Raiders of the Lost Carpark

by Robert Rankin

And Cornelius blew. He wasn’t much of a musician. Anything of a musician in fact. So he gave it a bit of the old ‘free form’.

  ‘Holy God!’ Folk leapt from their beds. ‘What the bloody Hell was that?’ they exclaimed, in voices of rightful indignation.

  Cornelius, Anna and Tuppe peered out through the windscreen at the overgrown wall. Tuppe scratched at his little head.

  Cornelius scratched his cap.

  ‘It didn’t work.’ Tuppe looked up at his friend. ‘Blow it again.’

  Again. Again. Again. In a quarter-mile radius lights were flicking on and dogs beginning to howl. Cornelius gave the ocarina another big big blow. And portals opened aplenty. Portals of the front door persuasion. And folk issued into the streets. They wore dressing-gowns and pyjamas. Some carried sticks. All were shouting.

  Beyond the overgrown wall, in a quietly patrolling police car, Sergeant Sturdy said, ‘Follow that noise!’

  Inspectre Hovis perused the luminous dial of his half-hunter. Enough was enough. All the lights were now out in number twenty-seven Moby Dick Terrace. Mulligan must surely have turned in for the night. There was nothing to be gained by sitting about here any longer. It was just a dead end.

  ‘Verily verily, thus and so.’ The downcast detective wound up his window, gathered his wits and girded his loins.

  And then he drove away, in a red rankle and a grey Morris Minor.

  As the streets were so quiet and so clear of traffic, he didn’t bother to check his rear-view mirror. Not that he would have seen much if he had. The car that slid silently after him wasn’t showing any lights. And it was a very small car. No more than about one foot in length. But it didn’t have any trouble keeping up. No trouble at all.

  Mulligan’s Ices stood with its headlights out and its microphone switched to the ‘off’ position. Its three occupants were crouched on the floor. They had their hands clamped over their ears. Because it had grown somewhat noisy of late. What with all the yelling and the shouting and the pandemonium of fists beating on the sides of the van, and everything. It was quite evident that the good burghers of Hammersmith did not take too kindly to being roused from their beds by late-night serenades on the reinvented ocarina.

  Those of the cul-de-sac had soon spied out the source of their disturbance and were now venting their collective spleen upon it.

  As his forehead bumped up and down on the floor, Cornelius Murphy felt that perhaps he had been just a trifle hasty in dismissing Anna’s objection to his plan, without hearing it first. The spleen-venters were just beginning a concerted rocking of the van, with a view to overturning it, when the police car arrived on the scene.

  Inspectre Hovis lived in reduced circumstances in a large Georgian house on Kew Green. So reduced had these circumstances become over the years that the great detective had found himself having to let out room after room of the ancestral home, in order to support its upkeep. And he now occupied but a single garret room, whose only window, as cruel fate would have it, looked out across the Thames to Brentford.

  Hovis finally found a parking space, three streets from home, and climbed wearily from the Morris Minor. He left the car keys a-dangling in the dash. One thing he definitely meant to do, first thing in the morning, was to demand the return of his temporarily relocated police-issue Daimler.

  The Inspectre turned up his tweedy collar to the cold of the night, gripped the pommel of his cane and struck out for home. He didn’t notice the tiny car, parked just across the street. Nor did he see the curious transformation which it now underwent. The tiny car bulged, distorted and grew into a great manlike shape. The effect was not at all unlike those created by the now legendary Industrial Light and Magic for Terminator 2. But, as those in the know, know ILM create their effects mainly by using Soft Image and Parallax Matador software, running on Silicon Graphics Iris 4D workstations. Digital matting and the parallel processing of live action and computer-generated elements, by scanning everything into large-scale frame-stores. This wasn’t anything like that. This was much better.

  But, as the Inspectre wasn’t looking in that direction, he missed it.

  ‘‘Ello ‘ello ‘ello. What’s all this then?’ Police Sergeant Sturdy stroked his military mustachios as he spoke the traditional greeting and approached the mêlée. Constable Ken sat fidgeting in the car. He was acting under direct orders from his superior officer. ‘Shut up. Stay put. Do not radio for assistance and keep your sticky fingers off the shooter.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ continued Ron, as he elbowed his way into chaos. ‘Unhand that ice-cream van, or I’ll run the lot of you in.’

  Suddenly aware that there was a police presence in their midst, the pyjama’d protesters ceased their rancour and began to shuffle uncomfortably in their carpet slippers.

  ‘Right,’ said Ron, ‘now, who is the ringleader of this riotous assembly?’

  ‘Do what?’ A lady in a straw hat and a gingham housecoat stepped forward to confront the policeman.

  ‘Who is responsible for this unlawful gathering?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said the lady in the straw hat. ‘We were just queuing up for ice-creams.’

  ‘Really?’ Ron tucked his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets and rocked back on his heels in a manner much favoured by PC Dixon of Dock Green. ‘Queuing for ice-creams.’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed the lady’s neighbours, bobbing their heads up and down. ‘A drink on a stick please,’ said someone.

  ‘Two choc ices and a King Cone,’ said another.

  ‘All right,’ said Ron. ‘Don’t wind me up. I’m sure none of you solid citizens really want to be dragged away to the cells in your jim-jams. Away to your homes now and we’ll say no more about it.’

  And that was about all he needed to say. The crowd melted and was gone. Front doors closing without a single slam.

  Sergeant Sturdy returned to the police car. ‘There,’ he told the youthful pimply one. ‘That is what we call doing it the old-fashioned way. Now. Get out the shooter and we’ll have a word with the driver of the ice-cream van.’

  It was big and bad and ghastly green all over.

  And well-muscled every inch from head to toe.

  And it curled its evil lip.

  And its tail began to whip.

  You could tell it wasn’t very nice to know.

  But you couldn’t tell exactly what it was. Not without the handbook. And the handbook was kept under lock and key. In a filing cabinet, in one of the Forbidden Zones.

  And whatever it was, it was now coming after Inspectre Hovis.

  The great detective felt it coming before he turned and saw it. Not that he was the seventh son of a seventh son, or anything like that. He was the only son of a belted earl. But he knew bad poetry all right. Oblivious to alliteration and pseudo-Shakespearianisms he might be, but not to unwarranted dollops of duff verse, bunged in out of the blue and creeping up behind him.

  Hovis faced the thing as it approached him. It was grinning from ear to ear, exposing a double rank of lime-green teeth.

  ‘Have a care,’ counselled the detective, gripping his cane between both hands.

  ‘Hands above your head and come out quietly,’ called Sergeant Sturdy. ‘Hold the gun up straight now, Constable.’

  ‘Gun?’ Cornelius groaned.

  ‘We’re in trouble now,’ whispered Tuppe.

  ‘Sad,’ said Anna. ‘Very sad.’

  ‘Shall I put a couple of rounds through the side to shift some ass?’ asked Constable Ken.

  ‘No need to be hasty, lad.’

  Cornelius rose to face his fate. Anna pulled him back. ‘Let me handle this.’

  ‘Certainly not. This is my responsibility. I got you into this mess, after all.’

  ‘And I shall get us out, trust me.’

  Cornelius looked at Tuppe.

  And Tuppe looked at Cornelius.

  ‘Trust her,’ they both said.

  Anna stood up. Straightened her hair
and smiled from the serving window. ‘Sorry about the delay,’ she said. ‘Who wanted the King Cone?’

  ‘What do you want?’ Inspectre Hovis stood his ground, as the joyless green giant moved closer, its reflected image swelling in the detective’s mirrored pince-nez.

  The creature stopped, but yards away. Still grinning, it shone like a sprout by the light of the moon.

  ‘What order of being art thou?’ enquired the Inspectre, who numbered necromancy and conjuration amongst his many interests.

  The creature ran a forked tongue, green it was, about lips of a likewise hue. ‘Of the order of Trismegistus,’ it replied in a deep dark rumbling tone.

  ‘Then have a care, odious one. My cane is thrice blessed.’

  ‘Thrice what?’

  ‘Thrice blessed. By the word of the Tetragrammaton. By the twenty-third Aethyr of the Enochian call. And by the Hindoo Howdo Hoodoo Voodoo Man of George Formby.’

  The creature cocked its head on one side. ‘You cannot be serious,’ it said.

  ‘Try me.’ Hovis stepped back and traced a pentagram in the air with the tip of his cane.

  ‘Get out of here. George Formby?’

  ‘A great wizard.’ Hovis made mystical passes with his cane, to and fro, and mimed the playing of a ukulele. ‘The Lancashire Thaumaturge. Be warned.’

  ‘You’re pulling my plonker.’ The creature took a step forward.

  Hovis took another step back. ‘What do you want?’ he asked once more.

  ‘The diamonds.’

  ‘Aha! The Godolphins. I have them here.’ Hovis patted a pocket. ‘Take them if you can.’

  ‘I will.’ The beast stormed forward.

  ‘You bloody well won’t.’ Inspectre Hovis twisted the silver pommel of his cane and drew out a shining blade.

  ‘Come taste my steel,’ said he.

  Car twenty-three backed out of the cul-de-sac and drove away.

  ‘I don’t believe that.’ Cornelius climbed to his feet. ‘I just do not believe you did that.’

  ‘She sold them ice-cream,’ said Tuppe.

  ‘And I politely answered all their questions. And I apologized for any inconvenience I might have caused them. And I didn’t charge them for the chocolate flakes.’

  ‘Huh,’ went Tuppe.

  ‘And what is “huh” supposed to mean?’

  ‘It’s not the way we would have done it.’

  ‘And just how would you have done it?’

  ‘Tell her, Cornelius.’

  ‘Well...’ said the tall boy. ‘I...’

  ‘He’d have leapt into the driving seat and swerved around and sideswiped the police car and...’ Tuppe made screeching noises.

  ‘And probably got us all killed.’

  ‘It would have been more exciting than selling them ice-creams,’ Tuppe complained.

  ‘Have you quite finished?’ Anna asked.

  ‘No,’ said Tuppe.

  ‘Yes,’ said Cornelius. ‘He’s quite finished.’

  ‘I have not.’

  ‘You have.’

  ‘Huh!’ said Tuppe.

  ‘Listen,’ said Anna. ‘You’re going about this all the wrong way. You haven’t planned ahead.’ She sat down on the floor of the van. ‘You have the ocarina. But you don’t know which notes to play.’

  ‘The new ones,’ said Cornelius.

  ‘But you don’t know what order to play them in. You surely didn’t think you could just belt out any random bunch of notes and expect one of these portals of yours to swing right open?’

  ‘I did,’ said Tuppe.

  ‘You would,’ said Anna.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Cornelius. ‘What you are saying is that the new notes must be played in a precise sequence?’

  ‘Like knowing the right combination to open a safe, yes.’

  ‘It makes sense. It does make sense, doesn’t it, Tuppe?’

  ‘S’pose so.’ Tuppe made a huffy face.

  Cornelius took out the reinvented ocarina and handed it to Anna. ‘Go on then,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tuppe. ‘Go on then.’

  Anna examined the instrument. ‘You are quite sure you drilled the holes in the right places?’ she asked in a cool voice.

  ‘Absolutely certain. I told you, the holes correspond to points on the map that Tuppe and I stopped at during our epic journey.’

  ‘Then they would be your best bet.’

  ‘What do you mean? We should go back to all the places?’

  ‘No.’ Anna shook her beautiful head. Her mother had told her that all men were basically stupid. She would one day pass this wisdom on to daughters of her own. ‘Play the notes in the same order as you visited the places. That would be my plan.’

  Cornelius adjusted his cap, opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘You can remember the order?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Cornelius. ‘I mean, no. But I have the map here.’ He dragged the crumpled item from his pocket and spread it out on the dashboard.

  ‘Then’, Anna handed back the ocarina, ‘why don’t you have a little practice and when you feel confident, we’ll give it a quick burst through the loudspeaker and see what happens.’

  ‘And if nothing does?’ Tuppe asked.

  ‘If nothing does, it will mean one of two things. Either I’m wrong, or you are.’

  ‘I’m not wrong,’ said Cornelius Murphy.

  ‘Then go for it.’

  ‘OK, but we will do it this way: Tuppe will play the ocarina, I will sit at the wheel, with the engine running, ready to make a swift getaway if needs be. And you will keep a look out. How does that sound?’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’ Tuppe scrambled up on to the dashboard and perused the map. Anna turned her back upon him and gazed out of the rear window. Cornelius passed the small man the ocarina.

  ‘Right,’ said Tuppe. ‘I think I can get my fingers round it. Here we go.’ He put the ocarina to his lips and he blew.

  Now, there is music, and then there is music. But a tune is a tune is a tune. It can be ‘The Birdy Song’, or ‘Big Eyed Beans from Venus’. Or it can be of that Heavenly order as of Beethoven’s Ninth. Or that old toot that Stockhausen knocked out (good grief!). But you can always get, as they say, a handle on it somewhere. There is always something you can recognize. Some note, or tone, or scale. No matter how discordant, or off the wall, you can always recognize something.

  But not this time. Not with these notes. Now played in their correct order, they simply bore no resemblance whatsoever to any other notes yet known. They inhabited a realm of sound as yet uncharted by the human ear.

  The effect they had upon the occupants of the stolen ice-cream van was, to say the least, varied. Anna was enraptured. Her mouth fell open and her breath hovered in her lungs. Shivers ran up and down her spine and all around many other places besides. She suddenly felt as horny as hell.

  Cornelius didn’t. He felt anything but. The notes put his teeth on edge and had his bladder reaching critical mass.

  And as for Tuppe.

  ‘Help!’ screamed the small one, as he swept from his perch on the dashboard, to become plastered against the roof of the van. Here he floundered around, dropping the ocarina and whatever tenuous hold he ever had on reality. ‘Get me down! Get me down!’

  Cornelius leapt immediately to his friend’s aid. He clawed at Tuppe. Tried to prise him down. But the player of the reinvented ocarina was now stuck fast.

  ‘Do something Cornelius,’ he howled. ‘I’m getting crunched here.’

  ‘Anna, help us.’

  Anna stood, gazing into space and wearing a foolish grin.

  ‘Anna, help. Help Tuppe, come on.’

  Anna blinked. ‘That was wonderful. Do it again.’ She turned and gaped up at Tuppe. ‘Shiva’s sheep!’

  ‘Come on, hurry. I can’t get him down.’

  ‘Hurry,’ gasped Tuppe.

  ‘Magic,’ gasped Anna.

  ‘Come on. Help me.’<
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  Anna sprang forward and began to tug the Tuppe. ‘Magic.’

  Tuppe was growing red in the face. ‘I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.’

  ‘We’ll get you down.’ Cornelius wrestled with the small fellow’s shoulders. Anna swung from his feet. But he wouldn’t be shifted. Not one jot. One iota. Not one nothing. He was stuck, like brown stuff to a blanket.

  And his eyes were starting to bulge from his face. And his face was starting to turn blue.

  ‘Cornelius, he’s dying. He’s dying. Do something.’

  Do something? Cornelius put his brain into gear.

  Inspectre Hovis put his legs in gear. Although, surprisingly, nothing had been heard of him for the last twenty-three minutes, he’d been keeping himself busy.

  Running mostly. There’d been quite a lot of running. But not very much in the way of heroic swordplay. Not any heroic swordplay at all, in fact. Which probably accounts for the singular lack of exciting intercuts in the narrative.

  Or possibly a paragraph got left out somewhere. That sometimes happens. But, whatever the case, he was back now. And he was somewhat up against it.

  Inspectre Hovis jumped nimbly onto the bonnet of a parked Ford Fiesta, as a great deal of green muscularity caught up with him.

  ‘Are you going to give me a taste of that steel, or what?’ asked the limey leviathan.

  ‘Have at you then.’ Hovis took up the classic fencer’s position. Left elbow on the fence post, cup of tea in the right hand and fag hanging out of the mouth. And, ‘I’m sorry, madam, but if the wind blew it down, that’s no fault of mine. And if you want us to put it up again, we’ll have to charge you full price again. And cash up front, or we don’t lift a mallet.’

  The creature looked at Hovis. ‘Did a paragraph get left out or something?’

  ‘Have at you then.’ Hovis took up the classic fencer’s pose. Knees slightly bent. Left arm back and crooked at the elbow. Left hand adangling. Sword-stick held firmly in the right hand, parallel to the ground and level with the tip of the nose.

  Traditionally, fencers hold their foils in the left hand, to avoid possible injury to the right. Hovis didn’t.