The Greatest Show Off Earth

  ‘Aha!’ Professor Merlin raised a wonderful finger. ‘Rhyming slang. Iron hoof rhymes with, what aloof? Some say that of me, without cause, I might add. Or would it be, proof? A misspelling of prof?’

  ‘Something like that probably.’

  ‘Well, blessed be for that. I thought they were calling me a poof.’

  Raymond spluttered once more into his drink.

  ‘So you will go and have a word with them.’

  ‘I will. But I’ll need some clothes to wear. Do you have anything in blue and white?’

  ‘I have a rather spiffing frocked coat, with quilted lapels, slashed sleeves and lace ruffles down the front and that’s about all I think.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Raymond once again. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’

  ‘Oh,’ went Liza. ‘Oh oh oh.’

  ‘Boom,’ went Simon. ‘Boom shanka boom.’

  ‘Oi!’ went Constable Derek. ‘What’s going on in there?’

  Then, ‘Oh my God!’ he continued, as he peered through the nasty little shutter hole in the door. ‘Now he’s raping a nun, the bastard.’

  Constable Derek fumbled his key into the lock and thrust the cell door open. ‘Just stop doing that. Oh, you have. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  The constable turned. Simon swung the cell door hard at him. Clunk it went against the constable’s forehead.

  ‘Oh,’ went the constable, sinking down in a heap on the floor.

  ‘Good one,’ said Liza, adjusting her habit. ‘Now let’s go.’

  ‘Ah no.’ Simon gripped her by the arm. ‘Not you.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Liza struggled. Simon twisted her arms behind her back and secured them with her string of rosary beads. (Strong string.)

  ‘Don’t do that now. You know I only like it with the fur manacles and the pony harness.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Simon dodged the kicking feet and gagged her with that sort of bib thing that nuns wear around their necks. ‘I have to go now. But you’re not going with me.’

  ‘Grmmmph mmmph mmm,’ went Liza.

  ‘That’s easy for you to say.’ Simon took a moment to admire his handiwork. Nuns in bondage. It had a certain something. Perhaps at some future time, with the girl who worked at the costume hire shop in Brighton. Some future time.

  ‘If I have a future time.’ Simon left the cell, locked the door behind him and sidled along the corridor and up a flight of steps.

  At the front desk, a single constable was on duty. He sat with his feet up, reading the day’s copy of The Bramfield Mercury.

  He was not a constable that Simon had seen before. So it followed that. . .

  ‘Good morning, Constable,’ said Simon marching up. ‘Having a bit of a rest, are you?’

  The constable threw down his paper and jumped to his feet. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Are you familiar with Inspector D’Eath?’

  ‘No. I’ve just been transferred here. This very morning. I don’t know him at all.’

  ‘Well, you’re looking at him now. So do up that button and look alert.’

  ‘Yes . . . I . . .’ The constable did up his button. ‘Aren’t you a bit young to be an inspector?’

  ‘Sir,’ said Simon. ‘A bit young to be an inspector, sir.’

  ‘Sir,’ said the constable.

  ‘No,’ said Simon. ‘Do you have the keys to the safe?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then open it up, lad.’

  ‘Could I see your warrant card, sir?’

  ‘Very thorough of you, lad. We’ll make a policeman of you yet.’

  ‘So could I see it, sir?’

  ‘It’s in the safe, lad. I have been interviewing a very dangerous criminal. All my personal possessions are locked in the safe. Warrant card. Money.’

  ‘Yes, sir, right.’

  ‘Then get a move on, lad. I’ve had a rough night.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The new constable took his keys from his pocket, went over to the safe and fumbled one into the lock.

  Simon watched the seconds tick by on the big clock above the desk. ‘Get a move on.’

  ‘I am, sir. There.’ The constable swung open the safe door.

  The safe was empty.

  ‘Shit,’ said Simon. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

  ‘Sir, please, I don’t understand. No hang about.’ The constable nipped past Simon and snatched up his newspaper. There on the front was a big banner headline. POLICE ARREST BUTCHER OF BRAMFIELD.

  And beneath this there was a photograph of Simon. A bit fuzzy perhaps, but quite recognizable. Blown up from a group shot of The Jolly Gardeners’ cup-winning darts team. The editor of The Bramfield Mercury had paid Andy one hundred pounds for it.

  ‘You!’ went the young constable. ‘You’re him.’

  ‘Aw shit.’ Simon leapt over the desk.

  The young policeman drew his truncheon. Simon made for the door.

  The constable made after him.

  And then there was an almighty BOOM and they both fell down.

  The cringing menial fell down on his knees. ‘Your Majesty,’ he cringed.

  His Royal Majesty the Grand Duke looked down upon him (in every sense of the word). ‘You’re not the same cringing menial I sent out earlier. What happened to him?’

  ‘He got blown up, Your Majesty.’

  ‘By the mad professor?’

  ‘No, sire, by one of your helicopters.’

  ‘Bring me the heads of the crew then.’

  ‘The crew got blown up, sire. By the mad professor.’

  ‘Outrageous. And where are the police?’

  ‘Mostly in hospital, sire. There was a lot of smoke on the dock and in the confusion they all seem to have shot one another.’

  ‘Anything else you’d like to tell me?’

  ‘Well, a large amount of the city is now on fire. The fire spread from the row of shops the professor’s ship hit when it landed to pick him up.’

  ‘And where are the firemen?’

  ‘They have the day off, sire. You declared it a national holiday.’

  The Grand Duke wrung his big fat bejewelled fingers. ‘Do we still have an airforce?’ he enquired.

  ‘When they come back tomorrow after their day off, we do.’

  ‘Ye gods!’ The Grand Duke wrung the neck of the cringing menial. ‘I do not believe it. The professor decimates my police force, burns down my city—’

  ‘Steals all your “George”, sire.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The two hundred bubbles of George. The ones you were really looking forward to eating.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘Stolen from the auction house and loaded on to his ship.’

  ‘Right!’ The Grand Duke struggled to his big fat feet, dumping Colin to the deck once more. ‘He will pay for this. His circus will pay for this. All the bloody Edenites of Eden will pay for this. Get on the telephone. Call Humphrey Gogmagog. Tell him I wish, no, I demand, to make a royal speech to the nation, to the entire planet, in half an hour’s time. Got that?’

  ‘Yes, sire,’ cringed the cringer.

  ‘Well, clear off then.’

  ‘There’s just one more thing, sire.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s an elephant outside.’

  ‘Circus elephant? Jumbo the circus elephant?’

  ‘Yes, sire. It seems that the circus folk ran off without their animals. They’re all still inside the palace. Except for the elephant. He’s outside.’

  ‘Well, that’s something at least. Have my chef slaughter all the animals and cook them up for dinner. Poodles for starters, I think.’

  ‘That’s what the elephant wants to talk to you about, sire.’

  ‘Talk to me? What are you saying?’

  ‘He can talk, sire. Really, I heard him. And he wants you to set all the other animals free.’

  ‘He does what?’

  ‘Set them free. He says his name’s not Jumbo any more, it’s Moses. And
to tell you, “Let my people go”.’

  ‘Oh let Oh-let-my-people-go, Leeet-go, Leeet-go.’

  The chant greeted Raymond as he came down the steps leading to the cargo hold. The little window in the door, through which the Millwall supporters had chanted their considered opinion of Professor Merlin was now broken. But the hands that craned through it were unable to reach the outside bolts.

  Raymond adjusted his silk cravat and smoothed down the knees of his velvet pantaloons. It wasn’t going to be easy this. For one thing he had a bit of an image problem. For another, he had no idea just what he should say to these people. ‘Hello, lads, you’ll never guess what, but you were kidnapped by a flying starfish, flown to Saturn to be sold as food, rescued and are now on a Victorian steamship travelling through space on its way to do battle against the people of another Earth which surrounds the one you live on.’ How would they take that? Raymond wondered. Probably not well.

  On a bulkhead near the hold door there hung a speaking tube arrangement. Raymond deduced (quite correctly as luck would have it) that here was a means of communicating with the warriors in the hold. He took down the speaking end and blew into it. A piercing whistle blasted through the cargo hold. ‘Ahem,’ went Raymond, wondering just what to say. The professor had told him that, from his ‘intelligence network’, he had gleaned the information that the Millwall supporters had been travelling in three coaches to an away match against Manchester United when the alien abduction had occurred.

  Raymond had seen a very obvious flaw in this. But he hoped no-one else would. ‘Ahem.’ Raymond cleared his throat once more. He had to tell them something. How would Simon deal with a situation like this? Perhaps in this manner.

  ‘Ahem. Good afternoon. This is Captain Raymond of the Sealink Line welcoming you aboard the cross channel ferry Salamander. We hope you are enjoying your journey, but regret that due to a forecast of rough seas ahead, we must keep the hold doors firmly locked.

  ‘You may be experiencing a slight sense of disorientation and wondering just how you came to be here and why you didn’t have any clothes on.’ Raymond paused in search of a spurious explanation suitable to the occasion. ‘You were drugged,’ said Raymond, ‘that’s what it was. While you were on the coaches on your way to Manchester, rival fans laced your lager with LSD. Or your beer, if you were drinking beer. Or your cigarettes.’ Raymond considered the unlikely possibility that one of the Millwall supporters had not been either drinking or smoking on the way to the match. ‘Or it was fed through the air conditioning in the coaches.

  ‘So you were all on this really bad acid trip and the manager of Millwall, Mr . . .’ Raymond had no idea whatsoever who the manager of Millwall was. ‘Mr . . .’ he made the sound of static crackling, ‘has sent you on this trip to France at the club’s expense to let you recuperate.

  ‘Your clothes, which were removed for decontamination of toxins, will shortly be returned to you. The company doctor advises against further head-butting of the doors, as this may induce toxic shock and permanent brain damage. Food and drink will soon be served and we hope you will enjoy your all-expenses-paid holiday in France. Thank you.’

  Raymond hung up the speaking tube and put his ear to the bulkhead. There was a temporary silence.

  There always is before a really violent storm explodes.

  The explosion at the police station rocked the better part of Bramfield. The not quite so good part of Bramfield, on the other side of the high street, didn’t get rocked at all.

  There was a lot of smoke and dust and falling masonry and fire alarms going off and chaos and confusion.

  Armed men in stocking masks stormed the police station. One with a lurcher clinging to his leg.

  The young police constable rising from the rubble was cruelly clubbed down by a rifle butt. The armed men kicked open doors, rushed along corridors, shouted Simon’s name.

  But Simon didn’t answer them. He was no longer in the police station, having made a break for freedom through a side window leading to the car-park.

  Here stood an impounded vehicle. It was one of those old Jags, so beloved of the criminal fraternity in TV cop shows like The Sweeney. And Simon had the keys. How?

  Well . . . er . . . he snatched them from the keyboard in the police station just before he leapt out of the window. That’s how!

  Simon peeped into the car. Just to make sure there were no back-seat drivers this time. There were none. So he leapt inside, keyed the ignition and made good his escape. But to where?

  Simon had one place in mind. A house hidden away at the bottom of the-lane-that-dare-not-speak-its-name. The house of the Scribe.

  A few startled souls were stirring as Simon drove up the high street, but not many. He kept his speed down and cruised past the shops and storefronts which now held evil memories for him.

  The Bramfield Arms, where he had first encountered the men in grey. The bookies where he had won his fortune. The bank which had been closed against the banking of his fortune. The stretch of pavement he had raced along with his fortune. The supermarket doorway where he had been knocked down and relieved of his fortune.

  Simon shuddered, what a nightmare. But he must put all that behind him now. It would have been nice if the money had been in the police safe. But that was asking rather a lot of God.

  And as he was now a soldier of the Lord, bound upon a sacred mission, he must rise above such matters. For now.

  The soldier of the Lord drove carefully around the mini roundabout that everyone drives straight across, turned right at the big house that’s always being done up, down King Neptune Road, past The Jolly Gardeners and left at the top of the hill.

  The jag bumped in and out of the potholes that no-one wants to take responsibility for and as Simon passed Raymond’s house he kept his head down, just in case Raymond’s mum might be looking out of the window, awaiting the prodigal’s return.

  At the bottom of the lane Simon parked the car beside the abandoned railway track. He pocketed the keys and left the driver’s door unlocked, in case a speedy escape was required.

  Then he sidled along beside the high hedge sheltering the Scribe’s house. Would there be a policeman on guard outside? Simon didn’t think so. And there wasn’t.

  In through the gate and up the garden path.

  The milkman had been and the paperboy. Simon removed the copy of The Bramfield Mercury from the letterbox and flung it back over the hedge. And then he knocked boldly at the door.

  A moment’s silence, then the shuffling of feet. ‘Who’s there?’ called the voice of the scribe.

  ‘Postman,’ the voice of the postman replied. ‘Package to be signed for. Registered mail. Money, I think.’

  ‘Oh jolly good.’ The sound of bolts being drawn. The door opened on the chain. They eye of the Scribe appeared in the crack.

  ‘Oh no!’ went the Scribe.

  ‘Oh yes.’ There was a bit of a struggle, but Simon’s foot was firmly in the door. ‘I have a gun,’ shouted the Scribe, retreating in search of it.

  Simon took three paces back and shoulder-charged the front door. The fact that this never works in real life meant nothing to him. The security chain shattered and Simon burst into the hall. Having now added a severely bruised shoulder to his already overstocked catalogue of superficial wounds.

  ‘Stand back or I shoot you.’ The Scribe stood in his PJs, dressing-gown and slippers. And he really did have a gun.

  How come, Simon wondered, everybody in this bloody village has a gun except me? ‘I just don’t have time for that.’ Simon kicked the gun from the Scribe’s hands, stooped, retrieved it from the floor and pointed it at the now squirming author. ‘Stick ‘em up.’

  ‘No,’ said the Scribe. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the gun’s not loaded.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Simon raised the gun, club fashion. ‘Stick ‘em up, or I will beat you severely. The Scribe stuck ‘em up.

  ‘Into the living-room
.’

  Simon followed the stuck-up one into the living-room.

  It was a shambles. Tables overturned. Papers everywhere. The stacks of glossy magazines with the matching spines were all over the place, out of date order. The word procurer lay upside down on the carpet.

  ‘What happened here?’

  ‘I had a visit from the police.’

  ‘You and me both. But why did you do it? I told you, if anyone comes asking for me, tell them I’ve gone home to bed. I said it several times. And what do you do? You tell them I’ve gone to Long Bob’s. Why?’

  The Scribe looked puzzled. ‘I told them you’d gone home. But that Inspector D’Eath didn’t believe me when I told him you’d gone home. He got very unpleasant. So as I was just writing that you were going to Long Bob’s farm, I told him that. And he left. What were you doing at Long Bob’s farm anyway?’

  ‘Never mind.’ Simon sat down on the sofa with the dreadful woolen multi-coloured shawl thing on it. ‘So why did he wreck your rom?’

  ‘He didn’t. It was the other police who arrived later. The plain-clothed ones.’

  ‘What plain-clothed ones?’ Now Simon looked puzzled.

  ‘They said they were a special unit. I didn’t like the look of them one bit. All dressed in grey they were. Pinched faces. Even had grey sunglasses.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Simon sank into the sofa.

  ‘You know them? Can I put my hands down now please?’

  ‘I know them. And yes of course you can. Why did you try to stop me getting in?’

  ‘Inspector D’Eath told me you were a psychotic.’

  ‘Well I’m not.’

  ‘So why have you come here?’

  ‘I need to see the manuscript you’re working on. I have to know what happens next. It’s very very important.’

  ‘I don’t have it,’ said the Scribe.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The special unit men took it with them.’

  ‘What? You let the men in grey walk off with it? How could you do that?’

  ‘They said they needed it for evidence.’

  ‘But you know who they really are.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You bloody do.’ Simon rose from his seat and made menacing moves towards the Scribe. ‘You wrote about them in the book. You know exactly who they are and what they do.’