He gasped in short breaths, the tip of Miss Havisham's stick stuck fast against his windpipe. His eyes were clouded with the panic of suffocation; all he could do was breathe fitfully and try to nod.
'Good!' replied Miss Havisham, releasing the man, who fell in a heap on the floor.
'The evil ones,' announced Miss Havisham. 'You see what men are like?'
'They're not all like that,' I tried to explain.
'Nonsense!' replied Miss Havisham as we walked downstairs. 'He was one of the better ones. At least he didn't attempt to lie his way into your favours. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this one was barely repulsive at all. Do you have a car?'
Miss Havisham's eyebrows rose slightly as she saw the curious paintwork on my Porsche.
'It was painted this way when I bought it,' I explained.
'I see,' replied Miss Havisham in a disapproving tone. 'Keys?'
'I don't think—'
'The keys, girl! What was Rule One again?'
'Do exactly as you say.'
'Disobedient, perhaps,' she replied with a thin smile, 'but not forgetful!'
I reluctantly handed over the keys. Havisham grasped them with a gleam in her eye and jumped into the driver's seat.
'Is it the four-cam engine?' she asked excitedly.
'No,' I replied, 'standard 1.6 unit.'
'Oh, well!' snorted Havisham, pumping the accelerator twice before turning the key. 'It'll have to do, I suppose.'
The engine burst into life. Havisham gave me a smile and a wink as she revved the engine up to the red line before she briskly snapped the gearshift into first and dropped the clutch. There was a screech of rubber as we careered off up the road, the rear of the car swinging from side to side as the spinning wheels sought to find traction on the asphalt.
I have not been frightened many times in my life. Charging into the massed artillery of the Imperial Russian Army had a surreal detachment that I had found eerie rather than fearful. Tackling Hades first in London and then on the roof of Thornfield Hall had been quite unpleasant, so had leading an armed police raid, and the two occasions I had stared at close quarters down the barrel of a gun hadn't been a bundle of joy either.
None of those, however, even came close to the feeling of almost certain death that I experienced during Miss Havisham's driving. We must have violated every road traffic regulation that had ever been written. We narrowly missed pedestrians, other cars, traffic bollards and ran three traffic lights at red before Miss Havisham had to stop at a junction to let a juggernaut go past. She was smiling to herself and, although erratic and bordering on homicidal, her driving had a sort of idiot savant skill about it. Just when I thought it was impossible to avoid a postbox she tweaked the brakes, flicked down a gear and missed the unyielding iron lump by the width of a hair.
'The carburettors seem slightly unbalanced!' she bellowed above the terrified screams of pedestrians. 'Let's have a look, shall we?' She hauled on the handbrake and we slid sideways up a dropped kerbstone and stopped next to an open-air café, causing a group of nuns to run for cover. Havisham climbed out of the car and opened the engine cover.
'Rev the car for me, girl!' she shouted. I did as I was told and smiled wanly at one of the customers at the café, who eyed me malevolently.
'She doesn't get out often,' I explained as Havisham returned to the driver's seat, revved the engine loudly and left the customers at the café in a cloud of foul-smelling rubber smoke.
'That's better!' yelled Miss Havisham. 'Can't you hear it? Much better!'
All I could hear was the wail of a police siren that had started up.
'Oh, Christ!' I muttered; Miss Havisham punched me painfully on the arm.
'What was that for?'
'Blaspheming! If there is one thing I hate more than men, it's blaspheming … Get out of my way, you godless heathens!'
A group of people at a pedestrian crossing scattered in confused panic as Havisham shot past, angrily waving her fist. I looked behind us as a police car came into view, blue lights flashing, sirens blaring. I could see the occupants bracing themselves as they took the corner; Miss Havisham dropped a gear and we took a tight left bend, ran the wheels on the kerb, swerved to avoid a mother with a pram and found ourselves in a carpark. We accelerated between the rows of parked cars but the only way out was blocked by a delivery van. Miss Havisham stamped on the brakes, flicked the car into reverse and initiated a neat reverse slide that took us off in the opposite direction.
'Don't you think we'd better stop?' I asked.
'Nonsense, girl!' snapped Havisham, looking for a way out while the police car nosed up to our rear bumper. 'Not with the sale about to open. Here we go! Hold on!'
There was only one way out of the carpark that didn't involve capture – a path between two concrete bollards that looked way too narrow for my car. But Miss Havisham's eyes were sharper than mine and we shot through the gap, bounced across a grass bank, skidded past the statue of Brunel, drove the wrong way down a one-way street, through a back alley, past the Carer's Monument and across the pedestrianised precinct to screech to a halt in front of a long queue for the Swindon Booktastic closing-down sale – just as the town clock struck twelve.
'You nearly killed eight people!' I managed to gasp out loud.
'My count was closer to twelve,' returned Havisham as she opened the door. 'And anyhow, you can't nearly kill someone. Either they are dead or they are not; and not one of them was so much as scratched!'
The police car slid to a halt behind us, both sides of the vehicle had deep gouges down the side – the bollards, I presumed
'I'm more used to my Bugatti than this,' said Miss Havisham as she handed me the keys and slammed the door. 'But it's not so very bad, now, is it? I like the gearbox especially.'
The police didn't look very friendly. They peered at Miss Havisham closely, unsure of how to put their outrage at her flagrant disregard for the Road Traffic Act into words.
'You,' said one of the officers in a barely controlled voice, 'you, madam, are in a lot of trouble.'
She looked at the young officer with an imperious glare.
'Young man, you have no idea of the word!'
'Listen, Rawlings,' I interrupted, 'can we—'
'Miss Next,' replied the officer firmly but positively, 'your turn will come, okay?'
I got out of the car. The local police didn't much care for SpecOps and we didn't care much for them. They would be overjoyed to pin something on any of us.
'Name?'
'Miss Dame-rouge,' Havisham announced, lying spectacularly, 'and don't bother asking me for my licence or insurance – I haven't either!'
The officer pondered this for a moment.
'I'd like you to get in my car, madam. I'm going to have to take you in for questioning.'
'Am I under arrest?'
'If you refuse to come with me.'
Havisham glanced at me and mouthed 'After three'. She then sighed deeply and walked over to the police car in a very overdramatic manner, shaking with muscle tremors and generally behaving like the ancient person she wasn't. I looked at her hand as she signalled to me – out of sight of the officers – a single finger, then two, then finally, as she rested for a moment against the front wing of their car, the third and final finger.
'LOOK OUT!' I yelled, pointing up.
The officers, mindful of the Hispano-Suiza accident two days before, dutifully looked up as Havisham and I bolted to the head of the queue, pretending we knew someone. The two officers wasted no time and leapt after us, only to lose us in the crowd as the doors to Swindon Booktastic opened and a sea of keen bibliophiles of all different ages and reading tastes moved forward, knocking both officers off their feet and sweeping Miss Havisham and me into the bowels of the bookstore.
Inside there was a near-riot in progress, and I was soon separated from Miss Havisham; ahead of me a pair of middle-aged men were arguing over a signed copy of Kerouac's On the Road which eventually r
ipped down the middle. I fought my way round the ground floor, past Cartography, Travel and Self-help, and was just giving up the idea of ever seeing Havisham again when I noticed a long red flowing robe poking out from beneath a fawn macintosh. I watched the crimson hem cross the floor and go into the elevator. I ran across and put my foot between the doors just before they shut. The Neanderthal lift operator looked at me curiously, opened the doors to let me in and then closed them again. The Red Queen stared at me loftily and shuffled slightly to achieve a more regal position. She was quite heavily built; her hair was a bright auburn shade, tied up in a neat bun under her crown, which had been hastily concealed beneath the hood of her cloak. She was dressed completely in red, and I suspected that under her make-up her skin might have been red, too.
'Good morning, Your Majesty,' I said, as politely as I could.
'Humph!' replied the Red Queen, then, after a pause, she added: 'Are you that tawdry Havisham woman's new apprentice?'
'Since this morning, ma'am.'
'A morning wasted, I shouldn't wonder. Do you have a name?'
'Thursday Next, ma'am.'
'You may curtsy if you so wish.'
So I did.
'You will regret not learning with me, my dear – but you are, of course, merely a child and right and wrong are so difficult to spot at your tender age.'
'Which floor, Your Majesty?' asked the Neanderthal.
The Red Queen beamed at him, told him that if he played his cards right she would make him a duke and then added 'Three' as an afterthought.
There was one of those funny empty pauses that seem to exist only in elevators and dentists' waiting rooms. We stared at the floor indicator as the lift moved slowly upward and stopped on the second floor. 'Second floor,' announced the Neanderthal, 'Historical, Allegorical, Historical-allegorical, Poetry, Plays, Theology, Critical Analysis and Pencils.' Someone tried to get in; but the Red Queen barked 'Taken!' in such a fearful tone that they backed out again.
'And how is Havisham these days?' asked the Red Queen with a diffident air as the lift moved upwards again.
'Well, I think,' I replied.
'You must ask her about her wedding.'
'I don't think that's very wise,' I returned.
'Decidedly not!' said the Red Queen, guffawing like a sea lion, 'But it will elicit an amusing effect. Like Vesuvius, as I recall!'
'Third floor,' announced the Neanderthal, 'Fiction, Popular, Authors A–J.' The doors opened to reveal a mass of book fans, fighting in a most unseemly fashion over what even I had to admit were some very good bargains. I had heard about these sorts of 'fiction-frenzies' before – but never witnessed one.
'Come, this is more like it!' announced the Red Queen happily, rubbing her hands together and knocking a little old lady flying as she hopped out of the elevator.
'Where are you, Havisham?' she yelled, looking to left and right. 'She has to be … Yes! Yes! Ahoy there, Stella you old trollop!'
Miss Havisham stopped in mid-stride and stared in the queen's direction. In a single swift movement she drew a small pistol from the folds of her tattered wedding dress and loosed off a shot in our direction. The Red Queen ducked as the bullet knocked a corner off a plaster cornice.
'Temper, temper!' shouted the Red Queen, but Havisham was no longer there.
'Hah!' said the Red Queen, hopping into the fray. 'The devil take her – she's heading towards Romantic Fiction!'
'Romantic Fiction?' I echoed, thinking of Havisham's hatred of men, 'I don't think that's very likely!' The Red Queen ignored me and made a detour through Fantasy to avoid a scrum near the Agatha Christie counter. I knew the store a little better and nipped in between Hergé and Haggard where I was just in time to see Miss Havisham make her first mistake. In her haste she had pushed past a little old lady sizing up a buy-two-get-one-free offer on contemporary fiction. The little old lady – no stranger to department store sales battle tactics – parried Havisham's blow expertly and hooked her bamboo-handled umbrella around her ankle. Havisham came down with a heavy thud and lay still, the breath knocked out of her. I kneeled beside her as the Red Queen hopped past, laughing loudly and making 'nyah, nyah' noises.
'Thursday!' panted Miss Havisham as several stockinged feet ran across her. 'A complete set of Daphne Farquitt novels in a walnut display case – run!'
And run I did. Farquitt was so prolific and popular she had a bookshelf all to herself and her recent boxed sets were fast becoming collector's items – it was not surprising there was a battle in progress. I entered the fight behind the Red Queen and was instantly punched on the nose. I reeled with the shock and was pushed heavily from behind while someone else – an accomplice, I assumed – thrust a walking stick between my shins. I lost my footing and fell with a thud on the hard wooden floor. This was not a safe place to be. I crawled out of the battle and joined Miss Havisham where she had taken cover behind a display of generously discounted du Maurier novels.
'Not so easy as it looks, eh, girl?' asked Havisham with a rare smile, holding a lacy white handkerchief to my bleeding nose. 'Did you see the royal harridan anywhere?'
'I last saw her fighting somewhere between Irvine and Euripides.'
'Blast!' replied Havisham with a grunt. 'Listen, girl, I'm done for. My ankle's twisted and I think I've had it. But you – you might be able to make it.'
I looked out at the squabbling masses as a pocket Derringer fell to the ground not far from us.
'I thought this might happen, so I drew a map.'
She unfolded a piece of Satis House headed notepaper and pointed out where she thought we were.
'You won't make it across the main floor alive. You're going to have to climb over the Police Procedurals bookcase, make your way past the cash register and stock returns, crawl under the Seafaring section and then fight the last six feet to the Farquitt boxed set – it's a limited edition of a hundred – I will never get another chance like this!'
'This is lunacy, Miss Havisham!' I replied indignantly. 'I will not fight over a set of Farquitt novels!'
Miss Havisham looked sharply at me as the muffled crack of a small-calibre firearm sounded and there was the thud of a body falling.
'I thought as much!' she sneered. 'A streak of yellow a mile wide all the way down your back! How did you think you were going to handle the otherness at Jurisfiction if you can't handle a few crazed fiction-fanciers hell-bent on finding bargains? Your apprenticeship is at an end. Good day, Miss Next!'
'Wait! This is a test?'
'What did you think it was? Think someone like me with all the money I have enjoys spending my time fighting for books I can read for free in the library?'
I resisted the temptation to say: 'Well, yes' and answered instead:
'Will you be okay here, ma'am?'
'I'll be fine,' she replied, tripping up a woman near us for no reason I could see. 'Now go!'
I turned and crawled rapidly across the carpet, climbed over the Police Procedurals to just beyond the registers, where the sales assistants rang in the bargains with a fervour bordering on messianic. I crept past them, through the empty returns department, and dived under the Seafaring section to emerge a scant two yards from the Daphne Farquitt display; by a miracle no one had yet grabbed the boxed set – and it was very discounted: down from £300 to only £50. I looked to my left and could see the Red Queen fighting her way through the crowd. She caught my eye and dared me to try to beat her. I took a deep breath and waded into the swirling maelstrom of popular prose-induced violence. Almost instantly I was punched on the jaw and thumped in the kidneys; I cried out in pain and quickly withdrew. I met a woman next to the J.G. Farrell section who had a nasty cut above her eye; she told me in a concussed manner that the Major Archer character appeared in both Troubles and The Singapore Grip. I glanced over to where the Red Queen was cutting a swathe through the crowd, knocking people aside in her bid to beat me. She smiled triumphantly as she head-butted a woman who had tried to poke her in the e
ye with a silver-plated bookmark. On the floor below a brief burst of machine-gun fire sounded. I took a step forward to join the fray, then stopped, considered my condition for a moment and decided that perhaps pregnant women shouldn't get involved in bookshop brawls. So instead, I took a deep breath and yelled:
'Ms Farquitt is signing copies of her book in the basement!'
There was a moment's silence, then a mass exodus towards the stairs and escalators. The Red Queen, caught up in the crowd, was dragged unceremoniously away, in a few seconds the room was empty.
Daphne Farquitt was notoriously private – I didn't think there was a fan of hers anywhere who wouldn't jump at the chance of actually meeting her.
I walked calmly up to the boxed set, picked it up and took it to the counter, paid and rejoined Miss Havisham behind the discounted du Mauriers, where she was idly flicking through a copy of Rebecca. I showed her the books.
'Not bad,' she said grudgingly. 'Did you get a receipt?'
'Yes, ma'am.'
'And the Red Queen?'
'Lost somewhere between here and the basement,' I replied simply.
A thin smile crossed Miss Havisham's lips and I helped her to her feet.
Together we walked slowly past the mass of squabbling book bargainers and made for the exit.
'How did you manage it?' asked Miss Havisham.
'I told them Daphne Farquitt was signing in the basement'
'She is?' exclaimed Miss Havisham, turning to head off downstairs.
'No no no,' I added, taking her by the arm and steering her to the exit. 'That's just what I told them.'
'Oh, I get it!' replied Havisham. 'Very good indeed. Resourceful and intelligent. Mrs Nakajima was quite right – I think you will do as an apprentice after all.'
She regarded me for a moment, as if making up her mind about something. Eventually she nodded, gave another rare smile and handed me a simple gold ring that slipped easily over my little finger.
'Here – this is for you. Never take it off. Do you understand?'
'Thank you, Miss Havisham, it's very pretty.'
'Pretty nothing, Next. Save your gratitude for real favours, not baubles, my girl. Come along. I know of a very good bun shop in Little Dorrit – and I'm buying!'