The Book of Ultimate Truths (The Cornelius Murphy Trilogy 1)

by Robert Rankin

  ‘Of course.’ Cornelius held his amazement in check.

  ‘They’re all in mint condition. We do ‘naming of parts’ every Monday. Anything in particular take your fancy?’

  Cornelius perused the hoard. ‘Ozi 9mm. Forty-five longslide with a laser sight. EX-34 chain gun. Five point five six M249 Squad Automatic. Pump-action Winchester.’

  ‘You sure know your weapons, buddy. Which do you want to take?’

  ‘All,’ said Cornelius Murphy.

  ‘Any Derringers?’ Tuppe asked.

  The explosion tore off the workroom door.

  Shards of manky wood burst into the workroom.

  Felix and Brother Eight gaped, white-faced in horror, as the grenade smoke slowly cleared to reveal Hamish and Sawney.

  They were both carrying guns.

  Hamish stepped forward and brandished his. ‘Brother Tuppe?’ he demanded. ‘Which one of you is Brother Tuppe?’.

  Felix hastily concealed his face beneath his cowl. ‘That’s me,’ he said, cunningly. ‘I’m Brother Tuppe.’

  Cornelius slung bullet belts over his high shoulders and snapped a clip of shells into an AK-47.

  Tuppe regarded the performance with some bewilderment. ‘What ever do you think you’re doing?’ he enquired.

  ‘Saving the day, of course.’

  ‘Cornelius, you don’t know how to handle weapons like these. You don’t know how to handle any weapons.’

  ‘There has to be a first time for everything.’ Cornelius fed cartridges to the 45 longslide and tucked it into his belt.

  ‘Leave it to Number Six here. If he’s trained and everything.’

  ‘My job.’

  ‘My job? This isn’t funny anymore.’

  ‘Phase plasma rifle in a forty-watt range,’ said Brother Six. ‘These are new in. They really get the job done.’ He pushed a shell the size of a baked-bean can into the breach, slammed it shut and handed the outlandish demi-cannon to Cornelius.

  ‘Oh get real please.’ Tuppe began to jump up and down.

  ‘Let’s go.’ Cornelius cocked the phase plasma rifle.

  ‘We’re all gonna die.’

  The tall boy turned to his lesser chum. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I am going to save your uncle, if it’s not already too late. If you don’t feel up to it, I quite understand. You can wait down here until it’s all over.’

  ‘What?’ Tuppe shook his head with vigour. ‘And give you the opportunity to say I’ll be back’? No chance. Where are those Derringers?’

  Felix had been marched from the workroom. Booted down the stairs. Dragged across the courtyard. Manhandled along the gallery. And slung through the narrow doorway into the abbot’s study. Now he lay in a heap on the floor. Bruised and bemused.

  Some mysterious sixth sense told him that he had possibly chosen the wrong brother to impersonate. I wonder where all this is leading? he wondered.

  The Campbell suddenly snatched up Felix. Lifted him high into the air and flung him down into the abbot’s vacant chair.

  Felix kept his face covered as best he could.

  ‘Brother Tuppe.’ The Campbell bopped Felix on the head with his pistol. ‘We meet at last.’

  ‘Ouch,’ said Felix.

  ‘The papers. I want them and I want them now.’

  The mysterious sixth sense informed Felix that to answer, ‘What papers?’ would probably be to court another bop on the head.

  ‘Yes,’ said Felix. ‘The papers. Yes indeed.’

  ‘Well then?’

  Well then and then some, thought Felix. ‘You couldn’t be a little more specific, I suppose? I have so many papers.’ He flinched in expectation, but curiously the blow didn’t come.

  ‘The Hugo Rune papers.’ The Campbell’s voice came close at his ear.

  ‘Ah,’ said Felix brighty. ‘Then I can help you there.’

  ‘Excellent. Excellent.’ The Campbell gave the abbot a perfunctory kick. ‘Hear that?’

  Felix peeped down at the abbot. And who is this bondage freak in the gossamer posing pouch? he wondered.

  The abbot peered up at Felix. And who is this strange monk sitting in my chair? he wondered.

  Brother Six led the way up from the armoury. He now sported Los Angeles police-issue body armour and travelled, like John Wesley Harding, ‘with a gun in every hand’.

  Behind him and somewhat overburdened in the hardware department, Cornelius yomped unsteadily.

  Two steps down from Cornelius, Tuppe followed on. He felt a certain concern for the way his friend tottered from side to side.

  And behind Tuppe came his enigmatic shadow. It bumped noiselessly up the stairs, but it squirmed and writhed in a manner which was not pleasing to gaze upon.

  ‘Now,’ said the Campbell, sucking upon his cigar and blowing smoke up at a ceiling which vaulted downwards rather than up. ‘The papers.’

  ‘The papers,’ said Felix. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘In the suitcase,’ said Felix helpfully.

  ‘Which is where?’

  ‘On top of the wardrobe.’

  ‘And where is the wardrobe?’

  ‘At my mum’s house.’

  ‘And where is your bloody mum’s house?’

  The mysterious sixth sense warned Felix that it might be well to answer this question with extreme precision.

  ‘Twenty-three Ragnarok Terrace, Sheila na gigh,’ he blurted out.

  ‘Sheila na gigh? Sheila na bloody gigh?’

  Felix shielded his head as best he could. ‘It’s true. All the plans and stuff. My dad’s stuff. Please don’t hit me again.’

  ‘Sheila na bloody gigh!’ The Campbell was ranting around the room. He kicked the abbot’s desk. He kicked the abbot’s bookshelves. He kicked the abbot for good measure. Finally he turned upon Felix. ‘Right, you.’ He hauled the cowering McMurdo from the abbot’s chair. ‘You’re coming with me. Hamish!’

  Hamish, who had been quietly picking his nose in a corner, stiffened to attention. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Hamish, go out to the courtyard and tell Angus he can stop holding the monks hostage.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Tell him to shoot them all instead.’

  ‘Hang about,’ said the abbot.

  ‘Shut up, you.’ The Campbell aimed a mighty kick. ‘Then, Hamish, you and Angus can feel free to burn down the monastery.’

  ‘Oh thanks,’ said Hamish, ‘I will enjoy that.’

  ‘Where’s Sawney?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Oh so you are. Sawney, you go out the front and put a couple of rounds through Cornelius Murphy. We won’t be needing him any longer.’

  Hamish and Sawney squeezed through the abbot’s narrow yellow doorway and out into the gallery. Here they became cleanly cut and colourful images in the high-tech macroscopic 40-watt laser sight of Murphy’s phase plasma rifle.

  ‘Would you put your hands up please?’ Cornelius asked from the shadow of an irregularly spaced column.

  ‘Who said that?’ Hamish cocked his pistol.

  ‘Drop your weapons. You are surrounded.’ Even without the benefit of the thermos flask, Tuppe’s police-chief-through-loudhailer voice was still very convincing.

  ‘Who said that?’ Sawney pulled out his pistol and cocked it in a likewise fashion.

  ‘Tell them again,’ whispered Cornelius.

  ‘Come out with your hands held high, ‘’ went Tuppe.

  ‘No I won’t.’ Hamish fired his gun at the hidden policeman. The small fellow ducked even closer to the floor, as a bullet whistled by, ricocheted off the column and struck one of the great paintings. St Sebastian took it like a man.

  Hamish glanced up at the punctured posing pouch. ‘Gotcha,’ he chuckled.

  ‘C-C-Cornelius. That maniac just shot at me.’

  ‘That does it.’ Cornelius flipped the cover from the firing button. ‘Stay behind the column and leave this to me.’

  ‘Your job. Yes indeed.’

&n
bsp; ‘Throw down your weapons,’ Cornelius shouted. ‘This is your final warning.’

  The two Wild Warriors blew raspberries and waggled their bums about.

  ‘All right then, you asked for it.’ Cornelius stepped boldly from the shadow. A single shaft of sunlight caught him to heroic perfection as he angled up the mighty gun and squeezed the trigger.

  A gout of blue flame roared from the barrel. The recoil from the demi-cannon threw Cornelius from his feet. The discharge vaporized a three-foot circle of wall above the abbot’s little yellow doorway.

  Within the study a bookcase exploded hurling blistered tomes of an antique nature down upon Felix, the abbot and the Campbell.

  ‘What the…? Oh damn!’ The Campbell hopped about amidst the smoke and chaos. Queer guttural sounds rose from his throat and his already distorted head began to bulge and pulse. Weird tendrils sprouted from his eyebrows and thrashed violently.

  Burning books smashed into the curtains setting them ablaze.

  The abbot rolled around trying to break free. Felix assumed the foetal position.

  ‘Blimey.’ The two Wild Warriors in the gallery gawped at the smoking hole. ‘What kind of gun is that?’ Hamish asked.

  ‘Get up. Get up.’ Tuppe tugged at Cornelius. ‘You’ve definitely got them worried.’

  ‘I think my shoulder’s broken.’

  Brother Six, who had been keeping something of a low profile, stamped out his cigarette. ‘Shall I have a pop at them?’ he asked, reaching down for the demi-cannon.

  ‘I can manage thank you.’ Cornelius struggled to his feet. ‘Stick up your hands!’ he shouted. ‘Where did they go?’ he asked.

  Tuppe squinted along the gallery. It was rapidly filling with smoke. ‘I think they’re hiding. The cowardy custards.’

  ‘Come out now, or I’ll…’ Cornelius mimed a gun thrust and trigger squeeze. It was a hair trigger, very sensitive. As blue flame gouted again, Cornelius toppled back into Brother Six.

  There was a further explosion. More brickwork reduced to its sub-atomic components.

  ‘We’re all gonna die.’ Tuppe crossed himself.

  ‘Not a bit of it. We have superior firepower. Help me up please.’

  Tuppe helped him up.

  ‘I’m winded here,’ Brother Six complained.

  A strange and eldritch Campbell tore down the blazing curtains and stamped out the flames.

  ‘What is going on here?’ he fumed. ‘Who did that?’

  From his earliest years Felix had learned that it was always prudent to respond to the latter question with the words ‘it wasn’t me’.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ he whimpered.

  ‘I know it wasn’t you.’’ The Campbell caught the cowering Felix by the scruff of the habit and dragged him to his feet. The cowl fell away and the two found themselves staring face to face.

  ‘You!’ The Campbell stepped back in amazement. ‘You, I know you!’

  ‘Blurgh!’ went Felix, recoiling in no small horror. ‘You’ve got tentacles growing out of your bonce.’

  In the courtyard, monks were flexing their hidden talents and muttering amongst themselves. What were those bangs? they wanted to know. And what about all this smoke?

  Angus, for his part, averred passivity and aloof detachment. Stressing the inadvisability of positive involvement and the potentially insalubrious consequences appertaining thereto.

  ‘Stay out of it or I shoot you dead,’ was the way he put it.

  Cornelius marched forward, big gun at the ready. Brother Six was close behind Cornelius and Tuppe was quite close behind Brother Six. And he did have his Derringer out. Not that he had too much intention of using it.

  Hamish still had a bit of fight left in him. He fired his gun again.

  So Cornelius fired his.

  Two of the irregularly spaced columns supporting the floor above came down. And then a lot of poorly plastered ceiling.

  Up in his workroom Brother Eight said, ‘Oh my goodness,’ as the floor sank beneath him. He clung to his stool with one hand whilst clawing at the work table with the other. And his clawing fingers just happened to draw down the on switch of The Singalonga McMurdo.

  ‘Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,’ went the karaoke machine, warming up.

  ‘Ohnoooooooooooooooooooooooo,’ went Brother Eight, going down.

  The Campbell rose above the terrified Felix. All semblance of humanity had dropped away from the erstwhile Wild Warrior.

  Extraordinary metamorphoses were on the go.

  The Campbell’s eyes expanded. Became spherical. Became two small globes of the Earth which began to revolve in different directions.

  The Campbell’s nostrils spread. Became twin tunnels. A tiny blue train issued from the left one, went ‘too-too’ and vanished into the right.

  The Campbell’s mouth grew wide. A paper-thin tongue unrolled. It had a feather on the end. The feather tickled McMurdo’s nose. A concealed hooter went, ‘Paaarp’.

  Terror became entrancement. Felix stared in wonder.

  The tentacles, thrashing from the eyebrow areas of whatever this was, wound themselves together into a tight cone. Became a little silver hat. A pink pom-pom appeared upon the top.

  The Campbell held up what might have been his right hand. It appeared now to be a bunch of bananas. He held it towards Felix. From the palm, the skin extruded an ectoplasmic foam. This congealed into a slim disc. The disc became a paper plate.

  The plate wavered. On to it a pastry base materialized. Within this base substances bubbled and frothed. Became an amalgam of eggs, milk, sugar, cornflour, salt, natural flavouring, stabilizer (E415) and anti-caking agent (E341).

  Became custard.

  The Campbell held the custard pie at arm’s length. Drew it back and then smacked Felix right in the face with it.

  ‘Ohnoooooooooooooooooooooooooo!’ Brother Eight continued.

  ‘Aggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh!’ went Hamish and Sawney as a goodly amount of lath and plaster, wormy floorboards, brickdust and rubble descended upon them. With this came an added bonus of broken pop-up toasters, transistor radios, kitchen blenders, bedside teasmade machines (whatever happened to them, eh?), half a million small screws and one small monk.

  ‘Gotcha!’ cried Cornelius, invisibly in the dust.

  ‘Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,’ went the karaoke machine upstairs, growing nice and hot.

  It was all too much for Angus. He was a man of action. Being lumbered with standing out here in the courtyard holding a gun on a lot of boring monks wasn’t his scene at all. He swung his pistol in the direction of the latest brouhaha.

  Seizing the opportunity, three muscular monks brought him down and sat upon him.

  Cornelius coughed and gagged. He shook dust from his hair. Swatted laths from his shoulders. Flung aside the demi-cannon. Pulled the forty-five longslide from his belt. Cocked it dramatically and kicked fallen debris aside.

  ‘Dig them out and arrest them,’ he told Brother Six. ‘Tuppe, where are you? Are you all right?’

  ‘I think so,’ answered two identical voices.

  ‘Clever.’ Cornelius nodded appreciatively. ‘Even better than the police-chief-through-loudhailer. Okey doke, let’s go.’

  Cornelius put his foot to the abbot’s narrow yellow door. Kicked it open and leapt into the room with the gun in both hands, shouting, ‘Don’t anybody move!’

  ‘Gracious,’ he continued, drawing to a halt.

  Although smoke still wreathed the devastated study, the sunlight, streaming through the ruins of the stained-glass window, illuminated a scene which was not altogether without interest.

  Especially for the aspiring student of fine art, encapsulating, as it did, three textbook examples of separate and contradictory schools, juxtaposed in a manner which said ‘now discuss’.

  Cornelius viewed the abbot with an uncensorious eye. Savouring the sensitive chiaroscuro which the mottled sunlight played upon the smoothly muscled torso of the reclining nude. Reminiscent of the
now legendary Michelangelo da Caravaggio at his most tenderly exquisite.

  Contrasted to this, there was Felix Henderson McMurdo.

  He stood, utterly motionless, clad in his monkish attire. The custard pie still firmly in place across his laughing gear.

  One for all lovers of surrealism here and no mistake.

  Cornelius thought to discern the influence of Max Ernst and Salvador Dali, along with the rollicking heretical humour of Clovis Trouille.

  The third piece of work was not to the Murphy’s taste at all.

  It was one of those pretentious disposable affairs, wrought, apparently, from foodstuffs now well past their sell-by dates. Composed into a gross parody of the human form. A mildewed melon for the head and the leftovers from the Portobello Road fruit market making up the rest.

  A slight breeze brought its taint to the nose of Cornelius Murphy. Causing him to clutch at his nostrils and ruefully conclude that its creator had obviously done a great deal too much acid back in the sixties.

  ‘Blurgh!’ went Cornelius.

  ‘Don’t just stand there going blurgh, young man,’ said the Caravaggio, suddenly rolling in his direction. ‘Shoot it!’

  ‘Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!’ went the pretentious disposable affair, taking life in an alarming fashion. It split into its component parts and these flew at Cornelius. A torrent of mouldy fruit, stale pies and pasties, festering cheese, maggot-ridden vegetables and general horridness swept across the study.

  Cornelius ducked beneath it, too startled to let fly with his gun. The festering foodstuffs hurtled over his head and swung through the narrow doorway.

  ‘Don’t let it escape,’ cried the struggling abbot. ‘Get after it. Shoot it. Shoot it.’

  Cornelius leapt to his feet. Flung himself through the doorway. Tripped straight over Tuppe and fell flat on his face.

  He would recall, once he regained consciousness, that the last thing he glimpsed was a stream of soupy non-consumables flowing down the gallery to vanish through the open monastery door. And the last thing he heard was the distinctive three-chord riffing of Status Quo, blasting down through the hole in the gallery ceiling, singing something about thirty-five happy years together.