The Brightonomicon (Brentford Book 8) (25 page)

‘But how,’ I asked, ‘if I got it all wrong?’

‘Because the chameleon was
you,’
said Mr Rune. ‘The chameleon, that creature which disguises itself, that creature was you – Mister Lazlo Woodingdean.’

And I was most impressed by this.

‘Now give me back that telescope you nicked,’ said Hugo Rune.

The Sackville Scavenger

PART I

‘And what would you take
this
to be?’ asked Hugo Rune, upon a bright and breezy August morning.

We were sitting taking breakfast, in our rooms at forty-nine Grand Parade, Brighton, and I looked up from the breakfast I was taking and cast an eye towards the Hokus Bloke.

He held upon the tines of his fork the blackened something that was causing his puzzlement.

I viewed it with suspicion. ‘It might once have been a sausage,’ I ventured. ‘Or possibly a member of the mushroom family that has undergone a violent immolation.’

Mr Rune nodded thoughtfully and sniffed at the thing with disgust. ‘It has much the look,’ said he, ‘of the mummified prepuce of Saint Michael, which is venerated in the church at Penge that bears his name. Which leaves me wondering what it might be doing upon my breakfasting plate.’

‘I do not think it was doing anything much at all,’ I said. ‘Just lying there hoping to go unmolested would be my guess.’

‘It just won’t do,’ said Hugo Rune.

And I agreed it would not. ‘I think we will have to sack that Jeff the chef,’ I said.

And Mr Rune agreed that we would.

I had never taken much to Jeff the chef. Mr Rune had found him wandering the streets of Brighton one night in a pitiable condition. He was evidently homeless and kept asking which year this was and whether Cromwell still ruled England. I did not like the smell of him one bit.

Mind you, Mr Rune would never have had to employ the services of Jeff the chef had Jade the maid not left us. She had vanished away a week before, leaving a letter, penned in Taiwanese, which according to Mr Rune’s interpretation cited ‘drunkenness and cruelty’ amongst her grievances and cause for departure. She had absconded with Mr Rune’s ivory chess set – a gift, he informed me, from Shah Jahan for assisting him with the design of the Taj Mahal.

And so we lately suffered at the hands of Jeff the chef.

‘Perhaps if you were actually to
pay
for a cook,’ I said, but did not trouble to follow that line of conversation further.

‘The most important meal of the day, breakfast,’ said Mr Rune, pushing his plate aside and rattling the coffee pot that Jeff had neglected to refill. ‘No matter in which far-flung reach of civilisation I have cast my noble shadow, I have never failed to begin the day without a decent breakfast lodged beneath my belt. What chef skills do you possess, young Rizla?’

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘I am your amanuensis, your acolyte, if you will,
your partner in the fight against crime and the forces of evil. I am
not
a cook.’

‘Hm,’ went Rune, and I heard his stomach growling.

‘Oh, and another thing,’ I said, ‘I chanced to open the latest letter that arrived from Mister Hansord the landlord. He says that you have until Tuesday to cough up the last six months of back rent, or the bailiffs will be coming in.’

A growl now issued from the mouth of Hugo Rune.

‘I read in the
Leader,’
^*
I said, ‘that the pirates of
The Saucy Spaniel
recently plundered a B&Q in Shoreham. As owner of the galleon, you will no doubt be receiving your share of the booty.’

‘I would hate to part with it to a landlord,’ said Mr Rune and he made a very grim face indeed.

‘I would hate to be ejected from these rooms,’ I said. ‘No doubt matters will resolve themselves.’

‘Where is that copy of the
Leader?’
Mr Rune asked.

‘The cat has made a nest of it.’

‘And since when have we possessed a cat?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘You are right – I have the
Leader
here.’

Mr Rune took it away to his favourite chair and sat with it, huffing and puffing.

I dabbed at my lips with an oversized green gingham napkin, pulled out reading matter of my own –
The Corpse Wore Maltese Falsies
(A Lazlo Woodbine Thriller) – and proceeded with the matter of reading it. And I had just got to a really exciting part involving Laz getting into a sticky situation in an alleyway with a dwarf who was taller than he looked when Mr Rune went ‘Plah!’ and flung the morning’s
Leader
in my direction.

‘Just read
that!’
he shouted.

I plucked the
Leader
up from the floor, uncreased it over my lap and read:

‘Seems a bit harsh,’ I said.

‘He’ll breeze through it,’ said Mr Rune. ‘He always does. But it wasn’t
that
article which caused me to “Plah!” Read what is below it.’

I read.

‘Out loud,’ said Mr Rune.

I read it out loud. ‘“EAT YOUR FOOD NUDE”,’ I read. ‘“The new naturist restaurant is opening tonight in George Street, Hove. The Sussex constabulary are cordoning off the area in expectation of the crowds of protesters.” ’ I looked up at Mr Rune. ‘What will they be protesting about?’ I asked. ‘They have yet to taste the food.’

‘Perhaps the nudity.’

‘Ludicrous,’ I said. ‘These are the nineteen sixties – you cannot protest about nudity.’

Mr Rune shook his great bald head. ‘Rizla,’ said he, ‘these
are
indeed the nineteen sixties – people are protesting about
everything.
Hadn’t you noticed?’

‘I have noticed that our landlord protests about you not paying him the rent.’

‘Please do not broach that subject again.’

‘So what does this restaurant opening have to do with us?’ The question was scarcely out of my mouth when I realised that I knew the answer. Mr Rune’s rat-bone protestations had him barred from
every eating-house in Brighton. The opening of a new restaurant was bound to interest him.

‘I do not know whether I fancy eating my food in the nude,’ I said.

‘You can always place a napkin in your lap if you fear the spilling of hot soup on to your ’nads.’

‘I was not thinking of
that.
I was thinking of the diners. Few folk look appealing in their bare scuddies. Of course, if all the other diners were “Page-Three” girls, that would be an altogether different affair.’

‘We’ll take on the case,’ said Mr Rune.

‘What
case?’

Hugo Rune rose ponderously from his favourite chair and took himself over to the big wall-mounted street map of Brighton, the one on which the enigmatic figures of the Brighton Zodiac had been coloured on to the streets and roads and culs-de-sac and whatnots. The figures of the Brightonomicon.

‘See there,’ said Mr Rune, and he took up his stout stick and pointed with it. ‘The Sackville Scavenger. It lies across Hove with its mouth wide open. And there, you see, at the line of his belly – George Street.’

I looked and I saw. ‘Very good,’ I said. ‘But the case?’

‘The case will present itself, Rizla. Have a little faith.’

‘I have plenty of faith,’ I said.

‘And I also,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘And if faith were bread, my belly would be full. But it is not and neither is my belly.’ And he yawned and drew out his pocket watch and viewed its elegant face. ‘The sun is over the yardarm,’ he said. ‘I suggest that we repair to Fangio’s bar and there avail ourselves of his complimentary peanuts and the chewing fat that he currently has on offer.’

And so we did.

I looked up at today’s pub sign. ‘“The Merry Terrorist”,’ I read.

Within The Merry Terrorist, the furnishings were as ever they had been: the hubcap ashtrays, the Ford Fiesta wheel-arch loungers, the car-bumper footrests before the bar counter, the Vauxhall Velux headlamps on their chromium wall sconces. Mr Rune and I approached the bar and there we encountered the barman.

‘Morning, comrades,’ said Fangio, raising a blackly gloved fist. ‘Great day for the overthrow of the capitalist system.’

I looked Fangio up and down, then up and down once more. The barlord had a somewhat military look on this occasion. His portly form had been ladled into figure-hugging camouflage fatigues, and upon his head he wore a beret. A beard had been sketched on to his chin with the aid of a felt-tipped pen.

Hugo Rune made groaning sounds.

But I was caused to smile.

‘Let me guess,’ I said to Fange. ‘Che Guevara, is it not?’

‘You have it in one,’ said Fangio, which I have to say rather surprised me.

‘Of course, Che was not really a terrorist,’ I said. ‘He was a revolutionary.’

‘Oh,’ said Fangio. ‘I thought he was a fashionable boutique in Kensington High Street. I paid a packet for this fab gear. It goes down very well with the ladies, so I’m told.’

Mr Rune was tucking into the complimentary peanuts. I ordered two pints of Texaco Unleaded and Redex chasers.

The dedicated follower of fashion did the business. And being the professional he was, chalked up the cost to Mr Rune’s account.

‘This peanut bowl is empty,’ remarked the Lad Himself.

I tucked into the chewing fat while Fange refilled the peanut bowl.

‘So you are up for the overthrow of the capitalist system, are you?’ I asked Fange, by way of making idle conversation.

‘I’m up for anything, me,’ said the camouflaged barman. ‘You name a cause that’s worth protesting about and I’m up for it.’

‘Blood sports,’ I said.

‘Pro or anti?’

‘Anti,’ I said.

‘Up for it,’ said Fangio.

‘And what if I had said “pro”?’

‘Then I’d have said “up for it”. I’m all for democracy. Although I support the Communist Party, of course.’

‘You are only dressed up like that and talking like that because the brewery has inveigled you into it.’

‘And because of the bird-pulling potential of the attire.’

‘You hypocrite,’ I said.

‘Excuse me,’ said Fangio, ‘but I take exception to that. In fact, I protest! I am dressed like this to keep the job I enjoy and to have sex with women. Where is the hypocrisy in that?’

I scratched at my head. He had me there.

‘You need a haircut,’ said Fangio.

‘I protest about
that!’

‘Top man. I’ll join you on the march.’

‘So will you be protesting tonight?’ Mr Rune asked Fangio.

Fangio took out his diary and leafed through it. ‘I get off at six,’ he said, ‘and I will be joining the Angry Lesbians of Kemp Town in their sit-down protest at the swimming baths, over the mixed-ninepennies. That should be a noisy one. Then at six-thirty I’ll be with the Miffed Mimes of Moulsecoomb – we’ll be trying to escape from an imaginary phone box, so that should be a quiet one. Then at seven I’m going to be part of a human chain across the car park at Tesco. That’s an animal rights thing – I’ve been issued with a whistle for that one.’

‘Will you not be joining the protesters who are seeking to stop the opening of the Eat Your Food Nude restaurant in George Street?’ I asked.

‘Heavens, no,’ said Fange. ‘I’ll be dining there myself – the brewery has sent me two free tickets. It’s one of their new theme venues.’

I looked at Mr Rune.

And Mr Rune looked at me.

‘I think I will go to the toilet now,’ I said.

Some hours later, I asked Mr Rune, ‘Why are we dressing up?’