Forty and her team gone. Muscletone in intensive care his injuries
interpreted as resulting from a faulty valve in the boiler rooms - no
matter that nothing was found at fault, the truth could not be told,
even by me. No doubt Forty was expressing her concern in her I-
really-don't-like-the-look-of-it way just as she had been doing for
decades, and nobody was taking any notice. We have never been the
sort to make a terrible song and dance about minor obstructions and
just like anybody else we have our lie-down-and-die moments, but we
know, above all, that we have to carry on. I suppressed an urge to
ring for goji berries and sat down to consider seriously my strategy for
the familial confrontation that was looming - as threateningly in my
mind as that of the figure of the homicidal footman. The Mark VI was
at my disposal and as yet had not taken over my personality
completely, so in a sense I was free to wear Lady Gaga shoes to
increase my height, to sport a shimmering spider-silk gold gown, and
for a moment I even toyed with the idea of reenacting the scenes that
took place within the Narayanhity Palace just over a decade ago. The
Mark VI would obligingly provide me with a Heckler and Koch MP5
disguised as royal insignia. They would be sitting ducks as I cast
aside the casing and with a steely cry of "this will teach you to play
Palace!" mowed them down, though of my accuracy I held doubts
even in the virtual world and I could see myself ruining whole ranks of
eminently restorable trophies of the chase. Besides I'm essentially
non-violent. Furthermore I began to wonder if an extreme queen
would even make it to the meeting. There must be some truth to
British military security and my imaginary schemes would have a
towering new version of the diminutive monarch striding on concealed
sequinned stilts, attired in a mauve and green chiffon flounced satin
beaded ball gown misted over with billowing folds of wild spider silk,
my arms ablaze with bling, the Mark VI coronetted with pearls and
opals, would not this apparition have led to my being diverted to the
library and quickly sedated? The Correio da Manha would have a
field day. But hacks, as a rule, are not in the business of creating
news, though they may help to generate it, my task was to observe
and in this I was uniquely placed provided I did not intervene.
Another feature of the Mark VI was its ability to fractal time, in a
sense converting the wearer into a species of time traveller - always
forward never back and always at a rather pedestrian pace, a bit
