Something Rotten (Thursday Next 4)

'Not a lot. I'm thinking of writing a biography of you. How about: Thursday Next – A Biography?'

'The title? Way too imaginative.'

'So I have your permission?'

'No, but if you can put a dossier together on Yorrick Kaine I'll tell you all about Aornis Hades.'

'Acheron's little sister? It's a deal! Are you sure I can't write your biography? I've already made a start.'

'Positive – if you find anything, knock on my door.'

'I can't. There's a blanket restraining order on all members of the Amalgamated Union of Stalkers. We're not allowed within a hundred yards of your place of residence.'

I sighed.

'All right, just wave when I come out.'

De Floss readily agreed to that plan and I left him rearranging his notebook, binoculars and camera and starting to make copious notes on his first encounter with me. I couldn't get rid of the poor deluded fool but a stalker just might – might — be an ally.

3

Evade the Question Time

PERFIDIOUS DANES 'HISTORICALLY OUR ENEMY', CLAIMS INSANE HISTORIAN

'Quite frankly, I was yim-pim-pim appalled,' said England's leading mad history scholar yesterday. 'The eighth-century Danish attack on our flibble-flobble sceptred isle is a story of invasion, subjugation, plunder and exploitation that would remain bleep-bleep-baaaaa unequalled until we tried it ourselves many years later.' The confused and barely coherent historian's work has been authenticated by another equally feeble-minded academic, who told us yesterday: 'The Danish invasion began in 786 when the Danes set up a kingdom in East Anglia. They didn't even use their own names either. They preferred to do their brutal work cowardly hiding beneath the pseudonyms of Angles, Bruts, and Flynns.' Further research has shown that the Danes stayed for over four hundred years and were only driven home by the crusading help of our new close friends the French.

Article in the New Oppressor, the official mouthpiece of the Whig Party

'How did Kaine rise so quickly to power?' I asked incredulously as Joffy and I queued patiently outside Swindon's Toad News Network studios that evening. 'When I was here last Kaine and the Whig Party were all but washed up after the Cardenio debacle.'

Joffy looked grim and nodded towards a large crowd of uniformed Kaine followers who were waiting in silence for their glorious leader.

'Things haven't been good back here, Thurs. Kaine regained his seat after Samuel Pring was assassinated. The Whigs formed an alliance with the Liberals and elected Kaine as their leader. He has some sort of magnetism, and the numbers that attend his rallies increase all the time. His 'British Unification' stance has had much support – mostly among stupid people who can't be bothered to think for themselves.'

'War with Wales?'

'He hasn't said as such but a leopard doesn't change its spots. He won by a landslide after the previous government collapsed over the "cash for llamas" scandal. As soon as he was in power he proclaimed himself Chancellor. His Unreform Act last year restricted the vote to people with property.'

'How did he get Parliament to agree to that?' I muttered, aghast at the thought of it.

'We're not sure,' said Joffy sadly. 'Sometimes Parliament does the funniest things. But he's not happy just being Chancellor. He's arguing that committees and accountants only slow things down and if people really want trains to run on time and shopping trolleys to run straight, it can only be done by one man wielding unquestionable executive power – a dictator.'

'So what's stopping him?'

'The President,' replied Joffy quietly. 'Formby has told Kaine that if he pushes for a dictatorial election he will stand against him, and Yorrick knows full well that Formby would win – he's as popular now as he ever was.'

I thought for a moment.

'How old is President Formby?'

'That's the problem. He was eighty-four last May.'

We fell silent for a moment, and shuffled with the queue up to the stage door, had our identities checked by two ugly men from SO-6 and were then ushered in. We took our seats at the back and waited patiently for the show to begin. It seemed hard to believe that Kaine had managed to inveigle his way to the top of English politics but, I reflected, anything can happen to a fictional character – a trait that Yorrick obviously exploited to the full.

'See that nasty-looking man on the edge of the stage?' asked Joffy.

'Yes,' I replied, following the line of Joffy's finger to a stocky man with short hair and no visible neck.