The Brightonomicon (Brentford Book 8) (36 page)

‘Noah’s Ark,’ I said.

The Saltdean Stallion

PART I

It was November and it was cold, but my coat was back from the cleaners. True to his word, Mr Rune had paid for the dry cleaning and done so without any fuss. And as it was November the fifth, he and I were in Lewes.

Lewes is a pretty town, built upon a pretty hill, with the ruins of a pretty castle high up on its peak. It lies about ten miles east of Brighton, and another ten or so up from the coastline. If it has any
faults at all, these faults are to be found in its dreaded one-way system. On paper it all looks so simple, but try to drive your car through Lewes from one side to the other and you will know the dread yourself. Around and around the town you will go, as if trapped within a Möbius strip, losing all sense of direction, your temper and your sanity. Even the locals, who claim to know the area like the backs of their burly Sussex fists, never leave home in their cars without at least three days’ emergency provisions and several extra cans of petrol in their boots.

And there is even an urban myth to the effect that a chap called Norris Styver has been driving around Lewes’s one-way system in his Morris Minor for over a decade trying to get out of the town. But there seem to be certain reasons, mostly involving logic and common sense, to place some doubt upon the likelihood of there being any truth to this particular urban myth. Which was probably why it
was
an urban myth.

Those who incline towards mystical explanations claim that the roads of the town were cursed in the Middle Ages by the sinister warlock Eliphas Porlock, who met his end in a freak stake/flames incident in the town square.

However, those who prefer the commonplace put it all down to the work of Mad Mickey Wright, who designed Brighton’s one-way system, which every summer funnels many thousands of motoring would-be holiday-makers from the A23 through a maze of some of Brighton’s narrowest streets, lured ever onwards by signs that promise great parking areas, but somehow always fail to deliver.

To those who know a little more than most, and Mr Hugo Rune would number himself amongst this exalted few, it is an open secret that Mad Mickey Wright was a descendant of Eliphas Porlock and something of a black magician himself.

But Lewes
is
a pretty town and if there is one thing that Lewes is more famous for than anything else, it is its bonfire-night celebrations. Folk come from all over the country to enjoy them, some remaining in Lewes for over a week afterwards as a result of being unable to drive out of it. But folk do come, in their thousands, and those who come regularly do so by train.

Hugo Rune and I had come by train and I had located our accommodation through very careful study of a map.

Now, it does have to be said that the good folk of Lewes really do know how to get a fire started. And not just the one. They have dozens. It’s that small-boy thing about lighting fires and the big bags of fallen leaves that keep those home fires burning. And there are torchlight parades through the town, with real flaming torches. And there are bonfire societies with exotic and evocative names, such as the Jenga Khan Society, the Lords of Ludo Society, the Barons of the Boggle Society and the Cluedo Klux Klan Society. And something that these societies really like doing, which probably dates back to Mr Porlock, is to burn people in effigy: politicians, celebrities, sports personalities, members of Brighton’s road-route planning committee – anyone who has in some way incurred their displeasure during the previous twelve months. It makes for a most entertaining evening.

Rooms in the town’s hotels that overlook the paradings, which can go on for many hours as the parades go round and round the oneway system seeking the locations of the bonfires that they are marching towards, have to be booked several years ahead and command appropriately exorbitant prices.

Mr Rune had booked us into one of the best of them – the Hotel California, which overlooked the High Street. How he had done this I have no idea, but a clue might be found in the fact that on arrival he sported papal robes and the desk clerk referred to him as ‘your holiness’ and knelt and kissed his ring.

‘Ooh, Matron,’ said Fange. But I did not hear him and possibly it was unconnected.

‘This is brilliant,’ I said to Mr Rune, as we stood together on the balcony of our exclusive suite of rooms overlooking the High Street that would soon be filled by torch-lit paraders, whilst we quaffed champagne and smoked expensive cigars. ‘I am really going to enjoy myself tonight.’

‘Me too,’ said Mr Rune, raising his glass to me. ‘It is always a delight to see oneself burned in effigy.’

‘Oneself?’ I queried.

‘Indeed,’ said Mr Rune, sucking upon his cigar and blowing out a perfect cube of smoke. ‘Word has reached me that the ladies of the
Chiswick Townswomen’s Guild have brought themselves down in a charabanc to cast my effigy into the flames.’

‘Why?’ I asked, which seemed a reasonable question.

‘It’s an old issue,’ said Mr Rune, ‘dating back to the turn of the century. Some folk will never let bygones be bygones. Just because I thwarted their plans for world domination, they have taken against me personally.’

‘This is good champagne,’ I said, ‘although I note that my cigar is somewhat smaller than your own.’

‘As you are too young either to drink or smoke, I do not feel that we should let this become a bone of contention.’

‘Oooh, Matron,’ I suggested.

But Mr Rune did not think too much of this suggestion and instead he studied the sky. ‘Those portents in the Heavens still remain,’ he said. ‘See there the conjunction of planets and the constellations of stars?’

I looked and I saw. ‘They look to form the shape of a great horse,’ I said, ‘rearing up – do you see it?’

‘Clearly,’ said Mr Rune. ‘And I see more.’

‘You generally do,’ I told him.

‘We are close, young Rizla. We are very close.’

‘Do you want to step back a little?’

Mr Rune raised one of those hairless eyebrows of his. ‘Close to the end of our quest,’ he said.

‘To find the Chronovision?’

Hugo Rune nodded his big bald head.

‘Oh,’ I said, and I made a face.

‘A look of disappointment, would that be?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘in a way, yes. I have been with you for months now. I am no closer to rediscovering my real identity, but to be perfectly honest, I think that I no longer care. I have so enjoyed my time with you, even though every case seems to put my life in jeopardy. It has all been, well, it has all been such fun.’

‘Good,’ said Mr Rune, smiling broadly. ‘And I will miss you when this is over and you return, as you must, to your previous life.’

‘That will only happen if I can remember who I was.’

‘You will,’ said Mr Rune. ‘You will. Trust me, I’m a magician.’

I looked up at Mr Hugo Rune, this huge presence of a person who had become to me – what? A father figure? Not quite. A guru? Not entirely. A source of inspiration? Somewhat. I did not know quite what, only that he was special, other, apart. He was all of those. And even though he never paid his bills and wantonly assaulted taxi drivers, I really trusted, admired and to no small degree was in awe of this extraordinary man.

And did I love him also? Not in some sexual fashion – that would have been abhorrent – but rather in the way that a best friend loves a best friend? Well, then yes, I think I did. In fact, I know that I did.

‘You’ll have me getting a crinkly mouth, thinking thoughts like those,’ said Mr Rune. ‘But I must ask you to swear an oath to me.’

‘I swear,’ I said.

‘Do you not wish to know what it is before you swear it?’

‘Ah, yes,’ I said. ‘I might just have sworn away my wages, should there ever be any wages for me to swear away.’

‘This is a serious matter,’ said the Perfect Master.

‘Go on, then,’ I said.

‘Should something happen to me, should I not be able to continue with the quest, I want you to swear that you will see it through to the end – find the Chronovision and destroy it before Count Otto Black gets his greasy fingers upon it.’

‘By Crimbo,’ I said, ‘I like not the sound of this.’

‘I would very much like you to swear.’

‘But what is likely to happen to you?’

‘Swear, please,’ said Mr Rune.

And so I swore.

I placed my hand on my heart and swore that I would continue the quest in the event of Mr Rune’s inability to do so.

‘Splendid,’ said he. ‘The big parade begins in an hour, so I suggest we adjourn to the bar.’

It was all oak beams and Tudor in the hotel bars of Lewes. And they had barmen who wore clean white shirts and black dicky bows and treated you with politeness even when you were drunk. Which I intended to be, as Mr Rune was footing the bill. Well, at least in theory he was.

‘Good evening, young sir, and good evening, your Popeship,’ said the well-dressed barman.

‘Good evening, Fange,’ I said.

‘Well, gracious me,’ said Fangio, ‘Whatever are
you
doing here? And Mister Rune, too – I didn’t recognise you at first in that get-up.’

‘We have come to enjoy the bonfires, of course,’ I said. ‘But much more to the point, what are
you
doing here?’

‘Well,’ said Fange, ‘do you recall on page forty-three that I told you I would do something really helpful in Chapter Nine? Well, guess what?’

‘Does time not travel fast when you are having a good time?’ I said.

Fangio scratched at his head, upon which he wore no wig or hat, but only a helping of Brylcreem.

‘Why scratch you at your Brylcreemed bonce?’ I asked him.

‘I was just wondering how I could get a page and a half of toot out of answering your question,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to get back to you on it. What would you care to drink?’

‘What do you have on offer?’ I asked.

‘Well,’ said Fange, ‘we have eight hand-drawn traditional ales on draft, a selection, I must state with pride, which exceeds the Heartbreak Hotel by three and the Crossroads Motel by four.’

I looked along the row of highly polished beer pulls.

‘Impressive,’ I said. ‘What is that one there?’

‘Old Willy Warmer,’ said Fange. ‘A fine Sussex ale, slightly nutty, but full-bodied and at five point two you only need three to be well on your way.’

‘I will go for that, then,’ I said.

‘That one’s off, I’m afraid,’ said Fange. ‘Bad barrel from the brewery. Word reached my ear that a tiny spaniel fell into the vat during the fermentation process.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘I will have that one there, then.’

‘Good choice,’ said Fangio. ‘McGregor’s Brown Gusset, a fine Scottish ale brewed from hops that are rolled upon the thigh of a Glaswegian crofter’s lass—’

‘A virgin?’ I asked.

‘Naturally,’ said Fange. ‘The ale is then mellowed in casks crafted from the timbers of siege-engines captured from the British at
Bannockburn. And at five point nine you only need two pints to be paralytic.’

‘A pint of that will do me fine, then,’ I said.

Fangio put his hand to the pump handle. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but this one’s off, too. We have none in stock. It’s flown down by airship, but only yesterday the delivering airship crashed into power lines on the Sussex Downs. Well, they
say
that it crashed, but the last radio communication from the pilot said that he was being buzzed by a UFO.’

‘Really?’ I said.

‘He said something about crabs and then the radio went dead.’

‘That is awful,’ I said. But I was beginning to sense a theme. A familiar one. ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘and I want you to be totally honest with me here. Is there even one of these eight hand-drawn traditional ales, which you claim with due pride to exceed in number those served at the Heartbreak Hotel by three and the Crossroads Motel, where I believe Robert Johnson once stayed, by four, that you actually, at this very moment, have available?’

‘You’re putting me on the spot there,’ said Fangio.