Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

‘We’re stuffed,’ said Andy.

‘But they will go to Hatton Garden, surely?’

‘Please don’t call me Shirley.’ [14]

‘But Hatton Garden -’

‘No,’ said Andy. ‘They won’t go there – it’s too obvious. They’ve beaten us this time. We’ve lost this round.’

‘But it can’t be, it just cannot be!’ And I took to storming around the station concourse, screaming and stomping my feet.

‘Has he escaped from somewhere?’ the ticket man asked my brother. ‘Should he be out in his pyjamas, and everything?’

‘He’s in my care,’ said Andy. ‘He’s really quite harmless. I’ll take him home now.’

And Andy took me home.

And I was quite disconsolate.

Andy tried rubbing a bit of Vicks on my chest and dabbing rose water onto my wrists, but it just didn’t help.

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ said Andy.

And there was not.

I felt all bitter and twisted. But there was nothing I could do about it. The frustration of that was killing, but there was nothing I could do about that, either, which made it even more frustrating, and so on and so forth and suchlike. But there was nothing that we could do, so that was that was that.

And winter turned to spring and spring in its fashion turned to summer. And Lazlo Woodbine Investigations prospered. We took on cases and for the most part we solved them.

They weren’t always the sort of cases I would have hoped for. They didn’t involve much in the way of adventure, or excitement, although some that Andy took on in his sniffer-dog persona did involve him rescuing children from wells. But it wasn’t what I’d been hoping for. And what about my career as a rock ’n’ roll star? What of The Sumerian Kynges?

The Rolling Stones had won a contract with Decca and were recording top-ten hits. My father, who was still working as their roadie, tried to placate me with Rolling Stones tour T-shirts, but I found these strangely lacking as a pick-me-up.

In March, Andy and I had some degree of satisfaction. We attended a trial at the Old Bailey. And even though we did not volunteer information and were not called to give evidence, we were involved in it. It was the trial of two Jehovah’s Wet-Nurses, the very ones who had come a-calling at our front door.

Apparently they had been caught in possession of a great deal of unlicensed gold. Unlicensed? I hadn’t known that gold needed to be licensed. But they had a lot of it. Sufficient, it appeared, to cast an entire human figure. Say, the size of Pongo Perbright.

They protested in high, shrill voices that they had no case to answer. But they were both sent down for five years apiece.

‘There’d be a moral in there, somewhere,’ said Andy to me as we walked from the Bailey. ‘Think on these things and ponder.’

‘I hope they have a really rough time in Strangeways,’ I said. ‘I hope they have to be bitches of some big fat drug lord.’

‘Mercy me,’ said Andy. ‘Sometimes I wonder about you.’

And so time passed. Ticked and tocked away.

And months passed, and years did, too. And suddenly it was nineteen sixty-seven.

Andy and I were still running the detective agency. And we had a secretary now and her name was Lola. And yes, it was the same Lola – she had wandered back into our lives, the family house all gone and the family inheritance, mysterious as it might have been, proving to have no monetary value, and so she needed a job. And she discovered a rather old and faded and doggy-eared postcard in the corner of the newsagent’s window and she applied for the job.

So we gave it to her.

And as I still didn’t have a girlfriend, I was rather happy to see Lola again and decided that it had to be fate and we probably would be settling down and having children.

But it was nineteen sixty-seven, and so marriage wasn’t something that anyone spoke about much. Because it was now the Summer of Love and free love was the order of the day.

And I was hoping very much to get some of that free love, because I hadn’t had any of it at all, thus far.

And as Lola returned to my life someone else did also, and this someone arrived with an invitation to partake in as much free love as I fancied.

And this someone was Mr Ishmael.

I didn’t recognise him at first. He wore a kaftan and had grown his hair long. And he now favoured a beard. Not everyone could carry that off convincingly, but Mr Ishmael did. No matter what he wore, he looked perfect in it. He had style, Mr Ishmael, plenty of it.

And in truth I had almost forgotten about him and about The Sumerian Kynges. I felt that I had grown up and put behind me childish things. So Mr Ishmael’s return did come as something of a surprise.

And once I recognised him, I said things such as, ‘This is a surprise.’

‘Not to me,’ said Mr Ishmael. ‘How is business?’

‘Booming,’ I said. ‘Andy has even now been called away to rescue a child from a well.’

‘Nice work if you can get it,’ said Mr Ishmael.

‘And what of you?’ I asked.

‘I continue with my quest. My life is ever fraught with danger.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘don’t get me wrong, but mine rarely is nowadays and I’d like to keep it that way. This is nineteen sixty-seven, the Summer of Love – sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Ishmael, ‘and that does come as something of a surprise to me. I had expected the sixties to be more sober, with people eschewing loud music, strong ales and strange drugs. And adopting the cockney work ethic.’

I cleared my throat. ‘Well, there’s just no telling.’ I said. ‘So, what can I do for you?’

‘The time has come,’ said Mr Ishmael. ‘Indeed, the time is now.’

‘Very interesting,’ I said. ‘But what do you mean by this?’

‘Your time,’ said himself. ‘Yours and The Sumerian Kynges’.’

‘There are no Sumerian Kynges,’ I told Mr Ishmael. ‘Toby works in an estate agents’ now. Rob, who you sacked, is an advertising copywriter, Neil is something or other in radio and I am a full-time private detective.’

‘Yes indeed,’ said Mr Ishmael, and he nodded. ‘But the time has come and indeed the time is now. And I must fulfil my promise to you all – to whit, fame and fortune. It is time for The Sumerian Kynges to once more take to the stage.’

‘But what is the point?’ I asked Mr Ishmael. ‘You are in some kind of battle with the forces of evil. But what does this have to do with rock ’n’ roll? I never understood why zombies stole our equipment, nor all that other equipment also. What did they want with it? What was the point? And what is the point of you trying to put the band back together? What is in it for you?’

‘So many questions,’ said Mr Ishmael.

‘I have had plenty of time to compose them.’

‘And I will answer them all in time.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ I said, ‘but not to me. Because in all truth, I have no further interest in any of it. I don’t want to be in The Sumerian Kynges again. We were rubbish anyway.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ said Mr Ishmael.

‘No problem, don’t worry.’

‘No,’ said Mr Ishmael. ‘I am so sorry that I apparently made it sound like a request. The Sumerian Kynges will reform. They will reform because I say they will reform. You signed the contract, in your blood.’

‘I really don’t give a monkey’s about that,’ I said. ‘Sue me for breach of contract if you wish.’

‘There will be fame and fortune in it for you, as I promised.’

‘I’m really not interested. I have a good job here. It started out rather weird, but it’s all quite normal now and that’s the way I like it. If I throw my lot in with you again there’s no telling where it might lead. But I’ll just bet that it will lead me into weirdness and trouble. And I don’t want any. So, thank you, no.’