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'Look,' she interrupted angrily, 'let me do one good thing to make up for even
one quarter of one per cent of the misery I've caused.'
I stared at her as the skeleton in rusty armour clanked up again.
'More trouble, Miss Next?'
'Give us a minute, will you?'
'Please,' implored Cindy, 'you'd be doing me a favour.'
I looked at the skeleton, who probably would have rolled his eyes if he had
had any.
'It's your decision, Miss Next,' said the guard, 'but someone has to take that
boat or I'm out of a job
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and I've got a bony wife and two small skeletons to put through college.'
I turned back to Cindy, put out my hand and she shook it, then pulled me
forward and hugged me tightly while whispering in rny ear:
'Thank you, Thursday. Keep an eye on Spike for me.'
She hopped quickly into the boat before I had a chance to change my mind. She
gave a wan smile and sat in the bows as the ferryman leaned on his pole,
sending the small boat noiselessly across the river. In terms of the burden of
her sins, saving me was only small recompense, but she felt better for it, and
so did I. As the boat containing Cindy faded into the mists of the river I
turned and walked back towards the pedestrian footbridge, the southside of
Dauntsey services, and life.
42
Explanations
STATE FUNERAL ATTRACTS WORLD'S LEADERS
Millions of heartbroken citizens of England and the most important world
leaders arrived in
Wigan yesterday to pay tribute to President George Formby, who died two weeks
ago. The funeral cortege was driven on a circuitous route round the Midlands,
the streets lined with mourners eager to bid a final goodbye to England's
President of the past thirty-nine years. At his memorial service in Wigan
Cathedral the new Chancellor, Mr Redmond van de Poste, spoke warmly of the
great man's contribution to world peace. After the Lancashire Male Voice Choir
sang 'With My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock' accompanied by two hundred
ukuleles, the
Chancellor invited the Queen of Denmark to accompany him in a duet of 'Your
Way Is My Way', something that might well serve to mend the rift between our
respective nations.
Article in
The Toad, 10 August 1988
'It was touch and go for a moment,' said Landen, who was sitting by my
hospital bed holding my hand.
'There was a moment when we really didn't think you'd make it.'
I gave a wan smile. I had regained consciousness only the day before and every
movement felt like a dagger in my head. I looked around. Joffy and Miles and
Hamlet were there, too.
'Hi, guys.'
They smiled and welcomed me back.
'How long?' I asked in a whisper.
'Two weeks,' said Landen. 'We really thought
I gently squeezed his hand and looked around. Land divined my thoughts
perfectly.
'He's with his grandmother.'
I raised a hand to touch the side of my head but could feel only a heavy
bandage. Landen took my hand and returned it to the sheet.
'What ?'
'You were astonishingly lucky,' he said in a soothing tone. 'The doctors say
you'll make a full recovery.
The calibre was quite small and it entered your skull obliquely; by the time
it had gone through most of
the energy was gone.' He tapped the side of his head. 'It lodged between your
brain and the inside of the skull. Gave us quite a fright, though.'
'Cindy died, didn't she?'
Joffy answered.
'Looked to be improving but then septicaemia set in.'
'They really loved one another, you know, despite their differences.'
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'She was a hit-woman, Thursday, a trained assassin. I don't think she regarded
death as anything more than an occupational hazard.'
I nodded. He was right.
Landen leaned forward and kissed my nose.
'Who shot me, Land?'
'Does the name "Norman Johnson" mean anything to you?'
'Yes,' I said, 'the Minotaur. You were right. He'd been trying to slapstick me
to death all week -
steamroller, banana skin, piano - I was a fool not to see it. Mind you, a
gun's hardly slapstick, is it?'
Landen smiled.
'It had a large "bang" sign that came out of the barrel, as well as the
bullet. The police are still trying to make sense of it.'
I sighed. The Minotaur was long gone but I'd still have to be careful. I
turned to Landen. There was still something I needed to know.
'Did we win?'
'Of course. You pegged a foot closer than O'Fathens. Your shot has been voted
"sporting moment of the century" - in Swindon, at any rate.'
'So we aren't at war with Wales?'
Landen shook his head and smiled.
'Kaine's finished, my darling and Goliath have abandoned all attempts to
become a religion. St Zvlkx does indeed work in mysterious ways.'
'Are you going to tell me?' I said with a wan smile. 'Or do I have to beat it
out of you with a stick?'
Joffy unfolded the picture of St Zvlkx and Cindy's fatal pianoing on
Commercial Road, the one from the
Swindon Evening Globe that Gran had given me.
'We found this in your back pocket,' said Miles.
'And it got us to thinking,' continued Joffy, 'exactly where
Zvlkx was heading that morning, and why he had the ticket for the Gravitube in
his bedroom. He was cutting his losses and running. I don't think even
Zvlkx or whoever he was believed that Swindon could possibly win the
Superhoop. Dad always said that time wasn't immutable.'
'I don't get it.'
Miles leaned forward and showed me the picture again.
'He died trying to get to Tudor Turf Accounting.'
'So? Oldest betting shop in Swindon.'
'No - in the world
. We made a few calls. It had been trading continually since 1264.'
I looked at Joffy quizzically.
'What are you saying?'
'That the
Book of Revealments was nothing of the kind
it's a thirteenth-century betting slip!
'
'A what?'
He pulled Zvlkx's Revealments from his pocket and opened it to the front page.
There was a countersigned receipt for a farthing that we had thought was a
bookbinder's tax or something. The small arithmetical sum next to each
Revealment was actually the odds against that particular event coming true,
each one countersigned by the same signature as on the front page. Joffy
flicked through the slim volume.
'The Spanish Armada Revealment had been given the odds of six hundred to one,
Wellington's victory at
Waterloo four hundred and twenty to one.' He flicked to the final page. 'The
outcome of the croquet match was set at 124,000 to one. The odds were generous
because Zvlkx was betting on things centuries before they happened; indeed,
centuries before croquet was even thought of No wonder the person who had
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underwritten the bet felt confident in offering such odds.'
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