Chapter 6: THE MAN WHO WENT BY TRAIN

John’s train had been delayed by one of the many excuses the Rail Network used these days in order to pass the blame onto someone or something else rather than admit to their own incompetence. In fact, such was the frequency of delays that the Rail Network had long since stopped making up their own excuses and had instead begun handing out questionnaires to delayed passengers for them to fill in so they could select their most preferred reason why the train they were waiting for was not running on time. John was handed his questionnaire by a surly Railway official, who scowled at him and said simply, “Fill this in,” before striding off to hand out the remaining forms clutched in his gnarled hand to the weary travellers queuing behind him.

John looked at the badly photocopied form now in his possession and read down the list. The form read:

We apologise for the delay in the arrival of your train. It is due to:

o    Essential maintenance

o   The wrong type of leaves on the track

o   An earthquake in Bolivia

o   An overabundance of frogs

o   The Prime Minister

o   Velociraptors escaping from Jurassic Park

o   The price of New Zealand lamb

o   Gregorian chants

o   Several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a Pict

o   Other (but not us)

Please select one excuse only. Thank you for taking the time to fill in this questionnaire. Your opinions are important to us. We hope you enjoy the rest of your delay.

John sighed and selected ‘The Prime Minister’ because he didn’t like him. It was ironic, he thought, he loved traveling by train, but hated waiting. More than anything he hated waiting on King’s Cross Station because it was Tramp Central. More tramps frequented King’s Cross Station than any other part of London – some days there were more tramps than there were passengers and it had become increasingly difficult not to make eye contact with them. Making eye contact with a King’s Cross tramp was fatal. As soon as a tramp realised a passenger was making eye contact with him, he would shuffle over and hold his grubby hand out for some cash. Most of them went away after they had been told ‘no’ thirty or forty times but others were more persistent and would stand firm, looking like swarthy, greasy-haired, badly dressed highwaymen, until they had extorted enough cash to buy a two-litre bottle of White Lightning.

John stuffed the questionnaire into his jacket pocket, ready to show to the conductor, along with his ticket, when the train eventually arrived. He looked up at the electronic board that showed when the trains were not arriving and inadvertently caught the eye of a passing tramp.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself as he watched helplessly as the tramp shambled over to him. The tramp had long, grey, dirty hair that appeared to have some kind of bird’s nest within its matted, filthy mess, along with two or three plastic World War Two American soldiers. He wore a long, threadbare, buttonless, brown coat, which was secured to his body with a length of frayed string. His trousers were worn at the knees and his shoes were scuffed, the soles of which were coming away from the uppers, revealing his bare, blackened toes. He stank like he had been sleeping in the urinal of a busy Soho pub on a Saturday night. He held out his hand and said, “Giz some change.”

“I haven’t got any,” said John quickly, hoping to rid himself of this foul smelling creature.

“Giz some change,” the tramp repeated.

“I told you I haven’t got any change.”

“Giz some change,” the tramp said again.

This exchange went on repetitiously for another five minutes, before the tramp moved on to the next person in line. John was relieved that he had been approached by one of the less persistent ones, but the constant repetition as the tramp moved down the queue gave him a headache. Eventually though, the tramp reached the end of the line and he wandered off to catch the eye of someone else, leaving his piss infused aroma lingering in the air.

He looked over at Platform 9, where his train had not arrived, and was surprised to see several adults with children running into a wall until they knocked themselves unconscious. He was wondering what they were trying to achieve when the elderly lady behind him tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me young man, I need to call my daughter and tell her that I’ll be late getting in. You don’t have some change for the phone, do you?”

“Sure,” said John, fishing around in his pocket and producing a handful of coins. “How much do you want?”

“Fifty pee’ll be fine.”

“Giz some change.”

John turned from the elderly lady and looked in bewilderment at the smelly tramp standing directly in front of him, his grubby hand extended, with the palm open, ready to accept the free hand-out he felt sure he was going to receive, now that he knew the angry looking man who told him he had no change did in fact have some change to give him. He had been on the other side of the Station when John saw him last and John couldn’t quite believe he had been able to move that quickly, considering he looked almost at the point of death, having not consumed nearly enough of his daily quota of White Lightning. It was as if he had been beamed there by Scotty from the transporter deck of the USS Enterprise.

“Fuck off,” said John firmly, handing 50p in change to the elderly lady and dropping the rest of the coins back into his pocket, “and don’t come back.”

The tramp glared at John with mixture of surprise, confusion and disappointment. “I only asked for some change,” he said sorrowfully, before moving away.

The other people in the queue looked at John as if he had just taken a shit in front of them. He heard them mumbling about how course and vulgar he was and how the tramp had only wanted a little bit of small change. He turned away from them and mumbled something himself. “Fucking hypocrites,” was what he mumbled.

The train arrived at King’s Cross Platform 9 thirty minutes later and, after stepping over the unconscious bodies, he found a carriage as far away as possible from the people who had been queuing with him. He placed his bag in the luggage rack above his head and sat down. More passengers began to fill the carriage until the seat opposite him was the only empty seat left. This was filled a few minutes later by a strange looking young man with a pudding-basin haircut and sporting a pair of what seemed to be old National Health spectacles.

“Hello, my name’s Harry,” the young man said. “Harry Potty. Potty by name, potty by nature.” He snorted, obviously finding his own feeble joke amusing.

John didn’t normally talk to complete strangers on long train journeys. He found that they usually turned out to be tedious nutters who drank their own urine when they didn’t have to or they sacrificed small children to some fictional demon whenever the moon was full.  He was still in a bad mood after waiting for hours on King’s Cross Station and therefore had no intention of striking up a conversation with Harry Potty, or whatever the fuck he called himself. He didn’t look like someone who would drink his own urine or sacrifice young children. He looked like he was something worse – the worst possible person anyone could engage in conversation with no means of escape. He looked like a train spotter.

John grunted a cursory reply and then opened his newspaper.

“Are you going to Newtown?” asked Harry Potty, as the train was leaving the Station.

John didn’t reply. Instead, he shook his newspaper, which was the international sign for ‘shut the fuck up and leave me alone’.

“I’m going to Newtown,” said Harry Potty, ignoring the warning sign John had so clearly shown him, “I’m an apprentice wizard, you know.”

John rolled his eyes and folded up his newspaper. “You do know,” he said, “that there’s no such thing as wizards?”

“On the contrary,” replied Harry, “I’ve been accepted as a student in the first wizard academy in the country.”

“Really? And I suppose you’ll be learning how to do magic and cast spells on people and turn them into frogs or whatever wizards do?”

“I suppose so. I hadn’t really thought that far ahead, to be honest. I thought they might start by teaching me a few card tricks, you know, like Paul Daniels.”

“He’s a magician, not a wizard.”

“So you say.”

“So everyone says.”

“I don’t.”

“Yes, well, that’s probably because you’re delusional.

“What do you?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“I told you what I do.”

“That’s different.”

“Why is it different?”

“I didn’t ask you what you did. You told me. You interrupted me when I was trying to read my newspaper.”

“But you weren’t reading your newspaper. You were just using it to ignore me.”

“So? What if I was?”

“Well, that’s just rude.”

John passed his hand over his face and said, “Does this look like the face of concern?”

Harry stared at John’s face for a few moments before saying, “Yes, actually, it does.”

“All right, if I tell you what I do for a living will you leave me alone?”

“Promise.”

“I’m a games designer.”

“What? Board games?”

“No, computer games. Who designs board games anymore?”

“Wow, that’s brilliant. What games have you designed?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Is that for security reasons or because you’re lying to me about being a games designer?”

“I’m not lying.”

“Yes you are. I may be young but I’m very observant – it’s one of the qualities that’s required for admittance to the Arnold Chemicals Wizard Academy. I’d say, judging by your covert manner and the bulge in the left-hand side of your jacket that you’re a secret agent.”

“Whoa, go back a bit. What Wizard Academy did you say?”

“Arnold Chemicals.”

John went silent for a moment while he reflected on what Harry had just said. He realised that he had seriously misjudged this young man – far from drinking his own urine or sacrificing young children or even being, heaven forbid, a train spotter, he seemed to be actually intelligent with a keen set of observational skills that may be of use during the forthcoming investigation. John reached into his right-hand jacket pocket and produced a wallet, which he opened, revealing the contents to the young man sat opposite him.

Harry gazed at the identification card that John held in front of his face. On the top of the ID card were the words BRITISH SECRET SERVICE, and underneath was a less than flattering back-and-white photograph of John looking several years younger than he did now. Directly below the photo was his name, JOHN LANGDON, and his number, 8001281, and below that were the words CHEESE DIVISION.

“I’m on leave at the moment,” John whispered, after giving Harry enough time to take in the information on the ID card, “and the investigation I’m currently involved in is completely off the record. My brother had protested against Arnold Chemicals and last month I got a frantic call from him. He said he was going to come and stay with me in London and something about a report he had to make to the local police, but then he just disappeared off the face of the earth. I don’t know what he’d got himself involved with – he was just a cook, for God’s sake – but I’m sure it’s got something to do with Arnold Chemicals. Can you see where I’m going with this?”

“You want me to spy for you?” said Harry.

“Yes. Look, I’m not forcing you or anything, but your inside access to Arnold Chemicals could provide invaluable information for my investigation. What do you say?”

Harry’s eyes opened wide and he was silent for a few moments. Then he said, “Brilliant! A spy! That’s way better than being a wizard!”

John breathed a sigh of relief. “Excellent,” he said. “Now there’s already someone inside Arnold Chemicals who used to work for our New Zealand division. His name is Peter Perkins and he’ll be your first point of contact. I’m not sure whether he’s still a reliable source or a double agent, so be careful what you say to him at first.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Peter Perkins. Be careful what I say to him,” Harry said excitedly.

“Right. Now, when we get off this train we act like we don’t know each other. We don’t want to attract any suspicion. Understand?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Act like I don’t know you. Understood?”

“Good. Now, do you think you could leave me in peace to read my newspaper?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Leave you in peace. Read your newspaper.”

 

The train arrived at Newtown Station four hours later and John retrieved his bag from the overhead storage. He said to Harry, “You get off first and I’ll get off about thirty seconds later. That way no one will suspect.”

Harry did as he was instructed and made his way along the platform to the ticket barrier. He was about to hand over his ticket to the guard stationed there when he saw John leave the train. He raised his hand and waved. “See you later, John!” he called loudly.

John stopped in his tracks, turned around and shook his head. “Christ on a fucking bike,” he whispered miserably to himself.

The cover of The Possum Book of Long Train Journeys Sat Next to a Nutter, from which book this chapter was taken

 

 

Chapter 5: THE MAN WHO BECAME ONE WITH THE COSMOS

In his dream there was a complete absence of birdsong.

It was the first thing he noticed – usually he could hear the noisy little bastards outside his bedroom window as they woke him up at some unearthly hour of the morning with their merry but ultimately annoying singing.

But in his dream he was met with silence.

Paul Langdon sat up in bed, rubbed his sleep-encrusted eyes and reached over to the bedside table to retrieve his tape measure – but it wasn’t there. It was an automatic reflex, an obsession so ingrained into his psyche that he still felt the need to do it even now. If it had been there it would have a standard white tape measure made from soft plastic with metal triangular tips at each end. He had a vague notion that it used to belong to his mother’s sewing kit, but he wasn’t entirely sure.

He heard a bell ringing in the distance and he assumed that it must be a Sunday, but it couldn’t be. It was impossible. The giant bell of St Christopher’s church that woke him up on a Sunday, when all the efforts of the birds had failed, was deep and warm. It was nothing like he was hearing now – it was absent and in its place was a delicate tinkling, like the sound of the tiny bell that called rich people to dinner in BBC costume dramas.

He climbed out of bed and walked over to the window. He drew back the curtains and looked out at the clean, pastel-coloured wooden houses across the street. It was all so familiar – yet strangely different. Some half-forgotten memory told him that he should have his tape measure with him – that it meant something, a link to his past maybe.

He dressed quickly, selecting the clean, strangely starchy clothes from the dresser that stood in the corner of the room, trying all the time to recall what had happened to him over the past – but nothing came to mind. He had great gaps in his memory that he couldn’t explain, much less understand.

As he stepped into the street he noticed than it was cleaner than he remembered it – the shops across the road looked brighter, more inviting. He heard his name being called and he looked behind him and saw Amelia and Madge walking towards him. As he waited for the two women to approach he looked around at his surroundings – everything was different, not by much, but just enough to make him feel uncomfortable.

It was as if – somehow in his sleep – the town had undergone a subtle change without him knowing.

And then Paul Langdon woke up.

***

A few days before his fourteenth birthday Paul Langdon had watched a black-and-white film on television called The Incredible Shrinking Man. It was about a man called Scott Carey who was accidentally exposed to a radioactive cloud whilst on a boating trip. As a result he started to get smaller, gradually at first, but by the end of the film he was so small he was able to climb through a wire screen in the basement and into the outside world, where he shrank away to nothing and became one with the vastness of the Cosmos. Maybe it was in his genes or maybe he was susceptible to its ideas, but The Incredible Shrinking Man had a profound effect on Paul and he had nightmares for weeks after.

Each morning he would wake up with an insane desire to measure himself – to make sure he was the same height as he was the day before. Everything was normal at first, but after a couple of weeks he noticed that he had started to shrink – not by much, but he was definitely getting shorter as each day passed.

He was terrified, struck dumb with an intense fear that he was – like Scott Carey – going to shrink away to nothing and become one with the vastness of the Cosmos. It was one of those irrational fears that all teenagers go through – fear of the dark or something nasty lurking under the bed; fear of sitting on the toilet because the devil lived down there (just past the u-bend) and was waiting to grab his little white bottom and drag him down to hell with him.

When he was twelve years old, Paul had told his younger brother, John, about the devil living in the toilet and for weeks his impressionable brother was afraid to sit down on the seat. It was only after he was discovered by his grandmother – when she barged into the bathroom because she was desperate for a wee – that he stopped squatting over the toilet with both feet balanced precariously on either side of the seat whenever he went for a shit.

“And there he was,” his grandmother would tell people later, “squatting on the toilet like a bloody Indian.”

On the wall of Paul’s bedroom, next to the door, was a height chart. It had been a free gift from the dentist after he had been for his last check-up, when he had to have a tooth removed, and it featured cartoon representations of molars and incisors up and down its length. Paul wasn’t entirely sure why a dentist would be giving away free height charts – perhaps, he thought, dental scientists had discovered that teeth had a mysterious effect on the growth hormones of teenage boys.

Paul measured himself on the first day of every month. He didn’t know why he did it – the dental height chart didn’t serve any practical purpose with regards to oral hygiene and so he used it for what it was obviously designed for. His mother used to measure him standing against the wall in the hallway of the house and she’d draw a line and write the date next to it with a soft lead pencil where the top of his head had reached. “Look how big you’ve grown,” she used to say, before she lost interest in it altogether and turned to alcohol instead.

Paul’s fourteenth birthday was on the first of the month and so, before he went downstairs to open his cards and presents, he stood in front of his dental height chart and measured himself. It was with a combination of surprise and shock that he discovered that he had not grown that usual extra fraction since his last measurement but had in fact grown shorter – by a whole inch. Just to make sure he measured himself again.

His mind was buzzing with panic as he walked downstairs, but when he saw the pile of presents waiting for him on the floor of the lounge the panic he had initially felt was suddenly replaced by avarice. His birthday was very much the same as all the other birthdays he could remember – he opened his presents in the morning, at lunchtime his grandparents came to visits with more presents and in the afternoon he had a party where his friends brought him even more presents. The evening was spent sitting lazily in front of the television watching whatever was being shown on the three channels that were available.

The following morning Paul was up early and was stood in front of the dental height chart before anyone in the house was up. This was not his usual routine – it was always the first day of the month and never on two consecutive days. But he had to make sure – to confirm to himself that the height he had recorded the previous morning was a mistake.

It wasn’t.

When he measured himself that morning he was a fraction of an inch shorter than he had been the day before. He couldn’t understand it – it was impossible. There was no way he could have been shrinking, no way at all, and there must be some rational explanation for it. If he was eating the same food, doing the same things, doing the same physical exercise as his classmates, how could he be shrinking? But the evidence was there, staring at him from the bright colours of the dental height chart.

It was the same every day for the whole month. Every day he measured himself he found that he was a fraction of an inch shorter and he remembered how Scott Carey had shrunk away to nothing to become one with the vastness of the Cosmos. Now it was he, Paul Langdon, who was the incredible shrinking man!

“Mum,” he said one day as his mother was loading a pile of his dirty clothes into the twin-tub washing machine, “can you notice anything different about me?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know – just something that’s different.”

“Not that I can see.”

“Are you sure? I mean, are you positive?

“Look, what’s this about – can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Do I look smaller? Do I look as if I’ve been shrinking?”

Paul’s mother shook her head and carried on with the loading the washing machine. “How and why on earth would you be shrinking? Just stop asking me stupid questions and bugger off and bother someone else!”

Maybe his mother was lying, covering up the truth in order to conceal a conspiracy against him or maybe he was the victim of a clandestine experiment and his entire family had been sworn to secrecy – on pain of death. But how had this happened? Hadn’t Scott Carey been exposed to a radioactive cloud? Paul tried to recall when was the last time he had been exposed to a radioactive cloud, but nothing immediately sprang to mind.

And then remembered the dentist! The dentist had given him gas to knock him out when he had his tooth removed – gas that had given him the weirdest and most vivid nightmares. He had looked like a sinister character with his pencil moustache and lazy eye and his array of gleaming instruments arranged next to a liver beside him. He spoke with a clipped, foreign – possibly German – accent and he wrote secret notes when Paul wasn’t looking. “Now senn, I vont you to count town from ze numper zehn ant soon you vill be asleep,” Paul had heard the dentist say as he held the rubber mask over his face and turned up the gas. He was probably a mad Nazi scientist experimenting with gas that shrunk people until they became one with the vastness of the Cosmos and Paul’s mother had unwittingly delivered her son into his evil hands.  Just before he dropped off Paul was sure he heard the sound of a pair of heels clicking together and the dentist saying “Sieg heil, mein Führer!”

It all made sense to a fourteen year-old boy with an overactive imagination. Why else would a dentist give out free height charts if his ultimate aim wasn’t world domination?

In the end it wasn’t the dentist with his clipped foreign accent; it wasn’t the gas that put him to sleep and gave him weird dreams and it wasn’t a massive conspiracy in which his entire family was involved.

In the end it was just his brother.

Paul discovered the reason for his mysterious shrinking on a wet afternoon in November. He had been helping his mother with the washing up when she asked him to get a clean tea towel from the airing cupboard upstairs. While he was searching in the airing cupboard he heard some movement coming from behind the door of his bedroom. The door was slightly open and he pressed his head against the frame so that he could squint inside the room. What he saw there filled him with an overwhelming sense of anger and relief. Inside the room, kneeling on the floor was his brother – all twelve cunning, devious years of him. He had carefully taken Paul’s dental height chart off the wall and was about to put it back a few millimetres higher than it had been previously. He was prevented from doing this by Paul bursting into the room and calling him a little bastard.

“Why did you do this to me?” Paul asked.

“Why did you tell me the devil lived just past the u-bend in our toilet?” replied his brother.

“Fair enough.”

“Granddad told me how scared you were after you saw that film about the shrinking man. Was it really that scary?”

“Yeah – there’s this bit where he has to fight this giant spider, only it’s not giant, it’s just that he’s so small and  . . .”

***

On the morning he discovered what was left of DS Jones, Paul telephoned his brother. John was working as a games designer for a rising software company in the city of London and he was earning a fortune. He earned more in a single month than Paul earned in an entire year at the Stuart Hotel. Sometimes he wondered if was all worth it. Still, he loved cooking – even throughout the years he had been working with heavy machinery, where his ear drums had been damaged beyond repair. Even so he wished he’d studied a little harder at school and maybe he would have bagged a high salary job in the city.

John knew it was his brother calling and so he held the receiver as far away from his ear as he could to allow Paul’s booming voice to be somewhere approximating a normal speech level. At first he just laughed off what Paul had to say, but the urgency and pitch of his brother’s voice made him shut up and listen.

“Come up to London and stay with me, why don’t you,” John suggested. “Get away from Newtown for a while – it’ll do you some good, don’t you think.”

“ARE YOU SURE?” blasted Paul. “I DON’T WANT TO BE ANY BOTHER.”

“Look, it’s no bother. Just get pack some clothes and get on the first train out of there.”

“RIGHT. I HAVE TO REPORT THIS TO THE POLICE FIRST – THEN I’LL JUMP ON A TRAIN.”

“You do that. See you soon, big brother. “

“YEAH.”

Paul threw a few clothes into a suitcase along with his wash kit and a book to read on the train. He stuffed a pair of yellow Marigold gloves into his pocket, picked up the black plastic bin bag that contained DS Jones’ discarded belongings and headed off to the police station.

***

Paul felt a little better after speaking to DCI Smith, although he was somewhat concerned about what he had got himself involved in. His brother was right though – he did need a break. The atmosphere in Newtown was beginning to feel more oppressive to him as each day passed. He knew it had something to do with Arnold Chemicals but he wasn’t sure how or why. What he did know, however, was that the people of the town had behaved differently towards him ever since he had vehemently expressed his opposition to the plans for the location of Arnold Chemicals.

He tried to put those thoughts out of his mind and focus on the positive as he headed towards the Railway Station. He was so busy thinking about seeing his brother after such a long time that he didn’t notice the large black car with the blacked-out windows pull up beside him. Nor did he notice the two large men wearing sunglasses and dressed in black suits get out the car until it was too late. He had already been bundled into the back of the car before he knew what was happening.

“Well, well, Mr Langdon. Fancy seeing you here,” said the man in the back seat in his smooth, velvety voice. “I think you’ve been a thorn in my side for long enough.”

Paul was about to speak but a blow to the side of his head sent him reeling into unconsciousness.

***

The first face Paul Langdon saw when he regained consciousness was Clifford Stine’s. He tried to move but found that he couldn’t.

Clifford Stine smiled. “It’s the anaesthetic, Mr Langdon. We don’t want you going anywhere, do we? Now, I know you’ve been speaking to the police but I don’t know what you’ve told them.”

“I WOULDN’T TELL YOU ANYWAY,” slurred Paul.

“I figured that much. It doesn’t matter what they know anyway – they’re far too stupid to find out what we’ve been up to here and what are ultimate plans are.”

“YOU’LL NEVER GET AWAY WITH IT,” slobbered Paul, “PEOPLE LIKE YOU NEVER DO.”

“Oh, but I already have got away with it, Mr Langdon. And as for people like me – well, we get away with it all the time. And do you know why? Because we’re rich and we’re powerful and we’re in control. I’m going to send you on a little trip – but don’t worry I’m not going to kill you or have done to you what I ordered to have done to that nice, but nosy, undercover policeman. I have something far more creative in mind for you – something that you’ve been thinking about for quite some time now. And guess what – it won’t hurt. The process has already begun. It’s been in your system for days. All its going take to complete it is a little prick.”

Paul heard a door behind him open and someone enter the room.

“Ah,” said Clifford Stine. “And here’s the little prick now.”

“Guten abent, Herr Schtein,” said the little prick.

Paul couldn’t move but that didn’t stop his mind whirling around in perpetual motion. The little prick’s voice had triggered in him a distant memory from his past. He heard something metallic being dragged towards him and then the hiss of a gas cylinder being turned on. A shadow fell over him and he looked up in horror at who he saw before him. He was older now, much older. His cheeks were hollow and his dark eyes were sunk into their sockets. But he still had that pencil moustache and the clipped foreign accent.

“Now zen, Herr Lankton,” the dentist said as he moved the black rubber mask over Paul’s face, “I’m going to giff you some of zis gas to relax you and zen you vill feel a liddle prick in your arm. It’s nussink to vorry about. It vill chust make you forget and go to sssssleeeep.”

An automatic reflex made Paul start counting down from ten as the rubber mask was pressed over his nose and mouth.

10 . . . 9 . . . . 8 . . . . . 7 . . . . . . 6 . . .  . . . . 5 . . . . . . . . .4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

***

He awoke, as if from a dream, on the hillside overlooking the town where he had a vague notion about picnicking during the summer. He had no shoes or socks on and he had no recollection of how he got there or how long he had been there. But it was a nice day – the sun was shining high up in the cloudless sky, unusual for this time of year. He tried to remember why he had come to this spot but it was useless. He couldn’t even remember his name.

He looked down at the town and it looked different in the sun – cleaner somehow, tidier, as if while he’d been asleep someone had gone up and down its streets with an industrial cleaner. He stood up and the grass too felt different, springier, and if he hadn’t known any better, artificial. He started to walk back to the town, down the grassy hill, towards the Railway Station.

It seemed strange walking in the hot sun. The air was quite still and there were no birds singing. It took him about ten minutes to walk to the outskirts of the town and he was surprised to see two oldish ladies stood by a sign that read: NEWTOWN WELCOMES CAREFUL DRIVERS. They were waving at him.

“Coo-ee, luv,” hailed the older of the two. “We were getting worried about you.”

“Worried? Why?” Paul replied, realising that there was something different about his voice, softer maybe. He couldn’t really say.

“Well, you’ve been gone for ages.”

“Have I?”

“Yes, absolutely ages,” chipped in the other woman. “What were you doing up on the hill?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember – and I’ve lost my shoes.”

“Have you had a bump on the head or something?”

“I think I must have – and if I did I can’t remember anything about it.”

“Well, you look a bit pasty to me.”

“I don’t know what . . . have you noticed how quiet it is?”

“Quiet?”

“Yes, quiet. I mean there’s no noise at all. What’s happened to all the birds?”

“Birds?”

“You know, those little fling things that wake you up in the morning.”

“Flying things? Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll be telling me next you can travel in space.”

“Well actually you . . . I’m sorry, I’ve . . . excuse me, but who are you?”

“You must have had a bump on the head,” said the younger of the two. “I’m Amelia and this is Madge.”

“Right,” Paul said, “look I’m sorry but I can’t remember my name.”

“Good heavens,” said Madge. “I think we’d better take you to casualty. You must have amnesia or something. Your name – it’s Scott. Scott Carey.”

 

 

The cover of The Possum Book of Weird Science, from which this chapter is taken.

 

Chapter 4: THE MAN WHO DIDN'T HAVE A GIMMICK

DCI Barnaby Smith was concerned.

Not only had several people in the town disappeared without a trace, including his own DS) but he was also reading reports in the Newtown Gazette of people shrinking. He was looking at one right at that moment.

LOCAL WOMAN CLAIMS SHE HAS LOST SIX INCHES

Mrs Amelia Price (58) claims she has lost six inches in height over the space of six months. “I just don’t understand it,” she told our reporter, “I thought Madge was messing me about when she told me she was shrinking – I just thought she was going doolally and I laughed it off.”

   Madge Allsopp (63) began shrinking six months ago. Once a tall slender woman of 6’ 3”, she is now just short of 5’ 9”. “It’s happening all over Newtown,” she said. “People are beginning to shrink. You don’t notice it at first because it happens so slowly, but then you realise that your clothes are getting too big and your shoes of slipping off your feet. Nothing like this happened before Arnold Chemicals moved here.”

   A reporter was sent to interview Clifford Stine about this phenomenon but he has yet to file his report.

 

Barnaby read the article with concern – He thought: what the hell is happening here? And what has it got to do with Arnold Chemicals? He hadn’t liked Clifford Stine from the moment he’d met him – he seemed to him to be arrogant, pompous, conceited, haughty, egotistical, big-headed, superior, supercilious, self-important, condescending, patronising, vain and smug.

Barnaby was putting the Thesaurus back onto the shelf behind his desk when the duty sergeant poked his head around the corner. “Sir, there’s a bloke with a funny accent in reception – says he’s from New Zealand.”

“Right - that’ll be Jim Cook. Send him straight in sergeant.”

A few moments later Jim was sat in Barnaby’s office with a hot cup of coffee in his hand. “That sergeant’s a bit strange,” he said in his now familiar Kiwi accent, “I had to keep repeating myself. I kinda got the feeling that he didn’t really understand what I was saying.”

 “What?” asked Barnaby.

Jim looked at his friend and then began to laugh. Before long they were both laughing and talking about the good old days in New Zealand when, with the assistance of Herbert Bogart and Buster Duran, they had attached electrodes to Martin Garré’s testicles and then turned up the power until his hair caught fire and he started to talk (in a comedy Japanese accent) about the extent of his cheese smuggling operation.

Barnaby wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes. “Life was so simple back then, wasn’t it,” he said. Amidst the tears there was a touch of sadness in his voice.

Jim looked at his friend and saw that he wasn’t himself. “You know, when all this is over you can come back to New Zealand with me and start working for The Big Top on a full-time basis.”

“I don’t know, Jim.”

“It’s not like you're happy, is it? You’re not married . . .”

“I was.”

“I know. I know. We researched you before you came over on your exchange visit. You were perfect for us because you had just about all the right qualities required for being a DCI in the British police force. You were divorced; you had an estranged daughter who had grown into a moody teenager; your in-laws still liked you but they didn’t trust you; you have a particular liking for Asian prostitutes; your parents died in a car accident when you only ten; your sister was murdered by a serial killer who is still at large; you listen to classical music and you’re a recovering alcoholic. You ticked all the boxes except one, mate.”

“Which was?”

“You didn’t have a gimmick.”

“A what?”

“A gimmick. You know – you’re not a cook or an antique dealer or a gardener; you can’t see dead people; you don’t have OCD or any form of autism; you’re not confined to a wheelchair; you can’t fly or run faster than the speed of sound; you don’t have the ability to talk to animals; you’re not a black female lesbian with one leg, you don’t come from outer space and you don’t wear a colourful spandex costume. If you’d had any one of those gimmicks along with your other qualities when you took the Big Top’s aptitude test you’d have scored one hundred percent. As it was, you scored eighty-five, which was a perfectly acceptable ‘A’ minus.”

Barnaby frowned. “But you don’t have a gimmick,” he said, feeling slightly irritated and inconsequential.

“Yes I do,” replied Jim, “I’m an expert in cheese.”

“Speaking of cheese, why don’t I take you along to lab and you have a gander at what we found in William Beck’s house.”

“Lead the way.”

They left the office and Jim followed Barnaby down a maze of corridors until they reached a set of double doors, above which was a sign that read: NO ENTRY TO UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL. Barnaby punched a four letter code into the security lock beside the doors and the two men stepped in the Buckinghamshire Constabulary Laboratories.

Reggie Dwight was examining a piece of evidence through a microscope. He had his back to the door and didn’t hear the two men enter. Barnaby tapped Reggie on the shoulder. When he turned around Barnaby and Jim noticed he was wearing a pair of sunglasses.

“How the hell can you see anything through those?” Barnaby asked him. “Take them off and let’s see those blue eyes of yours.”

Reggie groaned. “Rough night, was it?” enquired Jim. “Although I must say those shades make you look like a honky cat.”

“You’d better believe it, it went off like a rocket, man,” said Reggie. “It’s a wonder I’m still standing.”

“Don’t go breaking my heart, Reggie,” said Barnaby. “Where were you last night?”

“I was at the Philadelphia Freedom Nightclub with Guy and Daniel. Benny and the Jets were playing there. I’d had a lot to drink, because it was Guy’s birthday. As a surprise I went up and spoke to the band to ask them if they’d play a song for Guy. As I was walking back to the table I ran into this tiny dancer. It must have been written in the stars because she was the one. I didn’t say anything at first, but then she said “Sorry seems to be the hardest word, doesn’t it?”  I apologised to her just as the band started to play some sad songs. I thought to myself: Can you feel the love tonight, man? And then I started to dance with her. She told me her name was Nikita and she danced like a candle in the wind. I whispered in her ear, “Are you ready for love?” And then it all went wrong. Guy came over and I said to him, “the band are playing your song, mate,” but he said, “Never mind that – the bitch is back!” meaning my ex-girlfriend. I could see she was angry with me for dancing with another girl so I tried to calm her down. I said, “There’s something about the way you look tonight, and I don’t like it.” Then she started shouting at me. “You don’t realise the sacrifice I made for you, do you!” Well, as a matter of fact I did realise – but she was an Ireland girl with red hair and a temper to match and without any warning she took a swing at me and caught me right in the eye. “Whoa!” I said, “Saturday night’s alright for fighting, but not tonight!”

“Sounds like a wild night,” said Jim.

“Tell me about it. Anyway, enough of my problems – I take it you’re here to see the evidence from the Beck place?”

“That’s right.”

“Follow me.”

Barnaby and Jim followed Reggie through a set of plastic doors and down a long corridor, at the end of which was a steel door, above which was a sign that read: NO ENTRY TO UNAUTHORISED AUTHORISED PERSONNEL.

“Bloody security’s tighter than a gnat’s arse in here,” said Reggie. He took a security pass from his pocket and swiped it down the security lock on the left hand side of the door.

An LCD display flashed up above the lock. It read PEASE ENTER PASSWORD.

Reggie typed in a seven digit password on the key pad beneath the LCD display. Another LCD display flashed up: PLEASE CONFIRM PASSWORD.

Reggie typed in his password again and another LCD display flashed up: PLEASE ENTER DATE OF BIRTH.

“This is new,” said Reggie as he typed in his date of birth and another LCD display flashed up: PLEASE ENTER SPECIES.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Reggie said, and then typed in HUMAN. Another LCD display flashed up: PLEASE ENTER SEXUAL ORIENTATION.

Reggie stared in disbelief at the display in front of him. “What? What the fuck is this?” he said. Another LCD display flashed up. It read: ONLY JOKING! And then the door opened with a loud hiss.

As they entered the sterile room Reggie noticed the two young lab technicians sniggering in the corner. “Oh, very funny,” he said. “Hardy-fucking-ha!”

Reggie led Barnaby and Jim over to a large table, on which was a large Perspex box. It was completely sealed apart from two holes in one side that accommodated a pair of thick rubber gloves. Jim looked at the pink blob inside the box with interest. “What is it?” he asked.

“That’s just it,” replied Barnaby, “we have no idea.”

“That’s right,” said Reggie. “We know that it consists of several known chemical compounds and one that we can only speculate on – the only thing we know about that is that it’s some form of unknown cheese-like substance. It’s the reason why Barnaby called you in.”

“Do you want to examine it, Jim?” Barnaby asked.

“I’d like to smell it first,” said Jim, “if that’s alright with you.”

“That’s fine.” Reggie removed one of the rubber gloves from the box and Jim bent down and moved his nose close to the hole.

He sniffed.

At first he thought he mistaken, but after a second sniff he was convinced. He thought: But how? How could it have got here? Who was bringing it into the country?

“What is it, Jim?” Barnaby asked, noticing the look of concern on his friend’s face. “Do you know what it is?”

“Yes, I’m afraid I do. And if that’s the case this country may be in serious trouble.”

“But what is it?”

“It’s Australian Bitey Cheese!”

At that moment the telephone in the lab began to ring. One of the young technicians picked up the receiver and said, “War Office – do you want a fight?”

Barnaby could hear shouting coming down the line and the technician began apologising profusely. He put the receiver back onto its cradle and said in a cowed voice, “Err, Mr Smith – that was the desk sergeant – he says there’s someone with him that wants to speak with you urgently.”

“Did he say who it was?”

“No, but he sounded pretty pissed off.”

“All right, let’s go,” Barnaby said and he and Jim and Reggie left the lab. Just as he was about to exit through the door, Reggie turned to the two lab technicians, shook his head and said, “Little wankers.”

Then the door hissed closed behind him.

***

“He’s in Interview Room 3, sir,” said the desk sergeant.

Barnaby picked up a clipboard and entered the room. Sat at the table in the middle of the room was Paul Langdon, the head chef of the Stuart Hotel. He was clutching a black plastic bin bag.

“I FOUND THESE IN THE CELLAR OF THE HOTEL,” he bellowed, “BUT I THINK YOU’D BETTER PUT THESE ON BEFORE YOU TOUCH ANYTHING IN THERE.”

Paul handed Barnaby a pair of yellow Marigold gloves and the bin bag. Barnaby pulled on the gloves and extracted the contents of the bag. It was a set of clothes and they were covered in the pink gunk that he had just been looking at in the lab. The clothes belonged to DS Jones.

“Where did you say you found these?”

“IN THE CELLAR OF THE HOTEL,” the chef roared. “I WENT DOWN THERE THIS MORNING TO GET SOME TAPIOCA FOR THE OLD COUPLE THAT ARE STAYING THERE AND I FOUND THEM AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS.”

“Have you shown these to anyone other than myself?”

“NO!”

“I’d like you to keep it that way, if you don’t mind?”

“ANYTHING YOU SAY!”

“Now, is there anything else you want to tell me?”

"WELL, I'M GOING TO BE OUT OF TOWN FOR A FEW DAYS. GOING TO LONDON TO VISIT MY BROTHER, BUT I'LL LET YOU KNOW AS SOON AS I GET BACK."

"That's fine."

“OH YES, THERE IS ONE OTHER THING,” vociferated the chef.

"What's that?" 

“I THINK I’VE BEEN SHRINKING!”

 

 

 

The cover of the The Possum Book of Gimmicky Detective Stories, from which this chapter was taken.