The Woman Who Died a Lot: A Thursday Next Novel (13 page)

“Yes it is isn’t it? Gosh we love it here and we’re so glad it’s you finally we might be able to get something done around here especially sorting out the budget ha-ha-ha you’ll speak to the council won’t you I have a daughter I need to pay through school she has only one leg and can’t—”

And she fainted clean away, having failed to take a breath.

“She does that a lot,” said a voice behind me. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

I turned to see a slightly built man who had the upright manner of someone in the military and was perfectly presented in a neat pinstripe suit.

“Welcome to the Wessex All-You-Can-Eat at Fatso’s Drinks Not Included Library Service,” he said, “I’m John Duffy, your personal assistant. Everyone calls me Duffy.”

I knew him by sight and reputation, although we’d never met. He was a decorated ex–Special Library Services operative, invalided out after a riot gun had exploded in the Guildford Wicks Aircraft Supplies Try Us First Library. It was during a demonstration by Shakespeare followers, incensed that the town council had downgraded Will from “Poet Saint” to “Eternal Bard.” The explosion sent a copy of
Love in the Time of Cholera
slamming into Duffy’s face with such force that it blinded him in one eye and transferred the text of the book permanently into his cheek and forehead. It made him look a bit severe but at least gave him something to read while shaving.

“Your reputation precedes you,” I said. “Glad to make your acquaintance.”

He nodded politely. “May I show you around?”

“Thank you,” I replied, gazing about at the magnificently bizarre building, an odd mix of randomly shaped modernism with large voids, oddly shaped glass panels, bright colors and soaring internal verticals. “It’s quite something, isn’t it?”

“Designed by Will Alsop just before he went sane,” replied Duffy. “We were very lucky. I understand you know Colonel Wexler, who heads up the SLS?”

A lean woman with a face pinched by hard workout walked forward to greet me. She was in her mid-fifties, did not look well disposed to joy in any form and was wearing the standard SLS combat fatigues, replete with the distinctive camouflage pattern of book spines for blending into library spaces. 

When I was at SpecOps, she was at the Search/Destroy division of SO-5, and you didn’t get to join them until you’d killed eight people with a gun, four with a blunt instrument or two with your hands—it was a sliding-scale sort of thing. Wexler’s appointment to the SLS was enough to precipitate a 32 percent drop in late returns.

“Welcome to Wessex Library Service,” she said in a voice that sounded like a twelve-mile run washed down with two raw eggs, “and good to see you again.”

We shook hands.

“You too, Mel. Husband well?”

“Dead.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that.”

She shrugged. “I killed the man who did it with my thumbs,”

she said. “I’ve not washed this one since.” She showed me a grubbylooking thumb.

Duffy quickly intervened with an embarrassed cough. “Colonel Wexler offers her full support, don’t you, Colonel?”

“Of course,” she said in a hollow tone. “What sort of leadership can we expect from you? Decisive and bold or faltering and ambivalent?”

“The first, I hope.”

“Good,” said Colonel Wexler, visibly pleased. “The previous chief librarian refused to sanction dawn raids to retrieve overdue books. But that will change under you, yes?”

“I’ll be giving it all due consideration,” I said, meaning that I’d do no such thing.

“That’s a start,” she said. “I’d also like you to review the rules regarding spine bending and turning over the corners of pages. If we let simple things like that slide without punishment, we could open the floodgates to poor reading etiquette and a downward spiral to the collapse of civilization.”

“Good idea,” I said. “Will you memo your ideas to me?” She said she would, and we shook hands again and moved off. “She’s certifiably insane, isn’t she?” I asked once we were out of earshot.

“I’m afraid so,” replied Duffy, “but loyal to a fault. She and the rest of the SLS would die protecting any book in the library— with the possible exception of those bloody awful Emperor Zhark novels and anything written by Daphne Farquitt.” 

“That’s good to know.”

We walked into the main fiction lending floor. It was light and airy, and there were racks and racks of books and very little computer space, which I liked the look of. The second floor was more of the same but was for nonfiction and general interest. 

“This is where we relax,” said Duffy as we toured the luxurious staff recreation room, complete with Ping-Pong table, a Zen meditation room for chilling out and a Michelin-starred chef to make lunch.

“Nice recreation room,” I said with a nod. “The only thing missing is a string quartet.”

“They’re here on Monday mornings, to ease in the workweek. Let me show you to your office.”

We took the elevator to the fourteenth floor and walked across the swirly-patterned carpet to my office. The room was large and square in plan, with a ceiling that sloped down from the windows. Two sides of the office were glazed and were on the corner of the building, where they faced the glassy towers of Swindon’s financial district and would thus afford me a spectacular view of the smiting, should it come to pass. Another wall was covered by a bookcase and three videoconferencing screens, in front of which were two sofas and a coffee table for more informal meetings. The final wall contained two doors. One led into Duffy’s office and the assistants, the other to the waiting room. The office was large, modern and very corporate. In an instant I didn’t feel as if I belonged here. Dingy basements smelling of photocopier toner and old coffee suited me better. “This is your desk,” said Duffy.

In a bit of a daze, I sat down on a plush armchair and looked around. I was parked behind a desk that seemed like an acre of finely polished walnut. There was a large internal phone with a separate button for every library in Wessex, and next to this was a single old-fashioned red telephone without a dial—just a single button with
NP
etched onto it.

“That’s the emergency hotline to Nancy at the World League of Librarians,” explained Duffy. “She’ll be on the first tube from Seattle if you call her. But make sure it’s a real emergency,” he added. “If Nancy is dragged all this way for nothing, you’ll be in 
big
trouble.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Do you want a light day or a heavy day tomorrow?” 

“Better make it a light one.”

“Very well.” He pressed the intercom button and leaned down to speak. “Geraldine, would you bring in the light schedule, please?”

“I’ll tell you what I
will
do,” I said as we waited for Geraldine. 

“What’s that?” said Duffy.

“I’m going change the name of the library service. All that ‘Fatso’s all-You-Can-Eat’ stuff is nonsense.”

Duffy raised an eyebrow. “That’s what the last chief librarian said. He didn’t like Fatso’s and told them he was going to do a compulsory sponsorship buyback.”

“How did he get on?”

“The engine was still running when they found his car on the Lambourn Downs. His wallet and cell phone were on the passenger seat. Under the wiper there was a discount voucher from Fatso’s for kids to eat free, but that might have been a coincidence. Of the chief librarian, no trace. I should forget that idea. If you want something controversial to do on your first week out, then announce biometric data for library cards. Identity theft is a big issue with people eager to take out more than six books at one time.”

“How about we up it to seven?”

Duffy gave a polite cough. Clearly I had a lot to learn about libraries.

An assistant of not more than twenty and dressed in a bottle green suit entered the room and walked nervously up to the desk. “This is Geraldine,” said Duffy, “the assistant’s assistant to the assistant personal assistant of my own personal assistant’s assistant.”

“Hello, Geraldine.”

“Hello, Chief Librarian,” she said nervously. “Have you really killed seven people?”

“I tend to try to dwell on the people I’ve saved,” I replied. 

“Oh,” she said, obviously intrigued by the notion of an ex–Literary Detective running the library service. “Of course.” 

“How many assistants do I have?” I asked, turning back to Duffy.

“Including me, three.”

“Three? Given Geraldine’s job title? How is
that
possible? 

“They have multiple jobs. Geraldine, apart from being the assistant’s assistant to the assistant personal assistant of my own personal assistant’s assistant, is also my own personal assistant’s assistant’s assistant.”

“No,” said Geraldine, “that’s Lucy. I’m not only your assistant’s assistant’s subassistant but also the assistant to the assistant to your personal assistant’s assistant.”

“Wait,” I said, thinking hard, “that must make you your own assistant.”

“Yes. I had to fire myself yesterday. Luckily, I was also
above
the assistant who fired me, so I could reinstate myself. Will there be anything else, Chief Librarian?”

There wasn’t, so she bobbed politely and withdrew. I looked at the schedule she had deposited on my desk, packed full of meetings, budgetary discussions, two staff disciplinary hearings and several forums with Swindon’s readers’ groups.

“How does the heavy schedule differ from this one?” “The same—only it’s on blue paper and instead of lunch you get two more meetings: The first is a pep talk to the many frustrated citizens who
weren’t
selected last year to train as librarians and will have to console themselves with mundane careers as doctors, lawyers and lion tamers.”

“And the second meeting?”

“A round table with the Swindon Society of Bowdlerizers. They’re anxious that ‘certain passages’ be removed from ‘certain books’ in order that they can ‘shine with greater luster’ and be made more suitable for family audiences.”

“Which books in particular?”

Duffy handed me a list.

“
Wanda Does Wantage
?” I read, “There’d be nothing left except nine prepositions, six colons and a noun.”

“I think that’s the point.”

I handed the list back. “Tell me,” I said, “did the previous chief librarian
really
vanish without a trace?”

“Not entirely,” said Duffy, passing me a photograph of a concrete monorail support somewhere on the Wantage branch line.

“We were sent this.”

I stared at the photograph. “Did you tell the police?” 

“They said it was nothing and that people get sent pictures of concrete monorail supports all the time.”

“Do they?”

“No, not really. Can I schedule the budget meeting for Thursday morning first thing? The city council wants to reassign some of our financial resources.”

“Any particular reason?”

“We’ve got generous funding not only because it’s sensible and right and true and just and proper but because we’ve been doing all SO-27’s work for the past thirteen years. But now that Detective Smalls is taking over the Literary Detectives, much of our budget will be reassigned to her.”