The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [405]
“It’s the stub axle from the Bluebird. It looks as though it failed through metal fatigue.”
“An accident?”
The Bellman nodded his head. They hadn’t got to her after all. Earlier, Bradshaw had shown me the UltraWord™ reports written by Perkins, Deane and Miss Havisham. They’d all given it the thumbs-up. If Perkins was murdered, it wasn’t over Ultra Word™. Despite all that had happened, I still only had a doctored Eject-O-Hat to point to anything suspicious about Havisham’s death, and only a misplaced key for Perkins’s. Motor racing has its own share of dangers, and Havisham knew it.
“You’re off the active list for a few days, Miss Next,” said the Bellman. “Take it easy at home and come back in when you’re ready.”
Tweed said, “She was one of the best.”
“One in a million,” added Bradshaw, “won’t see the likes of her again, I’ll be bound.”
“We want to offer you a permanent job,” said the Bellman. “A modern system like Ultra Word™ needs people like you to police it. I want you to consider a post here within Fiction. Good retirement plan and plenty of perks.”
I looked up at him. This seemed to me like rather a good idea. After all, there was no one waiting for me back at Swindon. What did I need the real world for?
“Sounds good, Mr. Bellman. Can I sleep on it?”
He smiled. “Take as long as you want.”
I got back to Mary’s flying boat and sat on the jetty until the sun had gone down, mulling over everything that Miss Havisham and I had done together. When it grew chilly, I moved myself indoors and read over what Miss Havisham had done with her final scene. A professional to the last, she had enacted her own death with a sensitivity I had never seen her exhibit in life. I found a bottle of wine, poured myself a large glass and drank it gratefully. Oddly, I thought there was a reason perhaps I shouldn’t be drinking, but couldn’t think what it was. I looked at my hand where there had been a name written that morning. Havisham had instructed me to scrub it out, and I had—but even so I was intrigued and tried to figure out from the small marks visible what had been written there.
“Lisbon,” I muttered. “Why would I write Lisbon on my hand?”
I shrugged. The delicate red was a welcome friend and I poured another glass. I found the copy of The Little Prince that Havisham had given me and opened the cover. The paper felt like a sort of thin plastic, the letters a harsh black against the milky white pages. The text glowed in the dim light of the kitchen, and intrigued, I took the book into the darkness of the utility cupboard where I could still read it as clear as day. I returned to my place at the table and tried the “read sensitive” preferences page, the words changing from red to blue as I read them, then back again as I reread them. In this manner I turned the PageGlow™ feature on and off, and then I played with the levels of the background and music tracks.
I started to read the book, and as the first words entered my head, a huge panoply of new emotions opened up. As I read the sequence in the desert, I could hear the sound of the wind on the dunes and even feel the heat and taste the scorched sands. The voice of the narrator was different to that of the Prince, and no dialogue tags were needed to differentiate them. It was, as Libris had asserted, an extraordinary piece of technology. I shut the book, leaned back on my chair and closed my eyes.
There was a tap at the door.
“Hullo!” Arnold said. “Can I come in?”
“Make yourself at home. Drink?”
“Thank you.”
He sat down and smiled at me. I’d never really noticed it before but he was quite a handsome man.
“Where’s everyone else?” he asked, looking around.
“Out somewhere,” I replied, waving a hand in the direction of the boat and feeling a bit dizzy. “Lola’s probably under her latest beau, Randolph is doubtless complaining to someone about it—and I’ve no idea where Gran is. Have a drink?”
“You’ve already poured one.”
“So I have. What brings you here, Arnie?”
“Just passing. How are things at work?”
“Shit. Miss Havisham died, and