Tales From Beyond Tomorrow: Volume One

by Catton John Paul

  The scooter dropped out of the fast lane into the transition zone as Jimmy neared Tottenham Court Road and his awaiting office. He flicked the butt of his Woodbine away, and took a big lungful of fresh air before he kicked the Vespa into parking mode. Below him, on the rooftop aeropad, the cars of the building's occupants were neatly parked inside the painted white lines, and Jimmy lowered his Vespa skillfully into the space reserved for scooters.

  As he was switching off the engine, the door to the main stairwell opened and a short figure rushed onto the roof, clad in a silver jumpsuit and goldfish-bowl helmet, pointing his toy ray-pistol right at Jimmy. "You're a goddamn Commie!" the figure shouted. "Zap! Zap! Zap!"

  Jimmy reeled back and clutched his heart. "Nyet! Nyet! Dosvedanya Vodka Sputnik!" he yelled in fake agony.

  Right behind the boy was Mr. Gill, the building's landlord, looking natty in his two-tone Nehru jacket and matching turban. He ushered his boy back down the stairs and smiled an apology.

  "Now then Mr. Jimmy, if I could have a word about the office rent…"

  Sure enough, every Monday, regular as clockwork. Jimmy had the bees-and-honey ready this time. He peeled a roll of notes out of his wallet and handed over a Lady Godiva. "I'll have the rest by the end of the week, Mr. Gill, I promise."

  "Well, it would be nice if you didn't have to leave everything until the last minute, isn't it? I have overheads, Mr. Jimmy. I have a business and a family. Overheads."

  Finally getting away, Jimmy ran down the two flights of stairs and paused outside his office door to unlock it. He looked again at the sign stenciled on the vitrolite window;

  JIMMY DIAMOND

  PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

  Then he was inside.

  This was Jimmy's office, crammed in on the fifth floor between an insurance investigator and an employment agency. Two green filing cabinets on the back wall on either side of a wall-mounted TV screen (for the Satnews channels), two white metal cupboards on the left side, a second-hand desk of genuine wood facing the door, and his Elektra espresso maker next to the window and the Venetian blinds.

  Plus the bottle of Jameson's and the jazz mags in the bottom drawer.

  He crossed the short space to the back wall, moved around his small second-hand desk, and opened the windows, letting the fusty weekend air out and the city summer smells in. He switched on the espresso maker and it started bubbling away to itself. He put two packets of Embassy Filters and a copy of the Daily Express on the desk, and stared out through the open window. It was that sort of July morning that made the aluminum parts of his coffee machine glow like they were alive.

  He was just sipping the second espresso of the day when a shadow fell upon the window. A distinctly feminine shadow, followed by a knock.

  Usually, Jimmy's clients were old geezers in tweed jackets and balding hair pasted across their bony skulls with smelly Brylcreem, or frustrated housewives in frumpy John Lewis coats. Evidence of infidelity and serving divorce papers, that was Jimmy's bread and butter. He kept telling himself that one day, he'd have some gorgeous bit of stuff come in with a handbag full of cash and a mysterious mission. Especially now, because he'd run out of active cases at the end of last week.

  Today was his lucky day.

  She wore an Op Art print linen dress from Tuffin and Foale, the sort of thing every dolly bird on the King's Road was sporting this summer. A really sweet face with the latest Mary Quant sheen, fake lashes making her eyes look huge. Dark hair cut in a shiny Sasson bob. In a word: fraggin' gorgeous.

  Jimmy hurriedly took his Chelsea boots off the desk and stood up. "Do take a seat, Miss…?"

  "Radcliffe. Georgina Radcliffe." She stood in the middle of the office, gazing around nervously. "Are you Jimmy Diamond?" she said, in a tone of vague disappointment.

  "That's what it says on the door," he said with a cocky grin. Easy on the jokes, he told himself. The married birds like to have a laugh to relax them but the younger ones – you have to fight to get them to take you seriously.

  "I heard about you from my uncle, Victor. He said you helped him out in Blackpool last year."

  "Oh yeah, I remember him! Come in and make yourself comfortable."

  "You look a bit young to run a detective agency," she said, fluttering her eyelashes like an Italian starlet. She might have looked Kensington, but her accent was pure Wembley. "How old are you? Twenty-one?"

  "Yeah," said Jimmy defensively, trying to keep his posh voice from slipping. "Well, no. I'm twenty, actually. A little bit older than you, by the looks of it. And it doesn't matter how old I am because I've got the experience and I've got the brains, haven't I? I've got it up 'ere."

  And you've got it down there, he thought, looking at the nice pair of Eartha Kitts filling out the top of her minidress.

  "Have you got references, or something?"

  Jimmy pointed to the framed licensing certificates on the walls.

  "Well, that's all right, I suppose, but I don't know anything about private eyes. What are your charges like?"

  "Well, as they say – I'm not free, but I'm cheap! It sort of depends what I'm employed to do, innit? Listen, er, why don't you sit down, Miss Radcliffe?"

  "You can call me Georgie if you like." She lowered herself into the second-hand Magistretti chair and fidgeted with her handbag. "Your name isn't really Diamond, is it?"

  "No." Jimmy loosened his collar, and quickly changed the subject. "If I could haver some specifics, erm…Georgie?"

  "Missing persons."

  Jimmy nodded in sympathy. "Have you contacted the police?"

  "Yes, and they said it's too soon to do anything. They said I should…"

  "Wait for twenty-four hours before filing a crime report, yeah, I know. That's what they always say, but I can appreciate you don't want to wait. Okay, it's two pounds a day, plus expenses, and I'll get to work on your case right away."

  "Well, that's a bit steep, innit! You must be raking it in."

  "Oh no I ain't, doll – er, Georgie," Jimmy said, trying to get back on the right foot. "I got overheads, see? And this is how I make a living."

  "Are you the only person who works here?"

  "Yeah. That's me, all on me Jack Jones. I employ other people – experts, like – on what you might call a freelance basis."

  "Oh, freelance basis! You do sound la-de-da, don't you? How much do you want up front?"

  "Well…" Jimmy gave her the nicest smile he could manage. "Look, just tell me what it's all about, yeah? We can work out the small print later."

  She tightened her grip on her handbag, hesitating, a catch in her throat. "My father didn't come home last night," she said.

  Jimmy sat back and breathed out. He was most likely looking at marital infidelity. The poor girl's dad had run off to Torquay with his secretary or some other bit on the side, so he was in for a week of taking dirty pictures on the pier. Well, at least the weather was nice.

  "Tell me more," Jimmy said, reaching over to switch on the reel-to-reel autorecorder.

  Georgie turned the handbag over in her lap with her long-fingernailed hands and looked at him with a gleam in her eyes. "Mum passed away a few years ago, so it's just the three of us, me, Dad and my younger sister Rita. Dad's been a real brick, he takes care of us, and he's so dedicated to his work. He wouldn't just go off somewhere without telling us first."

  "What does he do?"

  "He's a scientist. He's doing research over at the Docklands Science Park."

  That made Jimmy sit up and take notice. The DSP was an exclusive place, full of Oxbridge boffins and public school throbbing skulls. Dr. Radcliffe was either a genius or loaded – probably both.

  "You leave it to me," Jimmy said, looking as businesslike as he could. "I'll bring your father back to you, no problem."

  Georgie sniffed and fished a crumpled roll of one-pound notes from her handbag. "You'd better," she said, "I took this out of our life savings."

  The Docklands Science Park was the latest product of Prime Mi
nister Harold Wilson's "white-hot technological revolution". It sat in what used to be the West India Docks over at Tower Hamlets, and was the place where university science departments and private corporations did research on stuff that gave Jimmy a headache when he tried to read about it in the papers. Flying in from the west on the Jubilee airlane, the DSP took shape as a huge transparent dome. Within lay a sprawling collection of smaller geodesic domes, concrete sculptures in wave-like organic forms, and plastic and steel Populuxe towers, all connected by covered walkways through ornamental gardens.

  A forged aerocab punch-card could get Jimmy into most places; the real work was in avoiding getting thrown out. Once through the dome's main gates, he followed the flashing neon maps along the almost-deserted avenues that showed him where Dr. Radcliffe's office could be found. It was a self-contained high-tech lab, Georgie had said, that he shared with his research partner, Dr. Henry Primble.

  Arriving at the fibersteel bubble reception area, outside the detached golf-ball shaped main lab, Jimmy got the uneasy pricking sensation that told him something was wrong.

  Facing him was a standard servo-bot receptionist. It was about six feet tall and roughly humanoid, a steel column tapering down to metal blocks with tiny wheels underneath. The chest held a TV monitor with tuning knobs on either side – but the screen showed only static. Two flexi-tube arms with pincers on the ends hung loosely down by its sides. The cube-shaped head held a metalwork grille where a human mouth would have been, and two round, protruding camera lenses for eyes.

  Jimmy coughed and stepped forward shyly. "Erm…Speedee Taxis? Someone made a booking."

  The robot didn't speak, didn't move, and he noticed there was no light showing in the twin camera eyes. It was totally switched off. Jimmy cautiously moved in for a closer look. He walked around the robot's cylindrical body, and noticed something that made his skin crawl; the control unit attached to the robot's back was almost melted into scrap. It looked like someone had given it a right going-over with a ray blaster.

  All kinds of alarm bells went off in Jimmy's head.

  He looked around and wondered what to do. The sky outside was grey, even though the weather computer had slated no rain showers for today. Par for the course. If the Soviets really did want to invade the UK, all they had to do was permanently switch the master computer to 'rainy" and the British would grumble themselves to death.

  Jimmy walked past the reception area and along the short corridor that led to the lab. On the walls were framed photographs of the usual science superstars – Turing, Rutherford, Grindell-Matthews, Brett, Travers, Watkins, Crick, Watson, and a bunch of other egg-heads Jimmy didn't recognize.

  He thought of Georgie, and decided to explore further. Girls needed to be impressed; good news or bad, the job had to be done properly. The corridor ended in a walk-up ramp, and as soon as Jimmy put his size nines on the first step, he realized something was badly wrong. The sliding security doors were half-open, and wisps of black smoke were curling through the air.

  Bracing himself, he slid the doors fully outwards. He coughed as puffs of greasy vapor wafted past his face. Along with the smoke was a smell far worse than any burnt toast Jimmy ever had the misfortune to make. Holding his breath, he stepped into the lab. Somewhere inside, a radio was playing; The Coasters were doing their best with Poison Ivy, but there were more than the usual pops and crackles mixed in with it, like it was a really bad reception.

  Jimmy waved the smoke away, peering into every corner of the lab. It was full of benches holding glass tubes and chrome pipes and squat metallic boxes, for uses that Jimmy could only guess at. The floor was decorated with a mosaic showing an atom with electrons whizzing around it. It was all dead scientific.

  The back wall had something on it that looked slightly like mold and slightly like modern art – but it was clearly the source of the smoke hanging around the lab. As Jimmy got closer, the alarm bells rang in his head even louder as he realized the 'thing' was a huge burn mark scorched into the wall, and it was in the shape of a human. Specifically, a man with his arms raised.

  Jimmy had a nasty feeling that he'd found Dr. Henry Primble. Or what was left of him.

  He was just reaching for the office phone when the three blokes in suits burst through the door, holding Vickers-Armstrong ray pistols.

  TWO

  The man in front was tall, with short sandy hair brushed to the side, heavy black NHS spectacles with straight sidebars. The second stranger, shorter but more handsome than the first, held the blaster pointed loosely at Jimmy's solar plexus. The third, a sharp-faced balding man with piercing eyes, quickly walked over to Jimmy and went through his pockets and wallet. Jimmy looked over their suits and ties as they frisked him. They didn't stink of cheap tobacco, so they probably weren't plain-clothes coppers. Their threads marked them out more like civil servants; draped shoulders, wide lapels, button-down collar and crocodile zip boots. Jimmy narrowed his eyes, wondering how he should play it.

  The balding man held up Jimmy's PI card. "He's a private dick."

  "Is he really?" The man with glasses holstered the ray gun and stepped closer. All three men were almost a head taller than Jimmy, and he felt suitably intimidated.

  "My name," said the man with glasses, "is Harry Nightingale." He had a broad Cockney accent and sounded quite a bit like the blokes Jimmy rubbed shoulders with down the local pub.

  "These are my associates, Mr. Callum and Mr. Quill." They both had eyes like bruisers, but their voices had an Oxbridge drawl…which Jimmy would expect, if they were who he thought they were.

  "Are you from the government?" Jimmy asked.

  "We're from the Section," Callum said.

  "What section?"

  "The Section that doesn't have a name," Nightingale said with a crafty smile. He turned away and looked down at the untidy mess of papers on Primble's desk. Quill walked over to the smoking man-shaped scorch mark on the back wall, his face mildly puzzled, as if he were looking at a Pop Art exhibit in a gallery.

  "I think you'd better tell us what you're doing here," Callum said.

  Jimmy didn't have much to tell, just the truth – that Georgie had hired him to find her father.

  "Dr. Radcliffe? Yes, we're aware he suddenly dropped out of sight. That's why we're checking a few things."

  "Which is why you turned up here instead of the rozzers?"

  "Clever boy." Nightingale put his attaché case on the desk, flipped the lid up and took out a small electronic device. It looked like a metal wand with a plastic flex connecting it to a small box with glass dials on the front. He joined Quill at the back wall, and waved the device carefully over the burns, from the black head-shape downwards. The box began to click quietly and Jimmy realized it was a Geiger counter.

  "Do you know anything," Nightingale asked while he worked, "about the British Venusian Society?"

  Jimmy frowned. "Aren't they that bunch of nutters who say they talk to space aliens? No, I'm not mixed up with them. I'm not that daft."

  "Not that rich, either." Callum looked disparagingly at Jimmy's suit. "The BVS have a rather exclusive membership."

  "Oi! I had this suit made to measure, you know."

  "Never mind the quality," said Nightingale, putting away the Geiger counter. "Feel the width."

  "This snoop doesn't know anything, Harry," said Callum.

  Nightingale turned and stared out of the huge window. Through the transparent dome, the silver torpedo shape of a Pan Am Shuttle gleamed in the distance as it began its journey to the Moon.

  "All right, son, you can clear off," he suddenly told Jimmy. "We'll handle the Radcliffe case from here. If I were you, I'd apologize to Georgina, and give her the money back."

  "I've got bills to pay!" Jimmy protested.

  Callum sighed and handed him a business card. "Call this number, and your expenses so far will be reimbursed."

  "We don't need to tell you," Nightingale said softly, "not to talk about this with anyone except Radcliffe's
daughter."

  "No, but I suppose you'll do it anyway."

  "Just like in the War, but you're too young to remember – 'Loose Lips Sink Ships'. These days they're spaceships, but the principle's the same. Goodbye, Mr. Diamond."

  *

  Floating on his Vespa above the Isle of Dogs, eating greasy fish'n'chips out of yesterday's newspaper, Jimmy couldn't help feeling a little star-struck. He had no doubt what had happened; he'd just had a brush with MI5.

  "The name is Bond," he drawled to himself. "James Bond."

  Jimmy had read most of the Ian Fleming novels at school, and when the first film had come out in 1961, he'd gone to see it at the Hammersmith Empire, then the other two. Casino Royale…Live and Let Die…Moonraker…yeah, James Bond was another Mod icon – nice suits, cool attitude, and Patrick McGoohan was pretty solid as Bond.

  He threw the chip paper away and flew off. Beneath him, a patrolling litter-bot blasted the paper to ashes with a plasma charge. On his way back to Tottenham Court Road, he passed by an airbus full of Moon-stewardesses wearing silver miniskirts and purple wigs, en route to Gatwick Spaceport, and gave them a cheery wave.

  *

  Back in his office, he refueled his Vespa from the rooftop battery charger and refueled his brain with double-strength espresso to get it working at its optimum 'sneaky' level. He activated the robo-finder function in his filing cabinet and set the mechanical claw to retrieve the index card for Peeping Tom.

  Everyone called him that because Tom had never told anyone his real surname. He traded under the name of Thomas, with a studio near St. James' Park, and left it at that. Jimmy had called him Tommy the Lens for a while but it made him sound like a bloody Welshman. So the Carnaby Street set called him Peeping Tom – but not to his face.