“Who is this old boy?” I asked.
“His name is Terence Trubshaw.”
“I’ve heard the name,” I said. “He was a bulbsman. Mr Holland told me about him. He took a day off. It was wartime. They banged him up for forty years.”
“He didn’t take a day off. He found out about the program. It wasn’t called FLATLINE then. It had a secret operations name. Operation Orpheus. He was a Greek mythical bloke who went into the underworld.”
“I knew that,” I said.
“Well, it was part of the war effort. They had all kinds of weird secret operations back then. Because the Nazis had contacted aliens from outer space who were supplying them with advanced technology so they could win the war. Be a puppet world power run by the aliens.”
“Get real,” I said.
“It’s true,” said Dave. “Well, according to Mr Trubshaw, it is. The allies had to produce something pretty special, so some bright spark came up with the idea of contacting the dead by scientific means. The theory was to interrogate German officers who had been killed in the war. German officers who knew stuff, like secret information that the allies needed. They had this bloke who could impersonate Hitler’s voice. They managed to tune into the dead by using certain radio frequencies and mathematical calculations and the impersonator interrogated the dead officers and got all their information and that’s how the allies really won the war.”
“And Mr Trubshaw told you that?”
“He found out. Memos that he shouldn’t have seen got put on his desk by mistake and he read them.”
“Oh,” I said. “And how did he get found out about the memos?”
“He said that the entire telephone exchange is bugged. There’s secret cameras and microphones everywhere. Well, there would be, wouldn’t there, if it was a secret operations HQ in the war? And apparently all this stuff still goes on secretly. And the British government goes on pulling the same scam. When someone politically important overseas dies, or is assassinated, they call them up on this FLATLINE hot line, impersonating their Prime Minister, or King, or suchlike, and get secret information out of them, which is why Britannia still rules the waves.”
“But it doesn’t rule the waves,” I said. “There is no British Empire any more.”
“Oh yes, there is,” said Dave. “England is really the ultimate world power, because we alone have the FLATLINE technology. England might not seem to be the power controlling the world, but it is. It’s all a big conspiracy. It’s the biggest secret.”
“Well,” I said, “thanks for sharing that with me.”
“Gary,” said Dave. “Gary, my bestest friend. Don’t mess around with this stuff any more. Leave it alone or you are going to turn up missing. This is a big deal here and you could be in really big trouble.”
“Yes,” I said. “I appreciate that.”
“Run,” said Dave. “Run now. Tonight. Don’t go back.”
“Where can I run to?” I asked. “I don’t have any money. Where would I go? And anyway, just hold on here, I’ve been doing this for months and I haven’t got caught yet. Maybe they don’t have all the bugs and cameras any more. After all, they are a bit free and easy with the technology. Letting their operatives call up their dead grannies and suchlike.”
“They’ve all signed the Official Secrets Act. They know what the penalties are.”
“Yeah, but …”
“Get out,” said Dave. “Run. This is big. It doesn’t come any bigger.”
“Yes,” I said to Dave. “You’re right about that. It really doesn’t come any bigger than this, does it?”
“No,” said Dave. “It’s huge. It’s world-sized.”
“Yes,” I said. “It is. I’ve been going about this thing all the wrong way.”
Dave made groaning noises.
“No, really, listen. Barry and I have been doing ‘biographies’, dictated by the dead. That’s what the launch party here tonight is for. P.P. Penrose dictated his life story to Barry.”
Dave laughed. “Not to you, then? What a surprise.”
“Cut it out,” I said. “I admit it, I didn’t have the nerve to talk to him. But think about it, Dave: if the dead are willing to talk, they might be willing to talk about anything. We were just thinking biographies, but that was Barry’s idea. You’ve given me a better idea. What about all those dead criminals, like, say, pirates for instance? They might be prepared to tell us where they buried their treasure. And not just criminals. Leonardo da Vinci might tell us where he hid his last notebook. Michelangelo might tell us about the location of a few missing masterworks.”
“Hitler’s mob probably had all that lot,” said Dave.
“Yeah,” said I. “And a whole lot more. There must be tons of hidden booty that only the dead know about. I don’t know why I never thought of this before.”
“Because you weren’t with your bestest friend,” said Dave.
“You are so right,” said I.
“And perhaps you’re right too,” said Dave. “Perhaps the fact that you haven’t been caught means that there isn’t any surveillance. I think that, together, you and I might pull off a very big number here.”
“The very biggest,” said I.
“Mind you,” said Dave, “this will have to be between you and me. We daren’t have any loose ends. No smoking pistols. No one but the two of us must know about this. Are we agreed?”
“We are,” I said. “Anyone else,” and I drew my finger across my throat, “no matter who they are.”
“Hello.”
I looked up and so did Dave.
“Enjoying yourself?”
“Yes indeed, Barry,” I said.
Sandra drove Dave and me home in the taxi. I was far too drunk to drive and also too excited.
Sandra drove very well, considering.
Considering that she had to get used to the nice new nubile body I had rather drunkenly and lopsidedly attached to her neck. But she did very well and I rewarded her later with as much sex as I could manage, considering my condition.
I had to set the alarm clock for five and get up to dispose of the taxi. I didn’t want anyone finding Sandra’s old body in the boot, so I drove out to a bombsite in Chiswick and set it on fire.
It burned beautifully and I enjoyed watching it burn. I considered its burning to be a kind of phoenix rising from the ashes of my past. A new beginning. For me. For Sandra. And for Dave. I felt that up until now I had been going about things in all the wrong way. Well, not really going about them in any way at all, when it came down to it. I’d just been drifting along on a life tide, washed from one situation to the next, with all my attempts at finding a real purpose and making a real success of myself failing, failing, failing. This would be a new beginning. This, I felt sure, was my fate. And I smiled as I watched that taxi burn and felt warm and happy inside.
My enjoyment was temporarily spoiled, however, by a lot of noisy banging that suddenly came from the inside of the taxi’s boot.
I knew that it wasn’t the cabbie.
And I knew that it wasn’t Sandra’s headless bits and bobs.
So I suppose that it must have been Barry.
But it soon calmed down and stopped.
And the taxi was soon reduced to a charred ruination.
And so, although I had a terrible hangover, I went off to work at the telephone exchange.
With a big fat smile on my face.
20
Priceless, really, the way things turn out.
Dave didn’t have a motorbike, but he was the first person to apply for the vacancy at the telephone exchange. For the night-shift bulb-booth operator. Which was still referred to as the position of telecommunications engineer.