The Woman Who Died a Lot

From when it first opened, motorway services were always a welcome mix of good food, restful surroundings, clean and spacious hotels and reasonably priced shopping. Some people ventured solely onto the motorway to visit these oases of calm on the bellowing asphalt, and poor food and less-than-exemplary service were simply not tolerated. When Aust Services lost a prestigious Dunlop Star from its rating, the manager, overcome by shame, set himself on fire and threw himself into the river Severn.

J. Fforde,

Motorway Services and Sarcasm, Unsubtly Used

“Holy cow!” said Landen when he saw me. “What happened to you?”

“Remember how Daisy Mutlar said she would devote her life to silent introspection of an obscure religion if she couldn’t marry you?”

“We all make threats like that. No one takes them seriously.”

“Daisy was totally serious. She’s now Mother Daisy over at the Salisbury Lobsterhood.”

“She always did want to be a mother. She did all this to you?”

“Only that one and . . . that one,” I replied, showing him the bruises that had been Daisy-inflicted.

“The rest was Jack Schitt and one of his cronies.”

“I’ve a feeling you weren’t reminiscing about the old days over a glass of wine.”

“Very astute of you.”

We went through to the kitchen, where we exchanged passwords before I sat at the large kitchen table and related all that had happened. While I talked, he fetched some antiseptic and a packet of cotton wool. I had numerous scratches, cuts and abrasions from when the trapdoor was blown open, and I winced as he tended to them. When I’d finished speaking, he stared at me for a while, concerned rather than shocked.

“Trouble really does follow you around, doesn’t it? Even when you’re just a librarian.”

“There’s nothing ‘just’ about being a librarian,” I corrected him. “And as for Jack Schitt—I’ve a feeling we’ve not heard the last of him.”

“It doesn’t make much sense, him allowing you to see his face and survive, does it?”

“None of it adds up,” I replied with another wince as he picked a splinter out of my head. “How have things been here?”

“The Wingco got through to Land’s End International. Neither Quinn, Highsmith nor Aornis ever got there.”

“It’s a long journey from Swindon to Cornwall,” I said. “They must have stopped for fuel.”

“Millon came up with these,” said Landen, laying some pictures on the table in front of me. They were grainy images from a security camera at a motorway services somewhere.

“What am I looking at?” I asked.

“These were taken at Agutter Services two hours after Aornis and the van left Swindon.”

He pointed to three figures—one, Aornis, being escorted by two others, recognizable as Quinn and Highsmith.

“Okay,” I said, “a toilet break. Now what?”

He showed me another taken a minute later, with Aornis on her own.

“Probably made them forget what they were doing,” said Landen. “The whole deafness-as-defense must have been totally wrong—she can manipulate memories in quite another way.”

“What happened to her after that?” I asked, and Landen showed me a picture of Aornis, this time getting into a Alfa-Morris Spyder. There was a road sign next to her, which indicated she was heading back the way she came.

“Okay,” I said, “so she headed back up the motorway. See what Millon can find from the motorway cameras. There can’t be many Alfa-Morris Spyders on the roads these days. It’s a start at least.”

“Why are we looking for Aornis again?” asked Landen. “I’m sure there’s a good reason, but I can’t remember what it is.”

“One of us has a mindworm. We have to kill Aornis to get rid of it.”

“Is it me?”

I nodded.

“Hmm. Wonder what it is? Don’t tell me! Will I forget about having one soon enough?”

“Pretty soon, yes.”

“Good.”

He returned his attention to the splinters stuck in my neck and shoulder.

“Ow!” I said as he wiped some dirt out of a wound, “Be careful. How did Tuesday feel about the failure of the defense shield?”

“She’s taking it well, but something’s brewing at the city council—she overheard them as they made their way out. Since they think it’s unlikely the Anti-Smite Shield will be operational by Friday, they said that Smite Solutions will have to be confirmed instead.”

“Is Smite Solutions an evacuation plan or something else?”