The Witches of Chiswick

by Robert Rankin

  “Take the drug,” said Tim. “The Retro. Take all the tablets. If they really work then you’ll get glimpses of the real past. You’ll see what your Victorian ancestors saw, smell what they smelled, feel what they felt. It’s all there inside your head, in your genetic coding, if it’s true and the drug really works.”

  “I’m scared,” Will said. “I’m really scared.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Tim said.

  “I wish I’d never hidden that painting.”

  “You did it because you cared, because you didn’t want to see a thing of beauty being destroyed.”

  “But if I take the drug and I do find out the truth, or some of it, where does that get me? If I’m still on some death list, what am I going to do?”

  “Don’t know. But perhaps an idea will come to you. Perhaps something will come to you.”

  Will let out his breath.

  “Pooh,” said Tim. “Garlic”

  “I’m sorry. Give me the drug.”

  “You’re not going to take it here.”

  “Where then?”

  “I don’t know, but anywhere other than here.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I don’t want you ODing in my cupboard.”

  “What?”

  “Well, it might happen. I’m not saying it will. Go home and take it.”

  “And what if another robot turns up at my door?”

  “Take it on the tram, or something.”

  “No,” said Will. “I know just the place to take it, but you’re coming with me. I don’t want to be on my own when I do it.”

  The Shrunken Head was still Brentford’s premier rock pub. For more than two hundred and fifty years it had played host to countless up-and-coming rock bands that had later gone on to find fame. In their early days the Beatles had played there, and so had the Stones, and so too had Gandhi’s Hairdryer, Soliloquy, The Lost T-Shirts of Atlantis, and Sonic Energy Authority.

  Tonight it was the Apes of Wrath, Foetus Eater and the others, with the Slaughterhouse Five topping the bill.

  The Slaughterhouse Five were a “suit band”, which is to say they were a three-piece. There was Dantalion’s Chariot, lead vocals, political awareness and whistling; the Soldier of Misfortune, who impersonated weather, and Musgrave Ritual, whose strummings on the old banjo brought pleasure to literally dozens. The Slaughterhouse Five were in line to be the “Next Big Thing”, but the line was very long and with only fifteen minutes of fame allotted for any Next Big Thing, there was always the chance of being out or asleep when the moment came.

  The interior of the Shrunken Head was rough: it was dire, it was ill-kempt and wretched. The management was surly, the bouncers were brutal. The beer, a pallid lager called Little, was overpriced and underpowered. It was everything that a great live-music pub should be.

  The clientele was big, fat, young and colourful, and whilst they drank, they dined upon rice muffins and an extensive variety of soft and easily chewable crisps called Soggies.

  Will found a vacant table and seated himself. Tim went off to the bar and returned with two cups of Little and a large pack of rice muffins that he tucked into with gusto.

  Will turned the phial of capsules on his palm. “Tell me everything you know about this drug,” he said to Tim. “What exactly are its effects?”

  “Mind-expanding.” Tim mimed expandings of the mind. A mimester from the Apes of Wrath caught sight of this miming and mimed admiring applause.

  “But you’ve never actually taken it, have you?” Will fixed Tim with a very hard stare.

  “Not as such.” Tim shook his head sadly, showering Will with rice muffins.

  “So you don’t really know what will happen.”

  “I know this,” said Tim. “The drug was designed as a memory restorative for patients who’d suffered amnesia due to some accident or trauma situation or whatever, and it enjoyed a very high success rate. But then the doctors began to notice that the patients they were treating with it seemed to be remembering things they shouldn’t be able to remember: very early childhood experiences, their own births, and more. They could remember things their parents had done before they themselves were born. That had the doctors scratching at their skullcaps, I can tell you. But they worked it out, what was happening. The drug was allowing patients not only to access their own lost memories, but other memories, imprinted into the very cells of their brains, memories inherited from their forefathers. Pretty incredible stuff, eh? But you won’t get it on prescription through your healthcare plan. As soon as its properties were confirmed it was put on the restricted list. ‘For High Echelon use only.’ Ask yourself why.”

  Will asked himself why.

  “Get an answer?” Tim asked.

  Will shook his head.

  “Secrets,” Tim gave his nose a tap. “Too many secrets in the past that the High Echelons don’t want the likes of us to know about.”

  “The secret-history business,” Will said.

  “Exactly. It was really tricky getting hold of it. This is powerful stuff.”

  “It’s not exactly a recreational drug, is it? Like Bawlers or Wind-ghast, or sherbet lemon.”

  “It doesn’t blow the snits out of your gab-trammel, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.” Will sighed and gazed about the crowded bar of the Shrunken Head. It was another Friday night; young folk had come here to enjoy themselves, all dolled up in their finery. Those who had employment had finished with it for the week and were preparing to indulge in whatever excesses the weekend and their financial status allowed them. These were folk, everyday folk. They weren’t being chased by robots from the past. They didn’t have the imminent threat of arrest and probable execution hanging over their brightly-toned heads.

  “This is so unfair,” said Will, taking another sup of Little. And then another swig and then another gulp. “My cup runneth empty,” he observed.

  “I’ll get another.” Tim rose and took himself off to the bar.

  “So unfair,” muttered Will. “I mean, I’ve always been up for taking risks, but this is all frankly ridiculous.”

  “Hello, my lovely boy,” came a voice Will knew only too well.

  “Gladys,” said Will, as Gladys now filled most of his vision.

  “And you told me you couldn’t make it,” Gladys was a vision in scarlet – but a vision from the Book of Revelation.

  “Tim persuaded me.” Will smiled warmly up at the acres of womanhood. “He’s at the bar. He’s been hoping you’d come. He’ll want to buy you a drink.”

  “Oh goody.” Gladys turned and heaved herself into the swelling crowd.

  Will once more considered the phial of capsules. What would happen if he took them? Would he be transported into some hallucinogenic vision of the past? Would his head fill up with a chaos of jumbled memories? Would he have some terrible, terrible revelation? Would he go mad? Or would the capsules turn out to be nothing more than laxatives, sold to Tim by some prankster?

  “Too many questions,” whispered Will to himself. “And I really could do with some answers. But of course, it’s all such a terrible risk.”

  At length, and at some length too, Tim returned to Will’s table. Tim did not return in the company of Gladys. Neither did Tim return smiling.

  “Thanks a lot,” said Tim, placing two cups of Little and a packet of fruitcake-flavoured Soggies on the table. “Tuning up that scarlet harpy and setting her on me; very not funny at all. Call yourself my bestest friend?”

  Will said nothing.

  And Tim stared down at Will.

  The plastic phial lay on the table top.

  The plastic phial was empty.

  Will sat rigidly, staring into space. His eyes were glazed, the pupils dilated. His face was an eerie grey and his lips an unnatural blue.

  Tim reached cautiously forward and touched his hand to Will’s neck, feeling for the pulse of the jugular.

  There was no pulse.
/>   Will Starling was dead.

  7

  It was the day before the day before yesterday and it was raining.

  It was raining and the 8.02 morning train to Paddington was thirty seconds late.

  Captain Ernest Starling of The Queen’s Own Electric Fusiliers sat in the first class waiting room of Brentford Central station, knees together, shoulders back and a look of impatience tightening the corners of a mouth that lurked in the shadow of his resplendent mustachios.

  Captain Starling had little patience. He liked things done at the hurry up and by the rule book, which stated unequivocally that all things must be done on time. His wife, the fragrant Mary, always did things on time and by the numbers. Breakfast at 7.30am, dinner at 8.30pm, sex at 10.30pm, brandy and cigar for her husband at 10.32pm.

  Not that the Captain didn’t feel the need for patience. He prayed nightly for it at 10.45pm. “God give me patience,” he prayed, “and give it to me now!”

  But so far God had failed to heed the Captain’s requests. And so the Captain sat and stewed in the first class waiting room.

  He cut a magnificent figure did the Captain. He wore his finest dress uniform, a tightly-fitting tunic of patterned blue velvet, trimmed with gold brocade and decked with the many medals he had won for gallantry. A blue silk cape was slung about his shoulders, and a bearskin helmet with a high cockade was on his head. His pantaloons were of purple damask, his high top boots polished patent leather.

  The waiting room was elegantly furnished with quilted Chesterfield sofas, upholstered in rich red fabric embroidered in the style of Sir William Morris. Porcelain jardinieres of oriental design, embossed with dragon motifs, held orchids, which released heady fragrances into an atmosphere already enriched by the smoke of expensive cigars.

  Upon the marble flooring lay a throw rug of the Afghani persuasion. The Captain’s highly polished boot heels began to rap briskly upon this rug, tapping to a regimental drumbeat that only he heard, that was quite out of time with the Strauss waltz that issued melodically through the brass speaker system.

  The single other occupant of the waiting room was a fellow traveller, a gentleman of considerable girth and more than a little presence. He had entered but minutes before and, much to the Captain’s disgust, had chosen to sit right next to him, rather than to occupy one of the other vacant Chesterfields. This gentleman wore a stylish Amberly topcoat of grey moleskin with matching top hat and gloves. His face was broad, with hooded eyes and heavy jowls, and now he suddenly struck the marble flooring with the tip of his silver skull-topped swordstick.

  “Sir,” said he. “Might I humbly beg that you desist from that infernal rapping?”

  “You might, sir,” the Captain replied, turning his head to face his inquisitor. “But by God I will not, the train is late.” The Captain took from the breast pocket of his braided tunic a gold hunter which had been the gift of a grateful monarch, nipped open the lid of its case and perused its face. “A minute and five seconds late! I shall fax a letter of complaint to the director of the railway.”

  “Chill out,” said the fellow traveller. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

  “What, sir? What did you say?”

  “Relax,” said the gentleman. “Let yourself be soothed by the sounds of Strauss.”

  “Damned foreigner.” the Captain rapped his heels once more. “Give me a good British regimental band any day. I cannot be having with this foreign folderol.”

  “It’s technically British,” the traveller replied. “The British Empire now encompasses most of the globe, as well you know.”

  “Of course I know, sir. I am an officer in the service of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (God bless her), in one of her most noble regiments. I’ve put the fear up Johnny Foreigner in many distant parts.”

  “I too have travelled widely,” said the gentleman. “I have visited the Potala in Tibet and studied beneath the High Lama. I have wandered alone across the Kalahari Desert, where I met with the Bushmen, who made me their tribal chief. I have—”

  “All very interesting,” said the Captain. “But the train is late.”

  “Delayed a mile up the line,” said the gentleman. “A brewer’s dray broke a wheel upon the crossing. The train will be indefinitely delayed.”

  “I’ve heard nothing of this on the tannoy, sir. How do you know of such matters?”

  “I know,” said the gentlemen, “I know all.” And, opening his topcoat, he took from a pocket in his triple-breasted waistcoat of golden brocade a star-shaped calling card, which he passed in a gloved hand to the Captain.

  The Captain took this card and read it aloud. “Hugo Rune, philanthropist, philosopher and genius,” he read.

  “At your service,” said Hugo Rune.

  “I have no need for your services, sir.”

  “I feel perhaps that you do.”

  “Hah.” The Captain resumed his impatient heel-tapping.

  Rune tapped his swordstick in time to the Strauss. “I perceive that you are going to the launching,” said he.

  “You what? Sir? You what?”

  “To the launching at Greenwich. Of Her Majesty’s Electric Airship Dreadnaught. You are bound for that, I believe.”

  “I am sir, as it happens. And at this rate I will be late.” The Captain sought his cigar case.

  “Left-hand pantaloon pocket,” said Rune.

  The Captain located his case in his left-hand pantaloon pocket. “Damn me, sir,” said he.

  “Never,” said Rune. “It is not in my nature.”

  The Captain fumbled a cigar from his case.

  “You lack for a Lucifer,” said Rune.

  “I have fire,” said the Captain, patting at his pocket.

  “I believe not,” said Rune.

  The Captain ceased his pattings. “Left the damned match case on my dresser,” said he.

  “Allow me,” said Hugo Rune and reaching forward he plucked the cigar from the Captain’s fingers and popped it into the Captain’s mouth. And then Rune removed his gloves, waved his right hand before the Captain’s face, snapped his thumb and forefinger, and brought fire from nowhere to the Captain’s cigar.

  “Taught to me by a fakir in Bombay,” said Hugo Rune.

  The Captain seemed unable to suck.

  “Draw breath,” said Rune.

  And the Captain did so.

  “There,” said Rune, blowing onto his thumb and forefinger to extinguish the flames. “A fine cigar,” and he sniffed at the smoke. “A Havana half-corona from Balbereth’s Tobacco Emporium in the Burlington Arcade. I have my cigarettes manufactured there, to my own personal blend.”

  The Captain had ceased his puffing and his cigar hung perilously from his slack lower lip.

  Rune reached forward once more and flipped up the Captain’s chin. “You’ll drop your cigar,” said he. “And that would be a waste.”

  The Captain snatched the cigar from his mouth and hurled it to the floor. “Who are you, sir?” he demanded to be told.

  “Hugo Rune,” said Hugo Rune. “You have my card. I am he.”

  “Then what are you? Some kind of Music-Hall magician?”

  “A magician,” said Rune. “But not one from the halls. My magic is of a higher calling.”

  “More likely the work of the devil.”

  “Your cigar is burning the rug,” observed Rune.

  “Damn my cigar,” said the Captain, growing crimson at the cheeks.

  “Waste not, want not,” said Rune, taking up the cigar, dusting it down and sticking it into his mouth.

  “Damn me, sir. Enough of your impudence,” Captain Starling rose from the sofa and put his hand to the hilt of his sabre.

  “Draw it not,” advised Rune. “For if you draw it, I might feel compelled to injure you.”

  The Captain drew his sabre and brandished it bravely. “Up sir,” cried he.

  “Sit down, you foolish man.”

  “Up sir, or I slay you where you sit.”

  Ru
ne sighed and raised himself upon his stick. He faced the Captain eye to eye, then laid his stick aside. “I am unarmed,” said Rune. “Would you, an officer and a gentleman, slay an unarmed man?”

  The Captain sheathed his sabre and raised his fists. “Marquis of Queensbury rules,” said he. “And I must warn you, I am the regimental champion. Defend yourself as best you can, for I mean to smite you for your impertience.”

  “I think not,” said Hugo Rune. “Sit yourself down, there are matters I must discuss with you.”

  “Have at you, sir.” The Captain swung a fist at Rune, but Rune, for all the considerable bulk of him, ducked nimbly out of range.

  “Raise your fists, defend yourself,” called the Captain.

  “I must warn you,” said Rune, “that I am a Grand High Master in the art of Dimac, the most deadly of all the martial arts, and that I can instantly disable and disfigure you with little more than a fingertip’s pressure.”

  The Captain swung another fist; this too failed to connect with Hugo Rune, philanthropist, philosopher, genius and Grand High Master in the art of Dimac.

  “I inform you of my skills,” said Rune, “because it is my duty to do so. My hands and feet are registered with the Metropolitan constabulary as deadly weapons. I am compelled to keep them in a locked cupboard when they are not in use.”

  “What?” The Captain swung another fist, which similarly missed its mark.

  “That was a humorous aside,” said Rune. “A little humour to lighten an otherwise tragic occasion.”

  “Tragic?” the Captain squared up for further fist-swinging.

  Rune reached forward and tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

  The Captain collapsed in an untidy heap on the floor. Hugo Rune sighed and hauled the Captain onto another of the Chesterfields. He applied a smelling bottle to the Captain’s nostrils and returned him to consciousness.

  “What?” went the Captain, floundering about. “What, what, what?”

  “You were taken poorly,” said Rune. “But you’re all right now.”

  “I feel altogether odd.”

  “Now listen to me,” said Hugo Rune. His face pressed close to the Captain’s left ear. “You are bound for the launching at Greenwich. Of Her Majesty’s Electric Airship Dreadnaught. Thousands will be attending. It is to be the event of this year, 1885. But you must listen very carefully to me.” And Rune spoke further words into the ear of Captain Ernest Starling of the Queen’s Own Electric Fusiliers.