'On my word. She's not under arrest, she's being debriefed. It seems that the operation was under the control of Joe Martlet. Full details will be available from him.'

'You know as well as I do that Joe was shot dead by the cheese mafia two weeks ago.'

'It was a tragedy,' admitted Braxton. 'Fine man, Martlet — one of the best. Could play a three under par with ease and never swore when he drove into the rough and hence Miss Next's reappearance,' he added without a pause. I'd never seen anyone lie so well before. Not even me. Not even Friday when I found he'd raided the cookie jar with Pickwick's help.

'Is this true?' asked Flanker. 'Two years undercover in Wales?'

' Ydy, ond dydy hi ddim wedi bwrw glaw pob dydd!' I replied in my best Welsh.

Flanker narrowed his eyes and stared at me for a moment without speaking.

'I was just reassigning her to the Literary Detectives when you walked in the door,' added Braxton.

Flanker looked at Braxton, then at me, then at Braxton again. He nodded at Jodrell, who released me.

'Very well. But I want a full report on my desk Tuesday.'

'You can have it Friday, Mr Flanker. I'm a very busy man.'

Flanker glared at me for a moment, then addressed Braxton: 'Since Miss Next is back with the Literary Detectives perhaps you would be good enough to appoint her as SO-14 Danish Book Seizure Liaison Officer. My boys are pretty good at the seizure stuff but to be honest none of them can tell a Mark Twain from a Samuel Clemens.'

'I'm not sure I want—' I began.

'I think you should be happy to assist me, Miss Next, don't you? A chance to make amends for past transgressions, yes?'

Braxton answered for me.

'I'm sure Miss Next would be happy to assist in any way she can, Mr Flanker.'

Flanker gave a rare smile.

'Good. I'll have the divisional head of SO-14 get in touch with you.' He turned to Braxton. 'But I'll still need that report on Tuesday.'

'You'll get it,' replied Braxton, 'on Friday.'

Flanker glared at us both and without another word strode from the room, his minions at his heels. When the door closed I breathed a sigh of relief.

'Sir, I—'

'I don't want to hear anything more about it,' replied Braxton sharply, gathering up his papers. 'I retire in two months' time and wanted to do something that made my whole pen-pushing, play-it-safe, shiny-arse career actually be worth it. I don't know what's going to happen to the LiteraTec division with all this insane Danish book-burning stuff, but what I do know is that people like you need to stay in it. Lead them on a merry goose-chase, young lady — I can keep Flanker wrapped up in red tape pretty much for ever.'

'Braxton,' I said, giving him a spontaneous hug, 'you're a darling!'

'Nonsense!' he said gruffly, and a tad embarrassed. 'But I do expect a little something in return.'

'And that is?'

'Well,' he said slowly, his eyes dropping to the ground, 'I wonder if you and I might—'

'Might what?'

'Might . . . play golf on Sunday. A few holes.' His eyes gleamed. 'Just for you to get the taste. Believe me, as soon as you grasp the handle of a golf club you'll be hooked for ever! Mrs Hicks need never know. How about it?'

'I'll be there at nine,' I told him, laughing.

'You'll be a long time waiting — I get there at eleven.'

'Eleven it is.'

I shook his hand and walked out of the door a free woman. Sometimes help arrives from the last place you expect it.

7

The Literary Detectives

I found Bowden fretting in the LiteraTec office and related what had happened.

'Well, well,' he said at last, 'I think old Braxton's got a crush.'

'Oh, stop it!'

The office we were sitting in resembled a large library in a country house somewhere. It was two storeys high, with shelves crammed full of books covering every square inch of wall space. A spiral staircase led to a catwalk which ran around the wall, enabling access to the upper galleries. It was neat and methodical — but somehow less busy than I remembered.

'Where is everyone?'

'When you were here last we had a staff of eight. Now it's only Victor, me and Malm. All the rest were reassigned or laid off.'

'All SpecOps departments?'

Bowden laughed.

'Of course not! The bully boys at SO-I4 are alive and well and answer to Yorrick Kaine's every order. SO-1 haven't seen many cuts, either—'

'Thursday, 'what a delightful surprise!'

It was Victor Analogy, my old boss here at the Swindon LiteraTecs. He was an elderly gentleman with large mutton-chop sideburns, dressed in a neat tweed suit and bow tie. He had taken off his jacket owing to the summer heat but still managed to cut a very dashing figure, despite his advanced age.

'Victor, you're looking very well!'

'And you, dear girl. What devilry have you been up to since last we met?'

'It's a long story.'

'The best sort. Let me guess: inside fiction?'

'In one.'

'What's it like?'

'It's quite good, really. Confusing at times and subject to moments of extreme imaginative overload, but varied and the weather's generally pretty good. Can we talk safely in here?'

Victor nodded and we sat down. I told them about Jurisfiction, the Council of Genres and everything else that had happened to me during my tenure as Bellman. I even told them loosely about my involvement in The Solution of Edwin Drood, which amused them both no end.

'I've always wondered about that,' mused Victor thoughtfully. 'But you're sure about Yorrick Kaine being fictional?'

I told him that I was.

He stood up and walked to the window.

'You'll have a hard time getting close,' said Victor thoughtfully. 'Does he know you're back?'

'Definitely,' said Bowden.

'Then you could be threatening his position as absolute ruler of England almost as much as President Formby. I should keep on your toes, my girl. Is there anything we can do to help?'

I thought for a moment.

'There is, actually. We can't find which book Yorrick Kaine has escaped from. He could be using a false name and we should contact any readers who might recognise the Chancellor's somewhat crazed antics from an obscure character they might have encountered somewhere. We at Jurisfiction have been going through the Great Library at our end but we've still drawn a blank — every character in fiction has been accounted for.'

'We'll do what we can, Thursday — when can you rejoin us?'

'I don't know,' I answered slowly, 'I have to get my husband back. Remember I told you he was eradicated by the Chrono-Guard?'

'Yes; Lindane, wasn't it?'

'Landen. If it wasn't for him I'd probably stay inside fiction.'

We all fell silent for a moment.

'So,' I said cheerfully, 'what's been happening in the world of the LiteraTecs?'

Victor frowned.

'We don't hold with the book-burning lark of Kaine's. You heard about the order to start incinerating Danish literature?'

I nodded.

'Kierkegaard's works are being rounded up as we speak. I told Braxton that if we were asked to do any of it we'd resign.'

'Oh — ah.'

'I'm not sure I like the way you said that,' said Bowden.

I winced.

'I agreed to be the SO-14 Danish Book Seizure Liaison Officer for Flanker — sorry. I didn't have much of a choice.'

'I see that as good news,' put in Bowden. 'You can have them searching in places where they won't find any Danish books. Just be careful. Flanker has been suspicious ever since we said we were too busy to find out who was planning to smuggle copies of The Concept of Dread to Wales for safe-keeping.'

Bowden laughed and lowered his voice.

'It wasn't an excuse.' He chuckled. 'We actually were too busy — gathering copies of banned books ready for transportation to Wales!'

Victor grimaced.

'I really don't want to hear this, Bowden. If you get caught we'll all be for the high jump!'

'Some things are worth going to jail for, Victor,' replied Bowden in an even tone. 'As LiteraTecs we swore to uphold and defend the written word — not indulge a crazed politician's worst paranoic fantasies.'

'Just be careful.'

'Of course,' replied Bowden, 'it might come to nothing if we can't find a way to get the books out of England — the Welsh border shouldn't be a problem since Wales aligned itself with Denmark. I don't suppose you have any ideas how to get across the English border post?'

'I'm not sure,' I replied. 'How many copies of banned books do you want to smuggle anyway?'

'About four truckloads.'

I whistled. Things — like cheese, for instance — were usually smuggled in to England. I didn't know how I'd get banned books out.

'I'll give it a shot. What else is going on?'

'Usual stuff,' replied Bowden. 'Faked Milton, Jonson, Swift . . . Montague and Capulet street gangs . . . someone discovered a first draft of The Mill on the Floss entitled The Sploshing of the Weirs. Also, the Daphne Farquitt Specialist Bookshop went up in smoke.'

'Insurance scam?'

'No — probably anti-Farquitt protesters again.'

Farquitt had penned her first bodice-ripping novel in 1932 and had been writing pretty much the same one over and over again ever since. Loved by many and hated by a vitriolic minority, Farquitt was England's leading romantic novelist.

'There's also been a huge increase in the use of performance-enhancing drugs by novelists,' added Victor. 'Last year's Booker speed-writing winner was stripped of his award when he tested positive for Cartlandromin. And only last week Handley Paige only narrowly missed a two-year writing ban for failing a random dope test.'

'Sometimes I wonder if we don't have too many rules,' murmured Victor pensively, and we all three sat in silence, nodding thoughtfully for a moment.

Bowden broke the silence. He produced a piece of stained paper wrapped in a cellophane evidence bag and passed it across to me.

'What do you make of this?'

I read it, not recognising the words but recognising the style. It was a sonnet by Shakespeare — and a pretty good one, too.

'Shakespeare — but it's not Elizabethan; the mention of Basil Brush would seem to indicate that — but it feels like his. What did the Verse Metre Analyser say about it?'

'Ninety-one per cent probability of Will as the author,' replied Victor.

'Where did you get it?'

'Off the body of a down-and-out by the name of Shaxtper killed on Tuesday evening. We think someone has been cloning Shakespeares.'

'Cloning Shakespeares? Are you sure? Couldn't it just be a ChronoGuard "temporal kidnap" sort of thing?'

'No. Blood analysis tells us they were all vaccinated at birth against rubella, mumps and so forth.'

'Wait — you've got more than one?'

'Three,' said Bowden. 'There's been something of a spate recently.'

'When can you come back to work, Thursday?' asked Victor solemnly. 'As you can see, we need you.'

I paused for a moment.

'I'm going to need a week to get my life into gear first, sir. There are a few pressing matters that I have to attend to.'

'What, may I ask,' said Victor, 'is more important than Montague and Capulet street gangs, cloned Shakespeares, smuggling Kierkegaard out of the country and authors using banned substances?'

'Finding reliable childcare.'

'Goodness!' said Victor. 'Congratulations! You must bring the little squawker in some time. Mustn't she, Bowden?'

'Absolutely.'

'Bit of a problem, that,' murmured Victor. 'Can't have you dashing around the place only to have to get home at five to make Junior's tea. Perhaps we'd better handle all this on our own.'

'No,' I said with an assertiveness that made them both jump. 'No, I'm coming back to work. I just need to sort a few things out. Does SpecOps have a creche?'

'No.'

'Ah. Well, I suspect I shall think of something. If I get my husband back there won't be a problem. I'll call you tomorrow.'

There was a pause.

'Well, we have to respect that, I suppose,' said Victor solemnly. 'We're just glad that you're back. Aren't we, Bowden?'

'Yes,' replied my ex-partner, 'very glad indeed.'

8

Time Waits for No Man

I wasn't done with SpecOps yet. I still needed to figure out what my father had told me at our first meeting. Finding a time traveller can be fraught with difficulties, but since I passed the ChronoGuard office almost exactly three hours after our last meeting, it seemed the obvious place to look.

I knocked at their door and, hearing no answer, walked in. When I was last working at SpecOps we rarely heard anything from the mildly eccentric members of the time-travelling elite, but when you work in the time business, you don't waste it by nattering — it's much too precious. My father always argued that time was far and away the most valuable commodity we had and that temporal profligacy should be a criminal offence — which kind of makes watching Celebrity Kidney Swap or reading Daphne Farquitt novels a crime straight away.

The room was empty and, from appearances, had been so for a number of years. At least, that's what it looked like when I first peered in — a second later some painters were decorating it for the first time, the second after that it was derelict, then full, then empty again. It continued like this as I watched, the room jumping to various different stages in its history but never lingering for more than a few seconds in any one particular time. The ChronoGuard operatives were merely smears of light that moved and whirled about, momentarily visible to me as they jumped from past to future and future to past. If I had been a trained member of the ChronoGuard perhaps I could have made more sense of it, but I wasn't, and couldn't.

There was one piece of furniture that remained unchanged whilst all about raced, moved and blurred in a never-ending jumble. It was a small table with an old candlestick telephone upon it. I stepped into the room and lifted the receiver.

'Hello?'

'Hello,' said a pre-recorded voice, 'you're through to the Swindon ChronoGuard. To assist with your enquiry we have a number of choices. If you have been the victim of temporal flexation, dial one. If you wish to report a temporal anomaly, dial two. If you feel you might have been involved in a time crime . . .'

It gave me several more choices, but nothing that told me how to contact my father. Finally, at the end of the long list, it gave me the option for meeting an operative, so I dialled that. In an instant the blurred movement in the room stopped and everything fell into place — but with furniture and fittings more suited to the sixties. There was an agent sitting at the desk, a tall and undeniably handsome man in the blue uniform of the ChronoGuard, emblazoned at the shoulder with the pips of a captain. As he himself had predicted, it was my father, three hours later and three hours younger. At first, he didn't recognise me.

'Hello,' he said, 'can I help you?'

'It's me, Thursday.'

'Thursday?' he echoed, eyes wide open as he stood up. 'My daughter Thursday?'

I nodded and he moved closer.

'My goodness!' he exclaimed, scrutinising me with great interest. 'How wonderful to see you again! How long's it been? Six centuries?'

'Two years,' I told him, not wanting to confuse a confusing matter even further by mentioning our conversation this morning, 'but why are you working for the ChronoGuard again? I thought you went rogue?'

'Ah!' he said, beckoning me closer and lowering his voice. 'There was a change of administration and they said they would look very closely at my grievances if I'd come and work for them at the Historical Preservation Corps. I had to take demotion and I won't be reactualised until the paperwork is done, but it's working out quite well otherwise. Is your husband still eradicated?'

'I'm afraid so. Any chance . . . ?'

He winced.

'I'd love to, Sweetpea, but I've really got to watch my Ps and Qs for a few decades. Do you like the office?'

I looked at the sixties decor in the tiny room.

'Bit small, isn't it?'

My father, who was clearly in an ebullient mood, grinned. 'Oh yes, and over seven hundred of us work here. Since we could not all be here at one time, we simply stretch the usage out across the timestream like a long piece of elastic.'

He stretched his arms wide as if to demonstrate.

'We call it a timeshare.'

He rubbed his chin and looked around.

'What's the time out there?'

'It's 14 July 1988.'

'That's a stroke of good fortune,' he said, lowering his voice still further. 'It's a good job you've turned up. They've blamed me for the 1864 war between Germany and Denmark.'

'Was it your fault?'

'No — it was that clot Bismarck. But it doesn't matter. They've transferred me to another division inside the Historical Preservation Corps for a second chance. My first assignment occurs in July 1988, so local knowledge right now is a godsend. Have you heard of anyone named Yorrick Kaine?'

'He's Chancellor of England.'

'That figures. Did St Zvlkx return tomorrow?'

'He might.'

'Okay. Who won the Superhoop?'

'That's Saturday week,' I explained. 'It hasn't happened yet.'

'Not strictly true, Sweetpea. Everything that we do actually happened a long, long time ago — even this conversation. The future is already there. The pioneers that ploughed the first furrows of history into virgin timeline died aeons ago — all we do now is try and keep it pretty much the way it should be. Have you heard of someone named Winston Churchill, by the way?'