There was a lot of excited chatter about the upgrade to UltraWord™ and I picked up snatches of conversation that ran the full gamut from condemnation to full support. Not that it mattered; Jurisfiction was only a policing agency and had little say in policy — that was all up to the higher powers at the Council of Genres. It really was like being back at SpecOps. I bumped into Vernham Deane at the refreshment table.

'Well,' said Vernham, helping himself to a pastry, 'what do you think?'

'Bradshaw and Falstaff seem a bit put out.'

'Caution is sometimes an undervalued commodity,' he said warily. 'What does Havisham think?'

'I'm really not sure.'

'Vern!' said Beatrice, who had just joined us along with Lady Cavendish. 'Which plot does Winnie-the-Pooh have?'

'Triumph of the Underdog?' he suggested.

'Told you!' said Beatrice, turning to Cavendish. '"Bear with little brain triumphs over adversity." Happy?'

'No,' she replied. 'It's Journey of Discovery all the way.'

'You think every story is Journey of Discovery!'

'It is.'

They continued to bicker as I selected a cup and saucer.

'Have you met Mrs Bradshaw yet?' asked Deane.

I told him that I hadn't.

'When you do, don't laugh or anything.'

'Why?'

'You'll see.'

I poured some tea for Miss Havisham, remembering to put the milk in first. Deane ate a canapé and asked:

'How are things with you these days? Last time we met you were having a little trouble at home.'

'I'm living in the Well,' I told him, 'as part of the Character Exchange Programme.'

'Really?' he said. 'What a lark. How's the latest Farquitt getting along?'

'Well, I think,' I told him, always sensitive to Deane's slight shame at being a one-dimensional evil squire figure, 'the working title is Shameless Love.'

'Sounds like a Farquitt.' Deane sighed. 'There'll be someone like me in it — there usually is. Probably a rustic serving girl who is ravaged by someone like me, too — and then cruelly cast out to have her baby in the poorhouse only to have her revenge ten chapters later.

'Well, I don't know—'

'It's not fair, you know,' he said, his mood changing. 'Why should I be condemned, reading after reading, to drink myself to a sad and lonely death eight pages before the end?'

'Because you're the bad guy and they always get their comeuppance in Farquitt novels?'

'It's still not fair.' He scowled. 'I've applied for an Internal Plot Adjustment countless times but they keep turning me down. You wouldn't have a word with Miss Havisham, would you? She's on the Council of Genres Plot Adjustment subcommittee, I'm told.'

'Would that be appropriate?' I asked. 'Me talking to her, I mean? Shouldn't you go through the usual channels?'

'Not really,' he retorted, 'but I'm willing to try anything. Speak to her, won't you?'

I told him I would try but decided on the face of it that I probably wouldn't. Deane seemed pleasant enough at Jurisfiction but in The Squire of High Potternews he was a monster; dying sad, lonely and forgotten was probably just right for him — in narrative terms, anyway.

I gave the tea to Miss Havisham, who broke off talking to Perkins abruptly as I approached. She gave me a grimace and vanished. I followed her to the second floor of the Great Library, where I found her in the Brontë section already with a copy of Wuthering Heights in her hand. I knew that she probably did have a soft spot for Heathcliff — but I imagined it was only the treacherous marsh below Penistone Crag.

'Did you meet the three witches, by the way?' she asked.

'Yes,' I replied. 'They told me—'

'Ignore everything they say. Look at the trouble they got Macbeth into.'

'But they said—'

'I don't want to hear it. Claptrap and mumbo-jumbo. They are troublemakers and nothing more. Understand?'

'Sure.'

'Don't say "sure" — it's so slovenly! What's wrong with: "Yes, Miss Havisham"?'

'Yes, Miss Havisham.'

'Better, I suppose. Come, we are Brontë bound!'

And we read ourselves into the pages of Wuthering Heights.

12

Wuthering Heights

It was snowing when we arrived and the wind whipped the flakes into something akin to a large cloud of excitable winter midges. The house was a lot smaller than I imagined but no less shabby, even under the softening cloak of snow; the shutters hung askew and only the faintest glimmer of light showed from within. It was clear we were visiting the house not in the good days of old Mr Earnshaw but in the tenure of Mr Heathcliff, whose barbaric hold over the house seemed to be reflected in the dour and windswept abode that we approached.

Our feet crunched on the fresh snow as we arrived at the front door and rapped upon the gnarled wood. It was answered, after a very long pause, by an old and sinewy man — who looked at us both in turn with a sour expression before recognition dawned across his tired features and he launched into an excited gabble:

'It's bonny behaviour, lurking amang t' fields, after twelve o' t' night, wi' that fahl, flaysome divil of a gipsy, Heathcliff! They think I'm blind; but I'm noan: nowt ut t' soart! — I seed young Linton boath coming and going, and I seed YAH, yah gooid-fur-nowt, slatternly witch! nip up and bolt into th' house, t' minute yah heard t' maister's horse-fit clatter up t' road!'

'Never mind all that!' exclaimed Miss Havisham, to whom patience was an alien concept. 'Let us in, Joseph, or you'll be feeling my boot upon your trousers!'

He grumbled but opened the door anyway. We stepped in amongst a swirl of snowflakes and tramped our feet upon the mat as the door was latched behind us.

'What did he say?' I asked as Joseph carried on muttering to himself under his breath.

'I have absolutely no idea,' replied Miss Havisham, shaking the snow from her faded bridal veil. 'In fact, nobody does. Come, you are to meet the others. For the rage counselling session, we insist that every major character within Heights attends.'

There was no introductory lobby or passage to the room. The front door opened into a large family sitting room where six people were clustered around the hearth. One of the men rose politely and inclined his head in greeting. This, I learned later, was Edgar Linton, husband of Catherine Earnshaw, who sat next to him on the wooden settle and glowered meditatively into the fire. Next to them was a dissolute-looking man who appeared to be asleep, or drunk, or quite possibly both. It was clear that they were waiting for us, and equally clear from the lack of enthusiasm that counselling wasn't high on their list of priorities — or interests.