Lost in a Good Book

by Jasper Fforde

  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: Re-established contact at the HotBox nightclub. 23.02: AH leaves the HotBox with male companion. 23.16: Contact lost …'

  I put down the sheet.

  'It's not exactly what I'd describe as the work of a master criminal, now, is it?'

  'No,' replied Slaughter glumly.

  'What were your orders?'

  'Classified,' announced Lamb, who was getting the hang of SpecOps 5 work, right at the point where I didn't want him to.

  'Stick to you like glue,' said Slaughter, who understood the situation a lot better, 'and reports every half an 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.'

  'And miss all this?' asked Slaughter, replacing her dark glasses and looking every bit the part. SO-5 would be the highest office for either of them. I hoped they lived long enough to enjoy it.

  By 10.30 the exhibition was pretty much over. I sent Gran home in a cab fast asleep and a bit tipsy. Saveloy tried to kiss me goodnight but I was too quick for him, and Duchamp2924 had managed to sell an installation of his called The id within VII – in a jar, pickled. Zorf refused to sell any paintings to anyone who couldn't see what they were, but to the Neanderthals who could see what they were, he gave them away, arguing that the bond between a painting and an owner should not be sullied by anything as obscenely sapien as cash. The flattened tuba was sold too, the new owner asking Joffy to drop it round to him, and if he wasn't at home to just slip it under the door.

  I went home via Mum's place to collect Pickwick, who hadn't come out of the airing cupboard the entire time I was in Osaka.

  'She insisted on being fed in there,' explained my mother, 'and the trouble with the other dodos! Let one in and they all want to follow!'

  She handed me Pickwick's egg wrapped in a towel. Pickwick hopped up and down in a very aggravated manner and I had to show her the egg to keep her happy, then we both drove home to my apartment at the same sedate 20 m.p.h. and I placed the egg safely in the linen cupboard with Pickwick sitting on it in a cross mood, very fed up with being moved about.

  22

  Travels with my father

  * * *

  'The first time I went travelling with my father was when I was much younger. We attended the opening night of King Lear at the Globe theatre in 1602. The place was dirty and smelly and slightly rowdy, but for all that it was not unlike a lot of other opening nights I had attended. We bumped into someone named Bendix Scintilla, who was, like my father, a lonely traveller in time. He said he hung around in Elizabethan England to avoid ChronoGuard patrols. Dad said later that Scintilla had been a truly great fighter for the cause but his drive had left him when they eradicated his best friend and partner. I knew how he felt but did not do as he did.'

  THURSDAY NEXT – private journals

  Dad turned up for breakfast, which was unusual for him. I was just flicking through that morning's copy of The Toad when he arrived. The big news story was the volte-face in Yorrick Kaine's fortunes. From being a sad, politically dead no-hoper he was polling ahead of the ruling Teafurst party. The power of Shakespeare. The world suddenly stopped, the picture on the TV froze and the set gave out a dull hum, the same tone and pitch as the moment Dad arrived. He had the power to stop the clock like this, time ground to a halt when he visited me. It was a hard-won skill – for him there was no return to normality.

  'Hello, Dad,' I said gloomily. 'Did you hear about Landen's eradication?'

  'No, I didn't – I'm sorry to hear that, Sweetpea. Any particular reason?'

  'Goliath want Jack Schitt out of The Raven.'

  'Ah!' he exclaimed. 'The old blackmail routine. How's your mother?'

  'She's well. Is the world still going to end next week?'

  'Looks like it. Does she ever talk about me?'

  'All the time. I got this report from SpecOps forensics.'

  'Hmm,' said my father, donning his glasses and staring at the report. 'Carboxy-methyl-cellulose, phenylalnine and hydrocarbons. Animal fat? Doesn't make any sense at all!'

  He handed back the report.

  'I don't get it,' he said quietly, sucking the end of his spectacles. 'That cyclist lived and the world still ended. Maybe it's not him. But nothing else happened at that particular time and place. Maybe it's something to do with—' He frowned and looked at me oddly. 'Maybe it's something to do with you.'

  'Me? Listen, I didn't do anything.'

  'You were there. Perhaps me handing you the bag of slime was the key event and not the death of the cyclist – did you tell anyone where that pink goo came from?'

  'No one.'

  He thought for a bit.

  'Well,' he said at last, 'see what else you can find out. I'm sure the answer is staring us in the face!'

  He picked up the paper and read: 'Chimp merely pet, claims croquet supremo,' before putting the paper down and looking at me with a twinkle in his eye.

  'This non-husband of yours—'

  'Landen.'

  'Right. Shall we try to get him back?'

  'Schitt-Hawse told me they had the summer of 1947 sewn up so tight not even a trans-temporal gnat could get in without being seen.'

  My father smiled. 'Then we will have to outsmart them! They will expect us to arrive at the right time and the right place – but we won't. We'll arrive at the right place but at the wrong time, then simply wait. Worth a try, wouldn't you say?'

  I smiled.

  'Definitely!'

  Dad took a sip of my coffee and leaned forward to hold my arm. I was conscious of a series of rapid flashes and there we were in a blacked-out Humber Snipe, driving alongside a dark stop of water on a moonlit night. In the distance I could see searchlights criss-crossing the sky and heard the distant thump-thump-thump of a bombing raid.

  'Where are we?' I asked.

  'Approaching Henley-on-Thames in occupied England, November 1946.'

  'Is this where Landen drowned in the car accident?'

  'This is where it happens, but not when. If I were to jump straight there, Lavoisier would be on to us like a shot. Ever played "Kick the can"?'

  'Sure.'

  'It's a bit like that. Guile, stealth, patience – and a small amount of cheating. Okay, we're here.'

  We had reached a section of the road where there was a sharp bend. I could see how an inattentive motorist might easily misjudge it and end up in the river – I shivered involuntarily.

  We got out and Dad walked across the road to where a small group of silver birches stood amidst a tangle of dead bracken and brambles. It was a good place from which to observe the bend; we were barely ten yards away. Dad laid down a plastic carrier bag he had brought and we sat on the grass, leaning against the smooth bark of the birches.

  'Now what?'

  'We wait for six months.'

  'Six months? Dad, are you crazy? We can't sit here for six months!'

  'So little time, so much to learn,' mused my father. 'Do you want a sandwich? Your mother leaves them out for me every morning. I'm not mad keen on corned beef and custard, but it has a sort of eccentric charm – and it does fill a hole.'

  'Six months?' I repeated.

  He took a bite from his sandwich.

  'Lesson one in time travel, Thursday. First of all, we are all time travellers. The vast majority of us manage only one day per day. Now if we accelerate ourselves like so—'

  The clouds gathered speed above our heads and the trees shook faster in the light breeze; by the light of the moon I could see that the pace of the river had increased drama
tically; a convoy of lorries sped past us in sudden accelerated movement.

  'This is about twenty days per day – every minute compressed into about three seconds. Any slower and we would be visible. As it is, an outside observer might think he saw a man and woman sitting under these trees, but if he looked again we would be gone. Ever thought you saw someone, then looked again only to find them gone?'

  'Sure.'

  'ChronoGuard traffic moving through.'

  The dawn was breaking, and presently a German Wehrmacht patrol found our abandoned car, and dashed around looking for us, before a breakdown truck appeared and took the Humber away. More cars rushed along the road and the clouds sped rapidly across the sky.

  'Pretty, isn't it?' said my father. 'I miss all this, but I have so little time these days. At fifty daypers we would still have to wait a good three or four days for Landen's accident; I've a dental appointment, so we're going to have to pick it up a bit.'

  The clouds sped faster; cars and pedestrians nothing more than blurs. The shadow of the trees cast by the sun traversed rapidly and lengthened in the afternoon sun; pretty soon it was evening and the clouds were tinged with pink before the rapidly gathering gloom overtook the day and the stars appeared, followed by the moon, which arced rapidly across the sky. The stars spun around the Pole Star as the sky grew blue with the early dawn and the sun began its rapid climb in the east.

  'Eight and a half thousand daypers,' explained my father. 'This is my favourite bit. Watch the leaves!'

  The sun now rose and set in under ten seconds. Pedestrians were invisible to us as we were to them, and a car had to be parked for at least two hours for us to see it at all. But the leaves! They turned from green to brown as we watched, the outer branches a blur of movement, the river a soft undulating mirror without so much as a ripple. The plants died off as we watched, the sky grew more overcast, and the spells of dark were now much longer than the light. Flecks of light showed along the road where traffic moved, and opposite us an abandoned Kübelwagen was rapidly stripped of spares and then dumped upside down in the river.

  'What do you think, Sweetpea?'

  'I'd never get bored of this, Dad. Do you travel like this all the time?'

  'Never this slow. This is just for tourists. We usually approach speeds of ten billion or more daypers; if you want to go backward you have to go faster still!'

  'Go backward by going forward faster?'

  'That's enough for now, Sweetpea. Just enjoy yourself and watch.'

  I pulled myself closer to him as the air grew chilly and a heavy blanket of snow covered the road and forest around us.

  'Happy new year,' said my father.

  'Snowdrops!' I cried in delight as green shoots nuzzled through the snow and flowered, their heads angling towards the low sun. Then the snow was gone and the river rose again and small amounts of detritus gathered around the upturned Kübelwagen, which rusted as we watched. The sun flashed past us higher and higher in the sky and soon there were daffodils and crocuses.

  'Ah!' I said in surprise as a shoot from a small shrub started to grow up my trouser leg.

  'Train them away from your body,' explained my father, diverting the course of a bramble that was trying to ensnare him with the palm of his hand. My shoot pushed against my hand like a small green worm and moved off in another direction. I did the same with the others that threatened me but Dad went one step farther and with a practised hand trained his bramble into a pretty bow.

  'I've known students literally rooted to the spot,' explained my father. 'It's where the phrase comes from. But it can be fun, too. We had an operative named Jekyll who once trained a four-hundred-year-old oak into a heart as a present for her boyfriend.'

  The air was warmer now, and as my father checked his chronograph again we started to decelerate. The six months we had spent there had passed in barely thirty minutes. By the time we had returned to one day per day it was night again.

  'I don't see anyone, do you?' he hissed.

  I looked around; the road was deserted. I opened my mouth to speak but he put a finger to his lips. At that moment a car appeared around the corner and drove rapidly down the road. It swerved to avoid a fox, skidded sideways, off the road and landed upside down in the river. I wanted to get up but my father held me with a pinched grip. The driver of the car – who I assumed was Billden – broke the surface of the river, then quickly dived back to the car and resurfaced a few moments later with a woman. He dragged her to the bank and was just about to return to the submerged vehicle when a tall man in a greatcoat appeared from nowhere and placed his hand on Billden's arm.

  'Now!' said my father, and we dashed from the safety of the copse.

  'Leave him!' yelled my father. 'Leave him to do what he has to do!'

  My father grabbed the interloper and with a sharp cry the man vanished. Billden looked confused and made a run for the river, but in a few short moments a half-dozen ChronoGuard had dropped in, Lavoisier among them. One of the agents rugby-tackled Landen's father before he could return to rescue his son. I yelled. 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.

  I yelled: 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.

  I yelled: 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.

  I yelled: 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.

  I yelled: 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.

  I yelled: 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.

  I yelled: 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.

  I yelled: 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.

  I yelled: 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.

  I yelled: 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden

  I yelled. 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.

  I yelled: 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.

  I yelled: 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden

  I yelled: 'No!', pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.

  The next thing I knew I was disarmed, sitting on the ground and feeling shocked and disorientated after my brief enloopment. It was how I imagine a stuck record might feel. Two SO-12 operatives stared at me while my father and Lavoisier talked close by. Billden was breathing heavily and sobbing into the damp earth.

  'Bastards!' I spat. 'My husband's in there!'

  'So much to learn,' muttered Lavoisier. 'The infant Parke-Laine is not your husband, he is an accident statistic – or not. It rather depends on your father.'

  'A lackey for the Goliath Corporation, Lavoisier?' said my father. 'You disappoint me.'

  'Greater need prevails, Colonel. If you'd handed yourself in I wouldn't have had to take these extreme measures, besides, the ChronoGuard can't function without corporate sponsorship.'

  'And in return you do a few favours?'

  'As I said, greater needs prevail. And before you start waving charges of corruption at me, this combined Goliath/ChronoGuard operation has been fully sanctioned by the Chamber. Now, it's so simple even you can understand it. Give yourself up and your daughter can have her husband back – whether or not she decides to help Goliath. As you can see, I am in a very generous mood.'

  I looked at Dad and saw him bite his lip. He rubbed his temples and sighed.

  'No.'

  'What?' exclaimed Lavoisier.

  'No,' I repeated. 'Dad, don't do it. I'll get Jack Schitt out or just live on my own – or something!'

  He smiled and rested his hand on my shoulder.

  'Bah!' went Lavoisier. 'As hideously self-righteous as each other!'

  He nodded to his men, who raised their weapons. But Dad was quick. I felt him grasp my shoulder tightly and we were off. The sun rose quickly as we leapt forward, leaving
Lavoisier and the others several hours away before they realised what had happened.

  'Let's see if we can lose him!' muttered my father. 'As for that Chamber stuff – bullshit. Landen's eradication was murder, pure and simple. In fact, it's just the sort of information I need to bring Lavoisier down!'

  Days amounted to no more than brief flashes of alternate dark and light as we hurtled into the future.

  'We're not at full speed,' Dad explained. 'He might overtake me without thinking. Keep an eye out for—'

  Lavoisier and his cronies appeared for no more than the briefest glimpse as they moved past us into the future. Dad stopped abruptly and I staggered slightly as we returned to real time. We moved off the road as a fifties-style truck drove past, horn blaring.

  'What now?'

  'I think we shook him off. Blast!'

  We were off again – Lavoisier had reappeared. We lost him for a moment but pretty soon he was back again, keeping pace with us.

  'I'm too old to fall for that one!' He smiled.

  Soon after two of his cronies reappeared as each one found us and matched the speed at which we were moving through history.

  'I knew you'd come,' said Lavoisier triumphantly, walking towards us slowly as the time flashed past, faster and faster. A new road was built where we were standing, then a bridge, houses, shops. 'Give yourself up. What do you hope to gain from all this? You'll have a fair trial, believe me.'

  The two other ChronoGuard operatives grabbed my father and held him tightly.

  'I'll see you hang for this, Lavoisier! The Chamber would never sanction such an action. Give Landen back his life and I promise you I will say nothing.'

  'Well, that's just it, isn't it?' replied Lavoisier scornfully. 'Who do you think they're going to believe? You with your record or me, third in command at the ChronoGuard? Besides, your clumsy attempt to get Landen back has covered any tracks I might have made getting rid of him!'

  Lavoisier aimed his gun at my father. The two ChronoGuard held on to him tightly to stop him accelerating away, and we buffeted slightly as he tried. I had a sudden thought.

  'Do you guys cross picket lines?'