The Da-Da-De-Da-Da Code

  The reconstructed saloon bar door opened to admit the passage of Paul. He strolled over to Jonny and leaned upon the bar counter. ‘I love all the plastic sheeting,’ said Paul. ‘It looks as if Christo has turned this pub into an installation.’

  ‘Any luck?’ Jonny asked.

  ‘Regarding what?’

  ‘You know exactly what. What I whispered to you about when Inspector Westlake told me to leave the pub.’

  ‘Following the body?’ said Paul.

  ‘That’s what I asked you to do. And to find out what the pathologist said.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Paul. ‘And it could well have put my job at risk.’

  ‘Paul,’ said Jonny, ‘I never knew exactly why you decided to join the police force.’

  ‘For the uniform and the violence,’ said Paul. ‘Same as everyone else.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I do not see you as a copper, as it were. You are a musician. You know you are.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Paul took off his helmet and placed it on the bar counter. As he did so, Jonny noticed that the interior of Paul’s helmet was not lined with tinfoil. Jonny straightened his headwear. He had no intention of taking that off.

  ‘You are right,’ Paul continued. ‘I joined for the uniform, but it turned out to be dark blue, not black. I’d always thought they were black. Even the body armour is dark blue. Apparently you have to be in Special Ops to get a black uniform. And as for the violence – it’s like sex.’

  ‘Not the kind of sex I usually have,’ said Jonny.

  ‘You usually have no sex,’ said Paul. ‘But what I mean is that sex is great. I love sex, but sex every day?’

  Jonny sighed.

  Mr Giggles sighed.

  ‘Every day,’ said Paul. ‘You get tired of it. You really do. It’s not a treat any more. After a few weeks of laying into Joe Public with my extendible truncheon the novelty began to wear off.’

  ‘I’m so sorry to hear it,’ said Jonny. Who wasn’t.

  ‘So you augment it with a bit of torture down in the cells. Or “interrogation”, as I believe it’s otherwise called. But eventually you get bored with that. So then you’re into your vigilante Mad Cop Street Justice scenarios – arresting drug lords, taking them into the woods and executing them, that kind of thing. But then that pales and what are you into then?’

  ‘Cannibalism?’ said Jonny.

  ‘Exactly. But soon you find yourself getting bored with that, so—’

  ‘Stop,’ said Jonny. ‘Please stop.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Paul. ‘So I’m thinking of stopping being a policeman. I thought perhaps I’d become a doctor, or something.’

  ‘A doctor,’ said Jonny. Without enthusiasm.

  ‘Well, I expect you’d get the chance to perform radical new procedures and insane medical experiments on people. Once you’d got bored with taking out appendixes, of course.’

  ‘Did you follow the body?’ Jonny asked.

  ‘To the morgue? I certainly did.’

  ‘And?’ said Jonny.

  ‘I listened at the door. Then later I slipped in and nicked stuff.’

  ‘Top man,’ said Jonny. ‘What did you nick?’

  ‘A ham sandwich,’ said Paul, ‘and a Thermos flask. I haven’t opened that yet, so I don’t know what’s inside. But it’s at least half-full.’

  Jonny Hooker gave Paul a certain look.

  ‘Don’t ever look at me like that again,’ said Paul, ‘or I will be forced to forget the long years of our friendship and experiment on you with a really horrible-looking piece of medical kit that I also nicked.’

  Jonny Hooker sighed.

  ‘All right,’ said Paul. ‘I listened and this is what I heard.’

  And Paul related unto Jonny all that he had overheard of the conversation between Inspector Westlake and the pathologist. All that stuff about mummified bodies, antique clothing and the fingerprints matching and everything.

  ‘About those fingerprints,’ said Jonny. ‘Did they say whose fingerprints they were?’

  ‘Not on file, apparently. And they did a DNA test. Did you know that everyone’s DNA is put on file when they’re born? With or without their parents consent. It’s been going on for the last twenty years.’*

  ‘I can’t say I’m surprised,’ Jonny said. ‘But no match, I assume?’

  Paul shook his head and, with his helmet now off, got his long hair trailing in Jonny’s beer. ‘Which reminds me,’ said Paul, removing his hair and wringing it out, ‘buy me a beer.’

  ‘Did you bring me anything?’ Jonny said. ‘Apart from sandwiches and a Thermos flask?’

  ‘They’re not for you. But I did nick this.’ Paul drew out one of those plastic evidence bags with the sealy-up tops. ‘Contents of the pockets of the deceased.’

  ‘Splendid,’ said Jonny and he unsealed the sealy-up bit and tipped the contents onto the bar counter.

  ‘Beer?’ said Paul.

  Jonny hailed O’Fagin.

  ‘A pint of King Billy for Paul,’ said Jonny.

  ‘Excellent,’ said O’Fagin. ‘And many thanks to you, Paul, for your generous contribution to tonight’s fundraiser.’

  Paul opened his mouth to reply.

  But Jonny stopped him.

  O’Fagin pulled Paul’s pint. ‘Weird old couple over there,’ he said as he pulled, throwing in a small shoulder shrug in the appropriate direction. ‘Chap with aristocrartic bearing and a long, black beard and some spaced-out redhead with long rubber gloves on. They smell like an old dog basket and talk like characters out of a Carry On movie.’

  ‘Which one?’ Paul asked.

  Jonny shook his head. ‘Silly boy,’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ said O’Fagin, ‘now that you ask – what was the one that had that bloke in it?’

  ‘I liked that one,’ said Paul. ‘But wasn’t that bloke in two of them?’

  Jonny Hooker ignored the coming conversation and examined the items that lay upon the bar counter. A lace handkerchief with the initials ‘S. G.’ embroidered upon it. A horn snuffbox, its lid inlaid with the same initials in silver. Jonny opened the snuffbox and took a little sniff. Then sneezed all over Paul.

  ‘Pardon me,’ said Jonny.

  There were a number of coins – a silver sovereign, some pennies and halfpennies. All looked new, but all dated from the seventeen eighties. Jonny pocketed these coins. There was a wad of what appeared to be some kind of sweetmeat, wrapped in waxy paper. And a brass something or other.

  Jonny examined this something or other.

  It looked a bit like a miniature flute. A slim brass cylinder with a hole at one end and a kind of flattened mouthpiece at the other with a narrow slit above it, or below it, depending upon which way up you held it.

  Jonny held it with the narrow slit upwards, put the mouthpiece to his lips and gave it a little blow.

  No sound issued from the slim brass tube. Jonny blew once more and once more no sound came. Jonny took a really deep breath and gave a really big blow.

  And every optic behind the bar counter, and every empty glass stacked and racked upon stacker and racker and every single window that had escaped the assault of the Paddy Wagon—

  Exploded.

  ‘Wah!’ went O’Fagin, ducking and cursing and spitting and effing and blinding.

  Paul looked towards Jonny Hooker.

  Jonny Hooker shrugged and went off to the toilet.

  Inspector Westlake returned from the toilet. The toilet at the police station. He returned to his office. Returned to his office, locked the door, sat himself down at his desk.

  Inspector Westlake had one of those sealy-up-topped evidence bags. His had papers in it. Papers that had been taken from the pocket of a frocked eighteenth-century coat that clothed a mummified body. The one in the wall-cabinet jobbie. The one with the Jonny Hooker toe tag.

  Inspector Westlake spread the papers before him on his desk. And examined them through an overlarge magnifying glass.

  ‘Tiny, tiny writing,??
? said Inspector Westlake. ‘Although … ’ He held the paper up to the light. ‘The watermark is clear as clear, as if the paper is brand-new. But it’s dated seventeen ninety. Curious indeed.’ He further examined and ‘hmmmed’ and ‘indeeded’ as he did so. ‘A musical score,’ he said. ‘Complete notation for a single instrument. What, though? Ah, an organ, by the look of it. And the libretto. But surely not a song as such. These words do not scan. It is more as if the music underscores a spoken text. Ah, spoken by several different speakers, according to the notation. I see. I see.’

  And Inspector Westlake read the text aloud.

  And then he read the text aloud again.

  And then Inspector Westlake cried, ‘No. No. This must not be. This must not come to pass. Oh no, such evil, such evil.’

  And for a moment his voice cracked and tears welled up in his eyes.

  And then he cried, ‘No! The End of the World. The Apocalypse! Oh no!’

  33

  O’Fagin did weeping and wailing. And also gnashing of teeth. Which did have a suitably apocalyptic quality about it. ‘Woe unto the House of O’Fagin,’ cried O’Fagin, rending his garments also, ‘for it is undone. What have I done, oh Lord of the old button hole?’

  ‘Lord of the old button hole?’ said Jonny, who had lately returned from the gents.

  Or, more accurately the hastily ordered Portaloo that had been deposited at the rear of the pub to temporarily replace the gents that had been destroyed by the Paddy Wagon.’*

  ‘It’s a publican thing,’ O’Fagin explained. ‘But what of my glasses? Oh no!’

  ‘Juggernaut,’ said Paul. ‘Rattled the glasses off the shelves.’

  ‘Juggernaut?’ O’Fagin made fists of his fingers and threatened the sky with them. ‘Not bloody juggernauts. This was a sign, a sign from the heavens.’

  Paul looked at Jonny.

  Jonny just shrugged.

  ‘What is it, Lord?’ O’Fagin asked, his fists now praying palms. ‘What has your humble servant done to displease you? What? What?’ O’Fagin did cockings of the ears.

  ‘Is he getting an answer?’ Jonny asked.

  ‘I think he is,’ said Paul.

  ‘I wonder—’ said Jonny.

  ‘Oh yes, Lord, yes,’ said O’Fagin. ‘Raise the entry charge and put up the price of the pints, I understand.’

  ‘Precisely what I was wondering,’ said Jonny.

  ‘While I’m on the hotline to God,’ said O’Fagin to Jonny, ‘do you want me to ask him to clear up your skin condition, so you can take off all those Elastoplasts?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Jonny. ‘I can manage.’

  ‘You might have a word with your God about getting him a girlfriend,’ said Paul. ‘Does your God arrange things like that?’

  ‘I could ask,’ said O’Fagin. ‘Let’s use this ashtray as an offering plate – bung in a fiver and I’ll phrase a request.’

  Paul did not oblige and O’Fagin took himself off in search of the broom.

  ‘You did that,’ said Paul.

  ‘I never did,’ said Jonny.

  ‘You did too with that brass whistle.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Jonny.

  ‘I’m not,’ said Paul. ‘I already had a little blow of it in the squad car driving over here. It blew out the windscreen.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘What, and miss all this?’

  Jonny Hooker checked his pint. It appeared to be free of glass chippings.*

  ‘What are we going to do?’ he asked Paul. ‘I assume that we are playing here tonight.’

  ‘Damn right,’ said Paul. ‘We’re getting paid fifty quid for it.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jonny.

  ‘Ah?’ said Paul.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Jonny. ‘So we are playing. Are we meeting the rest of the lads here, or what?’

  ‘Here,’ said Paul. ‘They’ll be here in an hour.’

  ‘And in rock ’n’ roll time?’

  ‘Two hours,’ said Paul.

  ‘Six hours,’ said Thompson of ESOU. ‘Six hours from now. Which will be?’

  ‘Midnight, sir?’ said a young and eager constable. He was, however, a Special Operations constable and so he wore a black uniform.

  ‘Correct, Constable. And what is your name?’

  ‘Constable Cartwright, sir.’ The constable saluted.

  ‘Cartwright, eh? As in Bonanza? “Da-da-de-da-da-de-da-da-deda” Bonanza?’ Thompson da-da-de-da-da’d that legendary theme.

  His team da’d on with him.

  ‘No, sir,’ said Constable Cartwright.

  ‘Shame,’ said Thompson. ‘I was always a fan of Hoss, myself. Big old gentle giant of a man, played, if I recall, and I do, by Dan Blocker. A fine character-actor. Looked a bit like Tor Johnson. But then so many of them did.’

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘Sir,’ said Constable Cartwright, breaking it.

  ‘Yes, Constable?’ said Thompson.

  ‘Why exactly is this taskforce being put into operation?’

  ‘Good question,’ said Thompson. And he did a bit of strutting. He strutted on a tiny stage before an easel affair, which had a cloth-shrouded board upon it. And he did his strutting before an assembled company of Special Operations bobbies, all black-clad and useful-looking. And all in a kind of bunker briefing room deep beneath Mornington Crescent Underground Station.

  The assembled company numbered near to one hundred, so it was a fair-sized bunker briefing room. It had a coffee machine at the rear end, next to the door. Beside the fire extinguishers.

  ‘Jolly good question, Constable,’ said Thompson. And he did the flourishing whipping-away-of-the-cloth routine. And his whipping-away exposed a map.

  Of Gunnersbury Park.

  ‘Ooooh,’ went Constable Cartwright.

  And ‘Oooooeeee,’ went all the other constables present. Special constables. For they just loved a map.

  ‘Perimeter,’ said Thompson, producing a little stick from somewhere and tracking the perimeter with it. ‘Fifty men, one-hundred-yard intervals. General Electric mini-guns. Night sights. You will all wear night-vision spectacles. Ornamental pond.’ He gave the location a tap. ‘Three frogmen, two down, one up. Surface-to-air shoulder-mounted missiles. Doric temple, three men, machine-gun nest. Japanese garden, dig in a network of slit trenches here. The pitch-and-putt, I want that sown with landmines. We’ll give the Hun a run for his money, eh?’

  ‘The Hun?’ asked Constable Cartwright.

  ‘Are you acting as spokesman for the assembled company?’ Thompson asked.

  ‘Not as such, sir. It’s just that I’m the only constable who has so far been identified by name.’

  ‘And a damn fine name, too. Who’s that chap next to you?’

  ‘Me?’ asked Constable Cassidy.

  ‘No, other chap?’

  ‘Me?’ asked Constable Rogers.

  ‘Next to you.’

  ‘Me?’ asked Constable Deputy Dawg.

  ‘Yes, you. Didn’t I go to Cambridge with your father?’

  ‘No, that was my father,’ said Constable Milky Bar Kid.*

  ‘Thought so. So, any questions?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Constable Cartwright. ‘Why is this taskforce being put into operation?’

  ‘Glad you asked that, Constable,’ said Thompson. ‘Here we have a building known as the Big House. It is also known as Gunnersbury Park Museum and has a really nice lady called Joan working on reception. But you will not go bothering Joan. I will liaise with Joan directly, myself. Do I make myself understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said one and all. Saluting.

  ‘Regarding security of the Big House: you will disregard anything that might have been relayed to you, via rumour or jungle drums as it were, that Inspector Westlake, on secondment from the Bramfield Constabulary, will be in charge of this operation. You will answer to me. Take all your orders from me. Do I make myself clear? Any questions?’

  ‘Yes, s
ir,’ said Constable Cartwright. ‘Why is this taskforce being put into operation?’

  ‘Good question, Constable. Now, I want a fifty-man squad inside the Big House. You will be the lucky lads testing the new electronic camouflage suits. Our back-room boffins have ironed out most of the glitches and these suits will cloak you in a mantel of invisibility.’

  ‘Ooooooh,’ chorused the constables. Who may indeed have been lovers of a map, but who were brought almost to the point of orgasm at the prospect of invisibility.

  ‘Sir?’ said Constable Cartwright. ‘Can I be put on duty in the Big House?’

  ‘Good question, Constable. Yes, you can. And take those other aforementioned constables with you. We only have five invisibility suits. I lied about there being fifty, sorry, so the Big House team will be just you five.’

  ‘Aaaw,’ went disappointed constables.

  ‘Fab, gear and groovy,’ went Constables Cartwright, Cassidy, Rogers, Deputy Dawg and Milky Bar Kid.

  ‘Every constable will be issued with a helmet-mounted night-vision camera so that I can monitor all movements from the control room here, from where I will direct operations. Any questions?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Why is this task—’ began Constable Cartwright.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said O’Fagin, saluting and marching up and down behind the bar counter.

  ‘Why is he doing that?’ Paul asked.

  Jonny shook his head. ‘Let us pray that we never find out,’ he said. ‘What time is it now?’

  ‘Getting on for eight o’clock. Doesn’t time fly when you’re having sex with two Thai girls who think you’re the greatest bass player since Herbie Flowers?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Jonny.

  ‘Oh dear?’ asked Paul.

  ‘My guitar,’ said Jonny. ‘It’s at my house. How am I going to play?’

  ‘Paul made grinnings at Jonny. ‘I’m one step ahead of you there – just check this out.’ And he hailed O’Fagin.

  ‘Yes, sir?’ said O’Fagin, marching up and saluting.

  ‘Why are you doing that?’ Paul asked.

  O’Fagin whispered in Paul’s ear.

  ‘That is so brilliant,’ said Paul.

  ‘What?’ went Jonny.

  O’Fagin grinned.

  ‘Do you still have that guitar?’ Paul asked.

  O’Fagin grinned some more.