by Brian Hughes
“It’s the same handwriting, see? Notice the precise curls on the ‘esses’ and the loops on the ‘pee’s.”
“We’d better hold off asking him about the label for now.” Flinders took the book from her and held it up beneath the lamp for closer perusal. “There’s something badly amiss here. I reckon we ought to tell Mrs Duvall before we do anything else.”
If he’d known exactly how amiss things were at that moment it’s doubtful that he and Pip would have remained in the cluttered drawing room.
Fortunately, for the sake of this book, he didn’t.
With his spine pressed against the back of the kitchen door, Felix Wetherby was undergoing some sort of seizure. It was extremely violent and was making his neck and shoulders tremble. He clutched desperately at his temples, his head becoming blurred because of the shuddering. His teeth were gritted in an attempt to prevent himself from yelling out in pain.
But no amount of force could stop the Quizzling’s arm emerging from his ear.
And this time it was clutching a small paper dart.
With a dextrous flick the expertly crafted projectile looped the loop into the living room. After circling the teapot on the mantlepiece, it gently wafted into the magazine’s centre fold.
For several seconds nobody spoke. Flinders and Pip merely exchanged glances.
Then Flinders picked up the blood spattered missile and unfolded it carefully at arm’s length. There appeared to be some words written across it in the same gothic script as they’d seen before.
This is what the words read:
“Three: Hexagon. Fourth Journey: Travel South-East for ten yards down Hazelnut Lane to the crossroads. Turn South-West and walk ten yards down Garrison Lane. Turn around and head back to the crossroads. X add 11, minus six, times four, divided by two, divided by two, minus X.”
There was a slump from the kitchen. It was closely followed by a thud, reminiscent of a skip full of gerbils being emptied into a bath. Then the crash of unwashed pots toppling into the sink for the first time in decades.
Flinders sat up straight, stuffed the note in his pocket and grabbed his wheels.
“Thanks very much, Sir!”
Lifting his chin to give more volley to the words he waited for the response.
There wasn’t one, but that didn’t stop him from adding, “I think we’ve got the wrong address after all. We’d best be off now.”
The Bentley turned off Corkingdale Road, clipped the dustbin by the carpark gates and startled the local tom cat up the sycamore tree. Twenty feet later it spluttered to a standstill in Hodges’ parking space, its front wheel wedged against the curb.
Two silhouettes clambered out, the shorter having to leave by the passenger door due to the closeness of the Bentley to the wall. He was chattering animatedly, though it was doubtful that his yawning companion was paying him much attention.
“Apparently we were supposed t’ figure out for ourselves that Dennis Waterman was a cockeral.”
With this extraordinary statement the two of them crossed to the Homicide Division porch. Nesbit dragged the mortise key from his pocket, a bag of mint humbugs snarled up its wake.
“You see, Arthur Daley ’ad employed a common farmyard fowl for his minder because of their unique defensive capabilities.”
He waited for Clewes’ response but was only supplied with a post-yawn smack of the lips.
“’Owever....” he went on regardless. “Because the television companies couldn’t afford the special effects, they ’ad to use a ’uman stand-in instead.”
Shaking his head thoughtfully he steered the key into the lock.
“I wonder w’at it meant, Clewes?”
“That you shouldn’t watch reruns and eat vintage Cheddar before going t’ bed, Sir?”
Malcolm paused, watching his colleague struggle.
“Actually, Sir,” he added at length, grabbing hold of Nesbit’s wrist and curtailing the growing oathes. “I don’t think there’s any need to open up.”
Here is the door to the Homicide Division as viewed from the other side.
Or rather, here’s what’s left of the door as viewed by Sergeant Partridge and Mrs Hodges. Right now they’re staring through the zombie-shaped hole at Nesbit hurling abuse at his missing superior and declaring war on all mechanical contrivances.
“Inspector!”
Nesbit jerked his head up, horrified. Then he stared into Prunella’s grotesque features.
Her piggy eyes sent a shudder through his bones as the recollection of the film ‘Deliverance’ rushed up to confront him.
“That was extremely prompt of you, I must say. I’m glad that somebody round here is taking decisive action.”
“Of course that was the Superintendent Hodges who worked for the tram company Clewes,” Nesbit stuttered, overlooking Mrs Hodges’ compliment. “Not to be confused with our very own beloved and...might I add...slim Superintendent Hodges, who would never under any circumstances try to consume an entire rhinoscerous in one go...as I’m sure you’re aware...or, come to that matter, block the ‘U’ bend for several weeks and gas all the flies in the communal loos.”
“Inspector! Stop blathering!” Prunella’s praise had been short lived. “Get inside and take notes!”
With fumbling fingers he tried the stubborn key again.
“Just step through the blithering hole, you idiot!” A resigned snort escaped from Prunella’s nostrils.
Raising one stubby index finger as though he’d just cottoned on to the idea himself, Nesbit clambered through the opening closely followed by Malcolm.
“Now then,” Prunella continued, once they were safely inside. “My husband’s behaviour has become extremely erratic of late.”
The thought of Hodges in a pair of tartan socks with accompanying suspenders brought an expression of distaste to Nesbit’s face.
“Erratic, Inspector. Not erotic. Cuthbert and I haven’t indulged in ‘that sort of thing’ for a long while now.” There was almost an air of regret in her words. “He’s been sneaking home at four o’clock in the morning, all dishevelled and smelling of anti-septic. I know he’s up to something, Reginald! And it isn’t the all night darts tournament at the Bull and Duck.”
At precisely that moment Constable Robins emerged from the stairs.
He skewed to a halt before them and, with a salute, handed a scrap of parchment to Sergeant Partridge.
“Mrs Duvall insisted I gave you this, Sarge.” Robins’ cheeks were ruddy with excitement. “Said it was important! Something to do with an atom bomb in Greyminster!”
Jack raised one eyebrow and watched as the letter vanished from under his nose.
“Give me that, Jack.”
Nesbit read it through with the sort of knowledgeable expression that says: “Ahha...I told you so.”
Arrogantly he tore the parchment into shreds.
“Given that nobody ’as access to Mrs Duvall, other than the constables on duty tonight...” he explained, tossing the scraps on the floor where a draught flicked them into the cloakroom. “An’ given Mrs Duvall’s conspiracy with Superintendent ’Odges, all due respect Ma’am...”
He tipped his head towards his superior’s spouse.
“I think we can safely ignore this feeble bit o’ forgery an’ quickly move on t’ finding out where ’Odges is ’idin’, wouldn’t you agree?”
The weather was certainly changeable tonight.
Especially up on the fells where the mist was pulling its blanket across the moorlands. Here and there the occasional bleat broke through the fog as Giles Barley and his eldest son, Seymour, clambered over the stile at Rough Pike Lane. The tattered rope binding Giles’ trousers at the knees snarled briefly on the Anglo Saxon boundary marker, producing an oath that was swallowed by the mist.
“Whatcha want me ’ere for, y’ good f’r nothin’ dolt?” Unhooking the rope again he scrambled on, brushing Seymour’s helping palm away from his buttocks. “It’s only a bloated sheep! Bit o’
wind thart’s awl! Surely you could ’a stuck it through with a nail or somethin’?”
“Arh!” Seymour scratched his chin. Several flakes of grime dropped into the collar of his sweatshirt. “I moight at thart, but tha needs to see this ’un for tharself.”
Continuing to mutter beneath his breath, Giles disappeared into the murk.
About halfway across the field he stopped, pulled his rigid socks up inside his wellies, and turned to the colossal gonk of his son plodding up behind him.
“Where is it then?”
“In tha corner.” Seymour pointed towards a small pink head in the thickening vapour.
Moments later they closed in on the worried creature.
“Roight...let’s be ’avin’ thee.” Giles fumbled for the distended abdomen. Presumably it was somewhere out of sight behind the sheep’s nodding head.
His simple features suddenly cascaded into a puzzled expression.
“What tha fu...?”
At that moment a movement of air caused the fog to break into clumps.
Despite the sheep’s head being of a perfectly normal size, its turgid body was simply enormous. The bloated creature stood at least twenty feet high, its weedy legs struggling to take the strain.
“Buggerin’ Nora!” Giles stepped backwards, nudging his son accidentally in the ribs. “Tha’ll need more than a straw t’ deflate this ’un.”
He studied the hugest member of his flock with moonstruck eyes. “That’ll need a bloody drainpoipe!”
Without warning the sheep belched.
A mighty, steaming and, above all, violent belch.
Giles’ flat cap was lifted from his head revealing a tide line that resembled a suntan.
Both father and son were blown backwards thirty feet by the maelstrom, ending up face down in the bog with a squelch.
Still chewing a mouthful of moist grass the mammoth ovine turned. Then, with considerable difficulty, it tottered off, leaving nothing behind except for a series of very deep hoof prints in the mud.
Chapter Thirteen: Of Blackouts and Bag Ladies
The majority of Greyminster’s streets had been built from Accrington brick during the more prosperous reign of Queen Victoria (as Flinders Peterson would no doubt go to great lengths to explain). In those times the mill town had thrived on spices shipped from the orient. Ginger and Ginseng had been stored three floors deep in the warehouses clustered round Patternoster Row, before being sold on to Scotland via the harbour. The town had grown fat as the mill owners of Britain realised its geographical potential. Soon all manner of cotton goods were sewn by industrious seamstresses in Trotters Mill where the labour was cheap, the hours long and the profits high.
Towards the end of this halcyon era Stewartstones Slateworks had lined the pavements and rooftops of the aristocracy with its yellow veined wares; finest Lancashire slag dissected from the Stewartstone Quarry just south of Ringing Fell.
That was then, of course. Those were the days before the capitalists had sold out their workers and headed for the increasingly centralised south.
Nowadays Greyminster’s finances were shored up by Government allowances. Those left behind after the exodus, such as the old and infirm, the unmarried and the uneducated, had now become as insular as the town itself. With an increasingly narrow pool to choose from, the town had spawned some disturbing genetic offspring.
Betty Treacle was one such character. She wasn’t so much a bag lady as an old woman with a junk-laden trolley.
Nobody noticed Betty Treacle. She was one of those background characters that moved with the invisibility of a shadow. If anybody had bothered to take at look at her, however, they’d have seen her large, mottled face and weeping eyes.
And, of course, her udders. The sort of breasts that, to judge by their weight, had once suckled an army of Treacle off-spring, though who in their right mind would have fathered such a brood is beyond comprehension. Come to think of it her huge bosoms could have warded off an army as well, each one resembling a bowling ball in an extremely large sock.
Betty’s house was one of those rare 1920’s affairs with all of its original trimmings intact. Such historical features as art decor windows and outside plumbing were only there, of course, because she’d never bothered to touch them.
Especially with a duster and polish.
Not that it mattered. The building was surrounded by an embankment of rubbish which hid it from view. Space hoppers and swivel chairs, lava lamps and nik-nak cabinets! The type of collectibles that, in the more contemporary landscape of London, would have earned somebody enough in antiquity value to retire. Here in Greyminster, however, they were just considered a health hazard by the council.
Betty Treacle dragged her trolley along the ginnel behind Winifred Duvall’s cottage, her moist eyes set on the passage’s overgrown exit.
That was the other thing about Betty. She always turned up behind houses when their occupants had died. Then she’d empty the contents of her trolley into the alley in the full knowledge that no-one would be around to report her.
Her second delivery of the night rattled against Miss Duvall’s gate. A tepee of newspapers, wood and Dinky toys formed its unlit pyre on top of the foxgloves.
As she peeled the sodden cabbage leaves from the floor of her basket several old socks shifted uneasily on the mound. Minor landslides of detritus followed. Betty stopped and watched with interest.
An anemic forehead appeared from the dump. It was complimented by two soulless eyes.
Betty shrieked and her socks unfurled down her blue legs.
With a further rumble, Millicent Broadhurst’s head thrust itself up from the heap, a brown banana skin acting as a bonnet.
A cloud of dust covered her features. As it cleared, Betty’s trolley could be seen vanishing round the corner, two startled mice clinging desperately to the flap.
Several minutes later her pounding footsteps rose in volume round Greyminster hospital.
In a Doppler effect, they receded again towards the docks.
“W’at was that?” said the gatepost.
“Sounded like Betty Treacle, Sir,” joined in the pillar opposite in a Newcastle accent. “Something must ’ave upset her. Would you like me t’ check it out?”
“Not just now, Clewes.”
A pipe bowl emerged from the shadows. It was followed closely by Inspector Nesbit.
“We’ve got more important matters to attend. That looks like ’Odges’ car t’ me!”
Beneath one of the arched windows opposite, with little consideration for the surgeons whose names had been painted on the tarmac, stood an orange Cortina. It had clearly seen better days. The driver’s door was obviously a substitute, a fact noticeable by...
a) its not fitting properly and
b) its being midnight black in colour.
Added to that, the boot wouldn’t shut and the whole ensemble looked as though a family of guinea pigs had taken up squatter’s rights.
“’Ee must be pullin’ some back’ander with the MOT people,” Nesbit thought.
“Very good, Sir,” complimented Malcolm, emerging into the light from the gas lamp. He checked about himself suspiciously. “’Ow did you know he’d be ’ere?”
“Alimentary, Clewes.” Nesbit shrank as a squirrel sneezed in the nearby treetops. “It’s too late f’r the Old Bull an’ Duck t’ be open. And everywhere else is closed. Apart from St Oliver’s, and ’Odges isn’t known for ’is religious bent.”
“It’s not like you to figure something like that out...” Malcolm continued, so impressed by his colleague’s deductions he didn’t notice the insult within his own words.
“Besides which,” Nesbit went on regardless. “’Is missus said ’ee smelt of anti-septic. And unless ’ee’s got a part-time job as a late night lavatory attendant it had to be the ’ospital. Come on, Malcolm...let’s flush us out a turd!”
With boot soles creaking the two of them set off towards the Hospital entrance.
&nbs
p; As they neared the step Malcolm’s voice was heard to ask, “Exactly why are we creeping about, Sir?”
The question was met with silence. After some considerable time Nesbit replied, “Don’t want t’ wake up the patients, Clewes.”
And he straightened himself with a ‘humph!’
If the patients at Greyminster hospital were blissfully ignorant of the trouble brewing around the mill town then Jack Partridge wasn’t.
For some time he’d been trying to glue the parchment that Nesbit had torn into shreds back together again with staples and saliva. Now various bits of police tape held the pieces in place. Several strands of his hair were also stuck to his forehead and one corner had attached itself to his right cheek.
In truth, Jack had never held much truck with Nesbit’s philosophy. As far as he was concerned, Nesbit was the force’s equivalent of a four-foot high judge; one of those little things in life that were sent to try him.
He was still absorbed in removing the middle section of Millicent’s list from his thumb when the telephone rang.
“Greyminster police!” There was a sticky noise as he held the receiver away from his ear, peeled the tape from the mouthpiece, and then replaced it. “Zombies hunted, Martians banged up and robots circumcised. Children’s parties a speciality!”
A woozy voice droned out of the earpiece. Jack frowned.
“The walking dead?” His brow avalanched further as the voice continued. “Millicent Broadhurst? Don’t worry mate, I’m already on to it.”
The receiver went back down with a weary clunk.
Constable Robins slurped noisily from his mug of cocoa beside Jack’s elbow.
“That was Don Shaftsbury down at the morgue.”
Robins remained motionless, staring passively over the rim.
“It seems Mrs Duvall might not be the liar Inspector Nesbit claims she is.” Jack rubbed the onion of his nose and suddenly felt uneasy by Robins’ penetrating gaze. “We’d better ’ave a proper word with ’er, eh lad?”