Randolph made to plant a punch on the dealer's chin but he was caught by one of the bouncers and held tightly.

'Control your Generic or I'll throw you both out! Get it?'

Randolph nodded and he was released. We stood together at the front watching Lola, who was weeping silently into her handkerchief.

'Gentlemen. Lot ninety-seven. Fine female B-4 Generic, ident: TSI-1404912-C. Attractive and personable. An opportunity to secure this sort of highly entertaining and pneumatic young lady does not come often. Her high appetite for sexual congress, slight dopiness and winsome innocence combined with indefatigable energy make her especially suitable for "racy" novels. What am I bid?'

It was bad. Very bad. I turned to Randolph.

'Do you have any money?'

'About a tenner.'

The bidding had already reached a thousand. I didn't have a tenth of that either here or back home — nor anything to sell to raise such a sum. The bidding rose higher, and Lola grew more depressed. For the amount that was being bid, she was probably in for a series of books — and the movie rights. I shuddered.

'With you, sir, at six thousand!' announced the auctioneer as the bidding bounced backwards and forwards between two well-known dealers. 'Any more bids?'

'Seven thousand!'

'Eight!'

'Nine!'

'I can't watch,' said Randolph, tears streaming down his face. He turned and left as Lola stared after him as he pushed his way to the back.

'Any more bids?' asked the auctioneer. 'With you, sir, at nine thousand … going once … going twice …'

'I BID ONE ORIGINAL IDEA!' I shouted, digging in my bag for the small nugget of originality Miss Havisham had given me and marching up to the auctioneer's table. There was a deathly hush as I held the glowing fragment aloft, and placed it on his desk with a flourish.

'A nugget of originality for a trollop like that?' hissed a man at the front. 'The Bellman-elect's got a screw loose.'

'Lola is that important to me,' I said sombrely. Miss Havisham had told me to use the nugget wisely — I think I did.

'Is it enough?'

'It's enough,' said the vendor, picking up the nugget and staring at it avariciously through an eyeglass. 'This lot is withdrawn from the sale. Miss Next, you are the proud owner of a Generic.'

Lola nearly wet herself, poor girl, and she hugged me tightly during the five minutes it took to complete the paperwork.

We found Randolph sitting on a mooring bollard down by the docks, staring off into the Text Sea with a sad and vacant look in his eyes. Lola leaned down and whispered in his ear.

Randolph jumped and turned round, flung his arms around her and cried for joy.

'Yes,' he said, 'yes, I did mean it! Every bit of it!'

'Come on, lovebirds,' I told them, 'I think it's time to leave this cattle market.'

We walked back to Caversham Heights, Randolph and Lola holding hands, making plans to start a home for Generics who had fallen on hard times, and trying to think up ways to raise funding. Neither of them had the resources to undertake such a project, but it got me thinking.

The following week, soon after I was inaugurated as the Bellman, I gave my proposal to the Council of Genres — Caversham Heights should be bought by the Council and used as a sanctuary for characters who needed a break from the sometimes arduous and repetitive course that fictional people are forced to tread. A sort of 'Textual Butlins' but without the redcoats. To my delight the Council approved the measure, as it had the added bonus of a solution to the nursery rhyme problem. Jack Spratt was overjoyed at the news and didn't seem in the least put out by the massive changes that would be necessary in order to embrace the visitors.

'The drug plot is out, I'm afraid,' I told him as we discussed it over lunch a few days later.

'What the hell,' he exclaimed. 'I was never in love with it anyway. Do we have a replacement boxer?'

'The boxing plot is out too.'

'Ah. How about the money-laundering sub-plot where I discover the mayor has been taking kickbacks? That's still in, yes?'

'Not … as such,' I said slowly.

'It's gone too?' he asked. 'Do we even have a murder?'

'That we have,' I replied, passing him over the new outline I had been thrashing out with a freelance imaginator the previous day.

'Ah!' he said, scanning the words eagerly. ' "It's Easter in Reading — a bad time for eggs — and Humpty Dumpty is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town …" '

He flicked a few more pages.

'What about Dr Singh, Madeleine, Unidentified Police Officers 1 and 2 and all the others?'

'All still there. We've had to reassign a few parts but it should hold together. The only person who wouldn't move was Agatha Diesel — I think she might give you a few problems.'

'I can handle her,' replied Jack, flicking to the back of the outline to see how it all turned out. 'Looks good to me. What do the nurseries say about it?'

'I'm talking to them next.'

I left Jack with the outline and jumped to Norland Park, where I took the news to Hurnpty Dumpty; he and his army of pickets were still camped outside the doors of the house — they had been joined by characters from nursery stories, too.

'Ah!' said Humpty as I approached. 'The Bellman. The three witches were right after all.'

'They generally are,' I replied. 'I have a proposal for you.'

Humpty's eyes nearly popped out of his head when I explained what I had in mind.

'Sanctuary?' he asked.

'Of sorts," I told him. 'I'll need you to coordinate all the nurseries, who will find narrative a little bit alien after doing couplets for so long, so you'll be dead when the story opens.'

'Not … the wall thing?'

'I'm afraid so. What do you think?'

'Well,' said Humpty, reading the outline carefully and smiling. 'I'll take it to the membership but I think I can safely say that there is nothing here that we can find any great issue with. Pending a ballot, I think you've got yourself a deal.'

It took the C of G almost a year to dismantle Text Grand Central's UltraWord engines, and many more arrests followed, although sadly none in the Outland. Vernham Deane was released, and he and Mimi were awarded the 'Gold Star for Reading' as well as the plot realignment they had wanted for so many years. They married and quite unprecedented for a Farquitt baddy — lived happily ever after, something that caused a severe drop in sales for The Squire of High Potternews. Harris Tweed, Xavier Libris and twenty-four others at Text Grand Central were tried and found guilty of crimes against the BookWorld'. Harris Tweed was expelled permanently from fiction and returned to Swindon. Heep, Orlick and Legree were all sent back to their books and the rest were reduced to text.

It was the first day of the influx of nursery rhyme refugees and Lola and I were sitting on a park bench in Caversham Heights soon to be renamed Nursery Crime. We were watching Humpty Dumpty welcome the long line of guests as Randolph allocated parts. Everyone was very happy with the arrangements but I wasn't overwhelmed with joy myself. I still missed Landen and I was reminded of this every time I tried — and failed — to get my old trousers to button up over my rapidly expanding waistline.

'What are you thinking about?'

'Landen.'

'Oh,' said Lola, staring at me with her big brown eyes, 'you will get him back, I am sure of it — please don't be downhearted!'

I patted her hand and thanked her for her kind words.

'I never did say thank you for what you did,' she said slowly. 'I missed Randolph more than anything. If only he'd told me what he felt I would have stayed in Heights or sought a dual placement — even as a C-grade.'