The Da-Da-De-Da-Da Code (26 page)

Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

And things of that nature, generally.

‘Evacuate! Evacuate!’ Inspector Westlake comethed.

‘Evacuate who?’ asked Constable Paul.

‘To where?’ asked Constable Justice.

‘The Queen first, I think. We have to clear the area.’ And as there was just room for him to get his hand upon the truck’s ignition key, and as he
was
sitting at the steering wheel, Inspector Westlake keyed the ignition, put the big truck into gear,
brrmed
the engine and let that trucker roll.

‘Sir?’ went Constable Cartwright. ‘Sir, can you actually drive this vehicle?’

‘Out,’ cried Inspector Westlake. ‘Constables Paul and Justice stay in this truck with me. Other constables out – alert the Special Operations unit to make away from the park at the hurry-up.’

‘To where?’ asked Constable Cartwright.

‘Perhaps Brighton,’ said Inspector Westlake, swinging the wheel and ploughing through a rather lovely flower bed that had been designed by the late Henry Hunter, based upon that of Francis Dashwood.

‘Out then, out!’

Constables Cartwright and Rogers took to tumbling from the truck.

‘I think we should probably evacuate, too,’ said Constable Justice, preparing to join the evacuating constables. ‘Live to fight another day, eh?’

‘Not a bit of it my lad. You will aid me in disabling the nuclear device and making the arrest, or possibly the termination of the suicide bombers.’

‘Termination?’ Constable Justice mulled that one over. It
would
be a risky business. In fact, it
was
a risky business. The bomb could go off any minute. But terminate …

‘Would that be terminate with extreme prejudice, sir?’

Inspector Westlake nodded, hunched low over the wheel and swerved the truck through further flower beds (somewhat unnecessarily, in Constable Paul’s opinion) towards the Big House.

Wherein.

The laptop was back in the poacher’s pocket.

Jonny Hooker was making haste along a secret passage.
^*

‘We’re off to the pub now, aren’t we?’ asked Mr Giggles. ‘Or is it an internet café?’

‘It’s neither,’ said Jonny. ‘I have business here.’

‘But no weapons,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘No big laser cannons or atom-blasting ray guns, or anything.’

‘I’ll manage, somehow.’ Jonny bumbled on in the darkness. But he bumbled with determination. A man on a mission, as it were. Cometh the hour, cometh the man, and all that kind of caper.

As Her Majesty might have said. But she wasn’t saying it now. She was having another cuppa and dunking a custard cream, in that antechamber next door to Princess Amelia’s sitter.

‘You can come round to my house for tea,’ she said to Ahab the A-rab. ‘You can
all
come round, if you want to.’

‘If you’d just like to sign the official documents,’ said Countess Vanda. ‘I’ve had them printed out on the photocopier. If you’d sign two copies each, one for yourself, the other for the PM and the President – you all know the drill.’

Biros were brought to bear, signatures were signed.

‘If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s all down to God,’ said Bob, ‘we could all give ourselves pats on the back. Would someone like to pat my back anyway – it does get me really excited.’

Elvis turned away and dunked his biscuit.

The Queen gave Bob’s little back a pat.

And then things got a bit confusing, as there was suddenly a lot of shouting and bustling-in as an inspector and two constables, one of whom had a very large weapon, made an unexpected, unwarranted and quite unwanted police presence.

‘Emergency situation,’ panted the inspector, who’d got a bit puffed on his way up the stairs. ‘Have to ask you all to evacuate the premises immediately.’

‘Before we’ve finished tea?’ asked Her Madge.

‘Best to,’ said the inspector. ‘I have reason to believe that a nuclear device is primed and ready for detonation in the basement of this building.’

‘Perhaps not my London house, then,’ said Her Madge. ‘Perhaps Balmoral.’

‘If you would be so kind, Ma’am,’ said the inspector. ‘my constable here will lead you down to your car.’

‘I can see right through your constable’s stomach,’ said Her Madge. ‘Is that right?’

Black Betty (Bam-a-Lam) knew what was right.

And proper.

And taking on other jobs when you were waiting to pick up a celebrity client was neither.

Black Betty sat in his limo, listening to a rather depressing programme on Radio 4 all about the crisis in the Middle East and how if talks weren’t held soon and problems ironed out, it looked like kiss-your-arse-goodbye time for the denizens of Planet Earth.

Except for the cockroaches, of course. Because, as everyone knows, they will survive a nuclear war.

Next to Black Betty’s limo there was only one other limo. The other three limo drivers having slipped away with their limos to fit in other jobs.

And the remaining black stretch limo parked next to that of Black Betty (Ram-a-lam-ding-dong-da-da-de-da-da) was lacking for a driver.

Its driver, Mr Esau Good of Smack My Bitch Up Motors had gone off to take a walk by the ornamental pond and feed the ducks.
And tell himself again and again and again that he must not, for fear of that exploding implant, ever again mention the name of Elvis Presley.

‘Mister Presley is leaving the building,’ said Elvis as he was ushered down the stairs, through the entrance hall and out onto the drive to where the only limo possessed of a driver was standing. Quietly.

And joy of joys, there was
no
unpleasantness.

Because Black Betty (Boom-bang-a-bang-loud-in-your-ear) was a professional. And a gentleman. And so he ushered each and all into his limo and drove away in the direction of Scotland.

‘And let
that
be a lesson to you,’ said Inspector Westlake to his two constables.

‘A lesson in
what
?’ Constable Justice asked.

‘In evacuation. There’ll be medals in this, if we pull it off properly.’

‘Are there any medals that have black ribbons?’ asked Constable Paul.

‘It is very black in here. How do you know where you’re going?’ asked Mr Giggles the Monkey Boy.

‘I know exactly where I’m going and exactly what I’m going to do.’

‘Do tell.’

In the darkness, Jonny shook his head. ‘You knew,’ he said. ‘You knew that the people at the meeting upstairs were being manipulated by the Air Loom Gang. You knew!’

‘So did
you
,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘The manipulating
is
what all of this is about, surely.’

‘I was misled,’ said Jonny. ‘Or fooled, or confused, or—’

‘Well, don’t go blaming
me
.’

‘I’ll fix this,’ said Jonny. ‘I’ll fix all of this. I have that bunch upstairs recorded on the laptop, and as for the bunch down below—’

‘Yes?’ said Mr Giggles. ‘Go on.’

‘You’ll see.’

*

‘I can still see you,’ said Inspector Westlake. ‘Can you still see me?’

He and his constables were once more in the entrance hall of the Big House.

‘Is this a game anyone can play?’ asked Joan. ‘Like “hide the sausage”.’

‘Madam,’ said Inspector Westlake, drawing his attention away from Constable Justice, ‘you should not be here. You should have evacuated the building.’

‘Why?’ asked Joan. ‘When?’

‘Because there is a bomb in the basement. And
now
.’

Joan shrugged. ‘There, you see, you have it,’ she said. ‘A complete lack of continuity. I must have been sitting at this desk when you hustled Her Majesty and Elvis and the rest down the stairs, right past my desk here and out to the limo. But did
I
get told to evacuate? No. It was just as if I didn’t exist. Complete lack of continuity. Appalling.’

There was another of those silences.

And the sun
did
go behind a cloud.

And a dog
did
howl in the distance.

‘So,
can
anyone play?’ asked Joan.

‘Madam—’ said Inspector Westlake.

‘Call me Joan,’ said Joan.

‘Joan,’ said Inspector Westlake, ‘it is very possible that a nuclear bomb, which has been secreted in the basement of this building will shortly be detonated. So I suppose that it matters not whether I call you “madam”, or “Joan”. ‘So,
madam
, I was just checking, with my constable here, as to whether our invisibility suits are working.’

Joan shook her head.

‘You’re shaking your head, madam.’

‘That is because
you
are not wearing an invisibility suit. Just your constables. The continuity is all over the place, I’m telling you. And as for a nuclear bomb in the basement.’ Joan laughed. Loudly.

‘You are laughing, madam,’ said Inspector Westlake, ‘and I am finding all this talk about continuity somewhat alarming.’

‘As well you might.’ The receptionist leaned back in her receptionist’s chair, stretching her arms up above her head and giving her bosoms that special thrust out. ‘There is no bomb in the basement,’ she said. ‘No bomb at all.’

‘There isn’t?’ said Inspector Westlake.

Joan arose from behind the desk, came around to where Inspector Westlake was standing and took him by the hand. She smiled up into his eyes and gave his hand a firm gripping.

And then she did the same to Constables Justice and Paul respectively.

‘Madam,’ said Inspector Westlake, ‘whatever are you doing?’

‘Just giving you all a little handshake,’ said Joan. ‘A little touch of something special, as it were. Although you have already had a little touch of it back at your lodgings. A little touch of something special.’

‘Something special?’

‘Very,’ said Joan, all a-smile. ‘A bit of, how shall I put this? Animal magnetism.’

‘Magnetism?’ Inspector Westlake stared at his hand.

‘Oh, there’s nothing to be seen,’ said Joan. ‘It has to be passed on through a handshake. As it has been for centuries. As it is passed from one generation to the next by those who are members of the special brotherhood.’

Inspector Westlake said, ‘What?’

But already he was somehow becoming unclear about exactly why he was standing here in this entrance hall talking to this woman.

A little voice inside his head seemed to be saying, ‘There’s nothing for you here. Take your constables down to the pub for a drink.’

‘Well,’ said Inspector Westlake, ‘I don’t think there’s anything for me here. Shall we adjourn to the pub, Constables?’

Constable Paul looked at Constable Justice.

And Constable Justice looked at Constable Paul.

And both seemed to come to a simultaneous conclusion that indeed there was nothing for any of them here and yes, indeed, it would be a really good idea to simply go down to the pub.

‘Would it be all right if I joined you?’ asked Joan.

And three heads nodded.

So she did.

And then there was only Jonny.

Which seemed rather a shame.

Rather an anticlimax, somehow. What with the comic possibilities of all those ludicrously armed Special Opperations personnel and the landmines on the pitch-and-putt, and the chauffeurs with the humorously named limo-hire companies, and Elvis and Bob the not so Comical Pup and Ahab the A-rab and Her Madge and Inspector Westlake and two invisible constables, and the lovely Joan, all vanished away.

As it were.

Leaving just Jonny Hooker.

Shame.

Not that Jonny would have seen it that way, of course. Although he probably would have appreciated some sort of armed back-up, to guarantee some big-gun action, if required, even if it did mean lots of Gunnersbury Park Museum getting blown to boogeration in the process.

But it was not to be. There was only Jonny and Jonny marched on along a secret passage, pushed upon a secret panel and entered an underground storeroom.

To be greeted by someone within.

‘Count Otto Black, I presume,’ said Jonny. ‘Deathless supervillain and Master of the Air Loom gang?’

‘Welcome, Jonny Hooker,’ said the count.

Dust and musky odours. Antique leather, fabric, burnished brass and lacquered wood, a candelabrum, and there in uncertain light, the gang of villains, large as life and not too easy on the eye. And, as it were, a dreamscape, shifting shadows, shining bulky, the terrible Air Loom, as it were some mighty cabinet. Its board with keys of ebony and ivory. Its barrels with their polished nozzles and their gleaming turncocks. And its great glass conducting tubes, huge and glowing from within, where plasma vortexes of magnetic flux swirl sinuously, energised, sensitised, awaiting the touch upon the keyboard, the notes, the chords to send their forces forth, like wicked messengers. Swirl and flow, flickering candle flame, curious faces, ancient powdered wigs, queer frocked coats with quilted sleeves. Outré. Strange. Unreal.

Jonny Hooker gave a little bow, as somehow this seemed appropriate. ‘And so you know my name,’ said he. ‘Although I must confess that I am not surprised.’

‘Your name,’ said Count Otto, and he fished from his cloth-of-gold embroidered waistcoat an antiquated timepiece and held its face towards a candle’s flame. ‘And you are on time. To the minute, to the second, probably. As expected.’

‘Well, that is a happy happenstance.’

And Count Otto Black now bowed. ‘And all respect to a worthy opponent. You played your half of the game with vigour and with dedication. And you know my name. I am impressed.’

And by the twinkle of the candle’s flame, the Air Loom Gang applauded Jonny. And Jack the Schoolmaster said, ‘Well done, that man.’

Jonny Hooker bobbed his head to this applause. ‘Please save your handclappings,’ he said. ‘The final act has yet to be played out.’

Count Otto Black cocked his head on one side and ran a knuckle slowly over his forehead. ‘You do appear to be somewhat unaware of your dire predicament,’ he said. ‘You
do
know that I now must kill you?’

‘You’re certainly welcome to try,’ said Jonny. ‘We’ll see how things work out.’

‘Such bravado. Such braggadocio. But Jonny, see, you are alone. All alone. The soldier boys have gone away. Everyone has gone away, as we arranged it. As we played it.’ And he mimed a little keyboard trill. And very well he mimed it. ‘There is only you left, my dear boy. Only you, to do what? To save Mankind, just you?’

‘Whatever it takes,’ Jonny said. And he put his hands in his trouser pockets and did a little boot-heel-scuffing on the dusty floor.

‘My dear, dear boy,’ said the count. ‘All alone like a poor orphan lad. You are here and we are here. But still you do not see it, do you?
Why
you are here? Why you, out of the thousands of millions alive on this planet? Why you?’

‘Don’t know. Don’t care,’ said Jonny, tracing his initials in the dust.

‘So you don’t think it, how shall I put this,
odd
?’

‘
Odd?
’ And Jonny Hooker laughed. ‘Odd? I should say it’s odd. But I’ve been coming to terms with odd. Odd and me have few secrets any more.’

‘We enjoyed you,’ said the count. ‘You did everything that we’d hoped you’d do. You didn’t let us down. You didn’t disappoint us.’

Jonny Hooker stood his ground.

‘You see, you were chosen,’ said the count. ‘Or rather, you chose yourself.’

‘The Da-da-de-da-da Code,’ said Jonny.

‘How charmingly put. But of course. We needed someone in order that we might test our defences. We never leave anything to chance. No cost is too great in the cause.’

‘No cost,’ said Jonny. ‘No lengths you will not go to. Which include murdering your own in order to cover your tracks.’

‘Not all of our own.’ The count ran his slender fingers gently up and down one of the tall glass conducting tubes. Little crack-lets of magnetic energy sparked between the glass and his fingers.
‘Everything had to keep pace, to be achieved in the right order. Our interventions in the ways of Mankind are infrequent. When we
do
intervene, we leave no loose ends, no evidence of our comings and goings. If it is necessary to sacrifice some of our own to the greater good, then so be it. No nobler fate could there be. James Crawford was not one of ours and he needed to be silenced. He knew far too much and was a man who might have been believed. And he was immune to the powers of the Air Loom, as was his ancestor Sir Henry before him. They could not be controlled and so—’ And Count Otto drew a finger accross his throat.

‘You mad, murdering bastards,’ said Jonny.

‘What must be, must be. Your little imaginary friend explained so much to you, regarding how conspiracy theorists are always thwarted. Because those in ultimate control are so ludicrous, impossible and unlikely that no one in their “right mind”–’ and Count Otto did that finger thing to mime inverted commas ‘–No one in their “right mind” would ever believe such nonsense. It would take someone like you, who has never really been in your right mind, to believe in the Parliament of Five, or the Air Loom Gang.’

‘I have seen both with my own eyes,’ said Jonny.

‘Yet no one would ever believe you. Because
you
are a certified stone bonker.’

‘So you’ll be letting me go, then.’

‘No, we’ll be killing you. I thought I had made that clear.’

‘I hope I made it clear that you can
try
. But tell me this,’ said Jonny. ‘You
always
win? You never ever lose, is that right?’

‘This is what wins.’ Count Otto Black ran a loving finger over the Air Loom. ‘This impossible piece of technology. This fantasy. This stuff of dreams. This paranoid, schizophrenic, delusional architecture, or whatever the fashionable phrase of the day is coined to describe it. The impossible Air Loom.
This
is the truth.
This
, reality. What the world believes unreal, is real. And probably the other way about. As for myself and my companions here – what are we? Who are we? Shades, ciphers? Can you pin us down? Do we have real origins, birth certificates? No,
we
are the stuff of rumour and myth. The Air Loom is the reality. Its music orchestrates history. Its music is the background music to life itself. And much more than that. Me, my Gang – we are nothing. We fade to grey, become as
crumbling mummies. In an instant we are here and then in another we are gone, to be replaced by others. The final chords have been played and now the curtain falls upon Mankind.’

‘So
that
,’ said Jonny, and he pointed to the Air Loom, ‘
that
is the truth?’

Count Otto Black smiled and nodded. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ he said, stroking up and down a tall glass cylinder. ‘Exquisite. The perfect work of genius. An instrument capable of influencing people’s minds, controlling these minds, putting thoughts into these minds that are so compelling that they must be translated into actions. And this instrument, this controller of controllers – what powers it, do you think?’

The count now pointed to the great polished oaken barrels. Brazen tubes rose from the centres of their sealed tops and penetrated the Air Loom’s side. ‘Powered by what?’ cried the count, with some degree of animation. ‘Powered by shit! Bullshit. Cow shit, horse shit, human shit.
Shit!
Isn’t that a treat? Isn’t that the ultimate irony? The ultimate cosmic joke? Bullshit baffles brains – that’s a present-day saying, isn’t it, Jonny? And how true that is. It is all shit, Jonny. All of it. Everything run by, powered by shit. And somehow, in your heart of hearts, you just knew that, didn’t you?’

‘You’re shit,’ said Jonny. ‘Everything about you is shit. The way you treat people. The way you have treated me.’

‘Cruel,’ said the count, ‘but it is what we do. There always has to be a Jonny Hooker in the equation. It’s part of the game. The Count of Saint Germain, Handel, Moreschi the castrato and Robert Johnson. And yourself. And in common, what? Always a musician – that is the common bond.’

‘Tell me about the music,’ said Jonny. ‘Please.’

‘It is always the music and always the musicians. It is all around you, Jonny. It always has been, but never so much as now. You cannot escape from music. It plays in your lifts and your supermarkets, your shops and malls and pubs and clubs. It is everywhere. And behind it, unseen, the Air Loom. The Glove Woman tickles the ivories and the music plays. The messages are sent. We’re here, we’re there, we’re everywhere. But when? Where? Who knows? What messages are being sent? Vote for this man. Do this, do that.’

‘And it always goes “da-da-de-da-da”,’ said Jonny.

‘And you cannot escape from it. This here and now. Today.
This
is a very special occasion, beyond the everyday. Today is history in the making. Today is the beginning of the end. For ever.’

‘I see,’ said Jonny. ‘Well, I see some, if not all. In truth the big question might be,
why
do you do it? If it is only the Air Loom that has true reality, as it were, what is the point? Do you obey a machine? Does the Air Loom have some kind of sentience? Does it command you?’

‘Oh no no no.’ Count Otto shook his beard. ‘We take our orders directly from our Master.’

‘Ah,’ said Jonny. ‘Your Master. And I really don’t need to ask who your master is, do I? The God of this world? The Orchestrator? The One who wants this world destroyed, returned to chaos.’

‘You are thinking, perhaps, Satan?’ said Count Otto Black.

‘I am,’ said Jonny.

‘Then alas, you are incorrect. There is no Satan, never was and never will be. There is another, a lover of, how shall I put this, pandemonium? Music, Jonny, it’s all to do with the music. The solution to the code that goes “Da-da-de-da-da”. Three notes, Jonny, as in the three-chord trick, as in the three letters that spell out the name of our god. PAN, Jonny – our god is the god of music, the god of pandemonium. Our god is Pan.’

‘Pan,’ said Jonny, slowly. And suddenly it all made sense.

Well, at least to Jonny it did!

‘And there you have it,’ said the count. ‘But we have spoken enough. The final overture must now be played. The concert will soon be done. The world will shortly return to chaos, destruction and chaos, the way it was when my Master ruled it. Before another brought order out of chaos.’

‘God,’ said Jonny.

‘Well, obviously God. But we have talked enough. The Glove Woman must now play out the final chords. The Parliament of Five have signed their orders. And now they must die.’

‘Die?’ said Jonny. ‘You’re going to kill the Queen, and Elvis, and that dog?’

‘All those in the car,’ said the count, ‘including Countess Vanda. Whom, you might be either pleased or not so pleased to know was, as you might put it, is one of the good guys, influenced by
the Air Loom. All of them must die. It will be a terrible motor car accident. The chauffeur will drive them off a flyover. Foreign chauffeur? Suicide chauffeur? Outrage! War! Nuke those foreign bastards! But of course not, that’s not the British way. Troops out of Iraq. Then that unexpected nuke. All preordained. Pre-planned. Pre-programmed, by us. And
boom
!’ And Count Otto mimed this boom.

‘Boom,’ said Jonny.

‘Boom,’ said the count.

‘No,’ said Jonny.

‘No?’

‘No.’ And Jonny shook his head. ‘I’ll have to stop you there,’ he said. ‘I can’t have you assassinating the Queen.’

‘It has to be,’ said Count Otto. ‘Soon she and those in the car will be beyond the Air Loom’s range. They will awaken from their trances, as it were. We can’t have that, now, can we? All would have been wasted.’

‘All is wasted,’ said Jonny. ‘You and your miserable crew and that unspeakable bit of apparatus are finished. You are not going to assassinate the Queen, nor draw the whole wide world into a nuclear war. I will not permit it.’

‘
You
will not permit it?’ Count Otto Black gave a villainous laugh, pulled a flintlock pistol from his pocket and pointed it at Jonny. ‘The show’s not over till the gloved lady plays,’ said Count Otto. ‘Madam, play that long loony note and let it float.’

And the Glove Woman’s hands hovered over the keyboard.

And Count Otto Black’s thumb cocked the hammer of the flintlock.

And it looked as if that was that.

‘No,’ cried Jonny, ‘please.’

‘No time,’ said the count. ‘Goodbye.’

‘No, please, please, please. At least a last request.’

‘It will have to be a quick one.’

‘Really, really, quick I promise. This is all about music, yes? Then please let me end it with music of my own. Just a little, please.’

‘A little music?’ And Count Otto Black looked baffled.

‘A tiny little hymn to Pan. It’s all I ask, it won’t take a moment.’

‘A tiny hymn to Pan? Then so you may.’

*

And Jonny Hooker took from his pocket a certain something. A certain something that had come from the pocket of a mummy. A certain something that Jonny had blown in the saloon bar of The Middle Man.

With devastating consequences.

And Jonny Hooker hastily put this slim, brass, cylindrical certain something to his lips.

And blew it as hard as he could.