The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived

  ‘My name is Stephen Craik,’ said the wild-eyed young man who had once been one so daring. ‘I am here in an official capacity, acting as an agent for a third party who wishes to purchase some property hereabouts.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said David Rodway. ‘Which particular property has captured your sponsor’s interest?’

  ‘All that you have,’ said Stephen Craik. ‘And all the rest as well.’

  ‘All?’ David Rodway jerked somewhat in his chair.

  ‘All. All of Skelington Bay, lock, stock and barony.’

  ‘I see.’ Although internally a maelstrom of covetousness now kicked and thrashed, externally, a passive smile played lightly on the lips of Mr Rodway. ‘All, you say?’

  ‘The lot,’ replied Stephen Craik. ‘Firstly every property you have on your books, for which I will pay cash, now. Then all the remaining: every shop, business, licensed premise, public utility. All.’

  ‘All.’ David Rodway had a small shake on, but not so much as to affect business. ‘This is a most singular request,’ said he.

  ‘My sponsor is a most singular man.’

  ‘Might I see the cash of which you speak?’

  ‘Of course you may.’ Stephen Craik opened the suitcase and turned it in Mr Rodway’s direction. ‘You might also wish to see this.’

  He handed the estate agent an envelope.

  The estate agent opened it and perused its contents.

  ‘This money has been authorized by the Prime Minister,’ said he, ‘who is the country’s Grand Lodge Master 55°-23□.’

  The estate agent made a secret sign.

  The wild-eyed young man made another.

  ‘Well take my budgie roughly from behind,’ said the estate agent. ‘What’s it all about then, eh?’

  Stephen Craik gave his nose a conspiratorial tap. ‘I am not permitted to say. Perhaps the Grand Lodge Master is seeking a holiday hideaway. Possibly it has something to do with the classless society he has created. I regret that I must remain mute upon the subject.’

  ‘No problem, squire. I know where you’re coming from.’ Mr Rodway’s fingers were doing the walking across the keyboard of his computer terminal. ‘All, you said?’ said he once again.

  ‘All.’

  ‘All it is then.’ The estate agent’s fingers took another walk. ‘My own bungalow included?’

  ‘If it is in Skelington Bay, yes.’

  ‘Phew,’ said the estate agent. ‘That won’t come cheap I can tell you. I’ve just had these coach-lamps fitted on the gateposts that light up when you drive in at night.’

  ‘Very classy,’ said Stephen Craik, wincing within.

  ‘Very,’ Mr Rodway agreed. ‘I’ll hate to part with DAVE-LES, but when the Grand Lodge Master plays the Bon Tempi organ, all those of the apron must dance to The Birdie Song, eh?’

  ‘My sentiments entirely.’

  ‘Crikey!’ said the estate agent, examining his computer screen. ‘I had no idea that my bungalow would be worth that much.’

  Stephen Craik shook his head and did a little sighing. ‘Will this take long?’ he asked. ‘I am on a very tight schedule.’

  ‘Not long.’ Further finger walking. ‘My old mum would be better off in an old folks’ home anyway. Now let’s see. Gosh, who’d have thought a small terraced house in this neck of the woods would be worth as much as that?’

  ‘Any brothers or sisters?’ asked Stephen Craik.

  The estate agent looked up from his screen to catch a wild-eyed look which told him, ‘Watch it!’

  ‘Quite so.’ He returned to his calculations. ‘All done,’ he said at not too great a length. ‘Care to see the total?’

  ‘Just read it out and I will pay you at once.’

  ‘That’s the way I like to do business.’

  ‘I’ll just bet it is.’

  And it was.

  Documents of a legal nature were drawn up with a rapidity which would have quite surprised the average house purchaser. Money changed hands. Hands were again clasped, knuckles pressed.

  ‘A pleasure doing business with you,’ said David Rodway.

  ‘All the rest,’ said Stephen Craik.

  ‘The rest, you said?’

  ‘I did say all the rest, yes. I want all the rest by Monday at the latest and my sponsor wants the town cleared of all of its occupants by Wednesday.’

  David Rodway counted money into his wall safe. ‘Can’t be done,’ said he, in a casual tone.

  ‘Must be done,’ said the wild-eyed young man, in a tone so far from casual, as to be positively non-casual by comparison.

  ‘Can’t be,’ Mr Rodway closed his wall safe. ‘Logistically impossible. We have a town here of between fifteen and twenty thousand people. Plus all the holiday-makers. You couldn’t move that many people in that time. You’d need about ten thousand removal lorries. They couldn’t all get down the streets, even if you could get them all here. Which you couldn’t. And plenty of people would refuse to move anyway. And you can’t buy municipal swimming-baths and the police station. Or the McDonald’s. You and I both know who owns McDonald’s.’ (The Antichrist, alledgedly.)

  ‘My sponsor wants all,’ said the wild-eyed young man. ‘And when he says all, he means all. He will be butted no buts.’

  ‘Butted no buts, is it? Well, he’d have to be the great butter of no buts himself to pull that one off.’

  The wild-eyed young man raised a knowing eyebrow.

  ‘You don’t mean—’ The estate agent took on whiteness as a facial hue. ‘Not—’

  ‘He,’ said Stephen Craik. ‘As I was so informed last night.’

  ‘The Grand High . . .’

  ‘Do not speak his sacred masonic title aloud.’

  ‘Well, commit an act of gross indecency upon my beagle!’ exclaimed the estate agent. ‘And my wife’s border collie dog, Ben.’

  ‘Think,’ said the wild-eyed young man. ‘There must be some way by which it can be done.’

  ‘I’m trying to think,’ said Mr Rodway. ‘But fair dos, you walk in off the street with a proposition like this. A proposition that has him behind it. You’re telling me you want the whole of Skelington Bay cleared by next week. Great canine rogerings! That includes this shop. My livelihood!’

  ‘I have no doubt you’ll surprise yourself when you consult your computer and see how much your livelihood is worth.’

  ‘I’m quite sure I won’t,’ said the estate agent, constructing a figure and adding an extra zero to it for good measure. ‘But I’m still telling you it can’t be done. OK, offered sufficient money most people will sell up. And if the PM is behind this, then no doubt all the public bodies, town hall and what-nots can be cleared. But you won’t get everyone out.’

  ‘There has to be some way. There just has to.’

  ‘You’d have to get them out by force,’ said the estate agent. ‘Evict them. That can be done, of course, but it will take time.’

  ‘There isn’t time.’

  ‘Then you’d have to come up with something that would make them want to move of their own accord. At once.’

  ‘Like some impending natural disaster, do you mean?’

  ‘That sort of thing, yes. Although we’re not big on natural disasters in this country.’

  ‘A threat to health then,’ said the wild-eyed young man, with his wild eyes flashing. ‘A toxic-waste spill or the release of some deadly virus.’

  ‘Now you’re cooking with gas. And yes, hang about. I have the very thing.’ The estate agent swung out a filing draw from his desk and pulled from it a copy of Property News.

  ‘Ever seen one of these before?’ he asked the wild-eyed young man.

  ‘Naturally. It’s one of those free property papers that are pushed through people’s doors. They always have headlines screaming, WHOOPIE THE RECESSION IS OVER. NOW IS THE TIME TO SELL YOUR HOUSE. And contain about as much truth as The Weekly World News or The National Enquirer.’

  ‘No need for that kind of talk. But there’s a little articl
e in this week’s, if I can find it. Ah yes. Look at this.’

  MYSTERIOUS DEATH AT COLLINS’ FARM.

  At a coroner’s inquest held last week at Skelington Bay to investigate the mysterious death of local farmer Andrew Collins, evidence was put forward that he had fallen victim to the long dreaded crossover of the cattle disease Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.

  ‘No, no, no,’ said the wild-eyed one. ‘BSE’s no good. No-one believes it will really cross over to human beings.’

  ‘Yes, but it has, sort of. I saw the coroner’s report.’

  ‘So one farmer dies of BSE. It’s not a cause for panic exactly, is it?’

  ‘He didn’t die of BSE. He died because his tractor had repeatedly driven back and forwards over him.’

  ‘I don’t think I quite understand what you’re saying.’

  ‘I’m saying that the farmer never caught BSE. His tractor did. The disease has made the crossover but not to people. To vehicles. If you want to clear people from Skelington Bay, how better than to spread it about that this very town is the epicentre of a new and terrible plague?’

  ‘Which is what?’

  ‘MCD,’ said the estate agent. ‘Mad Car Disease.’

  21

  ‘Where is my car?’ asked Cornelius Murphy.

  The two tanned lovelies in the boob tubes and the white bikini bottoms looked up at him.

  ‘I’m sorry we had to nick it,’ said Thelma, for it was she.

  ‘But we couldn’t stick around and wait for the police to arrive,’ explained Louise, for it was she, also.

  ‘Ah,’ said Cornelius. ‘It’s like that, is it? So where is my car now? I’d really like to have it back.’

  ‘It’s in the private car-park in front of the Skelington Bay Grande.’ Thelma pointed towards that once-proud edifice.

  ‘So it’s probably been clamped by now. Thanks a lot.’

  ‘It hasn’t been clamped, the proprietor—’

  ‘Kevin,’ said Louise.

  ‘Yes, Kevin, he flagged us down when we were passing and asked if we’d like to park there. Said it would give his car-park a bit of class.’

  ‘Nice one. Keys please.’

  Thelma produced the car keys. From where? From her shoulder-bag of course.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Cornelius. ‘Did you get down here last night then?’

  ‘No, we dossed in an abandoned farmhouse.’

  ‘Collins’ Farm,’ said Louise. ‘Nice place, deserted though.’

  ‘Do you have any money?’ Cornelius asked.

  ‘No, but I see your little mate has.’

  ‘I do,’ Tuppe appeared, struggling beneath the weight of coins which filled the straw hat a lady had lent him to take up the collection. ‘And where is Cornelius’s car?’ he asked.

  Cornelius jingled the keys. ‘At least we now have somewhere to sleep tonight.’

  ‘We certainly do,’ said Tuppe. ‘But it’s not in the car.’

  ‘It’s not?’

  ‘It’s not. Boris and I have been talent-scouted. We met this really nice fellow. He’s a theatrical agent. We’re going to do a Summer Season. Right here. At the Skelington Bay Grande.’

  ‘All roads lead to the Grande then. Because that’s where Thelma and Louise have parked the car.’

  ‘That is handy,’ said Tuppe. ‘Because the agent can only get accommodation there for Boris and I. So you’ll have to sleep in the car. On your own.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Cornelius. Then, turning an approving eye upon Thelma and Louise who were wildly applauding the encore of Boris the dancing sheep, he added, ‘I may have to sleep in the car. But not on my own, if I can help it.’

  Tuppe followed the direction of his best friend’s approving eye-turn and said, ‘Hm,’ also. ‘I think I’ll have to call my agent about this and discuss the matter.’

  ‘Perhaps over lunch,’ Cornelius suggested. ‘For us all’

  ‘Over lunch at the Grande?’

  ‘Over lunch at the Grande.’

  So lunch at the Grande it was.

  ‘We’re all together,’ Tuppe told the waitress in The Manilow Bar, the ‘classy’ cocktail lounge of the Skelington Bay Grande. ‘We are awaiting the arrival of my theatrical agent, who is booked in here.’

  ‘D’ya wanna order sumfin while ya waitin’?’

  ‘Certainly do,’ said Tuppe. ‘Bring us an assortment of cocktails in garish colours, with little umbrellas and sparklers in the tops. Charge them to my agent, Mr Showstein.’

  ‘Mr Showstein?’ Cornelius asked.

  ‘Sammy Showstein,’ said Tuppe. ‘Friend to the stars.’

  ‘Sounds about right.’

  ‘Warrabout the sheep?’ asked the waitress.

  ‘He’ll have a cocktail too. Better bring him a straw.’

  ‘Two straws,’ said Boris.

  ‘Two straws,’ said Tuppe.

  ‘How d’ya do that?’ the waitress asked.

  Tuppe scratched his little head. ‘Well, I suppose that instead of bringing just one straw, you bring another straw as well, and that makes two straws. Of course, you might have your own preferred method of doing it.’

  ‘You ‘avin’ a laugh?’ enquired the waitress. ‘I meant how d’ya make the sheep talk like that?’

  ‘He’s a ventriloquist,’ said Cornelius. ‘Could we also have some of those little bowls of stuff that look like budgie food.’

  ‘Or dervs?’

  ‘Yes, dervs will be fine, if you don’t have the other.’

  ‘You two are frigging mad,’ was the waitress’s conclusion, as she tottered away on three-inch stiletto heels.

  ‘Attractive woman,’ said Cornelius. ‘Very amenable.’

  ‘Very long legs,’ said Tuppe. ‘That would be some kind of Playboy bunny costume she’s wearing, would it?’

  ‘More sort of Lola the Showgirl, I think.’

  ‘We must introduce her to Mr Showstein then.’

  ‘Yes, indeed we must. This is a most unspeakable cocktail lounge, isn’t it?’

  And it was. Those pink mirrors that emphasize a bad complexion. Those precarious bar stools that emphasize bottom cleavage. Those swirly-whirly carpet tiles again, which emphasize the purchaser’s love of an all-through-the-hotel, coordinated-flooring effect.

  Those . . .

  ‘Here comes Mr Showstein now,’ said Tuppe.

  Cornelius turned and saw. ‘That’s not “Mr Showstein”, that’s “Mr Justice Wilberforce”, or rather whoever played him at the County Court.’

  ‘Kyle McKintock,’ said Tuppe. ‘But that’s never Kyle McKintock.’

  ‘I never said it was.’

  ‘Mr Showstein’ now caught sight of Cornelius Murphy. ‘Oh dear,’ he said, doing a sharp about-turn.

  ‘No you don’t,’ the tall boy’s long legs carried him across the cocktail lounge at an easy, loping pace. He caught the bogus magistrate by one padded shoulder of the rather dazzling suit that now encased his sturdy frame.

  ‘Mr Murphy,’ said Mr Showstein, affecting a sickly grin. ‘Fancy seeing you here. I thought you were all—’

  ‘Locked up?’ Cornelius asked. ‘Do come and join us please.’

  ‘I’d really rather not. You being here somewhat complicates matters for me. I think I’d best be going. Hey now, hold on, what are you doing?’

  Some call it ‘frog-marching’, others ‘bums-rushing’. They’re not quite the same, this was a bit of both. The bogus magistrate, now turned friend to the stars, found himself deposited between Thelma and Louise, who were sitting down, perhaps on a sofa.

  ‘Pardon me, dear ladies,’ said Mr Showstein, straightening the lapels of his dazzling suit: a sort of blue lurex with a noisy pink check.

  ‘Are your shoes waterproof?’ Thelma asked.

  ‘I expect so, why?’

  ‘Because that suit’s a real pisser.’

  ‘Ho, hm. Most amusing. Showstein’s the name, Samuel Showstein. My card.’

  ‘Mr Showstein’ produced his card and han
ded it to Louise.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Louise.

  Cornelius glared down at Mr Showstein. ‘You froze my assets,’ he said.

  There was a moment’s silence. Which was tribute to the street credibility of Thelma and Louise.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault. I was hired to do it. I told you, I needed the wages to pay for my wife’s hip replacement.’

  ‘Who paid you? Who has control of my money now?’

  ‘I mustn’t say. I really mustn’t.’

  ‘You really must.’ Cornelius raised a fist.

  ‘Cornelius,’ said Tuppe.

  ‘Tuppe?’ said Cornelius.

  ‘Cornelius, I’ll bet if you just gave this a moment’s thought, you could narrow down the suspects in the case of your frozen assets to one single fellow. One perhaps who has a great love of money and has now acquired yours. One who wanted you locked up and out of the way so you would not interfere with whatever diabolical scheme he is presently engaged upon.’

  ‘Isn’t that two suspects?’ asked Mr Showstein.

  ‘No, it’s just the one and Cornelius knows exactly who that one is.’

  ‘Hugo Rune,’ said Cornelius Murphy, in a tone that lacked not for bitterness.

  ‘I never said that,’ Mr Showstein got a serious shake on. ‘I never gave his name away. It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Cornelius waggled his fist beneath Mr Showstein’s nose.

  ‘I couldn’t say. I really couldn’t say.’

  ‘Er, Cornelius.’

  ‘Yes, Tuppe?’

  ‘Cornelius, I don’t wish to come on as Mr Smarty-pants here, but we did know that Rune was on his way to Skelington Bay. The private eye you hired to find him told me, didn’t he? And this is the poshest hotel in Skelington Bay and Rune is a man who likes his creature comforts and—’

  ‘Yes, OK, Tuppe. I get the picture.’ Cornelius waggled his fist once more. ‘What is Rune up to?’ he enquired this time.

  ‘I don’t know. Honest I don’t. My job was to play the part of the magistrate, get you locked away and have all your money transferred into Mr Rune’s account. Mr Rune set the whole thing up, even the policemen arresting you; he hired the County Court for the trial, told the Council he was shooting a movie there.’