Raiders Of The Lost Car Park Part 24

'Stuff you,' said Arthur.

'If you'd be so kind. Yes please.'

'What are you doing here in my office anyway? You retrieved the diamonds. What do you want?'

'I want my money.'

'Money? What money?'

'My time and a half for after midnight. And there were some out-of-pocket expenses. I've filled in a chitty.'

'Filled in a chitty? Have you gone stark raving mad? You don't get any time and a half after mid-night. You're a conjuration. Moulded from etheric s.p.a.ce by a process of controlled resonance, involving the use of certain restricted words of power. Imbued with a rudimentary intelligence and the physical wherewithal to achieve a certain end. To wit, the reclamation of the diamonds. This you have achieved. Hence, your work is done.'

'You're making me redundant,' complained the wrinkly heap of skin.

'You are redundant,' said Arthur Kobold.'Then I want my redundancy money.

'I don't think I'm making myself clear.' Arthur rose from his chair, plodded around his desk, plucked up the swathe of skin, tucked it to his chest, folded it once, folded it twice, smoothed out the wrinkles and folded it a third time. Then he went over to his filing cabinet, opened the top drawer, dropped the neatly folded redundant conjuration into a vacant file and slammed shut the drawer.

'Get the picture?' he asked.

'Let me out,' cried a m.u.f.fled voice. 'Unfold me at once, you fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Let me out, I say.'

Arthur Kobold returned to his chair. 'Put a sock in it,' he said. 'Or it's the paper shredder for you.'

Inspectre Hovis was in the Portakabin. He was shredding paper, loads and loads of paper. He had already shredded the important case notes for no less than twenty-three big unsolveds. Not to mention a quant.i.ty of vital doc.u.ments, bound for the desk of Chief Inspector Lytton, which had turned up on his by accident.

Hovis was thoroughly enjoying himself When the telephone began to ring, he had considerable diffi-culty in finding it.

But when he had, he picked up the receiver and said, 'Inspectre Hovis speaking,' the way that only he could say it.

'Sherringford, my dear fellow,' said a voice. 'None the worse for your regrettable wetting, I trust.'

'Who is this speaking?'

'It is I. Rune.'

'Rune? I don't believe I know any Rune.' Hovis floundered frantically amongst the shreddings. He had to find another phone, get this call traced. 'Rune, you say. How do you spell that please?'

'As in Rune, you buffoon. You know me well enough. My file lies before you. Somewhere beneath the shreddings, I have no doubt.'

'I do believe your name rings a small bell.' Hovis ceased his foolish flounderings. The Portakabin did not possess, amongst its many hidden charms, another telephone.

'A small bell?' roared the voice of Rune. 'How dare you, sir. My name is a clarion call. A mighty chime of hope, issuing from the tower of Ultimate Truth. For such as was, is now, and shall be ever more.

'Quite so,' said Hovis. 'How may I help you?'

'Help me? Help me? You think that you can help the man who has brought succour to the crowned heads of Europe? The man who taught the Dalai Lama to play darts? The man who shared his sleeping-bag with Rasputin, J. Edgar Hoover and Sandra Dee? The man who once scaled the Eiffel Tower in fisherman's waders, to win a bet with Charles de Gaulle?'

'What do you want, Rune?' asked Inspectre Hovis.

'Do you still have my diamonds?' Rune enquired.

'What diamonds are you referring to?'

'Oh wake up, Hovis, do. The G.o.dolphins. I sprayed the d.a.m.n street with them. At no small risk to my health and well being. Thought they might stir up your interest. Tickle your fancy. Do you still have them?'

'No,' said Hovis. 'I don't.'

'Nabbed by the blighter who reduced you to your underwear. Am I right?'

'You are.'

'Of course I am. I always am. You will meet me this afternoon. Three of the post meridian clock.

At The Wife's Legs Cafe, Brentford. There we shall discuss matters and you will stand me a b.u.t.tered m.u.f.fin and a pot of Lapsang. Come alone and unarmed. Your knighthood depends on it.' And then the phone went dead.

Hovis thrashed shreddings from his chair and flopped into it. This was a turn up for the book and no mistake. Rune calling him. This put the cat amongst the pigeons and the n.i.g.g.e.r in the woodpile. It was a fine kettle of fish.

Hovis took out a small greasy clay pipe, filled it with opium and rolled plug tobacco and lit it with alucifer. This was a regular three-pipe problem and no mistake.

He tossed the match carelessly aside and it fell into a waste-paper basket. Here, in the final moments of its short, yet brilliant career, that match pa.s.sed on that thing which Prometheus stole from Olympus, to a screwed up Kleenex tissue.

This tissue would smoulder gently away for quite some time. And it would be several hours before the fire began in earnest (not to be confused with the other Earnest). But when this fire did get started, it would rip through the Portakabin, reducing it to blackened ruination, in less than ten minutes.

Sadly, Inspectre Hovis would not be around to enjoy the conflagration. He would be in Brent-ford.

In The Wife's Legs Cafe, drinking Chateau La Swasantnerf and listening to the words of Hugo Rune.

Mad and mysterious be the ways of fate that shape our ends. Yet the veil that covers the future's face may well be woven by the hand of mercy.

Some say.

...and the minister denied that recent allegations of s.e.xual misconduct, illegal appropriation of Govern-ment funds and direct involvement in the sale of nuclear weapons to a Third-World power, had any-thing to do with his resignation. He merely wished to spend more time with his wife and children.

Dreaming about trains.

'Upwards of twenty-three thousand travellers are expected to attend the summer solstice festival in Gunnersbury Park on the border of Brentford tomorrow, where world-famous rock band Gandhi's Hairdryer will be performing. Lord Crawford, whose family have owned historic Gunnersbury House and its landscaped grounds for the last two hundred and thirty years, said that he hoped everyone would have a jolly good time and that if anyone got caught short, it was OK for them to use his toilet.'

b.o.l.l.o.c.ks switched off the radio set. 'There you go, he said.

Tuppe bounced up and down. 'I'm trying to follow this. The festival is not really going to be in Gunners-bury Park.'

'No. That's to fool the police. The festival is on Star Hill. We know this because Bone is a friend of the Gandhi's drummer and he heard about it months ago.

'Whacky stuff,' said Tuppe. 'I love it.' Cornelius came b.u.mbling down the bus. 'Watcha,' said the small fellow. 'Finally broken surface?'

'Yes thanks. Did I just hear that the gig's been moved to Gunnersbury Park?'

Tuppe tapped his nose. 'It's all a secret. I'll tell you later.'

'Good s.h.a.g?' b.o.l.l.o.c.ks asked.

'Very nice thank you.

'Hope you wore a condom. We're all rotten with the clap.'

'Of course.' Cornelius grinned. 'It pays to play safe.'

'But I thought you were supposed to be fathering children,' said Tuppe.

Cornelius did not reply to this. But he spied Bone at the wheel and realized for the first time that the happy bus was moving once more. 'Where are we now?' he asked.

'Heading for Brentford.' b.o.l.l.o.c.ks skinned up a joint. 'Tell me, Cornelius, who are you really?'

'Really? What does that mean?'

b.o.l.l.o.c.ks smiled. 'Well, you're somebody, aren't you? We could all suss that when we picked you up. Then the business with the farmers. And now your big hair. Famous people always have big hair.

There's no point in denying that.'

'He's the Stuff of Epics,' said Tuppe. 'I told you.'

'Is this an epic we're in now, then? I mean, because we picked you up and you helped us out. Does this mean we're in the epic with you?'

Cornelius rammed large quant.i.ties of big hair down the back of his shirt. It appeared to have grown considerably during the short period that his head had been bandaged. 'I suppose it would mean you were in it too,' he said, 'if I was still in it myself. But I'm not.

'He quit,' Tuppe explained.'That's a bit of a cop-out.' b.o.l.l.o.c.ks rolled a roach. 'Why did you quit?'

'His bottle went,' said Tuppe.

'It did not. I became, er, disillusioned.'

'Bottle job.' Tuppe made obscene little pinchings with his thumb and forefinger.

'Tell me about it.' b.o.l.l.o.c.ks slipped in the roach. 'Your epic, what went wrong, why you be-came disillusioned. Perhaps the bus and us could help.'

'I don't think you could.'

'Well, tell me anyway.

Cornelius shrugged. 'All right, I'll tell you the lot.

I doubt if you'll believe me. You'll probably think it's all b.o.l.l.o.c.ks.'

'Probably,' said b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, twisting the joint's tip and preparing to light up. 'Everything else in this world is.'

The Wife's Legs always hummed in the warm weather. Midsummer and the Vent Axia on the blink again. f.a.g smoke fugged the air, chip fat ran down the windows, but the tea was spot on, and the fried slices.

Inspectre Hovis entered to no applause. He fanned before his face. The fug stuck. And he in his last suit. It would never do.

Big men filled the chairs. They enjoyed cigarettes and gave not a hoot for government health warn-ings. Several rose from their seats upon sighting the Inspectre and made off with talk of pressing business elsewhere.

Hovis waved them fond farewells. And sought Rune.

The mage sat in the corner. In the shadows. Enigmatic. Outre'. s.p.a.cious. Before him on the table, an ashbowl contained the b.u.t.ts of three South Ameri-can cigars. A bottle of Chateau La Swasantnerf lacked its label and a third of its contents. Two large hands, their fingers sheathed with exotic rings, toyed with an empty winegla.s.s. Rune's head was lost in darkness.

'Come,' called the voice of Rune.

Hovis came. He pulled up a chair and settled down at Rune's table.

'Drink?' The mage poured wine and pushed the gla.s.s towards Hovis. 'Tell me what you think.'

The Inspectre raised the gla.s.s to his nose, turned it, took a sniff, held the gla.s.s to the light, put it to his lips, took a sip, then gargled.

'A fine nose,' said he. 'Good firm body. Milk white thighs.'

'Milk white thighs?' Rune asked.

'Chateau La Swasantnerf,' said Hovis. ' '69, of course. West end of the vineyard and trodden by the owner's niece. Milk white thighs.'

'Correct. Sherringford, why did you become a policeman?'

'Why did you become a wanted criminal?'

'No criminal I,' said Rune. 'Common laws are for common people.'

Hovis sipped from his gla.s.s. 'Why have you invited me here?'

'We share a common, and here I use the word advisedly, a common craving. Recognition for our genius. You for yours and me for mine. You are the best The Yard has to offer. I am the greatest that mankind has ever seen. Together we might achieve a certain celebrity.'

'Would you care to elucidate?'

'The Crime of the Century,' said Rune. 'What else?'

'Hugo Rune, I am arresting you on suspicion. You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say may be taken down and used in evidence.

'You silly a.r.s.e,' said Hugo Rune. 'You'll empty the entire cafe. Be still now and listen. I have much to say to you. And by much, I mean a great deal.'

'You knocked me into the Thames,' the Inspectre complained.

'I did it to save your life. You will be for ever in my debt. But now sit comfortably and know a joy that sadly I can never know.''What joy is that?'

'The joy of listening whilst I talk.'

... of listening whilst I talk.' Rune's words went down on tape. And his actions were observed, through the telephoto lens of Chief Inspector Lytton's regulation police-issue surveillance camera.

Because, of course, the Portakabin telephone had been bugged. Rune's call to Hovis had been recorded and during the time between the phone call and the meeting, The Wife's Legs had also been bugged.