Robert Rankin - Retromancer

And my heart skipped and my throat grew dry.

And I looked up at my father.

His hand had touched my own. My father’s hand. The hand I had never felt as a child. That had never been there to wipe away a tear or give me a loving pat. And here he was, here in this time, years before I would be born.

And yes, as I looked up at him and he looked down at me, I could see it. The resemblance. Perhaps the way I would look when I grew up. I rather hoped so, because he had a rugged, handsome look.

‘Are you all right?’ my father asked. ‘Your eyes are a-pop and your face has grown pale. Are you ill? Would you like to sit down?’

‘I am fine,’ I said. ‘I just had a bit of a shock. But I am all right now. Here, take the valve, I do not want any more money. It does not matter.’

‘Good boy,’ said my dad. My dad! And he patted my head. And tousled my hair. ‘This is very important. A matter of national security.’

‘Are you a spy, then, or something?’ I asked.

And my tall spare dad just laughed. ‘Not a spy as such,’ he replied. ‘Although in a way. You might say I’m a secret agent.’

‘Really?’ I said and my eyes grew wide. Because how cool was this? My dad! A secret agent!

‘I can’t tell you why I need this,’ he said, taking the box from beneath my arm. ‘It’s top secret. Where were you supposed to deliver it to?’

‘Mr Betjamen at the electrical shop in the High Street.’

‘The electrical shop! Of course, I should have realised.’ My dad nodded thoughtfully and then said, ‘You’d better run along now.’

‘Run along?’ I said. ‘Oh no. If there is an adventure to be had in this, indeed a case to be had in this, then I want to be part of it.’

‘Oh yes?’ said my dad. And he laughed.

‘I am not just a delivery boy,’ I said. ‘I too am a secret agent.’

And my dad laughed and laughed some more.

‘I am!’ I told him. ‘I work for a top-secret organisation.’ And now my dad looked as if he was coming near to wetting himself through all his laughter.

‘I work for the Ministry of Serendipity,’ I said.

Which stopped his laughter dead and he stared at me.

‘It is true,’ I said. ‘I am the assistant of Mr Hugo Rune, guru’s guru and self-styled Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived.’

‘The Hugo Rune?’

‘There can never be another.’

‘Then our paths have crossed through fate.’ And my dad put his arm about my shoulders and led me off down the road. We walked to the High Street and evening was approaching, the shops were closed up and blinds were being pulled. My father steered me down an alleyway that ran parallel to the High Street, along behind the shops on the right-hand side.

‘This valve is surely the breakthrough we have been waiting for,’ said my father in a whispered tone. ‘We have a twenty-four-hour surveillance running on The Four Horsemen. The contraband comes in by the ton, but we have no idea how. We have never seen it being unloaded.’

‘Perhaps there is a secret tunnel,’ I said. ‘From Brentford Docks.’

My father shook his head. ‘It is something more complicated than that. Every twenty-four hours, at precisely eight p.m., something sucks up half the borough’s power.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I have noticed that, the lights all dim at eight o’clock. As regular as clockwork, so to speak. So what causes that, do you think?’

‘I have no idea. But through spying, as it were, I have peeped into the back room at The Four Horsemen. At three minutes to eight it is empty, at five past eight it is once more full again.’

‘It must be magic, then,’ I said. ‘There were some suggestions made that the new guv’nor might be in league with the Devil.’

‘In league with a devil, I suspect. And one that wears a swastika upon its armband.’

‘Well!’ I said. ‘So he is a spy. And his contraband comes from Germany?’

‘The electrical appliances are years ahead of anything we have here. Their technical superiority is awesome.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. But why are we now crouching in this alley?’

‘To see what happens here at eight p.m.’

‘And what do you expect to happen here?’

My father threw his hands up. ‘Who can say? Perhaps a spaceship will drop down from the stars. Perhaps the Earth itself will open up and subterranean warriors in league with the Nazis will pour forth. Perhaps-’

‘You have a rather lively imagination, do you not?’ I said. ‘Were those tales you told in the pub actually true?’

‘We should be quiet now,’ said my father. And he put his finger to his lips.

And so we crouched together in that alleyway, my dad and I, and I must confess that I did have a little sniff at my dad. Because I knew, because I had been told, that your own dad has a special smell that no other dads quite have.

And my dad smelled of pipe smoke. And of jersey wool.

And I really wanted to bury my face in his woolly jumper and have a good cuddle. But there was no way that I could ever have persuaded my dad as to who I really was. And it would probably have been very wrong to do so. And might have brought about some cosmic cataclysm or suchlike.

And so we crouched until it was nearly eight. And then my dad said, ‘Damn!’

‘Why did you say “damn”?’ I asked him.

‘Because I have messed this up,’ he said. ‘If there is some kind of electrical jiggery-pokery going on each night at eight within this shop that is connected to the mysterious arrival of goods at The Four Horsemen, it is not going to happen tonight.’

‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘Because you did not deliver the vital valve,’ said my dad. ‘I have it here.’

‘Oh dear.’ And then I said, ‘Hold on, no problem. I will take it around to the front door, knock, tell him I am sorry for the delay. No problem.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I am sure.’ And so I took the boxed valve and legged it as fast as I could around to the front of the shop.

And I bashed upon the front door and I did not have to bash for long before that door was thrown open and Mr Betjamen looked out at me all white-faced, a-sweat and in a lather.

‘Sorry I got delayed,’ I said. ‘I have your valve.’

‘You foolish boy! You foolish boy! Give it to me now! Give it here.’

‘There is a pound delivery charge,’ I said.

‘There is no time for that now. You’ll have to come back.’

‘I am sorry,’ I said, ‘but I cannot.’

‘Then come in. Come in. Gott in Himmel!’

‘What did you say?’

‘Just come inside.’

And I was ushered into the shop and the shop door was bolted behind us. And then I was led through to a back room where there was a great deal of very futuristic-looking electrical apparatus, the likes of which I had only seen once before. And that time only in passing.

‘I will take the money in coins,’ I said.

‘You’ll have to wait. I am on a tight schedule and this apparatus must be carefully attended to. Timing and accurate calibration are everything. Without it the consequences could be dire.’ And Mr Betjamen snatched the box from my hand, tore the valve from it and slotted same into a hi-tech valve bank. Then he threw one of those big Frankenstein we-belong-dead power switches on a wall and all manner of strange things lit up, buzzed and flashed and hummed and made a lot of noise generally. And that bumper-car electrical smell, which I had come to recognise as one that rarely, if ever, presaged good fortune, began to fill the air.

‘What does this thing do?’ I shouted over the growing racket.

‘None of your business. I’ll fetch your money.’

‘I am not in any hurry. I should like to watch.’