GERHARD VON SQUID — Neanderthals — Back after a Short Absence
The Brunei Centre was packed, as usual. Busy shoppers moved from chain store to chain store, trying to find bargains in places whose identical goods were price fixed by head office several months in advance. It didn't stop them trying, though.
'So why the interest in Xeroxed bards?' asked Bowden as we crossed the canal.
'We've got a crisis in the BookWorld.'
I outlined what was happening within the play previously known as Hamlet and he opened his eyes wide.
'Whoa!' he said after a pause. 'And I thought our work was unusual!'
We didn't have to wait long to find Mr Stiggins. Within a few moments there was a blood-curdling cry of terror from a startled shopper. A second scream followed, and all of a sudden there was a mad rush of people moving away from the junction of Canal Walk and Bridge Street. We moved against the flow, stepping over discarded shopping and the odd shoe. The cause of the panic was soon evident. Rifling through a rubbish bin for a tasty snack was a bizarre hybrid of a creature — in SO-13 slang, a chimera. The genetic revolution that gave us unlimited replacement organs and the power to create dodos and other extinctees from home cloning kits had a downside: perverse pastiches of animals who were not borne on the shoulders of evolution, but by hobby gene splicers who didn't know any better than to try to play God in the comfort of their own potting sheds.
As the crowds rapidly departed. Bowden and I stared at the strange creature that lurched and slavered as it rooted through the waste bin. It was about the size of a goat and had the rear legs of one. but not much else. The tail and the forelegs were lizard, the head almost feline. It had several tentacles, and it sucked noisily on a chip-soaked newspaper, the saliva from its toothless mouth dribbling copiously on to the pavement. In general, hybrid birds were the most common product of illegal gene splicing, as birds were closely enough related to come out pretty well no matter how ham-fisted the amateur splicer. You could even create a passable dogfoxwolf or a domestic catleopard with no greater knowledge than a biology GCSE. No. it was the cross-class abominations which led to the total ban on home cloning, the lizard/mammal switcheroos that really pushed the limits on what was socially acceptable. It didn't stop the sport; just pushed it underground.
The creature rummaged with its one good arm in the bin, found the remains of a SmileyBurger, stared at it with its five eyes, then pushed it into its mouth. It then flopped to the ground and moved, half shuffling and half sllthering, to the next bin, all the while hissing like a cat and slapping its tentacles together.
'Oh my God,' said Bowden, 'it's got a human arm!'
And so it had. It was when there were bits of recognisable human
in them that chimeras were most repellent — a failed attempt to replace a deceased loved one, or a hobby gene splicer trying to make themselves a son.
'Repulsive?' said a voice close at hand. 'The creature, or the creator?' I turned to find myself looking at a squat, beetle-browed Neanderthal in a pale suit and with a Homburg hat perched high on his domed head. I had met him several times before. This was Bartholomew Stiggins, head of SO-13 here in Wessex.
'Both,' I replied.
Stiggins nodded almost imperceptibly as a blue SO-13 Land Rover pulled up with a squeal of brakes. A uniformed officer jumped out and started to try to push us back. Stiggins said:
'We are together.'
The Neanderthal took a few steps forward and we joined him at the creature, which was close enough to touch.
'Reptile, goat, cat, human,' murmured the Neanderthal, crouching down and staring intently at the creature as it ran a thin pink-forked tongue across a crisp packet.
'The eyes look insectoid,' observed the SO-13 agent, dart gun in the crook of his arm.
'Too big. More like the eyes we found on the chimera up at the bandstand. You remember, the one that looked like a giant hamster?'
'Same splicer?'
The Neanderthal shrugged.
'Same eyes. You know how they like to trade.'
'We'll take a sample and compare. Might lead us to them. That looks like a human arm, doesn't it?'
The creature's arm was red and mottled and no bigger than a child's. To grasp anything the fingers grabbed and twisted randomly until it found something and then it clung on tight.
'Gives it an age,' said Stiiggins, 'perhaps five years.'
'Do you want to take it alive, sir?' asked the SO-13 agent, breeching the barrel of his gun and pausing. The Neanderthal shook his head.
'No. Send him home.'
The agent inserted a dart and snapped the breech shut. He took careful aim and fired into the creature. The chimera didn't flinch — a fully functioning nervous system is a complicated piece of design and well beyond the capabilities of even the most gifted of amateur splicers — but it stopped trying to chew the bark off a tree and twitched several times before lying down and breathing more slowly. The Neanderthal moved closer and held the creature's grubby hand as its life ebbed away.
'Sometimes,' said the Neanderthal softly, 'sometimes, the innocent must suffer.'
'DENNIS!' came a panicked voice from the gathering crowd, which had fallen silent as the creature's breathing grew slower. 'Dennis, Daddy's worried! Where are you?'
The whole sad, sorry scene had just got a lot worse. A man in a beard and sleeveless white shirt had run into the empty circle around the rapidly dying creature and stared at us with a look of numb horror on his face.
'Dennis?'
He dropped to his knees next to his creation, which was now breathing in short gasps. The man opened his mouth and emitted such a wail of heartbroken grief that it made me feel quite odd inside. Such an outpouring cannot be feigned; it comes from the soul, one's very being.
'You didn't have to kill him,' he wailed, wrapping his arms around the dying beast, 'you didn't have to kill him . . . !'
The uniformed agent moved to pull Dennis's creator away but the Neanderthal stopped him.
'No,' he said gravely, 'leave him for a moment.'
The agent shrugged and walked to the Land Rover to fetch a bodybag.
'Every time we do this it's like killing one of our own,' said Stiggins softly. 'Where have you been, Miss Next? In prison?'
'Why does everyone think I've been in prison?'
'Because you were heading towards death or prison when we last met — and you are not dead.'
Dennis's maker was rocking backwards and forwards, bemoaning the loss of his creation.
The agent returned with a bodybag and a female colleague, who gently prised the man from the creature and told his unhearing ears his rights.
'Only one signature on a piece of paper keeps Neanderthals from being destroyed, the same as him,' said Stiggins, indicating the creature. 'We can be added to the list of banned creatures and designated a chimera without even an Act of Parliament.'
We turned from the scene as the other two agents laid out the bodybag and then rolled the corpse of the chimera on to it.
'You remember Bowden Cable?' 1 asked. 'My partner at the LiteraTecs.'
'Of course,' replied Stiggins, 'we met at your reception.'
'How have you been?' asked Bowden.
Stiggins stared back at him. It was a pointless human pleasantry that Neanderthals never troubled themselves with.
'We have been fine,' replied Stig, forcing the standard answer from his lips. Bowden didn't know it but he was only rubbing Stiggins's nose deeper in sapien-dominated society.
'He means nothing by it,' I said matter-of-factly, which is how Neanderthals like all their speech. 'We need your help, Stig.'
'Then we will be happy to give it, Miss Next.'
'Mean nothing by what?' asked Bowden as we walked across to a bench.
'Tell you later.'
Stig sat down and watched as another SO-13 Land Rover turned up, followed by two police cars to disperse the now curious crowd. He pulled out a carefully wrapped package of grease-proof paper and unfolded it to reveal his lunch — two windfall apples, a small bag of live bugs and a chunk of raw meat.
'Bug?'
'No thanks.'
'So what can we do for the Literary Detectives?' he asked, attempting to eat a beetle that didn't really want him to and was chased twice around Stig's hand until caught and devoured.
'What do you make of this?' I asked as Bowden handed him a picture of the Shaxtper cadaver.
'It is a dead human,' replied Stig. 'Are you sure you won't have a beetle? They're very crunchy.'
'No thanks. What about this?'
Bowden handed him a picture of one of the other dead clones, and then a third.
'The same dead human from a different viewpoint?'
'They're all different corpses, Stig.'
He stopped chewing the uncooked lamb chop and stared at me, then wiped his hands on a large handkerchief and looked more carefully at the photographs.
'How many?'
'Eighteen that we know of
'Cloning entire humans has always been illegal,' murmured Stig. 'Can we see the real thing?'
The Swindon morgue was a short walk from the SpecOps office. It was an old Victorian building which in a more enlightened age would have been condemned. It smelt of formaldehyde and damp and the morgue technicians all looked unhappy and probably had odd hobbies that I would be happier not knowing about.
The lugubrious head pathologist, Mr Rumplunkett, looked avariciously at Mr Stiggins. Since killing a Neanderthal wasn't technically a crime no autopsy was ever performed on one — and Mr Rumplunkett was by nature a curious man. He said nothing but Stiggins knew precisely what he was thinking.
'We're pretty much the same inside as you, Mr Rumplunkett. That was, after all, the reason we were brought into being in the first place.'
'I'm sorry—' began the embarrassed chief pathologist.
'No, you're not,' responded Stig, 'your interest is purely professional and in the pursuit of knowledge. We take no offence.'
'We're here to look at Mr Shaxtper,' said Bowden.
We were led to the main autopsy room, where several bodies were lying under sheets with tags on their toes.
'Overcrowding,' said Mr Rumplunkett, 'but they don't seem to complain too much. This the one?'
He threw back a sheet. The cadaver had a high-domed head, deep-set eyes, a small moustache and goatee. It looked a lot like William Shakespeare from the Droeshout engraving on the title page of the first folio.
'What do you think?'
'Okay,' I said slowly, 'he looks like Shakespeare, but if Victor wore his hair like that, so would he.'
Bowden nodded. It was a fair point.
'And this one wrote the Basil Brush sonnet?'
'No; that particular sonnet was written by this one.'
With a flourish Bowden pulled back the sheet from another cadaver to reveal a corpse identical to the first, only a year or two younger. I stared at them both as Bowden revealed yet another.
'So how many Shakespeares did you say you had?'
'Officially, none. We've got a Shaxtper, a Shakespoor and a Shagsper. Only two of them had any writing on them, all have ink-stained fingers, all are genetically identical, and all died of disease or hypothermia brought on by self-neglect.'
'Down-and-outs?'
'Hermits is probably nearer the mark.'
'Aside from the fact that they all have left eyes and one size of toe,' said Stig, who had been examining the cadavers at length, 'they are very good indeed. We haven't seen this sort of craftsmanship for years.'
'They're copies of a playwright named William Shakes—'
'We know of Shakespeare, Mr Cable,' interrupted Stig. 'We are particularly fond of Caliban from The Tempest. This is a deep recovery job. Brought back from a piece of dried skin or a hair in a death mask or something.'
'When and where, Stig?'
He thought for a moment.
'They were probably built in the mid-thirties,' he announced. 'At the time there were perhaps only ten biolabs in the world that could have done this. We think we can safely say we are looking at one of the three biggest genetic engineering labs in England.'
'Not possible,' said Bowden. 'The manufacturing records of York, Bognor Regis and Scunthorpe are in the public domain; it would be inconceivable that a project of this magnitude could have been kept secret.'
'And yet they exist,' replied Stig, pointing to the corpses and bringing Bowden's argument to a rapid close. 'Do you have the genome logs and trace element spectroscopic evaluations?' he added. 'More careful study might reveal something.'
'That's not standard autopsy procedure,' replied Rumplunkett. 'I have my budget to think of'
'If you do a molar cross-section as well we will donate our body to this department when we die.'
'I'll do them for you while you wait,' said Mr Rumplunkett.
Stig turned back to us.
'We'll need forty-eight hours to have a look at them — shall we meet again at my house? We would be honoured by your presence.'
He looked me in the eye. He would know if I lied.
'I'd like that very much.'
'We, too. Wednesday at midday?'
'I'll be there.'
The Neanderthal raised his hat, gave a small grunt and moved off.
'Well,' said Bowden as soon as Stig was out of earshot, 'I hope you like eating beetles and dock leaves.'
'You and me both, Bowden — you're coming too. If he wanted me and me alone, he would have asked me in private — but I'm sure he'll make something more palatable for us.'
I frowned as we walked blinking back out into the sunlight.
'Bowden?'
'Yup?'
'Did Stig say anything that seemed unusual to you?'
'Not really. Do you want to hear my plans for infil—'
Bowden stopped talking in mid-sentence as the world ground to a halt. Time had ceased to exist. I was trapped between one moment and the next. It could only be my father.
'Hello, Sweetpea,' he said cheerfully, giving me a hug, 'how did the Superhoop turn out?'
'That's next Saturday.'
'Oh!' he said, looking at his watch and frowning. 'You won't let me down, will you?'
'How will I not let you down? What's the connection between the Superhoop and Kaine?'
'I can't tell you. Events must unfold naturally or there'll be hell to pay. You'll just have to trust me.'
'Did you come all this way just to not tell me anything?'
'Not at all. It's a Trafalgar thing. I've been trying all sorts of plans but Nelson stubbornly resists surviving. I think I've figured it out, but I need your help.'
'Will this take long?' I asked. 'I've got a lot to do and I have to get home before my mother finds I've left a gorilla in charge of Friday.'
'I think I am right in saying,' replied my father with a smile, 'that this will take no time at all — if you'd prefer, even less!'
21
Victory on the Victory
RAUNCHY ADMIRAL IN LOVE CHILD SHOCK
Our sources can reveal exclusively in this paper that Admiral Lord Nelson, the nations darling and much-decorated war hero, is the father of a daughter with Lady Emma Hamilton, wife of Sir William Hamilton. The affair has been going on for some time, apparently with the full knowledge of both Sir William and lady Nelson, from whom the hero of the Nile is now estranged. Full story, page two; leader, page three; lurid engravings, pages four, seven, and nine; hypocritical moralistic comment, page ten; bawdy cartoon featuring an overweight Lady Hamilton, pages twelve and thirteen. Also in this issue: reports of the French and Spanish defeat at Cape Trafalgar, page thirty-two, column four.
Article in the Portsmouth Penny Dreadful, 28 October 1805
There was a succession of flickering lights and we were on the deck of a fully rigged battleship that heaved in a long swell as the wind gathered in its sails. The deck was scrubbed for action and a sense of expectancy hung over the vessel. We were sailing abreast with two other men-of-war, and to landward a column of French ships sailed on a course that would bring us into conflict. Men shouted, the ship creaked, the sails heaved and pennants fluttered in the breeze. We were on board Nelson's flagship, the Victory.
I looked around. High on the quarterdeck stood a group of men, uniformed officers in navy blue jackets, cream breeches and cockade hats. Among them was a smaller man with one arm of his uniform tucked neatly into a jacket festooned with medals and decorations. He couldn't have been a better target if he'd tried.
'It would be hard to miss him,' I breathed.
'We keep telling him that but he's pretty pig-headed about it and won't budge — just says they are military orders and he does not fear to show them to the enemy. Would you like a gobstopper?'
He offered me a small paper bag which I declined. The vessel heeled over again and we watched in silence as the distance between the two ships steadily closed.
'I never get bored of this. See them?'
I followed his gaze to where three people were huddled on the other side of a large coil of rope. One was dressed in the uniform of the ChronoGuard, another was holding a clipboard and the third had what looked like a TV camera on his shoulder.
'Documentary-makers from the twenty-second century,' explained my father, hailing the other ChronoGuard operative. 'Hello, Malcolm, how's it going?'
'Well, thanks!' replied the agent. 'Got into the soup a bit when I lost that cameraman at Pompeü. Wanted an extra close-up or something.'
'Hard cheese, old man, hard cheese. Golf after work?'
'Right-o!' replied Malcolm, returning to his charges.
'It's nice being back at work, actually,' confessed my father, turning back to me. 'Sure you won't have a gobstopper?'
'No, thanks.'
There was a flash and a burst of smoke from the closest French warship. A second later two cannon shots plopped harmlessly in the water. The balls didn't move as fast as I had supposed they would — I could actually see them in flight.
'Now what?' I asked. 'Take out the snipers so they can't shoot Nelson?'
'We'd never get them all. No, we must cheat a little. But not yet. Time is of the essence at moments like this.'
So we waited patiently on the main deck while the battle heated up. Within minutes, seven or eight warships were firing at the Victory, the cannon balls tearing into the sails and rigging. One even cut a man in half on the quarterdeck, and another dispatched a small gang of what I took to be mannes, who dispersed rapidly. All through this the diminutive admiral, his captain and a small retinue paced the quarterdeck as the smoke from the guns billowed around, the heat of the muzzle flashes hot on our faces, the concussion almost deafening. The ship's wheel disintegrated as a shot went through it, and as the battle progressed we moved about the deck, following the safest path in the light of my father's superior and infinitely precise knowledge of the battle. We moved to one side as a cannon ball flew past, moved to another area of the deck as a heavy piece of wood fell from the rigging, then to a third place when some musket balls whizzed past where we had been crouching.
'You know the battle very well!' I shouted above the noise.
'I should do,' he shouted back, 'I've been here over sixty times.'
The French and British warships drew nearer and nearer until the Victory was so close to the Bucentaure that I could see the faces of the staff in the staterooms as we passed. There was a deafening broadside from the guns and the stern of the French ship was torn apart as the British cannon balls ripped through it and down the length of the gun deck. In the lull, as the cannon crews reloaded, I could hear the multilingual cries of injured men. I had seen warfare in the Crimea but nothing like this. Such close fighting with such devastating weapons reduced men to nothing more than tatters in an instant, the plight of the survivors made worse by the almost certain knowledge that the medical attention they would receive was of the most rudimentary and brutal kind.
I nearly fell over as the Victory collided with a French ship just astern of the Bucentaure, and as I recovered my balance I realised just how close the ships were to one another in these sort of battles. It wasn't a cable's length — they were actually touching. The smoke of the guns swirled about us and made me cough, and the wheeezip of musket shot close by made me realise that the danger here was very real. There was another deafening concussion as the Victory's guns exploded and the French ship seemed to tremble in the water. My father leaned back to allow a large metal splinter to pass between us, then handed me a pair of binoculars.
'Dad?'
He was reaching into his pocket and pulling out, of all things, a catapult. He loaded it with a lead ball that was rolling across the deck and pulled it back tight, aiming through the swirling smoke at Nelson.
'See the sharpshooter on the most forward platform in the French rigging?'
'Yes?'
'As soon as he puts his finger on the trigger, count two and then say fire.'
I stared up at French rigging, found the sharpshooter and kept a close eye on him. He was less than fifty feet from Nelson. It was the easiest shot in the world. I saw his finger touch the trigger, and—'
'Fire!'
The lead ball flew from the catapult and caught Nelson painfully on the knee; he collapsed on the deck while the shot that would have killed him buried itself harmlessly in the deck behind him.
Captain Hardy ordered his men to take Nelson below, where he would be detained for the rest of the battle. Hardy would face his wrath come the morning and would not serve with him again for disobeying orders. My father saluted Captain Hardy, and Captain Hardy saluted him back. Hardy had marred his career, but saved his admiral. It was a good trade.
'Well,' said my father, placing the catapult back in his pocket, 'we all know how this turns out — come on!'
He took my hand as we started to accelerate through time. The battle quickly ended and the ship's deck was scrubbed clean; day rapidly followed night as we sailed swiftly back to England to a riotous welcome from crowds lining the docks. Then the boat moved again, but this time to Chatham, where it mouldered, lost its rigging, regained it and then moved again — but this time to Portsmouth, whose buildings rose around us as we moved into the twentieth century at breakneck speed.
When we decelerated we were back in the present but still in the same position on the deck, the ship now in dry dock and crowded with schoolchildren holding exercise books and in the process of being led around by a guide.
'And it was at this spot,' said the guide, pointing to a plaque on the deck, 'that Admiral Nelson was hit on the leg by a ricochet that probably saved his life.'
'Well, that's that job taken care of,' said Dad, standing up and dusting off his hands. He looked at his watch. 'I've got to go. Thanks for helping out, Sweetpea. Remember: Goliath may try to nobble the Swindon Mallets, especially the team captain, to rig the outcome of the Superhoop, so be on your toes. Tell Emma — I mean Lady Hamilton — that I'll pick her up at eight thirty her time tomorrow — and send my love to your mother.'
He smiled, there was another rapid flash of light and I was back outside the pathology lab with Bowden, who was just finishing the sentence he had begun when Dad arrived. '—trating the Montagues?'
'Sorry?'
'I said, do you want to hear my plans for infiltrating the Montagues?' He wrinkled his nose. 'Is that you smelling of cordite?'
'I'm afraid so. Listen, you'll have to excuse me — I think Goliath may try to nobble Roger Kapok and without him we have even less chance of winning the Superhoop.'
He laughed.
'Xeroxed bards, Swindon Mallets, eradicated husbands. You like impossible assignments, don't you?'
22
Roger Kapok
CONTRITION RATES NOT HIGH ENOUGH TO MEET TARGETS
That was the shock report from Mr Tork Armada, the spokesman for OFGOD, the religious institution licensing authority. 'Despite continual and concerted efforts by Goliath to meet the levels of repentance demanded by this authority.' said Mr Armada at a press conference yesterday, 'they have not managed to reach even halfway to the minimum divinity requirements of this office,' Mr Armada's report was greeted with surprise by Goliath, who had hoped their application would be swift and unopposed. 'We are changing tatties to target those to whom Goliath is anathema,' said Mr Schitt-Hawse, a Goliath spokesman. 'We have recently secured forgiveness from someone who had despised us deeply, something that counts twenty-fold in OFGOD's own contrition target rules. More like her will soon follow.' Mr Armada was clearly not impressed and simply said: 'Well, we'll see.'
Report in Goliath Today!, 17 July 1988
I trotted up the road to the 30,000-seater croquet stadium, deep in thought. Goliath's contrition rate had been published that morning and thanks to me and the 'Crimean Mass Apology Project' their switching to a religious status was now not only possible but probable. The only plus was that in all likelihood it wouldn't happen until after the Superhoop, which raised the possibility — confirmed by my father — that Goliath would try to nobble the Swindon team. And targeting the captain, Roger Kapok, was probably the best way to do it.
I passed the VIP car park where a row of expensive automobiles was on display and showed my SpecOps pass to the bored security guard. I entered the stadium and walked up one of the public access tunnels to the terraces, and from there looked down upon the green. From this distance the hoops were almost invisible, but their positions were marked by large white circles painted on the turf. The ten-yard lines crossed the green from side to side and the 'natural hazards', the Italianate sunken garden, rhododendron bushes and herbaceous flower beds, stood out clearly. Each 'obstruction' was scrupulously constructed to specific World Croquet League specifications. The height of the rhododendrons was carefully measured before each game, the herbaceous border stocked with identical shrubs, the sunken garden with its lilies and lead fountain of Minerva the same on every green the world over, from Dallas to Poona, Nairobi to Reykjavik.
Below me I could see the Swindon Mallets indulging in a tough training session. Roger Kapok was among them, barking orders as his team ran backwards and forwards, whirling their mallets dangerously close to one another. Four-ball croquet could be a dangerous sport, and close-quarters stick-work that managed not to involve severe physical injury was considered a skill unique to the Croquet League.
I ran down the steps between the rows of tiered seating, which was nearly my undoing; halfway down I slipped on some carelessly deposited banana skins, and if it hadn't been for some deft footwork I might have plunged head first on to the concrete steps. I muttered a curse under my breath, glared at one of the groundsmen and stepped out on to the green.
'So,' I heard Kapok say as I drew closer, 'we've got the big match on Saturday and I don't want anyone thinking that we will automatically win just because St Zvlkx said so. Brother Thomas of York predicted a twenty-point victory for the Battersea Chargers last week and they were beaten hollow, so stay on your toes. I won't have the team relying on destiny to win this match — we do it on teamwork, application and tactics.' There was a grunting and nodding of heads from the assembled team, and Kapok continued. 'Swindon have never won a Superhoop, so I want this to be our first. Biffo, Smudger and Aubrey will lead the offensive as usual, and I don't want anyone tumbling into the sunken garden like during last Tuesday's practice. The hazards are there for you to lose opponents' balls in clean and legal roquets, and I don't want them used for any other purpose.'
Kapok was a big man with closely cropped hair and a badly broken nose which he wore with pride. He had taken a croquet ball in the face five years ago, before helmets and body armour were compulsory. He had been at Swindon for over ten years and at thirty-five was at the upper age limit for pro croquet. He and the rest of the team were local legends and hadn't needed to buy a drink in Swindon's pubs for as long as anyone could remember — but outside Swindon they were barely known at all.
'Thursday Next,' I said, walking closer and introducing myself, 'SpecOps. Can I have a word?'
'Sure. Take five, guys.'
I shook Roger's hand and we walked off towards the herbaceous border which was adjacent to the forty-yard line, just next to the garden roller which, owing to a horrific accident at the Pan-Pacific Cup last year, was now padded.
'I'm a big fan, Miss Next,' said Roger, smiling broadly to reveal several missing teeth. 'Your work on Jane Eyre was astounding. I love Charlotte Bronte's novels. Don't you think the Ginevra Fanshawe character from Villette and Blanche Ingram from Jane Eyre are sort of similar?'
I had noticed, of course, because they actually were the same person, but I didn't think Kapok or anyone else should know about the economics of the BookWorld.
'Really?' I said. 'I'd not noticed. I'll come straight to the point, Mr Kapok. Has anyone tried to dissuade you from playing this Saturday?'
'No. And you probably just heard me telling the team to ignore the seventh Revealment. We aim to win for our own sakes and that of Swindon. And we will win, you have my word on that!'
He smiled that dazzling reconstructed Roger Kapok smile that I had seen so many times on billboards throughout Swindon, advertising everything from toothpaste to floor paint. His confidence was infectious and suddenly beating the Reading Whackers seemed to move from 'totally impossible' to 'deeply improbable'.
'And what about you?' I asked, remembering my father's warning that he would be the first one Goliath would try to nobble.
'What about me?'
'Would you stay with the team no matter what?'
'Of course!' he replied. 'Wild horses couldn't drag me away from leading the Mallets to victory.'
'Promise?'
'On my honour. The code of the Kapoks is at stake. Only death will keep me off the green on Saturday.'
'You should be on your guard, Mr Kapok,' I murmured, 'Goliath will try anything to make sure Reading win the Superhoop.'
'I can look after myself.'
'I don't doubt it, but you should be on your guard nevertheless.'
I paused as a sudden childish urge came over me.
'Would you mind ... if I had a whack?'
I pointed at his mallet and he dropped a blue ball to the ground.
'Did you used to play?'
'For my university.'
'Roger!' called one of the players from behind us. He excused himself and I squared up to the ball. I hadn't played for years but only through lack of spare time. It was a fast and furious game quite unlike its ancient predecessor, although the natural hazards, such as rhododendrons and other garden architecture, had remained from the era when it was simply a polite garden sport. I rolled the ball with my foot to plant it firmly on the grass. My old croquet coach had been an ex-league player named Alf Widdershaine, who always told me that concentration made the finest croquet players — and Alf should know as he had been a pro for the Slough Bombers and retired with 7,892 career hoops, a record yet to be beaten. I looked down the green at the forty-yard right back hoop. From here it was no bigger than my fingertip. Alf had hooped from up to fifty yards away but my personal best was only twenty. I concentrated as my fingers clasped the leather grip, then raised the mallet and followed through with a hard swing. There was a satisfying crack and the ball hurtled off in a smooth arc — straight into the rhododendrons. Blast. If this had been a match I would have 'lost the ball' until the next third. I turned around to see whether anyone had been watching but fortunately they hadn't. Instead, an altercation seemed to be going on between the team members. I dropped the mallet and hurried over.
'You can't leave!' cried Aubrey Jambe, hoop defence. 'What about the Superhoop?'
'You'll do fine without me,' Kapok implored, 'really you will!'
He was standing with two men in suits who didn't look as though they were in the sports business. I showed them my ID.
'Thursday Next, SpecOps. What's going on?'
The two men looked at one another. It was the tall one who spoke.
'We're scouts for the Gloucester Meteors and we think Mr Kapok would like to come and play for us.'
'Less than a week before a Superhoop?'
'I'm due for a change, Miss Next,' said Kapok, looking about nervously. 'I think that Biffo would lead the team far better than me. Don't you think so, Biffo?'
'What about all that "wild horses" and "code of the Kapoks" stuff?' I demanded. 'You promised!'
'I need to spend more time with my family,' muttered Kapok, shrugging his shoulders and clearly not keen to remain in the stadium one second longer than he had to. 'You'll be fine — hasn't St Zvlkx predicted it?'
'Seers aren't always a hundred per cent accurate — you said so yourself! Who are you two really?'
'Leave us out of it,' said the tall suited man. 'All we did was make an offer — Mr Kapok decides if he stays or goes.'
Kapok and the two men turned to leave.
'Kapok, for God's sake!' yelled Biffo. 'The Whackers will knock the stuffing out of the team if you're not here to lead us!'
But he continued walking, his former team-mates looking on in disgust, and grumbled and swore for a while before the Mallets' manager, a reedy-looking character with a thin moustache and a pale complexion walked on to the green and asked what was going on.
'Ah!' he said when he heard the news. 'I'm very sorry to hear that but since you are all present I think it's probably the right time to announce that I'm retiring on grounds of ill health.'
'When?'
'Right now,' said the manager, and ran off. Goliath were working overtime this morning.
'Well,' said Aubrey as soon as he had gone, 'what now?'
'Listen,' I said, 'I can't tell you why but it is historically imperative that we win this Superhoop. You will win this match because you have to. It's that simple. Can you captain?' I asked, turning to a burly croquet player named Biffo. I had seen him do 'blind passes' across the rhododendron bushes with uncanny accuracy and his classic 'pegging out' shot from the sixty-yard line during the league game against Southampton was undeniably one of the Top Ten Great Croquet Moments of history. Of course, that had been over ten years ago, before a bad tackle twisted his knee. These days he played defence, guarding the hoops against opposition strikers.
'Not me,' he replied with a resigned air.
'Smudger?'
Smudger played attack and had made midair roquets something of a trademark. His celebrated double hoop in the Swindon-Gloucester play-off of 1978 was still talked about, even if it hadn't won us the match.
'Nope.'
'Anyone?'
'I'll captain, Miss Next.'
It was Aubrey Jambe. He had been captain once before until a media-led campaign had him ousted following allegations about him and a chimp.
'Good.'
'But we'll need a new manager,' said Aubrey slowly, 'and since you seem to be so passionate about it, I think you'd better take it on.'
Before I knew what I was saying I had agreed, which went down pretty well with the players. Morale of a sort had returned. I took Aubrey by the arm and we walked into the middle of the green for our first strategy meeting.
'Okay,' I said, 'tell me truthfully, Jambe, what are our chances?'
'Borderline impossible,' answered Aubrey candidly. 'We had to sell our best player to Glasgow to be able to meet the changes that the World Croquet League insisted we make to the green. Then our top defender, Lauren de Rematte, won a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Africa on one of those junk mail prize draw things. With Kapok gone we're down to ten players, no reserve, and we've lost the best striker. Biffo, Smudger, Snake, George and Johnno are all good players but the rest are second-raters.'
'So what do we need to win?'
'If every player on the Reading team were to die overnight and be replaced by unfit nine-year-olds, then we might be in with a chance.'
'Too difficult and probably illegal. What else?'
Aubrey stared at me glumly.
'Five quality players and we might have a chance.'
It was a tall order. If they could get to Kapok, they could offer 'inducements' to any other player who might want to join us.
'Okay,' I said, 'leave it with me.'
'You have a plan?'
'Of course,' I lied, feeling the managerial mantle falling about my shoulders, 'your new players are as good as signed. Besides,' I added, with a certain amount of faux conviction, 'we've got a Revealment to protect.'
23
Granny Next
READING WHACKERS CONFIDENT OF WINNING SUPERHOOP
Following the surprise resignation of both Roger Kapok and Gray Ferguson from the Swindon Mallets croquet team this afternoon, the Whackers seem almost certain to win next Saturday's Superhoop, despite the prophecy by St Zvlkx. Betting shops were being cautious despite the news and lowered the Mallets' odds to 700—1. Miss Thursday Next, the new manager of the Mallets, derided any talk of failure and told waiting reporters that Swindon would triumph. When pressed on how dial might be so, she declared the interview over.
Article in the Swindon Evening Blurb, 18 July 1988
'You're the manager of the Mallets?' asked Bowden with incredulity. 'What happened to Gray Ferguson?'
'Bought out, bribed, frightened — who knows?' 'You like being busy, don't you? Does this mean you won't be able to help me get banned books out of England?'
'Have no fear of that,' I reassured him, 'I'll find a way.' I wished I could share in my own confidence. I told Bowden I'd see him tomorrow and walked out, only to be waylaid by the over-zealous Major Drabb, who told me with great efficiency that he and his squad had searched the Albert Schweitzer Memorial Library from top to bottom but had not unearthed a single Danish book. I congratulated him on his diligence and told him to check in with me again tomorrow. He saluted smartly, presented me with a thirty-two-page written report and was gone.
Gran was in the garden of the Goliath Twilight Homes when I stopped by on the way home. She was dressed in a blue gingham frock and was attending to some flowers with a watering can.
'I just heard the news on the wireless. Congratulations!'
'Thanks,' I replied without enthusiasm, slumping into a large 'tvicker chair. 'I have no idea why I volunteered to run the Mallets — I don't know the first thing about running a croquet team!'
'Perhaps,' replied Gran, reaching forward to dead-head a rose, 'all that is required is faith and conviction — two areas in which, I might add, I think you excel.'
'Faith isn't going to conjure up five world-class croquet players, now, is it?'
'You'd be surprised what faith can do, my dear. You have St Zvlkx's Revealment on your side, after all.'
'The future isn't fixed, Gran. We can lose, and probably will.'
She tut-tutted.
'Well! Aren't you the moaning minnie today! What does it matter if we do lose? It's only a game, after all!'
I slumped even lower.
'If it was only a game I wouldn't be worried. This is how my father sees it: Kaine proclaims himself dictator as soon as President Formby dies next Monday. Once he wields ultimate executive power he will embark on a course of warfare that results in an armageddon of Level III life-extinguishing capability. We can't stop the President from dying but we can, my father insists, avoid the world war by simply winning the Superhoop.'
Gran sat down in a wicker chair next to me.
'And then there's Hamlet,' I continued, rubbing my temples. 'His play has been subjected to a hostile takeover from The Merry Wives of Windsor and if I don't find a Shakespeare clone pronto there won't be a Hamlet for Hamlet to return to. Goliath tricked me yet again. I don't know what they did but it felt as though my free will was being sucked out through my eyeballs. They said they'd get Landen back but quite frankly I have my doubts. And I have to illegally smuggle ten truckloads of banned books out of England.'
Tirade over, I sighed and was silent. Gran had been thoughtful for a while, and after appearing to come to some sort of a momentous decision announced:
'You know what you should do?'
'What?'
'Take Smudger off defence and make him the mid-hoop wingman. Jambe should be the striker as usual, but Biffo—'
'Gran! You haven't listened to a word I've said, have you?'
She patted my hand.
'Of course I have. Hamlet was having his merry wives smuggled out of England by sucking out his eyeballs which leads to an armageddon and the death of the President. Right?'
'Never mind. How are things with you? Found the ten most boring books?'
'Indeed I have,' she replied, 'but I am loath to finish reading them as I feel there is one last epiphanic moment to my life that will be revealed just before I die.'
'What sort of epiphanic moment?'
'I don't know. Do you want to play Scrabble?'
So Gran and I played Scrabble. I thought I was winning until she got 'cazique' on a triple word score and it was downhill from there. I lost by 503 points to 319.
24
Home Again
DENMARK BLAMED FOR DUTCH ELM DISEASE
'Dutch Elm Disease was nothing of the sort' was the shock claim from leading arboreahsb last week. 'For many years we had blamed Dutch Elm Disease on the Dutch.' declared Jeremy Acorn, head spokesman of the Knotty Pine Arboreal Research Facility. 'So-called Dutch Elm Disease, a tree virus that killed off nearly all England's elms in the mid-seventies, was thought to have originated in Holland — hence the name.' But new research has cast doubt on this long-held hypothesis. 'Using techniques unavailable to us in the seventies we have uncovered new evidence to suggest that Dutch Elm Disease originated in Denmark.' Mr Acorn went on to say: 'We have no direct evidence to suggest that Denmark is engaged in the design and proliferation of arborealogical weapons, but we have to maintain an open mind. There are many oaks and silver birches in England at present unprotected against attack.' Arboreal Warfare — should we be worried? Full report, page nine.
Article in the Arboreal Times, 17 July 1988
I hurried home to get there before my mother as I wasn't sure how she'd react to finding that Friday was being looked after by a gorilla. It was possible that she might not have any problems with this but I didn't really want to put it to the test.
To my horror Mum had got there before me — and not just her, either. A large crowd of journalists had gathered outside her house, awaiting the return of the Mallets' new manager, and only after I had run the gauntlet of a thousand 'no comments' did I catch her, just as she was putting her key in the front door.