'Thursday Next' (№3) - The Well of Lost Plots

'Hello!' said a jovial voice close by. I turned to see a large man in a macintosh grinning at me.

'Detective Sergeant Mary,' I told him obediently. 'Transferred here from Basingstoke.'

'You don't have to worry about all that yet.' He smiled. 'The story is with Jack at the moment — he's meeting Officer Tibbit on the street outside. My name's DCI Briggs and I'm your friendly yet long-suffering boss in this little caper. Crusty and prone to outbursts of temper yet secretly supportive, I will have to suspend Jack at least once before the story is over.'

'How do you do?' I spluttered.

'Excellent!' cried Briggs, shaking my hand gratefully. 'Mary told me you're with Jurisfiction. Is that true?'

'Yes.'

'Any news about when the Council of Genres Book Inspectorate will be in?' he asked. 'It would be a help to know.'

'Council of Genres?' I echoed, trying not to let my ignorance show. 'I'm sorry, I've not spent that much time in the BookWorld.'

'An Outlander?' replied Briggs, eyes wide in wonderment. 'Here, in Caversham Heights'?'

'Yes,' I admitted, 'I'm—'

'Tell me,' interrupted Briggs, 'what do waves look like when they crash on the shore?'

'Who's an Outlander?' echoed the pathologist, a middle-aged Indian woman who suddenly leaped to her feet and stared at me intently. 'You?'

'Y-es,' I admitted.

'I'm Dr Singh,' explained the pathologist, shaking my hand vigorously. 'I'm matter-of-fact, apparently without humour, like cats and people who like cats, don't suffer fools, yet on occasion I do exhibit a certain warmth. Tell me, do you think I'm anything like a real pathologist?'

'Of course,' I answered, trying to think of her brief appearances in the book.

'You see,' she went on, 'I've never seen a real pathologist and I'm really not sure what I'm meant to do.'

'You're doing fine,' I assured her.

'What about me?' asked Briggs. 'Do you think I need to develop more as a character? Am I like all those real people you rub shoulders with, or am I a bit one-dimensional?'

'Well—' I began.

'I knew it!' he cried unhappily. 'It's the hair, isn't it? Do you think it should be shorter? Longer? What about having a bizarre character trait? I've been learning the trombone — that would be unusual, yes?'

'Someone said there was an Outlander in the book—!' interrupted a uniformed officer, one of a pair who had just walked into the yard. 'I'm Unnamed Police Officer #1, this is my colleague, Unnamed Police Officer #2. Can I ask a question about the Outland?'

'Sure.'

'What's the point of alphabet soup?'

'I don't know.'

'Are you sure you're from the Outland?' he asked suspiciously, adding 'Then tell me this: why is there no singular for scampi?

'I'm not sure.'

'You're not from the Outland,' said Unnamed Police Officer #1 sadly. 'You should be ashamed of yourself, lying and raising our hopes like that!'

'Very well,' I replied, covering my eyes. 'I'll prove it to you. Speak to me in turn but leave off your speech designators.'

'Okay,' said Unnamed Police Officer #1, 'who is this talking?'

'And who is this?' added Dr Singh.

'I said leave off your speech designators. Try again.'

'It's harder than you think,' sighed Unnamed Police Officer #1. 'Okay, here goes.'

There was a pause.

'Which one of us is talking now?'

'And who am I?'

'Mrs Singh first, Unnamed Police Officer #1 second. Was I correct?'

'Amazing!' murmured Mrs Singh. 'How do you do that?'

'I can recognise your voices. I have a sense of smell, too.'

'No kidding? Do you know anyone in publishing?'

'None who would help. My husband is, or was, an author, but his contacts wouldn't know me from Eve at present. I'm a SpecOps officer; I don't have much to do with contemporary fiction.'

'SpecOps?' queried UPO #2. 'What's that?'

'We're going to be scrapped, you know,' interrupted Briggs, 'unless we can get a publisher.'

'We could be broken down into letters,' added UPO #1 in a hushed tone, 'cast into the Text Sea; and I have a wife and two kids — or at least, in my backstory I do.'

'I can't help you,' I told them, I'm not even—'

'Places, please!' yelled Briggs so suddenly I jumped.

The pathologist and the two unnamed officers hurried back to their places and awaited Jack, who I could hear talking to someone in the house.

'Good luck,' hissed Briggs from the side of his mouth as he motioned me to sit on a low wall. 'I'll prompt you if you dry.'

'Thanks.'

DCI Briggs was sitting on a low wall with a plainclothes policewoman who busied herself taking notes and did not look up. Briggs stood as Jack entered and looked at his watch in an unsubtle way. Jack answered the unasked question in the defensive, which he soon realised was a mistake

'I'm sorry, sir, I came here as quick as I could.'

Briggs grunted and waved a hand in the direction of the corpse.

'It looks like he died from gunshot wounds,' he said grimly, 'discovered dead at 8.47 this morning.'

'Anything else I need to know?' asked Spratt.

'A couple of points. First, the deceased is the nephew of crime boss Angel DeFablio, so I wanted someone good with the press in case the media decide to have a bonanza. Second, I'm giving you this job as a favour. You're not exactly first seed with the seventh floor at the moment. There are some people who want to see you take a fall — and I don't want that to happen.'

'Is there a third point?'

'No one else is available.'

'I preferred it when there were only two.'

'Listen, Jack,' went on Briggs, 'you're a good officer if a little , sprung loaded at times and I want you on my team without any mishaps.'

'Is this where I say thank you?'

'You do. Mop it up nice and neat and give me an initial report as soon as you can. Okay?'

Briggs nodded in the direction of the young lady who had been waiting patiently.

'Jack, I want you to meet Thurs — I mean, DS Mary Jones.'

'Hello,' said Jack.

'Pleased to meet you, sir,' said the young woman.

'And you. Who are you working with?'

'Next — I mean Jones is your new Detective Sergeant,' said Briggs beginning to sweat for some inexplicable reason. 'Transferred with an Al record from Swindon.'

'Basingstoke,' corrected Mary.

'Sorry. Basingstoke.'

'No offence to DS Jones, sir, but I was hoping for Butcher, Spooner or—'

'Not possible, Jack,' said Briggs in the tone of voice that made arguing useless. 'Well, I'm off. I'll leave you here with, er—'

'Jones.'

'Yes, Jones, so you can get acquainted. Remember: I need that report as soon as possible. Got it?'

Jack did indeed get it and Briggs departed.

He shivered in the cold and looked at the young DS again.

'Mary Jones, eh?'

'Yes, sir.'

'What have you found out so far?'

She dug in her pocket for a notebook, couldn't find it so counted the points off on her fingers instead.

'Deceased's name is Sonny DeFablio.'

There was a pause. Jack didn't say anything so Jones, now slightly startled, continued as though he had.

'Time of death? Too early to tell. Probably 3 a.m. last night, give or take an hour. We'll know more when we get the corpse. Gun? We'll know when…'

'… Jack, are you okay?'

He had sat down wearily and was staring at the ground, head in hands.

I looked around but Dr Singh, her assistants and the unnamed officers were busily getting on with their parts, unwilling, it seemed, to get embroiled — or perhaps they were just embarrassed.

'I can't do this any more,' muttered Jack.

'Sir,' I persisted, trying to ad-lib, 'do you want to see the body or can we remove it?'

'What's the use?' sobbed the crushed protagonist. 'No one is reading us; it doesn't matter.'

I placed my hand on his shoulder.

'I've tried to make it more interesting,' he sobbed, 'but nothing seems to work. My wife won't speak to me, my job's on the line, drugs are flooding into Reading, and if I don't make the narrative even remotely readable then we all get demolished and there's nothing left at all except an empty hole on the bookshelf and the memory of a might-have-been in the head of the author.'

'Your wife only left you because all loner maverick detectives have domestic problems,' I explained. 'I'm sure she loves you really.'

'No, no, she doesn't,' he sobbed again. 'All is lost. Don't you see? It's customary for detectives to drive unusual cars and I had a wonderful 1924 Delage-Talbot Supersport. The idea was stolen and replaced with that dreadful Austin Allegro. If any scenes get deleted, we'll really be stuffed.'

He looked up at me.

'What's your name?'

'Thursday Next.'

He perked up suddenly.

'Thursday Next? The Outlander Jurisfiction agent apprenticed to Miss Havisham Thursday Next?'

I nodded. News travels fast in the Well.

An excited gleam came into his eye.

'I read about you in The Word. Tell me, would you have any way of finding out when the Book Inspectorate are due to read our story? I've lined up seven three-dimensional B-2 freelancers to come in and give the book a bit of an edge — just for an hour or so. With their help we might be able to hang on to it; all I need to know is the when.'

'I'm sorry, Mr Spratt.' I sighed. 'I'm new to all this; what exactly is the Council of Genres?'

'They look after fictional legislature,' he replied. 'Dramatic conventions, mainly. A representative from every genre sits on the council — it is they who decide the conventions of storytelling and it is they — through the Book Inspectorate — who decide whether an unpublished book is to be kept — or demolished.'

'Oh,' I replied, realising that the BookWorld was governed by almost as many rules and regulations as my own, 'then I can't help you.'

'What about Text Grand Central? Do you know anyone there?'

TGC I had heard of: they monitored the books in the Great Library and passed any textual problems on to us at Jurisfiction, who were purely a policing agency — but I knew no more than that. I shook my head again.

'Blast!' he muttered, staring at the ground. 'I've applied to the C of G for a cross-genre makeover but you might as well try and speak to the Great Panjandrum himself.'

'Why don't you change the book from within?' I asked.

'Change without permission?' he replied, shocked at my suggestion. 'That would mean rebellion. I want to get the C of G's attention but not like that — we'd be crushed in less than a chapter!'

'But if the inspectorate haven't been round yet,' I said slowly, 'then how would they even know anything had changed?'

He thought about this for a moment.

'Easier said than done — if I start to fool with the narrative it might all collapse like a pack of cards!'

'Then start small,' I proposed, 'change yourself first. If that works, you can try to bend the plot slightly.'

'Y-esss,' said Jack slowly. 'What did you have in mind?'

'Give up the booze.'

'How did you know about my drink problem?'

'All maverick loner detectives with domestic strife have drink problems,' I commented. 'Give up the liquor and go home to your wife.'

'That's not how I've been written,' replied Jack slowly. 'I just can't do it — it would be going against type — the readers—!'

'Jack, there are no readers. And if you don't at least try what I suggest, there never will be any readers — or any Jack Spratt. But if things go well, you might even be in … a sequel.'

'A sequel?' repeated Jack with a sort of dreamy look in his eyes. 'You mean — a Jack Spratt series?

'Who knows,' I added, 'maybe even one day a boxed set.'

His eyes gleamed and he stood up.

'A boxed set,' he whispered, staring into the middle distance. 'It's up to me, isn't it?' he added in a slow voice.

'Yes. Change yourself, change the book — and soon, before it's too late, make the novel into something the Book Inspectorate will want to read.'

'Okay,' he said at last, 'beginning with the next chapter. Instead of arguing with Briggs about letting a suspect go without charging them, I'll take my ex-wife out to lunch.'

'No.'

'No?'

'No,' I affirmed. 'Not tomorrow or next chapter or even next page or paragraph — you're going to change now.'

'We can't!' he protested. 'There are at least nine more pages while you and I discuss the state of the body with Dr Singh and go through all that boring forensic stuff.'

'Leave it to me,' I told him. 'We'll jump back a paragraph or two. Ready?'

He nodded and we moved to the top of the previous page, just as Briggs was leaving.

Jack did indeed get it and Briggs departed.

He shivered in the cold and looked at the young DS again. 'Mary Jones, eh?'

'Yes, sir.'

'What have you found out so far?'

She dug in her pocket for a notebook, couldn't find it so counted the points off on her fingers instead.

'Deceased's name is Sonny DeFablio.'

'What else?'

'Your wife phoned.'

'She … did?'

'Yes. Said it was important.'

'I'll drop by this evening.'

'She said it was very urgent,' stressed Jones.

'Hold the fort for me, would you?'

'Certainly, sir.'

Jack walked from the crime scene leaving Jones with Dr Singh.

'Right,' said Mary, 'what have we got? …'

* * *

We ran the scene together, Dr Singh telling me all the information that she was more used to relating to Jack. She went into a huge amount of detail regarding the time of death and a more-than-graphic explanation of how she thought it had happened. Ballistics, trajectory, blood-splatter patterns, you name it. I was really quite glad when she finished and the chapter moved off to Jack's improvised meeting with his ex-wife. As soon as we were done, Dr Singh turned to me and said in an anxious tone:

'I hope you know what you're doing.'

'Not a clue.'

'Me neither,' replied the quasi-pathologist. 'You know that long speech I made just now about post-mortem bruising, angles of bullet entry and discoloration of body tissues—?'

'Yes?'

She leaned closer.

'Didn't understand a word. Eight pages of technical dialogue and haven't the foggiest what I'm talking about. I only trained at Generic college as a mother figure in domestic potboilers. If I'd known I was to be drafted to this I would have spent a few hours in a Cornwell. Do you have any clues as to what I'm actually meant to do?'

I rummaged in her bag and brought out a large thermometer.

'Try this.'

'What do I do with it?'

I pointed.

'You're kidding me,' replied Dr Singh, aghast.

3

Three witches, multiple choice and sarcasm

'Jurisfiction is the name given to the policing agency that works inside books. Under a remit from the Council of Genres and working with the intelligence-gathering capabilities of Text Grand Central, the Prose Resource Operatives at Jurisfiction comprise a mixed bag of characters, most drawn from the ranks of fiction but some, like Harris Tweed and myself, from the real world. Problems in fiction are noticed by "spotters" employed at Text Grand Central, and from there relayed to the Bellman, a ten-yearly elected figure who runs Jurisfiction under strict guidelines laid down by the Council of Genres. Jurisfiction has its own code of conduct, technical department, canteen, and resident washerwoman.'

THURSDAY NEXT — The Jurisfiction Chronicles

Mrs Singh didn't waste the opportunity, and she gathered together several other trainee pathologists she knew from the Well. They all sat spellbound as I recounted the limited information I possessed. Exhausted, I managed to escape four hours later. It was evening when I finally got home. I opened the door to the flying boat and kicked off my shoes. Pickwick rushed up to greet me and tugged excitedly at my trouser leg. I followed her through to the living room and then had to wait while she remembered where she had left her egg. We finally found it rolled behind the hi-fi and I congratulated her, despite there being no change in its appearance.

I returned to the kitchen, ibb and obb had been studying Mrs Beeton all day, and ibb was attempting steak Diane with french fries. Landen used to cook that for me and I suddenly felt very lonesome and small, so far from home I might very well be on Pluto, obb was putting the final touches to a fully decorated four-tier wedding cake.

'Hello, ibb,' I said, 'how's it going?'

'How's what going?' replied the Generic in that annoying literal way in which they speak. 'And I'm obb.'

'Sorry — obb.'

'Why are you sorry? Have you done something?'

'Never mind.'

I sat down at the table and opened a package that had arrived. It was from Miss Havisham and contained the Jurisfiction Standard Entrance Exam. Jurisfiction was the policing agency within fiction that I had joined almost by accident — I had wanted to get Jack Schitt out of 'The Raven' and getting involved with the agency seemed to be the best way to learn. But Jurisfiction had grown on me and I now felt strongly about maintaining the solidity of the written word. It was the same job I had undertaken at SpecOps, just from the other side. But it struck me that, on this occasion, Miss Havisham was wrong — I was not yet ready for full membership.

The hefty tome consisted of five hundred questions, nearly all of them multiple choice. I noticed that the exam was self-invigilating; as soon as I opened the book a clock in the top left-hand corner started to count down from two hours. They were mostly questions about literature, which I had no problem with. Jurisfiction law was trickier and I would probably need to consult Miss Havisham. I made a start and ten minutes later was pondering question forty-six: Which of the following poets never used the outlawed word 'majestic' in their work? when there was a knock at the door accompanied by a peal of thunder.

I closed the exam book and opened the door. On the jetty were three ugly old crones dressed in filthy rags. They had bony features, rough and warty skin, and they launched into a well-rehearsed act as soon as the door opened.

'When shall we three meet again?' said the first witch. 'In Thurber, Wodehouse, or in Greene?'

'When the hurly-burly's done,' added the second, 'when the story's thought and spun!'

There was a pause until the second witch nudged the third.

'That will be Eyre the set of sun,' she said quickly.

'Where the place?'

'Within the text.'

'There to meet with MsNext!'

They stopped talking and I stared, unsure of what I was meant to do.

'Thank you very much,' I replied, but the first witch snorted disparagingly and "wedged her foot in the door as I tried to close it.

'Prophecies, kind lady?' she asked as the other two cackled hideously.

'I really don't think so,' I answered, pushing her foot away. 'Perhaps another time.'

'All hail, MsNext! hail to thee, citizen of Swindon!'

'Really, I'm sorry — and I'm out of change.'

'All hail, MsNext, hail to thee, full Jurisfiction agent, thou shalt be!'

'If you don't go,' I began, starting to get annoyed, 'I'll—'

'All hail, MsNext, thou shalt be Bellman thereafter!'

'Sure I will. Go on, clear off, you imperfect speakers — bother someone else with your nonsense!'

'A shilling!' said the first. 'And we shall tell you more — or less, as you please.'

I closed the door despite their grumbling and went back to my multiple choice. I'd only just answered question forty-nine: Which of the following is not a gerund? when there was another knock at the door.

'Blast!' I muttered, getting up and striking my ankle on the table leg. It was the three witches again.

'I thought I told you—'

'Sixpence, then,' said the chief hag, putting out a bony hand.

'No,' I replied firmly, rubbing my ankle. 'I never buy anything at the door.'

They all started up then:

'Thrice to thine and thrice to mine, and thrice again, to make up—'

I shut the door again. I wasn't superstitious and had far more important things to worry about. I had just sat down again, sipped my tea and answered the next question: Who wrote 'Toad of Toad Hall'? when there was another rap at the door.

'Right,' I said to myself, marching across the room, 'I've had it with you three.'

I pulled open the door and said:

'Listen here, hag, I'm really not interested, nor ever will be in your … Oh.'

I stared. Granny Next. If it had been Admiral Lord Nelson himself I don't think I could have been more surprised.

'Gran!?!' I exclaimed. 'What on earth are you doing here?'

She was dressed in a spectacular outfit of blue gingham, from her dress to her overcoat and even her hat, shoes and bag.

I hugged her. She smelt of Bodmin for Women. She hugged me in return in that sort of fragile way that very elderly people do. And she was elderly — a hundred and eight, at the last count.

'I have come to look after you, young Thursday,' she announced.

'Er — thank you, Gran,' I replied, wondering quite how she got here.

'You're going to have a baby and need attending to,' she added grandly. 'My suitcase is on the jetty and you're going to have to pay the taxi.'

'Of course,' I muttered, going outside and finding a yellow cab with TransGenreTaxis written on the door.

'How much?' I asked the cabby.

'Seventeen and six.'

'Oh yes?' I replied sarcastically. 'Took the long way round?'

'Trips to the the Well cost double,' said the cabby. 'Pay up or I'll make sure Jurisfiction hears about it.'

I handed him a pound and he patted his pockets.

'Sorry,' he said, 'have you got anything smaller? I don't carry much change.'

'Keep it,' I told him as his footnoterphone muttered something about a party often wanting to get out of Florence in The Decameron. I got a receipt and he vanished from view. I picked up Gran's suitcase and hauled it into the Sunderland.

'This is ibb and obb,' I explained, 'Generics billeted with me. The one on the left is ibb.'

'I'm obb.'

'Sorry. That's ibb and that's obb. This is my grandmother.'

'Hello,' said Granny Next, gazing at my two house guests.

'You're very old,' observed ibb.

'One hundred and eight,' announced Gran proudly. 'Do you two do anything but stare?'

'Not really,' said ibb.

'Plock,' said Pickwick, who had popped her head round the door. She ruffled her feathers excitedly and rushed up to greet Gran, who always seemed to have a few spare marshmallows about her.

'What's it like being old?' asked ibb, who was peering closely at the soft pink folds in Gran's skin.

'Death's adolescence,' replied Gran, 'but you know the worst part?'

Ibb and obb shook their heads.

'I'm going to miss my funeral by three days.'

'Gran!' I scolded. 'You'll confuse them — they tend to take things literally.'

It was too late.

'Miss your own funeral?' muttered ibb, thinking hard. 'How is that possible?'

'Think about it, ibb,' said obb. 'If she lived three days longer, she'd be able to speak at her own funeral — get it?'

'Of course,' said ibb, 'stupid of me.'

And they went into the kitchen, talking about Mrs Beeton and the best way to deal with amorous liaisons between the scullery maid and the boot boy — it must have been an old edition.

'When's supper?' asked Gran, looking disdainfully at the interior of the flying boat. 'I'm absolutely famished — but nothing tougher than suet, mind. The gnashers aren't what they were.'

I delicately helped her out of her gingham coat and sat her down at the table. Steak Diane would be like eating railway sleepers to her, so I started to make an omelette.

'Now, Gran,' I said, cracking some eggs into a bowl, 'I want you to tell me what you're doing here.'

'I need to be here to remind you of things you might forget, young Thursday.'

'Such as what?'

'Such as Landen. They eradicated my husband too, and the one thing I needed was someone to help me through it, so that's what I'm here to do for you.'

'I'm not going to forget him, Gran!'

'Yes,' she agreed in a slightly peculiar way, 'I'm here to make sure of it.'

'That's the why,' I persisted, 'but what about the how?'

'I too used to do the occasional job for Jurisfiction in the old days,' she explained, 'a long time ago, mind, but it was just one of many jobs that I did in my life — and not the strangest, either.'

'What was?' I asked, knowing in my heart that I really shouldn't be asking.

'Well, I was God Emperor of the Universe once,' she answered in the same manner in which she might have admitted to going to the pictures, 'and being a man for twenty-four hours was pretty weird.'

'Yes,' I replied, 'I expect it was.'

Ibb laid the table and we sat down to eat ten minutes later. As Gran sucked on her omelette I tried to make conversation with ibb and obb. The trouble was, neither of them had the requisite powers of social communication to assimilate anything from speech other than the bald facts it contained. I tried a joke I had heard from Bowden, my partner at SpecOps, about an octopus and a set of bagpipes. But when I delivered the punchline they both stared at me.

'Why would the bagpipes be dressed in pyjamas?' asked ibb.

'They weren't,' I replied, 'it was the tartan. That's just what the octopus thought they were.'

'I see,' said obb, not seeing at all. 'Would you mind going over it again?'

'That's it,' I said resolutely, 'you're going to have a personality if it kills me.'

'Kill you?' enquired ibb in all seriousness. 'Why would it kill you?'

I thought carefully. There had to be somewhere to begin. I clicked my fingers.

'Sarcasm,' I said. 'We'll start with that.'

They both looked at me blankly.

'Well,' I began, 'sarcasm is closely related to irony and implies a twofold view — a literal meaning yet a wholly different intention from what is said. For instance, if you were lying to me about who ate all the anchovies I left in the cupboard, and you had eaten them, you might say: "It wasn't me" and I would say: "Sure it wasn't," meaning I'm sure it was but in an ironic or sarcastic manner.'

'What's an anchovy?' asked ibb.

'A small and very salty fish.'

'I see,' replied ibb. 'Does sarcasm work with other things or is it only fish?'

'No, the stolen anchovies was only by way of an example. Now you try.'

'An anchovy?'

'No, you try some sarcasm.'

They continued to look at me blankly. I sighed.

'Like trying to nail jelly to the wall,' I muttered under my breath.

'Plock,' said Pickwick in her sleep as she gently keeled over. 'Plocketty-plock.'

'Sarcasm is better explained through humour,' put in Gran, who had been watching my efforts with interest. 'You know that Pickwick isn't too clever?'

Pickwick stirred in her sleep where she had fallen, resting on her head with her claws in the air.

'Yes, we know that,' replied ibb and obb, who were nothing if not observant.

'Well, if I were to say that it is easier to get yeast to perform tricks than Pickwick, I'm using mild sarcasm to make a joke.'

'Yeast?' queried ibb. 'But yeast has no intelligence.'

'Exactly,' replied Gran. 'So I am making a sarcastic observation that Pickwick has less brain power than yeast. You try.'

The Generic thought long and hard.

'So,' said ibb slowly, 'how about … Pickwick is so clever she sits on the TV and stares at the sofa?'

'It's a start,' said Gran.

'And,' added ibb, gaining confidence by the second, 'if Pickwick went on Mastermind, she'd do best to choose "Dodo eggs" as her specialist subject.'

Obb was getting the hang of it, too.

'If a thought crossed her mind it would be the shortest journey on record—'