‘Oh Hell! There isn’t, is there?’
‘No,’ said Danny.
‘Right, well you’re making the mock. Step outside.’
‘I will, don’t you worry.’
‘Chaps!’ Parton Vrane’s harsh whisper was almost a shout. ‘We really should get on. Although I’m beginning to have my doubts as to whether this is a good idea at all.’
‘It’s a great idea,’ said Mickey. ‘It’s my idea.’
‘I helped.’
‘Not much,’ said Mickey.
‘Chaps, please. Please.’
‘Well, he started it.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Chaps?
‘All right,’ said Mickey. ‘Let’s get to it. Now what I propose to do is this. I am going to recite The Spell of Mass Discombubulation. You note that is in italics and not in CAPITAL LETTERS. That is because it starts small, but it ends big. What it does is to spread panic, somewhat like a virus, from one person to another.’
‘Oh,’ said Danny.
‘But,’ said Mickey. ‘I’m not going to pass it on to a person. I am going to pass it on to Rodney here.’ Rodney took to a terrible shuddering. Danny almost felt sorry for him. Almost. ‘Rodney is then going to pass it on. It spreads geometrically. From one to two to four to eight, et cetera.’
‘Have you done this before?’ Danny asked.
‘Well, once, yes.’
‘And how many people did you spread it to?’
‘Well, not many.’
‘How many?’
‘I got in a bit of a lather,’ said Mickey, ‘and my rabbits ran away.’
‘Not a spell whose efficacy has been universally proven then?’
‘Yeah, well, I was only practising.’
‘So when they all panic,’ said Danny, ‘assuming that they will, although that seems—’
‘When they all panic,’ said Mickey, ‘Rodney here is going to communicate the message, “Quick everybody, this way.” ’
‘And which way would that be?’
‘Back to their own bloody planet. Or dimension. Or spectrum, or wherever they damn well come from.’
Danny nodded. ‘Well, I heard you tell it in the train. And I’ve heard you tell it again here. And with the sunrise and everything, have you ever heard the phrase “but in the cold light of day”?’
‘Oh, so you don’t think I can pull it off?’
‘I’m not saying that, but come on. Here we are, one serial killer, one magician with a transparent alien on his shoulders, and a half a bloke who’s mostly a beetle. Would you pit this bunch of dorks against an entire invisible race?’
‘You’re a loser, Danny. Always were, always will be.’
‘Oh yeah? Well at least I don’t have a girlfriend who makes me dress up in a school boy’s outfit and beg to be spanked.’
‘She told you that?’
‘On the night when I was you, she made me do it.’
‘You blaggard.’ Mickey swung his fist and knocked Danny out of the open hut door. Danny bowled over, but came up fighting.
‘Chaps! Please!’ Parton Vrane flapped his arm. ‘Oh, this is ridiculous, I’ll do it myself.’ He hopped over to the book of spells that Mickey had placed on his table. ‘Now let me see,’ he said. There was a bang and a flash and Parton Vrane fell down on the floor.
‘Oh, you look tough.’ Mickey squared up before Danny. ‘Sure you can manage on your own, don’t want a little bow wow to help you?’
‘Rabbit shagger!’ said Danny.
‘Right, you’ve had it.’ Mickey fell on Danny and Danny fell on Mickey back. Fists were swung and the boot went in.
‘Take that!’ went Danny.
‘East 17!’ went Mickey. Which certainly dated things a bit.
Ha, Ha, Ha went the noises off. But not very loudly.
And WAH-OOH WAH-OOH WAH-OOH! came the sound of police sirens.
‘Kill the clear!’ went the voice in Mickey’s head.
‘Oh, shut up!’ said Mickey.
CHOP-CHOP-CHOP-CHOP-CHOP-CHOP -CHOP. That would probably be the sound of a police helicopter. Oh yes, here it comes bearing down from the direction of the High Street. It’s just passing over the off-licence.
‘What’s all that bloody noise?’ asked Mr Doveston awakening from a dream of latex bondage.
‘Give in.’ Mickey had Danny’s arm up his back.
‘Buttocks!’ Danny kneed Mickey in that very area.
‘Poof!’
‘Pervert!’
‘And this one I took in the second murder house,’ said Constable Dreadlock, out strolling with a member of the gutter press. ‘See the way the lungs had been blown up and tied with ribbons. Very festive we thought that was.’
‘How much?’ asked the member of the gutter press. ‘What’s all that noise?’ he continued.
Constable Dreadlock began to load his camera.
25
WOOF!
The rabbits were restless. They looked on nervously and twitched their foolish noses as Danny punched Mickey in his.
Mickey collapsed into the hutch, bursting the chicken wire and getting all entangled. Danny danced above him, shadow boxing and poking out his tongue. The rabbits made a break for freedom.
‘Look what you’ve done!’ Mickey floundered in faeces and clawed at his gory hooter. ‘My prize Angoras, you’ll pay for this.’
‘When you’re ready. When you’re ready.’ Danny punched the air.
‘You bloody madman.’ Mickey lashed out with his foot and caught Danny in the ankle. Danny took to hopping about. Mickey jumped up and rushed at him. Down they went once more.
Inside the converted lock keeper’s hut, Parton Vrane was stirring. He was trying to get up from the floor, but it wasn’t easy, what with him only having the one arm and one leg, and everything (well, he didn’t have the everything actually), and the one arm and the one leg were both on the same side. Tricky.
The helicopter swooped in low. A head poked out of the passenger window. The force of thrashing blades blew its wig off. The head ducked back inside. It was the head of the gentleman. ‘Land here?’ he shouted, in the voice of Demolition.
‘I can’t land here, there’s not enough room.’ The pilot shook his head fiercely. His head had a full head of hair, and a cap on it.
‘Land here! At once!’
‘No. I won’t!’
The police presence was increasing. Five squad cars were already lined up on the forecourt of Leo Felix’s used-car emporium. Officers were scrambling from these, belting on flak jackets, strapping visored helmets into place, handing round the weapons.
Constable Dreadlock sidled up, Brownie at the ready. ‘Could I have a go of one of those pump-action jobs?’ he asked.
‘No you can’t,’ he was told. ‘Just push off.’
And folk were issuing into the High Street. Folk in foolish dressing-gowns and awful carpet slippers. Folk who wanted to know what all the fuss was about at this early hour. Folk who demanded to be told. Police motor cyclists swept between them, loud hailers blaring. ‘Clear the streets. Return to your homes.’
Not what they wanted to hear.
MrDoveston hurried into his trousers and armed himself with what looked at first glance to be an oversized pink rubber truncheon.
Mickey had Danny by the throat and was banging his head up and down in the dirt and droppings. Danny flung up an arm and poked Mickey in the eye.
Parton Vrane had an arm up also. He was trying to hook Mickey’s book of spells from the table with a trowel.
The helicopter turned in faulty circles. There seemed to be a bit of a struggle for control going on in the cockpit.
Another police car slewed to a halt on Leo’s forecourt, rousing Brentford’s token Rastaman from his dreams of Zion. Wearing nothing but a pair of Bob Marley boxer shorts, Leo held fast to the chain on his Dobermann. ‘Get off me land, Babylon!’ he shouted. ‘I an’ I set me dog on yo’.’
An ashen-faced Inspector Westlake clim
bed painfully from the latest police car. He’d turfed out the driver and driven all the way from Whitehall himself. He was swathed in blankets and looked in no mood to be trifled with. ‘Officer, arrest that dog,’ he ordered. ‘And search the place for drugs.’
‘Police harassment.’ Leo loosened the chain on his hound. ‘Call me solicitor, someone, I is bein’ oppressed again.’
The dressing-gowned crowd now gathering on the bridge above, cat-called and hooted. They all liked Leo. Leo was all right.
Danny wasn’t, nor was Mickey. But they went at each other hammer and tongs. Rolling backwards and forwards, punching, gouging. Men behaving badly.
‘Hah.’ Parton Vrane had the book on the floor. He turned the pages with the trowel. ‘I shall do this all by myself,’ he whispered. ‘There can’t be much to reciting a spell.’
Oh dear.
Back on the forecourt Inspector Westlake stumbled along the rank of heavily armed policemen. They all stood to attention, looking very tough. Blanket-wrapped and wretched, Inspector Westlake looked anything but tough and the Dobermann which now clung to his trouser seat, hampered his movements and did nothing to boost his morale. ‘N…now,’ stammered the inspector, teeth rattling, lips rather blue. ‘I don’t want this cocked up. Joe bloody public is watching.’
Joe bloody public booed and hissed. ‘Fascist pigs,’ called someone.
‘In like Flint,’ said Inspector Westlake. ‘No happy triggers. Arrest the suspects. You can’t bloody miss them, that’s them over there.’
He pointed to the other side of the canal, where Mickey and Danny still battled it out. ‘That is all. Get to it.’
The line of policemen viewed the inspector in the blanket shawl. They didn’t like the look of him one bit. Inspector Westlake viewed them back and made a puzzled face. ‘If I didn’t know better,’ he said to himself, ‘I’d be tempted to think that all these officers had little transparent men with big heads sitting on their shoulders. ‘Well, go on,’ he told them. ‘Go on.’
The policemen didn’t move.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ asked Inspector Westlake.
The helicopter made a very low pass. A door flew open and the pilot flew out. With an ‘AAAAGH!’ that could be heard above the chop of blades, he fell into the canal. The crowd on the bridge applauded this. Constable Dreadlock snapped pictures.
Inside the converted hut Parton Vrane found his page. THE SPELL OF MASS DIS-COMBUBULATION. He perused the text. ‘Having performed the banishing ritual of the pentagram and sanctified the temple,’ he read. ‘Yes, blah, blah, blah. Within the sacred circle, well, we don’t have one of those, so let’s skip that. The magician in his purified garments… Yes, blah, blah. Raises both hands and calls forth the invocation. Well I’ve only got the one hand, but I can’t see that matters. Upon completion of the spell cry the word “PANIC” in capital letters. All seems straight-forward stuff, I can’t see any problem here.’
Oh dear. Oh dear.
The helicopter dipped alarmingly. The gentleman was ex-army, he didn’t know how to fly an aircraft. The dog in his head also lacked for such skills. The gentleman’s hands clung tight to the joystick. ‘I think I’ve fouled up here,’ said A Dog called Demolition.
‘You’re a clear,’ said a policeman with a gun.
‘A what?’ asked Inspector Westlake. ‘Will somebody get this dog off my arse?’
‘Designate subject,’ read Parton Vrane. ‘Rodney the Rider on Mickey Merlin,’ he said. ‘Intone spell. Fair enough, let’s see, Tenet est circum directus locum fahee. Piece of cake.’
Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.
The helicopter swept down towards the bridge, scattering the crowd. On the forecourt below, policemen were looking bewildered. Voices in their heads were crying, ‘Kill the clear. Kill the clear.’ Their training told them that’s not how to gain a promotion.
‘Get to it!’ shouted the inspector. ‘Or I’ll put you all on a charge.’
Constable Dreadlock snapped away at the policemen who were duffing up Leo Felix. ‘I’ll get these syndicated,’ he said. ‘I’ll need a good agent.’
‘Come on. Charge!’ The armed policemen looked at one another and then they reached a collective decision. They’d charge now and shoot the inspector later. Somewhere less public. That was for the best.
‘Charge!’ they went.
And charge, too, went the local constabulary. Freshly arrived on the scene and somewhat miffed. There is always rivalry between divisions. The Met versus the rest. The regional lads are never too keen about the way the London mob muscle in and get all the glory. Brentford’s boys in blue were most put out about these up-town Bobbies storming their manor. ‘Charge!’ they went, eager to be first across the lock gates.
Chug-chug and whirr. The helicopter flew in a sort of vertical Victory Roll. And helicopters can’t do that. They stall when they do that.
‘Careba, caroba haffa basanova,’ chanted Parton Vrane, in a whispery voice, but with vigour
‘Bloody Hell!’ cried Mickey, falling backwards.
‘Ready to give up, eh?’ Danny stumbled to his feet.
‘No, something’s happening. I can feel magic.’
‘You what?’
Mickey turned a decent black eye, and the other, half-closed, towards his hut. ‘It’s your beetle mate, he’s tampering with my book.’
‘You’re just bottling out.’ Danny raised a fist and then lowered it again. ‘Hell,’ said he. ‘Look at that helicopter. They stall when they do that, don’t they?’
‘Oh!’ went Mickey, pointing every which way. ‘Look at those policemen! Look at all those people!’
‘To the hut. To the hut. To the hut-hut-hut.’
To the hut they ran. And how.
Hard upon their heels came the policemen, some with guns and some without. They poured across the lock gates. And you really should do that in single file. And use both hands. Cries and shouts and the sound of bodies splashing brought joy to the crowd on the bridge.
‘Perfect,’ went Constable Dreadlock, snap-snap-snapping. ‘Now if you could just strike a pose, as if you’re clubbing down that unarmed officer with your gun. Excellent. One more. Thank you.’
‘Casa-pupo Benelux Gabba Gabba Hey,’ chanted Parton.
Chug and whirr and stut-stut-stut, went the helicopter, quite high up now and almost in slow motion.
‘Kaleorum consanostrum Hi-cockalorum.’
Mickey burst in through the hut door. ‘Stop!’ he shouted. ‘Stop, for God’s sake. You haven’t drawn a circle, you haven’t—’
‘Halmey et scrotum pakamakus. I’m doing fine,’ said Parton Vrane.
‘No you’re not, you’ll kill the lot of us.’
‘Leave this to me,’ Parton Vrane flicked over a page with his trowel. Two pages actually. ‘Hermasitas hokuspokus—’
‘That’s a different spell. Don’t chant that one. Stop, won’t you? Stop!’
STOP. Whirr and stop went the blades of the helicopter. And suddenly all became quiet.
STOP, went the policemen, looking fearfully skyward.
STOP, went the crowd, looking also.
STOP. Everything sort of STOPPED. Just STOPPED.
‘No-one speak,’ Mickey froze in the doorway.
‘What?’ asked Parton Vrane.
‘Sssh!’ Mickey put a finger to his lips.
‘What’s he done?’ whispered Danny.
‘He’s mixed two spells together. The one to put the wind up the Riders and another one.’
‘What other one?’ Danny asked. It had grown terribly quiet.
‘Just another one.’
‘What other one?’
‘A real stinker,’ whispered Mickey. ‘A medieval one to call down the wrath of God on unbelievers and vanish them away.’
‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Not if you don’t have a circle to stand in. Now just don’t say anything while I try to work out what to do. Stay silent. Say nothing. Espe
cially don’t say anything in capital letters.’
‘What, like PANIC?’ asked Parton Vrane.
And the world that was Brentford went WOOF!
26
VOICES OFF
Of course now, looking back, it’s hard to tell what really happened that day. If anything actually happened at all. Act of God, some say. Meteor say others, unexploded wartime bomb, say others still.
Rumours abound, and theories. Mostly suggesting some sinister conspiracy on the scale of the JFK assassination plot or the Roswell saucer crash. But who’s to say for sure?
Occasionally a voice is to be heard on some local station radio talk show. One claiming he was ‘there at the time and saw the whole thing’. Generally this someone is promoting a book on the subject. Though none of these sells very well.
Testimonies were taken from those who survived the holocaust, they make for an interesting, but inconclusive read. It’s all down to what you believe, I suppose. Or what you think you believe. Or think that it’s you thinking.
Danny Orion: ‘I was there, all right. In the thick of it. If it hadn’t been for me uncovering the existence of the Riders and working out a brilliant plan to defeat them, there’s no telling what might have happened. I know people think I’m a whacko and that my plea of multiple personality disorder at my trial was “unadulterated crap”, but I saw them, I know they’re out there somewhere, just watching us and waiting for an opportunity to return. And when they let me out, if they let me out, I’ll prove to the world I was telling the truth. I have to go now and walk my dog. What do you mean you can’t see any dog? What do you call this then? What?’
Mickey Merlin: ‘Well, he is a whacko, Orion, isn’t he? Barking, he is. I never had anything to do with it. On the day it happened I was in Orton Goldhay. No, I’ve never professed to be a magician, there’s no such thing as magic and there’s no such thing as transparent men with bulbous heads who sit on your shoulders and tamper with your mind. Crap it all is. Do you want to buy a rabbit?’