The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [347]
“Sure—I mean, yes, Miss Havisham.”
I crawled off towards the kitchen.
“We’ll give you two minutes,” said the voice into the bullhorn again. “After that, we’re coming in.”
“I have a better deal,” yelled Havisham.
There was a pause.
“And that is?” came the voice on the bullhorn.
“Leave now and I will be merciful when I find you.”
“I think,” replied the voice on the bullhorn, “that we’ll stick to my plan. You have one minute forty-five seconds.”
I reached the doorway of the kitchen, which had been as devastated as the living room. Flour and beans from broken storage jars were strewn across the floor, and a flurry of snowflakes was blowing in through the windows. I found the footnoterphone; it had been riddled with machine-gun fire. I cursed and went to look out the pantry window. I could see two of them, sitting in the snow, weapons ready. I dashed back to Havisham.
“Well?”
“Footnoterphone destroyed, and two ProCaths at the back that I could see.”
“And at least three at the front,” she added, snapping her pistol shut. “I’m open to suggestions.”
“How about giving them Heathcliff?” came a chorus of voices.
“Other than that?”
“I can try and get behind them,” I muttered, “if you give me covering fire—”
I was interrupted by an unearthly cry of terror from outside, followed by a sort of crunching noise, then another cry and sporadic machine-gun fire. There was a large thump and another shot, then a shout, then the ProCaths at the back started to open fire. But not at the house—at some unseen menace. We heard two more cries of terror, a few more gunshots, a slow tearing noise, then silence.
I got up and peered cautiously from the door. There was nothing outside except the soft snow, disturbed occasionally by dinner-plate-sized footprints.
We found only one complete body, tossed onto the roof of the pigsty.
“Look at this,” said Miss Havisham from where she was standing at the corner of the barn. It looked as though one of the ProCaths had been stationed there by the large quantity of spent cartridges, but what Havisham was actually pointing out were the four freshly dug grooves in the masonry, spaced about six inches apart.
“It looks like . . . claw marks,” I murmured.
“Must have caught the corner of the barn midswipe,” replied Miss Havisham thoughtfully, peering closer at the damaged stonework.
“It was Big Martin,” I said with a shiver. “Some of his friends had me pegged for dinner down on the twenty-second floor yesterday.”
“Then we should be glad Big Martin got to this bunch first. Mind you, I’ve heard rumors that the Big M was into classics—he might have been doing us a favor.”
We turned and walked through the snow back to the house.
“Who is Big Martin?” I asked.
“Less of a who and more of a what,” replied Miss Havisham, tramping her feet on the doorstep to get rid of the snow. “Even the Glatisant is nervous of Big Martin. He’s a law unto himself. I’d watch your back and eat plenty of cashews.”
“Cashews?”
“Big Martin loathes them. Unusually for a Book Fiend he has a sense of smell—one whiff and he’s off.”
“I’ll remember that.”
We returned to where the cast of Wuthering Heights were dusting themselves down. Joseph was muttering incomprehensibly to himself and trying to block the windows up with blankets.
“Well,” said Miss Havisham, clapping her hands together, “that was an exciting session, wasn’t it?”
“I am still leaving this appalling book,” retorted Heathcliff, who was back on full obnoxious form again.
“No you’re not,” replied Havisham.
“You just try and stop—”
Havisham, who was fed up with pussyfooting around and hated men like Heathcliff with a vengeance, grasped him by the collar and pinned his head to the table with her pistol pressed painfully into his neck.
“Listen here,” she said, her voice quavering with anger, “to me, you are worthless scum. Thank your lucky stars I am loyal to Jurisfiction. Many others in my place would have handed you over. I could kill you now and no one would be any