“One day it will come to that, you know.” The chief inspector grinned and winked and sat himself down at the table next to Icarus. For he was in truth no policeman at all, but the bestest friend Icarus had.
Friend Bob.
Friend Bob was a tall and angular fellow, all cheekbones and pointy knees and elbows. In fact, he looked exactly the way a bestest friend should look. Even down to that curious thing that fits through the lobe of the left ear and that business with the teeth. So no further description is necessary here.
“Watchamate, Icky-boy,” said Friend Bob.
“All right, Bob-m’-son,” said Icarus Smith.
“You’re losing your touch, you know. Opening up a stolen briefcase in a bar.”
“The briefcase is mine,” said Icarus Smith.
“With the corner up,[2] it is.”
“Temporarily mine, then.”
“That’s a bit more like it.”
Icarus smiled upon Friend Bob, and Friend Bob smiled back at him, doing that business with the teeth. Although they had known each other since their schooldays at the Abbey Grange and were as close as best friends could be, it had to be said that Friend Bob did not wholly approve of Icarus Smith. He knew well enough that Icarus did not consider himself to be a thief. But he also knew that Icarus was alone in this particular consideration and that it was only a matter of time before the law’s long arm reached out and took him in its horny hand. Friend Bob hoped that by subtle means he might one day persuade Icarus as to the error of his ways.
Icarus Smith, in his turn, hoped that one day he might convert Friend Bob to the holy crusade of relocation. And, after all, if you wish to relocate a steam engine, it takes two. One to drive the blighter and the other to shovel the coal. And Friend Bob, felt Icarus, was a natural shoveller.
“What are you doing here?” asked Icarus Smith.
“Working,” said Friend Bob. “I am the new washroom attendant.”
“Well, you are a natural shoveller.”
“It’s an honest living.”
“And the pay?”
“There’s room for some improvement there.” Friend Bob fingered his left earlobe.
“You could always work with me.”
“I think not.” Friend Bob smiled. “So how are things with you?” he asked. “How’s the family? How’s your brother?”
“Still barking mad. He thinks he’s a detective.”
“You’d better watch out that he doesn’t arrest you, then.”
Icarus drummed his fingers on the briefcase. “Tell me, Friend Bob,” said he. “If you could be anything you wanted to be in this world, what would that thing be?”
“You know perfectly well what it would be. I would become a successful artist. Famous throughout the land.”
Icarus nodded. “But you don’t feel that your total lack of artistic skill might prove a handicap in this?”
“A considerable handicap,” agreed Friend Bob. “But a man must dream his dreams.”
“Indeed.” There was a moment of intimate silence, each man alone with his thoughts and his dreams.
“So,” said Friend Bob, when he had done with silence. “What do you have in your briefcase?”
“Let’s have a look, shall we?” Icarus lifted the lid of the case.
“Urgh,” went Friend Bob, peering in. “Leather underpants, you pervert.”
“You are, as ever, the wag. Have you eaten your lunch yet? There are some sandwiches in here.”
“I have no wish to munch upon sandwiches that have been hobnobbing with a pervert’s knickers, thank you very much.”
“Hello, what’s this?”
“What’s what?”
“This.” Icarus lifted from the briefcase a small dark electronic doo-dad. “Transistor radio, I think.”
“It’s a Dictaphone,” said Friend Bob, who had a love for all things electrical. “You can record your voice on that. Here, I’ll show you how.”
Friend Bob took the Dictaphone, held it up to his mouth and pressed a little button.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!” went the Dictaphone.
“Aaaaaaaaagh!” went Friend Bob, flinging it back into the briefcase.
“Surely that’s the wrong way round,” said Icarus. “I thought you were supposed to record on to it.”
“I pressed the playback button by mistake, you twat.”
Icarus now took up the Dictaphone, tinkered with the volume control and then pressed the playback button.
“No,” screamed a voice of a lesser volume. “No more pain. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
“Oh shirt!” said Friend Bob, whose mother had told him not to swear. “It’s someone being tortured.”
“Leather pants in the case,” said Icarus. “Probably just some recreational activity. Shall we hear a bit more?”
“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”
“Come on now, what harm can it do?”
Icarus fingered the button once more. A new voice said, “Tell me all about the drug.”
“It’s drugs.” Friend Bob flapped his elongated hands about. “It’s gangsters. I’m off.”
“It’s probably just a TV programme, or a radio play, or something.”
“Or something. Whatever it is, I’ve heard enough. I don’t want to get involved. Return the case to its owner, Icarus, please.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“It will end in tears.”
“Let’s hear a little more.”
“Fug that.” Friend Bob lifted his angular frame from the seat next to Icarus Smith. “I have tiles to polish. I will bid you farewell.”
“Are you coming to the Three Gables tonight? Johnny G’s playing.”
“I’ll be there. But listen, just dump the briefcase, eh? Leather pants and tortured souls are not a healthy combination.”
Friend Bob turned upon his heel and had it away on his toes.
Icarus sat and considered the Dictaphone. He turned the volume down a bit more and held the thing to his ear.
“What drug?” came the voice of the tortured soul.
“Red Head,” said the other voice.
“Red Head?” whispered Icarus Smith. “What kind of drug is that?”
There came a crackling sound from the Dictaphone, followed by another “Aaaaaagh!” and a “Stop, please stop, I’ll tell you everything.”
And Icarus listened while the tortured soul told everything. And as Icarus listened, his face became pale and his hands began to tremble.
For what Icarus heard was this and it bothered him more than a little.
“Tell me all about Red Head,” said the other voice. “How did you come up with the formula?”
“From the flowers. It was the flowers that showed me the way.”
“Are you trying to be funny?” said the other voice.
“No. I’m telling you all the truth. And I have to tell someone. I’ll go mad if I don’t.”
“Just tell it all from the beginning then.”
“All right. As you know I worked for the Ministry of Serendipity. On the A.I. project. Artificial intelligence. The thinking computer. Rubbish, all of it. But we didn’t know it then.”
“Why is it rubbish?”
“Just listen to what I’m telling you. From the beginning, OK?”
“OK.”
“I worked on the project with Professor John Garrideb. He was one of three brothers, all of them something in mathematics. John was always convinced that we’d make the big breakthrough. But when we did, when I did, it wasn’t the way we expected and it’s my fault, what happened to him, which is why I’m telling you this.
“We worked on the project for twenty-two months, but like I say we were getting nowhere and we kept getting all these directives from above, saying that our work was in the National Interest and we should hurry ourselves up and that other governments were ahead of ours and all the rest of it. And we were working really long hours and I took to drinking a bit in the evenings. And then a bit more and then a bit too much.
2
The phrase, “with the corner up”, meaning “you are a lying git” or “in your dreams”, was first coined by the great boxing cornerman Richard Reekie, dubbed in the sporting press as the Cockney in Clay’s corner. Before the now legendary fight between Cassius Clay and “Our ’enry” Cooper, Reekie was told that Cooper felt he could beat Clay. “The only way Cooper will win”, said Reekie, “is with the corner [man] up holding Clay’s arms behind his back.” These things matter.