‘Your words are strange to me, dear lady,’ said Soap in a suave and silken tone. ‘But I have every reason to believe that you know what you’re on about.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t know what goes where,’ she said, and she looked up at Soap. ‘Oh my Gawd!’
‘Soap Distant’s the name.’ Soap removed his hat and goggles.
‘Oooh, your ’air,’ went the woman.
‘My apologies for my appearance. I have been many years below.’ Soap got some serious timbre into that final word: below. It was a belter of a word, below. One of his all-time favourites.
‘Below?’ said the woman.
‘Beloooooooooh,’ repeated Soap. ‘I would present you with my card, but at present I do not possess one. I thought I would wait until after my knighthood before I had any printed.’
‘Knighthood?’ said the woman.
Loony, she thought.
Soap smiled and nodded and bowed a little too. She’s a fine-looking woman, he thought, and it’s clear that she’s taken with me.
‘The door’s that way,’ said the fine-looking woman, pointing with a fine-looking hand. ‘Don’t forget to close it on your way out.’
‘I am expected,’ said Soap. ‘I have a three o’clock appointment with the editor.’
‘Ah, you’ve come about the job.’
‘Job?’ said Soap. ‘No, I am Soap Distant. The Soap Distant. Would you be so kind as to inform your employer of my arrival?’
‘Are you from outer space?’ asked the woman of fine looks.
‘Excuse me?’ said Soap. ‘Do what?’
‘Are you one of those Men in Black? Because we had one of your bunch in last week giving it all that.’ She mimed mouth movements with her fingers. ‘I said to him, “On your bike, sunshine, or off in your saucer.” That told him, I can tell you.’
‘I’m mighty sure it did,’ said Soap. ‘Would you please tell the editor that I’ve arrived?’
The woman, whose wires were now all over the place, made a face, flung down her wires and flounced away between the box-piles bound for God knows where.
Soap scuffed his boot heels and wondered at the wires.
Presently the woman returned and told him that he could go in now.
‘Thank you,’ said Soap. ‘And good luck with your wires.’
The editor’s office was a big old room, but it was also given over to boxes. Soap stepped between and through and over them and made his way to a large desk at the window.
Behind this sat the editor. He did not rise at Soap’s approach.
Soap stretched his pale paw across the desk in the hope of a hearty handclasp. The editor viewed Soap’s pale paw with distaste and folded his arms.
Soap viewed the editor.
The editor viewed Soap.
Soap saw a man in his mid to late twenties. Smartly clad with long brown hair swept back behind his ears. An intelligent face, good cheekbones, calm grey eyes and a look about him that said, ‘I’m going places.’
The editor, in his turn, saw a loony. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘Mr Bacon?’ asked Soap.
‘Mr who?’
‘Bacon. The editor.’
‘I’ve never heard of any Bacon,’ said the editor. ‘My name is Justice. Leo Justice. Known by many monikers. The Magnificent Leo. The Lord of the Old Button Hole.’ He gestured to the red rose he wore in his lapel. ‘Leo baby to the ladies, and Mr Justice to yourself.’
And indeed he was all of these things, because, although he kept the matter private, he was regularly Devil-possessed.
‘I am Distant,’ said Soap. ‘Soap Distant. You were expecting me.’
‘Ah, you’ve come about the job.’
‘No,’ said Soap. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’
‘If you can find a chair. But you can’t stay long. I’m busy.’
‘Moving out,’ said Soap, who, finding no chair, pulled up a box.
‘Moving in,’ said the editor.
‘In?’ said Soap. ‘But the Mercury’s offices have always been here. Ever since the paper was founded in Victorian times.’
‘Are you one of those Men in Black?’ asked the editor, ‘because if you are—’
‘I’m not,’ said Soap, comfying himself upon the box to the sound of cracking glassware from within. ‘I am Soap Distant. Traveller through the hollow Earth. The man who has claimed the planet’s heart for England and her Queen.’
‘Queen?’ said the editor. ‘Are you having a laugh?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Soap. ‘I’m becoming confused. Before I embarked upon my journey I communicated with your predecessor, Mr Bacon. Only by telephone, as he never seemed to have the time to see me. I told him that I intended to journey to the centre of the Earth and he agreed that when and indeed if I returned from doing so he would print my story. I offered him an exclusive. He was all for it. Said he’d hold the front page and everything.’
‘I suppose he would have,’ said the editor.
‘And when I returned, successful, just two days ago, I telephoned this office and spoke once more with Mr Bacon and made an appointment and now I’m here.’
‘I suppose you are,’ said the editor.
‘But you’re not Mr Bacon,’ said Soap.
‘No,’ said the editor, shaking his head.
‘I’m now extremely confused.’
‘Why don’t you just go home and sleep it off? Would you like me to phone for a minicab?’
‘What?’ said Soap.
‘You are clearly delusional,’ said the editor. ‘Does your condition manifest itself in bouts of uncontrollable violence? Because I must warn you that I am an exponent of Dimac, the deadliest martial art in the world, and can brutally maim and disfigure you with little more than a fingertip’s touch, should I so wish. And I will not hesitate to do so should the need arise.’
‘Come again?’ said Soap.
‘It’s just that it’s my duty to warn you. The Dimac Code of Honour. I have a badge and a certificate and a little plastic card with my photo on it and everything. Would you care to see any of these?’
‘No,’ said Soap. ‘And I am not delusional, nor am I violent. I am Soap Distant, traveller beneath, and I demand to see Mr Bacon.’
The editor sighed. ‘Mr Distant,’ he said. ‘If you really wish to pull off this scam you are going to have to work a lot harder, get your facts straight, make your story more convincing.’
‘Scam?’ said Soap. ‘Story?’
‘I see what you’re up to,’ said the editor, ‘and it doesn’t lack imagination. In fact it has a whole lot going for it. The centre of the Earth. The last frontier. Planting the flag for England. Admirable stuff.’
‘But it’s all true!’ Soap’s pale face took on a pinkish hue.
‘No,’ said the editor. ‘It’s not. You should have done your research. Found a newspaper where a former editor had died or something. Forged his signature onto some kind of contract.’
‘I … I …’ Soap began to colour up most brightly.
‘You see,’ the editor continued, ‘for one thing there never was a Mr Bacon on the staff. For another, this paper was only founded eight years ago, and for another yet we only moved in here today. Look, I founded this newspaper, I should know.’
‘No,’ said Soap. ‘Oh no no no.’ And his head began to swim and he began to rock both to and fro. And then he toppled off his box and fell upon the floor.
There is a deep dark pit of whirling blackness that detectives who work only in the ‘first person’ always fall into in chapter two. After a dame has done them wrong and a wise guy has bopped them over the head. Soap did not fall into one of these. Soap fell headlong into full and sober consciousness and leapt to his feet with a fearsome yell.
‘Kreegah Bundolo!’ cried Soap, which all lovers of Tarzan will recognize to be none other than the cry of the bull ape.
‘Have a care,’ cried the editor in ready response. ‘Beware the poison hand that mutilates your
flesh.’
‘Pictures!’ shouted Soap. ‘I have the pictures!’
‘Pictures?’ went the editor. ‘Look, I was young and I needed the money.’
‘Excuse me once more?’ went Soap. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘Oh, nothing, nothing. Do you want me to duff you up a bit? I’m feeling quite in the mood.’
‘No,’ said Soap, swaying on his toes. ‘I am a Buddhist, I abhor all forms of violence. But I do have the pictures. To prove my story.’
‘Whip ’em out, then. Let’s have a look at the beggars.’
‘Ah,’ said Soap. ‘Well, I don’t have them on me.’
‘Ah,’ said the editor. ‘Isn’t it always the way?’
‘They’re at Boots the Chemist, being developed. I’ll have them back by Thursday. I’ve got the receipt, here, I’ll show you that if you want.’
‘Don’t put yourself to the trouble. Why don’t you just come back on Thursday, with the photographs, and we’ll talk about it then. I think we might be able to come up with something moderately convincing, if we put our heads together on this one.’
‘Moderately convincing?’ Soap was now clearly appalled. ‘But it’s the truth. Everything I’ve told you is the truth.’
The editor settled back in his chair and sniffed at his bright red rose. ‘Mr Distant,’ he said. ‘I am a professional journalist. The truth rarely plays a part in my work. I sell papers. The more papers I sell, the more money I make. If papers told nothing but the truth they wouldn’t be in business very long, would they? Most news is terribly dull. You have to put a bit of a spin on it.’
‘What’s a ‘spin’?’ Soap asked.
‘It’s a slant, if you like. An interpretation.’
‘A lie,’ said Soap.
‘Just because it isn’t the truth doesn’t mean it’s a lie.’
Soap Distant picked up his hat from the floor and stuck it once more on his head. ‘I will get to the bottom of this,’ he told the editor. ‘Getting to the bottom of things is what I do best.’
‘Do whatever you like, Mr Distant. But if you wish to pursue this, and you do have some pictures, and the pictures look moderately convincing—’
‘Grrrr,’ went Soap.
‘If the pictures come out okay, then I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Right,’ said Soap. ‘Right. Well, we shall see what we shall see. But when I get my knighthood from the Queen—’
‘Ah yes,’ said the editor. ‘The Queen. This would be Queen Elizabeth, I suppose.’
‘Of course it would be, yes.’
The editor set free another sigh. ‘You really must have been underground for a lot longer than ten years,’ he said. ‘Queen Elizabeth was assassinated twenty years ago.’
‘Twenty … twenty … ass … sas … sass …’ Soap’s jaw flapped like a candle in the wind.
‘Fair pulled the old shagpile rug from under us all, dontcha know,’ said Mr Justice, shifting suddenly and seamlessly into his Lord of the Old Button Hole persona. ‘But listen, me old pease pudding, can’t spare you any more time for the mo’. Got me personal Penist popping over in five little ticks of the clock to give me me Tuesday reading. So why don’t you cut along like a nice gentleman and call back Thursday with the old snip-a-snaps. And here’ – the Lord fished out his wallet and extracted from this a one-pound note – ‘you seem a decent enough cove. Take this as a down payment on the exclusive. Can’t say fairer than that, can I?’
Soap took the oncer in a pale and trembling hand.
‘And no naughties like going to another paper, eh? I’m blessed I’ll be had for a bumpkin, you know.’
‘No,’ said Soap, ‘no,’ and he shook his head numbly and dumbly.
He gazed down at the oncer in his hand and then he screamed very very loudly.
For the face that grinned up from that one-pound note was not the face of Her Majesty. It was instead a big and beaming face. A bearded face. A toothy face.
It was the face of Richard Branson.
3
The blue sky clouded over and the rain came hammering down.
In his present state of mind it was pretty much all Soap needed. He trudged back down the High Street, striking out at the rain with a rolled-up copy of the Brentford Mercury.
The Lord of the old Button Hole had given it to him. Free, gratis and for nothing.
As a sign of good faith. Or something.
The three-inch banner headline had done nothing to raise Soap’s spirits. It read ‘LECTER’ ON THE LOOSE. Followed by the tasteful subhead ‘Cannibal psycho-chef named Dave evades police dragnet’.
Soap splashed his feet through puddles and as knife-blades of water slashed down on his hat, confusion reigned in his head.
What was going on here? This wasn’t April Fool’s Day, was it? He unrolled the sodden paper, lifted his goggles and studied the date. April the first it was not! He scrunched up the paper and consigned it to the gutter.
‘That’s where you belong,’ he told it. And then a little thought entered his head. There was one easy way to find out the truth of all this. Well, of some of it anyway. Soap rootled in his pocket and dragged out the one-pound note. Go into the nearest shop and try to spend it. Simple, easy, bish bash bosh.
He stopped dead in his trudging tracks and looked up at the nearest shop. The nearest shop wasn’t a shop as such, though it was a shop of sorts. It was a cop shop. It was the Brentford nick.
‘All right,’ said Soap. ‘If you want to know the time, ask a policeman. So …’ And then he paused and he stared and he went, ‘No no no.’
Soap knew the Brentford nick of old and, like most of Brentford’s manly men, had seen the inside more than once (though never, of course, through any fault of his own). But this was not the Brentford nick he knew. This was a smart, updated nick. A nick dollied up in red and white. A nick that no longer had the words METROPOLITAN POLICE above its ever-open door. A nick that now bore a big brash logo instead.
A brash new logo that read VIRGIN POLICE SERVICES.
Soap took a step back, tripped on the kerb, fell into the road and was promptly run down by a red and white police car.
He awoke an hour later to find himself inside the nick. Happily, not in one of the cells, but all laid out on a comfy settee. His hat and his goggles had been removed. Soap rubbed his eyes and squinted all around. The room was large and well-appointed and had the look of a gentleman’s club. The walls were bricked, with leather-bound books upon shelves of mellow mahogany. Parian busts of classical chaps stood on columns of pale travertine. There were elegant chairs of the Queen Anne persuasion. Tables that answered to every occasion. Rather nice whatnots. Lancashire hot-pots. Rabbits of yellow and purple and green.
All very poetic. All very nice.
Soap blinked and refocused his eyes. ‘No,’ said he, ‘not all very nice. Well, nice enough, but for the hot-pots and the rabbits.’
‘I tend to agree with you there.’ Soap now found himself staring into a face that loomed in his direction. It was an elegant face. It had cropped white hair at its top end, a pince-nez perched upon its nose at the middle, and a long chin sticking out at the bottom. ‘I am Inspectre Sherringford Hovis,’ said the mouth of this face, exposing a gold tooth or two. ‘And I trust that you are all hunky-dory.’
‘Hot-pots,’ said Soap.
‘Hot-pots and rabbits,’ said Hovis. ‘Part of my grandmother’s collection. Bequeathed to me by my late mother. She was mad, you see. Quite mad.’
‘Quite,’ said Soap.
‘And you are?’
‘I’m not,’ said Soap.
‘No,’ said Hovis. ‘I mean, your name. You are?’
‘Soap Distant,’ said Soap Distant.
‘That name rings a little bell. Didn’t I once run you in for an unsavoury incident involving a handbag, some chopped liver and a lady boy’s bottom?’
‘No, you did not!’ Soap struggled up to a sitting position.
‘Must have been another Soa
p Distant, then.’
‘Yes, it must.’ Soap steadied himself. The room with its hot-pots and rabbits was doing a bit of a waltz.
‘You just take it easy. I’ll have someone fetch you a cup of tea.’
‘Thank you,’ said Soap.
‘And then, when you’re feeling up to it, we’ll discuss the damage you did to the squad car and how you intend to pay for it.’
‘Excuse me?’ said Soap, and, ‘What?’
‘You quite upset the constable who was driving. He’ll probably need to have counselling. But you won’t have to pay for that, it’s covered by the company.’
‘The company,’ said Soap, his shoulders sagging.
‘Yes,’ said Hovis, and his tone lacked not for bitterness. ‘Everything is covered by the company nowadays.’
‘You’re not too keen,’ said Soap, a-rubbing at his eyes.
‘I’m an old style copper, me,’ said Hovis. ‘Haul ’em in and bang ’em up and throw away the key. But what do they get now? Fines is what they get. Every young copper is on a bonus system, all working hard for the company accountants.’
‘Oh,’ said Soap, now scratching at his head.
‘And what do I get lumbered with?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Soap.
‘Stuff and nonsense. Weirdo stuff and nonsense. Here, come and take a look at this,’ Hovis marched off to his desk and Soap rose carefully to follow.
He was quite taken with the looks of the Inspectre. The long lean frame, encased in a three-piece suit of Boleskine tweed. The stiff Victorian collar. The blue velvet cravat. The watch-chains and the pince-nez and the spats. This fellow was a ‘character’ and that was fine with Soap.
‘What do you make of these?’ asked the character, gesturing all about his desk.
‘Photos,’ said Soap. ‘You have hundreds of photos.’
‘I have thousands of photos,’ said Hovis. ‘And all showing the same damn thing.’
‘Why?’ asked Soap. ‘What are they?’
‘Take a look for yourself.’ The Inspectre pushed a pile in Soap’s direction.
Soap took one and peered at it. ‘It’s a picture of a road,’ he said.