Alan, who clearly didn't like Hamlet's attitude, decided to attack and made a lunge at Hamlet's shoe. It was a bad move. The Prince of Denmark leapt up, drew his sword and before I could stop him made a wild slash in Alan's direction. He was a skilled swordsman and did no more damage than to pluck the feathers off the top of Alan's head. The little dodo, who now had a bald patch, opened his eyes wide and looked around him with a mixture of horror and awe at the small feathers that were floating to the ground.
'Any more from you, my fine feathered friend,' announced Hamlet, replacing his sword, 'and you'll be in the curry!'
Pickwick, who had been watching from a safe corner near the compost heap, boldly strode out and stood defiantly between Alan and Hamlet. I'd never seen her acting brave before, but I suppose Alan was her son, even if he was a hooligan. Alan, either terrified or incensed, stood completely motionless, beak open.
'Telephone for you,' my mother called out. I walked into the house and picked up the receiver. It was Aubrey Jambe. He wanted me to speak to Alf Widdershaine to get him out of retirement, and also to know whether I had found any new players yet.
'I'm working on it,' I said, rummaging through the Yellow Pages under 'sports agents'. 'I'll call you back. Don't lose hope, Aubrey.'
He hurrumphed and rang off. I called Wilson Lonsdale & Partners, England's top sports agents, and was delighted to hear there were any number of world-class croquet players available; sadly the interest evaporated when I mentioned which team I represented.
'Swindon?' said one of Lonsdale's associates. 'I've just remembered we don't have anyone on our books at all.'
'I thought you said you had?'
'It must have been a clerical error. Good day.'
The line went dead. I called several others and received a similar response from all of them. Goliath and Kaine were obviously covering all their bases.
Following that I called my old coach, Alf Widdershaine, and after a long chat managed to persuade him to go down to the stadium and do what he could. I called Jambe back to tell him the good news about Alf, although I thought it prudent to hide the lack of new players from him for the time being.
I thought about Landen's existence problem for a moment and then found the number of Julie Aseizer, the woman at Eradications Anonymous who had got her husband back. I called her and explained the situation.
'Oh yes!' she said helpfully. 'My Ralph flickered on and off like a faulty light bulb until his uneradication held!'
I thanked her and put the receiver down, then checked my finger for a wedding ring. It still wasn't there.
I glanced into the garden and saw Hamlet walking on the lawn, deep in thought with Alan following him at a safe distance. As I watched, Hamlet turned to him and glared. The small dodo went all sheepish and laid his head on the ground in supplication. Clearly, Hamlet wasn't just a fictional Prince of Denmark, but also something of an alpha dodo.
I smiled to myself and wandered into the living room, where I found Friday building a castle out of bricks with Pickwick helping. Of course, 'helping' in this context means 'watching'. I glanced at the clock. Time for work. Just when I could do with some relaxing brick-building therapy. Mum agreed to look after Friday and I gave him a kiss goodbye.
'Be good.'
'Arse.'
'What did you say?'
'Pikestaff.'
'If those are rude Old English words, St Zvlkx is in a lot of trouble and so are you, my little fellow. Mum, sure you're okay?'
'Of course. We'll take him to the zoo.'
'Good. No, wait we?'
'Bismarck and I.'
'Mum!?'
'What? Can't a more or less widowed woman have a bit of male company from time to time?'
'Well,' I stammered, feeling unnaturally shocked for some reason, 'I suppose there's no reason why not.'
'Good. Be off with you. After we've gone to the zoo we might drop in at the tearooms. And then the theatre.'
She had started to go all dreamy so I left, shocked not only that mother might be even considering some sort of a fling with Bismarck, but that Joffy might have been right.
27
Weird Shit on the M4
'George Formby was born George Hoy Booth in Wigan in 1904. He followed his father into the music hall business, adopted the ukulele as his trademark and by the time the war broke out he was a star of variety, pantomime and film. During the first years of the war, he and his wife Beryl toured extensively for ENSA, entertaining the troops as well as making a series of highly successful movies. When invasion of England was inevitable, many influential dignitaries and celebrities were shipped out to Canada. Moving underground with the English resistance and various stalwart regiments of the Local Defence Volunteers, Formby manned the outlawed "Wireless St George" and broadcast songs, jokes and messages to secret receivers across the country. The Formbys used their numerous contacts in the North to smuggle Allied airmen to neutral Wales and form resistance cells that harried the Nazi invaders. In post-war republican England he was made nonexecutive President for life.'
I avoided the news crews who were waiting for me at the SpecOps building and parked up at the rear. Major Drabb was waiting for me as I walked into the entrance lobby. He saluted smartly but I detected a slight reticence about him this morning. I handed him another scrap of paper.
'Good morning, Major. Today's assignment is the Museum of the American Novel in Salisbury.'
'Very . . . good, Agent Next.'
'Problems, Major?'
'Well,' he said, biting his lip nervously, 'yesterday you had me searching the library of a famous Belgian and today the Museum of the American Novel. Shouldn't we be searching more . . . well, Danish facilities?'
I pulled him aside and lowered my voice.
'That's precisely what they would be expecting us to do. These Danes are clever people. You wouldn't expect them to hide their books somewhere as obvious as the Wessex Danish Library, now, would you?'
He smiled and tapped his nose.
'Very astute, Agent Next.'
Drabb saluted again, clicked his heels and was gone. I smiled to myself and pressed the elevator call button. As long as Drabb didn't report to Flanker I could keep this going all week.
Bowden was not alone. He was talking to the last person I would expect to see in a LiteraTec office: Spike.
'Yo, Thursday,' he said.
'Yo, Spike.'
He wasn't smiling. I feared it might be something to do with Cindy, but I was wrong.
'Our friends in SO-6 tell us there's some seriously weird shit going down on the M4,' he announced, 'and when someone says "weird shit" they call'
'you.'
'Bingo. But the weird shit merchant can't do it on his own, so he calls'
'me.'
'Bingo.'
There was another officer with them. He wore a dark suit typical of the upper SpecOps divisions, and he looked at his watch in an unsubtle manner.
'Time is of the essence, Agent Stoker.'
'What's the job?' I asked.
'Yes,' returned Spike, whose somewhat laid-back attitude to life-and-death situations took a little getting used to, 'what is the job?'
The suited agent looked impassively at us both.
'Classified,' he announced, 'but I am authorised to tell you this:Unless we get |||||||| back in under |||||||| ||||| hours then ||||||| will seize ultimate executive |||| and you can ||||| goodbye to any semblance of |||||||.'
'Sounds pretty ****ing serious,' said Spike, turning back to me. 'Are you in?'
'I'm in.'
We were driven without explanation to the roundabout at Junction 16 of the M4 motorway. SO-6 were National Security, which made for some interesting conflicts of interest. The department that protected Formby also protected Kaine. And for the most part the SO-6 agents looking after Formby worked against Kaine's SO-6 operatives, who were more than keen to see him gone. SpecOps factions always fought, but rarely from within the same department. Kaine had a lot to answer for.