The laughter was deafening.
‘Switch the damn thing off,’ shouted Danny.
‘It is off.’
‘Oh.’
‘By the way,’ said Sandy, ‘Mickey Merlin was in here last night and he said that if you came in today, you could drink as much as you liked at his expense, on his tab.’
‘That was very thoughtful of him,’ said Danny, stifling some laughter of his own. ‘I’ll have a large Scotch then. And a steak and chips belly-buster.’
‘I’ll bet there’s a catch in it,’ said Sandy. ‘He’s a vindictive sod, that Merlin.’
‘Ahem.’ Danny took to patting his pockets. ‘On second thoughts I think I’ll stick with a half of light ale and a cheese roll. I’ll pay for them myself.’
Sandy did the business. ‘So tell me all about this great deal of money you’re expecting to come into,’ he said.
‘It’s top secret.’ Danny gave his nose that tap you do when something is top secret.
‘Oh yeah?’ The landlord gave Danny that ‘old-fashioned look’ you do when someone is pulling your plonker.
‘I’m not kidding. I’m on to something big and I’m not going to tell anybody what it is.’
‘Some kind of investment deal, is it?’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘An insider on a horse race, then?’
‘Not that either.’
The landlord scratched at his sandy head.
‘You’ve dandruff there,’ said Danny, but the landlord ignored him.
‘I know,’ said Sandy. ‘I’ll bet you’re thinking of breaking into old Sam Sprout’s house and searching for his hoard of money.’
‘That’s right,’ said Danny. ‘I mean…what? How did you know that?’
‘Call it an inspired guess. It’s just that I passed his place this morning and they were boarding the windows and they’d put up this big sign which said, KEEP OUT. NO SEARCHING FOR HIDDEN HOARDS OF MONEY. THIS MEANS YOU. And I knew it didn’t mean me, so I naturally assumed it must mean you.’
‘That’s ludicrous, why should it mean me?’
The landlord scratched his head once more. ‘No, you’re right. So it’s not that then?’
‘No,’ said Danny. ‘It’s definitely not that.’
‘But I thought you just said—’
‘I was joking.’
‘I’ll switch the machine on again then. No point in wasting a joke like that.’
‘No point at all.’
Sandy switched the machine back on. ‘Ha, ha, ha,’ it went.
‘Ha, ha, ha,’ said Danny, tucking in to his cheese roll.
He went home, Danny did, after the meagre lunch that was also a late breakfast. Home to his Aunt May, who really wished he’d get a place of his own.
Danny sat upon the sofa and thought about things.
He thought about things all through the afternoon, and into the evening and awoke to the sound of white noise issuing from the television set and the realization that he had been thinking about things in his sleep.
‘Damn,’ said Danny. ‘I’ve missed that American TV series about the bar with the laughter machine in it.’ And indeed he had. ‘Time to go to work then.’
Ah, work.
Danny switched off the television set, crept upstairs to look in on his Aunt May, who was sleeping peacefully, a gherkin beneath her chin and lettuce leaves strewn all round her bed (an allopathic remedy for gout).
‘Sleep on, Aunty,’ whispered Danny.
‘I’ll try,’ said the old one. ‘Lock the back door on your way out.’
Danny crept downstairs, went out the back way and locked the door behind him. From Abaddon Street, where Aunt May kept an orderly house, to Moby Dick Terrace, where Sam Sprout had once tried to, was a couple of back alleyways.
Danny had a torch about his person and some tools in a bag, of the type which counsels for the prosecution always refer to as ‘house-breaking implements’. And, indeed, Danny was certainly going off on his way with ‘intent’.
During his extended period of thinking, he had been reasoning the whole thing out. Old Sam must have stashed his loot away somewhere in his house. Unless he had a Swiss bank account, of course. But ordinary folk like Sam didn’t have Swiss bank accounts. How did you get a Swiss bank account anyway? Phone up Switzerland? Perhaps there was a Swiss bank in London.
‘Look,’ said Danny to himself, as he crept along the alleyway. ‘If he did have a Swiss bank account, then he must have had a cheque-book. And he had a cheque-book, then he must have hidden that somewhere in his house. Of course, he might have hidden his cheque-book in one of those safety deposit box things they have in banks. In which case he must have had a key to fit it. And he must have hidden the key in his house. Of course, he might have hidden the key in another— Aaaagh!’
Danny fell over a dustbin and landed in a smelly heap.
‘It’s in the house,’ he told himself. ‘Whatever it is, it’s in the house. All I have to do is find whatever it is. How difficult can that be?’
Danny found his way to the alleyway which ran along the rear of Moby Dick Terrace (the even-numbered side), he counted along the back gates. Number two, number four. The back gate of number four was all grown over with weeds and showed no sign of forced entry. Which was promising. Danny took out a tool suitable for the job and forced an entry.
He put his shoulder to the gate and eased it open. Then he shone his torch about. The small backyard was filled by a jumble of broken furniture. It was severely broken, ripped apart, reduced to its component parts, then veritably shredded.
That someone had done a very thorough job of searching the furniture was eminently clear.
‘Personally I wouldn’t have done that,’ whispered Danny. ‘Personally I would have searched it carefully and then sold it.’
He scrambled as quietly as he could over the mound of splintered wood and shone his torch upon the back door. It was nailed shut, with very large nails. Danny shone his torch around the downstairs windows. These were securely barred.
‘Hmmph!’ went Danny, in a manner of which few, bar Miss Doris Chapel-Hatpeg, were actually capable. ‘This doesn’t bode too well.’ He shone his torch up the wall. The windows on the first floor weren’t barred. In fact, the one over the scullery was open a crack. It was an up-the-drainpipe job.
‘Piece of cake.’
Now, let’s be honest here. Have you ever tried to climb a drainpipe? It’s possible to do when you’re a child. But as an adult, forget it. The fastenings come out of the wall and you plunge to your death through a greenhouse roof.
Danny once had a friend called McGebber. McGebber was nineteen when he chose to climb a drainpipe. He had come home after a lock-in at The Shrunken Head and, not having his keys and not wanting to wake up his mum and being drunk and everything, he decided that shinning up the drainpipe was a ‘piece of cake’. He got almost to the bedroom window before the fastenings came out of the wall.
McGebber would certainly have been killed, as he and the drainpipe swept down towards the greenhouse, but, as chance would have it, he fell instead through a crack in the time-space continuum and found himself at Normandy in the year 1188. As this was the year in which Henry II was gathering together an army to begin the third crusade, McGebber, who had always wanted to see a bit of the world, joined up. Sadly he was shot in the neck by one of Saladin’s archers during the siege of Damascus. Which goes to show that drainpipe climbing inevitably leads to a fatal consequence.
Another chap, called Bryant, came to an even more bizarre, but no less destructive end when he climbed a drainpipe at the rear of the Walpole Cinema. It appears that, unknown to him, the vanguard of an inter-stellar strike force was—
‘Piece of cake!’ Danny lifted the sash and slipped in through the bedroom window. He had taken the opportunity to avail himself of a ladder from a neighbouring garden. Which showed not only a certain degree of enterprise on his part, but that even though the plot was prepared at any
moment to slip off on another tangent, he, at least, was keeping his mind on the job in hand.
Dull blighter that he was.
Danny now shone his torch all around the bedroom. It was empty and it was gutted. The floorboards had been ripped up and the plaster broken from the walls. Some very ‘brutal’ searching had been carried out in here.
‘I find this somewhat disheartening,’ said Danny, as he stepped nimbly from one floor joist to the next, in order not to fall through the ceiling of the room below.
Beyond the bedroom lay further scenes of devastation. The landing floorboards had been upped and bore-holes drilled into the walls. Stair treads had been knocked out. Danny slid carefully down the banister. Whoever had done all this, and Danny reasoned that it was probably old Sprout’s solicitor, had done it ‘with a will’.
Danny’s torchlight explored the ground-floor carnage. The fireplace in the front room had been prised from the wall. The kitchen sink was a thousand icy fragments. In the back parlour on the red-tiled floor lay a framed photograph of the Queen Mother. The glass was broken. Danny picked it up and shone his torch onto the face of Britain’s favourite grandmother.
‘Well,’ said Danny, in a very gloomy voice. ‘Whoever gave this place a going over certainly did a number on it. If there was anything to find, I reckon they must have found it.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that.’ This voice was a harsh grating whisper. A real nappy-filler it was.
Danny jerked about and shone his torch into the face of a young man who stood passively by, his hands in his white trouser pockets.
‘Who…?’ Danny’s torchlight went flick-flick up and down the young man, highlighting the neat tailor’s-work, the sharp white cheek-bones and the sharp white nose. The flashing white of the teeth. ‘Who are you?’ Danny managed.
‘Never mind who. Would you mind turning away your torch? My eyes are most sensitive to direct light.’
Danny swung the beam down. And then he swung it back up. There was something not altogether right about this young man in white, something uncomfortable. Danny moved the beam to a point some inches above the young man’s head. He was not altogether certain why. Something inside seemed to be saying, ‘Do it.’ There was nothing there.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Danny shook his head. Blinked his eyes. Of course there was nothing there. But why did that make him feel bad inside?
Threatened?
A voice in his head was saying, ‘Clear. He’s a clear. Kill the clear.’ Danny pinched at his eyes.
‘Turn down your torch,’ whispered the young man. ‘Go on your way. There is nothing for you here.’
Danny curled his lip. He didn’t like that whispery voice. Not one bit. It was sarcastic. Cynical. Sneering. It was making the mock of him.
‘Please go,’ whispered the young man. ‘You are in great danger here. The beast has not left the house. You will become contaminated.’
‘What beast? What are you saying?’ Danny’s knuckles grew white in the darkness as his fingers tightened on his torch. He would smash this evil young man. Yes, evil. That’s what he was. Evil. Smash the clear. Kill the clear.
‘Turn away your torch.’ The young man put up his hands. On the attack? It looked like he was on the attack. ‘I know what you are thinking. How you are feeling. Irrational hatred. But those are not your thoughts. Try to remain calm. Just turn around and leave by the way you came. Do it quickly. Trust me.’
‘Trust you?’ Danny raised the torch. The beam swept up to the ceiling as he plunged towards the hateful young man. ‘Kill the clear.’
A hand grasped his wrist. Another caught him by the ankle. He was lifted from his feet, flung backwards. His torch went spinning from his grip, smashed down somewhere. Went out.
‘Go quickly,’ whispered the voice. Somehow less evil, now that its owner could not be seen.
Danny was floundering about on the cold tile floor. He didn’t seem to be able to figure out which way up was.
‘Go,’ went the whisper. ‘Be just another person. That’s the safest thing to be. There is still time. Hurry. Just go.’
‘Who are you?’ Danny managed.
‘My name is Vrane. I am here to contain the beast. I would prefer to do that before it enters you.’
‘Strangely, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘The beast,’ said Parton Vrane. ‘The dog.’
‘Dog?’ Danny said. ‘Is there a dog here? Old Sprout’s dog?’ Danny’s fingers were feeling all around in the darkness. A lump of wood. A half-brick. Something. Though the voice seemed less evil, he had seen the face. Seen the space. This one had to be killed. This clear.
Clear? Danny shook his night-bound head. What’s a clear?
And as he thought it he forgot it.
Instantly.
‘Oooh,’ groaned Danny. ‘What happened? Ouch. I must have fallen down the damn stairs. Where’s my torch? Hold on.’ Danny’s eyes went blink, blink, blink. It didn’t seem to be all that dark any more. He could make out shapes. It was a bit like looking through a red filter. No, it wasn’t like looking at all. It was more as if he was feeling with his eyes. Sensing things rather than seeing them. Radar, was it? No, of course not. You didn’t have radar in your head. But this was something new. Perhaps he had concussion. What was he doing here anyway? And where was here?
Danny tried to rise. He put his hands to the cold tiles and tried to push himself upright. But his hands slipped away. His hands were covered in something sticky. Danny gaped at his hands, sensing their image, sensing the cloying substance. It was blood! His hands were drenched with blood!
‘I’m bleeding!’ Danny staggered to his feet. He stumbled into the corridor, clawed his way up the banister. Danced across the floor joists of the back bedroom. Through the window. Down the ladder. Away and away. Running. Running.
But Danny wasn’t bleeding. The blood that caked his fingers wasn’t his. Time had passed for Danny. Time that he would not recall. Something evil had occurred.
For there was blood.
Much blood.
The walls of the back parlour were streaked with it. From the middle of the floor, where a dark puddle lay deep, the trail of something that had been dragged was quite apparent. It had clearly been dragged into the kitchen.
Although the door was now closed.
One day soon that door would be opened to men in blue uniforms and others in white protective suits. And these men would gaze into that kitchen, horror-struck by what they saw. A room quite red, its each wall coloured. The work of a painter from Hell.
With blood. All over. Thickly. Two coats deep.
The ceiling though was still white.
But for the word.
Writ big the word was.
Six-inch letters.
DEMOLITION was the word.
All in capitals.
And written by a left hand.
They would know that it was written by a left hand because there upon the shattered sink was the very left hand that had been used to write it.
It was the left hand of Mr Parton Vrane.
They would never find the rest of his body.
9
On 16 April 1943 Dr Albert Hofmann fell off his bicycle and changed the world for an awful lot of people.
FACTS YOU REALLY SHOULD KNOW NO. 1.
Practise random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
DISCORDIAN DOCTRINATE NO. 23.
ATAXIOPHOBIA
It is the way of man to seek order from chaos.
To impose order upon chaos.
To search for pattern and meaning and if none can be found, then to invent it.
Like time, for instance.
Man conceived time and sliced it into hours and minutes and seconds. And then man said, ‘Here is time, I have it upon my wrist, it is now under my control.’
Which, of course, it is not.
At one of his famous lectures delivered in the nineteen
sixties, that greatest genius of our age, Sir Hugo Rune, was interrupted, while in full and magnificent flow, by his arch detractor, Rudolph Koeslar.
Rune had been expounding upon his theory of APATHY (A-PATH-TO-THE-REASON-WHY- see The Book of Ultimate Truths), when Koeslar had the temerity to declare that Rune was ‘a lazy scoundrel, who had never done an honest day’s work in his life’.
‘Work?’ asked Rune. ‘And what is work?
‘Work,’ answered Koeslar, ‘is what honest folk do for eight hours a day, five days a week.’
‘Impossible,’ said Hugo Rune. And then went on to prove it.
WHY IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO
WORK EIGHT HOURS A DAY,
FIVE DAYS A WEEK
(From the calculations of Hugo Rune.)
There are 365 days in a year. In a leap year 366. Let us be generous and begin with 366.
Days in the year: 366 days
Eight hours of sleep each day adds up to a total of: 122 days
Leaving— 244 days
Eight hours of rest each day adds up to a total of: 122 days
Leaving— 122 days
You don’t work Saturdays and Sundays, so subtract: 104 days
Leaving— 18 days
You do have an hour for lunch each working day: which over a year adds up to10 days
Leaving— 8 days
Out of these eight working days, you must surely have at least one week’s holiday a year.
Which leaves you with a single day to work on.
And that’s Christmas Day.
And nobody works on Christmas Day.
Suitably chastened, Koeslar slunk from the hall as the mangy dog he was. The audience set to counting upon its fingers, but none could disprove Rune’s calculations, because they were so demonstrably correct.
There will always be those who will quibble over details and seek to claw back a day here and there.
But to those we must say then, What about days off sick? Or time off being late, or leaving early?
No. It is proved.
No more can be said.
Order from chaos? Forget it.
And there are those who would seek order from the chaos of a story which lacked a beginning, a middle and an end. Those would see a definite pattern emerging. A pattern composed of short stories (seemingly unrelated) juxtaposed with a rambling plot about a chap called Danny, around whom events appeared to revolve.