Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

‘What’s it to you?’ Andy asked.

‘Nothing,’ I said and I shrugged. And snow fell from my shoulders.

‘You’re tainting the crime scene,’ said Andy. ‘Bog off, will you.’

‘I just wanted to help,’ I said. ‘I could be your sidekick, if you wanted.’

‘My comedy sidekick?’

‘If you wanted.’

Andy made that face that gives the impression to those who see it that the owner of such a face must be giving matters some really serious consideration.

‘No,’ said Andy. ‘Bog off.’

‘I’ll pay you,’ I said, ‘to let me help. I’d like the training, in case one day I fancy becoming a private eye myself. You can never have too many strings to your bow, I say.’

‘Oh, do you now?’ said Andy. ‘Well, bog off all the same.’

‘Please,’ I said. ‘You’ve always been my hero.’

‘Really?’

‘Positively.’ And I crossed my heart and hoped very much not to die.

‘Well, all right,’ said Andy. ‘If you pay me. I’m not getting paid for this job because no one has employed me. I only know about it because I overheard two winos talking about it. They said that it had to be the perfect crime, so I thought that if I solved it, then it would prove that I’m a really good private eye and then I’d get lots of work in the future.’

‘And there were those who called you mad,’ I said. ‘Shame upon those fellows.’

‘I will get to them all in good time,’ said Andy, ‘and set things straight with them.’

‘Quite so.’

‘And then I will eat them. And it will serve them right.’

‘Quite so, once more. And quite right, too.’ And I shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold.

‘So what do you think?’ I asked Andy. ‘About your first case. This one here. Have you found any clues? Have you made any deductions? ’

Andy tapped at his nose in that manner known as conspiratorial. ‘I’ve drawn some conclusions,’ he said.

‘Go on,’ I said to him.

‘How much will you pay me?’ he asked.

‘How much do you want?’

‘I want ten thousand pounds,’ said Andy, ‘because I would like to build my own zoo. And building zoos costs money.’

‘Ten thousand is quite a lot,’ I remarked. ‘I could, perhaps, run to ten pounds. But I would have to owe you, as I don’t have it on me.’

‘You wouldn’t get much of a zoo for a tenner,’ said Andy. ‘You’d hardly get a cage for a tenner.’

‘You’d get a packing case,’ I said. ‘And you could use it to import animals.’

‘Animals?’ said Andy. ‘Why would I want to import animals?’

And at this point I felt it prudent to change the subject of the conversation. ‘So,’ I said, ‘that’s settled, then. What clues do you have?’

‘Well,’ said Andy. ‘And bear in mind that I am new to this game and just starting out and so haven’t reached my full capacity, as it were. I deduce that five individuals burgled this shed complex. One, given the evidence, would appear to have been clad in standard roadie attire. No distinguishing features there. The others are most anomalous. They left tracks of high-heeled shoes, but these were not women. Indeed, I have every reason to believe that they were only dressed up as women.’

I sighed, rather more loudly than I might have wished.

‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ I muttered to myself.

‘Well,’ said my brother, whose hearing was clearly more acute than I might have expected, ‘that’s where it gets rather iffy. You see, I can tell you with complete confidence that they were not women.’

‘And?’ I said, without too much interest.

‘They weren’t men either,’ said Andy. ‘In fact, I have no idea what precisely they were. Aliens, perhaps.’

I looked at Andy and I shook my head. Sadly was how I shook it.

‘No,’ said Andy, gazing at me. ‘No, I’m not mad. I mean it!’

Aliens indeed!

My brother’s madness wasn’t going to help this situation. Not that it ever helped any situation, particularly. In fact, the more I thought about it, perhaps, ultimately, all this mess was not my fault after all. It was my brother’s. If he hadn’t bitten the postman’s ankle, then the postman would not have run away and I would not have been able to take possession of all that musical paraphernalia.

So perhaps I should just blame Andy and have done with it.

But nice as these thoughts were – and they were nice, because I was going through a bit of a mental crisis, particularly as he had got the trench coat – none of this was going to help in retrieving all the aforesaid musical paraphernalia.

‘Still,’ said my brother, ‘aliens or not, they have left a pretty clear trail. Following them to their hideaway shouldn’t present many difficulties.’

And I said, ‘What?’ As well I might.

‘The lorry they used to transport the stolen goods,’ said my brother. ‘It left a trail.’

‘It left tyre marks, perhaps,’ I said. ‘But the snow has covered them, surely.’

‘Don’t call me Shirley [10],’ said my brother.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘But the tyre tracks are covered by snow.’

‘I’m not talking about tyre tracks,’ my brother said. ‘I’m talking about oil. There’s oil all over the place – it must have leaked from the lorry. We can follow the trail of the oil.’

And, ‘Ah,’ I said. Because it was clear to me, at least, that the oil in question had probably not leaked from the lorry, but rather from our leaky old Bedford van. But then, if, by some unlikely means, my brother could actually follow the route taken by the Bedford, it would Shirley [11]lead to the same place as the lorry.

‘So how do you propose to follow the trail?’ I asked of my brother. ‘Employ the services of a bloodhound, would it be?’

‘Don’t be silly, Tyler.’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘But please tell me.’

‘I will take up the scent myself.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘What did you say?’

‘All is clear,’ I suggested.

‘You’ll have to assist me, of course.’

‘But of course.’

I hadn’t noticed that my holdall was in The Divine Trinity, but I noticed it now as my brother reached down, unzipped it, rooted about in it and then brought to light something rather furry-looking.

‘And what is that?’ I asked of Andy.

‘It is my dog suit, of course.’

‘But of course.’

‘Are you being sarcastic?’ Andy asked. ‘Because if you are-’ And he left the sentence unfinished, as the suggestion had sufficient power in itself not to require an explicit description of the potential horrors.

‘No, no, no,’ went I, shaking my head with vigour.

‘I will have to ask you a favour, though.’ And Andy slipped out of the trench coat and doffed away his fedora. ‘Take these, if you will be so kind, and put them on.’

‘Right,’ I said, without the merest hint of a question.

‘I’ll need to tog-up in the dog suit to really do the job properly. That’s where I messed up with my tiger-at-oneness – no suit. I couldn’t get the real feel for being a tiger. So I ran this suit up myself.’

And Andy was now climbing into this suit, which had arms and legs and paws, a tail and a zip up the front. And then he put on the dog’s-head mask, which looked, I must say, very real.

‘That looks most convincing,’ I said to Andy.

‘Well, it should. It is made from real dog.’

‘Right,’ I said, and I tried very hard indeed not to be sick on the floor. But I did have the trench coat and the fedora. And so, without further words being said, I togged-up and felt a very definite detective-at-oneness sweeping over me.

‘Help me on with the collar,’ said Andy, and I did.