The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [364]
“Does he have any family?” I asked.
“Snell was a loner detective, Miss Next,” explained the doctor. “Perkins was his only family.”
“Is it safe to go up to him?”
“Yes—but be prepared for some mispelings.”
I sat by his bed while Havisham stood and spoke quietly with the doctor. Snell lay on his back and was breathing with small, shallow gasps, the pulse on his neck racing—it wouldn’t be long before the vyrus took him away and he knew it. I leaned closer and held his hand through the sheeting. His complexion was pail, his breething labored, his skein covered in painful and unsightly green pastilles. As I wotched, his dry slips tried to foam worlds but all he could torque was ninsense.
“Thirsty!” he squeeked. “Wode—Cone, udder whirled—doughnut Trieste—!”
He grisped my arm with his fungers, made one last stringled cry before feeling bakwards, his life force deported from his pathotic mispeled boddy.
“He was a fine operative,” said Havisham as the doctor pulled a sheep over his head.
“What will happen to the Perkins and Snell series?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied softly. “Demolished—saved with new Generics—I don’t know.”
“What ho!” exclaimed Bradshaw, appearing from nowhere. “Is he—?”
“I’m afraid so,” replied Havisham.
“One of the best,” murmured Bradshaw sadly. “When they made Snell, they threw away the mold.”
“I hope not,” added Havisham. “If we do replace him, it might make things a bit tricky.”
“Figure of speech,” countered Bradshaw. “Did he say anything before he died?”
“Nothing coherent.”
“Hmm. The Bellman wanted a report on his death as soon as possible. What do you think?”
He handed Havisham a sheet of paper, and she read:
“ ‘Minotaur escapes, finds captor, eats captor, captor dies. Horse mispeled in struggle. Colleague dies attempting rescue. Minotaur escapes.’ ”
She turned over the piece of paper, but it was blank on the other side.
“That’s it?”
“I didn’t want it to get boring,” replied Bradshaw, “and the Bellman wanted it as simple as possible. I think he’s got Libris breathing down his neck. The investigation of a Jurisfiction agent so close to the launch of Ultra Word™ will make the Council of Genres jittery as hell.”
Miss Havisham handed the report back to Bradshaw. “Perhaps, Commander, you should lose that report in the pending tray for a bit.”
“This sort of stuff happens in fiction all the time,” he replied. “Do you have any evidence that it was not accidental?”
“The key to the padlock wasn’t on its hook,” I murmured.
“Well spotted,” replied Miss Havisham.
“Skulduggery?” Bradshaw hissed excitedly.
“I fervently hope not,” she returned. “Just delay the findings for a few days—we should see if Miss Next’s observational skills hold up to scrutiny.”
“Righty-o!” replied Bradshaw. “I’ll see what I can do!”
And he vanished. We were left alone in the corridor, the bunk beds of the DanverClones stretching off to the distance in both directions.
“It might be nothing, Miss Havisham, but—”
She put her fingers to her lips. Havisham’s eyes, usually resolute and fixed, had, for a brief moment, seemed troubled. I said nothing but inwardly I felt worried. Up until now I had thought Havisham feared nothing.
She looked at her watch. “Go to the bun shop in Little Dorrit, would you? I’ll have a doughnut and a coffee. Put it on my tab and get something for yourself.”
“Thank you. Where shall we meet?”
“Mill on the Floss, page five hundred twenty-three in twenty minutes.”
“Assignment?”
“Yes,” she replied, deep in thought. “Some damn meddling fool told Lucy Deane that Stephen and not Philip will be boating with Maggie—she may try to stop them. Twenty minutes and not the jam doughnuts, the ones with the pink icing, yes?”
Thirty-two minutes later I was inside Mill on the Floss, on the banks of a river next to Miss Havisham, who was observing a couple in a boat. The woman was dark-skinned with a jet-black coronet of hair. She was lying on a cloak with a parasol above her as a man rowed her gently downriver. He was of perhaps five-and-twenty years old,