I walked up to the fifty-yard line, the now muddy ground oozing around my boots. I removed my shoulder pads and cast them aside, made a few practice swings, wiped my eyes and stared at the multicoloured peg, which somehow seemed to have retreated another twenty yards. I squared up in front of the ball and shifted my weight to maintain the right poise. The crowd fell silent. They didn't know how much was riding on this, but I did. I didn't dare miss. I looked at the ball, stared towards the peg, looked at the ball again, clasped the handle of my mallet and raised it high in the air, then swung hard into the ball, yelling out as the wood connected and the ball went sailing off in a gentle arc. I thought about Kaine and Goliath, about Landen and Friday and the consequences if I missed. The fate of all life on this beautiful planet, decided on the swing of a croquet mallet. I watched as my ball plopped into the soggy ground and the groundsman dashed ahead to compare distances. I turned away and walked back through the rain towards Landen. I had done my best and the game was over. I didn't hear the announcement, only a roar from the crowd. But whose crowd? A flashbulb went off and I felt dizzy as the sounds became muted and everything appeared to slow down. Not in the way that my father could engineer, but a post-adrenalin moment when everything seems odd, and other. I searched the seating for Landen and Friday but my attention was distracted by a large figure dressed in a duster coat and hat who had vaulted over the barrier and was running towards me. He drew something from his pocket as he ran, his feet throwing up great splashes of muddy water on to his trousers. I stared at him as he came closer and noticed that his eyes were yellow and beneath his hat were what appeared to be ... horns. I didn't see any more; there was a bright white flash, a deafening roar, and all the rest was silence.

40
Second First Person

YACHT CHOICE OF FAMED LITERARY DETECTIVE A MYSTERY

The shooting of Thursday Next last Saturday leaves the question of her favourite yacht unanswered, our Swindon correspondent writes. 'From the look of her I would expect a thirty-two-foot ketch, spinnaker-rigged and with a Floon automatic pilot.' Other yachting commentators disagree and think she would have gone for something larger, such as a sloop or a yawl, although it is possible she may only have wanted a boat for coastal day work or a long weekend, in which case she may have gone for a compact twenty-footer. We asked her husband to comment on her taste in sailing but he declined to give an answer.

Article in Yachting Monthly, July 1988