'Do I have to?'
Flakk looked at me sternly.
'It's very advisable.'
'Okay,' I replied, let me have a pee and I'll be with you in five minutes. Okay?'
'Right!' Cordelia beamed.
But I didn't have a pee, instead I nipped up to the LiteraTec office.
'Thursday!' said Bowden as I entered. 'I told Victor you had the flu. How did you get on?'
'Pretty well, I think. I've been inside books again without a Prose Portal. I can do it on my own – more or less.'
'You're kidding.'
'No,' I told him, 'deadly serious. Landen's almost as good as back. I met Miss Havisham.'
'What's she like?'
'Odd. It seems there is something very like SpecOps 27 inside books – I've yet to figure it all out. How have things been out here?'
He showed me a copy of The Owl. The headline read: 'New play by Will found in Swindon'. The Mole had the headline: 'Cardenio sensation!' and The Toad, predictably enough, led with. 'Swindon croquet supremo Aubrey Jambe found in bath with chimp'.
'So Professor Spoon authenticated it?'
'He did indeed,' replied Bowden. 'One of us should take the report up to Volescamper this afternoon. This is for you.'
He handed me the bag of pinkish goo attached to a report from the SpecOps forensic labs. I thanked him and read the analysis of the slime Dad had given me with interest and confusion in equal measures.
'… sugar, fatty animal protein, calcium, sodium, maltodextrin, carboxy-methyl-cellulose, phenylalnine, complex hydrocarbon compounds and traces of chlorophyll.'
I flicked to the back of the report but was none the wiser. Forensics had faithfully interpreted my request for analysis – but it told me nothing new.
'What does it mean, Bowd?'
'Search me, Thursday. They're trying to match the profile to known chemical compounds, but so far nothing. Perhaps if you told us where you got it?'
'I don't think that would be safe. I'll drop the Cardenio report in to Volescamper – I'm keen to avoid Cordelia. Tell forensics that the future of the planet depends on them – that should help. I have to know what this pink stuff is.'
I saw Cordelia waiting for me in the lobby with her guest, who had a Finis Hotel carrier bag in one hand and a young daughter in the other. Unluckily for him Spike Stoker had been passing and Cordelia, eager to do something to amuse her competition winner, had obviously asked him to say a few words. The look of frozen, jaw-dropping horror on her guest's face said it all. I hid my face behind the Cardenio report and left Cordelia to it.
I blagged a ride in a squad car up to the crumbling Vole Towers. The house had changed a lot since I was last there. The mansion was besieged by the news stations, all keen to report any details regarding the discovery of Cardenio. Two dozen outside broadcast trucks were parked on the weed-infested gravel, all humming with activity. Dishes were trained into the afternoon sky, transmitting the pictures to an airship repeater station that had been routed in to bounce the stories live to the world's eager viewers. For security, SpecOps 14 had been drafted in and operatives stood languidly about, idly chatting to one another. Mostly, it seemed, about Aubrey Jambe's apparent indiscretion with the chimp.
'Hello, Thursday!' said a handsome young SO-14 agent at the front door. It was annoying; I didn't recognise him. People I couldn't remember hailing me as friends was something that had happened a lot since Landen's eradication; I supposed I would get used to it.
'Hello!' I replied to the stranger in an equally friendly tone. 'What's going on?'
'Yorrick Kaine is giving a press conference.'
'Really? What's Cardenio got to do with him?'
'Hadn't you heard? Lord Volescamper has given the play to Yorrick Kaine and the Whig party!'
'Why would Volescamper have anything to do with a minor right-wing pro-Crimean Welsh-hater like Kaine?'
'Because he's a lord and wants to reclaim some lost power?'