Paranormal Investigations: No Situation Too Strange (3 page)

The goat man blinked at me.

"Bob?" Jez questioned.

"Yeah, Bob."  I stood up and went into the bedroom, closing the door firmly behind me.

"I see," he went on, "Bob."

"So..." I said, sitting back on the bed, my heart thudding, "what can I do for you?"

"Well, I'm back in the country and I was just trying to catch up with everyone.  How are you?"

"Me?  Great.  And you?" I chewed my thumbnail.  Of course he was great.  He was in films, he was even on buses.  How could he not be great?

"Yeah, things are good."

"I saw your naked chest on a bus today." I said rapidly without thinking and then blushed a deep crimson.  Thank goodness it wasn't a video call.  What an idiot.  What had this handsome, sophisticated movie star ever seen in me?

He laughed.  "Yeah, who needs to go to the gym when you can get air brushed - eh?" 

He had a gorgeous laugh.  I sighed.  Everything about Jeremy Flynt was gorgeous.  That was one of the reasons I loved him so much, he was so damn easy to love.

"I was wondering," he said slowly, "if you wanted to meet up?  I'm in a play at the National.  Maybe you could drop by and we could have coffee or lunch?  It's pretty manic as we open soon, but it'd be nice to see an old friend.  We could hang out."

Old friend.

“I know it’s short notice, but how about a late lunch or coffee today?  Meet you outside the theatre stage door?  We could find somewhere on the South Bank to eat?”

"Sure," I said coldly and stopped listening, my heart had hit the floor.  He had called me an 'old friend', there could be no clearer signal that he didn't love me, that he only ever wanted me as a friend.  He carried on talking and I agreed a time to meet him, but my main concern was not bursting into tears whilst talking to him.  I managed to end the call as quickly as I could and, throwing the phone down, I hid my head in a pillow as hot, angry tears erupted from my eyes.  A while later I heard the door open and a clip-clopping sound approach.  A hand awkwardly patted my head and the goat man said, "There, there."

*

When my eyes were less puffy and bloodshot, I ventured out on my errands for the goat man.  Budgens was my first stop.  They had an array of different salts so I picked up a variety just to be safe.  There was no reason to think vanilla infused pink Himalayan salt would be more effective than cheap old table salt, but I wasn’t going to take the risk and bought every variety I could find.  My next mission was to find a troll and bribe him to protect the goat man.  With my green plastic bag full of salt in boxes, bags and mills I walked the short distance to Oak Hill Park. 

Jez's phone call had shaken me and it had taken some effort to dry my tears and regain my composure.  I had a job to do and could not afford to let my emotions run riot over me.  I had a troll to find.

"Where exactly," I asked the goat man without quite managing to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, "am I supposed to find a
troll
?"

He shook his head slightly - I noticed he did this every time he thought I asked a stupid question.  "Under a bridge of course."

"Ah yes, of course.  Under a bridge."

"All bridges have a troll under them."

"Ah, I wonder why it is I have never seen one then -
ever
?"

"Well it has to be a proper bridge, one over water."

"Yep, I've seen a few of those in my time - knew a few intimately as a teenager and you know what - they appeared to be one hundred per cent troll free."

"Did you ask?"

"What?"

"Did you ask for them?  Did you ask them to come out and show themselves?"

"No, I must admit I didn't ask a fictional creature to come out and show itself."

"Well there you are then." he said with a shrug, "You should've asked."

"So I just go to a bridge over water and ask a troll to show himself?  Then said troll will agree to be your bodyguard?"

"He might not, he might have something on.  Trolls are a tricky bunch, you have to be careful how you deal with them.  They're very proud and very vicious.  We'll probably have to pay him."

"
We
?  I don't know if you're aware of this, but people normally pay
me
when I help them."

"Not money - only humans have a use
that
.  We deal in real things, not imaginary.  He'll want something tasty."

My eyebrows rose in question so he continued:

"Trolls live under bridges, they eat whatever the water brings them.  If you want a troll to do your bidding you only have to offer them something nice to eat.  They just can't bear to refuse."

At the door to my flat, as I left to buy the salt and attempt to procure a troll, I turned to the goat man and asked:

"Look - what do I call you?  What's your name?"

He blinked.  "You called me Bob."

"I know I called you Bob when I was on the phone but I didn't know your real name - what is it?"

"Bob."

"No, your real name."

"It is Bob.  My kind, we don't have a name until someone gives us one.  You were the first person to give me a name."

"Oh."

My insides scrunched up.  That was so sad, not to have anyone care enough to give you a name.  I left before I could embarrass myself with more tears.  What did I care if this strange creature had never been given a name before?

*

Through Chipping Barnet and East Barnet there runs a small stream called the Pymmes Brook, there is even a walk you can do if you fancy strolling along a long stretch of stagnant water and dodging rusty supermarket trolleys.  The brook actually ran underneath my flat building, peeping out from its underground route by the car park before flowing under the road and then reappearing in the park.

Because of the Pymmes Brook there were three bridges in Oak Hill Park.  I was going to follow Bob's instructions and see if I could get either a troll bodyguard or, failing that, some proof of my dwindling sanity.  If I got him some protection maybe I could convince Bob to leave me in peace.

Oak Hill was a beautiful park, full of a variety of trees which meant the park was a wash of colours at all times of year.  It got its name from the fact it had once been covered with oak trees, there were still some left although their ancestors had long since been felled to build Saint Albans Abbey.

Grey squirrels were plentiful, as were enormous black ravens, footballers, joggers and people with children or dogs.  It was a popular place and I was not sure how I was going to manage to stand on a bridge and ask for a troll without someone hearing me and thinking I came from the 'extra care living’ home opposite.

The park was such a size it took me some time to reach the first bridge.  I hung about it uncertainly, leaning on the railing pretending I was enjoying the view when in fact I was trying to peer underneath to ascertain whether there was a troll beneath.  There was nothing to see other than a brownish trickle of water ebbing over rocks, detritus and weeds.

I waited until a mother with a pushchair and a fox terrier passed before leaning as far over the railing as I could and whispering:

"Hello, is there a troll there?"

I straightened quickly as a red setter came bounding by and I smiled as his balding, middle aged owner followed.  As they disappeared round the corner I leant over again and said a little louder:

"Hello!  Is there a troll there?"

"Alright, alright - heard you the first time," came a deep rasping voice from the space underneath the bridge.

As I watched, the top of a violet coloured head covered with sparse dark hair appeared.  As the head looked up at me I saw perhaps the ugliest thing I had ever seen in my life. 

"What you looking at?" he asked as I took in his full form, "Never seen a troll before?"

"Er... no actually."

He must have been about five foot tall.  He obviously had to crouch to fit under the bridge and was uncurling himself as he came out to meet me.  His arms were far too long for his body and he had enormous, knobbly elbows.  In one over-large hand he held a dirty wooden club.  His knees were bowed as if he had a very bad case of rickets - or had lived under a small bridge for a long period of time, I guess.  It was his face that unsettled me - it was unlike anything I had ever seen before.  His dark eyes were bulbous and too close together, over them was a dark unibrow that could have done with some serious attention from a set of tweezers.  His nose sprouted awkwardly out from his face, twisting at the end as if he'd broken it a few times.  He had rubbery lips and a seriously nasty overbite.  Imagine this in your head and then add dark pustules to decorate his key features.  That was the troll before me.

"What do you want then?" he rasped, cutting straight to the chase.

"I was wondering whether you would consider being a bodyguard for a... a man being pursued by fairies?"

The bulging eyes stared at me without blinking.  "Nah," he said, "I've got something on.  It’s bingo night."

He gave a sniff then he swung the club over his shoulder and began to bend his knees to fit back under the bridge.

"Won't you reconsider?" I asked.

He looked up at me.  "Trevor does shit like that, tell him Graham sent you."

Then he disappeared back under the bridge.

"Where do I find Trevor?" I asked a little too loudly and a jogger in phosphorescent yellow gave me a very strange look.  "Where is that dog?" I added pathetically to cover my embarrassment, "Oh Trevor!" 

A squirrel nibbling at an acorn paused long enough to give me a funny look and then continued gnawing.

As Graham the troll didn't seem to want to help me, I decided the only logical thing to do was to try the next bridge and ask for Trevor there. 

I walked over Graham's bridge (would I ever think of the park in the same way again?) and around the corner to the other side of the park.  The next bridge was at the far end of the path by the pavilion, where the parkrunners assembled on a Saturday morning for their 5k run.  If that bridge failed I could always try the next one a little further on.  Then I was out of bridges and potential bodyguards. 

As I walked, I considered the fact that I had been to this park many times over the last few years and had never seen a troll.  Until the early hours of this morning I had never met a goat man or a troll.  Now I had seen both - or, I had to acknowledge there was the another possibility, I had finally lost my sanity and the men in white coats would soon be after me with a strait jacket and some heavy sedatives.  I was not sure which option was the more logical.  Which would Sherlock Holmes believe?  Madness or weird shit?

The second bridge was not so secluded as Graham's, this meant at least I could see people coming but it also meant whatever I did on that bridge was visible from a distance.  I leant on the rail as I had at the previous bridge and waited until the coast was as clear as it could be in a busy park.

"Trevor!" I called, "Trevor the troll - are you there?"

"Who's asking?" came another deep, raspy voice.

"Leo Fey."

"What you sellin’?"

"Nothing, I'm hiring."

I waited.  Curiosity got the better of him and he crept out from under the bridge.  The troll was olive green and stood all of two foot high.  His features were very similar to Graham's, but in miniature and green in place of violet.

"Hey," I said, "I thought all you trolls were meant to be big, bad assed dudes?"

A deep, throaty rasp erupted from him as he pummelled a child sized cricket bat into his palm with a thud.  "You wanna piece of me?" His choice of words and accent made me think he'd watched far too many gangster movies, although I doubted any cable company served under-the-bridge residences.  I could be wrong.

"Graham sent me.  He said you might do a job for me."

"Huh," he said with distaste, screwing up his face, "why would I do anything that schmuck says?"

I noticed a certain animosity and decided to play on it.  "Well, he said you probably weren't interested.  I think his actual words were 'Trevor's not up to the job'."

"He said that, eh?"

"Well, he said a real troll should do the job but they were all busy."

"I'm a real troll - I'll show you I'm a real troll - you wan' someone bashing?  I can bash 'em.  Tell me who, tell me who." he swung his cricket bat through the air as if hitting an imaginary foe.  An imaginary foe who happened to be about two foot tall, either that or he was aiming for the knees.

"My client needs protection from the fairies."

"Those hoodlums, eh?  I'd like ta bash a few fairy heads in, I would." he tilted his head and looked up at me, "You got a bridge I can stay under?"

I nodded.  "I also have some nice food for you - if you take the job.  Here, call this a sweetener."

I took a mango out of the plastic bag and tossed it at him.  He caught it mid-air and looked at it strangely.

"What's this?"