Something rotten (39 page)

“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. Suruiued 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 haue done. Bury me in the grounds of my cathedral—and don’t tell them who I was. I liued 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.”

35.

What Thursday Did Next

Kainian Government to Fund “Anti-Smite Shield”

Mr. Yorrick Kaine yesterday announced plans to set up a defensive network to counter the growing threat of God’s wrath unto His creations. Specific details of the “Anti-Smite Shield” are still classed top secret, but defense experts and top theologians have both agreed that a system might be in place within five years. Kaine’s followers point to the smiting of the small town of Oswestry with a “rain of cleansing fire” last October and the Rutland plague of toads. “Both Oswestry and Rutland are wake-up calls to our nation,” said Mr. Kaine. “They may have been sinful, but ultimate retribution without due process of law is something that I will not tolerate. In today’s modern world where the accepted definition of sin has become blurred, we need to protect ourselves against an overzealous deity keen to promote an outdated set of rules. It is for this reason that we are investing in Anti-Smite technology.” The £14 billion contract will be awarded exclusively to Goliath Weapons, Inc.

Article in
The Mole,
July 1988

T
he news networks had a field day. The death of St. Zvlkx so soon after his resurrection raised a few eyebrows, but the Windowmaker’s somewhat bizarre accident while “on assignment” became a sensation, supplanting even the upcoming SuperHoop from the front pages. Incredibly, despite severe internal injuries and a devastating head wound, she didn’t die. She was taken to St. Septyk’s Hospital, where they battled to stabilize her. Not from any great sense of moral duty, you understand, but for the fact that she could finger the sixty-seven or sixty-eight clients who had paid her to carry out her foul trade, and this was a prize the prosecutors were keen to claim. Within an hour of her coming out of surgery, three attempts by underworld bosses had been made to silence her for good. She was moved to the secure ward at the Kingsdown Home for the Criminally Insane, and there she stayed, comatose, attached to a ventilator.

“Spike was right. I should have told him earlier,” I said to Gran, “or tipped off the authorities or something!”

Granny Next was feeling a lot better today. Although greatly enfeebled by her advanced years, she had actually walked around for a bit that morning. When I arrived, she had her reading glasses on and was surrounded by stacks of well-read tomes. The kind of things one generally reads for study, and rarely for pleasure.

“But you didn’t,” she replied, looking over the top of her spectacles, “and your father
knew
you wouldn’t when he told you.”

“He also said that I would decide whether she lived or died, but he was wrong—it’s out of my hands now.” I rubbed my scalp and sighed. “Poor Spike. He’s taking it very badly.”

“Where is he?”

“Still being interviewed by SO-9. They got an agent down from London who’s been after her for more than ten years. I’d be there yet but for Flanker.”

“Flanker?” queried Gran. “What did he do?”

“He came to thank me for leading SO-14 to a huge stockpile of hidden Danish literature.”

“I thought you were trying
not
to help them?”

I shrugged.

“So did I. How was I to know the Danish underground really
was
using the Australian Writers’ Guild as a depository?”

“Did you tell them it was Kaine who had paid her to kill you?”

“No,” I said, looking down. “I don’t know who I can trust and the last thing I need is to be taken into protective custody or something. If I’m not at the touchline tomorrow for the SuperHoop, the neanderthals won’t play.”

“But there is good news, surely?”