The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [14]
“Has he demanded a ransom for the manuscript?” I asked.
“No, but it’s early days. It might not be as simple as we think. Our man has an estimated IQ of one eighty, so simple extortion might be too easy for him.”
Snood came in and sat down slightly shakily at the binoculars, put on the headphones and plugged in the jack. Tamworth picked up his keys and handed me a book.
“I have to meet up with my opposite number at SO-4. I’ll be about an hour. If anything happens, just page me. My number is on redial one. Have a read of this if you get bored.”
I looked at the small book he had given me. It was Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre bound in thick red leather.
“Who told you?” I asked sharply.
“Who told me what?” replied Tamworth, genuinely surprised.
“It’s just . . . I’ve read this book a lot. When I was younger. I know it very well.”
“And you like the ending?”
I thought for a moment. The rather flawed climax of the book was a cause of considerable bitterness within Brontë circles. It was generally agreed that if Jane had returned to Thornfield Hall and married Rochester, the book might have been a lot better than it was.
“No one likes the ending, Tamworth. But there’s more than enough in it regardless of that.”
“Then a reread will be especially instructive, won’t it?”
There was a knock at the door. Tamworth answered it and a man who was all shoulders and no neck entered.
“Just in time!” said Tamworth, looking at his watch. “Thursday Next, this is Buckett. He’s temporary until I get a replacement.”
He smiled and was gone.
Buckett and I shook hands. He smiled wanly as though this sort of job was not something he relished. He told me that he was pleased to meet me, then went to speak to Snood about the results of a horse race.
I tapped my fingertips on the copy of Jane Eyre that Tamworth had given me and placed it in my breast pocket. I rounded up the coffee cups and took them next door to the cracked enamel sink. Buckett appeared at the doorway.
“Tamworth said you were a Litera Tec.”
“Tamworth was correct.”
“I wanted to be a Litera Tec.”
“You did?” I replied, seeing if there was anything in the fridge that wasn’t a year past its sell-by date.
“Yeah. But they said you had to read a book or two.”
“It helps.”
There was a knock at the door and Buckett instinctively reached for his handgun. He was more on edge than I had thought.
“Easy, Buckett. I’ll get it.”
He joined me at the door and released the safety from his pistol. I looked at him and he nodded back in reply.
“Who’s there?” I said without opening the door.
“Hello!” replied a voice. “My name’s Edmund Capillary. Have you ever stopped to wonder whether it was really William Shakespeare who penned all those wonderful plays?”
We both breathed a sigh of relief and Buckett put the safety back on his automatic, muttering under his breath:
“Bloody Baconians!”
“Steady,” I replied, “it’s not illegal.”
“More’s the pity.”
“Shh.”
I opened the door on the security chain and found a small man in a lumpy corduroy suit. He was holding a dog-eared ID for me to see and politely raised his hat with a nervous smile. The Baconians were quite mad but for the most part harmless. Their purpose in life was to prove that Francis Bacon and not Will Shakespeare had penned the greatest plays in the English language. Bacon, they believed, had not been given the recognition that he rightfully deserved and they campaigned tirelessly to redress this supposed injustice.
“Hello!” said the Baconian brightly. “Can I take a moment of your time?”
I answered slowly:
“If you expect me to believe that a lawyer wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I must be dafter than I look.”
The Baconian was not to be put off. He obviously liked fighting a poor argument; in real life he was most likely a personal accident barrister.
“Not as daft as supposing that a Warwickshire schoolboy with