‘That’s always assuming they think logically like you or I.’
‘It does, doesn’t it?’
I sighed.
‘People have been busted for less. SO-1 like to make an example from time to time.’
‘You don’t have to work, you know.’
I looked across at him but he was too close to focus on, which was sort of nice, in its way.
‘I know,’ I replied, ‘but I’d like to keep it up. I don’t really see myself as a mumsy sort of person.’
‘Your cooking might tend to support that fact.’
‘Mother’s cooking is terrible, too—I think it’s hereditary. My SO-1 hearing is at four. Want to go and see the mammoth migration?’
‘Sure.’
The doorbell rang.
‘Who could that be?’
‘It’s a little early to tell,’ quipped Landen. ‘I understand the “go and see” technique sometimes works.’
‘Very funny.’
I pulled on some clothes and went downstairs. There was a gaunt man with lugubrious features standing on the doorstep. He looked as close to a bloodhound as one can get without actually having a tail and barking.
‘Yes?’
He raised his hat and gave me a somnolent smile.
‘The name is Hopkins,’ he explained. ‘I’m a reporter for The Owl. I was wondering if I could interview you about your time within the pages of Jane Eyre?’
‘You’ll have to go through Cordelia Flakk at SpecOps, I’m afraid. I’m not really at liberty—’
‘I know you were inside the book; in the first and original ending Jane goes to India, yet in your ending she stays and marries Rochester. How did you engineer this?’
‘You really have to get clearance from Flakk, Mr Hopkins.’
He sighed.
‘Okay, I will. Just one thing. Did you prefer the new ending, your new ending?’
‘Of course. Didn’t you?’
Mr Hopkins scribbled in a notepad and smiled again.
‘Thank you, Miss Next. I’m very much in your debt. Good day!’
He raised his hat again and was gone.
‘What was all that about?’ asked Landen as he handed me a cup of coffee.
‘Pressman.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Nothing. He has to go through Flakk.’
Uffington was busy that morning. The mammoth population in England, Wales and Scotland amounted to 249 individuals in nine groups, all of whom migrated north to south around late autumn and back again in the spring. The routes followed the same pattern every year with staggering accuracy. Inhabited areas were mostly avoided—except Devizes, where the high street was shuttered up and deserted twice a year as the plodding elephantines crashed and trumpeted their way through the centre of the town, cheerfully following the ancient call of their forebears. No one in Devizes could get any sleep or proboscidea damage insurance cover, but the extra cash from tourism generally made up for it.
But there weren’t just mammoth twitchers, walkers, Druids and a Neanderthal ‘right to hunt’ protest up the hill that morning, a dark blue automobile was waiting for us, and when somebody is waiting for you in a place you hadn’t planned on being, then you take notice. There were three of them standing next to the car, all dressed in dark suits with a blue enamelled Goliath badge on their lapels. The only one I recognised was Schitt-Hawse; they all hastily hid their ice creams as we approached.
‘Mr Schitt-Hawse,’ I said, ‘what a surprise! Have you met my husband?’
Schitt-Hawse offered his hand but Landen didn’t take it. The Goliath agent grimaced for a moment, then gave a bemused grin.
‘Saw you on the telly, Ms Next. It was a fascinating talk about dodos, I must say.’
‘I’d like to expand my subjects next time,’ I replied evenly. ‘Might even try and include something about Goliath’s malignant stranglehold on the nation.’
Schitt-Hawse shook his head sadly.
‘Unwise, Next, unwise. What you singularly fail to grasp is that Goliath is all you’ll ever need. All anyone will ever need. We manufacture everything from cots to coffins and employ over eight million people in our six thousand or so subsidiary companies. Everything from the womb to the wooden overcoat.’
‘And how much profit do you expect to scavenge as you massage us from hatched to dispatched?’
‘You can’t put a price on human happiness, Next. Political and economic uncertainty are the two biggest forms of stress. You’ll be pleased to know that the Goliath Cheerfulness Index has reached a four-year high this morning at 9.13.’
‘Out of a hundred?’ asked Landen sarcastically.
‘Out of ten, Mr Parke-Laine,’ Schitt-Hawse replied testily. ‘The nation has grown beyond all measure under our guidance.’
‘Growth purely for its own sake is the philosophy of cancer, Schitt-Hawse.’
His face dropped and he stared at us for a moment, doubtless wondering how best to continue.
‘So,’ I said politely, ‘out to watch the mammoths?’
‘Goliath don’t watch mammoths, Next. There’s no profit in it. Have you met my associates Mr Chalk and Mr Cheese?’
I looked at his two gorilla-like lackeys. They were immaculately dressed, had impeccably trimmed goatees, and stared at me through impenetrable dark glasses.
‘Which is which?’ I asked
‘I’m Cheese,’ said Cheese
‘I’m Chalk,’ said Chalk.
‘When is he going to ask you about Jack Schitt?’ asked Landen in an unsubtly loud whisper.
‘Pretty soon,’ I replied.
Schitt-Hawse shook his head sadly. He opened the briefcase Mr Chalk was holding and inside, nestled in the carefully cut foam innards, lay a copy of The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.
‘You left Jack imprisoned in this copy of The Raven. Goliath need him out to face a disciplinary board on charges of embezzlement, Goliath contractual irregularities, misuse of the Corporation’s leisure facilities, missing stationery… and crimes against humanity.’
‘Oh yes?’ I asked. ‘Why not just leave him in?’
Schitt-Hawse sighed and stared at me.
‘Listen, Next. We need Jack out of here, and believe me, we’ll manage it.’
‘Not with my help.’
Schitt-Hawse stared silently at me for a moment.
‘Goliath is not used to being refused. We asked your uncle to build another Prose Portal. He told us to come back in a month’s time. We understand he left on retirement last night. Destination?’
‘Not a clue.’
Mycroft had retired, it seemed, not out of choice but out of necessity. I smiled. Goliath had been hoodwinked and they didn’t like it.
‘Without the Portal,’ I told him, ‘I can’t jump into books any more than Mr Chalk can.’
Chalk shuffled slightly as I mentioned his name.
‘You’re lying,’ replied Schitt-Hawse ‘The ineptness card doesn’t work on us. You defeated Hades, Jack Schitt and the Goliath Corporation. We have a great deal of admiration for you. Goliath has been more than fair given the circumstances, and we would hate for you to become a victim of corporate impatience.’
‘Corporate impatience? What’s that, some sort of threat?’
‘This unhelpful attitude of yours might make me vindictive—and you wouldn’t like me when I get vindictive.’
‘I don’t like you when you’re not vindictive.’
Schitt-Hawse shut the briefcase with a snap. His left eye twitched and the colour drained out of his face. He looked at us both and started to say something, stopped, got a hold of his temper and managed to squeeze out a half-smile before he climbed back into his car with Chalk and Cheese and was gone.
Landen was still chuckling as we spread a groundsheet and blanket on the well-nibbled grass just above the White Horse. Below us, at the bottom of the escarpment, a herd of mammoths were quietly browsing, and on the horizon we could see several airships on the approach to Oxford. It was a pleasant day, and since airships don’t fly in poor weather, they were all making the best use of it.