Robert Rankin - Retromancer

And Mr Betjamen turned away and rummaged in a drawer. And when this rummaging was done he turned once more to face me and would not you know it, or would not you not, he was now holding the inevitable Luger pistol. And this he pointed at me.

‘Stupid nosy slovenly boy!’ he shouted, above the roar of the electrical gubbinery. ‘You could have delivered that valve on time, but no, you idled about and now that idling will cost you your life.’

‘That is a bit drastic and unnecessary,’ I said. ‘Whatever is going on here is nothing to do with me. I will get off now, forget about the money. I will let myself out, you just carry on as if I had never been here.’

‘No, you’ll go nowhere, this is your end.’

And the shopkeeper pulled the trigger.

And I would certainly have died. As that gun was pointing right at my head. Most certainly would have died, if it had not been for my dad, who had entered quietly by the back door and who now struck Mr Betjamen a blow to the skull with what seemed to be half a brick.

‘Thanks a lot,’ I said. And I really meant it. ‘Thank you oh so much.’

My dad was now tinkering with controls, and the noise was growing and growing.

‘Do you know how this thing works?’ I shouted.

‘I don’t even know what this thing is,’ he shouted back.

‘Then perhaps you should not tinker with the controls.’

But tinker he did, eliciting now a terrible whine, which grew to a terrible pitch.

‘I think it is going to blow up!’ I shouted as loud as I could shout. ‘I think we had better run before it does.’

Smoke was now starting to fill the air and a terrible vibration was running through the very ground itself. The entire building was starting to shake. The dire consequences that Mr Betjamen had suggested would come, if the apparatus was not correctly attended to, seemed very near to coming. My father and I took flight.

We had not got far before it went up. The explosion was spectacular, all coloured firework flares and rainbow hues. The force of the blast sent dustbins hurtling after us down the alleyway, but we ducked-and-covered and survived intact.

My father rose and dusted me down. ‘Are you sound of wind and limb?’ he asked.

‘I am,’ I said. ‘Although shaken.’

‘You were very brave in there. You did very well.’

‘You saved my life,’ I said. ‘He would have shot me in the head.’

‘Well, he’s gone to where all Nazis go. And we should be grateful for that.’

I shivered and my dad took off his jumper and wrapped it about me like a blanket.

And I looked up at that kindly man.

And I confess I wept.

THE FOOL

I thanked my dad and said farewell and returned to Hugo Rune.

Himself was in a slightly truculent mood, having had to awaken Himself for tea and later too for dinner, as I had been out adventuring.

But when I told him the details of my adventuring (neglecting to mention that I had met my father) he perked up considerably and said, ‘You just did what?’

And I explained again about the futuristic electrical contraption that I had seen in the back parlour of Mr Betjamen’s electrical shop in the High Street. And how it had been the dead spit of a field generator that I had seen a photograph of amongst the papers in the Above-Top-Secret PROJECT RAINBOW/Philadelphia Experiment box file, that very morning.

And how the contraband goods at The Four Horsemen were being delivered there invisibly, through the use of said field generator.

And so was I not a pretty nifty secret agent to have been involved in the blowing up of the field generator, and everything?

But did Hugo Rune come over all smiles and pat me heartily upon the back in the spirit of congratulation?

No, he did not.

In fact he did nothing of the kind. Rather he called out to Fangio to supply him in haste with a map of the borough. Took pens and protractors from his pockets, made prolonged and complex calculations, cried, ‘Yes and I shall have it!’ Returned the map to Fangio, told me that he would meet me right here at eight-thirty tomorrow evening and then rushed from the saloon bar most speedily.

Leaving me to pay the bill for his luncheon, tea and dinner!

I sank several pints of Stone Informal, then wandered back to the manse and bed.

And I slept well upon that night, because I had met my father and had a brief adventure with him and that had made me very happy indeed.

And I mooched around during the following day, opening up boxes of contraband goods that I had liberated from The Four Horsemen, tinkering with their contents and missing Mr Rune.

At a little after eight of the evening clock, I took myself off to The Purple Princess, which proved upon this particular evening to be rather crowded as it was

BRENTFORD INTER-PUB

JUMPING-OUT

COMPETITION

Prizes Prizes Prizes

I had hoped that perhaps my dad might turn up, but he did not. Nor indeed did the new guv’nor of The Four Horsemen, who had apparently been arrested the previous evening as an enemy agent and carted off to prison.

I do have to say that for the most part I was singularly unimpressed with the quality of the jumping-out in the inter-pub competition. Some of it was just plain silly, with folk bringing on large cardboard boxes, climbing into them and then springing out and going, ‘Boo!’

And as for the technique of Mr Gardner the air-raid warden, who shouted, ‘Zulus, thousands of them,’ then pointed, and when folk had turned their heads in the direction of his pointing, left the bar – I think, perhaps, he had failed to actually read the poster, in order to see what the competition was all about.

But some were good, some were bad and some were utter rubbish. Mr Hartnel was superb and many spilled their beer and soiled their trousers when he came jumping out.

So it did look as if Mr Hartnel was going to be the outright winner and had it not been for the sudden arrival of an unannounced contestant, whose jumping-out outclassed the all and sundry, he no doubt would have been.

With a flash and a bang and a kind of a whoomph, Hugo Rune jumped out of nowhere, shocked all present and justly claimed the prize.

Well, I say, justly…

‘You cheated,’ I said to Hugo Rune. Once the evening was over and we had returned to the manse. ‘You cheated and I know how you did it.’

‘Of course you know, Rizla. But as to cheating, I recall no rules precluding the use of artificial aids.’ The prize was a silver cup and Hugo Rune now placed this on the mantel shelf.

‘A Philadelphia Experiment field generator! That is how you did it,’ I said. ‘But as to where you acquired it and by what means, I have no idea. I thought it had got blown up.’

Hugo Rune poured brandies and I took one graciously. ‘They come in pairs,’ he said. ‘Although, as you saw this evening, they can be used singly, if they are carefully calibrated.’

‘So where was the one that you used?’ I asked.

Hugo Rune sipped brandy. ‘When you told me the location of the one that was destroyed, you will recall that I called for a map. This was in order to work out the triangulation. The objective was, on the face of it, to sneak contraband into The Four Horsemen. But bear in mind, Rizla, these were simply test runs for horrors to come, in the shape of invisible invading troops. I had the location of one of the field generators; I had therefore to discover the location of the other.’