Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

  But, be that as it may, the mantel clock with the Westminster chimes struck three and a dark van pulled up outside the bungalow of Russell and his mum. And as the chimes died away, Russell’s sister stirred from the sofa, slipped into the hall and opened the front door.

  Four furtive figures climbed from the van, drew up the shutter at the back and manhandled some-thing indistinct and bulky into the uncertain light of the street.

  Struggling beneath its weight, they laboured up the garden path and through the doorway, then along the hall towards Russell’s bedroom.

  Russell’s sister went before them. She quietly turned the handle on Russell’s door and pushed it open.

  Russell moved in his sleep, grunted uneasily and let go what can only be described as a fart. In the darkness, Russell’s sister fanned her nose, whispered the word ‘typical’ and took her leave.

  There was sudden movement, there was sound and there was a big bright light. And Russell was cannoned into consciousness.

  ‘What?’ he went, then ‘mmmmph!’ as a hand clamped across his face. He tried to struggle and to strike out, but other hands held down his wrists and others still, his ankles. Russell strained and twisted, but they held him fast.

  Russell’s eyes went blink blink blink in the brightness. And had he been able to speak he could have named his attackers without difficulty. Bobby Boy was one, another Frank, and Morgan was another. And in the doorway, standing by a great dark shrouded something, was one more, and this was Mr Fudgepacker.

  He was smiling, most unpleasantly.

  ‘Gmmph mmph mm mmphmmph’s’ went Russell, which meant ‘get off, you bastards’. And ‘grmmmph mmmph mm mmckers!’ which meant something along the same lines, but with a bit more emphasis.

  ‘Let him breathe, Bobby Boy,’ said Mr Fudgepacker.

  The thin man lifted his hand from Russell’s mouth. Russell tried to take a bite at it, but missed

  ‘Naughty,’ said Bobby Boy.

  ‘Let me go,’ spat Russell.

  Mr Fudgepacker waggled a frail fore-finger in Russell’s direction. It looked a bit like a Twiglet, Russell wondered just what he might have been doing with it. ‘Now now now,’ said Mr Fudgepacker. ‘I want you to be very quiet, Russell. If you make a noise you might wake up your mother. And if that happens, we will have to deal with her.’

  ‘Deal with her?’ Russell whispered this.

  ‘As in, cut her throat!’ said Mr F. ‘I’ve got the hedge-trimmer out in the van.’

  ‘Shall I bring in the camcorder?’ asked Bobby Boy.

  ‘No no no. Russell’s going to be very quiet. Aren’t you, Russell?’

  Russell nodded.

  ‘Shame,’ said Morgan. ‘I do want to see the bit with the hedge-trimmer.’

  ‘Maybe later. But we have much to do now.’

  Russell struggled a bit more. ‘Let go of me, you bastards,’ he whispered.

  ‘That’s the spirit.’ Mr Fudgepacker waggled his Twiglet again. ‘But they won’t let you go. They only do what I tell them to do.’

  Russell twisted his neck from side to side. He stared up at Frank. At Morgan. ‘Morgan,’ he said, ‘you’re my friend. Why are you doing this?’

  ‘It’s for your own good, Russell. For the common good.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll thank us for it afterwards. Well, you probably won’t actually thank us. But it’s all for the best.’

  ‘Definitely for the best,’ agreed Frank.

  ‘Get off me,’ Russell whispered. ‘Let me go.’

  Mr Fudgepacker sighed, shuffled over and sat down on the foot of Russell’s bed. ‘It’s a great pity you didn’t stick to your script,’ he said. ‘None of this would have been necessary, if only you’d stuck to your script. And we did give you a second chance, today. All you had to do was believe that the rest had been a dream. We went to so much trouble, changing the safe, dressing your head wound. But you weren’t convinced, were you?’

  ‘No,’ said Russell. ‘But I might be prepared to give it another go.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Russell asked.

  ‘Convert you, my boy. Convert you.’

  ‘I don’t want to be converted. I’m happy as I am.’

  ‘Happy?’ Mr Fudgepacker wheezed a little laugh. ‘What is happy? No-one’s really happy. They just bumble along from one crisis to another, hoping that things will all work out next week, or next month, or next year. But they never do. And even if they did, what then?’

  ‘What then?’ Russell asked.

  ‘Well, you die then, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s the way it is,’ Russell said.

  ‘But not the way it has to be. You can have more, you see. More much more. More life, more time. You just have to forfeit a few bits of baggage. Emotional baggage. Then you get it all.’

  ‘I really don’t want it, whatever it is.’

  ‘That’s a shame. Because you’re going to get it anyway. Take his clothes off, lads.’

  ‘What?’ whispered Russell. ‘No.’

  Mr Fudgepacker sniffed, then rooted in his nose with his Twiglet finger. Something gory came out on his nail, Mr Fudgepacker popped it into his mouth and sucked. ‘It’s yes, I’m afraid, Russell. And not without good cause anyway. I do declare you’ve added dog shit and cat food to your aromatic wardrobe since I saw you last.’

  Russell took to further silent struggling, but it was three against one and he was just the one. It was Bobby Boy who pulled down Russell’s boxer shorts.

  ‘Blimey, Russell,’ said the thin man. ‘Mother Nature didn’t sell you short, did she?’

  Russell was too mortified to answer.

  ‘Errol Flynn used to have a tadger like that,’ said Frank. ‘He showed it to me once, in the bog at Pinewood. Used to call it his Crimson Pirate.’

  ‘That was Douglas Fairbanks,’ said Mr Fudgepacker.

  ‘Could have been, I couldn’t see properly from the angle I was at.’

  ‘You sick bastard.’ Russell spat at Frank. Real spit this time.

  Mr Fudgepacker brought his Twiglet once more into play. ‘Remember your mum,’ was his advice.

  ‘Please let me go. Please stop this. Please.’

  ‘It won’t take very long and it’s better if you don’t struggle too much. Let’s have him up on his feet, lads.’

  Russell was dragged into the vertical plane, which is to say, upright. And he was held very firmly in that position.

  Mr Fudgepacker struggled to his feet and limped over to the large covered something that stood by the bedroom door. ‘Your new life awaits,’ he declared. ‘We measured you up for it last night while you slept.’

  ‘What? What?’

  With a flourish Mr Fudgepacker whipped away the covering and Russell found himself staring at ...

  Himself.

  And it was him. A tall naked him. But a better-looking him. A better-proportioned, better-formed and idealized version of him. And it stood there, as if regarding Russell through its blank eye sockets. Like a noble corpse, or a shell, or a skin.

  ‘Get him into it,’ ordered Mr Fudgepacker. ‘Get him into the back.’

  Russell fought and kicked and jerked from side to side, but they held him fast and they dragged him around to the back of his other self. To the back with its little doors on the arms and legs and the polished bolts and catches and hinges. And the hollow inside, with the strap and the rigging, the miniature ship’s rigging, with the tiny ropes and pulleys.

  ‘Into the back, lads. Into the back.’

  Russell dug in his heels, but they pushed him and pushed him and pushed him in. ‘It won’t take long, Russell.’

  Russell turned frightened eyes towards the old man. He held a strange device, something Victorian, of burnished brass.

  ‘Once your spine is out you’ll have no more fears, Russell. No more worries, no more stress.’

  ‘No.’ Russell fought like a madman, but in vain. They
forced him inside, into that thing that washimself. That mockery. And his head snapped up inside its head and his hands slipped inside its hands and his feet were inside its feet. And his neck stiffened and the brass instrument pressed upon the base of his spine and penetrated into his flesh.

  16

  THE REICH STUFF

  Russell awoke with a scream, fully clothed on his bed.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Russell felt at himself and blinked his eyes in the darkness. Downstairs the clock on the mantelpiece struck three with its Westminster chimes.

  It had all been a terrible dream.

  The hall light snapped on and Russell’s mum stuck her head round the door. ‘Are you all right, dear?’ enquired the sweet old thing. ‘Did you have a bad dream?’

  ‘Yes.’ Russell drew deep breaths. ‘Yes, I did. But I’m fine now. Sorry I woke you up, go back to bed.’

  ‘Would you like a cup of cocoa?’

  ‘No, it’s okay.’

  ‘Well, you get a good night’s sleep. You work too hard.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mum. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Typical,’ said the voice of Russell’s sister from the hall.

  Russell clutched at his heart. Those were palpitations and that had been the mother of all nightmares. That was truly gruesome.

  ‘Someone is messing around with my head,’ mumbled Russell. ‘God, that was frightening.’ He swung his legs over the side of the bed. He still had his shoes on. One of them smelled rather strongly.

  Russell took a deep breath, then kicked off his offending shoe and nudged it under the bed with his heel.

  What was that dream all about? Conversion? Mr Fudgepacker had spoken all about conversion the previous night. Him and Bobby Boy. Was that the conversion? And what about that brass instrument? And what about taking his spine? Russell shivered. He needed a drink. No, he didn’t need a drink. The last thing he needed was a drink. He felt fiercely sober now and that was how he intended to remain.

  Russell squeezed at his arms. He was still himself. He wasn’t inside something else. ‘Enough is enough.’ Russell pushed himself to his feet. ‘I am going to get this sorted out. And I’m going to do it now. But I’m not going to do it smelling like this.’

  Russell went to the bathroom and took a shower. He was sorry if it kept his mum awake, but it had to be done. Russell returned to his bedroom, dried himself off and dressed in a clean set of clothes: sweatshirt, jeans, clean socks and trainers. He took his other waxed jacket with the poacher’s pockets (the one that he wore for best) from the wardrobe and put that on. And then he looked up at the wardrobe and thought very deeply.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘It has to be done.’

  Russell took a chair, put it next to the wardrobe and climbed onto it. From on top of the wardrobe he took down a shoebox and placed this upon his bed. Laying the lid aside, he revealed something wrapped in an oil cloth. That something was a Second World War service revolver. Russell folded back the oil cloth and looked down at it.

  It had been his father’s gun. His father had given it to Russell on his eighteenth birthday. Russell had taken one look at the gun and pleaded that it be taken at once to the police station and handed in. But his father had said no.

  ‘Keep it safe on top of the wardrobe. One day you might need it. One day.’

  Russell took up the gun and held it between both hands. This, he concluded, was that one day. Russell slipped from his house and made off up the road. He walked briskly and rehearsed beneath his breath the friendly hello he would offer to any patrolling beat policeman whose path he might happen to cross.

  Down Horseferry Lane went Russell, his trainer soles silent on the cobbles, along the short-cut past the weir and Cider Island and into the car park at the back of Hangar 18.

  And here Russell stopped very short in his tracks.

  There was still a large number of cars here: Frank’s mini, Morgan’s Morgan, several four-wheel drives belonging to the production buyers. But there was one other vehicle which caught Russell’s particular interest. It stood there in the middle of the car park looking quite out of place.

  That vehicle was the Flügelrad.

  Russell let a little whistle escape from his lips. Now here was a piece of evidence, if ever he needed one.

  Gun in slightly trembling hand, Russell crept up close, keeping to the shadows, the hatch was open and the extendible ladder down. A soft blue light welled from within the cockpit. Russell took a step or two up the ladder and peeped in. Empty. Russell looked this way and the other, then shinned up and in.

  Russell hadn’t been inside the Flügelrad before. On the night he’d first seen it he’d spent all his time playing with the Cyberstar machine. But it was just as Bobby Boy had said: old fashioned, all dials and stop-cocks and big glass radio valve things. A bit like a cross between the interior of a Second World War tank and Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. And this craft could travel through time? Russell glanced all around. Bobby Boy had mentioned a loose valve, or some such. Russell spied a large and likely looking one. Large and likely enough looking to be essential to the running of the Flügelrad.

  Russell carefully removed it from its socket and slipped it into his poacher’s pocket.

  ‘Put it back,’ said a voice with a German accent. Russell turned swiftly. One of the tall young SS types was framed in the open hatch. He was pointing a gun.

  Russell pointed his.

  ‘Drop your weapon,’ said the German.

  ‘Drop yours,’ Russell said.

  ‘But I asked first.’

  ‘Drop yours anyway.’

  ‘I’ll shoot you,’ said the German.

  Russell clutched at his jacket, holding the big glass valve close to his chest. ‘Then you’ll smash this. And your Führer wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘My Führer?’

  ‘Listen,’ said Russell, ‘I’m on your side. Mr Fudgepacker sent me out here to see that everything was safe.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the German.

  ‘Heil Hitler,’ said Russell, raising his free hand in the Nazi salute.

  ‘Heil Hitler.’ The German raised his hand too. But he raised the one with the gun in it. Russell hit him very hard in the face.

  The German fell backwards from the ladder and hit the ground with a terrible bone-crunching thump.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Russell hastened down the ladder to attend to the unconscious figure. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, and then, ‘What am I saying? Stuff you.’

  And with that he marched across the car park towards Hangar 18.

  Merry sounds issued from within. The celebrations were far from over. Russell crept around to the big sliding door and pushed open the little hinged one.

  There was a whole lot of shaking going on. Russell cast a wary eye about the place.

  Morgan was there and Bobby Boy was there and Frank was there and Julie was there. And many of the others he’d seen earlier. But there had been a few late arrivals at the Fudgepacker Ball. There was old Charlton Heston in his toga. And David Niven in his black and white. And the cast of Cockleshell Heroes, including the great David Lodge. The late arrivals weren’t dancing though, they were just sort of standing around. Russell nodded. Better and better. So where was Mr Fudgepacker?

  Russell squinted beyond the dancing drinkers and the standing Cyberstars towards the office. In there, perhaps?

  Russell eased his way into the hangar and closed the door behind him. Keeping his back against the wall and himself very much to the shadows, he edged towards the office. No-one was looking in his direction, they were all having far too good a time. Bobby Boy had the programmer, and, yes, there in the middle of the dancers, Marilyn Monroe was getting her kit off.

  Russell reached the office unobserved. He ducked down beside the partition window, then stuck his head up to take a peep in.

  And then he ducked right down.

  ‘It’s that man again,’ whispered Russell.

  And it was,
seated across the desk from Mr Fudgepacker on one of the unspeakable chairs, with a glass of Glen Boleskine clutched in a chubby hand, was the evil sod himself.

  Mr Adolf Hitler, it was he.

  And he looked in the very peak of good health.

  Russell dithered. What to do for the best? Creep away and phone the police?

  ‘Hello, yes, I’ve got Adolf Hitler cornered in an old aircraft hangar on Brentford dock, and I’ve got his time machine too. Could you send over a couple of constables? Thank you.’

  Russell weighed up the pros and cons. All cons, he concluded. He would have to go it alone. Go in there like a hero would, and do the right thing.

  Now Russell, like all right-thinking individuals, was a great fan of the science fiction movie. And being so, there was, of course, one particular line he’d always wanted to shout at someone.

  No, it was not ‘I’ll be back’.

  And so, taking a very big breath, he kicked open the office door and with gun held tight between both hands and pointed at the Führer’s face, he shouted it out.

  ‘Lead or a dive you’re coming with me. I mean ...’

  ‘What is this?’ Hitler spoke with a thick Cockney accent. ‘Who let this Yankee in here?’

  ‘I’m not a Yankee.’ Russell held the gun as steadily as he could. ‘Dead or alive you’re coming with me.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd.’ Mr Fudgepacker flapped his fragile hands about. ‘I’ll have this oaf removed at once, my Führer. Russell, put down that toy pistol at once.’

  ‘It’s not a toy.’ Russell squeezed the trigger and a round parted the Führer’s hair.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Russell gawped at the gun and at the Führer. ‘I’m so sorry. I had the safety catch off. Are you all right?’

  ‘You stupid Russian.’ The Führer clutched at his head.

  ‘I’ll call a doctor,’ said Russell. ‘No, what am I saying again? Stuff you. Put your hands up, I’m making a citizen’s arrest.’