Only Human (9 page)

He has my sympathy.

‘I'll be right with you,' he said to the two women. ‘Now, let me see. What did I use the last time?'

‘The bell,' said the shorter woman, ‘and the book and the candle. Worked a treat, if you remember. He was back at work down the slaughterhouse first thing Wednesday.'

Bell. Book. Candle. Feeling incredibly foolish, as a veteran astronaut might feel while sticking feathers to his arms with beeswax he trotted back into the vestry and poked about until he found a candle, a copy of the 1972 edition of
Wisden
and—

Bell. No bell. Curses. Where did this bothersome priest keep his bell? He was just about to give up when his eye fell on an ancient bicycle propped up against the wall. Fortunately there was a toolkit with the right size of spanner in it; a few turns with that and it came away as easy as anything. Right. Bell. Here we go.

On his way to Mr Higgins' house he discovered that he was the vicar of St Anthony's, a rural parish made up mostly of retired city-folk who lived in converted barns. Mr Higgins wasn't one of these. He was the local slaughterman; seventy-seven if he was a day and U-shaped with rheumatism but still gamely plugging away at the job he loved, scragging livestock from dawn to dusk seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, with only the very occasional break for a spot of demonic possession and speaking in tongues. That made the whole possession business seem even more unlikely. Devils aren't snobs, as a rule, but neither do they go in for slumming. Besides, the whole point about recruiting for Flipside is that once you've got a recruit, you're stuck with him. Old Mr Higgins didn't really sound like the type of person anybody'd voluntarily choose to spend the rest of eternity with. Come Judgement Day, in fact, he'd probably end up in the pool of people neither side wants, like the fat kid when they're picking football teams at school.

Mr Higgins clearly represented the avant-garde as regards accommodation in the parish, because he lived in what appeared to be the only
un
converted barn in the village. It was very old, very authentic, and smelt rather powerfully of stale blood. The chances were that if he'd had any commercial acumen, he'd have offered to sell it to Clive Barker or Stephen King as a place they could go when they were in need of some really heavy ambience.

‘Hello,' called out the shorter woman, poking her head through the open door. ‘It's only me. I've brought the vicar to see you.'

As Artofel followed her apprehensively into the murk, he thought he saw something shuffling about in the shadows. Dukes of Hell are not, of course, afraid of things that scuttle about in dark, blood-scented hovels. It must have been the cold that made Artofel shiver slightly.

‘Hello?' he said.

There was an outburst of crazed, melodramatic cackling, suddenly cut short.

‘Art?'

Artofel's jaw dropped. ‘Keith?'

‘Over here. And get rid of those two old bats, will you? They're starting to get on my nerves.'

The two women hadn't heard this exchange, because it was conducted in the Infernal tongue, a language which is remarkably like Welsh and invariably spoken at a pitch that only dogs and bats can hear. Artofel nodded, then turned to his two escorts and suggested that they should leave now, before the firework display. He had to suggest quite forcibly before he was able to get rid of them.

‘What the dickens are you doing in these parts, Art?' the voice said, when they were alone. ‘I thought you were strictly a desk man.'

‘Long story,' Artofel replied. ‘Could you switch the light on, please?'

A switch clicked, and Artofel found himself facing a gnarled, evil-looking old man as unlike his old college chum Meskithial as was diabolically possible.

‘I know,' Keith muttered, ‘it's too small for me and not my colour.You learn to rough it in the field ops grade.' He stopped, frowning, and then apologised. ‘Didn't think about it,' he explained. ‘You get so used to having your friends and colleagues turning up in unexpected bodies, you get out of the habit of noticing. Why're you dressed as a vicar, Art? Going to a party or something?'

Artofel dusted off a chair and sat down. ‘Actually,' he said, ‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me. I was sitting quietly in my office, and the next thing I knew, here I was. So far, nobody's seen fit to tell me what's going on.'

Meskithial shrugged. ‘Could just be lousy labour relations,' he said. ‘But, no disrespect, I can't see why they'd want an office bod like you down here. What is it you're doing these days? Accounts, wasn't it?'

‘Personnel,' Artofel replied. ‘Wages department. And I quite agree; I'd make a useless bogeyman, no question about that. If you remember, I flunked tempting at college and I only just scraped through basic tormenting because I had the Seven Exquisite Tortures scribbled down on the palm of my hand. Either they're desperate or there's been a bog-up. Anyway, more to the point, how do I get out again? You must have a radio or something I could get through to Central on.'

‘No can do,' Meskithial replied, shaking his head and remembering too late his rheumatic neck. ‘Deep cover, this is. They call me sometimes, but I can't contact them except through the embassy. That'd be your best bet, I guess.'

‘Oh, marvellous,' Artofel grumbled. ‘Hang on, though. What embassy? I didn't know we had . . .'

Meskithial grinned. ‘Not common knowledge,' he said. ‘It's a fairly recent development, actually. Formal diplomatic relations were only established in 1968. Before that it was all about guys in hats and overcoats with fur collars feeding the ducks in Green Park, which was endearingly picturesque but not all that efficient. So we set up a chain of embassies and consulates; works reasonably well, but we do tend to keep quiet about it. Otherwise we'd be up to our horns in lunatics claiming amoral asylum or taking hostages or parading up and down outside chanting
Evil, evil, evil - out, out, out!
You can do without that sort of interruption when you're negotiating complex trade agreements.'

Part of Artofel's brain wanted further and better particulars - trade agreements about what? for example - but it was heavily outvoted. ‘Anyway,' he said, ‘where is this embassy? Is it far?'

‘I should have said embassies, plural, 'cos there's an awful lot of them. And the consulates too, in the smaller towns. In fact,' he added casually, ‘there's one in pretty well every high street. 'Course, they don't call themselves embassies. All part of the cover, you see.'

Artofel nodded. ‘Right,' he said. ‘And what
do
they call themselves?'

‘You keep saying that,' muttered the Foreign Secretary. ‘I still think he's behaving oddly.'

The Home Secretary shrugged and lit a cigarette. ‘Of course he's acting oddly,' he replied. ‘He's the Prime Minister. If he wasn't acting oddly,' he added, shaking out the match and dropping it into an ashtray, ‘that would be odd.'

‘You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps?You may be right.'The Foreign Secretary swilled the remains of his Scotch round in the bottom of his glass. ‘In a sense,' he added, instinctively.

‘Of course I'm right,' his colleague said. ‘You don't get to be Prime Minister unless you're odder than a barrelful of ferrets to begin with.You don't know the half of it. Take Lloyd George, for instance.'

‘Huh?'

‘Kept seventeen goats in the cellars of Number Ten, and when he died they found enough ladies' underwear in his safety deposit box at Coutts to clothe half the women in China. Why do you think they passed the Official Secrets Act? And he was as rational as the Speaking Clock compared with Ramsay MacDonald.' He leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘They say there's a couple of offices in Downing Street they just bricked up after he resigned, 'cos nobody could face going in there. Didn't stop him doing his job, though. Damn fine statesman. Father of his country.'

The Foreign Secretary pursed his lips. ‘Okay,' he said. ‘Point taken. I just wish he wouldn't do it, that's all. I mean, all it takes is one of the cameras to catch him, sitting there staring into space, twitching his nose and rubbing it between his hands, we'll be a laughing stock. And that tatty old camel overcoat with the tea-stains on it could cost us a couple of marginals in the Home Counties if we're not careful. Remember Michael Foot's donkey jacket?'

‘True.'

‘More to the point,' he added, frowning. ‘Nobody's actually heard him
say
anything since he got out of hospital. I hope he's going to snap out of it soon, because keeping the lid on that isn't going to be easy.'

The Home Secretary smiled. ‘Don't knock it,' he replied. ‘What this party's needed these twenty-seven years is a leader who keeps his gob shut. Stands to reason. Man doesn't talk, doesn't say anything bloody stupid. If he carries on like that, he could be another Churchill.'

‘Churchill said lots of things.'

His colleague nodded. ‘True,' he replied. ‘Nobody's perfect.'

‘And there's another thing,' the Foreign Secretary persisted, ostentatiously fanning aside the Home Secretary's smoke. ‘All this jumping off things. You aren't going to tell me that's normal behaviour, even for the PM.'

‘Man's got to have a hobby.'

‘Don't be flippant,' replied the Foreign Secretary sternly. ‘Yesterday he jumped off a filing cabinet and nearly broke the Cabinet Secretary's arm. If he tries a stunt like that during the EC Summit, we'll probably end up at war with somebody.'

‘If it was France, that could be a real votewinner. Better still if they broke
his
arm. We'd have an excuse to take out the centre of Paris in one hit.'

‘Well . . .' The Foreign Secretary spread his hands in a gesture of self-absolution. ‘Last thing I want to do is rock the boat, as you well know. But if he's going to make a habit of biting policemen's legs—'

The Home Secretary looked up sharply. A grin was trying to shoulder its way on to his face. ‘Do what? I hadn't heard about that.'

‘Last night, apparently. He opened the front door of Number Ten - you know he sits by the door for hours at a time, don't you? - saw the copper standing outside and bit him in the ankle. Then he slammed the door in his face and went and hid under the chair until his PPS came with some letters for him to sign. It's not on, Vince, really it's not. Someone's going to have to talk to him about it.'

On his way back from the bar, the Home Secretary put his head round the door of his chief researcher's office, and demanded a copy of the
Oxford Encyclopedia of Natural History.

‘Something I just heard rang a bell,' he explained. ‘Hurry it up, there's a good girl.'

When the book came he waited till the researcher had gone away and leafed through till he came to L.

He closed the book, steepled his hands and sat still for several minutes, deep in thought. It was, he reflected, a familiar pattern of behaviour - habitual mindless lethargy, sudden fits of uncontrollable violence, the urge to form parties and self-destruct every five years or so - and it befits a great leader to share the mindset of the electorate; it means he can empathise with them, understand how their minds work. Properly handled . . .

He picked up the phone and put a call through to the head of the PM's personal security squad, recommending that bars be put on all the upper windows of Number Ten.

‘And issue the copper on doorstep duty with a pair of shin-guards,' he added. ‘I've got a feeling he's going to need them.'

 

‘Kevin.'

‘Yes?'

‘What
have
you been doing to this machine?'

‘I wasn't talking to you.' Martha glared at the screen for a moment, until Kevin was sure she was about to tell it to go and stand in the corner. ‘This is a right mess and no mistake, young Kevin,' she said. ‘You know what you've gone and done, don't you?'

‘No. That's what's so horrible; it wouldn't tell me. Said I didn't have the right clearance.'

Martha tutted. ‘I'll have a few things to say to this box of tricks before I've finished,' she muttered darkly. ‘What you've done is, you've been messing about with psychomorphic waveband stabilisers, that's what.'

‘Oh.' Kevin looked blank, like a man who's come to collect his car from the garage and is having explained to him exactly why a new fan belt is going to cost him two hundred and fifty pounds. ‘Is that bad?'

Martha clicked her tongue. ‘It's not good,' she replied. ‘What it means is that some people have been whisked out of their bodies and put into things.'

‘Gosh.'

‘And versy-visa,' Martha added. ‘The things have been put into the people, if you see what I'm getting at. There's people's bodies walking about with things' minds in 'em, and things sitting there thinking they're people. Well, not so much of the thinking, either. It's a bit of a banjax, I'm afraid.'