Waiting for Godalming

14

Icarus Smith and Johnny Boy sat in the scarlet bar and grill of the Station Hotel.

“So what are we going to do?” asked Johnny Boy.

“Lie low,” said Icarus Smith. “Leave it to Lazlo Woodbine.”

“As if. You lied to them, but you can’t lie to me.”

“Lying to them seemed hardly out of place. Everyone in that office was lying about something.”

“I wasn’t lying at all.”

“Everybody but you, then.”

“Hold up there,” said Johnny Boy. “Are you telling me that the captain was lying? Angels don’t lie, do they?”

“He did. It was nonsense, all of it. Think about it, Johnny Boy. God having to mortgage Heaven. Angels and demons getting evicted. It’s all rubbish.”

“It sounded quite convincing when he told it.”

“Well, it might have done in there with my brother. I told you that if you spend time with him, you get drawn into his madness.”

“But surely angels don’t lie.”

“And do angels murder people with golden swords?”

“I can’t say I’ve ever heard of such a thing. But do you think your brother was lying too? I could see his colours. It looked as if he thought he was telling the truth.”

“I think you’ll find that he gave a somewhat edited account of his side of the story. He neglected to mention Barry, for instance.”

“And who’s Barry?”

“Barry the voice in his head. His Holy Guardian Sprout. Barry talks to him and helps him solve his cases. Except he doesn’t solve any cases. He’s not a real detective. He’s my mad brother.”

“I find it all somewhat confusing,” said Johnny Boy. “And I still don’t understand how nothing happened to him when he took the drug.”

“Now that”, said Icarus Smith, “is a mystery.”

“It’s a mystery. It’s a mythtery.” I sang it in my finest Toyah Wilcox.

“Ease up on the singing there, chief.”

“Why, Barry, my little green buddy pal. Where have you been all this time?”

“Sleeping, chief. That Sam Maggot bopped us on the head, didn’t he? Did I miss anything?”

“Not a lot,” said I. “But I seem to be missing quite a bit.”

“How so, chief?”

“Well, Barry, I have taken a drug which enables me to see angels and demons, which would otherwise be mistaken for ordinary folk.”

“Good golly Ms Molly, chief.”

“Ms Molly indeed, Barry. Yet, even though I have taken the drug, I can’t see any angels or devils at all.”

“I can’t say that I find that altogether surprising, chief. You probably can’t see any pink elephants or fairies either.”

“Point taken, yet only a moment ago I was in the company of an angel. And also two men who had also taken the drug. And what they saw on the surveillance video footage, I was quite unable to see. How would you account for that, Barry?”

“Perhaps they were all just pulling your plonker, chief.”

“Or perhaps someone or something was stopping me seeing what they saw. What do you think about that, Barry?”

“Well, chief … I—”

“It’s you, Barry! You little green ball of phlegm! It’s you stopping the drug from taking effect on me.”

“Come now, chief, as if I would.”

“You would and you have. Switch it on, Barry. Switch it on now. Or by crimbo, I’ll winkle you out of my ear with a pencil and boil you up for my lunch.”

“I was only looking out for your best interests, chief. I didn’t want you getting all upset, seeing horrible demons and everything. You wouldn’t like them, chief, they’re really nasty.”

I took a pencil and began to sharpen its point.

“I’m waiting,” said I.

“Chief, please, you really won’t like it.”

“This is a 9H, Barry. Very sharp and pointy. I’ll put a saucepan on the stove, shall I?”

“No, chief. Please. All right.”

“All right,” said Johnny Boy. “So what do you intend to do?”

“I am a relocator,” said Icarus Smith. “That is my vocation.”

“Relocating all the devils and angels might prove a bit of a challenge.”

“Possibly,” said Icarus. “But there might be a way.”

“You cannot be serious, surely?”

“Do I look serious?”

Johnny Boy studied the colours of Icarus. “Yes you do,” said he. “Very serious. And very concerned also. Something is troubling you deeply.”

“Yes,” said Icarus. “It is. With all the nonsense going on with my mad brother and everything, I’d quite forgotten about Cormerant. He’ll be coming after the left luggage locker key. The one I mailed to myself.”

“God. You’re right. We’d better get round to your house.”

“No,” said Icarus. “We’d be too late. But I have another idea.”

“I’ve a really good idea, chief,” said Barry. “Why don’t you just turn off the video and have a slug of Old Bedwetter?”

I rewound the videocassette and played the tape once again.

“But you’ve watched it thirty-seven times, chief. Surely you’ve memorized the plot by now.”

“Look at them, Barry. Just look at them.”

“I can see them, chief. They’re demons, I know.”

“And they’re murdering God and we have it on tape.”

“Yes, chief, so you keep saying.”

“And I couldn’t see them for what they really were.”

“No, chief, not until I let the effects of the drug kick into your tiny tiny brain.”

“Look at them. They’re horrible. Look at all the quills and the scales.”

“Yes, chief, I quite agree, they’re not a pretty sight.”

“But there’s no doubt of what’s really happening. And so I’ve solved the case.”

“Yes, chief, you do keep saying that. Would you care to take me through your reasoning and explain to me exactly how you’ve solved the case?”

“No, Barry, I would not.”

“But, chief, we don’t have any secrets. Well, you don’t from me, anyway.”

“Then read my thoughts, Barry.”

“You won’t let me, chief, you’re blocking me out.”

“Damn right I am. No-one ever finds out how Woodbine solves the case, or even who the villain is, until the final rooftop showdown. That’s the way it’s always done and that’s the way it always will be done.”

“Well, I’m not bothered, chief. You’ll give it away when you go to sleep. You can’t keep me out of your dreams.”

“Then I won’t go to sleep, Barry. I will stay awake for the entire week, until I bring the criminal to justice.”

“No-one can stay awake for a whole week, chief. They’d go mad if they did.”

“Wanna bet? You just watch me.”

“Watch you go mad? I’d rather not.”

“Watch me solve the case. Just watch.”

Icarus and Johnny Boy watched as the long dark automobile drew into the car park opposite the Station Hotel. They watched as the creature that was Cormerant emerged from the automobile and strode to the left luggage lockers. They then watched as he took a key from an envelope which bore the name and address of Icarus Smith, opened one of the lockers and removed a black briefcase.

They did not, however, watch as he returned to the long dark automobile. Nor did they watch as the new chauffeur drove him away.

They did, however, feel the movement of the car.

Because they were now both in the boot.

“It’s really quite comfortable in here,” said Johnny Boy. “Better than being in the boot of that taxi.”

“I’ve known better places to be,” said Icarus. “But this seems the best way to get back inside the Ministry of Serendipity.”

“I’d like to see the look on that Cormerant’s face when he opens the briefcase,” said Johnny Boy. “He’ll be well peeved when he finds it empty.”

“It seemed the only solution. I couldn’t get to my house in time. And as we were opposite the station, it was only a matter of crossing the road and opening the locker up.”

“You’re pretty nifty with your little roll of instruments. What exactly do you plan to do when we get back inside the Ministry?”

“Learn,” said Icarus. “Learn exactly what is really going on. And then act upon that information.”

“I’m not keen to go back in there. I don’t want my little head getting squeezed by that harpy Philomena.”

“I told you, you didn’t have to come.”

“I’ll stick with you,” said Johnny Boy. “It may not be safe. But at least it’s never dull.”

“Dull,” said I, flicking channels with the old remote control.

“What exactly are you doing, chief?”

“Just watching a bit of TV. Isn’t daytime telly really dull?”

“Richard and Judy are never dull, chief. They never cease to inspire me. And there’s always Countdown of course. That Carol Vorderman’s a lovely-looking woman.”

“Oh yeah, right.” I flicked the channel and up came Carol, quills and scales and all.

“Well, who’d have thought that, chief, eh? Our lovely Carol in league with the devil.”

“Who’d have thought it, indeed.”

“But come on, chief, you can’t sit here all day watching TV.”

“Just unwinding, Barry. Why don’t you take a little nap if you’re bored?”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind, chief, thanks.”

“You just take a nap then and I’ll wake you up later when we go out.”

“Are we going somewhere nice?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, “real nice. We’re going up west to a bar where all the swells get together.”

“Smart, chief. I’ll bet you’ll cut a real dash in your old tweed jacket.”

A knock came at my office door.

“Enter,” said I with more élan than a Lotus.

A guy entered carrying a large cardboard box. “Delivery for Mr Woodchip wallpaper,” he said. “Python skin trenchcoat and fedora.”

“I’ll just take a nap then, chief.”

“I’ll wake you later,” said I.

Somewhat later, though only a bit, the long dark automobile cruised out of the secret underground tunnel and into the secret underground establishment known as the Ministry of Serendipity. Icarus and Johnny Boy heard the car’s doors open and then slam shut. They also heard the voice of the evil Cormerant. And a very grumpy voice it was.

“I think he’s opened the briefcase,” said Johnny Boy. “I wouldn’t want to be us, the next time we meet him.”

Icarus shushed the small man into silence. They waited until the sounds of cursing had died away and then Icarus raised the lid of the boot.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

They crept through the underground cathedral of a place, marvelling anew at all they saw. Especially all those barber’s chairs. Those thousands and thousands of barber’s chairs.

“Shouldn’t there be workers everywhere?” asked Johnny Boy.

“What, in orange jumpsuits and hard hats, like at the supervillain’s HQ in a James Bond movie?”

“Something like that. Have you ever wondered where the supervillains get their workers from? Do you think they advertise in the newspaper? You know, Supervillain seeking world domination also seeks skilled manual workers to help construct nuclear missile silo in defunct volcano. Apply box 666.”

“You don’t have a lot of truck with movies, do you, Johnny Boy?”

“They’ll never replace the music hall. Where exactly are we going?”

“To the barber’s shop,” said Icarus. “We’ll find our answers there.”

“Perhaps you should ask the Greek to give you a haircut. You’d look good with a Tony Curtis.”

Tony Curtis had nothing on me when it comes to pulling the womenfolk. I attract women like flies. But then who wants women like flies? The way I figure it, either you have or you haven’t got style. And I’m a have, every inch of the way, and quite a few inches that is.

I slipped on the snakeskin fedora and tipped it at the angle that will be for ever rakish. I discarded the old tweed jacket and took up the new trenchcoat. Now this was style.

Matching python-skin two-piece. I should have asked Fangio whether there was any chance of getting a pair of shoes made up from the off-cuts. I’d have really mullahed the mustard in a three-piece get up. Or would that be four, as shoes come in a pair? And I could have had a necktie too. And a pair of boxer shorts. I made a mental note to pop back to the Lion’s Mane as soon as I had the time, and butcher a couple more python. And perhaps a white rhino, if they had one. White rhino hide would look pretty good on the seats of the brand new Bentley I intended to buy with my payoff from the case.

Payoff? I hear you ask. Just what payoff might this be, Mr Woodbine? Well, my friends, I’ll tell you, it’ll be a big payoff.

Because I had solved the case. And if you were as smart as I am, then you’d have solved it too. You heard everything I heard when Captain Ian the angel was telling his tale. And if you’d been able to put two and two together the same way that I did, you’d be planning what kind of seat covers you’d be having on your Bentley.

But hey, you’re not me. And if you’ve been asking yourself just how come I’ve spent most of the day watching TV rather than getting out and about, then that’s another good reason why I’ll be the one in the Bentley, not you.

But I don’t want to give any more clues away here now. So you’ll just have to settle for the not inconsiderable joy of watching me ponce up and down my office in my new trenchcoat and fedora. Looking like a million bucks.

And I don’t mean green and wrinkled.

“Green and wrinkled,” said Johnny Boy. “That’s what I think of sprouts. Horrid green and wrinkly things and your brother, if indeed he is your brother, actually thinks he has one that lives in his head?”

“I told you he was mad.”

“Damn right,” said Johnny Boy. “I can understand an onion. But a sprout? No thank you. Where exactly are we now, by the way?”

“We’re here,” said Icarus. “Outside the door of the barber’s shop.”

“I don’t remember that bust being in that niche yesterday. Surely that’s Noel …”

Knock knock, went Icarus, knocking at the door.

“Er, just hold on a moment,” called the barber’s voice.

Icarus opened the door and walked right in.

The barber sat in the middle chair. He had the now legendary brown envelope open and had clearly been savouring its contents.

“How dare you bustle in here,” the barber complained. “Me being busy with myself. What game is yours and oh …”

“Oh?” said Icarus.

“Oh, it’s you, boy, back again. I thought they …”

“Murdered me?” said Icarus.

“Not murdered surely. Took you off to have a nice sleep.”

“No,” said Icarus, approaching the barber.

“I not like the look of you, boy. You kindly leave by the door where you came.”

Icarus grasped the chair’s back and swung the barber around. The barber gripped the arms of the chair and the steel bands swished and clamped his wrists.

“Now look what you make me do, boy. Press the button on the back and set me free at once.”

“I think not,” said Icarus Smith. “I have questions to ask and you have answers to supply.”

“I tell you nothing,” said the barber. “I sign the Official Secrets Act. Say nothing to you about nothing.”

Icarus patted the barber on the head.

“Help!” screamed the barber. “Help me!”

Icarus took the Velocette and rammed it into the barber’s mouth. “Now,” said he. “I am going to give your head a little massage. I think I can remember exactly where Ms O’Connor applied the pressure. Let’s hope I don’t get it wrong. It would really be a shame if you were to suffer some permanent damage.”

“Mmph!” went the barber, shaking his head violently from side to side. “Mmph!”

“What was that?” asked Icarus. “Did I hear you saying that you would answer all my questions, clearly and precisely, without any need for painful measures being taken?”

The barber’s head nodded up and down.

Icarus removed the Velocette.

“Please don’t think of calling out for help again,” he said. “Or I will put my thumbs in your eyes and twist them inside out.”

Johnny Boy turned his face away. “I don’t want to watch that,” he said.

“You’ve finished watching TV now, then, have you, chief?”

“That’s why I woke you, Barry, yes.”

“And so, are we off on our way?”

“We are, Barry, we are off on our way to Black Peter’s Tavern.”

“Black Peter’s Tavern, chief? Please don’t tell me we’re going to Black Peter’s Tavern. Oh no no. Not Black Peter’s Tavern.”

“You know it, then, Barry?”

“Never heard of it, chief.”

I’d always fancied a night at Black Peter’s Tavern. It was the kind of joint where all the big knobs hang out. If you know what I mean, and I’m sure that you do. This joint was swanky. It had class. If you were here, you were someone.

The decor was stylish to a point where it transcended style and entered the realms of perspicuous harmony, shunning grandiloquent ornamentation in favour of a visual concinnity, garnered from aesthetic principles, which combined the austerity of Bauhaus and ebullience of Burges[14] into an eclectic mix before stripping them down to their fundamental essentials, to create an effect which was almost aphoristic, in that it could be experienced but never completely expressed.

So there is no need to bother with a description.

But trust me, it was sheer poetry.

I breezed in, like a breath of spring

And wafted my way to the bar

The hour was the hour known as happy

Which is happy, wherever you are.

I took in the decor, the dudes and dames

And all found favour with me

They had class written through them, like words in a rock

That you buy in Blackpool on sea.

In the time I’ve spent as a private dick

I’ve drunk in all manner of bars

From doss house dives with pools of sick

To the haunts of movie stars.

I’ve cast my fashionable shadow

In many a wayside inn

And raised my glass to beaus and belles

And sailors and Sanhedrin.

But you know you are home

When you’re in amongst your own

And this was home to me

So I leaned my elbow on the bar

And summoned the maitre d’.

“Set ’em up, fat boy,” said I. “A pint of pig’s ear and a packet of pork scratchings.”

The maitre d’ raised a manicured eyebrow and viewed me down a narrow length of nose. “Would sir care to rephrase that?” he asked.

“Certainly,” I said, with more savoir-faire than a Sophoclean sophist at a sadhus’ seminar. “A pig’s ear scratching packet and a pint of pork, please.”

“Sir has the wit of Oscar Wilde, which combined with the droll delivery of Noel Coward creates a veritable tour de force of rib-tickling ribaldry.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” said I.

“Kindly sling your hook,” said the maitre d’. “We don’t serve your kind in here.”

“Just make mine a Guinness, then, and forget the pork scratchings.”

“Coming right up, sir.”

The maitre d’ drew off the pint of black gold, and I waited the now legendary one hundred and nineteen seconds for it to fill to perfection.

“On the house,” said the maitre d’. “And help yourself to the chewing fat.”

“Why thank you very much,” said I. “And what brings on this generosity?”

“Look at this place,” said the maitre d’, whose name, if you hadn’t guessed, was Fangio. “This is one classy number. Top-notch clientele, thirty-two brands of whisky, carpet on the floor and even paper in the gents’ bog. This is my kind of bar, Laz. Do you think you might keep coming back to this one throughout the rest of your case? I didn’t take much to the Lion’s Mane, a wildebeest trod on my toe.”

I gave the place a once-over glance about. With my new sense of Super-vision, given to me by the Red Head tablet I’d taken in mistake for an aspirin, I could see the men within the men and the women within the women. They all looked pretty damn fab gear and groovy and not a wrong’un amongst them. This place had everything that a place that had everything had. So to speak.

“It’s definitely us, isn’t it?” I said.

“Too true. And look at this uniform. The waistcoat favours my wasp-waist and the fitted slacks show off my snake hips to perfection. You look pretty dapper in the new trenchcoat and fedora, by the way.”

“We’re a regular pair of dandies, ain’t we?”

Fangio tipped me the wink. “So,” said he. “What brings you here?”

“A cab,” I said. “But I left it outside.”

Oh how we laughed.

And laughed.

The barber at the Ministry of Serendipity wasn’t laughing at all. The hands of Icarus Smith gripped the barber’s head.

“Tell me”, said Icarus, “all about this barber’s shop. Tell me exactly why it’s here.”

The barber’s lips were all a-quiver. Icarus kneaded his skull.

“It’s for training purposes,” whimpered the barber.

“Go on,” said Icarus. “Tell me.”

“To train up operatives in the art of exo-cranial massage. We’ve trained thousands. Thousands and thousands.”

“To what purpose?” Icarus asked.

“World peace,” blurted the barber.

Icarus squeezed his head.

“It’s true. Everybody goes to a barber’s or hairdresser’s at some time. By using exo-cranial massage on them, the Ministry’s operatives keep them in a passive state.”

“Keep them under control,” said Icarus.

“I wouldn’t put it like that,” said the barber, hunching down his head.

“I would,” said Icarus, yanking up the barber’s head. “So the Ministry has infiltrated thousands of these trained operatives into barbers and hairdressers up and down the country, so that they can use their techniques to keep the population pacified and under control.”

“I prefer the term world peace,” said the barber.

“I prefer the term world control,” said Icarus.

“Well, at least we know where all the workers in the orange jumpsuits and hard hats are,” said Johnny Boy. “They’re squeezing heads in barber’s shops.”

Icarus released the barber’s head. “There’s more to this,” he said.

“What?” said Johnny Boy. “More than world control?”

Icarus addressed the barber. “Are there operatives all over the world doing this?” he asked. “Or only here in England?”

“Only here, as far as I know,” said the barber.

“I thought as much,” said Icarus.

Johnny Boy looked up at the lad. “There are all kinds of colours whirling around you,” he said. “Just what’s going on in your mind?”

“Only this. What if all this angel and demon carry-on is a localized phenomenon? Centred right here in London. And what if it’s natural for people to be able to see demons and angels? Without needing the Red Head drug?”

“Then they’d see them, wouldn’t they?”

“And some do. But they’re considered mad. But the rest don’t. And why? Because they’re having their heads subtly massaged every time they go to the barber’s or the hairdresser’s. From when they’re children onwards.”

“And the massages affect the brain so people can’t see the truth?”

“That’s what I think,” said Icarus.

“Angels and demons?” said the barber. “You talking the jobbies from the bull’s behind parts, that’s what I’m thinking in my head.”

“Just a couple more questions,” said Icarus, “and then I’ll be done with you.”

“I plead the Fifth Amendment,” said the barber. “Also the Geneva Convention and the Waldorf salad. I tell you nothing more.”

“How many people work here?” asked Icarus.

“I tell you that,” said the barber. “About half a dozen. Me, Philomena the masseuse, Mr Cormerant the wages clerk, some guards that walk up and down. The chauffeur, no, he got stabbed in the corridor. The new chauffeur, the women in the canteen where nobody goes to eat, because the food tastes like pigeon poops. And the guv’nor, of course.”

“The guv’nor runs the Ministry?”

“That’s what guv’nors do, ain’t it?”

“And what is the guv’nor’s name?”

“Mr Godalming,” said the barber.

“Mr Godalming?” said Johnny Boy.

And so did Icarus Smith.

“Mr Godalming,” said the barber once again.

Icarus looked at Johnny Boy.

And Johnny Boy looked back at him.

“This Mr Godalming,” said Icarus to the barber. “What does he look like? Does he by any chance look like Richard E. Grant?”

“Ha ha ha,” the barber laughed. “No, he look nothing like Richard E. Grant. His father look like Richard E. Grant. But he don’t. He look more like Peter Stringfellow. He’s young Mr Godalming.

“Mr Colin Godalming.”

“Still waiting for Mr Godalming, Laz?” said the maitre d’ with a grin.

“In a manner of speaking,” said I. “I’m right, I assume, that this is the bar where all the media types come after they’ve been interviewed by daytime TV.”

“You’re right there, my friend.”

“Perfect,” said I. “Because I saw this guy on TV today and I’d really like to meet him.”

“Yeah?” said Fange. “Who’s that?”

“Celebrity hairdresser,” said I. “Looks a bit like Peter Stringfellow. The name’s Godalming.

“Mr Colin Godalming.”