by Mark Gatiss
On the television screen, a roar of applause greeted the conclusion of Lord Battenburg’s address.
Meanwhile, Melissa ffawthawte was staggering on her pins and clutching at her throat. The Magnum clattered to the floor, and I was on my feet. Leaping across the couple of yards that separated us, I snatched Christmas, gripping the boy’s wrist tightly.
‘Daddy! Daddy!’ cried the child.
‘Don’t you Daddy me, you vicious little shit!’ I snarled, cracking him soundly across the buttocks. ‘Now keep your mouth shut and do as you’re told!’
He looked scared stiff, as well he might, and began to grizzle quietly.
Melissa ffawthawte’s face was now as blue as the snooker chalk itself. She gestured helplessly towards me but I declined to assist.
‘Sorry, dear,’ I said. ‘I’m all out of mercy.’
Gasping, squawking, she scrabbled at the door, threw it open and stumped out onto the gantry. I grabbed the chastened Christmas and raced after her.
Out in the dome, ffawthawte flapped her hands, trying desperately to attract attention. She gurgled and squeaked and clawed at her pretty throat but at last her green eyes dulled and rolled upward. With a horrible belch, she slid to the metal gantry floor, quite dead.
Christmas stared at her, mouth agape.
Far below, Lord Battenburg stepped back from the microphone, to allow the sickly form of Fetch Junior to take his place.
The bank of television screens had all lit up. Each showed different Scout huts–from Rangoon to Ramsgate, Tripoli to Timbuctoo–an excited crowd of children and parents, all poised with glasses in their hands.
Fetch’s reedy tones rang out across the room: ‘Scouts of all nations,’ he cried. ‘I invite you to raise your glasses and toast our beloved patron! I give you–Lord Battenburg!’
And suddenly I understood the missing link in this tangled skein. Images flashed through my brain. A rainy churchyard. The delightful yet unobtainable Coral Beveridge. Liquorice sweets in fat, sweaty hands. And a rather tacky floral display, arranged to resemble a large bottle of fruit cordial, with a large letter M emblazoned on its front…
‘Christopher Miracle!’ I ejaculated.
Now it made sense. The hostile takeover of his firm! A.C.R.O.N.I.M. needed the company because–
‘Every single cup of orange squash,’ I whispered in awe, ‘in every single Scout hut…is laced with Black Butterfly!’
I shook my head in horror. A.C.R.O.N.I.M. didn’t intend to kill Lord Battenburg. They were going to make him stand and watch as they poisoned half the world!
.19.
DIB-DIB-DEATH
‘Stop it!’ I yelled. ‘Stop the broadcast!’
Heart pounding, I gripped the gantry banister. There was immediate consternation below and hundreds of faces turned up towards me. Playfair, recognising the old man in the black suit, groaned. ‘Box!’ he shouted. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
I threw a quick glance down at the blur of television screens. As far as I could see, the parents on view had all paused, glasses of squash in hand, and were gawping ahead, transfixed. ‘This whole thing is a set-up!’ I cried. ‘The New Scout Movement–everything!’
Lord Battenburg swung round to confront my successor. ‘What’s going on?’
Playfair wiped the sweat from his brow and plastered a thin smile onto his face. ‘The situation is entirely under control, sir—’
‘Nonsense!’ I hollered. ‘You haven’t the faintest idea. A.C.R.O.N.I.M. are—’
‘Oh, not that again,’ snarled Playfair. ‘For God’s sake!’
‘It’s true.’ I rattled the steel banister in my desperation. Christmas stepped back, looking absolutely terrified. ‘You have to believe me! The orange squash in all those Scout huts is laced with Black Butterfly. It will send millions of people off their heads, create worldwide panic…’
Playfair was speaking in urgent tones to the Scout bodyguard and gesticulating in my direction so I quickly turned my attention to Battenburg himself. ‘The world is watching, your Lordship! You have it in your power to save them all. Tell them to throw away their drinks, I implore you!’
Lord Battenburg looked baffled. ‘Orange squash?’ he muttered.
‘Yes!’
But, shaking his head, he turned back to the cameras. ‘Please forgive this bizarre interruption, my friends. Now,’ he looked down at Fetch Junior, who was simpering up at him, ‘perhaps you would be so kind as to make the toast again?’
‘It would be my pleasure,’ hissed the miniature horror.
My heart sank.
And then, suddenly, one of the Scout bodyguard broke ranks. Although he looked pretty much identical to his fellows, in long shorts and wide-brimmed hat, there was no mistaking the sleek, athletic grace with which he bounded onto the platform.
Kingdom Kum!
With all around him frozen in shock, the boy neatly rugbytackled Lord Battenburg, flattening him onto the dais. There was an instantaneous aria of screaming from the delegates and a high, petulant squealing from Fetch. ‘No!’ he rasped. ‘No! No! No!’
The ugly little fellow hurled himself at Kingdom Kum, got him by the neck and the two of them rolled onto the floor. By now, the other Scouts had recovered from their moment of surprise, and, to a man, were rushing forward to help their leader. The direct attack on Lord Battenburg was something Allan Playfair had, of course, been waiting for. At a signal from him, his MI6 men sprang into action and raced towards Kingdom Kum. But the boy from the CIA managed to throw off Fetch Junior and, eyes glinting, he confronted the Service Chief.
‘It’s true, Playfair!’ he rasped, rubbing at his reddened throat. ‘Mr Box was right–you have to believe him!’
Fetch wriggled to his feet and glared at Kingdom, then snapped his fingers. Abandoning all pretence, the Scouts went for Playfair’s men with a vengeance. Soon the chamber was a blur of fists and boots. Knives flashed and screams rang out as the two camps scrapped and tusseled over the polished floor.
Leaving Christmas behind, I stumbled hastily down the steel stairs from the gantry. The delegates began to surge towards the exit doors.
I threw a glance at the banks of television screens. Bewildered children and worried adults intently watched the carnage unfolding before them. But crucially, not one of them seemed to have raised their cup of orange squash to their lips!
I turned my attention back to the dais, where Kingdom Kum was locked in hand-to-hand fighting with an enormous Nordic-looking Scout. I ran over to help, only to spot Dr Fetch’s misshapen offspring racing towards the cameras. Scrambling onto the dais, he stared down the lens, his chin jutting forward. ‘Drink it!’ he cried shrilly. ‘Toast our Honorary Chairman! Drink it!’
But on every single screen, puzzled, frightened faces looked out at him. Suddenly, gunfire sprayed from the pitched battle that was raging nearby, and the screens exploded in a barrage of sparks and shattered glass. Playfair’s men shot down three Scouts in one wave, their uniformed bodies jumping and twitching as bullets ripped through them.
‘Fetch!’ I called. ‘Give it up!’
The mini-man snapped round towards me, eyes blazing with a loathing that was almost inhuman in its intensity. Then, with a shriek, he was on me.
He was appallingly strong. I gasped and gulped and wheezed as the nimble little fingers squeezed at my gullet. ‘Now, old man, you’re going to die!’ he swore. ‘Die for what you’ve done!’
I reached down and flailed at his body but it was hard and tightly muscled like a little armadillo. He managed a still-firmer grip around my throat. My head began to swim and I scrabbled desperately at the creature’s shirt. At once my sweating fingers found his nipples, and I plunged my fingernails into them with all my strength.
Fetch screeched and wriggled in my grasp–but I knew I had to hold on. Through dimming eyes, I could see blood beginning to stain the tawny fabric, forming little dartboards of gore. Again I pinched, feeling the soft skin give to th
e pressure of my nails.
At last, with a howl of pain, he let go of my neck and flopped to the floor, cupping his tiny palms over the damaged areas. I rubbed at my neck and staggered slightly, but knew I couldn’t give the little monster an inch. All the villainous insanity of his father boiled within his veins.
Playfair staggered past, clutching a wounded arm, his face set and intense as he pumped his pistol into yet another Scout. For an instant, I was distracted, and then I gasped as Fetch Junior came at me again, this time brandishing a huge shard of broken glass from one of the smashed screens.
Lungs bursting, I turned and staggered back up the stairs I had only just descended.
My little son stood at the top, staring at me with his dark eyes. We were both now on the gantry, some thirty feet in the air.
‘Go back!’ I commanded. ‘Go back into the room, Christmas. Get out of the way!’
He didn’t move. I made to push him back into the viewing room but then his eyes widened and I swung round to see Fetch right behind me. He jabbed the lethal glass at me–once, twice. I ducked, but I was just too slow and the shard caught my thigh. Pain flashed through me. I yelled in agony.
‘Years I’ve planned this! Years!’ spat the hideous piglet. ‘And you presume to undo all my work in a matter of minutes!’
‘It’s a knack,’ I said breathlessly. ‘Look, why…why don’t you just drop it, you queer little thing? It’s all…over.’
He nodded violently and sank his teeth into his lower lip. It was uncomfortably like looking at a barracuda. ‘Oh yes, it’s over, Box. For you.’
With that, Fetch shot like a torpedo towards me but I stuck out my wounded leg and he was flung headlong onto the gantry floor. The shard of glass leaped from his grip and clattered to rest just in front of Christmas’s feet.
I shook my head to clear the spots from before my eyes.
Fetch Junior got to his feet, a little unsteadily. He threw a quick look at Christmas and thrust out his hot little hand. ‘Give it to me, boy,’ he demanded. ‘The glass–throw it over here.’
Christmas’s gaze flickered between me and his Akela, then he looked down at his shoes.
‘Do it!’ screamed Fetch. ‘I order you!’
Christmas blinked and his lower lip began to tremble. The stunted Fetch positively vibrated with rage, but could come no nearer. Without Christmas to help him, he was unarmed.
I dashed forward to grab the glass and Fetch moved simultaneously. My shoe caught its jagged edge and it span across the gantry and sailed into empty air. I swung back towards him. Now we were more evenly matched!
Ignoring the swimming blackness in my mind and the searing pain in my wounded thigh, I clattered towards Fetch across the gantry and grabbed him under the armpits. At once he set to kicking me in the chest. The toe-caps of his tiny shoes hit home with horrible force, slamming into my ribs and catching me in the solar plexus. Then his hot little face rose before mine and his teeth were snapping at my cheek. I held on tight and stumbled to the edge of the walkway. Now his hands were scrabbling over my face, trying to locate my eyes. In moments, I knew, his thumbs would find their mark and plunge down into the sockets without mercy.
Faint with pain and the creature’s weight, I swung Fetch over the banister so that he hung in mid-air. Now he was desperate to cling on, not wanting to risk me letting him go. So, like a terrified child, the hands that had been seeking to put out my eyes now scrambled to find purchase around my neck, and the nasty, thrashing legs wrapped themselves round my waist.
‘Die, you little bastard!’ I gasped, trying desperately to prise him off me.
Fetch shook his head wildly back and forth, sweat flicking from his soaked curls. ‘No, no, no!’ he spat. I pulled at his tiny frame, desperate to dislodge him, sagging with his weight as I tried to manoeuvre him into empty space. Still he clung on like some filthy squid. With my hands now free, I smashed him in the face with the heel of my palm.
‘Get off!’ I said, repeating the blow again and again. The rosebud mouth burst and blood gushed down his chin. And now the pale eyes filled up and he gazed at me in mute appeal.
‘Please,’ he whimpered, ‘I don’t want to die. Please, Mr Box. Please don’t do this!’
It’s not a child, I told myself, watching the split lip tremble and turn down in a clownish grimace. I shut my eyes and pushed him away from me with all my strength.
I felt his weight suddenly vanish.
Then I opened my eyes, expecting to see the little body tumbling down, down, down to the floor of the chamber. But there was no sign of him. I blinked. Then I gasped in surprise as I felt a tremendous tug at my ankles. I looked down to see Fetch hanging there, one reddening fist around my trouser leg, the other gripping the very edge of the gantry for grim death.
His eyes swivelled up and the look in them turned me cold. I read a dreadful, fatal determination there. Setting his jaw, he pulled with all his hideous strength and I felt myself topple towards the edge. If he were going, evidently I was too.
My stomach slammed into the gantry banister and I was instantly winded. My head swam and the room below telescoped up and down vertiginously.
Now Fetch was able to let go of my ankle and clasp his bloodied fingers into the wire mesh of the gantry. He was climbing back up!
‘Enough!’ I gasped and threw out my hand to grab his little head. Instead, my fingers groped and found something else. My spirits rose at once. His woggle!
Draped around his pallid neck lay the yellow neckerchief, now drenched in perspiration. Adrenalin and sheer bloody delight flooded through my aching body as I grasped the silky material in one hand and tightened the leather woggle with the other. With both hands grasping the mesh of the gantry, Fetch could do nothing. His pale eyes widened in horror as I pushed the knot tighter and tighter around his throat. He began to rattle and choke. Blood vessels erupted in his sickly yellow eyes like watercolour on blotting paper. Veins appeared on the flesh of the purpling face and a tracery of spittle foamed over the lips. Still I pushed on, a manic energy pulsing through me.
Then, suddenly, he went limp and his hands lost their grip on the gantry. I staggered for a second as I took the full burden of Akela’s weight. Arms aching, I held him out over the yawning chasm, took one last look at the swollen, blackening face, its eyes turned upwards, tongue protruding grotesquely, and then let go.
The little uniformed body spiralled down. I watched it diminish until it thudded onto the metal floor far below, bounced comically and then came to rest.
I held onto the banister for I don’t know how long, my head spinning, letting the breath seep slowly into my exhausted frame. At last, I felt a pressure on my hand and glanced wearily down to find Christmas staring up at me.
‘Daddy,’ he whimpered. ‘I’m sorry. Will you…will you forgive me?’
I smiled at him and then slowly, very slowly, I let my face fall.
‘No, I bloody well won’t, you vindictive little bugger!’ I cracked him across the backside and tears welled in his eyes. ‘Don’t think you’re getting off that lightly. Now, get down those bloody stairs!’
By the time we stumbled down to the floor, it was all over. The few remaining Scouts stood huddled, leaderless and pathetic, rounded up by Playfair’s squad.
The head of the newly combined MI6 and Royal Academy looked rather ill, blinking at the utter chaos that surrounded him. ‘B-Box, old love,’ he stammered. ‘I’m so…I mean, what can I say?’
I nodded companionably to him. ‘Dear me, Allan. What a mess.’ I glanced down at my watch. ‘Oh, for shame. I’m retired. Looks like it’s all yours.’
Limping towards Kingdom Kum, who was supervising the restraint of the errant Scouts.
‘Hey,’ he said gently. ‘You okay?’
I nodded. ‘You believed me?’
‘Sure, baby!’ he grinned. ‘Eventually. I knew there was something weird about those blond goons in the hospital. Besides, like I told you before, I respect tradition.
You were the best. You still are.’
I managed an exhausted chuckle.
‘Then,’ continued Kingdom, ‘all I had to do was use my famous charms and boyish looks to infiltrate these characters, and–hey, what is it?’
I had winced as the pain in my leg flared again. Kingdom dropped to his knees and his long, slim hands were soon all over my thigh. He caught Christmas’s eye and winked. ‘Who’s this little guy?’
‘The fruit of my loins,’ I muttered. ‘Comprehensively withered on the vine.’
Kingdom laughed. ‘You don’t say!’ He looked the child up and down. ‘Gonna be a heartbreaker,’ he cooed. ‘Like his Poppa.’
I held out my hands and pulled Kingdom to his feet. We looked at each other. ‘I’m going to need a little rest and recuperation,’ I said at last. ‘Care to join me?’
Kingdom giggled his sing-song giggle. ‘Sure, baby. If you promise not to behave.’
I held up my hand. ‘Scout’s honour.’
.20.
THE LAST LUCIFER
The afternoon sky outside the window was fresh as paint, a wonderful hazy blue streaked with jet trails. I was in a certain Palace at the end of a certain Mall, the flapping flag on its pole indicating that a certain personage was in.
The young queen stood before me, arse exposed.
‘Blimey!’ he cried. ‘You’re a caution!’
‘Well, to coin a phrase,’ I said, running my hand through the footman’s Brylcreemed locks, ‘you’ve never had it so good.’
The young man (his name was Dennis, I think. Or Desmond) and I were in the throne room. Not the throne room, of course. This one, despite its dado railing and creamy Georgian hue, was disappointingly functional. I ran my fingers over the curve of his buttocks and kissed him, far more interested in his surly charms than the prospect of that afternoon’s pomp.
