Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Author:Jasper Fforde
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-02-11T16:00:00+00:00

‘Well, well,’ said Toccata, ‘the forgotten sleeper of the Sarah Siddons. Charlie Worthing, isn’t it?’

Confused by the sudden turn of events, I blurted out the first thing that came into my head.

‘You know I am.’

Toccata’s eye flashed dangerously.

‘I never ask questions I already know the answer to. Waste of my time, waste of yours. So, again: are you . . . ’

Her voice trailed off. She narrowed her eye and looked at Treacle and Jonesy in turn.

‘Oh, I get it,’ she said, ‘a bunch of comedians. You didn’t tell Worthing Aurora and I looked vaguely similar, did you?’

‘Since Jonesy found Worthing,’ said Treacle, pointing an accusatory finger at her and demonstrating in the clearest manner why Jonesy wanted nothing to do with him. ‘She could have done so. In fact, I thought she had. Which is why I didn’t.’

‘I wanted to see the shocked look on Worthing’s face,’ said Jonesy after giving Treacle a withering look. ‘The Winters are long and we have to make our own entertainment.’

‘Make it some other way,’ growled Toccata, ‘whittling or ice sculpture or something.’

She turned back to me.

‘But you are Charlie Worthing, I take it?’

‘I am, ma’am.’

‘Charlie prefers to be called Wonky,’ said Jonesy.

‘I doubt that so very much,’ said Toccata, ‘but Wonky it is. You were there when Jack Logan was . . . murdered?’

She almost chose the word ‘died’ but then pulled back and substituted ‘murder’ instead. It was not hard to see either how she felt about it, nor who ultimately was to blame.

‘Yes, I was.’

‘He was one of the best,’ she said. ‘How did she get the drop on him?’

I knew now why he’d paused: he couldn’t kill Aurora because he’d be killing Toccata, too. Odd, I thought, that he could countenance farming a nightwalker – but would rather be dead than kill someone he was once in love with.

‘He could easily have thumped Aurora,’ I said in a quiet voice, ‘but he paused. And in that moment, she had him.’

‘Paused?’ said Toccata. ‘Why would he do that?’

I looked at Jonesy for help but she just stared back at me.

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘I’ve read Aurora’s misspelled and poorly worded report,’ said Toccata after staring at me for a few seconds. ‘It claims you were about to be executed and that Aurora thumped Logan “in order to save the life of a Novice Consul”. Why was he going to kill you? What had you done?’

‘I hadn’t done anything,’ I said, ‘but I’d given him the impression that I would have reported about how he and Foulnap were going to farm Mrs Tiffen.’

‘You knew that for a fact? Did he actually say he was going to kill you?’

I thought hard.

‘On reflection,’ I said slowly, ‘perhaps they didn’t want me dead.’

‘Explain yourself.’

I took a deep breath.

‘The conversation began with Lopez saying: “Maybe we can trust the Novice, I didn’t sign up to all this in order to start killing Consuls”. Then Foulnap said that he was with Lopez on this, and Logan said: “We can’t risk any of us being discovered, besides, Aurora’s in town”.

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