Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

by Robert Rankin

  sitcom.’

  ‘There’s always room for another sitcom,’ said Russell.

  ‘They don’t make sitcoms like they used to. That Wendy Craig was a beautiful woman. I never lit her cigarette though. I think I helped her into her coat once, or perhaps that was Thora Hird.’

  Russell clapped his hands together. ‘I think I’ll rearrange the office,’ said he.

  ‘No,’ said Frank.

  ‘Then I’ll go and dust the grimoires.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right. I’ll polish the funerary urns. They could do with a buff.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I could wash up the teacups.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘But I want to do something.’

  ‘You are doing something, Russell. You are sitting at your desk awaiting a customer. They also serve who only stand and wait, you know. Or in your case, sit.’

  Russell made a sorry face. Things had been much better before Frank became manager. Frank with his love of rosters and paperwork. Russell hated inactivity, he liked to be up and doing, he couldn’t bear to waste time. It was Frank who had instigated tea breaks. He dictated exactly who did what, and when. It was a very inefficient system. But Frank was the manager and there was nothing Russell could do about it.

  ‘So, I’ll just sit here?’ Russell said.

  ‘Just sit there, yes.’

  And so Russell just sat there, drumming his fingers on the desk.

  And absolutely nothing happened.

  Nothing whatsoever.

  Which was strange really, considering the immutable laws which seem to govern these things. According to these immutable laws, something should definitely have happened right about now. And something big. Big enough to cover all the foregoing dullness and chit chat, or if not actually happened, then at least offered a strong hint of humungous happenings to come.

  Possibly something along the lines of ... Unknown to Russell, great forces were even now at work. Great forces that would change his world forever, in fact change everybody’s world forever. For Russell was about to take the first step on a journey that would lead him into realms where no man had ever set foot before. Or such like.

  But nothing did.

  So Russell just sat there drumming his fingers. It did occur to him, however, that it might be interesting to find out whether there was any truth to the tale Morgan had told him. He could spend his lunchtimes and evenings asking around Brentford, to see if there really had been a Neville and a Pooley and an Omally and a Flying Swan. And if there had, then whether any of the fabulous tales told of them were actually true. It was something to do. It would be interesting. Yes.

  ‘Can I give the floor a mop?’ asked Russell.

  ‘No,’ said Frank.

  3

  THE CONTENTS OF BOX 23

  Back in the Nineteen Fifties, when the world was still in black and white, policemen were jolly fresh-faced fellows who all looked like Dixon of Dock Green. They were firm but fair, these fresh-faced fellows, and the felons whose collars they felt put their hands up without a fuss and said things like, ‘It’s a fair cop, guvnor, slap the bracelets on and bung me in the Black Maria.’

  So, no change there.

  In those monochrome days, before the advent of crime computers and international networks, information received was stored away in big box files on a high shelf in the chief constable’s office. There were always twenty-three big box files. The first twenty-two dealt with the everyday stuff, tip-offs regarding forthcoming sweetshop robberies, or those suspected of sneaking through the back doors of the local cinema without paying. Box 23, however, was an altogether different plate of pork. This contained the odd stuff, the stuff that didn’t quite fit, reports of curious phenomena and mysterious uncatagorizable material. (This is all absolutely true by the way. My Uncle John was a policeman). Remember that these were the days when the strolling beat-bobby was a well-respected figure in the community. Folk talked to policemen back in those times, sent them cards at Christmas and polished their bikes during Bob-a-Job week.

  There was never much that could be done with the contents of box 23 and once the box was full these were taken out, bound with black ribbon and stored away in the basement. My Uncle John told me that there was always more stuff in box 23 than in any of the other boxes.

  This went on until the early Sixties when the systems were updated. Filing cabinets were installed and a directive circulated that all reports which would formerly have been consigned to box 23 were now to be stored in a file marked X.

  These were to be gathered together at the end of each month and sent to a special department at Scotland Yard. The name of this department, however, could not be wrung from my Uncle John, who told me that it ‘didn’t matter’, and ‘it was a long time ago and I can’t remember anyway.’

  It is to be assumed that someone in a position of authority was taking a great interest in the substance of these reports which ranged, in Uncle John’s words, ‘from the bloody whacky to the downright strange’.

  A friend of mine, who was once in the TA, told me that something similar goes on in the armed forces. And that when you join up and sign the Official Secrets Act you also have to sign a document swearing that should you witness any unexplained phenomena (he presumed this to mean UFOs), you must report these immediately to your commanding officer and say nothing of it to other ranks unless you are authorized to do so. The words IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST apparently feature prominently throughout this document.

  So, what’s it all about then, eh?

  Good question.

  There is a school of thought that the governments of the world have known all about so-called UFOs for years. That President Truman was taken to a secret American airbase in the late Nineteen Forties to be introduced to alien entities. That the aliens have struck a deal with those who rule our lives and are allowed to abduct a limited number of humans each year for study and experimentation in exchange for advanced technology. It is suggested that micro-chip technology would never have reached its present state without ‘outside help’ and that the Roswell alien autopsy footage is, in fact, genuine and part of a concerted effort on the part of world governments to prepare us for some rather high-profile alien involvement due to come our way in the very near future.

  It’s pretty unsettling stuff and made all the more unsettling by the fact that it does seem to have the ring of truth to it. But, as those in authority will reliably tell you, belief is not proof. And until something huge happens and the mother ship drops down onto the White House lawn, those who suspect what governments know to be the truth, and broadcast these suspicions to the public at large, will continue to be considered paranoid conspiracy theorists.

  My Uncle John did, however, tell me one tale about the contents of box 23. It is a story so fantastic that its telling might well cast doubt on Uncle John’s sanity and therefore question his reliability concerning all the foregoing. But it is a great story, so I have no hesitation in telling it here.

  The temptation to embellish the tale is difficult to resist, but I have done so, adding only an ending of my own, clearly labelled to avoid confusion. Those of a nervous disposition or prone to night terrors are advised to skip over this ending and go straight on to the next chapter which is all about Russell and so pretty safe.

  UNCLE JOHN’S TALE OF BOX 23

  To set the scene, the year was nineteen sixty and Uncle John had recently moved to Brentford to serve as a constable with the force, based then in the old police station, now demolished, on the Kew Road near to the Red Lion. Uncle John came from Shropshire and the year before he had married Aunt Mary, my father’s sister.

  They moved into one of the new police flats just off Northfields Avenue. These were fully furnished and we used to go up for Sunday lunch and a walk in Lammas Park with Uncle John’s dog Frankie. (Aunt Mary being a big Frankie Vaughn fan at the time.)

  The story begins in the summer of that year, when the normally l
aw-abiding borough of Brentford had unaccountably been struck by a mini crime wave. The crimes started in a petty fashion but grew and grew. Seemingly unrelated, they spanned a vast spectrum and were so audacious that they soon had the Brentford bobbies in something of a lather.

  First reports involved doorstep milk bottle theft, these went on for weeks. The culprit was sighted on several occasions and described as a stubby ginger-haired youth in grey school uniform. A simple enough matter on the face of it. Uncle John was dispatched to the local primary school to give the pupils a looking over. No stubby ginger-haired youth was to be found. A truant perhaps? No truant fitted that description and in a small town like Brentford where everyone knew pretty much everyone, heads were scratched and gypsies blamed.

  The next crimes involved shop-lifting. A young blond woman in a ‘modern’ pink coat walked into the ladies-wear shop in the high street, snatched up an armful of summer frocks and took to her heels. Later in the day she repeated the performance, swiping a pop-up toaster from Kays Electrical, a number of chocolate bars from the tobacconists and a hock of ham from Barlett’s butcher’s shop.

  More was to follow.

  A tall gaunt man, with black sideburns and a centre parting, helped himself to the contents of the cash register at The Red Lion when the landlord wasn’t looking. And The Red Lion was almost next door to the police station.

  The Brentford bobbies were not best pleased.

  The crimes continued and they followed a pattern. A stranger of distinctive appearance would arrive from nowhere, carry out a series of crimes all in a single day, then vanish away never to be seen again.

  The eyes of the Brentford constabulary turned towards Ealing. Obviously these criminals were out-borough denizens of the new council estate a mile up the road. Day trippers of evil intent. Uncle John was sent up the road to talk to the boys at the South Ealing nick. No joy. The descriptions did not match those of any known offenders. And Ealing was a small town and everyone knew everyone there. And the folk talked to the policemen and nobody knew anything about anything.

  Odd.

  And the crimes continued.

  A fellow resembling Father Christmas, with a big broad belly and a long white beard, held up the Brentford post office with a gun. A gun! This was nineteen sixty! Now the Brentford boys in blue were very upset.

  And now a certain individual appeared on the scene. He had been sent by Scotland Yard.

  Nothing surprising there. A gun crime. A post office hold up. In situations such as this you called The Yard.

  The chap from The Yard was known only as The Captain, although as far as Uncle John knew, and as far as I have been able to ascertain, there is no such rank as captain in the police force. Odder still, the chap from The Yard, although listening to all the reported crimes, appeared to be more interested in the contents of box 23 than anything else. He took the box into his own custody, commandeered the chief constable’s office for an hour or two and then returned to the front desk. Uncle John recalls to this day his words. They were: ‘You have one of those at large in the borough. This must be handled discreetly.’

  Back then ‘one of those’ generally meant a homosexual.

  It was Uncle John’s time to clock off then, so he clocked off. When he clocked on again the next morning a number of rather strange things were going on at the police station. Some chaps in tweed suits were milling about at the front desk along with several squaddies. The squaddies were armed with Remington rifles. Uncle John had served in the war and he said that he did not recognize the insignias worn by the squaddies. In fact, he even took the trouble to visit Walpole library and look them up. The insignias were of no listed regiment.

  Also there were several official-looking cars parked outside the police station and Uncle John swears that a cabinet minister, well known at the time, sat in one of them.

  Uncle John had just cause to wonder exactly what was going on. And so he asked and was told in no uncertain tones to mind his own business and do exactly what he was told. And then he was issued with a pistol.

  There is a degree of vagueness concerning exactly what happened next. There was a lot of driving about in police cars and he was stationed at the end of an alleyway and told to shoot anyone who was not a policeman who came running down it. Uncle John was somewhat alarmed by this and, although he had shot a German officer in a tool shed somewhere on the Rhine in 1944, he was not at all keen to let fly at what might well prove to be an innocent bystander. Even if the bystander was, in fact, running at the time.

  The next thing Uncle John recalled in any great detail was a suspect. The suspect being brought into the police station. And the fact that the suspect did not resemble any of the suspects involved in the various unrelated crimes. Especially he looked nothing like the Father Christmas character who’d held up the post office.

  The suspect was marched into the police station.

  Uncle John says that he was more like carried and that he bobbed about in a peculiar fashion and seemed in a very agitated state.

  Then Uncle John and several of his colleagues were told that they must go to a certain address and search the premises. And this they did.

  Uncle John said that it was one of the weirdest experiences he’d ever had, although not as weird as the one he would have shortly afterwards. An ordinary terraced house it was, two up, three down. But it was packed. Packed with clothes. All kinds of clothes of every size. Children’s clothes, adults’ clothes, male and female. But big clothes and little clothes. And all shapes and sizes. And all the clothes the reported felons had worn were there. The child’s grey uniform, the blond woman’s pink coat, the gaunt man’s clothes, the Father Christmas man’s outfit, the lot.

  This was evidently the now legendary thieves’ kitchen. There was a gang of them. The apprehended suspect was probably the leader. And the stolen goods were all there, the pop-up toaster, piles of money. And more. There were strange things. Artificial legs. A glass eye. Obviously this robber band owned to a few disabled members. It was all quite dramatic.

  But it was damn all compared to what Uncle John witnessed back at the police station. The suspect had not been taken to the cells, he was being interviewed in the chief constable’s office. And Uncle John knew that if you climbed up on a box in the back corridor you could see in through a little hatch and look down into this office.

  I don’t know how he knew this, but he did know it, so he lost no time in shinning up and taking a peep.

  What he saw was to remain with him for the rest of his life.

  The Captain and several of the squaddies had the suspect held down across the chief constable’s desk. They grasped him by the hands and feet and the suspect was screaming. One of the squaddies pushed a handkerchief into his mouth and The Captain pulled at the man’s clothing. He was undressing him. As my uncle looked on, The Captain pulled down the man’s trousers to reveal a pair of artificial limbs.

  My uncle was amazed, this man was an invalid, he didn’t have any legs.

  Then the jacket was pulled from him and his shirt. The man’s arms weren’t real. They were false arms with false hands. The man was a total amputee.

  My uncle says that The Captain was shouting. He shouted, ‘You see, he’s all of them. All of them.’ And it was only later that my uncle realized what it meant. This man was all the criminals. He was the child and the woman and the tall man and the fat man, and who knows who else. He obviously owned a collection of different-sized arms and legs. He could make himself as tall or short as he wanted, depending upon which he wore. My uncle worried about the arms and hands though. He’d seen false legs in action, Douglas Bader flew Spitfires wearing false legs. But how could false arms and hands work? But somehow they did, this man was obviously one master of disguise and one most extraordinary master criminal.

  As Uncle John looked on, he saw The Captain unstrapping the man’s false arms and legs. The man was really struggling, like a lunatic. He spat out the handkerchief, but a squaddie ramm
ed it back in again. When the arms and legs had been removed the man didn’t struggle quite so much, but he writhed about. It was quite horrible to watch apparently, but Uncle John said that it was all too fascinating to turn away from. Although he wishes he had now.

  What happened next was really freaky. One of the squaddies was holding onto the man’s hair and it came away in his hands. It was a wig, but when it came away it brought the man’s ears along with it. They were false ears. And when the squaddie tried to put the wig back on, he knocked off the man’s nose.

  The Captain was worrying at the man’s vest and he ripped that open to expose a number of buckles and straps and these he began to undo. The man’s shoulders came off next, they were just rounded pads. His chest was a sort of stuffed bra affair and when The Captain tore off the man’s underpants, his genitals were made of rubber.

  Things got somewhat out of control then. My uncle recalls seeing a squaddie pulling the handkerchief out of the man’s mouth, bringing with it the teeth and lips. The skin of the face appeared to be latex and it came off like a mask, revealing a hard dark material that might have been wood.

  A rib cage, that was obviously wood, got yanked away. Inside was a lot of stuffing, like a Guy Fawkes dummy, and within minutes the entire frame was disassembled, leaving absolutely nothing.

  There was no man inside there, not one little piece of a man.

  And that is basically the end of the story as my uncle told it. He swore it was true and that he saw it happen with his own eyes. He was a retired policeman and I for one find it hard to believe that he made it up. I’ve never heard anything like it before and I don’t pretend to know what it means. But that’s it.

  Further questioning on my part turned up a very little. The bits and pieces, of what amounted to nothing more than a dummy, but which had undoubtedly been a struggling man moments before, were gathered up, put into sacks and taken away. Uncle John had enough wisdom to mention nothing of what he’d seen to his fellow officers. He never saw The Captain or the mysterious squaddies ever again. Nor did he wish to.