The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next 7)

“I am simply a servant of the state,” he said simply. “If they want me to save money, I save money. If they want me to waste it, I waste it. But it’s not that easy, because to discharge the stupidity surplus most transparently, I have to think up insanely moronic ways of frittering money away—simply pouring cash into a pit and setting fire to it doesn’t work. The SEC would see through that sort of scam night off.”

The SEC was the Stupid Events Commission, the government department created to oversee the safe discharge of the stupidity surplus. Some would argue that it was the SEC’s good management and unimpeachably honest adherence to sound business practices that had gotten us into this mess, but anyone can attribute blame with the benefit of hindsight.

“How’s the reinstatement of the service going for you so far?” I asked.

“Not too bad,” replied Braxton thoughtfully. “We decided to rebrand SpecOps at great expense to bring it all up to date. We designed new logos, uniforms, notepaper and stuff with SpecOps’ new name: EnSquidnia.”

“I don’t like it.”

“No, it’s a stupid name, and the focus group hated it, so we changed it back to SpecOps. That small debacle alone wasted almost three million pounds of taxpayers’ money.”

“I can see you’re taking the Stupidity Surplus Reduction Program with the seriousness it deserves.”

“I do my best. Now, how did things go with Dr. Chumley?”

“He gave me a NUT-4.”

“That’s awkward,” said Braxton. “The position I had in mind would require a NUT-2, but we could probably make an exception.”

“Ah,” I replied, surprised yet somewhat relieved that Phoebe Smalls had also overcooked the goose in the insanity department. “Has the entry requirement been changed since Victor was heading up the department?”

Braxton looked at me with a frown. “I don’t recall Victor Analogy ever being chief librarian.”

I suddenly had an odd feeling. I had assumed that Braxton’s interest in me was SpecOps-related, but he was involved in a lot more than just the Special Operations Network. I wasn’t up for the SO-27 at all. I cursed my own arrogance and felt seriously stupid for going so far as to offer the deputy’s job to Phoebe.

“You . . . want me to run the Swindon Library?” I asked, trying not to make my disappointment show.

“Good Lord no!” said Braxton with a laugh. “I want you to be head of the entire Wessex All-You-Can-Eat-at-Fatso’s Drink Not Included Library Service. Annual budget of one hundred fifty-six million pounds, salary is seventy-two thousand pound plus the most up-to-date Vauxhall KP-3 automobile, a dental plan, free lunches and a generous stationery allowance.”

I said nothing for a while.

“I know,” said Braxton, “tempting, isn’t it? I thought you’d be shocked into silence by the generosity. Just the thing to ease you into a slower pace, eh?”

“I’m not sure I need a slower pace, sir. I was hoping for something more . . . SpecOps-related.”

My disappointment would not have been hard to divine, and the smile dropped from Braxton’s face.

“Oh, Lord,” he said, covering his mouth with his hand in embarrassment. “Did I give the impression I wanted you to head up SO-27? I apologize if I did.”

I thought for a moment. He hadn’t, actually. I had simply assumed it, probably as a result of a little too much delusive hope.

“No, sir, it was my error.”

“Gosh,” he said as another thought struck him, “you must have worked hard to convince Dr. Chumley to give you aNUT-4 classification. You didn’t use the old ‘pregnant with an elephant’ gambit, did you?”

“Of course not. That would have been ridiculous.”

We both fell silent for a few moments.

“Listen here,” he said, “can I be honest with you, Thursday?”

“I’m going to say yes when I should probably say no.”

“We all slow down. Sometimes through age and sometimes through . . . circumstance. I’m seventy-six next June, and I’m out two weeks before then. I still have much to offer, but . . . well, sooner or later I’m going to make a humongous mistake—the sort that kills people, and I don’t want to be here when I do.”

He thought for a moment of the impossibility of the last statement.

“You understand what I mean?”