The Well of Lost Plots

31 Tables turned

Heep grasped me painfully by the arm and twisted it around, pushing me into a bookcase as he did so.

'I be ever so humbly sorry about this, Miss Next,' he whined, the mispeling having gone deeper than his skin and rotted his very soul. 'Imagine me, an A-7 arresting a pretty Outlander such as yourself!'

His breath smelt rotten; I breathed through my mouth to avoid gagging. He reached for my TravelBook and took the opportunity to slide his hand across my breast; I struggled harder — but to no avail.

'That head's not mine!' I shouted, realising how stupid it sounded straight away.

'That is one thing we are certain of,' replied Tweed quietly. 'Why did you kill him?'

'I didn't. It's Snell's,' I said somewhat uselessly. 'He bought it for use in his next book and asked me to keep it for him.'

'Snell insider-trading? Any other ills you'd like to heap on the dead? I don't think that's very likely — and how did it turn out to be Godot's? Coincidence?'

'I'm being framed,' I replied. 'UltraWord™ is—'

I stopped. I had been told many times by my SpecOps instructors that the biggest mistake anyone can make in a high-stress situation is to act too fast and say too much before thinking. I needed time — a commodity that was fast becoming a rarity.

'We have evidence of her involvement in at least three other murders, Mr Bellman,' said Tweed.

The Bellman turned abruptly to face him as I was relieved of my TravelBook and handcuffed to three anvils to stop me jumping out.

'Havisham?' he asked with a tremor in his voice.

'We believe so,' replied Tweed.

'They're fooling you, Mr Bellman, sir,' I said, trying to sound as normal as I could. 'Something is rotten in the state of the BookWorld.'

'That something is you, Next,' spat Tweed. 'Four Jurisfiction agents dead in the line of duty — and Deane nowhere to be found. I can't believe it — you'd kill your own mentor?'

'Steady, Tweed,' said the Bellman, drawing up a chair and looking at me sadly. 'Havisham vouched for her and that counts for something.'

'Then let me educate you, Mr Bellman,' said Tweed, sitting on the corner of a table. 'I've been making a few enquiries. Even discounting Godot, there is more than enough evidence of Next's perfidy.'

'Evidence?' I scoffed. 'Such as what?'

'Does the code word sapphire mean anything to you?'

'Of course.'

'Only eight Jurisfiction agents had access to The Sword of the Zenobians,' said Tweed, 'and four of them are dead.'

'It's hardly a smoking gun, now, is it?'

'Not on its own,' replied Tweed carefully, 'but when we add other facts it starts to make sense. Bradshaw and Havisham eject from Zenobians leaving you alone with Snell — they arrive a few minutes later and he is mortally mispeled. Very neat, very clever.'

'Why?' I asked. 'Why would I kill Miss Havisham? Why would I want to kill any of these people?'

'You killed Havisham because she knew you cheated at your Jurisfiction multiple choice exam. Do you know how we know?'

'Surprise me.'

'Question fifty: Who wrote: “Toad of Toad Hall‘?:

'A.A. Milne.' I replied.

'Correct,' returned Tweed, 'but no one ever gets that. No one. Not even Miss Havisham. Not once in the last fifty years. They all say Kenneth Grahame. Swear blind on it, in fact. You've been using Jurisfiction as a springboard to feed your own burning ambition. It is a dangerous thing to possess. Ambition will sustain for a while — and then it kills indiscriminately.'

'What ambition? All I want to do is to have my child and go home.'

'The Bellman's job,' announced Tweed, as if producing a hidden tramp. 'You knew he was retiring, didn't you?'

'Everyone does.'

'As an Outlander you have seniority, but only after Bradshaw, Havisham, Perkins, Deane — and me. Bradshaw has been the Bellman already so that rules him out — were you going to kill me next?'

'I have no ambition to be the Bellman and didn't kill Miss Havisham,' I muttered, trying to think of a plan of action.

'Macbeth denied his ambition too,' said Tweed, leaning closer.

'What's Macbeth got to do with it?'

'Perhaps you don't know it but the three witches have to log all their prophecies. They don't like to do it, but they have to — no paperwork, no licence to read chicken entrails. Simple as that.'

He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket.

'The day after you arrived they filed a report for a prophecy given to one "Thursday Next". It says: "Prophecy one: You shall be a citizen of Swindon. Prophecy two: You shall be a full member of Jurisfiction. Prophecy three: Thou shalt be Bellman thereafter" '

He placed the paper on the table and slid it across to me.

'Do you deny this?'

'No,' I said glumly.

'We call it Macbeth’s syndrome,' said the Bellman sadly. 'An insane desire to fulfil your own prophecies. It's nearly always fatal. Sadly, not only for the sufferer. Were you going to kill me or could you have waited long enough for me to resign?'

'I'm not a Macbeth sufferer, Mr Bellman, and even if I am, shouldn't even the smallest error in UltraWord™ be looked at?'

'There aren't any errors,' put in Tweed. 'UltraWord™ is the finest piece of technology we have ever devised — foolproof, stable and totally without error. Tell me the problem — I'm sure there is a satisfactory explanation.'

I stopped. I knew the Bellman was still an honest man. Should I tell him about the thrice read problem and risk Tweed covering his tracks even more? On reflection, probably not. The more I dug, the more would be found against me. I needed breathing space — I needed to escape.

'What's to become of me?'

'Permanent expulsion from the BookWorld,' replied Tweed. 'We don't have enough evidence to convict but we do have enough to have you banned from fiction for ever. There is no appeals procedure. I only have to ratify it with the Bellman.'

'Well,' said the Bellman, tingling his bell sadly, 'I must concur with Tweed's recommendation. Search her for any BookWorld accessories before we send her back.'

'You're making a mistake, Mr Bellman,' I said angrily, 'a very—'

'Oooh!' said Heep, who had been rummaging in my pockets and trying to feel my breasts again. 'Look what I've found!'

It was the Suddenly a Shot Rang Out plot device Snell had given me at the Slaughtered Lamb

'A plot device, Miss Next?' said Tweed, taking the small glass globe from Heep. 'Do you have any paperwork for this?'

'No. It's evidence. I just forgot to sign it in.'

'Carriage of all Narrative Turning Devices is strictly illegal. Are you a dealer? Who's your source? Peddle this sort of garbage in teenage fiction?'

'Blow it out of your arse, Tweed.'

'What did you say?'

'You heard me.'

He went crimson and might have hit me, but all I wanted was for him to move close enough for me to kick him — or his hand, at least.

'You piece of crap,' he sneered, 'I've known you were no good from the moment I saw you. Think you're something special, Miss SpecOps Outlander supremo?'

'At least I don't work for the Skyrail, Tweed. Inside fiction you're a big cheese but out in the real world you're less than a nobody!'

It had the desired effect. He took a step closer and I kicked out, connected with his hand and the small glass globe went sailing into the air, high above our heads. Heep, coward that he was, dived for cover, but Tweed and the Red Queen, wary of a Narrative Turning Device going off in a confined area, tried to catch it. They might have been successful but as it was they collided with a grunt and the small glass globe fell to the floor and shattered as they looked on helplessly.

Suddenly, a shot rang out. I didn't see where it came from but felt its full effect; the bullet hit the chain that was holding me to the anvils, shattering it neatly. I didn't pause for breath; I was off and running towards the door. I didn't know where I was heading; without my TravelBook I was trapped and Sense and Sensibility was not that big. Tweed and Heep were soon on their feet only to hit the floor again as a second volley followed the first. I ducked through the door and came upon … Vernham Deane, pistol in hand. Heep and Tweed returned fire as Deane holstered his pistol and took both my hands.

'Hold tight,' he said, 'and empty your mind. We're going to go abstract.'

I cleared my mind as much as I could and—[23]

'How odd!' said Tweed, walking to the place where he had last seen Thursday. He knew she couldn't jump without her book but something was wrong. She had vanished — not with the fade out of a standard bookjump, but an instantaneous departure.

Heep and the Bellman joined him, Keep with a bookhound on a leash which sniffed the ground and whimpered and yelped noisily, chops slobbering.

'No scent?' said the Bellman in a puzzled tone. 'No destination signature? Harris, what's going on?'

'I don't know, sir. With your permission I'd like to set up textual sieves on every floor of the Great Library. Heep will be your personal bodyguard from now on; Next is quite clearly insane and will try to kill you — I have no doubt about that. Do I have your permission to apply for an "Extremely Prejudicial Termination" order from the Council of Genres?'

'No, that is one step I am not prepared to take. Order the death of an Outlander? Not I.'

Tweed made to move off but the Bellman called him back.

'Tweed,' he began, 'Thursday said there was a problem with Ultra Word™; do you think we should contact Text Grand Central and delay its release?'

'You mean you take all this seriously, sir?' exclaimed Tweed in a shocked tone. 'Excuse me for being so blunt but Next is a murderer and a liar — how many more people does she have to kill before she is stopped?'

'UltraWord™ is bigger than all of us,' said the Bellman slowly. 'Even if sheisa murderer, she still may have found something wrong. I cannot afford to take any risks over the new upgrade.'

'Well, we can delay,' said Tweed slowly, 'but that would take the inauguration of the new operating system out of your term as Bellman. If you think that is the best course of action, perhaps we should take it. But whichever Bellman signs Ultra Word™ into law might be looked on favourably by history, do you not think?'

The Bellman rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

'What more tests could we do?' he asked at length.

Tweed smiled. 'I'm not sure, sir. We fixed the flight manual conflict and debugged AutoPageTurnDeluxe™. The raciness overheat problem has been fixed and the Esperanto translation module is now working a hundred per cent. All these faults have been dealt with openly and transparently. We need to upgrade and upgrade now — the popularity of non-fiction is creeping up and we have to be vigilant.'

Heep ran up and whispered in Tweed's ear.

'That was our intelligence sources, sir. It seems that Next has been suffering from a mnemonomorph recently.'

'Great Scott!' gasped the Bellman. 'She might not even know she has done it!'

'It would explain that convincing act,' added Tweed. 'A woman with no memory of her evil has no guilt. Now, do I have your permission to apply for an "Extremely Prejudicial Termination" order?'

'Yes.' The Bellman sighed, taking a seat 'Yes, you better had and Ultra Word™ is to go ahead, as planned. We have dithered enough.'

We jumped back into the Jurisfiction offices. Tweed and Heep were alone with the Bellman, overseeing a document that I found out later was my termination warrant. I had Deane's gun pointed — at Deane; he had his hands up. Heep and Tweed exchanged nervous glances.

'I've brought you Deane, Bellman,' I announced. 'I had no other way of proving my innocence. Vern, tell them what you told me.'

'Go to hell!'

I whacked him hard on the back of the head with the butt of his pistol and he fell to the ground, momentarily stunned. Blood welled up in his hairline and I winced; luckily, no one saw me.

'That's for Miss Havisham,' I told him.

'Miss Havisham?' echoed the Bellman.

'Oh yes,' I replied. 'Bastard.'

Deane touched the back of his head and looked at his hand.

'Bitch!' he muttered. 'I'd have killed you, too!'

He turned and leaped at me with surprising speed, grasping me by the throat before I could stop him, and we both crashed to the floor, knocking over a table as we went. It was an impressive charade.

'The little slut serving wench deserved to die!' he screamed. 'How dare she spoil the happy life that could have been mine!'

I couldn't breathe and started to black out. I had wanted it to look realistic — and so, I suppose, did he.

Tweed placed a gun under Deane's chin and forced him off. He spat in my face as I lay there, trying to get my breath back. Deane was then set upon by Heep, who took an unhealthy delight in beating him despite the fact that he apologised in a supercilious manner every time he struck him.

'Stop!' yelled the Bellman. 'Calm down, all of you!'

They propped the now bleeding Deane in a chair and Heep bound his hands.

'Did you kill Perkins?' asked the Bellman and Deane nodded sullenly.

'He was going to blow the whistle on me — Havisham too. Snell and Mathias just got in the way. Happiness should have been mine!' he sobbed. 'Why did the slut have to turn up with that little bastard? I should have married Miss O'Shaugnessy — all I wanted was something no evil squire in Farquitt ever gets—!'

'And what was that?' asked the Bellman sternly.

'A happy ending.'

'Pitiful, wouldn't you say, Tweed?'

'Pitiful, yes, sir,' he replied stonily, staring at me as I picked myself off the floor.

The Bellman tore up my termination order.

'It looks as if we have underestimated you,' said the Bellman happily. 'I knew Havisham couldn't be wrong. Tweed, I think you owe Miss Next an apology.'

'I apologise unreservedly,' said Tweed through gritted teeth.

'Good,' said the Bellman. 'Now, Thursday, what's the problem with UltraWord™?'

It was a sticky moment. We had to take this higher than the Bellman. With Libris and the whole of Text Grand Central involved, there was no knowing what they would do. I remembered an error from an early UltraWord™ test version.

'Well,' I began, 'I think there is a flight manual conflict. If you read an UltraWord™ book on an airship, it can play havoc with the flight manuals.'

'That's been cured,' said the Bellman kindly, 'but thank you for being so diligent.'

'That's a relief I replied. 'May I have some leave?'

'Of course. And if you find any other irregularities in UltraWord™, I want them brought to me and me alone.'

'Yes, sir. May I?'

I indicated my TravelBook.

'Of course! Very impressive job capturing Deane, don't you think, Tweed?'

'Yes,' replied Tweed grimly, 'very impressive — well done, Next.'

I opened my TravelBook and read myself to Solomon's outer office. Tweed wouldn't try anything at the C of G, and the following three days were crucial. Everything I needed to say to the Bellman would have to wait until I had seven million witnesses.