The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [483]
“Bowden!” I said happily. “How are you?”
He hadn’t changed much in the past two years. Fastidiously neat, he was wearing the usual pinstripe suit but without jacket, so he must have been in a hurry to meet me.
“I’m good, Thursday, real good. But where the hell have you been?”
“I’ve been—”
“You can tell me later. Thank the GSD I got to you first! We don’t have a lot of time. Goodness! What have you done to your hair?”
“Well, Joan of—”
“You can tell me later. Ever heard of Yorrick Kaine?”
“Of course! I’m here to—”
“No time for explanations. He’s not fond of you at all. He has a personal adviser named Ernst Stricknene who calls us every day to ask if you’ve returned. But this morning—he didn’t call!”
“So?”
“So he knows you’re back. Why is the Chancellor interested in you, anyway?”
“Because he’s fictional, and I want to take him back to the BookWorld where he belongs.”
“That coming from anyone but you, I’d laugh. Is that really true?”
“As true as I’m standing here.”
“Well, your life is in danger, that’s all I know. Ever heard of the assassin known as the—”
“Windowmaker?”
“How did you know?”
“I have my sources. Any idea who took out the contract?”
“Well, they’ve killed sixty-seven people—sixty-eight if they did Samuel Pring—and they definitely did the number on Gordon Duff-Rolecks, whose death really only benefited—”
“Kaine.”
“Exactly. You need to take particular care. More than that, we need you back as a full serving member of the Literary Detectives. We’ve got one or two problems that need ironing out in our department.”
“So what do we do?”
“Well, you’re AWOL at best and a cheese smuggler at worst. So we’ve concocted a cover story of such bizarre complexity and outrageous daring that it can only be true. Here it is: in a parallel universe ruled entirely by lobsters, you—”
But at that moment, the door opened and a familiar figure walked in. I say familiar, but not exactly welcome. It was Commander Braxton Hicks, head of SpecOps here in Swindon.
I could almost hear Bowden’s heart fall—mine, too.
Hicks still had a job because of me, but I didn’t expect that to count for much. He was a company man, a bean counter—more fond of his precious budget than anything else. He had never given me any quarter, and I didn’t expect any now.
“Ah, found you!” said the Commander in a serious tone. “Miss Next. They told me you’d arrived. Been giving us the little run-around, haven’t you?”
“She’s been—” began Bowden.
“I’m sure Miss Next can explain for herself, hmmm?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Close the door behind you, eh?”
Bowden gave a sickly smile and slinked out of the interview room.
Braxton sat, opened my file and stroked his large mustache thoughtfully.
“Absent without leave for over two years, demoted eighteen months ago, nonreturn of SpecOps weapon, badge and ruler, pencil, eight pens and a dictionary.”
“I can explain—”
“Then there is the question of the illegal cheese we found under a Hispano-Suiza at your picnic two and half years ago. I have sworn affidavits from everyone present that you were alone, met them up there, and that the cheese was yours.”
“Yes, but—”
“And the traffic police said they saw you aiding and abetting a known serial dangerous driver on the A419 north of Swindon.”
“That’s—”
“But what’s worse was that you lied to me systematically from the moment you came under my command. You said you would learn to play golf, and you never so much as picked up a putter.”
“But—”
“I have proof of your lies, too. I personally visited every single golf club, and not one of them had ever let someone of your description play golf there—not even on the practice ranges. How do you explain that, eh?”
“Well—”
“You vanish from sight two and a half years ago. Not a word. Had to demote you. Star employee. Newspapers had a field day. Upset my swing for weeks.”
“I’m sorry if it upset your golf, sir.”
“You’re rather in the soup, young lady.”
He stared at me in exactly the sort of way my English teacher used to at