The Greatest Show Off Earth

  ‘Continue please, Constable.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the constable continued. ‘Having located the afore-described-to-me “hideway bush” I instigated a search for the book alluded to by the suspect in his statement. During the course of my search I turned up an empty sherry bottle answering to the description of that stolen from Mr Kilgore Sprout, whom we had formally interviewed in connection with the present whereabouts of the suspect.’

  ‘Very good, Constable. We’ll add that to the charge sheet.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. The bottle is now with forensic. I’m sure we’ll get a match on the fingerprints.’

  ‘Excellent, so, continue.’

  ‘Continue, sir?’

  ‘The book, lad, did you find the book?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘No, sir?’

  ‘No, sir. There wasn’t any book.’

  ‘What?’ It was Simon’s what once again.

  ‘There was no sign of any book, sir. Just a lot of chicken feathers and this really horrible smell.’

  If auras have smells, then Raymond’s now smelt really horrible. He staggered back to Zephyr, who was struggling with the bubbles. She saw the look on his face, and being whatever she was, she smelt his aura also.

  ‘What has happened?’ she asked.

  ‘I think I just killed the guard.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  Raymond’s lip began to quiver. ‘He saw us on the television. Our faces were on the screen. They want us for murder.’

  ‘We’d better get a move on then. Come and give me a hand.’

  ‘Zephyr. I think I just killed the guard.’

  ‘So you said. Now come on and help.’

  ‘Zephyr, please.’

  Zephyr came forward and took Raymond in her arms. The touch of her flesh. The smell of her perfume. She kissed him. ‘Did you look in his lunch box?’ she asked.

  ‘His lunch box? Well no I did not.’

  ‘Perhaps you should have. I expect he had “George” in his sandwiches.’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Raymond, getting a good blub going.

  ‘These people will all die if you don’t save them. Are you going to blub, or are you going to help load?’

  ‘Both,’ said Raymond.

  ‘Good,’ said Zephyr. ‘Then let’s get it done.’ And get it done, they did.

  They would probably have got it done quicker, had it not been for Raymond’s blubbings, which were interspersed with “useful suggestions” for speeding up the loading process. When Zephyr finally tired of both, she gave Raymond a smack and made him sit in the lorry until she had finished.

  ‘And that’s it.’ Zephyr secured the final bubble on to the special rack and joined Raymond in the cab.

  ‘All better now?’ asked Zephyr.

  ‘Yes,’ said Raymond sniffily.

  ‘Then let us get back to the ship.’ Zephyr didn’t wear a watch, but, as she glanced at her wrist, one obligingly appeared. ‘We have twenty minutes.’

  ‘Then we can do it.’ Raymond gave the ignition key a tweak, thrummed the engine and applied full wellie to the accelerator pedal.

  ‘Slowly,’ said Zephyr.

  ‘Of course, slowly. I just wanted to hear the engine roar, that’s all.’

  ‘Drive,’ she said.

  And Raymond drove. As they passed the guard’s hut, Raymond craned his neck in the hope of seeing movement. There was none.

  ‘Damn it,’ said Raymond. ‘Damn, damn, damn it.’

  ‘Left at the top here.’

  ‘Right surely.’

  ‘Left, Raymond.’

  ‘Are you certain? I’m for turning right, me.’

  ‘Turn left or I will smack you again.’

  Raymond turned left. ‘I’m not altogether sure that I approve of this new disciplinary element which has entered our relationship.’

  ‘Turn right at the bottom here.’

  ‘No more smacking me.’ Raymond turned right at the bottom there.

  ‘Then behave yourself.’

  Raymond frowned and drove on. He managed the big truck really quite well. Smooth gear changes. Easy on the air brakes. After one or two near-death experiences, he even got the hang of which side of the road he should be driving on.

  ‘How are we doing for time?’ he asked.

  ‘We have about ten minutes.’

  ‘Will the professor be back in the ship on time?’

  ‘To the minute. He’s a professional.’

  ‘Hey look, the dock’s up ahead. I think we’re actually going to make it.’

  ‘Red light, Raymond. Red light!’

  ‘I saw it, I saw it.” The big truck juddered painfully to a halt at the red traffic light.

  ‘You didn’t see it.’

  ‘I did too see it.’ Raymond wound down his window, leaned out his arm and did nonchalant finger drummings on the door. Inside he was quaking with fear. It had been building up and up and now that they were so close to the ship. Raymond began to sway gently in the driving seat. The street went slowly in and out of focus.

  ‘We’re going to make it, aren’t we?’ he asked, in a quavery wavery voice.

  ‘Of course we are,’ said Zephyr. ‘There’s nothing can stop us now.’

  They were stopped, as chance would have it, outside a corner cafe. It was a weird cafe, as a matter of fact. Very wide doorway, big high ceiling. It catered for the more exotic off-worlder. Non-bipedal. Not of the genus Homo sapiens. Or any derivatives there from.

  It was a bit like that bar in Star Wars, where those strange aliens played those improbable instruments and drank out of plastic Tupperware-style containers that were actually purchased at North End Road Market in Fulham.

  Here, however, Faith No More played on the jukebox and rival sportswear cultists had at one another with the Uranian equivalent of the snooker cue. The one designed “with the tentacle in mind”.

  One doubtful-looking off-worlder lay spread across three window seats, watching the traffic go by. His name was Abdullah and he was a flying starfish from Uranus.

  And Abdullah spied out the spanking new auction house lorry. And likewise did he spy out the cargo it was carrying. And Abdullah waxed most sorely vexatious and did cry aloud unto the heavens, or at least the ceiling, ‘Some bastard is nicking my George!’

  And lo he did gaze upon the driver of the stolen vehicle and further words did flee his unsightly aural orifice. ‘Tis the schmuck from Bramfield, currently wanted on Venus with a big price on his head. How did he get here?’

  Abdullah extended a really frightful pseudopodium with rotational optic accessory, out through the letterbox of the cafe, across the pavement and up the side of the big spanking new lorry, to follow the direction of Raymond’s now ever so fixed stare.

  ‘Lo and behold,’ quoth big Abdullah. ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with S. Can this be the very ship stolen from my most magnificent ruler The Sultan of Uranus some one hundred and some years ago? Or does my frightful pseudopodium with rotational optic accessory deceive me? Nope! It’s the bleeding Salamander all right. Waitress.

  ‘Yeah, wotcha want?’ The waitress was for the most part formless protozoa. But she wore the apron and the bleached blond wig, chewed gum and spoke in that nasal Brooklyn accent that waitresses in American movies always do. ‘Yeah, wotcha want?’ she said again. ‘Asshole,’ she added, for good measure.

  ‘Telephone,’ said big Abdullah.

  ‘It’s in the back.’

  Abdullah rose obscenely and drifted into the back of the cafe. With a most revolting appendage he lifted the overlarge receiver (designed with the tentacle in mind) and put it to the part of him that answered for an ear.

  ‘Number please,’ came the voice of the operator.

  ‘E.T. phone home,’ said the flying starfish. ‘Uranus and quick. I have to speak to the Sultan.

  ‘The police and quick. I have to speak to the police.’

  It was the guard at the auction house. Somewhat br
uised about the head region, but still this side of the graveyard. ‘Yes, police, hello. The two psychos wanted for the multiple killings. They were here. The man and the woman, yes. They—’

  ‘Stole our last consignment of George,’ said the auction house relief guard, who had just come on duty. ‘I saw them drive by. I recognized the woman too. She came with the circus, she was on the big ship that docked earlier at the harbour.’

  ‘Did you catch all that?’ asked the guard with the bruised head.

  ‘Assume we did,’ came the helpful reply. ‘An armed response team is being dispatched directly to the dock. Pop on over yourself if you’re feeling up to it.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ said the guard. ‘I will.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ said Inspector D’Eath. ‘And if you would just sign this one and this one and this one too.’

  ‘I’ll retract them all in court,’ said Simon as he signed the false confessions.

  ‘Of course you will. They always do.’

  ‘I shall tell them that you threatened to break my teeth if I didn’t sign.’

  ‘I expect you will, yes. Sign this one too, if you please.’

  Simon signed that one too. ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ he asked. ‘That thing is out there in the chicken house. It has to be destroyed.’

  ‘Of course it does. And it’s all in God’s book. Except that God’s taken it home with him. Keep signing.’

  Simon kept signing. ‘They’ve got the book. The smell in the hideaway bush, that was the smell of the thing. You’ve got to do something.’

  ‘I am doing something. I am processing the statements of a self-confessed serial killer. Sign that one as well.’

  Simon signed that one, as well. ‘You’ll regret this. I shall get myself a really good barrister. A lady one. One who looks like Helen Mirren.’

  ‘On legal aid? I shouldn’t think so. Sign that.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘My autograph book. You’re the first serial killer I’ve ever arrested.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Simon signed. ‘And what do you mean, legal aid? I don’t need legal aid. I can afford the best.’

  ‘On a gardener’s salary? You have to be joking.’ Inspector D’Eath pocketed his autograph book.

  ‘Forget about my salary.’ Simon returned the inspector’s pen. ‘You know what I’m worth. You counted my winnings when you searched me upstairs. That’s my money you now have locked in your safe. Legitimately won. There’s two kinds of justice in this country: one for the rich and one for the poor. I can now afford rich man’s justice.’

  Simon flashed his pearly whites. ‘So there.’

  ‘Really?’ Inspector D’Eath rearranged greasy strings of hair above his forehead. ‘Well, this is most curious. I don’t remember Simon having any money on him when he was searched. Do you, Constable?’

  ‘No, sir guv.’ The constable with the sister shook his head. ‘I don’t remember any money at all.’

  ‘What?’ went Simon.

  ‘Constable without the sister, but who once saw a search warrant,’ asked Inspector D’Eath, ‘do you remember us putting a small fortune in twenty-pound notes into the safe upstairs?’

  ‘No, sir.’ This constable also shook his head. ‘I recall we found a knackered old wallet on the suspect, which contained a doctor’s note that you told us was an important piece of evidence. But money? No, sir. I would certainly recall if the suspect was carrying a large amount of money, all in twenty-pound notes stuffed into his pockets, much of which we had to prise from his fingers during the search, sir.’

  ‘What?’ went Simon once again.

  ‘So there you have it.’ Inspector D’Eath turned up his hands. ‘Or in your case, there you don’t have it. There is no money.’

  ‘What?’ went Simon in a higher register than ever. ‘No money? What?’

  ‘Of course, you were drunk when I brought you in. You failed the breath test, don’t you remember? No, you probably don’t, do you? Not with the short-term memory loss and everything.’

  ‘What? What?’ Simon began to flap his hands about in a demented fashion and bob up and down in his chair. ‘This isn’t happening. You can’t do this to me. You can’t just steal all my money, bully me into signing a false confession, ignore everything I’ve told you. You can’t do this. You can’t.’

  ‘But I can.’ Inspector D’Eath smiled hideously. ‘I can do anything I want to. You’re a homicidal maniac. No-one is going to care what happens to you and no-one is going to believe your word instead of mine.’

  ‘No,’ shrieked Simon. ‘No no no.’

  ‘He’s getting a bit uppity, sir guv,’ said a constable who was planning to spend some of his new-found wealth on a motor scooter. ‘Shall I give him a smack with my truncheon?’

  ‘No need for that.’ The inspector continued to smile. ‘Tell you what. Why not go and fetch the police doctor. Tell him we have a lively one here and why doesn’t he bring his big hypodermic.’

  ‘No,’ whimpered Simon.

  ‘Yes, sir guv,’ said the constable. ‘And shall I ask him to bring the strait-jacket too?’

  ‘Good idea, Constable.’

  ‘And what about the leather mask with the little bars over the mouth hole?’

  ‘No!’ screamed Simon. ‘No no no.’

  ‘A very good idea too. Now hurry along, Constable. The Butcher of Bramfield is getting a bit foamy around the jaws. The sooner he’s put under heavy restraint and pumped full of phenobarbitones, the safer we’ll all sleep in our beds.’

  ‘Nooooooooooooooooeoooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooo!’ went Simon.

  ‘Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarp.’ The red light changed to green and the traffic began hooting.

  Raymond fumbled with the gears on the big spanking new auction house lorry.

  ‘Get a move on,’ Zephyr said. ‘We have a deadline to keep with the professor. We have to get off this planet as quickly as possible.’

  Raymond pulled himself together, changed the gears and rolled the big truck forwards.

  ‘There’s a guard on the dock gate,’ said Raymond, spying same. ‘And he’s got a clipboard.’

  ‘No time for that now. Run him over.’

  ‘I will not.’

  ‘Yes you will.’ Zephyr grabbed the steering wheel and the lorry veered towards the guard on the dock gate. As the guard ran for his life, the lorry mashed down his little guard’s hut. Electric kettle, bar fire, fan, TV set, smutty mags, the lot.

  ‘Bastards,’ swore the guard, pulling out his portable telephone. ‘Get me the police.’

  Woo Woo Woo Woo, came the sound of police car sirens.

  ‘That’s what I like about Saturn,’ said the guard. ‘There’s always a policeman around when you need one.’

  ‘I hear police cars,’ moaned Raymond. ‘Will the ship’s gangway take the weight of this huge lorry, do you think?’

  ‘No,’ Zephyr said. ‘But keep driving.’ And she was there and then she wasn’t. Raymond drove on towards a gangway now miraculously reinforced by mighty girders of steel.

  I wonder how she does that, Raymond wondered, as he shifted gear, made the big truck’s horn go ‘Baaarp!’ and steered very carefully up the gangway and into the bowels of the SS Salamander.

  Cogs meshed, hydraulics shifted. The gangway rose and closed into the side of the ship.

  A piece of cake.

  Raymond switched off the engine. Climbed from the cab. Shinned up various stairways and finally joined Zephyr, who was standing on the deck.

  ‘We did it, eh?’ Raymond raised fists to the sky, flung his arms about the miraculous one and kissed her. ‘We did it.’

  ‘We did.’ Zephyr extracted herself from Raymond’s fond embrace. ‘But look out there.’ Raymond looked. All along the dock there was now what is known as a police presence. A dozen Earth-like American black and whites. Officers running to and fro. Guns being hefted. Shouting and jostling. A distant whirr of copter-blades announced the
imminent arrival of three gunships.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Raymond. ‘Let’s get out of here. Engage the space drive, say the magic words. Let’s have lift off.’

  Zephyr shook her head. ‘We can’t.’

  ‘We can’t? What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying we can’t leave the planet.’

  ‘I hate to contradict you on this. But I really must insist. Where is the professor?’

  ‘Out there,’ Zephyr pointed beyond the dock towards the city. ‘Out there somewhere, with the circus. They haven’t come back, Raymond. Something dreadful must have happened.’

  18

  The Sultan of Uranus was a nasty piece of work. He wasn’t a flying starfish. The flying starfish were part of the indigenous population, subjugated centuries before by the Edenites. The Sultan was an Edenite. A big fat one. Very old, but still very fit. And very bad tempered.

  He was one of three brothers, who, although hating each other in the manner that only brothers can, and having not exchanged a single word in over two hundred years, still wielded between them a considerable amount of interplanetary clout.

  Now, much time could be spent describing the sultan and the wonders of his palace. But not here.

  The big fat old, fit, bad-tempered man shouted things into his telephone receiver. Angry things. Things like. ‘Bring me their heads’ and ‘get my ship back’ and ‘do it now or know the wrath of my displeasure’. Things like that.

  ‘To hear is to obey,’ said big Abdullah, putting down the phone.

  ‘To hear is to obey.’ Professor Merlin stood in the middle of the sawdust ring at the palace of celestial pleasures and bowed once more to His Royal Highness the Grand Duke Binky. ‘Another full performance coming up.’

  His Royal Highness the Grand Duke was a nasty piece of work. He wasn’t a Saturnian dog-head or anything like that. The indigenous population of Saturn had been subjugated centuries before. By the Edenites. The Grand Duke was an Edenite.

  A big fat one. Very old, but very fit. And very bad tempered. One of three brothers.

  Much time could, of course, be spent in describing the Grand Duke and the wonders of his palace. But happily this will not be necessary. Because he looked just like his brother the sultan. And their palaces were virtually identical.