Remember…
6: Don’t get found out.
7: Don’t get killed.
And lastly…
8: This is not as weird as it gets. By any stretch of the imagination.
I don’t know why Calamine seems to trust me. I wouldn’t say I trust him. I think he assumes I have principles.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. What they don’t tell you is that a little power corrupts stupidly. Case in point: Geoffrey Durham. Short, round body, thin head and gaunt face. How do you get that kind of combination? Well, I don’t know, but he’s got it. Imagine a Prussian helmet with feet.
He’s a mass of dangling objects, from the luxuriant moustache to the half-lampshades that jut from his rounded shoulders. He calls them epaulettes. I call them ridiculous. But they complement the gold brocade nicely, as does the vainglorious patchwork of military ribbons that span his pigeon chest.
Clothes maketh the man, they say, and Durham seems to think so. In fact, let’s check out his wardrobe. There’s the usual collection of sensible tailored whatnots and then, if you look to the left, you’ll see the rolled-up sleeping bag he wears when pretending to be a caterpillar. And there’s the butterfly costume he puts on before leaping out of it. But his pride and joy is his black, semi-articulated dung beetle exoskeleton. If it weren’t for the inconvenience of his day job, you’d be hard pressed getting him out of it.
So you’ll be wondering what kind of job this fine specimen holds down. Well, as I think I may have mentioned earlier, Geoffrey Durham is a man of responsibility. He’s the Chief of Police.
We’re down in the depths of Police Headquarters. Durham stands up from behind his outsized mahogany desk, paces the length of the dank, grey dungeon he calls his office, ducks beneath a heavy oak lintel and disappears up a windy, stone staircase to attend to whatever’s troubling his horrid mind. Watch his feet. See those tiny and incredibly shiny shoes jerking up and down in a clockwork goosestep. Even the sound of his footsteps is pompous.
Further, past the cells we go, to plaintive protestations of innocence from within and heel-clicks and salutes from corned beef-faced subordinates in bad brown shirts without. Down a staircase and the stone blockwork melds into excavated rock. Did I mention the corridors? The place is littered with them, stygian tunnels of varied depths and materials, all fetid with male stench. Because standard premises aren’t enough for a man of Durham’s vaulting ambition. And so he’s got teams of convict labour burrowing deep beneath London, carving out secret passages and subterranean caverns.
What he’ll do when his underground lair is completed is anybody’s guess. I doubt it’ll be pleasant though.
London: crapitall shitty of England; full of movers, shakers, fakers, bakers, thieves, conmen, conwomen, catwomen, thickos, sickos, Marxists, racists, unemployed bassists and women called Mercedes with penises. And I’m seeing them all as I prowl Dirtygirl Street, hunting for the brothel on Calamine’s card. I’m not alone, I’m afraid. My expensive new suit’s attracting attention and I’ve a trail of at least a dozen prospective companions, all touting for my business. I don’t know what to tell them. Folk get so offended when you refuse sex that I’ve given up explaining. I just sigh and tell them to join the back of the queue. I say ‘queue’, but it’s more of a parade now, a kind of whore convoy. And I’m leading them on a wild goose chase around Soho, looking like a crazed gangbanger with eyes bigger than his stomach.
Well, I find the place I’m searching for, a classy-looking establishment with frightening security. I wave farewell to my travelling companions because, as the gorilla on the door insists, you wouldn’t bring fast food to a restaurant, would you? And it’s equally plush inside – all high ceilings, soft furnishings and staggeringly pornographic paintings. In fact, very reminiscent of Aunt Salome’s place, where I was paid to provide general security and to bring cups of tea to the rich sadomasochists chained in the dungeon.
I find a clothed woman. She turns out to be the Madam. She has no idea who I am but recognises Calamari’s description, so I set off round the rooms to find him. But I’m out of touch with brothels and unsure what the current etiquette is. Is it still rude to stare? Perhaps it’s ruder not to? I don’t want anyone to think I’m judging them. On any criteria. So I force myself to make eye contact. But this doesn’t work, because for every pretty girl I smile at, there’s one of Malmot’s goons hanging out her back-end and jigging away like a clockwork automaton. Then a thought occurs to me: do I really want to see Calamari on the job? I’ve a head rammed with disturbing memories. One more trauma might tip me over the edge. So I figure I’ll take myself downstairs and see if the Madam has any filthy anecdotes. And she does.
When the goons have all reached their suitable conclusions, they assemble in the largest room. There’s no Calamari, I notice. Roll call reveals another absentee and the cry goes up to extract him from his convincingly affectionate paramour. She shouts encouragement as he struggles, semi-dressed across the landing and then falls down the stairs with both feet wedged in the same trouser leg. Everyone laughs.
We’re all armed, myself included. But, whereas my companions carry pretty hefty-looking handguns, I’ve been issued with a wooden truncheon. This is hilarious, apparently. I take it in good humour and the head goon rewards me with a pistol, albeit a weedy revolver. There’s some kind of plan, but clearly no-one thinks it worth telling me about it. Not that I’m bothered. The less I know, the less I have to take responsibility for. I decide to keep my head down and allow myself to be ferried into a large black vehicle. I’m told we’re going to pick someone up.
“Bactrian? I mean, Former Prime Minister Bactrian,” I say, correcting myself.
“Who gives a fuck?” says the head goon. “We don’t.”
I soon realise I’m travelling with maniacs. Good company, but maniacs all the same. And I get the feeling they’re paramilitary.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“Oh,” someone answers, “just a bit of hired muscle.” And they all laugh.
I don’t get to find out anymore. We soon arrive at somewhere or other. And there’s Calamari. And shoehorned into his wheelchair, looking about as dead as it’s possible to get to my newly sober eyes, sits Former Prime Minister Bactrian.
“No one’s gonna fall for this,” I say. “Nobody’s that stupid.”
“Have a little faith,” says Calamari. “This is England!”
The first stop’s Knightsbridge for something called a ‘meet and greet’ – or is it a ‘shake-and-fake’? I can never remember. We’re here to meet the bulbous little sods in charge of British Industry. What’s left of it.
In the past, their nefarious naughtiness in pursuit of power and the pound was frowned upon. Now Malmot’s here to bullshit them round to his way of thinking. We keep Bactrian under wraps until the press have been nobbled and all the guests are well and truly plastered.
You can ascertain how important people are by how busy they’re supposed to be. Piers Dordogne, the horrendously unattractive chairman of English Electric, spends the majority of his days dreaming up easily-remedied business dilemmas he can set right when asked by shareholders what use he is to man or beast. Around this usefulness, he slots the twin tasks of under servicing and overcharging his clients.
Charles Bunnyfroth occupies an inordinate amount of time chairing a quango, a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation; an investigative committee paid to stare up its own backside till it sees something. This ‘something’ will almost always be in complete agreement with the government that isn’t supposed to be associated with it, and almost always ludicrous. Because Bunnyfroth is stark, staring mad. When asked to look into allegations of vote-stealing made by Opposition members, he discovered that the majority of names on the electoral register belonged to dead people. To stop this obvious corruption he flattened all the cemeteries.