The Woman Who Died a Lot

  “Not quite,” I replied slowly, as Landen’s career since winning the coveted Armitage Shanks Literary Prize had been in a somewhat downward trajectory.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I guess he was looking after me,” I replied, as honestly as I could, “and the kids.”

  “I would never have allowed that if he were my husband,” she scolded. “You should be ashamed of yourself. Has he still got one leg?”

  I stared at her. “It’s not likely to have grown back.”

  “He . . . he might have lost the other one.”

  “He’s not that careless.”

  “You had children?”

  “Two.”

  “What sort?”

  “One of each.”

  “A boy and a girl?”

  “No, an ant and a whale.”

  She glared at me, and a vein in her neck pulsed. “There’s no cause to be snippy.”

  “I’ll stop being snippy if you stop making inane observations.”

  “You were the one who stole my husband at the altar.”

  I stared at her for a moment. Before she was Mother Daisy, she had been Daisy Mutlar and had almost ensnared Landen into marriage.

  “He didn’t love you. He loved me, and technically speaking he was never your husband.”

  “Only because of a short, meddling, plain-as-wallpaper, delusional ex-girlfriend with relationship issues and a borderline-personality disorder.”

  “I’m not short.”

  I could see Sister Henrietta tense, expecting another attack. There wasn’t one, however, and we moved on through a wide stone arch to the large building that I had seen attached to the tower. It was, as previously stated, enormous—perhaps more than seven hundred feet long and one hundred twenty feet to the roof. But what I hadn’t expected was that the interior was pretty much hollow and made of a delicate latticework of wood and steel that seemed to have an air of temporariness about it. Around the periphery of the chamber were workshops, rooms, scaffolding and the evidence of recently abandoned industry. Tools lay about, and large blocks of stone were lying on trolleys half finished. The focus of the centuries-old toil lay in the center of the room.

  “Is that what I think it is?” asked Finisterre.

  The sculpture was about the size and shape of a carrier-class airship, but more flattened and clearly designed for longevity, not flight. At one end the sculpture had only just been begun, with the inner foundations constructed of blocks of limestone, while up near the finished end the limestone had been clad with delicately carved Portland stone, each piece set into position so finely it was difficult to see where the individual blocks lay. The surface was mottled, lumpy, and it was hard not to see what it was—the claw of an enormous rock-hewn lobster.

  “Tremble before the might and majesty of the Great Lobster,” breathed Mother Daisy. “We had planned to build the entire Lobster. It would have been over a mile in length and made the pyramids at Cairo look like the work of uninspired amateurs.”

  “How long did this take?” asked Finisterre.

  “Five centuries. As soon as we were done with the claw, we were going to move the building shed to begin on the antennae and feeding mandibles. We estimated the whole thing might have been finished in as little as five thousand years.”

  “It seems a shame,” I said, “after five centuries of toil.”

  “Yes,” replied Daisy stoically, “we’ll grind it up and sell it as motorway hardcore. Shame, but . . . well, there you go. This way.”

  We arrived at a large, steel-belted door. There was a bunch of keys on the rope tied around Daisy’s waist, and she paused, waited until Sister Henrietta wasn’t watching, then threw a punch in my direction.

  I was more wary of her now and expertly sidestepped the blow, although it was so close I felt the air move on my face. She shrugged, cursed at me below her breath, then placed a key in the lock. It turned easily, and she pushed it open to reveal a long staircase that led upward into the gloom. Blast. Stairs.

  I think there might have been at least a hundred of them, and they wound slowly up for what seemed like an age, while my leg and back throbbed and shouted at me. I told them to move on ahead and was helped eventually by Henrietta, who wasn’t Henrietta at all but an ex-physicist from Manchester named Henry who was trying to find meaning in an otherwise empty existence by pretending to be a nun.

  We reached the top of the stone steps in due course and entered the lowest tier of the libraries. There were books here in abundance, and Finisterre was already looking through the dusty tomes. I pulled one out at random and found an obscure treatise on accountancy dating from the tenth century. Of interest to those obsessed with the history of finance, but not much of anyone else.

  “There is an index here,” said Daisy, pointing to a younger book. “The older stuff is on the top floor.”

  “Aeschylus’s The Spirit of Pharos,” murmured Finisterre, peering through the gazetteer, “which is argued to be the first ghost story. Have you read it?”

  “Sister Georgia translated it for us,” said Daisy. “It’s not totally rubbish. The ghosts turn out to be the lighthouse keepers in disguise, to prevent people from discovering their illegal trade in stolen amphorae.”

  “So that’s where the Scooby-Doo ending originated,” I murmured. “Scholars have been hunting for the primary source of that for years.”

  “It’s one of only two known copies anywhere in the world,” said Finisterre, “although the other copy is fragmentary. But you’re right about primary sources: When we discovered the second volume of Aristotle’s Poetics, it ended a lot of academic contention on who devised the format for Columbo.”

  “There’s little new in literature,” I added. “For many years William Shatner’s depiction of Kirk in Star Trek was considered unique, until it was discovered that an identical character pops up in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 2: Fat Foreigners Are Funny all the time.”

  “Horace wrote truly filthy limericks,” added Mother Daisy. “We recite them on special occasions. There was a very good one about a young man from Australia who painted his arse like a dahlia. Do you want to hear it?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Well,” said Finisterre, who was in no doubt as to the unique value of the library, “I’d like to catalog all this in situ, then take the books to my team of conservators to be copied and—”

  He stopped because there was a sharp report far below in the convent.

  “What was that?”

  “A shot,” I said, “but then we are in the middle of a firing range.”

  “Range fire is softened by distance,” replied Daisy expertly. “closer ones are a crack— and that was a crack. Sister Henrietta, close the scriptorium door and defend the library to the death.”

  “We use a similar oath in the Wessex Library Service,” murmured Finisterre. “Thursday, do you still carry two pistols?”

  “On my right ankle—but you’ll have to get it. I can’t bend that far. Landen has to put on my socks these days.”

  “Isn’t he just the perfect husband?” murmured Daisy sarcastically. She was herself searching through the folds of her habit and produced a very ancient-looking Colt.

  “How do I fire this thing?” she asked, showing it to me.

  “Pull back the hammer, push this lever down,” I said, “and, to fire, squeeze the grip safety and trigger. The bullets come out here.”

  “Cow.”

  “Moo.”

  I drew my own automatic, released the safety, and we all stood facing the stairway entrance.

  “Is there another way in?” I asked.

  “The roof,” said Daisy, “next floor up. But don’t worry—it’s bolted from the inside and can’t be reached from the ground.”

  As she spoke, there was a muffled detonation from somewhere far below us. We all looked at one another.

  “Word has gotten out the treasures within our walls,” said Mother Daisy. “I fear for my library.”


  I thought quickly. If I were planning a raid on the library, I would use a diversion and attack from where it was least expected.

  “You stay here and open fire at anything that comes up the stairs that isn’t in black and white. I’m going to keep an eye on the entrance to the roof.”

  I didn’t wait for a reply, as sporadic gunfire was now ringing out downstairs, along with shouts and cries as the nuns returned fire. I limped up the steps to the next floor, which was a similar room to the one below—made of stone, lined with books and smelling of damp and birds’ nests. Above me in the ceiling was a large wooden hatch that was bolted from the inside. I took up station behind a stone pillar and waited. The windows gave little light and were too narrow to climb through. If an attack were forthcoming, this was where it would come from.

  I raised my pistol in readiness as with eerie predictability the hatch blew inward with an almighty concussion. I was vaguely conscious of firing off one shot, probably by accident, and the next moment I was lying on my back among shards of wood, cobwebs and dust. Ears ringing, I struggled to sit up. I even halfheartedly raised my pistol, only to have it removed from my hand by a smiling face that I recognized. It was Jack Schitt.

  We’d crossed swords many times in the past, and I kind of thought we had reached something of a truce when his wife died and I returned her locket to him. In fact, the last I heard, he was retired. But the odd thing about this was that Goliath wasn’t really into violent assaults on libraries—they always favored stealing stuff by persuasive arguments “for the greater good” and, when that failed, veiled threats, legal action and sneaky behavior. This wasn’t their style, and, to be honest, Jack was getting a bit long in the tooth for fieldwork—as was I.

  “Shit and ballocks,” I said, more through frustration than anger.

  “Language, Thursday.”

  Jack dropped the magazine from my pistol, pulled back the slide to eject the unfired round and tossed the empty weapon to the other side of the room. He paused to bolt the door to the lower levels of the scriptorium and then looked thoughtfully about the room. He didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry.

  “We’ve not even begun to catalog it yet,” I said. “I hope you’ve got some time on your hands.”

  He ignored me and moved past the shelves, his fingertips brushing the spines of the books. He wasn’t choosing a book by reading the spines; indeed, there was nothing written on many of them. It appeared that he was sensing the book he was searching for, and after a moment he stopped, paused and drew out a volume.

  “Goliath stealing antiquarian books?” I said. “Bit of a comedown, isn’t it?”

  He had opened the book and answered without looking at me. “What are you doing here, Next?”

  “Playing silly buggers,” I told him, slowly crawling into a position from where I might be able to get to my feet.

  “I meant in particular,” he said with a smile, “not in general.”

  There was more gunfire from the floor below. It looked as though the diversionary attack had been utterly successful—in that it was diversionary. I got to my feet and staggered across the room to where he had thrown my pistol. He saw what I was doing but didn’t seem that put out by it. I picked up the weapon, then glanced around to see where he had thrown the clip.

  “Over there,” he said, still not looking up from where he was leafing though the book. I moved to the other side of the room to where the clip lay, in some dust by the door. I tried to bend over, but when that failed, I grasped the door handle and used it to lower myself.

  “You’re pretty much trashed, aren’t you?” said Jack, tearing two pages out of the book and letting the rest of the volume fall to the floor.

  “It’s early days,” I said, grunting with the pain and effort. “Physiotherapy will see me as right as rain in the fullness of time.”

  “There aren’t enough years left in the universe,” he said, staring at the pages he had torn out, “the weak will not survive.”

  “Personal opinion?” I asked, my fingers just touching the magazine.

  “Corporate policy. Crabbe? Would you?”

  A foot descended on my hands from a second assailant, one whom I had not seen. I would have cried out in pain if I weren’t already in pain.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, handing him the pistol, “let me keep my fingers.”

  “It’s good news for you that you’re Protocol 451,” Crabbe breathed close to my ear. “It would give me immeasurable pleasure to put an end to the once-magnificent Thursday Next.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for? I might be able—”

  I stopped, because when I turned back to look at Jack, he had gone.

  “Time to go,” said Crabbe. “I hope we don’t meet again— next time I won’t be so charitable.”

  He took my arm, twisted it until I crumpled in a heap, then walked across to where Jack had been standing. The book was lying on the floor, splayed downward, pages crumpled against the stone.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic sack, much like an evidence bag. He cracked it open, dropped the two pages Jack had been reading inside, zip-locked it, then broke a large phial that was inside the bag. There was a hissing noise, and he shook the bag twice, then let it fall to the floor, where it bubbled quietly to itself.

  “Time to go,” he said again, and moved to the center of the room, where the shattered trapdoor was positioned. He fired a flare gun through the aperture and then jumped up, grabbed the parapet and was out in an instant. I heard his footfalls on the roof t a k i ng severa l long paces, t hen a pause, t hen t he high-pitched whine of a fast rope descender. I frowned. Now that I’d heard Crabbe’s descender I realized that I hadn’t heard Jack’s.

  As the light from the parachute flare flickered red through the narrow window slits, the diversionary gunfire abruptly stopped, and within a few minutes it was calm once more, the only noises those from nuns who’d been wounded in the action.

  “Shit,” I said, to no one in particular.

  18.

  Tuesday: Smalls

  St. Zvlkx is the patron saint of Swindon, a choice that owes more to local saint availability than to any notable good deeds on his part. The thirteenth-century saint is known today mainly for his likeness on Zvlkx brand bathroom sealant and for his long list of Revealments, all of which came true—including his own second coming in 1988. Aside from reintroducing a rare skin ailment and murmuring that a “new cathedral might be nice,” St. Zvlkx did little of relevance on his return and was run over by a Number 23 bus two days later.

  Extract from Swindon Great Lives (expanded edition)

  Finisterre was unharmed, as was Daisy. The worst off was Sister Henrietta, who had fallen downstairs and was now nursing a burst kneecap and the embarrassment of its being found out that he was a man. Oddly—although given that a low profile would doubtless be beneficial to the gang—no one had been seriously hurt. The pinpoint accuracy the diversionary force had used ensured zero casualties, but they had been live rounds— just intended to miss by a narrow margin. The only hits were the result of ricochets. Few were serious, and none life-threatening. Even Goliath would have realized that killing nuns is bad PR.

  I was investigating the plastic bag and what remained of the torn-out pages when Mother Daisy and Finisterre joined me. The vellum had been reduced to a sticky gloop that had eventually dissolved its way through the plastic bag and oozed onto the stone floor. I pushed a pencil into the smoldering muck, and the paint blistered.

  “It’s Malevolex,” said Finisterre, sniffing the air, “an organic acid used in the pulping industry to prepare remaindered books for being turned into MDF. When they cracked the phial in the bag, the two parts mixed and the book was history.”

  I’d been staring at the plastic bag for a while. It had been a slick operation.

  “They came up here knowing they would destroy these pages,” I said, climbing to my feet. “They didn’t copy it or even have enough
time to read it all.”

  “They’d have been seriously bored if they did,” said Daisy, handing me the rest of the book. It was titled Trawling around Tewkefbury after darke while piffed and the pleafuref to be found therein.

  “A thirteenth-century racy novel that early members of the Sisterhood used to entertain themselves,” explained Daisy.

  “It’s all a bit more proper these days, I take it?” asked James delicately.

  “Goodness gracious no!” replied Daisy. “We’re more into Jilly Cooper and Daphne Farquitt. This particular racy codex is a bit . . . well, unimaginative—unless you like that sort of thing.”

  “Who wrote it?” I asked.

  “Stephen Shorts of Swine-dome,” said Finisterre. “You’d know him better as St. Zvlkx.”

  “Ah!” I said, having come across Swindon’s very own saint before. Aside from his Revealments, which turned out to be a complex sporting fraud, St. Zvlkx wrote only banal books that revolved around drunkenness and womanizing. The purpose and reason for his sainthood are somewhat obscure but, knowing St. Zvlkx, probably had some basis in blackmail.

  Daisy was flicking through the book, trying to find which page had gone.

  “He pulled only one leaf out,” she said, studying the volume carefully, “which lay across the spine, so from two parts of the book. The first part was a report on which tavern in Tewkesbury offered the best opportunity to get totally plastered for a farthing, and the second section—if memory serves—was a lengthy digression on how best to handle the fallout from getting a town elder’s wife pregnant, an area in which Zvlkx was something of an expert.”

  We stood in silence for a moment. Finisterre aired the thoughts we all shared.

  “Why would someone attempt to break into a library guarded by dangerously violent nuns—sorry, no offense meant—”

  “None taken.”

  “—only to read the licentious ramblings of a despicable rogue from the thirteenth century?”

  “Goliath is smart,” I said, “so there would have been a good reason. Perhaps that, too, was a diversionary measure—do something utterly random and incomprehensible, knowing full well we’d spend hours trying to figure it out. No, we take this as an attempted theft and vandalism. Was this the most valuable book?”