There were five police cars all swerved to a halt. And many policemen about these. And these policemen were discharging their weapons in the general direction of the Big House.
Happily the bolts of hypersonic energy and the effusion of subatomic knub-knub particles were mostly missing the Big House and striking instead the trees and the parked cars. A stray round of plasma passed between the trees and took out the park rangers’ hut.
Which was a shame because Ranger Connor’s spare duffle coat and pack of Serial Killer Top Trump cards were in there.
Explosions erupted from the trimmed lawn. A statue of Sir Henry Crawford became nothing but memory.
But.
The target towards which this other-worldly fire power was directed was clearly no easy target. For although time and time again little red dots of laser light flickered upon his person, he outmanoeuvred every blast and volley. Sometimes on four limbs and sometimes on two, the being in black moved swiftly.
And then from the Big House issued Inspector Westlake, waving his hands and calling for a ceasefire.
WAP! WOOMPH! KAPOW! And KABLAM!
‘I said to cease fire!’
The constables in the Paddy Wagon looked on in awe as the figure in black leapt over a gun-toting constable, somersaulted over a police car, ran, jumped and dived and—.
‘Aaagh!’ went Constable Handbag as the being in black passed through the windscreen of the Paddy Wagon and dropped down into the passenger seat beside him.
‘Get out,’ said the being.
Constable Handbag got out.
The being moved into the driver’s seat and slammed shut the driver’s door. ‘Withdraw your head,’ he told Constable Paul.
‘I can’t,’ wailed Constable Paul. And it was a wail.
‘Withdraw it or I will tear it from your neck.’
Constable Paul had one of those moments. Not one of the those-moments that Jonny had recently had, but rather one of those other those-moments. The ones where there’s a car accident and the car’s resting on the legs of a child and a little old lady lifts the car and the child gets rescued. One of those superhuman moments.
Constable Paul fell back into the rear of the Paddy Wagon taking knotted constables with him and descending into another untidy heap.
Made worse by the sudden acceleration of the Paddy Wagon.
And made doubly worse by the WHAMS, BAMS, WOOMPS, KABOOMS and CRASH-BANG-WALLOPS of police shellings that were now being directed towards the rear of the Paddy Wagon.
‘Cease your bloody fire!’ cried Inspector Westlake.
And, chastened by such abominable language, the constables holstered their weapons.
‘And bloody get after them, you f**ckwits!’
‘Phew,’ said Constable Justice. ‘Can I come, too? I can drive the car.’
‘Look at my bloody car!’
The inspector’s bloody car was in bloody ruination.
‘You can take mine,’ said Joan, straightening her attire and issuing from the doorway. ‘Mine’s a Smart Car and it appears to have escaped the carnage.’
‘Thank you, madam,’ said Inspector Westlake, accepting the keys.
And off up the drive went the Paddy Wagon and out of the park gates and into Pope’s Lane. And after it went the police cars. And after them a blue and grey Smart Car. Which although, perhaps, not as brisk as the turbo-charged police cars, was very light on petrol and kind to the environment.
‘Oh woe, help,’ and, ‘alas,’ bemoaned the writhing mass of constables in the rear of the Paddy Wagon.
‘Get the f*ck off me!’ shouted Paul.
*
‘So I said, “Get the duck off me,”’ said O’Fagin, ‘Because frankly it’s not a good look at a Masonic ball.’
‘At least it wasn’t a dinosaur,’ said Jonny, sticking out his empty glass in search of a refill.
‘Dinosaur?’ said O’Fagin. ‘It was a duck. Have you been drinking?’
‘Yes,’ said Jonny, ‘and I’d like some lunch. Do you have any Peking duck?’
‘Stegosaurus,’ said O’Fagin.
‘That’s easy for you to say,’ said Jonny.
‘Not as easy as you might think. But the Peking duck is off, because it had stegosaurus in it.’
‘Do you mean streptococcus?’ asked Jonny.
‘Do you?’ asked O’Fagin.
And then there came to the ears of Jonny and the ears of O’Fagin what can only be described as a growing cacophony. Of police-car sirens and screaming engines.
‘They’re coming back,’ said Jonny.
‘Tank tops?’ said O’Fagin. ‘I do hope not.’
‘Tank tops?’ said Jonny.
‘Oh no, hold on there.’ O’Fagin checked something beneath his counter. ‘Blues musicians,’ he said, ‘dinosaurs, no, it’s seventies fashion tomorrow.’
‘What is that?’ Jonny asked
‘The table of toot,’ said O’Fagin. ‘All publicans are issued with one monthly. Tells you what toot to engage your customers with. I don’t know what I’d do without it.’
A whistle of missiles was clearly to be heard. That Doppler effect whistle. The one that varies in tone as the something that is causing the whistle, a missile in this particular case, gets nearer and nearer.
‘Incoming!’ shouted O’Fagin, and he took a dive to the floor. On his side of the bar counter Jonny did likewise as two things struck The Middle Man.
The first was a small ground-to-ground Harbinger missile, fired in anger by a constable named Agamemnon towards a swerving Paddy Wagon.
The second was the swerving Paddy Wagon itself.
It’s unwelcome entry into The Middle Man being made somewhat easier due to the gaping hole that had just opened before it.
There was that rending of brickwork, that splintering of plaster, that tumbling of lintels, that ruination of pub chairs and tables and articles and artefacts and artless artworks, and with a roar as of a rogue elephant and the mash of a train wreck, the Paddy Wagon came to a halt.
Amidst smoke and dust and chaos.
28
Jonny Hooker raised his head from rubble. He felt at himself, although not in the biblical sense, and declared himself sound enough in mind and limb and still upon the plane of the living. Although somewhat bruised and battered all about.
Coughing dust, as one does in an aftermath, he rose, a-patting at his person and spitting somewhat, too.
‘Are we the last survivors?’ O’Fagin’s head appeared above the bar counter. ‘Was that the holocaust? Oh blessed be.’
‘It’s a Paddy Wagon,’ said Jonny, pushing laths and plaster away from the Paddy Wagon’s rear door. ‘Somewhat embedded in the gents.’
‘Not the nuclear holocaust, then?’ O’Fagin made the sign of the cross, the Sign of the Four, the sign of the times and the times they are a-changing, all over his chest and upper body regions generally. ‘And there was me thinking that you and I would have to mate to repopulate the Earth and stop it from being taken over by monkeys.’
‘Not dinosaurs?’ said Jonny.
‘Been there, done that. What is that funky noise?’
The funky noise in question came from the rear of the Paddy Wagon. It was a funky groaning, moaning noise. A collection of noises, a group, a covey, a shoal, a bevy, a—
‘What is that gallimaufry of noises?’ O’Fagin asked.
‘Policemen, I think.’ Jonny struggled with more laths and plaster, struggled with the Wagon’s rear door.
There was a struggle and a yank and an opening and a rush.
And suddenly Jonny was engulfed by policemen.
A blue serge horde poured out and about him.
Jonny went down in the blur.
‘Jonny, mate.’ Hands were laid upon him and Jonny was raised aloft.
‘Paul?’ Jonny could see Paul’s helmetless head, his fine head of hair all caught in a shaft of sunlight. Which now flowed into the public bar through a large hole in the ceiling.
‘Jonny, mate, I’m sorry, I could have killed you.’
‘You could of killed me?’
‘I grabbed him round the throat. An act of bravery. There’ll no doubt be a medal in it for me. I hope it has a black ribbon. I—’
‘What are you talking about?’ Jonny fanned away Paul’s hands, which were patting and poking at him. Groaning constables were rising to their feet. Others were now peering in through the big hole in the front wall.
These others had mighty weaponry.
Jonny Hooker put his hands up. ‘I surrender,’ he said. ‘I’ll come quietly. Don’t shoot, G-men, clap the cuffs on me, Copper, it’s a fair cop.’
‘Have you lost all reason?’ Paul took to patting Jonny’s hands down again. ‘They’re not here to arrest you.’
‘Oh,’ said Jonny. Which sometimes says so much.
‘I wonder if he’s still alive?’
‘Who?’ asked Jonny. ‘Who?’
‘The madman who jumped into the cab. He flew in through the windscreen.’
‘Flew?’
Constables with big, bad guns were creeping into the bar.
‘Did you get the bastard?’ one of them asked.
‘Bastard?’ said Jonny.
‘Man in a black suit,’ said Paul, patting all over himself. ‘Black sunglasses, Gunnersbury Park, shoot-out, not human, blimey.’
Jonny Hooker shook his head. ‘The driver in the cab?’
‘Driver,’ said Paul. ‘Man or monster or something.’
‘Really?’ Jonny Hooker looked along the Paddy Wagon: it was pretty firmly embedded into the wall. There didn’t look to be a lot of chance of reaching the cab.
‘Little hatchway,’ said Paul, ‘between the cab and the rear – let’s go and have a look, eh?’
‘You’re being terribly brave,’ said Jonny, ‘considering that you didn’t have the bottle to throw in your lot with me.’
‘Well, that’s only because you’re such a loser. No offence meant.’
‘None taken, I assure you.’
‘Friendship is a wonderful thing,’ said O’Fagin. ‘Red and white flock paper, I think, and one of those super-jukebox jobbies that works through the Interweb and has a million tracks on it.’
Jonny looked at Paul.
And Paul looked at Jonny.
‘Is it worth asking him?’ Paul asked Jonny.
Jonny shook his head.
‘I’ll tell you anyway,’ said O’Fagin. ‘Notice how unnaturally calm I am, even though my livelihood is in ruination? Well, that’s because it’s a police Paddy Wagon and I am a Freemason. And I expect a very large cash payout for all of this damage. And it will be worth another instalment in the Sunday tabloids and probably further headlines in tomorrow’s gutter press and—’
‘Quite,’ said Jonny, and to Paul, ‘Little hatch, go on, then.’
And Paul climbed into the rear of the Paddy Wagon.
‘Want to have a look, too?’ he asked.
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
Jonny climbed in after Paul and the two made their way forward. With a degree of care. A certain caution. A certain anticipatory caution.
They reached the little hatchway and Jonny whispered, ‘Go on, then.’
Paul hesitated. ‘He might well still be armed and dangerous,’ he said.
‘My feelings entirely, which was why I marvelled at your bravery. Or, should I say, bravado.’
‘I’m brave enough,’ said Paul, and he took a small peep, then a big peep and then a bigger peep still.
And then he ducked back his head and went, ‘Not again.’
‘Not again?’ asked Jonny, and then he peeped.
But again it certainly was.
The driver sat there, bolt upright in the driving seat, both hands upon the wheel. But this was not a man in a black suit, white shirt and black tie. This was a man in a dusty eighteenth-century frocked coat, with quilted sleeves and lacy frillings. Golden rings adorned his slender fingers.
And as to the ‘again’—
This was also a man who lacked for a head.
‘Clear a path there, step aside.’ Inspector Westlake entered the punctured premises. Pistol held high and big striding gait, he shuffled constables to the right and left of him and called into the rear of the Paddy Wagon.
‘Is he alive?’ he called.
‘No, sir,’ replied Constable Paul. ‘His head’s all gone, just like Mister Crawford and the rest.’
‘Another? Damn and blast.’ Inspector Westlake entered the Paddy Wagon. ‘I want this area sealed off,’ he told Constable Paul. ‘And I want Scientific Support here at the hurry-up. And you—’ He pointed the business end of his pistol at Jonny. ‘—I want you out of here.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Jonny.
Jonny Hooker whispered certain words to Constable Paul. Constable Paul made a doubtful face. Jonny whispered further words and Constable Paul said, ‘All right.’
‘I told you to get out of here,’ Inspector Westlake said.
Jonny grinned and saluted. ‘Yes sir, sir,’ he said.
‘Yes, your ladyship?’ said Joan. She had re-established herself behind what was left of the reception desk and she had answered the ringing telephone.
It was an internal call, from Countess Vanda.
‘Excuse me, your ladyship, for just a moment.’ Joan plucked something that did not even remotely resemble a dinosaur from her left earhole and returned the telephone receiver to it.
‘What was all that ungodly racket?’ asked Countess Vanda.
‘We had a bit of an incident, your ladyship. A terrorist – there was a lot of shooting. I think I might have piddled myself.’
‘I really do not wish to hear about that.’
‘Which part, your ladyship.’
‘Any of it. I trust there hasn’t been any damage done to the museum.’
Joan did some bitings of the lower lip. Most of the dust had settled now and the ruination was fearsome.
‘There has been some,’ she said. And then she went, ‘Waah!’
‘Waah?’ asked Countess Vanda.
‘Ranger Connor just pinched my—’ Joan raised a saucy eyebrow at the ranger.
Ranger Connor stared all around and about. ‘What happened here?’ he asked.
Joan put her hand over the telephone receiver. ‘Terrorist,’ she said.
‘Terrorist?’
Joan shushed him. ‘Yes,’ she said to Countess Vanda. ‘I’ll call the conservators on the phone. I’m sure they’ll be able to, er, patch things up. Goodbye.’ And she replaced the receiver.
‘Terrorist?’ said Ranger Connor. ‘Oh no and I missed it.’
‘You wouldn’t have liked it,’ said Joan, primping at her hair. ‘Not very nice at all, it wasn’t. He ran across the ceiling.’
‘The ceiling?’
‘Man in a black suit.’
‘A black suit?’
‘And a white shirt.’
‘White shirt?’
‘Please don’t keep repeating what I say.’
‘What I say?’
Joan smacked Ranger Connor.
‘Thank you,’ said the ranger. ‘But you’re saying that the man in the black suit, chap with the posh voice—’ Joan nodded. ‘—that he was a terrorist?’
‘Probably still is.’
‘But he asked me to find—’
‘To find?’
‘Don’t you start.’
‘What did he ask you to find?’
‘A laptop. Amongst the effects of the late James Crawford. But it wasn’t in the boxes.’
‘Well, all’s well that ends well, eh?’
‘Are you doing anything at lunchtime?’ Ranger Connor asked.
‘Eating my lunch?’ Joan replied.
‘I was wondering, perhaps if you’d care to join me for a sandwich in the rangers’ hut.’
‘Ah,’ said Joan. ‘About the rangers’ hut.’
‘About the rangers’ hut?’
Joan s
macked him again.
‘Has something happened to the rangers’ hut?’
‘It got sort of blown up,’ said Joan.
‘Sort of blown up?’
Joan withheld her smacking hand. ‘It must come as a bit of a shock,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re sorry?’ said Ranger Connor, going all pale. ‘That new Ranger Chicoteen – I left him in the hut.’
‘Ranger Chicoteen’, Elastoplast-speckled, dust-spattered also, had left the devastated bar of The Middle Man but had not, as such, left altogether. He hovered about amongst the growing crowd that was now being held back behind the hastily strung lengths of ‘DO NOT CROSS’ tape.
‘Stand back please, sir,’ Constable Paul advised him.
‘Don’t be a twat,’ said Jonny.
‘Show a little respect for that constable,’ said a lady in a straw hat. ‘He’s only doing his job. And it can’t be any fun looking like that.’
‘Like that?’ said Constable Paul.
The lady in the straw hat smacked him.
Lads from Scientific Support, in their nice white environmental suits, were milling all around and about. Two were assembling a coconut shy. Two more were manhandling a body on a stretcher through the yawning maw that had so recently been the front wall of The Middle Man.
Jonny Hooker did cranings of the neck.
The stretcher passed him near at hand and as it did so the crowd made a bit of a surge forward. There was some jostling involved and some muffled and censored swear words issued from within the face helmets of the men in white.
Jonny bumped up against the stretcher. Something tumbled from it and fell onto the ground.
Constable Paul demanded some order. ‘Back!’ cried he. ‘I’m arresting this lady in a straw hat for striking a police officer.’
‘You’ll never make it stick, rat boy,’ cried the lady.
‘Rat boy?’ said Paul.
And the lady smacked him again.
Jonny stooped swiftly and picked up the something that had tumbled from the stretcher.
It was a key. A brass key. Jonny turned it over on his palm and gave it a furtive once-over.
It was an antique key for sure. Upon it were engraved certain words and a date. Jonny read these words and he read that date, and Jonny Hooker smiled.
The words engraved upon the key were:
The Da-Da-De-Da-Da Code Page 18