Goodnight, John-boy: Chapter 41

‘Did you know, Dave,’ said Keen, ‘that the ear is one of the last organs in the body to shut down? So you’ll still be able to hear the hiss of the flame jets as you go in.’

Welcome to Book Two of my dark comedy thriller series, Read Em And Weep.

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If you’re new to the Read Em And Weep series, start with Book One: Serial Killer.

IT WAS STILL LIGHT as Dave strode across Wood Lane to the Centre. With his rediscovered courage, he was actually looking forward to going on Tomorrow’s Britain. Coming face to face with the man he had tried to murder. He ignored his mother, who was now playing ‘Paint it Black’ and ‘Here Comes The Night’ in his head. Okay, he got the message, there was danger, but Keen couldn’t possibly know he was the one. ‘Call me Cool Dave from now on,’ he chuckled to himself.

There was a Jaguar parked just outside the barriers to the Centre. A burly chauffeur strode across to Dave. ‘Dave Maudling? Mr Keen asked me to pick you up, sir.’

‘Oh. Where are we going?’

‘He wants to film you on location, sir. Is that okay?’

‘Sure,’ said Dave, impressed as the chauffeur opened the car door for him.

They pulled away into the evening rush hour traffic. ‘What is the location?’

‘Near Wimbledon, sir,’ said the chauffeur, taking off his hat.

‘There’s a new recycling plant there. Very futuristic. Everything’s automated. Mr Keen thought it would be a good location for interviewing you about Dan Darwin.’

‘Like the inside of a spaceship, is it?’ asked Dave enthusiastically.

‘It’s state of the art, sir,’ said the chauffeur. ‘Very efficient. Burns everything. Nothing’s left behind.’

Dave passed the time thinking about what he was going to say on Tomorrow’s Britain about Dan Darwin. He loved the original premise of the serial: whether alien life on other planets had evolved from the same original source as life on Earth. For the Reverend Julius Cambridge, the founder of Homework, the story was intended as a search for evidence of the existence of a Supreme Being that was responsible for evolution. He wanted the hero to find signs of the Deity’s existence on other planets throughout the Galaxy, and suggested the first story should be called The Footprint of God.

But the creator took a more agnostic approach. He based his story on the original Voyage of the Beagle; his hero even looked like Charles Darwin, combining his youthful appearance with the dark, haunted eyes of Darwin in later life. He created the Martian equivalent of the famous voyage, with vivid descriptions of Martian alien biology. Darwin meets a terrifying, complex, warlike race that have evolved on the red planet. Wasp-faced, humanoid creatures, the Vroors, sting and paralyse a gentle, peace-loving race of Martians, the Micans, as live food for their eggs.

The Micans appeal to Dan to save them and this raises the first of many dilemmas for the hero. Sir William, the Space Controller, gives him the go-ahead to help, but this will mean killing the Vroors. He tells Dan that we mercilessly kill germs on Earth and the Vroors are nothing more than giant germs. But Dan is not convinced, he feels he does not have the right to interfere in the evolution of life on Mars and there must be another way.

The Vroors, especially their emotionless leader, the Apokrita, captured the imagination of the readers and the beautifully illustrated, full-colour strip carried the rest of the magazine.

Dan Darwin, Voyage of the Spaceship Beagle would be a hard act to follow. But the 1950s science fiction hardware would look dated now: he’d need to give the legendary Beagle spaceship a NASA look. And was Joy right? Did Commander Darwin really fit alongside the other ‘punk’ characters he was going to dream up for Space Warp? Could he have a more edgy, seventies character? Like who? Bowie? A Space Oddity? Would that bother the readers? They’d probably like it, but it might bother their dads. But their dads weren’t buying the comic. But was there an artist who could actually make that work? Probably not.

Maybe it was asking too much; maybe he should stick to the NASA look, play it safe, even though playing it safe wasn’t Dave’s style, especially not after Aaagh!

He was still going through the different possibilities as the Jaguar pulled into the recycling plant’s car park. It was empty, but for Fab’s Jensen Interceptor and a handful of workers’ cars.

The factory was a futuristic, silver, shark-like building, gleaming in the late setting sun. ‘It really does look like a spaceship,’ said Dave, impressed. ‘Maybe we could do some filming out here?’

The chauffeur said nothing.

‘It’s very quiet,’ noticed Dave as they passed through the grey, industrial interior lined with endless silver pipes and stainless steel cylinders, silent but for the humming of machinery.

‘Night shift,’ said the chauffeur.

‘Wimbledon. Good location for a recycling factory,’ said Dave conversationally. ‘Near the Wombles. I always liked the Wombles. Those fur suits.’

The chauffeur shepherded him towards a control room, and a waiting Fabulous Keen. Keen was wearing plain white overalls, which Dave found disappointing. With all those futuristic control boards behind him, he should have worn something more sinister, like Doctor No.

‘You got him here OK, Inspector?’ said Keen, shaking hands with the “chauffeur”. 

‘No problem,’ said the Inspector.

‘Inspector?’ asked a startled Dave. ‘What’s going on? Where’s the camera crew?’

‘On their way,’ said Keen.

‘When will they get here?’

‘Relax, Dave,’ said Keen. ‘Let me show you around.’ They descended steel steps to the incinerators. ‘I’m given the run of the facility at night. I have what they call “unprecedented access”. No checks, no monitoring, no supervision.’

‘What? You like it here?’

‘I like the solitude, Dave. It helps me meditate on the meaning of life. And the meaning of death.’

He indicated the technology. ‘I’ve learnt to operate the whole system. Forklift trucks. Cranes. Flame injectors.’ He smiled at Dave. ‘Combustion chambers.’

Keen indicated a thick glass with a sign above it, which read

CONFINED SPACE. ENTRY PERMIT REQUIRED. INSPECTION WINDOW.

‘Take a look, Dave. Go on.’ Dave saw the flames roaring within. ‘Like Dante’s Inferno, eh? The temperature in there is 950 degrees Celsius.’

‘It ain’t half hot, mum,’ agreed the Inspector.

‘Look,’ said Keen, ‘here’s one I incinerated earlier,’ pointing to a conveyor belt of ash emerging from a furnace. ‘That’ll be smeared all over the M25, Dave.’

‘Where is everyone?’ asked Dave, as they escorted him away from the combustion chamber. He was now in pre-panic mode.

‘They’re good lads,’ said Keen. ‘There’s a drink in it for them if they stay out of my way.’

Dave looked down at a massive bunker below them filled with residual rubbish with a giant grabber poised ominously above it. ‘This looks a bit like Apokra, the Martians’ city. Are we going to talk about Dan Darwin here?’

‘No, Dave, we’re not going to talk about Dan Darwin here.’

‘Ah. You’ve got somewhere more impressive in mind?’

‘Dave,’ said Keen, ‘I don’t give a shit about Dan Darwin.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Let’s not waste time, shall we?’

Keen held up the liquorice pipe he had found in his apartment. ‘I know.’ Dave blanched.

‘I remember when you were a mod on your trade-bike. You should have stuck to rockers.’

Keen indicated the vast pit of rubbish awaiting incineration.

‘I’ve brought quite a few people down here. They don’t always walk out.’ He looked Dave. ‘You’re not walking out.’

It was only now that Dave realised just how loud the hum of the machinery reprocessing the gases was, and how it would drown out his cries for help. That’s if anyone would listen.

‘People know I’m meeting you,’ he warned. ‘Questions will be asked.’

‘You never arrived at the studio,’ said the Inspector. ‘I picked you up outside.’

‘You disappeared. Just like your mum. God rest her soul,’ said Keen.

Normally, when Dave was afraid, he talked volubly and nervously. But now he was silent, just as he was silent when St Vincent was strangling him.

Because there was no way out.

‘It’s good to see recycling making a come-back,’ said Keen. ‘That’s how it used to be in the war. Right, Inspector?’

‘Waste not, want not.’

‘Then the baby boomers came along,’ said Keen bitterly. ‘Ungrateful little shits like you, Dave, wanting more than one square of Izal germicide to wipe your arse. Whining about everything. Thinking you could change the world when you have no idea what the world is really like.’

‘You murdered my mother.’

‘I think you’re letting your imagination as a comic book writer run away with you.’

‘All those comics you write were rotting your brain,’ agreed the Inspector.

‘You were involved in her murder, Keen.’

Keen suddenly lashed out at Dave, punching him viciously in the face. ‘You murdered the Canon.’

Blood poured down Dave’s face and onto his shirt.

‘Now look what you’ve done to yourself,’ said the Inspector. ‘You look just like Carrie on prom night. I hope you’ve got telekinetic powers, because you’ll need them to get out of this, son.’

‘He’s got no powers. He’s waste. Toxic fucking waste,’ said Keen punching Dave in the stomach. He doubled up, mouth open, trying to suck in air.

Then Keen kicked him into the bunker below. The foul bed of stinking rubbish, organic matter, household waste and unmentionable things at least broke his fall.

‘And that’s where he fucking belongs.’

As Dave looked around him he saw that much of the rubbish had actually come from Fleetpit’s vaults. Old artwork, typeset pages and bound volumes of magazines and comics, including Forces Sweetheart, Radiogram Fun, Pram and Oven, Tranny, Twinset, Homework, Two Pennorth, The Great War, Casino for the Man About Town, Stately Piles, Tally Ho!, Fags Army, Members Only and, inevitably, The Fourpenny One.

They, like Dave, were scheduled for incineration.

Keen sneered down at him. ‘An errand boy on his trade-bike. You were never going to amount to anything. You were always rubbish.’

He turned his attention to the crane, operating it so it dropped down, its tines digging deep, and picking up a giant claw full of debris, with Dave, squeezed and wriggling, at its core. Just like the claw in the seaside arcade games, only this one wasn’t rigged: it was holding onto its prize.

The Inspector and Keen had considered interrogating him before killing him. The Inspector, particularly, wanted to know how Dave was shootered up, but they had decided not to waste time, especially as he was clearly a lone nutter. If he had talked, no-one would believe him.

The grabber started to swing the trash over, including Dave, ready to drop it into the adjoining hopper.

‘That’s where the hydraulic rams go to work,’ Keen explained to Dave below.

‘Crushing everything before it goes into the incinerator.’

‘It can turn Demis Roussos into Dudley Moore,’ said the Inspector.

Dave’s horrified face was visible through the Fleetpit garbage and the massive, industrial prongs.

‘First of all, Dave,’ said Keen, operating the control box, ‘your ribs will crack, so you’ll find it hard to breathe, then your lungs will be punctured. Sometimes I crush ’em and leave ’em for a while. So they’re screaming and begging. Or trying to, anyway. But it’s not so good if they can’t talk and can only blink. Blinking’s not the same. I get bored when they blink.’

‘He chews Sherlock’s. We choose Sherlock’s. Everyone chooses Sherlock’s. He chews Sherlock’s ...’

‘Then you’re ready for the furnace.’ The grabber was now directly over the hopper and ready to disgorge into it.

‘So, unless you’re wearing flameproof clothing, I suggest you start saying your prayers, son,’ said the Inspector.

‘Did you know, Dave,’ said Keen, ‘that the ear is one of the last organs in the body to shut down? So you’ll still be able to hear the hiss of the flame jets as you go in.’

‘May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind illegitimate children chase you so far over the Hills of Damnation that the Lord himself can’t find you with a telescope!’ Dave suddenly screamed in a strong Irish accent.

He had never talked in an Irish accent before, but then he had never been about to be crushed in an industrial incinerator before.

‘You think you’ve got it all worked out in your credit and your debit ledgers, but let me tell you, Johnny Boy, the wine is sweet; the paying bitter.’

‘Fuck. He sounds just like Jean,’ said an open-mouthed Keen.

‘Whoever burns his backside must himself sit upon it.’

It was the same subconscious force that had caused Dave to emit the primal scream that now drove him.

‘I warned ye, didn’t I? The bad deed returns on the bad deed doer.’

‘Jesus, it is Jean,’ said Keen. ‘He couldn’t know she told me that.’

‘You can run a thousand marathons, have a convoy of ambulances take the sick to Lourdes, climb Croagh Patrick on your knees, buy yourself an entire beam of the One True Cross, and mortify your flesh to the bone, but it still won’t save ye, Johnny Keen,’ said Dave in a heavy brogue.

Fabulous had gone white. ‘It’s Jean, it’s that mad bitch, all right.’

‘When ye die, I’ll be waiting for ye.’

‘You’re not taken in by this Scooby Doo doo?’ scoffed the Inspector. But Keen was transfixed, unable to drop Dave into the hopper.

‘We’ve got him bang to rights. He’s just pissing us around,’ insisted the Inspector.

Dave ranted on, possessed by his mother, or by his own fear, or by his demons, or all three. ‘The Gates of Paradise will never open to you, Johnny Boy.’

‘That’s what she used to say to me in the club,’ Keen whispered.

‘Who does she think she is? The Purgatory police?’ asked the Inspector.

‘Maybe.’

‘And what if she is, John? Look … one more body’s not gonna make much difference.’

‘Your Stairway to Heaven is closed,’ Dave warned.

‘See? I told you he’s faking it,’ said the Inspector triumphantly. ‘That’s Led Zeppelin.’

‘It’s the American title for a Matter of Life and Death,’ said a grim Keen. ‘Jean would know that.’

‘Just remember, rather than greasing your way to Heaven, a friend in court is better than a pound in the purse,’ said Dave, his arms outstretched, Messiah-style.

A troubled Keen still looked undecided.

‘John, listen to me,’ the Inspector pleaded. ‘I know we call on the Saints and Martyrs to intercede and put in a good word for us, but she’s nothing. She’s a fucking nightclub hostess. A whore. Like Mary Magdalene.’

‘Are ye ready to suffer in Purgatory, Johnny? Flogging yourself with chains and hooks. Pressing a crown of thorns on your head. Pouring hot wax over your flesh. Licking the wounds of lepers.’

‘Shit,’ said Keen.

‘But I will intercede with the Virgin Mother herself to take the harm of the years away from ye,’ Dave promised.

Keen swung the grabful of garbage containing Dave back towards the bunker, depositing him in the trash and then carefully released the tines.

Dave clambered out and looked up at his erstwhile murderer. ‘May ye live to be a hundred years, John, with one extra year to repent.’

* * *

‘SO LET me hear it one more time,’ said Keen, after they pointed Dave in the general direction of the nearest District Line station, the Inspector having declined to give him a lift in his Jag.

‘I will obey,’ said Dave. ‘As a dead body obeys.’

‘Or you will be a dead body,’ warned the Inspector.

‘Now that’s a Jesuit warning, Dave,’ said Keen pointing menacingly, ‘and you do not mess with the Jesuits. Perinde ac cadaver.’

‘So you’re going to be as good as gold from now on? Right?’ checked the Inspector.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Or,’ said the Inspector, ‘we will use you as the plot for Marathon Man 2. Only we won’t be drilling your teeth, son. We will be inserting a drill into your other cavities.’

Satisfied Dave was a busted flush, they let him go.

He remembered very little of the journey back across London to Farringdon Street, except that he always had the carriage to himself, even when he changed onto the busy Circle Line. 

He didn’t speculate on his ‘possession’ and what had inspired it. 

He just assumed it was a result of that mental merger with his mother, the ‘brain bypass’ that enabled him to access hitherto hidden memories of Jean. The forgotten conversations he must have overheard when he was young, and she still had her Irish accent and Irish ways, that enabled him to recreate her. 

It took him over an hour in the shower to get rid of the smell, which seemed to have impregnated his skin. Then he rocked himself to sleep in the foetal position. He was making a horrible whining, grizzling sound that, if he’d been awake, would have reminded him of the Laarf! editor Tom Morecambe’s hideous whinnying laugh.

Meanwhile, before he climbed into his Jensen and sped away, Keen had turned in triumph to the rather more skeptical Inspector. ‘I’ve a friend at court. You know, that’s better than a plenary indulgence?’

The Inspector said nothing.

The policeman was familiar with the principle of intercession with the Divine. He knew millions passionately believed in it, not just in Christianity, but in other religions, too. That a mediator can intercede, so that sins are forgiven or waived on the Day of Judgment. It was not a belief the Inspector subscribed to, but he didn’t want to rain on Keen’s parade.

Keen exulted at the thought. He had already obtained a plenary indulgence and that was invaluable. It meant the remission of the entire punishment due for his sins, so that no further expiation was required in Purgatory.

But.

There were always those ifs and buts: riders and qualifications in the small print and he could never get a straight answer out of priests when he quizzed them about it, not even the Canon. They sounded more like lawyers than clerics when they tried explaining it to him, using so much convoluted gobbledygook, it made his head spin.

How can they talk about years off in Purgatory where they admitted there was no time? It was like a dodgy life insurance contract, designed from the off to get you to sign on the dotted line, but not actually paying out on claims. Only this was a death insurance contract, and, being no master of semantics, Keen was never quite sure if a plenary indulgence actually delivered what it promised.

It was all that had been available to him, until now. But this … intercession … it was a game-changer. Never mind faith, he had just had an objective – not subjective – spiritual experience. His days of firing up the comptometer were over.

‘I have a “Get out of Purgatory free” card, Inspector.’

‘Okay,’ said the Inspector.

‘I can do just what the fuck I like.’

‘You normally do, John.’

‘So you know what that means?’

‘What?’

Keen smiled with anticipation. ‘It’s party time.’

---

Goodnight, John-boy is the second book in the Read Em And Weep series and you can buy it digitally or as a paperback.

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