“How does it look?” I asked.

  “Astounding!” replied Bowden as he waved a printed report. “94% probability of Will being the author—not even the best fake Cardenio managed higher than a 76. The VMA detected slight traces of collaboration, too.”

  “Did it say who?”

  “73% likelihood of Fletcher—something that would seem to bear out against historical evidence. Forging Shakespeare is one thing, forging a collaborated work is quite another.”

  We all fell silent. Victor rubbed his forehead in contemplation and chose his words carefully.

  “Okay, strange and impossible as it might seem, we may have to accept that this is the real thing. This could turn out to be the biggest literary event in history, ever. We keep this quiet and I’ll get Professor Spoon to look it over. We will have to be 100% sure. I’m not going to suffer the same embarrassment we had over that Tempest fiasco.”

  “Since it isn’t in the public domain,” observed Bowden, “Volescamper will have the sole copyright for the next seventy-six years.”

  “Every playhouse on the planet will want to put it on,” I added. “And think of the movie rights.”

  “Exactly,” replied Victor. “He’s sitting on not only the most fantastic literary discovery for three centuries but also a keg of purest gold. The question is, how did it languish in his library undiscovered all this time? Scholars have studied there since 1709. How on earth was it overlooked? Ideas, anyone?”

  “Retrosnatch?” I suggested. “If a rogue ChronoGuard operative decided to go back to 1613 and steal a copy he could have a tidy little nest egg on his hands.”

  “SO-12 take retrosnatch very seriously and they assure me that it is always detected, sooner or later or both—and dealt with severely. But it’s possible. Bowden, give SO-12 a call, will you?”

  Bowden put out his hand to pick up the phone just as it started to ring.

  “Hello? . . . It’s not, you say? Okay, thanks.”

  He put the phone down.

  “The ChronoGuard say not.”

  “How much do you think it’s worth?” I asked.

  “Hundred million,” replied Victor. “Two hundred. Who knows. I’ll call Volescamper and tell him to keep quiet about it. People would kill to even read it. No one else is to know about it, do you hear?”

  We nodded our agreement.

  “Good. Thursday, the network takes internal affairs very seriously. SO-1 will want to speak to you here tomorrow at four about the Skyrail thing. They asked me to suspend you, but I told them bollocks. Just take some leave until tomorrow. Good work, the two of you. Remember, not a word to anyone!”

  We thanked him and he left. Bowden stared at the wall for a moment before saying: “The crossword clues bother me, though. If I wasn’t of the opinion that coincidences are merely chance or an overused Dickensian plot device, I might conclude that an old enemy of yours wants to get even.”

  “One with a sense of humor, obviously,” I murmured in agreement.

  “That rules out Goliath, I suppose,” mused Bowden. “Who are you calling?”

  “SO-5.”

  I dug Agent Phodder’s card out of my pocket and rang the number. He had told me to call him if “an occurrence of unprecedented weird” took place, so I was doing precisely that.

  “Hello?” said a brusque voice after the telephone had rung for a long time.

  “Thursday Next, SO-27,” I announced. “I have some information for Agent Phodder.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Agent Phodder has been reassigned.”

  “Agent Kannon, then.”

  “Both Phodder and Kannon have been reassigned,” replied the man sharply. “Freak accident laying linoleum. The funeral’s on Friday.”

  This was unexpected news. I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say, so I mumbled: “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Quite,” said the brusque man, and put the phone down.

  “What happened?” asked Bowden.

  “Both dead,” I said quietly.

  “Hades?”

  “Linoleum.”

  We sat in silence for a moment, unnerved by the news.

  “Does Hades have the sort of powers that might be necessary to manipulate coincidences?” asked Bowden.

  I shrugged.

  “Perhaps,” said Bowden thoughtfully, “it was a coincidence after all.”

  “Perhaps,” I said, wishing I could believe it. “Oh—I almost forgot. The world’s going to end on the 12th December at 20:23.”

  “Really?” replied Bowden in a disinterested tone. Apocalyptic pronouncements were nothing new to any of us. The world had been predicted as about to be destroyed almost every year since the dawn of man.

  “Which one is it this time?” asked Bowden. “Plague of mice or the wrath of God?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve got to be somewhere at five. Do us a favor, would you?”

  I reached into my pocket and retrieved the small evidence bag my father had given to me. Bowden took the bag from my outstretched arm and looked at it curiously.

  I checked the time and rose to leave.

  “What is it?” he asked, staring at the pink goo.

  “That’s what I need to know. Will you have the labs analyze it?”

  We bade each other goodbye and I trotted out of the building, bumping into John Smith, who was maneuvering a wheelbarrow with a carrot the size of a vacuum cleaner in it. There was a big label attached to the oversized vegetable that read evidence, and I held the door open for him.

  “Thanks,” he panted.

  I jumped in my car and pulled out of the car park. My appointment at five was at the doctor’s, and I wasn’t going to miss it for anything.

  6.

  Family

  Landen Parke-Laine had been with me in the Crimea in ’72. He lost a leg to a land mine and his best friend to a military blunder. His best friend was my brother, Anton—and Landen testified against him at the hearing that followed the disastrous “charge of the light armored brigade.” My brother was blamed for the debacle, Landen was honorably discharged, I was awarded the Crimea Star for gallantry, I didn’t speak to him for ten years and now we’re married. It’s funny how things turn out.

  THURSDAY NEXT,

  Crimean Reminiscences

  HONEY, I’M HOME!” I yelled out. There was a scrabbling noise from the kitchen as Pickwick’s feet struggled to get a purchase on the tiles in his eagerness to greet me. I had engineered him myself when you could still buy home cloning kits over the counter. He was an early version 1.2, which explained his lack of wings—they didn’t complete the sequence for two more years. He made excited plock plock noises and bobbed his head in greeting, rummaged in the wastebasket for a gift and eventually brought me a discarded junk mail flyer for Lorna Doone merchandising. I tickled him under the chin, and he ran to the kitchen, stopped, looked at me and bobbed his head some more.

  “Hell-ooo!” yelled Landen from his study. “Do you like surprises?”

  “When they’re nice ones!” I yelled back.

  Pickwick returned to my side, plock-plocked some more and tugged the leg of my jeans. He scuttled off into the kitchen again and waited for me at his basket. Intrigued, I followed. I could see the reason for his excitement. In the middle of the basket, amongst a large heap of shredded paper, was an egg.

  “Pickwick!” I cried excitedly. “You’re a girl!”

  Pickwick bobbed some more and nuzzled me affectionately. After a while she stopped and delicately stepped into her basket, ruffled her feathers, tapped the egg with her beak and then walked round it several times before gently placing herself over it. A hand rested on my shoulder. I touched Landen’s fingers and stood up. He kissed me on the neck and I wrapped my arms round his chest.

  “I thought Pickwick was a boy?” he asked.

  “So did I.”

  “Is it a sign?”

  “Pickers laying an egg and turning out to be a girl?” I replied. “What do you mean—you’re going to have a baby, Land?”

  “No, silly, you know what I mean.”

  “I do?” I asked, looking up at him with carefully engineered innocence.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?” I stared into his bright concerned face with what I thought was a blank expression. But I couldn’t hold it for long and was soon a bundle of girlish giggles and salty tears. He hugged me tightly and placed his hand gently on my tum.

  “In there? A baby?”

  “Yes. Small pink thing that makes a noise. Seven weeks. Probably appear July-ish.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “All right,” I told him. “I felt a bit sick yesterday, but that might have had nothing to do with it. I’ll work until I start waddling and then take leave. How are you feeling?”

  “Odd,” said Landen, hugging me again, “in a very nice kind of elated sort of way. . . . Who can I tell?”

  “No one quite yet. Probably just as well—your mum would knit herself to death!”

  “And what’s wrong with my mother’s knitting?” asked Landen, feigning indignation.

  “Nothing,” I giggled, “but there is a limit to storage space.”

  “At least the things she knits are recognizable,” he replied. “That jumper your mum gave me for my birthday—what does she think I am, a squid?”

  I buried my face in his collar and held him close. He rubbed my back gently and we stood together for several minutes without talking.

  “Did you have a good day?” he asked at last.

  “Well,” I began, “we found Cardenio, I was shot dead by an SO-14 marksman, became a vanishing hitchhiker, saw Yorrick Kaine, suffered a few too many coincidences and knocked a neanderthal unconscious.”

  “No puncture this time?”

  “Two, actually—at the same time.”

  “What was Kaine like?”

  “Difficult to say. He arrived at Volescamper’s as we were leaving. Aren’t you even curious about the marksman?”

  “Yorrick Kaine is giving a talk tonight about the economical realities of a Welsh free trade agreement—”

  “Landen,” I said, “it’s my uncle’s party tonight. I promised Mum we’d be there.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “All right,” sighed Landen. “What was it like?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Are you going to ask me about the incident with SO-14 now?” My uncle Mycroft had announced his retirement. He was seventy-seven, and following the events of the Prose Portal and Polly’s imprisonment in “I wandered lonely as a cloud,” they had both decided that enough was enough. The Goliath Corporation had been offering Mycroft not one but two blank checks for him to resume work on a new Prose Portal, but Mycroft had steadfastly refused, maintaining that the Portal could not be replicated even if he had wanted to. We took my car up to Mum’s house and parked a little way up the road.

  “I never thought of Mycroft retiring,” I said as we walked down the street.

  “Me neither,” he replied. “What do you suppose he’ll do?”

  “Watch Name That Fruit! most likely. He says that soaps and quiz shows are the ideal way to fade out.”

  “He’s not far wrong,” added Landen. “After a few years of 65 Walrus Street, death might become something of a welcome distraction.”

  We heaved open the garden gate and greeted the dodos, who all had a bright pink ribbon tied round their necks for the occasion. I offered them a few marshmallows and they pecked and plocked greedily at the proffered gifts. The front door was opened by Wilbur, who was one of Mycroft’s sons and had reached middle age well before his time. Landen thought he did it on purpose, as though he could somehow accelerate through the days of work and get to retirement and golf just that little bit sooner.

  “Hello, Thursday!” he enthused, ushering us inside.

  “Hi, Wilbers. All well?”

  “I’m very well,” replied Wilbur, smiling benignly. “Hello, Landen—I read your latest book. It was a big improvement on the last one, I must say.”

  “You’re very kind,” replied Landen dryly.

  “Drink?”

  He offered us both a glass, and I took mine eagerly. I had just got it to my lips when Landen took it out of my hands. I looked at him and he mouthed, “Baby.” Blast. Hadn’t thought of that.

  “I was promoted, you know,” continued Wilbur, walking through the hall and towards the living room.

  He paused to allow us to murmur a congratulatory sound before continuing: “Consolidated Useful Stuff always promote those within the company that show particular promise, and after ten years in pension fund management ConStuff felt I was ready to branch into something new and dynamic. I’m now Services Director at a subsidiary of theirs named MycroTech Developments.”

  “But my goodness what a coincidence!” said Landen sarcastically. “Isn’t that Mycroft’s company?”

  “Coincidental,” replied Wilbur forcefully, “as you say. Mr. Perkup—the CEO of Mycro Tech—told me it was solely due to my diligence; I—”

  “Thursday, darling!” interrupted Gloria, Wilbur’s wife. Formerly a Volescamper, she had married Wilbur under the accidental misapprehension that A: he would be coming into a fortune and B: he was as intelligent as his father. She had been wrong—in a spectacular fashion—on both counts.

  “Darling, you are looking simply divine—have you lost weight?”

  “I have no idea, Gloria, but . . . you’re looking different.”

  And she was. Habitually dressed to the nines in expensive clothes, hats, makeup and lashings of what-have-you, tonight Gloria was dressed in chinos and a shirt. She hardly wore any makeup and her hair, usually perfectly coiffured, was tied up in a ponytail with a black scrunchie.

  “What do you think?” she asked, doing a twirl for us both.

  “What happened to the £500 dresses?” asked Landen. “Bailiffs been in?”

  “No, this is all the rage—and you should know, Thursday. FeMole is promoting the Thursday Next look. This is very much ‘in’ at present.”

  “Ridiculous,” I told her, wondering if there was an end to the ludicrous media spin-offs from the whole Eyre thing. Cordelia had gone so far as to license jigsaw puzzles and action figures before I had a chance to stop her. I wondered if she’d had a hand in this, too.

  “If Bonzo the Wonder Hound had rescued Jane Eyre,” I asked, trying to keep a straight face, “would you all be wearing studded collars and smelling each other’s bottoms?”

  “There is no need to be offensive,” replied Gloria haughtily as she looked me up and down. “You should be honored. Mind you, the December issue of FeMole thinks that a brown leather flier’s jacket is more in keeping with ‘the look.’ Your black leather is a little bit passé, I’m afraid. And those shoes—hell’s teeth!”

  “Wait a moment!” I returned. “How can you tell me that I don’t have the Thursday Next look? I am Thursday Next!”

  “Fashions evolve, Thursday—I’ve heard that next month’s fashions will be marine invertebrates. You should enjoy it while you can.”

  “Marine invertebrates?” echoed Landen. “What happened to that squidlike jumper of your mum’s? We could be sitting on a fortune!”

  “Can neither of you be serious?” asked Gloria disdainfully. “If you’re not in you’re out, and where would you be then?”

  “Out, I guess,” I replied. “Land, what do you think?”

  “Totally out, Thurs.”

  We stared at her half smiling, and she laughed. Gloria was a good sort once you broke down the barriers. Wilbur, seizing the chance to tell us more about his fascinating new job, carried on as soon as his wife stopped talking.

  “I’m now on £20K plus car and a good pension package. I could take voluntary retirement at fifty-five and still draw two-thirds of my wage. What is the SpecOps retirement fund like?”

  “Crap, Wilbur—but you know that.”

  A slightly smaller and more follicularly challenged version of Wilbur walked up.

  “Hello, Thursday.”

  “Hello, Orville. How’s the ear?”

  “Just the same. What was that you were saying about retiring at fifty-five, Will?”

  In all the excitement of pension plans I was forgotten. Charlotte, who was Orville’s wife, also had the Thursday Next look; she and Gloria fell eagerly into untaxing conversation about whether leather shoes in “the look” should be worn above or below the ankle and whether a small amount of eyeliner was acceptable. As usual, Charlotte tended to agree with Gloria; in fact, she tended to agree with everybody about everything. She was as hospitable as the day was long; just don’t get caught in an elevator with her—she could agree you to death.

  We left them to their conversation, and I walked into the living room, deftly catching the wrist of my elder brother Joffy, who had been hoping to give me a resounding slap on the back of my head as was his thirty-five-year-old custom. I twisted his arm into a half nelson and had his face pressed against the door before he knew what had happened.

  “Hello, Joff,” I said. “Slowing up in your old age?”

  I let him go, he laughed energetically, straightened his jaw and dog collar and hugged me tightly while proffering a hand for Landen to shake. Landen, after checking for the almost mandatory hand buzzer, shook it heartily.

  “How’s Mr. and Mrs. Doofus, then?”

  “We’re fine, Joff. You?”

  “Not that good, Thurs. The Church of the Global Standard Deity has undergone a split.”

  “No!” I said with as much surprise and concern in my voice as I could muster.

  “I’m afraid so. The new Global Standard Clockwise Deity have broken away due to unresolvable differences over the direction in which the collection plate is passed round.”

  “Another split? That’s the third this week!”

  “Fourth,” replied Joffy dourly, “and it’s only Tuesday. The Standardized pro-Baptist conjoined Methodarian-Lutherian sisters of something-or-other split into two subgroups yesterday. Soon,” he added grimly, “there won’t be enough ministers to man the splits. As it is I have to attend two dozen different breakaway church groups every week. I often forget which one I’m at, and as you can imagine, preaching to the Idolatry Friends of St. Zvlkx the Consumer the sermon that I should have been reading to the Church of the Misrepresented Promise of Eternal Life can be highly embarrassing. Mum’s in the kitchen. Do you think Dad will turn up?”