The Book of Ultimate Truths (The Cornelius Murphy Trilogy 1)

by Robert Rankin

  ‘And who’s going to pay for all this damage?’ the Mayor of Berlin asked my cousin.

  Vic returned to England without further medals, pondering on the mystery. Where did the Nazis go?

  One minute there had apparently been an entire nation, set upon racial purity and world domination, and then the next…

  As the years passed, my cousin came to encounter this phenomenon again and again.

  There were Peace Rallies in the 1960s, with stone-throwing anarchists running amok. But, the next day in court, these same stone-throwing anarchists complained that they were nothing more than innocent bystanders, who had been brutalized by policemen and thrown into Black Marias.

  And the policemen themselves, when accused of baton charging peacefully protesting women and children, denied that they had ever done any such thing. Not us, they swore under oath.

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  And then there were the free pop concerts which attracted as many as a quarter of a million hippies. They were there and then they weren’t. Where did they go to? When did you ever see even four hippies anywhere else?

  And the annual Wembley Country and Western festivals. Thousands and thousands of fans, all wearing full western regalia. Cousin Vic could not recall ever once having bumped into a cowboy in the street.

  And those football supporters, storming the terraces. When the football season ended, these warrior bands literally vanished. They were never seen waving their scarves, chanting and kicking people with their Doc Martens at any other time of the year.

  Where did they all come from and where did they go? That was the question.

  It was the day of the first London Marathon that Cousin Vic knocked upon my door. He was carrying a battery-driven television set and shaking terribly.

  ‘Look at them, Hugo,’ he pointed to the tiny screen. ‘Where did they all come from? If they behaved like that every day, the city would grind to a halt. And I’ll wager that if you go down there tomorrow there will be no trace of them. What does it all mean?’

  He sank into a fireside chair and I poured him a small medicinal quart of Absinthe to steady his nerves.

  ‘I can tell you,’ said I. ‘But I don’t know if I dare. The truth, when it is revealed, will rock this world upon its axis. It is better that I alone bear the burden. In fact the secret must remain with me until the day I die. I am sorry, Victor.’

  ‘Hugo,’ said Cousin Vic, ‘you have my word as an officer and a gentleman, that what ever you tell me will not go beyond the walls of this room.’

  ‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’

  ‘In a cellar full of sex-crazed Turkish truckers.’ He solemnly crossed his heart.

  ‘Then so be it.’ I refreshed his glass and told him the terrible truth.

  ‘I have studied this manifestation for many years and have devoted considerable thought to it. I have given it a name. Spontaneously Generated Crowd Phenomenon. Have you ever wondered why it is always hot and dry in the Sahara Desert and cold and raining in Wales?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘The alchemists believed in the principle ‘as above so below’, that everything is linked. The Sahara is hot, dry and golden. So it attracts the sun. Wales is grey, dull and closed on Sundays. Therefore, weatherwise, it gets what it jolly well deserves.

  ‘S.G.C.P. is a bit like that. At a certain place, at a certain time, under certain conditions, things will occur.

  ‘The crowds, of which you speak, are not truly crowds at all. They are not composed of real people. These ‘crowds’ are vast living organisms, formed from thousands of single human-like cells. They flourish when the perfect conditions occur for them to do so. Theirs is a brief Mayfly existence. When the event, whatever it may be, finishes, the cell structure decays, the cells divide, fade away and die.

  ‘Certainly a few misguided humans will attend football matches and Country and Western festivals. But one look at the uniform blankness of expression on the faces of the ‘crowd’ should tell you all you need to know. The crowd is not human.

  ‘I contend that these crowds spontaneously generate from microscopic spores which constantly drift about in our atmosphere, awaiting the perfect conditions in which to briefly flourish. Your vanishing Nazis, for instance. The climate which spawned them, what is referred to as a ‘social climate’, ceased to exist when the war ended. Thus your Nazis simply faded away.

  ‘I further assert that these spores have been with us since the birth of mankind. Ever growing in number. And I fear that they are evolving. Reaching sentience.

  ‘Victor, I have evidence to suggest that they are now actually capable of creating the conditions suitable for generation on a global scale. If they cannot be stopped in time, mankind will surely be doomed.

  ‘The entire planet will eventually consist of one vast chanting inhuman crowd.’

  ‘By the gods,’ cried Cousin Vic, ‘it all makes sense now. This explains crowd mentality. The following of false messiahs. Why charismatic leaders come to power. The whole shebang. Hugo, this rewrites human history! You must publish these facts at once. You must warn the world.’

  ‘And who should I tell?’ I asked. ‘A crowd of politicians perhaps? The assembled multitude at The United Nations? Should I ask first for all non-humans to leave the room?

  ‘Victor, all about us the spores float in the air. I picture them as neurons, part of a great mass mind. Exchanging information, plotting the replacement of man. Do you think they would allow me to pass on this ultimate truth?’

  ‘Then if you will not, I must!’ cried my noble cousin, flinging down his television set and plunging for the door.

  ‘No, Victor,’ I called after him. ‘You will not succeed. You cannot. They will not let you.’ But my words were to no avail.

  I heard his footfalls upon the stairs. The sound of the front door slamming. Then a squeal of brakes and a deadly concussion.

  Before I reached my window I knew full well the terrible sight which surely awaited me. Victor lay dead in the middle of the road. A crowd had already formed around him!

  THE BOOK OF ULTIMATE TRUTHS

  Hugo Rune

  There were many arrests made that day. But there would be no successful prosecutions. Order was restored around four o’clock in the afternoon, when the tanks encircling the town removed the covers from their guns and Mr Patel heard on his wireless set that the British prime minister had sanctioned the use of carpet bombing.

  Happily there had been no actual loss of life. The only real hospital case was a travelling salesman who had been shot through the foot.

  Many upstanding townsfolk of Sheila na gigh were, however, now crowded into police cells at the Edinburgh nick, loudly protesting their innocence and awaiting the arrival of their solicitors to prepare charges of police brutality and wrongful arrest.

  One married couple in particular expected to do very well out of it. They had come home during the height of the disturbances to discover their teenage daughter being ravished by a young police officer. Exhibit A was expected to be a twenty-one-function Swiss Police knife.

  Then there were the fifty-five auction bidders who were filing a mass suit for slander and defamation of character against a sergeant in the Special Forces.

  The Sheila na gigh bus company was suing for the loss of its only bus and Mr Patel for his Woodbine machine.

  More than one hundred smartly dressed American solicitors had already chartered a plane and were even now heading across the Atlantic.

  Police Chief Sam McAggott was having a ‘rough one’. He sat at his desk rooting through a tower of statements.

  ‘Do we have anyone in our cells who does not claim to be an innocent bystander?’ he asked his sergeant.

  The sergeant pushed back his cap and scratched his head, the way some of them do. ‘McMurdo,’ he said.

  ‘McMurdo? That name seems to ring a bell. Does he have any ‘previous’?’

  ‘Well, no sir. He doesn’t actually have a record. Bu
t he’s a wrong’n right enough. We’ve got him banged up in a high-security cell. I’ve had him put in a strait-jacket and one of those leather masks with the little bars over the mouth hole. He won’t be biting anyone’s face off while he’s in our custody. Have no fear of that, chief.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it. And what did we arrest him for?’

  The sergeant flourished McMurdo’s statement. ‘He coughed up, sir. Came clean.’

  Sam read through the statement. ‘He confessed to being in illegal possession of two packets of Woodbine? Is that it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The sergeant winked. ‘But I can pencil in a few other little misdemeanours. Clear up a few unsolveds, eh sir?’

  ‘No no no!’ McAggott ripped up McMurdo’s statement and flung the pieces into the air.

  ‘But, sir. I’m sure we could tie him into a couple of torso cases and a bullion robbery. Just give us time. I’ll beat the truth out of the maniac.’

  ‘No,’ said McAggott. He turned further sheets of paper. ‘What about these two tourists? Murphy and Tuppe? What kind of name is that, Tuppe?’

  ‘I believe it’s Welsh, sir, or Danish.’

  ‘So, what about them?’

  ‘They’re witnesses, sir. Against the Campbell.’

  ‘Then why are they locked in a cell?’

  ‘For their own protection, sir.’

  ‘From who?’

  ‘The Campbell, sir.’

  ‘And where’s he?’

  ‘Locked in the next cell, sir.’

  McAggott sighed. ‘Let them out, sergeant. Get full statements from them and send them on their way.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Sergeant, I can’t seem to find any shaven-headed Scottish Nationalists here.’

  ‘We didn’t arrest any, sir.’

  ‘And what about this Wolf of Kabul fellow?’

  ‘Fictional character, sir. Out of The Hotspur.’

  ‘Out of The Hotspur. I see.’ McAggott rose wearily from his desk and smote the sergeant a blow to the skull. ‘Put the kettle on, sergeant,’ he said.

  At a little after six of the early evening clock, Cornelius and Tuppe were once more in Sheila na gigh. A Sheila na gigh which now resembled Beirut on a bad day. Their taxi pulled up outside The Anabaptist Reform Church and Felix Henderson McMurdo climbed out.

  ‘Thanks very much for the lift,’ said he. ‘And may God go with you on your epic journey.’

  ‘A pleasure,’ said Cornelius. ‘And good luck to you.’

  Tuppe waved. ‘Be lucky,’ he called.

  ‘Bye.’

  ‘Nice chap,’ said Cornelius to Tuppe.

  ‘One of the best,’ said Tuppe to Cornelius.

  ‘He’ll finish his days at the end of a rope,’ said the taxi driver, unclenching his buttocks. ‘Do you want me to wait, by the way?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Cornelius climbed from the cab and stood amidst the rubble. ‘We have to pick up some belongings and then we’d like you to drive us.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘The south. A long way to the south.’

  ‘No problem there. It’s cash only for all trips costing less than twenty-five pounds, of course. But I will accept personal cheques up to fifty pounds if they are accompanied by a valid cheque card. And any major credit card…’

  Cornelius left two hundred pounds in cash in an envelope pinned to the pulpit. He also left his address, with a request that a receipt be sent on to him.

  ‘First class,’ said Cornelius, once the green canvas portmanteau and his personal baggage were all in the boot of the taxi.

  ‘South?’ asked the taxi driver.

  ‘South,’ said Cornelius Murphy, grinning like a good’n.

  10

  It was a beautiful evening.

  Even out there, in the middle of nowhere, it was a beautiful evening.

  The taxi rattled to the side of the road, steam issuing from its bonnet regions. The driver got out of the car. Lifted the bonnet. Dropped the bonnet. Blew on to his scalded fingers. Cursed the bonnet. Lifted the bonnet again with his elbows. Peered into the engine area. Cursed the engine area. Kicked the radiator and screamed as the bonnet fell shut on his fingers.

  He was cursing still as Cornelius bandaged him up.

  ‘I’m sorry we broke off the bonnet,’ the tall boy said. ‘But we got you free and that’s all that really matters. I don’t think anything’s broken, by the way.’

  ‘Apart from the bonnet, of course,’ said Tuppe. ‘And the fan belt. You don’t happen to carry a spare, I suppose.’

  The driver glared him daggers.

  ‘No, I thought not.’

  Cornelius glanced over his shoulder and then stuck his head out of the window and squinted into the distance. The road before looked much like the road behind. It was long and straight and surrounded by bleak-looking moor.

  ‘You’d better set off now before it gets dark,’ he told the driver.

  ‘I’d better what?’

  ‘Go for help. We’ll wait here for you.’

  ‘And if you find a café, could you bring back a couple of bacon sandwiches?’ Tuppe asked.

  ‘No no no,’ said the taxi driver. ‘One of you can go. ’

  Cornelius shook his head. ‘I am too frail to be a moors walker. And I can hardly be expected to leave my three-year-old brother here in the care of a strange man.’

  ‘Three years old?’ The driver viewed Tuppe with suspicion.

  ‘Waaaaaaaah,’ went Tuppe. ‘Don’t let the nasty man touch me.’

  ‘All right. I’ll go. But you pay me now. I don’t want to get back here and find you’ve legged it. I’m no fool you know.’

  ‘No, I’m sure you’re not.’ Cornelius paid up. ‘I’ll need a receipt for that, if you don’t mind.’

  The driver displayed his bandaged fingers. ‘Sorry,’ said he in a tone which suggested that he was anything but.

  ‘You’d better take a coat,’ said Tuppe helpfully. ‘You never know.’

  The driver made a gesture with his bandaged fingers. Gazed up at the clear evening sky and slouched away without his coat.

  He was a mere dot on the horizon when the sky clouded over and the storm broke.

  ‘He’s no fool you know, that driver,’ said Tuppe.

  ‘So I’ve heard.’ Cornelius stretched a long arm to the dashboard and unclipped the driver’s radio microphone. ‘Mayday Mayday,’ he called into it.

  ‘I wondered about that also,’ said Tuppe. ‘But as the driver was being so grumpy I decided not to mention it to him.’

  Cornelius spoke to many interesting people on the radio set.

  He spoke to a motor cycle messenger who had once been a roadie for King Crimson. A trucker named Keith who was delivering coal to Newcastle. A radio ham called Tony and an ambulance driver who had just picked up a man with bandaged fingers who was suffering from exposure. Cornelius would have liked to have spoken more with the ambulance driver but the signal faded away.

  ‘I think the car battery has just gone flat,’ said Tuppe.

  Cornelius replaced the radio microphone. ‘I think we are well and truly marooned,’ said he. ‘I spoke to three different minicab firms, but none of them wanted to come out and fetch us. I wonder why.’

  ‘I think to hear the baying of a monstrous hound,’ said Tuppe.

  The storm worsened. Lightning dipped and veered in a manner which was far too close for comfort. The howling wind blew the broken bonnet away and rain began to flood in under the dashboard.

  ‘My feet are getting wet,’ said Cornelius.

  ‘Mine aren’t,’ said Tuppe. ‘But I know what you mean.’

  It was getting on for ten of the storm-lashed grim night clock when the headlights appeared. They moved slowly and steadily towards the stranded taxi and then they stopped.

  ‘There,’ said Cornelius. ‘The day is yet saved.’

  ‘The day is yet saved!’ Tuppe sat gloomily upon the tall boy’s rucksack. His back against the portmanteau
. Cornelius had his suitcase on his lap. He was leaning against the coffin.

  ‘A hearse,’ whispered Tuppe. ‘We are in the back of a hearse. The back of a hearse which is already occupied. We should have stuck it out in the taxi.’

  Back along the road, a forked tongue of lightning struck the taxi. The explosion was quite dramatic, but the rain eventually put out the fire.

  Cornelius called forwards to the driver. ‘If you could just drop us off at the first five-star hotel you come to.’

  The driver said nothing, and the hearse, one of those really spiffing nineteen-forties jobs, with the scrolled ironwork around the roof and the etched glass windows, continued soundlessly through the storm-tossed night. And then suddenly it stopped.

  ‘Fan belt, do you think?’ Tuppe asked. ‘We’ve only travelled about half a mile.’

  The driver turned to face them. A long, pale face beneath a long, dark hat. ‘The village of Milcom Moloch,’ he announced, in a funereal tone. ‘There is an inn here. We go no further.’

  He left the driving seat, went around to the rear and swung up the door. Cornelius peered out through the rain.

  Across the street warm lights showed through pebbled glass. An inn sign swung to and fro in the wind. Faint sounds of revelry issued into the night.

  Cornelius and Tuppe dragged the luggage from the hearse and thanked the driver.

  Tuppe waved. ‘Be lucky,’ he called.

  ‘Come on,’ said Cornelius. ‘Let’s get out of this rain.’

  There was a ‘Hah-up!’ A crack of a whip. And a whinny of horses. The epic duo turned and thought to see a Victorian high-wheeled hearse vanish into the storm.

  ‘Trick of the light,’ said Tuppe.

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ Cornelius agreed.

  A flash of lightning lit up the inn sign. The words THE HANGMAN’S ARMS showed up just long enough to be read.

  ‘Come on.’ Cornelius dragged the portmanteau towards the inn door. Tuppe struggled manfully with the rucksack and suitcase.