The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [222]
“What does it mean, Bowd?”
“Search me, Thursday. They’re trying to match the profile to known chemical compounds, but so far, nothing. Perhaps if you told us where you got it?”
“I don’t think that would be safe. I’ll drop the Cardenio report in to Volescamper—I’m keen to avoid Cordelia. Tell forensics that the future of the planet depends on them—that should help. I have to know what this pink stuff is.”
I saw Cordelia waiting for me in the lobby with her two guests, who had finally, it seemed, turned up. Unluckily for them, Spike Stoker had been passing and Cordelia, eager to do something to amuse her competition winners, had obviously asked him to say a few words. The look of frozen jaw-dropping horror on her guests’ faces said it all. I hid my face behind the Cardenio report and left Cordelia to it.
I blagged a ride in a squad car up to the crumbling but now far busier Vole Towers. The mansion was besieged by the news stations, all keen to report any details regarding the discovery of Cardenio. Two dozen outside broadcast trucks were parked on the weed-infested gravel, all humming with activity. Dishes were trained into the afternoon sky, transmitting the pictures to an airship repeater station that had been routed in to bounce the stories live to the world’s eager viewers. For security, SpecOps- 14 had been drafted in and stood languidly about, idly chatting to one another. Mostly, it seemed, about Aubrey Jambe’s apparent indiscretion with the chimp.
“Hello, Thursday!” said a handsome young SO-14 agent at the front door. It was annoying; I didn’t recognize him. People I didn’t know hailing me as friends was something that had happened a lot since Landen’s eradication; I supposed I would get used to it.
“Hello!” I replied to the stranger in an equally friendly tone. “What’s going on?”
“Yorrick Kaine is heading a press conference.”
“Really?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. “What’s Cardenio got to do with him?”
“Hadn’t you heard? Lord Volescamper has given the play to Yorrick Kaine and the Whig party!”
“Why would,” I asked slowly, smelling a political rat of epic proportions, “Lord Volescamper have anything to do with a minor right-wing pro-Crimean Welsh-hater like Kaine?”
The SpecOps-14 agent shrugged. “Because he’s a lord and wants to reclaim some lost power?”
At that moment two other SpecOps agents walked past, and one of them nodded to the young agent at the door and said: “All well, Miles?”
The dashing young SO-14 agent said that all was well, but he was wrong. All was not well—at least it wasn’t for me. I’d thought I might bump into Miles Hawke eventually, but not unprepared, like this. I stared at him, hoping my shock and surprise wouldn’t show. He had spent time in my flat and knew me a lot better than I knew him. My heart thumped inside my chest and I tried to say something intelligent and witty, but it came out more like:
“Asterfobulongus?”
He looked confused and leaned forward slightly.
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
“Nothing.”
“You seemed a bit upset when I called, Thursday. Is there a problem with our arrangement?”
I stared at him for a few seconds in numbed silence before mumbling: “No—no, not at all.”
“Good!” he said. “We must fix a date or two.”
“Yes,” I said, running on auto-fear, “yes we must. Gottogo— bye.”
I trotted off before he could say anything else. I paused for breath outside the door to the library. Sooner or later I was going to have to ask him straight out. I decided on the face of it that later suited me better than sooner, so I walked through the heavy steel doors and into the library. Yorrick Kaine and Lord Volescamper were sitting behind a table, and beyond them was Mr. Swaike and two security guards who were standing on either side of the play itself, proudly displayed behind a sheet of bulletproof glass. The press conference was halfway through, and I tapped Lydia Startright—who happened to be standing quite near—on the arm.
“Hey, Lyds!” I said in a low whisper.
“Hey, Thursday,” replied the reporter. “I heard you did the initial authentication.