My Hero (23 page)

Characters are built, like Frankenbotham's Hamlet, out of bits and pieces of real people more or less cobbled together. A friend's mannerisms, an aunt's squint, an employer's unsightly facial blemishes are fed into the subconscious, reconstituted and come out the other end as a character.

Therefore, there are bits of all of us in all of them. Do you know an author to speak to? Then there's a substantial risk that there's a character up there wandering around wearing your nose.

The real problem arises when an author, consciously or not, bases a character on himself. The old maxim
you can't take it with you
suddenly acquires a whole new set of macabre resonances.

Think about that for a moment.

On the one hand, Jane has gone into fiction. At almost exactly the same moment, her hero has popped into real life. There are likely to be serious consequences for the fabric of reality. Imagine a man standing in the dead centre of the aisle between the seats on an airliner fifty thousand feet up when two windows on opposite sides of the plane smash simultaneously, and you might begin to get the general idea.

While we're on the subject, consider this.

It might, of course, simply be a coincidence. By the same token, the stars might just conceivably be the holes in the sky that the rain comes through. Neither proposition, however, is one you'd be advised to bet next month's rent on.

Having looked round to make sure the coast was clear, Hamlet rolled up his sleeves, took a firm hold on the pickaxe handle, and swung.

Indecisive and vacillating? He'd give the smug bastards indecisive and vacillating. Most other characters of his acquaintance, stuck in this ghastly position, would just roll up in a ball like a hedgehog and wait to be rescued. Not Hamlet.

He was digging a tunnel.

Where exactly he was digging it to, he wasn't quite sure. What he knew about multi-dimensional spatio-temporal physics could have been written on the back of a postage stamp with a thick-nib marker pen, but that was neither here nor there. Isaac Newton, he argued, knew bugger all about gravity until the apple hit him. It was probably something you could pick up as you went along.

More to the point; what was he going to do with all the earth?

Sherlock Holmes, fortunately, was out on a job somewhere, which did at least mean he had the run of the place until he got back. Investigations in Holmes' bedroom had produced a significant number of socks, each of which (Hamlet estimated) would hold at least a pound and a half of soil. Once the socks were full, he could hang them up with clothes pegs from the curtain rail, and nobody would be any the wiser.

There were times, he realised, when his own ingenuity quite frightened him.

Another slight problem was the fact that 221B Baker Street was on the first floor.

Who was it (Hamlet asked himself, as the pickaxe blade hurtled downwards) who described a problem as a good idea just waiting to happen? Not Shakespeare, for a start. That dozy old windbag never ever said
anything practical, just a lot of dreary waffle about Life and things. All he had to do was to break through the ceiling into Mrs Hudson's sitting room and then carry on vertically downwards after that. Piece of cake. Obviously, he'd have to find some cunning way to conceal what he was up to, but that ought not to be difficult. How many people look up at their ceilings more than once a year anyway?

The pickaxe blade connected with the floor, hit something hard and bounced back, nearly skewering Hamlet's head with the other end. Puzzled, Hamlet bent down and prodded at the place under the carpet he'd struck at. Sure enough, he felt something under there; something flat and smooth. Curious.

With infinite care and a pair of scissors, he began prising up the carpet tacks, keeping each tack safe for the time when he'd have to put the carpet back. Since Holmes appeared to be a fairly observant sort of chap, it would be vitally important not to leave any clues as to what he'd been up to, such as the carpet rolled back and a gaping hole in the floorboards.

What on earth could it be? As he plied the scissors, he tried to call to mind the various categories of article that people usually stash under the floorboards. Tin trunks full of gold coins. Illegal arms caches. Dismembered corpses. None of these seemed to fit in with Holmes' public image, but on the other hand, if you go to the trouble of shoving something away under the rug, the chances are that you don't want people to know about it. Maybe the only reason why nobody usually associated the name Sherlock Holmes with suitcasefuls of detonators and Semtex was that nobody as yet had thought to prise up his floor.

It was a manhole cover.

Hamlet sat back on his heels and scratched his head.
Yes, he muttered to himself, quite. Why
would
a world-famous detective living in a first-storey apartment have a manhole cover in the middle of his floor? Only one way to find out. He grabbed the handle, braced his feet and pulled.

There was a hole. Not an unreasonable thing to expect to find under a manhole cover, at that. Hamlet knelt beside it and peered down.

Instead of the bird's eye view of Mrs Hudson's sitting room he'd expected to see, there was what looked for all the world like a steel-lined ventilation shaft; the sort of thing, in fact, that Our Hero always finds, conveniently situated behind a flimsy chicken-wire grating, in the makeshift cell the villains leave him in after he's been captured, and which always and without exception comes out in the control room of the chief villain's underground command centre. Hamlet sighed. Welcome, he said to himself, to Thrillerland.

Just because it's there, Hamlet thought, doesn't mean I have to go down it. I could put back the cover, replace the carpet and make myself a nice strong cup of tea.

On the other hand, he mused, stroking his chin, someone's obviously been to a lot of trouble to put it there. And this is, after all, fiction, where everything has a purpose. Whoever built this ruddy thing is probably waiting for me at the other end right this very minute, tapping his foot and looking at his watch.

As he knelt and pondered, a vision floated into his mind of a crowded auditorium, a proscenium arch and a spotlit figure in black centre stage with a skull in his hand. Indecisive and vacillating. Well, quite. The sort of man, in fact, who'd uncover a perfectly good ventilation shaft and then sit on the edge of it agonising for half an hour until the villain came back again and caught him. Not ruddy likely.

‘Here goes,' he said aloud; and then, a moment later, ‘Down the hatch.' He stayed where he was.

Good question. There is a difference, after all, between being dynamic and positive, and not looking both ways before stepping out into the road and getting run over by a passing truck. Perhaps we should just hold our water and think this one through a little longer . . .

He froze. From the stairwell came the sound of footsteps: the heavy clunk he recognised as Holmes' size eights, and a sharper, more clopping noise that suggested high heels. With an economy of movement that would have done credit to the proverbial drain-ascending rat, Hamlet jumped to his feet, swung himself into the mouth of the shaft, braced his knees against the sides and let go.

 

By a dramatically permissible coincidence, at that very moment in a cellar under a warehouse in Rotherhithe, Professor Moriarty was writing a cheque.

The cheque was for sixty-two pounds, drawn in favour of Jas. Harris & Co., Builders, Baker Street. The invoice that lay beside the cheque book on Moriarty's desk read:

Moriarty blotted the cheque, folded it and slipped it into an envelope. That, he muttered to himself, was the easy part.

Claudia closed her eyes and counted up to ten. Then she opened them again.

‘Just run that past me one more time, Sher,' she said. ‘And this time, don't bother explaining how you know, because it makes my head hurt.'

If Holmes was offended, there was no indication in his dark, enigmatic face. An eyebrow may have quivered for a fraction of a second; a corner of a lip may have twitched. Nothing more.

‘Very well,' he said. ‘To recapitulate, then; the man Skinner - who, as is painfully apparent, is the key to this whole rather intriguing conundrum - is presently “holed up”, as I believe the expression is, in Piglet's house at Pooh Corner. I suspect that he is in company with a female person, quite possibly Titania the Queen of the Fairies. I trust,' he added sardonically, ‘that you had already reached that conclusion. The evidence admits, after all, of only one possible interpretation.'

Claudia nodded impatiently. ‘The other guy,' she said. ‘The he-man type with the beard.'

‘Regalian?' Holmes leaned back in his chair, his fingertips touching. ‘I suggest you look for him at Skinner's last-known address in Chicopee Falls, Iowa, at some point circa June 1959. Quite elementary, of course.'

‘Fine. And the writer, whatsername.'

‘Jane Armitage.' Holmes shrugged. ‘I scarcely imagined you would wish me to insult your intelligence by pointing out that she is to be found somewhere in the Retreat from Moscow in Tolstoy's epic masterpiece.' He allowed himself a visible smirk. ‘Do you wish me to name the novel, or are you—?'

‘All right,' Claudia snapped. ‘So cut to the chase.Where
is
he?'

‘You mean Hamlet?'

‘Yes.'

‘Ah.'

‘Well?'

The great detective shifted in his seat. ‘You know my methods, my dear Claudia. Apply them.'

‘You mean you don't know.'

‘The precise location,' Holmes said slowly, ‘may perhaps still elude me . . .'

‘He was here only a few goddamn hours ago. You can't have lost him
already
.'

Holmes' brows twitched like curtains. ‘The crude mechanical details,' he said, trying to sound bored, ‘I prefer to leave to the official police. Once the underlying cause has been uncovered—'

‘Wonderful.' Claudia got up and snapped her fingers round the handle of her organiser bag. ‘I hire the so-called best detective in all fiction to find someone, and he says,
Have you tried the cops?
Next off, you'll be suggesting we phone round the hospitals.'

‘My dear lady,' Holmes growled ominously. ‘Had you been listening while I explained to you the precise sequence of events . . .'

‘Yeah,' Claudia snapped. ‘If I'd wanted a history lesson I'd have called in Harvard. I want to know where the schmuck is
now
.' She paused. ‘Do you happen to know that, Sher?'

Holmes pursed his lips. ‘When one has eliminated the impossible . . .' he began.

‘Save it for the customers,' Claudia snarled from the doorway. ‘I'm disappointed in you, buster. They told me you were good. I'm going to find this sucker myself, and I don't expect to receive a bill. So long.'

The door slammed. After a few moments of complete stillness, Holmes opened his eyes, leaned his head back, and shouted.

‘Watson!'

The doctor's head appeared through the doorway. ‘Yes, Holmes?'

‘Get me an aspirin.'

 

Moriarty drew the collar of his coat close to his cheeks and shivered; unaccountably, since it was a warm night.

‘All there, I trust?' asked his companion, politely.

Moriarty nodded, and shoved the thick sheaf of Treasury bills into the side pocket of his coat. ‘In the coach,' he muttered, trying not to catch the other man's eye.

‘Undamaged?'

‘I believe so, yes,' replied the Professor, trying his best to keep the distaste out of his voice.

The other man reached out a hand and took Moriarty's shoulder between forefinger and thumb. His grip was like ice and steel.

‘For your sake,' he said, ‘I do hope so. I know where you live, Professor. Good evening.'

With a swirl of a black cloak, the man seemed to vanish into the fog. A moment later, Moriarty heard the clop of hooves on cobbles, and earnestly thanked God that he was alone. He started to walk briskly in the direction of Whitechapel.

Back in his secret lair, he pulled out the big bundle of money and opened his safe. As he counted the notes through, he noticed something he'd previously overlooked. An envelope.

His hands trembled as he tore it open. But, on closer inspection, it turned out to be completely innocuous. Train and steamer tickets; a hotel reservation; guide books, even. As he cast his eye over the accompanying letter, his face relaxed into a gentle, amused smile.

He had not, as he had feared, incurred the wrath of his awesome customer; quite the reverse. As a token of
esteem and thanks for a job well done, he was being treated to the winter holiday of a lifetime, all expenses paid, in the romantic splendour of the Swiss Alps. First class travel and accommodation in Interlaken, followed by three weeks of luxury at an internationally-acclaimed hotel a mere stone's throw from the awe-inspiring natural grandeur of the Reichenbach Falls.

Gosh, thought Professor Moriarty. Things are looking up.