Inflatable Hugh

by Terry Ravenscroft

  It was this chance information that gave Arbuckle the idea that would not only scotch VAST’s plans to disrupt production at An Hour In Bed, but could well put an end to their activities altogether.

  Initially Arbuckle had thought it would simply be a matter of tipping off the police about the raid. Then he remembered that one of the members of VAST was Seal, an ex-policeman. Who was to say if he were to tip off the police that they in turn wouldn’t tip off Seal? In which case the raid would be called off. Possibly to be arranged for a later date when he might not get to hear about.

  He could have simply reported the matter to the boss, who at the time he’d first heard of the plot had been Mr Wainwright. But Wainwright himself would probably have told the police, who in turn would have probably told Seal, with the same result.

  However Mr Pugh was now the boss. And Mr Pugh was a very powerful man, a Government Minister according to Greaves. Reporting the matter to Mr Pugh would be a different matter altogether. A Government Minister wouldn’t just report it to the local police. Government Ministers had friends in high places and it was to high places like the Home Office and Scotland Yard to whom Pugh would report it. And they wouldn’t be tipping off Seal.

  One thing was certain, he’d have to do something, and quickly. The raid was set to take place in three days time and there was no telling what damage that mad bugger Khan might do once he was let loose inside An Hour In Bed. And Cleaver and the rest of them weren’t much better.

  Five minutes later he was knocking on Pugh’s office door.

  The most direct way to Pugh’s office was out through the back door of the Forming Department then back into the factory through the main entrance. Passing through the entrance Arbuckle noticed an addition to the decor in the shape of a life-size bronze bust of a very ugly man. It was the bust of Pugh, which Pugh had intended to grace his south of France retreat, but which he had since decided to install in its new location, his idea being that when the workers passed it every morning on their way in it would inspire them to work harder. Arbuckle had never seen Pugh before and when he entered the office he was surprised to see that the bust and his new boss were one and the same man.

  “You’ll be catching flies in that mouth if you don’t shut it,” said Pugh.

  “Sorry. Sorry Mr Pugh. It was the statue of you in the entrance. I didn’t realise it was you.”

  “Who else did you think it would be but the owner of the factory, Piffy?”

  “What?”

  “Forget it. Look, I’m a very busy man, what do you want?”

  Arbuckle told Pugh everything. How he was a student reading Sex and Inflatable Rubber Woman Studies at Cleek University, how and why he had joined Vigilantes Against Sex Toys, how they planned a raid on the An Hour In Bed plant to disrupt production, when the raid was planned for, why he couldn’t tell the police, the lot. After taking everything in Pugh congratulated Arbuckle on his work.

  “You’ve done well....what did you say your name was?”

  “Arbuckle, Mr Pugh. Elton Arbuckle.”

  “Arbuckle. Well what you’ve done won’t be forgotten. You have my word on that. Come and see me when you’ve completed your studies, I’m sure I’ll be able to find something for you.”

  Arbuckle was delighted. “I’ll be sure to, Mr Pugh.”

  Pugh stroked his chin. “Sex and Inflatable Rubber Woman Studies, eh? What do you do there exactly?”

  “We compare the differences between sex with a human female and sex with an inflatable rubber woman, with the object of promoting inflatable rubber women as an alternative and safe means of sexual gratification.”

  Pugh smiled. “Well I’m all for that; the more inflatable rubber women we can sell the better I’ll like it. But from what you tell me we’re not going to have any to sell for much longer, unless we do something about it.”

  “I was thinking you could maybe bring in Scotland Yard, Mr Pugh?”

  “Scotland Yard?” Pugh considered the suggestion briefly. “Yes, good idea Arbuckle. I’ll get on to them right away.” His eyes narrowed, as they always did when he was up to no good. It was a moment or two before he carried on. “You’re well in with this Vigilantes Against Sex Toys bunch of clowns, are you?”

  “Oh yes, Mr Pugh. They definitely think I’m pukkah.”

  “Good.” He leaned forward in his chair to take Arbuckle into his confidence. “Right. This is what we’ll do.”

  ****

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  The planned strike on the An Hour In Bed factory by Vigilantes Against Sex Toys was planned with military efficiency. Various duties were allotted. Timings were made. Logistics were co-ordinated. Hammers and crowbars to wreck the factory’s plant and machinery were purchased. Chains were procured to enable the ladies to chain themselves to the factory’s railings.

  There were no problems in purchasing the locks to secure the chains, but the chains themselves were a different matter. Apparently the city of Derby, although rich in the quantity and variety of chain stores, did not have a single chain shop. There may have been shops which sold chains, but Mrs Wisbech, who had taken on the responsibility of buying in the chains, was not able to locate one in the limited time available to her.

  In the end she was forced to buy chains from the bondage section of a sex shop, which had gone very much against the grain, but had at least enabled the ladies to take their designated part in the night’s activities.

  She actually ended up with four chains, one more than the number required, as the sex shop was currently having a sale - ‘Everything must go - and you want to see our vibrators go!’ - and chains were two for the price of one. Mrs Bean suggested that the spare chain could be put to good use by her sister-in-law, who intended to become a member of VAST, and had expressed a desire to come along when she’d learned about the chaining. However Mr Willoughby ruled that as she wasn’t yet a member this would be out of order. Furthermore, the extra chain wouldn’t be wasted as Mrs Wisbech had indicated that she would like to be doubly chained.

  VAST members Willoughby, Cleaver, Seal, Grimshaw, Flannery, Mrs Wisbech, Mrs Bean and Miss Preece were to meet at Willoughby’s at 23.00 hours. There they would synchronise their watches. The men would change into combat fatigues and have their faces blackened by Mrs Willoughby with soot from the Willoughbys’ chimney. When Willoughby revealed this part of the operation, at the pre-raid meeting at The Grim Jogger, Mrs Bean pointed out that as Seal’s house was much more central than Willoughby’s it would make more sense if they all met there and had their faces blackened with soot from the Seals’ chimney. Seal had seen the sense in this but had pointed out that he no longer had a chimney, so they reverted to Willoughby’s original plan.

  Much discussion took place before it was finally decided that false number plates would not be necessary. Seal argued strongly for false number plates, making the point that the first question police ask witnesses to a crime is if they managed to get the car’s number plates.

  Cleaver said he knew where he could put his hands on a couple of sets of false plates.

  Mrs Wisbech said she had no doubt he could.

  Grimshaw observed that if someone did happen to make a note of their number plates it would only be a matter of time before VAST would be revealed as the brains behind the raid.

  Mrs Bean remarked that as she and Mrs Wisbech and Miss Preece would be chained to the railings of An Hour In Bed, holding a large banner with the inscription VAST on it, that the whole world would already know they were behind it.

  Mr Willoughby said that in that case it was pointless to go to the trouble of acquiring and fitting false number plates, and that in any case part of the object of the raid was to publicise the existence of VAST in an effort to further their cause. Fr Flannery and Grimshaw concurred. Seal and Cleaver still veered towards having false number plates. Khan said he didn’t give a fock either way just as long as he got the chance to go for their joculars. After further discussion, and tea and biscuits,
it was decided to stick with their cars’ existing plates.

  Fr Flannery, who had given himself a night off from purgatory, feeling that travelling in a car for two hours with your underpants full of crushed walnut shells was just a little too much purgatory, then went on to say he had asked for God’s guidance. God had told him to gather them all together and pray for them before departing for Ramsbottom. Cleaver said they wouldn’t need God’s guidance, he knew where Ramsbottom was, he’d looked it up on the AA internet site on his computer and had a print-out of the route.

  It was decided that the initial strike would be made on the Forming Department, that being the area in which they felt they could inflict the most damage. Arbuckle, who lived quite nearby, would meet them at the factory gates. After chaining Mrs Wisbech, Mrs Bean and Miss Preece to the railings the raiding party would enter the factory, using the key provided by Arbuckle’s university friend. (Two days earlier, acting on Pugh’s instructions, Arbuckle had ingratiated himself with Willoughby by telling the VAST chairman that one of his friends at university was at the moment doing post-graduate research at An Hour In Bed.) They would then make their way to the Forming Department and smash up the machines and presses with the hammers and crowbars. Their attention would then be turned to the warehouse, where they would destroy all the stock of inflatable rubber women. To effect this they would use pen knives and carving knives. Khan would use his hook.

  Having sabotaged all the stock, the original plan had been to return to the factory gates, pick up the women and make good their escape. However Mrs Wisbech pointed out that if things went to plan the ladies would only have been chained to the railings for an hour. As it would be the middle of the night it would be highly unlikely that anyone would have seen them, so what was the point of them being chained to the railings? The decision was made to leave the ladies secured to the railings to see what developed. Willoughby, as the chairman of VAST, would be the nominal leader, but the raid would be led by Arbuckle as he was the only one amongst them who, thanks to his university friend, knew the layout of the An Hour In Bed factory.

  There was little chance they would be disturbed. The factory was protected by a system of burglar alarms but Arbuckle knew where they were located and how to switch them off.

  As Pugh had forecast, it had then been a simple matter to get Willoughby to agree that it was only good sense that Arbuckle should lead the raiding party. However Pugh had instructed Arbuckle to lead the members of VAST not to the Forming Department, but to the Mixing Department, where they could do little damage. There they would be met by armed police, supplied at Pugh’s request by Scotland Yard. Or at least that was what Pugh had led Arbuckle to believe.

  The reality was a little different. In view of his plans for the contaminated inflatable rubber women, the involvement of Scotland Yard was the last thing Pugh wanted, and he had arranged for the raiding party to be met not by the police but by a dozen heavies armed with baseball bats (at £500 a pop but absolutely guaranteed to make a few eyes pop, if not hernias, no questions asked), who would then put their baseball bats to good effect by giving the members of VAST the beating up of all beatings up.

  The two cars carrying the party pulled up outside the An Hour In Bed factory at 01.30 hours, not at 01.00 hours as planned, as the route supplied by the AA website had taken them the long way round as usual.

  Immediately they arrived Mrs Wisbech, Mrs Bean and Miss Preece chained themselves to the railings. Then Mrs Wisbech unchained herself from the railings because she’d forgotten to take the banner out of her handbag. Grimshaw offered to take it out for her, and made to take the handbag, but she snatched it away and told him there were things in a lady’s handbag that men shouldn’t see. Grimshaw wondered if they were the sort of things his X-ray machine had found in his postbag before he’d got the sack, and if they were what was Mrs Wisbech doing with them. Mrs Wisbech took the banner from the bag, Flannery and Seal tied it to the railings, Mrs Wisbech re-chained herself to the railings and the men made for the factory.

  Despite being familiar with the labyrinth-like layout of the factory Arbuckle had trouble finding his way to the Mixing Department – things looked different with just the dim light of the interior security lamps to light the way – and he led the raiding party first into the Colouring Department, then into the Breasts Department, then into the Head and Face Department, before finally arriving outside the door of the Mixing Department fifteen minutes later than scheduled.

  In addition to the time spent wandering from department to department there had been a further delay when Khan, on seeing a pile of heads in the Head and Face Department, had immediately attacked them and had contrived to get his hook stuck in one. While Grimshaw and Seal were trying to extricate it Father Flannery realised he had forgotten to pray for them, so asked them all to gather round and bend their heads in prayer while he did this. Six heads were then bent in prayer, Grimshaw’s, Willoughby’s, Arbuckle’s, Seal’s, Khan’s, and the one still stuck on Khan’s hook, and Flannery entreated God to watch over their mission.

  In the meantime Pugh, lying in wait in the Mixing Department with the hired muscle, was going ape-shit. Wainwright, on watch opposite the main gate and in touch by mobile phone, had informed him that the party had entered the factory ages ago. Pugh got him on his mobile again.

  “Where the fuck are they?”

  “Haven’t they got there yet?”

  “I wouldn’t be asking you where the fuck they are if they’d got here, would I.”

  “Well it took some time to chain the women to the railings.”

  “What?”

  “They chained three women to the rail....” Wainwright suddenly stopped, then said suspiciously, “Hello, what have we here?”

  “What the matter?”

  “One of them is coming back.” There was a pause, then, “He’s heading in the direction of the warehouse.”

  One of the heavies touched Pugh’s shoulder to gain his attention. “I think they’ve arrived. I can hear noises outside.”

  “Follow him,” Pugh said to Wainwright. “Stop him. Use force if necessary, I don’t want him interfering with my rubber women. I’ll be there just as soon as this lot’s been given what’s coming to them.”

  He switched off the phone and focussed his attention on the raiding party.

  Outside the door Arbuckle pushed the handle down. He was about to push the door open when Seal wrinkled his nose. “What’s that smell?”

  Grimshaw inhaled. “I can’t smell anything.”

  “Well I can.” Seal’s nose twitched. “Smoke? It smells like smoke.”

  “I can’t detect anything either,” said Flannery.

  “Yes, you’re right, I can smell it now,” said Grimshaw. “It smells like something’s burning.”

  “It’s smoke, definitely,” said Seal. “Something must be on fire.”

  Willoughby looked around him. Then said, somewhat ominously, “Where’s Mr Cleaver?”

  Cleaver was outside the warehouse. Ten seconds earlier he had set fire to it. By now it was quickly becoming an inferno.

  Cleaver had decided that simply destroying An Hour In Bed’s machinery wasn’t enough. Not by a long chalk. All right, it would slow them down a bit, but then what? They’d simply replace the machinery and be making their disgusting inflatable rubber women again in next to no time. More positive action was called for, action that would stop them altogether, not just cause a temporary delay. Fire, that’s what was required. An inferno. He had witnessed what the power of fire could do when he’d set the Body Shop alight, and that impressive blaze had been caused with just a cigarette lighter. Imagine the size of the fire a decent quantity of petrol would make!

  That morning he had filled 3 one litre lemonade bottles with petrol and stowed them in his haversack. (Willoughby had asked him what was in the haversack and Cleaver had told him he’d packed some sandwiches in case they got a bit peckish. Mrs Bean said that was very thoughtful of him. Grimshaw sa
id he was feeling a bit peckish right now and could he have one, a cheese would be nice if he had cheese, failing that a ham, but Cleaver pretended he hadn’t heard him.)

  The moment the VAST raiding party had entered the factory Cleaver had quietly detached himself and made his way to the warehouse. He had made up his mind beforehand that the warehouse, where presumably any stock would be held, would be his target. Wasting no time when he arrived there he slipped off the haversack, removed the bottles of petrol and sprinkled the contents on the ground immediately in front of the building. Seconds later he lit a match and threw it on the petrol-soaked ground.

  Back in the Mixing Department Pugh answered his mobile. “Fire!” screamed Wainwright down the phone. “Fire! He’s set the bloody warehouse on fire!”

  “Bastards!” screamed Pugh. “The fucking bastards!”

  He grabbed the handle of the door and wrenched it open. Arbuckle, his hand still gripping the handle on the other side, came stumbling in with it. Behind him the raiding party saw Pugh and the heavies with the baseball bats. Seal wondered what they were doing there, but guessed it wasn’t because they were going to have a game of baseball. The rest of the raiding party didn’t have a clue.

  Pugh didn’t leave them in any doubt. He flung an arm in their direction. “Get the bastards! I want to see some fucking heads broken!”

  The twelve heavies burst out of the Mixing Department wielding their baseball bats.

  “Oh dear,” said Willoughby.

  “Bloody hell, I didn’t sign up for this,” said Grimshaw.

  “Our Father, which art in heaven....” said Flannery

  “Go for their joculars!” said Khan, raising his hook high and making for the nearest heavy.

  “I’m an ex-policeman,” said Seal, holding up a hand as though he were stopping traffic.

  “You’re a twat,” said Pugh, and kicked him. He turned his attention to Arbuckle, pointed a finger at him and pushed one of the heavies towards him. “Get that double-crossing little bastard first. Get him good and proper.”