Raiders Of The Lost Car Park Part 6

'And probably got us all killed.'

'It would have been more exciting than selling them ice-creams,' Tuppe complained.

'Have you quite finished?' Anna asked.

'No,' said Tuppe.

'Yes,' said Cornelius. 'He's quite finished.'

'I have not.'

'You have.'

'Huh!' said Tuppe.

'Listen,' said Anna. 'You're going about this all the wrong way. You haven't planned ahead.' She sat down on the floor of the van. 'You have the ocarina. But you don't know which notes to play.'

'The new ones,' said Cornelius.

'But you don't know what order to play them in. You surely didn't think you could just belt out any random bunch of notes and expect one of these portals of yours to swing right open?'

'I did,' said Tuppe.

'You would,' said Anna.

'Hold on,' said Cornelius. 'What you are saying is that the new notes must be played in a precise sequence?'

'Like knowing the right combination to open a safe, yes.'

'It makes sense. It does make sense, doesn't it, Tuppe?'

'S'pose so.' Tuppe made a huffy face. Cornelius took out the reinvented ocarina and handed it to Anna. 'Go on then,' he said.

'Yeah,' said Tuppe. 'Go on then.'

Anna examined the instrument. 'You are quite sure you drilled the holes in the right places?' she asked in a cool voice.

'Absolutely certain. I told you, the holes cor-respond to points on the map that Tuppe and I stopped at during our epic journey.' - 'Then they would be your best bet.'

'What do you mean? We should go back to all the places?'

'No.' Anna shook her beautiful head. Her mother had told her that all men were basically stupid.She would one day pa.s.s this wisdom on to daughters of her own. 'Play the notes in the same order as you visited the places. That would be my plan.'

Cornelius adjusted his cap, opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't think of anything to say.

'You can remember the order?' Anna asked.

'Yes,' said Cornelius. 'I mean, no. But I have the map here.' He dragged the crumpled item from his pocket and spread it out on the dashboard.

'Then', Anna handed back the ocarina, 'why don't you have a little practice and when you feel confident, we'll give it a quick burst through the loudspeaker and see what happens.'

'And if nothing does?' Tuppe asked.

'If nothing does, it will mean one of two things. Either I'm wrong, or you are.'

'I'm not wrong,' said Cornelius Murphy.

'Then go for it.'

'OK, but we will do it this way: Tuppe will play the ocarina, I will sit at the wheel, with the engine running, ready to make a swift getaway if needs be. And you will keep a look out. How does that sound?'

'Sounds good to me.' Tuppe scrambled up on to the dashboard and perused the map. Anna turned her back upon him and gazed out of the rear window. Cornelius pa.s.sed the small man the ocarina.

'Right,' said Tuppe. 'I think I can get my fingers round it. Here we go.' He put the ocarina to his lips and he blew.

Now, there is music, and then there is music. But a tune is a tune is a tune. It can be 'The Birdy Song', or 'Big Eyed Beans from Venus'. Or even that brown thing that lies underneath the grand piano (Beethoven's last movement). But you can always get, as they say, a handle on it somewhere. There is always something you can recognize. Some note, or tone, or scale. No matter how discordant, or off the wall, you can always recognize something.

But not this time. Not with these notes. Now played in their correct order, they simply bore no resemblance whatsoever to any other notes yet known. They inhabited a realm of sound as yet uncharted by the human ear.

The effect they had upon the occupants of the stolen ice-cream van was, to say the least, varied.

Anna was enraptured. Her mouth fell open and her breath hovered in her lungs. s.h.i.+vers ran up and down her spine and all around many other places besides. She suddenly felt as h.o.r.n.y as h.e.l.l.

Cornelius didn't. He felt anything but. The notes put his teeth on edge and had his bladder reaching critical ma.s.s.

And as for Tuppe.

'Help!' screamed the small one, as he swept from his perch on the dashboard, to become plastered against the roof of the van. Here he floundered around, dropping the ocarina and whatever tenuous hold he ever had on reality. 'Get me down! Get me down!'

Cornelius leapt immediately to his friend's aid. He clawed at Tuppe. Tried to prise him down. But the player of the reinvented ocarina was now stuck fast.

'Do something Cornelius,' he howled. 'I'm getting crunched here.'

'Anna, help us.'

Anna stood, gazing into s.p.a.ce and wearing a foolish grin.

'Anna, help. Help Tuppe, come on.

Anna blinked. 'That was wonderful. Do it again.' She turned and gaped up at Tuppe. 's.h.i.+va's sheep!'

'Come on, hurry. I can't get him down.'

'Hurry,' gasped Tuppe.

'Magic,' gasped Anna.

'Come on. Help me.'

Anna sprang forward and began to tug the Tuppe. 'Magic.'

Tuppe was growing red in the face. 'I can't breathe. I can't breathe.'

'We'll get you down.' Cornelius wrestled with the small fellow's shoulders. Anna swung from hisfeet. But he wouldn't be s.h.i.+fted. Not one jot. One iota. Not one nothing. He was stuck, like Beethoven's last movement to a blanket.

And his eyes were starting to bulge from his face. And his face was starting to turn blue.

'Cornelius, he's dying. He's dying. Do some-thing.'

Do something? Cornelius put his brain into gear.

Inspectre Hovis put his legs in gear. Although, surprisingly, nothing had been heard of him for the last twenty-three minutes, he'd been keeping himself busy.

Running mostly. There'd been quite a lot of running. But not very much in the way of heroic swordplay. Not any heroic swordplay at all, in fact. Which probably accounts for the singular lack of exciting intercuts in the narrative.

Or possibly a paragraph got left out somewhere. That sometimes happens.

But, whatever the case, he was back now. And he was somewhat up against it.

Inspectre Hovis jumped nimbly onto the bonnet of a parked Ford Fiesta, as a great deal of green muscularity caught him up.

'Are you going to give me a taste of that steel, or what?' asked the limey leviathan.

'Have at you then.' Hovis took up the cla.s.sic fencer's position. Left elbow on the fence post, cup of tea in the right hand and f.a.g hanging out of the mouth. And, 'I'm sorry, madam, but if the wind blew it down, that's no fault of mine. And if you want us to put it up again, we'll have to charge you full price again. And cash up front, or we don't lift a mallet.'

The creature looked at Hovis. 'Is that a misprint, or what?'

'Have at you then.' Hovis took up the cla.s.sic fencer's pose. Knees slightly bent. Left arm back and crooked at the elbow. Left hand adangling. Sword-stick held firmly in the right hand, parallel to the ground and level with the tip of the nose.

Traditionally, fencers hold their foils in the left hand, to avoid possible injury to the right. Hovis didn't.

'Have at you.' A swish and a flash of steel. And the creature now longed for the return of his nose.

'Yours I believe.' Hovis proffered the severed conk, s.h.i.+sh kebabed on the tip of his blade.

'My doser The creature s.n.a.t.c.hed it back and refastened it to his face. You couldn't see the join.

'Now gimme those diamonds.'

'En garde.' Hovis skipped onto the roof of the Ford Fiesta, cleaving silvery arcs in the air.

'Your flies are undone,' said the creature.

'Pardon me.' Hovis hastened to adjust his dress. A big green fist hit him right in the teeth.

And something hit Cornelius Murphy. Right in the brain.

'The ocarina.' He threw himself to the floor and scrabbled about in search of it.

'Forget the ocarina.' Anna clung to Tuppe. 'He can't breath any more.'

'But I can.' Cornelius s.n.a.t.c.hed up the ocarina, put it to his lips and blew.

The great green thingy dragged Inspectre Hovis to the pavement and began to knock seven bells of Beethoven out of him.

And Cornelius Murphy played the reinvented ocanna.

6.

A summer storm had risen from the south and the rain was starting to fall. It sang like frying bacon on the roof of the ice-cream van and laughed in the gutters, like a drain. It battered down upon the bandaged head of Cornelius Murphy, without grace or good humour. The tall boy stood, wringing his cap between his hands and staring down at the body of his dearest friend.

'Is he alive?'

Tuppe lay on his back like a broken doll. Anna was giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He wasn't moving. She looked up at Cornelius. Her face was white and streaked with tears. 'I don't know.

I'll keep trying.'

She bent back over the supine one. Pinched his tiny nose and applied her lips to his.

Then she jumped back with a cry and struck Tuppe a mighty blow across the left cheek area. 'You little sod!'

'Ouch!' Tuppe rubbed his cheek. 'That smarts.'

'Tuppe, you're alive.' Cornelius flung his cap into the sodden sky and knelt to embrace the revenant.

'Alive and licking.' Anna spat. 'Your beastly friend just stuck his tongue down my throat.'

'I feel greatly reinvigorated.' Tuppe grinned shamelessly. 'But I do appear to be getting somewhat wet.

Inspectre Hovis was getting very wet indeed.

He was lying on his back in the middle of Kew Green, wearing nothing but his monogrammed underwear and his handmade socks.

Very wet indeed. That's what he was getting.

All about and around and around and about lay the shredded remains of his once immaculate suit.

Torn to b.u.g.g.e.ration. The G.o.dolphin diamonds were no longer on the person of the man from Scotland Yard.

Hovis awoke with a start. He gagged and spat. He gasped and swore. He tried to rise but fell back.

He groaned. He groped at his head. He drew himself up a few inches and then collapsed again. But this time to the accompaniment of a great and terrible scream. It began life as a ghastly groan. But he'd already done one of those and there was nothing particularly distinguished in the repet.i.tion. But then this groan rose in pitch. Up through the octaves it went, taking them all in and pa.s.sing them by. Finally to end as a shriek of such an ultrasonic persuasion that few were even the dogs of Kew, the king's included, that woke to its soul-splitting intensity.

And was this for the ruination of his suit? Oh no. Then for the shame at the beating he'd taken? Not that.