The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

12.

SpecOps-27: The Literary Detectives

. . . This morning Thursday Next joined the Litera Tec office in place of Crometty. I cannot help thinking that she is particularly unsuited to this area of work and I have my doubts as to whether she is as sane as she thinks she is. She has many demons, old and new, and I wonder whether Swindon is quite the right place to try and exorcise them . . .

From Bowden Cable’s diary

THE SWINDON SpecOps headquarters were shared with the local police; the typically brusque and no-nonsense Germanic design had been built during the Occupation as a law court. It was big too, which was just as well. The way into the building was protected by metal detectors, and once I had shown my ID I walked into the large entrance hall. Officers and civilians with identity tags walked briskly amid the loud hubbub of the station. I was jostled once or twice in the throng and made a few greetings to old faces before fighting my way to the front desk. When I got there, I found a man in a white baggy shirt and breeches remonstrating with the sergeant. The officer just stared at him. He’d heard it all before.

“Name?” asked the desk sergeant wearily.

“John Milton.”

“Which John Milton?”

John Milton sighed.

“Four hundred and ninety-six.”

The sergeant made a note in his book.

“How much did they take?”

“Two hundred in cash and all my credit cards.”

“Have you notified your bank?”

“Of course.”

“And you think your assailant was a Percy Shelley?”

“Yes,” replied the Milton. “He handed me this pamphlet on rejecting current religious dogma before he ran off.”

“Hello, Ross,” I said.

The sergeant looked at me, paused for a moment and then broke into a huge grin.

“Thursday! They told me you’d be coming back! Told me you made it all the way to SO-5 too.”

I returned his smile. Ross had been the desk sergeant when I had first joined the Swindon police.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Starting up a regional office? SO-9 or something? Add a touch of spice to tired old Swindon?”

“Not exactly. I’ve transferred into the Litera Tec office.”

A look of doubt crossed Ross’s face but he quickly hid it.

“Great!” he enthused, slightly uneasily. “Drink later?”

I agreed happily, and after getting directions to the Litera Tec office, left Ross arguing with Milton 496.

I took the winding stair to the upper floor and then followed directions to the far end of the building. The entire west wing was filled with SpecOps or their regional departments. The Environmental SpecOps had an office here, as did Art Theft and the ChronoGuard. Even Spike had an office up here, although he was rarely seen in it; he preferred a dark and rather fetid lockup in the basement car park. The corridor was packed with bookcases and filing cabinets; the old carpet had almost worn through in the center. It was a far cry from the LiteraTec office in London, where we had enjoyed the most up-to-date information retrieval systems. At length I reached the correct door and knocked. I didn’t receive an answer so I walked straight in.

The room was like a library from a country home somewhere. It was two stories high, with shelves crammed full of books covering every square inch of wall space. A spiral staircase led to a catwalk which ran around the wall, enabling access to the upper shelves. The middle of the room was open plan with desks laid out much like a library’s reading room. Every possible surface and all the floor space were piled high with more books and papers, and I wondered how they managed to get anything done at all. About five officers were at work, but they didn’t seem to notice me come in. A phone rang and a young man picked it up.

“Litera Tec office,” he said in a polite voice. He winced as a tirade came down the phone line to him.

“I’m very sorry if you didn’t like Titus Andronicus, madam,” he said at last, “but I’m afraid it’s got nothing to do with us— perhaps you should stick to the comedies in future.”