by P. B. Kerr
“Go on then,” he said, and Rakshasas took off down the trail like a greyhound.
“There’s no time to lose,” said John, starting to run. “I’ll follow you.”
CHAPTER 24
TERROR IN MUCKHOLE TERRACE
Muckhole Terrace was well named, part of a drab and derelict neighborhood of Bumby that was full of grimy, redbrick homes. Drying gray laundry fluttered over tiny gardens overgrown with weeds that looked like they were the only healthy living things in the area. A woman with a cigarette in one hand and a beer can in the other watched with narrow-eyed suspicion as Philippa and Moo stood at a bus stop, pretending to wait for a bus. Moo had said this would be good cover while they surveilled the terrace for some sign that number 74 was being watched by the fake fakirs.
“You don’t think it will draw attention to us when we don’t get on the bus,” said Philippa.
Moo pointed up at an electric sign on the bus stop that indicated that the next bus was twenty minutes away. “I think we’ll have decided our best course of action by then,” she said. “Don’t you?”
“There’s no one hereabouts who looks like a fake fakir,” observed Philippa.
“That’s true,” said Moo. “On the other hand, I don’t think we’re going to find them watching the house from the comfort of a bed of nails, do you?”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Philippa.
“Chances are they’ll be a little more discreet than that,” said Moo. “What I mean is that we mustn’t expect them to look like fakirs. Chances are they’ll probably look like any of the other men in this area. Blending in is the first secret of successful terrorism. We must also blend in ourselves. And it’s fortunate we are what we are. I doubt they’ll be expecting trouble from an old lady and an adolescent schoolgirl.” Moo smiled kindly at Philippa. “Come on. The coast looks to be clear. Let’s go and ring the doorbell.”
“Suppose she’s at work?”
“It’s a Saturday,” said Moo. “Nobody around here works on a Saturday.”
Farther down the street, several men stood outside a betting shop, idly kicking cans and, sometimes, each other. They wore tracksuits and gold chains and tattoos, and most of them had cell phones attached to their studded or ringed ears.
Moo regarded them dimly. “Come to think of it,” she added, “there aren’t many around here who look like they work on any other day, either.”
They halted outside number 74. It was in a better state of order than any of the other houses in the terrace. The door had been freshly painted, the mailbox polished, and the windows were clean. Behind them, thick net curtains prevented Moo from checking out the interior for any sign of trouble.
Moo pressed the little doorbell and an electronic facsimile of a famous song from The Sound of Music announced their presence at the front door.
They waited for almost a minute before the door was opened on the chain and a woman’s long face appeared in the gap, accompanied by a strong smell of cheap perfume and air freshener, although in that part of the world it was quite possible they were one and the same. Seeing Philippa and behind her, Moo, the woman’s narrow and suspicious green eyes seemed to become a little less suspicious and a little more green.
“Miss Shoebottom?” said Moo.
“Yes?” she said. “What do you want?”
“We’re friends of the expected one,” said Philippa.
Miss Shoebottom hardly batted one of her batlike eyelids. “Then you’d better come in.” She closed the door, slipped off the chain, and opened it again to admit Philippa and then Moo.
“Can I offer you both some tea?” she said, and pressed a finger to her lips as if counseling their discretion.
“Yes, that would be very kind of you,” said Moo.
Miss Shoebottom seemed quite nervous. She kept lifting her eyebrows at the ceiling of her little sitting room, and Philippa almost believed the woman had some sort of tic. What was more, she demonstrated absolutely no inclination to make tea, for which Philippa at least was grateful as she had no desire to drink any.
“Are you all right?” Moo asked Miss Shoebottom.
“Yes, I’m very well, thank you.” Miss Shoebottom mouthed some other words that remained silent. Then she pointed upstairs. “Under the circumstances.”
Moo nodded. “Yes, it is a nice day,” she said. “We won’t stay long, Miss Shoebottom. We heard you were expecting someone from the local church to come and visit. About your very kind offer to do the flowers in church on a Sunday.”
For a moment Philippa wondered what on earth Moo was talking about.
“Of course, it would have to be real flowers that are used in the church. Not fake ones. Plastic or paper flowers. The reverend was quite adamant about his horror of fakes. He would have come to see you himself but he’s burying someone today. And after all, I always say, a funeral is forever, not just for life.”
Philippa looked at Moo and was about to conclude that the old lady had suffered some kind of stroke that was affecting her mind when she heard a creak on the floor upstairs and understood exactly what was happening. Moo and Miss Shoebottom were speaking in code. Someone else was in the house. Someone whom Miss Shoebottom was afraid of.
“Have you met the Reverend Swaraswati?” asked Moo.
“No,” said Miss Shoebottom. “I don’t think I have met him yet. The reverend. He’s been away, hasn’t he? For a long time?”
“Yes,” said Moo. “A very long time. Much longer than he or anyone else had expected.”
“You got that right, love,” whispered Miss Shoebottom wearily.
“Well, we’d best be getting along,” said Moo. “Perhaps we’ll have that cup of tea another time.”
“Yes, perhaps that would be best,” allowed Miss Shoebottom. “Do send the Reverend Whatshisname my regards and say that I hope to meet him before very long.”
Philippa reached for the door to the sitting room and found it swinging toward her.
Two long-haired, bearded men advanced into the room. They were accompanied by the same smell of Indian balm Philippa had encountered on the prison ship Archer. And but for their smart suits, they looked very similar, too, being dark and very thin as if they didn’t eat much.
“Not leaving already, I hope,” said one of the men. “We haven’t yet been introduced.”
“Please don’t go,” said the other.
And since each of the two men was holding a gun in his hand, Philippa felt obliged — for a moment at least — to delay her use of djinn power and their inevitable escape. Also, she hoped perhaps to discover something about whom these men were working for.
“I’m afraid we heard what you said,” said the first mendicant fakir. “About the expected one. I’m afraid very little ever happens in this town. And certainly nothing has been expected here for a long, long time. Except perhaps our mutual friend, the fakir sent by the Tirthankar. We’ve been staying here with poor Miss Shoebottom for several weeks now in the hope that we might get to meet him, but so far without luck. We’ve even been accompanying her to her place of work at the town hall. So you can imagine how fed up with us she is.”
Miss Shoebottom fetched a can of air freshener off the mantelpiece and started to spray the air around the mendicant fakirs.
“It’s not you I mind so much, luvvy, as the smell of that horrible Indian balm you rub into your skin,” she said.
The first mendicant fakir grinned apologetically. “See what I mean? But none of this matters now. Not now that you have turned up. We’re rather hoping now that you can take us to our friend, the fakir. In fact, we’re certain you can. Which really is a stroke of luck. We were rather beginning to think that the run of bad luck that we afflicted on Bumby had started to affect us, too.”
“I’m afraid we haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about, young man,” Moo said sternly. “And I suggest you put that gun down before you get into trouble.”
“It would be bad luck for Miss Shoebottom if y
ou can’t take us to the fakir,” said the second mendicant fakir, brandishing his gun meaningfully. “On top of all the other bad luck that she and this disgusting little town have had to put up with.”
“Yes, indeed,” said his colleague.
“Perhaps we can help each other,” said Philippa.
“I know how you can help me,” said the first mendicant fakir. “But I fail to see how I can help you, beyond doing you the obvious favor of not shooting you and your friend.”
“Perhaps if I could meet your employer,” said Philippa, “I might explain that I know the location of all five fakirs of Faizabad. Not just the one here in Bumby. But the other four as well.”
“How is that possible?” said the second mendicant fakir.
“It’s possible,” said Philippa. “You’ll have to take my word for that.”
The two mendicant fakirs looked at each other uncertainly.
“Not even the Tirthankar, if he were still alive, could know that,” said the first mendicant fakir, and started to shake his head with disbelief. “No, it’s not possible.”
“Your employer, whoever he is,” insisted Philippa, “will be very upset when he learns that you settled for just one fakir when you could have had all five. By the way, who is your employer? Perhaps I know him.”
“The emir does not make deals with little girls,” said the first mendicant fakir.
“Please yourself,” said Philippa. “But you really should ask him first. Why don’t you give him a call? Is this emir here in Bumby?” Philippa grinned. She was starting to enjoy herself. “I can find out, you know.”
The second mendicant fakir laughed. “And how would you do that, please?”
“I could torture you.”
Both the mendicant fakirs were laughing a lot now.
“However, the use of torture diminishes me as a person,” said Philippa. “And I wouldn’t care for that. Besides, if my uncle Nimrod’s right, you guys are kind of used to a bit of pain already, so clearly that’s not going to work. Unless of course —” Philippa sounded thoughtful now. “Unless it’s a really inhuman kind of pain. Yes. I bet that might work.”
“Does she always talk such rubbish?” one fakir asked Moo.
“It’s not rubbish,” said Moo. “She’s a person of enormous supernatural power. Unless you put that gun down, I fear you’re in for a very nasty shock, young man.”
“So,” continued Philippa, “here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to tell me who this emir is and where he is to be found. Or else you’re going to regret it. And you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that you never really had any choice in the matter. So you’d best do as my friend says and put that gun down, or else.”
“You mean this gun?” said the second mendicant fakir and pointed it at Moo’s head. To her credit the old lady did not even flinch.
“FABULONGOSHOOMARVELISHLY —”
“She’s talking rubbish again,” said the first mendicant fakir.
“— WONDERPIPICAL!”
Almost immediately both of the mendicant fakirs screamed as each realized that he was no longer holding a gun but a living ferret, which is a local species of weasel. Now, ferrets do not like to be held by strangers, and each immediately bit the hand of the mendicant fakir holding it. Another curiosity of ferrets and weasels is that once they bite, they are reluctant to let go and so it proved with these two ferrets.
“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” squealed the first mendicant fakir.
“Leggo, ouch!” said the other. “Yarooo!”
Miss Shoebottom laughed and then covered her mouth. “No, I shouldn’t laugh, should I? Not when someone is in pain. Sorry, luvvy.”
“Ouch!”
“My dad used to keep ferrets and he used to say —” Miss Shoebottom was laughing again. “He used to say that he reckoned there’s nothing sharper or more painful than to be bitten by than a ferret’s tooth. Not even an ungrateful child.” More laughter. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. It’s not funny.”
“I should think you deserve a good laugh at the expense of these two rogues,” said Moo. “Don’t you?”
“You’ve got that right, missus.”
“Get them off!” yelled the second mendicant fakir.
“How did you do that then?” Miss Shoebottom asked Philippa. “Turn those guns into ferrets. Are you some kind of magician, love?”
“I’ll explain in a moment,” said Philippa. “After I’ve finished dealing with these two.”
“Owwww!” said the first mendicant fakir. “I can’t stand the pain any longer.”
“Oh, jolly well done, Philippa,” said Moo. “So that’s what you meant by inhuman pain.”
“And since I’m not the one who’s actually inflicting it,” said Philippa, “I guess I can look myself in the mirror when I go to sleep tonight.”
“Please get it off me,” begged the second mendicant fakir.
For their part, the ferrets were enjoying themselves, for in truth there is nothing a ferret likes more than to sink its teeth down to the bone of a human finger.
“As soon as you tell me some more about this emir,” said Philippa.
“The emir is His Excellency Jirjis Ibn Rajmus,” yelped the first mendicant fakir. “And he lives in Cairo.”
“You mean the Cairo that’s in Egypt?”
“No, the one in Georgia, U.S.A.,” yelled the second mendicant fakir. “Where do you think I mean?”
Philippa thought the mendicant fakir was being sarcastic, but let it go. “All right. Why’s he doing this?”
“He wants to know the great secrets of the universe, of course. Anyone who knows anything about these five fakirs knows what important information they possess. Really! You could have worked that out for yourself, surely.”
“Er, yes, all right,” said Philippa, who wasn’t used to interrogating people. “Um.” She looked at Moo. “What else should I ask them?”
Moo took over. “Tell me about this organization of mendicant fakirs.”
“It’s called the Chariot,” said the first mendicant fakir.
“How do you get your orders? Who told you to come here, to Bumby?”
“We get our orders from the emir on the Internet. He tells us what to do and we obey.”
“And how did you go about creating the bad luck in the world?” Moo’s tone stiffened. “That is this emir’s plan, isn’t it? To create such a bad atmosphere in the world that the five fakirs who remain buried alive will be persuaded that they are needed and come forth to reveal their secrets?”
“Yes, ouch!”
“So how did you do it?”
“I don’t know about the world,” said the first mendicant fakir, grimacing with pain. “But I can tell you what we’ve been doing here in Bumby, if you like.”
“Yes, I think you’d better,” said Moo.
“Mostly we just went around and secretly sabotaged things so as to create an impression of enormous bad luck. I was working at a local Indian restaurant so it was very easy for us to add dangerously hot chilies to the curries.”
“And I was working at the local chemical factory so it was easy to let a large quantity of pink dye escape into the local river.”
“But we also came equipped with a Jinx, the phrase book with incorrect translations, and a supply of stink bugs.”
Miss Shoebottom tutted loudly. “So that was you.” She picked up a copy of the Radio Times, rolled it quickly, and struck each mendicant fakir on the head several times. “Blasted nuisance, the pair of you. You want locking up, really you do.”
“I was behind the two accidents at the circus,” said the other unhappily. “When the Magnificent Mikhail managed to saw a lady in half for real and Leonid the Lion Tamer got eaten by a tigress.”
“Murderer,” said Moo.
“And I created the computer virus, the Bumby Bacteria,” said the other fakir.
“And it was me who salted the deep caves with gold nuggets so as to make everyone think there was a gold mine
.”
Miss Shoebottom hit him again with the Radio Times. “Blast you, man, if you knew the trouble you’ve both caused.”
“They know,” said Moo. “They know.”
“I hope they send you both to prison for a very long time,” said Miss Shoebottom.
“Most probably they’d enjoy that,” said Moo. “We saw three of their colleagues on Her Majesty’s prison ship Archer and they gave every impression of being in a holiday camp. Didn’t they, Philippa?”
“Yes,” admitted Philippa.
“You ask me, prison’s too good for ’em,” Moo said fiercely. “Plus the taxpayer has to pick up the tab for looking after them.”
“So what should we do with them?” said Philippa. “We can’t let them go. There’s no telling what they might do. Create more havoc. Report back to this emir. Hurt Mr. Swaraswati.”
“We should execute them,” said Moo, taking the gun from her handbag. “Shoot them. I’ll do it.”
“Not in here, you won’t,” said Miss Shoebottom. “This is a new carpet.”
“In the garden then. On the lawn. People will just think a car backfired. Twice.”
“Aiee!” squealed the first mendicant fakir. “You can’t mean that. Please.”
“No,” said Philippa. “She doesn’t mean it.”
“I do mean it,” Moo said fiercely.
“What’s your favorite animal?” Philippa asked Miss Shoebottom.
“Well, it’s not ferrets, love.” Miss Shoebottom laughed bitterly. “Can’t stand them. They’re just like emaciated rats, so they are. I can never understand why people put them down their trousers.”
“They do?” Philippa was horrified.
“Poachers do it,” explained Moo. “To hide them from gamekeepers when they go hunting rabbits.”
Philippa looked at the ferret still attached to the ball of the first mendicant fakir’s thumb and winced. “That looks kind of hazardous, to me.”
She shook her head. Sometimes it was hard to believe that so many Americans could be descended from people in Great Britain. The people here were so totally weird.