Something Rotten

by Jasper Fforde

  'Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr Shgakespeafe,' she said politely. 'Will you come with me, please?'

  'Who was that?' Landen called out as he walked downstairs a little later.

  'It was Mrs Tiggy-Winkle picking up a William Shakespeare clone in order to save Hamlet from permanent destruction.'

  'You can't ever be serious, can you?' He laughed as he gave me a hug. I had smuggled Shgakespeafe into the house without Landen seeing. I know you're meant to be honest and truthful to your spouse but I thought there might be a limit, and if there was I didn't want to reach it too soon.

  Friday came down to breakfast ten minutes later. He looked tousled, sleepy and a bit grumpy.

  'Quis nostrud laboris,' he moaned. 'Nisi ut aliquip ex consequat.'

  I gave him some toast and rummaged in the cupboard under the stairs for my bullet-proof vest. All my stuff was now back at Landen's house as if I had never moved out. Sideslips are confusing, but you can get used to almost anything.

  'Why are you wearing a bullet-proof vest?'

  It was Landen. Drat. I should have put it on at the station.

  'What bullet-proof vest?'

  'The one you're trying to put on.'

  'Oh, that one. No reason. Listen, if Friday gets hungry you can always give him a snack. He likes bananas — you may have to buy some more, and if a gorilla calls, it's only that Mrs Bradshaw I was telling you about.'

  'Don't change the subject. How can you go to work wearing a vest for "no reason"?'

  'It's a precaution.'

  'Insurance is a precaution. A vest means you're taking unnecessary risks.'

  'I'd be taking a bigger one without it.'

  'What's going on, Thursday?'

  I waved a hand vaguely in the air and tried to make light of it.

  'Just an assassin. A small one. Barely worth thinking about.'

  'Which one?'

  'I can't remember. Window . . . something.'

  'The Windowmaker? A contract with her and you stick to reading short stories? Sixty-seven known victims?'

  'Sixty-eight if she did Samuel Pring.'

  'That's not important. Why didn't you tell me?'

  'I ... I ... didn't want you to worry.'

  He rubbed his face with his hands and stared at me for a moment, then sighed deeply.

  'This is the Thursday Next I married, isn't it?'

  I nodded my head.

  He wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly.

  'Will you be careful?' he whispered in my ear.

  'I'm always careful.'

  'No, really careful. The sort of careful that you should be when you have a husband and son who'd be surpremely pissed off if they were to lose you?'

  'Ah,' I whispered back, 'that sort of careful. Yes, I will.'

  We kissed and I Velcroed up the vest, put my shirt over the top of it and my shoulder holster on top of this. I kissed Friday and told him to be good, then kissed Landen again.

  'I'll see you this evening,' I told him, 'and that's a promise.'

  I drove to Wanborough to find Joffy. He was officiating at a GSD civil union ceremony and I had to wait in the back of the temple ' until he had finished. I had some time before I had to deal with Cindy, and looking more closely into St Zvlkx seemed like a good way to fill it. Millon's idea that Zvlkx wasn't a seer but a rogue member of the ChronoGuard involved in some sort of timecrime seemed, on the face of it, unlikely. You couldn't hide from the ChronoGuard. They would always find you. Perhaps not here and now, but then and there — when you least expected it. Long before you even thought about doing something wrong. The ChronoGuard left no trace, either. With the perpetrator gone, then the timecrime never happened either. Very neat, very clever. But with the historical record so closely scrutinised and the ChronoGuard themselves giving Zvlkx the seal of approval, how on earth did Zvlkx - if he was a fake — get around the system?

  'Hello, Doofus!' said Joffy as the happy couple kissed outside the church in a shower of confetti. 'What brings you here?'

  'St Zvlkx — where is he?'

  'He got the bus into Swindon this morning. Why?'

  I outlined my suspicions.

  'Zvlkx a rogue member of the ChronoGuard? But why? What's he up to? Why risk permanent eradication for dubious fame as a thirteenth-century seer?'

  'How much did he get from the Toast Marketing Board?'

  'Twenty-five grand.'

  'Hardly a fortune. Can we look in his room?'

  'Outrageous!' replied Joffy. 'I would be guilty of a shameful breach of trust if I were to allow a room search in his absence. I have a spare key here.'

  Zvlkx's room was much as you would suppose a monk's cell to be - spartan in the extreme. He slept on a mattress stuffed with straw and had only a table and chair as furniture. On the table was a Bible. It was only after we started searching that we found a CD Walkman under the mattress along with a few copies of Big & Bouncy and Fast Horse.

  'A betting man?' I asked.

  'Drinking, betting, smoking, wenching — he did it all.'

  'The magazines show he can read English, too. What are you looking for, Joff?'

  Joffy had been rummaging under the pillow.

  'His Book of Revealtments. He usually hides it here.'

  'So! You've searched his room before. Suspicious?'

  Joffy looked sheepish.

  'I'm afraid so. His behaviour is less like that of a saint and more like that of, well, a cheap vulgarian - when I translate I have to make certain . . . adjustments.'

  I pulled out his desk drawer and turned it over. Stuck to the bottom was an envelope.

  'Bingo!'

  It contained a single one-way Gravitube ticket to Bali. Joffy raised his eyebrows and we exchanged nervous glances. Zvlkx was definitely up to something.

  Joffy accompanied me into Swindon and we drove up and down the streets trying to find the wayward saint. We visited the site of his old cathedral at Tesco's but couldn't find him, so went on a circuit that took in the law courts, the SpecOps building and the theatre before driving past the university and down Commercial Road. Joffy spotted him outside Pete & Dave's, lumbering up the street.

  'There!'

  'I see him.'

  We abandoned the car and trotted to keep up with the scruffy figure dressed in only a blanket. It was just bad luck that he glanced furtively behind and spotted us. He darted across the street. I don't know whether his lank and uncut hair had got in his eyes, or he had forgotten about traffic during his stay in the Dark Ages, but he didn't look where he was going and ran straight in front of a bus. His head cracked the windscreen and his bony body was thrown sideways on to the pavement with a thump. Joffy and I were first on the scene. A younger man might have survived relatively unscathed, but Zvlkx, his body weakened through poor diet and disease, didn't stand much of a chance. He was coughing and crawling with all the strength he could muster towards the entrance of the nearest shop.

  'Easy, Your Grace,' murmured Joffy, laying a hand on his shoulder and stopping him moving. 'You're going to be all right.'

  'Bollocks,' said Zvlkx in a state of exasperation, 'bollocks, bollocks, bollocks. :Survived the plague to get hit by a sodding number twenty-three bus. Bollocks.'

  'What did he say?'

  'He's annoyed.'

  'Who are you?' I said. 'Are you ChronoGuard?'

  His eyes flicked across to mine and he groaned. Not only dying, but dying and rumbled.

  He made another attempt to reach the doorway and collapsed.

  'Someone call for an ambulance!' yelled out Joffy

  'It's too late for that,' Zvlkx muttered. 'Too late for me, too late for all of us. This wasn't how it toas meant to turn out; time is out of joint - anb it wan't be for me to set it right. Joffy, take this and use it wisely as I would not have done. Bury me in the grounds of my cathedral - and don't tell them who I was. I lived a sinner but I'd like to die a saint, Oh, and if a fat slapper named Shirley tells you I promised her a thousand q
uid, she's a bloody liar.'

  He coughed again, shivered for a moment and stopped moving. I placed my hand on his grimy neck but could feel no pulse.

  'What did he say?'

  'Something about an overweight lady named Shirley, time being out of joint - and using his Revealments as I see fit.'

  'What did he mean by that? That his Revealment is not going to come true?'

  'I don't know — but he handed me this.'

  It was Zvlkx's Book of Revealments. Joffy flicked through the yellowed pages, which outlined in Old English every supposed prophecy he had made, next to an anthmetic sum of some sort. Joffy closed Zvlkx's eyes and placed his jacket over the dead saint's head. A crowd had gathered, including a policeman, who took charge. Joffy hid the book and we stood to one side as the blare of an ambulance started up in the distance. The owner of the shop had come out and told us that tramps dying on his doorstep was bad for business but changed his mind when he found out who it was.

  'My goodness!' he said in a respectful tone. 'Imagine a real live saint honouring us with his death on our doorstep!'

  I nudged Joffy and pointed at the shopfront. It was a betting shop.

  'Typical!' snorted Joffy. 'If he hadn't died trying to get to the bookie's it would have been the brothel. The only reason I knew he wouldn't be at the pub is because it's not opening time.'

  Startled, I looked at my watch. It was 10.50. Cindy. I had been thinking about St Zvlkx so much I had forgotten all about her. I backed into the doorway and glanced around. No sign of her, of course, but then she was the best. I thought at first that the fact a crowd had gathered was good, as she would be unlikely to want to kill innocent people, but changed my mind when I realised that Cindy's creed of respect for innocent life could be written in very large letters on the back of a matchbox. I had to get away from the crowd in case someone else was hurt. I dashed off up Commercial Road and was approaching the corner with Granville Street when I stopped abruptly. Cindy had walked around the corner. My hand automatically closed around the butt of my gun but I paused, all of a sudden uncertain. She was not alone. She had Spike with her.

  'Well!' said Spike, looking beyond me to the melee in the street behind me. 'What's going on here?'

  'The death of Zvlkx, Spike.'

  I was staring at Cindy, who stared back at me. I could see only one of her hands. The other was hidden in her handbag. She had failed twice - how far would she go to kill me? In broad daylight with her husband as witness? I was standing awkwardly with my hand on my automatic but it was still in its holster. I had to trust my father. He had been right about her on the previous attempt. I pulled out my gun and pointed it at her. There was a gasp from several passers-by, who scattered.

  'Thursday?' yelled Spike. 'What the hell is going on? Put that down!'

  'No, Spike. Cindy isn't a librarian, she's the Windowmaker.'

  Spike looked at me, then at his petite wife, and laughed.

  'Cindy, an assasin? You're joking!'

  'She's delusional and I'm frightened, Spikey,' whimpered Cindy, in her best pathetic girlie voice. 'I don't know what she's talking about. I've never even held a gun!'

  'Very slowly take your hand out of your handbag, Cindy.'

  But it was Spike who made the next move. He pulled out his gun and pointed it — at me.

  'Put the gun down, Thurs. I've always liked you but I have no problem making this choice.'

  I bit my lip but didn't stop staring at Cindy.

  'Ever wondered why she was paid cash to do those freelance library jobs? Why her brother works for the CIA? Why her parents were killed by police marksmen? Have you ever heard of librarians being killed by the police?'

  'There's an explanation for it all, Spikey!' whined Cindy. 'Kill her! She's mad!'

  I saw her game now. She wasn't even going to do the job herself. In broad daylight, her husband pulls the trigger and it's all legal: a good man defending his wife. She was good. She was the best. She was the Windowmaker. A contract with her and you're deader than corduroy.

  'She has a contract out on me, Spike. Already tried to kill me on two occasions—!'

  'Put down the gun, Thursday!'

  'Spikey, I'm frightened!'

  'Cindy, I want to see both your hands!'

  'DROP THE GUN, Thursday!'

  We had reached an impasse. As I stood there with Spike pointing a gun at my head and with me pointing my gun at Cindy's, I realised this was quite possibly the worst situation to be in. If I lowered my gun, Cindy would kill me. If I didn't lower my gun, Spike would kill me. If I killed Cindy, Spike would kill me. Try as I might, I couldn't think of a scenario that didn't end in my own death. Tricky, to say the least. And it was then that the grand piano fell on her.

  I'd never heard a piano falling thirty feet on to concrete before, but it was exactly as I imagined. A sort of musical concussion that reverberated around the street. As chance would have it the piano - a Steinway baby, I learned later - missed us all. It was the stool that hit Cindy, and she went down like a sack of coal. One look at her and we both knew it was bad. A serious head wound and a badly broken neck. It was a time of mixed emotions for Spike. Grief and shock at the accident but also realisation that I had been right — still clasped in Cindy's hand was a silenced .38 revolver.

  'No!' yelled Spike, placing his hand gently upon her pale cheek. 'Not again!'

  Cindy groaned weakly as the policeman who had been dealing with St Zvlkx rushed up with two paramedics at his side.

  'You should have told me,' Spike muttered, refusing to look at me, his powerful shoulders quivering slightly as tears rolled down his cheeks.

  'I'm so sorry, Spike.'

  He didn't reply but moved aside so the paramedics could try to stabilise her.

  'Who is she?' asked the policeman. 'In fact, who are you two?'

  'SpecOps,' we said in unison, producing our badges.

  'And this is Cindy Stoker,' said Spike sadly, 'the assassin known as the Windowmaker - and my wife.'

  35

  What Thursday Did Next

  KAINIAN GOVERNMENT TO FUND 'ANTI-SMOTE SHIELD'

  Mr Yorrick Kaine yesterday announced plans to set up a defensive network to counter the growing threat of God's wrath unto His creations. Specific details of the 'anti-smote shield' are still classed top secret but defence experts and top theologians have both agreed that a system might be in place within five years. Kaine's followers point to the smoting of the small town of Owestry with a 'ram of cleansing fire' last October and the Rutland plague of toads. 'Both Oswestry and Rutland are wake-up calls to our nation,' said Mr Kaine. 'They may have been sinful but ultimate retribution without due process of law is something that I will not tolerate. In today's modern world where the accepted definition of sin has become blurred we need to protect ourselves against an over-zealous deity keen to promote an outdated set of rules. It is for this reason that we are investing in anti-smote technology.' The 14bn contract will be awarded exclusively to Goliath Weapons. Inc.

  Article in The Mole, July 1988

  The news networks had a field day. The death of St Zvlkx so soon after his resurrection raised a few eyebrows, but the Windowmaker's somewhat bizarre accident while 'on assignment' became a sensation, supplanting even the upcoming Superhoop from the front pages. Incredibly, despite severe internal injuries and a devastating head wound, she didn't die. She was taken to St Septyk's, where they battled to stabilise her. Not from any great sense of moral duty, you understand, but because she could finger the sixty-seven or sixty-eight clients who had paid her to carry out her foul trade, and this was a prize the prosecutors were keen to claim. Within an hour of her coming out of surgery, three attempts by underworld bosses had been made to silence her for good. She was moved to the secure ward at the Kingsdown home for the criminally insane, and there she stayed, comatose, attached to a ventilator.

  'Spike was right. I should have told him earlier,' I said to Gran, 'or tipped off the authorities or something!'r />
  Granny Next was feeling a lot better today. Although greatly enfeebled by her advanced years, she had actually walked around for a bit this morning. When I arrived she had her reading glasses on and was surrounded by stacks of well-read tomes. The kind of thing one generally reads for study, and rarely for pleasure.

  'But you didn't,' she replied, looking over the top of her spectacles, 'and your father knew you wouldn't when he told you.'

  'He also said that I would decide whether she lived or died, but he was wrong — it's out of my hands now.' I rubbed my scalp and sighed. 'Poor Spike. He's taking it very badly.'

  'Where is he?'

  'Still being interviewed by SO-9. They got an agent down from London who's been after her for over ten years. I'd be there yet but for Flanker.'

  'Flanker?' queried Gran. 'What did he do?'

  'He came to thank me for leading SO-14 to a huge stockpile of hidden Danish literature.'

  'I thought you were trying not to help them?'

  I shrugged.

  'So did I. How was I to know the Danish underground really were using the Australian Writers' Guild as a depository?'

  'Did you tell them it was Kaine who had paid her to kill you?'

  'No,' I said, looking down. 'I don't know who I can trust and the last thing I need is to be taken into protective custody or anything. If I'm not at the touchline tomorrow for the Superhoop, the Neanderthals won't play.'

  'But there is good news, surely?'

  'Yes,' I said, brightening somewhat. 'We got some Danish books out of the country, Hamlet is on the mend — and I got Landen back.'

  Gran stared at me and lifted my face with her hand.

  'For good''

  I looked down at my wedding ring.

  'Twenty-four hours and counting.'

  'They did the same to me.' Gran sighed, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes with a bony hand. 'We were very happy for over forty years until he was taken away again — this time in a more natural and inevitable way. And that was over thirty years ago.'

  She fell silent for a moment, and to distract her I told her about St Zvlkx, his death and his Revealments, and how little of it made any sense. Time-travelling paradoxes tended to make my head spin.