‘Well he is worth twenty-three million quid. I expect the magistrate was trying to be ironic, or something. Here, where have you gone?’
‘I’m down here,’ mumbled Tuppe, who had fallen from his bar stool and now lay on the carpet with his legs in the air. ‘In something of a state of shock.’
And the chit-chat and the merry converse had all died away. Twenty-three million pounds was an indecently large amount of wodge to mention in a lunchtime drinkery.
Unless, of course, it happened to be the Sultan of Brunei’s poolside bar.
Which it wasn’t.
‘Allow me to help you up.’ John Omally, drinker in residence and balcony ticket tout, hastened to aid the millionaire’s friend back onto his bar stool. ‘No damage done I hope.’
‘No I’m fine, thank you. But this can’t be right. Cornelius couldn’t have lost the case.’
‘He did, but it was a right conspiracy. The prosecuting counsel was a coffin dweller and the magistrate was a Hollywood bit-part player. The one who always plays magistrates in movies and you can’t put a name to.’
‘Not the chap out of Plan Nine from Outer Space?’ asked Neville the full-time barlord, presenting Scoop with his pint of Murphy’s.
‘Yeah, that’s him.’
‘Played the janitor in The Savage Bees,’ said Old Pete.
‘Wore a beard in that one,’ said Jim Pooley.
‘He was in Bug,’ said Norman Hartnell (not to be confused with the other Norman, who wasn’t called Hartnell, but whose surname begins with a B).
‘And he played the alien’s hands in Dark Star,’ said Scoop. ‘Although not a lot of people know that.’
‘Kyle McKintock,’ said Neville.
‘Kyle McKintock,’ agreed Jim Pooley, John Omally, Norman Hartnell, Old Pete and Old Pete’s dog, Chips.
‘I thought everyone knew that,’ said Tuppe.
‘Well your mate didn’t, so he got sent down. But twenty-three years isn’t so bad. He’ll be out in fifteen if he behaves himself. He’ll still be a young man. Go on talk shows and be treated as a celebrity. Like that bloke who was in the great train robbery. What was his name?’
‘Frank somebody, wasn’t it?’ asked Neville.
‘Dave,’ said Omally.
‘It was Pete,’ said Jim Pooley.
‘It was never me,’ said Old Pete. ‘I have an alibi.’
‘Didn’t Roger Daltrey play him in a film?’ asked Neville. ‘Or was that Mick Jagger?’
‘I think it was Phil Collins,’ said Scoop.
‘Yeah that’s the fellow,’ said Old Pete. ‘Phil Collins the great train robber. He’s married to that actress now, what’s her name?’
‘Twiggy?’ Jim suggested.
‘Mary Hopkins,’ said Norman Hartnel.
‘No,’ said Scoop. ‘She married someone in the music business.’
‘Phil Collins is in the music business,’ said Old Pete.
‘I thought you said he was a great train robber.’
‘Perhaps he’s married to Joan Collins then.’
‘No,’ said Neville. ‘She was married to Norman Mailer.’
‘That was Marilyn Monroe,’ said Jim.
‘That’s her,’ said Old Pete. ‘She’s married to Phil Collins now.’
‘She’s dead,’ said Jim.
‘Oh, dear, poor Phil, he must be devastated. Elvis passed away too, so I’ve heard. Not that I ever cared for him. Paul Whiteman I liked.’
‘Didn’t he use to play with Lew Stone’s Orchestra?’ asked John.
‘No, that was Al Bowly. Or perhaps it was George Melly.’
‘George Melly punched me in a pub once,’ said Jim Pooley. ‘We were arguing about Picasso.’
‘No woman’s worth two men fighting over,’ said Old Pete wisely.
‘I didn’t order a pint of Murphy’s,’ said Scoop Molloy.
‘I don’t think any of this is helping much,’ said Tuppe. ‘I have to get Cornelius out of prison and I ought to be doing it now.’
‘I wonder what would be the best way to break your friend out of prison?’ The pitch of Omally’s voice and the manner with which he delivered the line were sufficient to clear quite a fair-sized area about him at the bar.
Suddenly everyone, with the exception of John, Jim, Tuppe and Scoop, were back at their chit-chat and merry converse.
‘Do you have something on your mind?’ Tuppe asked.
‘I do.’ Omally now spoke in whispery words. ‘You see my good friend Jim here and myself have not been without the occasional epic adventure in our time.’
‘I’ve read of them,’ said Tuppe. ‘But I thought you blokes had retired from all that sort of thing.’
‘Not a bit of it. Merely resting between engagements. And I feel that, as happy chance has brought us together this day, the least that Jim and I could do would be to rescue your unjustly imprisoned chum.’
‘What?’ Jim sneezed into his pint, sending froth up his nose.
‘Go on,’ said Tuppe.
‘No, hold on,’ said Jim. ‘Surely this kind of business would involve illegal practices. The dynamiting of cell doors, the life-and-death fleeings from the constabulary. Things of that nature.’
‘Not the way I have in mind,’ said John.
‘No fear for life or limb then?’
‘The merest modicum. Jim, you’re not coming across here in your true heroic form.’
‘Coming across? What kind of talk is this? Have you taken to viewing Sony the Hedgehog or some such?’
‘Fulfilling your potential then.’
‘My glass is empty,’ said Jim. ‘Dryness of the throat inhibits my cogitation on matters which require a fullness of potential.’
‘Have one on me,’ said Tuppe, producing a mighty wad of high-denomination money notes. ‘If you could see your way clear to releasing Cornelius, I have no doubt that he would amply reward you for your efforts.’
Omally tried to draw his eyes away from the big brown bundle, but just couldn’t. ‘Might I have the same again?’ he enquired politely.
‘And me,’ said Scoop. ‘Only different.’
‘Sure thing.’
‘More in this direction, Neville,’ called Omally.
The full-time barlord hastened to oblige. ‘I trust you are not plotting sedition in my bar, John,’ said he.
‘Not a bit of it. Just chatting with this wee man.’
‘Word has reached my ear’, said Neville, ‘that Hugo Rune has returned to the neighbourhood.’
‘Villain of the piece,’ said Tuppe. ‘My chum Cornelius will sort him out though.’
‘These words are pleasing to my ears. When he does, do you think he might broach the subject of the bar bill Rune ran up here eighteen years ago. It still gives me sleepless nights.’
‘I’d be happy to. So what are we drinking?’
Omally pushed his half-pint glass aside. ‘Mine was a double whisky,’ he said.
‘Mine also,’ said Pooley.
‘And mine,’ said Scoop.
‘I’ll have a triple,’ said Tuppe.
‘This lad has class,’ said Omally. ‘Triples all round it is then.’
In a private booth next to the darts board, Omally spoke in low and earnest tones. He talked of wooden horses and escape tunnels. Of the construction of kites which might bear a fellow’s weight and be flown above a prison wall. Of bogus prison visitors, skilled in the arts of Pelmanism, who could memorize complicated computer entry codes and effect the premature release of a detainee by hacking into closed systems with advanced gadgetry. And of schemes diverse and intricate, understood by Omally alone, and requiring the up-front capital outlay of but a few paltry thousands of pounds.
At length, when he had finally run himself dry, he tore his eyes away from the wad which Tuppe still clutched, to discover that the three attentive listeners to whom he had been discoursing had now increased by a factor of one.
‘This is fascinating stuff,’ said Cornelius Murphy. ‘Don’
t stop now, I’m loving every minute.’
9
‘This is seriously appalling,’ Norman gnawed upon a knuckle. ‘I have to do something about this.’
But what?
‘Inform somebody,’ was Norman’s decision.
But who?
‘Jack,’ said Norman. ‘No, not Jack.’
The Controller then.
‘No, not him.’
Who then?
‘Who’s asking me these questions?’
Just you. You’re asking yourself.
‘Well it wasn’t very clear. But I’ll have to speak to someone.’
Who though?
‘Stop it! There’s only one person who can deal with this.’
Who? Who? Tell us.
‘God,’ said Norman. ‘I will have to speak to God.’
Cor!
‘No, stuff that. I can’t just go bothering Him no matter how bad things may appear. He knows His own business best and if He’s decided to snuff out the entire population of Great Britain the Friday after next by “electrical discharge”, then He won’t take kindly to me asking Him what on earth He thinks He’s up to. He would probably take great exception to it and smite me with a plague of boils or something.’
But then . . .
‘But then,’ Norman continued, ‘what if he doesn’t know. I’ve evidently stumbled onto exactly what I was not supposed to stumble onto here, by the simple expedient of getting out of my chair and actually opening a filing cabinet. Which I was not expected to do.
‘This is some kind of big secret. That must have been what Jack meant when he said it was the best-kept secret in the history of eternity. Somehow God doesn’t know about this.’
It was an interesting theory. Although the route by which Norman arrived at it, and whether he would actually have arrived at it by this route, and whether it was at all correct, however he might have arrived at it, were matters for debate (or even explanation).
But it was the theory that he had arrived at, and having arrived at it, he sought to test it out.
By asking God anyway.
‘And now would be as good a time as any,’ said Norman, slipping through the doorway and slinking off down the corridor.
If God in His wisdom inhabited this building, He would inevitably be doing so in the penthouse suite, or whatever its URC equivalent was, on the toppermost floor.
Norman ducked along this corridor and that. All were equally drab, but mercifully so were they empty. By the time he had finally located the lift though and pressed at its button, his knees were knocking like an Eddie Floyd hit and his mouth was dry as an author’s wit. (Hmm!)
There was still the possibility, and far from a remote one, that the Big G knew all about the electrical discharging and might give Norman that sound smiting for his impudence.
There was a little clunkity-click sound, a bell went ting and the lift doors opened.
Norman stepped speedily in and sought the top-floor button.
‘Are you going up?’ enquired a voice.
It was a deep voice. It had what is called timbre to it.
Norman nearly performed the embarrassing act which had earned him infamy when aged five.
‘Ah,’ said he, turning to view the owner of the voice.
He lurked in a shadowy corner. A big man, well over six feet and broad all around and about with it. He wore a white three-piece suit. White apparently being the company colour, which wasn’t much of a surprise, although it did lack a certain originality.
His head was a big bald dome. His nose the beak of a hawk, set amongst a generosity of jowls and dewlaps. And he was the very doppelgänger of somebody not altogether unknown to some, but still completely unknown to Norman.
The voice Norman knew though, he’d earholed it coming through Jack Bradshaw’s intercom.
It was the voice of the . . . Norman found strains of the TV theme tune from Thomas the Tank Engine springing to his lips in an involuntary nervous whistle.
The controller, for indeed it was he, viewed Norman through a pair of most alarming eyes. Dead black, with small white pupils.
‘I enquired whether you were going up,’ he enquired.
‘All the way,’ said Norman hopefully.
‘To where, one might ask? And I do.’
‘To the gymnasium,’ Norman suggested.
‘I think you had better come with me,’ said the controller.
‘I think I’d better get out of the lift,’ said Norman.
But he could not, because the lift doors had now closed, with what is known in prison circles as the now legendary Death Cell Finality.
10
‘There is a phrase currently in service,’ said John Omally, as he counted and recounted the high-denomination money notes from the wad which Cornelius had insisted Tuppe pay him, in compensation for the earnings he would have accrued had he actually been able to spring the tall boy from prison by any of the implausible schemes he’d outlined. ‘And this phrase is, as I understand it, “Employ a teenager today while they still know everything.”’
‘It’s your round I think,’ said Jim Pooley.
‘Mine was a quadruple,’ said Scoop Molloy.
‘Ours shall all be Murphy’s,’ said John. ‘God speed to your man, whatever he’s up to.’
‘What exactly are we up to?’ asked Tuppe, as the glorious open-topped, electric-blue Cadillac Eldorado left Brentford further and further behind.
‘We are heading for adventure,’ replied Cornelius, holding down his hair with one hand and trying to change into a pair of trousers that had two legs to them, with the other. ‘An adventure of the rock-and-roll persuasion, which is not all plot-led and dialogue-laden, as has been the case so far.’
‘On the trail of your errant daddy then, is it?’
‘Nope.’ Cornelius flung his brutalized bags from the car. They caught a passing cyclist full in the face, precipitating a front-wheel-entanglement incident, leading to a handlebar pass-over, litter-bin-encounter, Lycra shorts seam-split and paramedic call-out situation.
‘What do you mean, “nope”?’ asked Tuppe. ‘You’ve had a private detective hunting down your daddy for months. And now he’s found him.’
‘So?’ said Cornelius, with a foot down the wrong leg of his replacement trews.
‘Well, he’ll be up to something terrible, won’t he? Something that you should stop.’
‘Probably, but as we don’t have the faintest idea of what this might be, I don’t see what we can do about it.’
‘Oh,’ said Tuppe. ‘Fair enough then, so what are we up to? Or did I already ask that?’
‘We’re going on holiday,’ said Cornelius. ‘The zip shouldn’t be at the back of these trousers, should it?’
‘Look out for that baker carrying the huge tray of custard pies,’ said Tuppe.
Cornelius swerved around the baker, narrowly avoiding a bumper-to-bum incident, leading to tray displacement, wide area custard pie dispersal, innocent passer-by facial impact and crap slap-stick comic cliché situation.
‘Holiday?’ asked Tuppe.
‘To Skelington Bay,’ said the tall boy. ‘These aren’t my trousers. These are your trousers, they’re up past my knees.’
‘According to the private eye, your dad’s on his way to Skelington Bay,’ said Tuppe. ‘Fancy you choosing that town. What a coincidence.’
‘We shall take seaside jobs,’ said Cornelius, wrestling with his groin.
‘Jobs? What are you saying?’
‘The fake magistrate has frozen my assets.’
‘Sounds very painful.’
‘I shall pretend I didn’t hear that. But we are broke once again. The millions are no more. We’re back on the road.’
‘Just the way it should be. Shall I turn up the radio full blast and see what happens next?’
‘Do it,’ said Cornelius Murphy. ‘I’ll just pull over and pick up those two girl hitchhikers. Once I’ve made myself decent. Do you have a pair of scisso
rs, or something?’
They were beautiful girls, the hitchhikers. Tanned legs, blond hair, bloom of youth on their cheeks, high-profile nipple definition in the upper T-shirt areas. An old man’s dream and a young man’s fancy. Political correctness? Bah humbug!
‘Can we give you a lift?’ asked Cornelius.
‘Sure thing,’ said a slender beauty. ‘We’re going south.’
‘Us too, hop in.’
The slender beauty and her equally slender and beauteous companion tossed their rucksacks into the back and took to hopping in.
‘My name’s Thelma,’ said beauty number one. ‘And this is my friend Louise.’
‘Cornelius Murphy,’ said the tall boy, battening down his hair.
‘This is some great car,’ said Louise.
‘We like it,’ said Tuppe.
‘Who said that?’
‘I did.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.’
‘Cornelius?’ said Tuppe.
‘Yes, my friend?’
‘Cornelius, I would like to put in for a discontinuance of the “I didn’t see you there” running gag. I fear it might seriously interfere with my sex life.’
‘It’s dropped as far as I’m concerned, it was rubbish anyway,’ said the Murphy. ‘We’re rockin’ and rollin’ now.’
‘I was only joking,’ said Louise. ‘You’re very cute as it happens.’
‘So,’ said Tuppe, as the Cadillac sped along and left all of London far behind, ‘what do you ladies do with yourselves when you’re not hitching rides?’
‘We fly,’ said Louise.
‘You’re air stewardesses?’ Tuppe asked.
‘No, we fly,’ said Thelma. ‘We’re angels.’
‘Cornelius,’ whispered Tuppe, ‘we’ve loonies on board.’
‘Not real angels,’ said Louise. ‘We’re entering the east pier man-powered flight competition at Skelington Bay.’
‘Fancy that, because we’re going—’
‘Have to stop you there,’ said Cornelius. ‘Something is happening up ahead. I do hope it’s not a police roadblock.’
‘You never did tell me how you broke out of the cell,’ said Tuppe. ‘I assumed, by the evidence of your person, that some degree of unpleasantness occurred.’