‘Leave that to Won Lungh, he cleans the house,’ said Adele.
‘Oh, that’s okay. It’s … er … it’s … an old family heirloom, that’s why I like to do it myself … yes … family heirloom, that’s what it is.’
‘Well okay, suit yourself.’ Men must be allowed to have their own little ways, she supposed. As long as they don’t go mad and chew the furniture, then there’s no harm.
Cobb took his coat off and rolled up his sleeves. Removing the oil lamp and the ornaments he set to work.
All that day and the next he laboured on the table, polishing and re-polishing it until by the end of the second day it shone like glass. As a test he placed a small, lace doily at one end. Leaning down he blew on it gently, it skimmed along the length of the table and floated gently to the floor. Perfect, he thought.
‘You’re going to Swanwick tomorrow?’ he asked Adele.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed.
Fine, he thought, that will do.
***
The next day he waved off Adele and Won Lungh as they left in a cab to catch the train to Swanwick. He came back into the house and closed the front door behind him. Right, time to begin.
He went out into the back yard and had a look in his shed. Hanging on the wall was a large tin bath. He unhooked it from the wall and placed it carefully outside the drawing room window. He filled this up with water from the kitchen tap, using a bucket. The water was unheated and as it was winter, it would get very cold if left to stand for a few hours.
Cobb went back into the house and began to go from room to room. Once he had checked that Lucifer was not in the room, he withdrew, closing the door behind him, all except for the drawing room. Pretty soon, there was nowhere in the house for the cat to go but the hallway and the drawing room.
Back in the drawing room, he removed the oil lamp and the ornaments and dragged the table round until its length was pointing directly at the window. However, he left the cover over it so that Lucifer could walk on it without slipping.
He placed Lucifer’s favourite chair at the head of the table, at the opposite end to the window. It was a high back chair with arms and Cobb blocked off the gaps under the arms with cushions. Basically it only left one way out of the chair, onto the table.
He went around the room and spread newspapers over the other chairs and the sofa, leaving only the chair at the table free. Then he cleared a space on the sofa, sat down, picked up a book and settled down to wait.
About an hour later, Cobb heard the cat flap rattle as Lucifer entered the house, back from his daily patrol of the neighbourhood. Cobb slid open the drawing room window and sat back down on the sofa. Lucifer sauntered arrogantly into the room and sneered at Cobb. Cobb ignored him and carried on reading his book. The cat wandered around the room, sniffing his domain to make sure that no one had tried to supplant him in his absence, he didn’t trust Cobb.
Finally, Lucifer tired of his inspection and leapt onto the table from where he climbed into the chair. Without making a fuss and alarming Lucifer, Cobb gently slid the cover off the table. Then he sat back down and continued reading his book, waiting patiently for the cat to settle down.
Within minutes, in that strange way that animals have of being able to go to sleep almost instantly, Lucifer was asleep and snoring gently. Cobb carefully put down his book and removed a paper bag from his pocket. He opened it up and then screwed the mouth of the bag closed, leaving only a small hole. Without making a sound, Cobb rose and made his way across the room until he was standing behind the chair.
Cobb blew into the bag and then squeezed the neck tight. Opening his hands wide he quickly brought them together. BANG! The bag popped and Lucifer jumped up, eyes wide. With nowhere else to go, he leapt forward onto the table. As his paws hit the table they began to slide. Feet scrambling madly, going in all directions, all he succeeded in doing was to turn himself around so he was facing Cobb as he slid backwards.
It was like a drunken cat trying to learn to skate on steep ice; he slid backwards along the gleaming table until with a wail, he shot out of the open window. Cobb dashed to the window just in time to hear the SPLASH! as Lucifer hit the tin bath full of cold water.
With a scream of fury, Lucifer shot straight up into the air. As he passed the window on the way up, he saw Cobb standing there, arms folded, with a big grin on his face. But Lucifer had merely reacted automatically to the shock without giving it any thought and had jumped straight up into the air and, gravity being what it is, it meant that he had to go straight down again.
He reached the height of his leap, only to see Cobb, with an even bigger grin on his face, as he fell back down again. SPLASH! Self-preservation instinct overtook his natural reactions and this time he shot out of the bath at an angle and took off down the garden, howling furiously.
That will do nicely, thought Cobb, as he rubbed his hands together with satisfaction.
THE END
Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank my family and friends for reading this book and pointing out my mistakes. (And they wonder why they don’t get Christmas cards anymore.)
Finally, I would like to thank Halle Berry for … well, actually … just being Halle Berry.
The Speed of Dark
Tony Rattigan
The Author’s Cut
Alternate ending, three deleted scenes and seventeen new jokes.
Book Three of The Londum Series
Copyright © Antony Rattigan 2005
All rights reserved
It’s a pretty risky thing to travel to another Universe and rescue someone that you don’t even like and generally isn’t a recommended course of action.
However, against his better judgement, Rufus Cobb is persuaded to do so by a beautiful woman. (Women eh?) Little does he know what he’s letting himself in for.
Before he’s finished, he will find himself fulfilling someone’s centuries old prophecy in an oppressed country, which may seem somewhat familiar. Captured by the Black Guard and subjected to the Castilian Questioning by the Grand Questioner himself, Torquelauda, Cobb is responsible for igniting a revolution that will lead to the freedom of all Angleland. (Where? I hear you ask. Well, read the book and find out.)
And as if that wasn’t enough, having a showdown with the Gods themselves is enough to keep anyone on their toes. And talking of toes … did I mention the one-legged man?
It’s all in here … Love, Death, Sex, Violence, Destiny … and many other words!
What others have said about this book …
‘Excellent book by an up and coming new author. Full of rich characterisation and intriguing plotting.’ - The Gosport Evening Gazette.
‘I couldn’t disagree more with The Gosport Evening Gazette book reviewer. The book was trite and uninteresting. A rehash of other books, containing nothing original. A cheapo version of Harry Potter.’ - The Gosport Herald.
‘Well … The Gosport Herald book reviewer should take a more adult look at the books she is reviewing. There is actually more to life than books on “How To Re-Energize Your Life By Buying More Shoes!” and “Slimming Down … Doing Away With The Unnecessary People In Your Life!”‘ - The Gosport Evening Gazette.
‘The Gosport Evening Gazette book reviewer is doing what he always does, belittling a woman’s needs because he doesn’t understand them. All I ever asked for was to be treated as an equal. And another thing, the Royal Doulton tea set was a wedding present from my Mother. I want it back!’ - The Gosport Herald.
‘The Gosport Herald book reviewer is going off into another of her flights of fancy. No doubt put up to it by her Solicitor at my expense. She is totally overlooking the fact that I gave up being the sports reporter and took up this poncey job of book reviewing just to please her! By the way, the tea set was a present to both of us! Maybe we should just sell it and split the proceeds. - The Gosport Evening Gazette.
‘You Son of a (deleted)! Do you want me to come round there and give you a fat li
p?’ The Gosport Herald.
‘How, the same way you got yours? With Botox injections? Ha Ha!’ - The Gosport Evening Gazette.
The Editor. ‘Both of the reviewers should re-think their current attitudes towards their profession. They are supposed to be unbiased journalists but have allowed their personal feelings to get in the way of their professional objectivity.
‘Incidentally, how much are you asking for the Royal Doulton tea set?’
The Publisher. ‘Okay, that’s it. Everyone stop talking, right now! The lawyers will be in touch with everyone concerned, shortly.’
‘A hat is a hat, and a
man has a wooden eye!’
Old South Afreekan proverb
Prologue
The Universe they say began with a word, and the word was … BANG!!
And in that moment the Universe and all that it contained … Space, Time, Matter, all that would go on to become everything in Existence, was created. Then … a split second later, there was another … BANG!!
(Typical… it’s like buses isn’t it? You wait billions of years for a Big Bang to come along … and then two come at once.)
But I digress. First there was a Big Bang, which created the Universe and then a second Bang that split that Universe into numerous other Universes, a Multiverse, all very similar but not exactly identical to each other.
It’s like holding up a cut glass crystal bowl and looking at your numerous reflections. Because of the angles they show the same object … you … but none of the images are the same as each other. That is what the Multiverse is like. Many, many streams of parallel lanes of existence, some so alike that if you browsed from one to the next you could perhaps be fooled into thinking that they were all the same.
Until that is, you notice that in one Universe all the bananas are blue. In the next, everyone speaks Swedish and then in another Universe … Oh My God! There are dinosaurs running around and they’ve got really big teeth!!
Well … you get the picture.
The ones next to each other are usually quite similar but the further you go away from your starting point, the more and more changes you see, until it becomes totally unrecognisable.
And then there’s also the fact that the people, wars, inventions etc. that shaped your Universe may not have happened in those other Universes. So it’s possible that the flow of history that you are familiar with didn’t happen in quite the same way in those other Universes, or vice versa. (Aren’t you glad you aren’t all speaking Swedish?)
The reason for the second Big Bang was that a man called Rufus Cobb jumped back through time to the very beginning of it all, carrying a piece of the original Dark Matter that had exploded and created the original Universe and the Space Time Continuum contained within it.
Yes … a mere human like you or me (well, me anyway … for all I know, you speak Swedish) caused the second explosion. And why/how did he do this? Well you’re going to have to read Split Infinity, the stunning debut novel by exciting new author Tony Rattigan to find that out, aren’t you?
Anyway, back to the exploding, Big Bang, Multiverse thingy. What happened next? I hear you ask. Well, once all the noise and the dust had died down, it all went quiet for a time. And then, for the first time in this Multiverse, out of the darkness came a voice …
‘Erm … hello …?’
‘Hello? Anyone there …?’
Silence was the only reply.
Then the owner of the voice said, ‘Oh dear, this isn’t good. I’m going to have to do something about this.’
So, he thought for a long, long time, and he made plans and he calculated … er … calculations. He would have to create something to fill the empty void that at present contained only him. But there had never been anything like this before, there were no points of reference for him, he would have to design it all from scratch. It would have to consist of many, many different parts that would all fit together like a jigsaw, to make a coherent whole.
There were so many things to consider, so many things to calculate, the effect that each little thing would have on every other little thing. Then, once he had designed his creation, he had to plan how it would grow and evolve over time. Then finally, when all the planning had been done and all the calculations had been made, there remained only one thing left to do … put it into practice and see if it would work.
Finally, the time had come.
The time to see if all his planning and his careful design would work.
This was it …
So, The Creator said, ‘Let there be Light …!’
And there was Light and it was good and he saw the Light and called it “Day”.
And the Creator saw the Dark and called it … “Swindon”.
Then he had a rethink and said, ‘Let’s call the Darkness “Night” … best not warn them about Swindon … let them find out for themselves.’ (See Footnote.)
And the rest, as they say, is history.
So that’s how it all came to be. Your Universe, my Universe.
We’re going to take a look at one of those Universes now, the one where Rufus Cobb comes from (remember him? He’s the one responsible for all this.) In fact, we’re going to drop in on him now and see how he is doing.
Footnote.
Swindon is a large town in Wiltshire, England, composed entirely of roundabouts. Everywhere two or more roads meet, they have built a roundabout. Some attribute this to mystical reasons ((Some say, ‘Those roundabouts are the Devil’s Acne!’)). These blemishes on the face of otherwise innocent and harmless roads culminate in the abomination known locally ((interestingly enough)) as “The Magic Roundabout”, a series of five roundabouts laid out in a circle.
These roundabouts interconnect in such a way that the exit lane from one roundabout is also the entry lane to the next roundabout, so it is virtually impossible to tell if you have the right of way, or should give way to oncoming traffic. It is the sort of devilish construct that can only be safely navigated by the type of person who plays Soduku.
Just to give you another idea of what Swindon is like, it was recently twinned with Disney World. Says it all really, doesn’t it?
The Limping Man
Rufus Cobb was having one of those days.
You know … one of those days.
You know the ones, the sort of day where you just want to go home and be cruel to a small animal.
One of those days, where no matter how tightly you button up your collar, the rain still manages to get down your neck. That’s what was happening to Cobb now. He was wandering around Spitalfields market getting damper and damper.
And what is more, his boots were hurting him. He was breaking in a new pair of boots and they were still in that period where the leather was stiff and inflexible. That part across the top of the boot where it creased when you crouched down, was making his feet sore and the top of the boot was rubbing his leg. He was looking forward eagerly to that moment when one morning you didn’t notice them anymore, they just fitted perfectly.
Why do I do it? he asked himself, Why do I tramp around in the rain, asking stupid questions? but he already knew the answer to that. He loved a good mystery. That was why he became a policeman at first and then a private detective. He could never resist the opportunity to find out why something was the way it was. Of course he had to pass most of the time in low-level enquiries like this one but every once in a while …
Cobb had been hired by the law firm of Sewem, Grabbit and Runne, to find a man with a heavy limp who had been witness to an accident nearby and had been seen limping off into Spitalfields Market. One of the parties of the accident had employed the law firm to represent them and they in turn had hired Cobb to find the man and get a statement from him exonerating their client.
Cobb was getting exasperated looking for the man in and around Spitalfields Market, he had been at it for two days now.
(In olden times, this was where they had grown fields of Spital. No, I don’t know what it is
either … but whatever it is, this is where they grew it, all right?)
He was getting tired of asking the same questions over and over and getting the same replies. He went to yet another trader and asked him, ‘Have you a seen a man around here with a pronounced limp?’
‘Pronounced limp?’
Cobb was bored with the same response to the same question and sarcastically replied, ‘Yes, l-i-m-p … pronounced limp.’
‘No, I ain’t seen no one like that around.’
As well as being wet, Cobb was also getting hungry. He looked around for somewhere to eat. There were plenty of mobile stalls around selling all kinds of fast food but Cobb never ate from any of those. He had learnt his lesson on the streets, walking the beat as a young bobby.
Never eat at a restaurant that has a handbrake.
Never buy food from any place that won’t be there next morning.
That only left the café. It looked a bit of a dive, never mind a “greasy spoon” café, this was a “lube job on a full set of cutlery” café, but at least it was stationary.
Cobb entered the cafe and took a seat at the counter. He ordered a couple of fried egg sandwiches as he figured they couldn’t mix anything foreign into an egg like they could with sausage meat or a pie and they couldn’t mess up bread and butter too much.
The Londum Omnibus Volume One (The Londum Series Book 4) Page 48