The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next 7)

“Thick.”

“Orange or lime?”

“Orange.”

“Right,” she said, and hurried off.

I sat for a moment in silence, contemplating the morning’s events. I wanted the SO-27 headship badly. It wasn’t for the prestige, and it certainly wasn’t for the cash, and it probably wasn’t totally because I didn’t want Phoebe Smalls to get it. Landen had suggested that it was so I would have something to positively define myself, and although family was great and good and wonderful, I needed something more. He was probably right. For many years Jurisfiction had been life’s marker, but since I’d discovered that due to my injuries I could no longer make the transfictional jump, my career in the BookWorld was at least temporarily curtailed.

Landen had suggested some sort of retirement, but I wasn’t ready for that. Pruning and gardening and stamp collecting and taking dodos for long rambling walks weren’t really my thing. Dealing with bad guys—now, that was my thing.

My toast arrived, and I took a bite. It was excellent. Perfectly toasted, a hint of al dente about the crust and a tangy blast of marmalade on an aftertaste of melted butter. It wasn’t difficult to see why toast had become the faddy buzz food of the noughties, with TV chefs falling over themselves to write entire books dripping with pretentious toast recipes—and a legion of critics who claimed that food chains like Yo! Toast were paying their staff too much and criticized the lack of unsaturated fat and salt on the menu.

“Next?”

I looked up. It was Regional Commander Braxton Hicks, long-serving head of the SpecOps departments in Wessex and also on the board of at least five other Swindon-based organizations. He had a nonexecutive post on the City Council, had been involved in the awarding of contracts to build St. Zvlkx’s new cathedral, was a director of the Wessex All-You-Can-Eat-at-Fatso’s Drinks Not Included Library Service and held posts at Cheesaholics Anonymous and the Campaign for Less Ludicrously Dressed Teenagers.

I knew him best regarding SpecOps. He’d been working there years before the service was partially disbanded and had been my boss during the whole Eyre Affair gig almost nineteen years before. The fact that he had survived so long was a mixture of affability, the ability to delegate and efficiency—mostly the last. He loved his budgets. It was why he was so much in demand. Despite his penny-pinching ways and often odd ideas, I had grown to like him enormously, and he tended to look upon me as the daughter he’d wished he had and not the one he did have, who was a bit of a tramp. In fact, Braxton wasn’t having much luck with his son, Herbert, either—he was currently in prison for armed robbery.

“Don’t get up, old girl,” he said as he sat at the counter next to me. “How’s the leg? Smarts a bit, I shouldn’t wonder. Once had a spiral fracture of the femur m’self. Skydiving for my seventieth, courtesy of Mrs. Hicks, who never tires of attempting to cash in on my life-insurance policy. Didn’t stop me running a half marathon afterward, which was odd, since I never could before.”

Despite being now well into his seventies, Braxton had lost none of his vigor, from either his tall and somewhat gangly frame nor his mustache, which was still a luxuriant red.

“I’m okay, sir—a bit busted up, but I’ll get over it. Physio helps enormously.”

He stared at me for a moment. “They nearly succeeded, didn’t they?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Never been the victim of an assassination attempt myself, y’know. Never upset enough people.”

“You upset a lot of people, sir.”

“Agreed, but usually only SpecOps agents when in defense of my budget. Now, how does this work? I’ve never been in to Yo! Toast before.”

I explained that you could either have the highly skilled toasti-chef make you something special or just simply choose something as it came around on the conveyor.

“Hmm,” he said, helping himself to a couple of slices of white with peanut butter as the belt moved past, “never thought toast would catch on—not as a restaurant anyway. Did you hear that a topless toast bar is about to open in the Old Town?”

“Tooters, it’s going to be called. My daughter Tuesday is picketing the opening night.”

“Good for her. How’s she getting on with the shield?”

“Coming along . . . okay.”

“In time for Swindon’s scheduled smiting at the end of the week?”

“We’re hoping so, but Anti-Smite Defense Shields aren’t exactly standard physics. And besides, Tuesday only guaranteed a solution in eight years and thirty billion pounds—it’s been barely three, and she’s only twenty-seven percent over budget.”

Braxton nodded sagely.

“May I ask a question, sir?”

“Of course.”

“Do you know anything about the plan for evacuation on Friday? It’s not like anyone in the city council seems that troubled.”

“They are, believe me. With the whole of the financial district and the cathedral up for destruction, they’ve been hunting about for another plan. The price of cathedrals is simply shocking these days, and insurance is impossible, as you know.”