The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [544]
“Nothing just vanishes,” said Spike at last. “There is always a reason. Usually a simple one, sometimes a weird one—but always a reason. Dowding, what’s your story?”
“Pretty much the same. His car started to pull over, then just . . . well, vanished from sight.”
“Vanished?”
“More like melted, really,” said a confused Dowding. Spike rubbed his chin thoughtfully and bent down to pick up a handful of roadside detritus. Small granules of toughened glass, shards of metal and wires from the lining of a car tire. He shivered.
“What is it?” asked Parks.
“I think President Formby’s gone . . . deadside.”
“Then where’s the body? In fact, where’s the car?”
“There are three types of dead,” said Spike, counting on his fingers. “Dead, undead and semidead. Dead is what we call in the trade ‘spiritually bereft’—the life force is extinct. Those are the lucky ones. Undead are the ‘spiritually challenged’ that I seem to spend most of my time dealing with. Vampires, zombies, bogeys and what have you.”
“And the semidead?”
“Spiritually ambiguous. Those that are moving on from one state to another or in a spiritual limbo—what you and I generally refer to as ghosts.”
Parks laughed out loud, and Spike raised an eyebrow, the only outward sign of indignation I had ever seen him make.
“I didn’t ask you along so I could listen to some garbage about ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, Officer Stoker.”
“Don’t forget ‘things that go bump in the night,’ ” countered Spike. “You won’t believe how bad a thing can bump if you don’t deal with it quick.”
“Whatever. As far as I can see, there is one state of dead and that’s ‘not living.’ Now, do you have anything useful to add to this investigation or not?”
Spike didn’t answer. He stared hard at Parks for a moment and then scrambled down the embankment towards a dead and withered tree. It had leafless branches that looked incongruous amongst the summer greenery, and the plastic bags that had caught in its branches moved lazily in the breeze. Parks and I looked at one another, then slid down the bank to join him. We found Spike examining the short grass with great interest.
“If you have a theory, you should tell us,” said Parks, leaning against the tree. “I’m getting a bit bored with all this New Age mumbo jumbo.”
“We all visit the realm of the semidead at some point,” continued Spike, picking at the ground with his fingers like a chimp checking a partner for fleas, “but for most of us it is only a millisecond as we pass from one realm to the next. Blink and you’ll miss it. But there are others. Others who loiter around in the world of the semidead for years. The ‘spiritually ambiguous’ who don’t know they are dead, or, in the case of the President, there by accident.”
“And . . . ?” asked Parks, who was becoming less keen on Spike with each second that passed. Spike carried on rummaging in the dirt, so the SO-6 agent shrugged resignedly and started to walk back up the embankment.
“He didn’t stop for a leak at Membury or Chievley services, did he?” announced Spike in a loud voice. “I wonder if he even went at Reading.”
Parks stopped, and his attitude changed abruptly. He slid clumsily back down the embankment and rejoined us.
“How did you know that?”
Spike looked around at the empty fields. “There is a motorway services here.”
“There was going to be one,” I corrected, “but after Kington St—I mean, Leigh Delamare was built, it wasn’t considered necessary.”
“It’s here all right,” replied Spike, “just occluded from our view. This is what happened: The President needs a leak and tells Mallory to pull over at the next services. Mallory is tired, and his mind is open to those things usually hidden from our sight. He sees what he thinks are the services and pulls over. For a fraction of a second, the two worlds touch—the presidential Bentley moves across—and then part again. I’m afraid, ladies and gentlemen, that President Formby has accidentally entered a gateway to the underworld—a living person adrift in the abode of the dead.”
There was deathly