The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next 7)

I glared at him before sitting down at my desk.

“Very good,” said Duffy with obvious approval of my stance. “Shall I send Mrs. Fairweather in straightaway or wait a couple of minutes?”

“Straightaway.”

Bunty Fairweather was a tall woman, for whom the words “willowy” and “pale” might have been invented. Although we hadn’t spoken for over a decade, I knew her quite well, when she was on the SpecOps Complaints Committee. It was a job in which she could have been difficult and vindictive, but she always played fair.

“Hello, Thursday,” she said brightly as we shook hands and I offered her a seat. “Congratulations on your appointment. Fed up with the carpet business?”

“I was attracted back to the literary world by the bright lights and good pay. You’ve done well for yourself. Last time we met, you were adjudicating complaints against the department.”

“I’ve been at the council for almost eight years,” replied Bunty jovially. “After my SpecOps liaison work, they thought I’d be best placed to deal with the mildly odder aspects of council work. At present I’m negotiating with the Swindon Meridian Society to try to stop them from insisting on implementing a citywide Swindon Time Zone.”

“I heard about that.”

This particularly fatuous idea had been in the news a lot recently and would require people to set their watches seven minutes back when going into Swindon, then seven minutes forward when they came out. Luckily, the chief sponsors of the bill all lived in Liddington just outside Swindon, so they were given their own time zone in order to shut them up.

“It would cause chaos at Clary-Lamarr,” said Bunty, “and set a dangerous precedent around the nation. So what can I do for you? There’s a limit to what we can discuss ahead of the budget meeting tomorrow. You do know I’m on the Swindon City Council’s Fiscal Planning Committee?”

“Yes— but I wanted to talk about Smite Solutions.”

She nodded her head approvingly. “Good,” she replied, “for there is much to discuss. I am also head of the city’s Smite Avoidance Team. It is my responsibility to ensure that people and property are safe from the mysterious yet destructive ways of our Creator.”

“Do you want some coffee?”

“No thanks. The nation had been hoping the Anti-Smite Defense Shield would offer some kind of defense by now, but I understand there have been a few overruns.”

“She said it would take eight,” I replied defensively. “It’s only been three so far.”

“No one’s blaming your daughter, Thursday. We have to work with what we’ve got.”

“It’s possible she may crack the software issue in time,” I said. “The only stumbling block is finding a value for the Madeupion Unentanglement Constant.”

“What does that mean?”

“Something about acorns in Hertfordshire,” I said, thinking hard.

“Well, if she manages it, then so much the better—Swindon would be a fine place for the defense shield to have its first success. But we can’t leave it to chance. Now, Swindon’s strike will be the tenth around the globe

, and the previous nine have given the Smite Solutions® Inc. valuable experience in what to expect.”

I rubbed my leg. “Do you mind if I walk around?” I said. “I get the most excruciating pins and needles if I sit still for too long.”

“Not at all,” said Bunty from where she was perched on the sofa as I paced around the office.

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “Smite Solutions is a company?”

“One backed by one of the preeminent tech companies in the world.”

“The Goliath Corporation?”

“Who else?”

“Go on.”

Bunty cleared her throat and launched into the subject using her best presentation voice. “The nature of a smiting is pedantically identical on every occasion,” she said. “A groundburst of a circular nature precisely fifteen hundred ancient cubits or half a mile in diameter and centered on the biggest place of worship within the target area.”

“The cathedral?”