Dr Shock and the University of Stump

DOCTOR SHOCK TAKES A HOLIDAY

     So I’m sitting on the sands, catching some rays, sipping my lukewarm tea. The kangaroo didn’t come through. Ginger and Algy checked the drop site just in case but as expected the wallaby’s pouch was empty. We decided to take a holiday anyway, safer to be out of Stump while the gentlemen of the press manipulated the stones, so Algy headed for Fleetwood, Ginger for Southport, and I settled for the manifold delights of Colwyn Bay. Needs must when the bank manager drives, and what can the Bahamas offer to compare with the attractions of a North Wales seaside resort at the height of the season? Ask that retired couple over there sheltering from the brisk wind, they’ve been coming here for years, can remember it before the pier closed down.
     It starts to rain. I put my coat on, gather up my things and head for the shelter.
     “Forecast hail later,” says the old chap.
     I make tut faces.
     “Never used to be like this,” says the old woman. “Summers used to be summers in the olden days.”
     I smile.
     “Just here for the day are you?” The old man takes out a bag of sweets. “Mint?”
     I take one. “Thanks, no for the week unfortunately.”
     We all make sucking noises.
     “With your family are you?”
     “No. On my own.”
     “Like us then,” says the old man, and I think not quite. “We used to come here with the daughter’s kiddies, but they’re all growed up now, go off on their own. You’ll never guess where they are this year.”
     I watch the rain sheeting down on the abandoned pier. "The Bahamas?"
     “How d’you know that?” he says and I catch a tone of annoyance. I think I was meant to say Torquay.
     “I hear it’s very popular these days.”
     “Why aren’t you there then?” He puts his sweets away.
     I decide it’s best not to tell him and comment instead on the quality of Uncle Joe’s balls.
     “Dunner make ‘em like they used to,” the curmudgeon opines and heritage talk looms. As I nod and smile I picture Algy sitting with the same couple telling him how they used to watch the trawlers going out, while Ginger is amazed to find out there was once a time when the sea came in. There’s a man playing with his dog on the beach. He throws a stick, the dog runs to fetch it, returns it to the man, who throws it away again. It is still pouring with rain. I want to tell the dog to give it up as a bad job, run away and find a better life, preferably in the Bahamas, but the old man has just made some comment on the state of the nation and I must have smiled when I should have frowned for now he waits for me to explain my incorrect response and I am in a quandary, having lost the stick. To extricate myself I suddenly point to the man on the beach.
     “Look at that silly beggar,” I say.
     “Cruel that”, says the old woman, “taking a dog out in all this rain. Catch its death.”
     We watch the man throw the stick under the pier. The dog chases it in among the massive pilings. We wait for it to come trotting out, but we wait in vain.
     “Got some sense,” says the old man. “He’s sheltering.”
     “Lost his stick,” says his wife.
     “No, good dog that, knows when he’s well off, out of the rain. Like Sally he is, she always pretended lose the stick.”
     “Sally was just daft.”
     I watch the man follow the dog under the pier. I presume they have resumed their game on the far side. The rain is easing off. It’s time to move on. Then the man comes running out. He falls to his knees and appears to vomit. The old couple are still discussing dogs they have known, oblivious. I watch the man get up and stagger to the steps leading up from the beach. Slowly he makes his way to the telephone box outside the boarded-up entrance of the pier. I say my goodbyes and leave. I am well ensconced in a corner of The Jolly Burger before I hear Bob’s bells go tinkling through the town.

     That night after tea, or ‘dinner’ as Mrs. Llewellyn prefers to call it, we all gather in the television room (‘entertainment lounge’) and watch suitably horrified. She was a local girl, which seems to make it worse as far as Mrs. Llewellyn is concerned, but no name is given and she is simply described as a pretty teenager. The newscaster in London, for this is of national importance, tells us that the body was found by a man walking his dog, at which point we cut to a film of a man walking his dog on a beach with the word ‘RECONSTRUCTION’ in the top right corner of the screen. We then cut to the actual scene of the crime where the local reporter makes his bid for a job down London by pointing to the abandoned pier where Bob cars abound. From the angle I reckon the cameraman is sheltering from the wind. Back in the studio we get a discussion about whether this is merely a random murder or the work of ‘The Barber’. For the past five years various seaside resorts in England and Wales have been visited by this particular serial killer. So far he, for he is assumed to be male, has claimed fourteen victims, all young women, the eldest twenty-four, the youngest thirteen, all strangled then mutilated with a pair of scissors. As well as the hair he usually removes other parts of his victims’ bodies but there is no pattern to this except in the case of the tongue. Brainy Bob is usually able to reconstruct the girls from the various bits in the boxes, but so far they are missing fourteen tongues. Maybe fifteen now, if the Barber has decided to spend his holidays in Colwyn Bay this year. The extent of the work the Barber does on the corpses is a good indicator of the popularity of that particular resort. Thus the Blackpool victims were all found strangled, bald and tongueless, whereas in Morecambe he really went to town, scattering bits of the bodies hither and yon. If he is at work in Colwyn Bay it’s surprising the body was found at all.
     While we wait for Bob to put us out of our misery on the Nine O`Clock News we talk about what we would like to do to the Barber if we were to catch him. The consensus is that hanging is too good for him. Mrs. Llewellyn favours the return of the rack and that ‘spiky woman’, whereas the General says he should be skinned alive like the Japanese did to him. I wonder sometimes about the General, a genial old buffer, but he does have a tendency to drift off into dreamland. He told me yesterday he was in the bunker with Hitler, delivering the coal. Mr. Cresswell is a geegee, feels the Bible has an answer to every question, so we get the eye for an eye speech and an eyewatering elaboration involving the use of scissors. Mr. and Mrs. Rowland on the other hand are far more forgiving, they believe in the law of the land, hang the bastard and let that be an end of it. Not that they say the b-word, not in front of Mrs. Llewellyn, they just say, together, for they are adept at the married couple`s trick of simultaneous speech, “They should hang the ba..” and let the rest of us supply the missing letters, while they exchange coy smiles in joyful celebration of their perfect mental union. They even look alike, fit lean bodies, short blond hair and bright blue eyes. They cloned a daughter seven years ago and her upbringing seems to be the only subject on which they do not totally agree, Mrs. Rowland indulging the child’s every whim, whereas Mr. Rowland has read his Billy Bunter and knows the value of discipline. Only when talking to Rebecca do they not finish each other’s sentences. At the moment she sits quietly in a corner playing with her dollies, allowing us grown-ups to indulge in fantasies about what we would do if we ever found ourselves alone in the same room as the Barber. I do my best to enter into the spirit of the discussion but Mr. Cresswell does tend to shout and Mrs. Llewellyn drifts into Welsh when she gets excited, so it’s not long before I feel a headache coming on. I make my excuses and retire to my room, not knowing till the morning whether the girl under the pier was the victim of a lovers’ tiff or a crazed madman.

     She was the victim of a crazed madman. The morning papers  report the findings of Brainy Bob; the Barber is back. The front page of the Guardian carries a photo of Colwyn Bay pier, a map of Wales, a picture of the dead girl and the headline ‘TERROR OF THE TONGUES’. I sit and read the story as I wait for my breakfast.
     “How’s your head this morning?” asks Mrs. Llewellyn as she delivers the plate of bacon, sausage, egg and tomatoes.
     “A lot better, thanks.”
     The sausage rolls over in its grease as the plate hits the table with what I perceive is an unnecessary degree of force.
     “Going out for one of your little walks again today then?”
     “What’s the forecast?” I call across to Mr. Cresswell, who is our regular fount of all knowledge pertaining to matters meteorological, but he either does not hear, or chooses to ignore me.
     “Showers,” says Mrs. Llewellyn, “but that didn’t stop you yesterday.”
     “I may take a trip to Conway.”
     “Will you be back for dinner?”
     “Teatime yes. There’s not that much in Conway is there?”
     Such a question would usually elicit a long list of tourist attractions from Mrs. Llewellyn, who is to the glories of Cymru what Mr. Cresswell was to the weather, but although I threw the stick all I got back in return was “There’s the castle.” Then she picked up the cruet and strode back to the kitchen.
     I finish my breakfast and return to my room to prepare for the expedition. Armed with my mac, umbrella and a book, I head out onto the landing and come face to face with Mr. Cresswell coming out of the bathroom.
     “Well prepared,” I say, cheerily waving my umbrella.
     He says nothing for a moment, just stands there blocking my way, then he lifts up his eyes to the ceiling and intones, “There is evil in this house.”
     “That’ll be Mrs. Llewellyn’s gravy,” I reply but he crosses himself and scuttles back to his room.   

     As I waited for the bus to Conway I noted the increased activity in the town. Bob was about with a vengeance. Then there were the press packs and a large contingent of huge, hairy men dressed in leather jackets and motorcycle boots. The Flying Elvis had been called in, the regular branch of the Local Volunteer Service not being up to the job in hand. The Barber had also done his bit for Colwyn Bay’s flagging tourist industry. As the bus pulled in it emptied its cargo of families bound for the beach of death and aside from me it did not pick up another living soul on its journey to Conway.
     I spent the rest of the morning in the castle, climbing the towers, wandering the battlements, investigating the medieval nooks and crannies. It was fairly empty, deserted for the more immediate attraction along the coast, so it was easy to drift into dreams of being a Knight Templar despatched to the far reaches of the kingdom to do battle against the forces of evil. Some of the towers are just stone shells, their successive floors having rotted away, so you could climb to the top, lean on the guard rail and look straight down to the dungeon floor. But climbing up one tower I heard ghostly music filtering down. A nice touch I thought looking for little speakers on the walls. Instead the stairs led into a round room, empty save for a fair maiden playing a melancholy air upon the uilleann pipes. I sat and listened a while, closing my eyes and letting the music take me where it may. But the perpetual motion of the mind feeds on a perverse energy and images of Mrs. Llewellyn, her face pinched in a sneer of disapproval, began to intrude. The spell broken, I opened my eyes and watched the girl, her head bent over the instrument, her long brown hair cascading down, waving in time to the plaining of the pipes. The Barber sprang to mind and as the music took on a more hurried, nervous tone, I wondered if the girl was sharing my thoughts. I got up and threw some money in the hat.
     After lunch in a pub I went for a boat ride round the bay, but it was drizzling by now and the day turned dismal. I was back in Mrs. Llewellyn’s in plenty of time for tea. I was ignored by Mr. Cresswell again and the General seemed disinclined to talk. The Rowlands spend the meal as usual trying to get their little girl to eat something. Mrs. Llewellyn has clearly never come across the concept of the menu. We are to eat whatever we are given and woe betide the man who returns a plate on which the story of the star-crossed Chinese lovers cannot be clearly divined. She does make an exception in Rebecca’s case however, making a great fuss of the child at mealtimes, even arranging her food in cute patterns, a face, a seascape, the Colwyn Bay pier at dawn, that kind of thing. All for nothing, our mealtimes are constantly accompanied by the twitterings of Mrs. Rowland and a whole range of voices from Mr. Rowland, starting with jovial ending with stern. Tonight we have salad, with corned beef. Mrs. Llewellyn announced this morning that the tongue was off, out of respect. I flick a caterpillar from my lettuce and trap it under my water glass.
     “Please Becky,” says Mrs. Rowland.
     “Daddy likes it, yum yum,” says Mr. Rowland.
     I wonder whether to go out tonight. Take a stroll along the beach. Then I remember the Flying Elvis and decide to stay in. This will be their first night, they`ll be keen. Catching the Barber is essentially a Bob job, but the Elvis will want to make their presence felt.
     “Come on Becky, you’ve got to eat something.”
     “Why don’t I cut it all up and make a nice sandwich?”
     Might as well go straight up after tea and read a book.
     “Try this tomato Becky, Mrs. Llewellyn grows these in her garden.”
     “Come on Becky, Daddy’s eating his, Mr. Cresswell’s eating his, Mr. Thompson’s eating his and look at Mr. Wilson, he’s nearly finished.”
     I wonder about replacing the caterpillar on the plate, but she’d probably make me eat it. I put my knife and fork straight and wait for pudding.
     “Oh Becky, you’re going to fade away to nothing if you don’t eat.”
     “Rebecca, eat your tea or we won’t go to Rhyl tomorrow.”
     That’s an idea, could go down to Rhyl tonight, sample the delights of the Las Vegas of North Wales. Tinned peaches and evaporated milk. My favourite.
     “Look Becky, pudding. Eat your corned beef and you can have peaches and cream.”
     “Daddy’s getting very cross now, Rebecca. Just eat your peaches.”
     I sympathise with the brat as I struggle to uncover the three little figures on the bridge, but finally we’re all done and move to the lounge to find out what’s been going on in the world. The Barber still holds the top spot, surprising since Bob’s come up with nothing new. The rest of the news is all foreign earthquakes and Nice Men shouting at one another. As the News finishes and the snooker starts I begin to make my move. Rhyl it is then, but every eye in the house apart from those of Rebecca Rowland is fixed on me. I’m just about to rise and make my excuses when I realise the folly of my ways. I am of course the Barber, and if I were to leave now my game would surely be up. Mr. Cresswell would be deputised to follow me to Rhyl, while the General and Mrs. Llewellyn would search my room for hidden tongues. All because I ducked out of the torture debate last night. I don’t get up, just shuffle around pretending to make myself comfortable. Then I begin.
     “I don’t know what this country’s coming to.”
     “You can say that again,” says Mr. Rowland. So I do with many subtle variations during the next two hours. Personally I am in favour of hanging, drawing and quartering the Barber. I go into great detail on the subject of drawing since Mrs. Rowland tries to bring Rebecca into the conversation by telling her to go and fetch the drawings she did today.
     “No,” I explain, “the drawing in this case is the removal of the entrails of the victim, in our case the Barber, the ‘drawing out’ of his innards, his intestines and so on...”
     “Offal,” says the General.
     “Exactly. While he is still alive of course, slit open his belly and dump it all on his chest, show him what he’s really made of, remove any vestige of hope that he might be going on to a better place.”
     The kid returns and we all have to admire her pictures of what she says is a castle, although it could be a butterfly. I return to my subject.
     “Of course originally the phrase hanged, drawn and quartered was incorrect, because the ‘drawn’ referred to the condemned man being drawn to the place of execution, before being hanged and then quartered. Later they added the disembowelling, the other drawing, which occurred after the hanging. The victim was taken down while still alive, then his entrails were torn out and burnt before his face, then his head was cut off and his body quartered and the various bits displayed around the town for all to see. So the correct expression is drawn, hanged, drawn and quartered, but that’s a bit of a mouthful and I can’t see them ever bringing it back.”
     “I don’t know,” says Mrs. Llewellyn, “I bet they would’ve done it to that mad paddy who shot the old footballer if he hadn’t had his accident.”
     “Accident!” snorts the General and we’re back to the subject which exercised our minds before the Barber hit town. Mr. and Mrs. Rowland believe the official version. Mr. Cresswell thinks that The Lord had a hand in striking down the lone assassin. The General and Mrs. Llewellyn favour the second gunman theory, thoroughly discredited by the Big Bob investigation. I stick to my contention that the assassin was just an overzealous Stump City supporter. I join in enthusiastically, lest they pin the blame for that one on me as well, then after a decent interval I go yawn and make my way up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire, well satisfied with my performance.
     Next morning I go down all beamy grins, expecting to be greeted same road, but as I enter the room all I get in return for cheery greetings is stony silence and leery looks. Mrs. Llewellyn dumps the plate down and mumbles something Welsh. Even the Rowlands have waved the white flag in this morning’s battle of the Great Food War and sit there quietly, eating their breakfast, ignoring their child and casting furtive glances in my direction. Maybe I was too flippant with my remarks about the Stump City supporter, maybe they’ve got me pegged as the second gunman, maybe I should just ask Mr. Cresswell to hear my confession right now, he seems to have a direct line to the Almighty. Instead I decide to be rude. I shall eat my breakfast while reading the paper, see what Mrs. Llewellyn has to mumble about that behaviour. I prop The Guardian up against the sauce bottle and simultaneously cut my bacon and read about another victim of the Barber being found yesterday evening in Conway Castle. I stop cutting. She was found at the bottom of one of the hollow towers, her hair cut off, her tongue cut out, her concertina smashed by her side. Reflecting on the falling standards in education, I put the paper away, finished eating then got out of that house and into the fresh air as quickly as was seemly.
     I walked along the old coast road, taking any detour that offered itself, country lanes and footpaths, listening to the seagulls squawking, the harsh cries of crows and starlings, trying to rid my mind of the memory of her music. By late afternoon I’d walked it off and found myself in Rhyl. I called Mrs. Llewellyn from a phone box to let her know I’d be dining out tonight, apparently I would miss beef stew and cabbage but I could live with that. Then I got some fish and chips, sat on the promenade and watched the sea till the night came.

     Three boyos come strolling along the prom being Welsh. They stop by my bench and make comments in the celtic tongue. I recognise the word for ‘happy’, and when that elicits no response they start doing scissor impressions. It’s dark and deserted near the beach, all the people are walking along the main strip two hundred yards behind us, all lit up and loud. Despite the blade in my pocket I am on holiday. So comforting myself with the thought that one day I shall inherit the earth, I get up slowly and walk towards the light and the noise and the people. They follow flapping their hands and laughing, until I duck into an arcade and lose them.
     Et in arcadia ego beat some Chinamen to a pulp, smashed a couple of racing cars, rained death from my chopper on loads of little men and shot hordes of gooks. The place was bright with light and full of noise. The pings and pops and screeches and sampled death cries, the solid thump of background music, the soundtracks of each game mingling into one which shifted as you wandered round, surging waves of sound. The vocal line provided by children laughing, crying, shouting, wanting more; the doowop chorus the bingo caller. And plugging any gaps, insinuating itself into the mix, a tape of classics relayed over hanging speakers, cranked up full, crackling balls of fire. Stopping here and there to play I make my way steadily to the back of the arcade where there is a small cafeteria. Here will I rest awhile and partake of tea and cakes when a familiar voice cuts through the concrete and makes me decide otherwise.
     “Come on Rebecca, eat your chips and then when Daddy comes back you can have an ice cream.”
     So I’m out of there and walking down the street. Other arcades beckon but I decide to seek silence now and a good cup of tea in a china mug, preferably one made in Stump. I turn left and head away from the excitement to the town that lies behind. After the neon front, the backstreets of Rhyl seem a lot darker than they should. I am looking for a quiet cafe when suddenly something shambles out of one of the shop doorways, thrusting out a hand and mumbling. The dirt on its face does its best to hide the nose tattoo. I reach in my pocket for some change, then realise the gooks took the last of my pennies. I offer him a note instead, and at first he won’t take it, looks at me as though I’m the one that’s mad. I press the money into his hand and then we hear a scream. A place like this is full of screams, youthful high spirits. I’m ignoring it but the numbrain points down an alleyway and makes ‘let’s go, Tonto’ motions. I’ve been caught like that before, so he races to the rescue alone, while his faithful Indian companion goes and has a cup of tea then catches a bus back to his tepee.
     I’m about to ring the bell when the front door opens and Mr. Cresswell appears carrying a suitcase. I note the sweat on his brow, the flush on his cheeks, his normal ghostly pallor gone the way of the fabled Count’s after a hefty swig. I ask him how it goes.
     “Can’t stop,” he says, “train to catch.”
     “Thought we all left on Friday.”
     “Can’t wait,” he mutters, “have to get out of here.”
     “What’s the rush? Something happened back home?”
     “Can’t you feel it, man? Can’t you feel it?” Then he stands and looks me in the eye. “It’s you isn’t it?”
     “Yes,” I say, can’t deny it.
     “Oh Sweet Jesus, it is you. They’re right.” Then he swings his suitcase at me, catches me on the leg, darts past and he’s off down the street at a fair nifty pace.
     I mutter “Geegees, Christ” under my breath then go inside. I want to avoid the seminar tonight, would like to just go straight to bed, but I’d better let them know I’m back so I pop my head into the television room. It’s empty apart from Mrs. Llewellyn sitting in an armchair, dead to the world, fast asleep in front of the snooker. I close the door carefully then go up to my room.
     After all the walking I’ve done today I expect my head to hit the pillow and be well away, but as is ever the case Morpheus has his arms full with Mrs. Llewellyn down below, so I just lie there in the dark and listen. I hear the General come back, singing about where the flying fishes play. Now Mr. Cresswell’s gone Mrs Llewellyn will have to deliver tomorrow’s lecture alone. Then the Rowlands return. The little girl is laughing on the stairs. Her mum and dad shush her, tell her it’s late, people are sleeping. I hear them open the door to their room and Rebecca saying, “Can I play with it now”, and then I’m asleep.
     I’m sitting in Mrs. Llewellyn’s back garden reading a book. The rich green of the manicured lawn is speckled with the pink petals of cherry blossom. There is faint music, trembling breathless in the air, and the sweet scent of flowers. Too sweet, sickly sweet, and not the flowers, some weed that’s spreading everywhere, choking off the subtler perfumes with its own foetid growth. A little girl comes and sits beside me. Rebecca Rowland is playing with her doll. She combs its hair, long, brown, shiny hair. Combs it carefully, counting as she drags the teeth through the thick waves.
     “Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred. When I’m older I shall grow my hair long and then I shall let my Daddy cut it.”

     All’s right with the world in the morning. Mrs. Llewellyn beams upon us all and favours my breakfast plate with an extra penitent sausage. The Barber has struck again. But for the final time. He was caught red-handed, literally, last night in Rhyl. We are all overjoyed at the news and Mrs. Llewellyn is organising a trip to the Court this afternoon for the arraignment when there will be ample opportunity for all to vent their feelings of rage and frustration, not forgetting sympathy for the families of the unfortunate victims, on the Bobby van and its passenger in the blanket hat as it races through the streets.
     “You could be on the telly,” says Mr. Rowland, trying to persuade me to join the party, but I just smile and shake my head. Yesterday this failure to take part in the organised fun and games would have been yet another nail in my coffin. Today, all sins are forgiven and I am left to my own amusements. I spend my time walking round a deserted Colwyn Bay, throwing stones in the sea, watching the seagulls, and generally just waiting for the morrow and my holiday’s end.
     The merry trippers are a mite subdued when they return for tea. At one point the blanket was let slip and Mrs. Llewellyn spotted the nose tattoo.
     “He won’t hang,” says the General, desperately fighting the urge to revert to the language of the barrack room, “the b..blighters will just lock him away in a loony bin and we’ll have to pay for his upkeep for the rest of his unnatural life.”
     The debate continues well past teatime and into the night, the television constantly springing to the stirrup to provide gobbets of information to be chewed at and gnawed on ad nauseam. The Barber’s defence that he was coming to the aid of the victim and was just leaning over the body to see if she was still alive when the Local Volunteers arrived is sneered into oblivion by Mrs. Llewellyn.
     “Why pick up the scissors then? And all that about being homeless and begging on the streets. They found £20 on him. Says somebody gave it to him. Who gives beggars £20 notes?” The prosecution rests her case and goes to the kitchen to make fresh tea. Tentatively I bring up the question of the missing hair which had apparently baffled one telly Bob.
     “They found some of it,” says Mr. Rowland.
     “And the rest probably got blown away in the struggle when they caught him,” adds Mrs. Rowland.
     “And the tongue?” I ask.
     “He ate it,” says the General and we all shudder at the neatness of it all.

     Friday morning I’m all packed, the final breakfast digesting nicely, an hour to kill before the train to Stump, I go out into Mrs. Llewellyn’s back garden for a smoke. I sit on a plastic chair on her patio and cast my eye over the cabbages and carrots. The Rowland girl is squatting over by the compost heap staring at a small tin box. The lid of the box is open and occasionally she flips it shut, then picks the tin up and holds it to her ear, then puts it back down and opens it again. This goes on for two pipefuls then her father comes out and tells her it’s time to go.
     “Just a minute Daddy.”
     “No now darling, we have to go.”
     I decide to give the kid a break and engage her father in conversation to give her time to finish her game. I ask him if they’ll be coming back to Colwyn Bay next year.
     “No, we always try somewhere new. Don’t see the point in going to the same place every year. Spirit of adventure and all that.”
     “Where next then?” I ask, “The Bahamas?”
     He laughs. “No we were thinking of Whitby.”
     “Dracula country,” I say.
     “I believe so. Mr. Cresswell put us onto it, said it was very nice. Quiet but we prefer it like that. Come on Rebecca, Mummy’s waiting.”
     “Just a minute. I’m not ready yet.”
     We watch the girl.
     “What’s she doing?” I ask her father.
     “God knows. Some game or other.”
     “Kids eh?”
     “Come on Rebecca,” this in his sternest voice.
     She snaps the lid shut, picks up the box, holds it to her ear and this time giggles and comes skipping up the path. As she passes me and takes her daddy’s hand I hear a buzzing in the box.

     I might try Whitby next year. Not for a holiday of course. No, I’ll be wearing my queer long coat from heel to head, half of yellow and half of red. Should be fun.

THE SHOCK PYX

     Every Friday I go to church. Started after I left the Health Service. Doing my rounds each night I’d bump into Father O’Sullivan doing his and when things were slow we’d meet up by the coffee machine and chew the fat. We’d discuss God and his arthritis and we’d exchange favours, I’d point his extreme unction in the right direction to save his aching knees and he’d pray for my soul. So when I packed the job in I began to miss the theological chats and I started to visit the good Father at home. It became a regular thing. Every Friday night after Confession, barring holidays or pressure of work, you’ll find me in the presbytery of St. Michael’s in Potton, discussing the mysteries of Faith over a glass of communion wine and a packet of fig rolls.
     Tonight we’re sitting there and I seem to be carrying most of the conversation. The old priest seems preoccupied. Sits by the fire staring at his biscuit, just nodding occasionally.
     “I hear Jesus was never crucified, did a deal with Pontius Pilate and escaped to England with Mary Magdalene, settled in Stump.”
     Father O’Sullivan nods.
     “Not that there was a Stump back then,” I continue, “but they reckon there’s a strange stone in Longbottom Park and that’s where He’s buried.”
     He just nods again.
     “Every Midsummer Eve, fairies can be seen dancing on the stone.”
     No reaction.
     “The goblins tried to stop them one year but the elves called Bob and the Council gave permission for the dance to go ahead. I give up, what’s the problem?”
     “He has stolen the body of Our Lord.”
     “From under the rock in Longbottom Park?”
     “This is not a matter for jokes.” And he gives me the look he reserves for those members of his congregation who got the top score of ten rosaries at their last confession. Suitably chastened I shut up and let him talk.
     Seems one Willie Malone has stolen some consecrated hosts. Willie is one of those dwellers on the fringe of polite society, enough nous to drag himself up from the jobless slime which the Social maintain for our general edification, but lacking the grace and polish sought by directors of human resources. The ox will always find employment of a menial nature, there will always be shit to shift, but the weasel must skitter around, tugging the forelock, wringing the hands, spying his chance, the oily smile, the greasy palm, the funny handshake, badly executed. So Willie would drift from job to job, although he would prefer the word ‘positions’, clerking mostly but always on the lookout to insinuate his tiny writhing frame into an orifice ultimately dripping with gelt. 
     “He used to be a sin-eater for the Old Romans who live out at Cheadle, the Latin lovers,” says Father O’Sullivan, pouring another glass of wine. “Then he gets a job renovating graves with the Butler boys. Old man Butler, I could tell you stories about him, one of Satan’s little helpers, anyway he’s got the contract for Stump, so one day Willie Malone comes round to check the records and make the lists. I didn’t like him at first, well I never took to him, always smiling, trying to please, but I put it down to my uncharitable feelings towards his employer, so when he says he’s moving into the area I tell him I hope to see him at Mass.”
     Which he does, every Sunday morning, and then Willie begins turning up at the bingo sessions, puts his name down on the rota to read the Lesson, even goes on the annual bus trip to Holywell, Pantasaph and Rhyl and so pretty soon he has become a valued member of the congregation, finally volunteering to take communion to the sick. The old and infirm of the Parish who cannot make it to Church on Sunday get their bit of God delivered to them. When the priest celebrates Mass he turns the little round wafers of bread into the actual body of Jesus Christ. This is the doctrine of Transubstantiation. This is magick. Only the Catholics do this, the others just pretend. So the priest knocks off a few extra and these are given to such as Willie to take round to the Old Folks’ Homes as a consolation for missing the main event. The consecrated hosts are placed in a small, circular, metal box called a pyx. Everything runs smoothly for a few weeks and then, one day, Willie collects his consignment, sets off from St. Michael’s, and disappears. Willie nicks the pyx.
     “I searched everywhere for him, even went to Cheadle in case he had returned to his old ways, but there’s no sign. His flat’s empty, his landlord has no idea where he’s gone. The Butler boys claim to know nothing, say their father sacked him for stealing, presumably that has to be kept in the family. There’s just no trace.”
     Now I have difficulty with this. The Father is obviously grievously upset. My first reaction is to tell him to make a fresh batch and forget all about Willie, I mean it’s not as if it’s a difficult trick requiring complicated apparatus; we’re not talking Harry Houdini here. But I quell that and seek further enlightenment.
     “So this pyx thing, made of gold?”
     “No, it’s just a metal box, it is not the container which is valuable but that which it contains. The body of Jesus Christ.”
     Again I resist the temptation to make light and ask which bit of His body we’re talking about. “How many hosts were there?”
     “Seven.”
     Could be a tongue. “And you’re sure Willie’s done this deliberately, I mean he’s lost his job, he’s moved house, with all that going on maybe he’s just forgotten to do his delivery.”
     “I wish I could believe that. I pray that he will just turn up here one day and then I can chastise myself for being a silly old fool, but I know that will never happen. These are dark times in which we live, Thomas. I must confess I even contemplated hiring somebody to find Willie Malone and do away with him. I know such creatures exist in this city but have no idea how to make contact with them. Perhaps that’s for the best, my ignorance saved me from blackening my soul still further. So help me God I just do not know what to do. He has stolen the body of Our Lord and I must do everything in my power to get it back.”
     With God on his side I can’t see why the old man should need any help from the likes of me, but in my profession you learn to keep an open mind. The odd plenary indulgence could mean the difference between an eternity in Hell or two weeks in Purgatory; I`ve already been to Wales. So I put myself in Willie’s shoes. I’ve just pulled off the biggest crime of the century. I’ve gotten clean away with a little tin full of round wafers. I’m still having difficulty with this.
     “So he steals the....body of Our Lord. Why? What’s he going to do with it?”
     “There was once a tribe in the further reaches of the Amazon jungle; missionaries made their first contact with them in 1820. They were converted to the one true Faith, responded enthusiastically, but after a few years the priests who visited them began to meet with unfortunate accidents. Fatal accidents. At first this was put down to the harshness of the terrain, the natural dangers of the jungle. All the bodies were recovered, all the wounds were accounted for, there was no suspicion that the natives themselves were to blame. Other missionaries had been murdered, mutilated, sometimes eaten by other tribes, but the Qu’chk had always acted in the most friendly, peaceful manner. After twelve priests had been lost in this way, the thirteenth, a Father Diaz, asked for some protection. Three Jesuits accompanied him to the Qu’chk region. Two of the Jesuits entered the settlement with the priest. The third Jesuit had left the party a few miles down river, making his way overland, keeping out of sight of the natives. Three months later he returned, alone, gave his report and by the end of the year not a single member of the Qu’chk tribe was left alive. There was talk of a golden coffin, loaded onto a barge, taken up the river, accompanied by a group of about twenty priests. After the village had been cleared, the coffin was carried into one of the huts and then after three days was taken back to the barge. Where it went then no one knows for sure, though there are rumours of a golden coffin hidden in the crypt of every church in Brazil.”
     “So who was in it?”
     “Officially, Father Diaz. Or, what remained of him. The bottom half of his body from his belly to his feet.”
     “And unofficially”
     “My granddaddy used to tell me tales about this old uncle of his who joined the Jesuits and travelled the world. Fascinating stories about the Heathen and the power of the Gospel. About the dangers of misinterpretation, about the mysteries of Faith. A golden coffin and half a man’s body, white as snow. The Qu’chk took us at our word. The bread made flesh. And one day Christ would return. Their faith was so strong they saw a shortcut in the forest and decided to take it.”
     So what does this mean? Willie’s got something going with the girl from Ipanema?
     “In your world everything is rendered unto Caesar, in mine the division remains. I do not know what plans Willie has for the body of Our Lord, I am just aware of the possibilities.”
     “In Stump? I mean I do not hear the endless cacophony of the rainforest out there, Father.”
     “Then you should return to the hospital and have your ears syringed. This city is full of poison, sects and strange cults that meet at night, and hatch rot. Would it surprise you to learn that there are people in Trentwood who worship Aten, the ancient Egyptian sun god?”
     “Nothing would surprise me about the good citizens of Trentwood.” It’s where the rich bastards live. “So you think they may want the pyx?”
     The old priest shook his head. Pity. “I mention it merely to show how many gods are worshipped in Stump, and not all of them are benign. Satan too has his Stumpish acolytes.”
     “I thought the Social’s geegee brigade had wiped them out.”
     “Driven underground, never destroyed. There are covens of witches in every town of Stump and each would pay Willie handsomely for his plunder.”
     “So that puts the witches top of the list. Who else?”
     “There are certain fundamentalist Christians, born again several times over, who can twist the Word of God to fit ever more grotesque patterns, turning white to black to justify any unnatural practice they can devise.”
     These I know. The point of the parable is the Samaritan could pay the hotel bill. Twisted geegees they come second.
     “Then there are groups within the Protestant church who still regard the Holy Father in Rome as the antichrist.”
     So I get out a notebook and write, ‘3. Scottish proddydogs’.

     It’s two o`clock in the morning when I stop writing. I have a book full of suspects and a degree in Comparative Religion. Father O’Sullivan empties the wine bottle into my glass and turns from the Shakers, who I don’t bother to write down since there are only eight of them left and he only gave them a mention to prove there were some good Christian folk left in the world, to a far more likely prospect.
     “He could of course have stolen the hosts for his own purposes. To use them in some bizarre ritual of his own invention. You remember the story don`t you?”
     So they had me till I was seven, I don’t deny it, but what’s Napoleon`s First Communion got to do with all this.
     “No, the other story. About the man who once received Holy Communion, but he held the host under his tongue, then took it out of his mouth when no one was looking and hid it.”
     “And he took it home and got a hammer and a nail. He put the round wafer of bread on a table and he hammered the nail straight through its centre. And immediately the host began to bleed. Deep red blood flowing from the body of Christ.”
     “Thomas, you understand why I have to get them back.”
     I just nodded and finished my wine.

     Saturday I visited the Butler boys. They’ve got a yard in Normacot, that’s between Longbottom and Cobhead. Old Man Butler lives in a big house behind it, had it built when he was scrap metal king, so he could sit there overlooking his demesne of smashed cars. Then when the cemeteries fill up and the contract goes out to shift the ancient dead, he goes political, raises the trouser leg, carves the peg, shakes the hand with the thumb askew and ends up as king of the underworld. He’s got three sons. One he promotes to continue the car crushing business, the other two join him in land reclamation. Some of the older churchyards he bought outright, then just mowed the grass and leased them straight back to the heritage industry. The rest of the cemeteries in the City he gets surveyed, mapped, annotated and the inmates are finally judged as to whether they rest in peace or go in the skip. The rule is any grave over ten years old is up for recycling but only after an extensive search has proved that the dear departed has left no legal kin, kith don’t count. One hundred years and older the process is automatic, no search required. Unless of course the occupant is famous, but this being Stump there’s only a couple of master potters, one writer and a witch you’ve got to worry about. To soothe the minds of the squeamish, the remains of the dead are cremated and their ashes scattered. Although this is supposed to be done at the Municipal Crematorium with due religious ceremony and obligatory reading of the 23rd. Psalm, I stand in Butler’s yard, wiping flecks of dust from my eyes, wondering how many unsettled spirits swirl about the mountain of twisted metal. I resolve never to visit this place at night.
     There are two portacabins either side the main gate. One’s for the scrap, the other has an old hearse parked outside. That’s the one I’m standing in now, watching the youngest Butler boy trying to think. I help.
     “He never mentioned family, relatives, where he used to live, where he went on holiday?”
     He shakes his head, very slowly. I sympathise, it’s a big head, lot of brainpower expended to move it, especially when the collar of your shirt’s too tight and digs into your neck. Then it speaks.
     “Ar just do the diggin’. Need see me brother or me dad. They might know. Ar just do the diggin’.”
     “Can I speak to your brother then, or your father?” I wait while he thinks.
     “Dave’s out on a special, that`s why ar’m not diggin’. Charge of the occif like, today. Got answer the phone. Wunner let me touch puter though.”
     I note the big tricksy box on the desk and wonder whether it knows the whereabouts of Willie Malone.
     “How come your Dad sacked him?”
     “Dunno. Ar just do the diggin’.”
     “I heard he was stealing stuff.”
     This must have triggered some synapse because he rises from his chair and towering above me, asks me to leave.
     I wish I had something in my pocket to calm him down, a sweetie, or a spade. As he starts to move from behind the desk, I retreat to the yard. I could let it go for now. Come back when evolution’s had a chance to do its work. Or I could make a break for the house, see if the old man’s sitting in the window, rocking. As Junior squeezes himself through the portacabin’s door frame, a car pulls up behind me. It’s a white Rolls-Royce. Maybe they’re moving on from recycling funerals to do the same for weddings. After ten years they come round and drive your wife away and you never see her again. Think of the money to be made in that racket. An old man gets out from behind the wheel, nods at Junior and points at the portacabin. His son goes back to work.
     “What can I do for you, sir?”
     He’s a good foot shorter than me and at least twenty years older, just let him try something.                     “I’m looking for Willie Malone.”
     “Not here.”
     “No, your...son informed me.”
     He takes a cigar case from his pocket, puts a corona in his mouth then gets a lighter. As he flicks the flame to life he says, “Do you think there’s any point?”
     “What?”
     “Bugger off then.” He kills the cigar with his thumb and puts it back in the case.
     “Look, I’m just trying to find Willie Malone.”
     “He’s not here.”
     “No I know but..”
     Old man Butler is getting back in his car. I decide to use the magic word.
     “I hear you sacked him for stealing.”
     He reaches into the car and sounds the horn, then comes back to face me. He stands a foot away, looking up, all aerated, spit specks flying. “There are rules you know. All laid down. Big book full of ‘em. And we follow it exact, to the letter. Anything found on a body gets burnt along with it. Owt in coffin, loose like, that we can just chuck in skip, and once chucked it’s chucked. I know what thee say about me and me boys behind me back, but thee wunner say it to me face. How ‘bout you, you goin’ call me a grave-robber?”
     If he hadn’t sounded the horn I might, but I can hear Junior scraping the sides of the portacabin, speed is of the essence. “Sir I assure you, the fact that Willie Malone was sacked for stealing is due testament to your essential probity. I merely wish to know what it is he stole?”
     “Baby bodies.”
     Yeah, sure. Much as I would have liked to continue this conversation, maybe get within hailing distance of the truth, I feel Junior’s breath on the back of my neck, so with a quick side-step and a polite “Good day”, I am off and running.

     Sunday we all go to Church, several times over. Stump is full of churches. That’s a lie. The City of Stump is full of churches but the town of Stump is curiously bereft. The other towns compensate. It seems every abandoned building is turned into a church, old cinemas, warehouses, shops, all get new licks of paint and a poster about the new owner. Everywhere you look in Stump, God is staring right back at you, peeping from behind his holy curtains. ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions.’ The Man was thinking of Stump.
     Only the abandoned churches remain abandoned. Once God has decided to move out he stays out, omniscience allows for no second thoughts. So when the Anglicans and the Methodists began to slip over the edge, swopping their hardwood pews for a chance to sing and sway to a more rapturous beat than their old wheezy pipe-organs could ever manage, finally getting the chance to pray for what they wanted, had always wanted deep down in their souls, then the old houses of God were put on the market. The plain style of Methodist architecture, in keeping with the main tenets of the sect, keep your nose clean and don’t annoy the neighbours, made the conversion to warehouses and shops simple. Only a couple of the original chapels in the City caused problems. These, like the older Anglican churches, had been listed by big buggers down London, who have no idea of the problems facing the poor councillors of Stump when faced with redevelopment proposals that would bring vast wealth and new jobs to this City were it not for this owd church stuck right in middle and we conner shift it cause it’s architected or summat, so they were left to rot until they fell down of their own accord and many tears were shed. The more ornate churches, those with character, those with history, of those not occupying prime building land, were subsumed by Heritage plc which installed suitable slideshows, canned monkey music and rides for the kiddies. The rest remained empty, but they did not fall down. They were ‘looked after’. By whom, no one is supposed to know.
     Of course a few die-hard fanatics remained faithful to the creed of their forefathers, refused to pray the yankee way. And the stricter religions, those that still held onto Hell and offered other certainties to cling to in this world where the beat of a butterfly’s wing in the Amazonian rainforest could cause four children to die in a car crash in Stump, gave little ground to the Jimmy-Joe-Billies with their shiny gold trousers held up by bible belts. Not that the geegees were bothered, they went after new blood, soaked it up off the streets, collected it with clipboards door-to-door. Then went and built more churches. Like I said, Stump is full of churches. And I haven’t even mentioned the Muscles.
     So Sunday we decide to scratch the surface. Knowing the procedure I take the Roman way, attend a couple of early morning masses in Longbottom and Cobhead keeping an eye out for weasel-faced Willie, there’s a faint possibility he’ll try the same trick elsewhere to add to his pyx collection, you never know there might be a bit of Inca in him. Then I head out to Cheadle and smell the incense in the Pugin palace, float with the others in the incomprehensible glory of the ineffable. As the Old Romans stagger out into the grey day I ask a few if they’ve seen Willie Malone around. All I get is shaking heads and dominus vobiscums. I et cum spiritu tuo them then goo wom to Stump.
     Meanwhile Ginger had been a geegee all morning. He came back £50 poorer but with a foolproof system for winning the National Lottery.
     “You let Jesus choose your numbers.”
     “Simple as that,” I say, flipping the bacon.
     “You know there’s a book of the Bible called ‘Numbers’?”
     “Between ‘Leviticus’ and ‘Deuteronomy’.”
     “Wherever. Anyway, the fourth chapter of ‘Numbers’ has 49 verses, there are 49 numbers in the lottery, just say a prayer to Jesus and stick your pin in.”
     “Are you supposed to make holes in your Bible?”
     “To the greater glory of Jesus, sure that’s okay. As long as you remember who actually chose the numbers and give Him a cut.”
     That’s when Algy came in wearing a kilt, so further religious discussion was halted while we had a good laugh.
     “You said they were Scottish.”
     “But they’re not all Rob Roys,” says Ginger.
     I serve the dinner while we listen to Algy’s saga of his journey to the cold holy places of the Northern tribes. So far we had all drawn a blank regarding Willie Malone. Algy wants to infiltrate the Muscles, find out if there’s a jihad going on, but that’s just the Cherry Blossom talking. We’ve got a long way to go before they reach the top of the list. Tonight we would carry on with the Christians. Tomorrow was Lucifer’s turn. A visit to the University of Stump and a quick scan of the notice-boards in the Students Union would give us enough leads to the congregations of the horny-headed chap. If Willie Malone was still in Stump then I would find him. Maybe I didn’t shake hands with the Almighty, but I considered it a contract all the same.

     “I’m getting a message from John.”
     It’s my turn. She’s done everybody else in the church, now I’m expected to put my hand up. They’re all looking at me. I’m trying to think of someone named John who’s died. I’ve had a good time so far, listening to various spirits dispense wisdom from the other side. Apparently the weather will improve, but we have to beware the influence of estate agents and double-glazing salesmen. It’s a very restful place this. Almost a church but not quite, a bit of stained glass here and there but nothing gaudy. I like the way they address the fundamental problem with life, death. Pretend it doesn’t exist. Everyone knows a dead John, it would be impolite not to co-operate so I stick up my hand.
     “John, he’s an elderly chap, he’s very well-dressed, distinguished-looking, a real gentleman. Is it your...”
     Twenty-four eyes are fixed upon me. A thirteenth pair at the front of the church are fixed on some other place, where an old snappy-dresser called John waits to be recognised. You’d think he’d give us his second name, make it easy, but the spirit world seems to be full of such whimsical characters.
     The old lady sitting in the pew opposite leans across and whispers, “Perhaps it’s your father.” I suppose he could be in disguise, changed his name, you don’t know what the set-up is over there. I give up.
     “I had an Uncle John. He di..passed over last year.”
     An audible sigh of relief wings its way to heaven as the medium, more of a small actually, a little woman in a flowery frock, continues to bring me news of Uncle John’s doings in the great beyond.
     “He says you’re very worried at the moment. You’re searching for something, but he says you’ll find it.”
     I just smile and nod, that seems to be the correct response. I consider asking how Auntie Nora’s doing, since I never had one of those either, but Uncle John is a gobby bugger and I can’t get a word in. He rambles on about how well he is now he’s dead.
     “It was a long and painful illness..” Heart attack, quite sudden, here one day gone the next. “..but he says he’s at peace now, with his family and friends.” Never had any friends. He was a miserable owd sod. “And he’s just got one last thing to say to you. He says it’s very important.” This is it, he’s going to tell me where he buried his money. “Never ask the point. Death will be your answer.”
     I ponder on this as I wend my way home. Get on with your life, you’ll find out what it was all about when you’re dead. Don’t waste your time in fruitless discussion, live life to the full. Compared to the other visiting spirits my Uncle John turns out to be a bit of a philosopher. No ‘keep an eye on the milkman’ for him, life’s for living, death’s for talking about it. Fair enough. Words to live by. Clever bloke me Uncle John. Wish I’d known him. Maybe he was a great-uncle, or a second cousin, twice removed. Or maybe, the thought just strikes me, he was somebody I’d killed.
     Ginger comes back first. He’s been drinking.
     “Church of the Wobbly Barmaid, was that on your list?”
     “Celebrating," he says. "I’ve found him.”
     “Where?”
     “Coalport. Church of the Final Coming. Little place on Cardigan Road.”
     “You’ve been there? You’ve seen him?”
     “No. I was in Longbottom, Pentecostal joint used to be a chipshop, anyroad, I’m talking to this couple after the service and we get onto snakes..”
     “And ride off into the sunset?”
     “No, snakes as in America, those weird churches where they fling them around and do a dance. So I’m saying that’s what we need over here, some gimmick to really wake people up to the glory of Jesus. Speaking in tongues and thrashing about on the floor’s okay, but you need something with more entertainment value. Which is when they mention this church in Coalport.”
     “Since when do people in Longbottom know what’s happening in Coalport?”
     “This is God work. The normal boundaries do not apply. They’ve not actually visited the church mind, but they’ve heard whispers from passing pilgrims of strange doings, some of which are said to involve the corpses of children.”
     “Baby bodies.”
     “That’s what I thought.”
     “And I thought Old Man Butler was winding me up.”
     “You owe him an apology.”
     “Later. Let’s go to church.”
     “Already been. All closed up. No one home. Only one service a week anyway, that’s on Friday. Half past two in the afternoon.”

     So we sat and waited for Algy. It was gone midnight when he slouched in, face on the floor.
     “You look merry,” says Ginger.
     Algy just flops in his chair. “That God’s a twat, inneree?”
     I feel my visits to Father O’Sullivan require no further explanation.
     “You’ve been down among the geegees,” says Ginger, but Algy shakes his head.
     “I dunno what they were. I thought it was a church. There were all these men in suits, women in big hats, going in this hut. So I just followed. Inside there were just rows of chairs, nothing on the walls, no windows. We all sat down. I stayed at the back. There was no altar, just a big chair at the front, facing us. Nobody says anything. Complete silence. Then this door opens at the far end and this old chap shuffles in, goes to the big chair and sits down. Then the whole place just erupts. They all start shouting and screaming, pointing at the old man. Some of the women go up and spit at him. It goes on for hours, everybody having a go at this old chap and him sitting there, not saying anything, not moving, just sits and takes it. Occasionally somebody would go and stand right in front of him and just scream abuse in his face. Then they’d return to their seat and join the others in the chorus. After a while, as they got tired and their voices gave out, they’d sit down and just mutter. Time to time somebody would shout something out. The muttering seemed to be ‘Degg is damned’, repeated over and over, then you’d get some cracked voice squealing ‘God is gone’ or ‘Degg lost God’. Then the old man starts crying. Tears his shirt open and rips at his chest with his fingernails. He draws blood and the muttering stops. Complete silence again. The old man stands up, says, ‘His house shall be rebuilt’ then walks out the door. That was it. Everybody gets up then, they tie their ties, adjust their big hats and file out, calm as can be. I sit there for a bit, hoping the caretaker will come along to lock up then I can ask what it’s all about, but no one shows. Then I hear banging outside, coming from the other end of the church, if it is a church. I take a look through the door the old chap used and I see him there at the back of the hut sitting by a huge pile of bricks. It’s dark by now but he’s got a little bonfire going so there’s enough light for me to see. He takes four bricks, makes a square, gets some cement and sticks another four on top. Carries on like that, building a little tower, till it’s about knee-high, then he picks up a sledgehammer and knocks it down. Then starts again, four bricks in a square, cement, build the tower, smash it down, four bricks...”
     “We get the picture,” says Ginger.
     “Yes we see.”
     “Why do people do this stuff?” says Algy. “What’s the point?”
     I light my pipe. “As my Uncle John used to say, ‘Never ask the point. Death will be your answer.’”

     Friday we all go to Church. Coalport, 2.30 p.m., the sole weekly service of the Church of the Final Coming. We dress for the occasion. Nice blue suits, crisp white shirts, ties of sober hue, our hair is short and we have spent the morning scrubbing our faces and fingernails so that the image we present to the world is one of clean.
     Cardigan Road runs down Bigthorne Bank into Coalport. At the bottom, as the slope flattens out there’s a piece of waste ground on the left where the Baths used to be. Next to that we see God. He’s staring down from an upstairs window of an old carpet shop. He’s a weasel-faced bloke with a beard, but he’s nailed to a cross so that gives him away. Beneath the poster is a faded sign: ‘Carpets R Rugs’. Under that the shop window, now painted white to obscure what lies within, but tasteful Gothic lettering gives a clue: ‘The Church Of The Final Cuming’. So the sign-writer dinner goo Oxford College. This is it. I park the car.
     Considering it’s Friday afternoon there’s quite a large crowd heading through the door. We split up and mingle. I sit near the front. I notice a strange odour in the air. There’s an altar, or at least a table covered by a swathe of red velvet, on which there stands a large wooden tabernacle, flanked by candlesticks. To the right there’s a lectern with a Bible, on the left a small table with a silver tray poking out from under a white linen cloth. Behind the altar, a big cross, made from two rough wooden beams, stretches up to the ceiling. Beyond that is a door and when it opens the congregation rises and the priest appears. He’s too hefty for Willie, but the altar-boy who follows him, swinging a thurible, is the dead spit. As the air fills with the incense, the service begins.
     To my surprise I find I can follow most of it. After Algy’s experience we were expecting the worst. ‘Hanging from the ceiling with bananas in our ears’ in Ginger’s words, although ‘ears’ wasn’t one of them. But this is almost Catholic. We confess to being naughty then do the Kyrie in Greek, the Gloria in Latin, then the priest goes to the lectern and reads a bit from the Bible. The crucifixion scene from Matthew. Now we begin to deviate for he also reads Mark’s version of the same event, then Luke’s and finally the gospel according to John. We get a sermon about Jesus being on his way back to Stump and we’d all better get ready, then we sing the Credo, which is much as I remember it. I wonder how Algy and Ginger are coping. After the Sanctus we come to the main part of the Mass, what should be the trick with the bread and the wine, the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. I glance at my watch, it’s nearly three o`clock. Willie goes to the table and removes the cloth from the tray. I see a bell, a hammer, some six-inch nails and a small, round, metal box. The priest goes to the altar and opens the doors of the tabernacle. Willie takes the tray and places it on the altar. The priest stands to one side so that the congregation can see what secret the tabernacle holds.
     I’m seven years old again, standing outside a small tent at a travelling fairground camped in Potton Park. ‘See The Two-Headed Boy’. I hand over my money and go in. Afraid and enthralled at the thought of seeing the freak. Inside I push through a grumbling crowd to a glass case containing a small statue of a boy with a head from another statue sellotaped to its neck. It was the sellotape holding the fragile bones together that brought the memory back. But this I knew was no plaster statuette, this body nailed to its tiny cross still had shreds of leathery skin clinging to it, wisps of hair trailing down into the empty sockets of its eyes. Willie rings the bell, then opens the pyx and hands a host to the priest. He rings the bell again and hands him a nail. The priest puts the round white wafer into the chest cavity of the dead baby, holds it in place with the nail. Willie rings the bell a third time and hands the priest the hammer. The priest hits the nail with the hammer, spearing through the body of Jesus Christ, into the wooden back of the tabernacle. He steps aside again so that we can all see the impaled host. Willie gathers up the equipment, puts it back on the tray, returns the tray to the table. The priest closes the doors of the tabernacle. He turns to face us and says, “It is not the time foretold. Go, the Mass is ended.”
     “Thanks be to God,” is the response and we stand while the priest and the thurifer leave the altar. I sit back down while the rest of the congregation leave the church. Ginger and Algy come and join me. As the smell of the incense begins to fade the other odour returns. It’s no longer strange. We wait for Willie to come back and blow out the candles.
     “There are some sick ... folk about,” says Ginger.
     “I blame God,” says Algy.
     The door opens and Willie walks in. He’s shed his cassock. He looks at us sitting there and hesitates, then goes to the altar, licks his fingers and pinches the flames away.
     “What happens when it bleeds?” I ask, pitching my voice loud enough to bring the priest out of his sacristy.
     Willie turns to face us. “Then we will know the time foretold has come.”
     “And then what?”
     The priest approaches the altar, minus his red chasuble but still wearing his alb. “Then the Holy Child will be reborn, will grow before our eyes into a Man, and He shall be the Redeemer, returned to pass Judgement upon us all,” says the vision in white.
     My guess is he really believes it, that’s why Willie had to deliver the genuine article. Can’t perform miracles with a slice of Sunblest. It’s a pity, but all religions require martyrs. On the other hand I’ve no doubts at all about Willie. I recall the weasel-face on the Jesus poster in the upstairs window. He would have waited awhile until their audience grew and then he would perform the trick. Willie would achieve the apotheosis of clerical work, listing the saved and the damned in the ultimate ledger.
     “Who are you?” asks Willie.
     It’s time to make our move.
     “Mormons from Hell,” says Ginger.
     We settle them down then I use what’s handy, the hammer and nails. We’re not cruel, I make sure they’re both dead before we arrange them on the cross. I retrieve the pyx from the silver tray and check its contents. There are five hosts left. Presumably they held a service last Friday. The seventh host is still stuck in the baby inside the tabernacle but I’m not touching that.

     That night I embroider the truth a little for Father O’Sullivan should Bob find the bodies and the Signal run the photo. The congregation went wild and did the dastardly deed, I merely purloined the pyx in the confusion. I hand him the little round box. As he counts I explain the missing two, then finish my wine and start to leave. That’s when he asks me.
     “Thomas I have to know.”
     What the hell. “It bled.”

THE DINGUS

     “This is going to be the most astounding thing you’ve ever heard of, sir, and I say that, knowing that a man of your calibre in your profession must have known some astounding things in his time.”
     I nodded politely, sipped my drink and let the fat man talk.
     “What do you know, sir, about the Ten Commandments?”
     “Thou shalt not kill, that stuff?” I could throw in Charlton Heston but this is a classy fat gent, I do not want to appear the hick.
     “Exactly, sir, and you no doubt have also heard of the Golden Calf, which Aaron made at the behest of the Israelites camped at the foot of Mount Sinai, impatient for Moses’ return. Seemingly abandoned by their God, they invoke another to worship.”
     “And when Moses comes down from the mountain and sees his people dancing naked before the Golden Calf he smashes the tablets of stone on which Yahweh has inscribed the Ten Commandments and he takes up the Golden Calf and throws it into the fire, then grinds it to powder, scatters it on the water and makes the Israelites drink it.”
     “Well, sir, you know your bible.”
     “Just the fun bits.”
     “Do you also know when this version of events was finally written down, became, as it were, immutable fact?”
     I shake my head, let him do the work.
     “Centuries after the event occurred. Almost a millennium. Hundreds of years for the tale to expand with the telling, handed down by word of mouth, from father to son, from priest to acolyte, from prophet to king. An interminable game of Chinese whispers.”
     The fat man paused for effect. I took in the room while I was waiting. Nice decor. Much what you’d expect from Potton’s Grand Hotel. The punk who’d met me by the canal was slouched in a chair over by the window. He was sulking. Didn’t like the way I’d relieved him of his gun, but when I visit a prospective client I prefer they observe the niceties.
     “And so, for what was added to the account, maybe as much was lost. Other legends, other myths, other tales of dissatisfaction, rebellion almost, groups of the faithful rescuing what remained of their god, escaping into the desert, finding their own Promised Land, making their homes in another city, building there a shrine, a tower. But the walls of the tower crumbled to dust with the blast from Joshua`s trumpets for their god needed time to grow, as yet was too weak for the fight. So the city was destroyed and all that dwelt therein, and everything was consumed by fire. Everything that is except for the gold and silver, or anything constructed of metal, this was to be gathered together in the treasury of the house of the Lord. However one man disobeyed Joshua’s order. ‘Achan of the tribe of Judah, took the accursed thing and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel.’ A direct quote, sir.”
     I nodded as if I knew.
     “But what was the ‘accursed thing’ which Achan stole? He admits to taking a garment, some silver coins and a wedge of gold. And for this crime he, and his sons and his daughters and his oxen and his asses and his sheep are all stoned to death and then burnt. All of his possessions are burnt, even that which he stole. Then a great heap of stones are raised over the ashes. The ‘accursed thing’ is buried in the valley of Achor. Or so Adolf Hitler believed. Countless expeditions to find the heap of stones were financed by the Thule Gesellschaft. Hitler and his fellow occultists were convinced that the remains of the Golden Calf still lay buried in the desert outside Jericho.”
     “How do you know he didn’t find it?”
     “Why sir, isn’t it obvious? We won the war.” And he has a hearty chuckle at that. His punk in the corner joins in. They’re happy.
     “This dingus is powerful then?”
     “In the wrong hands, yes, devastatingly powerful. But you have no need to concern yourself on that score. I am merely interested in its great archaeological value, I have no intention of selling it to the highest bidder, even though the price would be astronomical. No sir, when I have found it, I will merely hand it over to the British Museum and let them worry about the future. I will of course write an account of my quest to discover the Golden Calf and to see that published would be reward enough.”
     The gunsel starts laughing again, but his fat master shuts him up with a nasty look.
     “For seventeen years I have been searching for Achan’s ‘wedge of gold’. I started in Jericho, the logical place, but I was a fool to think logic applied to this quest. For a time I considered that Hitler may have found the ‘accursed thing’ but too late to do him any good. I went to the castle of Wewelsburg, Himmler’s ‘Mittelpunkt der Welt’, saw the great North Tower where his thirteen knights were to meet directly above the crypt which held the sacred fire. Nothing. Poor Adolf never found his ‘Holy Grail’. I consulted Hebrew scholars and was politely shown the door, I sought out necromancers and cabalists but to no avail. Ten years I spent in the libraries of the world, tracking down the rarest tomes of forgotten lore, sifting through the arcana for some mention of the lost god of the Israelites. Then one day,  Fate or whatever it is that guides us through the chaos, set me on the right path. I was at the time in pursuit of dragons, the Loch Ness Monster, the Lambton Wyrm, seeking confusion within the folklore. Returning from a trip in pursuit of the Welsh variety I happened across a town with a goodly supply of second-hand bookshops. I decided to stop awhile, perhaps I would find some lost grimoire to aid me on my quest. Instead, outside one particular shop there was a cardboard box full of old paperbacks. Thrown on the top of the pile was this.” He hands me a book. “Have you read it, sir?”
     The Dark Brethren by Jeff Hartnett. There’s a picture of a falling tower on the cover with some scary-looking thing rising up behind it, ready to devour a naked bint tied to an altar, while some monks make fireworks in the foreground. “No.”
     “Of course not, sir, a man of your taste and breeding would never deign to pick up, let alone read, such unadulterated trash. Seventeen years ago I too would have ignored it but now I was grasping at straws and there was something about the illustration on the cover, the great beast in the tower. I bought the book, retired to my car and read it from beginning to end. It was a simple tale, luridly told, of a group of warrior monks, followers of Jesus Magus, travelling through England in the twelfth century, using their fighting skills and magic to right wrongs and destroy the evil which Satan had wrought on the country. The climax of the novel was an almighty battle with a demon which lived in a tower. The scene on the cover. The demon drew its power from a magical item stolen from the Holy Land during the First Crusade by a band of renegade Templars. What this item actually was is never mentioned in the text, it is merely referred to as a metal object, which has the power to entrance any who lay eyes upon it. It bewitches the beholder into paying homage. Sacrifices must be made, offerings burnt and a tower must be built in which its god might grow. The Templars adopt the pose of Cistercian monks and build themselves an abbey to disguise their real purpose. And here, sir, is when I felt the scales fall from my eyes and for one gloriously mad moment I believed that the true history of the world could be divined from just such works of cheap fiction, for the name of the place was the Abbey of Achor. To finish the story, the Templars ravage the neighbourhood, indulging in lewd and unnatural practices at the behest of their god, growing ever stronger in its lofty lair, sacrificing the maidens of the surrounding villages until news of their satanic blight reaches the ears of the Dark Brethren, who, in predictable fashion ride to the rescue, defeat the monster, kill its servitors, destroy the tower and bury the ‘accursed thing’.”
     I hand the book back to him. “I think I saw the film.”
     “By gad, sir, you are a character. That you are!”
     I finish my drink. He pours me another. I had a feeling there was more.
     “So now, sir, I was faced with this strange document which held great import for me, but for me alone. Had the author merely imagined the whole thing, had the story sprung unbidden from Mr. Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’, or did it have a more material foundation? I resolved to find out. Unfortunately, my attempts to find Jeff Hartnett met with no success. Apparently The Dark Brethren was his only book. It was now out of print and the publishing house itself had ceased to exist. I returned to the text to search for clues. I had an ‘Abbey of Achor’ founded and then destroyed sometime between the First Crusade and the middle of the twelfth century, located in the heart of England. I consulted the relevant volumes on the establishment of Religious Houses in England during the Middle Ages but there was no mention of it. I was not surprised. Achor is the Cyrenean God of Flies, the equivalent of the Hebrew Beelzebub. The Templars, wishing to disguise their true nature, would never have used such a name for their supposedly Christian abbey. It was time to enter the linguistic labyrinth. From the Valley of Achor where the ‘accursed thing’ was supposedly buried I passed over the Acheron, the Greek river of sorrows, located in the infernal regions where grows the aconite, also known as wolfsbane or monkshood, its poison formed from the foam which dripped from the mouth of Cerberus. I searched in vain for variants in the list of medieval abbeys, then tried the path of Beelzebub. This was more promising, I discovered an Abbey of Belleme, founded in 1135, destroyed by fire in 1139, situated right here in the heart of England. Was this it, or merely another false trail in the maze? Belleme was far from Beelzebub, not much closer to Belial, but what of Bellum, for what else were the benighted Templars seeking but unholy war. Change a letter and the purpose is disguised. Bellem, belamy, bel ami, a fair friend, a trusty companion, such as Achates was to Aeneas. Achates to Achor, Beelzebub to Belleme. I had travelled across continents on the promise of far less. So I came here with my companion and made enquiries concerning the Abbey of Belleme. There was scant literature on the subject but I read it all and I became convinced I was on the right track. There was even a legend of the Dark Brethren, the original source for Hartnett’s book. Does it surprise you, sir, to discover that the Golden Calf is here, in Stump?”
     “Not really,” I said, considering the way everything was going downhill. “I remember it when it was all fields.”
     “I stood on the site of the Abbey, I went to the Museum at Potton and saw the skeleton of one of the Templars, and most important, I read an account of an excavation of the abbey undertaken in 1875 by a Reverend Mallory. He found it, sir, the ‘accursed thing’, the Golden Calf, he dug it up and took it to the Museum. He had no idea what it was of course, a lump of metal, a piece of slag, residue from some smelting process. The Templars must have disguised it somehow, covered it with some other ore to hide the gold. I asked to see it. For seventeen years I had tracked the thing, traced it over three millennia, and now I was about to set my eyes upon it. Imagine my horror when the girl informed me that the computer held no record of that particular item.”
     “You can`t trust computers.” It was the litany. Next up was ‘They’re knocking everything down’.
     “My thoughts exactly, sir, but I was too stunned to think clearly. I stumbled out of the Museum and in a moment of utter frustration I instructed Mr. Jones to break into their storerooms under cover of night and conduct his own search for the missing artefact. It was a reckless move I grant you, sir, but luckily nothing untoward came of it.”
     He smiles across at his punk. I remember all the photos in the Signal, the Museum guards pointing at the various treasures which could have been stolen, the big Egyptian pot, the shrunken head, Arthur Barratt’s walking stick. The fat man resumes his tale.
     “I gathered my wits, sir, and returned to the Museum. I asked them to search again for the object in question and when they admitted it had been lost I pressed them for a possible explanation. Apparently the Potton Museum underwent extensive alteration during the 1950s. While the building work was in progress much of the Museum’s collection was transferred to other municipal establishments for storage. There would be records, I asked to see them. The final documentary evidence for the existence of the Golden Calf was an order form of the Stump City Works Department, dated 4th. September 1958, detailing the transportation of several items from Potton Museum to the Coalport School of Art. One of the items mentioned was a lump of metal from the Abbey of Belleme, circa 1139. This particular item was missing from the order relating to the return of the objects to the Museum and so yet again my apparently endless quest shifted to a new location. I went to Coalport and discovered that it no longer possesses an Art School.”
     “They’re knocking everything down.”
     “It closed in 1967 and became part of what is now the University of Stump. There are no records relating to the transfer of the Art School’s equipment, or other objects, and if there were it is doubtful whether they would mention the Potton Museum’s ‘lump of metal’ for that was presumably lost a decade earlier. I did manage however to acquire a list.” He gives Mr. Jones a nod and the sulky punk drags a box-file from under the bed, walks over and dumps it in my lap. It’s heavy.
     “The names of all the students and members of staff at the Coalport School of Art between the years 1958 and 1967. One of these people must know what happened to the ‘accursed thing’.”
     I open the box and take a look.
     “I realise, sir, it will be a mammoth task, that is why I have decided to recruit extra staff. You will notice that many of the addresses are local, although whether they are current is another matter, but we must start somewhere.”
     I flip through the pages. Students, lecturers, secretaries, even the cleaners. Names. Fred Griffiths, Elaine Morgan, William Bogle, Thomas Degg.
     “With your local knowledge, sir, I’m sure we will find the Golden Calf before the millennium is out.”
     I close the box and hand it back to the fat man. “I’m sorry, I don’t do detective work.”

LITERATURE

     Doctor Anstey considered for a moment, took a sip of tea, then wrote 64%. It was the correct thing to do but she knew it was not right. The spelling had been atrocious, marks should have been deducted but she had been warned that that was no longer the proper procedure, she must concern herself solely with the ideas which the student expressed, mere technicalities like spelling and punctuation were no longer important. Given these constraints she felt that 64% was a fair mark for Mr. Swinson’s essay. She had not understood any of it, but she had noted the number of references to the work of French critical theorists and she was sure Mr. Swinson had addressed the question correctly and had covered all the salient points. ‘ “If Arthur Barrett had remained in Stump he would never have written his Tales of the Four Towns.” Discuss.’ The quotation was from her own book about Arthur Barratt, her Ph.D. thesis in fact. Twenty-two years ago it had secured her a teaching post at what was then Stump Polytechnic. She picked up the next essay and began to read. ‘Since Arthur Barratt was a happy chap, he had get out of Stump as quick as possible before somebody caught him at it, so he went down London where he knew Oscar Wilde hung out. As Derrida states in his..’ She turned to the last page and wrote 59%.

     Doctor Anstey sat in bed with a mug of cocoa and a good book, Arthur Barratt’s Elsie Of The Four Towns. She had of course read all of Barratt’s books countless times but whenever she felt herself sag beneath the heavy burden of her life she would reach for ‘Elsie’ or The Little Tinker or Pottinger and drift away to a simpler Stump. She had other means to escape the real world, she spent her weekends and the major part of her inordinately long vacations in the guise of Philomena Fairfax, romantic novelist. So far she had published seven titles under that name and they brought her a modest income, which should she ever be forced to take early retirement from the University of Stump, would supplement her pension and ensure a more than comfortable existence for the rest of her years. She had no family to support, she was alone in the world, so money was not a problem. She could give up the job tomorrow, be Philomena full-time and not notice a change in her circumstances. No, money was not the problem. She would not miss teaching, it had never brought her pleasure, it was merely her job, one which she found increasingly difficult to perform well. So why did she hang on, suffer the snide remarks of her colleagues, the sniggers of her students, the constant undermining of her position in the Faculty? If not for money, if not for love of teaching, then for what?
     Doctor Anstey was stubborn. She would prefer ‘strong-willed’ as a description, like Elsie of the Four Towns, like all of Barratt’s women in fact, and all of Philomena Fairfax’s too. Strong-willed or stubborn, makes no never mind, she saw herself as a heroine fighting a just cause, she would retire from her position at the University of Stump when she decided she wanted to do so, and not before. They could block her promotion, could cancel her courses, could reject her articles for the Stump University Literary Review, but she could just refuse to take the hint. Doctor Mangan, the head of her department, twenty years her junior, a graduate of Hull, but with a doctorate in Media Studies, had informed her this morning that this was the last year that ‘The Edwardian Novelists: Defining An Era’ would appear in the prospectus, it would be replaced by ‘Soap Opera: The Fat Lady Never Sings’ and you should have seen him smirk when she informed him she’d never owned a television set. So Arthur Barrett would no longer be taught in the City he made famous throughout the world, but she could add him to one of her other courses, ‘The Victorian Novel: Realism and Romance’, let Doctor Mangan try and replace Dickens with (she tried to think of a writer of television soap opera but of course couldn’t). Barratt published his first novel in 1898, so technically he was a Victorian writer, as much as he was Edwardian, all such labels are specious. Besides, his greatness rests on the collection of Four Towns Novels which were nearly all set in the Victorian era, drawing on his own memories of the area during that period. He was born in Potton in 1867 and went to live in London in 1889, never returning to the place of his birth until his brother brought his ashes to rest in his mother’s grave in Coalport cemetery. So Arthur Barratt could quite easily be considered a Victorian novelist.
     Doctor Anstey smiled. Perhaps she should write a paper for the Literary Review laying the groundwork for Barratt’s relocation among the great Victorian novelists. She smiled again. That could wait. There was the other project. The one which would wipe the smirk from Doctor Mangan’s face permanently. She put down her cocoa and her book and got out of bed, went to the dressing table and picked up the letter. She looked at the address and thought again how fitting that her date with destiny should lie in Cobhead. Then for the umpteenth time she read:
 
     ‘Dear Miss Fairfax,
     In reply to your request for information regarding the family of Emily Hassall, I believe I may be able to       help. My late father had a Great Aunt Emily who emigrated to South America around 1870 and he often talked of our Argentinian cousins, particularly during the Falklands war. He always meant to write to the British Embassy in Buenos Aires to see if they could put him in touch with that branch of the family, but as far as I am aware never did. Since you did not state a reason for wanting to contact the family I can only speculate that you have embarked on a similar quest, but geographically reversed. If such is the case then I am most anxious to meet you. So, cousin, may I invite you to tea this Sunday, 16th. March, at the above address. If this is inconvenient please write and let me know so that we can make more suitable arrangements.
                 Yours sincerely,
                               Daniel Hassall.’

     Doctor Anstey returned the letter to the dressing table and went back to bed. She thought it a pity that Mr. Hassall was expecting to meet a long lost cousin on Sunday. Having to immediately disabuse him of the notion might prove awkward. Then again, he obviously knew nothing about the illustrious career of his real Argentinian cousin, so when she informed him of his relation to the man whom many regarded as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century then surely his initial disappointment would soon be tempered by pride and gratitude to her for bringing the fact to his attention. No she had been right to keep her purpose hidden in the advert she placed in the Personal Notices column of the Signal. Likewise her use of her pseudonym had been correct. In order to make the maximum impact, Doctor Mangan must have no idea of the subject matter of her next submission to the Literary Review. No one must suspect that she was hot on the trail of the English relatives of Manuel Garcia Monteros. She drifted off to sleep and dreamt of gauchos on the pampas wearing flat caps and riding whippets.

     Doctor Anstey had read all the stories of Manuel Garcia Monteros. She could not say that she had understood them all but that had not worried her unduly, this was research. Many of his cryptic little pieces, which would send her colleagues into paroxysms of interpretative glee, left her merely wondering how Philomena Fairfax would fair with her publisher should she dispense with characters, plot and the basic rules of structure. All stories should have a beginning, middle and end, and in that order. Any deviation was mere affectation. The stories of Monteros seemed to observe none of the rules yet she had dutifully struggled through them all in order to confirm that there was only one which mentioned Stump. It was over five years ago now that one of her students had brought this fact to her attention. He had been most excited with his discovery, had intended to devote his third year thesis to the subject, but unfortunately he could not extend his enthusiasm to cover the more mundane areas of the syllabus and so failed his First Year and left the University. His legacy was the gem of information he had presented to Doctor Anstey, which she had noted, then stored away to use perhaps as a footnote in a future paper on the work of Arthur Barratt. The contribution of Mr. Hartnett (she remembered his name not because she intended to give him any credit for his discovery it was simply one of those mnemonic tricks, he had long greasy hair and in one seminar she had inadvertently referred to him as Mr. Hairnet, eliciting much laughter and a short-lived reputation for herself as something of a wit) to literary scholarship had nestled in a recess of her brain gathering dust over the years. Occasionally she would take it out and give it a polish and wonder how it could be cut and set to show it off to its best advantage. In terms of the corpus of Arthur Barratt it was merely a curious addendum, there was no evidence to suggest that he had ever met the South American - although it was not impossible, Barratt died in 1931 and Monteros lived in Europe for seven years after the outbreak of the First World War - but there is no mention of such a meeting in Barratt’s meticulously detailed letters. It was simply another example of the whimsicality of the blind Argentinian. She had almost included it in her article on the naming of Barratt’s Four Towns, the last piece of hers the Literary Review had deigned to print, but at the last minute she’d had second thoughts. If Mr. Hartnett had intended to milk a whole thesis out of the thing then surely she could do better than give it a sentence in what she freely admitted was a rather pedestrian paper on the linguistic origins of Burslem, Hanley, Longton and Stoke. Barratt always gave euphony as his reason for having four rather than five towns, but his decision to leave out Cobhead (instead of the more likely candidate of Stump, which was little more than a wasteland when he moved down to London), has always been shrouded in mystery. If asked, Barratt would reply with a quip or a disparaging reference to a branch of his family that lived there. The myth of Barratt’s hated aunt from Cobhead still persists in some circles, but the generally held opinion now is that Barratt was approached by Arnold Stump, the model for Henry Chapman in The Little Tinker, and money changed hands. Whatever the reason, Cobhead was removed from Barratt’s imaginary map and missed its opportunity for literary fame. Until that is Manuel Garcia Monteros writes The Pantoscope. His only story set in his grandmother’s native land, in her native city, but not in her native town of Potton. Monteros chooses Cobhead as the setting for his tale. Barratt leaves it out, Monteros puts it back.
     Doctor Anstey had read The Pantoscope more than once. Her first thought was to bring her vast knowledge of the work of Arthur Barrett to bear on this slender tale and interpret it in a new light but no matter how hard she looked she could make no connection. Monteros’ story concerns a hired killer, not the sort of character one would expect to meet on the streets of Barratt’s Four Towns, sent to Stump to murder a Mr. Parrott, who owns a camera shop in Cobhead. It is never revealed who has sent him on this mission, or why, and Monteros spends more time describing a car which almost runs the killer over as he crosses the street to the shop, than he does delineating the character of his protagonist. Once inside the shop he must wait for the other customers to leave and so pretends to be interested in purchasing a camera. The proprietor shows him several models and the killer plays for time until the last of the browsers leaves. Finally alone with Mr. Parrott, he fingers the knife in his pocket and nods to a box on a shelf behind the counter. As the shopkeeper turns to get it down, he compliments the customer on his discerning eye, he has spotted the most expensive item in the shop, an amazing example of German precision engineering, not simply a camera but a fully-functioning pantoscope. Intrigued, the man puts the knife back in his pocket and contemplates his rate of pay, perhaps he is entitled to a bonus. Mr. Parrott puts the box on the counter and takes out the pantoscope. To the man it looks no different to the other cameras he`s been shown, just slightly larger. Mr. Parrott says he will demonstrate and points the pantoscope at the man and takes his picture. The photograph will be developed instantly within the machine, he explains, a process similar to that of the ordinary polaroid camera. After a few seconds the photograph emerges from the device and he hands it over for inspection. It is nothing special, a picture of himself, standing in the shop, one hand in the pocket of his coat, a slightly startled look on his face due to the unexpected flash. Mr. Parrott tells him to hold it under the light, turn it this way and that. The picture begins to change. He sees himself smiling, a girl on his arm, a child at his feet. Turn again, he is standing dressed in rags, a hand held out, begging for money on some squalid street. Again and the photograph alters, showing him crippled, in a wheelchair, his face disfigured. The man asks if he may try the pantoscope and Mr. Parrott lets him take his picture. The killer then studies the photograph of his intended victim, turning it this way and that in the light. He sees Mr. Parrott, the shopkeeper, smiling behind his counter, sees him change to a prosperous businessman, to a hopeless drunk, to a twisted killer, eyes cold and dull, a knife in his hand. Too late he realises it is his own blood on the knife. And there the story ends.
     Doctor Anstey thought it was silly. She saw no point in leaving a reader totally mystified, hanging in mid-air, that was a suitable position for the middle, but had no place at the end. The conclusion of a story should contain all the information necessary to clear up any loose ends that might have been encountered along the way, to do less was to break the special contract that exists between the writer and the reader. She did not object to a writer attempting to create an air of mystery, nor did she shy away from the fantastic, in fact one of Philomena Fairfax’s favourite plot devices was to have her heroine find some insignificant trinket, a broken locket, half a coin split down the middle, which she would carry throughout her life until at the climax of the book she would discover that her one true love possessed the missing part. Philomena Fairfax believed that Fate and Love were subtly intertwined. In fact she herself carried a photograph in her purse. She had found it quite by chance, hidden inside a Martin Amis novel which she had purchased from a second-hand bookshop in yet another failed attempt to keep up with modern trends. Halfway through the first chapter she had found the original owner’s bookmark, a black and white photo of a young boy playing on a beach while his mother, presumably, looks on in the background. On the back was written in faded-to-brown ink, ‘Colwyn Bay-1955’. If the boy was the man then he would be in his forties now. She had given up on the Amis around the same point and perhaps it was that slight connection that made her keep the picture. She carried it with her wherever she went, occasionally taking it out in a nonchalant fashion whenever some stranger of the right age walked by, and at night she propped it by her alarm clock and said goodnight to her one true love. So Doctor Anstey was no stranger to whimsy, yet she understood the strict boundary between the real world and that of literature and in her own fiction she would never break the rules, specifically Chekhov’s dictum that if you show a revolver in the First Act make sure that someone uses it in the Third. So The Pantoscope was not worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as any of Arthur Barratt’s great works, except for that one snivelling little fact about where Monteros chose to set it. Even there he stints on the description. There’s just the name, the camera shop is in Cobhead, it could be anywhere.
     Doctor Anstey finally accepted that Mr. Hartnett’s great discovery was no more than she had originally thought, a simple footnote. Still there was something about Monteros that nagged at her, his connection to Stump, his grandmother. That was the path she should be exploring. The image of Monteros as the blind Argentinian fabulist was so fixed in the collective unconscious of the literary establishment that his connection to Stump was all but forgotten. There were no scholarly dissertations upon the man’s English heritage, no popular pieces in the Signal claiming this great writer as one of Stump’s own, even the biographies of Monteros referred only briefly to his grandmother and were invariably vague about her geographical origins. The life of Emily Hassall was virgin territory and Doctor Anstey intended to be the first to explore it. The advert in the Signal was her first step, she had held out no great hope for replies, believing that if there had been some remnant of the family still living in Stump then there would be a statue of Monteros outside the Potton Museum by now, but it seemed the logical place to start before moving on to the archives in Potton Library and the Registrar’s Department in the Stump Civic Centre. The letter from Daniel Hassall had excited her tremendously. She immediately thought of writing a detective novel based on her experiences. This would have to wait of course, first there would be the paper for the Stump University Literary Review, detailing the life of Monteros` famous local ancestor (she would use The Pantoscope to give the article added relevance), then the Philomena Fairfax book which she was mentally plotting every spare minute of the day. Her heroine, after leaving the grubby small town in North Staffordshire, takes a clipper ship to South America in search of fame and fortune, and of course true love. She wears around her neck a small gold cross which she found one day while walking in the fields outside Cobhead (Philomena did her research, it was all fields back then), a thing of insignificant worth, its beauty spoilt by the five small holes originally set with what she presumed had been precious stones. Occasionally, as she rides across the vast pampas, Emily thinks of where those stones are now.

     Doctor Anstey checked the contents of the black leather attache case one last time. It contained a copy of Mazes by Manuel Garcia Monteros, an anthology of his work published by Penguin which contained The Pantoscope, a copy of Susan of the Sahara by Philomena Fairfax, to explain her use of the nom de plume in the advert, an issue of the Stump University Literary Review, the one with her article on the naming of Barratt’s Four Towns, in order to confirm her true identity and academic credentials, and a folder of newspaper cuttings relating to Monteros, including one which mentioned his grandmother, Emily Hassall. She closed the case, picked up her handbag and keys and checked her appearance in the hall mirror. She was wearing a white blouse and a blue suit; the expensive one she’d bought in London three years ago with some of Philomena’s royalties, in fact she always thought of it as Philomena’s suit. It was money well spent, the suit made her look both thinner and younger. Five years younger, she thought, maybe even seven as she checked her hair which she’d had coloured and cut in Potton yesterday. No-one would guess she was the wrong side of forty-five. She squinted at her watch, she wasn’t used to the contact lenses, it was half-past three, time to go.
     Doctor Anstey drove her red Renault Clio from Trentwood to Cobhead at her customary thirty miles per hour. The letter had not mentioned a specific time but Doctor Anstey took an invitation to tea to mean she should arrive around four o’clock. She had tried to phone Mr. Hassall to confirm this, but his number was unlisted in the local directory. As she left the pleasant avenues of Trentwood and drove into Stump proper, the outskirts of Longbottom with its abandoned coal-mines, its grass-covered slag-heaps, the old potbanks with their quaintly-shaped chimneys, she meditated on Emily Hassall’s flight from this depressing landscape to the wide open spaces of the mystical land of the Incas. Longbottom itself could not have changed much in the intervening century. A light drizzle now washed the swayed streets but they would never be clean. There was no one about, the recent changes to the Sunday Trading laws having had no effect on the dingy little shops of the four towns surrounding Stump. Stump itself would be packed today as every day, its massive emporia bustling, but in Longbottom and the rest the cold eyes of God kept watch. Even the pubs evinced no outward signs of merriment, they were the haunts of wife-beaters and malcontents, honing an edge on their malevolence. Doctor Anstey drove on through Normacot, straggling lines of black terraced houses reaching back to empty scrubland, where children played their games of Elvis and the Boogieman. Approaching Cobhead she kept her eyes on the road, she wanted no glimpse of the sink-holes of humanity that lay to either side, the old council estates with their packs of wild dogs roaming the burnt-out wrecks of Saturday night’s festivities. Onto Cobhead then and the rain now heavier, sheeting down and turning the gutters to torrents. She pulled in and consulted her ‘A To Z’. Mafeking Street was just outside the town centre. She took the main road to Potton then turned off at Ladysmith Street and entered a web of terraces, wiping the steam from her window and searching through the gaps in the thrashing wipers for a sign that said Mafeking. Driving slowly through the labyrinth she finally found it, but there was nowhere to park, cars lined both sides of the narrow street. She tried the next one along and found a space, then reluctantly gathered up her handbag and her valise and went out into the rain. She had no umbrella so she began running down the street and round the corner, but the thought of the sight she must be presenting to any of the unseen watchers behind the grubby grey nets made her cut her ungainly run to a brisk walk. When she arrived at Number 23, she was soaking wet and thoroughly bedraggled.
     Doctor Anstey pressed the bell, then pressed it again. After waiting a minute she knocked on the door. Her hair was plastered to her head, the water ran down her face and dripped from her nose. She held the case over her head, too late to make any difference, she had to get in out of the rain. She knocked again, this time pounding with her fist. The door opened.
     Doctor Anstey just stared at the huge man who stood before her. He was unshaven, wearing a pair of dirty jeans and an off-white T-shirt advertising beer, the two garments almost meeting over a bloated hairy belly. He said, “What`s up, forgot your key?” then turned round and walked back into the house. She didn’t understand, she said, “Excuse me, Mr. Hassall?” but the man walked through to the next room. She heard a television blaring, some sporting fixture, the sound drowning out her repeated requests for confirmation that she was at the right house. She checked the number on the door. Maybe it was the wrong street, but then the man seemed to know her, but why should he, she’d never met Mr. Hassall, he would be expecting her yes, but why should she have a key? Too many questions to solve in the pouring rain, Doctor Anstey passed over the threshold and entered the house. She decided to wait here by the door, in the front room, until the man came back. She would leave the door open, even though the rain was blowing in and wetting the mat, until the situation was sorted out. She looked around the room. It was neat and tidy, with flowery wallpaper, a flowery-patterned carpet, flowery curtains and a three piece suite with flowery covers. Over the gas fire was a mantel with three porcelain figures of Georgian ladies and above them a huge print of white horses galloping through the waves. This room was probably kept for best, for entertaining visitors, for Christmas and funerals, and she was dripping water all over the carpet. She pushed the door to, then shook herself like a dog, on the mat. She took some tissues from her bag and wiped her face, then stuffed the sodden wodge into her pocket. Her best suit was soaking wet and she noticed a blue ring round the white cuff of her blouse. She could not stand here forever. She tried shouting “Excuse me,” but her voice wouldn’t carry over the noise of the television. She considered going back out and knocking again, perhaps it would be best to start the process again, then she would not be surprised at Mr. Hassall’s appearance and could explain straightaway who she was and why she had come. But that would mean getting wet again, no, wetter, she was already wet through, and he might take as long as he did last time to open the door. She was in the house now, she should persevere and move on to the next room, find the man and confront him there, any case of mistaken identity was as much his fault as her own. She hurried across the room, aware that her skirt was weeping blue tears on the carpet, to the next door. This stood partly open but all she could see beyond was a sideboard and past that another open door leading to the kitchen. She tapped on the door, pushing it further open. She could see Mr. Hassall now, lying on the sofa in front of the gas fire, watching the television. She moved into the room and was just about to speak, to say “Excuse me” again, when he shifted from his prone position and sat on the edge of his seat, shouting encouragement to the little men playing football in the corner. Something must have gone wrong, he began to swear, belching out a whole stream of foul abuse, Doctor Anstey dropped her case and held her hands to her ears to blot out the vile storm of vulgarity. The noise made him turn and she saw a puzzled look pass over his brutish face. Taking her hands from her ears she prepared to explain his mistake but he just flopped back down and grunted, “Make us a cuppa tea wouldst duck.”
     Doctor Anstey went through to the kitchen. A nice cup of tea was a splendid idea, it would give her a chance to regain some of her composure and while he was drinking she would be able to clear up all this confusion. She must resemble Mrs. Hassall in some way. In fact in her present sodden state she probably wouldn’t even recognise herself. It was a simple case of mistaken identity, once explained it would be a source of much amusement.
     “Fuckin’ crap they are. Three fuckin’ nil. Dunno why ar bother watchin’ ‘em.” Mr. Hassall stood in the doorway, scratching himself. She felt the silence, the game was over. “Gis me tea then.” She looked down and saw the two mugs. She had made the tea automatically, had found the kettle, the pot, the caddy, the mugs, without thinking. And now she was stirring two heaped spoonfuls of sugar into his tea. She handed it to him, tried to speak, had to tell him something, got to get her mind in order, put an end to this ridiculous situation. Her case, she would get the papers from her case, show him why she’d come. Pushing past him she retrieved her case and opened it. It was still there, thank God, today’s takings from the shop, she’d bank them in the morning, hadn’t bothered today what with the rain. No problem she’d sort it out tomorrow.
     “You’re wet through.” He sidled up to her, put his hand on her skirt. “Should go upstairs and take them wet things off. You’ll catch yer death.” He picked something up from the cluttered sideboard and put it in her hand. “Derek brung this round, he’s fixed it, done a good job. Conner see where it was brok. Stuck ‘em all back. Have a look at it. Worth a cuddle that, inner it?”
     She stared at the small gold crucifix in her hand, saw the five blue bits of glass. He put his arm round her then and she smelt his rancid breath.
     Doctor Anstey ran. Out of the house, into the rain, up the street and back to her car. She was shaking the memory of his foul curses from her ears, searching in her bag for her keys, when she noticed the flat tyre. She began to cry.
     “Kids.”
     Doctor Anstey jumped, but the man with the umbrella was smiling. He offered to help, gave her his umbrella and took her keys, opened the boot and got the jack and the spare. She relaxed a little, the nightmare receding. If Mr. Hassall came charging down the street now then this kind man would protect her. She stood over him, holding the umbrella to keep the rain off his back. He’d told her to get in the car, no use both of them getting wet, but she’d refused, it was the least she could do. She wondered if she should get her torch from the boot, the sky was so dark, the rain so heavy, it was hard to see, but the man said not to bother, he was nearly finished. Pity, she would have liked a closer look at her saviour.
     Doctor Anstey was rooting for something in her bag when the man stood up with the tyre and showed her where it had been slashed. He dropped it and she felt a curious pain in her stomach. Looking down she saw the knife and realised the blood was her own.

     Doctor Shock caught the body as it fell then laid it alongside the car. He undid the cap on the petrol tank and took the hose from his pocket. He sucked on the tube and when the petrol was flowing he inserted it into the hole he’d made in the woman. He noticed the photograph in her hand, took it, stood up and got out his lighter. Shielding it from the rain he waited for the paper to catch light and in the glow of the fire he read ‘Colwyn Bay-1955’. Tossing the photo onto the body, he suddenly remembered.

Part Three

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