Wrote nearly 4000 words this afternoon – the second instalment of the weekend. Things are finally happening, you’ll be relieved to hear.
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PART 11
Gert and Lester were seated at the table, looking nervously at one another. They had made the amateur mistake of sitting on opposite sides, and so, while Janey was away from the table, arranging to meet Sherman at midnight, they were forced to stare awkwardly at each other. There wasn’t any conversation to be had. They couldn’t talk about the weather, because there wasn’t any. Neither of them liked sports, or cared about the news. Conversation must, sometimes, be about something, and there wasn’t anything to be about today, except the dread.
Janey returned, replacing her phone in her pocket. There was no time to spare.
“Listen, kids. Big things are happening in this town, and happening tonight. Maybe… maybe I should have told you more. But maybe not. You might have given the whole game away, you know. Couldn’t risk that.”
Gert didn’t enjoy cryptic code, as a rule.
“What are you talking about, Janey?”
She ignored him. “But now you’ve got to go to the Hood and Hangman, and I’d better prepare you. With the reputation of the Hood…”
“What exactly is the Hood and Hangman like?” Lester asked innocently, “How long has it been here?”
Janey and Gert looked at one another with a dark foreboding.
“The Hood has been here thirteen years. All kinds of disaster when it came. You remember that, Gert?”
“Aye, I recall. All kinds of unnatural. Darkness in the middle of the day. The birds stopped singing…”
“Bats flew from every building, tearing down streets in flocks…”
“Dogs walked on their hind legs like people…”
“People walked on all fours like dogs…”
“Rain fell up, the wind sucked rather than blew…”
“The sun actually shone for once…”
Their duet trailed off, silenced by the horrors.
“It started when a herd of ne-er do-wells came here from the country. Filthy braggards they were, the whole pack of them. Family of poachers and highwaymen, way back, but the roads became motorways and the farms became factories, so they could no longer continue their legendary, evil ways.
“Came here one cold summer morning, bought an old, disused shack on the main street. Well, I say bought. They held up the town planners at knife point, made them grant planning permission. And so they set up their lair.
“From the first they were beyond the reach of the law. Murders, robbings, shootings, hangings, garrottings, tax evasion, the whole lot. And the police couldn’t do a thing. Powerless they were, little Johnny Blue in his bright black shoes.
“And so the townsfolk made their own law, and stuck to it. Martial law. Or possibly marshall law, I’m not good with spellings. Anyway, the villains’ pub became the court and the gallows, hanging drawing and courting. You’d go into the post office to send a parcel to Canada and you’d come out with a death sentence for the following morning.”
Gert paused to take a hearty gulp of cider.
“It’s stayed the same pretty much ever since. Except the court and gallows. They’ve stopped. I think the lady who organised it was off sick for a bit and no-one took her place, so the whole thing just packed up. But the pub is still a bit dodgy, if you ask me.”
“Gert’s right, Lester. It reminds me of the old U.S. Frontier towns. Except there’s no Southern warmth and politeness, and it’s too damn cold for saloon doors. No cowboy hats, neither, and more knife-knifing than gun-slinging. If some cat shows you a blade, run for it, before you’re a-squealing.
“But that’s beside the point. There’s some info-mation I’ve not been telling the pair of you. Something that might help you tonight. I don’t know the whole of it, but I’d better let you in to what I know. It could save your life.”
Gert scoffed. He could save his own life, thank you very much.
“I told you about Abe when I knew him in America, right? Ran off with his girl to join the Reds, but met the Feds instead? Well, all I know is they ended up here in the end, and they brought something with them. Ain’t sure what it was, but I knew cats wanted a piece of pie, you know? Something pretty powerful, I reckon, if guys want to kill for it.”
Lester felt like a balloon that’s been tied and let go. Janey looked over at him, giving him a small half smile.
“Sorry, kid. Anyways -”
To her surprise, Lester cut in. He needed to burst that balloon.
“Actually, Gert, last time we saw Janey you said you knew who did it. What was your theory?”
“Oh, I’ve still got my theory. Not who did it, but why. My theory is…”
“That’s great, Gert,” Janey tried to interrupt, “But we don’t have…”
“My theory is that,” Gert raised one finger in the air in a way only he could manage. No-one ever interrupted that finger successfully, however hard they tried.
“He was murdered because of… plutonium!”
Janey flumped back in her chair, sighing in exasperation. Lester gave a credulous, slightly amused smile.
“Plutonium. That’s what unites all these things. Now I know – and you know too,” he added patronizingly, “that whenever there’s a murder there’s got to be a motive…”
“What about crimes of passion, or random killings?”
Gert ignored Lester. He was not to be interrupted.
“And in this case the motive was uranium…”
“I thought you said it was plutonium.”
“Ah, sorry, plutonium. My mistake. Anyway, you remember, Lester, that Abe went out on a grand, dangerous sea voyage. Well, he didn’t do that for nothing. He came back with plutonium.”
“Plutonium from the sea?”
“Aye, that’s right, sea plutonium. It’s the only explanation, because…”
“How come no-one saw it when he got back on the boat?”
“Ah, that’s the beauty of it. As Sadie said, he was wearing a fluorescent yellow fisherman’s coat. He could hide it under the coat and not a soul would suspect, because the coat’s so bright. Or maybe it was actually just a normal mac, and the plutonium turned it yellow. Although it’s probably the first, because I reckon plutonium’s probably a bit green, not yellow…”
“Get on with it!” Janey might not be able to stop him, but she could at least make him hurry up.
“But, as you know, plutonium’s a bit handy. It’s magical, that stuff. Can you tell me what’s so magical about it?”
He waited dramatically, opening his eyes as wide as a nursery teacher, prompting an answer from his unwilling pupils.
“It’s radioactive?”
“It’s lethal to humans?”
“It’s lethal to animals?”
“Nope.” His beardy grin was even more smug now. “Not even close.”
“It makes you grow extra eyes. You can see in the dark. It sends you back in time. It makes you sing like Celine Dion. Oh, I give up. Just tell us.”
“It gives you – luck!”
Gert thought they would react better than they did. He’d hoped for a eureka moment, or perhaps a quiet hum of appreciation, and, being a man for whom hope and expectation were one and the same, he wasn’t expecting loud groans. Someone called out “Plonker!” from behind the bar.
“Luck? Gert, you ain’t just lost your marbles. Your marbles been viciously stolen from you by the British Museum.”
“Luck, see? Explains everything. How did he survive the storm? Plutonium. How did he became a movie star? Plutonium. How did he run off with an actress? Plutonium. You see…”
“But Gert, it’s the American Dream. Out on the range, it ain’t luck. Rags to riches, that’s what it’s all about.”
“Nah, the American Dream’s all about plutonium. It’s why the Yankees won the Second World War, remember? All that nuclear stuff.”
Janey didn’t have an answer to that.
“Then he wins his farm in the Lady Luck. Most men lose their fortunes there, they don’t make them, unless their fortune is to be slightly drunk on rum. Everyone’s lucky he just wanted a farm. If I had even an inch of plutonium I’d be King of Sweden by now.”
“No you wouldn’t, you’d have cider poisoning.”
“And what really convinced me? Well, just look at Abe’s vegetables. The ones he won the Novelty Vegetable Prize with. They were all beauties. The Taj Mahal Butternut. The Ulysees Turnip. Clear influence of plutonium luck, to turn out produce like that. But most of all – the five mushrooms shaped like the Nagaski explosion! How could a mushroom look like an atomic bomb, if it wasn’t atomic itself?”
Janey held her head in her hands.
“Gert, for the last time, nuclear waste doesn’t make vegetables grow. We’ve been through this before. Oh well, never mind.”
“So the killer sees all this, and he’s biding his time, wanting some of that radioactive luck for himself. Or herself, of course, plenty of lady killers out there. Killer takes the luck for themselves, runs off into the sunset or the pub, whichever’s closest. Probably the pub – he did die in the main street, right next to the Grey Hart.”
“So are you saying the killer’s still in the Grey Hart?”
“Use your brain! Killer was there that evening. Doubt they stayed there, mind. If you had all the luck in the world you’d go to a proper pub, one with rooftop bars and hammocks, wouldn’t you? Not the Grey Hart. Boring place, the Grey Hart. Nothing ever happens there.”
“What did you do with this line of enquiry? Did you track the murderer? Did you interview the staff of the Grey Hart, perhaps? Asked them who was in the pub that night, ask if anyone was acting suspiciously? Maybe checked the till to see who was buying the rounds?”
“Nope. No point, you see. If the lad’s got a bit of plutonium, there’s no point investigating the crime. He’ll just luck his way out. Even if you corner him, he’ll get away. Maybe a black cat will cross your path and trip you up, or a great big piano will land on you. That’s why,” he continued, warming to his theme, “them Weapons Of Mass Destruction were never found, you see. If Saddam had a bit of the old plutonium he’d get lucky, no-one would check the right place. It’s probably still at the back of his fridge, or under the floorboards, or behind the wardrobe. Maybe we can get someone else with plutonium to check and it’ll all cancel out…”
“Gert, enough. I need to tell you about Abraham.”
Gert stopped. He had just noticed that Abraham was an anagram of ‘A bar ham’, and he found that funny, but decided it wouldn’t go down well.
“Right, now then. Listening? Good. I tell you what I know. As I was saying, Abe had something other people wanted. I don’t really know what it was. I guess it’s why his wife married him, because of some object he’d got a-hold of in Ireland or America or somewhere.”
“Plutonium,” Gert interjected.
“No, Gert. Because that whole Communist utopia thing, all just an act, see? At one time she was a Commie rebel, but turned into a total marketeer over this side of the pond. She wanted the farm, wanted whatever Abe was hiding, and didn’t care too much about Trotsky after all. There was some kind of argument between them in the end, I think. She left, didn’t get what she wanted.
“So Abe’s enemies, whoever they were, they hadn’t forgotten what was in his house. Just needed a way in. Now it ain’t easy to enter as guy’s house if he don’t want to let you in. He’s got a shotgun, a movie career, and a fisherman’s aim. You don’t take him on, unless you want a bullet in the brain, Hollywood style.
“First off they tried to fake their way in. A few guys went to plumbing school, learned to plumb, passed their plumb exams, got a plumb plumbing job with Southern Plumbing PLC. Then they went round to old Abe’s house, gave the door knocker a yank, told him they were from the company, come to fix the boiler. But Abe wasn’t having that. His boiler didn’t need fixing. In fact, he’d stopped using the boiler months before, just in case some freshman burglar used it as a reason for entry. He was way ahead of the game, that kid.
“So they went away again, tried the same thing as firemen, come to rescue the cat. No luck there either, his cat loved being up the beech tree. Most purrers do, you know. Firemen don’t really rescue them, they’re perfectly fine where they are. So they went away again.
“Nothing worked in the end. Every so often they turn up as policeman or shoe-shiners or Jimi Hendrix or Nottingham Forest, but they never managed to fool him. Abraham didn’t let a soul in, even when the ringleader disguised himself as a long-lost leopard looking for his shin pads.
“So I guess he’s still got that thing they want. Must be why he died. Whether they’ve got it now is any fool’s worry. Maybe they have – not sure they’d risk a murder if they couldn’t get their hands on it.”
“Is there really no detail about the object in question?” Lester had his sleuthing hat firmly wedged on his metaphorical head.
“Well, I know one thing about it. They call it – wait, let me get this right – they call it… the topp.”
“The top? What like a shirt? Is it a really special shirt?”
“No, not a top. The topp. Double ‘p’ at the end.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, kid. As I said, that’s all I know. I’ll bet you anything there’s a few cats in this town that do, though. There has to be one or two lurking in our pubs, waiting for their chance. Chance of what, who knows? But it’s going to be a nightmare. And if I’m right, if they’ve got the topp, then that chance is coming sooner rather than later. They’ll wait for the cover of darkness, everyone does around here, but they’ll make their move.
“And the voice on the phone? Well, I know Sherman had a witness, I’ve been tailing the cat. Couldn’t tell you who the witness is, why they’re coming forward, but I’ll bet every cent in my shanty town they’re coming forward because Thriller’s hitting the jukebox. Every single cent.”
She finished. Gert, still upset about being wrong, scoffed.
“Things people want? Pretty powerful things? You haven’t told us anything! All you do is prattle on about how little you know. At least I had a theory. Can’t detect without a theory.”
“Just watch yourself tonight, you hear? We might need you. Something’s going down. When you get to the Hood, just try not to be noticed, keep your head down. If you’re not seen you’re not stabbed, that’s my motto.”
She turned to Lester.
“Lester, you still game? It’s a tough task for a kid, tonight.”
Lester desperately tried to stammer a way out.
“Maybe, maybe… maybe it’s best I don’t go. I’m not scared or chicken, it’s just that…” fortunately he had an idea that might save the day, “Well, whoever this witness is, they’re expecting Mister Sherman, aren’t they? They’re not expecting Mister Sherman and company. So won’t they just run when they see us?”
“Actually, that’s good thinking, L. They’ll be shocked enough when they see Gert, don’t want you taking up space. That gives me a notion – why don’t you come along with me instead when I go to meet Sherman? That way you’ll still be in the race. We got plans to discuss, got to put Sherman to some use now he’s here. Ready for that?”
Lester tried to hide his relief. “Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll accompany you to your rendezvous.”
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Late evening. Gert had spent the afternoon preparing for his midnight assignment. Of course, his preparation consisted entirely in sleeping, but that was surely the most important thing to do. He stirred, gave a sleepy, satisfied yawn, and put his sleuthing socks on, the stripy yellow ones. With a nod and a shake of the head, he was ready.
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“You followed that, Lester?”
“Sorry, what?” Lester had been concentrating on fitting the silver whistle into his pocket, and hadn’t heard a word Janey said.
“The plan. All right, I’ll say it over. Okay, we’re meeting Sherman in ten minutes in the Grey Hart. Just an ordinary conversation between a jazz musician, a Northern detective / prize giving host, and an overgrown school kid. The kind of thing you see everyday. Don’t want to ring out any alarm bells tonight, okay? And if anything strange happens, I want you to trust me. If I do anything unexpected, if Sherman acts a little weird, if we say anything at all, don’t recoil, don’t say a word. I want you to be a block of stone, yeah? Can you be that block of stone? If Gert’s marbles got stolen, I want you to become that marble. You’re marble?”
“I’m marble, Janey.” It was best to agree. It was always best to agree
“Okay, here we go.”
The small, polished façade of the Grey Hart loomed in front of them. It was not inviting, but it hardly drove custom away, either. In fact, the Grey Hart’s entrance didn’t really make people feel anything at all, and this was why the town’s more interesting inhabitants shunned the place. It was nearly empty, as many pubs are on a Sunday evening. The more respectable folk of the town were tucked up on their sofas, listening to mildly devotional music and droning on about little Willy’s school report. They weren’t in the pub, where they ought to have been.
Janey wound her way round uniform brown tables to where Bradley Alan Sherman was sitting. He stood to meet her, a beady grin on his face. When he noticed Lester alongside her his grin, for once, fell, limply to his side.
“What… what’s he doing here?”
“Relax, Bralan, he’s cool.”
“You sure he’s cool? One hundred percent positive on the cool test?”
“One hundred and one percent, positive. He’s with us.”
“And that scruffy no-hoper, Gert? Still on his way to the Hood and Hangman, as we planned?”
“That’s right, Bralan. Everything’s ticking along like a bed of fleas.”
“Good, he’s had his day. Anyway, this lad better be cool. We’ve got work to do.”
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Gert, as a rule, never looked down at the street when he walked. Some men fear puddles or dog mess, but not Gert. Life could throw any puddle at him, anything from a dog’s backside, and he’d still be shining. In daytime the sun always smiled on Gert, at night the stars always sparkled over him. His gaze, of course, was up high in the heavens. If there had been passers-by to see him, they would have seen his neck stretched back, eyes to the sky, looking at the satellites and the planets and the galaxies whizzing by. Those galaxies knew nothing of the Hood and Hangman, of nefarious murderers or shiny-suited charlatans. But they also knew nothing of cider, of girlfriends, of rum, of sleepy snoozes under the bridge. On reflection, he thought, we’re better off down here.
And so he continued his merry, dreamy way along cobbled stones, past cheesecake lamp posts. On the right was his beloved Moon, all warm and welcoming, gently pleading for him to have one final pint. He could hear ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’ on the jukebox, the velvet saxophone solo brassing all woe aside. But there was no choice but to overcome temptation, for the town was depending on him. He needed to go to the Hangman.
He was early, so he took the long way. At least, that’s what he told himself. Circling round the back streets, he saw drunken Marines pour out the Lager Lounge, cadets without a care. They’d have to be back at barracks tomorrow, explaining their tattoos and torn shirts to the Sergeant Major, but right now night was their desire.
Gert turned a few corners, took another long cut. Approaching, still decked in veg, was the Farmer’s Arms. Gert smiled as he remembered all the peas. It might be a bawdy, tweedy, barnstorming bar, but to everything there is a purpose and a time. He saw the Lady Luck to his left, that grand old ship of fortunes. Even at the end of days, when the sea finally invaded the shore, he thought, it would still be here, telling tales of the old land. It would always be a haven for the hopers and the rogues. It would always stay if the storms came.
And he noticed the Cockatoo giving him an ironic wink as he ambled by. The moustaches might twirl in there, but that’s what moustaches are supposed to do, aren’t they? No use in a moustache if it doesn’t twirl. The Cockatoo would remain too, as a different kind of longing: Gert knew the red scarves wouldn’t be in fashion long, but soon there would be a new scarf to replace it. All those who long for brighter, bushier scarves will get them in the end.
He remembered buses and booze and Lester, all that was worth remembering, really. He had grown fond of that boy, knew he would become a good’un, if this town gave him a chance. It didn’t give many people a chance. But Lester respected his elders, and said yes to things. There was all the hope in the world for him.
But was there a hope now? For Gert, here in this place. The Hood and Hangman. In front of him now, howling tall, casting a baleful, fascist shadow. He’d never been inside, always knew it would lead to the worst. He walked to the crummy, creaking door, and took a deep breath.
It was five minutes to midnight, and day was about to begin.
TO BE CONTINUED
Jezknee 