by Brian Hughes
Morning slowly yawned itself open over Greyminster. The sky was as heavy as expensive wallpaper, brushing the chimneystacks and bowing down over the treetops with its weight.
Hogan sat on the pungent grass wondering why he felt so low. Surely to God he couldn’t already be missing that bewildering set of features? Those fat, demonic eyes? Those dangerous looking teeth? He could get a few bob for them on Calpernicus Major. No. He just felt sorry for Cissy that was all. How could anybody possibly love a freak that looked like that?
At length he peeled back his cuff and punched a button on the bracelet. The air shimmered beside him, crackled with static and transformed into an obese drunk.
“Hello ANN...” said the commander dejectedly. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any suggestions to make?”
The corpulent wino pulled an expression that denoted a couldn’t-give-a-toss attitude.
“No, I thought not.” Hogan switched the image off, stuffing his blue veined hands deep into his pockets to keep them warm.
Something brushed against the tips of his fingers.
Something smooth and greasy.
He pulled out the DNA reconstructer, wiped the oily sheen from its LCD and squinted at the setting.
An air of thoughtful invention crossed his features. Within seconds he was up on his feet.
“So...she can’t look after herself because she’s too old, eh?” Hogan muttered his thoughts out loud, watching them turn into small clouds of grey steam and scatter. “Well, let’s see what Doctor Hogan can do then, shall we?”
And, with that, he sprinted off towards the town.
Old Father Time and Mother Nature have remarkably similar personalities. No matter how much human beings do to try and mess them up, eventually, give or take the odd bruise, both straighten themselves out and just get on with their jobs.
And the more that the past tries to catch up with the present, the less their differences seem to become. It’s as perennial as rebellious youths settling down to become the middle-aged fogies they detested so much.
Of course, some people are stubborn and will never accept the truth. Sergeant Partridge, for example, was still intent on conducting his own personal enquiries into Henry’s murder, regardless of the evidence provided by his own eyes. That’s the sort of evidence that most folk rely on, bending the truth to match up with reality. Memories are notorious liars at the best of times. Best to accept things and get with how matters stand as they are.
Several hours had passed before the resumption of furtive rustling in the bushes that separated the crazy golf course from the football pitch. A low bank of fog was still hugging the landscape and the sun was nowhere in sight, obscured by the morning gloom.
“Are you sure Mother will be all right?” Cissy was still wearing an anxious pout but beneath it rolled the signs of optimism.
“Sure I’m sure.” Commander Hogan adjusted something on his trouser belt. “In a couple of hours she’ll come round and feel like a new woman.”
“How old?”
“About twenty-five. Old enough to recapture the youth that she blamed your father for missing.” Regardless of his station in the universe Marshal Hogan did have an uncanny knack of being able to read people’s motives.
“I’m still not entirely sure about this...” By the sounds of her voice, Cissy wasn’t sure at all.
“Look Cissy. If your mother wants to ruin her own life, why on Earth should you let her ruin yours as well?” He finally clicked the metal claw onto the buckle and tested the strength of the cable it was attached to.
“Besides which,” he went on in a reassuring tone. “We...you can always pop back and see her anytime you want.”
There was a pause.
“By the way. What was that letter about?”
“Nothing really. Just something I had to do...”
Hogan stiffened. He wasn’t going to enquire any further. Some subjects should be left well alone and he knew that.
“Right.” He struggled onto his knees, his trench coat trailing in the mud just behind him. “Come on...”
The bushes parted and he checked on either side of them briefly.
The Firestar was there, although it couldn’t be seen. His eyes scanned the indentations in the ground some distance away, swollen with mud and filled with flattened grass stalks. He didn’t want to collide with them at full speed.
Then he set off towards the area where he suspected that the shuttlecraft was situated.
Glancing back as he bounded across an expanse of mist-coated mud, he signalled for Cissy to follow him quickly. Cissy sat there and thought, ponderously twisting the events and emotions of the previous two days in her head. A nagging doubt tickled the rear of her brain as it planted the seeds of uncertainty. She was sure they’d forgotten something.
Seconds later she followed, her hot, excited breath streaming out in a trail of blues and greys behind her.
Hogan reached the invisible leg of the Old Empirical spacecraft. Using the three-pronged hook he lassoed something unseen above his head. Then he started to climb the indiscernible pylon with the agility of an acrobat.
Now somewhere, there had to be an...ah yes. There it was.
With a click the shuttlecraft’s cloak flickered off. The commander immediately set about unscrewing the hatchway.
“What about Amanda Duck?” Cissy hollered from below, suddenly realising what she’d forgotten.
“Don’t worry about her.” The catch squealed beneath Hogan’s sturdy grip. “Time has a habit of ironing out misdemeanours!”
Moments later both figures were struggling in through the open hatch and attempting to lock it tightly behind them.
“Have you ever had that feeling of deja vu?” Hogan asked as the bolts slid into place and the locking devices ensured airtight security. It was a rhetorical question. It might have even been intended as a joke. When it came to the commander’s sense of humour it was difficult to tell.
The circular bracelet fitted perfectly into the hole on the dashboard. The forward monitor flickered as Cissy and Hogan settled down in their seats. A wire-framed version of ANN’s head shuddered into view, then stage by stage rendered itself into smooth familiar features.
The operation was accompanied by a sexy female drawl. It echoed round the cockpit and said, “Replacing Personality File One.”
“Welcome back, ANN.”
“Hello Commander.”
“I trust that your accommodation is adequately comfortable?”
“Perfectly, Commander. Hello Cissy.”
Cissy pulled a half-hearted grin, her cheeks turning green and her eyes narrowing to slots of jealousy. She’d much preferred ANN as a dwarf summoned up by the deranged mind of a dungeon master. The sort of image that conjured up names such as ‘Gutsfart Bloodbucket’ or ‘Thunderaxe Skullcrusher.’ Still, it’s only a computer-generated image, she told herself. No point in wasting good emotions on such trivia.
“Tell me ANN...” Commander Hogan was now flicking his eyes back and forth across the unfamiliar control panel. The new shuttlecraft was an upgrade on the knackered old heap he’d piloted before. “Does this old bucket have such a thing as a Transmatt on board?”
“What’s a Transmatt?” asked Cissy, leaning into him conspiratorially. Hogan didn’t answer.
“Yes it does, Commander.” ANN’s sultry tones drifted back from the speaker as she raised her head and shook her large flop of hair.
“Excellent.” Hogan set about entering co-ordinates, his fingers tapping expertly across the console’s alien buttons. “I’ve got a little job for you ANN. Before we leave orbit.”
Cissy fumed. Her arms were crossed now, lifted up in front of her bosom, and her hefty top teeth chewed her lower lip angrily. She didn’t like being excluded from Mission Objectives. If this was the way it was going to be, he could bloody well stuff it.
“Mr. Spaceman?”
“Mmm?” Hogan briefly abandoned whatever it was he was doing.
&nbs
p; “I do hope you’re not intending to continue this life of skulduggery now that I’m aboard?”
“Request completed, Commander.” ANN nodded, winked and vanished.
“Cissy, I cross my heart that I’ll never trade illegally again.”
He moved one finger in a generalised cross about his chest. It didn’t stand for much. His heart was only a replaceable clockwork organ anyhow. And it was doubtful whether automatons had any belief in Christianity. However, he didn’t know that, so Cissy softened marginally.
“Why don’t we find some nice, forest-covered planet all of our own and set up home there...” She flung her arms romantically about the spaceman’s neck. Hogan turned the square key that controlled the starter-motor. The shuttle jumped gear, before grinding to a halt.
“Yeah right.”
“What about that planet? Where they worship skinny women with big teeth and eyes?”
“Oh you wouldn’t like that.” Hogan turned the key again. This time it caught and the engine spluttered into life. “When they’ve stopped worshipping them they boil them up into ‘Tooth Stew’.”
Seconds later all that was left for any passing observer was the trail of exhaust smoke, stretching up and disappearing into the drab clouds. The Old Empire Guards, who had been awakened by the rumpus, tumbled down from the invisible hatch of the Firestar. In silence they watched the craft recede, knowing there was nothing they could do to stop it.
On a rocky outcrop of the Greyminster Fells, on a creviced promontory known as Old Bobbin’s Crag, stood a Victorian edifice. It was built from grey masonry, cylindrical in shape and had the sort of grand proportions normally only associated with government buildings. To the east of the facility was a cordoned off reservoir surrounded by wooden boards nailed to posts. Every board had the same words painted on it in black Roman letters against a peeling yellow background. The words read:
Private Property! North West Water Authority! KEEP OUT.
Albert Doyle took a bite from his cheese salad sandwich whilst running a grubby, gnarled finger along the brass pipes of the pump house. Then he unhooked a clean yellow duster from the belt of his boiler suit and wiped his oily hands on it with great enthusiasm.
Albert had been tending to the smooth running of the pumps for several years now, and in all of that time was never without a smudge running down one cheek. The odd thing was that all the machinery was constructed from brass without a drop of oil in sight. Albert took a pride in his maintenance so that everything sparkled and shone for all occasions.
Right now he tapped one of a plethora of dials with his middle finger, removed his flat cap and mopped his bald head with the duster.
“’Ere, Danny...?”
“What?” Danny peered across the top of his copy of Mayfair, the chipped mug of cocoa raised expectantly to his thin lips. His feet scuffled nervously on the works table where, with a bit of luck, he’d be able to leave them.
“The water level’s just dropped by about ’alf a ton.” Albert prodded the highly polished brass dial again but the red needle remained in the position where it had plummeted.
“Must be another leak.” The copy of Mayfair was raised once more, obscuring the young man’s troubled features. Danny’s shift was about to end. As apprentice he’d be expected to check the damn thing out. “Leave a note for the day squad.”
“Aye, y’r right...” Albert promised himself to dig out a pencil when he’d finished his brew.
He forgot of course. This sort of thing happened a lot.
The HMS Icarus groaned beneath the overbearing weight as it rounded the moon and throttled up on a heading to slingshot itself around Mars. It might have worried the passenger in the cockpit had she realised that shuttlecrafts don’t often make such threatening noises.
It was hardly surprising though, considering that the cargo bay was crammed to bursting point with water. And water’s heavy en masse. The fragile walls were under pressure, the hatchway starting to buckle, but it would hold long enough to reach whatever destination the craft was heading for.
Water, H2O, the stuff of life, the most energy efficient fuel in the universe. The New Empire would have paid 20 Megathusian Groats per gallon for that lot. Enough to settle down in a luxury apartment somewhere off the better end of Andromeda. Course, it might only fetch a bob or two on the black market at Alderbaron Prime, but there was lots more where that came from. Just so long as nobody went crawling around the western spiral arm of the galaxy and happened across an otherwise insignificant planet called the Earth.
Commander Hogan grinned to himself and dreamt of the future. Yes. He’d have to let Cissy come back home fairly frequently. After all, she’d want to know how her mother was getting along.
The Greyminster Scrapbook Part Eight
The Greyminster Chronicle, Greyminster’s local newspaper, generally dealt with all the shortcomings of cats stuck up trees and what the local dignitaries were up to. On one occasion however it ran a full front page on the events surrounding Jack Partridge and his attempts to set ‘Wrongs’ right down at the Psychiatric Wing of Greyminster hospital.
In fact the story was so popular that it was followed up with gusto every night, and had an Exclusive Pull Out Supplement the following weekend.
This, however, is what the front-page headline read:
LOCAL BOBBYS IN MENTAL PATIENTS SCANDAL
The review was obviously worthy of note, for, although it could not be described as a clue to the events down Patternoster Row, Jack thought it important to cut the article out and keep it preserved in the Greyminster Scrapbook.
This is what the man on the spot had to say:
During a dramatic dawn raid this morning at the Greyminster Psychiatric Unit, several members of staff were removed from duty and detained at Her Majesty’s leisure. Dr. Duncan O’Leary (38) was arrested under suspicion of malpractice and sexual deviancy, resulting in the pregnancy of one of the inmates, Miss Amanda Duck (34), former social worker for the borough. Other arrests are expected to follow.
Various patients have been removed from the ward, which is now deemed unfit for habitation. Mrs I. Pootle (92) and Mrs J. Comings (106) have been transferred to the Gasworks’ View Retirement Home.
The raid was mounted after allegations reached the ears of the ever-alert and brave police sergeant Jack Partridge (49), who with the aid of his two able bodied constables (24 & 31), broke into the wing in a dramatic and exciting manner before seizing all the papers appertaining to the misconduct. The alleged rape victim, Amanda Duck (34), is now residing in security at the sergeant’s own home. The trial is yet to be heard.
Two photographs adorned the front page. One was of Duncan O’Leary wearing a rather startled expression. The Chronicle’s art department had cunningly doctored this so that he had been placed behind a series of hand drawn bars. One could almost expect the words, ‘Go Straight To Jail. Do Not Pass Go’ to be written beneath it.
The other photograph showed an almost stately shot of Jack, his thumbs tucked magnificently beneath his lapels and a wide beaming smile etched across his red and white features. Unfortunately the captions for both photographs had been mixed up and on several occasions afterwards Jack couldn’t help noticing pedestrians giving him the evil eye. Which goes to show that we shouldn’t always believe what we read in the newspapers.
One last item in the scrapbook was a hand-written letter. It had mysteriously turned up behind Jack’s front door following that fateful dawn raid. The peculiar thing was, it must have been there for some time, having been slid beneath the draught-excluder. Its corner was tucked beneath the Welcome mat and had started to go yellow with nicotine and neglect.
The handwriting was cramped, very delicate and in places almost illegible, due to the fact that the missive had been rushed. There follows a transcript:
Dear Sergeant Jack, Do not worry! All is well.
Mother and I are still very much alive. Despite the big bomb that you dropped on us!!!! So is Commander Hogan
. (Sort of.) That is, he’s not really alive. Never was!!! But he’s okay!! If you’re bothered about what’s happened to us, just remember that if we were not all alive then I wouldn’t be able to write this letter. Such as it is.
Hope that Henry Higginbotham is better. Though, of course, he doesn’t deserve it!!! Should you see a young woman, quite tall, in her early twenties going in and out of our house down Mulberry Grove, please don’t bother her. She lives there! She will be looking after the place until we return from our next great adventure!!
She is my Aunt Mary.
Please excuse the handwriting. Some bastard is tugging at my elbow, insisting that we leave!!! It appears to be urgent. Sorry the letter is so short.
Thanks for everything.
Time to go,
Cissy Doyle Xxx
BOOK THE THIRD: THE FELLOWSHIP OF DOVECOTE HALL
Chapter One: The Crooked Man
Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to start; never more so than with the tangled knot of intrigue that makes up the following story. Because it’s a murder-mystery I don’t want to reveal all of the secrets too soon. The following information, however, was borrowed from Greyminster University Library:
‘Kevin Dalton (22) was discovered at 8.30 this morning on the floor of his apartments at the University Campus. He was dressed in a clown suit, holding a rag-mag in one hand. Mrs Hudson found the body whilst tidying the dorms.
The police are baffled by this mysterious death. Sergeant Jack Partridge (48) commented, “It’s difficult to say whether there are suspicions of foul play or not.”
“Kevin Dalton,” said Dr. Joshua Barclay, university principal (78), “Was a bright and eager student, as far as I recall. He will be deeply missed by his fellow classmates.”