The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag Read online

  ‘Anyone sitting here?’ An inmate indicated the vacant chair next to me. In the outside world such a question would be easy to answer. But not here.

  ‘You tell me,’ I said.

  ‘It’s vacant.’

  ‘Splendid.’

  The inmate sat himself down. He was your standard issue inmate. Young, thin, pinched-faced, glassy-eyed, greasy-haired, pimply, bad-breathed, evil-smelling—

  ‘Hey, let up,’ said the inmate. ‘I’ve got a lovely smile.’ He showed me his lovely smile.

  Black-toothed, yellow-tongued—

  ‘Give it a rest.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I was only thinking out loud.’

  ‘You want to watch that, they’ll put you in the nut house.’

  ‘Ha ha ha,’ I said, as I hadn’t lost my sense of humour.

  ‘I’m glad you haven’t lost your sense of humour,’ said the inmate, tucking into his porridge. ‘I’m Dan, by the way.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Dan.’

  ‘No, it’s Dan-by-the-way,’ said Dan by the way. ‘I’m only Dan to my friends.’

  ‘And do you have many of those?’

  ‘Well, none, actually.’

  ‘Then don’t let me spoil a perfect record.’

  ‘Oh, what the heck, you can call me Dan, if you like.’

  ‘Cheers, Dan.’

  ‘No, I said Dan-if-you-like. Are you making the mock, or what?’

  ‘I’m just trying to eat my breakfast.’

  ‘Yeah, well, let’s have no trouble then.’

  ‘Fine.’ I picked what appeared to be a toenail from my teeth and cast it aside.

  ‘What are you in for?’ asked Dan.

  ‘Multiple murder, cannibalism and necrophilia,’ I said, as this often proved an efficient method of subtly discouraging further conversation. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’ Dan tucked further into his porridge. ‘That’s what I’m in here for.’

  ‘Let’s eat up and shove off, shall we, chief?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Dan.

  A little later Dan said, ‘Actually I’m not in for multiple murder. Well, I am, a bit. But it’s not the real reason I’m in here. I’m in here because I know things they don’t want the outside world to know.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘They, them. The powers that be.’

  ‘Always the same old they,’ I said. ‘Been having trouble with them myself.’

  ‘I uncovered this terrible secret,’ said Dan. ‘You see, every man, woman and child in the entire world has an invisible alien sitting on their shoulders manipulating their thoughts.’

  ‘Bummer.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it? And no-one will believe me. Because the aliens manipulate their thoughts and tell them not to.’

  ‘Tricky situation.’

  ‘And I know about the Jesus conspiracy.’

  ‘Is that like the JFK conspiracy?’

  ‘Only in that it’s a conspiracy.’

  ‘So it’s not like Jesus wasn’t really crucified, he was shot with an arrow from the grassy knoll, or anything like that?’

  ‘No, it’s about the second coming.’

  ‘Oh yeah? What, you know the date or something?’

  ‘July the twenty-seventh.’

  ‘This year?’

  ‘No, not this year, don’t be stupid.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘July the twenty-seventh, nineteen sixty-seven.’

  ‘How about a stroll around the exercise yard, chief?’

  ‘In a minute, Barry, I don’t want to miss this one.’

  ‘Barry?’ said Dan.

  ‘Never mind about Barry. July the twenty-seventh, nineteen sixty-seven, you say? I wonder how that slipped by me.’

  ‘Perhaps you were doing the Hippy Trail, or at Woodstock, or reading a Johnny Quinn novel, or something.’

  ‘That must have been it.’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t it.’ Dan banged his spoon on the table. ‘It was never in the newspapers. It’s a conspiracy. Didn’t you ever wonder about the Summer of Love? Why nineteen sixty-seven was different from any other year? It’s because it was the year Jesus was reborn. He was reborn in San Francisco. The CIA knew it was going to happen, they had copies of the missing pages from the Bible that were suppressed by the Pope prior to the English translation being done for King James. The date of the second coming was in there. The CIA took Jesus into protective custody, he’s being brought up on a farm in Wisconsin. He was born in nineteen sixty-seven, so he will be thirty-three, his age at his former death, when the millennium comes around.’

  ‘Something for us all to look forward to there, then.’

  ‘Prat,’ said Dan.

  ‘And I thought we were getting along so well.’

  ‘Make the mock if you want. But when Jesus comes down in glory from the clouds, in a helicopter would be my guess, you and all the other unbelievers are going to look pretty silly.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I said. ‘I’m no unbeliever. But let me put this to you. The Bible Belt of America called the Summer of Love an abomination unto the Lord. They said that all free love was the Devil’s doing. You don’t suppose your CIA friends have got the wrong fellow by any chance? Perhaps it isn’t Jesus at all. Perhaps it’s the Anti-Christ.’

  Dan had a bit of a think ‘Let me get back to you on that,’ he said. ‘So, do you want to tell me what you’re really in here for?’

  ‘Propagation of conspiracy theory, same as you. This is the Conspiracy Theorists’ Correctional Facility, isn’t it? We’re all in here for the same reason: “Oral dissemination of rumour and hearsay, liable to elicit independent thought and cause a breach of the status quo” – Clause 23 of the new Suppression of Misinformation Act. I’m a tall-story-teller by profession. All I was doing was plying my trade, chatting to a bloke in a bar. Trouble was, the bloke in the bar turned out to be an off-duty clerk from the Ministry of Serendipity. Six o’clock the next morning, bang goes my front door, in storm the men in grey, and I’m dragged off here for a spell of corrective therapy.’

  ‘And are the tablets helping?’

  ‘Tablets always help. That’s what tablets are for, isn’t it?’

  ‘Have you thought about planning an escape?’

  ‘Novel idea.’

  ‘Oh, are you writing a novel?’

  ‘Certainly not! How dare you!’

  ‘Sorry. But I’m planning to escape.’ Dan drew me closer, but I wasn’t keen. Not with the BO and the bad breath and everything. ‘I’m building wings,’ whispered Dan. ‘From pillow feathers. I’m going to fly out of here.’

  ‘Well, give my regards to Jesus when you see him.’ I rose to take some exercise in the yard.

  ‘Or I might just go out through the tunnel tonight with everyone else.’

  I sat back down again. ‘What did you say?’ I asked.

  ‘Chief,’ said Barry, as I jogged around the exercise yard. ‘Chief, I really don’t think you should put too much faith in young Danny boy.’

  ‘Oh really, Barry, and why not?’

  ‘Because he’s two eggs short of an omelette, chief. He’s cooking without the gas on.’

  ‘He said the tablets were helping.’

  ‘Tablets always help, chief. But he’s still a wacko. You can’t trust him. It will end in tears.’

  ‘No it won’t, Barry. Because I have no intention of following Dan down any tunnel.’

  ‘You don’t, chief?’

  ‘I don’t, Barry. But the idea set me thinking. I’ve been going about all this in entirely the wrong way. Tunnels and feathered wings and squeezing through bars. Those are all obvious ways of escaping. What I should be doing is applying Rune’s Law of Obviosity. I should be thinking of the least most obvious way of getting out of here.’

  ‘Shouldn’t that be the least-most-obvious-least-most-obvious-way, chief, because the least most obvious way would be the most obvi
ous way to choose, which would make it the most obvious way and—’

  ‘Shut up, Barry.’

  ‘Sorry, chief.’

  ‘The least most obvious way of escaping would be simply to walk out of here in broad daylight.’

  ‘I do foresee a problem or two there, chief.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Good, chief?’

  ‘Good, Barry. Because the more problems there are, the more impossible the task becomes. And the more impossible it becomes, the more it proves itself to be the least most obvious way of getting out.’

  ‘It’s all so simple, once you explain it, chief.’

  ‘Isn’t it always?’

  I walked back to my room. This I considered a very good start, as normally I would have been marched back to my room. But male nurse Cecil was busily engaged striking Dan with a truncheon and shouting something about a tunnel. So he didn’t notice me as I strolled past.

  I packed my suitcase, put on my street clothes, and stepped from my room into the corridor. An orderly wandered by, tripped, fell, struggled to his feet and continued his wanderings. I picked up the keys he’d dropped and unlocked the door that divided the Conspiracy Theorists’ Correctional Facility from the rest of the hospital beyond.

  Here I met a nurse who mistook me for a visitor. ‘Would you like me to call you a cab?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, please,’ I told her.

  ‘Well I’m not going to, because it’s a really rubbish old joke.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘But I’ll give you a lift if you want. I’m just going off my shift.’

  I looked the nurse up and down. She was a very pretty nurse. Gorgeous blond hair, really sexy brown eyes, fabulous mouth, marvellous ti—

  ‘Do you mind?’ asked the nurse.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I was just thinking out loud.’

  ‘You want to watch that, they’ll put you in the nut house.’

  ‘Ha ha ha,’ I went.

  ‘So do you want a lift or not?’

  ‘I do, yes please.’

  I followed the nurse to her car. It was one of those new solar-powered electric jobbies. Very smart, very high-tech. I drive a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado myself, electric blue, big tail fins, the whole caboodle. It’s an image thing, I don’t want to dwell on it.

  I sat down next to the nurse.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘where do you want to go?’

  I gave this some thought. The most obvious place would be my office. But when Cecil and co. found I was missing, that would be the most obvious place they’d choose to come looking. So where would be the least most obvious place for me to go? I had to get back on my case. Track down that voodoo handbag. Save the world the way only I could save it. But not in the most obvious way. Obviously.

  ‘Why don’t you come back to my place?’ asked the nurse.

  ‘An obvious choice,’ said I.

  ‘But I’ll have to ask you a favour,’ she said.

  ‘Go ahead,’ said I.

  ‘I need some help moving a bit of junk out of my attic. Would you object to giving me a hand?’

  ‘I certainly wouldn’t. What kind of junk do you have in mind?’

  ‘Just junk,’ she said. ‘Stuff that belonged to my aunt. Old clothes, pictures, umbrellas, a voodoo handbag—’

  I smiled a lot as she drove me back to her place. And I blessed the name of Hugo Rune. When we got to her place I was pleased by the way it looked. A big place it was, a mansion, no less. Georgian, very up-market. Hardly the most obvious place you’d expect to find a nurse living.

  Splendid.

  She drove up the sweeping gravel drive and parked in the double garage next to the Rolls Royce.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, and I followed her across to the big front door. It was open.

  ‘That’s odd,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I locked it when I came out.’

  ‘Leave this to me, lady,’ I told her. ‘I’m a professional.’

  Now you probably didn’t notice that, but I slipped the word lady in there. ‘Leave it to me, lady,’ I said, rather than just ‘Leave it to me.’ I might have said, ‘Leave it to me, sweetheart,’ or ‘Leave it to me, luv,’ but I didn’t, I said, ‘Leave it to me, lady.’ And the reason I did this was because I was moving into genre. A most specific genre, that of the American Private Eye circa 1958 (same year as my Cadillac Eldorado and no coincidence).

  Back in those days your American Private Eye was a hard-nosed, lantern-jawed, snap-brim-fedora’d, belted-up-trench-coated, Bourbon-swilling, fag-smoking, lone-walking, pistol-toting, mean-fighting, smart-talking, broad-humping, tricky-case-solving son-of-a-gun.

  And none more so than Lazlo Woodbine.

  Woodbine, described by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as ‘the detective’s detective’, was the creation of the English writer P. P. Penrose. Woodbine was the classic 1950s American Private Eye. He worked just the four locations: his office where clients came, a bar where he talked a load of old toot, an alleyway where he got involved in sticky situations, and a rooftop, where he had his final confrontation with the villain. And he always ended the very first chapter by being struck on the head from behind and tumbling down into a deep dark whirling pit of oblivion. In one hundred and fifty-eight thrilling adventures, Woodbine never deviated from this award-winning format.

  Woodbine was the man.

  He wasn’t cheap, but he was thorough and he got the job done. With Woodbine you could expect a lot of gratuitous sex and violence, a trail of corpses, and a final rooftop showdown. No spin offs, no loose ends, and all strictly in the first person. And the literary style, the language, the description, the nuances, the running gags. Magical stuff.

  And I had him off to a T.

  So let’s take it from ‘Leave it to me, lady’. You’ll soon get the picture.

  ‘Leave it to me, lady,’ I said. ‘I’m a professional.’ The dame took a step to one side and I cast my steely gaze over the door lock. It was a Dovestone-Wilberforce triple-lever mortice deadlock Five rotational tumblers, multi-facet optional reverse-action interior facility. I knew this lock, every good detective did. In this game, knowing your locks can mean the difference between cutting a dash and splitting the beaver. If you know what I mean, and I’m sure that you do.

  ‘Does anyone else have a key to this door?’ I asked.

  She copped me a glance like she was polishing fish knives and shook her beautiful bonce.

  ‘Then you’d better let me take a look inside. Wait here.’

  I put my foot to the door and kicked it fully open. Then I leapt into the hall, rolled over a couple of times, and prepared to come up firing.

  And then I was struck on the head from behind, and found myself tumbling down into a deep dark whirling pit of oblivion.

  So I’d got off to a pretty good start.

  Stokers, Luggers and Jumping Jacks

  The stoker called Tom

  From Newcastle,

  The lugger called Tim

  From Dundee,

  The old jumping Jacks

  In their ill-fitting macs,

  Are more than the whole world to me.

  The stoker called Pig

  With his whistle,

  The lugger called Pan

  With his flute,

  The old jumping Jacks

  With their harps on their backs,

  And Nick in his best Sunday suit.

  The stoker called Jack

  With his rabbits,

  The lugger called Nick

  With his hair,

  The old jumping Jims

  And Alastair Sims,

  And Jock with his sanitary wear.

  At about this time the party began to get a bit boisterous,

  So I made my excuses and left.

  5

  My dear boy, forget about the motivation.

  Just say the lines and don’t trip over the furniture.

  NOEL COWARD

  There was Tom and there was Tim and there was Nick an
d there was Billy. A stoker, a lugger, a hairdresser and Billy. Billy Barnes. Billy didn’t come to the party because Billy had business elsewhere. Billy always had business elsewhere. No-body knew quite where elsewhere was, but Billy did, and he always had business there. There was something different about Billy, it was hard to say quite what, but it was there. He was very clever, I remember that. Too clever, really. I used to sit next to him in junior school, and once in a while his cleverness would burst to the surface and splash all over the rest of us.

  I recall one Friday afternoon our teacher, Miss Moon, posed a question to the class. It was: ‘How far can a man walk into the desert?’ We chewed upon our pencils; the question was surely unanswerable. Who was this man? How old was he? How strong was he? How much food and water did he have? How large was the desert? Billy put his hand up straight away.

  ‘Yes, Billy?’ said Miss Moon.

  ‘I have the answer, miss,’ said Billy.

  ‘Go on then, tell us what it is.’

  ‘It’s half way, miss. Because after he’s gone half way, he’ll be walking out of the desert again.’

  Billy was quite right, of course. His answer was correct. But this didn’t seem to please Miss Moon. She had evidently hoped that her question would keep the class occupied for the rest of the afternoon. Billy wasn’t at all popular with the rest of the class either, for a while.

  Because no-one likes a smart-arse.

  At the age of twenty-three Billy went missing. He went for a walk and he never came back. Those of us who remembered him from junior school wondered whether he had gone for a walk in the desert. One story was that he had hitch-hiked to Brighton, fallen off the pier and been carried out to sea.

  But nobody knew for sure, and the mystery of Billy’s disappearance has never been satisfactorily laid to rest. Years later, when I was living near Brighton, I met a bloke in a bar who told me a tale that might well have explained what happened to Billy.

  I relate it here for two reasons. Firstly, because if it hadn’t been for Billy’s disappearance I would never have got involved in the case of the voodoo handbag. And secondly, because I consider there is a strong possibility that the tale is true.