‘Ooh, Matron,’ said Fange. But I did not hear him and possibly it was unconnected.
‘This is brilliant,’ I said to Mr Rune, as we stood together on the balcony of our exclusive suite of rooms overlooking the High Street that would soon be filled by torch-lit paraders, whilst we quaffed champagne and smoked expensive cigars. ‘I am really going to enjoy myself tonight.’
‘Me too,’ said Mr Rune, raising his glass to me. ‘It is always a delight to see oneself burned in effigy.’
‘Oneself?’ I queried.
‘Indeed,’ said Mr Rune, sucking upon his cigar and blowing out a perfect cube of smoke. ‘Word has reached me that the ladies of the Chiswick Townswomen’s Guild have brought themselves down in a charabanc to cast my effigy into the flames.’
‘Why?’ I asked, which seemed a reasonable question.
‘It’s an old issue,’ said Mr Rune, ‘dating back to the turn of the century. Some folk will never let bygones be bygones. Just because I thwarted their plans for world domination, they have taken against me personally.’
‘This is good champagne,’ I said, ‘although I note that my cigar is somewhat smaller than your own.’
‘As you are too young either to drink or smoke, I do not feel that we should let this become a bone of contention.’
‘Oooh, Matron,’ I suggested.
But Mr Rune did not think too much of this suggestion and instead he studied the sky. ‘Those portents in the Heavens still remain,’ he said. ‘See there the conjunction of planets and the constellations of stars?’
I looked and I saw. ‘They look to form the shape of a great horse,’ I said, ‘rearing up – do you see it?’
‘Clearly,’ said Mr Rune. ‘And I see more.’
‘You generally do,’ I told him.
‘We are close, young Rizla. We are very close.’
‘Do you want to step back a little?’
Mr Rune raised one of those hairless eyebrows of his. ‘Close to the end of our quest,’ he said.
‘To find the Chronovision?’
Hugo Rune nodded his big bald head.
‘Oh,’ I said, and I made a face.
‘A look of disappointment, would that be?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘in a way, yes. I have been with you for months now. I am no closer to rediscovering my real identity, but to be perfectly honest, I think that I no longer care. I have so enjoyed my time with you, even though every case seems to put my life in jeopardy. It has all been, well, it has all been such fun.’
‘Good,’ said Mr Rune, smiling broadly. ‘And I will miss you when this is over and you return, as you must, to your previous life.’
‘That will only happen if I can remember who I was.’
‘You will,’ said Mr Rune. ‘You will. Trust me, I’m a magician.’
I looked up at Mr Hugo Rune, this huge presence of a person who had become to me – what? A father figure? Not quite. A guru? Not entirely. A source of inspiration? Somewhat. I did not know quite what, only that he was special, other, apart. He was all of those. And even though he never paid his bills and wantonly assaulted taxi drivers, I really trusted, admired and to no small degree was in awe of this extraordinary man.
And did I love him also? Not in some sexual fashion – that would have been abhorrent – but rather in the way that a best friend loves a best friend? Well, then yes, I think I did. In fact, I know that I did.
‘You’ll have me getting a crinkly mouth, thinking thoughts like those,’ said Mr Rune. ‘But I must ask you to swear an oath to me.’
‘I swear,’ I said.
‘Do you not wish to know what it is before you swear it?’
‘Ah, yes,’ I said. ‘I might just have sworn away my wages, should there ever be any wages for me to swear away.’
‘This is a serious matter,’ said the Perfect Master.
‘Go on, then,’ I said.
‘Should something happen to me, should I not be able to continue with the quest, I want you to swear that you will see it through to the end – find the Chronovision and destroy it before Count Otto Black gets his greasy fingers upon it.’
‘By Crimbo,’ I said, ‘I like not the sound of this.’
‘I would very much like you to swear.’
‘But what is likely to happen to you?’
‘Swear, please,’ said Mr Rune.
And so I swore.
I placed my hand on my heart and swore that I would continue the quest in the event of Mr Rune’s inability to do so.
‘Splendid,’ said he. ‘The big parade begins in an hour, so I suggest we adjourn to the bar.’
It was all oak beams and Tudor in the hotel bars of Lewes. And they had barmen who wore clean white shirts and black dicky bows and treated you with politeness even when you were drunk. Which I intended to be, as Mr Rune was footing the bill. Well, at least in theory he was.
‘Good evening, young sir, and good evening, your Popeship,’ said the well-dressed barman.
‘Good evening, Fange,’ I said.
‘Well, gracious me,’ said Fangio, ‘Whatever are you doing here? And Mister Rune, too – I didn’t recognise you at first in that get-up.’
‘We have come to enjoy the bonfires, of course,’ I said. ‘But much more to the point, what are you doing here?’
‘Well,’ said Fange, ‘do you recall on page forty-three that I told you I would do something really helpful in Chapter Nine? Well, guess what?’
‘Does time not travel fast when you are having a good time?’ I said.
Fangio scratched at his head, upon which he wore no wig or hat, but only a helping of Brylcreem.
‘Why scratch you at your Brylcreemed bonce?’ I asked him.
‘I was just wondering how I could get a page and a half of toot out of answering your question,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to get back to you on it. What would you care to drink?’
‘What do you have on offer?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ said Fange, ‘we have eight hand-drawn traditional ales on draft, a selection, I must state with pride, which exceeds the Heartbreak Hotel by three and the Crossroads Motel by four.’
I looked along the row of highly polished beer pulls.
‘Impressive,’ I said. ‘What is that one there?’
‘Old Willy Warmer,’ said Fange. ‘A fine Sussex ale, slightly nutty, but full-bodied and at five point two you only need three to be well on your way.’
‘I will go for that, then,’ I said.
‘That one’s off, I’m afraid,’ said Fange. ‘Bad barrel from the brewery. Word reached my ear that a tiny spaniel fell into the vat during the fermentation process.’
‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘I will have that one there, then.’
‘Good choice,’ said Fangio. ‘McGregor’s Brown Gusset, a fine Scottish ale brewed from hops that are rolled upon the thigh of a Glaswegian crofter’s lass—’
‘A virgin?’ I asked.
‘Naturally,’ said Fange. ‘The ale is then mellowed in casks crafted from the timbers of siege-engines captured from the British at Bannockburn. And at five point nine you only need two pints to be paralytic.’
‘A pint of that will do me fine, then,’ I said.
Fangio put his hand to the pump handle. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but this one’s off, too. We have none in stock. It’s flown down by airship, but only yesterday the delivering airship crashed into power lines on the Sussex Downs. Well, they say that it crashed, but the last radio communication from the pilot said that he was being buzzed by a UFO.’
‘Really?’ I said.
‘He said something about crabs and then the radio went dead.’
‘That is awful,’ I said. But I was beginning to sense a theme. A familiar one. ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘and I want you to be totally honest with me here. Is there even one of these eight hand-drawn traditional ales, which you claim with due pride to exceed in number those served at the Heartbreak Hotel by three and the Crossroads Motel, where I believe Robert
Johnson once stayed, by four, that you actually, at this very moment, have available?’
‘You’re putting me on the spot there,’ said Fangio.
‘I am,’ I said.
‘I was hoping to hold out a little longer and tell you all about the Old Muff-Widener.’
‘You have none of that, either,’ I said, ‘have you?’
‘Or Grampa Reekie’s Wessex Butt-Fuc—’
‘Nor that one, nor any other,’ I said.
And Fange hung his head, though he grinned as he did it. ‘Has to be at least a page,’ he whispered to himself.
‘What did you say?’ I asked him.
‘Nothing, sir.’
I turned to Mr Rune. ‘Would you care to do the ordering?’ I asked him.
But Mr Rune was already drinking brandy.
‘Where did that come from?’ I asked.
‘Behind the bar,’ said Mr Rune. ‘I availed myself of it whilst you and Fangio were talking the toot.’
‘Pour me a glass, then,’ I said.
‘No,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Get your own.’
‘Anything,’ I said to Fange. ‘Anything at all.’
‘Anything?’ said Fange. ‘Would you care to be a little more specific?’
‘No, I certainly would not. Serve me something alcoholic now or I will have you killed.’
‘A pint of McGregor’s Brown Gusset coming right up.’
‘But you said—’
But it mattered not.
Because the ale was good.
‘Right,’ said Mr Rune when I had finished my pint, ‘you have talked the toot and drunk the ale and now we should go and watch the big parade.’
‘Has an hour gone by already?’ I asked. ‘Does time not travel fast when you are having a good time?’
‘Well,’ said Fangio, ‘I’ve been thinking about that, and it’s funny you should mention it again, because—’
‘See you later,’ I told him.
‘But …’ said Fangio.
Mr Rune and I returned to our suite, where he changed from his papal robes into something more sober and joined me on our balcony. The big parade was beginning. Beneath us marched members of the Cluedo Klux Klan Society in their distinctive livery of chiffon and mayonnaise. How magnificent they looked. And how harmoniously they sang. Their songs were all of four-wheel-drives and three-point turns and two-for-the-show and a partridge in a pear tree. They carried aloft their effigy for burning – Mad Mickey Wright of Brighton Town Council.
Close upon their polished heels marched the men of the Self-Preservation Society, all clad in horn-rimmed glasses and white trench coats. They proudly bore their flaming torches and sang their songs about ‘blowing the bloody doors off’ and there being Zulus, ‘thousands of them’.
Next came the Marching Band of the Queen’s Own Foot and Mouth Society, and you do not need me to tell you how simply spiffing they looked in their high-top shoes and pigtails, with matching handbags and handlebar mirrors. And of the songs they sang, who could ever forget—
‘Stop now,’ said Mr Rune. ‘The secret is knowing when to stop. Or in this case whether to have bothered to start.’
‘But I do like their handbags,’ I said.
‘But these are the ones to watch.’ And he gestured with the brandy bottle he had brought up from the bar. ‘The ladies of the Chiswick Townswomen’s Guild.’
Now, I did not like them. They were all wrong, those ladies. Well dressed in what seemed to be Victorian garb, black and lacy and Cagney, too, but they were so thin and so pinch-faced and so terribly alike that they might have been sisters. Which somehow made me think about multiple sisters. And of Kelly Anna Sirjan, the beautiful young woman I had met at Hangleton Manor, who had refused my advances and returned with her multiplicity of sisters (no doubt) to Count Otto Black’s Circus Fantastique.
‘I do not like those ladies at all,’ I said. ‘And as for their effigy of you—’
‘It is somewhat portly,’ said Mr Rune.
‘It has much of the Michelin Man about it,’ I said. ‘You might be fat, but—’
‘Fat?’ said Mr Rune. ‘I am well knit.’
The ladies passed beneath us, chanting.
‘Death to Hugo Rune,’ they chanted.
‘And they do not have much of a song,’ I observed.
‘We must follow them,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Gird up your loins, young Rizla. The game, as you see, is afoot.’
‘I will wait here,’ I said. ‘They will probably get stuck in the one-way system and be passing by again in half an hour.’
‘You will accompany me,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Fetch your coat and hat and follow.’
The pavements were impossibly crowded, six deep in places and seven in others. The Argus reported that its reporter had counted up to nine in one place, but the location of this particular place was not specifically mentioned and the reporter in question was noted as one much given to hyperbole.
‘These pavements are impossibly crowded,’ said Hugo Rune, clearing a path before him with the aid of his stout stick. ‘Ten deep back there.’ I followed in his wake.
‘Are we nearly there yet?’ I asked him.
‘Follow on. Follow on.’
I followed on and Mr Rune followed on. He followed on behind the Chiswick Townswomen’s Guild.
At length we passed our hotel.
‘Don’t be discouraged,’ Mr Rune called back to me, as he struck to the left and right of himself and cleared a further path.
I was not discouraged, just a bit footsore. But it was exciting, what with the cheering crowds and the chanting women and the flaming torches and everything. And now the fireworks in the sky, great chrysanthemum bursts of white and gold and red and blue. Beautiful.
And suddenly I felt that we were on a different road, one that led up, and I knew where to because I had studied the map: towards the ruins of Lewes Castle that crowned the crest of the hill.
And as Mr Rune and I followed the ladies up a long and winding road that the Beatles would later sing about, I became aware of several things: of quite how cold it suddenly seemed to have become and how the pavements were no longer deep with any number at all of cheering onlookers.
Ahead of us marched the Chiswick Townswomen’s Guild, bearing their torches and Mr Rune’s effigy. Behind marched Mr Rune and myself. And none else marched but we.
‘Suggestive,’ whispered Mr Rune to me.
‘I hate it when you use that word,’ I said. ‘It inevitably means that there is going to be trouble.’
Mr Rune put more spark into his step. ‘Pacey-pacey, Rizla,’ said he. ‘A gnat’s nuts need no oiling, but a lady-boy won’t offer you a ride on a rusty bike.’
Which I could not have argued with, even if I had tried.
Up and up went the pinch-faced ladies. Although we could no longer see their pinch-faces. What with us following them and everything. Up and up and up.
‘I never knew that the castle ruins were this high,’ I panted at Mr Rune. ‘We will soon be needing oxygen masks. I swear we are breathing rarefied air.’
‘Suggestive,’ said Mr Rune once again, marching ever onward.
Above us, the ruined castle loomed, its silhouette blacker than the sky. I turned and looked behind and I was amazed by what I saw: the town of Lewes was a great distance below us, and the torchlight parade was in miniature, snaking through, it seemed, a model village.
I pulled out my map of the area and held it low, for the chrysanthemum explosions of the airborne fireworks were now beneath us. My map was an Ordnance Survey jobbie, one of the many in Mr Rune’s collection. It had spot heights on it, as well as the locations of churches with spires, churches with towers and contour lines, for which I have always had a liking. And benchmarks, of course, but who does not have a liking for them?. I studied the spot heights on this map, and in the flare of an airborne firework, I could see where we were supposed to be. But we could not be there, because there was no there. It was all very wrong indeed.
br /> ‘Mister Rune …’ I said.
‘Keep up, Rizla. Keep up now.’
‘But,’ I said, ‘this is all wrong.’
And it was.
And then we lost sight of the ladies.
‘They have entered the ruins,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I would counsel stealth and the keeping of the now-legendary low profile.’
‘I am with you there,’ I said. ‘And I will stay behind you, if you have no objection. To use the popular parlance of the era, I am somewhat weirded-out here.’
‘Follow on,’ said Mr Rune.
And I followed on.
‘This way,’ he continued.
And that was the way I went.
We did some ‘duckings-down’, followed by some ‘skulking arounds’, followed then by some ‘forward-creepings’ and then a wee bit of ‘crawlings up to’. And then Mr Rune nudged me, and though it was dark I could see that he was pointing. And I did ‘strainings of the eyes’ to see what he was pointing at.
Which eventually I did.
Below us, for we were now up on some ruined wall, lay the castle courtyard and within things looked somewhat busy. A great fire had been lit, in the best traditions of Lewes, and about this, dancing with a vigour and a vim, were the ladies of the Chiswick Townswomen’s Guild. And …
‘By Crimbo,’ I whispered. ‘They have all got their clothes off.’
‘Sky-clad,’ whispered Mr Rune. ‘When one dances for the devil, one does so in one’s bare skuddies.’
‘Even though I am half-gone with altitude sickness,’ I said, ‘I am still capable of enjoying the sight of a bunch of women dancing around in their bare skuddies. Thanks very much for bringing me here. It is a shame that I do not have a camera.’
‘Would that be one of those flippant remarks that you make in the hope of lightening the situation when you’re fearing for your life?’ asked Mr Rune.
‘It would,’ said I. ‘Can we go now?’
‘I think we will stay a little longer. It is imperative that I discover what these evil harpies are up to upon this night.’
‘I suspect that you probably have a good idea already. Why do I not just slip back to the Hotel California and get us in a round of drinks? Which, you will agree, will be no easy matter and might take quite some time.’