34.
St. Zvlkx and Cindy
Kaine “Fictional,” Claims Bournemouth
Man
Retired gas-fitter Mr. Martin Piffco made the
ludicrous comment yesterday, claiming that the beloved leader of
the nation was simply a fictional character “come to life.”
Speaking from the Bournemouth Home for the Exceedingly Odd where he
has been committed “for his own protection,” Mr. Piffco was more
specific and likened Mr. Yorrick Kaine to a minor character with an
over-inflated opinion of himself in a Daphne Farquitt book entitled
At Long Last Lust. The Chancellor’s office dubbed the report
“a coincidence,” but ordered the Farquitt book be confiscated
nonetheless. Mr. Piffco, who faces unspecified charges, made news
last year when he made a similar outrageous claim regarding Kaine
and Goliath investing in “mind-control experiments.”
Article in the Bournemouth Bugle, March
15, 1987
I awoke and gazed at Landen in the
early-morning light that had started to creep around the bedroom.
He was snoring ever so softly, and I gave him a long hug before I
got up, wrapped myself in a dressing gown and tiptoed past Friday’s
room on my way downstairs to make some coffee. I walked into
Landen’s study as I waited for the kettle to boil, sat down at the
piano and played a very quiet chord. The sun crept above the roof
of the house across the way at that precise moment and cast a
finger of orange light across the room. I heard the kettle click
off and returned to the kitchen to make the coffee. As I poured the
hot water on the grounds, there was a small wail from upstairs. I
paused to see if another would follow it. A single wail might be
only a stirring, and Friday could be left alone. Two wails or more
would be Hungry Boy, eager for a gallon or two of porridge. There
was a second wail ten seconds later, and I was just about to go and
get him when I heard a thump and a scraping as Landen pulled on his
leg and then walked along the corridor to Friday’s room. There were
more footsteps as he returned to his room, then silence. I relaxed,
took a sip of coffee and sat at the kitchen table, deep in
thought.
The SuperHoop was tomorrow and I had my team—the
question was, would it make a difference? There was a chance we
might find a copy of At Long Last Lust, too—but I wasn’t
counting on this, either. Of equal chance and equal risk of failure
was Shgakespeafe’s being able to unravel The Merry Wives of
Elsinore, and Mycroft’s coming up with an Ovi-negator at short
notice. But none of these pressing matters was foremost in my mind:
most important to me was that at eleven o’clock this morning Cindy
would try to kill me for the third and final time. She would fail,
and she would die. I thought of Spike and Betty and picked up the
phone. I figured he’d be a heavy sleeper, and I was right—Cindy
answered the phone.
“It’s Thursday.”
“This is professionally very unethical,” said Cindy
in a sleepy voice. “What’s the time?”
“Half six. Listen, I rang to suggest that it’d be a
good idea if you stayed at home today and didn’t go to work.”
There was a pause. “I can’t do that,” she said at
last. “I’ve arranged child care and everything. But there’s nothing
to stop you getting out of town and never returning.”
“This is my town, too, Cindy.”
“Leave now, or the Next family crypt will be up for
a dusting.”
“I won’t do that.”
“Then,” replied Cindy with a sigh, “we’ve got
nothing else to discuss. I’ll see you later—although I doubt you’ll
see me.”
The phone went dead, and I gently replaced the
receiver. I felt sick. The wife of a good friend would die, and it
didn’t feel good.
“What’s the matter?” said a voice close at hand.
“You seem upset.”
It was Mrs. Tiggy-winkle.
“No,” I replied, “everything’s just as it should
be. Thanks for dropping round; I’ve found us a William Shakespeare.
He’s not the original, but close enough for our purposes. He’s in
this cupboard.”
I opened the cupboard door, and a very startled
Shgakespeafe looked up from where he’d been scribbling by the light
of a candle end he had stuck upon his head. The wax had begun to
run down his face, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“Mr. Shgakespeafe, this is the hedgehog I was
telling you about.”
He shut his notebook and stared at Mrs.
Tiggy-winkle. He wasn’t the slightest bit afraid or surprised—after
the abominations he’d dodged on an almost daily basis in Area 21, I
suspect a six-foot-high hedgehog was something of a relief.
Mrs. Tiggy-winkle curtsied gracefully. “Delighted
to make your acquaintance, Mr. Shgakespeafe,” she said politely.
“Will you come with me, please?”
“Who was that?” Landen called out as he walked
downstairs a little later.
“It was Mrs. Tiggy-winkle picking up a William
Shakespeare clone in order to save Hamlet from permanent
destruction.”
“You can’t ever be serious, can you?” he laughed as
he gave me a hug. I had smuggled Shgakespeafe into the house
without Landen’s seeing. I know you’re meant to be honest and
truthful to your spouse, but I thought there might be a limit, and
if there was, I didn’t want to reach it too soon.
Friday came down to breakfast ten minutes later. He
looked tousled, sleepy and a bit grumpy.
“Quis nostrud laboris,” he moaned. “Nisi ut aliquip
ex consequat.”
I gave him some toast and rummaged in the cupboard
under the stairs for my bulletproof vest. All my stuff was now back
in Landen’s house as if I had never moved out. Sideslips are
confusing, but you can get used to almost anything.
“Why are you wearing a bulletproof vest?”
It was Landen. Drat. I should have put it on at the
station.
“What bulletproof vest?”
“The one you’re trying to put on.”
“Oh, that one. No reason. Listen, if Friday
gets hungry you can always give him a snack. He likes bananas—you
may have to buy some more, and if a gorilla calls, it’s only that
Mrs. Bradshaw I was telling you about.”
“Don’t change the subject. How can you go to work
wearing a vest for ‘no reason’?”
“It’s a precaution.”
“Insurance is a precaution. A vest means you’re
taking unnecessary risks.”
“I’d be taking a bigger one without it.”
“What’s going on, Thursday?”
I waved a hand vaguely in the air and tried to make
light of it. “Just an assassin. A small one. Barely worth thinking
about.”
“Which one?”
“I can’t remember. Window . . .
something.”
“The Windowmaker? A contract with her and stick to
reading short stories? Sixty-seven known victims?”
“Sixty-eight if she did Samuel Pring.”
“That’s not important. Why didn’t you tell
me?”
“I . . . I . . . didn’t want you to worry.”
He rubbed his face with his hands and stared at me
for a moment, then sighed deeply. “This is the Thursday Next I
married, isn’t it?”
I nodded my head.
He wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly.
“Will you be careful?” he whispered in my ear.
“I’m always careful.”
“No, really careful. The sort of careful
that you should be when you have a husband and son who’d be
supremely pissed off if they were to lose you?”
“Ah,” I whispered back, “that sort of
careful. Yes, I will.”
We kissed and I Velcroed up the vest, put my shirt
over the top of it and my shoulder holster on top of this. I kissed
Friday and told him to be good, then kissed Landen again.
“I’ll see you this evening,” I told him, “and
that’s a promise.”
I drove to Wanborough to find Joffy. He was
officiating at a GSD civil-union ceremony, and I had to wait in the
back of the temple until he had finished. I had some time before I
had to deal with Cindy, and looking more closely into St. Zvlkx
seemed like a good way to fill it. Millon’s idea that Zvlkx wasn’t
a seer but a rogue member of the ChronoGuard involved in some sort
of timecrime seemed, on the face of it, unlikely. You couldn’t hide
from the ChronoGuard. They would always find you. Perhaps
not here and now, but then and there—when you least expected it.
Long before you even thought about doing something wrong.
Plus, the ChronoGuard left no trace. With the perpetrator gone,
then the timecrime never happened either. Very neat, very clever.
But with the historical record so closely scrutinized and the
ChronoGuard itself giving Zvlkx the seal of approval, how on earth
did Zvlkx—if he was a fake—get around the system?
“Hello, Doofus!” said Joffy as the happy couple
kissed outside the temple to a shower of confetti. “What brings you
here?”
“St. Zvlkx—where is he?”
“He got the bus into Swindon this morning.
Why?”
I outlined my suspicions.
“Zvlkx a rogue member of the ChronoGuard? But why?
What’s he up to? Why risk permanent eradication for dubious fame as
a thirteenth-century seer?”
“How much did he get from the Toast Marketing
Board?”
“Twenty-five grand.”
“Hardly a fortune. Can we look in his room?”
“Outrageous!” replied Joffy. “I would be guilty of
a shameful breach of trust if I were to allow a room search in his
absence. I have a spare key here.”
Zvlkx’s room was much as you would suppose a
monk’s cell to be. Spartan in the extreme. He slept on a mattress
stuffed with straw and had only a table and chair as furniture. On
the table was a Bible. It was only after we started searching that
we found a CD Walkman under the mattress, along with a few copies
of Big & Bouncy and Fast Horse.
“A betting man?” I asked.
“Drinking, betting, smoking, wenching—he did it
all.”
“The magazines show he can read English, too. What
are you looking for, Joff?”
Joffy had been opening the drawers of his desk and
looking under the pillow.
“His Book of Revealments. He usually hides it
here.”
“So! You’ve searched his room before.
Suspicious?”
Joffy looked sheepish. “I’m afraid so. His behavior
is less like a saint’s and more like . . . well, a cheap
vulgarian’s—when I translate, I have to make certain . . .
adjustments.”
I pulled out his desk drawer and turned it over.
Stuck to the bottom was an envelope. “Bingo!”
It contained a single one-way Gravitube ticket all
the way to Bali. Joffy raised his eyebrows, and we exchanged
nervous glances. Zvlkx was definitely up to something.
Joffy accompanied me into Swindon, and we drove up
and down the streets trying to find the wayward saint. We visited
the site of his old cathedral at Tesco’s but couldn’t find him, so
went on a circuit that took in the law courts, the SpecOps Building
and the theater before driving past the university and down
Commercial Road. Joffy spotted him outside Pete & Dave’s,
lumbering up the street.
“There!”
“I see him.”
We abandoned the car and trotted to keep up with
the scruffy figure dressed in only a blanket. It was just bad luck
that he glanced furtively behind and spotted us. He darted across
the street. I don’t know whether his lank and uncut hair had got in
his eyes or he had forgotten about traffic during his stay in the
Dark Ages, but he didn’t look where he was going and ran straight
in front of a bus. His head cracked the windscreen, and his bony
body was thrown sideways onto the pavement with a thump. Joffy and
I were first on the scene. A younger man might have survived
relatively unscathed, but Zvlkx, his body weakened through poor
diet and disease, didn’t stand much of a chance. He was coughing
and crawling with all the strength he could muster to the entrance
of the nearest shop.
“Easy, Your Grace,” murmured Joffy, laying a hand
on his shoulder and stopping him moving. “You’re going to be all
right.”
“Bollocks,” said Zvlkx in a state of exasperation,
“bollocks, bollocks, bollocks. Survived the plague to get hit by a
sodding Number Twenty-three bus. Bollocks.”
“What did he say?”
“He’s annoyed.”
“Who are you?” I said. “Are you ChronoGuard?”
His eyes flicked across to mine, and he groaned.
Not only dying, but dying and rumbled.
He made another attempt to reach the doorway and
collapsed.
“Someone call for an ambulance!” yelled out
Joffy.
“It’s too late for that,” he muttered. “Too late
for me, too late for all of us. This wasn’t how it was meant to
turn out; time is out of joint—and it won’t be for me to set it
right. Ah, well. Joffy, take this and use it wisely, as I would not
have done. Bury me in the grounds of my cathedral—and don’t tell
them who I was. I lived a sinner, but I’d like to die a saint. Oh,
and if a fat slapper named Shirley tells you I promised her a
thousand quid, she’s a bloody liar.”
He coughed again, shivered for a moment and stopped
moving. I placed my hand on his grimy neck but could feel no
pulse.
“What did he say?”
“Something about an overweight lady named Shirley,
time being out of joint—and using his revealments as I see
fit.”
“What did he mean by that? That his revealment is
not going to come true?”
“I don’t know—but he handed me this.”
It was Zvlkx’s Book of Revealments. Joffy flicked
through the yellowed pages, which outlined in Old English every
supposed prophecy he had made, next to an arithmetic sum of some
sort. Joffy closed Zvlkx’s eyes and placed his jacket over the dead
saint’s head. A crowd had assembled, including a policeman, who
took charge. Joffy hid the book, and we stood to one side as the
blare of an ambulance started up in the distance. The owner of the
shop had come out and told us that having tramps dying on his
doorstep was bad for business but changed his mind when he found
out who it was.
“My goodness!” he said with a respectful tone.
“Imagine a real live saint honoring us with his death on our
doorstep!”
I nudged Joffy and pointed to the shop front. It
was a betting shop.
“Typical!” snorted Joffy. “If he didn’t die trying
to get to the bookies, it would have been the brothel. The only
reason I knew he wouldn’t be at the pub is because it’s not opening
time.”
Startled, I looked at my watch. It was 10:50.
Cindy. I had been thinking about St. Zvlkx so much I had forgotten
all about her. I backed into the doorway and glanced around. No
sign of her, of course, but then she was the best. I thought the
fact that a crowd had gathered was good, as she would be unlikely
to want to kill innocent people, but then changed my mind when I
realized that Cindy’s creed of respect for innocent life could be
written in very large letters on the back of a matchbox. I had to
get away from the crowd in case someone else was hurt. I dashed off
up Commercial Road and was approaching the corner with Granville
Street when I stopped abruptly. Cindy had walked around the corner.
My hand reflexively closed around the butt of my gun, but then I
stopped, all of a sudden uncertain. She was not alone. She had
Spike with her.
“Well!” said Spike, looking beyond me to the melee
on the street behind. “What’s going on here?”
“The death of Zvlkx, Spike.”
I was staring at Cindy, who stared back at me. I
could see only one of her hands. The other was hidden in her
handbag. She had failed twice—how far would she go to kill me? In
broad daylight, with her husband as witness? I was standing
awkwardly with my hand on my automatic, but it was still in its
holster. I had to trust my father. He had been right about Cindy on
the previous attempt. I pulled out my gun and pointed it at her.
There was a gasp from several passersby, who scattered.
“Thursday?” yelled Spike. “What the hell is going
on? Put that down!”
“No, Spike. Cindy isn’t a librarian, she’s the
Windowmaker.” Spike looked at me, then at his petite wife and
laughed. “Cindy, an assassin? You’re joking!”
“She’s delusional, and I’m frightened, Spikey,”
whimpered Cindy, in her best pathetic-girlie voice. “I don’t know
what she’s talking about. I’ve never even held a gun!”
“Very slowly take your hand out of your
handbag, Cindy.”
But it was Spike who made the next move. He pulled
out his gun and pointed it—at me.
“Put the gun down, Thurs. I’ve always liked you,
but I have no problem making this choice.”
I bit my lip but didn’t stop staring at Cindy.
“Ever wondered why she was paid cash to do those freelance library
jobs? Why her brother works for the CIA? Why her parents were
killed by police marksmen? Have you ever heard of librarians being
killed by the police?”
“There’s an explanation for it all, Spikey!” whined
Cindy. “Kill her! She’s mad!”
I saw her game now. She wasn’t even going to do the
job herself. In broad daylight, her husband pulls the trigger, and
it’s all legal: a good man defending his wife. She was good. She
was the best. She was the Windowmaker. A contract with her and
you’re deader than corduroy.
“She has a contract out on me, Spike. Already tried
to kill me on two occasions!”
“Put down the gun, Thursday!”
“Spikey, I’m frightened!”
“Cindy, I want to see both your hands!”
“Drop the gun, Thursday!”
We had reached an impasse. As I stood there with
Spike pointing a gun at my head and with me pointing a gun at
Cindy’s, I realized this was quite possibly the worst situation to
be in. If I lowered my gun, Cindy would kill me. If I didn’t lower
my gun, Spike would kill me. If I killed Cindy, Spike would kill
me. Try as I might, I couldn’t think of a scenario that didn’t end
in my own death. Tricky, to say the least. And it was then that the
grand piano fell on her.
I’d never heard a piano falling thirty feet onto
concrete before, but it was exactly as I imagined. A sort of
musical concussion that reverberated around the street. As chance
would have it, the piano—a Steinway baby, I learned later—missed us
all. It was the stool that hit Cindy and she went down like
a sack of coal. One look at her and we both knew it was bad. A
serious head wound and a badly broken neck.
It was a time of mixed emotions for Spike. Grief
and shock at the accident but also realization that I had been
right—still clasped in Cindy’s hand was a silenced .38
revolver.
“No!” yelled Spike, placing his hand gently upon
her pale cheek. “Not again!”
Cindy groaned weakly as the policeman who had been
dealing with St. Zvlkx rushed up with two paramedics at his
side.
“You should have told me,” Spike muttered, refusing
to look at me, his powerful shoulders quivering slightly as tears
rolled down his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Spike.”
He didn’t reply but moved aside so the paramedics
could try to stabilize her.
“Who is she?” asked the policeman. “In fact, who
are you two?”
“SpecOps,” we said in unison, producing our
badges.
“And this is Cindy Stoker,” said Spike sadly, “the
assassin known as the Windowmaker—and my wife.”