The Woman Who Died a Lot

“He actually gave me one here,” I said, pointing to my forehead. “Cancel my eleven-o’clock and push my eleven-thirty back half an hour. If Bunty can’t be moved, put her in my two-o’clock and bump who was going to be there until tomorrow. Yes?”

Duffy had been writing frantically. “Right. But I don’t think the Blyton Fundamentalists will take kindly—”

“Ahaa!” said a loud voice. “Chief Librarian!”

I turned to see a middle-aged woman dressed in a tweed suit. She had a shock of gray hair poking from under a matching tweed hat, and a pair of silver pince-nez were attached to her lapel with a chain. She was also holding a large leather handbag and an umbrella, both of which could be lethal in the correct hands—and she looked like she had the correct hands.

“I have been called away on sudden business,” I told her in the requisite tone. “I will speak to you in an hour.”

“I shall not be ignored, Chief Librarian Next, “she replied. “My name is Mrs. Hilly, and I think—”

“I have to be at the Adelphi. Good day.” And I walked away.

But Mrs. Hilly wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and because I couldn’t move faster than she could, she was going to be difficult to get rid of.

“I am coming with you,” she said, “to make my opinions known.”

We were in the elevator by now.

“Listen,” I said, “we will talk, but I need to be at the Adelphi five minutes ago, and I’ll be lucky to get a cab this time of day.”

“Then it is a good job I happen to have a car parked outside,” she replied. “We’re very upset about the way Our Blyton’s work has been revised and cut, mangled and rewritten. We will not rest, Miss Next, until her works are exactly as the author intended, with all whiffs of xenophobia, sexism and class-ridden references returned.”

“This isn’t a library matter, Mrs. Hilly,” I explained. “It’s for the publishers to decide.”

“They refuse to listen to us. They have even been so underhanded as to issue restraining orders. No, we are petitioning for Class II Protected Book Status.”

This was a new angle. If a book was given Protected Status, it was taken into the care of the League of Libraries, and, crucially, no editorial changes would be allowed without express permission—the legislation was modeled on the same law that protected old buildings. In fact, it had even been drafted using the same text, only substituting the word “building” with “book.” It was a pleasingly economical approach to lawmaking but sadly left a few passages open to interpretation, such as how a “book might be considered derelict if it had no roof” and that “an owner might be prosecuted for allowing dry rot to develop.”

“We need one Regional Library Authority behind us to endorse our petition,” she said. “We have chosen Wessex to stand up for what is right, good and fine in children’s literature.”

We were outside by now, and I noticed that the taxi rank was indeed empty.

“Well, we’ll talk later,” I said, then added after having a thought, “Is your car fast?”

“Very.”

She was right; it was a V8 Austin-Maserati, and it—and she—were very fast. Although the Swindon Adelphi was on the far side of the airshipfield, we were there in record time.

“I hope I’m not frightening you,” she said as we drifted sideways around the Oxford Road roundabout, leaving two strips of hot rubber on the pavement and a cloud of thick tire smoke in our wake.

“Actually, no,” I replied. “Your driving reminds me of someone I once knew.”

We screeched to a halt outside the Swindon Adelphi, and I hurried inside after telling Mrs. Hilly that I would accept a lift back—and would hear all her grievances. I went to the eighteenth floor, where I knew the suites were located, and found Phoebe in the lobby area outside the elevators.

“No armed backup?” I asked.

“I was countermanded,” replied Phoebe. “Anyone in the Goliath Top One Hundred is Protocol 684: not to be approached without a signed warrant from the attorney general.”

This was quite true—Goliath had taken over the running of the police years ago. Phoebe could be here only because she was SpecOps, who were independent.

“I booked myself into Room 1802 down the hall,” she added, “so as to have deniability in case this all turns nasty. I’m not losing the best job I’m likely to get the day after I’m offered it.” “But you’re here.”

“Yes,” she said with a sigh, “I’m here.”

I thanked her, then asked which room Jack was booked into.

“The Dyson Suite, under the name of ‘Jacque Chitt.’ What do we do?”

“We go in. He said he was returning here, and he’s a Day player, so technically a chimera and can be destroyed on sight. But be warned: He’s a Mark VIII and can think and move three times as fast as us.”

“What if he’s not a chimera?”

“He is.”

“Yes, okay, but what if he’s not? Killing a Goliath Top One Hundred would be a serious career downer.”

“If he’s real, we don’t kill him.”

“How can we tell?”

“Leave that up to me. But if he is the real one, he’ll be in a coma, and we take him into custody and wait for him to wake up.”