Hairy London (11 page)

Pertrand peered through the moonlit gloom. “It’s a flying something or other,” he said. Pulling a handful of oddments from his pocket he took a monocular, extended it, then looked through, to say, “It’s a man on a flying fox, heading this way at top speed.”

Velvene said, “Give me the monocular.” He looked through it, then said, “It is Lord Blackanore! He has been warned about the raid.”

“We’ll soon see about that,” Pertrand snarled. “Shoot him.”

“What?”

“Shoot him! He’ll land on the roof, right here. He’s in range.”

Velvene raised the revolver but found that he could not shoot, though Lord Blackanore was but a hundred yards away and the eyes of the flying fox were like great moonstones; an easy target.

“Shoot!” Pertrand insisted.

“I cannot.”

Pertrand rounded on him. “Is it because he’s a lord? Is that it?”

“No!” Velvene retorted. “Of course it is not. It is because I will not shoot a man down in cold blood.”

Pertrand grabbed the revolver, turned, then fired. The flying fox stalled in the air and Lord Blackanore leaned to one side as if riding a horse. Then the flying fox dived, wheeled and turned again, but Pertrand shot two more times, whereupon it flew away, heading north west.

“We can follow him,” said Velvene.

“Yes, you’re right,” Pertrand said. “Into the machinora. The camouflage abilities of the thing’ll conceal us even better than night.”

But with five in the machinora their flight was sluggish. Velvene said, “Pertrand, you stay with me – the rest of you I am going to drop off atop the roof of Euston Station.”

“Return to the flat,” Pertrand instructed them, “and write an account of our raid for the
Marxist-Leninist Times
. Make sure we succeed. Now scram!”

With only two in the machinora their flight was easier, but still the flying fox outpaced them. By extrapolating Lord Blackanore’s flight path however, Pertrand ascertained that he was heading in a straight line for Regent’s Park.

“London Zoo,” Velvene said.

“You might be right. He’ll have some scheme there. We’ll track him.”

Velvene agreed. Lord Blackanore landed his flying fox in the elephant enclosure, and, just a few minutes behind, Velvene followed suit. As they leaped out of the machinora it transformed itself to the colour of moonlit mud.

Lord Blackanore was lost in the maze of zoo buildings however, so they had little choice but to walk at random and listen; but between the squawking of birds and the groaning of zebras they heard nothing, and after ten minutes thought they must have lost their quarry. Then Velvene heard something.

“A voice,” he said.

“Nah, voices,” Pertrand replied, “coming from the Japanese House.”

They crept up to the long, low building and peered through a front window. Inside, Velvene saw something extraordinary. In the centre of a room stood a single bonsai tree on a great table, around which stood a number of miniature animals.

“So that is how he makes them,” Velvene breathed. “It is a bonsaiulator.”

Pertrand pointed to the far corner of the room. “Told you it was voices,” he whispered.

Velvene saw a group of shivering darkies huddled together in a corner, all of them staring at Lord Blackanore, who was investigating the bonsai tree with a magnifying glass.

“No,” Velvene said. “Surely he cannot be shrinking men? It is inhumane.”

“
He’s
inhumane,” Pertrand replied. “We gotta stop him.”

Velvene agreed. “But how, eh?”

“There’s only one of him and two of us. Easy. And I got one bullet left. Come on!”

Before Velvene could stop him, Pertrand leaped aside and stormed through the door, running into the bonsai room with his revolver raised. Velvene followed, making sure his mask remained firm upon his face.

“Lord Blackanore!” Pertrand shouted. “I’m doing a citizen’s arrest on you for crimes against the working class. Hands up.”

Lord Blackanore stared at Pertrand, glanced at Velvene, then returned his gaze to the revolver. “Is that loaded?” he asked.

“Yeah. Now move away from that there bonsai.”

Lord Blackanore remained where he was. “I am afraid there is more to consider than your revolver, my good man,” he said. “I am performing a vital government experiment, which you disrupt at your peril. I suspect a jail sentence would be in order if word got out of what you were doing–”

“Move away from that bonsai, or I fire!”

“Go on then. Shoot me.”

Velvene stood horrified, unable to speak, even to move for fear of revealing himself. Pertrand’s arm began to tremble.

Lord Blackanore picked something up from the table with a pair of chopsticks then took a step forward. “So you do not have the courage to shoot an innocent man. I very much suspected that would be the case.”

“Stand
still!
”

Lord Blackanore took another step forward. “Now hand over the revolver my good man, and perhaps I shall be lenient with you. What the zoo authorities would think of this I really do not know–”

Pertrand fired. Lord Blackanore bent over, grunted, then leaned upon the table. Blood oozed from his stomach, but then he looked up, raised the chopsticks and threw something – a dart it seemed to Velvene – that struck Pertrand in the neck, bit, then wriggled.

Pertrand pulled it off at once, but it was too late. “A krait!” he croaked, and with that fell to the floor.

Lord Blackanore turned to Velvene. “Whoever you are,” he groaned, “have mercy upon me and fetch help. I am wounded!”

Velvene stared at Pertrand. The krait, little more than six inches long, was the deadly yellow banded species. Pertrand was a gonner. Velvene jumped forward, snapped the trunk of the bonsai tree, then sped out of the room, running at top speed to the elephant enclosure, where for a few moments he stumbled around in panic, unable to locate the machinora. Then he bumped into it. He leaped inside the wicker capacity, fired up the heatorix and cast off. Moments later he ascended above the corral, to safety.

This time, events did not bring tears to his eyes. Shock enervated him. A black mood came to his mind as he considered all the terrible things he had seen, and he realised he wanted no more of violent revolution. He was still a changed man, with a new view of himself and of the society he had once inhabited, but now he had finished with upheaval and bloody action. He had a wager to win.

Tacking against the wind, the chameleonic Archimedean floating system carried him back to Gordon Square. He found the four remaining members of the raiding party sitting around their typewriter, hard at work, with Sylfia Fermicelli dictating.

“Well, I bring tragic news,” he said.

Sylfia’s dark eyes stared unblinking at him. She was a striking young woman, half Ethiopique, Velvene suspected, and decent – for a woman – though rather too forward for his liking. “What’s happened?” she asked, approaching him.

“Lord Blackanore got Pertrand. He is dead. The Marxist-Leninist Workers’ Movement Of London is over, it is undone. I am so very sorry.”

Sylfia buckled as she heard the news, clinging on to a chair. The others wailed and gasped.

“I cannot remain here,” Velvene continued. “I thank you for your kindness to me, but I must go. I have a mission of my own, one more personal than yours, that, having met you, I can now undertake. I thank you once more for starting me on my journey.” He shrugged. “I wish you the very best of Britisher luck, eh?”

“Yes...” Sylfia murmured.

Velvene walked to his box room, where he gathered his belongings and threw them into the rucksack. Then he went to put the clay figure on its trolley.

It had changed further. In pale moonlight he saw the ghost of a face, a woman’s face, and a hint of... well, they looked like those glands specific to women best not mentioned in polite company. The hips were broader, the shoulders narrower, the thighs rounder.

“Great Oates!” Velvene whispered. “Whatever will I do now?”

The figure required clothes at once. Unwilling to ask Sylfia or the two other women for assistance, Velvene manhandled the figure to his bed and dressed it in an old pair of trews, then a mildew-blackened shirt and a jacket of canvas such as cricketeers wore. Then he raised it to its feet. The figure stood without wobbling, as if perfectly balanced on its shapely feet.

Velvene hauled it onto the trolley, then headed for the door, and the roof.

Sylfia stopped him beside the attic steps. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“I do not know,” he replied. Gesturing upwards he said, “To load my machinora, then depart. That is all I can say.”

“What’s this personal mission you mentioned?”

“Well, that is rather tricky to explain. It involves plumbing the depths of the human mind in pursuit of a wager. Beyond your capacities, dear lady.”

“Is it?” Sylfia replied.

Velvene hesitated, then coughed. “Well, I expect so.”

“If you’re interested in the mind you should see Mr Freud.”

“Mr Freud?”

“The psychonaut. He lives in Hampstead.”

Velvene harrumphed and muttered, “Possibly I underestimated your knowledge of such matters. Thank you anyway for those directions.”

Sylfia’s gaze turned to the figure. “Who is she?”

“I do not know. A... project of mine.” Uncomfortable with such personal questions he lifted the figure and pushed it up into the attic. “Goodbye. We shall not meet again. As I said before, I wish you and all Marxist-Leninists luck.”

“And me you,” Sylfia replied.

The winds blew still to the north west. Velvene cast off, using the machinora rudders to head for Hampstead.

~

The weeks passed by inside Kew Gardens. Three weeks, as Gandy had said. Then Eastachia and Kornukope were taken from their luxury cell to a palm glade at the north end of the glasshouse, where Gandy had his personal residence.

After chay and a light snack of gajar ka halwa he said, “The time has come for us to make a move on Downing Street. All my forces are ready.”

Eastachia began to fret. With her handbag impounded she had been unable to send any more warning letters, while the lack of any attack on Kew Gardens suggested the Prime Minister and his Cabinet were little concerned by her last missive. If only she had stated the three week timing!

But surely police officers, even soldiers were watching Kew? It was inconceivable that the government would ignore the Indoo peril. Most likely a ring of heavily armed men surrounded the place, ready to bring down the machines and the Indoo themselves. And that three week lack of letters...

She sighed. In hairy London nothing was easy, least of all if it involved travel. Blandhubble, she suspected, would wait and do nothing.

“Do not fret, Eastachia,” Gandy said. “There will be no danger for you. In fact you, Kornukope and I will have the most interesting of times as we head north east.”

“We’re going with you?” she said.

Kornukope added, “You mean to incorporate us into your forces?”

“There will be no need for
force,
” Gandy said, enunciating the word as if it was a curse. “Do you see an army inside Kew Gardens?”

“I see metal machines on legs,” Eastachia retorted.

“Do you see guns?”

“Well... no,” she said.

“I am a subtle man,” said Gandy. “Subtly violent, that is. You may call me thuggish if you wish, I should take it as a compliment. No indeed, there will be no fighting. You two and I will fly upon a winged goddess, where we shall use your...” and here he pointed at Kornukope, “... personal rapport to fool the Prime Minister into contracting the anglocide germs. He then will pass the disease on to his colleagues as if it were a dose of the common cold.”

Kornukope frowned. “I would never betray my government like that.”

“You will if I torture your wife.”

Kornukope turned white. “You are a monster. A bastard monster.”

“First correct, second incorrect,” Gandy responded with a laugh. “I know both my parents.”

Kornukope spat upon the floor. “The King should have cut off more than your hands. He should have emasculated you, sir.”

At this, Gandy’s face turned ruddy, and the tentacles on his left hand writhed. “You will regret saying that when I sit in Number Ten,” he growled. “There will be harsh punishments.” He paused, then chuckled and said, “Maybe I shall cause a Black Hole Of Bloomsbury to be constructed. What do you think of that, Kornukope Wetherbee of the so-called Suicide Club?”

Eastachia reached out to touch Kornukope’s arm in an effort to calm him. “Let the man have his say,” she whispered.

Kornukope frowned, but said nothing more.

Gandy stood up. “It is time to depart. Everything is ready. Follow me and do everything I tell you. If you refuse, or if you try to outwit me, I shall kill you with this Derringer.” He took out a small, widebore gun from a fold in his dhoti.

“Yes, yes, we understand,” Kornukope said with a sigh. “The gun is mightier than the word.”

“So you do have guns,” Eastachia said.

“Just the one,” he replied with a smile.

They were taken alongside a thuggish escort to a platform that had been constructed near Syon House, upon which stood an immense bronze statue of Kali, such as Eastachia had seen in the secret places of Moonbai. At the Durga’s feet a number of upturned skull pans had been welded, eight feet in diameter, in which cushions lay arranged. Beneath Kali lay her tiger vehicle. Her breasts were purest lapis lazuli, while her contumacy was implied by the sharpened flutes that she carried.

“We designed this is association with Konstantin Tsiolkovsky,” Gandy said.

“Who?”

“The Russio scientist, superior to Fleming. Now get inside the skull pans.”

This they did, Eastachia and Kornukope in one, while Gandy took another, arranging himself in a decadent pose on the Madras yellow silk cushions. Eastachia found a box of Turkish Deliciousness on a ledge at the side of the skull pan, which she opened and sampled.

“What now?” she asked.

Gandy replied, “We shall fly to Downing Street. There, Kornukope will use his influence to get inside Number Ten, pretending that he has captured me.” He patted the satin satchel that he wore across his naked chest. “The anglocide is safe,” he added.