The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

“Perhaps it was a warning. Perhaps he has other plans. There are far bigger fish than Mr. Quaverley in Martin Chuzzlewit.”

“Then why isn’t he telling us?”

21.

Hades & Goliath

All my life I have felt destiny tugging at my sleeve. Few of us have any real idea what it is we are here to do and when it is that we are to do it. Every small act has a knock-on consequence that goes onto affect those about us in unseen ways. I was lucky that I had so clear a purpose.

THURSDAY NEXT

—A Life in SpecOps

BUT HE was. When we got back a letter was waiting for me at the station. I had hoped it was from Landen but it wasn’t. It bore no stamp and had been left on the desk that morning. No one had seen who delivered it.

I called Victor over as soon as I had read it, laying the sheet of paper on my desk to avoid touching it any more than I had to. Victor put his spectacles on and read the note aloud.

Dear Thursday,

When I heard you had joined the LiteraTec staff I almost believed in divine intervention. It seems that we will at last be able to sort out our differences. Mr. Quaverley was just for starters. Martin Chuzzlewit himself is next for the ax unless I get the following: £10 million in used notes, a Gainsborough, preferably the one with the boy in blue, an eight-week run of Macbeth for my friend Thomas Hobbes at the Old Vic, and I want you to rename a motorway services “LeighDelamare” after the mother of an associate. Signal your readiness by a small ad in the Wednesday edition of the Swindon Globe announcing Angora rabbits for sale and I will give you further instructions.

Victor sat down.

“It’s signed Acheron. Imagine Martin Chuzzlewit without Chuzzlewit!” he exclaimed earnestly, running through all the possibilities. “The book would end within a chapter. Can you imagine the other characters sitting around, waiting for a lead character who never appears? It would be like trying to stage Hamlet without the prince!”

“So what do we do?” asked Bowden.

“Unless you have a Gainsborough you don’t want and ten million in loose change, we take this to Braxton.”

Jack Schitt was in Braxton Hicks’s office when we entered. He didn’t offer to leave when we told Hicks it was important and Hicks didn’t ask him to.

“So what’s up?” asked Braxton, glancing at Schitt, who was practicing his putting on the carpet.

“Hades is alive,” I told him, staring at Jack Schitt, who raised an eyebrow.

“Goodness!” muttered Schitt in an unconvincing tone. “That is a surprise.”

We ignored him.

“Read this,” said Victor, handing across Acheron’s note in a cellophane wrapper. Braxton read it before passing it to Schitt.

“Place the ad, Officer Next,” said Braxton loftily. “You seem to have impressed Acheron enough for him to trust you. I’ll speak to my superiors about his demands and you can inform me when he contacts you again.”

He stood up to let us know that the interview had ended but I stayed seated.

“What’s going on, sir?”

“Classified, Next. We’

d like you to make the drop for us but that’s the only way you can be involved in the operation. Mr. Schitt has an extremely well-trained squad behind him who will take care of Hades’s capture. Good-day.”

Still I didn’t rise.

“You’re going to have to tell me more, sir. My uncle is involved, and if you want me to play ball I’m going to have to know what’s happening.”

Braxton Hicks looked at me and narrowed his eyes.

“I’m afraid—”