The Woman Who Died a Lot

“No,” said Phoebe, “I mean it was a shame because I was hoping for another go in her Austin-Maserati. I haven’t had so much fun since I took my brother’s Reliant-Bugatti Veyrobin for a burn up the M4—great fun, although that single wheel at the front wobbles something dreadful when you hit a hundred eighty mph.”

“Wouldn’t it have been more stable with the single wheel at the back?” I asked.

“One of the planet’s greatest mysteries,” replied Phoebe. “Mind you,” she added, “I’d be wary of outlawing any group, especially Blyton Fundamentalists. The Make England a Jolly Sight More Blyton Than Blyton movement has several million members, and some of the regional library authorities are sympathetic to their view.”

“Do you want that hoisin?” Landen asked me.

“No, you have it.”

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Duffy, and I walked out of the restaurant, as etiquette dictated. They’d found my Daimler—or what was left of it anyhow. It had been dumped outside a disused factory unit in Blunsdon and set on fire.

“They discovered two bodies inside,” he said, “burned beyond recognition and smelling of hot nougat.”

It explained why Jack had been back in his own body so quickly. I thanked him, then called Stig to tell him to get his neanderthal butt over to the Daimler as soon as possible. They’d be very obviously Synthetics, and I needed him to take possession before the police made them vanish as soon as they were cool enough to touch.

“News?” asked Phoebe when I got back in.

I told her what had happened, and she pulled a face.

“I knew Goliath was tricky,” she said, “but not quite how tricky.”

“They’re tricky squared,” I said, looking at my watch. “Can we drop you back in town?”

Landen dropped Phoebe at the Adelphi to pick up her car, and we drove back into town in silence. I was relieved that this time I needed no help in forgetting to visit the tattooist—Landen forgot, too.

25. Wednesday: Smite Solutions

Early attempts to discharge the stupidity surplus were of a “theoretical” nature, where dumb and idiotic parliamentary bills were enacted with little or no chance of being implemented due to their self-apparent uselessness. Annoyingly, some were embraced by a citizenry who turned out to be “dumber than expected.” The Longitude Self-Determination Bill was one example: It allowed individual regions to secede from cartographic convention and publish maps with their own meridian for local use. Sadly, this also permitted regions to insist on their own time zones as well.

The Commonsense Party Stupidity Surplus Policy Explained

Duffy looked at me nervously as I limped into the office. He had already replaced the sofa slipcover, and you wouldn’t have known that only this morning an unlicensed nonevolutionary life-form had been dispatched in a violent manner.

“The only person I want to see is Bunty Fairweather,” I said as I walked in, “and put the banning of the Blyton Fundamentalists on the agenda for the board of governors’ next meeting.”

Duffy coughed politely. “There is no board of governors, Chief Librarian.”

“There isn’t?”

“No—you wield absolute librarying power here in Wessex.”

“In that case: I ban Blyton Fundamentalists from all Wessex Library property.”

“Are you totally sure that’s wise?” asked Duffy. “They’re a powerful lobby.”

I glared at him before sitting down at my desk.

“Very good,” said Duffy with obvious approval of my stance. “Shall I send Mrs. Fairweather in straightaway or wait a couple of minutes?”

“Straightaway.”

Bunty Fairweather was a tall woman, for whom the words “willowy” and “pale” might have been invented. Although we hadn’t spoken for over a decade, I knew her quite well, when she was on the SpecOps Complaints Committee. It was a job in which she could have been difficult and vindictive, but she always played fair.

“Hello, Thursday,” she said brightly as we shook hands and I offered her a seat. “Congratulations on your appointment. Fed up with the carpet business?”

“I was attracted back to the literary world by the bright lights and good pay. You’ve done well for yourself. Last time we met, you were adjudicating complaints against the department.”