Something rotten (40 page)

“Yes,” I said, brightening somewhat, “we got some Danish books out of the country,
Hamlet
is on the mend—and I got Landen back.”

Gran stared at me and lifted my face with her hand.

“For good?”

I looked down at my wedding ring.

“Twenty-four hours and counting.”

“They did the same to me,” sighed Gran, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes with a bony hand. “We were very happy for over forty years, until he was taken away again—this time in a more natural and inevitable way. And that was over thirty years ago.”

She fell silent for a moment, and to distract her I told her about St. Zvlkx and his death and his revealments and how little of it made any sense. Time-traveling paradoxes tended to make my head spin.

“Sometimes,” said Gran, holding up the cover of the
Swindon Evening Globe,
“the facts are all in front of us—we just have to get them in the right order.”

I took the picture and stared at it. It had been taken a few seconds after the piano fell on Cindy. I hadn’t realized how far the wreckage of the Steinway had scattered. A little way down the road, the lonely figure of Zvlkx was still lying on the pavement, abandoned in the drama.

“Can I keep this?”

“Of course. Be careful, my dear—remember that your father can’t warn you of every single one of your potential demises. Invulnerability is reserved only for superheroes. The croquet final is far from won and anything can happen in the next twenty-four hours.”

“A neanderthal defense?” repeated Aubrey and Alf when I found them taking “pegging out” at the croquet stadium. They had threatened to fire me if I didn’t tell them what I was up to. “Of course, any team would spend millions trying to get a neanderthal to join—but they just won’t do it.”

“I’ve already got them. You can’t pay them, and I really don’t know how they will work as a team with humans—I get the feeling that they’ll be a team of their own
within
your team.”

“I don’t care,” said Aubrey, leaning on his mallet and sweeping a hand in the direction of the squad. “I was fooling myself. Biffo’s too old, Smudger has a drink problem, and Snake is mentally unstable. George is okay, and I can handle myself, but a fresh crop of talent has infused the Whackers’ team. They’ll be fielding people like Bonecrusher McSneed.”

He wasn’t kidding. A mysterious benefactor—probably Goliath—had given a vast amount of money to the Whackers. Enough for them to buy almost anyone they wanted. Goliath was taking no chances that the Seventh Revealment would be fulfilled.

“So we’re still in the game with five thals?”

“Yes,” said Aubrey with a smile, “we’re still in the game.”

I dropped in to see Mum on the way home, ostensibly to take Hamlet and the dodos round to Landen’s place. I found my mother in the kitchen with Bismarck, who seemed to be in the middle of telling her a joke.

“. . . and then the white horse he says, ‘What, Erich?’ ”

“Oh, Herr B!” said my mother, giggling and slapping him on the shoulder. “You are a wag!”

She noticed me standing there.

“Thursday! Are you okay? I heard on the radio there was some sort of accident involving a piano. . . .”

“I’m fine, Mum, really.” I stared coldly at the Prussian Chancellor who, I had decided, was taking liberties with my mother’s affections. “Good afternoon, Herr Bismarck. So, you haven’t sorted out the Schleswig-Holstein question yet?”

“I am waiting still for the Danish prime minister,” replied Bismarck, rising to greet me. “But I am growing impatient.”

“I expect him very soon, Herr Bismarck,” said my mother, putting the kettle on the stove. “Would you like a cup of tea while you’re waiting?”

He bowed politely again. “Only if Battenberg cake we will be having.”

“I’m sure there’s a bit left over if that naughty Mr. Hamlet hasn’t eaten it!” Her face dropped when she discovered that, indeed, naughty Mr. Hamlet
had
eaten it. “Oh dear! Would you like an almond slice instead?”

Bismarck’s eyebrows twitched angrily.

“Everywhere I turn, the Danish are mocking my person and the German Confederation,” he intoned angrily, smacking his fist into his open palm. “The incorporation of the Duchy of Schleswig into Danish state overlooked I might have, but personal Battenberg insult I will not. It is war!”

“Hang on a minute, Otto,” said my mother, who, having brought up a large family almost single-handedly, was well placed to sort out the whole Battenberg-Schleswig-Holstein issue. “I thought we’d agreed that you weren’t going to invade Denmark.”

“That was then, this is now,” muttered the Chancellor, puffing out his chest so aggressively that one of his brass buttons shot across the room and struck Pickwick a glancing blow on the back of the head. “Choice: Mr. Hamlet for his behavior apologizes on behalf of Danish people, or we go to war!”

“He’s talking to that nice conflict-resolution man at the moment,” replied my mother in an anxious tone.

“Then it
is
war,” announced Bismarck, sitting down at the table and having an almond slice anyway. “More talk is pointless. Return I wish to 1863.”

But then the door opened. It was Hamlet. He stared at us all and looked . . . well,
different.

“Ah!” he said, drawing his sword. “Bismarck! Your aggressive stance against Denmark is at an end. Prepare . . . to die!”

The conflict-resolution talk had obviously affected him deeply. Bismarck, unmoved by the sudden threat to his life, drew a pistol.

“So! Battenberg you finish behind my back, yes?”

And they might have killed one another there and then if Mum and I hadn’t intervened.

“Hamlet!” I said. “Killing Bismarck won’t get your father back, now, will it?”

“Otto!” said Mum. “Killing Hamlet won’t alter the feelings of the Schleswigers, now, will it?”

I took Hamlet into the hall and tried to explain why sudden retributive action might not be such a good idea after all.

“I disagree,” he said, swishing his sword through the air. “The first thing I shall do when I get home is kill that murdering uncle of mine, marry Ophelia and take on Fortinbras. Better still, I shall invade Norway in a preemptive bid, and then Sweden, and—what’s the one next to that?”

“Finland?”

“That’s the one.”

He placed his left hand on his hip and lunged aggressively with his sword at some imaginary foe. Pickwick made the mistake of walking into the corridor at that precise moment and made a startled
plooock
noise as the point of Hamlet’s rapier stopped two inches from her head. She looked unsteady for a moment, then fainted clean away.

“That conflict-management specialist really taught me a thing or two, Miss Next. Apparently my problem was an unresolved or latent conflict—the death of my father—that persists and festers in an individual—me. To face up to problems, we must meet those conflicts head-on and resolve them to the best of our ability!”

It was worse than I thought.

“So you won’t pretend to be mad and talk a lot, then?”

“No need,” replied Hamlet, laughing. “The time for talking is over. Polonius will be for the high jump, too. As soon as I marry his daughter, he’ll be fired as adviser and made chief librarian or something. Yes, we’re going to have some changes around my play, I can tell
you.
”

“What about building tolerance between opponents for a longstanding peaceful and ultimately rewarding coexistence between the conflicting parties?”

“I think he was going to cover that in the second session. It doesn’t matter. By this time tomorrow,
Hamlet
will be a dynamic tale of one man’s revenge and rise to power as the single greatest king Denmark has ever seen. It’s the end of Hamlet the ditherer and the beginning of Hamlet the man of action! There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark, and Hamlet says . . . it’s payback time!”

This was bad. I couldn’t send him back until Mrs. Tiggy-winkle and Shgakespeafe had sorted out his play, and in this condition there was no saying
what
he was capable of. I had to think fast.

“Good idea, Hamlet. But
before
that, I think you might like to know that Danish people are being insulted and maligned here in England, and that Kierkegaard, Andersen, Branner, Blixen and Farquitt are having their books burned.”

He went quiet and stared at me with dumbstruck horror in his eyes.

“I am doing what I can to stop this,” I went on, “but—”

“Daphne’s books are being burned?”

“You know of her?”

“Of course. I’m a big fan. We have to have
something
to do during those long winters at Elsinore. Mum’s a big fan, too—although my uncle prefers Catherine Cookson. But enough talk,” he carried on, his postprevarication, nonhesitative brain clicking over rapidly, “what shall we do about it?”

“Everything hinges on us winning the SuperHoop tomorrow, but we need a show of force in case Kaine tries anything. Can you get together as many Danish supporters as you can?”

“Is it very important?”

“It could be vital.”

Hamlet’s eyes flashed with steely resolution. He picked his skull off the hall table, placed a hand on my shoulder and struck a dramatic pose.

“By tomorrow morning, my friend, you will have more Danes than you know what to do with. But stay this idle chitter-chatter—I must away!”

And without another word, he was out the door. From all-talk-no-action, he was now all-action-no-talk. I should
never
have brought him into the real world.

“By the way,” said Hamlet who had popped his head back around the door, “you won’t tell Ophelia about Emma, will you?”

“My lips are sealed.”

I gathered up the dodos and popped them in the car, then drove home. I had called Landen soon after Cindy’s accident to say I was unhurt. He said he knew all along I’d come to no harm, and I promised that I’d avoid assassins where possible from now onwards. I couldn’t pull up outside the house as there were at least three news vans, so I parked round the back, walked through the alleyway, nodded a greeting to Millon and walked across the back lawn to the French windows.

“Lipsum!” said Friday, running up to give me a hug. I picked him up as Alan sized up his new home, trying to work out the areas of highest potential mischief.

“There’s a telegram for you on the table,” said Landen, “and if you’re feeling masochistic the press would love you to reiterate how the Mallets will win tomorrow.”

“Well, I’m not,” I replied, tearing open the telegram. “How was your . . .”

My voice trailed off as I read the telegram. It was clear and to the point. WE HAVE UNFINISHED BUSINESS. COME ALONE, NO TRICKS, HANGAR D, SWINDON AIRPARK—KAINE.

“Darling?” I called out.

“Yes?” came Landen’s voice from upstairs.

“I have to go out.”

“Assassins?”

“No—megalomaniac tyrants keen on global domination.”

“Do you want me to wait up?”

“No, but Friday needs a bath—and don’t forget behind the ears.”

36.

Kaine v. Next

Anti-Smite Technology Faces Criticism

Leading churchmen were not keen on Mr. Kaine’s use of Anti-Smite technology. “We’re not sure Mr. Kaine can place his will above that of God,” said a nervous bishop who preferred not to be named, “but if God decides to smite something, then we think He had probably very good reason to do so.” Atheists weren’t impressed by Kaine’s plans, nor that the cleansing of Oswestry was anything but an unlucky hit by a meteorite. “This smacks of the usual Kainian policy of keeping us cowed and afraid,” said Rupert Smercc of Ipswich. “While the population worries about nonexistent threats from a product of mankind’s need for meaning in a dark and brutal world, Kaine is raising taxes and blaming the Danes for everything.” Not everyone was so forthright in condemnation. Mr. Pascoe, official spokesman of the Federated Agnostics, claimed, “There might be something in the whole smiting thing, but we’re not sure.”

Article in
The Mole,
July 1988

I
t was night when I arrived at Swindon Airpark’s maintenance depot. Although airships still droned out into the night sky from the terminal opposite, this side of the field was deserted and empty, the workers long since punched out for the day. I showed my badge to security then followed the signs along the perimeter road and passed a docked airship, its silvery flanks shimmering with the reflected moon. The eight-story-high main doors of the gargantuan Hangar D were shut tight but I soon found a black Mercedes sports car near an open side door, so I stopped a little way short and killed my engine and lights. I replaced the clip in my automatic with the spare that I had loaded with five eraserheads—all I had managed to smuggle out of the BookWorld. I got out of the car, paused to listen and, hearing nothing, made my way quietly into the hangar.

Since the transcontinental “thousand-footer” airships were built these days at the Zeppelinwerks in Germany, the only airship within the cathedral-sized hangar was a relatively small sixty-seater, halfway through construction and looking like a metallic basket, its aluminum ribs held together with a delicate filigree of interconnecting struts each riveted carefully to the next. It looked overly complex for something in essence so simple. I glanced around the lofty interior but of Kaine there was no sign. I pulled out my automatic, chambered the first eraserhead and released the safety.

“Kaine?”

No answer.

I heard a noise and whipped my gun towards where a partly completed engine nacelle was resting on some trestles. I cursed myself for being so jumpy and suddenly realized that I wished Bradshaw was with me. Then I felt it—or at least, I
smelt
it. The lazy stench of death borne on a light breeze. I turned as a dark fetid shape loomed rapidly towards me. I had a brief vision of some unearthly terror before I pulled the trigger and the hollow thud of my first eraserhead hit home and the hellbeast evaporated into a flurry of the individual letters that made up its existence. They fell about me with the light tinkling sound of Christmas decorations shattering.