Daring Dooz (The Implosion Trilogy (Book 2)) (5 page)

Chapter 9

Aubrey slept the sleep of the just. Or, as some might think, the sleep
of the just alive. But, although he looked terrible after acting as unseen punch
bag stuffing during Vlad’s impromptu workout, he was, in fact, feeling much
better. And anyway, he liked to sleep a lot.

Mrs Hathaway spent the night on the sofa, and was up around 7 am. She
slipped into her running gear, and did five miles on the treadmill and ten
minutes with the punchbag. Then she sat at her dining table - one of the nicest
ones from the Ikea Pubik range - and started to write a letter. By 9 am, she
had finished writing, and was ready to make some telephone calls.

She was left to herself as to when she cleaned the offices, so it was no
problem to take time off. She fixed up ten appointments for the rest of the
day, almost all of them within walking distance. Everything was going to plan.

She ate a light breakfast of melon slices and chamomile tea, and left
Aubrey a couple of apples. Then she put on her best frock, coat and shoes, and
placed the letter and a bundle of envelopes along with another piece of paper
into her handbag.

With her hand on the doorknob, she paused. This was it. The point of no
return. Did she want it? Yes, she did.

She took a deep breath, pulled back her shoulders and treated herself to
an Ali Shuffle, before stepping out into a world where the only certainty was
that the neon tube in the corridor would still be sputtering.

Chapter 10

Digby Elton-John was from another world. Not Mars or Venus, but from
somewhere even more remote - the 1950s. He could go on and on about that
fabulous decade - and he often did. But no one listened. He was stuck in the
future, and there was no way back.

But what a fantastic time he’d had growing up. He had the Eagle to read
- and as an extra bonus, he had the same name as Dan Dare’s faithful,
Wigan-born sidekick. The 1950s meant no TV - and even when it arrived, it was
black, white and fuzzy, and when you switched it on, there was a strange,
comforting smell as dust burnt off the valves.

But, assuming you were allowed to watch it, there were some great things
on that tiny 11-inch screen - Whirligig, Billy Bean, Mr Pastry, Shirley Abicair
and her zither,
Mick and Montmorency
and scratchy American cowboy series, like Hopalong Cassidy.

But it wasn’t the TV, really. His fondest memory was the freedom.
Climbing trees, building boxcars using old pram wheels, scrumping and chewing
gnarled liquorice twigs. There were cap guns, parachute bombs and bottles of
warm, luminous Tizer, school uniforms with short grey trousers, and on the
soles of your boots you had steel Segs which made sparks when you kicked the
floor. You and your mates could play matchbox rugby across a road, where there
was a car every hour, ride bikes with solid tyres, no brakes and no gears, and
everyone worried about the policeman when they had to cycle home with no
lights. He looked down at his red rubber WWDDD wristband and sighed.

For years, he had conducted a pathetic fight to hold back the tide of
‘so called’ progress. But as technology increased ever more rapidly, and social
values had changed for the worst, he had slid further and further into
depression.

Elton-John Solicitors had thrived in the early days, based on personal
service and a genuine desire to help local people. The decision to allow the
legal profession to advertise in
1986
, had
greased the palms of thousands of savvy, switched-on solicitors, but for Digby
it meant the start of a slow but inevitable slide down an increasingly slippery
slope. Slick firms got bigger, while Digby got smaller.

He’d simply failed to keep up with the times. And it was quite
deliberate, because - hand on heart - these weren’t
his
times. He regarded legal advertising as vulgar and
unprofessional. And as for those dreadful ambulance-chaser ads on TV and stuff
about compensation for tripping over teaspoons in the work’s canteen - he
despaired of them all.

Now, he had hardly any clients and most of the ribbon-tied briefs which
littered his office floor were at least 20 years’ old. Sometimes he wondered
why he bothered turning up. Maybe he just liked to gather the same dust as his
memories.

That morning, he was thinking back over his career. He only had a couple
of years to go before retirement, which was secure, thanks to his decision to
buy his building with eight large offices for £4,500 in 1965. But did he want
to go out with a whimper or a bang?

He looked down at his rubber wristband, and read the letters out loud. ‘WWDDD
- What Would Dan Dare Do?’ Well, what would he do?

Digby sat up
straight and breathed in rapidly through his nostrils. Well for start, Colonel
Daniel McGregor Dare
was the Pilot of the Future, for Chrissake! He wouldn’t sit on his arse
and moan. He wouldn't turn to Digby and say, ‘These new interplanetary space
ships are getting a bit complicated with all those extra dials and aerials and stuff,
I think I’ll pack it in.’ Like fuck he would.

He’d say, ‘Digby get me on a training course on how to handle these
new-fangled ships - or better still, let’s sneak into the
Spacefleet Spaceport
tonight and help ourselves
to one. We’ll take it for a trip round Saturn and I’ll work it all out for
myself.’

And Digby would say, ‘Bah gum sir, thar’s reet.’ And off they’d go.

It was these nostalgic thoughts, coupled with the vague recollection of
a quote that went something like, ‘
Nobody ever went broke
underestimating the intelligence of the public’
that saw him, for the first time in many years, doing something positive about
his business. He had decided, at long last, to write an advertisement!

But it wasn't
easy. He’d been at it all morning, and there were lots of crumpled sheets of
paper in his wastebasket. But the one currently lying on his desk had promise.
It was only a couple of headlines but, apparently, the headline was the most
important bit of an advertisement, and you could use it on your website -
whatever that was.

The TV was full
of bloody compensation claims commercials. They must be making money. But he
couldn't just join in, and say I’m doing that too. He had to stand out from the
crowd.

He couldn't go
top dollar, so he had to undercut them all, create a whole new market right
down at the bottom end, come up with a new underhand approach that would make
the competition drop their fucking iPhones into their
Frappuccinos with surprise. Something that
would blow the fuses in their iPuds or whatever those fucking mini-tellys were
called.

He had
scribbled down a double headline.

NO CASE TOO TRIVIAL

NO COMPLAINT TOO PUERILE

If that
didn't drag in the dregs, nothing would. It sounded really good.

Not
sounding so good was Digby’s doorbell. It started with that dreadful noise you
get when you try and fire up a car with a flat battery and moved seamlessly to
loud, high-speed clanks, similar to those made by a hover mower when it hits a
brick, finishing with an extended series of whip-cracking, ultra-high-voltage
discharges.

Mrs
Hathaway had arrived at her first appointment.

‘Come in,
come in,’ gushed Digby, over the entryphone.

He pressed
the door lock release switch on his desk, and his face convulsed horribly as he
received a 240-volt reminder to get the electrician in. He wrenched himself
away from the switch; then, banging his numbed arm on the filing cabinet, drew
himself up, took a deep breath and prepared to meet his first client of the
day, or to be more precise, of the month.

Chapter 11

Mrs Hathaway
walked into the office. The early morning sun shone brightly through the window
behind her, so all Digby could make out was a slender silhouette. Still,
silhouetted clients paid as much as non-silhouetted clients, so it was time to
turn on the charm.

‘Hello Mrs...?’

‘Hathaway.’

‘Ah yes. Mrs
Hathaway. Welcome to Elton-John, Solicitors-at-Law.’

Digby’s jacket
sleeve was smouldering slightly and there was a smell of singed Harris Tweed,
but nevertheless he held out his hand and she reciprocated.

‘Delighted to
meet you. I hope I’m not late?’

‘No, no, dear
lady. Here have a seat.’

Digby moved to
the window and picked up an old ladderback chair. Immediately, one of the legs
fell off and clattered onto the wood laminate flooring.

He hated wood
laminate flooring, but he’d been forced to have it laid when, following a routine
visit from the Council Health & Safety inspectors, his old Axminster had to
be removed by a specialist team wearing biohazard suits and respirators.

As he bent down
to pick up the leg, the ladderbacks detached themselves from the top of the
chair, so that effectively, he was now scrabbling on his knees with a pile of
Victorian firewood.

‘I’m so sorry,’
he said. ‘It was working perfectly well last month.’

At that point,
he looked up and, suddenly, the chair didn't matter any more. He caught his
first real glimpse of Mrs Hathaway.

She was
beautifully illuminated. The sun glinted on her silver hair. Her eyes were like
light blue crystals - the clearest and brightest he’d ever seen. She was slim,
elegant, charismatic - he could sum her up in three words - absolutely, fucking
and gorgeous.

Digby spoke
again.

‘Cannossi
thinkle was an happered there, burra muftav nogrrit proper glood.’

Making his best
decision of the morning, he decided to stop speaking.

‘That’s
alright,’ she said, calmly, ‘I’ll stand.’

He shoved the
remains of the chair into a corner and stumbled back to his desk. As he made
the long journey, under Mrs Hathaway’s beautiful, unrelenting gaze, Digby was
reminded of the 50’s TV cartoon commercial for Esso Blue paraffin, where the
dealer is overawed by a buxom blond and delivers the line, ‘Good morning, I’m
the Esso Blee Dooler.’

That was funny.
This was not. He had fallen instantly, and completely, in love. This was much
more than his infatuation with Professor
Jocelyn Mabel Peabody
- Dan Dare’s
co-pilot and all-round brilliant interplanetary scientist. Mrs Hathaway had an
aura of perfection - something he’d never seen before. Something he’d never
even dreamt of before. She was his perfect woman. She was absolutely
incredible. His admiration was so overwhelming that even her next sentence did
not diminish his ardour.

‘I’m a
self-employed cleaning lady. I have no money, and can't pay you anything for
the service I am about to request.’

‘As if that
would matter,’ smiled Digby sitting back behind his desk and taking extra care
not to touch the
door lock
release switch. ‘Tell me more.’

‘Here’s a
big envelope. In it are some smaller addressed envelopes with stamps. On the
front of the big envelope you can see my name - Tallulah Hathaway - and another
name, Aubrey Brown, along with our contact details. If either of us, or both of
us, die suddenly, in what seems like mysterious or suspicious circumstances, I
want you to open it, and put all the stamped envelopes in the post,
immediately.’

‘That’s
it?’

‘Absolutely.
And I can tell you that, should you need to post the letters, there could be a
large amount of lucrative legal work coming your way.’

‘Immaterial,
my good lady.’

‘So you’ll
do it?’

‘Yes.’

She passed
the large envelope into Digby’s moist hands.

In reality,
Mrs Hathaway had no idea if there would be any lucrative legal work, but these
were desperate times. And anyway, she had said ‘could be,’ not 'will be’, so
her conscience was clear.

Digby
hadn't the slightest interest in lucrative legal work, all he wanted to know
was whether she was up for a date, later that evening.

‘I was
wondering, dear lady, whether you would do me the honour of dining with me at
Claridges,
ce soir
, when we could
discuss your situation in greater depth.’

He didn't
really mean Claridges, but if she said ‘yes,’ he’d say Claridges was booked up
and take her to the bistro round the corner. But that didn't mean she wasn’t
the new love of his life.

‘Well I
don't think dinner would be possible, as I’m afraid I’m already spoken for. But
I
am
very flattered. Thank you for
your
extremely
kind co-operation, and
good morning.’

With that,
Mrs Hathaway turned and made her way out of the office. As she left, the sun
went in and the sky turned cold and grey.

Digby sat
at his desk and sighed. She was so beautiful - and those eyes! It was as though
a golden dawn had been presented to him, only to have it suddenly whipped away
and replaced by a torrential downpour. Which, as he looked out of the window,
is exactly what had happened.

She was
going out of his life, for ever. How could he live with the heartache? He could
see nothing ahead but melancholy, depression and a slow, pathetic decline. He
gazed down at his wristband. What Would Dan Dare Do in a situation like this?
He thought for a moment, then, quite suddenly, it occurred to him.

He shot out
his hand, and held down the door lock release switch, hard. His face twisted
until it was unrecognisable, what hair he had stood on end, his mouth snapped
open and bright sparks shot from filling to filling, while other parts of his
jacket started to self-combust.

After about
10 seconds of this ultra-primitive, self-inflicted electro
-convulsive therapy,
he had completely
erased any feelings of passion, lust or love - and could only vaguely remember
that some woman had been in to see him, earlier that morning, or perhaps
yesterday.

 
He ripped off his jacket and stamped out the
flames. Then picking up a pencil, and with his life’s goals suitably realigned,
he set to work on his advertisement with renewed vigour.