A great bowel-loosening roar, accompanied by a strong smell of brimstone, made him leap back most nimbly.
Lester turned round in circles and danced a foolish jig. ‘Who’s in there? You coward! Come out here and fight, you dirty—’
But his words were drowned by a deeply timbred voice, and one not unlike that of the now legendary Charles Laughton himself, which boomed the words, ‘I AM LEGION. WE ARE MANY.’
And yes they were in capital letters and yes worse was yet to come.
Now to Lester Total, practising atheist and ex-tomato cultivator, the post box’s words meant nothing. ‘You just come out,’ he cried, making fists and rolling up his sleeves (which is tricky to do at the same time). ‘Come out and get your medicine.’
A gust of evil-smelling icy wind knocked him from his feet.
‘Oh, you want to play dirty, eh?’ yelled the game little fellow, who knew naught of devil possession and cared even less. ‘Well, we’ll see about that. We’ll see about that.’
The post box gave vent to a stream of unprintable vulgarity, rounded off with a graphic description of the present sexual habits in Hell of Lester’s long-deceased mum.
‘Well,’ said Lester, in a manner not unknown to Jack Benny.
A lady with a straw hat and matching shopper had been watching from the bus stop. ‘Is it that Jeremy Beadle?’ she asked.
The post box told her in no uncertain terms just what it would like to do to her. The lady left in a red-faced huff, wishing desperately that her husband might be up to that kind of thing once in a while.
Lester stood and fumed.
The post box stood and smouldered.
‘Right,’ said Lester, sleeves now rolled and fists firmly made. ‘This is your last chance. Come out now. Or I’m coming in.’
The post box offered a stinking belch.
‘Okay,’ said Lester. ‘That settles it.’
And just then Archroy drew up in a Robin Reliant that he had recently, (with the aid of a kit he had bought through Exchange and Mart) converted into a Red-Faced Huff.
‘What’s on the go?’ asked Archroy, winding down the window. ‘Why are you trying to climb into a post box?’
With stuttering speech and much fist-raising, Lester appraised Archroy as to the current state of affairs.
‘Ah,’ said Archroy, issuing from his Huff. ‘That sounds to me like a case of flying starfish from Uranus.’
Archroy had pretty definite opinions on most things. Particularly the rising cost of milk, although that need not concern us here. ‘I’ll tell you what we need for this,’ said Archroy. ‘We need a bucket of chicken droppings.’
‘We do?’ Lester asked, whilst keeping his fists up. ‘Are you sure we do?’
‘Would you stay in there if someone dumped a bucket of chicken droppings on you?’
‘Now there,’ said Lester, ‘you have a good point.’
And Archroy did.
Now it might occur to the discerning reader that here the tale had reached a point which could well be described as ‘far-fetched’.
After all, where would one come by a bucket of chicken droppings in Brentford?
‘I’ll pop over to the allotment and scoop one up from my chickens,’ said Archroy, saving the tale’s credibility.
And Archroy did.
‘Right,’ said he on returning. ‘The blighter still in there?’
‘Are you still in there, you blighter?’ Lester shouted.
A nerve-shattering peal of laughter informed them that it (they) was (were).
‘Well, have some of this,’ said Lester, hefting up the bucket.
There was a hideous scream and the post box rocked. Jets of steam blew hither and thus. There were rattlings and quiverings, voices cried in Latin, Greek and the Hebrew tongue. And then there was a kind of imploding bang and the post box returned to its normal self. Which wasn’t a self at all, but just a post box.
‘Gotcha,’ said Lester.
A policeman stepped out from behind a parked Huff. ‘I saw that,’ said the Bobby. ‘And you’re both nicked.’
The magistrate gave Lester Total and Archroy three months apiece for tampering with the Queen’s mail. He explained, during his summing up, that he would have been more lenient, but that he held the two of them directly responsible for the fact that his new Jaguar now answered to the name of Legion and refused to come out of the garage.
Such is life.
20
ACTION HOTTING UP
Inspector Westlake was not having a nice day. He’d had an early-morning phone call from Mr Gold-Topp the milkman. Mr Gold-Topp had drawn the inspector’s attention to the fact that bottles and newspapers were beginning to pile up upon the doorsteps of two houses on his round, and that both these houses were in Moby Dick Terrace.
With weary resignation the inspector got hurriedly onto the case and had his lads apply the big basher-in to the front doors in question. Revealing, to their shared horror, the new horrors within.
‘Perhaps there’s a gang of them,’ said Constable Dreadlock, who had brought his box Brownie this time and was rapidly snapping pictures to sell to the gutter press. ‘Or maybe it’s the Council, trying to clear the area for redevelopment.’
‘Morning, Westlake,’ said Fridge-Magnet Gould. ‘Trying for a new record, are we? Ooh, that’s decorative, isn’t it? How would you describe that?’
‘It’s a sort of maze,’ said Constable Dreadlock. ‘The small intestines have been stretched and laid out on the carpet. The inspector’s trying to work out how you get to the head in the middle.’
‘Shut up,’ said Inspector Westlake, as it was the best he could manage under the circumstances. He wasn’t really a ‘murder’ man, he was strictly a ‘drug bust’ man. You knew where you were with a drug bust. You got the tip off, stormed in, arrested the suspects (guilty parties), had them banged up, then divided the spoils and sold them off. That’s the way he did business. The same as all inspectors.
But madmen on the loose. Not his cup of tea at all.
‘Any clues?’ asked Fridge-Magnet, fanning at his nose.
‘No,’ said Inspector Westlake. ‘None at all.’
‘Well, there are some,’ said the constable.
‘Oh right.’ Inspector Westlake glared at his inferior. ‘Constable Bread-locker has solved the case.’
‘It’s Dreadlock, sir. Armenian, it means “He who walks through the cornfield eating a Cadbury’s flake”.’
‘I thought you said it was Dutch yesterday.’
‘No, yesterday I said it was German.’
‘The Germans bombed my favourite chip shop in the war,’ said the inspector. ‘You can forgive a race just so much, but no more.’
‘German on my mother’s side,’ said Constable Dreadlock. ‘But actually I do think I’ve solved the case.’
‘Oh, please do tell us then.’ Inspector Westlake took to picking his nose.
‘Well,’ said the constable, ‘remember in Mrs Roeg’s back parlour, there was a carrier bag with an unopened bottle of Jim Beam and a packet of fags on the table.’
‘Yes,’ said the inspector, who actually did remember.
‘Well, in the house we’ve just come from next door there was a carrier bag on the table with a bottle of gin in it. And look over there.’
‘What over there where the ribs have been piled together to resemble–?’
‘A greenhouse,’ said Fridge-Magnet Gould. ‘It looks like a greenhouse. Or the Crystal Palace. See the way the finger bones are stacked into little towers at each end.’
‘Yes, well, over there,’ said the constable. ‘On the table. There’s another carrier bag, with another bottle of gin sticking out.’
Inspector Westlake looked at the constable.
And the constable looked at Inspector Westlake.
And Fridge-Magnet Gould looked at the both of them. Dickheads, he thought.
‘No, honestly. Come on, Inspector, sir. It’s got to be it, hasn’t it? It’s
the bloke at the off-licence.’
‘Mr Doveston? How dare you? That man is a pillar of the community. He’s a member of the Rotary Club. On the Special Functions Committee.’
‘Not him,’ said the constable. ‘The weirdo with the white hair. The one who’s always talking to himself.’
‘Arrest the psycho,’ cried Inspector Westlake.
The psycho was having his breakfast. ‘Any more toast?’ he asked.
‘Not so loud,’ said the gentleman, nursing his head.
‘Any more toast?’ whispered Danny.
‘Not so loud with the damn chewing.’
‘Sorry.’
The gentleman sipped black coffee. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘now that you’ve repeated all the things you told me last night while I was napping, I think they have much to merit them. Assuming, of course, that you are not pulling my pudenda about this Mickey Merlin character.’
‘He’s the business,’ said Danny. ‘He was Hugh Grant once for an evening.’
‘He told you that?’
‘He did. I treated it with the contempt it deserved, of course.’
‘Of course you did. But if it is true and this book of spells of his really works… Interesting possibilities.’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Danny.
‘Oh dear,’ said the gentleman.
‘I was thinking that as I can’t go back to my job and as I will be working with you until we’ve saved the world, I ought to be paid for my services.’
‘What? I mean, pardon me?’
‘It’s only fair. You’ve been involved in this for years, I’ve been at it a matter of hours. I’m making all the good moves though, aren’t I?’
‘We might discuss something of a financial nature. But certainly not now.’
‘Over lunch then.’
There was a knock at the door.
‘Come,’ said the gentleman.
The door opened and Parton Vrane entered the big airy room. ‘Good-morning, sir, Danny,’ he said.
‘Sir Danny,’ said Danny. ‘A knighthood might be good also.’
‘What have you to report, Mr Vrane?’
‘The Brentford Constabulary have just raided Mr Orion’s lodgings.’
‘What?’ Danny spat coffee all over the gentleman.
‘You weren’t a very careful serial killer,’ said Parton Vrane.
‘I wasn’t any kind of serial killer. It wasn’t me. It was the thing in my head.’
‘I wonder how well that argument would stand up in court,’ mused the gentleman. ‘With all the jury seeing that you’re a clear, and everything.’
‘This is terrible.’ Danny buried his head in his hands.
‘Perhaps now would be the time to discuss rent.’
‘Rent?’ Danny moaned.
‘Of the Chesterfield. Will you be staying long? Should I charge you by the week?’
Danny added a groan to his moan. And then he jumped to his feet. ‘All right,’ said he. ‘No more mucking about. I want the monster that was in my head brought to justice. And I want all those other horrible things off all my friends and everyone else. Let’s go and grab Mickey Merlin and his book of spells. Once we’ve got that far we can work out the rest.’
‘Bold talk,’ said the gentleman. ‘But perhaps we should leave this side of it to Mr Vrane.’
‘I’ll go with him,’ said Danny. ‘And I’ll talk to Mickey.’
‘I don’t know who this Mickey Merlin is,’ said Parton Vrane. ‘But whoever he is, his Rider will make him hate you, make him want to kill you.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘This is very foolish,’ said the gentleman.
‘Yes,’ agreed Danny. ‘But it should be pretty exciting.’
21
Conscience is not the voice of God, but the fear of the police.
HELVETIUS.
WHAT MAKES DANNY RUN?
They drove through the very streets of London Ralph McTell used to sing about. Not that Ralph ever sang about what Danny saw as he was driven along. ‘Have you seen the old bloke with the Rider on his shoulders, going to his office and he doesn’t know a thing?’ etc. Danny shuddered and kept low down in his seat.
‘It’s special glass,’ Parton Vrane explained. ‘No-one and no thing can see in.’
‘All my life,’ Danny shuddered. ‘All my life I’ve had one of those things on my shoulders. Watching everything I did. Going to the toilet and—’ Danny thought of that thing which all men do on a regular basis, but few if any are prepared to own up to.
‘Pulling your plonker?’ asked Parton Vrane.
‘Leave it out,’ said Danny. ‘But while we’re on the subject, do you have a plonker to pull? The gentleman told me you’re half beetle. Do beetles have plonkers?’
‘Big blue ones,’ said Parton Vrane. ‘They’d frighten the life out of you.’
‘Hmmph!’ And Danny sank into silence.
It was naturally a while before they reached Brentford and during the journey Danny explained all about Mickey Merlin and his book of spells. Parton Vrane asked this question and that in his raspy-whispering dead-pan voice, and Danny couldn’t be quite certain whether he was making the mock or not.
‘Are you making the mock?’ he asked.
‘Not,’ said Parton Vrane.
‘That’s all right then.’
And onward they drove. The day was fine. The sky was blue and if it hadn’t been for the burden of the terrible truth about the Riders’ existence pushing down upon Danny’s shoulders like a sumo wrestler’s backside, he would have felt that natural sense of wonder and all-pervading well-being that everyone always feels as they enter the borough of Brentford.
The way the sun dances upon the windows of the tower blocks.
The beauty of the local womenfolk.
The architectural splendours of The Butts Estate.
The finest hand-drawn ales for miles around.
Ah, Brentford!
‘Were you brought up in this hole?’ asked Parton Vrane.
‘Hole?’ Danny whistled. ‘That’s good coming from one who dines out of dustbins.’
‘I meant it as a compliment.’
‘Well, of course you did.’
‘Which way now?’
‘At the bottom of the High Street, turn right to the other side of the canal bridge.’
‘Right it is.’ And right they went.
Parton Vrane pulled up close by Leo Felix’s used-car emporium.
‘That’s Mickey’s hut over there.’ Danny pointed. ‘You stay in the car and I’ll go and talk to him.’
‘It’s not wise.’
‘It’s better than two clears confronting him at once. Let me talk to him, if the Rider on him is less powerful than Demolition was, then perhaps I can convince him.’
‘Take this,’ said Parton Vrane.
‘A gun?’ Danny shook his head fiercely. ‘No thanks.’
‘Stun gun,’ said Parton Vrane. ‘Electric shock. Just in case. It will only knock him out.’
‘All right.’ Danny tucked the gun into his trouser pocket. ‘Give me ten minutes.’
‘I’ll give you five. Then I’m coming in.’
‘Five then,’ and Danny left the van.
As it was now four o’clock in the afternoon, and a Tuesday, Mickey Merlin was tending to his livestock. A long-handled spade in one hand and a bucket in the other, he was mucking out his rabbits.
Danny appeared, slouching along the tow-path. This time he wasn’t smoking a cigarette, as he had none on him to smoke.
Mickey looked up to view Danny’s approach. ‘A new tactic,’ said he, ‘but I’m not fooled. Give me a Woodbine, you bum.’
‘I haven’t got any.’ Danny patted his pockets. ‘Empty, see.’
‘There’s a big bulge in the right one,’ said Mickey.
‘That’s only a pistol,’ Danny smiled.
‘Oh, I thought you were just pleased to see me.’
Mickey looked Danny up and dow
n. ‘There’s something different about you,’ he said.
‘It’s my shoes.’ Danny sought to draw Mickey’s attention away from the region of his head. ‘Sword-fish shoes, hand-made, pretty stylish, eh?’
‘That’s the same pair of brogues you always wear. It’s something else.’ Mickey blinked his eyes. Danny watched as Mickey’s hand rose to his forehead. He could clearly see the Rider that sat upon Mickey’s shoulders. It had that agitated look, its long fingers were massaging Mickey’s scalp.
‘No, it’s not the shoes,’ Danny said hurriedly. ‘Actually, it’s something else entirely. In fact, what it is, is, I need your help. Someone has done something to me.’
‘What?’ Mickey eyed Danny suspiciously. Strange thoughts were now entering the rabbit-tender’s mind.
‘I’ve had a spell cast over me,’ said Danny, as this was the ploy he had been rehearsing in his head. ‘By another magician. Not a patch on you, of course, but obviously quite nifty. This magician has cast a spell over me which makes everyone I meet hate me on sight.’
‘Yes,’ Mickey shook his head, in an attempt to clear it. ‘I see what you mean. That’s some spell. I’m beginning to hate you myself. In fact, I feel as if I’d like to—’
‘Kill me?’ Danny asked.
‘Kill you,’ said Mickey, taking a step forward. ‘Kill the clear.’
‘See what I mean.’ Danny took a step backwards. ‘Insane, isn’t it? You wouldn’t really want to kill me, would you?’
‘I’d like to kick you up the arse once in a while.’
‘But not kill me.’
‘It’s a very strong urge,’ said Mickey. ‘In fact, so strong as to almost have me convinced that you’re lying.’
‘Phew,’ said Danny. ‘And I thought you were top man when it came to magic. Many times great-grandson of the now legendary Merlin himself. Surely you’re not going to let the spell of some minor magician get one over on you?’
Mickey now began to clutch at his head. ‘I’m having a real problem with this,’ he complained. ‘There’s a voice in my bonce shouting, “Kill the clear, kill the clear!” ’