by Heide Goody
“Really!” said Clovenhoof, stepping back. “And after I said such nice things about your shoes!”
Narinda sidled over to Ben. “Can you tell me what’s actually going on here?” she said, out of the corner of her mouth.
“Absolutely no idea,” he replied.
“Perhaps I ought to explain,” Narinda said to the schools admissions woman. “I am an employee of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.”
“Enough with the lies,” said Linda and began to dial.
The doorbell rang.
“Maybe that’s the children!” said Clovenhoof. He said it very loudly in the hope that it would somehow make it more believable.
Rutspud opened the front door.
The unshaven and jowly man in a suit looked down at him.
“Mr Calhoun?”
Rutspud did his best to recall the garbled information he’d been given.
“No, I’m one of the little Calhouns. I’m a ten-year-old boy called Archie.”
“Is Mr Calhoun in? Or Mr Clovenhoof perhaps?”
The man sniffed and made a show of looking past Rutspud.
“Getting dressed here!” said Joan, down the hallway.
“Why are you doing that in the hall?” asked the man.
Rutspud was about to put the man straight on who precisely was who and who they were pretending to be when the man produced a photo ID in a little black wallet.
“Detective Inspector Gough, West Midlands Police Fraud Office.”
The inspector can’t know the truth, the woman had said, hadn’t she?
“I don’t think Mr Calhoun is in,” said Rutspud. “But Mrs Calhoun, his daughter is upstairs.”
Inspector Gough stepped inside and made for the stairs.
“You can’t go yet!” said Rutspud. “Joan.”
Joan zipped up the very short pleated school skirt and rifled through the case for something for the man to wear. “I really don’t think we have anything in your size.”
“What are you doing?” asked Gough.
“You’re one of the little Calhouns like us,” said Rutspud.
“What? I’m a police officer!”
Rutspud and Joan looked at each other.
“We weren’t given those script notes,” said Rutspud.
“There’s some police uniform bits in here,” said Joan and placed a peaked cap on the man’s head. She pushed a pair of plastic handcuffs and a rubber truncheon into his hand.
“Here’s a police ID badge,” said Rutspud and stuffed it into the gap in his jacket.
“Get off me,” said Gough, pulling away. “You’re in serious danger of wasting police time.” He threw down handcuffs and ID and went to the stairs, realised he was still holding the rubber truncheon, cast that down too and stomped up. “Up here?” he said, gruffly.
Rutspud looked at Joan.
“Are we meant to go too?”
She shrugged. “Let’s go be little Calhouns and see if we can find Clovenhoof.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Clovenhoof heard the heavy footsteps on the stairs and went out to greet what he hoped were a convenient tribe of children who he could pass off as his own. He was therefore distinctly disappointed to find a stubbly bloke in a rumpled suit come up to him.
“Mrs Calhoun?” he said.
“You’re not one of my children, are you?” said Clovenhoof.
“They’re downstairs, playing silly beggars in the hall.”
“Really?” Clovenhoof leaned over the bannister. “Come up, children! The lady wants to see you!” He turned to the man. “So, who are you?”
“Inspector Gough. We in here?”
He stepped past and through Ben’s open flat door.
Linda was still on the phone, apparently on hold.
“Are you going to pretend that this is one of your children now?” said Linda, derisively.
“I’m Inspector Gough, West Midlands Police Fraud Office,” said the man.
“Ha! No, you’re not!” spat the admissions woman. “I’ve not even got through to them. And there’s certainly not been any time for them to send someone over. This is a cheap and pathetic trick, Mrs Calhoun.”
“I can assure you I am a police officer,” said Gough, searching one pocket and then another for his ID.
“Oh, yes, just like this woman claims to be a tax inspector.”
“I’ve presented you with my credentials,” said Narinda but Linda just sneered.
Gough finally found his ID wallet and passed it to Linda.
“Tax, eh?” he said, strolling over to the wall of financial documents. “I’m here because someone is using this property to do business under an invented alias. This so-called Mr ‘Jeremy Clovenhoof’ has accrued thousands of pounds of debt at this address.”
“But he hasn’t!” said Ben. “That’s what we’ve been telling them. We’ve found the missing paperwork. Jeremy is a major shareholder in a company called WinkyCat Studios and –”
“Jeremy Clovenhoof!” said Gough, spotting the name on a letterhead and ramming it with his fingertip. “So, he is real.”
“More than you,” said Linda, holding up the ID she’d been passed. “This badge says you’re a Private Dick and a licensed Boob Inspector!”
“What?” said Gough. He snatched back the ID and scrutinised it. “The children! They must have swapped it with one from the case!”
“This is very entertaining,” said Clovenhoof who was having the best time ever. “I can’t see how it can get any better.”
At that moment, Joan of Arc and a demon – Rustpot? Rudbud? Clovenhoof was sure it was something like that – entered the room. Both were dressed in a selection of clothes that, if you were incredibly inobservant, you might think were items of school uniform.
“I don’t even know why you’re here!” said Clovenhoof, entranced by the random turn of events. “What’s your name?” he asked the demon, desperate to remember.
The demon cleared his throat theatrically. “I am a ten-year-old boy called Archie Calhoun.”
“I am also one of the little Calhouns,” said Joan of Arc.
“Oh, my God!” yelled Linda. “Would everyone just stop lying! Is no one here who they actually claim to be?”
“Madam, I’m going to have to ask you to calm down,” said Gough.
“Stop pretending!” she screamed.
“You are being hysterical and need to calm down or I will be forced to arrest you for public order offences.”
“Calm down? You’re all mad!” she shouted and gave Gough a two-handed shove.
The policeman took hold of her wrist, turned and seconds later had her in handcuffs.
“Kidnap! Kidnap!” yelled the schools admissions woman and began kicking anything in range which by chance happened to be Ben. He went down, clutching his knee.
Gough restrained her and pulled her towards the door. “Madam! You will accompany me downstairs where I will find my proper identification whereupon I shall arrest you for…” He thought about it. “We’ll work it out when we get down there.”
Gough bundled the screaming woman away.
A beautiful, stunned silence filled Ben’s flat broken eventually by Clovenhoof declaring, “That was awesome! Seriously. I can’t picture that having gone any better.” He slapped his forehead. “Rutspud!”
“Yes!” cried the demon, delighted to be recognised.
“Sixth circle!” said Clovenhoof. “Working for that self-important prig. What was his name? Scabular? Scraper?”
“Scabass. That’s him! Got out from under him ages ago.”
Nerys’s eyes widened. “You mean he’s a…. And you’re…!” She gasped as she pointed at Joan.
A look, both furious and panicked, came over her face.
“You, you and you!” she said to Clovenhoof, Rutspud and Joan. “Pub! Now! And not another word!”
She marched them out, leaving a mightily perplexed Ben and Narinda behind.
Rutspud was in a pub for t
he first time in his existence.
Rutspud was having a beer in a pub.
Rutspud was having a beer in a pub with his creator and master, talking back and forth like they were just a pair of regular demons chatting by the lava fountain on their work break.
Rutspud had a general contempt for the goings-on in Hell and had an especial contempt for the vile hierarchy of the underworld but, despite all that, going for a beer with Satan himself was so exciting that he had to squash his lips together to prevent any involuntary squeals of joy bursting out.
Rutspud sipped at his beer (which tasted like bread-gone-wrong but wasn’t as vile as Marmite). Clovenhoof sipped at his ‘Lambrini’ (which looked like fizzy piss and far more appealing). The Nerys woman had a white wine spritzer and had bought Joan the same. Joan nursed her drink unenthusiastically and kept looking enviously at Rutspud’s pint. He wondered if he should offer to swap.
Nerys was trying to get her facts straight.
“So, Heaven and Hell have teamed up and sent you two here – you’re not here permanently?” she asked fearfully.
“Heaven forfend,” said Nerys.
“Good,” she said, “because although I know that goaty-boy here is the Fallen One, no one else does.”
“Apart from Lennox,” said Clovenhoof, hitching a thumb at the bar.
“And Lennox. Point is, Ben does not know and he’s a delicate little beta male who won’t be able to cope with discovering that his housemate is the devil and even more of a shitty villain than he already thinks you are.”
“I’ve always cast myself as more of an anti-hero,” sniffed Clovenhoof.
“Having Joan of frigging Arc and one of Hell’s demons turn up is going to make it tricky to keep your secret, so whatever you’re doing here, it needs to be kept at a low, low profile.”
“Not a problem,” said Rutspud. “We’ll fix this problem and – bam! – we’ll be off. That is, after spending some quality time with the boss here,” he grinned.
“How is the Old Place?” said Clovenhoof. “Missing me?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe, sir.”
“I bet that doofus Peter has redecorated my Fortress of Nameless Dread in sickly pastel shades.”
Rutspud pulled a face.
“He has?” said Clovenhoof.
“Actually, boss, it was destroyed.”
“He demolished it?”
“No. It was kinda swept away in a flood.”
“How in Hell could there be flood? In Hell,” said Clovenhoof.
“We had an over-heating problem. And there was this magic wardrobe…”
Clovenhoof threw up his hands.
“You turn your back for five minutes and everything goes to pot.”
“Lord Peter now operates out of the Portakabin of Nameless Dread while they’re doing the rebuild.”
At least that made Clovenhoof laugh.
“Shut up. The pair of you,” said Nerys. “Reminisce when we haven’t got more important things to worry about.”
“Like the PrayPal app causing a serious imbalance in the numbers being sent to Heaven and Hell,” said Joan.
“Right, Joan. So, what the heck is that about?”
“His former infernal majesty here invented it, along with a mad bishop and a computer programmer we have yet to locate. I’m sure you had the best of motives when you decided to do that but –”
“That?” snorted Clovenhoof. “Just some bullshit me and a couple of guys were chatting one night.”
“When was this?” said Nerys.
“Months ago. I was out on the town, toasting my own crapulence and pulling the birds.”
It was Nerys’s turn to snort. “When did you last pull a… a woman?”
“They are frequently intimidated by my aura of powerful masculinity,” he conceded, “but you don’t know what I get up to in my free time.”
“You tell us. Loudly.”
“Anyway, I walked into this classy bar and I was in a good mood so I told the barmaid to buy a round for everyone there. Weirdly, she took that to mean getting everyone a plate of chips.”
“It was a fish and chip shop,” said Joan.
“And that now makes sense,” continued Clovenhoof. “I ate my chips and told everyone tales of my sexual conquests and brilliant business plans – I was just winding down my animal cremation business and looking for new ventures and –” He paused and he stared off in thought. “I got to talking with these two guys: Festering Ken and this entertaining geeky guy, lots of curly hair. I can’t remember his name. I want to say it’s Wank Stain but I’m possibly misremembering.”
“Possibly,” said Nerys.
Clovenhoof shrugged and slurped his drink. “I just said that wouldn’t it make sense, in this day and age, if people didn’t have to physically go to church to get blessed and all that shit? They should be able to do it over the internet. I mean you can do everything else over the internet these days – shopping, dating, and with recent advances in wireless dildonics…”
“Getting off topic,” said Nerys.
“Yeah,” said Clovenhoof, “but that was it. The geek was very excited, making notes; Ken obviously had input. I knew who he was. You can take the bishop out of the cathedral, but you can’t take the cathedral out of the… Well, something like that. The kid told us we were going to be rich, but Ken and I are older and wiser and knew nothing was going to come of it. But the kid – it’s not Wank Stain. It’s…” Clovenhoof growled, unable to recall. “He took our details. Names and addresses. Well, my name and address. Ken’s sort of lacking a fixed abode at the moment. And that was it.” Clovenhoof sat back. “We finished our chips. I bid them a fond adieu, went down the Boldmere Oak for the tail end of the Grab-a-Granny night and got a knee in the nads for some unwanted granny-grabbing.”
There was a hopeful look on Joan’s face.
“That’s it then. Case closed. It’s your app.”
“I guess,” said Clovenhoof.
“Then sort it out. Call them up. Log on. Whatever it is you’re supposed to do. Shut it down.”
“Why should I do all that?”
“Because you’re sending the afterlife all out of whack, sir,” said Rutspud. “Millions of people are being forgiven every day through the power of PrayPal and the sanctioned power of Bishop Iscansus which is written into its code. The Celestial City is filling up with scumbags scraping in on a technicality and there’s some exquisite ironic punishments going to waste in Hell because there’s no one there to inflict them on.”
Clovenhoof gave this some thought.
“I like you, Rutspud,” he said.
“Thank you, sir.”
“And if you want to go sort this mess out yourself, then I’m not going to stop you.”
“But?” said Joan. “There’s a ‘but’.”
“But I’m not going to solve this thing for you.”
“Why not?” said Rutspud.
“Because, numero uno, I don’t know how. I’m an ideas guy. I didn’t write an app. That’s something nerds do. You should ask the Archangel Michael, when he gets out of prison and gets back here. I don’t know anything about this PrayPal thing. I don’t know the programmer and I don’t know how to contact him. I haven’t seen any paperwork and I certainly haven’t seen any money.”
Nerys put an envelope on the table in front of Clovenhoof. There was a dirty hoof print on it. It had already been opened.
“What’s this?” he said.
“Ben gave it to me.”
Clovenhoof opened it. It was a letter from the Sutton Railway Building Society. Clovenhoof scanned it for significant details but it was an irritatingly vague request to come in and discuss what he would like to do with his funds as the regular savings account he had his money in was perhaps ‘unsuitable’. There was a post-it note attached to the letter:
This is where your taxable income has been deposited! – Narinda
You are NOT in debt.
“Well, I hope that th
is PrayPal has made me a quid or two,” said Clovenhoof, went to tuck the letter inside his jacket, realised he was still wearing women’s clothing and so stuffed it down his fruity cleavage.
“Does that help us?” said Joan.
Clovenhoof ignored her, drained the last trickle from his Lambrini and stood up.
“Come on, Nerys. Home time.”
“What?” said Nerys. “It’s not even eight o’clock. We’ve got hours of drinking time left.”
“Yes, but I want to flounce out dramatically,” he said, “because even if I could fix things like that for Joan here –” he clicked his fingers. “– I won’t.”
“Why not?” said Joan.
“Because – numero dos, my friends – you knocked down my Fortress of Nameless Dread! In a flood! Nerys! Flouncing time!”
Nerys gave the pair of them an apologetic wave, downed her drink and followed Clovenhoof out. His former Satanic majesty could flounce really well in a skirt, Rutspud noted.
Joan punched Rutspud in the shoulder. Hard.
“Ow! What did you do that for?” he said.
“You told him about the flood. Did you have to tell him?” she said, peeved.
Rutspud sighed.
“Want to swap drinks?”
“Yes, please,” said Joan.
PART TWO - ARISE HOOFLANDIA!
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Armed with his letter, and its irritatingly vague invitation about discussing his funds, Clovenhoof walked to the town centre in search of the Sutton Railway Building Society.
The reason Clovenhoof walked everywhere was twofold. Firstly, the powers-that-be (both spiritual and temporal) refused to give him a free old fogey’s bus pass even though, at his age, he clearly qualified. Secondly, it turned out that hoofs were less than ideal for working pedals – both bicycle pedals and car foot controls. Clovenhoof had tried to learn to drive. He’d booked lessons with a dozen different instructors. None of them had managed more than one lesson with him: most had told him that they could no longer teach him, one had stopped the lesson partway through, kicked him out, yelled at him for a full ten minutes and then chased him down Boldmere high street, mounting the pavement in her Fiat 500 several times, and one, after the car had finally come to rest in the shallow end of the Sutton Coldfield swimming pool, moved to the West Country and became a druid called Gwyddion Longstaff. Having hoofs was brilliant for a whole range of reasons but, for the purposes of driving, they were a decided handicap and Clovenhoof felt that people should really take that into consideration when trying to teach him. He did briefly consider getting one of those cars specially adapted for people with no legs and he even took one for a test drive but, when he got back, the man with no legs he’d stolen it from wasn’t very understanding and he’d not pursued the matter further.