The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [280]
“Cordelia—”
“Dilly.”
“Dilly—”
“Yes, Thurs?”
“What’s the word over at SpecOps?”
“Well, darling,” answered Cordelia, “the order for your arrest is still only within SpecOps—Flanker is hoping you’ll give yourself up. Goliath are telling anyone who will listen that you stole some highly sensitive industrial secrets.”
“It’s all bullshit, Cordelia.”
“I know that, Thursday. But I’ve a job to do. Are you going to meet my people now?”
I had nothing to lose, so we returned to where the two of them were looking at a brochure for the Gravitube.
“Thursday Next, this is James and Catia Plummer, visitors to Swindon for their honeymoon.”
“Congratulations,” I said, shaking their hands and adding: “Swindon for a honeymoon, eh? You must live only for pleasure.”
Cordelia elbowed me and scowled.
“I’d invite you in for a coffee,” I explained, “but I’ve locked myself out.”
James rummaged in his pocket and produced a set of keys.
“Are these yours? I found them on the path outside.”
“I don’t think that’s very likely.”
But they were my keys—a set I had lost a few days earlier. I unlocked the door.
“Come on in. That’s Pickwick. Stay away from the windows; there are a few people I don’t want to meet outside.”
They shut the door behind them and I walked through to the kitchen.
“I was married once,” I said as I looked out of the kitchen window. I needn’t have worried; the two cars and their occupants were in the same place. “And I hope to be again. Did you tie the knot in Swindon?”
“No,” replied Catia. “We were going to have a blessing in the Church of Our Blessed Lady of the Lobsters, but—”
“But what?”
“We were late and missed the appointment.”
“Ah,” I replied, pausing to consider just how wholly unlikely it was that James had found my keys when other passing residents had missed them.
“Can I ask you a question, Miss Next?” asked James.
“Call me Thursday. Hang on a minute.”
I nipped into the living room to fetch the entroposcope and shook it as I walked back in.
“Well, Thursday,” continued James, “I was wondering—”
“Shit!” I exclaimed, looking at the swirling pattern within the rice and lentils. “It’s happening again!”
“I think your dodo is hungry,” observed Catia, as Pickwick performed her “starving dodo” routine for her on the kitchen floor.
“It’s a scam for a marshmallow,” I replied absently. “You can give her one if you want. The jar is on top of the fridge.”
Catia put down her bag and reached up for the glass jar.
“Sorry, James, you were saying?”
“Here it is. Who do you—”
But I wasn’t listening. I was looking out of the kitchen window. Below me, sitting on the wall at the entrance to the apartment block, was a woman in her mid-twenties. She was dressed in slightly garish clothes and was reading a fashion magazine.
“Aornis?” I whispered. “Can you hear me?”
The figure turned to look at me as I said the words, and my scalp prickled. It was her, no doubt about it. She smiled, waved and pointed to her watch.
“It’s her,” I mumbled. “Goddamned sonofabitch—it’s her!”
“—and that’s my question,” concluded James.
“I’m sorry, James, I wasn’t listening.”
I shook the entroposcope, but the pulses were no more patterned than before—whatever the danger was, we weren’t quite there yet.
“You had a question, James?”
“Yes,” he said, slightly annoyed. “I was wondering—”
“Look out!” I shouted, but it was too late. The glass marshmallow jar had slipped from Catia’s grasp and fell heavily on the worktop—right on top of the small evidence bag full of the pink goo from beyond the end of the world. The jar didn’t break, but the bag did, and Catia, myself, Cordelia and James were splattered in gooey slime. James got the worst of it—a huge gob went right in his face.
“Ugh!”
“Here,” I said, handing him a Seven Wonders of Swindon tea towel, “use this.”
“What is that gick?” asked Cordelia, dabbing at her clothes with a damp cloth.