THE ACME AIR LOOM COMPANY
The date was:
1790
29
‘Whenever I hear the words “Culture Club”, I reach for my pistol,’ said O’Fagin to Jonny.
It was a little after noon now and some semblance of normality had returned to The Middle Man. Not a great deal, but some.
The Paddy Wagon had been dragged from the building’s innards, winched onto a low-loader and driven away. Steel acros had been positioned all around and about to support the failing ceilings and walls. The rubble had been swept away, along with the broken furniture and art-for-art’s-sake artery. Plastic sheets were now taped over the great big hole.
Jonny Hooker had a brass key in his pocket. A brass key that really meant something. Exactly what that something was, Jonny was not precisely sure. But it was a reality. A confirmation. That he was on the right track. That the Air Loom really had existed. What to do next, of this Jonny wasn’t so sure. So for now he drank ale with O’Fagin.
‘And don’t get me started on Spandau Ballet,’ said O’Fagin.
‘Is there an Eighties Night in the offing?’ Jonny asked.
He sat on one of the two remaining barstools, before what was left of the bar counter. O’Fagin had his arm in a sling. Someone had mentioned ‘compensation for injuries received’ to him. He also sported an eyepatch.
‘The show must go on,’ said O’Fagin. ‘Apparently at the first hint of any kind of disaster, these nineteen-eighties bands, that you’d hoped were long forgotten, turn up to do a benefit night.’
‘That’s very sad,’ said Jonny.
‘Sad but true,’ said O’Fagin. ‘And I haven’t heard anything from Metallica. I’d be happy to have them.’
‘Is the show going on tonight, then?’ Jonny asked.
‘Absolutely – we’ll be having that Dry Rot. A gay band.’
‘Gay band?’ said Jonny.
O’Fagin slapped him.
Jonny punched O’Fagin.
‘I don’t think it’s supposed to work like that,’ said O’Fagin, clicking his jaw back into place. ‘Do you have something against gay bands?’
‘Dry Rot is not a gay band. It’s a heavy-rock band.’
‘Heavy rock or mincing pansy – it’s all the same when you come right down to it.’
‘It is not,’ said Jonny. ‘Not the same at all.’
‘Oh yeah, you’re probably right,’ said O’Fagin. ‘I must have misread the instructions on the box. I think I have concussion. I wonder how much I can claim for that?’
‘So Dry Rot will still be playing tonight?’
‘Damned right,’ said O’Fagin. ‘As I told that Duran Duran. Go back to Russia, you simpering fairy, I told him, we’ll have none of your commie music here.’
‘Quite so,’ said Jonny.
‘Quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life.’ The words came out of the police pathologist’s mouth and entered Inspector Westlake’s ears.
‘Go on,’ said the inspector.
‘Well,’ said the police pathologist, ‘observe this.’
They were in the County Morgue. Because every English county has a County Morgue. And it was one of your proper morgues, too, with the big aluminium filing cabinet jobbies for putting the stiffs in. And the table with the blood gullies in it for carving up the stiffs on. And all the equipment and paraphernalia that anyone could hope to find in a place where stiffs are carved and stored away.
The police pathologist, whose given name was Dickey, but whose nickname was the Gall-Bladder-Sandwich Man, drew back the sheet that covered the headless corpse and drew Inspector Westlake’s attention to the gory neck hole. ‘Just like the others,’ he said.
‘I have not as yet received the reports on the others,’ said the inspector, pointedly. ‘Perhaps they have got lost in the post.’
‘No need to adopt that tone, old chap. You haven’t received the reports because I was told to hand them over directly to Inspector Westlake.
‘I am Inspector Westlake,’ said Inspector Westlake.
‘No,’ said the pathologist, ‘you are not Inspector Westlake. Inspector Westlake is a young chap who wears a black suit, white shirt, black tie, black shoes and sunglasses. He took the previous reports with him. Who are you, anyway?’
‘I am Inspector Westlake!’ roared Inspector Westlake, producing his warrant card and thrusting it in the pathologist’s face. ‘That man there, on the slab – that is the terrorist who has apparently been impersonating me.’
‘I think not,’ said the pathologist.
‘I think so,’ said the inspector. ‘He was killed during a high-speed chase. ‘A young officer will be receiving a commendation over it.’
‘Not the man,’ said the pathologist. ‘Can’t be.’
‘And why can it not be?’
‘Nicely put,’ said the pathologist. ‘I’d have had to smack you if you’d repeated me.’
‘Why?’ asked Inspector Westlake.
‘Who knows?’ said the pathologist. ‘These things come into fashion, they’re a sort of running gag, they’re here and then they’re gone. Who can say?’
‘About the body?’ said Inspector Westlake.
‘Now that is quite another matter. That is not a here-today-and-gone-tomorrow sort of body. It’s more a here-yesterday-butshouldn’t-be-here-today kind of affair.’
‘How so?’
‘This body,’ said the pathologist, ‘is not the body of a man who died today.’
‘It certainly is,’ said Inspector Westlake.
‘I do hate to keep contradicting you,’ said the pathologist. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I don’t, but this man did not die today. By the state of this body, by the mummification process—’
‘The what?’
‘This body is mummified. This body is a museum piece. The clothes are authentic, the jewellery, the shoes. This is the body of a Regency dandy. This body is more than two hundred years old.’
*
‘Two hundred years old,’ said Mr Henry Hunter. Master conservator, with no nickname. ‘The pillars date from around seventeen ninety, as does much of the interior work.’
Joan smiled up at Henry Hunter. He had arrived post-haste in his bright blue van with his bright young assistant Sparky. Sparky had taken a shine to Joan. Joan to Henry Hunter.
‘Tragic business,’ said Henry. ‘Shoot-out, you say? Anyone injured?’
‘Only the portrait of Sir Henry.’
‘That old rogue. Not the first time someone took a pot shot at him.’
‘I suppose you know all about the Big House,’ said Joan, adjusting her bosoms onto the temporary top of the shored-up reception desk.
‘Father and son for many generations,’ said Henry, averting his gaze from the bosoms. ‘A long and strange history this place has. Rogues and rascals and weirdos. If these old walls could only speak, eh?’
‘Sexual intrigue?’ Joan asked.
‘I’m sure you’ve read all the guide books.’
‘Scandal?’ asked Joan.
Henry had his special wooden work-case jobbie. He shifted certain reproduction prehistoric animal facsimiles aside and eased it onto the temporary counter top. Flipping the catches, he opened the lid. ‘We’d best get to work,’ he said.
‘You can talk as you work,’ said Joan. ‘I know, I do it all the time.’
Henry took out pots of gunk and tubes of glue and balls of string and a cardboard box containing a number of professional-looking brushes, of the type used by conservators when they do delicate restoration work. Badger-pelt swabbers and fox-fur floggers.
‘About the scandals?’ said Joan.
Henry gave his nose a tap with a hamster-hair handicrafter and nearly put his eye out. ‘Discretion,’ he said.
‘Oh, go on.’
‘Well.’ Henry took to directing Sparky.
Sparky grudgingly removed his gaze from Joan’s breasts and steered it towards the job in hand. ‘This is going to take months,’
he said.
‘Years,’ said Henry.
‘Hours,’ said Joan.
‘Hours?’ said Henry.
Joan didn’t smack him.
‘Hours?’ said Henry once more.
‘Twenty-four hours,’ said Joan. ‘I have just received a call from Buckingham Palace.’
‘Buckingham Palace?’ said Sparky.
And Joan smacked him.
‘Buckingham Palace,’ said Joan once more. ‘Apparently there’s to be a special conference of big wigs held here on Sunday. What with all this kerfuffle, I thought they’d move it somewhere else, but apparently not. Buckingham Palace were appraised of the situation, but apparently they still want the meeting to go ahead here. So you have to have the place all spruced up and well again within twenty-four hours.’
Sparky almost said, ‘Twenty-four hours?’
Almost.
‘Would you like me to make you both a cup of tea?’ Joan asked. ‘British workmen thrive on tea. Tea and fellatio, or so I’ve heard.’
‘Madam,’ said Henry. ‘Madam, excuse me, please.’
‘You are excused,’ said Joan. ‘Third on the left down the hall.’
‘No, that is not what I mean. Are you telling me that some kind of international conference is to be held here, on Sunday?’
Joan nodded. Prettily.
‘And that Her Majesty the Queen, God bless her, will be attending?’
Joan winked. ‘I think so, yes.’
‘Oh no,’ said Henry. ‘Oh no, no.’
‘No?’ said Joan.
‘No,’ said Henry. ‘Not here, that must not be.’
‘Are you all right, Spunky?’ Sparky asked.
‘No, I am not! And don’t call me “Spunky”. I do not have a nickname.’
‘Spunky?’ said Joan.
‘No,’ went Henry Hunter once more. ‘Her Majesty must not come here.’
‘She came once before,’ said Joan, ‘during the Millennium celebrations. We had a brand-new toilet installed for her, just on the off chance that she does go to the toilet, like the rest of us.’
‘And did she?’ Sparky asked.
Joan put her finger to her lips.
‘I know she came here before,’ said Henry. ‘I helped to install that toilet – a reproduction Thomas Crapper, cost an arm and a leg, but it was worth it. But months of planning went into that visit. Security men were here for months, one on permanent twenty-four-hour watch inside the toilet itself. When was this latest visit planned?’
‘Just today, I think,’ said Joan.
‘No! No! No!’ Henry Hunter grew quite red in the face. ‘It’s far too dangerous. I advised against it last time and I advise against it now. Why wasn’t I informed?’
‘Perhaps because the countess knew you’d advise against it.’
‘The countess?’ said Henry.
‘The new curator.’
‘New curator? What happened to Stan?’
‘Vanished,’ said Joan. ‘Apparently. Ran away, or something.’
‘No!’ Henry fairly shrieked this ‘No’. ‘Her Majesty must not come here again,’ shrieked Henry. ‘If she does, she will surely die.’
‘Surely die?’ said Joan.
And Henry smacked her.
30
Henry Hunter ‘no’d’ some more.
So Joan gave him a smack.
‘Thank you,’ said Henry. ‘And I’m sorry that I … well, I don’t know what came over me.’
‘That’s all right.’ Joan smiled. ‘I quite enjoyed it really. But why are you getting yourself in such a lather? What makes you think that the Queen might be in danger if she comes here?’
‘I must speak to the new curator.’
‘I’ll pass the message on.’
‘This is important,’ said Henry. ‘Very important.’
‘Oh, all right.’ Joan made deep-breasted sighings. ‘I’ll give her a call, but she won’t be pleased. She usually likes to have a little lie down in her hyperbaric chamber at this time of the day.’
‘Her what?’ said Sparky.
‘I can’t smack you if you don’t do it properly,’ said Joan.
‘Eh?’ said Sparky.
‘Please call her now,’ Henry said.
Joan did phonings and words passed this way and that. Joan replaced the receiver. ‘She says you can go up now. And while you’re up there you can shift some of the furniture about. The conference is to be held in her office – Princess Amelia’s sitting room.’
‘No. No. No,’ said Henry Hunter. And then took to issuing orders to Sparky to mix up some gunk and begin the restoration work by mopping the grime from what remained of Sir Henry’s portrait with a small yellow item that closely resembled SpongeBob SquarePants. Because Henry was a professional and he did have a reputation. He stalked up the sweeping staircase, along the gallery and did big knockings upon a certain door.
‘Come,’ came the voice of Countess Vanda.
Henry entered the room.
‘And please shut the door.’
‘But it’s dark.’
‘I am sensitive to the light.’
‘But,’ went Henry. ‘But—’
‘There is a chair, just there, before you. Yes, that’s right, lit by the shaft of sunlight.’
Henry dropped into the chair. He had a bit of a sweat on, did Henry. And a bit of a shake going, too.
‘I understand you have an objection that you wish to voice,’ said Countess Vanda.
‘In the strongest possible terms,’ said Henry, wiping a bead of perspiration away from the end of his nose. ‘Her Majesty the Queen must not return to this house. It is not safe. It must not happen.’
‘Mister Hunter,’ said Countess Vanda, in a voice as soft and sweet as a Thelwell pony. ‘Mister Hunter, we have not as yet been formally introduced. I am aware of your work here at the Big House, and that you’re of the latest generation of conservators, and that your family has a connection with this park that stretches back several hundred years.’
‘Then please listen to me,’ said Henry.
‘I will,’ said Countess Vanda. ‘Please state your case. And do so with alacrity, for it is time for me to recharge my batteries, as it were.’
‘Madam,’ said Henry, ‘generations of Hunters have gone before me, working here at the Big House. Generations who have remained loyal to the House and its owners. Over the course of time they have become privy to many confidences and aware of many scandals. And remained tight-lipped.’
‘Most commendable.’
‘I know things about this house,’ said Henry, ‘that would shock you to your very soul. Crimes have been committed here – grave crimes, horrid crimes, crimes that have been covered up, swept under the carpet. And things of that nature—’
‘Generally?’
‘Generally,’ said Henry. ‘In the seventeen nineties, talks were held here regarding the British position on the French Revolution.’
‘Parliamentary talks?’
‘Ah,’ said Henry. ‘No, not parliamentary. The owners of Gunners-bury Park have, throughout the centuries of its existence, shared something in common, something unknown to the general population, indeed unknown to those in Parliament.’
‘Go on,’ said Countess Vanda.
‘I am telling you this because I fear that if the Queen hosts the talks here, her life may well be in danger. Otherwise I would not speak of such things.’
‘Go on,’ said Countess Vanda once more.
‘The Secret Order of the Golden Sprout,’ said Henry. ‘All who have owned this house through the years have been members of this Secret Order.’
‘This Order is unknown to me,’ said Countess Vanda.
‘It is a secret society, founded, many believe, by a certain Count Otto Black, of evil memory. This order has throughout the ages conspired to control those who rule this land of ours, through fair means or foul. Mostly foul. At the talks in seventeen ninety,’ continued Henry, ‘was a most remarkable character: an Ill
uminati by the name of the Count of Saint Germain, a musician, artist, traveller and mystic, a man who claimed that he could improve the quality of diamonds and turn base metal into gold.’
‘A charlatan,’ said Countess Vanda.
‘By no means, madam, although he certainly encouraged those who built legends around him. It was said, for instance, that he had discovered the elixir of life and that he had once walked with Christ.’
‘Enough of this now,’ said Countess Vanda. ‘Please come to the point.’
‘The talks were held,’ said Henry, ‘but something occurred. It is not sufficient to call it a disagreement. Sir Henry Crawford hosted the talks, and Sir Henry Crawford was slain. He and several others, including I have reason to believe, the Count of Saint Germain.’
‘Murders and intrigue litter the pages of history,’ said Countess Vanda. ‘I do not believe that the meeting tomorrow could possibly have any links to something that happened in seventeen ninety.’
‘Seventeen ninety,’ said the pathologist. ‘Somewhat significant, do you not think?’
Inspector Westlake, to whom this remark was addressed and who was still in the morgue with the pathologist, although he would have preferred to be in the pub with his lunch, asked, ‘In what way?’
‘In the very manner of this,’ said the pathologist. ‘This is a case for Mulder and Scully, to be sure.’
‘It’s a queer one and no mistake,’ said the inspector. ‘But by applying Occam’s Razor, I think a simple solution should be forthcoming.’
‘Oh, do you really?’ said the pathologist.
‘Indeed. It is a case of substitution. Clearly the mummified body of a man who has been dead for two hundred years did not commandeer and drive away that Paddy Wagon. This body was clearly substituted by the driver. A being who, I must confess, is possessed of certain abilities suitable for inclusion amongst The X Files. I confess that I did not examine the body when it was removed from the Paddy Wagon, so I cannot say when the substitution was made.’
‘Substitution?’ The pathologist blew onto the end of his bone-saw, raising a fine cloud of bone dust. ‘Someone did what? Dug this body from some vault? Put it behind the driving wheel, in a public house surrounded by policemen, for what reason? A joke, perhaps?’