Raiders of the Lost Carpark

by Robert Rankin

  The constable’s hand was in his right trouser pocket. It clutched the regulation police-issue pistol, of the kind they do not carry in their cars. He wasn’t looking for trouble. But if trouble came looking for him, he’d shoot it.

  ‘Now that’s handy,’ said Bollocks. ‘This computer system is the very same as the one I worked on at Essex.’

  Coincidence?

  Synchronicity?

  Told you.

  ‘I should have this set up in a couple of minutes. Now, Cornelius, you see this screen? Well take this little thing, that’s the mouse and—’

  ‘Cornelius knows all about computers,’ said Tuppe helpfully.

  ‘Not all,’ said Cornelius.

  ‘Got a home system?’ Bollocks asked.

  ‘I did have,’ said Cornelius. ‘But there was a slight malfunction and I took off the cover and fixed it. But after I’d put the cover back on, I found I had a couple of small screws left over, so I—’

  ‘That would be before you read The Book of Ultimate Truths?’

  ‘Regrettably so.’

  ‘Never mind. Computers are all bollocks anyway. Go on then, work the mouse.’

  ‘We’re going in the wrong direction, aren’t we?’ asked Inspectre Hovis.

  Terence Arthur Mulligan glanced into the driving mirror with hooded eyes. ‘It’s a short cut,’ said he.

  The Gandhis were going at it full tilt.

  Now, if you’ve never seen Gandhi’s Hairdryer play live, and there may just possibly be some lost soul in Outer Mongolia that hasn’t, getting the measure of their music can be a tricky business.

  The lead singer, when asked by the presenter of a TV arts programme to describe it, said, ‘Basically, like, the music is diatonic. Based upon any scale of five tones and two semitones produced by playing the white keys of a keyboard instrument, especially the natural major and minor scales—’

  ‘I’ll have to stop you there,’ said the presenter.

  ‘Why?’ asked the lead singer.

  ‘Because it wasn’t funny the first time and I’m not sitting through it again.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  Twenty-three-thousand souls were giving the ground some Wellie. You really had to be there.

  At the side of the stage, Polly said to Prince Charles, ‘What about your mum?’

  ‘Mummy?’ The prince was tapping his toes and popping his fingers.

  ‘Your mummy, yes. She’s been kidnapped or something and you don’t appear to be showing a lot of concern.’

  Prince Charles made his ‘concerned’ face. ‘There,’ said he. ‘See how concerned one is?’

  Polly found the words of Michelet (who?) forming in her mouth. ‘It is a general rule that all superior men inherit the elements of superiority from their mothers,’ she said. ‘And, to quote the Marchioness de Spadara, The babe at first feeds on his mother’s bosom, but—’

  ‘Let’s go behind the big speakers and—’

  ‘No way!’

  Bollocks tapped all sorts of things into the computer. Cornelius moved the little mouse about. ‘How’s it. going?’ Bollocks asked.

  ‘Fine. I’ve drawn Rune’s reinvented ocarina, complete with all the new holes. So, if you can program the computer to analyse the new notes and play them out through the speaker system, I reckon we can open up the portal on Star Hill and storm into the Forbidden Zones.’

  ‘I don’t think that would be a very good idea at all,’ said Arthur Kobold, entering the control box and shutting the door behind him. ‘Put up your hands please and move away from that contraption. I have a gun here somewhere.’ He fished into his pocket and pulled one out. It was a very big gun. It was not regulation police issue.

  ‘Now, nobody move until I pull the trigger. Then you can fall down dead.’

  26

  ‘I only came here to pull the plug out,’ said Arthur. ‘But it would appear that I am, as ever, in the right place at the right time.’

  ‘I really hate him,’ said Tuppe to Cornelius.

  ‘Shut up, small person.’ Arthur waved his big gun about. ‘Now, let’s get this shooting done and this noise turned off and I can go back and finish my cake.’

  Bollocks chewed upon his lip, Cornelius had still to punch in the order of the notes. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said he, stepping in front of the tall boy, ‘but this really isn’t anything to do with me, I’m just the sound engineer.’

  ‘Really?’ Arthur raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Really, these two guys forced their way in here, knocking people out. They forced me to program some nonsense into the computer. Please don’t shoot. I have a wife and three children. Well, two wives really.’

  ‘Really?’ said Arthur once more.

  ‘Really.’ Bollocks crossed his heart. Get on with it, Cornelius, he thought.

  Cornelius would dearly have liked to have been getting on with it. And no doubt he would have been doing so. If he’d been able to remember the order of the notes. Which he couldn’t. He knew that Tuppe could though.

  ‘So you’re the sound engineer?’ Arthur did trigger cockings.

  ‘That’s me.’ Bollocks put out his hand for a bit of a shake. It didn’t get one.

  ‘If you’re the sound engineer,’ said Arthur, ‘shouldn’t you be wearing an official Gandhi’s Hairdryer World Tour T-shirt?’

  ‘It’s at the dry cleaner’s. I spilt some steak sandwich down the front.’ Bollocks smiled.

  ‘How about a stage pass, then?’ Arthur glanced down. ‘Both these unconscious chaps are wearing them. See? The one on top has a stage pass marked Bigwig. And the one underneath, the one wearing an official Gandhi’s Hairdryer World Tour T-shirt, his stage pass reads sound engineer.’

  ‘Mercy me,’ said Bollocks. ‘What a coincidence.’

  ‘Just back up into the corner. Murphy, what are you up to?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Cornelius, which was precisely correct. ‘Now listen, Arthur. Let’s be reasonable about this.’

  ‘I am being reasonable. I’m being firm but fair. You present a serious risk to us. You’d do the same if you were in my place.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ said Tuppe.

  ‘Nor me,’ said Cornelius.

  And they both shook their heads.

  ‘Come out from behind that hair,’ said Mr Kobold. ‘And put your hands up.’

  Cornelius put his hands up through his hair.

  ‘Listen,’ said he, ‘there has to be some compromise. This can’t go on for ever. Your lot will get found out sooner or later. Better it’s done my way, peacefully, before Hugo Rune marches in with the army.’

  ‘Hugo Rune?’ said Arthur Kobold. ‘Hugo Rune? Army? What? What? What?’

  Hugo Rune was driving along in his silver car. Even if it didn’t really run on water, it was still a wonderful thing. And it did go very fast.

  And, as it was cloaked in a patent mantle of invisibility, no-one saw just how fast it did go. The guards on the palace gate didn’t.

  Rune did not actually sing as he drove along, but he hummed to himself. Deeply. Majestically

  Her Majesty wasn’t feeling particularly majestic. Hugo Rune had actually locked her in the boot.

  Cornelius finished a hurried résumé of Hugo Rune’s plan for the conquest of the Forbidden Zones.

  ‘The bastard!’ Arthur Kobold was appalled. ‘I thought he was... er...’

  ‘Dead?’ Cornelius asked.

  ‘The bastard. What shall we all do?’

  ‘Well, you could stop pointing that gun at us for a start.’

  Arthur wasn’t keen.

  ‘Look,’ said Cornelius, ‘I don’t want to expose you and yours to the world. Really I don’t. I just want you and yours to leave me and mine to run the world our way.’

  ‘Can’t be done.’ Arthur shook his head. ‘You’d make a complete hash of it. Our safety would be at risk.’

  ‘Mr Kobold,’ said Cornelius, ‘if Hugo Rune gets his way, there won’t be any of your lot left. There will be no safe
ty to risk. You’ll all be dead.’

  ‘I will have to cogitate upon these matters.’

  ‘Take your time,’ said Tuppe. ‘Come back in half an hour. We’ll wait.’

  Arthur Kobold shook his head sadly. ‘I don’t think so. Rather that I just shoot the two of you now.’

  ‘Two?’ said Bollocks. ‘Does that mean I can go?’

  ‘Shoot the three of you now.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Bollocks.

  ‘I’m sorry, but there it is. Who wants to be shot first?’

  ‘He does.’ Three fingers pointed.

  Two of them pointed at Bollocks.

  ‘Thanks a lot, lads,’ said that man. ‘Some part in this epic I had.’

  ‘That’s life,’ smiled Arthur Kobold, aiming for the head.

  ‘Everyone! Up against the wall and spread’m!’ Constable Ken blundered through the control-box door.

  ‘What?’ Arthur turned to meet him, gun in hand.

  ‘Iraqi terrorist!’ Ken pulled his pistol from his pocket and let fly.

  Everybody ducked.

  Especially Arthur Kobold.

  ‘My hands are up,’ said he, throwing down his gun.

  ‘Yeah. Good. OK.’ The young policeman had his gun between both hands and was doing his best to point it at everybody. ‘All of you, hands high and kill the power.’

  ‘I thought there was never a policeman around when you needed one,’ said Tuppe.

  ‘How can we switch off the power if our hands are up?’ Bollocks asked. Which was a fair enough question.

  ‘Guy with the hair,’ said Ken, ‘turn out your pockets.’

  ‘Why?’ Cornelius asked.

  ‘Because I like making people turn out their pockets,’ said Ken, lapsing into English. ‘It really humiliates them. Especially when I demand that they unroll their condoms.’

  ‘Nice work, officer,’ said Arthur Kobold.

  ‘Eh?’ said Constable Ken.

  ‘Chief Inspector Kobold, Noise Abatement Division.’ Arthur flashed something at the young policeman. It might have been a warrant card. It looked more like a beer mat.

  ‘Sir?’ said Constable Ken.

  ‘You cut the power, Constable, I’ll get some backup.’ Arthur Kobold saluted.

  Constable Ken saluted back with his gun hand and nearly put his eye out.

  ‘Now just hold on,’ said Cornelius.

  ‘Say sir in the presence of a superior officer,’ Ken rubbed his forehead. ‘I nearly put my eye out,’ he said.

  ‘But wait. Don’t let him leave.’

  ‘Any more lip from you scuz-bucket, and I’ll blow your goddamn brains out.’

  But that was about that for Constable Ken. Arthur Kobold struck him from behind. Right on top of the head. He collapsed on to the bigwig and the sound engineer. Shame really, but probably all for the best. Spared us any more of the duff Americanisms.

  ‘Now,’ said Arthur, pointing his gun once more at Bollocks. ‘It was you first, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Could we have a recount?’ Bollocks asked.

  ‘This is not a short cut,’ said Inspectre Hovis. ‘This is Hammersmith.’

  ‘Leave it to the professional,’ replied the Mulligan. ‘I’ll get you to where you have to be.’

  Hovis jumped forward in his seat. ‘I know you,’ he cried. ‘What’s your game?’

  Arthur squeezed the trigger. Tuppe was covering his head. Cornelius was covering Tuppe’s head. Bollocks was complaining that a condemned man should always be entitled to a final joint.

  The gun went bang very loudly indeed. And Arthur Kobold fell to the floor.

  Anna Gotting stood in the doorway. She had a jig-rigger’s spanner in her hand. A spanner which had just dealt Arthur Kobold a devastating blow.

  ‘I’ve been watching you guys come in here,’ said Anna. ‘I’d come in myself, if I could climb over all the bodies.’

  ‘Stop this cab,’ demanded Inspectre Hovis. ‘I have work of national importance to do.’

  ‘Up yours, copper,’ sneered the wayward cabbie.

  ‘Then, Terence Arthur Mulligan, I am arresting you on the charge of abducting an officer of the law. You have no need to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down and may be used in evidence.’

  ‘We’re on the road to hell,’ said Terence Arthur Mulligan. ‘And bollocks to you, by the way.’

  Bollocks was back at the control desk, fiddling with the computer. Happily he hadn’t been shot at all.

  The bullet had only wounded Cornelius.

  In the hair.

  ‘It’s all rather complicated,’ the tall boy told Anna, as he helped her over the pile of bodies. ‘I don’t think I have time to explain right now.’

  ‘You have another plan, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, it’s Bollocks’s actually.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me. It was the last time.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’ Cornelius turned away.

  ‘Allow me to explain,’ said Tuppe.

  ‘Piss off,’ said Anna.

  ‘Give us a French kiss,’ said Tuppe.

  And Anna hit him with the spanner.

  ‘Turn this cab around.’

  ‘No way, copper.’

  ‘You’re nicked, Mulligan.’

  ‘And you’re in the deep brown stuff.’

  ‘Right,’ said Bollocks. ‘What order do these notes go in, Cornelius?’

  ‘Actually, I’m not altogether sure. But Tuppe knows. What order do the notes go in, Tuppe? Tuppe?’

  But Tuppe didn’t answer. The blow from Anna’s spanner had sent him to join the sleepers on the floor.

  ‘Tuppe. wake up,’ said Cornelius. ‘This is no time to take a nap.’

  Anna made an innocent face. ‘Could you tell me exactly what the latest plan might be?’ she asked Bollocks.

  ‘Sure,’ said Bollocks, smiling upon the beautiful young woman. ‘You must be Anna. Cornelius told me all about you.’

  ‘Come on, Tuppe,’ went Cornelius. ‘Wakey, wakey.’

  ‘Well,’ said Bollocks to Anna, ‘quite a bit’s happened since you last saw Cornelius. He met up with his dad, Hugo Rune. But this Rune, it seems, is a total nutter, bent on some kind of world domination of his own. He’s just kidnapped the Queen and he intends to lay the blame on the beings inside the Zones; lead in the army, with the whole world watching, and wipe out the lot of them.’

  ‘I seem to recall that Cornelius had a not too dissimilar plan. Although his didn’t include the Queen.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you see Cornelius has had second thoughts. He’s reasoned that if the whole world suddenly discovered that it had been tricked and manipulated all throughout history by these beings, fingers would be pointed, blames exchanged, society would break right down.’

  ‘This also crossed my mind. Although I was too polite to mention it at the time.’

  ‘Right. So anyway. Cornelius has come up with an ingenious plan: open up the portal on Star Hill and lead a twenty-three-thousand-strong peace convoy into the Zones, overwhelm the beings by sheer weight of numbers and demand that they cease their activities.’

  ‘Tuppe’s spark out,’ said Cornelius. ‘He’s got a big bump on his head.’

  ‘Perhaps he tripped.’ Anna tucked the spanner into the back pocket of her jeans.

  ‘You’ll have to punch the notes in yourself then, Cornelius,’ said Bollocks.

  The tall boy made a dubious face. ‘I’ll do my best. But I’m really not sure.’

  Bollocks gave up his chair and continued his conversation with Anna. ‘Cornelius reasoned that the beings in the Zones will surrender. Just like any other beings, they’ll do anything to rid themselves of travellers.’

  ‘Did I say that?’ Cornelius asked. ‘I don’t remember saying that.’

  ‘I’m sure you did. Now get on with those notes.’

  ‘Quite so.’ Cornelius did a sort of dip dip sky blue, who’s it not you.

  ‘And,’ said Bollocks, ‘the b
eauty of the plan is that the world will know nothing about it. Nobody is going to believe a traveller telling him that he’s been to the Middle Earth, or Fairyland, or whatever. And the travellers don’t tell people anything anyway. It’s quite an inspired plan.’

  ‘I see,’ said Anna.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Bollocks asked Cornelius.

  ‘I think I’m almost done. Yes, I’m sure I’m done.’ Cornelius crossed his fingers.

  ‘Right.’ Bollocks leaned over the computer console. ‘We log it in here.’ He pressed a button. ‘See that, it goes up on the screen. Shiva’s sheep, those are very strange frequencies.’

  ‘They would be.’

  ‘They are. Now all you have to do is press that button and the sequence will play directly through the speaker system.’

  ‘This button?’

  ‘That button.’ Bollocks indicated a big button. It was blood red. The way some of them are.

  Cornelius considered the blood-red button. ‘Right,’ said he, ‘well somehow I have to get up on the stage and tell the travellers I know of a land of milk and honey.’

  Bollocks nodded thoughtfully. ‘Say, perhaps, that you were able to fight your way through all those hired heavies and do that, I wonder how the travellers would react.’

  ‘Probably stone him to death,’ said Anna. ‘I know I would.’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’ Cornelius batted down his hair. ‘I am the Stuff of Epics. Keep your ears open, Bollocks. I’ll get up there and make my speech. And when you hear me say, “Behold the wonder”, then you press the blood-red button.’ The tall boy turned to take his leave. ‘And look after Tuppe,’ he said.

  ‘Just one small thing’, said Anna, ‘before you climb over the bodies.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Cornelius turned back.

  ‘It sucks,’ said Anna. ‘Your plan. Sucks.’

  ‘Somehow I just knew you were going to say that.’ Cornelius turned away once more.

  ‘But you don’t know why.’