The Brightonomicon (Brentford Book 8) (19 page)

‘You do not have a carbon-dating machine,’ I said.

‘Don’t try and baffle me with science, young man. I can positively date the tea residues to eighteen fifty-one, to the very day that the Great Exhibition opened. Oh, and there are also residues of Reekie oaks. Those trees only grew in Hyde Park during that period. They were levelled by the great Reekie oak blight of eighteen fifty-two. Don’t bandy words with me, silly boy. I know what I know what I know.’

I shook my head. I confess that I was quite confused. ‘So you are telling me,’ I said, ‘that a bronze statue in Lansdowne Gardens is weeping tears of Earl Grey tea that come from eighteen fifty-one?’

‘The year that the statue was erected,’ said the professor. ‘Suggestive, no?’

‘I wish I had the vaguest idea where this is leading,’ I said, ‘because if I did, then when I was led to it, I would know what it was and then would not be the least surprised.’

‘I couldn’t have put that better myself,’ said the professor. ‘Unless, of course, I’d given it a moment’s thought.’

‘Well, I am sure that Mr Rune will be pleased.’

‘Delighted,’ said the voice of Hugo Rune.

I did not ask him how he had escaped from the police cell. In fact, I did not broach the subject at all. Nor whether he was now on the run. Or whether we would have to quit our rooms. Or whether he would be paying off his bar bill at Fangio’s.

I was just glad to see him back.

‘It never ceases not to amaze me,’ said Mr Rune, ‘the power of a Masonic handshake.’

Which no doubt explained everything. But was not going to get Fangio his owings.

Back in our rooms beneath the professor’s, which were above ours, Mr Rune said, ‘Suggestive, no?’

‘The professor said that also,’ I said.

‘And he knows which way up is a sixpence,’ said Mr Rune. ‘We will have to prepare ourselves for what is to come, both mentally and physically.’

‘And what
is
to come?’ I asked, hoping that I might be granted some small explanation.

‘Bad things,’ said Mr Rune. ‘And when they come, as come they will, then it will be for you and me to beat them back.’

‘You would not care to be a little more specific, I suppose?’

‘What, and spoil the surprise? The clues are all there, Rizla. Can you make nothing of them?’

‘Of course I cannot,’ I said. ‘And I will tell you for why. It is because there will be some metaphysical twist to all this involving something that you knew all about anyway and I could have no possible way of knowing.’

‘Why don’t you pop upstairs,’ said Mr Rune, ‘and borrow some beer from the professor?’

The mental and physical preparations that Mr Rune had alluded to appeared to consist mostly of him thinking of things he needed and me running about all over Brighton trying (and for the most part, succeeding, I hasten to add) to acquire them without payment.

By the end of the day, I was thoroughly exhausted.

I had acquired all manner of diverse whatnots. Mr Rune’s list had been long, and it had also been specific. I viewed all the whatnots laid out all over the study/sitting/dining/drinking room.

‘I would really appreciate it,’ I said, ‘if you would give me some clue as to what is going on. I would be a lot more use to you if you did.’

Mr Rune stroked at one of his chins. ‘This is indeed true,’ said he. ‘And so, upon this particular occasion, I will tell you what we are up against. Witchcraft, young Rizla. Witchcraft.’

‘Witchcraft?’ I said. ‘As in magic? You claim to be a magician yourself, although you have never shown me proof of these claims.’

‘Magic indeed,’ said he, and he opened one of the cans of beer that I had borrowed from the professor. ‘In eighteen fifty-one, the Great Exhibition opened in the original Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. There, the very state of the art of all Victorian technology was exhibited. But there was technology exhibited there of which no record exists in the history books of today, technology created by a genius called Charles Babbage.’

‘The father of the computer,’ said I. ‘I have heard of him – he invented the Difference Engine, the first computer. But it was never taken up and he died in poverty.’

‘According to accepted history. But that is not true. His computer was exhibited at the Great Exhibition. I saw to that. And it
was
taken up, and with the aid of another genius called Nikola Tesla it revolutionised the Victorian age. Electric automobiles, the wireless transmission of electricity – even a space programme. But it was all wiped from the face of the Earth as if it had never existed at the dawn of the new century. I know, young Rizla. I was there.’

‘My head is swimming,’ I said. ‘Is this really true?’

‘All of it – and everything you may have read in science fiction of H. G. Wells’s Time Machine, of the Invisible Man, and of the
Nautilus
of Jules Verne. All true.’

‘And what has this to do with a weeping statue?’

‘Time,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Always time – the manipulation of time, the displacement of time. The Chronovision, that technology was originally formulated by Mister H. G. Wells, with no little assistance from myself, I might humbly add. Time is not a straight line. It’s bumpy and it has holes in it, holes into which things fall in and out – like those unfortunates who enter fairy mounds and tumble out centuries later, thinking that only moments have passed.’

‘So that is
true?’
I said. ‘What I heard Doctor Proctor say in the hospital when I was in my coma?’

‘All true,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Holes in the fabric of time.’

‘And the weeping statue?’

‘That statue was originally exhibited at the Great Exhibition. It says so on the plinth – if you’d troubled to look, you would have seen it. It was one of a pair, both of which were exhibited. You will not find them in any existing copy of the Exhibition catalogue, however, but at the time of their exhibition they were billed as “The Remarkable Sympathetic Statues”. Although twenty yards apart, it was demonstrated that if you whispered into the ear of one statue, the words you whispered could be heard issuing through the mouth of the other. It was quite a parlour trick. Queen Victoria
was
amused.’

‘How did it work?’ I asked.

‘Victorian supertechnology. Not the work of Babbage or Tesla, but of another.’

‘This would not be Count Otto Black.’

‘It would be his great-great-great-grandfather. Hugo Rune nodded. And the statues were
not
a parlour trick. They were a technological marvel. A marvel of technology
and
magic, since alchemy is chemistry
and
magic. It was a cabal of witches that destroyed all memory and all existence of the Victorian supertechnology. Those twin statues were, if you like, portals – magic portals. One of them now stands in Lansdowne Gardens. Where do you suppose the other one stands?’

‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘Perhaps the other one does not stand anywhere. Perhaps it was destroyed in the war, or something.’

‘No.’ Mr Rune shook his head. ‘The other one still stands, parted from its sister, which was moved here to Brighton on the second day of the Great Exhibition to its present location. The other statue is not in the present. It is still in the past in eighteen fifty-one, at the Great Exhibition.’

‘That does not make any sense,’ I said. ‘You cannot have two things existing at the same time and then more than a century apart.’

‘Take my watch,’ said Mr Rune, and he drew it from his waistcoat pocket and tossed it to me. ‘This watch was constructed in eighteen fifty-one. It existed then, and it exists now. It is the same watch.’

‘I really do not understand this,’ I said.

‘It is difficult,’ said Mr Rune, ‘I agree. Time is a difficult concept. But the past, the present and the future all exist, all at the same time. I can tell you what is going to happen. Something is going to be dispatched. It will be, or in fact has been, dispatched into the statue in eighteen fifty-one and it will emerge through the statue in Lansdowne Gardens in our day and age. It is already on its way.’

‘I am still baffled,’ I said. ‘What about the Earl Grey?’

‘I have been waiting for the Earl Grey,’ said Mr Rune. ‘You see, I am responsible for its appearance.’

‘Go on then.’ I sighed. ‘Impress me.’

‘I attended that first day of the Great Exhibition, in the company of Her Majesty the Queen, Gawd bless Her, and my dear friend Lord Jeffrey Primark. And I observed the demonstration of “The Remarkable Sympathetic Statues”. And I observed that their demonstrator
was Count Otto Black. And I suspected that he was up to No Good, but I confess that I did not know at that time exactly what variety of No Good he was up to. And so, when the exhibition halls closed upon that night, I did a little experiment of my own. I emptied an urn of Earl Grey over one of the statues. No Earl Grey poured from the other statue. I waited, but none did. I therefore assumed that eventually it would, when it was in fact
programmed
for it to do so. But that would not be in the present of eighteen fifty-one. Rather, it would be at some time in the future.’

‘That is an impossible assumption to make,’ I said. ‘You could never have deduced something like that.’

Mr Rune sighed. ‘You are dealing with Rune,’ said he. ‘You are not dealing with you.’

‘And so when you read that tea was issuing from this statue, you knew that it was the tea that you had poured on to the other statue in eighteen fifty-one.’

‘Precisely,’ said Mr Rune. ‘And when my tea appeared, I knew that something else would not be far behind.’

‘Incredible,’ I said. ‘Nothing less than incredible.’

‘Everything is centred upon this area.’ Mr Rune had finished his beer and was opening another can. ‘The Brighton Zodiac – the Brightonomicon from which all this derives. This is a window area, an epicentre of psychic phenomena. It is where the holes in time open, where those who wander into fairy mounds are spewed out. It is where that which comes from the past will issue into the present.’

‘What is coming?’ I asked. ‘What is going to follow your tea?’

‘Evil,’ said Mr Hugo Rune. ‘Pure evil, and it’s coming tonight.’

PART II

I had read somewhere that Queen Victoria had not been too keen on Brighton. She had considered it somewhat tawdry and was all for pulling down the Royal Pavilion. Happily, she was persuaded instead to sell it to the local council.

It is to be noted that the few statues of the great lady that are to be found in the Brighton area all face out to sea. This, it is said, was done
at her request, that she should not have to look at the place even in effigy.

I think Queen Victoria was being rather hard on Brighton, particularly as I have also read that she was not averse to doing a bit of opium, and, although making male homosexuality an offence punishable by incarceration with hard labour, she passed no such laws whatever regarding lesbianism because she was of the Sapphic persuasion herself. So I should have thought that Brighton would have suited her most royally.

But there you go.

It was a glorious June night in Brighton, balmy and breezy and beautiful. Mr Rune and I strolled along the prom, although he did most of the strolling. I was engaged in the heavy pushing myself – the heavy pushing of the perambulator that I had acquired, which had been standing, unoccupied, outside a local créche and was now top-heavy with various accoutrements that I had also acquired at Mr Rune’s request.

‘Pacey-pacey, Rizla,’ said he. ‘It takes more than a blue tit’s tinkle to fill a parrot’s bath.’

Which I could not find reason to doubt.

‘You might do some pushing yourself, for a change,’ I suggested.

‘I might,’ said the All-knowing One, ‘but it is to be doubted that I will.’

It was eleven of the evening clock and there were still many folk strolling on the prom: Brighton beauties with beehive hair, miniskirts and kinky boots; a number of ‘moderns’, whose presence put a faint chill into me, although I knew not why; old ladies in bath chairs and gents in straw boaters. And a tiny spaniel or two.

‘A poor night for it,’ said Mr Rune, making a very grumpy face towards the cloudless sky.

‘It is a beautiful night,’ I said.

‘I was hoping for rain.’

I shrugged as I pushed, and did some panting, too.

‘Aha!’ cried Mr Rune as we approached the gardens wherein stood the statue of the tea-weeping monarch. ‘Cast your eyes across the road there, Rizla – the boys in blue have cordoned off the entire area.’

‘They have been a bit heavy handed,’ I said. ‘They have erected a high steel security fence with great “DANGER: KEEP OUT” signs all about the perimeter of the entire gardens, by the look of it.’

‘It’s keeping the crowds at bay.’ Hugo Rune grinned at this. ‘And look – they’ve covered the statue with a tarpaulin.’

‘I really cannot see why they have made such a big fuss.’ I leaned, puffing, upon the pram.

‘Unless they know something.’ Hugo Rune did tappings at his nose with the finger adorned by his Ring of Power. ‘Perhaps they received a telephone call early this morning from an eminent government scientist informing them that the statue’s tears were in fact fermenting effluvia, bubbling up from a plague pit that lies beneath the gardens, and that for the sake of public safety they should cordon off the area.’