Retromancer (20 page)

What drew the eye of Hugo Rune now drew mine as well.

‘Should I read aloud?’ I asked.

The Magus nodded. ‘Go on.’

HIGH SPIRITS – BARMAN CALLS TIME ON PRANK-PLAYING POLT

The landlord of The Purple Princess, Brentford, has engaged the services of an exorcist to free him from the torments of a ghost known locally as Gusset-

I ceased my reading at this point. ‘What is this old toot?’ I asked. ‘There is no haunting at The Purple Princess. Fangio is surely up to something.’

Hugo Rune did thoughtful noddings. ‘The rest of the article does seem to consist of praise for his beer and high recommendations of his bar food and flavoured crisps.’

‘Well, this is not a case, then,’ I said. ‘There is nothing to investigate.’

‘Possibly so,’ agreed Mr Rune. ‘But as it is myself whom Fangio has engaged as exorcist, I do not think we should let that stand in the way of a free lunch.’

‘I was once informed that there is no such thing as a free lunch,’ I said, in a wistful manner.

‘Then you were misinformed,’ said Mr Hugo Rune. ‘And now I must request that you produce a tarot card from what remains of the pack.’

I dug into my jacket pocket and removed a single card. ‘THE FOOL,’ I said. And Hugo Rune nodded and then began to pack.

I watched Mr Rune as he packed numerous items into a heavy pigskin valise.

‘These would be instruments of exorcism, I suppose?’ I said, as I did this watching.

‘The full dog and pony show, Rizla. It is always best to go at such a venture with all of the trappings. It lends a professional look. Sets the tone. Creates a certain atmosphere and things of that nature, generally.’

‘Shameful,’ I said. ‘And what is that for? I just saw you pop a toy ray gun into that valise.’

‘The Zo Zo gun,’ said Hugo Rune, drawing same from the pigskin valise and twirling it on his finger. ‘Ideal for focusing a blast of psychic energy against a wayward creature of the dark side.’

‘Are you being paid for performing this exorcism?’ I enquired.

‘The satisfaction of a job well done can be its own reward,’ said the Magus. And without laughing. I was impressed.

‘I am not impressed,’ I said to him. ‘I am getting the distinct feeling that you and Fangio are in this together. You are both up to something.’

Hugo Rune slipped a ball of string, a bicycle pump, a copy of Old Moore ’s Almanac and a pair of gardening gloves into the pigskin valise. ‘So you will have no wish to accompany me and act as my assistant,’ he said.

‘Now I never said that,’ I said.

‘Then fetch me a small watering can from the garage.’

‘We have a garage?’ I said.

‘And my robes, Rizla. From the wardrobe in my bedroom. The red papal number, I think. With the matching mitre.’

It was quite a struggle that day to get to Fangio’s.

For while Hugo Rune made great strides ahead, swinging his stout stick and whistling, I laboured under the weight of a pigskin valise and it was quite a struggle.

The bar was crowded when we arrived and there was a certain carnival atmosphere. Garlic bunches were draped all around and about and Union Jack bunting adorned the bar counter. The air was a healthy blue with the smoke of Wild Woodbine. And the distinctive, if historically incorrect, tones of a steel pan flowed from a far corner, where a lady in a straw hat, from an as yet unbuilt town called Milton Keynes, played The Rolling Stones’ ‘Paint It Black’. I decided to turn a blind eye to that lot, simply drink beer and join in what fun there was to be had. I started first with the beer.

Amongst today’s guest ales I found Saucy McFoodlefist. Which Old Pete informed me was also the name of a wraith that drifted at midnight across the allotments, wringing its transparent hands and calling out for sprouts.

I raised my eyebrows and shook my head and wondered where all this was leading.

‘Ah, Mr Rune,’ cried Fangio, sighting Himself towering amongst the revellers. ‘Thank Saint Amand you’re here. Would you care for a pint of something? Before you free this establishment from the curse that has befallen it and dispatch the unclean denizens of the world beyond to where they should rightfully be.’

Hugo Rune ordered a pint of Franklin Gothic for himself and a McFoodlefist shandy for me.

‘You will want to keep a clear head for the exorcism,’ he told me.

I ground my teeth, accepted my shandy and followed Hugo Rune.

‘And bring the valise,’ he said.

So I returned to the bar counter and, grumbling in a manner that was perhaps unprofessional for an exorcist’s assistant, dragged the heavy bag of nonsense across the bar room floor.

We settled into our specially reserved chairs at our specially reserved table.

‘There is not really a ghost here, is there?’ I asked, as I supped my shandy and hated it.

‘Did you know that the dead outnumber the living by eighteen to one?’ asked Hugo Rune.

‘No,’ I said. ‘But then I do not particularly care.’

‘I feel a presence,’ said the Magus and fluttered his fingers about.

‘Perhaps it is the shade of P. T. Barnum,’ I suggested. ‘The King of Humbugs drawn to a kindred spirit, as it were.’

‘Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘do try to get into the spirit of the thing. As it were. If you are not prepared mentally you will find that when a manifestation occurs, you will have egg on your face.’

‘But not my egg,’ I said. ‘You stole my egg at breakfast.’

‘Drink your shandy and say some prayers, or sing a hymn, or something.’

‘Oh come on,’ I said. ‘This is absurd. You cannot expect me to take it seriously. It is all nonsense. And I will tell you why it is all nonsense, if you would care to listen.’

‘I am all ears,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Pray do enlighten me.’

‘This is an alehouse,’ I said. ‘And also it is an inn, correct?’

‘Fangio takes in the occasional traveller,’ Hugo Rune agreed.

‘Poor choice of phrase, but probably apt. So what I am saying is this. A haunted inn is a tourist attraction. People will come and stay at a haunted inn, in the hope of having a supernatural experience. I hate to use the expression “bite the hand that feeds you” – well, actually I do not, as it is wholly appropriate – but no barlord of a haunted inn would ever bite the hand that fed him by having his haunted inn exorcised.’

‘Sound thinking, Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune.

‘And… and…’ I said, because I had now thought of something else. ‘Ghosts do not just pop up out of nowhere and start haunting places. Ghosts are established, they have a history. There was not even the tiniest hint last week that this bar had ever been haunted. I rest my case and I detest this shandy. Order a beer for me, please.’

And frankly I did not feel that there was anything else that needed saying. But that this entire fiasco would be better brought at once to a speedy end. With a confession from Fangio that he and Mr Rune were simply playing a harmless prank and no more should be thought, or said, about the matter.

‘And that is what you think?’ said Hugo Rune.

To which I nodded. Because it was what I thought. Although I had not actually said the last bit out loud.

‘Then how do you account for that?’

And I looked.

And I saw.

And I could not.

‘Eeek!’ I shouted. ‘It is a ghost!’ Which was not too professional.

But then I shouted, ‘Hold on a minute. That is not a ghost but a clown!’

For a clown stood there, as large as life, larger regarding the footwear.

He was your standard-issue clown as it happened. Slightly below average height. Burly and redolent of somewhere in central Europe.

He wore the red nose and ginger wig that separate clown from accountant. The humorous trousers, whose humour is lost upon anyone over ten years of age. The garishly checked jacket with comedy squirting flower. Unique facial painting work of the type that has to be painted upon an egg and registered with Clown Central Office. Somewhere in Funland.

‘Clown,’ I said. ‘Not ghost.’

‘Ghostly clown,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘See how his big shoes scarcely reach the floor.’

And sadly this was true. The big shoes were just scraping the floor. The clown grinned wickedly.

I became aware that the patrons of The Purple Princess did not appear to be cognisant of the ghost clown’s presence. They were carrying on as ever they had, with the clown right there in their midst.

I shrank back behind my shandy. ‘Can no one see him but us?’ I asked Hugo Rune.

‘This would appear to be the case. And what do you say to that?’

Old Pete, whose bladder was not what it had once been, having once been punctured through by a Jezail bullet in the Afghan Campaign of eighteen ninety-four, was plodding off to the Gents. And Mr Rune and I watched as he plodded right through the clown.

‘That is oh so wrong,’ I said to Mr Rune. ‘There is something somehow altogether indecent about walking through a clown.’

The clown now waved at me, pulled out an item which proved to be a balloon, inflated this and tied the end and then proceeded to do one of those terrible things that clowns do. Create a balloon animal.

‘There should be a law against clowns,’ I said, shrinking low now in my chair. ‘Especially ghostly ones. Please deal with it, Mr Rune.’

‘Ah,’ said the Magus. ‘You have changed your tune.’

‘Yes, well, call me a doubting Thomas but I can see him there in all his circus horror and I would like to be rid of him. Shall I fish out the Zo Zo gun so you can blast him in his silly red nose with it?’

‘Let us not run before we can walk, Rizla. Nor skip before we have learned to perambulate upon a unicycle. The darling buds of May won’t yodel up the canyon, if God is in His Heaven and there isn’t an R in the month.’

‘Not one of your best,’ I told the Perfect Master. ‘But I really would like you to get rid of that clown now. I do not fancy having to squeeze through him myself to get to the Gents. And the way things are going for me, I will need the Gents sooner rather than later.’

‘Okey-dokey then.’ Hugo Rune rose from his specially reserved chair and drew himself to his full impressive height. ‘Robes, Rizla,’ he said. And I hastened to oblige.

I fished Mr Rune’s papal robes and matching mitre from the pigskin valise and helped with his togging-up. This togging-up now drew the attention of a punter or two. Who passed on this attention to others through the medium of elbow-rib-nudgings and into-ear-whisperings.

All these finally reached the landlord, who cried out for order. ‘Are you about to perform the exorcism, Mr Rune?’ called Fangio.

‘I am,’ said the guru’s guru.

‘Then get your drinks in quick, gentlemen, if you please.’

And there was a rush at the bar.

Hugo Rune fussed at his trappings. Adjusting a glittering amulet of the Doctor Strange persuasion at his throat. And, whilst I held up a hand mirror for him, slanting his mitre to the ever-popular ‘rakish angle’.

The clown, for all this while, perused Himself and wore an unreadable expression beneath his painted smile. I observed that the balloon animal he had fashioned was not so much a balloon animal, but rather something crudely obscene. And this he waggled at me.

Mr Rune began to pull seemingly random items from the pigskin valise. A plastic plate, a bamboo cane. A set of Indian clubs. The patrons, now served to their satisfaction, had formed themselves into a half-circle behind the ethereal clown. And although it still appeared that only Mr Rune and I could actually see this apparition, the patrons made encouraging faces and toasted Mr Rune.

‘What exactly is going to happen?’ I whispered over my shandy.

‘Queer things, Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘And I will require your assistance. So do you need to go to the toilet before we get started?’

‘Actually I do.’

‘Then do so.’

‘Not if I have to squeeze through the clown.’

‘Oh me, oh my.’ And Hugo Rune called out to the clown. ‘Friend Gusset,’ he called, for that was the name as mentioned in the newspaper. ‘Friend Gusset, kindly step aside and allow my servant to visit the gentlemen’s excuse me.’

The clown held up his obscene balloon thing as one might hold an umbrella. And then he rose into the air and hovered near the ceiling.

‘I am now getting very scared,’ I said. ‘And I truly, madly, deeply need the toilet.’

And with that made clear, I scurried away, slamming the door behind me. And I took myself into the nearest cubicle, slamming that door also.

And locking it.

I would have taken great steadying breaths, but that is not wise in a toilet. Instead I just got on with my business. Which was pressing now. And if I had not actually been doing my business when what happened next happened, I would certainly have done my business when it did. So to speak.

‘Rizla,’ came a voice from somewhere. Somewhere near at hand.

‘Oh,’ I went. And, ‘Oooh.’ And, ‘Who?’ And I got all in a lather.

‘It is me, my boy. You know me as The Hermit.’

‘The Hermit?’ I said. Finishing my business and buttoning myself back into respectability. ‘The vision I had on the tram, when Mr Rune and I were engaged upon our first case? That Hermit?’

‘How many hermits a day do you generally meet on average?’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I am somewhat upset. There is a clown ghost out there and although I have been involved in some pretty terrifying adventures with Mr Rune, I am still most afeared of ghosts.’

‘And not without good cause, Rizla. The one out there is a bad’n.

More demon than ghost. A foul and foetid fiend. And I, Diogenes, know fiends.’

‘Are you really my guardian angel?’ I asked.

‘You might say I’m a friend indeed. As you are in need.’

‘So are you here to help me?’

‘That is what I do. Although up until now I haven’t really had cause to. You seem to be getting on fine without my help.’

‘If you have any help to offer now I will gladly take it,’ I said.

‘Then put your ear against the door of your cubicle and let me whisper to you.’

And so I did and he whispered to me and I was thankful for that.

I never heard him leave the Gents. I left the cubicle, washed and dried my hands and returned to the saloon bar, where the horrible clown still hovered up near the ceiling and Mr Rune greeted my reappearance with words to the effect that I had taken far too long and that he dreaded to think what I had been getting up to in there.

Which I did not think was funny.

But then he addressed the assembled throng, so what I thought was neither here, nor there.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Hugo Rune addressed this throng. ‘We are gathered today to drive from our midst an evil presence.’ And he looked up at the hovering clown and the hovering clown dropped floorwards. ‘Can any but myself and my highly trained second in command see this vision of nastiness?’

‘Second in command’ and ‘highly trained’ – I almost buffed my fingernails, while all about the bar there were shakings of heads.

‘I haven’t actually seen him,’ called Fangio, ‘but he’s been playing havoc with my crisps and cellar stock. And I can’t have that. He’s not what I ordered, I want him removed.’

Hugo Rune did clearings of his throat. ‘Not what you ordered?’ he queried. ‘Speak to me of this.’

‘Ah,’ went Fangio. ‘Well, it’s a private matter really. Walls have ears and all that. And there is a war on.’

The clown began to do a foolish dance. And Hugo Rune rose slightly on his toes. ‘Spit it out now, Fangio,’ he demanded. ‘The more information I have at this time, the more effective will be my dispelling of this entity.’

The entity in question seemed to be squaring up. But just for what I had no way of knowing.

‘I bought him,’ said Fangio.

The crowd went, ‘Oooooooh.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said the barlord, ‘but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Haunted inns draw in punters. And you lot-’ he gestured around and about at his patrons ‘-tend to be somewhat fickle. You all slunk off to The Four Horsemen not so long ago, when the new guv’nor undercut me with his beer prices.’

Which was true, but the patrons shrugged it off.

‘And then this travelling mendicant turned up last week. An evil-looking beggar he was. And I told him how trade was coming and going and how it was ever the lot of the poor barlord that he should go without while others prospered.’

The patrons now did mumblings at this. And some of these mumblings concerned finding a beam to throw a hangman’s rope over.

‘Give me a break,’ cried Fangio. ‘I’m only trying to make a living here.’

‘Continue with your tale,’ said Hugo Rune.

The clown now took a step in his direction.

‘This travelling mendicant told me that he was a dealer in ghosts. That he travelled the country, removing ghosts from premises where they were unwanted, then relocating them to places where other people wished for their installation. Places such as inns. Where having a ghost draws in the punters. Like I said, okay?’

‘And so you purchased a ghost from this mendicant?’ asked Mr Rune.

‘We bartered,’ said Fangio. ‘And fair exchange is no robbery.’

‘And now you are saddled with Gusset?’

Hugo Rune eyed Gusset the Clown.

Gusset the Clown eyed the Magus.

‘I was done,’ said Fangio. ‘I asked for a nice grey lady who would waft about in a see-through nightgown. But instead I got an annoying invisible pain-in-the-bottom that troubles my beer and my crisps.’

‘Then I must deal with it,’ said Hugo Rune.

The ghost clown glared him daggers.

And then something happened. Something so unexpected and so utterly terrible that all those who witnessed it happen now speak of it only in whispers and cross themselves when they do.

A custard pie materialised in the right hand of the ghostly clown. A custard pie that materialised so all might behold it. And this custard pie was hurled with a horrible force.

And struck home in the face of Hugo Rune.