Sir Desmond Stirling – the man, the myth,the legend…

I am the foremost author of stylish thrillers and occult novels in the world. That’s not how I describe myself, I hasten to point out, that was in The Reader’s Digest Guide to Modern British Authors. Of course, they were right, even if one says so oneself. I may be a humble scribe, but I do rather think there’s something frightfully common about false modesty. And the hack who called me a ‘Purveyor of pot-boiling prurient piffle’ in the Times Literary Supplement is an alliterative arse.

Now all of you – well, those of you who aren’t too old to have moved with the times (unlike my good self who has always been a la mode e.g. driving sports cars, listening to ‘jazz’, having much younger girlfriends) – are able to read my newly-published memoirs The Devil Talks The Hindmost. It is available at Amazon – indeed, all major rivers, one should think – and is jolly reasonably–priced. Too reasonably, if you ask me. One doesn’t want to encourage the poor to loiter around their hovels reading (if they are capable), and besides, the lifestyles I write about will just make them dissatisfied, and next thing you know, the hoi polloi are throwing an almighty tantrum and it’s the General Strike all over again. Still, gives Plod a chance to practice their water-cannon skills.

I digress…

Buy my book. I have a standard of living to keep up. Holidays in Cap d’Agde don’t pay for themselves.

You will learn about my family, my friends, my wives (all five of them – mad, scrubber, dead, ex-man, and lesbian), my schooldays, my fight against Satanism, my campaign for Nudism, and other adventures throughout my long and distinguished life. But not my wartime experiences – they’re still covered by the Official Secrets Act…

Do you wish to hear a Master of the Satanic chiller at work? Then pop over to http://www.whatnoise.co.uk and you’ll be overwhelmed at the privilege of finding a ‘download’ (no, not the foggiest) of yours truly actually penning a new novel in front of your very ears.

My ‘Twitter handle’ (honestly, the modern world, one despairs) is @sirdesstirling. Follow me if you wish to be drenched in my pearls of wisdom. And frankly who doesn’t?

Start from the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start…

Sir Desmond Stirling created and written by Anthony Keetch

(c) Anthony Keetch

Christmas at Scarhelldeath Hall (2023 Version)

Christmas at Scarhelldeath Hall

Episode 1

(listen to this)

A tedious rain-saturated journey on the M1 – enlivened only by darling Eddie Elgar on the wireless. Oh, and being stopped three times for speeding by Plod – each of whom happily accepted a few crisp oncers in return for a blind eye. I finally arrived at the sleepy Scottish village of Kilcarcass at which I had spent a vast chunk of my childhood. I dread to recall how many decades had passed since my last sojourn here. Even so it had changed little; a sprinkling of television aerials, and a Budgens being the major changes I noticed on first glance.

No, Kilcarcass was the same typical Scottish village I remembered from my long-distant youth. Small stone cottages dwarfed by brooding mountains and a scowling grey sky. A wee high street of the necessary shops; an off-licence, a MacHaggis takeaway, Kilts’R’Us, approximately seventeen pubs, and of course, no sign of a green-grocer. A string of tartan-coloured tinsel flapped in a criss-cross from street-lamp to street-lamp, while lights in the shape of whisky bottles dangled forlornly from telegraph poles as they waited for the interminable night to draw in.

As I drove up the high street, an old cove, his kilt billowing in the wind, doffed his tam-o-shanter and waved his shillelagh at me. I pulled over, wound down the window of the Rolls and asked him the directions to Scarhelldeath Hall. I was fairly sure I’d remember the route, but I wanted to be sure. He made some noises with his mouth which were of no use to man nor beast, but he gestured in what I had deduced was the correct direction, so I tossed him a half a crown for a tot, and drove away.

No sooner had I left the high street than memories flooded back and I found myself recalling the route one took when returning to school from a no doubt illicit trip to the village to stock up on sweets, the latest escapades of Tiger Tim, and, if one could bribe a local, a wee dram.

What had oft seemed a long trudge when a small lad was no distance at all when in a top-of-the-range Roller, and in no time I was pulling into the extensive driveway of my Alma Mater – Scarhelldeath Hall!

The school stared balefully at me as I neared it as if preparing to administer a damn good thrashing for some misdemeanour of which I was unaware. I shuddered involuntarily. I had loved my years at Scarhelldeath Hall, but fear, punishment, hunger, cold and death had been my 24 hour companions. Several of my fellow pupils had died during our schooldays, but no more than the national average for prep schools in those days.

I parked the car and approached the big wooden front door. Whilst a pupil, it was strictly forbidden for any boy to use the main entrance at pain of a very sore bottom indeed, not to mention the ensuing gangrene. It felt both wrong and victorious to take this route now.

Did I mention the weather was viciously cold and wet? Or does that go without saying? The sky was pendulous with clouds, with that curious yellow tinge that usually foresees snow.

I rang the doorbell, producing a sonorous chime, the same clang I recall raising futile hope in our young breasts? Perhaps the visitor was for us? A delivery of tuck from home, or a parent come to visit or even, oh fruitless optimism, to extract us and whisk us back to the bosom of the family?

I scanned the vicinity. The grounds were unchanged; ruthlessly neat, but joyless in the lack of aesthetic flora. I knelt down and examined the gravel of the drive. It used to contain tiny fragments of glass not only to discourage any bare-foot activity, but to make surreptitious escape impossible. The slightest unauthorised crunch and the headmaster, the Rev Dougal Maestri,  a man who’d lost both arms in some Victorian skirmish or the other, would unleash the dogs of war – or at least two elderly Alsatians and his spinster sister, Prudence, who would chase after the fleeing youth and drag him back by their teeth. And, by God, that woman had strong teeth!  

I was awoken from this nostalgic reverie by the sound of the door being slowly opened to a long-forgotten deafening creak. A small boy stood there in that familiar uniform, peering owlishly at me from behind what must surely have been unnecessarily strong spectacles. He was undoubtedly bullied mercilessly by his peers, I thought, or would’ve been if I’d had anything to do with it.

‘Hello, young feller-me-lad!’ I exclaimed. ‘Sir Desmond Stirling here, now run along and tell the Reverend Nodward-Holder I’m here.’ The boy gaped at me, foolishly. ‘Chop chop, lad, if you don’t want to feel the Head’s strap on your behind!’

The boy fled.

I stepped into the vestibule and breathed in the heady aroma of my childhood: cabbage, socks, dust, urine, tweed, sweat, stale blood, Dettol, chalk, feet, kippers, carbolic, and fear.

If only they could bottle it..

I gulped a hefty lungful and then…

‘Can I help you?’ boomed a Welsh voice.

A fierce-looking woman marched out of the gloomy corridor towards me, her fulsome eyebrows creased into a frown, her impossibly black hair scraped forcibly back into a bun, her lips set implacably into a declaration of war. I glanced at the uniform encasing her ample rugby-playing body.

‘Ah, Matron!’ I exclaimed, switching on the old Stirling charm which never fails to woo the lassies.

Except this one, it seemed.

‘May I ask who you are?’ she barked, hands on hips, her impressive biceps revealed through rolled-up sleeves. She had stopped right in front of me, like a tank ready to mow down a Bolshie dissident.  She was at least an inch or two taller than yours truly, and that wasn’t entirely due to her brogues.

I quickly gave name, rank and number. ‘Is Noddy around?’ Her face darkened.

‘The Reverend Neville Nodward-Holder,’ I elucidated. ‘The Head, don’t you know. Old school chum. He invited me.’

‘I am Dorcas Nodward-Holder. The Reverend is my brother.’

‘I don’t recall Noddy ever mentioning a sister.’

‘And neither did my brother mention a guest.’ She spat out this last word the way a civilised person might say ‘socialist.’

‘I’m dishing out the prizes, apparently. Best essay, best…’ I floundered as I couldn’t for the life of me think for what else one gave the little buggers anything. Best crying? Best bed-wetter? 

‘You’d best come in then.’ The charmless Matron narrowed her eyes and gestured for me to follow her.

‘So where’s Noddy then?’ I asked her not inconsiderable buttocks as I followed them up the stairs. 

‘The Headmaster,’ she corrected me, ‘is taking a class. Geography.’

I let out a bark of laughter. ‘Geography? Old Noddy? Are you sure? He could never find his own arse without an A to Z.’ 

Matron’s behind quivered with disapproval, but she didn’t break stride.

After two flights of stairs, Matron let out a roar which, frankly, could’ve felled an antelope. ‘Giggle Minor!’

A short circular boy rolled out of the shadows, looking terrified. 

‘Why are you skulking?’ Matron growled. 

‘Please Matron, I was on my wayto the lavatory?’

‘Show me your chit?’

‘I haven’t done it yet,’ the lad replied, puzzled. 

‘Your chit,’ Matron growled, and the boy fumbled in his pockets and produced a crumpled piece of paper. Matron scanned it, cuffed him around the ear, and said, ‘Go to this gentleman’s car, and bring his luggage to the Guest Suite.’

‘I say, Dorcas…’ I said.

‘Matron,’ she insisted.

‘Matron,’ I protested, ‘the nipper’s smaller than my suitcase.’

She ignored me and held out her hand for my car keys. Reluctantly, I handed them over. She hurled them at the boy and he scarpered sharpish. Couldn’t blame him, the old bat was beginning to terrify even doughty old Stirling!

‘He won’t drive off, will he?’ I asked her, only half-jokingly.

She flashed me a look of contempt, but as this seemed to be her usual expression, I didn’t take it personally. I wouldn’t fancy being dependent on her TLC if I was poorly.

‘He wouldn’t get far,’ she replied. ‘McPortillo the Groundsman is armed.’

The Guest Suite was a bare room with a solitary bed, a candle, a chest of drawers on which stood a jug of ice-crusted water, and, opposite the bed, a portrait of the late Reverend Dougal Maestri in his usual yellow-eyed fury. A more suggestible chap than I would have sworn the eyes glared at me with unusual vivacity, but I put that down to the candlelight and incipient hypothermia. 

I unpacked my slight luggage – travel light, I learned that in the SAS – and decided I needed to thrust Thomas at the Twyfords. I rummaged under the bed and found an antique Edgar Allan.

I must have dozed as off as I was woken by a knock on the door. I found myself in pitch black so dusk at the very least had fallen. I groped my way in the dark – my owl-esque vision honed by many nocturnal missions during the War, but mum’s the word, eh! – and opened the door. A small boy stood outside, blue of knee, clutching a candle which guttered in his shivering hands. He looked familiar.

‘Sir Desmond?’ he quavered. ‘I am Nodward-Holder Minor, I have come to take you down to dinner.’

‘Give me a moment to refresh myself, lad,’ I told him. ‘Been snoozing.’ Before I abluted, I handed him my awash Edgar Allan. ‘Empty that, there’s a good chap.’  

I hurriedly splashed cold water on my face, combed my still magnificently-full head of hair, and checked my nose hairs. There would be minimal female presence so I didn’t waste any of my precious Limited Edition Brut Classic by Faberge. 

I followed the boy downstairs. ‘Nodward-Holder, eh? Any relation?’

‘The Headmaster is my father,’ he told me. 

‘Old Noddy’s sprog, eh?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘That must be the purple pim. Ribbings from the other boys, I expect, eh?

‘Yes, Sir, but I have just been voted Bully, Sir.’

I looked the little squirt up and down. Not promising bully material, I thought. One puff of breath and he’d flap away into the horizon. Unless he is the brain and has a certain amount of back-up muscle of dopier boys? Perhaps he just cheats and uses his Pater’s clout to endorse his threats which, frankly, wasn’t on in my book.

The stairway was very dark, lit only by young Noddy Minor’s candle. 

‘Someone needs a shilling for the meter?’ I jested. 

‘Electricity is restricted, order of Matron.’

‘Good Old Auntie Dorcas, eh’

He didn’t reply.

Even in the gloom (not helped by the impenetrable condensation from my breath fogging my vision), I could see that Scarhelldeath Hall had barely changed since my day. The same splintered and creaking wooden flooring, and I doubted that a solitary lick of paint had graced a single surface in the previous century. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the dust was still the same. I recognised all the paintings too, mostly various ancestors of the Maestri family. I wondered if Dougal had been the last of his line. I didn’t recall a wife. Indeed, we boys often pondered if his arms were the only appendages shot off in the war.

There was a half-hearted attempt at festive décor – the odd tattered string of tinsel,  sprigs of half-dead holly, even faded paper chains hanging limply from the ceiling – but these emphasised the gloom rather than dispersing it.

I peered through the door into the Dining Hall. It hadn’t changed much either. Still lit by candles, albeit hanging from several cobweb-coated chandeliers dangling high and precariously above the tables, connected tenuously to the ceiling by somewhat antique and rusty chains. I lost count of how many boys were injured in my day having to clamber up ropes to light them all. 

The same aroma of burnt cabbage filled the air, and the draught was sharp enough to slice lemons. Which reminded me – I had been hoping for a warming G&T before convening for dinner but drinking in front of the boys would not be the done thing.

When I was a lad, being caught boozing by Masters was most unwise – they’d pilfer your grog for a start. But at least that meant they’d be too pie-eyed to thrash one’s arse with any accuracy.

A large Christmas tree stood in the corner, lit by a small handful of candles, its branches drooping sadly in the draught, a dead-eyed angel slumped atop, the bough entering her skirt and exiting through her neck, much like one of the victims of Vlad the Impaler.

Boys were already sitting at the lines of tables, silent and still. None of the excited whispering and fidgeting which usually took place in my day. I also couldn’t help noticing how many empty places there were at the tables.

Nodward-Holder Minor tugged at my sleeve and whispered in my ear. ‘Wait here and Father will introduce you.’ With that, he slid away into the Dining Hall.

A few minutes later I heard the noise of chairs being scraped back. I glanced through the crack of the door and could see that all the boys were now standing. I presumed that the staff were arriving at Head Table.

I strained my ears to hear. There was the muffled & echoing sound of a voice, but I could barely make out what was being said. My hearing is absolutely 20/20 so Noddy should have learned how to project, what with being a head beak and all. 

Suddenly, I heard the word ‘Stirling’ followed by a weak round of applause. I took this as my cue and I marched in. I walked up to Head Table acknowledging the applause which was perhaps not as enthusiastic as I am used to, but after all they were small boys with small hands.

Noddy stood in front of Head Table, holding out his hand, seeming genuinely pleased to see me. In fact, I could swear I spotted gratitude and relief in his eyes. He hadn’t changed much in the intervening decades, still being thin, bespectacled, balding, but with what remained of his hair scraped over his pate like liquorice over a boiled egg. He still affected enormous sideburns, carefully primped out like bushy mudflaps. I had forgotten that these had first manifested in our schooldays, teased out from the earliest traces of his incipient bumfluff. It only occurred to me at that moment that his young lad so closely resembled his father when we were at school together. It then flitted across my brain: wasn’t Noddy a bit long in the tooth to have sprogged such a young offspring? The old goat!

Matron Dorcas had her usual ‘Sea Elephant with a Prolapse’ expression clamped to her face, but I had already decided I was going to pay her as little attention as was humanly possible. 

I glanced at the sprinkling of teachers who comprised the rest of the Head Table. The usual reprobates, failures, ex-jailbirds and pederasts who taught at this level of Prep School. An exceedingly elderly master dozed, his mortar board slumped across half his face as he dribbled onto his gown. Proud Old Boy I may be, but I was under no illusion at Scarhelldeath Hall’s status in the educational firmament. Not even Royalty sent their more idiot offspring here.

Noddy called for silence which frankly had already fallen.

‘Boys!’ he said (squeaked, if I was going to be harshly critical). ‘We have a very special treat for you. As you know, tomorrow is Prize-Giving day!’ Noddy paused for some sort of response. There was none. Well, except for what sounded like a gentle fart, but that may have been from the snoozing old master.

‘And to hand out the prizes we have a very special guest. An Old Scarhelldeathian who attended this very school many, many years ago…’ 

One too many ‘manies,’ I thought.

‘…and has gone on to be the most acclaimed British novelist of his generation.’

I should be, but I’m not. Even after darling Dickie Francis popped his clogs I still wasn’t.

‘I wonder how many of you have read his books?’ continued Noddy. More silence. Under the bedclothes, maybe, I thought, but they are hardly likely to admit to that in front of their teachers!

‘So a big Scarhelldeathian round of applause for the esteemed author and war hero, Sir Desmond Stirling!’

I acknowledged the boys’ clapping while noticing that the Matron didn’t join in.

‘Thank you, Boys’ I said. ‘It is a great honour to be asked back  here by my old schoolchum Reverend Nodward-Holder to hand out your presumably much-deserved prizes tomorrow. Remember, it’s not the taking part that counts, it’s the winning. There’s no shame in not winning, just humiliation and regret. Both of which will hopefully fuel your drive to succeed at all costs in later life.’

I noticed Noddy subtly gesture to his watch, so I wound up the proceedings.

‘I won’t keep you now as I’m sure it is past your bedtime and you have books to read under the bedclothes…’ I gave a theatrical wink, ‘But be prepared for a hefty dose of the Old Stirling wisdom tomorrow at the Ceremony.’

More applause, but still not enough. I made a mental note to have a word with Noddy about teaching the boys the necessary clapping levels.

Noddy was about to dismiss the boys, when Matron coughed very pointedly. Noddy’s face fell. ‘Matron?’ he asked, nervously.

Matron mouthed something at him.

Noddy gulped. ‘Oh yes,’ he muttered. Come on, Noddy, man up, I mentally willed him.

‘Ahem,’ he actually said. ‘It’s been brought to my notice that boys have been attempting to perform exorcisms.’

My ears pricked up at this. Not even my form did that and we were rather feral, hence the high mortality rate.

‘And I believe the ringleader is…’ he paused, ‘ so I gather… erm… Bollywood Major.’

There was a stir amongst the boys and they all turned to stare at the named culprit. The aforementioned Bollywood Major tried to shrink into his chair. 

‘Approach the Head Table, Bollywood Major,’ Noddy instructed him, unhappily.

The boy, a small Indian cove who didn’t seem old enough to be off the titty yet, scrambled off his chair and, knees quaking, tentatively made his way to the Head Table. He stood in front of Noddy, staring up at him, saucer-eyed, his mouth twitching. Even as the staunchest supporter of corporal punishment, I couldn’t help  feeling sorry for the little lad. However I didn’t imagine that Noddy was a fraction of the brute that the Reverend Maestri had been, so I suspected that Bollywood Major’s behind wasn’t in too much danger of GBH.

‘Now, ah, Bollywood Major,’ continued Noddy, ‘You know very well that exorcisms, indeed any form of occult rituals, are strictly forbidden under school rules.’

‘But, Sir,’ whispered Bollywood Major, ‘The Ghost…’

Now this was jolly interesting. We never had the supernatural during my time here. Hardship, hunger and violent death, yes, but ghosts..? No such luck.

Noddy actually showed a bit of fire. ‘There are no ghosts at Scarhelldeath Hall!’ he declaimed. ‘Now, Bollywood Major, how shall you be punished, eh?’

Matron instantly produced a cane, a vicious-looking instrument of torment. And so was the cane! Guffaw!

Bollywood Major looked as though he were about to faint. So did Noddy.

‘Ah, the cane,’ said Noddy, feebly. ‘Hmm, I’m not sure if that’s absolutely…’

Matron swished the cane viciously through the air, causing Noddy’s Combover to ripple in the air currents. She then forcibly thrust it into Noddy’s hand.

‘Yes, well, erm, very well…’ said Noddy, sadly. ‘Bollywood Major, bend over the table.’

Bollywood Major, green about the gills, tried to do as instructed, but was too short to do so without the aid of at the very least a step-ladder.

Noddy, looking equally queasy, tried to swish the cane too, but failed to make the air crack in the required fashion. I was a bit out of practice, but I contemplated offering to do the job myself.

Matron huffed. I half expected her to retrieve the cane and beat the poor little blighter herself.

Noddy took a deep breath, raised his arm high into the air…

… and all the candles in the Dining hall were snuffed out by a terrific wind. Some of the boys screamed. The elderly teacher jerked awake with a surprised snort.

‘Silence!’ roared Matron. Noddy lowered the cane and said, rather feebly, ‘Now, boys it’s just a draught. Knockout Minor, relight the candles.’

But before anyone could budge, the door to the Dining Hall crashed open, and there stood the most bizarre figure. It was a teacher, in full gown and mortar board, a kilt and sporran adorning his lower half, empty left sleeve pinned to his jacket, a cane held aloft in his right hand. But in the darkness caused by the snuffed candles, this unexpected apparition was glowing!

The Hall fell silent. All stared open-mouthed at this uncanny spectacle. I snatched a quick look around. Noddy seemed aghast; the teachers even more gormless than usual. Only Matron’s face was implacable.

The door slammed shut. A couple of the older boys raced to escape the Dining Hall, but they were unable to open the door, although whether because they were panicking or if it was jammed I couldn’t tell.

The luminous spectre was halfway up the aisle by now. Its macabre face was a grimace, eyes burning as it stared fixedly at Noddy. It slashed the air with its cane. I could’ve sworn sparks flew off the cudgel with each swish.

‘Nodworth-Holder Major,’ the spectre cackled. ‘Prepare to meet thy doom, boy!’

‘Oh Lor’ wheezed Noddy.

The shimmering banshee bared its yellow gnarled teeth ‘Your dismal behind will be like haggis after I’ve finished with it.’

And then I recognised the figure. ‘Noddy!’ I called out. ‘It’s old Maestri!’

Episode 2

(Listen to this)

And so it was! This spectral phantom was none other than that of our long-dead headmaster, the Rev Dougal Maestri! Heaven knew how many donkey’s years it had been since he’d popped his clogs, but here he was again – from beyond the grave!

The glowing ghost turned its baleful eye in my direction. ‘Stirling Major!’ it ululated. ‘Wretched boy! Still showing ye little boabie for thrupence to the other boys’ in the bushes, eh?’

I was outraged. Can one sue the dead for slander?

‘When I’ve finished with it, ye posterior will be hotter than the depths of hell!’ the grisly apparition snarled.

‘And you’d know, I presume, Maestri,’ I retorted, irked by its defamatory imputations.

The shimmering ghoul pointed a bony finger at Noddy. ‘Ye will leave my school, ye feeble Sassenach,’ it wailed. ‘All of ye. And if ye don’t, I will set all the smoking demons of hell onto ye, with their pitchforks and red-hot pokers and emery boards and very sharp scissors. Ye will suffer a doom ye can only dream about in your worst nightmares.’

‘But why?’ I asked. ‘Why should Nod… Reverend Nodward-Holder leave? What’s he done to upset you?’

The luminous spook didn’t reply specifically, but let out an unearthly wail. ‘Begone! Begone! Before ye regret it.’

At this, the ghost stopped glowing and we were left in pitch darkness. Someone lit a candle on the Head Table. Even by this feeble light, we could see the ghastly fiend had vamooshed.

No-one spoke. Noddy stood, his legs obviously wobbly beneath him. ‘Go to bed boys,’ he commanded. ‘And remain there until morning. I will find out who is behind this… ludicrous joke and they will be punished.’

The boys fled, all fighting each other to be the first through the doors.

Noddy turned towards the Masters at the head table… but they too had left, even the decrepit old boy must have hauled up his gown and scarpered. 

‘Matron, if you would kindly check that the boys are tucked up.’ Matron, sphinx-like as ever, stood to go. ‘And maybe best if you lock them into their dorms, eh?’ She nodded and left.

Noddy looked at me, despair in his watery eyes, his mutton-chops drooping with the angst of it all.

I poured Noddy and myself hefty glasses of Scotch. Not the best vintage, I noted, and Budgen’s own brand. Noddy’s study was reasonably cosy, but the furniture was threadbare, and the room was lit by the omnipresent candles. Did they even have electricity in the place, I wondered? Did we even have it in my time? For the life of me I couldn’t remember. 

A small fire flickered in the grate, but by the feebleness of the flames, it had less than an hour’s life left in it unless fed with a small tree at the very least. Another portrait of the deceased – but not resting – Rev Dougal hung behind Noddy’s desk. The rancid heathen must have spent half his life posing for artists.  No wonder the old narcissist refused to lie down dead.

We sat in frayed armchairs in front of the fire and supped our Scotch. Inferior booze it may have been, but by God, it hit the spot.

‘So what the hell is going on, Noddy?’ I asked him.

‘Oh, Custard,…’ he started.

‘None of that,’ I warned him. I never cared for that nickname back in the day, I certainly wasn’t going to tolerate it now.

‘Sorry, Cust… Stirling.’ He took a deep glug. ‘Frankly, Scarhelldeath Hall is dying on its arse. Parents just don’t want to send their little buggers to schools like ours any more. Can’t blame them. I wanted to make the place more progressive, but Dorcas won’t let me. Says it’s our duty to keep the faith, and that brutal discipline and cabbage is more vital than ever.’

‘I don’t remember you having a sister back in the day, Noddy.’

‘Oh, I didn’t.’ Noddy poured us both another generous helping of the filthy muck. ‘Half-sister actually. Result of one of Pater’s multitudinous illicit leg-overs. We only connected recently, long after the old man bit the dust, thanks to some website bastardoffspring.com .’

Interesting.

‘I’d worked here since being encouraged to leave Oxford after… an incident.’ 

I nodded sympathetically. I’d experienced several similar incidents myself. Honestly, a chap’s clockweights were often more trouble than they were worth.

Noddy continued. ‘Worked my way up from the bottom – PE and games – to Deputy Head. Did a correspondence course to get my Reverence which was a pretty crucial title if one wanted to be a Head back then. No intention of staying long-term, but I got stuck, you know.  Old Man Maestri died without issue… I bought the Hall from his estate. For a song. My plan was to make a success of it, do it up, sell for a profit, then bugger off to warmer climes to see out my days supping Pina Coladas in a hammock while my thighs were caressed by dusky maidens.’ 

‘Didn’t work out like that.’ He sighed. ‘And I expect you’re wondering about Nodworth-Holder Minor. Much like Dorcas, he was the by-product of a crafty knee-trembler. Local girl. Pretty. Worked here as a cleaner. Christmas party, too much Scotch, kilt ended up over my head – mine, not hers, unwise fumble in the pantry, she ends up with a bun. I offered to marry her, but she declined. Showbiz ambitions. Shame, she was nice. Upshot was that as soon as the boy reached school age, she parcelled him up and posted him to me, then scarpered. Last seen auditioning for one of these ghastly talent shows on the box. An acrobat, I believe.’

I stared at the hideous painting of Maestri. He was in full Highland dress, his foot on a dead stag which he’d obviously bludgeoned to death, judging by the blood-soaked shillelagh. Impressive thing to do with no arms. 

Wait a minute, no arms….

 ‘And Dougal?’ I asked. ‘When did he pop up again?’

‘A couple of weeks ago. On top of everything else – diminishing customers, electricity being cut off, the roof of the east wing being blown off in a storm – his manifestations were the final straw. A third of the boys just legged it. Can’t blame them really. Boarding school’s bad enough without the supernatural giving more grief.’

Personally, I think spooks would have enlivened my own schooldays up no end, but I didn’t have to heart to contradict him. 

‘Anyway, this is the end.’ Noddy slurped down the last of his drink. ‘End of term tomorrow. I’ll write to the parents telling them not to bother sending the little buggers back after Christmas. Then I’ll sell. Won’t get much, but hopefully enough to buy a small maisonette down south. Bexhill perhaps?’

I shuddered.

He stood up, slightly uncertainly. ‘Bed now. Hmm, that whiskey has given me courage. If I encounter that wretched phantom in the corridors I shall bally well give him a bunch of fives. Got everything you need?’

‘Yes, thank you, Noddy. I’m coming up myself.’

‘That’s a clever trick for a chap of our age.’

‘Ah, there’s the old Noddy,’ I thumped him on the back. He staggered. ‘Trouser on, old chap, it’ll all work out in the end. I say, mind if I use your phone before I climb the wooden hills?’

‘Be my guest. Bit late though.’ He giggled. ‘Late night banter with the current bit of stuff, eh?’

‘No, just a quick word with my secretary.’

‘At this hour?’

‘Oh, she won’t mind.’

I made my way up the stairs to bed, diminished whisky bottle in hand, lugholes still ringing from the blasting that Cilla, my secretary, had just given them. Just because I telephoned her during ‘the jungle’ – whatever that is.

I’d enjoyed a brief snoop around after Noddy had left me. Well, as much as one can snoop in a building in which every single floorboard creaks. Even my stealth training couldn’t overcome that. What I’d found had intrigued me, one object in particular which was now nestling in my pocket. My suspicions were aroused.

My only light was by a half-used candle. The dripping wax had already scalded my hand twice. The guttering of the flame caused shadows to dance on the gloomy walls. I was taken back to midnight raids on the kitchen in my childhood, although then we dared not use a candle lest we been seen by any prowling teacher. To be honest, most of us preferred hunger to braving the long and spooky trek to the kitchen in the dark, but either one would be dared to do so; that or an older boy would demand a midnight feast be brought to him – or else one’s head would be dunked in the outside privy.

I suddenly heard the squeak of a floorboard behind me. I ground to a halt, stood very still and listened. Another very faint creak. 

I spun around. ‘Show yourselves!’ I commanded.

Out of the shadows came not the expected spook, but a small boy. It was Nodworth-Holder Minor.

‘Hello, lad,’ I said, ‘ What on earth are you  doing up that this hour? Kitchen raid?’

He shook his head. ‘Have you come to save us, sir?’ he asked. 

I sat down on one of the stairs and gestured to him to perch next to me. I would have given him a toffee, but didn’t have any so I proffered the whisky bottle. He looked at it nervously and then took a swig. I sat back and awaited the inevitable spluttering. But no, he swallowed, smacked his lips, then took another. Hmm, this boy wasn’t quite the softie I had erroneously presumed him to be.

‘Looking forward to Christmas?’ I asked him.

He shrugged. ‘We’ve got to spend it here. Apparently, we can’t afford to go anywhere else.’

I commiserated. ‘And what are you hoping Father Christmas will bring you?’

He gave me that look of disdain children give to grown-ups when they have to humour them about still believing in the old gift-deliverer.  ‘Record token probably. Father never has a clue about presents.’

‘’So what do you need saving from, Noddy Junior?’

‘The ghost,’ he whispered.

‘Oh, pish,’ I told him. ‘If that ghost is genuine, that I am the Empress of India. The monarch, not the pub,’  I clarified.

The boy didn’t look convinced.

‘Tell me about Auntie Dorcas,’ I asked him.

Noddy Minor pulled a face. ‘When did she show up?’

‘Just before the beginning of this term,’ he told me.

‘As recently as that?’ Interesting.

‘Everyone hates her,’ he whispered, having looked around to ensure no-one else was listening. ‘The boys like Pater, and some of the other masters are ok, but since she’s been here, everything’s gone down the khazi.’ He looked at me quickly to see if I was going to admonish him for talking dirty. I simply offered him another swig.

‘So where have all the missing boys gone?’ I asked.

‘Home, some of them? Other have gone off to find their fortune.’

‘Where, for heaven’s sake?’

Noddy Minor shrugged. ‘The sea, Hollywood, King’s Cross station, anywhere there’s a seminary…’

Noddy Minor then said something very interesting. ‘The Buster-Jet twins claimed that Matron had actually lent them the money to get a train down south.’

‘Did she indeed?’ I pondered. I rummaged in my pocket and produced the item I had found earlier.

‘Ever seen anything like this?’

Noddy Junior took what I proffered him. It was  a small featureless doll, made of some crude material, probably Plasticine. Despite its rudimentary nature, it was obviously intended to be a representation of the boy’s father, comb-over and all.

‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘McPortillo the Groundsman makes these and sells them at the Sunday fair. But they’re usually of animals, not people. I don’t think many people would buy a dolly of Pater.’ He giggled, the first glimpse of any joy I’d seen on a boy since I had arrived.

‘Where do you find it?’ The lad asked.

‘In your father’s desk. Right hand drawer.’

‘That’s where he puts all the bills. He never looks in there if he can help it.What does it mean…?’

‘I think it was meant to frighten Noddy, but whoever did it didn’t know him well enough to realise they’d put it in the wrong place.’

‘Who?’

I held my finger to my lips and slipped the doll back in my pocket.

‘Well, I think it’s bedtime for you now, young man.’

He licked his lips and looked thirstily at the whisky bottle. ‘Can I have another..?’

‘Certainly not! You’ve had more than enough. Can’t have a hangover on Prize-Giving Day.’ 

Besides, there wouldn’t be any left for my nightcap.

Noddy Minor stood up. We shook hands. ‘Good night, sir.’

‘And perhaps tomorrow we’ll have another chance to chat and I can give you some top notch bullying tips.’

His eyes lit up. ‘I’d like that.’ He looked at me shyly. ‘I’ve read all your books, you know.

‘What? All 279 of them?’

‘Well, the spooky ones at least. I read out the dirty bits to the other boys.’

My heart so swelled with pride that I almost thought I would weep. Surely to furnish young lads with their masturbatory fantasies is the pinnacle for all writers?

I was abruptly woken from a jumbled dream about Bexhill and illegitimate children. At first I couldn’t tell what had broken my slumber, but I felt cold, even colder than when I had first undressed for bed (and, I’m ashamed to admit, broke the unassailable  Gentleman’s Code by keeping my socks on).

I then became aware of a light emanating from somewhere. My candle had long flickered out of existence (not a euphemism, I hasten to add, I am more than proficient still in that department). I sat up and examined my surroundings, The glow was seeping from underneath the door. It got brighter and brighter until I was quite dazzled. I shielded my eyes until I felt they had become accustomed to the illumination.

But I already knew what I was going to see.

The incandescent apparition of the Rev Dougal Maestri stood before me, his face clenched in an evil grimace, his cane held aloft. 

Episode 3

‘Stirling, you wretched boy!’ he howled. 

‘Oh, do be quiet, you tiresome old brute,’ I retorted. ‘Don’t you realise what bloody time it is?’ I was unconsciously echoing what Cilla had said to me earlier.

‘Language, boy!’ Maestri snarled.

‘Oh go away,’ I wittily retorted.

‘I have come to inflict your long overdue punishment!’

‘Come back in the morning, there’s a good fellow,’ I said, yawning.

‘Take your chastisement like a man now, or suffer eternal torment in the After-life!’

‘Eternal Torment?’ I replied. ‘Yours truly? Hardly. My war record alone has guaranteed me a place in the Elysian Fields, if not centre-row stalls alongside the Almighty Himself.’

The glowing spectre pointed a very bony finger at me. ‘I will show you all the points where you went wrong in your feeble excuse for a life, and if – only if – you repent, you will be spared the perpetual anguish of Hell!’

I sighed, grabbed my dressing gown and got out of bed. ‘If you’d read my memoirs – The Devil Talks the Hindmost, available on Amazon – you’d realise what twaddle you are talking.’ 

The radiant ghost sliced the air in half with its cane and let out a frightfully Scottish shriek.

I opened the door and gestured for the ghost to leave. ‘I’m being polite, old chap. I could expect you to walk through the wall, but I’m not that petty.’

The gleaming phantom was silent for a moment. ‘Tomorrow I will return, and woe betide this wretched school. The only prize given will be that of ceaseless anguish. And you, woeful Stirling… be prepared to face the thrashing of your pointless life.’

‘Now look here, Maestri,’ I’d had enough of this belly-aching phantasm. ‘Your canings weren’t all that, you know. Clever, I grant you, doing it without the usual limbs, but you didn’t have the bicep power and your angle of trajectory was all wrong. I’ve paid good money over the years to have spankings administered to me by the best whores in the world, and frankly, even the most petite of Korean lasses pack a more effective wallop than you ever could.’

That shut him up. He floated to the doorway, turned, looked as though he were about to say something, changed his mind, then started to leave…

Just as the shiny banshee was about to depart, I said, ‘By the way, congratulations on the right arm growing back in the after-life.’ No reaction. ‘I’ve noticed all the countless paintings of you show you in profile, so one doesn’t easily spot that both arms were actually mislaid. Still, no ‘arm done, eh?’

And on that, frankly, top-notch joke, the gleaming fiend buggered off. The door slammed shut after him, and I was left in darkness.

I was awoken the following morning by a rat-a-tat-tat on my door. I bid the knocker enter, and a small boy peered nervously around the door. He informed me that my secretary was on the blower. I hastily broke the frozen crust on the surface of my water jug, and splashed myself with molten ice to waken myself. I then hauled on the old togs.  Daylight seemed particularly dazzling through the windows, and when I quickly glanced outside, I discovered that a thick coating of snow had covered the ground overnight. It made the bleak locale seem almost cheery.

I took my telephone call in Noddy’s office. Matron was hovering, but I shooed her away with the excuse that the call may require foul language on my part. She snorted and left, presumably to torture a child somewhere.

The connection was poor, but what Cilla revealed was very interesting. The tone in which she told me was frostier than the weather outside, but the content thrilled me greatly. I thanked her, and promised her I’d slip her a big bonus for her trouble. She then threatened to report me for sexual harassment. I will never understand women.

I eschewed breakfast, donned my coat and stepped outside. The snow crunched delightfully underfoot, while the freezing air stung my eyes and caused the old bladder to constrict sharply. I could see that the virgin of the snow had already been sullied yellow by boys attempting to write their name, so I decided to do the same. I unfurled the old John Thomas and had barely got to the end of ‘Sir’ when I became aware I was being watched. I spun a round. A curious chap, middle-aged but youthful in a suspicious way, with big bouffant hair and a pink kilt was standing a few feet away, clutching a hoe.

‘You must be McPortillo,’ I said. I tucked myself away and held out my hand. He wrinkled his nose and gingerly held out his own.

‘Yon must be this author fellow?’ he asked.

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘How long have you worked here?’

‘All my life, man and boy. But not necessarily in that order.’ He giggled humourlessly.

‘There are a lot of grounds for you to work on.’

‘Aye,’ he agreed. ‘But nothing grows in this soil except weeds, and I get the wee boys to tug them up when they’re sent to me for punishment.’

I decided to cut to the chase. I produced the dolly from my pocket. ‘Did you make this?’

He took the doll from me, put on the glasses which were hanging from his neck via a chain, and examined it. ‘Och, well, it’s one of mine alright, but I didn’t do all the fripperies. They’re very poor. I take far greater care with my frocks and accessories for my wee dolls.’

‘Do you make many?’ 

‘Quite a few. I sell them at the Sunday market each week. My auld granny taught me. Sometimes I make them to order of specific people. But this…’ He handed it back to me disdainfully.

‘Who do you think bought this one?

He shrugged with his hands, rather pansily, I thought. ‘Nae idea.’

‘Do you ever get asked to make one with…’ I struggled, ‘ For example, something of the person whom it represents? Such as.. a strand of hair? Or a fingernail?’

He frowned. ‘Gross! Why on earth would I do that?’

‘Voodoo!’ I exclaimed.

He gave me a look, the same look I have seen BBC costume staff give me when I ask them if they can iron my cravat.

‘Are all you Sassenachs this soft in the head?’ he picked up his hoe. ‘Some of us have work to do. Excuse me.’

Before I could point that with a name like Stirling I could hardly be a Sassenach, he had flounced off, moving with a curious upright gait as though he had a broom-handle inserted up his Khyber.

Once he had left, I restarted my micturitions and contemplated the encounter. Was he telling the truth? Had the amendments to the doll of Noddy been done after it had left his hands – or was McPortillo the mastermind behind the uncanny proceedings at Scarhelldeath Hall?

I sat at the Head Table in the Dining Hall pondering the events of the past 24 hours while Noddy gave a frankly dull speech. Boys don’t want that motivational nonsense; they want the prizes to be given out so they can cheer the winner and sneer at the losers, then start the journey home for the hols. Kilcarcass is in the arse-end of nowhere so they all had a long trek to make. I recall it would take me 2 days just to lug my trunk to the nearest station. Boys were known to die of exposure before they had even bought their train ticket – which at least meant their parents didn’t have to claim for a refund.

I heard my name and realised it was the turn of yours truly to take centre-stage. I bounded to my feet. I had prepared a few words, but nothing too interminable.

‘First of all, gentlemen,’ I began, ‘May I congratulate you all on surviving another term.  They say what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger – and nowhere is this truer than Scarhelldeath Hall. 

In my day, many boys popped their clogs during each term, but frankly, they wouldn’t have lasted two minutes at Big School so it was all for the best in the end.’

I could see Noddy Junior in the front row, watching me wide-eyed. I had obviously become his hero, and, frankly, he couldn’t have chosen a better role model, particularly if he wanted to be a top-notch Bully.

‘I won’t lecture you on the importance of prizes. You know that already. If you don’t win then it’s a blot on your life which it will take many years of over-compensation to erase. Would Monty have been such a great Field Marshall if he’d actually won that Prize for Best-handwriting? Could Churchill have caused such inspiration and loyalty if he hadn’t failed his Latin exams? Would Freddie ‘Parrot-Face’ Davies have striven to bring so much light and laughter to our lives if he’d not failed his Eleven Plus?’

I had no idea if any if my examples had indeed committed such educational faux-pas, but they all seemed a good choice of coves to inspire young boys.

I was about to announce the first prize – which was for Best Tweet in Latin – when I felt something light land on my shoulders. I brushed it off, and there was a viscous substance on my fingers. Before I could look upwards, my eyes met those of Noddy Junior who was looking above my head in horror. He glanced at me and frantically waved at me to move forward.

My old soldier’s reflexes haven’t dulled over the years, and so I hurdled to one side, my legs leapfrogging over the table. I heard a gasp from the boys. I landed with the dexterity of a parachutist – albeit with some clicks and crunches from the knees that hadn’t been there before – and spun around to see what had happened. 

The spot on which I had been standing was now drenched in the most disgusting heap of muck. I glanced up, and hanging from the ceiling had been an enormous – and presumably raw – Haggis which had obviously burst open, disgorging its intestinal contents on to the poor mugs below. Not yours truly, obviously, thanks to the quick-wittedness of Noddy Junior, but the rest of the teaching staff, including Noddy Senior were now engulfed in uncooked entrails. I soon became aware that Matron had not been sitting with us at Head Table, but standing at the back of the Hall. 

Noddy Senior wiped the tripes from his eyes and spluttered, ‘Don’t panic, boys!’

The boys, far from panicking, looked as though they were struggling not to openly guffaw at this sight. 

One would’ve have expected Matron to thud to the rescue of her brother, or even to enjoy admonishing the boys, but when I glanced at her again she was no longer to be seen. 

Unexpectedly, one of the boys screamed. The candles all flickered out again. Although it was daylight still, the Hall was gloomy, the only light now that which was reflected from the snow outside, giving the room an eerie glow. I heard a rattle of chains from above me. I looked up, and there perched on one of the chandeliers was the spectral figure of the Rev Dougal Maestri!

Panic ensued. Boys fled to the back of the hall where Matron had somehow rematerialised and was, inexplicably, blocking the exit. 

Both Noddies approached me, fear in their matching eyes. ‘What can we do?’ asked Noddy Senior. ‘Perhaps I should have let the boys perform that exorcism?’

‘You don’t need an exorcist,’ I told Noddy, grimly. ‘You need a witch-finder.’

My keen eyes, on top of the brainstorming in which I had indulged the previous night, had already spotted a solution to our problem. Just needed to buy some time. I positioned myself so that I was standing just below the chandelier.

‘I say, Dougal,’ I called up to the pestilent ghoul. ‘Merry Christmas, old chap!’

The spirit of Maestri snarled and waved his cane with great gusto. A fine layer of dust landed on my shoulders. I turned my head and blew it off.

‘I’ve worked out your little plan, you know’ I continued. ‘And it won’t work. You won’t frighten fine upstanding old Scarhelldeathians like the Nodworth-Holders. Or yours truly, for that matter. War hero and all that. I’ve faced Nazis, poltergeists, traffic wardens, demons, socialists, TV producers, warlocks, agents, Satanists, critics… Even my own wife abandoned me for a witch. Did I let it crush me? Did I buggery! Of course, when I say witch… She was a hairdresser really. Blue rinses and bad perms for frumpy old bags a speciality. She’d do their roots, listen to their problems, seduce them… And that wasn’t even her real job. I rummaged around in her background and I discovered she had for many years been… guess what? A magician’s assistant. Yes, some dreadful third–rate act who ploughed around the lower depths of the variety circuit. The Boggling Mr Stupendo and Pam. Or was it The Stupendous Mr Boggle and Pam? Either way, he died in mysterious circumstances apparently. Choked to death on his own rabbit. She sold the act and used the money to open her hairdressers. But she must have picked up some useful tricks though, particularly if she wanted to convince people she had genuine supernatural powers.’

For some reason this little spiel of mine enraged old Maestri and he shook his solitary fist at me. 

‘Now, you wouldn’t be able to do that if your arm hadn’t grown back in the after-life,’ I mocked him.

Maestri, overcome with wrath, started to swing back and forth on the chandelier. I tried one last tack.

‘I don’t even know what my wife saw in her. Face like a baboon’s arse, frankly. And one presumes, an arse like a baboon’s face.’

The incensed spectre howled with fury – and the whole chandelier wrenched itself away from the ceiling and plummeted to the floor. I had anticipated this and had hopped nippily out of the way just beforehand.

At this disaster, Matron screamed and thundered from the doorway she was blocking to the debris. She clawed her way through the wreckage, flinging chunks of plaster over her shoulder. 

Both Noddies looked at me blankly.

I reached down, grabbed Matron by the shoulders, and hauled her up to face us. 

‘Gentlemen,’ I said. With one hand I seized Matron’s hair and tore it away from her scalp and with my other hand I grasped her cheek and tugged… Both Noddies gasped, but fell silent as I showed them the wig and mask.

‘Meet the wife!’ I continued, triumphantly.

*******

‘I had the whole thing sussed quite early on,’ I assured Noddy and his son later on, as we sat in his study, toasting crumpets in front of a roaring fire; Noddy and I sipping whisky, Noddy Minor enjoying a mug of cocoa (into which, yes, I admit, I had surreptitiously splashed a nip of whisky).

‘I briefly toyed with the idea that McPortillo was behind the whole thing, but a quick chat with the pink-kilted groundsman soon assured me he was oblivious to it all.’ I still wasn’t convinced that he hadn’t accepted the shilling from the ghastly women for help somewhere along the line, but sadly nowadays we can’t accuse without proof in this wretched politically correct world we live in.

The past few hours had been a hive of frenzy. The culprits were, as I suspected, my ex-wife Abigail and her lover, the soi-disant witch Pam. The local Plod had been called – and an ambulance – and we all helped to haul the wretched Pam out from under the debris. The silly woman was lucky she hadn’t been killed in the plummet from the ceiling, but apart from a few broken bones, concussion, severe scratches, a perforated eardrum, a dislocated hip and a splinter in her eye, she was unhurt.

Abigail was hysterical – I think I actually preferred her as the implacable human tank of a Matron – and it took a couple of slaps before she could calm down and explain the plot to us. And, I am afraid to say, it was partially my fault.

A while back, the pair of them had asked me to up the alimony to fund a house in which to set up a retreat for sapphic witches. I’d refused in no uncertain terms. The dratted pair must have squirreled themselves away in my library at the Rectory – my old home which I had been forced to bequeath to my ex-wife – done some research and concocted this dastardly plan to frighten poor old Noddy into flogging the Hall to them for a pittance. Obviously, Pam’s previous life as a magician’s assistant helped her stage all the little son et lumiere which had so astounded everybody. Except for Old Stirling who swiftly saw through the whole sorry masquerade. 

When I’d telephoned Cilla the previous night, I had asked her to rummage around in Noddy’s family history, and it transpired that there was no proof whatsoever that his papa had dipped his wick illicitly, and even less evidence that ‘Dorcas’ was his half-sister – or even an accredited matron! In fact, there was no verification she even existed.

The ex-trouble-&-strife had been led away from Scarhelldeath Hall in handcuffs (and yes, there had a been a twitch downstairs, not that she and I had ever indulged in anything other than ‘lights-off obligation rumpy,’ all due to her latent inclinations as opposed to any deficiency in my expertise in the trousers-off department ). 

The ghastly Pam had been carted off in an ambulance with a muffled cry from beneath the bandages of ‘And we would’ve got away with it if it hadn’t been for you, you meddling pensioner!’

I’m not sure what they’ll be charged with. Harassment? Fraud? Impersonating a ghost without a licence? I merely hope that Abigail sees through the malignity of the odious Pam and finds a nice sexy lady to settle down with. And lets me watch.

And so I prepared to take my leave of Scarhelldeath Hall. The boys had all left for their hols, as had the surviving staff. Noddies Major and Minor invited me to stay for the Yuletide festivities, and while I was tempted, I am of an age where the comfort of my own bed, central heating and a decent bar in the vicinity is more important than family and friends. A draughty, damp pile, Scarhelldeath Hall may be adequate for young children, but not for grand old gentlemen of letters! Besides, if the ex-wife gets banged up in chokey, then I may reclaim ownership of The Old Rectory – and my darling dogs, Rommel, Lucan and Aspinall – again. 

Before I buggered off, I imparted simple words of advice to Noddy Minor on the thorny subject of Bullying, and they amounted to this – ‘No-one else matters except you! As long as you get what you want , that’s all that counts! And if someone’s in your way, then propel them out of it! The good Bully makes the victim realise  who is Boss with as little effort as possible. Although the occasional violence now and then is not to be sniffed at.’ 

And I think that is wise counsel we should take to heart in all aspects of our lives.

Yuletide felicitations, cherished listeners!

The Coves in Black

 A Sir Desmond Stirling Testimony of the Unearthly

Chapter 1

‘I say, Stirling old chap, there’s supposed be a wizard meteor display in the sky tonight. Fancy taking a butcher’s?’

Piers Felchington-Smythe peered out from behind his copy of The Wrong ‘Un, a luridly-covered magazine about true life criminals. ‘Felcher’ was the disgraced third son of Lord Perivale and currently the MP for somewhere hellish up north, a constituency he proudly claimed he’d never visited. I’d never realised he had an interest in astronomy and said so.

‘Don’t really,’ he admitted, ‘But anything would be more interesting than watching the old farts fall asleep.’

We were in the bar of Abaddon’s, our Gentlemen’s Club. It is my home from home, but there had been a noticeable dearth of the top notch members that night, partly because there had been a three line whip in Parliament. Felcher should’ve been there too, but I doubt he would’ve known what the deuce he was voting for anyway, so it was patently for the best he didn’t take part.

I suggested the best place would be on the roof. This was strictly out of bounds (due to the amount of members who’d leapt from there during various economic downturns or when exposed by the News of The World as a relentless fornicator of one kind or another), but I had previously ‘acquired’ a spare set of keys which would admit us to the roof terrace. 

As you know, I’m always game for an adventure so I required no further encouragement. We ordered a brace of whiskies each and crept out as surreptitiously as two drunks can.

The narrow stairs to the roof proved somewhat trickier than usual, probably due to the vast consumption of booze we had both enjoyed throughout the evening, but neither of us were amateur pisspots, and we eventually reached the door to the terrace. I had to close one eye in order to manoeuvre the key into its hole, but after about 15 minutes I managed it and we found ourselves on the roof. The terrace was narrow, enclosed by a rail topped with barbed wire to prevent the aforementioned self-toppings. I’d often sunbathed up there in the warmer months, but tonight the temperature was not conducive to being starkers, even for a hardened nudist such as yours truly. It was a beautifully clear night, with a myriad stars on view. 

‘Where is the meteor shower expected?’ I asked.

Felcher pointed upwards. ‘In the sky.’

I sighed. ‘Yes, I guessed that, but which bit? There is rather a lot of it.’

Felcher shrugged. ‘No idea, old bean.’ He stared upwards. ‘So what exactly are we looking for?’

I wondered if this was a fool’s errand. It would hardly flabber my gast if Felcher hadn’t even got the correct night.

I shivered. There was already a sheen of frost on the surrounding roofs. I confess that London looked rather winsome in this ice-encrusted state, but I was glad that there was a bunk with a hot water bottle waiting for me downstairs, and that I didn’t have to totter my way home to the Old Rectory tonight.

I looked up. I couldn’t see anything that resembled a meteor shower. The cold night air was making my eyes water; any more and I wouldn’t be able to spot a flying saucer if one flew overhead…

I gasped! A wave of… what’s it called…? deja vu hit me. Had I been here before? I recalled staring at a moonlit sky, watching as… something approached…

I shook my head. I’m a courageous chap as anyone who knows me – or my war record – will testify, hand on Bible, but suddenly I felt unnerved and wanted a ceiling protecting  my head, not this bleak infinity with its unknown worlds, home to who knew what.

‘Bugger this for a game of soldiers, Felcher,’ I managed to gasp. ‘I’d rather be drinking in the warm than freezing the orchestras off gawping at the Milky Way.’

Felcher nodded and followed me down the stairs. My legs were shaky as I descended the staircase, and not just from the booze.

What on Earth had unnerved me so? If it was from Earth…?

Despite having drunk enough to fell a hippo, I had trouble sleeping that night.

Odd images flitted through my brain; lights, large black eyes, weird long fingers getting a tad fresh with one’s unmentionables … nothing coherent, it was as though that rum cove Ken Russell had been let loose on my memories with a pair of scissors.

Finally, much to my relief, I conked out and enjoyed a dream where Raquel Welch, dressed in a  very skimpy space suit, gave me a thorough medical exam – definitely BUPA and not NHS.

The reason I was staying in town that night was that the next day I was due to record an episode of Call My Bluff. I arrived at the BBC Television Centre early; the place may be a roaring hive of unashamed Reds, but the Bar is subsidised and one can get reasonably blotto without breaking the bank. I rather overdid it, and realised I’d better get some nosh inside me before the recording to soak up all the booze so I made my way to the Canteen. I waited for a lift alongside a Black & White Minstrel, a Pan’s Person, and Kenneth Kendall. I flashed my most charming smile at the Pan’s Person; she ignored me. Kendall smiled at me; I ignored him.

The lift door opened and I walked in… only to be confronted with the subject of last night’s nightmare. A tall green thing with huge bulbous black eyes loomed over me.

I gasped and fell backwards onto the lift wall. The creature turned to look at me. My legs buckled and I felt cold sweat erupt from every pore.

The Pan’s Person brushed past me before I could stop her. 

‘Hello Sonny,’ she said to the Thing. The creature nodded at her, lumbered out of the lift, and headed for the Bar. I breathed a sigh of relief when the lift door closed.

The Pan’s Person stared at me with, I’m ashamed to say, pity. ‘He’s doing Doctor Who in TC1. What floor?’

‘Thought you had the DTs, Sir Desmond?’ asked the wretched Kendall with a giggle. I tried to respond but all my facial muscles refused to function. 

I abandoned the lift at the next floor and stood in the corridor, gulping in air. Like most of Television Centre, there were enough booze fumes around to help pacify me. 

I calmed myself down. What on Earth was the matter with me? To have the heebie-jeebies over a thesp in a polystyrene helmet! I – who had wrestled with a crocodile,  marched at the front of Nudist Pride parade down Whitehall in a glacial  February, and parachuted into Germany dressed as a Nun (it wasn’t the War, I’d lost a bet with the Duke of Edinburgh),

I clenched my manly jaw. I’m the last person to have any truck with shrinks: I’m as sane as the next man – just ask any next man whether it’s Aspinall, Lucky Lucan or old Goldsmith – but even I could sense a screw coming loose and I wanted it tightened before anything fell off.

In the absence of a straitjacket or a passing trick cyclist, I did the next best thing and took a swig from my hip flask.

The recording went well. I bamboozled the opposing side – Freddy ‘Parrot-Face’ Davies and Susan Stranks along with the ubiquitous Paddy Campbell – with my false yet plausible definition of Frottage and we coasted to an easy victory. 

Afterwards we congregated in the Bar. Once I’d downed a few brandies, I was able to see the funny side of my experience earlier in the day, and I made my co-panellists roar as I described my ‘Close Encounter’ although I confess that I played down the extent of the unease I’d felt. 

But lingering shreds of my anxiety must have shown through, and darling Sue Lawley mentioned that she’d recently interviewed a ‘hypnotherapist’ whose speciality was putting patients under the ‘fluence’ and rummaging around for any memories that might have got lodged at the back of the brain, fishing them out and chucking them in the bin where they belong. As I said, I’ve had no truck with mentalists in the past, but I was keen to get to the bottom of this enigma.

The next morning, I instructed my secretary Cilla to find out the mesmerist’s number – telling her it was for research for the next novel; I wanted this kept quiet and she’s a terror for flapping her lips – and I phoned to make an appointment. To my surprise he was able to fit me in that afternoon. I would’ve thought free publicity on top TV show Nationwide would’ve filled his books for months. 

It wasn’t quite Harley Street; the mesmerist’s office was situated above a sandwich shop in Weymouth Street, but near enough, I conceded.

I rang the bell. A tinny voice rattled out of the intercom. ‘Who is it?’

‘Sir Desmond Stirling,’ I confidently informed them, albeit with my hand cupped over the mouthpiece so no passers-by might hear. ‘I have an appointment with Professor Tintenfisch.’ 

The door clicked and I entered. Initial impression wasn’t favourable. I once took an ex- wife to a diet clinic around the corner in the actual Harley Street – I thought it was about time she shed some blubber – and the whole set-up had been very deluxe; leggy receptionists, carpet woven from the pubic hair of Tibetan nuns, illuminated tank with bonsai sharks… but this was somewhat downmarket from that. A badly-lit staircase faced me, a carpet which was more hole than actual rug, and a tang reminiscent of school tuck hung about in the air. But I’m not one to shirk a challenge, so I ascended the stairs, hoping that the answer to my paradox awaited me at the summit.

At the top of the stairs I found myself in a small reception room. The pong had dissipated, but there were no other signs of opulence. A filing cabinet, a small desk on which there was a typewriter, and a moth-eaten sofa. A lady of indeterminate age sat behind the desk, tapping away even though there was no paper in the typewriter. She looked up as I walked in, her eyes rather unfocused behind her ferociously winged spectacles. 

I reintroduced myself. 

‘The Professor is expecting you,’ she said and hiccuped from which a whiff of gin escaped. ‘Won’t be two shakes of…’ she faltered. 

‘A donkey’s tail?’ I volunteered.

She looked at me, eyes glazed. ‘Do what?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, kindly.

‘Just take a seat.’

I sat unwillingly on the sofa. I glanced at the magazines on offer on the coffee table. Several old issues of Shrinks & Shrinking, the latest Mesmer Monthly, and a pre-war Health and Efficiency. I was about to grab the last when I heard my name being called. I glanced up.

If I wrote a character such as stood before me, my critics – of whom you will be astonished to know there are many, most of them unredeemed communists – would’ve accused me of cliché. Professor Tintenfisch was a tall man, in his sixties, his grey hair awry as though in shock, his suit – much like his office – had seen better days, the dog’s tooth pattern faded and drenched in all sorts of unsavoury stains. His waistcoat was garish, once glittering with black sequins although a good half had obviously dropped off in the preceding years. I suspected he may once have practiced his art on the boards and this was a final remnant of his stage outfit.

He was vigorously cleaning his small round spectacles and, after peering through them to check if he’d missed any debris, perched them on his nose, which was cushioned by a splendid walrus moustache, suspiciously darker than his shock of hair.

He squinted at me, then held out his hand. I shook it. A surprisingly strong grip. 

‘Guten tag, Sir Ztirling,’ he said in a very broad accent. ‘Please, follow me.’ He led me into his office. 

Hmm, was he a genuine Kraut or was the accent a residue of his stage act?

His office was even more chaotic and dilapidated than the reception; a desk piled high with paper work, bookcases threatening to collapse under the weight of ancient tomes, yellowing certificates framed on the wall. My German used to be pretty top notch for my war work (about which I still keep mum as careless talk etc etc) but the lettering was too faded, even if my vocab hadn’t diminished over the years.

The Professor scooped an elderly cat off a moth-eaten chaise-longue and gestured for me to sit down. I did so and was promptly engulfed in a cloud of dust. 

He sat behind his desk and swept a tottering pile of paperwork out of his way so he could see me.

‘So, Sir Ztirling,’ he said, ‘How can I help you?’

‘Call me Sir Desmond,’ I offered him, generously.

I took a deep breath. I had been dreading this moment. In the cold light of day, surely it was all going to sound pretty ridiculous?

The Professor formed a steeple with his fingers? ‘Juzt start at zer very beginning, it izz avter all, a fair gut place to ztart.’ He leaned forward. ‘You vill tell me all you need to under ze hypnosis, but it izz for ze best for me to know for vot I am looking.’

He smiled at me and I suddenly felt that, for all his oddness, I could trust this man.

And so I blurted it all out: my collywobbles on the roof, the nightmares, the encounter at TV Centre with the mummer in the monster suit… 

The Professor listened to my blathering in silence, then when I finished, he leaned back in his chair.

‘Vair vair interezzting,’ was all he said.

‘Yes, but what’s it all about, Prof?’ I pleaded. ‘Am I going dollally oddsocks or what?’

He faced me, his screwed-up eyes fixing me intently through his tiny glasses.

‘Let uzz find out, shall ve?’

He stood up and approached me. ‘Kindly lie down on ze sofa, Zir Dezmunt. Head zero, feet zere. You may remove your shoes and undo your trousers if it will make you the more comfy.’

I kicked off my shoes , but left my trousers alone. After all, while I’m never happier than when bollocko, the halfway house of trousered but unzipped can make a chap feel very insecure.

The Professor switched off the light and pulled a blind down over the window. The room darkened considerably.

‘How do you do this?’ I asked with a nervous titter. ‘Dangle a watch in front of my eyes?

He shook his head. A cloud of dandruff gently erupted into the air like a dandelion casting its seed to the wind.

‘Nein, hypnozizz has reached ze space age.’ He pointed at the wall opposite me on which there was pinned a circular board adorned with a black and white spiral pattern. He flicked a switch by the board and it started to spin, slowly at first, gradually getting faster. 

The Professor pulled a chair up alongside the chaise-longue and sat by me. ‘Please concentrate on ze centre of ze spinning pattern und empty your mind of all thoughtzz und vorries.’

I focussed on the epicentre of the whirling spiral and tried to clear my mind, not easy with a ferocious intellect like mine. The Professor started to speak quietly, his voice surprisingly soothing for a sausage-muncher.

‘Switch off your muzzels und allow your body to float.’

I was convinced this wasn’t going to work, but I decided that bugger it, at least I’d get a nice afternoon snooze out of it. I began to relax…

I was aware the Professor was still talking but I wasn’t really listening. I had begun to feel that I was wallowing on a bed of marshmallows and jolly comfy it felt too, almost as good as being smashed on whisky. 

‘Zo tell me vot happened zat night…’ I heard the Professor ask…

I let out a gentle snore. 

And then it all flooded back!

Chapter 2

I’d been enjoying a splendid weekend in the country at Brusque Manor, the country seat of Fuzzy, the newly-minted Duke of Isleworth. The Duchess was a lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret and had accompanied her on one of her jaunts to somewhere exotic, so Fuzzy had decided to host a ‘boy’s weekend’ in the country.  Lots of grub, booze, skinny dipping in the pool, a certain amount of slaughter of small animals – the ideal weekend!

Regretfully I had to cut the weekend short and take my leave on the Sunday afternoon as I was due to appear on Pebble Mill at One the following lunchtime. I waved goodbye to all my chums as they lounged starkers by the pool, Martinis in hand, and hopped into my Jensen Interceptor, cursing Bob Langley under my breath. But I had a book on the cusp of publication and every bit of exposure was important. My agent was trying to slot me into Russell Harty Plus the following evening too.

I had barely driven a few miles when dusk fell quickly. The road was quiet with so little traffic that I expected to be at my Chelsea flat much earlier than expected. I was rifling through the address book in my brain to see whether I could drum up some totty for the night!

And this is where things took a turn for the rum.

On one of my rare glimpses into the rear view mirror, I spotted a dazzling light rapidly approaching me from behind. 

‘Blast!’ I thought, ‘is that Plod?’ I had been drinking solidly for the previous 48 hours (48 years to be precise!) and I had no wish to lose my licence yet again. I slowed down, popped a Polo in the mouth, and glanced into the mirror … 

The light had gone! Not only that, the road was empty. How was that possible? Nothing had overtaken me. Perhaps the vehicle in question had swerved off the road and crashed? Small mercies etc…

At this point, my car stopped dead. Engine, lights, 8 track stereo, the lot. It slid to a standstill. I tried the key in the ignition. Nothing. I tried again. Still bugger all.

I swore very loudly, language that would shock a brickie. I hadn’t seen a garage or indeed anything much at all for miles. I was going to have to walk to the nearest phone box. I wasn’t even sure I had a 2p piece. I rarely carried coins.

Bang went my Sunday evening knee-trembler with *REDACTED* who I just knew would be a sure bet.

I was about to disembark from the car when I was dazzled with light. I presumed my headlights had suddenly flashed back on, but I quickly realised the luminescence was originating from above. I unwound the window and peered out and upwards…

I don’t know what I saw, but I was so dazzled I must have lost consciousness…

I swam to the surface of awareness. Everything was blurred as if my sight and hearing were clogged with a layer of Vaseline. All I could hear was a cacophony of bleeps and buzzing as though I was at some wretched concert of avant-garde music by Stockhausen or one of those other antisocial fellows. I blinked. A figure was peering down at me; huge black eyes with no lids, a tuft of wiry beard protruding from its chin, leathery skin oozing a slimy oil…

‘Nanny?’ I gasped, ‘what are you doing here?’

For a moment I had a flashback to my childhood, lying on my back as she changed my nappy, tut-tutting at what I had produced.

‘Dearie me, master Desmond,’ I could still remember her rough Irish brogue. ‘You’ll have to learn to use the potty before starting prep school next week.’

I shook my head. Nanny was long dead, blown up by her own Semtex during a failed attack on a post office, old Fenian rogue that she was. Besides, I hadn’t worn a nappy for a long time, years possibly.

Then why did I think..? 

I realised that I was naked from the waist down and my legs were suspended in the air. I felt a wet cloth between my buttocks, as someone wiped my anal cleft.

I groaned. Had it really been that good a weekend? Was Raven my manservant cleaning me up and putting me to bed again? I really ought to give him a pay rise. It’s rare to find a gentleman’s gentleman so willing to don the Marigolds and scrub away the detritus of one’s bacchanalia. 

‘Oh, Raven, you do spoil me,’ I sighed…

At which point Raven did something he’d never done before!

‘Ow!’ I yelled. ‘I appreciate your thoroughness, Raven, but there’s no need…’

I turned cold as I realised I wasn’t in the gentle yet lubricated hands of Raven. The creature – for creature was the only word that suited – who was approaching my exposed posterior with an unnecessarily bulky gadget was most definitely not human. 

I tried to struggle, but I couldn’t move. I felt the odious appliance start to penetrate me. My old SAS training kicked in. Resisting torture doesn’t help, one had to go along with it. I could almost hear darling Dickie Wattis giving me advice? ‘Dear man, just relax and let down your guard. Once it’s past the ring, the worst is over and you can lie back and enjoy it.’

I had no intention of enjoying it, thank you very much, but neither did I plan to allow myself to succumb. 

‘You fiends!’ I hissed. ‘How dare you violate an Englishman’s arsehole without his or his doctor’s permission.

The grisly utensil continued its journey, bringing tears to my eyes. ‘If you aggravate my Michaels, you’ll hear from my solicitor.’

I realised that darling Dickie was right. The further in the gadget penetrated the less it hurt. I could cope with this, I really could. Perhaps I could even pretend I was finding it enjoyable. That would fox the blighters!

I let out an involuntary moan as the invading object touched something inside. Not sure what, but my brain was interpreting it as a sensation of pleasure. Marvellous the way the mind helps one when under duress. 

The Creature slightly withdrew the contraption, then pressed it further in. 

‘Oh Christ!’ I moaned, instinctively reaching for the Johnson, probably to protect it or maybe rub it gently to reassure it. But my hands were immobile. 

To my horror I realised that The Creature had taken hold of the old chap and was examining it. 

‘Unhand me, Sir!’ I tried to say, but – and I assume this was the drugs they had pumped me with – all I could yell was, ‘Oh yes, oh yes!’

After the usual brief time, I am ashamed to say my toes curled and I came face to face with La Petite Mort.

I lay back, shagged out.

‘Do you have a cigarette?’ I pleaded.

The Creature scooped up my Devil’s Custard and slopped it inside a test tube. He handed it to a colleague – equally repellent – who whisked it away.

‘What are you going to do with that?’ I gasped, worried as most chaps are with the potential havoc that the sinful spoonful could cause.

The Creature withdrew that infernal gadget from Branston Alley, glanced at it, and handed it to his bulbous-headed mucker.

I tried to regain a modicum of dignity. I couldn’t move, but I attempted to convey some typically English bravado with that combination of voice and eyebrows perfected by that old sweetheart Roger Moore.

‘This won’t do,’ I said, firmly. ‘You can’t go around kidnapping chaps and molesting their starfishes without so much as a by your leave.’

The Creature stared at me – I would say impassively, but it’s expression was so hard to read it may have been furious or even doing their equivalent of poking its tongue out.

His chum approached and handed him something. The Creature held it up. It was the most godawfully colossal syringe I’d ever seen in my life.

I’m ashamed to say I gasped.

‘Don’t you dare!’ I wheezed. 

The Creature squirted a drop of liquid out of the top of the syringe then loomed towards me.

I tried to scream, but the Stirling tonsils aren’t used to such girlish noise and so I emitted the merest squeak. I violently shook my head as the syringe got closer and closer…

I yelled… and found myself staring into the startled face of Professor Tintenfisch…. I jerked up from the chaise longue, only for the Prof to hold me down.

I lashed out – and my accomplishments in the various arts of the fisticuffs are well-known – so it was astonishing that the Professor was not only able to dodge my punch, but grab my hands with a firm grip of his own. He pushed me back onto the chaise longue, then produced a hip flask from his pocket which he offered to me. I hurriedly swigged a mouthful, the bitter tang of the second-rate brandy instantly doing what was required.

We stared at each other. ‘Zo now ve know,’ he said softly. He looked as shell-shocked as I felt.

The answer was staring me in the face!

Aliens! I had been abducted by aliens!

Chapter 3

I’ve always been a broad-minded chap, open to most things with the exception of socialism and vegetarianism. But I’d never given much credence to the idea of aliens; not so much their existence per se, but that they would visit this world and, instead of approaching the elite – eg Her Majesty or Patrick Moore or John Junor – they’d waste their time with hillbillies in the arse end of nowhere in the colonies.

But it was now looking as though they had finally made contact with someone worth communicating with (eg Yours Truly) and I’d bally well forgotten about it!

But could anyone blame me, after the diabolical liberties they’d taken with the Stirling balloon knot?

My first port of call was my old school chum Peter ‘Nellie’ Nellington-Dean who’d been a Defence wonk until his penchant for snap inspections of Guardsmen’s barracks got him quietly moved to Agriculture where the cows couldn’t complain if he interfered with them.

Nellie was as dapper as ever, his gleaming white hair swooped into an intricate arrangement to hide his bald spot, a green handkerchief popping up from his breast pocket, shoes so polished one could see his underpants.

We lunched at the Tosspot – a discreet munching hole in Greek Street where Fleet St hacks were too busy gazing longingly into their mistress’s eyes to notice anyone else. I politely asked after his good lady wife, whose name neither of us could recall, then I leaped to the nub of the matter. 

‘What’s the deal with flying saucers, Nellie?’ I asked.

He barked with laughter, spilling some juice from his Devilled Seahorse starter on his old school tie.

I gave him a quelling look. I wanted him to take this seriously; not that I was telling him why I wanted to know, just using research for a forthcoming best-seller as my pretext.

‘What’s the official position of HMG vis a vis the whole little green man situation?’ I repeated, trying to sound nonchalantly professional while suppressing my eager yen for the truth.

Nellie shrugged. ‘As far as I know, Her Majesty’s Government position is that it’s all twaddle. In my time, I didn’t see one document with any shred of proof that UFOs are real.’

‘But what about the people who claim they’ve been abducted?’ I asked.

‘Americans, usually,’ he chuckled. ‘Americans who eat lard by the bucket load and think Jesus was a deadshot with an AK47.’

I stared hard at him. Was he just fobbing me off? I didn’t think so. Lying wasn’t Nellie’s strong point. After all, it was his tendency to inadvisable honesty that got him into deep water when asked by Plod why he’d been standing at that particular urinal for quite so long…

I admit that what he said chimed with what I had always believed. Some banjo-plucking redneck and a chum would get rat-arsed on illicit moonshine; sufficiently soused, they would make the beast with the two hairy backs, and then would justify their red raw posteriors the next day with some guff about Martians and their indiscriminate proctological tendencies.

But then it had happened to me. I had been abducted, I had been probed in the most unseemly fashion, and I can assure, you, dear reader, before a disgraceful vision pops up in your mind, that I had most definitely not been indulging in puddle-jumping!

Nellie changed the subject and started to relate some gossip about ex-schoolchums of ours and the misdemeanours they had got up to recently, resulting in whip-withdrawal or fines, but never, thankfully, prison; although for ex-boarding schoolboys, prison wouldn’t be so very different, although with fewer genuine African princes.

I had stopped listening to Nellie. I had drifted off into a dream world of my own, hypnotised by the clumps of mashed potato congealing on my plate. They reminded me of something, but I couldn’t for the life of me think what exactly. I started pushing it around with my fork trying to manipulate it into the shape I felt it should be. Eventually it was arranged into two large balls of mash, joined at the hip. Finally I poured a little gravy from the boat to cause a trickle from the top to the bottom.

Yes, that was it. That’s exactly what it reminded me of…

But what exactly? 

I became aware that Nellie had stopped talking and was watching me with a bemused expression. 

‘I say, Stirling old thing, why have you made a scrotum out of your mashed potato?’

‘It’s not a scrotum, it’s..,’ I began to splutter. Then stopped and looked at my culinary sculpture again. He was right, you know, it did look just like a chap’s turkey neck. Not that I’ve been that close up with one, although they are hard to miss in Cap D’Agde, particularly when playing snooker.

I recalled Nanny scolding me for ‘playing with my food’ so, much as I did then, I scooped the mash into my mouth and obliterated any remnant of my eccentric behaviour.

I hastily changed the subject and asked whether it was true that that PM had been found *REDACTED* in his office with *REDACTED* while dressed as a *REDACTED* 

Nellie’s eyes lit up and he regaled me with sordid gossip about the latest oik to disgrace that sacred office. He soon forgot about my lapse into oddity, while I brooded about what that potato sculpture signified. Perhaps I should pay another visit to that potty mesmerist?

Shortly after this Nellie excused himself as he had to vote against free school meals for the poor or some other communist threat. I was extremely browned off to find he’d left me the bill when he had a perfectly good taxpayer-funded expense account.

I coughed up the necessary tin and took my leave of the restaurant. I was so distracted I’d left an over-generous tip of a whole half-crown! And the waiter wasn’t even a pretty lass!

I was disappointed. Nellie seemingly knew bugger all. I’d assumed he would’ve been thoroughly debriefed (although not in the way one would’ve been on day one at Big School) and would know all that was needed about the whole UFO shebang. ‘Oh yes,’ I’d hoped he would say, ‘That’s the work of the Hardons from Planet Snargle. Don’t worry, I’ll have a quiet word in the relevant orifice and none of those bug-eyed rotters will dare lay a leathery finger on the Stirling tackle ever again.’

While my mind was digesting all this, and my gut was doing the same to the Tripe Tartare, I felt a warning tingle. My senses, trained to an almost superhuman heightened awareness in the SAS, were telling me that I was being watched. Obviously, as a celebrity, one often attracts the gawps of the Oi Polloi, but it’s simple enough to deter their approaches with a quelling glance. 

But this was different. I sensed mild peril. Not real danger – after all I have fought sharks in the Adriatic while delivering chocolates to a woman who later died from complications with diabetes, and wrestled with elite Ninja bastards in Katmandu. No, this was just the inkling that something nearby was – as the common folk so amusingly say – ‘a bit iffy.’

I lifted the collar of my jacket, lurked in a shop doorway and peered around. Nearly everyone in Soho looks suspicious: the homeless person swigging a bottle of Moët and chatting into his ‘mobile’ phone; a nun swinging her Clone Zone bag; the traffic warden having the audacity to ticket my Roller…

But I clocked my prey almost immediately. Two bizarre coves in black pinstripe suits, black waistcoats, black ties, black bowler hats perched on their heads, and wearing, ludicrously, dark-tinted pince-nez – and it wasn’t even sunny! Both of them were clutching furled umbrellas and briefcases; black, inevitably. They realised I had seen them and they tensed. I sent mental instructions to every fibre of my being to prepare for fisticuffs…

At which point someone collided with me. It was a middle-aged woman. She nearly fell but grabbed my hand to steady herself.

‘Watch where you’re going!’ she barked, shamelessly. My gentlemanly instincts kicked in, preventing me from scolding the clumsy baggage. I was about to remonstrate, but she had marched off. I raised my fist to shake it at her when I sensed I was holding something which I hadn’t been a few seconds earlier.

Surreptitiously, I glanced in my hand. There was a card. It read…

‘Mavis Peebles (Miss)

Ufologist

Truth Seeker

‘Nothing doubted.’

Followed by a telephone number.

Well, wasn’t this a turn-up for the books!

I stared over the road. The black-suited men had gone. Perhaps they were just on their way to a funeral? Had they seen my collision with that woman?

I knew what I had to do. I popped into the Coach and Horses for a stiffener.

That evening, I phoned Miss Peebles. I didn’t want anyone else to hear so I picked the lock of the main office at Abaddon’s, my Club – one of many tricks I learned from a chauffeur who was once in my employ -and used the secretary’s phone which I eventually found under several back issues of People’s Friend (including one which profiled Yours Truly. The reporter was an odd young woman whom I bedded afterwards. She had a morbid fascination with my bathroom; in the printed interview, she kept banging on about my avocado plumbing.).

Clutching the phone with my hanky to avoid fingerprints, I dialled the number on the card.

A gruff voice answered. I said who I was and thanked her for the card. Her reply was simple. 

‘Tomorrow night. 10pm. The Devil’s Ballsack outside the village of Quigley Godfrey. Don’t be followed!’

Chapter 4

On the morrow, I despatched myself to the village of Quigley Godfrey in the unfashionable end of Wiltshire. I’d never heard of the place. It required 5 trains to get there and I wished I’d taken the Rolls, but I wanted to be discreet and I was pretty sure the indigenous rustics would never have seen such a grand specimen of motorhood before, if indeed the miracle of the combustion engine had even reached the sleepy hamlet.

Eventually, after a journey of singular tiresomeness, not to mention British Rail employees of increasing communistic tendencies, a lavatory which resembled the Somme, and a buffet car which didn’t serve caviar, my fifth train of the day pulled into the small station at Quigley Godfrey. I asked the elderly station master, a cove whose decrepitude was matched only by his deafness, if there was a hotel in the vicinity. He stared at me blankly, blew into his ear trumpet, informed me about the terrible state of his lumbago, then pointed out of the station. I found a solitary taxi waiting on the concourse, a humble yet beautifully maintained 1963 Austen Trevor. The driver was a young man with, distressingly, an earring and a tattoo of Che Guevara on his neck, who was, despite the physical evidence, surprisingly polite and attentive. I settled into the passenger seat and asked him to take me hither to the best hostelry in the district. He went straight into first gear, his hand accidentally falling off the gear stick and into my lap. He apologised with a shy smile, and drove me about three hundred yards to a charming old inn called The Little Green Man. He kindly offered to carry my luggage to my bedroom, but as I wasn’t sure they’d be able to squeeze me in, I declined.

The ancient pub sign, creaking slightly in the breeze, depicted a curious figure with cavernous eyes and a bulbous head, not dissimilar to the alien bloke who’d been so unwelcomely familiar with my privates.

To my relief, the inn had a free room which I nabbed for that night. I signed in under my usual pseudonym – Sir Derek Spalding – which seemed prudent. The landlord was a splendid figure, obviously ex-military, neatly trimmed moustache, suitably florid complexion, hair smartly parted and plastered firmly into place with Brylcreem, the buttons on his blazer gleaming like cats’ eyes. The sort of chap which is the backbone of this country. I looked forward to sharing a snifter with him later on. 

It was a charming room, on the top floor, the sloping ceiling revealing its location to be just under the roof. The window – which stretched from the floor to ceiling and would have been described as a French window if it actually led anywhere but a plummet to the ground – revealed a pretty view of the village green. Bars covered the window, presumably to prevent those in an unhappy mood from leaping to oblivion.

I left my overnight bag on the bed and returned downstairs to find the olde worlde bar which I’d spotted from the reception. It was very wood-panelled and horse-brassy, just the sort of place to escape the ghastly modern world with its left-wing ‘comedians’ and ‘charities’ and ‘national health service.’ I ordered a foaming pint of the local beer, Thatcher’s Frothingly Deranged from the landlord who was now behind the bar. He introduced himself as Major Gabriel Hardwick.

‘Call me Gay, he said, ‘Most around here do.’

I explained that I always addressed chaps by their surname, until we had reached a level of intimacy which permitted nicknames. However, we compromised in that I would call him Major.

‘So, Sir Derek, my dear,’ he said, his rumbling voice tinged with a delightfully rural burr. ‘Are you here to see a UFO?’

My pint stopped before it reached my lips.

‘What on earth makes you say that?’ I asked, my wartime training kicking in, my face more neutral than that of a poker player’s.

‘That’s why most visitors come here,’ he said, ‘UFO capital of Great Britain we are.’

This was what I believe the youngsters call ‘a turn-up for the books.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘In what way?’

‘We see them all the time,’ he answered. ‘Sky here’s like Spaghetti Junction.’

‘And do people get… abducted?’ I asked, nonchalantly.

He barked a laugh. ‘So it’s claimed. I suspect they just get lost from too much local Scrumpy and end up in Somerset.’

‘Have you seen a UFO?’ I asked him.

‘Seen lights in the sky, but they could be anything. But as long as it brings in the tourists, people can believe what they like.’

At this point the cab driver who’d brought me here earlier walked into the bar. The landlord rushed over to him and they greeted each other very enthusiastically. I briefly wondered if they were father and son, although I admit I never kissed my father on the lips. But one mustn’t judge rural ways by sophisticated urban standards.

I contemplated booking the young cabbie to drive me to the Devil’s Ballsack later, but the leaflet I had found earlier advertising local attractions informed me it was only a 30 minute walk away; barely a yomp for an old soldier like myself. 

The Major returned to me, after seeing off the young cabbie with a cheeky slap to his behind, and I ordered a whisky, offering one to himself which he accepted.

‘That young man recommended your hostelry to me,’ I informed mein host. 

 He laughed. ‘Oh yes, he knows which way his bread is buttered.’

‘Ah,’ I said, tapping my finger on my nose, ‘You butter it for him, do you?’

‘Well,’ the landlord leaned closer to me, somewhat conspiratorially, and said, ‘We butter each other’s bread, if you know what I mean.’

I presumed that he meant he recommended the lad’s taxi service to his guests.

We drank a toast to those lucrative tourists. 

‘And Mavis Peebles, God bless her?’

I fixed my innocent expression to the front of my head. ‘Mavis Peebles?’

‘If I have anyone to thank for the influx,’ said the landlord, ‘it’s the barmy Miss Peebles. Local celebrity. Really put Quigley Godfrey on the map with her articles and whatnot, banging on about flying saucers and the like. Some of the locals don’t like her, but I’m very grateful to the daft old bat.’

Trying to remain blasé, I asked further questions. Did she drink in the bar? Did she live locally? 

Apparently she lived in a small cottage the other side of the Devil’s Ballsack. She ran a local UFO group and they occasionally drank in the bar, but she rarely came in on her own. She wasn’t a native, but had moved here several years back for ‘research’ and had never left. 

A noisy group of agrarian peasants appeared in the bar and the landlord moved off to serve them. I needed some peace and quiet to process all I’d learned, so I swigged back the remnants of my glass and left. 

There is nothing which makes one feel more heartwarmingly lucky to be born English than a village green. It was too early in the year for cricket, but spring was beginning to flicker into life, and sundown was resisting winter’s early closing schedule. A maypole teetered forlornly in the breeze, neglected and unloved, but still able to stand upright even in this chilly climate.

I peered into the shops which ringed the green. The usual butcher, baker, but alas no candlestick maker. My mouth watered at the chops on display in the butcher’s window, while I couldn’t resist buying a Custard Tart from the baker as a treat for later on. One shop, obviously aimed at the tourists the Major had talked about, had a window filled with UFO-themed bric-a-brac; toys, books of varying quality, kites, telescopes, slippers, lampshades, even special protective underwear with a ‘no entry’ sign printed on the backside! Guffaw!

I bought a postcard of The Devil’s Ballsack, a pair of large hilly mounds separated by a thin winding stream, claimed in local folklore to be the burial chambers of two rival chieftains from the olden days. It looked so familiar yet I was sure I had never visited this area before. Then it occurred to me… at the lunch with Nellie, when I had somewhat disgraced myself by playing with my food, the shape I had constructed with my mash potato and the trickle of gravy… it was the The Devil’s Ballsack!

I had barely digested this revelatory morsel, when I became aware of something moving in the corner of my vision. I glanced to my right. A car was driving slowly by my side. It was a Ford Zephyr, and not only was it completely black, but the windows were darkened too, so impenetrable it was impossible to see within. My pace became brisker. I glanced back. The chrome of its trimming gleamed wickedly, the front grille greeting me with a sneering grin. Its engine purred like a cat contemplating swiping at some defenceless prey with its paw. It was matching my speed.

While a small part of my brain was thinking that I would like a car like that, the rest of my mind was emanating warning sirens. I automatically stood back from the kerb as the car glided to a halt, and the passenger-side window rolled down. I peered in and was confronted with a brace of the Coves in Black whom I had spotted surveilling me in London the day before. The Cove nearer me doffed his bowler and stared at me through his tinted pince-nez.

‘Greetings, Sir Desmond,’ he said in a clipped voice. 

‘Nice motor,’ I replied nonchalantly.

‘Would you care for a lift?’ the monochromatic fellow offered.

‘To where?’ I asked. 

‘Away from here,’ he answered. ‘Which I thoroughly recommend. For your own good.’

I shook my head. ‘You’re too kind, but I’ve only just arrived. I would consider it extremely churlish to abandon Quigley Godfrey before sampling the delights on offer.’

Rattled I may have been, but I was blasted if I was going to bow to these bowler-hatted ninnies.

Like the man of action I am, I darted to the nub of the biscuit. 

‘Who do you work for?’ I demanded. ‘I wish to complain to your superiors. I am a Knight of the realm and not without influence. In fact,’ I added, ‘I probably went to school with your Guv’nor.’

The Cove merely smiled. ‘I doubt that.’ The smile faded rather quickly. ‘I won’t ask you again, Sir Desmond, leave Quigley Godfrey now and forget this silly quest of yours. Or else…’

‘Or else what?’ I inquired, disingenuously. My exterior may have seemed cool and collected to almost Bond-like levels, but the Stirling noggin was fizzing like a musical box playing the Flight of the Bumble Bee as it whirred and clicked, desperately conniving an escape route from these Coves who were likely more minacious than I’d initially twigged. 

The Cove sighed. ‘Regrets are the last thing one wishes to face at the end of one’s life. Be sensible, Sir Desmond, hop in and let us drive you to a better place.’

The rear door opened. I could see that another figure, also clothed in black, was sitting in the back seat, his face hidden by shadows. And either he was equipped like a blue whale, or he was packing quite some heat in his pin-striped trews. I suspected the latter.

The Stirling brain may be renowned for its spitfire working, faster than any of the so-called ‘computers’ the boffins are so dependent on these day, but I was rapidly calculating the odds on the various escape plans I was devising – and none looked promising. I was contemplating actually getting in the back of the Zephyr and seeing what ensued…

… when I was distracted by the screech of brakes. A car pulled up in front of the Zephyr, sparks flashing from the tyres. The passenger door was flung open, and a figure leaned out from the driver’s side. 

‘Taxi for Sir Desmond!’ the driver called. Without hesitation, I leapt in. I looked to see who was driving. It was the young cabby who’d brought me to the inn earlier. He flashed me a sly grin.

‘Now to lose them,’ he said, stamping his foot down on the accelerator and swerving away from the kerb.

I glanced back. The Zephyr was following!

‘Don’t worry,’ said the young cabby. 

The village was so small that we’d already left it behind and were now traversing narrow country lanes at a frankly reckless alacrity. As a fully qualified pilot in the war, I’m not averse to speed, but even so I quietly buckled my seatbelt. The Austin Trevor, while maintained, was a vintage jalopy, and I feared the passenger door falling off and Yours Truly following it.

The Lane we were now in seemed to be just an extension of a field, bumpy and very muddy. Sunset had fallen quickly and the only light came from our headlights.The Zephyr was catching us up. 

‘Almost there,’ the young cabby said, and just as we reached a small open gate, unnoticeable from the road, he flicked off his headlights, swerved left and through the gateway. The Zephyr went straight on… and plunged into a large marshy puddle. It must’ve been deep as the rear end of the Coves’s car was sticking up in the air, a good foot off the ground.

‘That’ll learn ‘em!’ whooped the cabby, and he slapped his steering wheel with excitement. I felt a moment of elation myself, and briefly wondered if I should kiss the cabby, much like the Major had as it was obviously a custom in these parts. I decided that a manly punch on the upper arm would suffice.

‘That won’t deter them for long,’ I warned.

‘No, but their car is out of action now,’ the cabby replied. ‘They won’t find a local garage who’ll help ‘em. And look…’ he pointed to the left of the cab. An enormous bull, head crowned with lethal horns which could easily penetrate a Sherman tank, a brass ring gleaming in its nostrils, was glowering at us. 

‘Farmer Giles kindly offered to leave Tarquin out a bit longer,’ the cabby said, pointing at the bull. ‘Them lot back there won’t dare try to follow us, not if they want to keep their gizzards on the inside.’

‘Why are you helping me?’ I suddenly asked, a hint of suspicion clouding my relief at escaping the Coves in Black. Mayhaps I had leapt out of the bidet only to land in the lavatory?

The cabby smiled. ‘We’m fed up with those berks in bowlers pestering our tourists.’

‘I’m very grateful for your help,’ I said. ‘I hope I can butter your bread in return someday.’

‘Oh, sir,’ replied the cabby, blushing. ‘You’re making me blush!’

Chapter 5

I trudged up The Devil’s Ballsack, following the little stream so as not to get lost in the dark. The sky was crystal clear, revealing far more stars than we ever see in London. I munched the fish and chips which I’d purchased to sustain me following the excitement of the afternoon. The young cabby had dropped me at the ‘chippie’ and had even volunteered to drive me to my rendezvous with La Peebles, but I wanted to explore the lay of the land – and prepare an escape route if necessary – so declined his kind offer. I instructed him to put his fare on my hotel bill, but I slipped him a few bob as a tip. He seemed very grateful, and said that if I needed warming up when I got back, that I should join him and the Major in their private quarters for a ‘Hot Threesome’ which I presume is the local word for a toddy.

There was a sheen of frost on the ground so spring wasn’t as imminent as I’d previously hoped. I was glad of the chips keeping my hands warm.

I thought I’d never reach the top of The Devil’s Ballbag. The left approach had looked like the shorter climb, but it must have been an optical illusion. By the time I’d completed my ascent – sadly, I’d failed to bring along a Union Jack to plant at the top – I’d finished my supper. I’d been informed that there was little at the summit; merely an ice cream kiosk –  closed at this time of the year obviously – and benches for those who wished to skywatch.

I screwed up my fish-&-chip paper and lobbed it into the bin (idly wondering which luckless plebeian climbed that interminable hill to empty it, particularly in the winter). 

I did a recce of the immediate area. There was a small circular flat area at the top of the hill ringed by a tuft of overgrown bushes. The kiosk as stated was present; boarded up and dark. A circle of four benches, each marked with the point of the compass, all facing outwards in their respective directions. The light from the moon and stars was adequate enough for clarity of vision, but it also caused shadows ample enough in which to lurk.

I took a few deep breaths, enjoying the pristine – albeit chilly – air, and gazed at the vista all around. I could see towns in the distance, twinkling merrily like fairy lights, although I didn’t recognise them. Quigley Godfrey nestled snugly in the valley, gently self-lit by its houses. I thought of that cosy little inn and briefly I wished I was propping up the bar, playing Sir Bountiful with drinks all around while yokels informed me I was a gentleman ‘and that were a fact.’ I was also very tempted by that prospect of the ‘Hot Threesome’ – i do enjoy a toddy on a cold winter’s night.

I stamped my feet to induce some warmth into them. I was definitely on my own. No sign of this legendary Peebles dame.

I glanced up at the sky. Anything untoward moving? I wish I knew more about astronomy, as opposed to basic navigation skills should one find oneself marooned in a desert or at sea.

My hearing, honed by jungle warfare, heard something. My ears pricked up. There was movement in a hedge. Nocturnal fauna of some kind? A breeze? An amatory couple who had fled the village for an illicit encounter? Typical British pluck to brave this temperature for an al fresco knee-trembler.

Cursing myself for neglecting to bring a torch, I cautiously approached the hedge in question. 

‘Who goes there?’ I called. ‘Friend or scoundrel?’ A silly question, I always thought, as a rogue would hardly admit to such. Indeed, some miscreants I’ve encountered don’t actually think of themselves as villains, just ‘misunderstood.’ Harrumph, I’ve learned to spot a rotter a mile off, and can debag one before they’ve even felt the draught.

A light suddenly dazzled me. ‘Put that bloody light out!’ I said, in the manner of the ARPs of yore. No matter the danger, a joke is always useful. It can unnerve a villain, and if they don’t crack a grin at a top notch gag, then you know you’re in the presence of a wrong’un.

‘Desmond Stirling?’ a voice asked.

‘Sir Desmond,’ I automatically corrected, then kicked myself. A rookie mistake, offering intel to the enemy on a plate. The light dipped to the ground, and as my eyes adjusted I caught a glimpse of my Interlocutor.

The creature that stood before me was quite extraordinary. As you know, I am an acclaimed and best-selling novelist, but even a master wordsmith as I would find it difficult to recreate Mavis Peebles (Miss) in words.

She was tall for a woman, ageless in that she was impossible to carbon-date, although her hair,  which erupted from her head in a fizzy explosion, was silvery-grey, It had seen neither brush nor scissor this side of Her Majesty’s Silver Jubilee, and was probably long enough to comfortably keep her knees warm in a power cut. It swirled around her head, seemingly defying the laws of physics, ribbons and beads dangling from it like decorations on a dishevelled Christmas tree.

She didn’t seem to wear clothes as such, but was rather draped in myriad layers of different cloths, many floor-length. Multiple necklaces encircled her, much as chains did Jacob Marley, which meant she rattled every time she moved. She wore sensible boots. 

Her face was strong, not lined, but weather-beaten as though she spent much of her life outside. She didn’t wear any make-up although her eyebrows looked to be etched on in a perpetually quizzical look. Her eyes, lilac and cat-like, stared penetratingly at me.

No one would describe her as beautiful, but she was definitely striking, almost handsome, if one can attribute that description to the fairer sex.

My initial impression was that I liked the cut of her jib.

‘Sir Desmond Stirling?’ She asked again; her mannish voice was clipped and direct.

‘Yes,’ I replied, blowing any hope I’d had of remaining incognito.

She stuck out her hand. ‘Mavis Peebles.’ Her grip was like a steel clamp.

‘We have met briefly,’ she said.

I raised a bemused eyebrow.

‘Who do you think put my card in your hand?’

‘The clumsy cow!’ I exclaimed without thinking, recalling the woman who had bumped into me in Old Compton Street.

She laughed.

‘How did you know that I might be interested?’ I asked her.

She snorted, a noise not unlike the sound a horse makes before refusing a jump.

‘The ufological community, much like the citizens of Tauron VI in the constellation of Uttox Celtic, have tentacles everywhere,’ she explained. ‘We heard on the grapevine you were making inquiries. I was in town to have a meeting with my publishers and I asked around where you might be. I was making my way to your club when I saw you in the street.’

‘Your publishers.’ I asked, intrigued.

‘Oh yes,’ she said, airily. ‘I’m the author of 79 tomes, all on esoteric subjects. UFOs, Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, poltergeists, Alvin Stardust… the last was a commission and I needed to fund a trip to Roswell.’ She took a breath and eyed me up, waiting for her necklaces to cease rattling.

‘So what happened to you?’ she asked.

With all the powers of the master storyteller at my fingertips, I took a deep breath and related the whole saga as I remembered it, even the embarrassing parts involving my privates. She remained silent, her only response a grunt at the mention of the Coves in Black.

When I finished she just said, ‘Classic abduction scenario.’

‘But why me?’ I asked.

‘Oh nothing personal,’ she replied dismissively. ‘You happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ She looked me, a sarcastic smile playing on her face. ‘Did you think they wanted to meet a famous writer?’

‘Perhaps they wished to examine those of us who are… a cut above?’ I tentatively suggested.

She laughed, not altogether unkindly. ‘As their usual targets are half-witted colonial bison-shaggers, you may have a point.’

Then she frowned. ‘I’m more interested in what they did up your arse. And more importantly, did they leave anything up there.’

I gasped, not a prospect that had occurred to me.

‘You need to be examined.’ She retrieved a pair of Marigolds from her voluminous bag.

I automatically crossed my legs. ‘Certainly not, madam!’ 

She let out a sigh. ‘I do own dogs, you know, I’m quite accomplished at rectal examinations and I’m not squeamish.’

I was pretty outraged by now. ‘Miss Peebles, I’m not in the habit of allowing strange women to prod me in the most intimate ways. And not in public.’

‘This is a notorious UFO abduction hotspot,’ she said. ‘Locals don’t come here after dark. No one will see. Besides, I thought you were the proud nudist?’

‘There is a big difference between doffing one’s trousers on a sunny beach,’ I said, ‘and submitting one’s private orifices to a probing by a complete stranger! Frankly, madam, in my experience, handing a woman my arse on a plate is called alimony.’

Mavis Peebles stared at me crossly, her lilac eyes flashing with irritation; then she laughed. Whenever any of my wives laughed at me it was with a brittle sarcastic timbre; this was a nice laugh. I chuckled back and shrugged my shoulders. 

She reluctantly threw her Marigolds back in her bag. ‘Well, I recommend you get yourself examined pronto. You wouldn’t believe what is found up there after an abduction.’ She leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘It’s said that Amelia Earhart’s flying helmet was retrieved from inside a Texan’s lower colon.’

I couldn’t tell if she was joshing me, but I scribbled a mental note to book an appointment with my prostate wallah. I wouldn’t tell him why I wanted to be checked out, but he was always very thorough when having an anal rummage. If there were anything untoward up there, he’d find it.

Another thought occurred to me. ‘Just before you collided with me in London, I spotted two Coves in Black watching me.’

Mavis laughed wryly. ‘Those perishers!

“Who are they?’ I asked. “Government? Military? Are they even ours? Yanks perhaps?’

She looked at me, expressionlessly. “Who knows?’ she answered. ‘They turn up whenever someone has had a sighting or encounter,’ Mavis Peebles continued, ‘and bully the poor so-&-so to keep schtum. But the whys and wherefore are a mystery…’

Inexplicably, I wasn’t sure if I believed her.

‘They’re a frightful bore, best to avoid, as you learned earlier,’ she said.

‘Thanks to that young cabby,’ I replied. ‘Full of spunk he is.’

‘Quite often,’ she agreed. ‘Yours too, if you play your cards right.’

I had half-stopped listening as I had become fascinated by Mavis Peebles. For a woman of her age, she was damned attractive. That bounder Eric Morley might not want to see her in a swimsuit and evening wear,  but there was something out of this world about her, unlike any other lass I’d met on this whole planet. She was no Anne Aston, but then frankly who is. I was beginning to regret turning down La Peebles rectal offer…

I’d had to force myself to stop looking at Mavis Peebles while she was talking as the way her lips moved were doing unnerving things to my loins so I had been staring past her, my attention grasped by a particularly vivid star in the sky; the type of star one wishes upon, probably. I had gradually become aware that the star seemed to be increasing in size – and rapidly too. I blinked. Was it… getting closer?

‘Mavis,’ I interrupted her lecture. ‘You must know something about astronomy, all the gawping at the sky that you do. Is that star supposed to be doing that?’

She spun to look in the direction in which I was pointing. She gasped, a sound one only wishes to hear from a woman during a very specific activity – and we definitely weren’t doing that. She glanced back at me, panic engulfing her face.

Reader, something then happened, so briefly I can’t swear on The Bible or Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys or even Sven Hassell’s The Bloody Road to Death that it wasn’t a trick of the light, but as Mavis Peebles looked at me, her eyes… well, she blinked, but side to side, as opposed to the more usual up and down.

Mavis Peebles rummaged in her bag and produced a pair of binoculars which, to the eyes of this old war-horse, looked military-grade. She held them up to her face, twiddled the focus, stared at the star which had visibly tripled in size in a matter of seconds, and gasped again.

‘Well?’ I demanded.

Mavis Peebles handed me the binoculars. ‘I think, Desmond…’ I forgave her the omission of my title in the circumstances. ‘That you’re about to have another close encounter.’

My muscles tautened in readiness, one in particular. There was no way I was allowing those bug-eyed sods access to my tradesman’s entrance again. After all, an Englishman’s brown-eye is his elephant and castle.

I peered through the binoculars but all I could see was a dazzling light which seared my retinas. I removed the binoculars, and, shading my eyes, I tried to see the object behind the glow.

‘Look!’ I grabbed Mavis Peebles’ arm. ‘Something has just dropped from whatever it is.’

Mavis Peebles snatched the binoculars back and stared avidly.

‘Two of them,’ she said, ‘cylindrical, I think, with something mushroom-like over them. I think they going to land here.’

‘Should we, ahem, take cover, do you think?’

She didn’t respond, just continued to stare through the binoculars. I didn’t wait for a response, I just dragged her into the bushes, something I haven’t done to a lady since the late 1960s at Studland Beach.

By now, the ‘object’ was almost overhead, and far from being silent it was making a roaring noise which seemed familiar.

We peered out from our wholly inadequate hiding place, and instantly it was as though veils were lifted from  our eyes. At exactly the same time, we realised that the ‘unidentified flying object’ was a helicopter and that the items which had dropped from it were a brace of parachutists.

As they landed – gracefully, I conceded – they detached their black parachutes to reveal themselves to be the Coves in Black!

And they were both armed!

‘Who are you bounders?’ I asked with an exasperated sigh. ‘You are beginning to give me the most purple pim.’ 

But I was interrupted by one of the Coves. 

‘Sir Desmond Stirling,’ he barked in a clipped voice, like a Rank Starlet only deeper. ‘You have become too much of a nuisance.’

‘Feeling’s mutual, old bean,’ I replied. ‘So what now, eh? Will I be slapped with a fine. Up before the beak on Monday?’

‘No,’ the Cove snapped, flicking a switch on his very odd-looking weapon. ‘It is time for you to go missing.’

‘What!?’ I was outraged. ‘You can’t do that. Besides, I’m tremendously famous, my absence will be noted. I have friends in high places.’

‘So do we,’ the second Cove said. They both looked up in the sky.

My brain pushed down on its accelerator pedal. ‘You can at least allow Miss Peebles to leave. She has committed no crime.’ Gallantry was always my forte.

‘She too has pushed her luck too far and for too long,’ said the first Cove, although frankly the pair of them were so interchangeable, I wasn’t sure why they bothered to take turns. ‘Mavis Peebles has interfered with our plans once too often. And the price on her head is too high to forego.’

“I say, old thing,’ I turned to face Mavis Peebles. ‘You have ruffled some feathers. When the bounty is that high, it means you’ve been doing something right.’

‘Oh no, boys,’ said Mavis Peebles, ‘you’re not taking me anywhere.’

My reflexes, honed at war and on the cricket field, are usually lightning-paced, but I’m still not sure what then took place. Both Coves had their weapons snatched from them, so rapidly they were still trying to pull their triggers long after their hands were empty. By the time they twigged what had happened, their guns were in our possession, mine and Mavis Peebles. But how?

I have tried to replay that moment in my mind, using slow motion much like they do for the ‘footie’ on the idiot box. But what my brain tells me I saw I simply can’t believe. It happened in the periphery of my vision; the Coves aimed their weapons… and from Mavis Peebles’ mouth erupted a tongue, forked, several yards long, which grabbed the guns from their hands and deposited them in ours – all in the matter of seconds.

I can’t have seen that…

Can I?

I goggled at the strange-looking firearm in my hand. I glanced at La Peebles, and she was already pointing her gun at the Coves.

‘What the deuce?’ I spluttered, my mouth lagging far behind my poor brain which was already trailing like a one-legged man in an arse-kicking competition.

‘Cover them,’ Mavis Peebles demanded, her voice steely, almost metallic.

‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘and you nip to the village and call Plod.’

‘I think not,’ she laughed, humourlessly, ‘Try explaining this to your police.’

‘Then what’s our next move?’ I asked.

Her finger applied the smallest amount of pressure on the trigger. ‘I’ll take the one on the left, yours is the one on the right.’

“We can’t just gun them down in cold blood!’ I was outraged. ‘Geneva Convention and all that. Not cricket.’

‘They were about to do the same to you,’ she replied.

I’ve cheerfully mowed down both Nazis and Communists in previous skirmishes, but never just an unarmed cove in front of me, and not with such a mysterious weapon. Who knew what it would do?

Mavis Peebles made an extraordinary guttural noise. “Pah! Trust a man to expect a woman to clear up the mess.’ She raised her weapon and aimed it directly at a Cove.

But before she could pull the trigger, we were engulfed in a dazzling white light. A piecing shriek sliced through my head. I staggered, clutched my forehead, dropping the gun, but I’d lost consciousness before I hit the ground…

Chapter 6

I was trapped in a strange dream in which Mavis Peebles, clad in Bacofoil, wobbly antennae protruding from her head, her skin a luscious shade of Mint Aero green, rescued me in her spaceship, and we made mad passionate love floating in the back, as we whizzed through the Milky Way, engulfed in the furs peeled from the skin of Venusian giraffes. The mood was somewhat spoiled as, in the background, a wretched ‘rock’ group accompanied our gravity-defying antics with their usual cacophony, but it seemed a price worth paying for such out of this world hows-yer-father.

I must say that I was more than a tad irked to be forced into consciousness by my back giving me gyp; not, I hasten to add, due to the nefarious activity we were enjoying, but more because I was in reality lying on very hard and frosty grass.

I snapped back into consciousness and immediately regretted it. My head thumped like the long-haired drummer in my dream, and my mouth tasted as though I had, yet again, been forced to eat raw cat.

I opened my eyes. The world seemed to be spinning unnaturally quickly so I shut them again. I took some very deep breaths of icy air, and then gently allowed one lid to tentatively lift. Things appeared to be normal again, so I unlatched the other eye, and delicately sat up. 

I was alone.

‘Mavis?’ I called. ‘Miss Peebles?’

There was no reply. 

I had no idea how long I had been conked out, but it was still dark, even darker than it had seemed earlier. 

Of the Coves in Black there was no sign either. Clinging on to the ground just in case it decided to let go of me and I flew into the sky, I gingerly stood up. By which I mean ‘carefully,’ not like a ginger.

Once I had re-calibrated my internal spirit level, I reconnoitred the immediate area. I was most definitely on my own. The Coves had scarpered. As had Miss Peebles. Together, I wondered?

I contemplated my next move. There seemed little point in hanging about here in the frost waiting for one’s clockweights to snap off. My best plan was to return to Quigley Godfrey and get that young lad to drive me to Mavis’s cottage.

I began the long walk back to the village which was at least downwards so I had gravity to help me along, much like a Boy Scout assisting a blind chap across a busy road.

It really was very dark. There was now a low cloud base and the moon was obviously lurking behind it, probably frightened off by all the strange activity going on in the sky earlier. 

As I descended The Devil’s Ballsack, I suddenly lost my bearings. Was I heading the right way? I should be aiming for the street lamps of Quigley Godfrey, but it seemed to me there were no lights ahead of me? I glanced at the compass on my TuffMan watch as worn by Graham Hill. My route was most definitely correct, but…

The village of Quigley Godfrey was in complete darkness. Admittedly it was the middle of the night, but surely the street lamps should be on? I had noticed them earlier, pretty wrought iron contraptions with baskets of flowers – snowdrops, I think – hanging from them.

I walked across the village green towards the inn. One wouldn’t expect Picadilly Circus, but surely the milkman should be doing his rounds by now? 

I reached The Little Green Man. I didn’t have a key so I was reluctantly going to have to wake up the landlord, but hoteliers keep odd hours, I’ve found. But as I reached the front door, I discovered it ajar. 

I cautiously entered the inn. ‘Hello,’ I called out quietly. No reply. Reception was empty, as was the bar. As indeed was everywhere. I explored the whole of the ground floor, including the dining room and the kitchen. I grabbed my room key from behind the desk and made my way upstairs. 

The corridor leading to my room was in darkness and all the doors were open. I peered in each room, hoping I wouldn’t be spotted and accused of Peeping Tommery. It’s happened before and the hoo-hah can be quite tiresome.

The rooms were all empty. Funny, I hadn’t got the impression earlier that I was their only guest. 

I sat down on my bed, took off my mud-caked shoes, swigged some whisky from my hip flask, and pondered my next move. Before I could come to a decision, the long day took its toll and I conked out…

I was woken by a shaft of sunlight hitting my eye, as accurately as that French bugger with his catapult on Hastings Beach. The amount of winks I’d had were well in excess of the standard 40. I lay on the bed, trying to identify an odd sound, until I twigged it was the Stirling tum gurgling, demanding grub toot sweet.

I cursorily abluted, then made my way downstairs. There is nothing finer than breakfast in an English hotel, and I was salivating at the thought of the sausages and bacon awaiting me.

But the inn was as empty as it had been when I arrived back during the night. 

It was like the blessed Marie Celeste only without the freshly abandoned meals still steaming away on their plates. 

I helped myself to a bowl of Ricicles. I’d pondered exactly how I was going to report that Mavis Peebles had gone missing without sounding like an utter chump, but now it seemED I had an entire inn to declare as AWOL…

I scooped up the last of the Ricicles and rushed out of the inn. The village was eerily absent of… well, everything; people, traffic, sounds… I made a quick reconnaissance of the shops. The butcher, the baker, the fancy undertaker… all shut up and devoid of both customers and Shopkeepers. 

It seemed as though the entire village had scarpered!

Well, this was a rum old do! And frankly, Yours Truly was utterly stumped as to the next move. 

I popped into the phone box – which, thank the Lord, was working! –  and dialled 999. The nasally-twanged lass at the end of the line asked me which service I wanted. ‘Plod,’ I replied, ‘ and the Ministry of Defence while you’re at it.’

I also phoned Nellie, but he was opening a new abattoir in Finchley, so I left a message with his secretary – who would inevitably garble it if I’m any judge of secretarial efficacy (and I jolly well am!). I just said he ought to have word in the Minister for Defence’s shell-like and warn him that events of a potentially global scale had started to kick off in Quigley Godfrey.

A couple of bobbies arrived in their Panda car from the nearest town. They looked at the village with puzzlement and at me with suspicion. I introduced myself as ‘Derek Spalding’ (dropping my title as it can have negative effect on provincial Plod) and gave them a heavily guarded version of events; that I was here to see a friend, we were stargazing on The Devil’s Ballsack (I noted that Bobby One raised an eyebrow at his chum at this), that we were attacked, she was taken and when I got back to the village I found it like this; as empty as a groom’s orchestras by the end of a honeymoon.

They thought I was pulling their flat-footed legs, or was stark-staring doolally, I could see that plainly, and probably thought I’d somehow done anyway with everybody myself. Quite how one chap could have massacred a whole village and buried the bodies in the space of one night… even a best-selling author of improbable fiction as I would have problems resolving that one.

When Lily Law realised that there was nothing with which they could charge me, I was allowed to go, but advised not to leave the country. Bugger that, I had a few days in Cap D’Agde booked and had no intention of foregoing my clobber-doffing hols thanks to some bug-eyed rotters.

By now the two coppers had been joined by other public servants, including some alarming fellows completely encased in white with dark impenetrable windows where their eyes should be.

I suspected that I would be involved in some very protracted questioning if nabbed by these egghead types so I grabbed my overnight bag and made a stealthy retreat. 

I was barely aware of the journey home as my mind was awash with thoughts about the people I’d met over the past 24 hours: Mavis Peebles, the Major, his young cabby friend, the bumpkins… who would milk the local cows? Tend to the fields? Was that randy bull still loose? I made a note to catch the news later, but I suspected that of Quigley Godfrey there would be nary a mention.

The heavens opened as the train pulled into Paddington that evening. I hailed a cab to hither me to Abaddon’s, my gentleman’s club, and claimed my usual room for the night. A large whisky beckoned me, but after a night on The Devil’s Ballsack and an interminable train journey home without a functioning first class buffet and with lavatories that broke most human rights laws, I needed to scrub off the grime of British Rail. I peeled off my togs and hopped in a steaming bath, drawn for me by Scunthorpe, the antediluvian staff member. I sank into the blissful waters and closed my eyes. Within a few minutes, Scunthorpe returned with a large tumbler of Glencampbell whisky on a tray. I gestured to him to place the welcome beverage on the soap dish, but he also brought an unwelcome message.

‘Sir Desmond,’ he began, as always his ill-fitting dentures threatening to fall into my bath water. ‘There’s a gentleman downstairs who is most insistent that he sees you.’

I groaned. ‘Tell him to come back tomorrow, Scunthorpe.’ I had no wish to see anyone tonight; I had thinking to do.

‘He is most tenacious, sir,’ Scunthorpe said.

‘Tell him I am equally tenacious that he buggers off,’ I said angrily. ‘Who is he anyway?’

At which point there was a commotion at the door. Scunthorpe went to see what it was, and I heard him remonstrating with someone. 

‘What the devil is going on?’ I called out, extremely irked that my soothing ablutions were being shattered. 

‘Sir, you can’t go in there…’ I heard Scunthorpe say, before someone barged into my bathroom.

‘How dare you!’ I remonstrated… until I saw whom the intruder was…

Chapter 7

It was the Major. Yes, the landlord of The Little Green Man, the hostelry which I’d left in a deserted state only this morning. His face was flushed a bright scarlet and his clothes were sopping wet, from the rain, I presumed.

‘Hardwick!’ I hooted, leaping up from my bath in astonishment.

Scunthorpe began to apologise. ‘I’m so sorry, sir, he barged past me…’

‘Don’t worry, Scunthorpe,’ I said impatiently. ‘The Major is a chum. Bring us another couple of whiskeys.’

Scunthorpe scuttled off. 

‘I say, Stirling,’ said the Major, ‘don’t let your bath get cold.’

I settled back in my bath. ‘What happened to you?’ I asked. ‘I returned to the inn only to find it completely abandoned.’ 

The Major sat down on the edge of my bath, flustered, his ‘tache twitching like an epileptic mouse.

‘They’ve taken them!’ he said, in despair.

‘Who have? Who are They? Who are Them?’

‘Them!’ He pointed upwards and glanced at the ceiling, his expression a mixture of fear and fury.

‘Aliens?’ I gasped.

The Major nodded. ‘They’ve got my Alvin.’

I shook my head in incomprehension. 

‘My lad. He drove the cab,’ the Major explained.

I nodded, showing my understanding.

‘If they’ve hurt him,’ he said, getting unnecessarily emotional. ‘I can’t live without him.’

‘Well, yes,’ I agreed, ‘a cab service is vital to the hospitality sector.’

A thought occurred to me.

‘But why didn’t they take you, old chap?’ I asked him.

The Major absent-mindedly started stirring my bathwater with his hand. ‘I don’t know. We – that’s Alvin and I – had a had a disagreement about… something, and I couldn’t sleep so I went for a walk. When I got back, they’d all gone. Everyone…’ His lower lip trembled, not something I’d expect from a military man. He retrieved his hand from the bath water

The Major shivered. ‘You’ll catch you death in those wet things,’ I said to him, ‘Get them off and you can have a bath, warm yourself up.’

He nodded and started to divest himself of his clothes.  I was about to ask him to hand me my towel so I could get out when the Major, completely starkers, hopped into the bath with me.

Obviously I’d meant that he could have a bath after I’d finished with it, but the sigh of relief as he sank into the warm water silenced me. After all, I’d enjoyed the same sense of bliss earlier myself. And as a seasoned rugby player, it wasn’t the first time I’d shared a bath with another chap. And at least he was at the tap end.

The Major stretched out. 

‘Careful, old chap,’ I warned him, ‘you nearly booted me in the family jewels just then.’

He shook his head in apology. ‘I just don’t know what to do, Stirling. I have to find Alvin. I can’t even get back into the inn as the science wallahs have taken it over and cordoned the whole village off.’

‘Tell you what,’ I suggested. ‘You can stay here tonight. Tomorrow we’ll go to Whitehall. I have a pal who is in the government. We’ll tell him the whole story. He’ll know exactly whom to contact for the help we need.’

The Major sat up in hope when I’d suggested this. I caught a glimpse of metal near his chest area. Did the fellow have a pierced nipple? Wouldn’t have been acceptable in my military days. 30 days in yankers for a tattoo, never mind ironmongery. Probably the result of a dare or a lost bet. I wondered if I should get one?

‘I can’t thank you enough for all your help, Desmond,’ the Major said.

‘Sir Desmond,’ I pointed out, ‘although I’d rather you called me Stirling. First names when we’re sharing a bath seem unnecessarily intimate.’

He nodded. ‘I knew you were a decent man as soon as you arrived at the inn yesterday.’

Suddenly the Major leaned forward and placed his hands on my shoulder.

‘I say, Stirling, if you help me get my darling Alvin back, I’ll even agree to that threesome he so wanted with us.’

Ah yes, the ‘hot threesome;’ the mysterious nightcap Alvin had mentioned.

‘I’d like that,’ I told him, unsure if I would as, after all, I hadn’t a clue what the ingredients were.

At which there was a knock on the door and Scunthorpe entered carrying a tray with two large whiskeys. He looked somewhat taken aback to see the Major in the bath with me.

‘I’ve had an idea,’ I told the Major as we helped ourselves to our drinks.

‘I say, Scunthorpe,’ I asked, ‘could you help make up a ‘Hot Threesome’ for the Major and myself?

Scunthorpe and the Major looked at each other with horrified expressions. I expect Scunthorpe had no idea how to cook up a ‘Threesome,’ while the Major – an experienced mein host – didn’t relish the idea of a botched ‘Threesome’ from the toothless retainer.

‘Never mind, Scunthorpe,’ I said kindly, ‘just bring us another couple of whiskeys. And top up the hot water, there’s a good chap.’

Over supper that night, at which he picked rather desultorily at his Steak and Kidney Pizza, I had told the Major about my own experiences at the hands (claws?) of these dastardly aliens, in particular of the intimate rectal rummage.

He threw his knife and fork down and said, “Alvin won’t like that, he’s strictly a top.’ After that he didn’t eat another morsel, just contented himself with a regular flow of whisky. I quite understood and helpfully ate both servings of Prune Charlotte. 

There wasn’t a spare room available in the Club that night, so I allowed the Major to kip down on the sofa in my barracks. He had a disturbed night, muttering to himself in his sleep; ‘Did they hurt you, my darling?’ was what I think he said. ‘Let me kiss it better.’

The following day, both of us mildly hungover which even a top-notch Abaddon’s breakfast couldn’t fix, I took the Major to see Nellie. I didn’t make an appointment; I knew I’d be fobbed off by some harridan of a secretary. We would just turn up and demand admittance or else there would be merry hell. I hadn’t decided quite what form the merry hell should take, but I have always had a knack for improvising chaos.

We leaped out of our taxi and marched into Billington House where Nellie’s office was situated. To my astonishment the security wallah at the door just waved us in after I told him our business. He didn’t even frisk us. 

I approached the young girl at the reception desk. ‘Now look here, young lady,’ I said firmly, ‘We need to see Mr Nellington-Dean and it is imperative we do so and I won’t take no for an answer!’

The young lass smiled sweetly and said, ‘Of course, Sir Desmond. Mr Nellington-Dean is expecting you.’ She lifted up a red telephone receiver and spoke quietly into it.

I stared incredulously at the Major. He just shrugged. He’d seemed very calm all morning, unlike his agitated self the previous evening. I hoped he wasn’t going down with something, not after we’d shared a bath. 

‘Would you follow me please?’ The young receptionist said and led us to a door which opened into a small ante room.

“Wait here, please,’ she said, ‘and someone will fetch you as soon as possible.’ She shut the door after her, leaving the Major and I alone. The room was brightly lit and functional, perfectly square; the blank walls were lined with chairs all the way around, like a quack’s waiting room. 

‘This is all too easy,’ I said to the Major. “Nellie’s a top governmental wonk. You don’t just walk in and see him. I had a mental list of places where we might find him if we were refused admittance.’

The Major smiled, and said, ‘You’re obviously under-estimating your importance, Stirling, old chap.’

Harrumph! I was fully aware of my invaluable status as not just a best-selling writer, but also war hero, patriot and chum of the Duke of Edinburgh, but even so I usually had to fight for my rightful stature in these ghastly modern times.

The Major sat down on one of the chairs, and crossed his legs, his relaxed demeanour very at odds with the distraught figure last night. His good night’s sleep – at my expense – had obviously helped, whereas I now was uneasy, every fibre of my being coiled and ready to spring into action, despite the bastard thumping away behind my eyes. It even felt like my whole body was shaking with the tensity of it all. 

No, not shaking, vibrating. I touched the wall. It was definitely quivering.

‘Can you feel that?’ I asked the Major, but before he could answer, the door opened and another – completely different – corridor faced us. 

I made to leave, but the Major stopped me. ‘Should we?’ he asked.

I have no time for milksops – whatever their rank – so shook off his hand and left the room.

The corridor in which I found myself couldn’t have been more different to the wood-panelled entrance to the building. This was gleaming white, illuminated by hidden lighting. I could feel the waft of air conditioning.

A large sign on the wall read in large embossed letters SHAFT! The A was actually a drawing of a small figure, not unlike the alien rotter who had kidnapped me.

‘I say, Major,’ I said to my companion who had followed me out of the room after all, ‘I think we’re underground.’

He said nothing. 

I ventured further, eager to explore more of this strange subterranean world. 

Before I could react, someone walked briskly towards me. It was a lass in the most unusual uniform; a skin-tight light grey catsuit, flecked with small holes, revealing tiny particles of flesh. I tensed, expecting to be challenged, but she just nodded at me coolly and passed by. 

I stopped and watched her. Her outfit may be rum, but it suited her posterior very nicely indeed as I pointed out to the Major; he just shrugged.

We reached a door which was shut. 

‘Let’s see what’s inside here,’ I suggested, and without waiting for the Major’s approval or indeed disapproval, I reached for the handle. But there wasn’t one. Instead, with a whoosh, the door slid open of its own accord.

I stepped in, expecting to find an empty office in darkness. But instead I was confronted with what appeared to be a large conference room, filled with a big round table which could seat about 20 people. What really surprised me  was that there were actually 20 people currently sitting at it, all adorned in the same catsuits as the wench we’d encountered earlier.

‘Ah!’ I said and tried to back out of the room, but the Major was blocking my exit.

‘Shift yourself, Major,’ I hissed at him, but the cove refused to move. Instead, he waved his hand over a gadget by the door which then whooshed to a close.

A door at the further end of the room opened and in stepped Nellie! He too wore the same catsuit, although I can’t honestly say that it suited him as well; it wasn’t designed for a middle-aged man with a paunch.

‘You’ve been a bit of a nuisance, Desmond,’ Nellie said.

And behind him loomed a monstrous figure; 7 foot tall, eyes protruding on slimy stalks, several rows of pin-sharp teeth in its slavering mouth…

Chapter 8

Nellie turned to the frightful apparition behind him and said, ‘That’s all for now, Harold. You can take your tea break.’ The creature lumbered out of the room,  gurgling sounds erupting from it as it left.

‘You’ve been a bit of a nuisance, Desmond,’ Nellie repeated.

I was lost for words, but that’s never stopped me speaking. 

I shrugged. ‘Tell me something several wives haven’t told me already.’

I pointed at Nellie’s gut. ‘Those lunches at the taxpayers’ expense are showing, Nellie.’

He gestured at me to take a seat at the table. I did so. The Major stood behind me. Protectively, I wondered? Or on guard…?

‘You shouldn’t have got involved.’

I leaned forward and thumped the table. ‘I didn’t choose to be abducted by bug-eyed monsters and get the old tradesman’s entrance violated.

There was a hiss from a couple of the people around the table.

Nellie winced. ‘Yes, that was unfortunate; but racist terms won’t get us anywhere.’

I was bemused. ‘Eh? I didn’t call anyone a…’

He interrupted me. ‘Bug-eyed monster. Not an enlightened way to describe our extraterrestrial comrades.’ He gestured at those sitting round the table. ‘Some of whom have joined us today.’

I stared around me. They all looked pretty normal to me. Well, apart from the chap with antenna protruding from his bonce. Which was purple. And the other who was green with one big eye in the middle of its head.

Then I spotted someone familiar.

‘What’s he doing here?’ I pointed at that wretched hypnotist, Professor Tintenfisch, who was sitting at 10 o’clock from me. The Professor wiggled his fingers at me sheepishly.

‘Guten tag, Herr Ztirling,’ he said.

‘The Professor is part of our team,’ explained Nellie. ‘You were directed to visit him by another of our colleagues, Agent Lawley.’ The Nationwide presenter simpered at me.

I was beginning to feel pretty damned riled. Had everyone been laughing at me from day one?

‘Who else is here?’ I barked. ‘That damn Peebles woman, I suppose.’

And lo and behold the bloody woman walked in. ‘Hello Desmond,’ she said. I have to admit that she looked a lot better in her catsuit than Nellie did, and despite everything I was relieved to see she was unharmed, although her hair still looked as though it had just undergone shock treatment.

‘So what the hell is going on here,’ I snapped, my temper – already frayed from the hangover – beginning to crack.

‘You have barged in on a meeting of SHAFT,’ explained Mavis Peebles.

‘Space Headquarters of Alien Friends of Terra,’ Nellie interrupted, not that it left me any the wiser.

Mavis Peebles continued, ‘I am the Ambassador from the planet…’ and here she made a noise like old ‘Chinny’ Chapman does when he’s clearing out his sinuses after being on the shag all evening.

‘And what’s your real name, Miss Peebles?’ I asked, petulantly. I blew a raspberry. ‘Something like that?’ 

Mavis Peebles smiled with a raised eyebrow and replied, ‘Actually, Mavis Peebles is as near as dammit.’

Nellie gestured for Mavis Peebles to sit down. ‘The British Government has made some diplomatic niceties with our interplanetary friends’ he continued. ‘Think of it as a galactic Common Market.’

I harrumphed.

‘However,’ Nellie continued, ‘There is always a fly in the ointment. The alien equivalent of the French, shall we say? The Xyz from… where is it?’ He asked his colleagues.

‘Galactic centre K788DF alpha stroke 993Q,’ replied a minion.

Nellie sniffed. ‘Not very helpful.’ He pointed upwards. ‘Somewhere out there, but annoyingly near enough to make frequent trips here feasible. Harmless, overall, but with some unsavoury habits. A penchant for abduction and – as you found out – uninvited colonic irrigation.’

Mavis Peebles joined in. ‘We’ve asked them not to, but… they take an inordinate pride in their self-styled iconoclasm. At one point we got them to agree to perform these acts exclusively on Americans who, as we know, enjoy the attention. But frankly they can’t tell one human from another.’

Fleet of brain I may be, but I was having problems processing all this new information.

‘And what about the Coves in Black?’ I asked. 

‘Good question,’ replied Nellie. ‘They are a frightful nuisance.’

‘That’s an understatement,’ said Mavis Peebles, crossly. ‘That night on The Devil’s Ballsack they were attempting to bump me off. It was only the last minute intervention of my own people that saved me. I gave my staff quite a ticking-off for leaving you there. Sorry about that.’

I gave a non-committal shrug. I wasn’t yet in the mood for forgiveness.

‘We think they are Earth people who disapprove of our closer ties with other worlds,’ continued Nellie. ‘Earth for the Earthlings and all that. They fear being swamped by alien immigrants.’

‘Why would any self-respecting species want to come here?’ muttered the purple-antennaed occupant of the table. ‘It’s a dump.’

‘And its going to get worse,’ agreed her – its? – one-eyed neighbour whom I belatedly realised had tentacles. ‘They way the humans are treating the place, it’ll be uninhabitable in a few years time. I’ve applied for a transfer to Peladon.’

‘Delegates,’ interrupted Mavis Peebles, holding her hands up. ‘I realise that Earth isn’t perfect, but now is not the time to criticise our hosts.’

‘Particularly as you’ve all enjoyed our wine and television,’ said Nellie, crossly.

‘I love Upstairs Downstairs,’ said the green thing. “I will miss that.’

Another alien I’d somehow missed – a bloke with three blue heads – chirruped up out of one of its mouths. ‘I love that thing… what’s it called? With that man from the adverts?’

‘Leonard Rossiter?’ suggested one of its other heads. The first head shook itself and said, crossly, ‘No, you know who I mean. He used to be in that thing set in a house…’

‘Delegates!’ bellowed Mavis Peebles. ‘Let us not get distracted.’ She turned back to me. 

“Personally, I think the Coves – as you call them – are in cahoots with the Xyz. Mopping up after them. But we won’t know until we capture one.’

‘John Alderton!’ shouted a blue head. The other two blue heads nodded in agreement.

My head was spinning and I longed to get out of this bug-eyed madhouse. I stood and made to leave, but the Major blocked my passage.

‘For God’s sake, man,’ I spluttered, ‘I let you share my bath.’

Mavis Peebles nodded and the Major stood aside. I left the room and stood in the corridor, inhaling deeply. I spotted a sign for the Gents and popped in for a Jimmy Riddle. I was relieved to say that there were just bog-standard urinals; heaven alone knows how our extraterrestrial brethren syphon the python – and I have no wish to know.

When I left the Gents, Mavis Peebles was waiting for me, proffering a glass of water. Not quite what the doctor ordered, but it would have to do. I took a swig; I always forget just how unpleasant undiluted water tastes.

‘I thought you were dead,’ I told her.

‘So did I for a moment,’ she replied.

‘Is that what you actually look like?’ I asked her. ‘Or do you have tentacles or scales underneath there?’

She looked shocked. “I never took you for a racist, Sir Desmond Stirling!’ She laughed. “Although come to think of it, I have read your books…’ She stroked her face. “I’m just as humanoid as you. Well, almost…’  

She leaned forward and whispered something in my ear.

I boggled. ‘What? Two of them?’

‘Side by side,’ she explained.

There is only so much information a fellow can absorb in one day so I felt the urgent need to change the subject.

‘What now?’ I asked.

She shrugged. ‘Up to you. You could join us here. We always need new agents.’

I watched the Major leave the conference room, arm in arm with his young cabby – Alvin, was it? So all his lamentations during the night…  all a bluff, eh? 

The young lad waved at me and called out, ‘That hot threesome is still on offer, Sir Desmond.’

I nodded curtly back. Mavis Peebles raised her eyebrows at me.

’That boy is obsessed with toddies,’ I said. ‘It’s not healthy.’

I have no idea why Mavis Peebles threw back her head and laughed.

‘Why was Quigley Godfrey deserted?’ I asked.

‘It had been compromised by the Coves,’ she explained. ‘The whole village was ours. We’ll reinforce it with new defences and everyone can move back.’

‘How will you explain it to the villagers?’

‘They’re our agents,’ she said.

‘What, all of them?’ I asked, incredulously.

She nodded. ‘Can’t have too many. And there is always room for one more.’ 

She smiled and her eyebrows went even more quizzical than usual.

As has happened to me so many times in my life, while my mind is thinking one thing, my mouth leaps in without even taking its socks off.

‘I’m a busy man,’ I said, ‘Books to write and BBC Radio panel programmes to appear on… and besides I’m too much of an maverick to work in a team. The War Office learned that during the last one. Even my appearance on All-Star It’s a Knockout ended badly and Peter Glaze was never the same man again.’

While this was all true, I must admit I was tempted by her suggestion. After all, what red-blooded chap hasn’t seen themselves as a real-life Flash Gordon?

‘Oh well,’ Mavis Peebles said, trying to hide her sadness.

‘I’ll be off then,’ I said, waiting to be offered more inducements to join in.

‘Just a moment,’ said Nellie, whom I hadn’t noticed was standing beside me. ‘You can’t just leave with all this top secret knowledge.’

‘It’s not the first time I’ve signed the Official Secrets Act,’ I said haughtily.

‘I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen too much. We’ll have to wipe your memory.’

I was outraged. ‘I’ve already had one end of me fiddled with; now you want to do the same to the other end!’

‘It won’t be that bad,’ Nellie laughed. ‘You’ll wake up on your own bed, with no knowledge of the past few days. Be honest, you’ve been on benders worse than that.’

Before I could say anything – eg change my mind and accept their offer – I felt a sharp pain in my neck. I spun around. Mavis Peebles was standing there with a syringe in her hand, looking apologetic. I briefly wondered what her real face looked like and then the world went black…

Epilogue

But, Sir Desmond, I can hear you all clamour, if you had your memory wiped cleaner than a baby’s bottom, how come you have been able to relate this whole saga to us?

I woke up on my bed in my room at the Old Rectory. I had a splitting headache. What had I been drinking? And where? And with whom? Someone had put me to bed in clean pyjamas – and I didn’t even know that I owned any. I have slept au naturel since school days where any form of nightwear was strictly verboten, and the house master would patrol before lights out to make sure the rule was being obeyed. 

I staggered to the khazi, emptied my bladder, examined my reflection in the mirror and noted with surprise that my tongue and eyes were not in their usual catastrophic post-debauchery nick. My mind was an impenetrable fog however and I resolved that a strong coffee might lift the veil; but then a hot shower beckoned so I began to unbutton the pyjama top. I discovered there was something in the breast pocket. It was a small strip of paper which simply read:-

Keep Mum!

M.P.

P.S. Eat this note!

I stared at these words in incomprehension. Who was M.P.? 

And then it all flooded back… from that evening on the roof with Felcher, right up until the moment in that underground base when Mavis Peebles injected me with… what?

Mavis Peebles.

M.P…

She didn’t inject me with the amnesia drug! 

The darling woman – or whatever species she is – granted me the gift of retaining my memory. But what good would it do if I could do nothing with it? I couldn’t contact her without letting the cat out of the bag and then she might be in trouble, perhaps even banished back to her own planet, in whatever distant part of the galaxy that might be.

No, I will have to be patient and wait for her to make the first move.

Meanwhile I am determined to put the whole saga down on paper (or tape) so that I will have it on record should there be another attempt to wipe clean the Stirling noggin.

But I will have to keep it securely under lock and key. One dreads to think what will occur if Nellie and his cronies learn that my memory is intact…

THE END….?

Listen to Sir Desmond narrate this yarn in 8 out of this world instalments here.

Sir Desmond Stirling is written and performed by Anthony Keetch

(c) Anthony Keetch 2023

Yours Truly on the Wireless

For all who are starved intellectually and culturally, why not feast yourself at the gourmet table of my epistles and soak up the gravy of my wisdom? My voice has been scientifically proven to arouse passions in both women & men; erotomania in the former, patriotic fervour in the latter…

Click here for an aperitif.

Carrion Christmas (contd)

A Derek Playfair Mystery

by Sir Desmond Stirling

Chapter 4

‘No no no no’

There was the sound of a script being thrown to the ground, and Knowle St Giles erupted from his little pool of light in the stalls. He stomped to the stage.

‘Northfield, I told you,’ he shouted, ‘this scene has to go. It slows down the action and will give the kids the screaming ab-dabs. Hell, it creeps me out. We can’t have our audience literally wetting itself. Not with two shows a day, we’ll never gets the damn seats dried.’

Northfield marched downstage, his eyes blazing. I was jolly glad I wasn’t their target. The spot automatically fixed itself on him.

‘And I say it stays!’

‘I’m the bloody director!’ roared St Giles. ‘And I say it goes!’

Northfield actually stamped his foot. ‘No! 

St Giles looked around. ‘So what do the rest of you think?

Most of the cast looked horrified at being put on the spot. They stared downwards and mumbled noncommittally. Only the two girls – Denise and Duracella – rushed downstage. 

‘We think it should stay!’ screeched Denise.

‘It’s integral to the story,’ said Duracella.

Knowle was obviously taken aback by this support, but he stood his ground.

‘And I say it goes,’ he stated firmly. ‘It’s inappropriate and it drags the show to a standstill.’

Northfield lifted his hand and made a strange gesture at St Giles. 

The director folded his arms. ‘That’s my final word. Now, we’re running out of time. We’ll take the end of the act as read and we’ll pick up from the top of Act 2.’

He returned to his seat.

Northfield stood still, downstage, still picked out by the spot. The two girls looked at him. He dismissed them with a gesture. They fled offstage where the rest of the cast had already retreated.

Northfield closed his eyes and started muttering something to himself, much as he had done in the bar the night before. Abruptly, he stopped, glared once more at Knowle, and stomped offstage.

I slunk back into my box, both embarrassed and fascinated by that little contretemps. Most theatrical tiffs are rightfully dramatic but then forgotten about moments later. But the fury on Northfield’s face had unnerved me. If he had an agent he’d have been on the phone to him right now. But as he didn’t have one I hadn’t a clue what his next move would be. He was an amateur after all.

I agreed with Knowle St Giles. It was an upsetting scene, far too strong for the little ones. And as I told all my clients, for good or ill, the director’s word is law. Even when they’re shits.

I needed a drink but I didn’t want to attract attention by moving – we’d had quite enough drama, thank you very much – so I settled back in my box and contemplated all that had happened so far. This wasn’t over – not by a long chalk.

The second act proceeded. It started smoothly enough. To my surprise Northfield took part – I’d expected him to withdraw in a sulk, amateur that he was. But he seemed less sure of himself. He struggled with lines and moves, almost as though he’d never properly rehearsed the second act.

We then had Sparkwell’s comedy routine with his vent dummy. She was supposed to be a gypsy crone. It was probably the most hideous vent I’d ever seen; a hook nose, snaggly teeth, and pop eyes, she looked more like an evil witch than a fortune-teller. Still, his vent skills were frightfully good and the banter amused. But obviously this sequence required audience participation so Knowle pretended to be a child who’d been pushed up to the stage to have his palm read. 

And this is where things turned unpleasant. Knowle didn’t clamber on the stage, he remained at the front of the stalls. 

His contribution to the banter was disinterested, but as most children tend to clam up in that situation it didn’t hurt. But when it came to his fortune being told, a chill shot through the theatre, and I’m convinced the lights darkened.

“Shall I tell ‘ee yer fortune, young master?’ cackled the old crone. ‘Cross me palm with silver then.’

‘He doesn’t have any silver,’ said Sparkwell to his dummy, exasperatedly. ‘He’s a young lad. He might have a Malteser.’

‘Me powers only work when I’ve been paid,’ the fortune teller replied. 

‘You’ve got a good Union then,’ said Sparkwell. 

I guffawed quietly to myself. Very topical! Unions were currently causing havoc with their ridiculous demand for fair wages and safety. The dads in the audience would appreciate that joke, even if they would have to explain it to their wives.

‘Go on, it’s Christmas,’ said Sparkwell. ‘Give him his fortune.’

‘Very well,’ screeched the old crone. ‘He can owe me.’

And this is where it went jolly weird. The dummy closed its eyes and let out a long moan. When it next spoke the voice was quite different. I was initially impressed by Sparkwell’s versatility, but not by what the dummy said. 

It pointed its boney finger down at Knowle st Giles, the eyes lit up a fiery red, and in a man’s voice, familiar but not Sparkwell’s, said…

‘It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid,

Oh yes there is, for your crimes you must be paid,

Father Christmas won’t be visiting you this year,

Instead you’ll end up with your throat cut, underneath the pier.’

Knowle looked up sharply.

‘Not funny, Sparkwell!’

Sparkwell looked as shocked as I felt. ‘I didn’t say that, Mr St Giles, that wasn’t my voice!’

‘Then whose voice was it if not yours?’ Knowle asked, scathingly.

Sparkwell shook his head. His mouth flapped open, but no words came out, much like his dummy now which lay slumped in his lap, the eyes their usual wooden blue.

The rest of the cast were peering out from the wings to see what the delay was.

‘Come on, we’re running out of time,’ snapped Knowle impatiently. ‘Let’s get this over with, and Sparkwell, don’t push your luck.’

Sparkwell snatched his hand out of the dummy and staggered offstage, looking with fear at his dummy as if he’d never seen it before. 

I for one was convinced that Sparkwell was telling the truth and that that hadn’t been his voice. But whose…? I recognised it, I thought, but couldn’t readily identify it.

Knowle clapped his hands and shouted, ‘Onwards!’ The musicians struck up a tune -well, of sorts – and the Dress recommenced. I caught a glimpse of Northfield in the wings. He was smirking.

The rest of the Dress passed uneventfully. It wasn’t very good. The cast were distracted and nervous. They gabbled their lines, rocketing themselves towards the finale as if their lives depended on it. Perhaps they did? Only Northfield seemed composed although his performance was mediocre at best. Even when his villainous Demon King was vanquished he showed no emotion, just a bored contempt, like a disgraced politician who knows that the punishment being meted out is nothing to worry about and that his place in the House of Lords is assured.

But I was very proud of Compton. He performed marvels with rather naff material and unhelpful circumstances. I just hoped he was going to get through the run without diving into the nearest whisky bottle. I doubted that I would manage it.

After the Dress finished, I didn’t hang around for the notes. I sent a message backstage to Compton that I would see him in the foyer. I had plenty of time until my train and while I couldn’t wait to flee Heelmouth and start my Christmas partying properly, I felt uneasy about abandoning poor old Pauncefoot. 

While lurking in the foyer I met the manager of the theatre. He was a dwarf called Grendel O’Malley. He’d been part of a famous troupe called the The Pocket-Size Pals and, during a summer season headlined by Hope and Keen with Clodagh Rodgers, he’d fallen in love with a local girl and had remained behind, easily earning himself that manager job as no one else in the business wanted to live in Heelmouth.

I introduced myself and he invited me into his office for a snifter. I warmed to him immediately. He had a twinkle in his eye and an obvious love of the theatre. I asked him for his thoughts about the panto. He shook his head.

‘People here are desperate for theatre and they’ll flock to see this,’ he said. ‘But it’s not much cop, is it. Your chap is good,’ he added hastily, ‘but otherwise…’

‘Some of the casting is a bit rum,’ I suggested tentatively. ‘That Northfield cove…’

Grendel snorted. ‘They had no choice.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘No Northfield, no show.’ He enjoyed my puzzlement. ‘He’s paying for the whole thing.’

My eyebrows whizzed up so high that they briefly joined my Afro.

‘He’s the producer?’ I gasped. 

‘Not quite, but he’s the main backer.’

‘Then why…?’ I quickly filled Grendel in about the confrontation during the Dress. ‘Northfield could’ve pulled rank far more than he did.’

Grendel poured me another drink. He was rapidly becoming my favourite theatre manager of all time. ‘I’ll tell you something even odder. Northfield chose Knowle `St Giles as director.’

I goggled at him. ‘But they obviously can’t stand each other!’

Grendel laughed and slugged back his drink. 

‘What on earth is going on here?’ I said. ‘What have I dumped poor old Compton in?’

Grendel looked pensive. ‘The whole thing makes me very uneasy, but I can’t put my finger on why.’

I made a snap decision. ‘Could I have a seat for tonight?’ I asked Grendel. ‘I was planning to get the train later, but 12 hours extra won’t hurt me.

Not only did the little darling offer me a comp, but also arranged for a telegram to be sent to my hosts, explaining my delay. I don’t know why I had decided to stay for the first night, I just had… an inkling…  

Something heavy was going down and this cat wasn’t splitting!

Fortuitously I had booked an extra night at the hotel, not intending to stay, just so I didn’t have to check out too early. I freshened up, put on my lilac velvet dinner suit with matching cummerbund, my enormous bow tie, polished my 3 inch stacked heel Chelsea boots, gargled with brandy, and I was ready for the first night. There was a pre-show drinkies do for local dignitaries to which Grendel had invited me. I hadn’t told Compton I would be around. I didn’t want to add to his first night butterflies by my unexpected presence. 

While I was titivating myself ready for the evening, my brain was whirring at the events so far. Nothing made sense, and I was worried that I was approaching the whole situation from the wrong angle. I may be a groovy chap with a modern outlook, but I’m still a hard-headed businessman. I may dig peace and love, but I don’t buy into the whole ‘Age of Aquarius’ jazz. While Northfield was one creepy dude, he was no more than a clever conjurer. I couldn’t see what his motives were for paying for this panto, I guessed it was for some self-aggrandisement. Maybe it was just to impress the chicks? Nothing impresses an actress more than paying for a show in which she can star, but Northfield didn’t strike me as a cat who was motivated by the ‘happenings’ in his British Homes Stores Y-fronts.

The pier had been lit up properly and looked gayer and more enticing than it had done the night before. The snow had stopped, but there was a thick crunchy layer on the ground, and more threatened later. A steady stream of people were walking towards the theatre so it looked like there could be a gratifyingly healthy audience.

Grendel was in the foyer, smart in his – presumably bespoke – dinner jacket. He grabbed me and led me into a corner.

‘Knowle St Giles gone missing,’ he hissed. ‘Left the theatre after giving notes, and hasn’t been since.’

I shrugged. ‘Probably had enough and quit town. He’s an amateur, I could sense it a mile off, and doesn’t care if he’s letting his cast down.‘

Grendel still looked worried. ‘It’s outrageous. A director not staying for his first night.’

‘They’re probably better off without him.’ I said. 

Grendel led me to the theatre bar, a tiny little room, ringed by portholes overlooking the sea. Fairy lights were draped across the bar, and a young barmaid was pouring glasses of Babycham. She was a pretty little thing, her attractive face marred by a frown of concentration as she measure out the drinks. I flashed her the Playfair smile and she inevitably melted. 

There was a small group of people in there, the local dignitaries, I assumed. The first person I met introduced himself as the local chief of police, although I gathered that he was actually the local sergeant with just a constable beneath him. I couldn’t imagine that Heelmouth warranted a full force. About 50 years old, a small moustache above his pursed lips, he was wearing his uniform with gleaming buttons and boots so polished I could see a reflection of the contents of his nostrils in them. Self-important, I surmised, but not good enough to earn promotion.

Next, I was introduced to Dr Hamish MacHamish, the local GP. A handsome man in his mid-50s, silver mane of hair swept back from his face, twinkling eyes, perfect – if obvious – casting. His wife, a somewhat blowsy woman, with ill-applied make-up, was already drunk. I hoped she would fall asleep during the show and not heckle. I saw the doctor surreptitiously shake his head as the barmaid approached with the tray of Babycham; however, his wife without turning her head reached out and grabbed a fresh glass.

There was also the Mayor and his wife, a couple of such wretched tedium and mousiness that I refuse to bore you with a description. They were exactly what a town like Heelmouth deserved.

It was only a few minutes until curtain up when a young policeman entered the bar and approached the Sergeant. He whispered something into his superior’s ear. The Sergeant looked startled. He in turn whispered something to the Doctor who nodded. They both made for the exit. The Doctor turned before leaving and excused himself, claiming that duty called and he hoped to see us all in the interval.

Grendel looked mightily peeved at losing two of his dignitaries.

Actually, he lost three as I slipped quietly out after the two men. 

I exited the theatre foyer. The Doctor and the two policeman were staring over the railings of the pier at the beach below. They walked back down the pier, yours truly in their wake. I followed them as they made their way onto the beach where a small crowd of people were gathered by one of the pier supports. As the three men approached the crowd parted… to reveal someone laying prone on the beach, covered in a light sprinkling of snow. I hurried to catch them up, arriving just as the Doctor squatted down and turned the body face upwards. 

It was the director Knowle St Giles!

Chapter 5

Knowle St Giles lay dead on the beach, his corpse dusted with snow reddened by the blood which flowed from the wound in his throat…

The Sergeant asked if anyone recognised the victim.

‘I do,’ I said and identified him.

‘We must stop the show,’ the Sergeant said. ‘We need to interview all the cast.’

‘Nonsense, man,’ I said. You’ll cause a freak out, and then all the audience will flock down here to rubberneck, destroying the crime scene.’

The Sergeant flung away his cigarette and grudgingly agreed. He told his constable to ring the police station at the next town along to get some reinforcements. The constable said he didn’t have any money for the phone box on him. The Sergeant let out an exasperated huff and started to berate his minion. I abhor parsimony so I stumped up a tuppenny piece.

The Doctor stood  and wiped his hands on his handkerchief.

‘His throat was slit,’ he proclaimed, somewhat redundantly.

‘Can you tell what sort of implement was used, Doctor?’ I asked. ‘Or will that require a full autopsy?’

I could tell the Sergeant was annoyed by the ease at which I was taking over the investigation, but frankly I’d probably been involved in more murder inquiries than he ever had in this dreary little town.

‘A sharp knife it will have been,’ the Sergeant stated, ‘Don’t need an autopsy to tell us that.’

‘Not a knife, Sergeant,’ the Doctor said gravely. ‘That cut was made by claws!’

I was so glad I’d changed my plans. I would have been furious if I’d missed out on all this. A juicy murder mystery trumps crackers and turkey any day.

‘You were at the Dress Rehearsal, Playfair,’ said the Doctor. ‘Did anyone threaten the victim?’

‘Just a dummy.’

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. I quickly explained what had occurred.

‘Sounds like this Sparkwell fellow is the main suspect,’ the Sergeant claimed.

I shook my head, dislodging the snow which had landed on my Afro.

‘No, if anyone in that company is responsible, I would stake my entire agency on it being Northfield,’ I countered. ‘I’ve no idea how, but he’s a clever cat. And a dangerous one.’

The constable returned from the phone box and informed his boss that policemen from the neighbouring town were on the way along with an ambulance, and also that the CID had been informed.

‘We don’t need CID, thank you very much,’ barked the Sergeant. ‘I am more than capable of solving a murder on my own patch.’

I doubted that, but said nothing. The Doctor suggested that we get out of the cold and back into the theatre. The Sergeant told the poor Constable to guard the body until the reinforcements arrived. The Constable’s lips trembled, whether from the cold or the thought of being left on this dark beach with a freshly-murdered body.

The Doctor, the Sergeant and I returned to the theatre bar. I told Grendel what had occurred. He looked shocked and immediately poured us all tots of whisky.

‘How’s the show going?’ I asked Grendel.

‘Well,’ he said, unable to hide his surprise.

He took me to the back of the auditorium. Not a bad house; not full, but healthy. Compton and Sparkwell were indulging in some badinage on stage. It all looked more colourful and joyous than it had that afternoon. Perhaps they just needed releasing from the baleful presence of poor old St Giles to unleash the proper pantomime spirit? I wondered what would happen when they reached the Demon King’s big scene. If, as I suspected, Northfield knew that Knowle was no longer an obstacle would he perform the full unexpurgated routine? And what would happen then…?

A shiver ran down my spine. I knocked back the whisky.

I checked my watch. By my estimation, that scene would occur in about 35 minutes time. I knew there was no point in recruiting the Sergeant’s help. He was a typical provincial Plod, unimaginative and close-minded, who had already dismissed me due to my threads and hair.

I watched the panto unfold, heart in my mouth. When Northfield Loveday made his first entrance, I gripped the rail at the back of the auditorium. This wasn’t the mousey man I had met in the bar last night. In his stage rags and ornate make-up he exuded an evil aura. The audience sensed it too, and the sense of fun which had pervaded the theatre chilled.

I was drenched in sweat despite the arctic temperature. What was going to happen?

Northfield moved to centre-stage and raised his arms. The lights dimmed, leaving the stage bathed in an eerie glow. Northfield clicked his fingers and suddenly he was ringed by a circle of flickering black candles. Nifty effect… if it was an effect.

As happened this afternoon, I was convinced that the temperature dropped sharply; suddenly I could see my breath as it left my mouth.

Northfield threw off his stage rags to reveal his gleaming crimson-lined robe, far superior to anything afforded by a flea-bitten production such as this. Northfield threw back his head and started to chant loudly in what I presumed was Latin. Too many years had passed since I was an altar boy so I hadn’t the foggiest what he was saying, although judging by the murderous expression on his face, it wasn’t ‘Why does a brown cow give white milk when it only eats green grass?’

A small red light appeared on the stage floor which quickly grew.

‘Come, my acolytes, come dance for me!’ roared Northfield, at which point several members of the cast – led by Denise and Duracella – rushed onto stage in the altogether and began to cut a very suggestive rug around the red light on the stage.

Now I’ll admit I was the first in the queue to see Hair, opera glasses ready, and I’m looking forward to the first night of Oh Calcutta, but this was a bit much for a provincial panto. You could see everything, and the writhing didn’t exactly draw one’s attention away from the wobbling parts. I expected to hear at the very least a lot of tut-tutting from the audience, never mind a bellow of disapproval, but instead the audience collectively leaned forward, licking their lips. Dirty provincial peasants!

I was distracted by a commotion coming from just behind me. It was the Sergeant.

‘Hello hello hello , what’s all this then?’ he yelled and started to march down the aisle. ‘None of that! This is a respectable town. Put your clothes back on.’ I think he even waved his truncheon. Everyone ignored him. ‘I’m telling you, cover yourselves up, you filthy animals.’ At which point he fell over, tripped, I suspect, by an audience member sticking their leg out into the aisle. I started to go to his aid, but Grendel stopped me. He pointed at the stage. The red light had become a hole in the stage floor from which emanated clouds of filthy smoke, the stench of which we could smell even from the back of the auditorium. The naked dancers got even more frenzied as Northfield’s big red hole widened. The Demon King’s chanting became more strident and his eyes glowed eerily.

‘Now we know why Northfield went to all this trouble,’ I whispered to Grendel. ‘It was for this. Some sort of mad ritual.’

Grendel nodded. ‘And it needed the presence of an audience. Look at them.’

The audience were swaying rhythmically from side to side, arms aloft, moaning quietly to themselves.

‘He’s hypnotised the lot of them!’ I gasped.

‘He may be an amateur,’ admitted Grendel, ‘But not even many pro’s can do that.’

Someone shushed us.

I dragged Grendel into the foyer. ‘But why here? Why now?’ I puzzled aloud.

‘Think about it,’ urged Grendel. ‘Why Heelmouth? There’s no River Heel. It must be a corruption of Hellmouth.’

‘You mean…?’

‘I’m guessing that directly below this theatre there is a direct opening to Hell itself!’

Chapter 6

I gasped at the little man’s deduction. It seemed ludicrous, but I couldn’t deny the evidence of what I had just seen.

‘So what can we do?’ I was unafraid to admit I felt out of my depth here. I had solved many murders and robberies in my time, but, vulgar as they were, they were rooted in the here and now. For all my beads and general grooviness, I was still a hard-headed businessman, ill-equipped to fight the forces of darkness.

Grendel shook his head. ‘The nearest I’ve got to black magic is playing Sneezy in Snow White at the Bodmin Alhambra a few years back.’

‘Let’s see what’s happening onstage,’ I suggested.

We crept back into the auditorium. The audience were still swaying and moaning in their hypnotised state. Foul-smelling smoke was filling the theatre as it escaped the hole on the stage which was now a diameter of about six foot. Northfield stood on the edge of the chasm, beckoning with his hands, a manic smile on his face.

‘Come, I command you, Krampus’ he cackled. 

 Grendel gasped. ‘Krampus!’

I was none the wiser.

‘He’s a sort of Christmas Daemon,’ Grendel explained. ‘Like the dark side of Father Christmas. When I was a kid, we were told that if we weren’t good, not only would we not get any presents, but that the Krampus would gobble us up.’

‘Hmm,’ I said, ‘I can well imagine that there are enough naughty people in a Heelmouth audience to feed the average daemon.’

Northfield was still cajoling his Hadean brute. ‘Unshackle yourself from the uterus of Hell and crawl through the infernal cervix to this craven world,’ he urged. ‘I have food for you.’ He gestured at the audience.

I didn’t like the sound of that.

An unholy roar erupted from the chasm and a giant scaly claw appeared, covered in a red warty skin with leather talons, clinging to the rim. Northfield’s face grew even more manic. He shouted something to his acolytes, and they increased their frenzied dancing.

‘I have to do something,’ I yelled at Grendel above the racket.

‘But what?’ he asked, quite reasonably.

‘Not a clue,’ I replied, and started to make my way down the side aisle towards the stage. I didn’t look behind me to see if he was following. I couldn’t blame him if he weren’t.

I was halfway down the aisle when I noticed a new arrival on stage. It was Compton.

My heart sank. Compton was staggering, clutching a large, half-empty bottle of whisky to his amply-padded bosom. The events of the past 24 hours had cracked him and the foolish chap was suckling at the nipple of the bottle again. 

Compton ground to a halt and tried to focus on what was occurring in front of him.

‘I don’t remember this from rehearsals,’ he slurred. He looked out at the audience and waved. 

‘Hello, everybody, it’s me Mother Goose again.’

The audience, still in their hypnotic fervour, ignored him.

This peeved Compton. He waved his bottle at the. ‘Oi, don’t ignore me, you rude sods. I’m the title character, for Christ’s sake.’

Usually I’d be very cross at this outrageous behaviour which would’ve got him sacked, not just from the show, but my agency. But at least his ranting was distracting Northfield.

‘Begone!’ the villainous magus hissed. He turned his attention to the owner of the claw again. ‘Come, Krampus, be born into this feeble world. I have carrion for you to feast on. A whole theatre of carrion!’

‘Don’t you ‘begone’ me, you bitch,’ Compton spat at him. ‘It’s all your fault. You’ve ruined this production, you steaming great amateur and your hopeless tart, whatzername.’ He suddenly spotted Denise as she writhed around the chasm. ‘Ooh, she’s got no knickers on!’ He peered myopically at her. ‘Not impressed by that arse at all. Seen better cushioning on the Woolwich tram.’ He swigged from the bottle. ‘Is this a private orgy or can anyone join in?’ he giggled. 

Northfield was getting angry. ‘Silence, you prattling ham, or I will destroy you.’

Compton pulled a mock-shocked face at the audience. ‘Did you hear that? The nerve! Who are you calling a ham, you… you… dabbler.’

At which Compton, swinging his bottle, his torso bulked up with massively artificial knockers, rushed into Northfield, who unprepared for this onslaught, tried to push Compton away, but lost his balance and, with a horrified scream, fell into the chasm. 

Compton fell back on his well-upholstered arse and sat, dazed. 

I then saw with a thrill of horror that the Claw was still there and the the Krampus was getting an even firmer grip on the stage. 

The dancers continued their dervish whirling for a while, then Duracella saw that Northfield was no longer there. She screamed and rushed to the edge of the Pit, staring forlornly down into the infernal abyss. With an even louder shriek Denise joined her. Duracella made as if to climb down into that dreaded hole, but before anyone could stop her, the Krampus flexed its repellent fingers and knocked both girls down and they plummeted after their doomed Master.  

I leapt onto the stage and shouted into the wings at the DSM (Deputy Stage Manager for those of you who aren’t in the Biz) and yelled, ‘drop the song sheet’. He looked somewhat shell-shocked, poor darling, but give him his due, he did exactly that with the quick-thinking and fortitude which is the backbone of the British theatre.

‘It’s from the carol concert last Sunday,’ he yelled at me. ‘The panto didn’t have one.’

I gave him the thumbs up, and the sheet dropped with a thud.

I hauled Compton up on his feet and shouted into his befuddled ear, ‘Come on, old love, we’re getting this lot singing.’

I hot-footed it downstage (avoiding the fiery Pit and the claw which was getting more of a grip on the stage) and with a quick soft shoe shuffle (haven’t lost it, even though it’s years since I last trod the boards) I shouted, ‘Come on everybody, it’s time for a sing-song!’

I gestured frantically at the musicians in the pit (who I don’t think had noticed all the kerfuffle on stage thanks to their decrepitude and, if my prior experience of musicians is anything to go by, inebriation). They stared at the song sheet and struck up. I glanced backwards at the sheet, approved of the choice, and grabbed Compton. I snatched his bottle off him and when he protested, told him he’d get it back when we’d finished the song.

He lurched downstage and, his wig still akimbo, started to sing, all the while giving the audience encouraging hand gestures to join in.

‘Oh come all ye faithful…!’ we began, both of us in different keys, with the band in a further one that I suspect had never been previously identified by any respectable musicologist.

‘Joyful and triumphant!’

The audience, conditioned in their trance to respond to instructions from the stage, began to chant along; neither joyfully nor triumphantly, it must be said, but…

‘Look!’ I shouted at Compton, not that he would have twigged what I meant. ‘Krampus is losing his grip!’

I’d had an inkling that a bit of Christmas joy might do the trick.

‘Come on everybody,’ I loudly urged the audience. ‘With gusto, boys, with gusto!’ I encouraged the band.

‘Sing, damn you!’ I ordered Northfield’s acolytes who were still thrashing about in their birthday suits.

‘Oh, come let us adore him…!’

We sang our hearts out; I with the desperation of someone who wants to defeat the powers of darkness, Compton with the enthusiasm of an old piss artist.

And with a crescendo of ‘Oh Come let us adore him…’ the claws of the Krampus lost their grip on the stage and slipped into the Pit with a hideous scream. The hole in the stage closed up immediately and within seconds there was no trace that it had ever been there.

The audience started to snap slowly out of their collective trance and stare around in a confused fashion. Fortunately, this is England so there was no hysteria. Everyone just assumed they’d fallen asleep which is a natural thing to do in a theatre. They rubbed their eyes and looked at the stage, wondering where the story had got up to.

Northfield’s wretched dancers slowly came to their senses, realised they were on stage without a stitch on, and ran sheepishly into the wings. 

Grendel approached, looking it has to be said, somewhat shell-shocked. I expect he would’ve said the same about yours truly. 

‘Well…’ was all he was able to say.

‘I know,’ was my wholly inadequate response.

We took in the audience, slowly coming to life again like wasps after a frost. They all gaped at the stage, unsure if the panto had finished. 

I nudged Grendel. ‘ I think you’d better make an announcement, old thing.’

He looked at me, horrified. ‘What do I say?’ 

I shrugged. ‘Something like… one of the cast has been taken ill. Off them a replacement ticket for later in the run.’

‘What run?’ asked Grendel. ‘The villain has fallen to everlasting torment.’ 

‘Oh, I can find you someone,’ I replied airily. ‘And if we get enough black coffee down Compton’s throat, he can take over the direction.’

Epilogue

‘BANG!’

‘The first cracker I’ve pulled in donkey’s years,’ squealed Compton, rummaging excitedly for his paper hat.

Grendel and his lovely wife Nutella – blonde, 6ft 2, a former Miss Whitley Bay (1962) – had kindly invited Compton and me for Christmas lunch in their sweet, but bijou bungalow overlooking the sea front; the pier and its theatre an omnipresent vista from the window. I’d contacted my original hosts who were sweetly sending their chauffeur to fetch me later on, although I knew I’d have to cough up one hell of a tip to mollify the poor peak-capped sod for losing his Christmas Day to the M1.

The previous evening we’d left the local Plod to clean up the mess. The audience were all so dazed that they were of no use as witnesses. Grendel and I were a bit vague in our statements too, partly because we weren’t sure what the hell we’d seen, but also because we didn’t want to be dragged to the funny farm. 

But they had a corpse and two missing actresses to investigate, not to mention Northfield Loveday himself, although preliminary investigations had turned up no records of anyone with that name. I wanted to tell the Fuzz to cool their boots, that this case was one that they’d never crack, and they might as well just file it under ‘Freaky Unsolved Shit.’

After my enthusiasm of the previous night, the future of the panto was now uncertain. Half the cast had scarpered, the villain and the principal boy and girl had all vanished mysteriously, and the director had had his throat sliced open. You can’t buy that kind of publicity, but assembling a new cast over Christmas and rehearsing them would take time. It would be new year by the time the show was ready. 

But then Compton reminded me that he had his one-man show ‘Out Damn Spot – and Other Shakespearean Dogs!’ If he did it in drag and added a few sing-songs it would make an ideal Christmas entertainment, particularly for the good burghers of Heelmouth who wouldn’t know any better. Frankly, if it kept Compton off the sauce, it was fine by me. His brief fall from the wagon last night didn’t seem to have troubled him – not even a trace of a hangover! 

There was a toot-toot sound from outside.

‘That’s my ride,’ I said , removing the napkin from my shirt and my paper crown from my head. I stood up. 

‘Well, it’s certainly been a different Christmas, I can categorically confirm that!’ I stated unnecessarily, shaking hands with Grendel and kissing his red-hot stunner of a wife. Down boy, I sternly warned myself.

‘Thank you, my darlings, for your hospitality.’

I hugged Compton who had a mouthful of mince pie which he hastily swallowed.

‘Happy new year, old thing,’ I said. ‘Send me telegram when you’ve decided what you’re going to do. Otherwise, give me a bell when you get back to London.’

‘Oh, I think I’ll stay here for a while,’ Compton said in a voice not quite his own. With a shiver, I realised it was a pitch-perfect impression of Northfield Loveday’s voice. ‘I have unfinished business.’ And I could’ve sworn that, briefly, his eyes glowed. 

The car horn sounded again. I looked at Compton who gave me a big kiss on the lips, quite his old self. 

‘Have a dolly new year with your posh chums,’ Compton said in his own voice, picking up another mince pie from the plate.

Grendel saw me to the door while Compton helped Nutella with crockery gathering.

‘Keep an eye on him,’ I warned Grendel as I collected my suitcase. 

‘Any reason?’ My new short chum asked.

‘He’s been through a lot,’ I replied. ‘Don’t want him back on the sauce.’

Grendel nodded, and we shook hands again. 

‘I think we’re going to meet again, my diminutive chum,’ I told him. ‘We make a good team.’

Grendel beamed. ‘Happy new year, Derek,’ he said. 

The chauffeur took my case and held the car door open for me. A 1937 Bentley, very nice. Should be a smooth enough ride for a snooze. 

If only I could get that glow in Compton’s eyes out of my mind…

THE END

You can hear Sir Desmond narrate this story here

.

Written by Anthony Keetch

(c) Anthony Keetch 2022

Carrion Christmas

A Derek Playfair Mystery 

by Sir Desmond Stirling

Chapter 1

December 1971

I stepped off the train and took a deep breath. Even though the smuts of the steam, I could smell the nearby sea. Groovy!

There were no cabs waiting on the concourse outside the station so I arranged for my luggage to be delivered to my hotel, and decided to take a brisk walk. A glimpse of the sea first, check into the hotel, then on to the Hamilton Deane Memorial Theatre where my old chum and client, Compton Pauncefoot, was about to give his Dame in panto.

Mother Goose in Heelmouth wasn’t the hottest of dates for an actor, but Pauncefoot’s star had long waned thanks to a liking for the sauce and one Gross Indecency charge too many. But I dig the old boy who has been on my books since the agency first opened, and I can hardly take a moral stance on Compton when my own rampant libido has got me into hot water on many an occasion!

Heelmouth is a small seaside town which hardly bursts with tourists at the height of the season, but even so my heart sank at the sight of the High Street, paltry decorations dangling forlornly overhead. The battleship grey sky didn’t help, but the few shoppers were hardly glowing with festive cheer as they scuttled from shop to shop. The 1970s may have only recently started, but I felt as though that as I’d disembarked from the train I was now back in those grim days of post-war 1950s when fun was strictly frowned upon and free love could end up costing you a lot of bread.

I admit I felt rather guilty about poor old Pauncefoot spending the Yuletide season in this dump. It wouldn’t help the old boy in his pledge to steer clear of the booze either. I had only been in town for 10 minutes and was craving a stiff one.

I’d trolled down to the sea front to take in some tokes of ozone, but the wind threatened to blast my ‘fro to smithereens, so I checked into my hotel, a somewhat crumbling pile on the seafront, rather misleadingly called The Grand. Inside was, surprisingly, better than it’s exterior threatened. True, the decor was supremely un-hip with well-worn carpets, dented suits of armour, tarnished horse brasses, and wallpaper that Mary Whitehouse would choose, but as pads go it could’ve been worse. I ought to give them the name of my personal interior designer, Butch McGonagal; let him freak out with some Lava Lamps and hessian wallpaper and the place could be seriously cool. 

The foyer was dominated by an enormous Christmas tree, swathed with decorations which looked to my trained eye like genuine antiques. I briefly wondered if they’d miss any if I got sticky-fingered.

The receptionist, an older woman with terrifying eyebrows and her hair scraped brutally back, looked at me without the hint of a smile.

‘Derek Playfair,’ I informed her. ‘Theatrical agent and playboy adventurer. You have a room for me.’

She looked at her ledger. ‘Oh yes, Mr Playfair,’ she said. ‘Just the two nights?’

Hell, yes, I thought. I was planning to skedaddle pretty damn pronto the following evening immediately after the Dress Rehearsal, but I’d booked an extra night so I didn’t have to check out too early.

I’d feared the worst from my room, but frankly I’ve slept in worse pits. A pleasingly large bed – and one never knows when that might come in useful (particularly when actresses are far from home). The view of the sea in its grim majesty was very acceptable. No en-suite but I don’t mind a shared bathroom; one never knew whom one might encounter when nature calls in the middle of the night!

My luggage was waiting for me but I decided not to unpack. Rather I thought I’d check out the bar. A quick snifter after enduring British Rail and before meeting old Pauncefoot. After all it wouldn’t be fair to knock them back while he’s on the wagon.

I took a quick glance at myself in the mirror to make sure I wasn’t looking too travel-weary. I was rather pleased with what I saw. A man in his 50s who could pass for younger, broad shoulders, a lithe waist, my hair – by Maurice of Frith St – and ornately sculptured moustache and sideburns revealing flickers of grey, enough to give me a hint of distinction without being too ageing. I was dressed pretty casually for me; orange flared corduroys, an old Mr Haddock shirt, and my winter coat made from genuine Ecuadorian Poodle fur. The ladies of Heelmouth didn’t know what was going to hit them!

The bar was gloomy and dark, wood-panelled, the sort where one could lurk in the shadows unseen, just as I like. One can observe while avoiding recognition, then descend on anyone who aroused interest.

Apart from a few ragged strands of tinsel and a medium-sized Christmas tree, tilting slightly as though it had had a few, the only other decorations were posters from previous productions at the Hamilton Deane Memorial Theatre. It was surprising how many of the big stars of today had played there: Sid James as Macbeth, darling Wyngarde as Toad of  Toad Hall, Peggy Mount as Cleopatra… Oh, how I would’ve dug seeing these magical performances!

I rapped on the bar and a gnome-like barman promptly popped up.

‘What can I get you, sir?’ he asked in strong Cork accent. 

‘Ah, begorrah, top of the morning to you,’ I cried, immediately putting him at his ease. ‘And what be yer man’s name?’

Top tip: alway ask a menial’s name, it makes them think you care.

He told me his name was Dermot and again asked me what my poison was. I asked for my usual Cinzano & Tizer (whisked, not twirled) and glanced around the bar. I realised I wasn’t on my own; a solitary man sat at a table in a dark corner, poring intently over a large and ancient-looking book. I was intrigued but didn’t have the time to strike up a conversation with the curious chap.

Dermot handed me my drink and I took a sip. It was excellent, and I commended him.

He nodded and scuttled to the further end of the bar, polishing the surface as he went.

I glanced again at the cat at the table. His lips moved as he read. I found this initially endearing, until he raised his hands, eyes still glued to the book, and I was convinced I saw a crackle of light dart from one hand to the other. I blinked – and when I opened my eyes of the man there was no sign. Where had he gone? He’d had no time to leave the bar. I walked over to his table. No man, no book, just an acrid smell in the air. 

‘Dermot,’ I called. The barman looked in my direction. ‘Another drink, sir?’ 

I shook my head. ‘That guy who was sitting in this corner… did you see him split?’

A puzzled look crinkled the little Irishman’s forehead. He stared where I was pointing. ‘What guy, sir?’

I quelled a pang of impatience. ‘There was a guy sitting at that table reading a book. You must have seen him.’

The barman shook his head. ‘Sorry, sir, it is very gloomy there and I was busy polishing my optics. Probably a guest.’

I decided not to get heavy with him or I was going to be late. I gulped down my drink, flung a bob on the counter as his tip, and with a final glance at the now empty table, I left the bar.

I trolled towards the theatre. Night had fallen since I had arrived. The Christmas lights, shaped like stars, were twinkling half-heartedly, those whose bulbs hadn’t blown anyway.

The theatre was at the end of the pier. Oldest pier theatre in England, they claimed, but hey, who was I to quibble the toss? The pier was draped with fairy lights; otherwise it would’ve have stretched unenticingly into the gloom of the dark sea. I walked along the pier, looking over the side into the black water, where the reflections of the lights were swallowed by the gloom. 

I had arranged to meet Compton outside the stage door at 5pm. It was behind the theatre at the very tip of the pier. The sea breeze was pretty wild out here and I wondered how many actors had got blown off the end – and not in a good way. I checked with the decrepit stage doorkeeper and he assured me that rehearsals had finished five minutes before, and that the cast would be out very soon. I propped myself up against the railings and wished I still smoked; a fag would warm up the hands nicely.

I’d didn’t have long to wait. With the squawking at ear-rupturing levels so characteristic of mummers, the cast burst out of the stage door. each one competing with the other to be loudest in their plans for the evening. Frankly, with their dress rehearsal scheduled for the next afternoon, they should by rights be grabbing a light supper and an early evening. 

I examined them with interest, not entirely for professional reasons. Firstly, two young chicks were the first to appear. One was blonde and pretty in an insipid way, screeching unattractively about nothing in particular, just because she obviously felt that she only existed if she was making a noise. As an agent I’d encountered so many of the type and had taken great pleasure in saying no to them. Principal girl, I surmised.

The other woman was slightly older, saying nothing, looking at the blonde girl with a wry expression on her face which I couldn’t quite read. Was she laughing at the younger woman, or lusting after her? She intrigued me, and if I’m honest I felt the usual Playfair twitch in the old pantaloons. I really dig the ‘Burn the Bra’ brigade and going by her demeanour she was one of them.  Principal boy was my guess. 

They were then joined by a much older cat, a long lugubrious face, strands of hair plastered over his scalp, a nose like an erupting tomato. He was clutching a large box. Comic, I assumed.

‘Coming to the Wimpy, Sparkwell?’ asked the older woman. A brief look of annoyance crossed the blonde’s face, but the older man nodded, and the three of them set off.

I watched them walk away, but then Compton appeared, swathed in a long lilac scarf with a matching fedora. He saw me, stopped, raised his arms in mock-surprise and, squealing, did a little soft shoe shuffle then rushed into my arms. 

‘Darling man, you came all this way to the sphincter of England!’ he cooed. He looked so genuinely pleased to see me that I was glad I’d made the effort. ‘You’re looking very dolly.’

‘Wouldn’t have missed it,’ I told him, quite truthfully. ‘How’s it hanging?’

He pulled a face. ‘Don’t ask.’

Professional concern kicked in. ‘That uncool, eh?’

‘I don’t know where to start,’ Compton said, dramatically. 

‘Save it for supper,’ I said. ‘Can you recommend anywhere? It’s on me so the best place in town.’

Compton giggled, all three of his chins wobbling in unison. ‘Sweetheart, this is Heelmouth. There is no best, just least terrible. And for that, it’s either the Wimpy Bar or the chippy on the front.’

‘Your fellow cast members have gone to the Wimpy,’ I said.

‘Chippy it is then,’ he replied firmly, and slipped his arm in mine. ‘This way.’

But I resisted his pull. Another figure had just emerged from the stage door. 

It was the vanishing man from the hotel bar!

Chapter 2

I dunked a fat succulent chip in tartare sauce and took an appreciative nibble. 

The ‘chippy’ Compton had taken me to was the nearest thing to groovy I’d seen in Heelmouth. Brightly lit, festooned with these hip new PVC decorations, a neato artificial tree smothered with tinsel and flashing lights, even the background noise of a wonky tape playing Christmas carols at variable speeds didn’t mar the jollity. 

And the chips were far out too. 

I raised my glass of Lucozade and toasted Compton. ‘To a successful run, darling, and I promise to get you something cool in town in the new year.’

‘Thanks ever so,’ the tubby thesp replied. ‘A telly would be nice.’ He popped a scampi in his mouth.

‘I’ll do my best,’ I promised. ‘I’m spending new year with the Grades, I’ll twist his arm.’ 

I mopped up some of the HP sauce with a slice of Nimble. ‘So what’s going down with Mother Goose? Is she about to lay a great big egg?’

Compton considered. ‘It’s hard to pinpoint really. Our director Knowle St Giles is down from Cambridge.’ He sniffed. ‘I’m sure he’s very clever and all, but an amateur and wouldn’t recognise a joke if it slapped him in the face. There’s nothing wrong with the cast, it’s just…’ He pulled a face. ‘It’s just not hanging together.’

‘Who was the cat who left the stage door last?’ I asked.

‘Oh that’s Northfield Loveday,’ said Compton. ‘He’s the Demon King.’

‘Any good?’

‘That’s the odd thing,’ said Compton. ‘I have a feeling he’s never been on the stage before. Clueless about the basics. Can’t tell his downstage from his wings, but…’

‘Yes?’

Compton looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice. ‘He frightens me. When he’s on stage it’s as though he actually is a Demon King. Not like that Method rubbish… no, when he does the black magic stuff… it… it gives me the shivers.’

Oh, my interest was very piqued now! 

‘His stage magic is tickety-boo too,’ continued Compton. ‘I haven’t the foggiest how he does it. He sets his own tricks, won’t let the ASM – a very dolly lad – do it. And Sparkwell – that’s the comic, he does a marvellous vent act in Act 2 – he can’t for the life of him work out how he does it all and Sparkie is a magician too. Children’s parties, you know.’

‘How does he hang offstage?’ I asked. 

Compton shrugged. ‘He never socialises. No drinkies after work, keeps himself to himself.’

‘Where’s his pad?’ 

‘Your hotel, the Grand,’ Compton replied. ‘Although how he can afford it on this fee.’

I ignored the slight dig. I couldn’t blame him; I’d got Compton’s bread as high as I could go, but his weekly fee was less than I lay out on champagne each week.

‘There was a bit of a rumpus in rehearsals this afternoon,’ Compton continued. ‘We’re over- running and Knowle told Northfield to cut his big black magic scene right down. You know, the bit before the interval where he goes full-on cackling bad guy. He’s giving it all this Latin hoo-hah. Red gels, smoke bombs, the lot. Well, Madam throws a massive strop and refuses. Said it was integral to the plot and had to be authentic and why couldn’t we cut out Sparkwell’s vent act? Knowle said, and quite rightly, surprisingly for him, that the vent routine was a highlight. The dummy is an old gypsy crone and she does horoscopes.’ He put on a cracking old lady voice. ‘You will meet a tall dark stranger – and he’ll give your chimney a right good poke with his brush.’

We both guffawed. I must say this panto had seemed like a dutiful drag but now it was promising to be a gas. 

‘What about the two birds?’ I asked.

Compton sniggered. ‘Denise, the principal girl is very sweet, but… ‘ he threw his hands in the air, ‘Act? Not a word in her vocabulary!’ He leaned forward and whispered, ‘she’s Knowle’s latest crumpet.’

‘And the principal boy?’ 

‘Duracella?’ Compton put on a mock-shocked face. ‘Not as other girls.’ He mouthed silently ‘If you get my drift.’

Damn! I’m cool with chicks digging other chicks, but only if I can watch.

I coughed up the dosh for the fish and chips, leaving them, even by my standards, a generous tip, and invited Compton back to my hotel for coffee. He declined. 

‘A long day tomorrow,’ he apologised, ‘what with the Dress and that. And I’m not getting any younger, it takes it out of me – and I’d have rather have it put in!’ He giggled and kicked his left leg back.

We parted outside the ‘chippy.’ I was rather proud of him; he looked well and had obviously been  avoiding the booze. If he could do the same with the sailors this close to the sea, then he should have a successful season.

I’d contemplated a stroll along the sea front, but a light grating of snow had started, so I headed straight for my hotel. Never mind the coffee I’d offered Compton, I craved one mother of a brandy. I passed a small group of carol singers, swathed in scarves and woolly hats who were giving the world their unique interpretation of A Partridge In a Pear Tree outside Woolworths. 

I hit the hotel bar which was now lit by fairy lights which just emphasised the gloomy corners.

The bar was busier than it had been this afternoon. Small groups of people dotted the place, women knocking back fluorescently yellow Snowballs, men on the ale or Scotch. The air was ripe with the stench of Twiglets.

Dermot, a Father Christmas hat perched on his head, offered me a complimentary glass of steaming mulled wine which I gratefully knocked back while waiting for my brandy. 

I checked out my fellow drinkers for any likely crumpet. I never felt I’d visited a town unless I’d pulled, and it would be a shame to waste that splendidly big bed. Sadly, all the women seemed to be accounted for, clinging rather tipsily to whichever estate agent or sales rep they’d chosen as their paramour. Did they not realise what a carnal opportunity was standing mere feet from them? Oh well, their loss…

Then I saw him. Northfield Loveday, the creepy Demon King who had so put the willies up Compton and not in the usual way.

He was in the same corner as before, poring over the same musty old tome. He wasn’t going to escape me this time.

I marched to his table, pulled back a chair and sat myself down, before he could object.

‘Mind if I hang out?’ I asked.

He looked cheesed off, but couldn’t tell me to scat without a scene – and I don’t mean a cool one.

I examined him thoroughly. He didn’t look that threatening, more like an assistant bank manager, too frightened to go home to a rolling pin-wielding old lady. About fifty or so, balding with greasy strands scraped over a boiled egg of a head. Not tall, not short, not fat, not thin, not… anything really.

Then he looked at me.

Oh man, those eyes. I’d never seen anything like them. Twin pools of fire which burned their way into my very soul. They seemed to scald my own retinas, but I just couldn’t avert my gaze; I had to keep looking…  felt as though I was plunging into them, losing my self from the bar and sinking into…

‘Jeepers creeper!’ I shook my head. ‘Where did you get those nifty peepers,’ I struggled on, as nonchalantly as I could manage. ‘What’s the book?’

He quickly shut the book. ‘Just local history,’ he said.

‘My name’s Derek Playfair.’ I proffered my hand which he reluctantly took. ‘I’m Compton’s agent.’

He looked blank. 

‘Compton Pauncefoot,’ I explained. ‘Mother Goose? Capiche?’

He nodded, disinterested.

‘I’m watching the Dress tomorrow as I can’t make the first night.’ I explained. ‘Compton says your act is pretty ace.’

‘My act?’ Northfield looked annoyed. ‘It is more than an ‘act.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Yeah?’ 

I was trying to maintain a lack of eye contact. 

‘Who reps you?’ I asked. 

A flicker of annoyance crossed his bland face. ‘What’?

‘Who is your agent?’ I spelled out, my own irritation at amateurs trickling out.

‘I don’t have one,’ he replied, placing the book in a Safeway bag.

‘Well, if you’re as good as Compton says maybe I can help out.’

Northfield stood up. ‘I have no intention of remaining in this infantile industry. This is strictly a one-off.’

I was puzzled. ‘Then why do it? This one job?’

An odd smile appeared. ‘I have my reasons.’

A chill inexplicably hit me. I am a hard-bitten West End agent. I have stood up to Hollywood producers, Binkie Beaumont and Shirley Bassey without turning a hair of my immaculate coiffure. But this little man unnerved me in a way that not even Michael Winner could.

I decided to make my exit. ‘Good luck for tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing your tricks.’

I couldn’t have said more of the wrong thing; not even if I’d alluded to Charlie Hawtrey’s syrup or Thora Hird’s boob job. Northfield glared at me, those wretched eyes lighting up like Vesuvius.

‘Tricks?’ He roared. ‘Tricks?’

He stood up. ‘I’ll show you a trick!’

He muttered something under his breath, clicked his fingers, and the Christmas Tree burst into flames. 

Everybody freaked out! Chicks were screaming and the guys were shouting. No-one actually did  anything so I raced to the bar, grabbed the ice bucket and flung the contents at the tree. I yelled at Dermot to give me the soda syphon. 

The flames disappeared.

The Christmas tree was back to normal. There was no sign of any fire. The branches didn’t even look singed. The bar went silent. Then everybody decided en masse to pretend that nothing had happened, and conversation and drinking resumed. 

I looked back at Northfield. He was gone. But how? There hadn’t been enough time for him to get through the crowds to the exit… 

That darned cat was weird!

Chapter 3

I awoke the next morning, fully refreshed after a good night’s sleep. The sea air had certainly cleared the old tubes. I’d half expected a night of trippy dreams after the events of the previous evening, but the good old Playfair psyche had swept the whole matter under the subconscious rug.

After the bizarre incident with the Christmas tree in the bar, everybody had just gone about their business as though nothing had happened. Whether it had just been my imagination, or if Northfield had somehow wiped their collective memories I had no way of knowing. My adventures were usually of the more prosaic kind, and even if the events seemed supernatural, they usually turned out to be caused by some down to earth miscreant, often in a luminous mask. 

But for the life of me I couldn’t see how Northfield had performed his ‘trick’ last night.

After a light breakfast of porridge, fruit juice, toast, Ricycles, fried eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, and lashings of coffee – nothing too much as I have a figure to watch – I took a stroll along the front. The snow was still sprinkling down, but not heavy enough to properly settle. This was a relief as I wanted to split the minute the dress rehearsal finished, and I didn’t want to be delayed by snow on the tracks. Perhaps if British Rail spent less bread on Jimmy Savile and more on snow ploughs, we wouldn’t have that problem!

I bought a ‘Kiss Me Quick’ hat for my secretary Japonica, several sticks of rock, a baby’s dummy made of sugar for my latest squeeze – top glamour model, sultry Suga Smax 28-22-46 – but the snow suddenly got wilder so I took shelter in a cafe called the Del Rio.

The decor was very olde worlde as indeed was the waitress who served me. She stared at my with-it hair with shock, then downright hostility. My request for an Espresso was greeted with a blank look, and her distaste as she asked her equally hatchet-faced colleague if they did ‘expressos’ did not fill me with glad tidings. I settled for a cup of Camp coffee. 

I had noticed that at the table next to me were the two girls I’d seen leaving the stage door yesterday. What had Compton said they were called? Denise and Duracella.

They were huddled together, looking more conspiratorial than gossipy. My ears, trained at picking up snatches of conversation of theatre audiences or producers, honed in on their parley.

‘I can’t bear it any longer,’ said one of them. The blonde, I think. Denise? 

‘It’s only for a short while longer, doll,’ replied the other.

Doll? Were they both sippers at the sapphic cup? I thought that Compton had said that Denise was the director’s crumpet.

‘I hate it when he paws at me,’ Denise continued. ‘He’s clumsy and and his hands are clammy.’

‘We’ve been spoilt for all that by the Master,’ giggled Duracella. ‘After him, no one else can compete.’

They both sighed.

Master? Spoilt? What kind of shenanigans we’re going on down here in sleepy Heelmouth? I didn’t even expect to find the swinging Sixties locally, never mind the Saucy Seventies!

Scooping out some wax from my lughole, i positioned myself as near the girls as I could. But almost as if they knew I was earwigging,  they lowered their voices. All I could hear were certain whispered words.

‘Dress… ceremony… sacrifice… Master…’

Then one of the girls said something that I couldn’t quite believe. It was only when the other repeated it that I knew I hadn’t misheard.

‘Hail Lucifer!’

The two girls left shortly after this, presumably to prepare for the Dress. I sat there in silence, processing what I had heard. There was some heavy stuff going on here in this little seaside town and I was way out of my comfort zone. 

I lunched at the Wimpy Bar, my mind whirring with all that I’d experienced since arriving in Heelmouth; was it really less than 24 hours ago?

I walked along the pier to the theatre, almost bent double against the snow storm. I was relieved that those Victorian cats were so handy with screwdrivers, otherwise I’d be worried that the pier wouldn’t stand up to this weather. I approached the box office. Yet another sour-faced old bag barked at me that the show hadn’t opened yet. I switched on the Playfair charm and explained who I was. Her demeanour softened slightly, but her mouth was still curled in disapproval. These seaside dudes did not approve of 1971 fashions! She reached up to a pigeon hole and retrieved an envelope and handed it to me. I walked away and slit it open. It was a note from Compton.

“Darling thing,

Bless you for coming although what you’re about to endure I have no idea. There is something queer going on but I can’t put my finger on it – I’m out of practice at fingering queer things! (What am I like!?). I hope I’ll see you after the Dress, but I’ll understand if you need to toddle off pronto.

Your loving client,

Compton”

The vinegar-faced trout had told me to take a seat in the dress circle, but I detoured and found an empty Box. It was perfectly situated; I could see not just the stage but also the whole auditorium. The Director was in the middle of the stalls, a young girl by his side. They were huddled together, and she was checking a list while he barked instructions at her. She looked terrified, poor thing, and barely old enough to have left school.

The cast were gathered on the stage, shuffling nervously which contrasted with their gay apparel. Compton looked splendid in his frock, a bright ginger wig erupting a foot above his head, his face plastered with make-up like he’d been embalmed. The fake boobs were impressive. I wished I  encountered some like them attached to an actual chick. He suddenly spotted me and gave me a discreet wave.

The only member of the cast who didn’t look nervous was Northfield. He stood impassively upstage, apart from the others, eyes closed, fingers pressed together to make a church, his lips moving imperceptibly. Rehearsing his lines, I presumed.

Knowle St Giles approached the stage. He was a typical Oxbridge type; chubby, chinless,  floppy fringe of greasy hair, an arrogance borne of years of entitlement but without anything to back it up. I’d encountered the sort many times before; not bright enough to be a Tory MP so forced to become a theatre director instead.

‘All right, sweethearts!’ St Giles had to shout, not having the requisite voice needed for authority. I suspected that all through rehearsals Compton had had to dredge up huge reserves of restraint not to put the little squirt right.

This is your Dress Rehearsal,’ he yelled, his voice getting hoarse already. ‘Your very last chance before the first night tonight.’ He paused. ‘Just… just… do it right.’

Not for the first time in my life and definitely not the last, I wished I had a gun.

St Giles sat down, the cast disappeared into the wings, the house lights dimmed, and the orchestra started up. I say orchestra… it was a trio of three elderly pensioners, comprising an organist,  drummer and a little old lady dwarfed by her double bass.

They struck up a medley of songs, with each musician playing a different one. Then the left tab swept open, followed thirty seconds later by the right one. 

The show was adequate. The cast did their best against a packed Christmas stocking of odds, which included precarious scenery, a threadbare script, a band with less groove than a blank record.

Denise was, as Compton said, pretty but hopeless. Duracella had splendid legs, a singing voice that could keep ships way from dangerous rocks, and, I admit, her romantic scenes with Denise gave me the right horn.

Sparkwell Polliphant was too old for Buttons, but his vent act skills were impressive and his dummy – an old gypsy crone  – was funny and uncanny.

Compton was a splendid Mother Goose. He had energy, a voice that didn’t just reach the back of the stalls but continued down the pier to the front, and even without a responsive audience, his comic timing was sharp enough to carve the toughest of old turkeys. Some of his gags were rather risqué and after each zinger, he’d glance in my direction with a raised eyebrow. 

Northfield was the puzzle. His magic tricks were spectacularly good – I hadn’t the foggiest how he did them – but otherwise he was a dead loss. He mumbled his lines, made no effort to act, and was an unedifyingly unscary villain.

But then we reached the climax of Act 1, the scene where the Demon King reveals his true colours. Compton had told me that the director had insisted the scene be cut down, much to Northfield’s ire. I wondered what what going to happen.

The atmosphere changed. The temperature dropped and the theatre wasn’t exactly the palm house at Kew Gardens to start with. The lighting switched to an eerie mauve, the best the lights had been throughout, and Northfield erupted from the centre-stage trapdoor. He was dressed in the most spectacular robes, an ebony black satin, trimmed with a black fur and with a vivid scarlet satin lining. Northfield raised his arms outwards and started chanting unintelligible words with a vocal force I would never have credited to him. This was no longer the mousey man who looked so out of place on stage; this was a genuinely scary wizard.  And if he unnerved me, what the hell would he do to the kiddiewinks?

I watched in awe as Northfield continued his ritual; this was not a part of the mundane script, and it felt as though the theatre itself was rumbling. I wanted to flee, not just the theatre, or the pier, but Heelmouth itself. 

Northfield’s chanting got even louder, his eyes blazed and I could have sworn I saw lightning crackle around his form. An evil-smelling black smoke swirled around him, and the Demon King – Northfield no more – burst into hysterical laughter…

To be continued…

To hear Sir Desmond narrate this story, click here.

Written by Anthony Keetch

(c) Anthony Keetch 2022

Hallowe’en!

 

Hallowe’en, one would think, is a ripe time for those of us who churn out stories of the macabre for the masses. Apart from the opportunity to flog more books, there is the chance to appear on spooky-themed editions of our favourite televisual programmes – Call My Bluff, Give Us a Clue, Songs of Praise and so on. 

However it has often been an ill-starred time of the year for yours truly. Mayhaps it’s the denizens of the paranormal getting their own back for the indignities I hurl at them in my books?

One Hallowe’en I was asked to read a short story of mine to a local school. Excellent, I thought, give me a child and I will make them a consumer for life. 

Unfortunately they were younger than I expected. Under-eights. Never mind, I thought. Mine were that age and they lapped up my bedtime yarns. Besides nightmares are good for children and bed-wetting is perfectly normal.  So I ploughed on and read my gruesome short story BLOOD ON STAN’S CLAW. Some of the little boys enjoyed it, but at least three teachers fainted. It was the scene when the titular character gave birth rather bloodily to a goat which then ate its mother which caused the problem. I’ve never heard screaming like it.

At first I was delighted. It’s the effect that every horror writer craves. But perhaps not weeping. I sensed all wasn’t well when I realised the floor was awash with Jimmy Riddle. Then the headmistress marched to my podium and clocked me one. 

I don’t usually hit women, but my reflexes kicked in and I went all Hai Karate on her. We’re soon on the floor pummelling each other with fists. Children were crying, teachers were shouting, three boys were clamouring for the end of the story.

Then inevitably sirens were blaring. The Headmistress – a Dolores Lynch (Miss) – and I were handcuffed, bundled into a panda and taken to the nearest nick. Not charged, just cautioned. After many hours in a cell nursing our bruises we were released. I invited Miss Lynch to join me for a conciliatory night cap. She accepted.

Best night in the sack ever! Who’d have thought that a middle-aged spinster headmistress of a primary school could be so passionate? And, frankly, dirty…?

Happy Hallowe’en, listeners – and may all your tricks be a treat!

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‘The Tell-Tale Nipple’

Chapter 2

I was having a very unproductive day in Kew. I wasn’t gawping at the pansies, you understand, but having a rummage at the Records Office.

An idiot nephew of mine lived in the neighbourhood and I’d originally asked him to check some files for me, but his confused babbling soon convinced me that I’d be better off doing the leg work myself. 

But answers found I none. Either the de Scornly lineage had ceased at Wipers as previously believed, or else no one had ‘fessed up to de Scornly parentage on birth certificates. Whichever was true, proving the veracity of the ghostly Sir Jasper’s claim was turning out to be a thorny pickle .  

I hadn’t mentioned nipples to my wretched son-in-law, Darren Frognall. Chaps don’t admit they’ve been staring at another chap’s chest; besides, I felt I needed to absorb the gen that Frognall was in possession of a superfluous boob and work out how it might fit into this perplexing jigsaw. I was surprised that my daughter hadn’t mentioned that her husband had this anatomical discrepancy – or even that it wasn’t used during the wedding when the vicar asked if anyone had any just cause why the marriage should not go ahead. I would have thought that while a third knocker may be a positive boon for a wife, it would be a definite black mark for a cove, particularly when the existing two are already rather pointless. 

My mind was a whirlpool of hypotheses and suspicions as I left the leafy suburb. I have the cerebrum of a master storyteller and I was shuffling my ideas into a coherent shape, much like when I am assembling one of my best-selling novels. I was so distracted by the labyrinthine possibilities in my vast brain that I found I had automatically driven to chez Frognall. This struck me as particularly serendipitous. Salut, subconscious!

I found Frognall at home, sitting in front of his ‘word processor’ which is an electronic typewriter for those who can’t afford secretaries. I didn’t allow him to get a word in edgeways. I told him nothing of my theories; I just suggested – firmly, with no room for manoeuvre – that he spend that night with me in the Haunted Room.

He unsurprisingly didn’t look too thrilled at the idea, but I was adamant. I claimed that I needed a witness to whatever might happen there when I next confronted the ghost of Sir Jasper, and I pandered to his ridiculously bloated ego by saying that everyone would believe a writer of his calibre (the straight face I managed to maintain was one my great achievements). He said that he doubted that Sir Jasper would even show up if there was a third party present. I secretly agreed with that, but for reasons I kept to myself.

Later that night, once I’d infiltrated his throat with a couple of stiff ones, we had settled ourselves back in the Haunted Room at the top of my club, Abbadon’s. I’d managed to sneak Frognall in by thrusting a wad of crisp oncers in the Night Porter’s outstretched paw. 

Frognall looked around the Haunted Box Room with distaste. For a man who waxed lyrical about the ‘grittiness’ and ‘truth’ of the council estate, he was remarkably prissy about his surroundings. Those of us who’ve been to war can find comfort in anywhere that doesn’t have snipers trying to get in. Unnoticed by him, I quietly locked the door behind us and pocketed the key.

Nothing had changed since I’d left the room. But why should it? It was only the previous night that I’d had my spooky encounter there, although it seemed as though a year had passed. I hadn’t slept much in the past 48 hours and my weariness was threatening to catch up with me.

But I had plans for this evening. And it had to wait until midnight…

Frognall was uncharacteristically silent. Usually one can’t shut him up. He’s either boasting about his awards or films deals, or else he’s banging on about how ‘awfully’ some poor billionaire has behaved. I rarely listen when anyone else is talking as my own thoughts are quite good enough for me, but this evening Frognall’s nonsense would’ve passed the time. Rather than enduring the silence and Frognall’s shallow breaths, I filled the gaps myself, regaling us with amusing anecdotes about the war or past sexual conquests. Several Tit-Bits columns worth of material, but none of of it raised even a titter from the Bolshy Bard. Not even when I bemoaned the loss of Rhodesia from the Commonwealth did it provoke one of his communistic tirades. What could be troubling him?

At last the clock began to strike midnight. Frognall seemed to wake from his torpor and said, ‘It’s looks like a no-show from your ghost so we might as well call it a night.’

I said nothing. He went to the door and turned the handle. It didn’t open of course. Irked – dare I say panicky – he demanded I open the door. But I wasn’t letting him away that easily. 

‘You must think me a pretty feeble fellow, young Frognall,’ I told him. ‘A 24 carat semolina-headed dolt. I saw right through you from the start of this business. This is just your clumsy and, frankly, inexpertly-plotted way of getting yourself a knighthood. So much for the being the Trotsky of Terror. Typical lefty, you rail against the Establishment while being desperate to be part of it. Look at that painting!’ I pointed at the portrait above the mantlepiece. ‘I thought it looked familiar. Couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but of course it does, it’s you!  And the ghost last night… that was you too, wasn’t it? Don’t bother denying it.  A quick visit to Bermans, some frills, a flouncy wig and improbable crepe hair – lo and behold! Darren Frognall, the Castro of Creepiness, becomes the mythical Sir Jasper de Scornly.’

He denied nothing, but neither did he admit it. 

‘I will admit there was some remarkable sleight of hand. That son et lumiere, for example. How did you manage that? Mickey Finn in my drink? Hypnosis? And then there was the nipple. Very ingenious. But too rubbery to be convincing.’  

I ripped open his shirt, grabbed the extraneous nipple and tugged. His eye crossed in pain.

‘Oh that was real, was it?’ I continued blithely, quickly removing my hand from his chest lest he get any ideas. ‘But I’ll admit, I’m impressed at the lengths you went to. The back story, the costume, the conjuring… just a shame you don’t put so much effort into your ghastly books.’

Oh, I was enjoying this!

But why wasn’t he responding? I expected rebuttals or outrage or at the very least some sort of bluster. The cove wasn’t even looking at me while I was ridiculing him. He eyes were open very wide – almost with terror – and he seemed to be staring at something behind me…

I whirled around. 

The ghost of Sir Jasper de Scornly stood there, eyes blazing, his sword raised as though to strike!

Ah, bang went that theory. Bugger!

My brain raced nineteen to the dozen as I processed this latest development. I had been quite convinced that Frognall was behind this whole charade, but here we both were faced with the spook himself. I glanced back at Frognall. He’d gone quite white, and while his eyes were fixed on Sir Jasper his hand was clawing uselessly at the door handle.

The ghost stared at me. ‘What news, Sir Desmond Stirling? Have ye found me spawn?’

I pointed back at Frognall. ‘Yes, he’s here.’

I heard a loud gulp from behind me.

Sir Jasper stared at Frognall. ‘This lily-livered whelp?’

‘That’s not my fault,’ I spluttered. ‘I just found him. Don’t blame me, he’s from your gene pool.’

‘And what makes ye think this bowl of cold broth is of me bloodline?’2

I turned to Frognall. ‘Show him your nipple?’

He stared at me, wide-eyed. ‘What?’

‘Open your shirt and flash him your extra boob,’ I hissed, irate at his dim-wittedness, unsurprising as it was.

When he didn’t respond, I impatiently began to undo his buttons. He pushed my hands away and opened up his shirt half way down. He held his shirt open and turned his head away, like a virgin awaiting a vampire’s bite. 

‘Don’t be coy, lad,’ the phantom growled. ‘The de Scornly pap is an appendage of pride.’

The ectoplasmic lout peered hard at Frognall’s chest. With the tip of his sword, he poked the third nipple. Frognall winced, the big Jessie. 

‘That’s the de Scornly tit, all right,’ the ghost uttered. 

‘So what now?’ I asked, seeing as how Frognall was still speechless with terror.

Sir Jasper returned his sword to its sheath. ‘I can give ye proof of your lineage. It will regain ye the family title.’

‘Any land?’ asked Frognall, perking up, the greedy shit. ‘Or treasure?’

‘The de Scornly lands were carved up and scavenged a long time since,’ Sir Jasper replied, ‘Along with the family wealth.’

Frognall tried not to look too disappointed. 

‘So what proof, exactly?’ I asked.

Sir Jasper smirked. ‘Belay ye,’ he said. ‘First ye have to prove ye’re worthy?’

‘Wasn’t the family udder sufficient?’ I asked.

The ghost shrugged. ‘That proved the bloodline. But I’ve yet to see any evidence of the pedigree, I need to believe he has me me fire in his veins!’

Hmm, he’s on a hiding to nothing there, I thought, knowing my son-in-law as I do. All underpants and no clockweights that one. Not the foggiest what my daughter saw in him, but after years in a nunnery, anyone with the merest whiff of the Y chromosome will suffice, I presume.

But the wretch was family, one supposed, so I felt I should show some support, however dishonest.

‘Whatever you want him to do, he’ll do,’ I claimed, ‘even if he hasn’t given me grandchildren yet.’

Sir Jasper’s considered. ‘All me trouble started when some scoundrel grassed me up to me pater.’

I gasped. What utter rotter would do that?

Sir Jasper continued. ‘Me father was such an old fool I could have had me way with the maid right under his nose and he wouldn’t have noticed. But but someone told him everything… about me debts, me whoring, me being banned from court for initiating the Prince of Wales to Brethren of Lucifer himself.’

You know, in other circumstances Sir Jasper and Your Truly could’ve been the best of chums.

‘But what bounder blabbed?’ I asked. ‘Was it one of your brothers?’

Sir Jasper blew a contemptuous raspberry. ‘Those frilly-pantied mollies would never have dared. Ye know why? Because I would’ve slit their buttocks asunder with me epee and they knew it.’

‘Well, who then.’ I inquired.

The phantom snarled. ‘Me oldest enemy, a foppish knave who cheats at games and tattles about ye behind yer back. I challenged him to a duel after I caught him knee-trembling me valet. The cur didn’t show up. Instead he rode to me father and blabbed it all. That I was a gambling, whoring dastard who was blackening the family name.’

He had a point though.

‘I should’ve introduced the insolent puppy to the point of me sword before leaving the country but he’d scurried into hiding.’

‘So who was this appalling blabbermouth?’ I asked.

Sir Jasper spat out the name. ‘Lord Herbert Pilchard!’ He pointed his bones finger at Frognall. ‘And ye must kill his descendant.’

Frognall looked appalled, but not as much as I felt. The Pilchards were an old if undistinguished family, whose aristocratic standing had diminished over the years, descending into the middle class and trade, albeit as founders of the old Pilchard’s of Luton chain of shops.

And how do I know this, darling reader? My late mother was a Pilchard.

And Frognall had just been charged with killing Yours Truly!

*****************

Well, this was an utter dog’s breakfast and no mistake!

My brain computed the next move. First thing we had to do was get the hell away from this blasted spook. Once I’d explained the situation to Frognall he would realise that there was no way he could kill yours truly, his father-in-law and national treasure. 

Or could he? 

The grasping toad had the whiff of aristocracy in his scent and I doubted that anything would deter him from a title. 

Perhaps I ought to kill him first?

No, my daughter would never forgive me and besides, I’m too old to get banged up in chokey, particularly for offing a weed such as Frognall. Plus, I wouldn’t want anyone thinking it was professional jealousy. The only writer who brought out the green eye in old Stirling was darling Sven Hassel even though I soon realised I could never scale the literary heights on which he’d planted a flag.

It was at this point that I heard my mouth – which, I confess, has been known to act somewhat ahead of my brain – open and the following words fall out of it.

‘Actually, I think you’ll find I’m the last of the Pilchard line.’

Hmm, not the course of action that I would have chosen. Thank you very much, mouth. Let’s just hope you have something frightfully clever up your sleeve.

‘Of course,’ I continued blithely, and I’ll admit I was fascinated to know what I would come up with. ‘Seeing as how Frognall here is married to my daughter, any child he spawns will actually be continuing the Pilchard line, then by rights he should do away with himself too – just to be sure.’

Yes, that might work. Let’s hope that Frognall wasn’t daft enough to point out that Alison is actually my stepdaughter by one of my previous wives, can’t recall which one.

‘But surely…’ began Frognall before I clamped my hand over his Bolshie cakehole.

The ghost of Sir Jasper looked at the pair of us, his shark-like eyes revealing nothing. Then he proffered Frognall his sword. 

‘Here, prove ye’re a de Scornley. Smite the blaggard!’

Oh well, I’d had a good innings, and if it were true that one’s life flashes before one’s eyes prior to  one’s demise then I was about to enjoy it all over again and this time without any unpleasant consequences – apart from the inevitable death. I opened my shirt revealing my still manly chest – so unlike Frognall’s feeble and overcrowded torso – closed my eyes, and prepared myself to relive all the many roaring parties and equally roaring legovers. 

I’ll admit that I was fascinated to see if Frognall could actually go through with it. For all his fiery left-wing blabbering, I’d long marked him down as a jelly-kneed wimp when it came to action, a Trattoria Trot who rails against the establishment mainly because he’s not invited to be part of it. Would he have the orchestras to actually do me in? 

Frognall gingerly accepted the tendered sword. He felt the tip of the weapon, flinching slightly at its sharpness. He licked his finger which I thought was frightfully unhygenic. He practiced a couple of feeble swipes in the air. Any hopes for a quick clean death soon evaporated. This was going to be messy. 

Frognall was avoiding my eyes all the while. I wondered how he was going to explain my slaughter, not just to Plod, but to his wife. I think she’s quite fond of me in her own stony-faced way.

‘Do it!’ urged the phantom, his face made even ghastlier with blood lust. ‘Dispatch the swine!’

Frognall took a deep breath and raised the sword above his head. I closed my eyes, and prepared to meet my Maker with whom I intended to have more than a few sharp words about the poor design of the Prostate.

I heard the swoosh of the sword as it sliced the air…

‘Ow!’ came a loud cry. ‘Bloody hell!’

I opened my eyes. Frognall’s swipe of the sword had missed yours truly and sliced open the ghost’s shirt, perforating the chest below. It was a superficial scratch, but blood trickled down…

A ghost… bleeding?

Suspicions that had been coalescing in my mind coagulated into one almighty clot of an idea. I leapt forward and grabbed the spook by the shoulders. He was too, too solid flesh! I ripped off his wig, his hat and then the beard… only to reveal…

‘Snotty’ Gove!

‘Snotty!’ I exclaimed, resisting the quite natural urge to slap the little tick. ‘What on earth are you playing at?’

Frognall stared at Snotty. ‘But that’s my fan,’ he yelped, ‘the one who gave me the pamphlet with the history of this Club.’

I turned to Frognall. ‘And don’t think you’ve got away with nearly offing me either, young man.’

‘I guessed it was all a sham,’ spluttered Frognall. ‘That’s why I deliberately aimed the sword at him and not you, Dad.’

Dad! Dad! Talk about adding insult to nearly an injury. But I’d deal with my ratty little son-in-law later. ‘Snotty’ was the centre of my attention now. Clutching his scratch as though he’d lost a pound of flesh, the little twerp squealed like a baby pig. That he’d planned the whole plot for ages, that he wanted revenge for how I allegedly maltreated his father at school, particularly the whole ‘losing a leg’ thing – which was emphatically not my fault, Gove Major was quite within his rights to refuse to climb up on the school roof to plant the Schoolboys for Mosley flag, but how else could he be punished for burning my toast? And how was I supposed to know that the tiles on a 300 year old roof were loose? 

I must admit I was grudgingly impressed with Snotty’s scheme. The story, the research, the special effects, the hypnosis… that he knew all about Frognall’s third man-boob and pathetic yearning for a title. I asked how he accomplished the vision I saw of de Scornley’s story. A Mickey Finn he slipped into my whisky flask and some reasonably accomplished hypnotic suggestion as I had accurately summised. 

An extra flicker of suspicion occurred to me. ‘Were you in on all this?’ I demanded of Frognall. He shook his head, and I could see from the bewildered – nay, shell-shocked – expression on his eminently punchable face that he was telling the truth. 

‘That pamphlet about the history of the Club,’ Frognall asked, ‘Did you make all that up too?’

Snotty shook his head. ‘No, it’s in the official history of the Club. Sir Jasper was a real person.’

‘What about Scunthorpe? Was he in on your little scheme?’ I demanded of Snotty who replied in the negative. Apparently, the toothless retainer believes fervently in the Ghost of the Box Room. Snotty got the whole story out him him one quiet evening, and it was his genuine terror that triggered off the whole wheeze in Snotty’s devious little mind.

‘We’ll say no more about these shenanigans, Snotty,’ I declared. ‘I won’t press charges against either of you, as long as I get to write the whole sorry saga up. You hear that, Frognall? This is my story!’

I was already mapping the book out in my head. I had contemplated making it the next in the Derek Playfair Mysteries, but perhaps it was finally time to put yours truly at the heart of the story. The Flabbergasting Exploits of Sir Desmond Stirling! Hmm, no, sounds too much like a diet book.

Although I wouldn’t have admitted it to this dismal pair, my nerves were somewhat frazzled and I felt in need of medication. 

‘Right,’ I clapped my hands. ‘ I deserve a drink or three and it’s your rounds. Let’s wake up the bar staff and get blotto.’

Frognall scurried to the door, eager to be the first one out. Snotty scooped up his wig and sword and seemed to be about to say something…

A clap of thunder roared overhead, so loud the room seemed to shake. The portrait of Sir Jasper de Scornly fell from the wall and a sharp gust of icy wind blew out all the candles. Then there was silence, broken only by Frognall’s panicked shallow breathing.

I retrieved the torch I had brought along as back-up from my pocket and switched it on. 

‘Very clever, Snotty, but the joke is over now,’ I said, shining the beam onto his face. His pop- eyes stared wildly, a greasy sheen of sweat reflecting my torchlight back at me.

‘That wasn’t me,’ he squeaked. 

A bloodcurdling chuckle filled the room, seeming to emanate from everywhere and nowhere in particular. I was staring at Snotty at the time and unless he was a master ventriloquist as well as his other conjuring talents, then it definitely didn’t issue from him.

Before I could comment, Frognall and Snotty had hoisted their skirts and scarpered like the big girls’ blouses they were! I gave a wry chuckle.

‘Good night, Sir Jasper,’ I said. ‘We’ll leave you in peace now.’

I left the room and closed the door. As I walked away, I thought I heard… something.

‘Ye’ve not heard the last of me, Sir Desmond Stirling…’

‘The Tell-Tale Nipple’

Chapter 1

‘So tell me, Sir Desmond,’ I am often asked, ‘do you actually believe in the things you write about?’

By ‘things I write about,’ I presume they mean ‘the supernatural,’ as opposed to pretty girls and sports cars and Nazis and dashing Englishmen – all of which I not only believe in but have surrounded myself with throughout my life. The Nazis were obviously not by choice, but giving them a jolly good hiding was something I would have lamented to miss out on.

But as for the eerie and the magical and the paranormal, not to mention the forces of darkness, the jury – composed of one man just and true eg Yours Truly – is still out and sifting through all the evidence, unsure whether to believe the upstanding ‘copper’ of scientific rationalism or the smarmy ‘defence lawyer’ of myths and legends. 

I was having this very conversation the other night with chums at my club  (Abaddon’s, just off Frith Street – don’t try and find out exactly where; none of you would cut the mustard for membership). We’d just enjoyed a splendid supper of Tripe Kedgeree followed by Prune Charlotte, and had settled down with brandies and cigars in the Smoking Chamber. 

We’d just endured some magic tricks performed by ‘Snotty’ Gove, a repugnant little oik who only clung onto membership because most people never even noticed he was there. I’d been at school with his equally oily father who had been my fag until an unfortunate incident which resulted in him losing a leg which was categorically not my fault. 

There was no doubt that ‘Snotty’ was reasonably proficient at conjuring, but his banter was tedious, and the very least he could’ve done was clean his fingernails when doing sleight of hand with cards.  After he’d produced a Jack of Spades from ‘Chinny’ Chapman’s left nostril, it was rather forcefully suggested that ‘Snotty’ put his cards away and give it a rest.

Now, I’m often asked to regale my fellow members with a suitably gruesome yarn, and that evening I obliged with an old favourite about a garrotted nun who stalked an orphanage by night, auguring doom for any wretched child who glimpsed her.

I’d finished my story to much appreciation. I’d so put the willies up old ‘Chinny’ Chapman, that he’d had to guzzle an extra tablet to cope with his palpitations.

And it was then that ‘Snotty’ Gove piped up.

‘I say, Stirling, old bean. Do you actually believe the nonsense you come up with?’

I graciously ignored the word ‘nonsense’ – after all, my ‘nonsense’ has given me a very comfortable living indeed, not to mention many a coveted guest slot on Call My Bluff. I replied that my mind was open on the subject; that while many people whose opinion I trusted (the Duke of Kent, Uri Geller, darling Suzi Quatro) were staunch in their belief in the supernatural, I personally had yet to encounter any rock-solid evidence that even that boffin Dawkins couldn’t dismiss.

At that moment, Scunthorpe the waiter – a tall cadaverous cove who’d worked at the Club man and boy since the last war, maybe even the Crimean – approached and asked if our glasses needed refreshing. A redundant question! He was topping us all up when ‘Snotty’ Gove  asked Scunthorpe if he believed in ghosts.

‘I don’t believe in them, Sir,’ he replied, his curious slurring speech caused by his tongue having to keep his upper dentures from falling out, ‘I know they exist!

‘What makes you so convinced?’ I asked him, intrigued. People do so fascinate me, even the lower orders.

He looked down at me from his great height, watery eyes betraying a vehemence I’d never seen in them before. Or maybe I just never bothered to look at the staff properly, unless they were pretty gels. ‘When I were a lad,’ he slushed, ‘I saw a Ghost with my very own eyes. And I’ve never forgotten it.’ So chilled was he by his own memory that he forgot to support his dentures and they splashed into ‘Chinny’ Chapman’s whisky. Hurriedly Scunthorpe fished them out and popped them back into his cavern of a mouth. Fortunately, Chinny had lost consciousness and was unaware his drink had been in contact with another chap’s gnashers.

‘Where did this encounter take place?’ I asked, quite seriously. I never mock those who believe, no matter how ludicrous. 

Scunthorpe glanced upwards and pointed at the ceiling. ‘Why here, Sir Desmond, in the…’ he gulped and his dentures threatened to slip down his throat, ‘in the Box Room.’

I was puzzled. I thought I knew the club’s layout pretty well, but I couldn’t recall a Box Room. 

‘Is it that door on the top landing?’ asked ‘Snotty’ Gove. ‘One passes it on the way to the roof.’

In the summer, I’d spent many happy afternoons on the roof terrace sunbathing in the buff. Had I noticed a door? Come to think of it…

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘But I’ve never given it any thought. Probably thought it was a broom cupboard. Or the staff khazi.’

‘It’s been locked these many years,’ explained Scunthorpe. ‘Ever since my own… encounter. Will that be all, gentlemen?’ He turned to leave.

‘Hold your horses, Scunthorpe,’ I said, ‘You can’t leave us in suspense. Tell us more. What sort of ghost was it?’

He shook his head fearfully. The dentures rattled in his skull. ‘I’ve said too much, sir. I swore to the Club Chairman I would never talk about it. The Box Room door was firmly locked and has never been opened since. I’ll be sacked if I say any more.’

I harrumphed. ‘They’ll sack you over my dead body, Scunthorpe. And then I’ll haunt you. Come on, old thing, spill the ghostly beans!’

But, shuddering, his bowed his head and, tottering slightly, he left the lounge.

Shortly after this, Neville Sladen-Flame arrived after an evening of rampant leg-overs with his mistress, allegedly the wife of an Archbishop, and as he regaled us with a litany of all the dirty things she was happy to do, Scunthorpe‘s ghostly encounter slipped our minds.  

The rest of the evening passed in a merry blur, and I woke to find I had been put to bed in my room at the Club, naked except for socks. (In all my years as a Member, I’ve never found out who actually performs this chore. I presume they have dedicated staff whose specific job is to tuck up pie-eyed members.)

The following evening I dined with my daughter (Sub: check her name) and her ghastly husband, the wretched Darren Frognall – the self-styled Trotsky of Terror – the chump who churns out very ‘modern’ horror novels, set on ‘council estates’ (whatever they are), filled with unnecessarily descriptive eviscerations, and in which the villains are inevitably toffs or hard-working multi-millionaire industrialists. For some reason, MI5 haven’t banged him up for being a raging red, and instead he is my son-in-law. However, he keeps a good cellar and their cook is top-notch so I’m happy to spend the occasional evening at their bijou six-bedroom house in Hampstead. Conversation usually gets frightfully heated – which we both enjoy if we’re honest – and my daughter has an early night while we indulge in our own personal edition of Question Time.

On this evening, the conversation took a somewhat different turn. I mentioned over the Foie Gras what Scunthorpe had said the previous night. Frognall instantly went to his bulging bookcase and produced an old yellowing pamphlet. He said that he’d been given it by a fan at one of his book-signing appearances and had been meaning to show it to me for ages, but our political debates always got in the way. 

Turns out that Abaddon’s, my gentlemen’s club of which I have been a member as long as I can remember, wasn’t always the hive of genteel and civilised behaviour it now prides itself on being. When it first opened in the mid-eighteenth century, it actually housed a branch of The Hellfire Club during a brief attempt to franchise that particular den of iniquity! It hosted all manner of decadent shenanigans, far removed from the refined evenings I enjoy there these days. It was opened by a rum cove called Sir Jasper de Scornly, the youngest son of the Earl of Greenford, a minor toff who had been a great favourite at court, mainly because he was an utter weed who never rocked the boat and was always happy to cough up a few groats to George the whichever number when required. 

His third son, the aforementioned Sir Jasper, was a scoundrel of the worst kind. A drinker, a fighter, an unprincipled seducer of girls, boys and indeed anything with a pulse. If I’m honest he sounds far more convivial company that most of the current members… except for one thing. He liked to indulge in festivities of the supernatural. Not just seances and table-tapping – after all, who doesn’t? – but black masses, orgies, blood-soaked rituals, nun-on-goat action and opium-fuelled bacchanalias. Disgraceful! I have written about these depraved activities in enough depth to know how shameful they are, however enticing they may seem at first glance. 

Eventually, Sir Jasper crossed a line and his Club was shut down. But this is where the mystery deepens… the official records of the current Club only begin many years later when it reopened as a bastion of decency for gentlemen of a certain class. What was the deed that was a step too far? What was Sir Jasper’s ultimate fate? 

Rumours abounded that Sir Jasper’s Club lured many otherwise upright pillars of society into its wicked portals, even – and I’d not say this lightly- royalty was beset with temptation. Not just foreign royals from whom one expects such beastly behaviour – but even the then Pr*nce of W*les was ensnared into its lascivious maw. This simply wouldn’t do and steps would have been taken. Was Sir Jasper popped in a sack and bundled off to some ghastly armpit of the Empire, to live out his days in a drunken stupor, johnson slowly rotting thanks to some exotic variety of the clap, and then on the day he was finally whisked off to meet his Maker, buried ‘neath a banana tree, forgotten and unmarked?

The de Scornly family finally died out when the last fertile male came a cropper at Wipers during the Great War. The title was mothballed, and no freshly ennobled bloke has ever claimed it. Perhaps I could nab it when my time for ermine eventually arrives (Get a move on, Your Majesty, we’re neither of us getting any younger!)

But what did this have to do with Scunthorpe’s alleged spook?

At which point Darren Frognall made an extraordinary suggestion. 

I have very little time for my oikish son-in-law. His horror novels are boorish communist propaganda, and while Frognall may have perpetuated an image of himself as a ‘grizzled laureate of the streets’,’ I knew full well that he was the product of a minor public school in west London called St Nonceslas, that he’d inherited a tidy sum from an uncle in the tobacco trade, and that he’d invested heavily in an oil well in Abu Doli.

But his idea intrigued me. 

He suggested that I spend the night in the haunted room!

**************

I was surprised how readily that the Club President granted permission for my ghost-hunting mission. Naturally, he demanded that I promised not to write about my mission and equally naturally I lied and said I wouldn’t. 

Abaddon’s is notoriously publicity-shy, always guaranteeing sanctuary from the real world for the reprobates who comprise the membership. But losing the use of a room due to the superstitions of its simpleton staff must have rankled, so if I could clear up the enigma one way or the other, they would claim this as a result. I might even get free life membership if the upshot is to their liking.

A date was set for my night of ghostly vigil. I had hoped that Frognall would join me as an unbiased observer, but his lack of membership prohibited him, and the Committee refused to sanction any relaxation of rules to allow him to take part. Another stipulation – with which I agreed – was that no other member should know of my vigil. I didn’t want any of the rotters to play any tricks and scupper the serious scientific nature of my investigation.

I chose as my date the 14th February. I knew that on this date most of the members would be absent, being forced to take their wives, mistresses, boyfriends, favourite tarts and sundry significant others out for some kind of romantic occasion. It was also, I discovered from my research, the anniversary of the day that Sir Jasper de Scornly was unceremoniously booted out of the Club. If his spook was holding a grudge then surely that of all days would be when he would most likely manifest himself?

I went shopping for the apparatus I would need for my evening of ghost-hunting:  Candles, some holy water, an infra-red camera, a cracking bottle of Gleniskinnock whisky, a notepad and a pen. 

As the planned evening approached, my sense of anticipation tautened. I’m not easily frightened – I once parachuted into Germany dressed as nun; it wasn’t the war, I’d just lost a bet with the Duke of Edinburgh – but my pulse quickened when I thought of the night ahead.

I’d often unmasked those who were pretending to be ghosts (most recently my ex-wife and her girlfriend Pam at my alma mater Scarhelldeath Hall), but I was unprepared for what to do if the spooky rogue I encountered was the real McCoy. Would I keep my nerve? Or would I succumb to the heebie-jeebies like Scunthorpe had? It seems unlikely for a war hero such as myself, trained in the art of death by combat to go jelly-kneed at the sight of a ghost, but even the most lion-hearted of fellows has been known to bespoil their trousers when caught unawares. Perhaps I ought to doff the clothes and go knackers akimbo during my vigil? Hmm, could be a bit chilly in the Box Room and besides, one can be a tad vulnerable in such a state of sans trews.

The Feast of St Valentine’s dawned. I spent the day preparing for my long night of supernatural vigil. I had a splendid five-course lunch, snoozed most of the afternoon, then supped in my Club, followed by a brandy or two. The place was pleasingly quiet. I chuckled at the thought of my fellow Members having to endure a mandatory romantic evening with their trouble-&-strifes, followed by a duty knee-trembler. I did worry whether old ‘Chinny’ Chapman was in any fit state to indulge in carnal congress, but then recalled that his wife had run off with a bus driver a year or two before so he was excused the tedium of Valentines Day. In fact, I spotted him fast asleep in the Club Lounge, his pipe dangling precariously from his drooping mouth. I wondered how ‘Snotty’ Gove was spending the evening. I couldn’t imagine him in any kind of romantic or erotic circumstances, but ‘for every foot there’s a sock’ as my old Nanny used to say. Although in the case of Snotty’s pater there’s a somewhat redundant sock. 

The clock struck. 10pm. Time to start. I’d been given the keys to the Box Room earlier. Scunthorpe handed them over very reluctantly and had pleaded me with me to drop my investigation. I’d been very firm with him, even suggesting he join me in my vigil to face his fears. He shook his head in dismay and scuttled off to wherever minions go. It didn’t surprise me to find him off duty that evening. He never took time off, but he was in such a funk that he’d fled the building. I wondered where he went on his free time. He was such a part of the fabric of the Club that I couldn’t envisage him existing in the outside world. He probably went to the pictures or maybe something saucier. Like all good Club staff he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the local tarts and their specialities, and could always recommend the right person, whatever the required fetish. Maybe he was owed some commission?t

I climbed the stairs to the Box Room. I wasn’t feeling my usual tingle of anticipation before an adventure; rather I was aware of a gnawing in the pit of my gut, although that could’ve been the Spotted Dick.

I reached the door to the Box Room. Now I was aware of it I couldn’t see how I’d missed it so many times as I’d trekked to the roof for my nude sunbathing. I fumbled for the keys and I placed the Yale in the lock…

‘Go away!’

Who was that? I’d definitely heard that. Didn’t I? I stared around, but there wasn’t a fellow in the vicinity. I withdrew the key. Did I really want to do this? Wasn’t it a foolish way to spend the night when there was a very comfortable armchair downstairs with easy access to unlimited booze? 

I shook my head. What was I thinking? Old Stirling had never chickened out of anything before. There could be a bestselling book out of this. The Rolls needed a new gearbox, and my latest instalment of The Derek Playfair Adventures – a guaranteed money-spinner – had stalled in my brain.

I quickly turned the key in its lock and opened the door…

I entered the allegedly haunted Box Room. The air was stale, reeking of dust and damp. I fumbled for a light switch, but all my hand encountered was a cobweb. I dug out the torch from my bag and switched it on. The beam was powerful but limited; it illuminated a narrow strip of the room, revealing fragments of furniture. I’d brought along a large supply of candles and holders. I lit a brace of them in the corridor, then took them in. The flickering luminance didn’t enhance the room’s welcoming atmosphere, but I placed the candles on a heavy wooden chest of drawers, then quickly ignited another pair. I now had ample light by which to examine the Box Room more throughly. It was a small room, sparsely furnished. The aforementioned chest, a single bed, and a rocking chair. The wallpaper was dark and cheerless. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling, thick enough to be mistaken for lace curtains, in which large spiders scuttled away as they were hit by the light from the candles. 

There was no window. 

I sighed. Not the most comfortable of rooms in which to spend a night. I tentatively patted the bed. A cloud of dust mushroomed up, enveloping me and triggering a coughing fit. Perhaps if I stripped the bed of its sheets, maybe the mattress itself would be less grimy. I grabbed the eiderdown and tugged, but it disintegrated in my hand. I was beginning to wonder if I should have tried bribing the less nervous members of the cleaning staff to have given the room a quick once-over before attempting my vigil. Oh well, too late now. I would have to share my night with the dust mites, the spiders… and who knew what else?

My mighty imagination has been a boon for me most of my life. My many best-selling novels sprouted from it, and it has been the source of the comfortable lifestyle which I have enjoyed since I first put nib-to-parchment. But it has a downside. Whereas the Man in The Clapham Omnibus looks at a shadow and merely sees an absence of light, we scribes see a black abyss of the unknown in which all manners of bogeymen writhe and breed in their ghastliness. I pride myself on being firmly in control of my imagination, never succumbing to the vapours which women and other feeble creatures succumb. But I cannot tell a lie, this room induced a queer uneasiness in me.

I brought my bag in the room and shut the door. To make the room a tad less Chez Lugosi, I lit a few more candles, but even the extra lumens didn’t improve the ambience, merely added more shadows. A couple of whiskeys and I wouldn’t even notice the unpleasantness, I told myself. I unpacked what I’d need from my bag, lugged the rocking chair to a corner of the room from which I could survey it all, and settled down. The chair creaked as I sat, and the rocking motion was abrupt. I felt as though I could easily tip backwards all the way to the floor. I resolved to find something to jam under the rockers to keep it still. 

A vision of the jolly cosy bedroom two storeys below popped into my head, the one in which I often stayed when I didn’t want to traipse back to the Old Rectory late at night, usually because I was somewhat newt-like. I gave myself a good finger-wagging. This night had the potential to be an adventure, a lucrative one, what’s more. Not something that the Stirling of old would’ve balked at, the Stirling that fought in the war, the Stirling that once wrestled an ostrich, the Stirling that had laughed when faced with a firing squad comprising Bolivian Satanists, the Stirling who had marched through central London at the front of the Nudist Pride March … even the Stirling that had given the correct definition of frottage on Call My Bluff.

As I gingerly settled back in the rocking chair, my wedged foot preventing me from ending up unnecessarily horizontal, I surveyed the room again by torchlight – which was when I noticed the portrait. It hung over the mantelpiece which topped a blocked-up fireplace. Competently painted, but no forgotten masterpiece, it depicted a cove in mid-eighteenth century clobber. The subject was a young man, floridly dressed, quite handsome, his expression spoiled by a supercilious air, the mouth twisted in a cruel sneer. But the eyes… one jokes about the eyes of a portrait following one around the room, but these seemed almost alive! I truly felt they were staring right at me, no, right into me, piercing my own eyes to read my thoughts, perhaps even my very soul! 

Did this painting depict Sir Jasper de Scornly himself? Had this been his bedroom back in the day? This was more like a servant’s quarters, but perhaps it was where he indulged his more outré carnal romps? Not that he struck me as a chap who had any qualms about keeping his peccadilloes quiet. And if the painting were of he, then his roguish reputation seems to have been vindicated. 

Frankly, I wasn’t spending the night being stared at by this wretched painting so I turned it around so all I could see was the back of the frame. Doing this disturbed remarkably little dust which, surprisingly for a man of my forensic astuteness, didn’t strike me as at all odd.

I returned to the rocking chair and wondered how I was going to spend the long night ahead. I produced the camera from my bag and set them up ready to be galvanised into action if necessary. I took a swig from my hip flask, contemplated making some notes… and next thing I knew I was fast asleep!

I awoke with a start from a deep but dreamless snooze. For a moment I hadn’t the foggiest clue of where I was, but as soon as the brain clicked into place I remembered. I fumbled for my watch. Was it nearly morning? Could I leave this unpleasant little room and go back to my own bed? 

1.17am. 

Damn!

I rather fancied a hot milky drink – a posset with plenty of nutmeg and rum – but I doubted that the Night Porter would traipse all the way up here with one, even if I had any means to contact him. I’d have to make do with another swig of whisky. I threw back my head to glug the warming nectar down my throat when I noticed…

The portrait had been turned back the right way. Those blasted eyes were staring at me again. And the cruel smirk seemed even more disdainful than before.

I snapped myself wide awake. I contemplated my next strategy. There were two possibilities: either someone had come into the room while I was asleep or something supernatural was afoot. I was sceptical about the latter which meant the former was more likely.

A chilling prospect.

Who could it have been? I cursed myself for not locking the door. I hadn’t even shut it properly, leaving it slightly ajar in case… well, just in case.

I examined the portrait again. The face almost seemed familiar, but frankly I’ve spent many a weekend in a chum’s country estate, and the places are chockablock with similar paintings and all the subjects, no matter which house, all look as though they’re all related. Knowing our aristocracy they probably are. 

I necked more whisky and put the hip flask on the mantelpiece. I went to the door, closed it firmly and locked it. I didn’t relish the idea of being locked in; after all, the first rule of warfare is keep an option for a tactical retreat, but neither did I want anyone sneaking up on me.

I tried the door to make sure it was firmly locked. On my way back to the rocking chair I reached for my hip flask…

It was gone.

*********

This was ludicrous! It had been less than 30 seconds and no one else was in the room!

I flopped back into the rocking chair in a puzzled huff. I stared at the portrait. I could swear the bugger was smirking at me. This was going to be a prolonged enough night without whisky deprivation to boot. I decided to examine the room thoroughly to see if there were any possible secret entrances. Wouldn’t be the first time a priest’s hole had been the answer to a few questions.

I tapped walls, lifted a rug (which disintegrated into a cloud of rancid dust), and even peered under the bed (a fossilised mouse and a chipped Edgar Allen). I examined the fireplace lest the blocking off wasn’t quite so thorough, but it would require a mallet and a brace of navvies to get though that.

I admit, I was stumped. 

I shivered. The temperature in the Box Room had definitely dropped. As a consequence I felt a twitch in my bladder and became aware that I would imminently have to thrust Thomas at the Twyfords. But I worried that if I left the room, I would be reluctant to return. Perhaps I would have to use the Gazunder I’d just found.

My blood ran cold. The portrait was most definitely staring at me! The eyes were blazing with light, malignancy burning from them as they gleamed wickedly at me. I gasped and rubbed my eyes. When I looked again, the eyes were normal. Cruel and piercing still, but not aflame as before.

I had to admit that something fishy was afoot. Either I was experiencing genuine paranormal activity or someone was arsing about – and if I found out who, they’d be in for a severe hiding.

‘Give me back my bloody booze, you rotten spook!’ I suddenly erupted. To hell with it, I was going downstairs to get myself a bottle of something. Abaddon’s prides itself that alcohol, a bed, and a scrubber are never knowingly unavailable. 

As I reached the door, there was a chuckle. 

I whirled around. I’d definitely heard that. It was a laugh. A man’s laugh, but not a good-natured one. It was a joyless, sarcastic sound. But where had it come from?

‘Was that you?’ I asked the portrait, my hand still on the doorknob. 

There was an eerie glow emanating from the portrait. I rubbed my eyes.

Standing in front of the portrait of what I assumed was Sir Jasper de Scornly was the man himself. It was as though the painting had come alive and stepped out from the frame. 

Reader, I am man enough to admit that only the staunchest clenching of my buttocks prevented me from from being involuntarily at stool.  While the logical circuits of my brain were computing the various rational likelihoods of what I was seeing, my instincts were screaming ‘Ghost! Run!’ I knew that I should be snapping away with my camera, but it was on the other side of room, requiring me to actually get nearer the fiendish apparition.

I gulped and tried to pull myself together.

‘Can I help you?’ I asked the manifestation, my voice at least an higher octave than listeners of my occasional spots on The Moral Maze would recognise.

The ghost smiled the ghastliest of smiles and crooked its finger, gesturing for me to approach.

I sensibly stayed where I was. Or thought I did. My legs had other ideas and despite my best efforts they forced me step by step into the arms of the Ghost!

The Phantom’s chilly embrace overwhelmed me; my head swam, I feared I was going to lose consciousness, and then I found myself… somewhere else.  

It was a large drawing room, a dark thundery sky outside, the room lit by a roaring fire in the hearth. Two men were arguing. An old cove in fancy dress, eighteenth century I thought, was wagging his finger at the other man – whom I recognised as the living manifestation of the Ghost. This must be Jasper de Scornly and his father. 

The older man, the Earl of Greenford, was a feeble beast, spindly of leg, a moth-eaten wig perched precariously on his chinless head, a blanket around his weedy shoulders. He was chastising his son with a distinct lack of authority. Sir Jasper towered over his ineffectual father, contempt emanating off him. If he were my son, a clip around the ear would be the least he would get, but the Earl would’ve needed a stepladder just to reach his son’s ear.

I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I presumed that the Earl was trying to persuade his son to behave less like an arse and more like the son of aristocrat, not that in my experience there’s that much of a chasm between the two. Jasper threw back his head and laughed at his father, his hands on his hips. They did actually do that in the olden days, I marvelled, it wasn’t just something invented by Douglas Fairbanks. It was a practise I resolved to adopt myself, particularly the next time the quack urges me to cut down on the drink.

I have no idea what the Earl said next, but Jasper suddenly whipped his sword out and held the tip to his father’s throat.  The Earl’s knees actually knocked and his lip trembled. Jasper abruptly sheathed his sword and swept from the room, curses obviously falling silently from his mouth.

I was no longer in the drawing room. I was witness to a rapid barrage of different scenes of Jasper up to no good; gambling, whoring, fighting duels, knocking back the grog in diverse taverns – indeed having a splendid time which I rather envied. Then things turned darker: occult rituals in a dank crypt, naked lasses tied to altars, chickens getting their throats cuts, a tubby man having the blood of the poor deceased bird rubbed into his corpulent frame… by the rapt way his fellow Satanists fawned on him I rather suspected he might be royalty. This was confirmed when the crypt was raided by soldiers and the chubby man was deferred to while all the other participants were manhandled somewhat roughly.

Then suddenly we were in the Box Room – yes, this very room in which I was spending the night – where Jasper was greeted by a young woman in servant’s garb. For the first time Jasper showed a tenderness as he kissed and embraced the young maid followed by such a right royal rogering that even I felt I ought to avert my eyes – which I resisted as I considered it my duty to watch all the Phantom was showing me.

Before I’d had time to catch my breath or indeed rearrange my underpants, we were swept to a bleak graveyard where a funeral was taking place. A coffin was lowered into an open grave while a vicar soundlessly intoned prayers.

 A group of mourners each flung a sod of earth into the grave, but then Sir Jasper appeared, striding determinedly towards the grave. Several mourners (his brothers, I wondered) produced their swords and chased him away. Jasper shook his fist at the men and leaped onto his waiting horse.

Next, we were at a dockside beside a rough grey sea. Jasper, bound and gagged, is pushed at sword point up the gangplank by the same men from the graveyard. They watch until the ship has sailed, only leaving when the ship has reached the horizon. After they leave, only one person is left at the dockside watching the diminishing ship. It is the maid from earlier, her cheeks stained with tears. She is very palpably up the duff. Following this we see – quite unnecessarily, I thought – the maid in childbirth which was quite gruesome, all blood and guts and slime, not what any fellow should be forced to witness.

The result was a baby boy. Sadly I don’t think the mother survived the ordeal. The child grew swiftly in front of my eyes, time speeding faster and faster as I watched him spawn a son himself who in turn spawned another boy and so on and so on… The acceleration of the visions became too much for me and I was overwhelmed with dizziness. I roared, pleaded for it to stop…

… and next thing I knew I was lying on the bed back in the Box Room, the very bed on which I had recently observed the maid giving birth so messily.

I sat up and shook my head. How long had all that taken? It felt like I had watched those centuries pass in real time. I glanced at my watch. 3.57am.  Was it still the same night?

A hand passed me my hip flask. ‘Thank you,’ I said automatically, but just as I was about to swig, I froze. I glanced up. The Ghost of Sir Jasper de Scornly was standing in front of me!

The spectre of Sir Jasper de Scornly stared at me, his fiery eyes burning deep into my soul. He looked as solid as flesh, but I knew that if I touched him he would evaporate like steam from a kettle so I kept my hands to myself.

‘Hello,’ I said feebly. ‘Jolly interesting life you had.’ Hardly Wildean, but the etiquette for addressing a ghost evaded me.

A hint of a sneer crossed Sir Jasper’s face, but I suspected that was his default expression. 

‘Verily,’ he hissed, ‘Me life was stolen from me, as indeed was me inheritance.’ He whipped out his sword from its scabbard. I ducked, but he pointed it at the window. ‘Five thousand leagues west of here, me bones lay rotting ‘neath a solitary tree. The feeble cross marking the grave has many years hence been the shit of the woodworm.’

‘Shame,’ I commiserated. ‘Still, you packed a lot of hijinks in your life, short as it may have been. Haven’t seen so much debauchery…’ I considered. ‘Well, for months…’

I hadn’t even finished before Sir Jasper had the point of his sword pressing into my neck, just to the right of my Adam’s Apple. ‘What is life for except for indulging the flesh in the pleasure it craves?’

‘Quite,’ I agreed.

The point of the sword was sliding down my front, opting buttons of my shirt. I was relieved it was just a British Home Stores shirt, not a bespoke one from Monsieur Herring of Mayfair. 

‘Me life was curtailed while there was still so much bodily gratification to explore.’ The spook brushed his free hand against what I hoped was a codpiece.

‘That’s a shame.’ I wasn’t quite sure what he expected me to do about it. It wasn’t as though he still had a body to gratify. Not a corporeal one anyway. I could point him in the direction of Dolores of Frith Street, but even she would balk at pleasuring a randy wraith, and she will usually do anything as long as one has washed one’s Johnson first.

‘I demand only one appeasement,’ Sir Jasper shouted, retrieving his sword from my throat. ‘The restoration of me bloodline – and the rightful ennoblement of the most recent of the spawn of me spawn.’ 

Yes, I’d suspected it might be something like that. Why else show me the procession of descendants of the little bastard who was born in this very room?

‘Genealogy isn’t my strong point, old darling,’ I replied. ‘rummaging through dusty ledgers and birth certificates and whatnot. Leave that to the librarians and other weeds. Making stuff up is more my forte.’

A smirk passed across the phantasm’s face.  ‘There is a simple way of identifying a true de Scornly…’ he said, and with that, he thrust open his garments and exposed himself to me.

I gasped! ‘You have three!’ I exclaimed. ‘In all my days as a nudist I’ve never seen that before.’

De Scornly sneered. ‘The third nipple has been passed down from de Scornly to de Scornly from time immemorial. Even me feeble father and me scurvy brothers possessed the Sacred Blemish.’

‘Yes, well,’ I began, ‘unique as it may be, and devoted nudist that I am, I can’t very well go asking random chaps to show me their chests. I’m not Dickie Wattis!’

The ghost’s eyes narrowed.

‘And besides,‘ I hastily continued, ‘even if the Nudist camps were allowed to open, it’s still winter. However hardy the de Scornlys may be…’

The wretched phantom emitted an unearthly shriek. ‘Find me progeny.’ He pointed a boney finger at me. I noticed his fingernail was filthy and wondered if it was from scrabbling at the coffin lid. ‘Or I shall haunt ye until the end of time, Sir Desmond Stirling.’

I shrugged. I wasn’t going to give this spectral oik the satisfaction of intimidating me. ‘I’ll do me best… my best, I mean.’ I pointed at the window. ‘Look, dawn is imminent and I need my beauty sleep and surely you need to return to your grave?’

Sir Jasper glanced at the flecks of light which were breaking up the night. ‘Return here when you have found me issue. I will be waiting for ye.’

At this the candles blew out and the room was plunged into darkness. I hastily re-lit the nearest candle. 

Sir Jasper was gone!

I had lied to the spook. Sleep was the last thing on my mind, and besides I had no intention of spending another minute in that ghastly little room. I raced down the stairs, left the Club (ignoring the puzzled look of the Night Porter) and searched for a taxi. Within minutes I’d flagged one down and instructed the driver to hotfoot me to Hampstead.

My son-in-law – Darren Frognall, self-Styled Mao Tse Tung of the Macabre – was not best pleased to be woken at what he considered an ungodly hour. Frankly, if he were in the army this would be almost time for elevenses. He stared at me in his improbably short dressing gown which revealed unsurprisingly skinny legs and a shamefully hairless chest. But he soon saw that I had important intel to impart, so he lead me into the kitchen and fired up the coffee percolator.

He offered me toast too, and then demonstrated a remarkable machine – unimaginably called a ‘toaster’ – which actually toasts bread! I haven’t made any toast myself since schooldays when we  held the bread on forks in front of the roaring fire prepared earlier by our fag (and if the fire wasn’t roaring, said fag wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week! Or in the case of ‘Snotty’ Gove’s pater, unable to stand). 

Eventually we were sitting down at the kitchen table with our coffee and freshly buttered toast, and I related my adventures of the previous night. Frognall listened keenly, with the surprisingly good sense not to interrupt a master storyteller at work. I had reached the point when Sir Jasper had revealed the presence of his descendants. A strange look crossed Frognall’s face and he leant forward, causing his dressing gown to fall open… revealing, just to the right of the centre of his pitiful chest, the presence of a third nipple!

To be continued…

Listen to Sir Desmond read this story out loud here…

.