The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag (21 page)

‘No!’ I
shouted. ‘No. No. No. . That’s a fake. That’s been doctored. It isn’t real.’

‘A
computer simulation, perhaps?’

‘Yes,
that’s it. Billy Barnes must have done it to implicate me.’

‘It
does far more than implicate you,’ said the doctor. ‘It tries and convicts you
also.’

‘But it’s
a fake. Barnes must have done it. ‘While I was in the Necronet. He set me up. I
was there and I saw him. Some woman hit me. His accomplice. I’m innocent. I
didn’t do this. You have to believe me.’

‘I
think that’s enough for now,’ said the doctor. ‘I think we’ll have you returned
to your room.’

‘You’re
in this!’ I shouted. ‘It’s a conspiracy. You’re in the pay of that murdering
bastard Barnes.’

The
doctor pressed a little button on his desk and the door swung open to reveal a
very large male nurse.

‘Nurse
Cecil,’ said the doctor. ‘Please take the gentleman back to his room.’

‘No!’ I
cried, struggling to no avail. ‘There’s something going on here. Something big.’

‘Shall
I administer the gentleman’s medication?’ asked male nurse Cecil.

‘Yes,’
said the doctor. ‘And use the big syringe.’

‘The
really big one with the extra-long needle?’

‘I
think that will do the trick,’ said the doctor.

‘No!’ I
shouted. ‘No! No! No!’

But it was yes. And I was
hauled away kicking and screaming, effing and blinding, to pain and further
oblivion.

I stood in line for
breakfast clutching my regulation steel tray. I was in pretty poor shape both
mentally and physically. All that stuff about a drowning man clutching at
straws is as true as it gets. But I didn’t even seem to have straws to clutch
at.

The big
ugly son-of-a-bitch dolloped porridge onto a chipped enamel plate and poked it
in my direction. I plucked a spoon from the bucket, took up my tucker and
sought out an empty table.

‘Barry,’
I kept whispering. ‘Barry, where are you? Barry?’

But
Barry wasn’t there. I was all alone, fearing for my sanity, without even a
voice in my head for comfort.

‘Anybody
sitting here?’

I
looked up to find a young man looking down at me. He had a narrow face, a
pointy nose and a gingery moustache. He looked pretty normal but that was no
guarantee here.

‘You
tell me,’ I said.

He
raised a quizzical ginger eyebrow. ‘The chair’s empty,’ he said.

‘Then
if it’s empty for you it’s empty for me.’

The
young man sat down and placed his tray upon the table. I stared at his plate.
Mushrooms, sausage, fried egg, toast. The young man caught my stare. ‘I can’t
be having with porridge,’ he said. ‘Sits in my guts like a stone gnome in a
tart’s window box. Can’t be having with it.’

‘Nor
me, but how—’

‘Management
services,’ he said, flashing a badge on his lapel.

‘You’re
not an inmate, then?’

The
young man put a long thin finger to his lips. ‘I am. Look again.’

I
squinted at the badge. It was a bottle top secured by Sellotape. ‘But how?’ I
asked.

The
young man winked. ‘They think they’re smart, but they’re not. They’re thicker
than a donkey’s dick. I come and go as I please. That porridge looks really
crap, would you like my sausage?’

‘Yes
please.’

The
young man forked his sausage onto my plate.

‘Thanks
very much,’ I said.

‘The
name’s Roger,’ said the young man.

‘Rob,’
I said.

‘Please
to meet you, Rob. Still angry?’

‘Damn
right!’

‘Great
stuff.’ Roger tucked into his tucker. ‘I’ve been watching you,’ he said as he
tucked. ‘Muttering away. Observing you for weeks, I have. You’re not like the rest,
you’ve still got it.’

‘Got
what?’

‘A
sense of self, you still know who you are. ‘‘Not for much longer I reckon. ‘‘Then
we’ll have to get you out of here quick, won’t we?’

‘What?’

‘Are
you in the computer industry, Rob?’

I shook
my head. ‘Absolutely
not.’

‘Thought
not. But the rest of them. Everyone here. They’re all something in the computer
industry. Research scientists, systems analysts, programme writers. All of
them.’

‘All of
them?’

‘Makes
you think, doesn’t it?’

I
glanced around at the other inmates. They sat, staring dumbly ahead of them,
slowly munching porridge.

‘Zombies,’
said Roger. ‘Automatons. Utterly conditioned. Blank as Frank and
banjo-brained.’

‘I have
to get out of here,’ I said.

‘I know
you do and I’ll help. Have they been giving you these?’

He
opened his hand to reveal several capsules on his palm.

‘Tablets,’
I said. ‘Same as the ones I’m taking. I used to be under the impression that
tablets always helped. I’m not so certain now.’

‘But
have you been taking them?’

‘Of
course. Just because I’ve lost faith in them doesn’t mean they’re
not
helping.’

‘Look.’
Roger plucked one of the capsules from his palm and carefully pulled it apart. ‘What
do you make of that?’

I
examined the contents. ‘It’s a micro-circuit. A silicone chip, or something.’

‘Not
what you’d expect to find in a tablet, eh?’

‘Absolutely
not. Listen, what’s going on here? Do you know?’

‘I’ve
got a pretty good idea. It’s something really big and it all has to do with a
company called Necrosoft.’

‘Billy
bloody Barnes,’ I whispered.

‘Yeah,
that bastard,’ said Roger.

‘You
know him?’

‘It was
him who got me banged up in here. Simple misunderstanding. I met him in a pub,
tried to put a bit of business his way. He thought I’d ripped him off and bosh,
I’m nicked.’

‘And
did you rip him off?’

‘Only a
bit.’

‘How
much of a bit?’

‘By
about seventy thousand.’

‘Quid?’

‘No,’
said Roger. ‘Right-handed rubber gloves.’

How He Talked

Oh, our Roger was here last night,

You know Roger,

Roger by nature,

Roger by dodger,

Friend to the poor,

And a crutch to his mother,

Who lost all her coinage,

One way or another.

He stayed for an hour,

He drew and he chalked,

Made maps out of flour,

How he talked,

How he talked.

I said, nice to see you,

He said, he was glad,

Roger by nature,

Roger the lad.

The king of the gypsies,

A rogue with a rug,

A gay desperado,

A penitent thug.

He tipped me the wink,

He smiled as he walked,

We went for a drink,

How he talked,

How he talked.

15

Lex Talionis
— The Law of Retaliation

‘Yeah, all right,’ said
Roger. ‘So I’m a stealth fox/dog/horse/human hybrid, but we don’t choose our
parents, do we?’

‘No,’ I
said, ‘I suppose we don’t.’

‘I’m
quite a rarity as it happens. You won’t find many blokes like me about.’

‘That’s
hardly surprising. Bestiality is not exactly an everyday thing.’

‘Come
off it,’ said Roger.

‘What?’

‘Haven’t
you ever wondered why so many dogs look like their owners?’

‘You’re
not saying—’

‘There’s
a lot of splashing about going on in the gene pool nowadays. They’re breeding
pigs with human genes in them to use for heart transplants. So a bloke is
transplanted with one of these hearts, he’s got some pig in him then, hasn’t
he? And who’s to say where that will lead in a generation or two?’

‘So you
reckon that eventually all the species on earth could intermingle.’

‘Every
one that can. It will be the next step up the evolutionary ladder.’

‘What a
load of old toot.’

‘Please
yourself. But I’m telling you the truth. Surely you’ve noticed how people’s
attitudes have changed towards animals? And I don’t mean just their fondness
for dogs and cats. ‘What about all those protests about live sheep exports? And
all that “Save the whale and protect endangered species”? Mankind never cared
about anything like that before. But every year that goes by, people become
closer and closer to animals. Shit, they even have CDs of singing dolphins. And
more and more people are turning vegetarian, why do you think that is?’

I
shrugged.

‘Perhaps
they’ve already got a bit of sheep in them.’ Roger ran a long and pointy tongue
about his lips. ‘Makes you think,’ he said. ‘But listen, do you want me to help
get you out of here, or what?’

‘Yes,
please,’ I said.

‘OK. I’ll
do it, but in return you must do something for me.’

‘What’s
that?’

‘I need
a mate.’

‘Fair
enough,’ I said. ‘I’ll be your mate.’

‘Not
that kind of mate, you twat. I need a mate to mate with. One of my own.’

‘I
thought you considered all humanity fair game, as it were.’

Roger
shook his head. ‘I don’t want to join. I’m an outsider and I intend to remain
one. I’m not joining any pack, I want to mate with one of my own, and that’s
that.’

Well,
how would I know where to look?’

‘You’re
a detective, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah,
but—’

‘I’ve
got a photo. Of my mate.’

‘You
have?’

Roger
fished it from his pocket and handed it to me. ‘She’s an estate agent. Most of
my kind go into professions like that, used-car selling, the law, she was great
at what she did, but then she went missing.’

I
examined the photo. ‘Bugger me,’ I said.

‘If you
think it will help,’ said Roger.

‘No, I
mean, I’ve seen this woman. She was dressed in a chauffeur’s uniform. She
walloped me. I think she’s in the pay of Billy Barnes.’

‘Right.’
Roger snatched back the photo and tucked it away. ‘Then we’re in this thing
together. Are you up to escaping?’

‘Yes I
am.’

‘Then
let’s do it.’

I was very impressed by
the way Roger did it. I didn’t see quite how he did it, but did it he did.

‘How
did you do that?’ I asked, once we were out in the car park.

‘It’s
what I do best,’ Roger said. ‘That and eating chickens, of course. Can’t seem
to break loose of that habit. Show me a hen house and I just go berserk. Rush
in there, ripping and chewing, feathers everywhere and—’

‘Quite,’
I said. ‘But I’d rather not know.’

‘Sorry.
So, which car do you fancy?’

‘You’re
thinking of stealing a car?’

Roger
shrugged. ‘Unless you have a better idea.’

‘No, it’s
fine with me, after all I’m a convicted murderer. What’s a bit of grand auto
theft?’

‘Small
change,’ said Roger. ‘So which one do you fancy?’

I
pointed. ‘That one,’ I said. ‘The electric blue 1958 Cadillac Eldorado, with
the big fins.’

‘Just
the jobbie.’

Again I didn’t see quite
how he did it, but Roger got the engine running and the soft top down. He sat
at the wheel and I sat down beside him.

‘So,’
he said, ‘which way?’

‘Brentford,
I suppose. That’s where I last saw Billy Barnes and your foxy lady.’

‘So
which way’s Brentford?’

‘I don’t
know, which town are we in?’

Roger
shrugged once more. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. Well just drive out of the car
park and we’ll find out.’

‘Fair
enough.’

Roger
drove us out of the car park and we found ourselves travelling through a
modern-looking town that could have been anywhere. A branch of Next, a branch
of Gap, a branch of the Body Shop. Roger followed the one-way system…