The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

9

For those who are unacquainted with the career of Little Boy Blue subsequent to his period of employment as a somnambulant shepherd, a period notable only for his inactivity, exemplified by his famous haystack slumberings, which permitted his untended sheep to carouse in the meadows whilst his cows laid pats amongst the corn; a brief history follows.

According to his best-selling autobiography, I May be Blue, but I'm Always in the Black, his rags-to-riches rise was an overnight affair, with his self-penned rhyme going straight into the charts at Number One, toppling Mary Mary, who had held the position for fourteen consecutive weeks.

This is not altogether true, firstly because Mary Mary did not achieve her own fame until several years later, and secondly because Boy Blue did not write his own lyrics.

They were the work of a professional rhymester by the name of Wheatley Porterman, whose distinctive lyrical style can be discerned in several other 'self-penned' classics of the genre, Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie and There was an old woman who lived in a shoe (the house version), to name but two.

Wheatley Porterman's gift was for identifying social problems, which he set in verse that touched the public's imagination, in the case of Boy Blue, the scandal of child labour in rural areas which drove underage shepherds to exhaustion.

With Georgie Porgie, it was sexual harassment in the playground, by teachers against schoolgirls, Porgie being an overweight geography teacher whose notorious behaviour had previously gone unreported, due to his connections in high places.

Regarding There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, Wheatley's finger was once more unerringly upon the button of the public conscience. Whether there actually was an old woman who lived in a shoe and had so many children that she didn't know what to do remains in some doubt. Wheatley asserted that she was allegorical: a cipher, or symbol, for the hideous overcrowding in certain inner city areas.

A consultation with the curator of Tlie Hall of Nearly All the Records discloses that the rhyme is registered as the 'exclusive property of Old Woman Inc.', the chairman and sole shareholder in Old Woman Inc. being one W. Porter-man, Esq.

But be this all as it may (and well may it all be too), Little Boy Blue, either in partnership with Wheatley, or under contract to him, claimed to have written the rhyme himself. And a world which didn't care much either way, but appreciated celebrity for the sake of celebrity alone, took his claims at face value.

Within weeks of sleeping rough beneath haystacks and smelling strongly of sheep dung, the Boy had made it to the big time. His trademark shepherd's smock, now blue silk, with pearls upon the cuffs, was adopted as the fashion look of the year (blue, as ever, being the new black, when some other colour isn't having its turn).

His establishment of an exclusive haute couture fashion house, Oh Boy!, was inevitable. In less time, it seemed, than it took to shake a crook at a scurrying lamb, Boy Blue found himself lionised by the cream of Toy City Society. Facsimiles of his famous portrait, The Blue Boy, still hang in many homes.

And in Toy City, blue is still the new black.

All of the foregoing Eddie passed on to Jack as Jack passed through the streets of Toy City — rather more speedily than Eddie cared for.

'Fashion House, eh?' said Jack, swerving, to Eddie's relief, around a number of teddies who were crossing the road. 'The fashion in my town was for grey overalls. That's all the workers ever wore. And as all the townsfolk were workers, that's all anyone ever wore.'

'You weren't wearing grey overalls when I met you,' Eddie observed.

Jack laughed. 'I traded them in at a farm I passed by, in exchange for a new set of clothes, although the cap was somewhat inferior. The farmer was convinced that grey overalls must be the very height of town fashion, seeing as all the town dwellers he'd ever met wore them.'

'This wasn't the same farmer whose ear you shot off?'

'That was an accident. But no, that wasn't him.'

'Hey, look,' said Eddie. 'Up ahead. Stop the car here, Jack.'

Jack looked up ahead and then he stopped the car. Up ahead was blocked by a heavy police presence. A cordon stretched across the road. Laughing policemen held back a crowd of on-looking toys, a crowd that cooed and rny-oh-my'd and peered up at the facade of Oh Boy!.

'Policemen?' Jack asked. 'They look very jolly.'

'Don't be fooled by that,' said Eddie. 'They won't bother you, if you do exactly as I tell you.' And Eddie went on to explain to Jack exactly what he was to do.

And Jack, having listened, smiled broadly. 'And I will actually get away with doing thatT he asked.

'You certainly will,' said Eddie. 'And the more you do it, the more you'll get away with it.'

'Right then,' said Jack. 'And what will you be doing, while I'm doing what I'll be doing?'

Til be doing my job,' said Eddie. 'Examining the crime scene for clues.'

'Okay, then. Let's get on with it.'

The fjujade of Oh Boy! was something in itself. It was a triumph. A triumph of bad taste.

Why it is that bad taste always triumphs over good is one of those things that scholars love to debate, when they don't have anything better to do, such as getting a life and a girlfriend.

Is there actually such a thing as 'good taste'? they debate. Or 'Is it all not merely subjective?'

Well, of course there is such a thing as good taste! Some things actually are better than other things, and some people are capable of making the distinction.

But...

Bad taste will always ultimately triumph over good taste, because bad taste has more financial backing. There is far more profit to be made from selling cheap and nasty products, at a big mark-up, than selling quality items at a small mark-up. And you can always produce far more cheap and nasty items far more quickly than you can produce quality items. Far more.

And, as every successful dictator knows, it's far easier to convince a thousand people en masse of a bad idea, than it is to convince a single individual. It's a herd thing.

Or a flock thing.

Flocks are controlled by a single shepherd.

Like Little Boy Blue, for instance.

Peering over the low heads of the toy folk and the higher heads of the policemen, Jack stared up at the facade of Oh Boy!. It was a regular eyesore: big and brash and in-your-face gaudy, smothered in flashing neon that brought up the outline of a leaping lamb here and a snorting shepherd there, in less-than-modest many-times-life-size which simply screamed 'Success!'

'Very tasteful,' said Jack.

'It's as foul as,' said Eddie. 'You've no taste, Jack.'

'Oh yes I have,' said Jack. 'My taste is for wealth. And if this is the taste of the wealthy, it's tasteful enough for me.'

'Curiously, I can't argue with that,' said Eddie. 'Go on then, Jack, do your stuff.'

'Okey dokey.' Jack raised his chin, puffed out his chest, straightened the ruffles on his cuffs, dusted down his quilted lapels and then swaggered forward, shouting, 'Make way, peasants,' in a loud and haughty tone.

Toy folk turned and stared. Those who had faces capable of expression glared somewhat too. But they cowered back and cleared a path before the tall and well-dressed swaggering shouter.

'That's it, out of my way.’ Jack swaggered onwards, with Eddie following behind.

Policemen loomed, big and blue and jolly, but clearly now to Jack no laughing matter at all. There was something all too menacing about the way they curled their smiling rubber lips towards the shouting swaggerer and fingered their over-large truncheons.

Jack swallowed back the lump which had suddenly risen in his throat. 'Stand aside there,' he told them. 'I am a patron of this establishment. Step aside lively, oafs. Go on now.'

Officer Chortle, for as chance would have it, it was he, stared at Jack eye to eye. 'What do you want?' he asked, in the tone known as surly. Though naturally he smiled as he asked it.

'You dare to question me? Jack made the face of one appalled. 'I'll report you to your superior. What is your name?'

'Name?' went the officer, scratching his head with his truncheon.

'Name,' said Jack, in an even haughtier tone.

'Chortle,' said Chortle. 'Special Constable. My name is on my back. That's how special I am.'

'Move your stupid rubber arse,' said Jack.

Eddie grinned behind Jack's back. How dearly he would have liked to have said that to a policeman.

The Special Constable stood aside. His jolly face contorted into a hideous scowl.

Jack swaggered up the steps and through the great open doorway and into Oh Boy!.

Now, if it was tasteless on the outside, what would you really expect within? Jack did whistlings from between his teeth. 'This is really swank,' he said to Eddie. The bear peered all around and about.

'It's certainly something,' he said.

The Grand Salon of Oh Boy! was a monument to just how far you could truly go if you had more money than taste. The furnishings were of gold and gilt, with settees that dripped tassels and fringes. A central fountain was composed of countless naked pink marble cherubs which sprinkled scented water from their privy parts. The similarly pink marble floor was strewn with pinkly-dyed sheepskin rugs, their stuffed heads showing emerald eyes. The walls were hung with numerous oil paintings of the Blue Boy himself, posed in the most surprising positions.

There were many policemen around and about. Some were coming and others were going. Most, however, were just standing around, laughing, but looking rather lost. Some were touching things that they shouldn't. A voice called out loudly to one of these: 'Don't touch that, you cretin.' It was the voice of Chief Inspector Wellington Bellis. Eddie recognised this voice.

Eddie ducked behind Jack. 'That's Bellis,' said Eddie. 'He's the Chief Inspector. Keep him talking for as long as you can, while I give the crime scene a once-over. I'll meet you back at the car.'

'Right,' said Jack. 'I say, you\ Yes, you there with the perished head. Who are you?'

Bellis glanced bitterly in Jack's direction. 'And who are youT he said.

'And that's quite enough of that.' Jack made his way towards Bellis. 'I've already had to upbraid one of your dullard constables for his impertinence. I'm a patron of this establishment. A personal friend of Boy Blue. What is going on here?'

'Oh, my apologies, sir.' There was a certain tone in that sir, a tone that wasn't lost upon Jack. 'There has been an incident.'

'Incident?' said Jack.

'Homicide,' said Bellis. 'I regret to tell you that Boy Blue is dead.'

'Dead? Dead?' Jack put his hands to his face, which made the expression of horror. 'Boy Blue, my dearest friend? Mow did this happen?'

'Perhaps you'd care to view the body?' There was now a different tone in the Chief Inspector's voice. A tone of malice, perhaps.

'Well,' said Jack, feigning immoderate distress, 'I don't know, I mean, well, is it messy?'

'I wouldn't exactly describe it as messy.' Bellis glanced down and Jack followed the direction of Bellis's glancing. A silken sheet covered a huddled something. The body of Boy Blue, Jack supposed. 'Go on, have a peep,' said Bellis.

'My dearest friend.’ Jack made snivelling sounds. 'I mean, I don't know. If such a terrible thing has happened, such a shock, I don't know. I should, perhaps, pay my respects. Oh, I really don't know.'

'Have a little look,' said Bellis, a big wide smile upon his rubber face. 'Pay your last respects.'

'Well,' said Jack. 'Perhaps just a little look.'

'Officer,' said Bellis to one of the officers who was touching things that he shouldn't. 'Kindly lift the sheet and show the nice gentleman the deceased.'

'Yes sir, chief The officer smirked, stooped and whipped away the sheet with a flourish.

Jack stared down and his eyes grew wide and his mouth fell hugely open. And then Jack crossed his legs and he said, 'Ouch.'

'Ouch would be about right,' agreed Bellis. 'You might recognise the murder weapon. It's his crook. His original crook, from the days when he was a humble shepherd. It was kept in the showcase by the door. It would appear that he was bending over, tying his shoelace. We think someone took the crook, then ran at him, using the bottom end as a spear. It entered his own bottom end, and left via his mouth. Much in the manner that one might spit a pig for a barbecue.'

Jack nodded his head and chewed upon his lower lip. The manner of the murder was, to say the least, grotesque. The problem with it was - and Jack, for all he could do, was now finding this a real problem - the problem with it was that, in the darkest way possible, it was also very funny indeed.

Jack looked over at Bellis.

The moulded smile upon Bellis's face was spreading up towards his ears.

'Right up the old farting box,' said Bellis, restraining a titter.

'How dare you!' said Jack. 'This is no laughing matter. My dear friend. My...' Jack chewed harder upon his lip and told himself that this wasn't funny. It wasn't. This was a dead man here. It wasn't funny!

'Sorry,' said Bellis. He let free a giggle, then controlled himself once more. 'Cover him up again, officer.'

The officer, still smirking, stooped once more and recovered the corpse.

'Terrible business,' said Bellis, with as much solemnity as he could muster up.

'Terrible business,’ Jack agreed.

'Terrible business,' said Eddie, when Jack returned to the car to find him waiting there. 'Most unprofessional.'

'But I was rude,' said Jack, settling himself back behind the driving wheel. 'You said that I should be as rude and obnoxious as possible. Act like a rich man, you said. Behave badly.'

'I mean about the laughing,' said Eddie. ' "Terrible business" you said to Bellis and then the two of you collapsed in laughter.'

'It was nerves,' said Jack.

'It wasn't. You thought it was funny.'

'I'm sorry,' said Jack. 'But it was.'

'You wouldn't have thought it so funny if it had happened to you.'

'Well, obviously not. Other people's misfortunes are far funnier than your own.'

'It's not funny,' said Eddie, shaking his head as he said it. 'Well, perhaps it is, a little. But that's not the point. It's another murder and that isn't funny.'

'Well, it's really nothing to do with us. We're supposed to be investigating the murder of Humpty Dumpty. That's what Bill got the money for.'

'You don't think that perhaps these two murders might be in some way connected?'

Jack shrugged. 'How should I know? This is the big city. How many murders do you get here in a week?'

'On average?' said Eddie. 'None.'

'None?' said Jack.

'None,' said Eddie. 'Humpty's murder was the first ever murder of a meathead. Which is why, in my opinion, the newspapers are covering it up, spreading the suicide rumour to avoid panicking the population. Certainly toys are forever getting into fights and pulling each other to pieces. But that doesn't count as murder and doesn't merit a police investigation. This is men who are being killed, Jack. The old rich. This is serious stuff.'

'So you're thinking... What are you thinking?'

'I'm thinking,' said Eddie, 'that it's the same murderer. I'm thinking that Toy City has a serial killer on the loose.'