The Book of Ultimate Truths

  During my travels across the Siberian Steppes, some years ago, I chanced upon a team of Russian palaeontologists, who were clearly in a state of heightened exuberance.

  Apparently, an unseasonable deluge had washed away a section of river bank, exposing the perfectly preserved carcass of a woolly mammoth. The beast was frozen in a running posture and looked as fresh as the proverbial daisy.

  The Russian greybeards were quite beside themselves with glee, considering this to be the find of the century. Somehow they had got it into their heads that the specimen was at least fifteen thousand years old.

  I introduced myself and upon learning my identity they naturally begged me to examine their treasure and offer an authoritative opinion.

  I was pleased to do so, having nothing else planned for the morning. I perused the beast and proclaimed that it was indeed a woolly mammoth, of the genus Mammuthus primigenius. And that it had been dead for at least half an hour!

  The woolly mammoth, I explained to them, is a burrowing animal, which lives exclusively beneath the ground and is very common in these parts. It tunnels with its enormous tusks and dies instantly upon exposure to sunlight.

  ‘You have a nice fresh one here,’ I told them, ‘and it would be a shame to waste it.’

  Without further ado I had my servants haul the carcass back to the village where I was staying and get the fire stoked up.

  The greybeards made a quite unnecessary fuss about this and I was forced to employ my stout stick. With typical bad grace they did not attend the barbecue.

  ‘Is sir ready to order his main course now?’ Cornelius looked up from his reading to view the spiffingly clad dining-car attendant.

  ‘Yes,’ said he.

  ‘We have fillet of goldfish, poached in white wine; Chateaubriand of hedgehog, garnished with tiny fish; or entrecote of woolly mam–’

  ‘I’ll take a salad please,’ said Cornelius Murphy.

  At seven-thirty of the following morning clock the mighty Leviathan gasped its way into Edinburgh Central without any fanfare whatsoever.

  Cornelius stuck his head out of the window of the first-class sleeping compartment and breathed in Scotland. His hair took to the forming of dreadlocks. It looked like another beautiful day out there.

  The tall boy washed, cleaned his teeth, fought bravely with his comb and then dressed in a faded Hawaiian shirt and his summer suit. He considered leaving the rucksack on the train, but as it contained several of his favourite Fair Isle jumpers, and this was bonny Scotland after all, he thought better of it and shouldered the thing. Then clutching his suitcase, he tottered down on to the platform. A stranger in a strange land. And all alone by the looks of it.

  His first thought was to phone in his expenses to Arthur Kobold. His second, to take breakfast.

  His first disappointment was the lack of a porter to carry his bags. His second came at the ticket booth, where there was no-one for him to show his first-class ticket to.

  Cornelius dragged his suitcase across the deserted concourse of the grand Victorian station. Ahead a kiosk, fashioned in the manner of a tartan fairground booth, offered up the tantalizing fragrances of fried bacon and freshly brewed coffee. Cornelius found a spring creeping into his step.

  Behind the counter a gaunt-looking woman in an apron was standing with her hands on her head.

  ‘Good morning, madam.’ Cornelius lowered his suitcase, took off his rucksack and climbed on to a stool before the counter.

  The gaunt woman did not return the merry smile he offered in greeting.

  ‘We’re closed,’ she announced in a frosty tone. Cornelius observed that a small blue vein, snaking down the bridge of her nose, reproduced the course of the Euphrates.

  ‘No you’re not,’ said the undaunted lad. ‘You’re open. I’ll take coffee and the full breakfast please.’

  ‘The coffee’s off.’

  ‘No it’s not. It’s bubbling away on the hob there.’

  ‘It’s off.’

  ‘Might I just sample it?’

  ‘The coffee’s off. Sling your hook.’

  ‘You didn’t move your lips when you said that.’ Cornelius wondered whether he had stumbled into the rehearsal for some fringe event of the now legendary Edinburgh Festival.

  ‘How did you do that?’ he asked.

  ‘I did it!’ A head rose from behind the counter. It was a perfectly spherical head and it wore a tartan tam-o’-shanter. It also wore a youthful face, the greater part of which lurked behind the thick pebbled spectacles of the seriously myopic. Beneath a nubbin of a nose, a mouth, not unlike that of a goldfish, stuck out its bottom lip in a menacing manner. Cornelius worried most about the nose. How could it support the weight of the spectacles?

  ‘Campbell,’ said Cornelius.

  ‘I don’t know you, do I?’ The young man squinted at Cornelius and then generally about the place.

  ‘The tartan. On your tam. That’s the clan cloth of Callum the Great. Dates back to the fourteenth century.’

  ‘Shove off,’ said the Campbell.

  ‘I want my breakfast.’ Cornelius rubbed his hands together.

  ‘Listen, friend,’ the Campbell produced a pistol and pointed it at the tall boy, ‘do you see this?’

  Cornelius nodded. ‘That’s an Ozi nine-millimetre machine pistol. Fully automatic, twenty-five round clip. Detachable stock.’

  ‘And it’s loaded, by the way.’

  ‘Possibly with plasticine. It’s an Airfix kit, I’ve got one like it at home. The sight on the barrel is too long. I wrote to Airfix about that, but they never answered my letter.’

  A look of horror appeared on the Campbell’s clock face. He held the gun close to his spectacles and worried at the trigger. It came away in his hand and tinkled to the counter.

  Cornelius picked it up. ‘I mentioned that too. Look out,’ he added. But he was not quick enough.

  The gaunt woman head-butted the Campbell and he vanished beneath the counter. His howls echoed around the empty station as she began kicking him.

  ‘I’ll wait until you’re done then.’ Cornelius made himself comfy on the stool and sniffed at the coffee pot.

  ‘And don’t come back!’ The gaunt woman lifted a counter flap, swung open a section beneath it and hurled the Campbell across the concourse. He bowled over several times before rising in a confusion of camouflage, clutching his spectacles to his face and taking to his heels. The gaunt woman hurled his plastic pistol after him.

  ‘A pox on all the bloody Campbells,’ she cried, echoing the sentiments of many a fine art lover at an Andy Warhol retrospective. ‘So, what about you then?’

  ‘Breakfast for me,’ smiled Cornelius. ‘Eggs if you have them.’

  The gaunt woman turned away.

  ‘And bacon.’

  The gaunt woman glared round at him. ‘And?’

  ‘And everything you’ve got really.’

  ‘Everything I’ve got.’ Muttering beneath her breath she set to the preparation of the tall boy’s breakfast.

  Back in Moby Dick Terrace, the street’s only telephone began to ring. The daddy swayed from the kitchen, teacup in hand and picked up the receiver.

  After a few moments a voice said, ‘Hello, is there anybody there?’ It was the voice of the youth employment officer.

  ‘What is it, Yarrow?’ The daddy raised his teacup to his lips.

  ‘Cold again.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Mr Murphy, I want to speak to your son. It’s very urgent.’

  ‘My son is presently in Scotland.’

  ‘Your son is a very wicked boy, Mr Murphy. He has played me false. This letter…’

  ‘Letter?’ The daddy finished his tea.

  ‘From your son. Demanding money.’

  ‘Surely not. My son would never do a thing like that.’

  ‘He would and he has. He claims to have found employment for himself.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound very demanding to me.’

  ‘He claims that I em
ployed him as an assistant in order to find him a real job.’

  ‘Which you did.’

  ‘But now he claims that as he has found work independently, I can no longer employ him in this capacity.’

  ‘Which you can’t.’

  ‘So he is therefore claiming that, as I have no further work for him, then I must make him redundant.’

  ‘Which I suppose you must.’

  ‘But he wants redundancy money! A month’s pay!’

  ‘Seems a reasonable enough request to me.’ The daddy held the receiver at arm’s length, to spare his ears the inevitable assault.

  ‘Reasonable?’ screamed Mr Yarrow. ‘Reasonable? It is outrageous.’

  ‘Well, technically speaking,’ the phone was back at Jack Murphy’s ear, ‘you are no longer in a position to provide him with employment. And, of course, you had no written contract. I can cite several legal precedents. Industrial relations being something of a speciality with me. For instance, there was the case of John Vincent Omally versus Arthur Doveston, Purveyor of Steam Velocipedes to the Gentry.’

  ‘Arthur who?’

  ‘Doveston. Bankrupt now, of course. It wasn’t a particularly big case, but it attracted a lot of attention from the local Press. You know how they like crusading for the cause of the underdog.’

  ‘I won’t have it, Mr Murphy.’ There was a slight pause. ‘Bankrupt, case, Press, underdog?’ he continued in a lesser voice.

  ‘You stand your corner,’ the daddy advised. ‘Have your day in court.’

  ‘My day in court?’

  ‘I’ll have to go now,’ said the daddy. ‘I think the cat wants to be let out.’ He replaced the receiver and collapsed into fits of laughter.

  His wife appeared at the top of the stairs wearing a dressing-gown of many colours. ‘Who was that?’ she asked.

  Her husband did his best to sober up. ‘Mr Yarrow,’ he replied between convulsions. ‘Apparently Cornelius wrote to him demanding redundancy money.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said the mother. ‘My son would never do a thing like that.’

  ‘That’s just what I said to Mr Yarrow. My son would never do a thing like that.’

  The daddy returned to the kitchen and poured himself another cup of tea. ‘That’s why I did,’ he chuckled.

  Quite unaware that he had a month’s redundancy money coming, Cornelius finished his breakfast. He passed a nice new five-pound note across the counter.

  ‘First class,’ said he. ‘Could I trouble you for a receipt?’

  The gaunt woman did not reply.

  As there was still no sign of a porter, or anyone else for that matter, Cornelius shouldered his rucksack, took up his case and walked. He went in search of a taxi.

  He didn’t find one though. But he did find the rank. And sitting on the ground, with his back against the sign which told travellers which side they should be queuing on, he found the Campbell.

  The erstwhile bandido wore a bloody nose which he was dabbing at with an oversized tartan handkerchief. He gazed up at Cornelius through the unfractured lens of his spectacles.

  Cornelius wondered whether the Festival might be staging a production of Lord of the Flies this year.

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ said the Campbell.

  Cornelius shrugged. ‘You started it. I hope you didn’t pay too much for the toy gun. The gaunt woman broke it.’

  ‘The bastards said it was a real one. They’ll never let me join their gang now.’

  ‘Bastards?’ Cornelius had heard tell of bastards and how, if you ever met any, you should be careful not to let them grind you down. He couldn’t recall actually having met any himself, as yet. A good many fools certainly, but no real bastards.

  ‘Of which bastards do you speak?’ he asked the Campbell.

  ‘The Wild Warriors of West Lothian. They get all the best lasses. And have adventures and stuff. I wanted to join their gang.’

  ‘And you had to rob the kiosk, is that it?’

  ‘Rob the kiosk and then blow it up.’

  ‘Blow it up? With what?’

  ‘They gave me a hand grenade.’

  ‘You’re certain it’s a real hand grenade. Not a cigarette lighter?’

  The Campbell yanked a Mills bomb from a camouflaged pocket and flung it up at Cornelius.

  The tall boy caught it. It was a cigarette lighter. He returned it to the failed initiate without comment. A taxi was approaching.

  ‘You’re probably not really cut out for the life of brigandry and terrorism,’ said Cornelius kindly. ‘Can I offer you a lift home?’

  ‘You wouldn’t let me take you hostage by any chance?’ the Campbell asked hopefully. ‘They might make do with that.’

  ‘I really don’t have the time, I’m afraid. I have an appointment at one. Perhaps later, if I come back this way.’

  ‘It wouldn’t take long. An hour maybe. Listen, I’d really appreciate it. They wouldn’t actually want to keep you, of course. But it would show them that I’m ambitious, enterprising, young and independently minded.’

  ‘I suppose it would. Are you sure that you want to join this gang?’

  ‘It’s either that or take the job the youth employment officer has set up for me.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Carpet salesman,’ said the Campbell in a low, doomed tone.

  The taxi drove the Campbell and his hostage through the historic streets of Edinburgh. Cornelius enjoyed every moment of it. He kept an eye out for fierce-looking highlanders with red beards, kilts and claymores. But he didn’t see any.

  ‘Where are all the sporrans and the dirks in the socks?’ he asked the Campbell.

  ‘Where’s your bowler hat?’ the Campbell replied.

  And the two sat a while in silence.

  ‘Here on the corner do you, Jimmy?’ the taxi driver asked.

  ‘Jimmy?’ Cornelius turned to his kidnapper. ‘The taxi driver knows you by name?’

  ‘All Scotsmen are called Jimmy.’ The Campbell straightened his tarn. ‘Everyone knows that. It’s a tradition or an old charter or something.’

  ‘I thought all Scotsmen were called Jock.’

  ‘Och away. That’s Irishmen.’

  ‘Irishmen are called Mick and Londoners are called John.’

  ‘Jack,’ said the taxi driver. ‘Londoners are called Jack. Or at least Jack London was. He wrote Call of the Wild.’

  ‘Wilde was called Oscar,’ said the Campbell.

  ‘Jack Nicholson won an Oscar,’ said the taxi driver. ‘And he’s called Jack. But I think he’s an American. I wonder what the rest of them are called.’

  ‘Bastards,’ said the Campbell.

  ‘Well, you learn something new every day. That’ll be two pounds please, Cornelius.’

  Cornelius fished out the money. ‘Could I have a receipt for that?’ he asked. ‘And I never told you my name.’

  The taxi driver scribbled something indecipherable upon the back of a Woodbine packet and handed it to Cornelius. ‘Only winding you up. I saw your picture in the paper.’

  ‘My what?’

  The taxi driver held up a copy of the day’s Edinburgh Mercury. Its banner headline read

  EPIC TRAVELLER FOILS STATION KIOSK HEIST.

  Beneath this was a photograph of the hero taking breakfast.

  Cornelius snatched the newspaper and gawped at it in disbelief.

  ‘Come on,’ said Jim Campbell. ‘I thought you were in a hurry.’

  7

  ‘First house along here.’ The Campbell gestured to the remains of a terraced street which rose from a wasteland of redevelopment.

  ‘Number twenty-three. This rucksack is well heavy,’ he added. ‘And the handle’s coming off your case. Is it real crocodile skin, by the way?’

  Cornelius was stumbling along behind, marvelling at the Edinburgh Mercury. He shook his head in wonder and his hair went every which way.

  The newspaper spoke of hidden station security cameras, faxed photographs, network identifica
tion computers, instant Press access to newsworthy material and the Edinburgh Mercury always being first with the news.

  Cornelius leafed through the remaining pages. These were singularly dry of any news. But they were heavily bathed in advertising for first-class accommodation, eating houses, menswear salons, car rental firms, bordellos, camping equipment.

  Everything, in fact, that an epic traveller might, reasonably or otherwise, require.

  ‘Jim?’ Cornelius caught up with the Campbell. ‘Hold on there.’

  ‘What’s your problem?’ Jim put down the suitcase and unshouldered the rucksack.

  ‘You were holding up the kiosk when I got off the train, weren’t you?’

  ‘And making a good job of it.’

  ‘Did anyone else get off?’

  The Campbell shook his head. Then he fumbled around on the ground for his glasses. Cornelius stooped and returned them to him.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No-one at all got off that train except me?’

  ‘Of course not. The taxi driver wouldn’t have turned up if he hadn’t read about you in the paper. You’d be walking if it wasn’t for me. Don’t show the boys that paper by the way.’

  Cornelius folded the Mercury into his pocket.

  ‘And I think you’d better carry your own bags from here. It wouldn’t look good if they saw me carrying them.’

  Cornelius shrugged and took up his luggage. ‘Just along here, you say?’

  ‘Number twenty-three. Aye.’

  It looked just like home sweet home. There was even a dustbin outside. Cornelius chose not to lift the lid. The potential Wild Warrior knocked upon the door.

  An eye appeared at an eyehole, which was appropriate enough.

  ‘Identify yourself,’ said a voice.

  ‘Let us in, Sawney, It’s me, Jimmy, and I’ve busted my specs.’

  ‘Identify yourself and use the password.’

  ‘You didn’t tell us a password.’

  ‘It’s a new rule. If you don’t know the password you can’t come in.’

  ‘But I live here. Let us in. I’ve got a hostage with me and he can’t stay long, he has an appointment.’