The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [574]
“But you didn’t,” she replied, looking over the top of her spectacles, “and your father knew you wouldn’t when he told you.”
“He also said that I would decide whether she lived or died, but he was wrong—it’s out of my hands now.” I rubbed my scalp and sighed. “Poor Spike. He’s taking it very badly.”
“Where is he?”
“Still being interviewed by SO-9. They got an agent down from London who’s been after her for more than ten years. I’d be there yet but for Flanker.”
“Flanker?” queried Gran. “What did he do?”
“He came to thank me for leading SO-14 to a huge stockpile of hidden Danish literature.”
“I thought you were trying not to help them?”
I shrugged.
“So did I. How was I to know the Danish underground really was using the Australian Writers’ Guild as a depository?”
“Did you tell them it was Kaine who had paid her to kill you?”
“No,” I said, looking down. “I don’t know who I can trust and the last thing I need is to be taken into protective custody or something. If I’m not at the touchline tomorrow for the SuperHoop, the neanderthals won’t play.”
“But there is good news, surely?”
“Yes,” I said, brightening somewhat, “we got some Danish books out of the country, Hamlet is on the mend—and I got Landen back.”
Gran stared at me and lifted my face with her hand.
“For good?”
I looked down at my wedding ring.
“Twenty-four hours and counting.”
“They did the same to me,” sighed Gran, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes with a bony hand. “We were very happy for over forty years, until he was taken away again—this time in a more natural and inevitable way. And that was over thirty years ago.”
She fell silent for a moment, and to distract her I told her about St. Zvlkx and his death and his revealments and how little of it made any sense. Time-traveling paradoxes tended to make my head spin.
“Sometimes,” said Gran, holding up the cover of the Swindon Evening Globe, “the facts are all in front of us—we just have to get them in the right order.”
I took the picture and stared at it. It had been taken a few seconds after the piano fell on Cindy. I hadn’t realized how far the wreckage of the Steinway had scattered. A little way down the road, the lonely figure of Zvlkx was still lying on the pavement, abandoned in the drama.
“Can I keep this?”
“Of course. Be careful, my dear—remember that your father can’t warn you of every single one of your potential demises. Invulnerability is reserved only for superheroes. The croquet final is far from won and anything can happen in the next twenty-four hours.”
“A neanderthal defense?” repeated Aubrey and Alf when I found them taking “pegging out” at the croquet stadium. They had threatened to fire me if I didn’t tell them what I was up to. “Of course, any team would spend millions trying to get a neanderthal to join—but they just won’t do it.”
“I’ve already got them. You can’t pay them, and I really don’t know how they will work as a team with humans—I get the feeling that they’ll be a team of their own within your team.”
“I don’t care,” said Aubrey, leaning on his mallet and sweeping a hand in the direction of the squad. “I was fooling myself. Biffo’s too old, Smudger has a drink problem, and Snake is mentally unstable. George is okay, and I can handle myself, but a fresh crop of talent has infused the Whackers’ team. They’ll be fielding people like Bonecrusher McSneed.”
He wasn’t kidding. A mysterious benefactor—probably Goliath—had given a vast amount of money to the Whackers. Enough for them to buy almost anyone they wanted. Goliath was taking no chances that the Seventh Revealment would be fulfilled.
“So we’re still in the game with five thals?”
“Yes,” said Aubrey with a smile, “we’re still in the game.”
I dropped in to see Mum on the way home, ostensibly to take Hamlet and the dodos round to Landen’s place.