The daddy smiled.
So did Arthur Kobold. ‘I’ve just bought his,’ he said. ‘Drives a hard bargain does Mr Murphy.’
The daddy smiled again. Cornelius shook his head.
‘And the ocarina?’ Arthur Kobold asked. ‘What of that?’
‘It got smashed to pieces.’
‘That is regrettable. But no matter. We can work without it.’
‘We?’ Cornelius asked.
‘We, my boy. I want you with me. I will publish your father’s work at my own expense. But it won’t be easy. They will do everything in their power to stop us. And power is something they have a great deal of. What do you say?’
‘I don’t know.’ Cornelius stroked his chin. There was definite evidence of stubble.
‘You would oversee the entire operation. Edit your father’s work. Supervise its publication. Everything. By its nature it will become the best-selling book in the world. So, I hope you don’t think the advance too meagrely. I am a man of not unlimited resources, can’t do it without your help.’
Cornelius looked at Tuppe.
And Tuppe looked at Cornelius.
‘I will need to know everything you know about them,’ Cornelius told Arthur Kobold.
‘You certainly will if we are to succeed. Give me papers now. Cash the cheque first thing in the morning and be in my office by ten. And then you and change the world for ever. What do you say?’ Arthur Kobold stuck out his hand for a shake.
Cornelius rose and took it. ‘I say we have a deal,’ said he, grinning for all he was worth.
23
Cornelius and Tuppe took breakfast in The Wife’s Legs Café.
The wife seemed a little off-hand with the tall boy. She served him cold tea and a broken egg, floating in grease.
‘Never mind.’ Tuppe scooped it on to his plate and mopped up the grease with a slice of toast. ‘Cash the cheque and buy her out. That’ll teach her.’
‘The daddy did suggest I invest in some insurance for the Cadillac.’
‘Well, after that then.’ Tuppe wiped his mouth.
‘After that we go and speak with Arthur Kobold. This is far from over.’
Jeffrey Barlow-Clowes the junior bank clerk (Mr Yarrow had been particularly pleased about getting him placed) looked up through the bullet-proof glass of his till window, as Cornelius swaggered towards it. He’d been in the same class as the tall boy, but they’d never been friends. Jeffrey considered Cornelius a no-mark. Cornelius thought Jeffrey something of a prat.
‘I’d like to cash this please.’ Cornelius pushed Mr Kobold’s cheque beneath the armoured glass.
Jeffrey glanced down at the cheque and then up at the tall boy.
‘Oh yes?’
‘Oh yes indeed.’ Cornelius smiled warmly.
‘Cashed, you say?’ Jeffrey did not return the smile.
‘If you’ll be so kind. Here is my library ticket, if you need identification.’
‘I don’t. How would you like this cashed exactly?’
‘Fifty-pound notes please.’
‘Fifty-pound notes.’ The prat sat back in his chair. ‘Not titters, perhaps? Or chortles? Or even guffaws?’
‘Come again?’
‘Piss off!’ Jeffrey pushed the cheque back under the glass. ‘You no-mark.’
‘Eh what?’ Cornelius took up the cheque. It appeared slightly different from the way it had looked only moments before. In fact it looked considerably different. For where it had just read, CASH £100,000, it now read BANK OF FUNLAND. I promise to pay the bearer 100 laughs.
‘I’ll start with the chuckles then, shall I?’ asked Jeffrey Barlow-Clowes. ‘Ha ha ha ha ha.’
Cornelius dashed back to the Cadillac. Mr Twaites, the traffic warden, was just tucking a ticket under the windscreen wiper.
‘Move over, Tuppe.’
‘I am over. What’s going on? Where’s the money?’
Cornelius leapt into the car. ‘There is no money. Arthur Kobold tricked us.’
‘The treacherous sod.’
‘And then some. We’ve been had. He never intended to publish the papers. He’s been working all along for the bogie men in the Forbidden Zones.’ Cornelius brrmed the engine and pulled away without a glance in his mirror. Cars screeched to a halt. Austin Allegros shunted into one another. Cornelius put his foot hard down.
Tuppe clung on to his seat. ‘What are we going to do now? Everything’s lost. The ocarina, the papers, the money, most of your hair.’
‘We’re going round to Kobold’s. We’re not done for yet.’
They really shouldn’t have expected otherwise. But they were desperate and so they did. It was very disappointing.
The offices of Arthur Kobold Publications were no more. And, by the look of the scaffolding and the shored-up façade, they had been no more for a very long time indeed.
‘Are you sure this is the right place, Cornelius?’
‘Damn and blast!’ Cornelius smote the steering wheel with his fists. ‘Damn damn damn.’
Tuppe struggled down from the car and gazed up at the ruination.
‘And this was where he was?’
Cornelius sighed and joined his companion. ‘This is it.’
‘Looks like we missed him by about a century. How do they do these things?’
Cornelius shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But I mean to find out.’ He took a step or two towards the crumbling premises. Brickdust fluttered down between scaffold boards. Its warning was loud and clear.
‘Damn,’ said Cornelius once more.
‘Perhaps we just aren’t meant to be rich and famous.’
Cornelius plucked up a half brick and weighed it in his hand.
‘I’ll beat this. Somehow, some way. I’ll beat Kobold and the things in the Zones. I will find my true daddy and I will triumph. Somehow I’ll do it. Somehow.’
‘I’m sure that you will, Cornelius. I believe in you.’
‘Thanks, Tuppe.’ Cornelius patted his chum on the shoulder.
‘But what do we do now? I spent my last pennies on breakfast. We’re broke.’
‘This does present certain difficulties I agree.’
‘We could busk,’ Tuppe suggested.
‘Busk?’
‘Certainly, why not? Sing for our supper.’
‘Sing for our supper? Tuppe, you genius.’ Cornelius Murphy began to laugh. ‘That’s it. That’s it!’
‘It is? What is?’
‘That. That.’ Cornelius was pointing.
‘I can’t see.’
Cornelius gave the Tuppe a leg-up. ‘That,’ he said.
‘That.’ Tuppe stared down at it. Jammed there behind the passenger seat and completely forgotten in all the excitement, was the nice, sturdy crate containing the magic karaoke machine. A now fully restored karaoke machine, all set to belt out the hits from the future.
‘We’re made.’ Tuppe climbed on to the back seat and jumped up and down. ‘You’re made, I mean.’
‘We’re made. This is a partnership. Murphy and Tuppe, songwriters to the stars. I shall have my hair professionally groomed.’
‘And I will buy some platform shoes.’
Cornelius Murphy jumped back into the car. ‘And Arthur Kobold will get what’s coming to him.’
The tall boy hefted the half brick and slung it at the scaffolding.
‘Let’s go.’
Fut fut fut fut fut, went the Cadillac Eldorado.
‘Not another sprout,’ said Tuppe fearfully.
‘No!’ Cornelius thumped the wheel. ‘It’s really out of petrol this time.’
‘What is that noise?’ Tuppe turned towards the sound. It was a low rumbling. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’
‘Oh no!’ Cornelius climbed up in his seat. ‘The front of the arch is coming down. I must have done it when I threw the brick.’
And indeed this was so. The scaffolding heaved and rocked. Timbers dropped away. Bricks began to bounce onto the road and pavement. One struck the b
onnet of the Cadillac.
‘Grab the karaoke machine,’ cried Tuppe.
Cornelius leaned over the passenger seat and struggled to free the crate. It was well and truly stuck. ‘Give us a hand, Tuppe.’
Tuppe hastened to oblige. A scaffold pole smashed into the seat beside him.
‘Get out, Tuppe. Leave it.’
‘It’s coming. I felt it give.’
‘Leave it.’ Cornelius grabbed Tuppe by the arm and hauled him from the car. And it wasn’t a moment too soon. As they fled across the street, the whole kith and kaboodle and without any doubt, the kitchen sink, of Arthur Kobold Publications, descended upon the Cadillac Eldorado, in one God-awful soul-destroying karaoke-crunching skip-load. Crash and bang and wallop, it went.
And then some.
It was nearly two of the sunny afternoon clock, before the men from the council finished clearing away the rubble.
Tuppe and Cornelius sat at the roadside and watched sorrowfully, as Mark the mechanic (no relative of Mike) winched the tragic remains of the once-proud Eldorado on to the back of his tow truck.
‘I’m sorry, lads,’ said he, wiping his fingers on the traditional oily rag. ‘It’s a total write-off. Best I can do you is a nifty for the scrap.’
‘A nifty?’ Tuppe asked.
‘A nifty fifty. Fifty quid.’
Cornelius groaned.
‘We’ll take it,’ said Tuppe.
‘Oh no, you won’t take it.’ Mark laughed. ‘My call-out fee for vehicle recovery is fifty quid. So I suppose that makes us even.’
Cornelius groaned again.
‘Still, never mind,’ Mark went on. ‘Your insurance will pay up without a fuss.’
‘Allow me, Cornelius.’ Tuppe groaned for the tall boy.
‘Ah,’ said Mark. ‘Like that, is it? Life’s a bummer, eh? Well, I’ve your personal effects here. Not much I’m afraid, a route map and an A-Z from the glovey. And about thirty Biros, they were all stuck down the side of the driving seat. Funny how you come across them in places like that, but there’s never one around when you need it. I wonder why that is, eh?’
‘Search me,’ said Cornelius, burying his face in his hands.
‘Well, there you go then. See you, lads.’
‘See you,’ said Tuppe. ‘Be lucky.’
‘You too.’ Mark returned to his truck and the erstwhile epic adventurers looked on as the Cadillac’s wreckage was towed away.
‘Damn,’ said Cornelius. ‘Damn damn damn.’
‘Well, that would definitely be it.’ Tuppe tossed the personal effects into the road. ‘We’ve lost it all. The ocarina, the papers, the cheque, the karaoke machine and the Cadillac.’
‘And most of my hair.’ Cornelius ran his fingers over his numerous bald patches. ‘Let’s not forget my hair.’
‘I hadn’t. I just didn’t like to mention it.’
‘Perhaps there’s a moral in it or something.’ Cornelius stood up and stretched.
‘Perhaps.’ Tuppe stuffed a handful of Biros into his pocket. ‘Waste not want not?’ he suggested, dismally.
Cornelius Murphy began to laugh.
Tuppe rolled his eyes. ‘I’m glad you can see the funny side.’
‘Oh, I can. I really can.’ Cornelius reached down and took up the route map and the dog-eared A-Z. Rune’s London A-Z Street Directory. In which the great man had marked the precise location of every secret entrance into the Forbidden Zones. All clearly marked and just waiting for some epic personage to take up a reinvented ocarina, play the magic notes, open up each one in turn and claim the hidden wealth within.
And, of course, the map. The tall boy’s map of the British Isles. On which Cornelius had pencilled the route and stopping points of his and Tuppe’s epic journey. A dot-to-dot pencil picture which formed the perfect blueprint for the reinvented ocarina.
Cornelius looked at Tuppe.
And Tuppe looked at Cornelius.
And then they both began to laugh.
Also by
ROBERT RANKIN
The Antipope
The Brentford Triangle
East of Ealing
The Sprouts of Wrath
Armageddon: The Musical
They Came and Ate Us
The Suburban Book of the Dead
The Book of Ultimate Truths
Raiders of the Lost Car Park
The Greatest Show Off Earth
The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived
The Garden of Unearthly Delights
A Dog Called Demolition
Nostradamus Ate My Hamster
Sprout Mask Replica
The Brentford Chainstore Massacre
The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag
Apocalypso
Snuff Fiction
Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls
Waiting for Godalming
Web Site Story
The Fandom of the Operator
The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse
The Witches of Chiswick
Knees Up Mother Earth
The Brightonomicon
The Toyminator
The Da-da-de-da-da Code
Necrophenia
Retromancer
The Japanese Devil Fish Girl and Other Unnatural Attractions
The Mechanical Messiah and Other Marvels of the Modern Age
The Educated Ape and Other Wonders of the Worlds
Illustrated works:
The Bumper Book of Ficts written by Neil Gardner
EMPIRES
E-book edition cover illustration by Robert Rankin
Additional editing, art direction, slow-cooked lamb shanks, laughter and love:
Rachel Hayward (Blue-lidded daughter of sunset).
Table of Contents
Introduction
Peace Day Celebrations
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
19
20
21
22
23
The Book of Ultimate Truths (The Cornelius Murphy Trilogy 1) Page 29
