The Witches of Chiswick

16

“Well,” said Barry. “Thanks be to me for getting you out of that spot of bother unscathed.”

“I’m not talking to you,” said Will. “And you’re not staying in my head.”

“Pardon me, sir,” said the gentleman behind the counter of Asprey, as he viewed the somewhat bedraggled figure that stood before him. The gentleman behind the counter was not truly a gentleman. He was an automaton, although not a scary black-eyed, evil-smelling grim satanic automaton. He was an elegant well-spoken upmarket model: a Babbage 1900 series. “Pardon me, sir,” he said once again.

“Nothing,” said Will. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

“As you please, sir. So what is it that you require?”

“A pencil,” said Will. “A really sharp one.”

Asprey was a wonderful shop, is a wonderful shop and hopefully will always be a wonderful shop. Asprey is set in the heart of Mayfair, a glorious emporium where are to be found porcelain and silverwares, antique books and travelling cases, china and crystal, guns, games and goblets; and a range of stylish automata on the first floor. Everything is beautiful at Asprey, especially the pencils.

“Certainly sir,” said the liveried gentleman’s gentleman.

“Now hold on, chief,” said Barry. “What do you need a pencil for?”

“I’m going to stick it in my ear and winkle you out.”

“Pardon me, sir?”

“Not you,” said Will. “Just sell me the pencil, please.”

“And sir wishes to poke it into sir’s ear?”

“I’ve a foreign object lodged in there.”

“Then perhaps sir should see a surgeon, rather than risk serious injury.”

“Just sell me the damned pencil.” Will made a very fierce face.

“As you wish, sir. Would you care to have it wrapped?”

Will made an even fiercer face.

“He’s right, though, chief,” said Barry. “You will injure yourself. Can’t we just talk this over, sprout to man, as it were?”

“No,” said Will. “You tricked me. You’re some kind of evil parasite.”

“Well really sir. There’s no need for that.”

“I’m not talking to you!”

Well-dressed patrons raised their noses and muttered “disgraceful” and “commoner”.

“And you lot can mind your own business.” Will was now most unsteady on his feet. He raised and shook a feeble fist.

“Forget the pencil, chief,” said Barry. “You don’t even have enough cash on you to pay for it. Or perhaps you were thinking to charge it to Mr Rune’s account.”

“Actually I was,” said Will.

“But Mr Rune’s dead, chief. What you really need is a bit of peace and quiet. Why don’t we hock a pair of Mr Rune’s cufflinks and check into the Dorchester?”

“What?” went Will.

“Here we go with the ‘whats’ again. Time goes slipping by and if you really want to avenge Mr Rune’s death you really should be concentrating on the job in hand.”

“I don’t feel at all well,” said Will.

“Take a nap then, chief. Leave it to me.”

Will almost said, “what?” once more.

But he didn’t. Instead he just fainted dead away.

He later awoke to find himself lying on a most comfortable Regency rosewood bed in a private suite at the Dorchester.

It was an elegant suite, elegantly furnished, with a carpet of William Morris design, a George III satinwood dresser, a Louis XVI mahogany desk, a French ebonised and Boulle breakfront side cabinet, with brass mouldings, and gadrooned plinth, whatever that may be; and a settee and chairs in the style of Thomas Hope, whoever he may be.

And then Will did say “what” once again.

“What am I doing here?” he said, and, “How did I get here?”

“Ah, we’re back in the land of the living are we?” The voice of Barry was once more in the head of Will.

Will made dismal groaning sounds.

“But no more cheerful I perceive,” Barry chuckled. “For your information, I sort of animated you while you were out cold. Hocked the cufflinks and the rings, opened a bank account and deposited the money in Coutts’, then got you to book yourself in here. What a nice chap I am, eh?”

“What?” Will’s eyes were now very wide. “You animated me? Like a zombie?”

“Hardly that, chief. Well, a bit like that, I suppose. You will find that your knees are a bit grazed. It took me quite some time to get all your odds and bods coordinating properly. I’m afraid I bumped you into a doorpost or two. But I got the hang of it in the end.”

“This is a nightmare” Will began to weep.

“Oh I don’t know, chief. I think it’s a pretty nice room. And it’s got a bath. And frankly you need a bath. You’re definitely a bit niffy. What with all the excitement and underarm roll-on deodorants not being invented yet. And everything.”

“I can’t go on.” Will drummed his fists on the scented bed linen.

“Then have another kip and I’ll take care of your bathing.”

“No you damned well won’t.”

“The ingratitude of some people.”

“Please get out of my head.”

“I’m sorry, chief. I told you, I can’t. But I can help you. And I will. We’re one now. Your problems are my problems, so to speak. And I’ll help you avenge Mr Rune’s death and get you back to your own time. That’s a pretty good deal, isn’t it?”

“If it’s true,” Will blubbered.

“It is true. And I’ve already got you started. Although you weren’t aware of it, you called in at a cartographer’s shop, a gentleman’s outfitters and a purveyor of pistolry on your way here.”

Will shook his miserable head and asked, “Why?”

“You’ll be wanting a map of the Whitechapel area, new clothes and a gun. I was just doing what you’d naturally have chosen to do for yourself.”

“Oh,” said Will. “Well, naturally, yes.”

“And you had dinner, because you were hungry. All meat, I hasten to add. I personally find the concept of eating vegetables positively obscene, don’t you, chief?”

“Well,” said Will.

“I knew you’d agree. So, after you’ve had your bath, we can get started. What do you say?”

“Would you mind coming out of my ear while I have my bath?”

“Oh I see. You’re a bit embarrassed about me being in your head and looking through your eyes and seeing your private bits.”

“Actually I am.”

“Well forget it, I’ve already seen them. And so has the young woman you picked up after dinner last night.”

“What?”

“Well, I wanted to know what, um, doing it as a human being felt like. You and I really enjoyed it, although naturally you won’t remember that you did.”

“No!” and Will wailed some more and went, “No,” and “No,” again and again and again.

“But look on the bright side, chief. Your bits are no mystery to me, so you can have your bath without worrying about that.”

And eventually Will did have his bath. He lay in the warm and scented water, reading a copy of The Times newspaper. And as it was the first that he’d taken in quite some time, and as Barry had seen his bits before and everything, Will really enjoyed that bath. He lay and he soaked and he read the newspaper and life didn’t seem too bad.

“So, what’s the plan?” Barry asked. “To apprehend Saucy Jack. What do you have in mind?”

“Ah,” said Will laying aside his newspaper, which was growing rather soggy about its bottom regions. “Well.”

“Not really anything then.”

Will sponged at himself. “You tell me,” he said. “You seem to know everything about everything. And you know something about this Jack the Ripper business, don’t you?”

“I know some, chief. Which was why I told you that you really wouldn’t want to get involved.”

“So, what do you know?”

“He kills people, chief. Carves them up something wicked.”

“And that’s all you know?”

“You don’t pick up too much about current affairs when you’re locked in a box at the bottom of a steamer trunk.”

Will rose from his bath, climbed out and wandered dripping in search of a towel.

“Why were you in the box?” he asked Barry. “Why weren’t you inside Mr Rune’s head?”

“Mr Rune and I had a bit of a falling out. He made rather a lot of demands. A very single-minded fellow, Mr Rune.”

Will said no more, found towels and dried himself.

And then he flung the towels down onto the carpet of William Morris design and his naked self into an armchair.

“Look at me,” he said to Barry. “You’re in there, peering out of my eyes. Look at me and tell me what you see.”

“About your bits, chief?”

“No! Not my bits! About me!”

“Well, chief, I see what you see. A long skinny boy, healthy enough, but a bit sallow-complexioned. Probably from your late-night exertions. But a nice enough lad, if perhaps a bit—”

“A bit what?”

“A bit lost, chief.”

“Yes,” Will sighed. “A bit lost is right. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m caught up in something that I don’t understand. If this were a book or a movie, the critics would tear it to pieces, saying that the hero was two-dimensional and the entire sorry business unconvincing and totally plot-led.”

“That’s a bit harsh, chief. You didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

“Exactly, and I should have a choice. I should be doing something. Making something happen. I don’t even think I know who I am any more.”

“Tell me about it,” said Barry.

“Well—” said Will.

“No,” said Barry. “I meant that rhetorically. I know exactly what you mean. It’s just the same for me.”

“Yeah, right,” said Will.

“No, chief, listen. Let me tell you all about myself.”

“It will help, will it?”

“Bound to,” said Barry. “When you’ve got troubles, there’s nothing better than having someone else tell you all about theirs.”

“I don’t believe that,” Will hunched his shoulders. “But go on, say your piece. Tell me what you really are.”

“I’m a sprout,” said Barry.

Will sighed.

“A Holy Guardian sprout.”

“A what?”

“It’s like this, chief. When God created the universe, He did it on what he called the ‘just enough of everything to go around principle’. Personally I think it was more of a theory than a principle, but God knows His own business best. His principle was that there’d be just enough of everything. Enough stars to fill the sky, enough air for people to breathe. Enough water to fill up the sea, that sort of thing.”

“I don’t believe in God,” said Will.

“And just enough doubt in mankind’s mind to always keep them guessing. But God has never really been what you’d call a forward planner. He gets stuff started, then He sort of loses interest and goes off with one foot in the air and one hand behind His back and does something else.”

“Why with one foot in the air and one hand behind His back?”

“He moves in mysterious ways,” said Barry. “I thought everyone knew that.”

Will sighed once more and shook his head.

“So things sort of carry on without Him and they tend to get a tad messed up. Which is one reason that the world is always in such a mess. It started off okay, back in Old Testament times, when He had His finger on the trigger and was on chatting terms with the prophets. You see, in those days everyone had their own personal Holy Guardian Angel to try and keep them on the straight and narrow and it worked for the most part. But the population of the Earth grew and grew until demand outstripped supply and there just weren’t enough Holy Guardian Angels to go around. Which is how come chaps like me got involved.”

Will sighed once more and once more he shook his head.

“God started rooting around for more Holy Guardian Angels, but you can’t just keep creating endless lines of them. So He dug into His garden and began dishing out His vegetables instead. So one person might get a Holy Guardian courgette and another a Holy Guardian turnip.”

“When I do get you out of my head,” said Will, “I’ll have to decide whether I am going to boil or roast you.”

“Chief, I’m trying to tell you all of the truth.”

“Well pardon me,” said Will, “but I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Then you’d prefer a scientific explanation?”

“Yes,” said Will. “I would.”

“Then try this for size. I am a Time Sprout from the planet Phnaargos.”

“You told me that before and I didn’t believe it then.”

Barry now sighed, but he didn’t shake his head. “I come from the future,” he said. “Not the same future as you do. An alternative future. In the future I come from your world pretty much ended in the year two thousand, in what we called the Nuclear Holocaust Event. I was sent back in time to prevent that occurring. You see everything that has ever happened on Earth is watched by folk on another planet, who view it as a reality TV show called The Earthers. It’s always been the most popular show there is, but after the Nuclear Holocaust Event, which got the greatest viewing figures ever, interest fell off, because there weren’t that many Earthers left and what they did in that nuclear bunker was pretty dull. So the folk of Phnaargos, who were all vegetable, let me tell you, bred me in their horticultural laboratories, to go back in time and change the plot. Stop the Nuclear Holocaust Event occurring.”

“Yeah, right,” said Will. “So how did you do that?”

“I was sent to find the one man who was responsible for all the bad stuff in the second half of the twentieth century and persuade him to act differently.”

“Adolf Hitler,” said Will. “I do know something about history.”

“Elvis Presley,” said Barry. “You don’t know as much as you’d like to think. My job was to persuade Elvis not to take the draft. If Elvis hadn’t joined the army, an entire generation of American kids would have also refused to join. There would have been no war in Vietnam and by 1967 Elvis would have been president of the USA.”

“I don’t recall reading about this,” said Will.

“Things didn’t go exactly as planned. Although you will agree, there was no Nuclear Holocaust Event.”

“So you’re a Time Sprout from the planet Phnaargos?”

“Or a Holy Guardian sprout. Elvis Presley’s Holy Guardian sprout. Depends on what you choose to believe, I suppose.”

“I think I’ll remain unconvinced, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s fine with me, chief.”

“So, would you care to come out of my ear now?”

“All in good time, chief. After I’ve helped you out. Because by helping you out, I’ll also be helping me out. And I’ll be helping everybody out. You see my work here is not yet done. I might have forestalled the Nuclear Holocaust Event, but there’s big trouble in this day and age, which is why I’m here. I was on the job with Mr Rune, but now he’s gone, I’m on the job with you.”

“How very comforting,” said Will. “So with you to help me I can probably expect to end up the same way Rune did.”

“If he’d listened to me, he’d have never come to grief. That man was a law unto himself. He refused to take my advice.”

“Refused to stick you in his ear, you mean.”

“That’s part of it, perhaps.”

“Well I’ve had enough.” Will rose from the armchair and took himself over to the tantalus that stood upon the George III satinwood dresser. He poured scotch whisky into a crystal glass and sipped upon it. “If I can’t get rid of you,” he said, “then understand this. I have had enough of being a pawn in someone else’s game. From now on I’m going to do things my way.”

“Oh dear,” muttered Barry.

“What was that?”

“I said, ‘Oh cheer’. Three cheers for you.”

“Right,” said Will. “I’m going to be running this show from now on. We will be doing things my way. And, when I’m done, you can take me back to my own time, like you promised. And then you go your own way. Are we agreed on this?”

“I want what you want,” said Barry. “More than you know.”

Will finished his scotch and poured himself another. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. “And I’ll do it without your help.”

“But chief.”

“If I need your help I’ll ask for it.”

“Be hearing from you soon then, chief.”

“What was that, Barry?”

“Nothing, chief.”

Will dressed in the smart new clothes that Barry had acquired for him.

“I hope you didn’t pay for these,” Will said.

“Certainly not, chief. Opened an account for you with one of Mr Rune’s tailors. They were happy to offer credit to Lord Peter Whimsy.”

“Who?” Will asked.

“Makes a change from ‘what’,” said Barry. “It’s an alias. Tradespeople are always willing to offer credit to toffs, you know that. And anyway, I didn’t think you’d want to give your real name. You wouldn’t want any more of those knocks at the door from the black-eyed smelly clockwork chap with the deeply-timbred Germanic accent, would you?”

“Certainly not.” Will admired his suit and matching cap. “And Boleskine tweed. I always rather envied Rune’s suit.”

“I know you did, chief.”

“Hmm,” went Will. “And so to work. I have the map of Whitechapel, so all I need is the … damn!”

“The damn? Chief?”

“The case notes. Damn. I left them behind when I threw myself out of the window.”

“No probs, chief. I knew you’d need them. I had you sneak back and pick them up. They’re over there on the Louis XVI mahogany desk.”

“You were very busy with my body, weren’t you?”

“All in a good cause, chief. Your interests at heart.”

“Well, let’s have a look at them.” Will gathered up the notes and the map, sat himself down at the Louis XVI mahogany desk, took the fountain pen from his top pocket (“thought you’d need a pen too, chief”) and set about studying.

And so Will studied. He studied the map and the case notes. He also studied what files he had contained within his palm-top. And he studied his fingers, and then the ceiling and then the floor.

“How’s all the studying coming on?” Barry asked him, at length.

“Fine, thanks,” said Will. And he studied the bottom of his glass.

“Might I make a suggestion, chief?”

“No, Barry, you may not.”

“No probs, chief, you study on, then. Study the curtains, if you feel it might help.”

“Please don’t interrupt me; I’m thinking.”

“So sorry, chief. Don’t wish to interfere with your thinking. They’re nice curtains though, aren’t they?”

“Splendid,” said Will. “But it’s not helping. Just be quiet and let me ponder over this. There have to be clues here. There has to be something.”

“They are nice curtains,” said Barry. “Nice pattern.”

“Something obvious,” said Will.

“Very nice pattern,” said Barry.

“Something staring me right in the face.”

“Extremely nice pattern.”

“Like a—”

“Pattern, chief?”

“Hold on,” said Will, and he studied the map once more. He marked the sites of the five original murders and then he searched for—

“There’s a twelve-inch rule in the drawer, chief.”

Will opened the drawer and took out the rule. And then he worked away at the map. And then—

“Aha!” went Will.

“Aha, chief? What is aha?”

“I’ve found it,” said Will.

“You have, chief. What have you found?”

“A pattern,” said Will. “I’ve found a pattern.”

And it was a pattern. And so it is to this very day. Simply join the dots, as it were, and see what you will see.

“A star,” said Will. “A five-pointed star.”

“A pentagram,” said Barry. “An inverted pentagram.”

“Significant, eh, Barry?”

“Highly, chief. Well done for coming up with it all on your own.”

“And the site of Rune’s murder.” Will marked the spot. “It’s outside the pentagram. I wonder—” He drew further lines.

“What are you doing now, chief?” Barry asked.

“Just a hunch. According to the police report, which I managed to acquire a copy of, Rune was pursued for some distance before his murderer caught up with him and did the evil deed. I’m tracing his route; he travelled along here and then there, and then here. What do you make of that?”

“That he had more puff in him than I’d have given him credit for.”

“No,” said Will. “Not that. He wasn’t running in the direction of our lodgings. Although he could have done. So what was he running towards?”

“A police station, chief?”

“No, he passed one, here.” Will drew a line upon the map, from the centre of the pentagram to the site of Rune’s murder. “He was always running northeast. Why would he do that, was he trying to tell us something? What I really need is—”

“A map of Greater London, chief? There’s one in the drawer.”

“Thank you.” Will took out the map of Greater London and spread it across the desk. He redrew the line and extended it. “Well, well, well,” said Will. “What do you make of that Barry?”

“What exactly should I make of it, chief?”

“See where the line goes to?”

“Well, I do chief, but I don’t quite see—”

“Buckingham Palace,” said Will.

“Well, yes, chief, it does, but if you carry the line on, I think you’ll find—”

“Buckingham Palace,” said Will once again. “And there’s enough stuff written to suggest that there was some kind of scandal involving a member of the Royal household. A child born out of wedlock to a prostitute, that sort of business, and—”

“If you extend the line, chief, I think you’ll find it leads to—”

“Perhaps that’s what Rune was trying to tell us, Barry. That’s why he ran in that direction.”

“No, chief. I’m sure that—”

“Stop it, Barry.”

“But chief.”

“Barry, just stop it. You’re simply miffed because I found this out without your help.”

“As if you did, you—”

“We’ll take a cab straight over there, ask a few questions.”

“An omnibus would be cheaper.”

“An omnibus it is then.”

“The number 39 goes that way, chief. And then it continues in a northeasterly direction, the same direction as the line on the map, until it terminates at Chiswick.”

“A number 39 it is then.”

“Terminates at Chiswick, chief. Chiswick.”

“A number 39 it is then.”

“To Chiswick, chief?”

“To Buckingham Palace.”

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”