The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

I looked at my watch.

“I have to go and see the SpecOps commander.”

Bowden allowed a rare smile to creep upon his serious features.

“I bid you good luck. If you would permit me to offer you some advice, keep your automatic out of sight. Despite James’s untimely death, Commander Hicks doesn’t want to see the Litera Tecs permanently armed. He believes that our place is firmly at a desk.”

I thanked him, left my automatic in the desk drawer and walked down the corridor. I knocked twice and was invited into the outer office by a young clerk. I told him my name and he asked me to wait.

“The Commander won’t be long. Fancy a cup of coffee?”

“No thanks.”

The clerk looked at me curiously.

“They say you’ve come from London to avenge Jim Crometty’s death. They say you killed two men. They say your father’s face can stop a clock. Is this true?”

“It depends on how you look at it. Office rumors are pretty quick to get started, aren’t they?”

Braxton Hicks opened the door to his office and beckoned me in. He was a tall, thin man with a large mustache and a gray complexion. He had bags under his eyes; it didn’t look as though he slept much. The room was far more austere than any commander’s office I had ever seen. Several golf bags were leaning against the wall, and I could see that a carpet putter had been hastily pushed to one side.

He smiled genially and offered me a seat before sitting himself.

“Cigarette?”

“I don’t, thank you.”

“Neither do I.”

He stared at me for a moment and drummed his long fingers on the immaculately clear desk. He opened a folder in front of him and read in silence for a moment. He was reading my SO-5 file; obviously he and Analogy didn’t get on well enough to swap information between clearances.

“Operative Thursday Next, eh?” His eyes flicked across the pertinent points of my career. “Quite a record. Police, Crimea, rejoined the police, then moved to London in ’75. Why was that?”

“Advancement, sir.”

Braxton Hicks grunted and continued reading.

“SpecOps for eight years, twice commended. Recently loaned to SO-5. Your stay with the latter has been heavily censored, yet it says here you were wounded in action.”

He looked over his spectacles at me.

“Did you return fire?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“I fired first.”

“Not so good.”

Braxton stroked his mustache thoughtfully.

“You were operative grade one in the London office working on Shakespeare, no less. Very prestigious. Yet you swap that for a grade three operative assignment in a backwater like this. Why?”

“Times change and we change with them, sir.”

Braxton grunted and closed the file.