‘Then why isn’t he telling us?’

But he was. When we got back a letter was waiting for me at the station. I had hoped it was from Landen but it wasn’t. It bore no stamp and had been left on the desk that morning. No one had seen who delivered it.

I called Victor over as soon as I had read it, laying the sheet of paper on my desk to avoid touching it any more than I had to. Victor put his spectacles on and read the note aloud.

Dear Thursday,

When I heard you had joined the LiteraTec staff I almost believed in divine intervention. It seems that we will at last be able to sort out our differences. Mr Quaverley was just for starters. Martin Chuzzlewit himself is next for the axe unless I get the following: Ј10 million in used notes, a Gainsborough, preferably the one with the boy in blue, an eight-week run of Macbeth for my friend Thomas Hobbes at the Old Vic, and I want you to rename a motorway services ‘Leigh Delamere’ after the mother of an associate. Signal your readiness by a small ad in the Wednesday edition of the Swindon Globe announcing Angora rabbits for sale and I will give you further instructions.

Victor sat down.

‘It’s signed Acheron. Imagine Martin Chuzzlewit without Chuzzlewit!’ he exclaimed earnestly, running through all the possibilities. ‘The book would end within a chapter. Can you imagine the other characters sitting around, waiting for a lead character who never appears? It would be like trying to stage Hamlet without the prince!’

‘So what do we do?’ asked Bowden.

‘Unless you have a Gainsborough you don’t want and ten million in loose change, we take this to Braxton.’

Jack Schitt was in Braxton Hicks’s office when we entered. He didn’t offer to leave when we told Hicks it was important and Hicks didn’t ask him to.

‘So what’s up?’ asked Braxton, glancing at Schitt, who was practising his putting on the carpet.

‘Hades is alive,’ I told him, staring at Jack Schitt, who raised an eyebrow.

‘Goodness!’ muttered Schitt in an unconvincing tone. ‘That is a surprise.’

We ignored him.

‘Read this,’ said Victor, handing across Acheron’s note in a cellophane wrapper. Braxton read it before passing it to Schitt.

‘Place the ad, Officer Next,’ said Braxton loftily. ‘You seem to have impressed Acheron enough for him to trust you. I’ll speak to my superiors about his demands and you can inform me when he contacts you again.’

He stood up to let us know that the interview had ended but I stayed seated.

‘What’s going on, sir?’

‘Classified, Next. We’d like you to make the drop for us but that’s the only way you can be involved in the operation. Mr Schitt has an extremely well-trained squad behind him who will take care of Hades’ capture. Good-day.’

Still I didn’t rise.

‘You’re going to have to tell me more, sir. My uncle is involved, and if you want me to play ball I’m going to have to know what’s happening.’

Braxton Hicks looked at me and narrowed his eyes.

‘I’m afraid—‘

‘What the hell,’ interjected Schitt. ‘Tell ‘em.’

Braxton looked at Schitt, who continued to practise his putting.

‘You may have the honour, Schitt,’ said Braxton angrily. ‘It’s your show after all.’

Schitt shrugged and finished the putt. The ball hit its mark and he smiled.

‘Over the last hundred years there has been an inexplicable cross-fertilisation between works of fiction and reality. We know that Mr. Analogy has been investigating the phenomenon for some time, and we know about Mr Glubb and several other characters who have crossed into books. We knew of no one to have returned so we considered it a one-way journey. Christopher Sly changed all that for us.’

‘You have him?’ asked Victor.

‘No; he went back. Quite of his own accord, although unfortunately because he was so drunk he went back not to Will’s version of The Taming of the Shrew, but to an uneven rendition in one of the Bad Quartos. Melted into thin air one day while under observation.’

He paused for effect and polished his putter with a large red spotted handkerchief.

‘For some time now, the Goliath Advanced Weapons Division has been working on a device that will open a door into a work of fiction. After thirty years of research and untold expenditure, all we have managed to do is synthesise a poor-quality Cheddar from volumes one to eight of The World of Cheese. We knew that Hades was interested, and there was talk of clandestine experiments here in England. When the Chuzzlewit manuscript was stolen and we found that Hades had it, I knew we were on the right track. Your uncle’s kidnapping suggested that he had perfected the machine and the Quaverley extraction proved it. We’ll get Hades, although it’s the machine that we really want.’

‘You forget,’ I said slowly, ‘that the machine does not belong to you; knowing my uncle he’d destroy the idea for ever rather than sell out to the military.’

‘We know all about Mycroft, Miss Next. He will learn that such a quantum leap in scientific thought should not be the property of a man who is incapable of understanding the true potential of his device. The technology belongs to the nation.’

‘You’re wrong,’ I said obstinately, getting up to leave. ‘About as wrong as you can possibly be. Mycroft destroys any machine that he believes might have devastating military potential; if only scientists stopped to think about the possible effects of their discoveries, the planet would be a much safer place for all of us.’

Schitt clapped his hands slowly.

‘Brave speech but spare me the moralising, Next. If you want your fridge-freezer and your car and a nice house and asphalt on the roads and a health service, then thank the weapons business. Thank the war economy that drives us to this and thank Goliath. The Crimea is good, Thursday—good for England and especially good for the economy. You deride the weapons business but without it we’d be a tenth-rate country struggling to maintain a standard of living anywhere near that of our European neighbours. Would you prefer that?’

‘At least our conscience would be clear.’

‘Naive, Next, very naive.’

Schitt returned to his golf and Braxton took up the explanation: ‘Officer Next, we are extending all possible support to the Goliath Corporation in these matters. We want you to help us capture Hades. You know him from your college days and he addressed this to you. We’ll agree to his demands and arrange a drop. Then we tail him and arrest him. Simple. Goliath get the Prose Portal, we get the manuscript, your uncle and aunt are freed, and SpecOps 5 get Hades. Everyone gets something so everyone is happy. So for now, we sit tight and wait for news of the drop.’

‘I know the rules on giving in to extortionists as well as you do, sir. Hades is not one to try and fool.’

‘It won’t come to that,’ replied Hicks. ‘We’ll give him the money and nab him long before he gets away. I have complete confidence in Schitt’s operatives.’

‘With every respect, sir, Acheron is smarter and tougher than you can possibly imagine. We should do this on our own. We don’t need Schitt’s hired guns blasting off in all directions.’

‘Permission denied, Next. You’ll do as I tell you, or you’ll do nothing. I think that’s all.’