Now, OK, I know what you’re going to think about what happened next. You’re going to think that it was wrong and immoral and downright wicked. But it wasn’t really.
OK, Dave and I went back to my place. We had had a few drinks and then we had a few more to celebrate the end of the telephone exchange. And I got Sandra’s head out of the fridge and put it back on that nice, nubile, shapely young body that Dave and I had acquired from Harry’s/Peter’s world-famous night club. And then we got to joking around a bit. And I don’t know who suggested it first – I don’t think I did, because I love Sandra, so maybe it was Dave – but one of us suggested that it might be fun to have a threesome. And if it wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was, then I was probably swayed by Dave, who said that it wouldn’t really be having a threesome with Sandra per se, because the body wasn’t Sandra’s anyway, so if I just stuck to the top end and he stuck to the bottom end, where would be the harm in it? And we could always get Sandra a new body if we really messed up this one. So where was the harm in it?
And I had had a few drinks. And Dave was my bestest friend. And I’d always wondered just what it might be like to do that kind of thing. And I’d read that the rich and famous did it all the time.
And so we did it.
And I really quite enjoyed it.
And I know that Dave enjoyed it. There was no doubt about that, because he wanted to do it again quite soon after and I was too tired, so he did it on his own. Which wasn’t the same. But as he let me watch, it sort of was.
I don’t know whether Sandra enjoyed it.
Because I didn’t ask her.
We all woke up at around ten o’clock in the morning. Because of all the banging on the front door. Dave went to see what was going on and he came back quite quickly. He only said four words to me, but they were enough.
“Police,” said Dave. “Back door. Run.”
I got Sandra up off the floor and we headed for the back door. We struggled off down the alleyway and made our escape.
“We’re committed now,” said Dave, and I knew what he meant.
“So, what are we going to do?” I asked him, as he opened up the rear door of a white transit van.
“We’re going to make tracks sharpish,” explained my bestest friend. “I acquired this van yesterday. Get Sandra into the back and we’re gone.”
I had a terrible hangover. And Dave was a terrible driver.
“I’ve never had enough time to practise properly,” he explained. “I’ve never had one vehicle long enough.”
We bumped up a kerb somewhere and down again.
“Tell me about your plan,” I said. “But tell me quite quietly because my head hurts.”
“I know how to get into Mornington Crescent,” said Dave. “So in theory I know how to get out again. But what’s inside, that’s a bit of a grey area.”
“But it’s an underground station.”
“What we’re after is under the underground station.”
“Watch out for that old bloke on the bike,” I said. “No, never mind, it’s too late.”
“You should have put on your trousers,” said Dave. “You look pretty silly in your underpants.”
I had Dave stop off at a fashionable boutique and steal me some trousers. And then we were off again.
And then Dave and I realized just how hungry we were. So we stopped at a café, left Sandra to snooze in the back of the van and went off to get some breakfast. And while we were having our breakfast I got a bit of a surprise. And just like all the other surprises I’d had, this surprise was an unpleasant one.
There was a television in the café and some kind of Saturday-morning children’s show was on. I’d never seen it before, but it seemed to consist mostly of shouting. There were several presenters, a young-fellow-me-lad who looked as if he could do with a good smacking and a couple of sexy girls. They were all being terribly jolly and shouting good-naturedly and I was quite enjoying the show. But then the programme was suddenly interrupted by a special newscast.
I watched and I listened and my mouth fell open.
Elvis Presley was dead.
Dave tucked into his sausages and I pointed at the television and then I pointed at Dave and sort of croaking sounds came out of my mouth.
“Have you got bacon stuck in your throat?” Dave asked.
“Not … I … you … you …”
“Me? I’m fine, I’ve got sausage.”
“You … Elvis … you …”
“I’m not Elvis. Elvis has pegged it. Why have you gone all pale like that?”
I spluttered and coughed and got all of my voice back. “You manking twonk!” I shouted at Dave. “Look what you’ve done! Look what you’ve done!”
“I didn’t do it. He probably died of hamburger poisoning, big fat pig that he was.”
“But you! You! You burned down the exchange.”
“Not so loud.” Dave flapped his hands about and nearly took his eye out with his fork.
“My passport to riches.”
“What are you going on about?”
“I’ve been waiting for someone like Elvis to die. So I could get them to dictate their life story to me down the FLATLINE phone. I’d have made millions out of Elvis. But you burned down the exchange.”
“Sorry,” said Dave. “But how was I to know?”
“That’s not the point. This is terrible.”
“No, it’s not,” said Dave.
“It is.”
“It’s not.”
“Is.”
“Not.”
I would have said “is” once more, just to get my point across, but Dave was making a point of his own. Not with his mouth, but with his finger.
“Now, that’s terrible,” he said. “That’s really terrible.”
I followed the direction of his pointing and its direction was towards the television screen. And when I saw what Dave had seen, I had to agree that it was really terrible.
The face of Elvis Presley was no longer on the screen.
Instead was another face and it was mine.
“Gary Charlton Cheese,” the newscaster was saying. “Aged twenty-seven. Wanted in connection with the arson attack on the Brentford telephone exchange, which it is believed resulted in the death of a telecommunications engineer who was working the night shift and the subsequent murder of Morris Holland, whose body was found this morning horribly mutilated. Police wish to question Mr Cheese regarding seventeen other so far unsolved murders, including that of Mr Eric Blaine, landlord of the Golden Dawn, whose body was also found this morning.”
“I didn’t know you’d done him,” said Dave.
“Shut up,” I said to Dave.
“Chief Inspectre Sherrington Hovis of Scotland Yard is with us in the studio. Chief Inspectre, what information can you give us about Gary Charlton Cheese?”
“Hovis?” I said. “Who’s he?”
“A right shidogee,” said Dave. “He’s sent me down twice. Once he gets his teeth into a case, it’s,” and Dave drew his finger across his throat, “for the crim.”
“But how?” I spluttered a bit. “How? Me? How?”
“Listen to the man,” said Dave.
And I listened to the man.
The man was an odd-looking cove. Thin as a bad wife’s headache excuse, with a long and pointed nose of the style they call aquiline. He wore golden pince-nez and a four-piece suit of tweed. I recognized the tweed at once.
It was Boleskine tweed.
The very tweed that Lazlo Woodbine used to wear when he impersonated a newspaper reporter. Things like that mattered to me. Things like that also mattered to Dave.
“Note the four-piece,” said Dave. “Enough said, I think.”
“The man knows his business and he means it,” said I.
The man was now talking to camera.
“Gary Charlton Cheese,” said Inspectre Hovis, in a fussy nasal tone, “is a very dangerous man. If you see this man, do not approach him. And under no circumstances attempt to make a citizen’s arrest. It is not my habit to compromise a homicide investigation by making a direct accusation against a suspect before he is brought before the due process of the law and stands trial. However, in this case I am going to make an exception, so damning is the forensic evidence against Mr Cheese – to whit, the new science of True Name Identification …”