The Witches of Chiswick (16 page)

“Well,” said Barry. “Thanks be to me for getting you out of that spot of bother unscathed.”

“I’m not talking to you,” said Will. “And you’re not staying in my head.”

“Pardon me, sir,” said the gentleman behind the counter of Asprey, as he viewed the somewhat bedraggled figure that stood before him. The gentleman behind the counter was not truly a gentleman. He was an automaton, although not a scary black-eyed, evil-smelling grim satanic automaton. He was an elegant well-spoken upmarket model: a Babbage 1900 series. “Pardon me, sir,” he said once again.

“Nothing,” said Will. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

“As you please, sir. So what is it that you require?”

“A pencil,” said Will. “A really sharp one.”

Asprey was a wonderful shop,
is
a wonderful shop and hopefully will
always
be a wonderful shop. Asprey is set in the heart of Mayfair, a glorious emporium where are to be found porcelain and silverwares, antique books and travelling cases, china and crystal, guns, games and goblets; and a range of stylish automata on the first floor. Everything is beautiful at Asprey, especially the pencils.

“Certainly sir,” said the liveried gentleman’s gentleman.

“Now hold on, chief,” said Barry. “What do you need a pencil for?”

“I’m going to stick it in my ear and winkle you out.”

“Pardon me, sir?”

“Not you,” said Will. “Just sell me the pencil, please.”

“And sir wishes to poke it into sir’s ear?”

“I’ve a foreign object lodged in there.”

“Then perhaps sir should see a surgeon, rather than risk serious injury.”

“Just sell me the damned pencil.” Will made a very fierce face.

“As you wish, sir. Would you care to have it wrapped?”

Will made an even fiercer face.

“He’s right, though, chief,” said Barry. “You
will
injure yourself. Can’t we just talk this over, sprout to man, as it were?”

“No,” said Will. “You tricked me. You’re some kind of evil parasite.”

“Well really sir. There’s no need for that.”

“I’m not talking to
you
!”

Well-dressed patrons raised their noses and muttered “disgraceful” and “commoner”.

“And you lot can mind your own business.” Will was now most unsteady on his feet. He raised and shook a feeble fist.

“Forget the pencil, chief,” said Barry. “You don’t even have enough cash on you to pay for it. Or perhaps you were thinking to charge it to Mr Rune’s account.”

“Actually I was,” said Will.

“But Mr Rune’s dead, chief. What you
really
need is a bit of peace and quiet. Why don’t we hock a pair of Mr Rune’s cufflinks and check into the Dorchester?”

“What?” went Will.

“Here we go with the ‘whats’ again. Time goes slipping by and if you really want to avenge Mr Rune’s death you really should be concentrating on the job in hand.”

“I don’t feel at all well,” said Will.

“Take a nap then, chief. Leave it to me.”

Will almost said, “what?” once more.

But he didn’t. Instead he just fainted dead away.

He later awoke to find himself lying on a most comfortable Regency rosewood bed in a private suite at the Dorchester.

It was an elegant suite, elegantly furnished, with a carpet of William Morris design, a George III satinwood dresser, a Louis XVI mahogany desk, a French ebonised and Boulle breakfront side cabinet, with brass mouldings, and gadrooned plinth, whatever that may be; and a settee and chairs in the style of Thomas Hope, whoever he may be.

And then Will
did
say “what” once again.

“What am I doing here?” he said, and, “How did I get here?”

“Ah, we’re back in the land of the living are we?” The voice of Barry was once more in the head of Will.

Will made dismal groaning sounds.

“But no more cheerful I perceive,” Barry chuckled. “For your information, I sort of animated you while you were out cold. Hocked the cufflinks and the rings, opened a bank account and deposited the money in Coutts’, then got you to book yourself in here. What a nice chap I am, eh?”

“
What
?” Will’s eyes were now very wide. “You
animated
me? Like a zombie?”

“Hardly that, chief. Well, a bit like that, I suppose. You will find that your knees are a bit grazed. It took me quite some time to get all your odds and bods coordinating properly. I’m afraid I bumped you into a doorpost or two. But I got the hang of it in the end.”

“This is a nightmare” Will began to weep.

“Oh I don’t know, chief. I think it’s a pretty nice room. And it’s got a bath. And frankly you need a bath. You’re definitely a bit niffy. What with all the excitement and underarm roll-on deodorants not being invented yet. And everything.”

“I can’t go on.” Will drummed his fists on the scented bed linen.

“Then have another kip and I’ll take care of your bathing.”

“No you damned well won’t.”

“The ingratitude of some people.”

“Please get out of my head.”

“I’m sorry, chief. I told you, I can’t. But I
can
help you. And I will. We’re one now. Your problems are my problems, so to speak. And I’ll help you avenge Mr Rune’s death
and
get you back to your own time. That’s a pretty good deal, isn’t it?”

“If it’s true,” Will blubbered.

“It is true. And I’ve already got you started. Although you weren’t aware of it, you called in at a cartographer’s shop, a gentleman’s outfitters and a purveyor of pistolry on your way here.”

Will shook his miserable head and asked, “Why?”

“You’ll be wanting a map of the Whitechapel area, new clothes and a gun. I was just doing what you’d naturally have chosen to do for yourself.”

“Oh,” said Will. “Well, naturally, yes.”

“And you had dinner, because you were hungry. All meat, I hasten to add. I personally find the concept of eating vegetables positively obscene, don’t you, chief?”

“Well,” said Will.

“I knew you’d agree. So, after you’ve had your bath, we can get started. What do you say?”

“Would you mind coming out of my ear while I have my bath?”

“Oh I see. You’re a bit embarrassed about me being in your head and looking through your eyes and seeing your private bits.”

“Actually I am.”

“Well forget it, I’ve already seen them. And so has the young woman you picked up after dinner last night.”

“
What
?”

“Well, I wanted to know what, um,
doing it
as a human being felt like. You and I really enjoyed it, although naturally you won’t remember that you did.”

“No!” and Will wailed some more and went, “No,” and “No,” again and again and again.

“But look on the bright side, chief. Your bits are no mystery to me, so you can have your bath without worrying about that.”

And eventually Will did have his bath. He lay in the warm and scented water, reading a copy of
The Times
newspaper. And as it was the first that he’d taken in quite some time, and as Barry
had
seen his bits before and everything, Will really enjoyed that bath. He lay and he soaked and he read the newspaper and life didn’t seem too bad.

“So, what’s the plan?” Barry asked. “To apprehend Saucy Jack. What do you have in mind?”

“Ah,” said Will laying aside his newspaper, which was growing rather soggy about its bottom regions. “Well.”

“Not really anything then.”

Will sponged at himself. “You tell me,” he said. “You seem to know everything about everything. And you know something about this Jack the Ripper business, don’t you?”

“I know some, chief. Which was why I told you that you really wouldn’t want to get involved.”

“So, what do you know?”

“He kills people, chief. Carves them up something wicked.”

“And that’s all you know?”

“You don’t pick up too much about current affairs when you’re locked in a box at the bottom of a steamer trunk.”

Will rose from his bath, climbed out and wandered dripping in search of a towel.

“Why were you in the box?” he asked Barry. “Why weren’t you inside Mr Rune’s head?”

“Mr Rune and I had a bit of a falling out. He made rather a lot of demands. A very single-minded fellow, Mr Rune.”

Will said no more, found towels and dried himself.

And then he flung the towels down onto the carpet of William Morris design and his naked self into an armchair.

“Look at me,” he said to Barry. “You’re in there, peering out of my eyes. Look at me and tell me what you see.”

“About your bits, chief?”

“No! Not my bits! About me!”

“Well, chief, I see what you see. A long skinny boy, healthy enough, but a bit sallow-complexioned. Probably from your late-night exertions. But a nice enough lad, if perhaps a bit—”

“A bit
what
?”

“A bit lost, chief.”

“Yes,” Will sighed. “A bit lost is right. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m caught up in something that I don’t understand. If this were a book or a movie, the critics would tear it to pieces, saying that the hero was two-dimensional and the entire sorry business unconvincing and totally plot-led.”

“That’s a bit harsh, chief. You didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

“Exactly, and I should have a choice. I should be doing something. Making something happen. I don’t even think I know who I am any more.”

“Tell me about it,” said Barry.

“Well—” said Will.

“No,” said Barry. “I meant that rhetorically. I know exactly what you mean. It’s just the same for me.”

“Yeah, right,” said Will.

“No, chief, listen. Let me tell you all about myself.”

“It will help, will it?”

“Bound to,” said Barry. “When you’ve got troubles, there’s nothing better than having someone else tell you all about theirs.”

“I don’t believe that,” Will hunched his shoulders. “But go on, say your piece. Tell me what you really are.”

“I’m a sprout,” said Barry.

Will sighed.

“A Holy Guardian sprout.”

“A what?”

“It’s like this, chief. When God created the universe, He did it on what he called the ‘just enough of everything to go around principle’. Personally I think it was more of a theory than a principle, but God knows His own business best. His principle was that there’d be just enough of everything. Enough stars to fill the sky, enough air for people to breathe. Enough water to fill up the sea, that sort of thing.”

“I don’t believe in God,” said Will.

“And just enough doubt in mankind’s mind to always keep them guessing. But God has never really been what you’d call a forward planner. He gets stuff started, then He sort of loses interest and goes off with one foot in the air and one hand behind His back and does something else.”

“Why with one foot in the air and one hand behind His back?”

“He moves in mysterious ways,” said Barry. “I thought everyone knew that.”

Will sighed once more and shook his head.

“So things sort of carry on without Him and they tend to get a tad messed up. Which is one reason that the world is always in such a mess. It started off okay, back in Old Testament times, when He had His finger on the trigger and was on chatting terms with the prophets. You see, in those days everyone had their own personal Holy Guardian Angel to try and keep them on the straight and narrow and it worked for the most part. But the population of the Earth grew and grew until demand outstripped supply and there just weren’t enough Holy Guardian Angels to go around. Which is how come chaps like me got involved.”

Will sighed once more and once more he shook his head.

“God started rooting around for more Holy Guardian Angels, but you can’t just keep creating endless lines of them. So He dug into His garden and began dishing out His vegetables instead. So one person might get a Holy Guardian courgette and another a Holy Guardian turnip.”

“When I do get you out of my head,” said Will, “I’ll have to decide whether I am going to boil or roast you.”

“Chief, I’m trying to tell you all of the truth.”

“Well pardon me,” said Will, “but I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Then you’d prefer a scientific explanation?”

“Yes,” said Will. “I would.”

“Then try this for size. I am a Time Sprout from the planet Phnaargos.”

“You told me that before and I didn’t believe it then.”

Barry now sighed, but he didn’t shake his head. “I come from the future,” he said. “Not the same future as you do. An alternative future. In the future I come from your world pretty much ended in the year two thousand, in what we called the Nuclear Holocaust Event. I was sent back in time to prevent that occurring. You see everything that has ever happened on Earth is watched by folk on another planet, who view it as a reality TV show called
The Earthers
. It’s always been the most popular show there is, but after the Nuclear Holocaust Event, which got the greatest viewing figures ever, interest fell off, because there weren’t that many Earthers left and what they did in that nuclear bunker was pretty dull. So the folk of Phnaargos, who were all vegetable, let me tell you, bred me in their horticultural laboratories, to go back in time and change the plot. Stop the Nuclear Holocaust Event occurring.”

“Yeah, right,” said Will. “So how did you do that?”

“I was sent to find the one man who was responsible for all the bad stuff in the second half of the twentieth century and persuade him to act differently.”

“Adolf Hitler,” said Will. “I do know something about history.”

“Elvis Presley,” said Barry. “You don’t know as much as you’d like to think. My job was to persuade Elvis not to take the draft. If Elvis hadn’t joined the army, an entire generation of American kids would have also refused to join. There would have been no war in Vietnam and by 1967 Elvis would have been president of the USA.”

“I don’t recall reading about this,” said Will.

“Things didn’t go exactly as planned. Although you will agree, there was no Nuclear Holocaust Event.”

“So you’re a Time Sprout from the planet Phnaargos?”