Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next 2)

'Oh, I see,' he replied as the penny dropped. 'Tomfoolery.'

Bowden's lack of humour wasn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, none of us really had much of a sense of humour in SpecOps. But he thought it socially desirable to have one, so I did what I could to help. The trouble was, he could read Three Men in a Boat without a single smirk and viewed P. G. Wodehouse as 'infantile', so I had a suspicion the affliction was long lasting and permanent.

'My tensionologist suggested I should try stand-up comedy,' said Bowden, watching me closely for my reaction.

'Well, the "How do you find the Sportina/Where I left it" was a good start,' I told him.

He stared at me oddly. It hadn't been a joke.

'I've booked myself in at the Happy Squid talent night on Monday. Do you want to hear my routine?'

'I'm all ears.'

He cleared his throat.

'There are these three anteaters, see, and they go into a—'

There was a bang, the car swerved and we heard a fast flapping noise.

'Damn!' muttered Bowden. 'Blowout.'

There was another bang like the first, and we pulled in to the carpark at the South Cerney stop of the Skyrail.

'Two blowouts?' muttered Bowden as we got out. We looked at each other quizzically and then at the road. No one else seemed to be having any trouble, the traffic zoomed up and down the road quite happily.

'How is it possible for two tyres to go at the same time?'

'Just bad luck, I guess.' I shrugged.

'Wireless seems to be dead,' announced Bowden, keying the mike and turning the knob. 'That's odd.'

'I'll find a call-box,' I told him. 'Do you have any change—'

I stopped because I'd just noticed a ticket by my foot. As I picked it up a Skyrail shuttle approached high on the steel tracks, as if on cue.

'What have you found?' asked Bowden.

'A Skyrail day pass,' I replied thoughtfully 'I'm going to take the Skyrail and see what happens.'

'Why?'

'There's a Neanderthal in trouble.'

'How do you know?'

I frowned.

'I'm not sure. What's the opposite of déjà vu; when you see something that hasn't happened yet?'

'I don't know – avant verrais?'

'That's it. Something's going to happen … and I'm part of it.'

'I'll come with you.'

'No, Bowden; if you were meant to come we would have found two tickets. I'll send a tow truck out.'

I left my partner looking confused and walked briskly up to the station, showed my ticket to the inspector and climbed the steel steps to the platform fifty feet above ground. I was alone apart from a young woman sitting by herself on a bench, checking her make-up in a mirror. She loo