Waiting for Godalming

  ‘Barking,’ said Icarus. ‘He’s barking mad.’

  ‘I think we should just run,’ said Johnny Boy.

  Captain Ian nudged the arm of Icarus. ‘Do you want me to punch your brother’s lights out?’ he asked. ‘I could carry him over my shoulder.’

  ‘I heard that,’ I said, checking my watch.

  ‘Oh, get real,’ said Icarus. ‘This rubbish isn’t going to work.’

  ‘I’ll give you a slice,’ I said to Johnny Boy. ‘But if there’s only one olive, I’m having it.’

  ‘Fair enough. I hope you ordered extra cheese.’

  ‘Doesn’t everybody?’

  ‘For the love of God!’ said Icarus. ‘This is insanity. There isn’t going to be a pizza man. We’re down here in the Ministry of Hell. We have to be serious. We have to escape.’

  ‘Pizza for Mr Woodwork,’ said a voice. ‘Hot pastrami, double cheese and triple chewing fat.’

  I looked at the kid called Icarus.

  And he looked back at me.

  ‘Don’t say it, kid,’ I said. ‘Don’t go getting all dewy-eyed and all choked up and saying, ‘Thank you, Mr Woodbine, you’re the bestest friend a boy could ever have.’ Just bow to the inevitable. Forget the rest, when you’re messing with the best. This is Woodbine you’re dealing with and Woodbine always gets the job done.’

  The kid was speechless and who could blame him? I took his hand in mine and gave it a shake.

  A couple of tablets dropped from his hand and into my manly palm. They looked kind of sweaty, but a tablet is a tablet and I had a real old headache from the bopping that Sam had given me.

  ‘Aspirins,’ I said.

  And I tossed one down my throat.

  13

  ‘Sit down,’ said Icarus Smith. ‘Something is about to happen to you. We don’t have much time.’

  ‘Listen, kid,’ I told him. ‘I’m done with sitting down. I have a case that needs solving.’

  ‘You have to listen, something is about to happen. That wasn’t an aspirin that you just swallowed. That was the Red Head drug.’

  ‘Who’s paying for this pizza?’ asked the pizza guy, doing that thing that they always do with their helmets.

  ‘I’m paying,’ said I. ‘And I’ve got fifty big ones for you if you give me a lift out of here on the back of your bike.’

  ‘No,’ said Icarus. ‘Hold on.’

  ‘Fifty big ones!’ said the pizza guy. Now doing that thing they always do with their gloves. ‘Hop on, Mr Woodcock, and I’ll have you away in a jiffy.’

  ‘No! Hold on!’ And Icarus made a pair of fists.

  The guy with the military bearing stepped forward to block my passage. And I don’t take kindly to that, when I’m not wearing corduroy. I drew out the trusty Smith and ‘Go West’ by the Village People.

  ‘Out of my way, fella,’ said I. ‘Or know the joy that a bullet brings, which ain’t no joy at all.’

  The guy took another step forward and I took a small one back. This guy was brave, I had to give him that.

  Now I don’t know what might have happened next. Perhaps I might have shot the guy, perhaps I might not. Perhaps the guy would have just backed off and then perhaps he wouldn’t. Perhaps I should have noticed the little guy with the singed socks who was creeping up on me and then ducked the pizza, with the double cheese and the triple chewing fat, that he hurled right into my face. But as something else happened at that very moment and none of these things did, I guess I’ll never know for sure.

  The something else that happened happened suddenly and when it suddenly happened, it was loud. That something was an alarm bell sounding and it brought with it that sense of urgency and panic that alarm bells so often do.

  ‘We’re rumbled!’ I shouted above the hubbub. ‘Follow me and let’s go.’

  They dithered for a moment, but soon bowed to my natural authority. There was a bit of rushing then and we all got stuck in the doorway.

  ‘Can five fit on your bike?’ I shouted at the pizza guy.

  ‘You don’t have to shout,’ he said. ‘I’ve got my helmet on.’

  ‘Can you get five on your bike?’ I reiterated in a moderate tone.

  ‘No problem,’ said he. ‘As long as three are prepared to run behind.’

  ‘Then let’s go for it,’ I cried. ‘Take us to the nearest bar and don’t spare the horsepower.’

  The nearest bar turned out to be the Lion’s Mane, a safari theme pub on the corner of Thor Bridge Road and not two hundred yards from the entrance to Mornington Crescent underground station.

  I entered the establishment, hacked my way through the plantain and the jungle vines and beat a path to the bar. The landlord was lean as a leopard and gamin as a gazelle. He wore a sola topi and one of those khaki safari suits that not even David Attenborough can wear without looking an utter plum.

  ‘Set ’em up, barkeep,’ I said. ‘Four gin slings and a punka wallah and none of that calling me bwana.’

  ‘Ice and a slice?’ asked the lean landlord.

  ‘A squeeze, if you please,’ said I.

  ‘Aaagh!’ went Johnny Boy. ‘There’s a big snake trying to eat our pizza.’

  ‘And a machete please, barkeep,’ I added.

  The landlord did the business and I put paid to the python.

  ‘I’ll have to charge you extra for killing the wildlife,’ said the lanksome landlord. ‘You just missed the happy hunting hour. But for a small surcharge, our in-house tailor can make you up a jacket from the snake’s skin.’

  ‘Put me down for a trench-coat and matching fedora,’ said I.

  ‘Hell’s mud huts and hinterland!’ said the long-legged landlord. ‘It’s you, Laz. I didn’t recognize you in that old tweed jacket. I thought you were that reporter guy from the Brentford Mercury.’

  I looked the lean and lanksome long-legged landlord up and down. ‘Why, Fange,’ I said. ‘It’s you. I didn’t recognize you in that sola topi. I thought it was Ally McBeal with her hair up.’

  ‘Enough of your thinnist remarks, you fat git.’

  ‘Serve the drinks up, Posh,’ said I. ‘And put some Karen Carpenter on the jukebox.’

  The landlord did as he was bid and I hacked my way to the veranda area. Here we sat ourselves down upon wicker chairs and watched the sun sinking low over the veldt, to the sound of distant tribal drums and the calls of the uzelum bird.

  ‘Damn these mosquitoes,’ said Johnny Boy, flicking flies from his forehead. ‘And damn those native drums. Beating. Beating. They’re driving me mad, I tell you.’

  ‘Turn it in,’ said Icarus. ‘You’re only encouraging him.’

  ‘Listen, kid,’ I told the kid. ‘I got you out of there, didn’t I? A big thank you might be nice. And should you wish to include a large “So sorry to have ever doubted you, Mr Woodbine, sir” you won’t find me complaining.’

  Icarus threw up his hands. ‘Look at him,’ he said to Captain Ian. ‘The Red Head drug’s done absolutely nothing. It hasn’t worked.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘My headache’s cleared up.’

  ‘But you can’t see anything different? Everything looks the same to you?’

  ‘What do you want from me, kid?’

  ‘I give up,’ said Icarus. ‘He’s barking mad. Always has been, always will be.’

  I raised my glass to the kid. ‘You sure have a funny way of saying thanks,’ I said.

  ‘I seem to recall’, said Captain Ian, ‘that it was we who initially rescued you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, thanks for that. So now, if we’ve all finished rescuing each other, I must be off on my way.’

  ‘Perhaps I should punch him,’ said Captain Ian. ‘Just once, in the face.’

  ‘Help yourself,’ said Icarus. ‘I don’t really care any more.’

  ‘Hold up, fella,’ I said. ‘You raise a hand to me and I’ll stick you with this machete where the furtling farmer stuck his toilet duck. But just let me ask you something. Why did you rescue me?’

&n
bsp; ‘Because you’re the best,’ said the captain. ‘And we need the best.’

  ‘We don’t need him!’ said Icarus. ‘Please, not him.’

  ‘We do need him,’ said the captain. ‘And whether he’s your brother, or not—’

  ‘I’m not,’ said I.

  ‘He is,’ said Icarus.

  ‘—is neither here nor there,’ said the captain. ‘We need Mr Woodbine’s help. Mr Woodbine is on a case and that case is linked directly to us. If anyone can sort everything out, that anyone is Lazlo Woodbine, private eye.’

  ‘But he’s not Lazlo Woodbine. He’s my barking mad brother,’ said Icarus. ‘We’ll just get drawn into his madness. Escaping from the Ministry on the back of a pizza man’s motorbike. Coming to a pub that’s got a jungle with a sundown in it.’

  ‘And a snake,’ said Johnny Boy, munching on the pizza. ‘Mr Woodbine hacked its head off.’

  I brandished the machete. ‘Keep your hands away from that olive,’ I told the wee man. ‘Or you’ll be playing Stumpy, in Snow White meets the Eighth Dwarf.’

  ‘We’ll end up as mad as he is,’ said Icarus.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you gentlemen to drink up and leave,’ said the landlord. ‘The yearly migration of the wildebeest will be coming through here in a minute and the management can’t take responsibility for any patrons who get trampled.’

  ‘See what I mean?’ said Icarus. ‘Absolutely barking.’

  ‘No, they don’t migrate through Barking,’ said Fangio. ‘They go across Streatham Common and down through Tooting usually. Oh, and Laz, I’ll have the trench-coat and the fedora dropped round to your office in the morning. The in-house tailor’s just come down with a bad attack of spontaneous human combustion and it will be a couple of hours before the night relief in-house tailor comes on duty.’

  ‘So it’s farewell,’ said I. ‘I’d like to say it’s been real nice knowing you guys. But as it hasn’t, I won’t.’

  ‘Wildebeest!’ cried Captain Ian, pointing over my shoulder.

  I turned around to take a look and would you believe it, the guy struck me down from behind.

  And once more I was falling into that deep dark whirling pit of oblivion. And I for one was frankly getting sick of it.

  I awoke to find myself once more in my office, with dawn’s crack on the horizon.

  ‘What am I doing back here?’ I asked, for it seemed a reasonable question.

  ‘We brought you here.’ It was the guy with the military bearing. Captain Ian ‘I’ve-got-a-hiding-coming’ Drayton. ‘The landlord gave us your office address. We brought you here in a taxi.’

  ‘The driver knew all about the knowledge,’ said Johnny Boy. ‘We came via Beat Street, Elm Street, Amityville Road, through Little China, past the Breakfast Club and the Cinema Paradiso, turned left at—’

  ‘Forget it, buddy,’ I said. ‘If that’s a running gag, it’s lost on me.’

  Captain Ian pointed a gun. It was my gun. And he pointed it at me.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Enough. We haven’t slept and I get very edgy when I haven’t slept. I might just lose my temper and beat you about the head with this pistol.’

  ‘So what do you want from me?’ I asked, in the manner known as polite.

  ‘I want you to tell us all about the case you’re on and then we’ll tell you all about the case we’re on.’

  ‘Oh,’ said I. ‘You’re on a case too, are you?’

  ‘The biggest ever,’ said Icarus.

  ‘No way, buddy. The case I’m on is far bigger than yours.’

  ‘Isn’t,’ said Icarus.

  ‘Is,’ said I.

  ‘Isn’t.’

  ‘Is too.’

  ‘Isn’t.’

  ‘Chaps,’ said Captain Ian. ‘I don’t know whether you’re brothers or not, but—’

  ‘Not,’ said I.

  ‘Are,’ said Icarus.

  ‘Not.’

  ‘Are too.’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t care,’ said the captain. ‘But I will beat you most severely with this pistol, Mr Woodbine, if you don’t tell me everything you know.’

  ‘I’ll tell you, fella,’ said I. ‘But you won’t believe a word of it.’

  And so I told them mine and they told me theirs. And when we were all well done with the telling, which took quite a fair old time and required us to send out for several more pizzas, it was slack jaws all round and a lot of heavy silence in the air.

  But I for one could hear the sound of distant applause. It was still a week distant, but I felt certain I could hear it, because now I had a handle on the case. Now it made some kind of sense to me.

  ‘The surveillance video,’ I said. ‘The one I have here in my pocket. Play it on my TV and tell me what you see.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Icarus. And he took the cassette and slotted it into my VCR.

  Now okay, I know I didn’t tell you that I owned a VCR, but hey, come on. Who in this world doesn’t own a VCR? They’re commoner than canker on a cockney codpiece.

  ‘Let it roll,’ said I and the kid let it roll.

  Icarus and Johnny Boy and Captain Ian viewed the television screen. I viewed it too, but I couldn’t see what they were seeing.

  ‘Demons,’ said Icarus, ‘two demons and they’re shooting a man. But he’s not a man, he’s golden, golden. He’s …’

  ‘God,’ said Captain Ian in a croaky choky voice. ‘They’ve murdered God.’ And he sank down onto my unspeakable carpet and buried his face in his hands.

  Icarus stared at the captain and then he stared right back at me. ‘I’m prepared to believe the evidence of the video footage,’ said he. ‘But I still don’t believe that you’re Lazlo Woodbine. You are my brother and that is that.’

  ‘Kid, I ain’t your brother.’

  ‘And how come you can’t see the demons or angels? You’ve taken the drug, but you can’t see them. It doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘I have a theory of my own about that,’ I said. ‘But if demons murdered God, a whole lot of things make sense and I can have this case wrapped up in a couple of days.’

  ‘Do what you like,’ said Icarus. ‘I don’t care. I have to make the public aware of what is going on around them. That creatures of Hell are here among us, orchestrating everything. I have to tell the world.’

  ‘Just one moment,’ said Captain Ian. ‘Back at the Ministry of Serendipity, I said that I would explain everything to you. About what is really going on in the world. Now I think would be the time for me to do it.’

  ‘Do you mind if I take a pinch of snuff before you get started?’ I asked, pulling out the silver snuffbox that was given to me by a crowned head of Europe, in reward for certain services rendered, of which I must not speak. ‘I always find that a pinch of Crawford’s Imperial, the king of snuff, helps me to cogitate at times such as these. As the poem goes, whenever the going’s getting rough, take a pinch of Crawford’s snuff. I’ve tried others, but…’

  ‘Shut your face,’ said Captain Ian. ‘Or I might just shoot you in the face.’

  I shrugged. ‘God’s widow won’t take kindly to that,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Captain Ian, ‘you’re probably right. What I’m going to tell you all concerns Her. You see, God created the Earth as a present for His wife.’

  ‘I knew that,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll shoot your balls off,’ said the captain.

  ‘Pray continue with your most interesting narrative,’ I said.

  ‘He created the Earth as a present for His wife. But that was a good many years ago and there have been many many years since, which means many many more birthdays for God’s wife. And He had to keep giving Her more and better. Women expect that, you know. God may have infinite wisdom, but even He doesn’t have infinite resources. There eventually comes a time when the bills have to be settled and it costs a great deal to construct galaxies and nebulas and black holes and splatagramattons.’

  ‘What’s a splatagramatt
on?’ asked Johnny Boy.

  ‘It’s a posher version of a carmufti.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘God kept digging deeper and deeper into His robe pockets until finally they were empty.’

  ‘So who was He paying out to?’ asked Icarus.

  ‘The cosmic builders,’ said Captain Ian. ‘The celestial corps of engineers. Everything is subject to universal laws. God might appear to simply wave His hand and cause the Earth to come into being. But certain forces have to be invoked by that bit of hand-waving. And call those forces whatever you like, they don’t work for free. God took a second mortgage out on Heaven and then a third and a fourth. And then He went bust and so the angels got evicted from Heaven. And God had to move His family to Earth. You’ve heard about people having visions of the Virgin Mary. They couldn’t have visions of her if she was up in Heaven, could they? They can only see her if she’s down here on Earth.’

  ‘So Jesus is down here too?’ said Icarus.

  ‘You’ll have seen him on the telly. But I am not at liberty to divulge his earthly identity.’

  ‘This is all too much,’ said Icarus. ‘Far too much.’

  ‘It gets worse. When God went bust, He had to sell up Hell too. So the demons all got evicted and now they’re here as well.’

  ‘And you and they have been battling it out ever since, with mankind in the middle?’

  ‘It was all predicted in the book of Revelation.’

  ‘Isn’t everything?’ said Johnny Boy. ‘But tell me this. Professor Partington reasoned that there was no afterlife. No Heaven or Hell to go to when we die.’

  ‘Not any more,’ said the captain.

  ‘But there could be again?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. And I did. ‘I know, because I’ve solved it.’

  ‘What?’ they all went. Well, they would, wouldn’t they?

  ‘I’ve solved the case,’ I said. ‘Now that I’ve heard everything the captain had to say, I know who did it and why.’

  They looked from one to another and then they all looked back at me.

  ‘Well, go on then,’ said Icarus. ‘Tell us.’

  ‘No way, buddy. Not until the final rooftop showdown. I know, but I need proof. I have to present this proof to my employer. To wit and to woo, God’s widow. When I’ve done that, I’ll tell you the lot.’