‘It’s beautiful!’ she said at last, her thoughts finally giving birth to her words. ‘The flowers, the colours, the scent—it’s like breathing champagne!’

‘You like it, madam?’

A man aged about eighty was facing her. He was dressed in a black cloak and wore a half-smile upon his weathered features. He gazed across at the flowers.

‘I often come here,’ he said. ‘Whenever the doldrums of depression fall heavy on my countenance.’

‘You’re very lucky,’ said Polly. ‘We have to rely on Name That Fruit!’

‘Name That Fruit?’

‘It’s a quiz show. You know. On the telly.’

‘Telly?’

‘Yes, it’s like the movies but with commercials.’

He frowned at her without comprehension and looked at the lake again.

‘I often come here,’ he said again. ‘Whenever the doldrums of depression fall heavy on my countenance.’

‘You said that already.’

The old man looked as though he were awakening from a deep sleep.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘My husband sent me. My name is Polly Next.’

‘I come here when in vacant or pensive mood, you know.’

He waved a hand in the direction of the flowers.

‘The daffodils, you understand.’

Polly looked across at the bright yellow flowers, which rustled back at her in the warm breeze.

‘I wish my memory was this good,’ she murmured.

The figure in black smiled at her.

‘The inward eye is all I have left,’ he said wistfully, the smile leaving his stern features. ‘Everything that I once was is now here; my life is contained in my works. A life in volumes of words; it is poetic.’

He sighed deeply and added: ‘But solitude isn’t always blissful, you know.’

He stared into the middle distance, the sun sparkling on the waters of the lake.

‘How long since I died?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Over a hundred and fifty years.’

‘Really? Tell me, how did the revolution in France turn out?’

‘It’s a little early to tell.’

Wordsworth frowned as the sun went in.

‘Hello,’ he muttered, ‘I don’t remember writing that—‘

Polly looked. A large and very dark rain-cloud had blotted out the sun.

‘What do you—?’ she began, but when she looked around Wordsworth had gone. The sky grew darker and thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. A strong wind sprang up and the lake seemed to freeze over and lose all depth as the daffodils stopped moving and became a solid mass of yellow and green. She cried out in fear as the sky and the lake met; the daffodils, trees and clouds returning to their place in the poem, individual words, sounds, squiggles on paper with no meanings other than those with which our own imagination can clothe them. She let out one last terrified scream as the darkness swept on and the poem closed on top of her.

The Swindon SpecOps headquarters were shared with the local police; the typically brusque and no-nonsense Germanic design had been built during the Occupation as a law court. It was big, too, which was just as well. The way into the building was protected by metal detectors, and once I had shown my ID I walked into the large entrance hall. Officers and civilians with identity tags walked briskly amid the loud hubbub of the station. I was jostled once or twice in the throng and made a few greetings to old faces before fighting my way to the front desk. When I got there, I found a man in a white baggy shirt and breeches remonstrating with the sergeant. The officer just stared at him. He’d heard it all before.

‘Name?’ asked the desk sergeant wearily.

‘John Milton.’

‘Which John Milton?’

John Milton sighed. ‘Four hundred and ninety-six.’

The sergeant made a note in his book.

‘How much did they take?’

‘Two hundred in cash and all my credit cards.’

‘Have you notified your bank?’

‘Of course.’

‘And you think your assailant was a Percy Shelley?’

‘Yes,’ replied the Milton. ‘He handed me this pamphlet on rejecting current religious dogma before he ran off.’

‘Hello, Ross,’ I said.

The sergeant looked at me, paused for a moment and then broke into a huge grin.

‘Thursday! They told me you’d be coming back! Told me you made it all the way to SO-5, too.’

I returned his smile. Ross had been the desk sergeant when I had first joined the Swindon police.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘Starting up a regional office? SO-9 or something? Add a touch of spice to tired old Swindon?’

‘Not exactly. I’ve transferred into the LiteraTec office.’

A look of doubt crossed Ross’s face but he quickly hid it. ‘Great!’ he enthused, slightly uneasily. ‘Drink later?’

I agreed happily, and after getting directions to the LiteraTec office, left Ross arguing with Milton 496.

I took the winding stair to the upper floor and then followed directions to the far end of the building. The entire west wing was filled with SpecOps or their regional departments. The Environmental SpecOps had an office here, as did Art Theft and the ChronoGuard. Even Spike had an office up here, although he was rarely seen in it; he preferred a dark and rather fetid lock-up in the basement carpark. The corridor was packed with bookcases and filing cabinets; the old carpet had almost worn through in the centre. It was a far cry from the LiteraTec office in London, where we had enjoyed the most up-to-date information retrieval systems. At length I reached the correct door and knocked. I didn’t receive an answer so I walked straight in.

The room was like a library from a country home somewhere. It was two storeys high, with shelves crammed full of books covering every square inch of wall space. A spiral staircase led to a catwalk which ran around the wall, enabling access to the upper shelves. The middle of the room was open plan with desks laid out much like a library’s reading room. Every possible surface and all the floor space were piled high with more books and papers, and I wondered how they managed to get anything done at all. About five officers were at work, but they didn’t seem to notice me come in. A phone rang and a young man picked it up.

‘LiteraTec office,’ he said in a polite voice. He winced as a tirade came down the phone line to him.

‘I’m very sorry if you didn’t like Titus Andronicus, madam,’ he said at last, ‘but I’m afraid it’s got nothing to do with us—perhaps you should stick to the comedies in future.’

I could see Victor Analogy looking through a file with another officer. I walked to where he could see me and waited for him to finish.

‘Ah, Next! Welcome to the office. Give me a moment, will you?’

I nodded and Victor carried on.

‘… I think Keats would have used less flowery prose than this and the third stanza is slightly clumsy in its construction. My feeling is that it’s a clever fake, but check it against the Verse Metre Analyser.’

The officer nodded and walked off. Victor smiled at me and shook my hand.

‘That was Finisterre. He looks after poetry forgery of the nineteenth century. Let me show you around.’

He waved a hand in the direction of the bookshelves.

‘Words are like leaves, Thursday. Like people really, fond of their own society.’

He smiled.

‘We have over a billion words here. Reference mainly. A good collection of major works and some minor ones that you won’t even find in the Bodleian. We’ve got a storage facility in the basement. That’s full as well. We need new premises but the LiteraTecs are a bit underfunded, to say the least.’