The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [423]
CAT FORMERLY KNOWN AS CHESHIRE,
Guide to the Great Library (glossary)
I HAD UNDERESTIMATED TWEED or the power he wielded in the BookWorld. Until then I don’t think I’d realized just how far they would warp the narrative to realize their ambitions. I was still standing there gaping like an idiot when Heep grasped me painfully by the arm and twisted it around, pushing me into a bookcase as he did so.
“I be ever so humbly sorry about this, Miss Next,” he whined, the mispeling having gone deeper than his skin and rotted his very soul. “Imagine me, an A-7 arresting a pretty Outlander such as yourself!”
His breath smelt rotten; I breathed through my mouth to avoid gagging. He reached in for my TravelBook and took the opportunity to slide his hand across my breast; I struggled harder—but to no avail.
“That head’s not mine!” I shouted, realizing how stupid it sounded straightaway.
“That is one thing we are certain of,” replied Tweed quietly. “Why did you kill him?”
“I didn’t. It’s Snell’s,” I said somewhat uselessly, “he bought it for use in his next book and asked me to keep it for him.”
“Snell, insider trading? Any other ills you’d like to heap on the dead? I don’t think that’s very likely—and how did it turn out to be Godot’s? Coincidence?”
“I’m being framed,” I replied, “Godot’s head in a bag in my closet? Isn’t that a chapter ending too slick to be anything but an engineered dramatic moment?”
I stopped. I had been told many times by my SpecOps instructors that the biggest mistake anyone can make in a high-stress situation is to act too fast and say too much before thinking. I needed time—a commodity that was fast becoming a rarity.
“We have evidence of her involvement in at least three other murders, Mr. Bellman,” said Tweed.
The Bellman sighed and shook his head sadly as I was relieved of my TravelBook and handcuffed to three anvils to stop me jumping out.
“Havisham?” he asked with a tremor in his voice.
“We believe so,” replied Tweed.
“They’re fooling you, Mr. Bellman, sir,” I said, trying to sound as normal as I could. “Something is badly wrong with UltraWord™.”
“That something is you, Next,” spat Tweed. “Four Jurisfiction agents dead in the line of duty—and Deane nowhere to be found. I can’t believe it—you’d kill your own mentor?”
“Steady, Tweed,” said the Bellman, drawing up a chair and looking at me sadly. “Havisham vouched for her and that counts for something.”
“Then let me educate you, Mr. Bellman,” said Tweed, sitting on the corner of a table. “I’ve been making a few inquiries. Even discounting Godot, there is more than enough evidence of Next’s perfidy.”
“Evidence?” I scoffed. “Such as what?”
“Does the code word sapphire mean anything to you?”
“Of course.”
“Only eight Jurisfiction agents had access to The Sword of the Zenobians,” said Tweed, “and four of them are dead.”
“It’s hardly a smoking gun, is it?”
“Not on its own,” replied Tweed carefully, “but when we add other facts, it starts to make sense. Bradshaw and Havisham eject from Zenobians leaving you alone with Snell—they arrive a few minutes later and he is mortally mispeled. Very neat, very clever.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why would I kill Miss Havisham? Why would I want to kill any of these people?”
“Ambition.”
“What ambition? All I want to do is to have my child and go home.”
“The Bellman’s job,” announced Tweed like a hidden trump. “As an Outlander you have seniority, but only after Bradshaw, Havisham, Perkins, Deane—and me. Bradshaw has been the Bellman already, so that rules him out. Were you going to kill me next?