5.

It was a quiet, una.s.suming little cul-de-sac. Late-Victorian terraced dwellings, in the early Vernacular style. Angled stone bays and boxed sashes. Carved brick sunflowers set between storeys and the com-plex coloured glazing of the front doors which is emblematic of the Aesthetic Movement.

Here and there a fretworked porch displayed elements of the Domestic Revival and the elaborate plasterwork on the gables and eaves, based on the traditional pargetting of East Anglia, combined with the Arts and Crafts rising-sun fanlight motifs, to give that re-freshingly eclectic mixture, much typified in the work of the now legendary architect R. Norman Shaw.

The modern additions of stone cladding and sat-ellite dishes b.u.g.g.e.red the whole effect to kingdom come.

The ice-cream van moved slowly down the cul-de--sac and stopped at the end, its headlights fixed on the overgrown brick wall, where X marked the spot. Cornelius switched off the engine, but not the lights. And took up the reinvented ocarina.

'Right,' said he, ma.s.saging the newly drilled holes with his long fingers. 'Let's have a crack.'

Anna shook her head doubtfully, but Tuppe switched on the speaker and tapped the microphone.

'Testing,' said Tuppe. 'One two. One two.'

His words were broadcast over a surprisingly large number of streets. But then, it was so late, and so quiet, and everything.

One two. One two, they went. Echoing about the fish-scale slates and the Gothic Revival ridge tiles.

Rattling the richly ornamented terracotta chimney pots, tw.a.n.ging the satellite dishes and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the reception for late-night viewers of the Italian p.o.r.n channel. One two. One two.

Tuppe gave Cornelius the thumbs up. 'Blow,' said he.

And Cornelius blew. He wasn't much of a mu-sician. Anything of a musician in fact So he gave it a bit of the old 'free form'.

'Holy G.o.d!' Folk leapt from their beds. 'What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l was that?' they exclaimed, in voices of rightful indignation.

Cornelius, Anna and Tuppe peered out through the windscreen at the overgrown wall. Tuppe scratched at his little head.

Cornelius scratched his cap.

'It didn't work.' Tuppe looked up at his friend. 'Blow it again.'

Again. Again. Again. In a quarter-mile radius lights were flicking on and dogs beginning to howl.

Cornelius gave the ocarina another big big blow. And portals opened aplenty. Portals of the front door persuasion. And folk issued into the streets. They wore dressing-gowns and pyjamas. Some carried sticks. All were shouting.

Beyond the overgrown wall, in a quietly patrol-ling police car, Sergeant St.u.r.dy said, 'Follow that noise!'

Inspectre Hovis perused the luminous dial of his half-hunter. Enough was enough. All the lights were now out in number twenty-seven Moby d.i.c.k Terrace. Mulligan must surely have turned in for the night.

There was nothing to be gained by sitting about here any longer. It was just a dead end.

'Verily verily, thus and so.' The downcast detective wound up his window, gathered his wits and girded his loins.

And then he drove away, in a red rankle and a grey Morris Minor.

As the streets were so quiet and so clear of traffic, he didn't bother to check his rear-view mirror.

Not that he would have seen much if he had. The car that slid silently after him wasn't showing any lights.

And it was a very small car. No more than about one foot in length. But it didn't have any trouble keeping up. No trouble at all.

Mulligan's Ices stood with its headlights out and its microphone switched to the 'off' position. Its three occupants were crouched on the floor. They had their hands clamped over their ears.Because it had grown somewhat noisy of late. What with all the yelling and the shouting and the pan-demonium of fists beating on the sides of the van, and everything. It was quite evident that the good burghers of Hammersmith did not take too kindly to being roused from their beds by late-night serenades on the reinvented ocarina.

Those of the cul-de-sac had soon spied out the source of their disturbance and were now venting their collective spleen upon it.

As his forehead b.u.mped up and down on the floor, Cornelius Murphy felt that perhaps he had been just a trifle hasty in dismissing Anna's objection to his plan, without hearing it first. The spleen-venters were just beginning a concerted rocking of the van, with a view to overturning it, when the police car arrived on the scene.

Inspectre Hovis lived in reduced circ.u.mstances in a large Georgian house on Kew Green. So reduced had these circ.u.mstances become over the years that the great detective had found himself having to let out room after room of the ancestral home, in order to support its upkeep. And he now occupied but a single garret room, whose only window, as cruel fate would have it, looked out across the Thames to Brentford.

Hovis finally found a parking s.p.a.ce, three streets from home, and climbed wearily from the Morris Minor. He left the car keys adangling in the dash. One thing he definitely meant to do, first thing in the morning, was to demand the return of his temporarily relocated police-issue Daimler.

The Inspectre turned up his tweedy collar to the cold of the night, gripped the pommel of his cane and struck out for home. He didn't notice the tiny car, parked just across the street. Nor did he see the curious transformation which it now underwent. The tiny car bulged, distorted and grew into a great manlike shape. The effect was not at all unlike those created by the now legendary Industrial Light and Magic for Terminator 2. But, as those in the know, know ILM create their effects mainly by using Soft Image and Parallax Matador software, running on Silicon Graphics Iris 4D workstations. Digital matting and the parallel processing of live action and computer-generated elements, by scanning everything into large-scale framestores. This wasn't anything like that. This was much better.

But, as the Inspectre wasn't looking in that direc-tion, he missed it.

''Ello 'ello 'ello. What's all this then?' Police Sergeant St.u.r.dy stroked his military mustachios as he spoke the traditional greeting and approached the melee. Constable Ken sat fidgeting in the car. He was acting under direct orders from his superior officer. 'Shut up. Stay put. Do not radio for a.s.sistance and keep your sticky fingers off the shooter.'

'All right, all right,' continued Ron, as he elbowed his way into chaos. 'Unhand that ice-cream van, or I'll run the lot of you in.

Suddenly aware that there was a police presence in their midst, the pyjama'd protesters ceased their rancour and began to shuffle uncomfortably in their carpet slippers.

'Right,' said Ron, 'now, who is the ringleader of this riotous a.s.sembly?'

'Do what?' A lady in a straw hat and a gingham housecoat stepped forward to confront the policeman.

'Who is responsible for this unlawful gathering?'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' said the lady in the straw hat. 'We were just queuing up for ice-creams.'

'Really?' Ron tucked his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets and rocked back on his heels in a manner much favoured by PC Dixon of Dock Green. 'Queu-ing for ice-creams.'

'That's right,' agreed the lady's neighbours, bob-bing their heads up and down.

'A drink on a stick please,' said someone.

'Two choc ices and a King Cone,' said another.

'All right,' said Ron. 'Don't wind me up. I'm sure none of you solid citizens really want to be dragged away to the cells in your jim-jams. Away to your homes now and we'll say no more about it.'

And that was about all he needed to say. The crowd melted and was gone. Front doors closingwithout a single slam.

Sergeant St.u.r.dy returned to the police car. 'There,' he told the youthful pimply one. 'That is what we call doing it the old-fashioned way. Now. Get out the shooter and we'll have a word with the driver of the ice-cream van.

It was big and bad and ghastly green all over.

And well-muscled every inch from head to toe.

And it curled its evil lip.

And its tail began to whip.

You could tell it wasn't very nice to know.

But you couldn't tell exactly what it was. Not without the handbook. And the handbook was kept under lock and key. In a filing cabinet, in one of the Forbidden Zones.

And whatever it was, it was now coming after Inspectre Hovis.

The great detective felt it coming before he turned and saw it. Not that he was the seventh son of a seventh son, or anything like that. He was the only son of a belted earl. But he knew bad poetry all right.

Oblivious to alliteration and pseudo Shakespearianisms he might be, but not to unwarranted dollops of duff verse, bunged in out of the blue and creeping up behind him.

Hovis faced the thing as it approached him. It was grinning from ear to ear, exposing a double rank of lime-green teeth.

'Have a care,' counselled the detective, gripping his cane between both hands.

'Hands above your head and come out quietly,' called Sergeant St.u.r.dy. 'Hold the gun up straight now, Constable.'

'Gun?' Cornelius groaned.

'We're in trouble now,' whispered Tuppe.

'Sad,' said Anna. 'Very sad.'

'Shall I put a couple of rounds through the side to shift some a.s.s?' asked Constable Ken.

'No need to be hasty, lad.'

Cornelius rose to face his fate. Anna pulled him back. 'Let me handle this.'

'Certainly not. This is my responsibility. I got you into this mess, after all.'

'And I shall get us out, trust me.'

Cornelius looked at Tuppe.

And Tuppe looked at Cornelius.

'Trust her,' they both said.

Anna stood up. Straightened her hair and smiled from the serving window. 'Sorry about the delay,'

she said. 'Who wanted the King Cone?'

'What do you want?' Inspectre Hovis stood his ground, as the joyless green giant moved closer, its reflected image swelling in the detective's mirrored pince-nez.

The creature stopped, but yards away. Still grin-ning, it shone like a sprout by the light of the moon.

'What order of being art thou?' enquired the Inspectre, who numbered necromancy and conju-ration amongst his many interests.

The creature ran a forked tongue, green it was, about lips of a likewise hue. 'Of the order of Tris-megistus,' it replied in a deep dark rumbling tone.

'Then have a care, odious one. My cane is thrice blessed.'

'Thrice what?'

'Thrice blessed. By the word of the Tetragram-maton. By the twenty-third Aethyr of the Enochian call. And by the Hindoo Howdo Hoodoo Voodoo Man of George Formby.'

The creature c.o.c.ked its head on one side. 'You cannot be serious,' it said.

'Try me.' Hovis stepped back and traced a penta-gram in the air with the tip of his cane.

'Get out of here. George Formby?''A great wizard.' Hovis made mystical pa.s.ses with his cane, to and fro, and mimed the play-ing of a ukulele. 'The Lancashire Thaumaturge. Be warned.'

'You're pulling my plonker.' The creature took a step forward.

Hovis took another step back. 'What do you want?' he asked once more.

'The diamonds.'

'Aha! The G.o.dolphins. I have them here.' Hovis patted a pocket. 'Take them if you will.'

'I will.' The beast stormed forward.

'You b.l.o.o.d.y well won't.' Inspectre Hovis twisted the silver pommel of his cane and drew out a shining blade.

'Come taste my steel,' said he.

Car twenty-three backed out of the cul-de-sac and drove away.

'I don't believe that.' Cornelius climbed to his feet. 'I just do not believe you did that.'

'She sold them ice-cream,' said Tuppe.

'And I politely answered all their questions. And I apologized for any inconvenience I might have caused them. And I didn't charge them for the chocolate flakes.'

'Huh,' went Tuppe.

'And what is "huh" supposed to mean?' 'It's not the way we would have done it.' 'And just how would you have done it?' 'Tell her, Cornelius.'

'Well...'said the tall boy. 'I...'

'He'd have leapt into the driving seat and swerved around and sideswiped the police car and...'

Tuppe made screeching noises.