The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next 7)

“How’s the job going, Thursday?” he asked somewhat portentously.

“I got shot at yesterday morning. Mrs. Hilly of the Blyton Fundamentalist movement has made death threats, and Colonel Wexler of the SLS is none too pleased that I won’t sanction dawn raids for overdue books.”

“Librarying is a

harder profession than the public realizes,” he said. “People think it’s all rubber stamps, knowing that Dewey 521 is celestial mechanics and saying. ‘Try looking under fiction’ sixty-eight times a day.”

“I was an assistant librarian when at uni,” I told him. “The Dewey system stays with you forever.”

“Listen,” said Braxton, suddenly becoming more serious, “I want you to know that despite what happens in there, I’m on your side.”

This did sound ominous.

“What is going to happen in there?”

“I’m on your side,” he repeated. “Just remember that. See you in there.”

He left to go through to the boardroom, and I heaved myself to my feet, wincing badly.

“Want a hand?” said Duffy, who was at my side.

“I’ll be fine. The muscles work, it’s the ragged nerve endings that are giving me hell.”

“What did Braxton mean by saying he was ‘on your side’?”

“Don’t know. Now, let’s kick some budget butt.”

***

The boardroom was down the corridor from my office, and I was stopped just outside it by Phoebe, who looked agitated.

“Can I have a word?” she said. “It’s important.”

“Okay.”

I told Duffy I’d only be a moment and moved a little way along the corridor. “So what’s up?”

Phoebe looked left and right and lowered her voice. “I’m thinking of killing Jack Schitt during the budget meeting.”

“We favor reasoned debate.”

“It’s not about the budget. It’s about Judith. Judith Trask.”

“Who?”

“The name I gave Jack when he asked me at the Adelphi. Judith Trask.”

“You mean it wasn’t a fake name?”

“No,” said Phoebe, her eyes wide with shock and the enormity of what had happened. I felt my heart fall, too.

“He killed her?”

“Someone did. Judith’s name was the first that popped into my head. She’s not even an active SpecOps agent—simply a logistics officer at SO-31. An accountant. Someone took her out at the junction of Goddard and Mill. She was married and had two children.”

“Okay,” I said, having come across this sort of thing before. “Firstly, that might not be Jack Schitt in there. Secondly, when you want to take on Goliath, you play the long game. Promise me you’ll do nothing.”

She looked at me. “But—”