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

by Robert Rankin

  ‘Careful. You’ll scorch my antimacassars.’ The mother made a rather interesting mystical sort of a pass with her right hand. And uttered several magic syllables.

  A sizeable pail-load of old fish guttings materialized. It swung forwards. Crossed the room. And caught the Campbell squarely in the gob. It extinguished the flames.

  ‘What? How? Blurgh!’ went the Campbell, floundering in foul-smelling confusion.

  ‘Conjured forth, of course.’ The mother blew on to her fingertips. ‘Mr Katafelto taught me. Bit like riding a bike really. Once you’ve tried it without the saddle you never forget how the bell works.’

  The Campbell staggered to his feet. He didn’t look altogether appetizing. But a fine kettle of fish. The unappealing lumpy head began to swell. And swell.

  ‘You’ll do yourself a mischief,’ the mother remarked.

  ‘Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!’ and ‘boiiiiiiiiiiing!’ The transformation was rapid and it was dramatic. And effective. And downright weird. The Campbell changed into a great spinning multicoloured ball. This hovered motionless in the air for a brief moment. And then began to bounce about the room. Rapidly. And violently.

  The mother ducked nimbly, as the now-spherical deviant bowled over her head and slammed into the fireplace wall. Mincing the mantel clock, scattering Spanish dancer dolls and fracturing the framed photo of the Queen Mum (God bless her).

  And then it was up and down and here and there and all about. Again and again and again and again. Floorboards gave, ceiling plaster showered, furniture pulverized. Crash, bang and wallop.

  ‘Golly.’ Tuppe peeped in through the letter flap.

  ‘Golly indeed.’ Cornelius, who had been creeping from the kitchen, suitably stout stick in hand, jumped back as the front parlour door burst from its hinges and splintered into the passage.

  ‘Oh dear. Oh woe,’ went the mother. ‘Oh…’

  And then suddenly there was silence.

  Cornelius stood in the passage. Stout stick in an unsteady hand. Breath held. Tuppe scaled the front door and let himself in with the tall boy’s key. Cornelius pressed a finger to his lips. And then took a furtive shufti into the front parlour. There wasn’t anything he recognized. Although dust fogged up the air, the scale of the devastation was clear enough to see. The room was utterly destroyed. The plaster was gone from the walls and ceiling. A great hole yawned in the dividing wall to the back parlour. Every stick of furniture was now a shredded memory.

  All that remained intact were the front windows.

  Untouched. Their nets and chintzy curtains totally unscathed.

  Cunning, thought Cornelius. ‘Hello? Mum?’ He stepped through the doorway and on to the rubble. Floorboards groaned ominously.

  ‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ they whispered.

  Cornelius stepped back. ‘Is anybody there?’

  ‘I’m here.’ The voice came softly at his ear.

  Cornelius jerked around, wielding his stick.

  ‘Put it down.’ The Campbell emerged from the back parlour, looking like his old charming self once more. He hauled out a dust-besmirched woman and put the muzzle of his gun to her head, the way only really bad baddies do. ‘Put it down or I’ll shoot this loquacious harridan. And I’m not kidding around.’

  ‘Hello, dear.’ The mother waggled her fingers at Cornelius.

  Cornelius let the stick fall from his fingers. ‘Let her go, Campbell. I have what you want.’

  ‘You haven’t. But I’ll wager your father does. Shall we call him in and find out, d’you think? Oi you!’

  ‘Me?’ Tuppe asked.

  ‘You, y’wee bastard. Where do you think you’re creeping off to?’

  ‘Nowhere.’ Tuppe smile crookedly. ‘Nowhere at all.’

  At a little after seven-thirty of the something-bad-is-going-to-happen early evening clock, the Murphy family, Jack, Bridie and their son, Cornelius, sat at their kitchen table. With them, on a cushion, sat young Murphy’s best friend, Tuppe. And watching over them, gun in hand and wicked smile on the face thereof, stood evil Jim the Campbell.

  ‘I do believe,’ said this very body, ‘that this is what they call the showdown.’

  They again, thought Tuppe. But he said nothing.

  The Campbell turned an evil eye upon the daddy. ‘The ocarina. Give it to me at once.’

  ‘What is so important about this frigging ocarina?’ Tuppe whispered to Cornelius.

  ‘Tell the wee bastard.’ The Campbell waved his pistol at the daddy.

  The daddy made surly grumbling sounds. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  The Campbell cocked his pistol. ‘Tell him.’

  ‘Go on, Jack,’ said the mother. ‘Tell him.’

  ‘Yes, Jack,’ said Cornelius. ‘Why don’t you tell us both.’

  ‘Oh, all right.’ The daddy sighed dismally. ‘The ocarina is the key. It unlocks the entrances to the Forbidden Zones.’

  ‘Then these zones really exist?’

  ‘Of course they do, son. Where did you think this plug-ugly spawn of the pit sprang from?’

  ‘Watch it, you!’ The Campbell made a face of surpassing plug-ugliness.

  The daddy continued. ‘The Master always suspected that mankind’s progress was being purposely blocked. That vital information was being withheld. That truths were not being told. That there was in fact a great conspiracy. When he discovered the existence of the Forbidden Zones, everything fell into place. The powers that orchestrate the spontaneous generation of crowds, the small screw phenomenon, the vanishing Biros. These powers lurk within the Forbidden Zones. His lot,’ the daddy gestured at the Campbell, ‘have been screwing mankind up for centuries.’

  ‘And then some,’ smirked the Campbell.

  ‘But why?’ Cornelius asked. ‘Why screw up mankind?’

  ‘Because it’s there! That’s why.’

  Cornelius scratched at his chin. Was that stubble he felt? Probably not.

  ‘Hurry up now,’ the Campbell demanded. ‘Finish your little speech and hand over the instrument.’

  ‘Rune conducted experiments,’ the daddy went on, ‘to discover what was being withheld. He found that there were other colours.’

  ‘We met Rizla,’ said Cornelius. ‘He showed us one of those.’

  ‘Brother Rizla. Does he still have the…?’ The daddy twirled his large fingers above his large head. Cornelius nodded.

  ‘His lot did that.’ The daddy offered the Campbell a glare.

  The Campbell returned it without thanks. ‘Get on with it,’ he said.

  The daddy did so. ‘Rune also experimented with sound. He reasoned that the tonic sol-fa was only telling part of the story. That there were other notes. Notes between notes. Notes no man had ever heard before. Notes no man was intended to hear.’

  ‘Hence the now legendary reinvented ocarina.’

  ‘Exactly, son. The Master added new notes to it.’

  ‘And to cut a dull story short,’ the Campbell broke in, ‘Rune also discovered why these particular notes were kept from mankind. Because of their vibrations. When the notes are played, their vibrations open the doors from this world to the one that lies within the Forbidden Zones. So now you know. Give me the ocarina, Mr Murphy.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Cornelius. ‘Not so fast. I’m missing something here. If you come from one of these Forbidden Zones, what do you need the ocarina for?’

  ‘Because he can’t get back in without it,’ the daddy explained. ‘He’s an escaped criminal. Escaped from the inside. A dangerous deviant.’

  ‘That’s me,’ said the Campbell.

  Cornelius was still baffled. ‘But if you’ve escaped from captivity inside, what do you want to go back in for? To give yourself up?’

  ‘Give myself up?’ The Campbell shook with laughter. ‘Shite no. I want to rob the bastards. There’s a fortune in there. The crock at the end of the rainbow. A million mislaid diamonds. Ancient treasure. More Biros, umbrellas and yellow-handled screwdrivers than you cou
ld use in a hundred lifetimes. There’s gold in them there Zones.’

  ‘So whoever has the ocarina holds the key to boundless wealth?’

  ‘That’s it. All you have to do is whistle.’

  ‘But surely the entrances are guarded.’

  ‘Against who? Rune was the only man to believe that the Zones really exist. The only man to hold the key. And now he’s…’

  ‘Dead?’ Cornelius asked. ‘Or trapped inside perhaps.’

  ‘Damned if I know. And I surely don’t care. But that’s enough chat. The ocarina now, Mr Murphy, or I shoot your lovely wife and your fine tall lad.’

  ‘You’re bluffing.’ The daddy folded his arms and stuck out his bottom lip. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

  Jaws dropped around the table.

  The Campbell turned his gun upon Tuppe. ‘Right then. I’ll shoot the wee man first. To give you an idea of the noise the gun makes. And the mess, of course.’

  ‘Hang about,’ cried Tuppe. ‘I’m not happy about this, me.’

  ‘Only joking,’ said the daddy. ‘I’ll fetch the ocarina.’

  ‘I do think that would be for the best.’

  Felix Henderson McMurdo, of whom nothing had been heard of late, was happy. He was hungry and he needed to go to the toilet. But he was happy nonetheless. He’d been having the most exciting day of his life. A definite improvement on the one previous, where he’d been duffed up by Wild Warriors and pie-faced by a monster. This day was in a class of its own.

  It all really began for him after he ran away from the monastery. He hadn’t managed to run far because his knees were shaking so badly. So when he came across the old car in the ditch, it seemed like the ideal place to hide, while he organized his thoughts and let his knees calm down.

  After all. There it was. Doors unlocked, no tax disc, clearly abandoned. Anyone could have made the same mistake. Anyone could have said, here is a clapped-out old black VW all covered in spikes that no-one wants any more. Felix did. And in no time at all he had fallen asleep in the back of it.

  He didn’t half wake up with a start the next morning though.

  Because at six o’clock on this day the VW had suddenly driven off.

  Felix jumped up in the back seat to apologize to the driver.

  But found, to his amazement, that there wasn’t one.

  The car was driving itself!

  At first Felix simply gazed dumbstruck as it changed gear, bumped back on to the road and made off for the motorway. Then he panicked. And he was about to open a door and fling himself from the speeding car when a wonderful thought struck him.

  He recalled seeing an old Walt Disney film where this very thing happened. And the car in that film had been a VW, hadn’t it? Yes, it had. Felix put one and one together. This had to be the same car. There could be no other explanation. It was obvious. He, Felix Henderson McMurdo, was actually being driven along by that world-famous sentient VW. What was its name?

  He wracked his brains. It was right on the tip of his tongue.

  Herpes. That was it!

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Felix. ‘This is just brilliant.’

  And so he began chatting. To be friendly, build up a rapport, things of that nature, he told Herpes all about himself, leaving out the more dismal parts, and asked what the car had been up to since it left Walt Disney.

  But Herpes didn’t answer. It was clear, though, that he’d fallen on hard times. Typical of Hollywood, thought Felix. One day you’re up in lights. And the next, down in the gutter. He gave the empty driver’s seat a comforting pat. He understood.

  And Herpes rushed on. He was clearly on some important mission. Perhaps he had an audition or something. Whatever it was, he was not prepared to stop. For anything.

  Felix broached the matter of breakfast and how he needed to visit the toilet. But Herpes just rushed on.

  The first real shock of the day came when the VW suddenly swept up behind a very familiar-looking electric-blue Cadillac and tried to run it off the motorway.

  The second came a little later. Felix had been crossing and recrossing his legs for an hour and found he could contain himself no longer. So he opened a rear window, unzipped and took careful aim through the gap.

  Had he been less pressed he would probably have checked the driving-mirror first. But he wasn’t so he did not. The police motor cyclist, who was coming up behind, caught Felix’s outpourings full in the face.

  And he wasn’t pleased. He switched on his siren and made it quite clear that pulling over was the order of the day.

  But Herpes just rushed on. Colleagues of the damp policeman soon fell into pursuit. But Herpes outran them all.

  The first police roadblock was somewhere near Banbury.

  Herpes ran through that as if it was nothing at all.

  Felix was really impressed. He received only the barest minimum of brain-stem-snapping whiplash.

  Somewhere north of Long Crendon, on the B4011, the Buckinghamshire Constabulary imaginatively employed the use of two bulldozers to close the road.

  Felix recalled another film he’d once seen. It was called Vanishing Point. And he shut his eyes very tightly indeed.

  But the big bang never came. Herpes simply leapt right over the bulldozers. And rushed on.

  Felix clapped his hands. Then he rubbed his head. It was only minor concussion. The double vision would soon pass. But this really was exciting. Just like the movies.

  London proved to be exciting too. Felix had never been there before and he saw a lot of the sights. And he had a good view, what with Herpes driving over the roofs of all those cars that were stuck in the rush hour.

  The police helicopter had spotted that. Felix watched it swoop and hover. He was still watching it when Herpes suddenly screeched to a halt.

  ‘Come out with your hands up.’ The police-chief-through-loud-hailer voice echoed in the kitchen of twenty-three Moby Dick Terrace.

  ‘Nice try.’ The Campbell fixed Tuppe with a bitter eye.

  ‘But I never…honest.’

  ‘Would you like me to call you a cab?’ Cornelius asked the Campbell.

  ‘If you think it would get a laugh. It’s a very old gag.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘I know what you meant.’ The Campbell perused his combat watch.

  ‘I came here under my own steam.’ He made an obscene gliding motion with his gun-toting hand. ‘Very fast. But tiring. I have summoned transport in the shape of my VW in which to make my departure. It will be here now, so I shall say ta ta.’ He patted a bulging pocket, which now contained the reinvented ocarina. ‘I doubt if we’ll meet again. But I’ll be around. You probably won’t recognize me, of course. But if you look out for that fabulously wealthy independent candidate, whose party sweeps to power in the next general election…You know the form. Today Westminster. Tomorrow the world.’

  ‘Fiend,’ said the daddy.

  ‘Quite so. Bye now.’ The Campbell backed from the kitchen. ‘Don’t forget to register your vote, by the way.’

  And then he was gone.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Murphy. ‘What a very unpleasant creature.’

  The daddy sprang to his feet. ‘Up and after him, Cornelius,’ he cried. ‘Do your stuff.’

  ‘My stuff.’ Cornelius gazed lip at the big fellow. ‘And exactly what sort of stuff would that be?’

  The Campbell ran out of the front door and across the road towards the spikey VW. And suddenly found himself caught in the searchlight of the hovering helicopter. Which seemed a bit unnecessary, considering how it was still such a nice bright summer’s evening.

  The wail of sirens reached the Campbell’s ears. Police cars were lurching over the waste ground from all directions.

  ‘Shite!’ said the Campbell. ‘But no matter.’ He patted his bulging pocket. ‘Plenty of places to hide out.’

  ‘Your stuff,’ went the daddy once more. ‘Your epic stuff.’

  ‘Oh, that stuff.’ Cornelius glanced down the passage
and through the open front door. He saw the black VW and the scurrying hindquarters of the Campbell. He could hear the rest.

  ‘There seems to be a considerable police presence. A helicopter and everything, by the sound of it. Best leave the Campbell to the boys in blue, I’m thinking.’

  ‘No no.’ The daddy flapped his big red hands about. ‘They won’t stop him. He’ll get away. Come on, Cornelius. Come on.’

  Cornelius shook his head, and his hair shook with it. ‘I think not. I am no match for that thing. Whatever it is.’

  ‘But you are. You have to be.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because…’ The daddy bit upon his lip. ‘Because…’

  ‘You’d better tell him, dear,’ said the mother. ‘All this is getting out of hand. He has to know.’

  Cornelius looked from the one to the other of them. They were both looking very sheepish indeed.

  The daddy puffed out his cheeks. ‘I was supposed to tell you on your next birthday. When you came of age, as it were.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘We’re not your real parents,’ the daddy blurted out. ‘You were adopted.’

  ‘What?’ Every hair on the tall boy’s head stood upon end. ‘ What?’

  The big fellow dabbed a tear from his big left eye. ‘I’m sorry, Cornelius. I’m not your real daddy.’

  ‘What? What?’ Cornelius shook his head, filling the kitchen with hair. ‘What are you saying? Not my real daddy? Then if you’re not, who on earth is?’

  ‘Hugo Rune,’ said Jack Murphy. ‘Although as to whether he’s on Earth or not…’

  Bad Jim Campbell ignored the sweeping searchlight and the advice to give himself up. He dragged open the door of the VW and jumped into the driving seat. ‘We’d best be away,’ he told the car.

  ‘Brrrrrrrrm brrrrrrrrrm,’ went the VW eagerly.

  ‘Then let’s do it.’ The Campbell stuck the car into reverse and adjusted the driving-mirror. And in it he saw the face of Felix Henderson McMurdo.

  ‘You!’ cried the Campbell.

  ‘You!’ screamed Felix. ‘Oh no!’

  There is a persistent rumour, kept persistent by the rat men who work on the London Underground, that deep beneath the streets of the great metropolis, in a blocked-off tunnel, there stands a Victorian train. Full of skeletons, still clad in the costumes of that noble era.