Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next 2)

The doorbell rang.

'Who could that be?'

'It's a little early to tell,' quipped Landen. 'I understand the "go and see" technique sometimes works.'

'Very funny.'

I pulled on some clothes and went downstairs. There was a gaunt man with lugubrious features standing on the doorstep. He looked as close to a bloodhound as one can get without actually having a tail and barking.

'Yes?'

He raised his hat and gave me a somnolent smile.

'The name is Hopkins,' he explained. 'I'm a reporter for The Owl. I was wondering if I could interview you about your time within the pages of Jane Eyre?'

'You'll have to go through Cordelia Flakk at SpecOps, I'm afraid. I'm not really at liberty—'

'I know you were inside the book; in the first and original ending Jane goes to India, yet in your ending she stays and marries Rochester. How did you engineer this?'

'You really have to get clearance from Flakk, Mr Hopkins.'

He sighed.

'Okay, I will. Just one thing. Did you prefer the new ending, your new ending?'

'Of course. Didn't you?'

Mr Hopkins scribbled in a notepad and smiled again.

'Thank you, Miss Next. I'm very much in your debt. Good day!'

He raised his hat again and was gone.

'What was all that about?' asked Landen as he handed me a cup of coffee.

'Pressman.'

'What did you tell him?'

'Nothing. He has to go through Flakk.'

Uffington was busy that morning. The mammoth population in England, Wales and Scotland amounted to 249 individuals in nine groups, all of whom migrated north to south around late autumn and back again in the spring. The routes followed the same pattern every year with staggering accuracy. Inhabited areas were mostly avoided – except Devizes, where the high street was shuttered up and deserted twice a year as the plodding elephantines crashed and trumpeted their way through the centre of the town, cheerfully following the ancient call of their forebears. No one in Devizes could get any sleep or proboscidea damage insurance cover, but the extra cash from tourism generally made up for it.

But there weren't just mammoth twitchers, walkers, Druids and a Neanderthal 'right to hunt' protest up the hill that morning, a dark blue automobile was waiting for us, and when somebody is waiting for you in a place you hadn't planned on being, then you take notice. There were three of them standing next to the car, all dressed in dark suits with a blue enamelled Goliath badge on their lapels. The only one I recognised was Schitt-Hawse; they all hastily hid their ice creams as we approached.

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; 'Mr Schitt-Hawse,' I said, 'what a surprise! Have you met my husband?'

Schitt-Hawse offered his hand but Landen didn't take it. The Goliath agent grimaced for a moment, then gave a bemused grin.

'Saw you on the telly, Ms Next. It was a fascinating talk about dodos, I must say.'

'I'd like to expand my subjects next time,' I replied evenly. 'Might even try and include something about Goliath's malignant stranglehold on the nation.'

Schitt-Hawse shook his head sadly.

'Unwise, Next, unwise. What you singularly fail to grasp is that Goliath is all you'll ever need. All anyone will ever need. We manufacture everything from cots to coffins and employ over eight million people in our six thousand or so subsidiary companies. Everything from the womb to the wooden overcoat.'