Retromancer (16 page)

‘By Crom!’ said I, which made for a change, but quite expressed my surprise. ‘Are we in one of the Forbidden Zones, or is this Narnia
^TM
?’

I had emerged from the other side of the cello case into a weird world of whiteness. Mr Rune stood adjusting his tweeds while Miss Newman tinkered with her jet.

‘You’re in between,’ explained Himself. ‘This place is neither one thing nor the other, neither in one place nor elsewhere. It is a singularity. And as far as is known, the only one of its kind in the London area.’

‘How big is it, then?’ I asked, because even though all I could see was whiteness, which might have been white-painted walls, I had no way of knowing whether indeed these were walls and if they were, then just how close they were.

It was an odd place to be sure and I took not to it.

‘I feel all uncomfortable,’ I said to Hugo Rune. ‘I do not think that people are supposed to be in a place such as this is. Or is not, as the case might be.’

‘Or might not be,’ said the guru’s guru. ‘But let us face it, Rizla. It is only the man who knows where he is who knows where he should be.’

‘We work here because of its perfect acoustic,’ said Miss Newman. ‘Shout as loudly as you can. Go on – see what happens.’

I did shruggings of the shoulders and then I shouted. Not perhaps quite as loudly as I could have shouted. But loudly enough, I felt.

But to my great surprise, my shouts sounded no louder than my previous spoken words. And, having made further attempts at creating a racket with louder and louder shoutings, I was forced to give up as each showed no increase in volume.

‘That is very odd,’ I said.

‘Pardon?’ said Mr Rune.

‘I said, no, well, never mind. So how does it do that? Or not do that, if that is the case?’

‘Nobody knows,’ said Miss Newman. ‘Come with me now and I’ll show you the labs and where the evil was done.’

She led us through whiteness and further whitenesses, passing fellows in coats of white who carried white clipboards and pens, to a room with definite walls but no windows. Here, on a number of stands, hung what looked to be some cut-off oil drum end sections. These were all burnished steel and the tops had indentations neatly pressed into them.

‘Behold the future of music,’ said Miss Newman, proudly.

‘Steel pans,’ I said. ‘Like Trinidadians play in the Notting Hill Carnival. I learned to play the tenor pan at school – would you like to hear “Yellow Bird”?’

Mr Rune now glared me daggers.

‘Oh,’ I said and fell silent. ‘Sorry.’

‘Steel pans?’ said Miss Newman. ‘Trinidadians?’ said Miss Newman. ‘Notting Hill Carnival?’ said Miss Newman also.

‘He daydreams, poor half-witted boy,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘The strangest things come out of his mouth. I feel it best to ignore them.’

‘Quite,’ said Miss Newman. ‘Well, although these instruments are made of steel and could be described as pans, we call them the Mark Seven fully chromatic/acoustic metallic idiophones.’

‘But of course,’ I said, ‘that makes it all so straightforward. Then tell me, were these instruments invented right here?’

‘Right here and by myself. They are, as you see, constructed from the end sections of oil drums, with an approximately eight-inch skirt. This department runs on a shoestring. In order to create new instruments we have to improvise. We reinvented the ocarina here. Hugo has our prototype and we’d really like it back.’

‘Soon, soon.’ And Hugo Rune did wavings-away with his hand. ‘But for now speak to us of the Mark Seven. How is it an improvement on the Mark Six, for instance?’

‘The Mark Seven doesn’t give you spots,’ said Miss Newman.

Which brought confusion unto me.

‘Allow me to explain,’ said Miss Newman. ‘As Hugo has probably told you, we here in the music labs are seeking to create instruments that can bring about emotional and psychological change in the persons who hear them played. We have so far created a penny whistle that puts you off cornflakes, a pair of maracas that bring on an irresistible urge to run for a tram and an entirely new form of harmonica that only works when you suck it.’

I looked at Hugo Rune.

Hugo Rune, at me.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well, this is a very interesting line of research. What exactly does the Mark Seven steel pan do?’

‘It makes you want to dance,’ said Miss Newman.

And I recalled the conversation I had had earlier with Hugo Rune at The Purple Princess.

‘And Big Band Theory leads me to believe that the greater the number of Mark Sevens assembled in a single place and played together, the greater would be the number of people within their range of sound who would feel the urge to dance,’ continued Miss Newman.

‘I am beginning to understand,’ I whispered to Hugo Rune, ‘why you were not particularly keen to come here.’

‘It is rude to whisper,’ said Miss Newman. ‘And due to the acoustical anomaly of this singularity, I heard every word of your whisperings.’

‘Sorry,’ I told her. Not so loud, but clear.

‘Would you care for me to demonstrate the Mark Seven?’ Roberta Newman asked of Hugo Rune. ‘I am experimenting with forms of calypso. I think that I am definitely on to something.’

‘My dancing days are sadly at an end,’ said the Magus. ‘Though once I tripped the light fantastic with debutante divas, I am now reduced to a soft-shoe-shuffle at the butcher’s bacon counter.’

‘You jest, of course,’ said Miss Newman, making a winsome expression that put my teeth upon edge.

‘I certainly do,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I could out-hoof Fred Astaire, any month with an R in its name. But we must get down to business. How many died here and where did they die?’

Miss Newman walked us around and about and pointed to here and to there.

‘And here,’ she said. ‘And there,’ and she pointed. ‘Four of my top technicians. I’ve been sent no replacements, you know. If I lose many more, this entire research facility will have to be closed down. And right when we are on the very verge of a breakthrough.’

Hugo Rune and I once more exchanged glances.

Although no words were exchanged.

‘Would you mind, dear lady,’ enquired Hugo Rune, ‘if my assistant and I had a little poke around by ourselves? I am sure you have much to do. Especially now, with the shortage of staff.’

‘You have no idea.’ And fluttering her eyelashes and diddling her jet, the burly woman left us to get on.

‘That is a bloke,’ I said to Hugo Rune. ‘And do not go telling me that it is not.’

‘Of course it’s a bloke, Rizla. But we must be polite and pretend not to notice. These are not the swinging sixties. I have known “Roberta” for many years. He risks a prison sentence for dressing as he does.’

‘Looking like that should be a criminal offence,’ I said. ‘And I come from the swinging sixties.’

‘Shame on you, Rizla. But pay attention now, we have a case to solve and I feel that if we are not quick about it, others will come to grief.’

‘You have a theory?’ I asked. ‘Then please share it with me, for I am totally in the dark.’

‘So, no prize cigar coming your way, then?’

‘I remain quietly confident,’ I said. In a manner that implied that I did, no matter how unlikely it might appear.

‘Let us search for clues,’ said Himself, and search for clues we did.

There was something about the all-over whiteness of this singular singularity that fair put my teeth on edge. I had felt uncomfortable when I entered and the discomfort seemed, if anything, to be on the increase. The air here had an almost liquid quality to it and things did not diminish in size the further you were away from them.

‘I hate it here,’ I told Hugo Rune. ‘And for that matter, much as I enjoy your company, I hate this war and really wish that I was back in my right time and all of this was over.’

‘And the war won by the Allies?’

‘Quite so.’

‘And all nice and normal again?’

‘That is right.’

‘And your Aunt Edna sending you off to find a respectable job-for-life? ’

‘Let us search for clues,’ I said. ‘I bet I find one before you do.’

But I lost that bet.

‘See here,’ said Hugo Rune, some moments later and poking around in what might have been a corner of the room we occupied, but might equally not have been. ‘Tell me what you think of this, young Rizla.’

I ambled over through the whiteness and knelt down beside Himself. ‘You see that, Rizla?’ he said to me. ‘Grey smears upon the whiteness below – now what do you make of those?’

‘Aha,’ I said and I straightened up and did some feeling around. ‘I believe that to be the scuff-mark of a door that rubs upon the floor and… yes.’ Something clicked and a bit of a door swung open.

‘Very good, Rizla, you have earned yourself a cigar band.’

I peered in through the open doorway. ‘Ah no,’ I said. ‘It is nothing special, just a big cupboard with lots of musical instruments in it.’ And I went inside and did some poking about.

‘What is that?’ I asked Hugo Rune.

‘A crumhorn,’ he replied.

‘And that?’

‘A viola d’amore.’

‘And what about that?’

‘That, as you know, is a ukulele, Rizla. And that is enough of that.’

‘I have noticed the severe lack of running gags in our present adventures,’ I told the Magus. ‘What is that, by the way?’

‘That is a girdle, Rizla. A form of ladies’ foundation garment. And a size eight. One for a little lady, methinks.’

I rummaged about amongst instrument cases. ‘There is a pair of ladies’ shoes here,’ I said. ‘In this ukulele case.’ And I flung the ukulele case aside. ‘Small size too and a flowery frock and a lady’s straw hat also.’

‘Any gentlemen’s clothing to be found?’

I rummaged some more and some more and then said that there was not.

Hugo Rune took the foundation garment and gave it a bit of a sniff.

‘I think you will probably find that is a criminal offence,’ I told him. ‘Especially if you steal them from washing lines.’

‘Buffoon, Rizla. But these are our clues and the case is all but solved.’

‘Right,’ I said and I made a certain face.

‘Think, Rizla, think,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘You can reason it out.’ And I thought.

‘Are you really telling me,’ I said at length, ‘that these clothes are really the clue that will lead us to solving the case?’

Hugo Rune nodded his head and told me he did.

‘Then I should be able to reason it out.’

And perhaps I might have done so there and then. Had there not been a sudden interruption. A fellow in a white coat, with a clipboard in his hand, came busting into the instrument storeroom and fell down at the feet of Hugo Rune.

‘Bless you, my son,’ went Himself. Bringing his blessing finger into play.

‘I’ve not come for a blessing.’ The fellow in the white coat struggled up. ‘I tripped on a ukulele case that some fool must have carelessly flung aside. There has been another murder, Mr Rune!’

We followed the white-coated fellow, who led us at length to the corpse. A number of similarly white-coated fellows stood about their fallen companion, clipboards under their arms and a-wringing of their hands.

Miss Newman was kneeling down by the body with big tears in her eyes.

Hugo Rune cleared a path for us with his stout stick and cried out the words, ‘Don’t touch anything!’

‘I loosened his collar,’ blubbered Miss Newman. ‘I thought he was having an epileptic fit or something.’

‘If this is the virus at work,’ I whispered to Hugo Rune, ‘we could all now be in a lot of trouble.’

‘We all heard that,’ cried a fellow in a white coat. ‘And that seems good cause for panic.’

And panic they began to do and run they were about to.

‘No!’ shouted Hugo Rune. And even the weird acoustics were unable to muffle his shout. ‘You will not panic. You will return quietly to your work. This is not the work of a virus. You are all intelligent men – has it escaped you that a deadly virus is not selective in whom it kills? If this, as the other deaths, was caused by some deadly virus, you would all have been struck down by it by now.’

A fellow in a white coat spoke up at this. ‘If it was a slow reactor,’ he said, ‘say, passing on the viral chain through an elliptical navigation of the-’ But his words were brought short by the stout stick of Mr Hugo Rune.

‘Return to your work,’ the guru’s guru said. ‘I will take charge here.’

Grumbling and mumbling, the men returned to their work.

‘Escort Roberta back to her office, Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune to me. ‘Sit her down, fetch her a nice hot-water bottle, splash a bit of lavender water on her wrists and, if needs be, employ the bottle.’

‘I can manage by myself,’ said Miss Roberta Newman. And with that said, she upped and tottered away.

‘Quickly, Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Off with his coat and pants.’

‘Certainly not!’ I said, appalled. ‘I do not know what you think you are up to, but I will not get involved.’

‘We are checking for needle marks to see whether this man has been injected with poison.’

‘Oh, I see.’ And I helped Hugo Rune take down the dead man’s trousers. Though I certainly did not enjoy the experience.

‘He is wearing special garters to keep up his socks,’ I said. ‘And what is this – a gentleman’s girdle, is it?’

‘Think about yourself, Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘We wouldn’t want people to get the idea that you harbour a morbid interest in corpses’ undergarments.’

‘No we would not!’ I agreed. ‘But I do not see any needle marks.’

‘Then we must turn him over.’

‘Must we?’

‘Yes.’

So we did turn him over and we did peep into intimate places, but we found no needle marks. But to my horror I now noticed that the corpse was beginning to leak blood. From every available orifice.

‘That is me done,’ I told Hugo Rune. ‘I will find something to cover him up with. That is most disgusting.’

Thus saying, I departed at the hurry-up and went in search of a temporary shroud. And I wondered, Should I phone for an ambulance also?

I ambled down this corridor and that, if corridors they actually were, and managed to get myself a bit lost. Eventually I happened back at somewhere that I recognised, but this was not a laundry room, but rather the room that housed the Mark Sevens.

I smiled upon those Mark Sevens. So, steel pans were invented right here, in London, were they? By a female impersonator working for the Ministry of Serendipity?

Aha, I thought to myself. That might explain why history does not record this fact, but prefers the tale that they were created in Trinidad from oil drums left by the American Air Force.

‘It is all so simple once it is explained,’ I said to myself. And then I thought to myself, I would not mind having a little go on those steel pans. Not that I could ever actually say to anyone that I had. But just to satisfy myself that I had played upon the prototypes before they came into the public domain.

I glanced all around and about me. But there was no one to be seen. So I sidled over to those pans, picked up the pair of sticks that rested upon one of them and examined the playing surface.

‘A somewhat curious configuration,’ I said. ‘That is neither your Invaders, nor your fourths and fifths.’ For I knew a little about steel pans and how their notes were laid out. It is all to do with making use of the concordant and sympathetic harmonies and upper partials.

These things matter.

I had a little tap at the nearest indentations, thereby eliciting a most horrible deadpan note. ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘This pan has been really badly tuned. Hugo Rune was certainly right about what goes on here.’ And then I tapped upon another, bringing forth a dire twang that set my teeth to rattling. ‘It is complete rubbish,’ I said. ‘You could never get any kind of decent tune out of this. No tune whatsoever, I suspect.’ And I thrashed randomly about, creating a hideous cacophony, which although not loud, due to the outré acoustics, was certainly horrible in every single sense there was of the word.

And then I went down in an untidy heap. Knocked from my feet by a blow. And then further blows rained down upon me and I shouted (in a futile fashion) for them to stop. ‘Get off me,’ were the words I used. ‘Why are you hitting me?’ were others. ‘Help!’ was a single one also.

‘What did you think you were doing? Who gave you permission to play the Mark Sevens? You beastly boy, you need some discipline.’

Which caused me to become aware that it was Miss Newman who was slapping me all about. Which somehow made it even more wrong. And certainly much more undignified.

‘Unhand me, you weirdo.’ And I struggled up, prepared to defend myself. ‘I will clunk you on the button if I have to.’ And I raised up both of my fists.

‘Oh bless me, I am so sorry.’ And the she-male started to dust me down, but I did backings away.

‘I really am so sorry,’ she continued. ‘But you must understand. They are experimental instruments. Precisely tuned.’

‘They are terribly tuned,’ I said to Miss Newman. ‘Give me a ball-pane hammer and half an hour and I will knock a half-decent set of scales into them.’

‘No!’ And Miss Newman threw her hands up. ‘Horrid mental boy. Why does dear Hugo employ such awful boys? When you come to a sticky end like the others, it will serve you right.’

‘I am sorry I touched the pans,’ I said. ‘I came looking for something to cover up the body. I am sorry that I have upset you so much.’

‘All right then. No harm done, I suppose. I shall lead you to the laundry cupboard – follow me, if you will.’

I was led to the laundry cupboard and then to the corpse and this I covered up.

‘I think you should both leave now,’ said Miss Newman. ‘Your bad boy servant here has behaved most naughtily, Hugo, I’d like you to take him home.’

‘I only had a little tap on the Mark Sevens,’ I told the Magus, ‘and they are completely out of tune. The notes they raise when you strike them are horribly discordant. They literally make you feel sick.’

‘Take him home, please,’ said Miss Newman.

‘I think I now have all the evidence I need,’ said Hugo Rune.

‘And so you will depart?’ asked Miss Newman.

‘Not perhaps quite yet. So you couldn’t get a tune out of the Mark Sevens, Rizla?’

‘He was doing it all wrong, please take him home.’

‘I have some knowledge of music and harmonics,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I’m sure I could tease a jig or two from these errant instruments.’

‘You do not have sufficient security clearance,’ Miss Newman wailed. ‘Please leave me alone with my grief. The dead man was a close friend of mine – have some respect for him, if not for me.’

‘Let us return to the pan yard, as it were,’ said the Magus, ‘and see what we shall see.’

‘Oh no you don’t.’ And with a suddenness that certainly surprised me, even if it failed to raise even a hint of surprise from Mr Hugo Rune, Miss Newman tugged a Luger pistol from somewhere and pointed it at us.

Well, mostly at Hugo Rune, as it happened.

‘He is the murderer!’ I cried, pointing at Miss Newman. ‘I suspected it from the moment I saw this person. I certainly should be given that cigar.’

‘Perhaps you’ll be able to smoke it through the hole in your chest,’ said Miss Newman, the Luger now swinging towards me. ‘But I am intrigued, Mr Hugo Rune – how did you know it was me?’

‘I did not,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Not until Rizla mentioned the cacophony of the steel pans. And your anxiety that no one should touch them but yourself.’

‘All right, I am lost again,’ I said. ‘What have the steel pans got to do with the murders? And is this or is this not Miss Roberta Newman?’

‘Will you tell him, or should I?’ asked Hugo Rune.

‘Tell him in Hell,’ said Miss Newman. Who then did squeezings on the trigger.

‘You must always be careful to release the safety catch,’ said Hugo Rune. And Roberta Newman glanced down at the gun and Himself struck out with his stick.

The baddie went down in a flutter of lace and a pitter-patter of jet.

‘Let us open her up,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘and see what we have inside.’

And with that he put his boot to the fallen figure and flipped it over onto its front.

‘Unlace the corset, Rizla.’

‘No, I am not too keen,’ I said. ‘And now not altogether sure what is going on. Would you please mind explaining it to me?’

‘I will as you unlace.’

And so I unlaced and Hugo Rune spoke, and this is what he said. ‘The operatives who died,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘did not die from some flesh-eating virus, although the effects were very similar. Their internal organs were turned to pulp. And how was this evil done?’ I shook my head to show that I did not know and Hugo Rune continued. ‘Infrasound,’ he said. ‘They were killed by the Mark Seven pans being played in a certain rhythm, creating a deadly frequency of sound in a standing wave capable of literally scrambling the organs of anyone positioned on the audience side of the pan. The idea being to bring this project to its knees and have it cancelled altogether.’

‘And why am I unlacing this corset?’ I asked.

‘Why, to see just who we have inside.’

‘What?’ I said. And I really meant that what.

‘It is my old friend Roberta Newman,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Well, outwardly at least. And the Miss Roberta I knew would never become a traitor. But, oh, what have we here?’

And I gazed down at the spine of the fallen person. Now exposed to us as I had undone the corset.

‘Do not tell me that is what I think it is,’ I said.

‘If you think it is a zip-fastener,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘then that is what it is. But if you would rather I didn’t tell you, then I will not.’

‘I do not want to unzip it,’ I said, and I stood. ‘There is bound to be something absolutely horrid in there. A demon monster, or something, perhaps.’

‘Or a slender girl,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘One whose clothes you discovered in the instrument storeroom.’ And he now stooped and unzipped the zipper, though I turned my face away.

But when I looked back there were two bodies lying on the white floor. A rather deflated-looking one which had so recently been that of Roberta Newman. And beside that, one of a small and beautiful, yet bloody, young woman, who even now Hugo Rune was helping to her feet.

‘Rizla, allow me to introduce you to Count Otto’s daughter, Citrus,’ said the Magus. ‘It is quite the family business with the count, is it not? Recall that I sniffed the foundation garment in the storeroom? I detected a certain Germanic perfume – Edelweiss for Fräulines, a favourite of the Black family women.’

‘But how was she inside that?’ I asked. Gaping down at the corpse and all but throwing up.

‘The work of the sinister Baron von Bacon, creator of the Hellish Man-Hound of Mons. Recently resurrected from his self-imposed human hibernation beneath Old Pete’s allotment patch. He must have hollowed out Roberta Newman, allowing Citrus to take up residence inside and work the outer remains of the body like a puppet. Clearly a portion of Roberta’s brain was retained, which would account for the intact memories of myself and the continued running of this establishment. Ingenious, if somewhat gruesome, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘I really do think that I am now going to be sick,’ I said.

And, regrettably, I was.

And not just the once, as it happened.

Because later, whilst celebrating our success at having solved the case, and drinking many celebratory pints of the latest guest ale, Human Serif, Hugo Rune actually gave me one of his cigars, saying that I had earned it.

And I tried hard to smoke that very cigar.

A cigar that, as was the way with Hugo Rune, had been previously soaked in rum.

It turned out to be a horrible cigar.

And I, once more, was sick.