The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [28]
“And who might you be?”
He handed me a gold-edged card with the dark blue Goliath Corporation logo embossed on it.
“The name’s Schitt,” he replied. “Jack Schitt.”
I shrugged. The card told me he was head of Goliath’s internal security service, a shadowy organization that was well outside government; by constitutional decree they were answerable to no one. The Goliath Corporation had honorary members in both houses and financial advisers at the Treasury. The judiciary was well represented with Goliath people on the selection panel for High Court judges, and most major universities had a Goliath overseer living within the faculty. No one ever noticed how much they influenced the running of the country, which perhaps shows how good at it they were. Yet, for all Goliath’s outward benevolence, there were murmurs of dissent over the Corporation’s continued privilege. Their public servants were unelected by the people or the government and their activities enshrined in statute. It was a brave politician who dared to voice disquiet.
I sat next to him on the bench. He dismissed his henchman.
“So what’s your interest in Hades, Mr. Schitt?”
“I want to know if he’s alive or dead.”
“You read the coroner’s report, didn’t you?”
“It only told me that a man of Hades’ height, stature and teeth was incinerated in a car. Hades has got out of worse scrapes than that. I read your report; much more interesting. Quite why those clowns in SO-1 dismissed it out of hand I have no idea. With Tamworth dead you’re the only operative who knows anything about him. I’m not really concerned about whose fault it was that night. What I want to know is this: What was Acheron going to do with the manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit?”
“Extortion, perhaps?” I ventured.
“Possibly. Where is it now?”
“Wasn’t it with him?”
“No,” replied Schitt evenly. “In your testimony you said he took it with him in a leather case. No trace was found of it in the burned-out car. If he did survive, so did the manuscript.”
I looked at him blankly, wondering where all this was going.
“He must have passed it to an accomplice, then.”
“Possibly. The manuscript could be worth up to five million on the black market, Miss Next. A lot of money, don’t you think?”
“What are you suggesting?” I asked sharply, my temper rising.
“Nothing at all; but your testimony and Acheron’s corpse don’t really add up, do they? You said that you shot him after he killed the young officer.”
“His name was Snood,” I said pointedly.
“Whoever. But the burned corpse had no gunshot wounds despite the many times you shot him when he was disguised as Buckett or the old woman.”
“Her name was Mrs. Grimswold.”
I stared at him. Schitt continued.
“I saw the flattened slugs. You would have got the same effect if you had fired them into a wall.”
“If you have a point, why don’t you get to it?”
Schitt unscrewed the cap of a Thermos flask and offered it to me. I refused; he poured himself a drink and continued:
“I think you know more than you say you do. We only have your word for the events of that night. Tell me, Miss Next, what was Hades planning to use the manuscript for?”
“I told you: I have no idea.”
“Then why are you going to work as a Litera Tec in Swindon?”
“It was all I could get.”
“That’s not true. Your work has been consistently assessed above average and your record states that you haven’t been back to Swindon in ten years despite your family living there. A note appended to your file speaks of ‘romantic tensions’. Man trouble in Swindon?”
“None of your business.”
“In my line of work I find there is very little that isn’t my business. There are a host of other things a woman with your talents could do, but to go back to Swindon? Something tells me you have another motive.”
“Does it really say all that in my file?”
“It does.”
“What color are my eyes?”
Schitt ignored me and took a sip of coffee.
“Colombian. The best. You think Hades is alive, Next. I think you have an idea