The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

It went onto outline specifically how “unnamed sources” within Swindon SpecOps had intimated that a botched ransom payment had been the cause of Quaverley’s death. It was arse about face but the basic facts were correct. It had placed Hicks under a lot of pressure and caused him to overspend his precious budget by a phenomenal amount to try to discover Hades’ whereabouts. The spotter plane that Bowden and I had pursued had been found a burned-out wreck in a field on the English side of Hay-on-Wye. The Gladstone full of the counterfeit money was close by along with the ersatz Gainsborough. It hadn’t fooled Acheron for one second. We were all convinced that Hades was in Wales but even political intervention at the highest level had drawn a blank—the Welsh Home Secretary himself had sworn that they would not knowingly stoop to harbor such a notorious criminal. With no jurisdiction on the Welsh side of the border, our searches had centered around the marches—to no avail.

“If the press found out, it wasn’t from us,” said Victor. “We have nothing to gain from press coverage and everything to lose.” He glanced over at Jack Schitt, who shrugged.

“Don’t look at me,” said Schitt noncommittally, “I’m just an observer, here at the behest of Goliath.”

Braxton got up and paced the room. Bowden, Victor and I watched him in silence. We felt sorry for him; he wasn’t a bad man, just weak. The whole affair was a poisoned chalice, and if he wasn’t removed by the regional SpecOps commander, Goliath would as likely as not do the job themselves.

“Does anyone have any ideas?”

We all looked at him. We had a few ideas, but nothing that could be said in front of Schitt; since he was so willing to let us be killed that evening at Archer’s place, not one of us would have given Goliath so much as the time of day.

“Has Mrs. Delamare been traced?”

“We found her okay,” I replied. “She was delighted to discover that she had a motorway services named after her. She hasn’t seen her son for five years but is under surveillance in case he tries to make contact.”

“Good,” murmured Braxton. “What else?”

Victor spoke.

“We understand Felix7 has been replaced. A young man named Danny Chance went missing from Reading; his face was found in a waste basket on the third floor of the multistory. We’ve distributed the morgue photos of Felix7; they should match the new Felix.”

“Are you sure Archer didn’t say anything but ‘Felix7’ before you killed him?” asked Hicks.

“Positive,” assured Bowden in his best lying voice.

We returned to the LiteraTec office in a glum mood. Braxton’s removal might provoke a dangerous shake-up in the department, and I had Mycroft and Polly to think of. Victor hung up his coat and called across to Finisterre, asking him if there had been any change. Finisterre looked up from a much-thumbed copy of Chuzzlewit. He, Bailey and Herr Bight had been rereading it on a twenty-four-hour relay basis since Acheron’s escape. Nothing seemed to have changed. It was slightly perplexing. The Forty brothers had been working on the only piece of information we had that SO-5 or Goliath didn’t. Sturmey Archer had made a reference to a Dr. Müller before expiring and that had been the subject of a rigorous search on SpecOps and police databases. A rigorous yet secretive search; that was what had taken the time.

“Anything, Jeff?” asked Victor, rolling up his shirtsleeves.

Jeff coughed.

“There are no Dr. Müllers registered in England or on the co

ntinent, either in medicine or philosophy—”

“So it’s a false name.”

“—who are alive.” Jeff smiled. “However, there was a Dr. Müller in attendance at Parkhurst prison in 1972.”

“I’m listening.”

“It was at the same time that Delamare was banged up for fraud.”

“This is getting better.”

“And Delamare had a cellmate named Felix Tabularasa.”

“There’s a face that fits,” murmured Bowden.

“Right. Dr. Müller was already under investigation for selling donor kidneys. He committed suicide in ’74 shortly before the hearing. Swam into the sea after leaving a note. His body was never recovered.”

Victor rubbed his hands together happily.

“Sounds like a faked death. How do we go about hunting down a dead man?”

Jeff held up a fax.

“I’ve had to use up a lot of favors at the English Medical Council; they don’t like giving out personal files whether the subject is alive or dead, but here it is.”