And, ‘Well,’ I said, when I could find sufficient breath. ‘I can not believe it is all over. It seemed so sudden. And now it is done.’
‘Did it lack for excitement?’ asked Mr Rune. ‘Would you have preferred more explosions? Or perhaps a final rooftop showdown involving a guest appearance from Lazlo Woodbine?’
‘It did cross my mind,’ I said, ‘but the excitement was sufficient.’
‘You will find,’ said Mr Rune, ‘and you may quote me on this, that truth is more of a stranger than fiction.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘But tell me this: I know I saw Count Otto die, and horrible it was to see, but, is he really dead?’
Hugo Rune grinned down upon me. ‘He’s dead for now,’ he said.
‘For now?’ I took to dusting myself down. I was somewhat besmirched from all the sewer-pipe climbing.
‘Time,’ said Mr Rune, ‘all this has been to do with time, as I have told you before. And for the time being, we can consider the Count to be no more.’
‘For the time being?’ I did further dustings down. And I was still rather wobbly on my pins.
‘Consider it to be a game of chess,’ said Mr Rune. Who did not seem at all besmirched, or even wobbly now, and was clearly in the very best of spirits. ‘Checkmate and the game is over. But the players remain and so do the pieces, to be replaced upon the board for future games.’
‘And that is how it is for you and Count Otto?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes. The Chronovision is destroyed. This game is over. But there will be other games in other times.’
‘And will I play in these games?’
‘No, young Rizla.’ And Hugo Rune patted my shoulder. ‘You have played your part, and loyally, too. But now you must return to your own life. You will have adventures of your own to engage in. Great adventures, be assured of that.’
‘But I still do not know who I am. And if truth be told, I think I would rather just stay here with you.’
‘That cannot be,’ and Mr Rune shook his great bald head. ‘Tonight you return to your own life. Oh, and in some far and distant future time, when the time is right and you take up your pen and record your adventures with me, do make sure that you spell my name correctly.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But no, I do not want to go.’
‘But nevertheless you must.’
‘And so must I,’ said Lord Tobes, ‘to that pub over there. Will either of you join me for a pint?’
‘I will,’ said Mr Rune, ‘but later.’
‘I will now,’ said I.
‘No.’ Mr Rune held up his hand. The one with the stout stick in it. ‘You have done enough. It is time to say farewell.’
‘Well, if that’s how it is,’ said Tobes, ‘I suppose it’s farewell.’ And he put out his hand to me and I shook it. ‘And you certainly do have some adventures coming up,’ he continued. ‘I was just having a bit of a standing nap there, and you’ll never believe what happens to you. You see, there’s you and this Irish bloke and you walk into a pub and—’
‘No,’ said Mr Rune, and he waggled his stick at Lord Tobes.
‘Then ta ta for now, then,’ said Tobes. ‘And I’ll see you in the pub Mister Rune. If I’m sleeping, give me a wake up.’
And with that, Tobes departed into the Brighton night.
‘Do I really have to go?’ I whinged at Mr Rune.
‘You do, my boy, you do. And see, here we are at the East Street cab rank. We will take a taxi to your point of departure.’
‘I think I would rather walk,’ I said.
‘Not a bit of it.’
There was no queue for the cabs and ten stood all in a row awaiting fares. The cabbies leaned upon the foremost vehicle, smoking cigarettes and talking about football.
Mr Rune rapped his stout stick on the bonnet of this foremost cab. ‘Shop!’ cried he. ‘Important persons requiring transportation.’
The cabbies looked up from their discussion, took in Mr Rune and me and then looked back towards one another.
And then, ‘It’s ’im,’ said a cabbie called Jonie, who favoured a team called Newcastle United. ‘That’s the blighter what struck me unconscious in Hangleton and nicked my cab.’
‘Damn right!’ said a cabbie that I recognised to be Dave, who was the Brighton Seagulls supporter whom Mr Rune had clubbed down during the Curious Case of the Centenary Centaur. ‘I recognise that nutter and his stout stick.’
‘And he done me and nicked my cab in Woodingdean,’ said a cabbie called Colin, who was known for his love of West Bromwich Albion.
And I also noticed Darren, whom Mr Rune and I had encountered during the Sensational Affair of the Sackville Scavenger. He supported Hull, I recalled. And also Ralph, the Chelsea FC supporter.
‘I think perhaps we should walk,’ I said to Mr Rune. ‘Or perhaps run, which might be quicker.’
‘He didn’t hit me,’ said a cabbie called Salvador de Allende Fernandes Mal de Mer, an ardent supporter of the Benedictine Bears, if my memory served me well. ‘But as I, like you, my brothers, am a member of BOLLOCK, the secret cabal of cabbies, I will join you in thrashing these scoundrels.’
Mr Rune sighed deeply. ‘It pains me to say it,’ he said, ‘but running would perhaps be the best option.’
And off he went at the hurry-up.
And off went I in pursuit.
And after us came the cabbies, in the manner of a lynch mob of old. All they lacked for were burning torches.
Mr Rune’s lung-gom leaping carried him at considerable speed along the length of East Street, across Grand Junction Road and on to the promenade. I rushed after him as best I could. The cabbies followed with vigour and in swelling numbers, too, it seemed, as I glanced over my shoulder.
I thought I saw Sean O’Reilly, the Arsenal supporter who had been struck down during the Baffling Business of the Bevendean Bat. And also Andy, who favoured Brentford United, who had ‘got his’, as it were, whilst Mr Rune and I were applying ourselves to the case of the Birdman of Whitehawk.
Mr Rune had by now reached the Palace Pier and was leaping his way along it. And I ran too with a spring in my step, as cabs on Grand Junction Road swerved to a halt and other cabbies sprang from them.
On to the pier and along it I ran.
And that thought came to me once again.
Piers only go from the land to the sea.
There is no escape to be had at the end of them.
Although in truth, there had been the last time, with The Saucy Spaniel and Captain Bartholomew Moulsecoomb. But this time? Well, it did not seem too likely.
I ran through the penny arcade and past the gypsy caravan, where a tarot reader named Freda turned cards on a gate-legged table. And on and on and panting now, and after Hugo Rune.
Until finally …
I was at the very end of the pier.
And there stood Hugo Rune.
I puffed and panted and gagged and gasped. ‘We are trapped,’ I managed to say.
‘We’re here,’ said Mr Rune, without so much as a puff.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Now what are we going to do?’
I heard the cries of approaching cabbies. They had ceased to run, because they must have realised that we were trapped.
I glanced back and beheld them: a truly menacing crowd advancing at a slow and even pace.
‘I said,’ said Mr Rune, ‘that we are here. At our destination. Your point of departure. And the exercise did us good and sobered us up and we saved ourselves the cost of a cab. In a manner of speaking.’
‘We … are … trapped!’ I cried between puffings.
‘Never say die,’ said Mr Rune. ‘But now, I regret that we must say farewell.’
‘What?’ I went. ‘What?’
‘Farewell,’ said Mr Rune, and he shook me by the hand. ‘And thank you, Rizla, for everything.’
And with that said, and no more, he lifted me bodily with a single hand, swung me out over the railings and dropped me into the sea.
/>
‘No!’ I went. ‘Oooooooooh noooooooo!’
And then I hit the water. That cold, cold water.
And the last thing that I saw was Mr Rune saluting my departure and then setting about the cabbies with his stout stick.
And then the cold waters closed above my head.
And that was that for me.
PART VI
And then I awoke with a cough and a croak in a rather cosy bed.
I did blinkings and gaspings and gaggings and chokings, and then I did lookings around.
‘Where am I?’ I asked. ‘And how did I get here?’
A smiling face smiled down upon me. It was a smiling face I knew. ‘You are in Brentford Cottage Hospital,’ it said.
‘Omally,’ I said to this smiling face, this bright and smiling teenaged face. ‘John Omally, it is you.’
‘And it’s yourself, too, Jim Pooley, you silly bugger.’
‘Yes,’ I said. And I drew in breath. ‘Jim Pooley, that is me. I am Jim.’
‘You’re Jim, all right,’ said John and he patted me upon the shoulder. ‘And I can’t take my eyes off you for an evening, can I?’
‘Can you not?’ I asked. ‘Can I have a glass of water?’ I continued.
‘I’d have thought you’d had enough of water.’ John decanted a glass from the jug upon the bedside table, helped me into a seated position, which involved some plumpings-up of pillows, and handed me the glass. ‘If I hadn’t misplaced those tickets to see The Who,’ said John to me, ‘that Enid Earles would never have gone down to Brighton with you.’
‘Enid Earles,’ I said. ‘Yes, I remember.’
‘And what happened to her?’
‘She played me false, John,’ I said. ‘But no, wait. What of Mr Rune? Is Mr Rune all right?’
‘Mister Rune? And who would this Mister Rune be?’
‘Hugo Rune,’ I said, ‘the Perfect Master, the Cosmic Dick, the Hokus Bloke himself. He reinvented the ocarina, you know.’
‘Never heard of the fellow,’ said John. ‘How is the water?’
‘It tastes like—’
‘It is,’ said John. ‘It’s vodka.’
‘Well, thank you very much.’
‘You had me worried there.’ John patted my shoulder once again. ‘You’re my bestest friend. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. You need me to protect you. One night away and you’re—’
‘One night?’ I said. ‘Pour me another of these, if you will.’
‘I will not,’ said John. ‘You are still clearly in your cups. Did you fall off the pier in your drunkenness? Was that it?’
‘Er, yes,’ said I. ‘That was it. But that was a year ago, John, when it happened the first time. When I went down to Brighton with Enid Earles. You will not believe the adventures I have had since then. But they are all true, believe me.’
‘Jim,’ said John to me, ‘Jim,’ and there was a certain tone to his voice. ‘Jim, you have been away for a single night. No more, no less. You left for Brighton yesterday, which was Friday, Saint Valentine’s Day and you have been returned to Brentford in an ambulance today, which is Saturday. Not a year, Jim, a single day. That is all.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It cannot be. I was gone for a whole year. Where are my clothes? You will see. Boleskine tweed – Mr Rune acquired them for me.’
‘There is no Rune,’ said John. ‘And no tweeds, Boleskine or otherwise – you were in your undies when they pulled you ashore, the tidal currents had your kit off.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No.’
‘Yes,’ said John. ‘Yes.’
‘But I was there with him. I had adventures, incredible adventures, for an entire year. The Brighton Zodiac. The Brightonomicon. Count Otto Black.’
John Omally shook his head. ‘Delirium, Jim. Dreams. You went yesterday, you’re back today. Between you and me,’ and John did ‘talkings from behind his hand’, ‘I’d let this one drop if I were you, or you might end up in the psychiatric ward for a prolonged stay.’
‘But I—’
John mimed the wearing of a straitjacket.
And very well he mimed it too.
And then he took my glass from me, poured further vodka into it and drank it himself.
‘Just a single day?’ I said.
‘You can check the calendar if you want.’
‘Just a single day, really?’
‘And a single day was quite enough for you. Next time you plan a weekend in Brighton, I’m coming with you.’
‘I will not go there again,’ I said. ‘Ever.’
‘Good man,’ said John. ‘Now, do you think you can find your feet?’
‘They are at the end of my legs.’
‘Do you think you could persuade them to leave your bed and accompany me down to The Flying Swan for a lunchtime drink?’
‘I am a sick man,’ I said. ‘I am not well.’
‘The first round will be on me, to toast your safe return. And the second also – how’s that?’
‘I do not have any clothes,’ I said.
‘I’ve brought you some of mine,’ said John. ‘Well, not actually mine, they were the daddy’s. And they’re tweeds, as it happens. Get yourself togged up and I’ll meet you outside.’
And with that John departed.
And I lay back in my hospital bed.
‘It was all a dream,’ I said to myself. ‘Well, that is an original end to an adventure, if ever there was one. You wake up and find that it was all a dream. Well, Mister Rune, my dreamtime companion, if I ever do write the book of our adventures together, I will know how to end it, with a twist in the tail that no one will be expecting – that it was all a dream.’
And with that I rose from my bed and got dressed and left the cottage hospital.
And made off with Omally to The Flying Swan.
PART VII
Well, almost. I was almost out of the door.
‘And where do you think you’re going?’ asked a very stern voice indeed.
I turned to view the stern-looking face that had uttered these very stern words. It belonged to the matron and she stood with folded arms. A badge upon her breast spelled out her name, Ms Mavis Patron.
‘Out for a healthy walk in the park?’ I suggested. ‘Thought I might have a bit of a jog, too. I am all well and cured now.’
‘Oh, well and cured, is it? No more shouts of “Help, Mister Rune, save me” ?’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘In your hours of delirium.’
‘Ah,’ said I. ‘Those. I am sorry, I was … er … delirious, I suppose.’
‘And you’re all better now then, are you?’
‘Could not be better,’ I said. ‘It was all a dream, you see.’
‘All a dream.’ The matron said this slowly. Deliberately. ‘You are certain of that, are you?’
‘Absolutely certain,’ I said.
‘Absolutely certain?’
‘Absolutely.’
The matron nodded, thoughtfully.
‘So I will be off,’ I said.
The matron nodded slowly and then she smiled. ‘Go along, then,’ she said. ‘And I don’t want to see you here again.’
‘Nor me,’ I said. ‘Farewell.’
And I made once more for the door.
And then I paused and turned back to the matron. ‘Just one thing, I said, ‘before I go.’
‘Yes?’ said the matron.
‘Well, two things, actually,’ I said. ‘Firstly, thank you for looking after me.’
‘That is what we do,’ said the matron. ‘And secondly?’
‘Well, secondly,’ I said, ‘if I was hauled from the sea, unconscious and wearing nothing but my underwear, how did anyone know who I was and where I lived, so that I could be brought back here to Brentford?’
‘You have your uncle to thank for that,’ said the matron.
‘My uncle?’ I said. ‘What uncle?’
‘I didn’t catch his name,’ said the matron. ‘He was a very large, i
mposing gentleman, with a long leather coat and a shaven head. And, oh yes, I almost forgot – he said that I was to give you this.’
And the matron delved into her apron pocket and brought out a drawstring bag. She handed this to me and said, ‘Just you be careful in the future, James,’ and turned away and went about her business.
I weighed the drawstring bag upon my palm.
I gave the drawstring bag a little shake.
The drawstring bag’s contents gave a little rattle.
And I knew just what they were.
So I withdrew the drawstring and emptied the contents into my hand.
And there were twelve little badges.
And I went down to the pub.
THE END
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Robert Rankin 2005
All rights reserved.
The right of Robert Rankin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2005 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2011 by Gollancz.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 08819 1
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.thegoldensprout.com
www.orionbooks.co.uk
* Allegedly.