Part 31 (1/2)

'Ah,' said Tuppe.

'Ah?' said Cornelius. 'Ah, again? As in, Ah, I'm sorry?'

'I'm afraid so. I was keeping the ocarina safe. But when Bone fell on me it got broke.'

'Oh perfect.' Cornelius threw his hands up into his hair. 'This is just perfect. What are we going to do now?'

'Er, excuse me.' b.o.l.l.o.c.ks fluttered his fingers. 'But you know you said that if you were having an epic, then I could be in it.'

'We were and you were,' said Cornelius. 'But now it looks as if we're not again. I don't know exactly where this leaves you.'

'I'd rather like to build up my part a bit, as it happens. Because I have the solution to your problem.'

'You do?' said Cornelius.

'I do,' said b.o.l.l.o.c.ks.

'Go for it,' said Tuppe.

Something, well it was two somethings really, moved invisibly through the corridors of Buckingham Palace. There was a large something, and a not-so-large something. The large something carried the not-so-large something, which was struggling, but unable to cry out, due to the Elastoplast dressing stuck over its mouth.

The large something was, of course, Hugo Rune. And the smaller struggling something, a somebody. The somebody. Her Majesty the Queen.

Rune's patent mantle of invisibility covered the two of them and hung down to the royal Axminster.

n.o.body saw a thing as Rune slipped from the palace with his regal prize and crossed the car park bound for his silvery automobile.

Inspectre Hovis switched off his television set. As was the case with Hugo Rune, the great detective was anything but dead.How so?

How so indeed?

'The Crime of the Century,' said Inspectre Hovis. 'My hand-tailored hat is off to you, Rune. Had you not spied out the glint from the barrel of the 7.62 mm M134 General Electric Minigun on that rooftop opposite The Wife's Legs Cafe, and then chosen to demonstrate the extent of your mystical powers by mentally projecting images of ourselves leaving the front door of the premises, whilst we, in fact, slipped out through the back, then our lives would surely have been lost.'

Oh that's how he did it!

Inspectre Hovis dusted down the creases in his immaculate tweed trousers and picked up his heavy pigskin valise. He had work of national importance to do. And now.

His conversation with Rune had stretched long hours into the night. Not that it could really be called a conversation. Rune had talked and Hovis had listened. And Rune had eaten. And Rune had drunk.

And when Rune had consumed all the food and drink the Inspectre possessed, he had sent Hovis out to buy more. And when he had finally done with the talking and eating and drinking, he had taken himself off to bed. To Hovis's bed. And Hovis had been forced to sleep on the floor.

But the fruits of all this talking and eating and drinking now lent their weight to the pigskin valise.

There was a map of London, on which all the en-trances to the Forbidden Zones were clearly marked, a number of ocarinas of the reinvented persua-sion, complete with instructions for their correct use, a great dossier, compiled by Rune, of the crimes wrought against mankind by the denizens of the For-bidden Zones, a free pardon for Rune, regarding all his past misdemeanours (to be signed by Her Majesty at the time of her release) along with a long list of hereditary t.i.tles and privileges Rune claimed to be his, through virtue of certain traditions, old charters, and somethings. And so much more.

A solemn pact had been drawn up between the policeman and the mystic, to the effect that each would protect the interests of the other. Rune, the mystic, would kidnap the Queen, in such a manner that his ident.i.ty remained unknown, and keep her in a place of safety. Hovis, the policeman, would lead in the police and the Army and whoever else he could muster up, acting upon information received from Hugo Rune.

Each would live long and prosper.

Of course, there did remain the matter of whether Hugo Rune could actually be trusted. Inspectre Hovis did not think for one tiny moment that he could be. But he chose not to dwell upon Rune's possible treacheries. For now, as Holmes would have put it, the game was afoot. Hovis had to make his way directly to Scotland Yard, arouse the most powerful of the powers-that-be, yet-are-not-in-the-pay-of-the-blighters-in-the-Forbidden-Zones, and begin the a.s.sault. He and Rune had synchronized watches. It had been agreed Hovis should lead in the troops at the stroke of midnight.

'And so,' said the great detective, checking his immaculateness in the cracked old bedroom mirror, 'Scotland Yard at the double, and the Crime of the Century right in the bag.'

'It's an interesting plan,' said Cornelius to b.o.l.l.o.c.ks.

'A veritable blinder of a plan,' agreed Tuppe.

'I'm glad you like it,' said b.o.l.l.o.c.ks to the both of them. 'Shall we go out there and give the thing a try?'

And as neither of them had done it for a while, Cornelius looked at Tuppe.

And Tuppe looked at Cornelius. 'Let's do,' they said.

'I want this thing handled delicately,' said Chief Inspector Lytton at the bottom of the hill, near to the place where the buses turn around. 'I want a volunteer to go up there and switch off the sound system.'

The policemen surrounding him turned their faces away and mumbled into their boots. They'd quite enjoyed the violent skirmishes of the previous day, because they did outnumber those travellers (the ones in the pay of the BBC) by about twenty-three to one. But this looked like a kamikaze mission. They weren't keen.

Mumble mumble mumble, went the officers of the law.'Come on now,' said Lytton. 'Who's going to make me proud?'

Mumble mumble.

'Come on now...

'Sir.' Sergeant St.u.r.dy took a step forward and gave a smart salute.

'Good man, St.u.r.dy,' said the chief inspector.

'Not me, sir.' Sergeant Ron pointed over his shoulder towards Constable Ken, who was picking his nose and examining the yield in a wing mirror. 'Him, sir.'

'Ah yes,' said Chief Inspector Lytton. 'The very man for the job.'

'Do you really think you can do this?' Cornelius shouted to b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, as they made their way through the crowd. The crowd that was really rocking to the Gandhis.

'Computers,' b.o.l.l.o.c.ks shouted back. 'I did com-puter studies at Ess.e.x University. Got my Master's degree there. They'll have all the state-of-the-art stuff up there in the control box. I probably even designed some of it. All you have to do is use the little mouse and draw your ocarina with its extra holes. I can then get the computer to translate your drawing into a 3D image and a.n.a.lyse it. The computer will then be able to play the new notes. From the control box we can pump them straight through the speaker system.

Naturally Cornelius didn't hear much of this. Not with all the good rocking and everything. But he saw b.o.l.l.o.c.ks put his thumb up, which seemed like a good sign.

'Of course we do have to get into the control box first,' said b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, but Cornelius didn't hear that either.

The bigwig in the control box was in something of a lather. He was on the telephone.

'What do you mean, vanished?' he was asking.

'How can the Queen of England just vanish? What about that voice saying she's been kidnapped?

Who was that? How was it done?'

The bigwig on the other end of the line (he had been the second bigwig at the meeting of bigwigs) did not know the answers to any of these questions. He did not know how the Queen could simply vanish from the balcony of Buckingham Palace with the whole world looking on. But he did not seem altogether concerned about the whos, hows and whys. He seemed far more concerned about cer-tain enormous sources of potential revenue. Product managers, who handled the accounts of companies who sold goods By Royal Appointment, were already flooding his switchboard with calls regarding the booking of prime TV slots during coverage of the situation to come.