The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [177]
Landen shrugged.
“Cheese or ham?”1
“What?”
“I said: ‘Cheese or ham.’”
“Not you.”
Landen looked around. We were about the only ones within a hundred-yard radius.
“Who then?”
“Snell.”
“Who?”
“Snell!” I yelled out loud. “Is that you?”2
“I didn’t!”3
“Prosecution? Who?”4
“Thursday,” said Landen, now looking worried, “what the hell’s going on?”
“I’m talking to my lawyer.”
“What have you done wrong?”
“I’m not sure.”
Landen threw his hands up in the air and I addressed Snell again.
“Can you tell me the charge I’m facing at the very least?”5
I sighed.
“She’s not married, apparently.”6
“Snell! Wait! Snell? Snell—!”
But he had gone. Landen was staring at me.
“How long have you been like this, darling?”
“I’m fine, Land. But something weird is going on. Can we drop it for the moment?”
Landen looked at me, then at the clear blue sky and then at the cheese he was still holding.
“Cheese or ham?” he said at last.
“Both—but go easy on the cheese; this is a very limited supply.”
“Where did you find it?” asked Landen, looking at the anonymously wrapped block suspiciously.
“From Joe Martlet at the Cheese Squad. They intercept about twelve tons a week coming over the Welsh border. It seems a shame to burn it, so everyone at SpecOps gets a pound or two. You know what they say: ‘Cops have the best cheese.’ ”
“Goodbye, Thursday,” muttered Landen, looking at the ham.
“Are you going somewhere?” I replied, unsure of what he meant.
“Me? No. Why?”
“You just said ‘Goodbye.’ ”
“No,” he laughed, “I was commenting on the ham. It’s a good buy.”
“Oh.”
He cut me a slice and put it with the cheese in a sandwich, then made one for himself. There was a distant trumpet of a mammoth as it made heavy weather of the escarpment and I took a bite.
“It’s farewell and so long, Thursday.”
“Are you doing this on purpose?”
“Doing what? Isn’t that Major Tony Fairwelle and your old school chum Sue Long over there?”
I turned to where Landen was pointing. It was Tony and Sue, and they waved cheerily before walking across to say hello.
“Goodness!” said Tony when they had seated themselves. “Looks like the regimental get-together is early this year! Remember Sarah Nara, who lost an ear at Bilohirsk? I just met her in the car park; quite a coincidence.”
As he said the word my heart missed a beat. I rummaged in my jacket pocket for the entroposcope Mycroft had given me.
“What’s the matter, Thurs?” asked Landen. “You’re looking kind of . . . odd.”
“I’m checking for coincidences,” I muttered, shaking the jam jar of mixed lentils and rice. “It’s not as stupid as it sounds.”
The two pulses had gathered in a sort of swirly pattern. Entropy was decreasing by the second.
“We’re out of here,” I said to Landen, who looked at me quizzically. “Let’s go. Leave the things.”
“What’s the problem, Thurs?”
“I’ve just spotted my old croquet captain, Alf Widdershaine. This is Sue Long and Tony Fairwelle; they just saw Sarah Nara— see a pattern emerging?”
“Thursday—!” sighed Landen. “Aren’t you being a little—”
“Want me to prove it? Excuse me!” I said, shouting to a passerby. “What’s your name?”
“Bonnie,” she said. “Bonnie Voige. Why?”
“See?”
“Voige is not a rare name, Thurs. There are probably hundreds of them up here.”
“All right, smarty-pants, you try.”
“I will,” replied Landen indignantly, heaving himself to his feet. “Excuse me!”
A young woman stopped, and Landen asked her name.
“Violet,” she replied.
“You see?” said Landen. “There’s nothing—”
“Violet De’ath,” continued the woman. I shook the entroposcope again—the lentils and rice had separated almost entirely.
I clapped my hands impatiently. Tony and Sue looked perturbed but got to their feet nonetheless.
“Everybody! Let’s go!” I shouted.
“But the cheese—!”
“Bugger the cheese, Landen, trust me—please!”
They all grudgingly joined me, confused and annoyed at my strange behavior. Their minds changed when, following a short whooshing noise, a large and very heavy Hispano-Suiza motorcar landed on the freshly