The Woman Who Died a Lot

“Gosh,” he said as another thought struck him, “you must have worked hard to convince Dr. Chumley to give you aNUT-4 classification. You didn’t use the old ‘pregnant with an elephant’ gambit, did you?”

“Of course not. That would have been ridiculous.”

We both fell silent for a few moments.

“Listen here,” he said, “can I be honest with you, Thursday?”

“I’m going to say yes when I should probably say no.”

“We all slow down. Sometimes through age and sometimes through . . . circumstance. I’m seventy-six next June, and I’m out two weeks before then. I still have much to offer, but . . . well, sooner or later I’m going to make a humongous mistake—the sort that kills people, and I don’t want to be here when I do.”

He thought for a moment of the impossibility of the last statement.

“You understand what I mean?”

“Yes,” I replied, “but I’m only fifty-four.”

“But in that time you’ve had a lot of mileage. Head the of Wessex Library Service is a cushy number, and this is why I want you in at the top: I’d like you to liaise closely with Divisional Commander Smalls, who will be reestablishing the Literary Detectives over the next few weeks.”

I took a deep breath, and Braxton continued.

“It’s time to move on and out, Thursday. Phoebe is a good choice. Qualified, fearless, smart, nuts—and good with stats. I want you two to get along. It’ll be better for you, her and the service. Now, how about it?”

“I’ll . . . have to discuss it with Landen.”

“I expect nothing less,” he said as his order arrived. “By Jove, this looks good.”

We ate while Braxton talked at some length about his daughter’s latest drunken escapades and how they were a huge worry to Mrs. Hicks. But I wasn’t really listening. Somehow I didn’t really think a career of saying “Shh!” and stamping return dates was really my thing. I could go freelance at the drop of a hat and join any private detective agency on the planet with a single phone call. But if I did join the Wessex All-You-Can-Eat-at-Fatso’s Drink Not Included Library Service, I was still in a government agency, and in the loop, ready to step in when Phoebe fell flat on her small and very perfect nose.

Within half an hour, I had thanked Braxton for his time and limped out of Yo! Toast.

6. Monday: TJ-Maxx

Many people still thank that TJ-Maxx is an outlet for last season’s designer clothes, bought in bulk. The same people still think IKEA is there to sell flatpack furniture and Home Depot’s primary interest is DIY. They’re not and never were—and after the 2004 scandal regarding the SpecOps involvement with Lidl and Aldi, their position within the retail landscape might be slightly more precarious.

Millon de Floss,

A Longer History of SpecOps

I walked through the Brunel Centre feeling a sense of disappointment mixed with the realization that until my health improved, things were going to be very different. I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, which led me to the inevitable conclusion that I couldn’t be who I wanted to be. My purpose was suddenly blunted, and I didn’t like it.

I arrived at the Swindon branch of TJ-Maxx at a little after two. I knew as well as anyone that the store hadn’t been deliberately set up as a bargain store for end-of-line designer garments, but rather a high-security facility for the imprisonment of dangerous criminals. Swindon’s most celebrated convict had been Oswald Danforth, whose punishment was to be trapped in an endlessly recurring eight-minute loop of time. In his case while his girlfriend, Trudi, tried on a camisole. She never knew about the loop, of course—but Danforth did. That’s why it was called TJ-Maxx: Temporal-J, Maximum Xecurity. It had been runby the ChronoGuard. The official title was “Closed-Loop Temporal-Field Containment,” but SO-12 simply called it being “in the loop.” It was cruel and unusual, sure, but it was cheap and required no guards, food or health care.

Or at least it had. There were no prisoners now—not since the ChronoGuard was disbanded and all its technology decommissioned.

I found Landen staring at the frying pans on the second floor, wondering, as he usually did, whether they were more expensive than at the co-op and, if so, what the point was of selling them.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he replied, putting back a cheese grater before adding, “No cookies at the hunt, sir.”

“What?”

“The password?”

“Oh. ‘It’s not a cookie, it’s a . . .’ Shit. Hang on.”