The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [216]
“You said I had until Friday,” I told him.
“I’m turning off the water. The gas, too.”
“You can’t do that!”
“If you’ve got six hundred quid or a V1.2 dodo on you,” he leered, “perhaps I can be convinced not to.”
But his smirk changed to fear as the point of Miss Havisham’s stick shot out and caught him in the throat. She pushed him heavily against the wall in the corridor. He choked and made to move the stick, but Miss Havisham knew just how much pressure was needed—she pushed the stick harder and he stayed his hand.
“Listen to me!” she snapped. “Annoy Miss Next once more and you’ll have me to answer to. She’ll pay you on time, you worthless wretch—you have Miss Havisham’s word on that!”
He gasped in short breaths, the tip of Miss Havisham’s stick stuck fast against his windpipe. His eyes were clouded with the panic of suffocation; all he could do was breathe fitfully and try to nod.
“Good!” replied Miss Havisham, releasing the man, who fell into a heap on the floor.
“The evil ones,” announced Miss Havisham. “You see what men are like?”
“They’re not all like that,” I tried to explain.
“Nonsense!” replied Miss Havisham as we walked downstairs. “He was one of the better ones. At least he didn’t attempt to lie his way into your favors. In fact, I would go as far as to say that this one was barely repulsive at all. Do you have a car?”
Miss Havisham’s eyebrows rose slightly as she saw the curious paintwork on my Porsche.
“It was painted this way when I bought it,” I explained.
“I see,” replied Miss Havisham in a disapproving tone. “Keys?”
“I don’t think—”
“The keys, girl! What was Rule One again?”
“Do exactly as you say.”
“Disobedient perhaps,” she replied with a thin smile, “but not forgetful!”
I reluctantly handed over the keys. Havisham grasped them with a gleam in her eye and jumped in the driver’s seat.
“Is it the four-cam engine?” she asked excitedly.
“No,” I replied, “standard 1.6 unit.”
“Oh well!” snorted Havisham, pumping the accelerator twice before turning the key. “It’ll have to do, I suppose.”
The engine burst into life. Havisham gave me a smile and a wink as she revved the engine up to the redline before briskly snapping the gearshift into first gear and dropping the clutch. There was a screech of rubber as we careered off up the road, the rear of the car swinging from side to side as the spinning wheels sought to find traction on the asphalt.
I have not been frightened many times in my life. Charging into the massed artillery of the Imperial Russian Army had a surreal detachment that I had found eerie rather than fearsome. Tackling Hades first in London and then on the roof of Thornfield Hall had been quite unpleasant. So had leading an armed police raid, and the two occasions I had stared at close quarters down the barrel of a gun hadn’t been a bundle of joy either.
None of those, however, even came close to the feeling of almost certain death that I experienced during Miss Havisham’s driving. We must have violated every road traffic regulation that had ever been written. We narrowly missed pedestrians, other cars and traffic bollards and ran three traffic lights at red before Miss Havisham had to stop at a junction to let a juggernaut go past. She was smiling to herself, and although erratic and bordering on homicidal, her driving had a sort of idiot savant skill about it. Just when I thought it was impossible to avoid a postbox she tweaked the brakes, flicked down a gear— and missed the unyielding iron lump by the width of a hair.
“The carburetors seem slightly unbalanced!” she bellowed above the terrified screams of pedestrians. “Let’s have a look, shall we?” She hauled on the handbrake and we slid sideways up a dropped curbstone and stopped next to an open-air café, causing a group of nuns to run for cover. Havisham climbed out of the car and opened the engine cover.
“Rev the car for me, girl!” she shouted. I did as I was told. I offered a weak smile to one of the customers at the café, who eyed me malevolently.
“She doesn’t get out often,” I explained as Havisham