The Brightonomicon (Brentford Book 8) (13 page)

*

I recollect now that Fangio put up a respectable struggle to retain his circus tickets. I recall the silken words of Mr Hugo Rune that oozed persuasion to part with them. And the harsher words that followed when Fangio failed to comply. And I recollect also that I took to the gents’ when I saw the stout stick rising.

And it was in there, in the gents’ of The Mound and Merkin, that I first met the bog troll.
^*

It was the first time I had ever entered the gents’ in Fangio’s bar (for I was young and my bladder elastic) and I had never before encountered a bog troll.

‘This way to the urinal,’ said he.

‘Excuse me?’ I replied.

‘That’s right,’ said the fellow, laughing with vigour. ‘This is the gents’ excuse-me.’

‘I am well aware of that,’ I told him. ‘I have come here to take a pee.’

‘Come on, then,’ he said, bowing graciously, ‘I’ll escort you to a urinal. This one is unoccupied, but it is over the drain hole, from which noxious fumes sometimes issue. This one, although on the face of it no different from the rest, has an evil reputation and it is rumoured that those who pee in it end up in court upon trumped-up charges of necromancy.’

‘Are you insane?’ I asked, which seemed a reasonable question.

‘On the contrary, your lordship.’

‘My lordship?’

‘On the contrary. Now, this urinal might also appear to be the same as any other, but don’t be fooled – the floor tiles are unevenly laid before it and an unwary man, or one somewhat taken by the drink, might easily make a forward tumble. My name is Bartholomew, by the way.’

‘Is that hyphenated?’

‘No, it’s Jamaican.’

‘Hence the dreadlocks, I suppose.’

‘But I’m bald,’ said the man, as indeed he was.

I covered my embarrassment by explaining that I was dyslexic.

‘Does that mean that you bounce when you fall?’ he asked.

‘Dyslexic,’
I said. ‘Not
elastic.’

‘Pardon me, your lordship. I lost my hearing aid. I’ve been trying to grow a new one, but with no success so far.’

‘Grow
a new one?’ I asked, in a manner that implied that I actually cared.

‘A mate of mine grew a new pair of spectacles. But he’s a Tibetan lama and they can do all manner of things like that.’

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I have just come in here to take a pee, and although I find your conversation fascinating, I would appreciate it if you would just leave me alone to do my business and then I will be off on my way. No offence meant.’

‘And none taken, I assure you. Now
this
urinal, again whilst appearing identical to its fellows, is definitely not the one for you—’

‘Stop,’ I told him. ‘Stop now.’

‘But your lordship, it’s more than my job’s worth to have you pee in an unsuitable urinal and then report me to Health and Safety for failing to advise you correctly.’

‘Your job?’ I asked. ‘What exactly
is
your job?’

‘I’m the cloakroom attendant.’

‘But this is
not
a cloakroom.’

‘It would be if you were wearing a cloak.’

‘But I am not.’ And I unzipped and took aim at the nearest urinal. Not that I could actually
go,
because I never can when someone is watching.

‘As luck would have it, you’ve chosen correctly,’ said the cloakroom attendant. ‘I’ll deduct the finder’s fee from your bill upon this occasion, but if you could conveniently forget that you chose this particular urinal the next time you come in here, then I’d really appreciate it because I need every penny I can get – I’m saving up for a galleon.’

I zipped my trousers. I did not really want to pee anyway. ‘A galleon?’ I said.

‘A three-masted man o’ war. Forty cannon, three spinnakers, a
yardarm and a plank for walking mutineers off. Not that I’m expecting any mutineers. I won’t be press-ganging the crew.’ And the cloakroom attendant laughed at this, although I have no idea why.

‘Why do you want to buy a galleon?’ I asked, because I was genuinely interested, what with my love of pirates and everything.

‘To follow in the bootsteps of my great-great-great-grandfather, Black Jack Moulsecoomb.’

‘Get out of here,’ I said.

‘Certainly not, your lordship. This is my place of work.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I meant “get out of here” as in “you have to be kidding”, or “no f*cking way”.’

‘You speak the pirate patois,’ said the great-great-great-grandson of Black Jack Moulsecoomb.

‘But surely you cannot be a pirate nowadays – not in the Brighton area, anyway.’

‘There’s plenty of booty to be had in the English Channel – pleasure boats, sailing yachts, the floating gin palaces of the gentry.’

‘I suppose there is,’ I said, ‘but would a speedboat not be better than a galleon for such work?’

‘A speedboat!?!’
And Bartholomew Moulsecoomb spat into the chosen urinal. ‘Pardon my phlegm, your lordship, but I don’t hold with speeding boats. Back in the days of the early steam railways, it was believed that a man’s brains would come loose if he was to travel at more than the speed of a galloping horse. And I hold this belief to be true.’

‘But—’ I said.

‘Those who travel at greater speeds do so at the risk of their sanity. The faster a man moves, the more stupid he becomes.’

‘I think there is probably some truth to that,’ I said. ‘But a life of piracy does have some risks of its own, such as ending up in prison, for instance, or at the end of a rope.’

‘Prison?’ The cloakroom attendant laughed once again. ‘So what would you call
this?’

‘A cloakroom?’ I suggested.

‘A prison that smells of wee.’

‘I think most of them do. And feet, of course. Prisons stink of
smelly feet. And unwashed armpits. Or so I have been reliably informed.’

‘You evidently number dubious characters amongst your acquaintances. Do you think that any of them might wish to enlist in a life of piracy?’

‘I should not be at all surprised. I am quite keen myself.’

‘Then let’s call it a fiver.’

‘Let us call
what
a fiver?’

‘For services rendered. Freshen up?’

‘Freshen
what?’

‘Freshen up.’ The cloakroom attendant guided me towards his table. It was one of those wallpaper-pasting tables, of the type that I have spent most of my life avoiding, along with fitted-kitchen catalogues and visits to IKEA.

The life of domesticity has never held much appeal.

The cloakroom attendant’s table was covered by a white tablecloth and this by regimented rows of popular male perfumes of the day in their colourfully hued spraying bottles. There was Brut and Hai Karate and Old Spice (which was new at the time and had a sailing ship upon its bottle that might well have been a pirate vessel). And there was Muskrat For Men and Big Helmet and Silver Spaniel and Bird Puller, although few folk remember these top-selling brands today.

‘Freshen up,’ said the cloakroom attendant, ‘for the ladies.’

‘Are you selling these bottles?’ I asked.

‘A shilling a spray.’

‘But some of them only cost two bob a bottle.’

‘Galleons don’t come cheap. And I will be avenged for the death of my brother.’

‘Avenged?’ I asked, for it is not a word that comes up in conversation too often. ‘Avenged upon whom?’

‘Upon all of creation. The pirates of old waged war upon humanity and so shall I.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘So what happened to your brother?’

‘Murdered,’ said the cloakroom attendant, ‘although the police refuse to investigate the case. They say that it was death by misadventure – that he built the costume for himself and so it was his
own fault that it happened. If you ask me, I’d say they were simply baffled.’

‘I am baffled, too,’ I said. ‘Of what costume do you speak?’

‘That of a crab,’ said the cloakroom attendant sadly. ‘The costume of a crab.’

‘The costume of a crab,’ I told Mr Rune, upon my return to the bar. The Guru’s Guru nodded his big baldy head.

‘A crab?’ said he. ‘Go on.’

‘It seems that the cloakroom attendant—’

‘Bog troll,’ said Mr Rune.

‘Bog troll?’ said I. ‘Bartholomew the bog troll?’

‘Bog troll,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Trust me on this. I am, after all, a magician.’

‘The bog troll, then. His brother was found dead upon the Sussex Downs inside a platypus-pelt crab costume. The police are baffled; they say it was death by misadventure. And not only that, the police refused to release the body to Bartholomew for burial. They said it was too badly decomposed, a health hazard, and they had it cremated. But Bartholomew says that his brother had only been missing for a day. It all sounds very strange and I thought it might interest you.’

‘It does indeed,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Pop behind the bar and set us up with drinks, would you?’

‘Where is Fangio?’ I asked.

‘Upstairs, nursing his bruises and sulking.’

‘Oh, right then.’ And I shinnied over the bar.

‘Naturally I read of the case,’ said Mr Rune, when I had presented him with a bottle of Scotch and returned to the punters’ side of the bar. ‘Most curious business. Body of a man found all alone upon the Downs encased within a platypus-pelt crab costume. Naturally, I could conceive of at least a dozen reasons for him being there in such a guise, but as to his demise, I do not consider that death by misadventure quite filled the platypus bill, as it were.’

‘The bog troll thinks he was murdered.’

‘I shall have a word with this fellow.’ And Mr Rune rose from his
barstool and set off for the gents’ excuse-me, taking the bottle of Scotch with him.

I sat and twiddled my thumbs, as one is apt to do when lost for some other way to pass the time. I have never fully acquired the knack and sometimes it has taken me almost an hour to untwiddle my thumbs again.

Happily, they were not too inextricably twiddled by the time Mr Rune returned.

‘The case is ours,’ he said, ‘and the game is afoot.’

‘I have never been sure exactly what that means,’ I said, as I deftly (and, I think, through luck rather than design) untwiddled my thumbs. ‘What
does
it mean?’

‘It means, my dear Rizla, that I have saved the patrons of the Palace Pier from an unexpected pillaging – or at least will do once the case is solved and the murderer brought to justice. And there will be a profit in it for the both of us.’

‘The bog troll is going to pay you?’

‘For bringing his brother’s murderer to book, the galleon that the ship-builders at the marina are presently constructing for him will become mine. I had him sign a contract to this effect.’

‘In blood?’

Mr Rune cast me a certain glance. ‘How else?’ he asked. ‘How else?’

We did not visit the circus that day, but as Fangio’s tickets were for the following week, this mattered not.

We travelled instead to Moulsecoomb.

And we travelled in a taxicab that I hailed for our conveyance.

The taxi driver’s name was Ralph, and he was an avid supporter of Chelsea Football Club. To which, he promised us, ‘I offer my allegiance and will continue so to do until the Rapture comes and the good are carried bodily to Heaven.’

He then went on to expound his views upon the gift of prophecy. ‘What folk don’t understand,’ he told us, ‘is that prophets aren’t blessed by God. It’s just that they are able to see the peaks. Time doesn’t travel in a straight line, you see. Time is like light, it comes in waves. You can chart it, like a hospital chart of a patient’s heartbeat.’

I cared not for talk of hospitals, what with my recent experience in
one and everything, but the taxi driver continued, ‘So time comes in waves, peaks and troughs, like on a chart, and your prophet, he can see from one peak to the next – like a mountaineer, if you will. He can see what’s on the next peak. And on the last one, but prophets never predict the past, you notice. They always look forward. And do you know why they do that?’

Well,
I
never learned why. Because by that time we had reached our destination, which was within the gates of Moulsecoomb, for cabbies were allowed entry. And there was some unpleasantness regarding the matter of the fare.

And I turned away once more.

‘Widdicombe Way,’ said Mr Rune. ‘A rather insalubrious neck of the woods.’

‘This is a most unsavoury neighbourhood,’ I said. ‘We will be murdered here for certain. And most likely eaten also.’

‘Plah!’ cried Mr Rune, ‘no man dines upon Hugo Rune.’ The Lad Himself brandished his stout stick. ‘I am a master of Dimac,’ he continued, ‘personally tutored by Count Dante himself.’

‘A chum of Count Otto?’

‘Another count entirely. But have no fear for your safety, young Rizla. Hugo Rune will protect you.’

‘Then I will have no fear,’ I assured him. ‘But what are we doing here?’