The Greatest Show Off Earth Read online

  ‘I thought the rest would do you good.’

  ‘But Liza—’

  ‘She’ll be all right. But we have to go now.’

  ‘Are the villagers with the torches here then?’

  ‘Ah those.’ Mr Hilsavise did sickly grinnings.

  ‘What do you mean, ah those?’

  ‘Things are a bit difficult,’ Mr H. explained. ‘You see since you’ve been, er, sleeping, Bramfield has been put under curfew. All the roads leading out of the village have been blocked and a special police weapons unit is combing the area. F.A.R.T.’

  ‘Excuse me if I don’t.’

  ‘F.A.R.T. The Fire Arms Response Team. A rather gung-ho bunch, by the sound of it.’

  ‘Typical,’ said Simon. ‘All it takes is a few armed terrorists blowing up a police station to free a serial killer and you get that kind of knee-jerk reaction.’

  ‘Quite. So I haven’t been able to raise as many torch-bearers as I had wished.’

  ‘But you got a couple of hundred?’

  ‘Well

  ‘One hundred?

  ‘Well

  ‘Fifty?’

  Mr Hilsavise scratched his shaven head. ‘Did you read that bit in The Greatest Show off Earth where Raymond asks the professor how many soldiers he’s already recruited to the cause?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Simon, who had only ever read the bits that he personally was in. ‘How many did he say, again?’

  Mr Hilsavise handed Simon a stick with an oily rag tied to the end. ‘He said. Just you. You’re it.’

  ‘He said we can come on down.’ Professor Merlin returned to the deck. Raymond stood all alone. He had been doing something over the side that he shouldn’t.

  ‘Who said?’ Raymond hastily buttoned his fly

  ‘My good friend King Eddie.’

  ‘Your good friend?’

  ‘Charming fellow. We had a long conversation. He’s a big admirer of the circus. Funny thing. It was almost as if he was expecting us. Charming man.’

  ‘This would be the same charming man who intends to stuff moons into the polar openings and extinguish all life on Earth.’

  ‘Fiddle-de fiddle-dum.’

  ‘And fiddle de de. Can you muster up much of a show, Professor? Most of everything was left behind on Saturn.’

  ‘The show must go on. And where are my artistes, by the by?’

  ‘Gone to get changed, I think. They all do look pretty knackered. Perhaps this is a big mistake.’

  ‘They are troupers. If it is to be our final performance, we shall give it our all.’

  ‘Fair enough. Just one thing, Professor. Could I ask you a favour?’

  ‘No need to ask. If it is within my power to grant it, you can consider it granted.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ Raymond said as he made off along the deck towards the wheelhouse. ‘I just wanted to steer the ship down to Eden by myself.’

  ‘I just want to deal with this by myself.’ Inspector D’Eath squared up to the well-dressed woman who stood before him in the operations room above The Jolly Gardeners.

  She wore a waisted blue woollen suit, white blouse, black stockings, shoes just high enough at the heels to turn heads. And she bore an uncanny resemblance to a certain Helen Mirren.

  ‘Chief Inspector Jenny Lestrade, but you can call me ma’am.’

  ‘Can I call you guv, ma’am?’ asked Constable Derek.

  ‘Of course you can, Constable. So, Inspector, what do we have?’

  Inspector D’Eath chewed upon his lip and regrouped some breakaway hair strands that had made it as far as his chin. With a rictus smile he displayed the large map of the area, which had been blu-tacked to the wall by the window. ‘We have road blocks set up here, here, here, here, here and here.’

  ‘There?’ Chief Inspector Lestrade pointed.

  ‘There,’ said D’Eath. ‘And there and there and there and there.’

  ‘And there?’

  ‘And there.’

  ‘What about there?’

  ‘There too.’

  ‘And there?’

  Inspector D’Eath examined the map. ‘That’s The Jolly Gardeners, where we are now.’

  ‘Just testing. Well, you seem to have road blocks pretty much everywhere.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the inspector proudly.

  ‘Then let’s just hope he doesn’t choose to simply hike across the fields to freedom.’

  ‘He won’t do that.’

  ‘Oh.’ The chief inspector took a packet of cigarettes from her handbag, stared at them wistfully and then put them back.

  ‘Given it up?’ asked D’Eath, with more than the merest hint of malice.

  ‘Just today.’ The chief inspector peered at the map. ‘Do you have any specific reason to believe that the killer will still be in the area?’

  ‘I’ve got half a million of them actually.

  Constable Derek coughed nervously.

  ‘Please explain,’ said Lestrade.

  ‘I know this psycho, ma’am. Know the way he thinks. He’s somewhere close and I’ll have him.’

  The chief inspector pointed once more to the map. ‘What is this big area here that doesn’t have any road blocks around it at all?’ I’

  ‘Ah that.’ Inspector D’Eath smiled. ‘That’s just a chicken farm. It belongs to a prominent member of the local chamber of commerce. Town councillor. Robert Bum-Poo his name is.’

  ‘Did you say Bum-Poo?’

  ‘I did, but it’s not particularly funny.’

  ‘I wonder.’

  ‘No really. It’s not funny at all.’

  ‘It makes me laugh,’ said Constable Derek.

  ‘Shut up, Constable.’

  ‘No,’ said the chief inspector. ‘It makes me wonder if it could be the same Bum-Poo.’

  Constable Derek sniggered and nudged Inspector D’Eath. ‘One Bum-Poo’s much the same as another. Unless you’ve had an “Indian”, eh, guv?’

  ‘Constable, shut up.’

  ‘Yes, sir guv.’

  ‘The same Bum-Poo as who, ma’am?’

  ‘There was a doctor, Robard Bum-Poo, genetic engineer, worked for the ministry of agriculture. Brilliant scientist. But he went off the rails, tried to create a new strain of chicken using human hormones. There were some rumours that he was actually, you know, doing it with the birds.’

  Inspector D’Eath groaned.

  ‘Questions were asked in the House and the project was abandoned. Bum-Poo slipped out of sight.’

  ‘Down the toilet?’ Constable Derek collapsed in laughter.

  ‘I’m warning you, Constable.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.”

  ‘I heard that he’s opened some kind of wildlife sanctuary or something.’ The chief inspector ignored the convulsing constable. ‘ANIMAL, I think it was called. No, BEAST, that’s what it was.’

  Inspector D’Eath groaned again.

  ‘Still, I can’t see what that would have to do with the man we’re looking for, or the terrorists who released him.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said D’Eath. ‘I think I can. It’s the same Bum-Poo, ma’am, and he’s the brains behind the entire operation. Constable.’

  Constable Derek was clutching at his stomach with one hand and dabbing tears of mirth from his eyes with the other. ‘Yes, sir,’ he managed.

  ‘Pull yourself together, you stupid boy. Get on the telephone and call the special police weapons unit that is combing the area.’

  ‘Special police weapons unit, sir?’

  “The Fire Arms Response Team. F.A.R.T.’

  ‘What?’ The constable’s eyes started from his head.

  ‘F.A.R.T., you idiot. F.A.R.T. If Bum-Poo’s up to what I think he’s up to, then only F.A.R.T. can stop him.’

  ‘Only F.A.R.T. can stop Bum-Poo?’ The constable collapsed on to the floor, where he lay writhing with laughter and kicking his legs in the air.

  Inspector D’Eath made the call himself.

  ‘See, I told you I could do it by
myself.’ Raymond stood at the wheel.

  ‘We’re not down yet, do take care.’ Professor Merlin hid his face.

  ‘Piece of cake,’ said Raymond. ‘I have the hang of it now. What really makes this ship fly, Professor?’

  ‘It’s engine, Raymond.’

  ‘Yes, but how does its engine work?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But it does. Never mind. Hold on tight, we’re going in.’

  The great Victorian ship dropped down towards Eden. Oceans passed beneath, continents took shape, mountains ranged and rivers meandered. Forests and plains, hamlets and more seas.

  ‘Take a left here, Raymond.’

  Raymond took a left.

  ‘Just a tad,’ said the professor.

  ‘That was a tad.’

  ‘It was more like a bit than a tad.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Raymond. ‘I see where I’ve been going wrong.’

  Ahead a great city arose upon the coast.

  ‘Eutopia,’ said Professor Merlin.

  ‘Eutopia? They named their capital city Eutopia?’

  ‘They’re a high-minded people.’

  ‘They’re a pack of bastards and I hate them.’

  If Fogerty was Memphis, Egypt, then Eutopia was not. It had a flavour of New York about it. But a New York designed by the architect who worked on the Tower of Babel. The scale was daunting. Tier upon tier of yellow stone, rising to meet the clouds.

  ‘Ziggurats,’ said the professor. ‘Thousands of years old. All mod cons within, of course. Up there,’ the ancient pointed towards the mother of all ziggurats, ‘the king’s palace.’

  ‘Should I land in his back garden?’

  ‘No, Raymond. I think we should observe protocol. Land in the harbour.’

  ‘Okey-doke.’ Raymond pushed on the wheel. ‘Down a half tad.’

  Some splendid-looking vessels lay at anchor, they resembled the galleys of ancient Rome, although they appeared to be newly constructed. Elaborately painted they were, with double rows of oars on each side.

  ‘Slave ships?’ Raymond asked.

  ‘Not every “George” goes into the pot.’

  ‘What?’ Raymond knotted his fists.

  ‘Both hands on the wheel please, helmsman.’

  ‘Bastards!’ said Raymond.

  ‘Quite so. Right a tad and down two bits.’

  The dock was lined with people. Gaily dressed and cheering. And human. Well, of the same root race. As Raymond brought the great ship gently down, the professor waved to the people who were waving up at him. ‘A reception committee,’ he crooned. ‘You see, Raymond, wherever the circus of Professor Merlin goes, folk tip their hats and greet us with a merry wave. Tra-la-tra-la-tra-la-tra-le,’

  Raymond raised an eyebrow. The old man seemed to have conquered his ‘weariness’. Remarkable what a cheering crowd can do for a sagging ego.

  Beneath his breath Raymond whispered, ‘Cannibal bastards,’ gave the ship’s wheel a violent tad and a half back and pulled on the hand brake. The SS Salamander belly-flopped into the harbour, raising a fair old wave, that slapped against the dock and drenched the feet of the reception committee.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Raymond, who was anything but.

  ‘Fiddle-de fiddle-dum,’ said Professor Merlin.

  Raymond found the button that made the anchor drop and gave it a press. And on the dock a band began to play.

  ‘Shall we synchronize our watches now?’ Professor Merlin asked.

  Elsewhere other watches were being synchronized. Those on the steely-thewed wrists of the special police weapons unit F.A.R.T. for a dirty half dozen. These were manly men. Several had even been thrown out of the SAS for being too manly. They wore black body armour, black trews and great big boots. Their faces were boot-blacked and so hard and tough and manly were they, that they boot-blacked their eyeballs also. They carried high-calibre assault rifles, with infra-red image-intensifying night sights and had Desert Eagles stuck in their belts.

  They were not the kind of men you would wish to meet on a dark night. Or at any other time really.

  Three men in grey were synchronizing their watches.

  They were still in The Bramfield Arms. And although grey man number one (who had erroneously referred to himself earlier as grey man number two) had made repeated phone calls to his guvnor on Eden and made more and more urgent pleas into the answerphone, his calls had not been returned and so now the three grey men were getting up to leave,

  ‘Where are we going to?’ asked grey man number two.

  Bum-Poo’s,’ said grey man number one.

  ‘Oh, I went before I came out, actually.’

  ‘Bum-Poo’s chicken farm. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.’

  And on Bum-Poo’s chicken farm, Long Bob, who didn’t have a wrist watch, synchronized his kitchen clock. ‘Shall we put on our robes?’ he asked.

  ‘Robes?’ Military Dave, who now had the looker sitting on his knee, said, ‘I didn’t know we were going to have robes.’

  ‘I ran them up myself.’ Long Bob opened the kitchen cupboard, rooted them out and handed them round.

  The looker sniffed at hers disdainfully. ‘They’re just old feed sacks, stitched together and dyed black.’

  Long Bob indicated the feathered pentagram chest motifs. ‘I sprayed these on with luminous paint. You each have a winged helmet too.’

  The Roman Candles looked at each other. ‘Fab,’ they said.

  ‘Where’s Dick?’ asked Long Bob. ‘I’ve done one for him as well and a little one for his dog.’

  ‘I think he’s still in the tool shed,’ said a Candle called Kevin.

  ‘Well go out and get him. He’s supposed to be laying out the bleachers for the chickens to sit on during the service. Tonight the blood sacrifice will be made and the new world order will begin. Hail Sate-Hen.’

  ‘Hail Sate-Hen,’ they all went. Barking mad the lot of ‘em.

  The lot of ‘em on the dock were still cheering. Somewhat soggy of footwear, but still cheering. They wouldn’t get the big parade though. The knackered speaker system crackled out ‘The March of the Gladiators’ and the artistes trooped down the passenger gangway from the deck.

  Raymond watched them sadly. They looked so very frail, as if they might crumble to the slightest touch. Perhaps this was all a bad idea. But it had to be done. And the artistes were strutting. They were troupers and they trooped.

  From his eyrie in the wheelhouse, Raymond could see the band below struggling to fall in with ‘The March of the Gladiators’ and the cheering crowd that engulfed the circus folk as they reached the dock.

  And then he saw the soldiers.

  A dozen of them, dressed in uniforms of red and white.

  They sprang up from nowhere and suddenly seemed to be everywhere. They had vicious-looking weapons and these they pointed at Professor Merlin and his troupers.

  The cheering stopped, the band ceased to play. The ship’s speaker system, as if taking its cue, faltered, the needle got stuck on the record, three bars of music repeated again and again and again.

  And then died.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Raymond cowered on the wheelhouse floor. All alone once more. Clothes on this time, though not his own, but all alone again. ‘Oh my God, what shall I do?’

  He crawled over to the port-side door and peeped from its broken window. The once-cheering crowd was melting away. Soldiers were marching the circus folk into the distance. Others had taken up guard positions at the foot of the gangway.

  ‘What to do?’

  Raymond crawled over to the starboard wheelhouse door, opened it quietly and slipped out on to the deck. Dive over the side and swim ashore? Raymond didn’t think so. He could hardly swim. Drowning was a particular nightmare of his. Creep along to the stern and try to jump down on to the dock? Big ship. Too high to jump from.

  Raymond ducked behind a steamer chair and peeped once more at the tragic scene. He heard a soldier’s voice shout, ‘Hurry up,’ and he saw
the rifle butt as it struck the professor between his jagged shoulder-blades.

  Raymond turned his face away and bit upon a knuckle.

  He would have to do something. And something right now.

  There was nothing else for it. Raymond took down an aged lifebelt and crept back to the starboard side of the ship.

  It was a long way down. The water was probably very cold and very very deep. And he couldn’t swim much. And he was just about as scared as it is possible to be.

  Raymond slipped the lifebelt around his middle, took a great big breath, offered up a sailor’s prayer for deliverance and leapt into the sea.

  24

  A lot of really hair-raising things seem to happen in slow motion. Car crashes, for instance, and being shot they say. Or, as in Raymond’s case, leaping to almost certain death from the side of an ocean liner.

  On the long journey down, much of Raymond’s short life flashed before him. It seemed to consist of a catalogue of smallish mistakes, all leading inexorably towards this final very largish one.

  Just before he hit the water it occurred to Raymond that perhaps he should not have jumped at all. Perhaps he should have released the two hundred Millwall warriors instead. But it was rather too late for that now.

  With a dull little splash that nobody heard, the sea received Raymond’s body and covered it with water. It was a pretty clapped-out old lifebelt he was wearing and one which had long ago lost all of its buoyancy.

  The waves lapped about the hull of the SS Salamander. Seagulls turned in the sky. The weather looked like staying nice.

  The night was now pitch black in Bramfield, with the smell of a storm in the air. Simon shone the Scribe’s electric torch along the abandoned railway track. He was saving the stick with the oily rag on the end for some moment he hoped might soon arrive.

  ‘We need your villagers,’ he whispered to Mr Hilsavise. ‘Long Bob’s bunch have got guns.’

  ‘I saw you slip the Scribe’s gun into your pocket.’

  ‘It doesn’t have any bullets.’ Simon shivered. ‘You should have let me look at the book. I’d have known what to do then.’