Waiting for Godalming

by Robert Rankin

  4

  If Icarus Smith had been sitting on the other side of the Station Hotel’s scarlet bar and diner, the side that faced to the lower end of the high street, he would have seen Mr Cormerant leaving Fangio’s bar, after his meeting with Lazlo Woodbine.

  He would have seen Mr Cormerant muttering to himself and dabbing at his nose with an oversized red gingham handkerchief. He would have seen Mr Cormerant stumbling across the street, narrowly avoiding death beneath the wheels of a speeding Ford Fiesta.

  And finally he would have seen Mr Cormerant struggling into the back of one of those sinister long dark automobiles with the blacked out windows, which are positively de rigueur with the upmarket criminal fraternity, to be ferried back to the Ministry of Serendipity.

  But as Icarus was sitting on the other side of the bar, he saw none of those things.

  Had he seen them, and indeed had he been able to follow Mr Cormerant back to the Ministry and stick his ear close to the door of a top secret chamber, he would have heard Mr Cormerant get another sound telling off for losing the briefcase, before being complimented for his good sense in employing the world’s greatest private eye to search for it. He would then have heard Mr Cormerant being informed that certain agencies had already been despatched, to seek out the petty criminal who had apparently lifted the case from Stravino’s and see to it that he came to a most unpleasant but suitably spectacular end. But Icarus did not hear any of these things. Which may, or may not, have been for the best.

  With a trembly hand, Icarus Smith removed the cassette tape from the Dictaphone. Having managed, with some difficulty, to slide it into the top pocket of his jacket, he snatched up the Dictaphone, flung it back into the briefcase, closed and locked the lid. And then sat at his table, quivering somewhat and staring into space.

  Now Icarus knew the scenario, every moviegoer did. It had been used again and again on the big screen in crime thrillers and science fiction thrillers and even science fantasy thrillers, in fact in pretty much every kind of thriller that there ever was. It was simple and succinct, and this is how it went.

  Petty criminal steals something really important without realizing what it is. Case of drugs, or money belonging to gang-lord, advanced military microchip, mega-dangerous virus, Ford Fiesta with alien corpse in the boot. Tick where applicable.

  Then, early on in the plot, the petty criminal comes to a most unpleasant but suitably spectacular end, before the hero, in the shape of the detective, arrives on the scene in search of the stolen something.

  It was hardly an original scenario, but it had been tried and tested and found to work very well indeed.

  Icarus recalled the movie version of Death Wears a Blue Sombrero (A Lazlo Woodbine Thriller) in which small time crook Andy Challis, played by Tom Hanks, steals a patent leather clutch bag from a prostitute played by Meg Ryan. The bag contains a doorway to another dimension and poor old Tom gets sucked through it into oblivion, several scenes before the hero, in the shape of Laz, played on this occasion most unconvincingly by Leonardo di Caprio, arrives to solve the case.

  The small time crook always came to a hideous end. It was a great Hollywood tradition. Hollywood knew its own business best and who was Icarus to argue?

  ‘I’m in serious trouble here,’ mumbled Icarus Smith. ‘Although…’

  Although?

  ‘Although.’ Icarus began to smile.

  To smile?

  ‘Just let me think about this.’

  Icarus gave the matter some thought. Some deep and serious thought. Surely, he thought, in a deep and serious manner, this can be no accident. Surely, this tape did not fall into my hand through mere chance alone. The nature of my game is instinctiveness. To become aware of something and then to relocate it. If I have acquired this cassette tape, then there must be some reason why. And think about it, just think about what’s on this tape. A man is being tortured and he dies because of something he has discovered. A drug, created from a formula given to him by a pattern of flowers. A drug designed to create the human computer, which instead opened the man’s eyes and allowed him to see something incredible. Something terrifying.

  ‘To see things as they really are. And people as they really are. The ones who actually are people. And the ones who aren’t.’

  This was big. This was very big. This had to be a part of the Big Picture.

  And what else had the dying man said to his tormentor?

  ‘You’ll never find the drug. But someone will and that someone will learn the truth and they’ll put paid to you and your kind. That someone will change the world for ever. That someone will make things right.’

  ‘That someone is me,’ whispered Icarus Smith. ‘I must find this drug and I must take it and then I will be the one to change the world.’

  It had to be so. Well, to Icarus it did. To Icarus this could not be one of Stravino’s ‘caprices of fate’. To Icarus, it was a case of ‘I am the Chosen One’. And, as history has proved most conclusively, it can be a difficult matter arguing with a man who believes that he is the Chosen One.

  ‘There can be no doubt,’ whispered Icarus Smith. ‘The tape was meant to fall into my possession. It is my destiny to change the world for ever.’

  And so with all this thought and said, Icarus set to reopening the briefcase. His hands shook only slightly now, and this from excitement rather than fear. Icarus rubbed these hands together and then began to rifle through the contents of the case.

  Disregarding the leather briefs, the packed lunch and the Dictaphone, he addressed his attention to a wad of papers and a notebook bound in a curious hide.

  Firstly the papers. Icarus leafed through these. They bore the letter heading of the Ministry of Serendipity, and appeared to be interdepartmental memos, concerning the staff canteen and the poor selection of food on offer.

  ‘Hence the packed lunch,’ said Icarus Smith.

  The notebook, however, was of considerable interest. There were two stains on its front cover. The first appeared to be marmalade but the second looked like blood. Icarus opened the book and then went ‘ah.’

  ‘Addresses,’ said Icarus Smith.

  On the flyleaf of the book were printed the words:

  This book is the property of

  Prof. Bruce Partington

  Wisteria Lodge

  Shoscombe Old Place

  Brentford.

  ‘Aha,’ said Icarus. ‘No doubt the tortured soul himself. But let’s just check.’ He dug into a jacket pocket and brought to light the relocated wallet. Flipping this open, he observed a Ministry of Serendipity security card made out to one Arkus Cormerant. The photo displayed the face of the chap in Stravino’s. The erstwhile ‘owner’ of the briefcase.

  ‘Yes,’ said Icarus. ‘And I recognized your voice on the cassette tape. It was you who spoke at the end and said, “Save your breath on him, he’s dead.” ’

  Icarus returned the wallet to his pocket.

  ‘Rjght,’ said he. ‘Let’s have a little action.’

  But before Icarus has a little action, indeed a very great deal of action, let us speak a little regarding the living hero of Icarus Smith. This is best done now, rather than later, because later it would only interfere with the action. And also because it will demonstrate just how the particular endeavours of this particular hero influence the forthcoming actions of Icarus Smith.

  The hero of Icarus Smith is a master criminal, wanted in several countries.

  His name was, and is, a secret known to only a few, but as his best-known pseudonym is the Reverend Jim de Licious, we shall know him by this name alone.

  Jim originally worked at Fudgepacker’s Emporium, a prop-house in Brentford which supplied theatrical properties to the film and TV industries, and it was there that he got the original idea for his crimes. Fudgepacker’s hired out all kinds of stuff, mostly Victoriana, but had certain items in stock that other prop-houses didn’t, and amongst these was a full-sized fibreglass replica of a post box.

&n
bsp; This used to get hired out again and again for street scenes in movies, and the thing about it was that it looked so convincing that when filming finished it inevitably got left behind on the street corner where it had been placed while the scene was being shot and the prop man would have to go back the next day and pick it up to return it to Fudgepacker’s.

  And nearly every time this happened, the prop man would find that the post box was half full of letters. You see, people thought it was a real post box and it never occurred to them that it hadn’t been there the week before, so they posted their letters into it.

  This gave the Reverend Jim an idea. It was a dishonest idea, but it was a good’un. The Reverend Jim took to hiring the post box himself. He told Mr Fudgepacker that he did amateur dramatics and Mr Fudgepacker let him hire the post box at a discount. The Rev would leave the post box on a likely street corner for a few days, then pick it up in a van in the early hours of the morning and help himself to the contents.

  You’d be surprised just how many postal orders and indeed how much paper money people post.

  But it was a pretty heartless crime, because a lot of these postal orders and paper money were being posted off to kids as birthday presents and Jim didn’t feel too good about stealing stuff from children.

  But he did see the potential.

  The prop telephone box that Fudgepacker had in stock was another goody. It looked just like the real thing. It even had the phone and the coin box and everything. And stealing cash from a phone box is hardly an evil crime, is it?

  So the Rev took to hiring the telephone box and setting it up beside a row of other telephone boxes and collecting it after a few days and helping himself to the money in the cash box, which people had put in before realizing that the phone didn’t work and using one of the others. Well, he couldn’t keep hiring this week after week without rousing suspicion.

  But he did see the potential.

  There are other prop-houses, you see. Prop-houses that specialize in other items required by the film industry. There are those that hire out weapons. Those that hire out costumes. And those that hire out vehicles.

  The one that hires out vehicles has an AA pickup truck in stock. It’s not a real AA pickup truck; it’s just been painted up to look like one. It does look very convincing, though.

  The Reverend Jim was making quite a lot of money from the telephone box and he’d taken the lease on a lock-up garage, where he used to take the box and empty it. It occurred to him that he might branch out into car theft. And that if he was going to do so, he might as well start at the top end of the market and rip off a Rolls-Royce.

  It’s remarkable really. If you tried to break into a Rolls-Royce and drive it away, people would look. People would see you. People would call the police. But if you arrive with an AA pickup truck and simply tow the Roller away, people don’t even seem to notice.

  Those who do, usually laugh. Well, there’s nothing more pleasing than a broken down Rolls-Royce, is there? It’s nice to see that even rich blighters come unstuck once in a while.

  The Reverend Jim would rip off a Roller a week with the hired out AA pickup truck and he probably would have been content with that. He’d made an underworld connection, which was hardly too difficult a thing to do, if you were brought up in the kind of neighbourhood where Jim was brought up. The Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood of Brentford. And this partner in crime was selling the Rollers on to Arabs and the money was pretty good. But one day, when he was returning the AA pickup truck to the prop-house that hired out the vehicles, he spied a new vehicle that they had in stock.

  The prop-house had mocked it up for a crime thriller movie about a bullion robbery. The vehicle in question was a Securicor van.

  The Reverend Jim was not slow to realize the potential of this particular vehicle. And of course there were those other prop-houses. The ones that hired out costumes. So the uniforms wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

  The Reverend Jim took a week off work. He followed a real Securicor van around. Mapping its routes and logging the times at its various ports of call.

  The following week he hired the van and the costumes and he and his partner in crime did the rounds, arriving ten minutes earlier than the real van.

  It was a masterstroke.

  And once they’d emptied the contents of the bogus van into the lock-up, they returned it and the costumes to the respective prop-houses and then drove back to the lock-up in another hired van to pick up the loot and carry it far far away.

  And were promptly arrested by the police.

  Well, almost.

  It was that close.

  They were returning to the lock-up when they saw the police cars. The police had the lock-up surrounded: pretty quick work, thought Jim. Far too quick, in fact. It occurred to him that the police had probably been tipped off about all the Rollers that had been going in and out and that they’d get quite a surprise when they opened the lock-up and discovered all the newly stolen bullion.

  This was just an unfortunate coincidence. A caprice of fate. Jim was pretty rattled seeing all those police cars there, but also felt somewhat proud that he had had the foresight to hire the sort of van he had hired, with which to carry his loot so far far away.

  This particular van was a mock police van.

  Jim had hired the police uniforms and everything.

  Well, let’s face it. The police, once alerted to the robbery, would be looking for a bogus Securicor van, not a police van.

  Jim got a real kick out of having real policemen help him and his partner load up the van with all the stolen booty.

  He told a friend about this over the phone.

  Jim was living in Spain at the time.

  The Reverend Jim’s present whereabouts are unknown. But at least two further crimes committed in this country have his unique stamp on them.

  The first one was the great art robbery.

  Jim had always had a love for original art. His taste was for certain living artists who produced the kind of abstract stuff that most people wouldn’t give you a thank you for, but Jim adored it and wanted to own a collection.

  So what Jim did was to take a short lease on a shop premises in Mayfair and open it up as a very prestigious art gallery. He then contacted the various artists for whose work he had his taste and asked them whether they’d care to exhibit. Unlike other art galleries, he would waive the 40 per cent commission on this occasion and allow the artists to keep all the money their paintings sold for. It would be good for the reputation of his gallery, he told them. A one-off event.

  Well, you’d be surprised what greedy blighters some artists can be. The ones who said yes to Jim put a really high value on the pieces they exhibited.

  Jim insured the lot.

  Not that he expected the insurance company to actually pay up. But he felt that it was nice to have the documentation of the art works’ values, in case he ever chose to sell the pieces on in the future.

  The night before the exhibition – which had been widely advertised in the arts media – was to open, Jim went round to the gallery with another hired van, opened it up with his keys, took down all the canvases and removed them to a place that was far far away.

  Spain probably.

  You might well know of Jim’s final great crime, although it is doubtful that you will have known it for the thing it really is until now. It was a logical progression, though. A matter of seeing potential.

  Having graduated from bogus post box to bogus telephone box to bogus AA pickup truck to bogus Securicor van to bogus police van to bogus art gallery, it was natural that Jim would progress to a bogus organization into which millions and millions of pounds might readily pour, week in week out, without anyone ever seeing it for the thing it really was.

  So he did.

  You probably do know of it.

  It’s called the National Lottery.

  Allegedly.

  But let us return now to Icarus Smith, who is about to have a littl
e action. A great deal of action, as it happens.

  But no.

  Wait.

  Let us not return to Icarus just yet. Let us return instead to Lazlo Woodbine, which is to say, the world’s greatest private eye. Because Laz is about to meet up with an old companion, a very important companion, and that companion is about to impart certain information to Laz which is of major importance to our tale. Information which will change the direction of Lazlo Woodbine’s investigations, and indeed the world, for ever.

  We left Laz falling into that deep dark whirling pit of oblivion that all great genre detectives always fall into after they’ve been bopped on the head by the dame who does them wrong, or, as in this case, the fat boy barman. So let us join Laz as he regains consciousness.

  Over to you, Mr Woodbine, sir.

  5

  I awoke from a dream about a doctor’s office and clutched at a dented skull.

  ‘Tongues of the jumping head,’ I said. ‘That hurts more than a broke-dick dog on the rocky road to ruin.’

  I didn’t trouble myself with the old ‘What happened?’ or the even older ‘Where am I?’ That stuff’s strictly for the cheap seats; you’re in the dress circle here.

  I blinked my baby blues, choked away a manly tear, cast aside all thoughts of pain and even those of taking up a hobby (such as playing Kick Butt West of the Pennines, without the aces wild), and copped a glance at my present surroundings.

  I lay, sprawled handsomely, though a tad dishevelled, upon a carpet. But it was a carpet of such an unspeakable nature that no words could naturally speak of it. This carpet was spread on the floor of a room which was long and low and loathsome. There was a ghastly hat-stand, rising like a gallows tree. A water cooler of evil aspect, dripping poison from its crusted chromium spout. A filing cabinet, coffin black, which surely rotten corpses held. A desk, dark foreboding, and a chair of surly misdemeanour. Above me turned a ceiling fan, its blades slowly cleaving the rank air. Its motion conjured dire thoughts of the pendulum in the tale by Edgar Allan Poe and chilled my soul and placed an icy hand upon my heart.