One Man’s Meat
Book 9 in the Flaxborough series with Inspector Purbright
Colin Watson
A WORD FROM YOUR AUTHOR
It was necessary to the plot of this book to invent the names of a couple of processed dog foods and to ascribe to their supposed manufacturers titles that would neither duplicate nor suggest those of any real firms. The most diligent inquiries were made. They led rapidly to two discoveries: first, that the pet food industry dwarfs in scale and complexity some of the biggest enterprises in the field of human nutrition; second, that no word in the English language (or, indeed, out of it) can safely be discounted as a potential brand name, however tenuous its canine connotations.
Having regard to the difficulties and hazards presented by this situation, and in pursuance of my aim to avoid causing moral, aesthetic, religious, patriotic or commercial distress to any one of the several thousand patentees, proprietors and distributors of foodstuff’s for domestic animals, I hereby solemnly declare that all such substances and their manufacturers mentioned in this book are purely imaginary and have nothing to do with the real and beautiful world in which we live.
In particular, I affirm that the imaginary product Woof referred to in the book is in no way connected with or intended to resemble the actual product which is an expanded complete packed dog food manufactured and marketed by BP Nutrition (U.K.) Limited, under that name.
Chapter One
The space module “Hermes” swung high above its revolving mother ship. The lights of other bodies streamed past the observation window. They came and went too quickly to be identified, but companion modules were there, sharing the same orbit.
The noise, which at launching had been an ear-splitting amalgam of machinery, sirens and amplified last-minute instructions, was now much diminished. It consisted in the main of piped rock and roll music. This doubtless was to be a substantial ingredient of the cosmonauts’ sustenance in space.
The craft held a crew of two. Their ponderous suits and great gourd-like helmets concealed all clues to age and sex. They sat in moulded chairs, one behind the other, facing the nose cone of the module.
One of the helmet visors was pushed up just sufficiently to allow speech. The other crewman, staring out of a port, did not at first respond. Gloved knuckles rapped against his head-globe. He turned and raised his vent.
The cosmonauts conversed. Their gestures were lively, but not well coordinated. A terrestial observer might have supposed them slightly drunk—an effect of weightlessness, perhaps.
One struck the release buckles of his seat harness and pushed the straps impatiently aside. The other stopped talking and watched with interest, as if waiting for his companion to float around the cabin. Nothing happened, so he, too, freed himself.
Both appeared to be a good deal elated by their emancipation. One unstoppered a space-flask and sucked at the stimulant within, then held the flask out, offering it. The other removed his helmet and placed it between his knees. He took the flask. Drinking from it greedily, he made heroic gestures with his free arm.
A string of bright orange moons moved across the blackness framed in the observation window. The crew member who held the flask stared at them in surprise. Suddenly he was on the floor of the module. The vehicle had lurched.
There was some scrambling, boisterous but apparently good-natured. Helmet and space-flask left the floor and began to roll up the bulkhead and across the roof. So did the cosmonaut from whose grip they had escaped.
The module had entered that part of its programme which required it to revolve about its own axis, in accordance with the principle whereby space travellers are provided with a simulation of homely gravity.
Unhappily for the cosmonaut who had abandoned his seat harness (the other had never altogether relinquished hold upon his safeguard and was now securely strapped once more) there became operative at that moment what space agencies would have termed an extra-programmatic circumstance.
The vehicle’s ingress-egress hatch—its door, one might almost say—opened and swung outward.
Towards the black rectangle thus revealed trundled the flask as the module continued to turn. It hung at the rim for a moment, obstructed by a shallow flange, then suddenly disappeared into space.
The unharnessed cosmonaut was too preoccupied with trying to regain control over his own movement to notice the flask’s departure. If he had, he might have had time to reason out the precursive significance of the event and see his danger.
By the time the module’s revolution had brought him to the brink of the open hatchway, the cosmonaut was in that state of relaxation which frequently succeeds, if only momentarily, a period of playful physical exuberance.
He tumbled out in a flopping somersault without a cry; not into orbit, but in shallow parabola towards the gravitational centre of the planet earth, the nearest to which he got was the pavement outside the shop of Mr James Arliss, gentlemen’s outfitter and bespoke tailor, in Market Place, Flaxborough.
Chapter Two
Inquests, declared Mr Harcourt Chubb, MBE, Chief Constable of Flaxborough, were not much in his line, so it was Detective Inspector Purbright who attended the inquiry into the “Hermes” accident.
He addressed the coroner, a red-faced, punctilious young solicitor named Cannon, who had taken the job over twelve months before on the almost indetectable transition of the previous office-holder, Sir Albert Amblesby, from a comatose to a clinically lifeless condition.
“This case arises from an accident in Flaxborough Fair on Saturday night, sir,” said the inspector. “The fair is held, as you will know, in an area of the Market Place between West Row and the Corn Exchange, and it includes a number of mechanical rides.”
Mr Cannon nodded sapiently. He had a big note pad in front of him, as well as a pile of ready-typed depositions by witnesses.
“One of the rides was called Space Shot,” said the inspector.
“Space Shot?” echoed the coroner, affecting dubiousness.
“Yes, sir. The owner of the ride will be able to give you details if you require them, but I gather that the idea is to provide its passengers with a feeling of flight through space. They occupy a series of cars—or modules, is that right?”—Purbright glanced aside inquiringly at a large, whiskered man in a green velveteen suit, who said yes, that indeed was correct—“each of which holds two people. The passengers are provided with seat belts and there are prominent notices urging their use.
“An attendant has instructions—or so we understand—to see that riders have fastened their belts before the machine starts. He also is supposed to check the bolts securing the car doors. These can be operated from either inside or outside the modules, and are pretty substantial, as one would expect.”
There was movement at the back of the room. “That bloody thing wasn’t safe!” A woman in a sky-blue hat, face taut with anger and grief, was being held back in her chair by shushing neighbours. “There’s a boy dead ’cos o’ that.”