The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [264]
MILLON DE FLOSS,
Who Put the Poe in Poem?
THE DOORBELL RANG as I was putting my shoes on. But it wasn’t Goliath. It was Agents Lamme and Slorter. I was really quite glad to see that they were still alive; perhaps Aornis didn’t regard them as a threat. I wouldn’t.
“Her name’s Aornis Hades,” I told them as I hopped up and down, trying to pull my other shoe on, “sister of Acheron. Don’t even think of tackling her. You know you’re close when you stop breathing.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Lamme, patting his pockets for a pen. “Aornis Hades! How did you figure that out?”
“I glimpsed her several times over the past few weeks.”
“You must have a good memory,” observed Slorter.
“I have help.”
Lamme found a pen, discovered it didn’t work and borrowed a pencil off his partner. The point broke. I lent him mine.
“What was her name again?”
I spelled it out for him and he wrote it down so slowly it was painful.
“Good!” I said once they had finished. “What are you guys doing here, anyway?”
“Flanker wants a word.”
“I’m busy.”
“You’re not busy anymore,” replied Slorter, looking very awkward and wringing her hands. “I’m sorry about this—but you’re under arrest.”
“What for now?”
“Possession of an illegal substance.”
This was an interesting development. He’d obviously not found the cause of tomorrow’s Armageddon and was attempting a little framing to make me compliant. I had thought he would try something of the sort, but now wasn’t the time. I had a appointment in “The Raven” I needed to keep.
“Listen, guys, I’m not just busy, I’m really busy, and Flanker sending you along with some bullshit trumped-up charge is just wasting your time and mine.”
“It’s not trumped up,” said Slorter, holding out an arrest warrant. “It’s cheese. Illegal cheese. SO-1 found a block of flattened cheese under a Hispano-Suiza with your prints all over it. It was part of a cheese seizure, Thursday. It should have been consigned to the furnaces.”
I groaned. It was just what Flanker wanted. A simple internal charge that usually meant a reprimand—but could, if needed, result in a custodial sentence. A solid gold arm-twister, in other words. Before the two agents could even draw breath I had slammed the door in their faces and was heading out the fire escape. I heard them yell at me as I ran out onto the road, just in time to be picked up by Schitt-Hawse. It was the first and last time I would ever be pleased to see him.
So there I was, unsure if I had just got out of the frying pan and into the fire or out of the fire and into the frying pan. I had been frisked for weapons and a wire and they had taken my automatic, keys and Jurisfiction travelbook. Schitt-Hawse drove and I was sitting in the backseat—wedged tightly between Chalk and Cheese.
“I’m kind of glad to see you, in a funny sort of way.”
There was no answer, so I waited ten minutes and then asked: “Where are we going?”
This didn’t elicit a response either, so I patted Chalk and Cheese on the knees and said: “You guys been on holiday this year?”
Chalk looked at me for a moment, then looked at Cheese and answered: “We went to Majorca,” before he lapsed back into silence.
An hour later we arrived at Goliath’s Research & Development Facility at Aldermaston. Surrounded by triple fences of razor wire and armed guards patrolling with full-sized sabertooths, the complex was a labyrinth of aluminum-clad windowless buildings and concrete bunkers interspersed with electrical substations and large ventilation ducts. We were waved through the gate and parked in a layby next to a large marble Goliath logo where Chalk, Cheese and Schitt-Hawse offered up a short prayer of contrition and unfailing devotion to the corporation. That done, we were on our way again past thousands of yards of pipework, buildings, parked military vehicles, trucks and all manner of junk.
“Be honored, Next,” said Schitt-Hawse. “Few are blessed with seeing this far into the workings of our beloved corporation.”
“I feel more humbled