“How can they present this as art?” he asked. “It looks just like a rubbish bin!”

  “It is a rubbish bin,” I replied. “That’s why it’s next to the refreshments table.”

  “Oh!” he said, then asked me how the press conference went.

  “Kaine is fishing for votes,” he told me when I had finished. “Got to be. A hundred million might buy you some serious air-time for advertising, but putting Cardenio in the public domain could sway the Shakespeare vote—that’s one group of voters you can’t buy.”

  I hadn’t thought of this.

  “Anything else?”

  Bowden unfolded a piece of paper.

  “Yes. I’m trying to figure out the running order for my stand-up comedy routine tomorrow night.”

  “How long is your slot?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Let me see.”

  He had been trying out his routine on me, although I protested that I probably wasn’t the best person to ask. Bowden himself didn’t find any of the jokes funny, although he understood the technical process involved.

  “I’d start off with the penguins on the ice floe,” I suggested, looking at the list as Bowden made notes, “then move on to the pet centipede. Try the white horse in the pub next, and if that works well do the tortoise that gets mugged by the snails—but don’t forget the voice. Then move on to the dogs in the waiting room at the vet’s and finish with the one about meeting the gorilla.”

  “What about the lion and the baboon?”

  “Good point. Use that instead of the white horse if the centipede goes flat.”

  Bowden made a note.

  “Centipede . . . goes . . . flat. Got it. What about the man going bear hunting? I told that to Victor and he sprayed Earl Grey out of both nostrils at once.”

  “Keep it for an encore. It’s three minutes long on its own— but don’t hurry; let it build. Then again, if your audience is middle-aged and a bit fuddy-duddy I’d drop the bear, baboon and the dogs and use the greyhound and the racehorses instead—or the one about the two Rolls-Royces.”

  “Canapés, darling?” said Mum, offering me a plate.

  “Got any more of those prawny ones?”

  “I’ll go and see.”

  I followed her into the vestry, where she and several other members of the Women’s Federation were getting food ready.

  “Mum, Mum,” I said, following her to where the profoundly deaf Mrs. Higgins was laying doilies on plates, “I must talk to you.”

  “I’m busy, sweetness.”

  “It’s very important.”

  She stopped doing what she was doing, put everything down and steered me to the corner of the vestry, just next to a worn stone effigy, reputedly a follower of St. Zvlkx.

  “What’s the problem that’s more important than canapés, oh daughter-my-daughter?”

  “Well,” I began, unsure of how to put it, “remember you said how you wanted to be a grandmother?”

  “Oh that,” she said, laughing and moving to get up. “I’ve known you had a bun in there for a while—I was just wondering when you were going to tell me.”

  “Wait a minute!” I said, feeling suddenly cheated. “You’re meant to be all surprised and tearful.”

  “Done that, darling. Can I be so indelicate as to ask who the father is?”

  “My husband’s, I hope—and before you ask, the ChronoGuard eradicated him.”

  She pulled me into her arms and gave me a long hug.

  “Now that I can understand. Do you ever see him in the sort of way I see your father?”

  “No,” I replied a bit miserably. “He’s only in my memories.”

  “Poor little duck!” exclaimed my mother, giving me another hug. “But thank the Lord for small mercies—at least you got to remember him. Many of us never do—just vague feelings of something that might have been. You must come along to Eradications Anonymous with me one evening. Believe me, there are more Lost Ones than you might imagine.”

  I’d never really talked about Dad’s eradication with my mother. All her friends had assumed my brothers and I had been fathered by youthful indiscretions. To my highly principled mother this had been almost as painful as Dad’s eradication. I’m not really one for any organization with “anonymous” in the title, so I decided to backtrack slightly.

  “How did you know I was pregnant?” I asked as she rested her hand on mine and smiled kindly.

  “Spot it a mile off. You’ve been eating like a horse and staring at babies a lot. When Mrs. Pilchard’s little cousin Henry came round last week you could hardly keep your hands off him.”

  “Aren’t I like that usually?”

  “Not even remotely. You’re filling out along the bustline too—that dress has never looked so good on you. When’s sprogging time? July?”

  I paused as a wave of despondency washed over me, brought about by the sheer inevitability of motherhood. When I first knew about it Landen had been with me and everything seemed that much easier.

  “Mum, what if I’m no good at it? I don’t know the first thing about babies. I’ve spent my working life chasing after bad guys. I can field-strip an M-16 blindfold, replace an engine in an APC and hit a twopence piece from thirty yards eight times out of ten. I’m not sure a cot by the fireside is really my sort of thing.”

  “It wasn’t mine either,” confided my mother, smiling kindly. “It’s no accident that I’m a dreadful cook. Before I met your father and had you and your brothers I worked at SO-3. Still do, on occasions.”

  “You didn’t meet him on a day trip to Portsmouth then?” I asked slowly, wondering whether I really wanted to hear what I was hearing.

  “Not at all. It was in another place entirely.”

  “SO-3?”

  “You’d never believe me if I told you, so I’m not going to. But the point is, I was very happy to have children when the time came. Despite all your ceaseless bickering when you were kids and teenage grumpiness, it’s been a wonderful adventure. Losing Anton was a storm cloud for a bit, but on balance it’s been good—better than SpecOps any day.” She paused for a moment. “But I was the same as you, worrying about not being ready, about being a bad mother. How did I do?”

  She stared at me and smiled kindly.

  “You did good, Mum.”

  I hugged her tightly.

  “I’ll do what I can to help, sweetness, but strictly no nappies or potty training, and Tuesday and Thursday evenings are right out.”

  “SO-3?”

  “No,” she replied, “bridge and skittles.”

  She handed me a handkerchief and I dabbed at my eyes.

  “You’ll be fine, sweetness.”

  “Thanks, Mum.”

  She bustled off, muttering something about having a million mouths to feed. I watched her leave, smiling to myself. I thought I knew my mother but I didn’t. Children rarely know their parents at all.

  “Thursday!” said Joffy as I reappeared from the vestry. “What use are you if you don’t mingle? Will you take that wealthy Flex fellow to meet Zorf, the neanderthal artist? I’d be ever so grateful. Oh my goodness!” he muttered, staring at the church door. “It’s Aubrey Jambe!”

  And so it was. Mr. Jambe, Swindon’s croquet captain, despite his recent indiscretion with the chimp, was still attending functions as though nothing had happened.

  “I wonder if he’s brought the chimp?” I said, but Joffy flashed me an angry look and rushed off to press flesh. I found Cordelia and Mr. Flex discussing the merits of a minimalist painting by Welsh artist Tegwyn Wedimedr that was so minimalist it wasn’t there at all. They were staring at a blank wall with a picture hook on it.

  “What does it say to you, Harry?”

  “It says . . . nothing, Cords—but in a very different way. How much is it?”

  Cordelia bent forward to look at the price tag.

  “It’s called Beyond Satire and it’s twelve hundred pounds; quite a snip. Hello, Thursday! Changed your mind about the book-flick?”

  “Nope. Have you met Zorf, the neanderthal artist?”

  I guided them over to where Zorf was exhibiting. Some of his friends were with him, one of whom I recognized—it was Stiggins of SpecOps-13.

  “Good evening, Stig.”

  He nodded his head politely and introduced me to a younger neanderthal who was dressed in a boiler suit that was almost completely covered in different-colored blobs of paint.

  “Good evening, Thursday,” returned Stig. “This is our friend Zorf.” The younger neanderthal shook my hand as I explained who Harry and Cordelia were.

  “Well, this is a very interesting painting, Mr. Zorf,” said Harry, staring at a mass of green, yellow and orange paint on a six-foot-square canvas. “What does it represent?”

  “Is not obvious?” replied the neanderthal.

  “Of course!” said Harry, turning his head this way and that. “It’s daffodils, isn’t it?”

  “No.”

  “A sunset?”

  “No.”

  “Field of barley?”

  “No.”

  “I give up.”

  “Closest yet, Mr. Flex. If you have to ask, then you never understand. To neanderthal, sunset is only finish-day. Van Gogh’s Green Rye is merely poor depiction of a field. The only sapien painters we truly understand are Pollock and Kandinsky; they speak our language. Our paintings are not for you.”

  I looked at the small gathering of neanderthals who were staring at Zorf’s abstract paintings with wonderment. But Harry, a bullshitter to the end, had not yet given up hope.

  “Can I have another guess?” he asked Zorf, who nodded.

  He stared at the canvas and screwed up his eyes.

  “It’s a—”

  “Hope,” said a voice close by. “It’s hope. Hope for the future of neanderthal. It is the fervent wish—for children.”

  Zorf and all the other neanderthals turned to stare at the speaker. It was Granny Next.

  “Exactly what I was about to say,” said Flex, fooling no one but himself.

  “The esteemed lady shows understanding beyond her species,” said Zorf, making a small grunting noise that I took to be laughter. “Would lady sapien like to add to our painting?”

  This was indeed an honor. Granny Next stepped forward, took the proffered brush from Zorf, mixed a subtle shade of turquoise and made a few fine brushstrokes to the left of center. There was a gasp from the neanderthals, and the women in the group hastily placed veils over their faces while the men— including Zorf—raised their heads and stared at the ceiling, humming quietly. Gran did likewise. Flex, Cordelia and I looked at one another, confused and ignorant of neanderthal customs. After a while the staring and humming stopped, the women raised their veils and they all ambled slowly over to Gran and smelled her clothes and touched her face gently with their large hands. Within a few minutes it was all over; the neanderthals returned to their seats and were staring at Zorf’s paintings again.

  “Hello, young Thursday!” said Gran, turning to me. “Let’s find somewhere quiet to have a chat!”

  We walked off towards the church organ and sat on a pair of hard plastic chairs.

  “What did you paint on his picture?” I asked her, and Gran smiled her sweetest smile.

  “Something a bit controversial,” she confided, “yet supportive. I have worked with neanderthals in the past and know many of their ways and customs. How’s hubby?”

  “Still eradicated,” I said glumly.

  “Never mind,” said Gran seriously, touching my chin so I would look into her eyes. “Always there is hope. You’ll find, as I did, that it’s really very funny the way things turn out.”

  “I know. Thanks, Gran.”

  “Your mother will be a tower of strength—never be in any doubt of that.”

  “She’s here if you want to see her.”

  “No, no,” said Gran hurriedly, “I expect she’s a little busy. While we’re here,” she went on, changing the subject without drawing breath, “can you think of any books that might be included in the ‘ten most boring classics’? I’m about ready to go.”

  “Gran!”

  “Indulge me, young Thursday!”

  I sighed.

  “How about Paradise Lost?”

  Gran let out a loud groan.

  “Awful! I could hardly walk for a week afterwards—it’s enough to put anyone off religion for good!”

  “Ivanhoe?”

  “Pretty dull but redeemable in places. It isn’t in the top ten, I think.”

  “Moby-Dick?”

  “Excitement and action interspersed with mind-numbing dullness. Read it twice.”

  “A la recherche du temps perdu?”

  “English or French, its sheer tediousness is undiminished.”

  “Pamela?”

  “Ah! Now you’re talking. Struggled through that when a teenager. It might have had resonance in 1741, but today the only resonance it possesses is the snores that emanate from those deluded enough to attempt it.”

  “How about A Pilgrim’s Progress?”

  But Gran’s attention had wandered.

  “You have visitors, my dear. Look over there past the stuffed squid inside the piano and just next to the Fiat 500 carved from frozen toothpaste.”

  There were two people in ill-fitting dark suits who looked very out of place. They were clearly SpecOps but not Dedmen and Walken. It looked as though SO-5 had suffered another mishap. I asked Gran if she would be all right on her own and walked across to meet them. I found them looking dubiously at a flattened tuba on the ground entitled The Indivisible Thriceness of Death.

  “What do you think?” I asked them.

  “I don’t know,” began the first agent nervously. “I’m . . . I’m . . . not really up on art.”

  “Even if you were, it wouldn’t help here,” I replied dryly. “SpecOps-5?”

  “Yes, how did—”

  He checked himself quickly and rummaged for a pair of dark glasses.

  “I mean, no. Never heard of SpecOps, much less SpecOps-5. Don’t exist. Oh blast. I’m not very good at this, I’m afraid.”

  “We’re looking for someone named Thursday Next,” said his partner in a very obvious whisper from the side of her mouth, adding, in case I didn’t get the message, “Official business.”

  I sighed. Obviously, SO-5 were beginning to run out of volunteers. I wasn’t surprised.

  “What happened to Dedmen and Walken?” I asked them.

  “They were—” began the first agent but the second nudged him in the ribs and announced instead:

  “Never heard of them.”

  “I’m Thursday Next,” I told them, “and I think you’re in more danger than you realize. Where did they get you from? SO-14?”

  They took their sunglasses off and looked at me nervously.

  “I’m from SO-22,” said the first. “The name’s Lamme. This is Slorter; she’s from—”

  “—SO-28,” said the woman. “Thank you, Blake, I can talk, you know—and let me handle this. You can’t open your mouth without putting your foot in it.”

  Lamme sank into a sulky silence.

  “SO-28? You’re an income tax assessor?”

  “So what if I am?” retorted Slorter defiantly. “We all have to risk things for advancement.”

  “I know that only too well,” I replied, steering them towards a quiet spot next to a model of a matchstick made entirely out of bits of the houses of Parliament. “Just so long as you know what you’re getting into. What happened to Walken and Dedmen?”

  “They were reassigned,” explained Lamme.

  “You mean dead?”

  “No,” exclaimed Lamme with some surprise. “I mean reas— Oh my goodness! Is that what it means?”

  I sighed. These two weren’t going to last the day.

  “Your predecessors are both dead, guys—and the ones before that. Four agents gone in less than a week. What happened to Walken’s case notes? Accidentally destroyed?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” laughed Lamme. “When recovered they were totally intact—they were then put through the shedder by a new member of staff who mistook it for a photocopier.”

  “Do you have anything at all to go on?”

  “As soon as they realized it was a shredder, I—sorry, they stopped and we were left with these.”

  He handed two half documents over. One was a picture of a young woman striding out of a shop laden down with carrier bags and parcels. Her face, tantalizingly enough, was the part that had been destroyed by the shredder. I turned the picture over. On the back was a penciled note: “A.H. leaves Dorothy Perkins having shopped with a stolen credit card.”

  “The ‘A.H.’ means Acheron Hades,” explained Lamme in a confident tone. “We were allowed to read part of his file. He can lie in thought, deed and action.”

  “I know. I wrote it. But this isn’t Hades. Acheron doesn’t resolve on film.”

  “Then who is it that we’re after?” asked Slorter.

  “I have no idea. What was on the other document?”

  This was simply a handwritten page of notes, compiled by Walken about whoever it was they were watching. I read:

  “... 9:34: Contact with suspect at Camp Hopson sales. 11:03: Elevenses of carrot juice and flapjack—leaves without paying. 11:48: Dorothy Perkins. 12:57: Lunch. 14:45: Continues shopping. 17:20: Argues with manager of Tammy Girl about returned leg warmers. 17:45: Lost contact. 21:03: Reestablished contact at the HotBox nightclub. 23:02: A.H. leaves the HotBox with male companion. 23:16: Contact lost. . . .”

  I put down the sheet.

  “It’s not exactly how I’d describe the work of a master criminal, now is it?”

  “No,” replied Slorter glumly.

  “What were your orders?”

  “Classified,” announced Lamme, who was getting the hang of SpecOps-5 work, right at the point I didn’t want him to.

  “Stick to you like glue,” said Slorter, who understood the situation a lot better, “and reports every half hour sent to SO-5 HQ in three separate ways.”

  “You’re being used as live bait,” I told them. “If I were you I’d go back to SO-23 and -28 just as quick as your legs can carry you.”