We had been to look at Jack and Crabbe’s escape route before Smalls had arrived. The rope was still there, and the descender used by Crabbe—but no sign of Jack’s.

“Logic would dictate that he escaped using another method. Not sure how, though—a BASE jump would be the only other way out, but there was no evidence of a parachute either. Unless you have any bright ideas?”

I didn’t, which raised the question: If Jack didn’t parachute out and didn’t go down the rope, how did he escape?

19. Tuesday: Home

19.

Tuesday: Home

From when it first opened, motorway services were always a welcome mix of good food, restful surroundings, clean and spacious hotels and reasonably priced shopping. Some people ventured solely onto the motorway to visit these oases of calm on the bellowing asphalt, and poor food and less-than-exemplary service were simply not tolerated. When Aust Services lost a prestigious Dunlop Star from its rating, the manager, overcome by shame, set himself on fire and threw himself into the river Severn.

J. Fforde, Motorway Services and Sarcasm, Unsubtly Used

“Holy cow!” said Landen when he saw me. “What happened to you?”

“Remember how Daisy Mutlar said she would devote her life to silent introspection of an obscure religion if she couldn’t marry you?”

“We all make threats like that. No one takes them seriously.”

“Daisy was totally serious. She’s now Mother Daisy over at the Salisbury Lobsterhood.”

“She always did want to be a mother. She did all this to you?”

“Only that one and . . . that one,” I replied, showing him the bruises that had been Daisy-inflicted.

“The rest was Jack Schitt and one of his cronies.”

“I’ve a feeling you weren’t reminiscing about the old days over a glass of wine.”

“Very astute of you.”

We went through to the kitchen, where we exchanged passwords before I sat at the large kitchen table and related all that had happened. While I talked, he fetched some antiseptic and a packet of cotton wool. I had numerous scratches, cuts and abrasions from when the trapdoor was blown open, and I winced as he tended to them. When I’d finished speaking, he stared at me for a while, concerned rather than shocked.

“Trouble really does follow you around, doesn’t it? Even when you’re just a librarian.”

“There’s nothing ‘just’ about being a librarian,” I corrected him. “And as for Jack Schitt—I’ve a feeling we’ve not heard the last of him.”

“It doesn’t make much sense, him allowing you to see his face and survive, does it?”

“None of it adds up,” I replied with another wince as he picked a splinter out of my head. “How have things been here?”

“The Wingco got through to Land’s End International. Neither Quinn, Highsmith nor Aornis ever got there.”