Snuff Fiction

  I was sorry that I’d fainted, because I missed the punch-up. Some people can be very sour losers. Apparently Norman started it.

  ‘I can’t believe it.’ I gasped, spitting soda. ‘He’s left everything to me.’

  ‘You’re the new Laird of Bramfield,’ said Norman. ‘How does it feel?’

  ‘I’m rich,’ I replied. ‘I’m a multi-multi-multi-millionaire.’

  ‘Lend us a quid then,’ said Norman.

  I was really shaking as I signed all the forms the solicitor gave me. Norman kept a close eye over my shoulder, just to make sure that I didn’t sign anything dodgy. The solicitor gave Norman a very bitter look and tucked several sheets of paper back into his briefcase.

  ‘There,’ I said, when I’d done. ‘I’m done.’

  The solicitor smiled an ingratiating smile. ‘I trust, sir,’ said he, ‘that you will retain the services of our company.’

  ‘Bollocks!’ I said. ‘On your bike.’

  Norman shooed the solicitor out and then returned to me. ‘So,’ said Norman, ‘your lairdship, would you like me to show you around your new home?’

  I took snuff from a silver bowl and pinched it to my nose. ‘I’ve seen all the house,’ I said. ‘I decorated most of it myself.’

  ‘There must be something you’d like to see.

  ‘Ah, yes, there is.’ I sneezed.

  ‘Bless you,’ said Norman.

  ‘I would like to see the secret laboratories. See what he’s really been getting up to all these years. All that stuff about the Great Work. All the genetic engineering. All the concocting of strange mind-altering drugs.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Norman, rubbing his hands together. ‘I’d like to see all that too.’

  ‘Then lead me to them.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Norman. ‘Which way are they?’

  I made the face that says ‘come on now’. ‘Come on now,’ I said. ‘You’ve got your set of keys. You know everything there is to know about this house.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ said Norman. ‘So which way are they then?’

  ‘Norman,’ I said. ‘Don’t jerk me about. You know I’ll see you all right. You can consider that from this minute you are a millionaire too.’

  ‘Oh, no thanks,’ said Norman. ‘I don’t need any money.

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘No, I’ve got all I need to keep going. Although . . .’

  ‘Although?’

  ‘I could do with another box of Meccano.’

  ‘It’s yours. A van load. Now where are the secret laboratories?’

  ‘I give up,’ said Norman. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘All right then.’ I took a pinch of snuff from another bowl and poked it up my hooter. ‘We’ll just have to search for them. Where do you think we should start?’

  Norman shrugged. ‘How about his office? There might be secret plans hidden away.’

  ‘What a very good idea.’

  The Doveston’s office (my office now!) was on the first floor. A magnificent room, all done out in the style of Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721), the English sculptor and wood-carver, so well known for his ecclesiastical woodwork. As well as the bigness of his willy.

  Well, probably more so for his ecclesiastical woodwork. But as I am rich now, I can say what I like.

  ‘The wallpaper really spoils this room,’ said Norman. ‘Stars and stripes. I ask you.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I chose the wallpaper.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Norman. ‘Very nice too.’

  ‘You’re just saying that to please me.

  ‘Of course I am. It’s something you’ll have to get used to, now you’re rich. Everyone will want to suck up to you. And no-one will ever say anything to you that you don’t want to hear.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’

  ‘What?’ said Norman. ‘I never said anything.’

  We searched the office. We had the back off the filing cabinet. But the filing cabinet was empty. All the desk drawers were empty too. As were all the shelves that normally held all the paperwork.

  ‘Somebody’s cleaned out this office,’ I said. ‘Taken everything.’

  ‘He probably left instructions in his will. That all incriminating evidence was to be destroyed. He wouldn’t have wanted anything to come out after his death and sully his memory with the general public.’

  ‘You think that’s it?’

  ‘I do. But you’re welcome to say that you thought of it first, if you want.’

  ‘Norman,’ I said, ‘is the fact that I am now unthinkably rich going to mess around with our friendship?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Norman. ‘I still don’t like you very much.’

  I sat down in the Doveston’s chair. (My chair now!) ‘So you are telling me that you have absolutely no idea whatsoever as to where the secret laboratories might be?’

  ‘None whatsoever.’ Norman sat down on the desk.

  ‘Get your arse off my desk,’ I said.

  Norman stood up again. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘First one up against the wall, come the revolution,’ he whispered.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘But the secret laboratories must be here somewhere. I’m certain that if we could find them, we would find the answer to everything. I think that the Great Work was what he lived for. It was the whole point of his life.’

  Norman shrugged. ‘Well, believe me, I’ve searched for them. Searched for them for years. But if they’re here, I don’t know where they are. The only secret room I ever found was the secret trophy room.’

  ‘And where’s that?’

  ‘At the end of the secret passage.’

  ‘Lead the way.’

  Norman led the way.

  It was a really good secret passage. You had to swing this suit of armour aside and crawl in on your hands and knees. Norman led the way once more. ‘Don’t you dare fart,’ I told him.

  At length we reached a secret door and Norman opened it with the secret key he’d copied for the sake of convenience.

  He flicked on the light and I went, ‘Blimey!’

  ‘It’s good, isn’t it? Just like a little museum.

  And that was just what it was. A little museum. A little black museum.

  I wandered amongst the exhibits. Each one told its little tale of infamy.

  ‘Hm,’ I said, picking up a pair of specs. ‘These would be the glasses that Vicar Berry “mislaid” before he lit the dynamite instead of the communion candle. And here’s Chico’s aunty’s leather bondage teapot. And the box bound in human skin that Professor Merlin showed us and you—’

  ‘I don’t want to think of that, thank you.

  ‘And what do we have here? A badge-making machine and some badges. Let’s see. The Black Crad Movement.’

  ‘Wasn’t that the terrorist movement that blew up all those cabinet ministers’ houses?’

  ‘With dynamite, yes. And look at this. Some charred photographs. They look like stills from a video tape.’

  ‘The ones that the journalist passed on to his editor, who—’

  ‘Aaah-Choo,’ I said. ‘As in dynamite.’

  ‘Urgh,’ said Norman. ‘And look at this blood-stained bow tie.

  ‘Didn’t that bloke on the TV, who used to expose government corruption, wear one just like this? They never found all of him, did they?’

  I shook my head. ‘But, oh, look, Norman,’ I said. ‘Here’s something of yours.’ I passed him the item and he peered down at it.

  ‘My yo-yo,’ he said. ‘My prototype yo-yo. That takes me back. Who was it, now, who ended up with the patent?’

  ‘A certain Mr Crad, I believe. No doubt the same Mr Crad who founded The Black Crad Movement.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Norman. He looped the end of the yo-yo’s string over his finger and sent the little bright wooden toy skimming down. It jammed at the bottom and didn’t come up.

  ‘Bother,’ said Norman, worrying at the string. ‘Oh no, hang
about. There’s something jammed in here. A piece of paper, look.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s a map showing the location of the secret laboratories.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘No.’ I snatched the tiny crumpled piece of paper from his hand and did my best to straighten it out. And then I looked at what was written on it and then I said, ‘Blimey!’ once again.

  ‘What is it?’ Norman asked.

  ‘A list of six names. But I don’t recognize them. Here, do they mean anything to you?’

  Norman screwed up his eyes and perused the list. ‘Yes, of course they do,’ he said.

  ‘So who are they?’

  ‘Well, remember when we watched that secret meeting, when the Doveston came out with his idea for the government to take over the importation of drugs?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Well, these were the six people present. That’s old silly-bollocks. And that one’s what’s-his-face. And that’s the bald-headed woman who usually wears the wig and—’

  ‘Norman,’ I said. ‘Do you know what this means?’

  ‘That one of them might know where the secret laboratories are?’

  ‘No! Don’t you understand? This list wasn’t put into the yo-yo by accident. It was put there for us to find. You and me, the people who watched that meeting taking place. His bestest friends. The stuff in his office wasn’t taken away to be destroyed, it was nicked. By one or more of these people.’

  ‘I don’t quite see how you come to draw these conclusions.’

  ‘Norman,’ I said. ‘Read what it says at the top of the list.’ Norman read the words aloud. There were just two of them. The words were ‘POTENTIAL ASSASSINS’.

  ‘Norman,’ I said. ‘The Doveston did not die in any freak accident. The Doveston was murdered.’

  20

  Metabolically challenged: Dead.

  The Politically Correct Phrasebook

  ‘Murdered!’ cried Norman and he whistled.

  It was a nice enough tune, but I soon tired of it. ‘Stop that bloody whistling,’ I told him. ‘We have to think.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About what we’re going to do! Our bestest friend has been murdered.’

  Norman opened his mouth to speak, but didn’t.

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, nothing. I was just going to say that it was how he would have wanted to go. But I don’t suppose it was. Yet if you think about it, it was probably how he was bound to go. He must have made hundreds of enemies.’

  ‘Yes, but we’ve got the list.’

  ‘So what? If he was murdered, it could have been anybody.’

  ‘Then we have to narrow it down to the most likely suspect.’

  ‘That’s easy,’ said Norman.

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Of course it is. You just have to figure out which one single person had the most to gain from the Doveston’s death. That will be your man for sure.’

  ‘But how do we do that?’

  ‘That’s easy too.’

  I sighed.

  ‘Would you like me to give you a clue?’

  I nodded.

  ‘All right. The one single person who had the most to gain from the Doveston’s death is standing in this room, and it isn’t me.’

  ‘You twat,’ I said to Norman. ‘I do have an alibi, you know. I was with you in the Flying Swan when it happened.’

  ‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Turn it in. I think we have a duty to bring the Doveston’s murderer to justice.’

  ‘Why? Just look at this room. It’s like Ed Gein’s kitchen. Or Jonathan Doe’s apartment in that movie Seven. All the evidence is here for the crimes he committed. He got his just desserts, why not leave it at that?’

  It was a reasonable argument, but I wasn’t happy with it. All the evidence was here. The Doveston had left us the clue in the yo-yo, but he had also left all the evidence for us to find. He had also left me all his money, which did make me the prime suspect, if there was ever a murder investigation. And it also made me something else.

  ‘Oh shit!’ I said.

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Norman.

  ‘I’ve just had a terrible thought.’

  ‘No change there then.’

  ‘No, shut up and think about this. If the Doveston was murdered for the money, whoever murdered him didn’t get it, did they? Because I got it. Which means—’

  ‘Oh dear oh dear,’ said Norman. ‘Which means that they’ll probably kill you next.’

  ‘Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!

  ‘It’s not my fault.’

  ‘No, not you. The Doveston. He’s stitched me up again. Stitched me up from beyond the grave. I get all the money, but if I don’t get his murderer, his murderer gets me.’

  ‘Still,’ said Norman. ‘He gave you a sporting chance. He did leave you the list of POTENTIAL ASSASSINS. That was very thoughtful of him.’

  We returned to my office. I sat down in my chair and allowed Norman to park his bottom upon my desk. ‘The six names on the list,’ I said. ‘Have those six people been invited to the ball, do you think?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘And how can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because it was my job to vet the list. I decided who got sent an invitation and who didn’t.’

  I gave Norman a somewhat withering look.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Perhaps yours got lost in the post.’

  ‘Get your bum off my desk,’ I said.

  Money being no object, I employed the services of a private detective. There was only one listed in the Brentford Yellow Pages. He went by the name of Lazlo Woodbine. I figured that anyone who had the gall to name himself after the world’s most famous fictional detective must be good for something.

  Lazlo turned out to be a handsome-looking fellow. In fact he bore an uncanny resemblance to myself. He had just completed a case involving Billy Barnes. I remembered Billy from my school days at the Grange. Billy had been the boy who always knew more than was healthy for one of his age. Small world!

  I explained to Lazlo that I needed all the information he could get me about the six POTENTIAL ASSASSINS. And I wanted it fast. The Great Millennial Ball was but two months away and I meant to be ready.

  The final months of the twentieth century didn’t amount to much. I had expected some kind of buzz. Lots of razzmatazz. But it was all rather downbeat. It seemed to rain most of the time and the newspapers became obsessed with the Millennium Bug. We’d all known about it for years. How many computer clocks would not be able to cope with the year two thousand and how computers all over the world would shut themselves down, or go berserk, or whatever. But only a very few people had actually taken it seriously and the newspapers hadn’t been interested in it at all. Until now. Until it was too late to do anything about it.

  Now it was news. Now it had the potential to spread panic.

  But it didn’t spread panic. The man in the street didn’t seem to care. The man in the street just shrugged his shoulders. The man in the street said, ‘It will be all right.’

  And why did the man in the street behave in this fashion? Why the complacency? Why the couldn’t care less and the glazed look in the eyes?

  And why almost every man on almost every street? Why?

  Well, I’ll tell you for why.

  The man in the street was on something.

  The man in the street was drugged up to his glazed eyeballs.

  The man in the street took Doveston’s Snuff.

  Yes, that’s right, Doveston’s Snuff ‘A pinch a day and the world’s no longer grey.’ It was all people talked about in those final months. All people did. Tried this blend, that blend and the other. This one brought you up, this one took you down and if you mixed these two together, you were off somewhere else. It was a national obsession. It was the latest craze.

  Everyone was doing it. Every man on almost every street. And every woman too and every child.
So what if the end of civilization was coming? Everyone seemed to agree that they could handle that. If not with a smile upon the face, then at least with a finger up the nose.

  And so they wandered about like sleepwalkers. In and out of the tobacconist’s. Norman said that trade had never been so good. Although he wasn’t selling much in the way of sweeties.

  Doveston’s Snuff, eh? Who’d have thought it? Who’d have thought that there could have been anything dubious about Doveston’s Snuff? That it might, perhaps, contain something more than just ground tobacco and flavourings? That it might, perhaps, contain some, how shall I put this . . . DRUGS?

  And if someone had thought it, would that someone have been able to work out the reason why? Would that someone have been able to uncover the fact that here was a conspiracy on a global scale? That this was in fact the work of the Secret Govermnent of the World, covering its smelly bottom against the forthcoming downfall of civilization?

  I very much doubt it.

  I didn’t figure it out.

  Which was a shame, really. Because if I had figured it out, I would have been able to have done something about it. Because, after all, like that silly blighter with the razor blades, I did own the company. I could have taken the snuff off the shop shelves. I might even have been able to expose the conspiracy. Bring down the Secret Government of the World. Save mankind from the horrors to come.

  But I didn’t figure it out, so there you go.

  I was far too busy to figure anything out. I was trying to hunt down a murderer and I was trying to organize a party: THE GREAT MILLENNIAL BALL.

  The Doveston’s solicitor had issued me with an enormous portfolio, containing all the details of the ball. Everything had to be done exactly as the Doveston had planned it. If not, and the solicitor rubbed his hands together as he told me, I would lose everything.

  Everything.

  I did not intend to lose everything and so I followed the instructions to the very letter. Norman was a tower of strength throughout this period. He’d had a big hand in the original planning of the ball and he arranged to have his uncle run his shop while he assisted me at Castle Doveston.

  There were times, however, when he and I almost fell out.

  ‘The dwarves are here,’ he said one Friday evening, breezing into my office and plonking his bum once more upon my desk.