“This is Nathan Snudd,” said Jack, indicating a young man sitting in the backseat. “Nathan is a plotsmith who’s just graduated in the Well and has kindly agreed to help us. He has some ideas about the book that I wanted you to hear. Mr. Snudd, this is Thursday Next.”

  “Hi,” I said, shaking his hand.

  “The Outlander Thursday Next?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fascinating! Tell me, why doesn’t glue stick to the inside of the bottle?”

  “I don’t know. What are your ideas for the book?”

  “Well,” said Nathan, affecting the manner of someone who knows a great deal, “I’ve being looking at what you have left and I’ve put together a rescue plan that uses the available budget, characters and remaining high points of the novel to best effect.”

  “Is it still a murder inquiry?”

  “Oh, yes; and the fight-rigging bit I think we can keep, too. I’ve bought a few cut-price plot devices from a bargain warehouse in the Well and sewn them in. For instance, I thought that instead of having one scene where Jack is suspended by DCI Briggs, you could have six.”

  “Will that work?”

  “Sure. Then there will be a bad-cop routine where an officer close to you is taking bribes and betrays you to the Mob. I’ve got this middle-aged, creepy housekeeper Generic we can adapt. In fact, I’ve got seventeen middle-aged, creepy housekeepers we can pepper about the book.”

  “Mrs. Danvers, by any chance?” I asked.

  “We’re working on a tight budget,” replied Snudd coldly, “let’s not forget that.”

  “What else?”

  “I thought there could be several gangster’s molls or a prostitute who wants to go straight and helps you out.”

  “A ‘tart with a heart’?”

  “In one. They’re ten a penny in the Well at the moment—we should be able to get five for a ha’penny.”

  “Then what happens?”

  “This is the good bit. Someone tries to kill you with a car bomb. I’ve bought this great little scene for you where you go to your car, are about to start it but find a small piece of wire on the floor mat. It’s a cinch and cheap, too. I can buy it wholesale from my cousin; he said he would throw in a missing consignment of Nazi bullion and a sad-loser-detective-drunk-at-a-bar-with-whiskey-and-a-cigarette scene. You are a sad, loner, loser maverick detective with a drink problem, yes?”

  Jack looked at me and smiled. “No, not anymore. I live with my wife and have four amusing children.”

  “Not on this budget.” Snudd laughed. “Humorous sidekicks—kids or otherwise—cost bundles.”

  There was a tap on the window.

  “Hello, Prometheus,” said Jack, “have you met Thursday Next? She’s from the Outland.”

  Prometheus looked at me and put out a hand. He was an olive-skinned man of perhaps thirty, with tightly curled black hair close to his head. He had deep black eyes and a strong Grecian nose that was so straight you could have laid a set square on it.

  “Outland, eh? What did you think of Byron’s retelling of my story?”

  “I thought it excellent.”

  “Me, too. When are we going to get the Elgin marbles back?”

  “No idea.”

  Prometheus, more generally known as the fire-giver, was a Titan who had stolen fire from the gods and given it to mankind, a good move or a terrible one, depending on which papers you read. As punishment, Zeus had him chained to a rock in the Caucasus, where his liver was picked out every night by eagles, only to regrow during the day. He looked quite healthy, in spite of it. What he was doing in Caversham Heights, I had no idea.

  “I heard you had a spot of bother,” he said to Jack, “something about the plot falling to pieces?”

  “My attempts to keep it secret don’t appear to be working,” muttered Jack. “I don’t want a panic. Most Generics have a heart of gold, but if there is the sniff of a problem with the narrative, they’ll abandon Heights like rats from a ship—and an influx of Generics seeking employment to the Well could set the Book Inspectorate off like a rocket.”

  “Ah,” replied the Titan, “tricky indeed. I was wondering if I could offer my services in any way?”

  “As a Greek drug dealer or something?” asked Nathan.

  “No,” replied Prometheus slightly testily, “as Prometheus.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Snudd laughed. “What are you going to do? Steal fire from the DeFablio family and give it to Mickey Finn?”

  Prometheus stared at him as though he were a twit—which he was, I suppose.

  “No, I thought I could be here awaiting extradition back to the Caucasus by Zeus’ lawyers or something—and Jack could be in charge of witness protection, trying to protect me against Zeus’ hit men—sort of like The Client but with gods instead of the Mob.”

  “If you want to cross-genre we have to build from the ground up,” replied Snudd disparagingly, “and that takes more money and expertise than you guys will ever possess.”

  “What did you say?” asked Prometheus in a threatening manner.

  “You heard me. Everyone thinks it’s easy to be a plotsmith.”

  “What you’ve described,” continued the Titan, showing great restraint, “isn’t a crime thriller—it’s a mess.”

  Snudd prodded Prometheus on the tie and sneered, “Well, let me tell you, Mr. Smart-Aleck-Greek-Titan-fire-giver, I didn’t spend four years at Plotschool to be told my job by an ex-convict!”

  The Titan’s lip quivered. “Okay,” he snarled, pulling up his shirtsleeves, “you and me. Right now, here on the sidewalk.”

  “C’mon,” said Jack in a soothing manner, “this isn’t going to get us anywhere. Snudd, I think perhaps you should listen to what Prometheus has to say. He might have a point.”

  “A point?” cried Snudd, getting out of the car but avoiding Prometheus. “I’ll tell you the point. You came to me wanting my help and I gave it—now I have to listen to dumb ideas from any myth that happens to wander along. This was a favor, Jack—my time isn’t cheap. And since this is an ideas free-for-all, let me tell you a home truth: the Great Panjandrum himself couldn’t sort out the problems in this book. And you know why? Because it was shit to begin with. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got two subplots to write for proper, paying clients!”

  And without another word, Snudd vanished.

  “Well,” said Prometheus, getting into the backseat, “who needs cretins like him?”

  “Me,” sighed Jack, “I need all the help I can get. What do you care what happens to us anyway?”

  “Well,” said the Titan slowly, “I kind of like it here, and all that mail redirection is a pain in the arse. What shall we do now?”

  “Lunch?” I suggested.

  “Good idea,” said Prometheus. “I wait tables at Zorba’s in the high street—I can get us a discount.”

  29.

  Mrs. Bradshaw and Solomon (Judgments) Inc.

  The “police officer being suspended by reluctant boss” plot device was pretty common in the crime genre. It usually happened just before a down-ending second act, when the author sets things up so the reader thinks that there is no way the hero can extricate himself. A down-ending second usually heralds an up-ending third, but not always; you can finish a third down, but it usually works better if the end of the second is up—which means the end of the first should be up, not down.

  JEREMY FNORP,

  The Ups and Downs of Act Breaks

  I WENT TO WORK as normal the following morning, my head cleared and feeling better than I had for some time. Randolph, however, was inconsolable without Lola and had moped all the previous evening, becoming quite angry that I believed him when he said that nothing was the matter. Gran was out and I slept well for the first time in weeks. I even dreamt of Landen—and wasn’t interrupted during the good parts, either.

  “I share your grief for Miss Havisham,” murmured Beatrice when I arrived at Norland Park.

  “Thank you.”

  “Rotten luck,” said Falstaff as I walked past. “There were the remains of a fine woman about Havisham.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Miss Next?” It was the Bellman. “Can I have a word?”

  I walked over with him to his office and he shut the door.

  “So, tell me, how do you feel about joining us permanently?”

  “I can stay for a year, but I have a husband back in the real world who doesn’t exist and needs me.”

  “Ah. Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Shame.” He scratched his nose nervously. Something was going on that I didn’t know about. “Anyway, irrespective of your plans, I will be moving you to less demanding duties. Miss Havisham’s death shook us all up and I’m not risking your future health by hurrying you back onto the active list.”

  “I’m fine, really.”

  “I’m sure you are—but since you have only recently qualified and are without a mentor, we felt it was better if you were taken off the active list for a while.”

  “ ‘We’?”

  He picked up his clipboard, which had beeped at him. Havisham had told me that he never actually placed any papers in the all-important clipboard—the words were beamed directly there from Text Grand Central.

  “The Council of Genres have taken a personal interest in your case,” he said after reading the clipboard. “I think they felt you were too valuable to lose through stress—an Outlander in Jurisfiction is quite a coup, as you know. You have powers of self-determination that we can only dream of. Take it in the good spirit it is meant, won’t you?”

  “So I don’t get to take Havisham’s place at Jurisfiction?”

  “I’m afraid not. Perhaps when the dust has settled. Who knows? In the BookWorld, anything is possible.”

  He handed me a scrap of paper. “Report to Solomon on the twenty-sixth floor. Good luck!”

  I got up, thanked the Bellman and left his office. There was silence as I walked back past the other agents, who looked at me apologetically. I had been canned through no fault of my own, and everyone knew it. I sat down at Havisham’s desk and looked at all her stuff. She had been replaced by a Generic in Expectations, and although they would look almost identical, it could never be the same person. The Havisham that I had known had been lost at Pendine sands. I sighed. Perhaps demotion was a good thing. After all, I did have a lot to learn, and working with the C of G for a bit probably had its merits.

  “Miss Next?”

  It was Commander Bradshaw.

  “Hello, sir.”

  He smiled and raised his hat. “Would you care to have tea with me on the veranda?”

  “I’d be delighted.”

  He smiled, took me by the arm and jumped us both into Bradshaw Hunts Big Game. I had never been to East Africa, either in our world or this, but it was as beautiful as I had imagined it from the many images I had grown up with. Bradshaw’s house was a low colonial building with a veranda facing the setting sun; the land around the house was wild scrub and whistling thorns. Herds of wildebeests and zebras wandered across in a desultory manner, their hooves kicking up red dust as they moved.

  “Quite beautiful, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Extraordinary,” I replied, staring at the scenery.

  “Isn’t it just?” He grinned. “Appreciate a woman who knows beauty when she sees it.”

  His voice lowered a tone. “Havisham was one of the finest, a little too fast for me, but a good egg in a scrap. She was very fond of you.”

  “And I of her. Mr. Bradshaw—”

  “Trafford. Call me Trafford.”

  “Trafford, do you think it was an accident?”

  “Well, it looked like one,” he said after thinking for a moment, “but then a real one and a written one are pretty similar, even to an expert eye. Mr. Toad was pretty cut up about it and got into a helluva pickle for visiting the Outland without permission. Why, are you still suspicious?”

  I shrugged. “It’s in my nature. Someone wants me off the active list and it isn’t the Bellman. Did Havisham confide in you about Perkins?”

  “Only that she thought he’d been murdered.”

  “Had he?”

  “Who knows?” Bradshaw took off his hat and fanned himself with it. “The office think it’s Deane, but we’ll never know for sure until we arrest him. Have you met the memsahib? My darling, this is Thursday Next—a colleague from work.”

  I looked up and jumped slightly because Mrs. Bradshaw was, in fact, a gorilla. She was large and hairy and was dressed only in a floral-patterned pinafore.

  “Good evening,” I said, slightly taken aback, “a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Bradshaw.”

  “Good evening,” replied the gorilla politely, “would you like some cake with your tea? Alphonse has made an excellent lemon sponge.”

  “That would be nice, thank you,” I spluttered as Mrs. Bradshaw stared at me with her dark, deep-set eyes.

  “Excellent! I’ll be out in a jiffy to join you. Feet, Trafford.”

  “What? Oh!” said Bradshaw, taking his boots off the chair opposite. When Mrs. Bradshaw had left, he turned and said to me in a serious whisper, “Tell me, did you notice anything odd about the memsahib?”

  “Er,” I began, not wanting to hurt his feelings, “not really.”

  “Think, it’s important. Is there anything about her that strikes you as a little out of the ordinary?”

  “Well, she’s only wearing a pinafore,” I managed to say.

  “Does that bother you?” he asked in all seriousness. “Whenever male visitors attend, I always have her cover up. She’s a fine-looking gal, wouldn’t you agree? Drive any man wild, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Very fine.”

  He shuffled in his chair and drew closer. “Anything else?” he said, staring at me intently. “Anything at all. I won’t be upset.”

  “Well,” I began slowly, “I couldn’t help noticing that she was . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “. . . a gorilla.”

  “Hmm,” he said, leaning back, “our little subterfuge didn’t fool you, then?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Melanie!” he shouted. “Please come and join us.”

  Mrs. Bradshaw lumbered back onto the veranda and sat in one of the club armchairs, which creaked under her weight.

  “She knows, my love.”

  “Oh!” said Mrs. Bradshaw, producing a fan and hiding her face. “However did you find out?”

  A servant appeared with a tray of teas, left them on the table, bowed and withdrew.

  “Is it the hair?” she asked, delicately pouring the tea with her feet.

  “Partly,” I admitted.

  “I told you the powder wouldn’t cover it up,” she said to Bradshaw in a scolding tone, “and I’m not shaving. It makes one itch so. One lump or two?”

  “One please,” I replied. “Is it a problem?”

  “It’s no problem here,” said Mrs. Bradshaw. “I often feature in my husband’s books and nowhere does it specify precisely that I am anything but human.”

  “We’ve been married for over fifty years,” added Bradshaw. “The problem is that we’ve had an invitation to the Bookies next week and Melanie here is a little awkward in public.”

  “To hell with them all,” I replied. “Anyone who can’t accept that the woman you love is a gorilla isn’t worth counting as a friend!”

  “Do you know,” said Mrs. Bradshaw, “I think she’s right. Trafford?”

  “Right also!” He grinned. “Appreciate a woman who knows when to call a wife a gorilla. Hoorah! Lemon sponge, anyone?”

  I took the elevator to the twenty-sixth floor and walked out into the lobby of the Council of Genres, clasping the orders that the Bellman had given me.

  “Excuse me,” I said to the receptionist, who was busy fielding calls on a footnoterphone, “I have to report to Mr. Solomon.”

  “Seventh door on the left,” she said without looking up. I walked down the corridor amongst the thronging mass of bureaucrats walking briskly hither and thither clasping buff files as though their lives and existence depended on it, which they probably did.

  I found the correct door. It opened onto a large waiting room full of bored people who all clutched numbered tickets and stared vacantly at the ceiling. At a door at the far end was a desk manned by a single receptionist. He stared at my sheet when I presented it, sniffed and said, “How did you know I was single?”

  “When?”

  “Just then, in your description of me.”

  “I meant single as in solitary.”

  “Ah. You’re late. I’ll wait ten minutes for you and ‘His Lordship’ to get acquainted, then send the first lot in. Okay?”

  “I guess.”

  I opened the door to reveal another long room, this time with a single table at the far end of it. Sitting at the desk was an elderly, bewhiskered man dressed in long robes, who was dictating a letter to a stenographer. The walls of the room were covered with copies of letters from satisfied clients; he obviously took himself very seriously.

  “Thank you for your letter dated the seventh of this month,” said the elderly man as I walked closer. “I am sorry to inform you that this office no longer deals with problems arising with or appertaining to junkfootnoterphones. I suggest you direct your anger towards the FNP’s complaints department. Yours very cordially, Solomon. That should do it. Yes?”

  “Thursday Next reporting for duty.”

  “Ah!” he said, rising and giving me a hand to shake. “The Outlander. Is it true that—out there—two or more people can talk at the same time?”

  “In the Outland it happens all the time.”

  “And do cats do anything else but sleep?”

  “Not really.”

  “I see. And what do you make of this?”

  He lifted a small traffic cone onto his desk and presented it with a dramatic flourish.

  “It’s . . . it’s a traffic cone.”

  “Something of a rarity, yes?”

  I chose my words carefully. “In many areas of the Outland they are completely unknown.”