strangers is the job of a philanthropist after all. It was easy. Just go and ring the bell. Hi, I'm looking for my partner, Calamity. She's a detective although you might not think so because she's only sixteen and really should be in school. In fact you might think I'm a louse for letting her get mixed up in all this, and you're probably right. But actually I didn't want her to, but you just can't stop her. You know Calamity, or perhaps you don't. But if you could keep an eye open. We're working on a case ... there's a gang of them — Dai the Custard Pie, Mrs Llantrisant and Herod Jenkins. I think you know Herod Jenkins? You cured him of his lost memory, but somehow a lot of people wish you hadn't. Right now they are holding out somewhere in the hills up by Nant-y-moch. They say there's a sacred place up there, something sacred to Herod. I thought you might know where they were, you being a special friend of Herod and all that. In fact, I understand you've made a map of his psyche. What does it say? 'Here be dragons'?
A dog barked in the distance, and then someone shouted. 'There he is!' A shot rang out and a bullet zipped through the foliage of a nearby tree. I turned round in amazement and heard someone else shout, 'Quick after him!' They were about half a mile away, a group of them. It looked like a hunting-party. I started running as another shot rang out.
Downhill, over the stream and uphill, keeping south of the thin, ruler-straight line of forestry plantation trees and heading for a copse of normal trees. More shots were fired but they were too far away. I ran fast and the hunters didn't manage to gain on me. Maybe they didn't relish the prospect of tackling me close-up. I reached the trees and climbed over the wire fence and jumped and ran on. I came to a clearing, jumped a stream and landed on the other side, and as I did so two metal shark jaws clashed shut on my shin and I leaped forward as if diving off a board and hit a tree with my head. My leg was caught in a mantrap.
I lay there on a floor of moist dead autumnal leaves, the sweet, wet reek of peat filling my nostrils. I panted and twisted in pain and succeeded only in making the teeth bite deeper and the jaws ratchet tighter on my leg. The sharp metal was rusty and had cut through the cloth of my trousers and deep into the flesh. The trap was chained to a tree and was impossible to move. Or break. I started to sweat with cold panic. You could lose a leg like this. And how ridiculous would that be? What if I called out? Would they shoot me in cold blood? What did they want with me anyway? I heard the barking of dogs and suddenly I could hear them scampering through the undergrowth. The barking got closer and now I could hear the louder sound of a man running. Then I heard him cry out in triumph and start sprinting. The dog was on me, licking my face and wagging his tail in joy at the new discovery under the leaves. And then the man appeared. He was wearing a coat that looked like the ones the Beefeaters in the Tower wear, only black instead of red. I'd seen a garment like it a long time ago, a thousand years or so, in Aberystwyth when a man came to buy some Myfanwy memorabilia.
'Oh you poor dear sir,' he said. 'Oh you poor man! What have they done to you! I don't know how many times we've told those farmers about their traps, but they never listen.' He turned and shouted something in Welsh to a man further down the slope. 'We were told to keep a lookout. They say that games teacher is loose in these woods. Some of the men thought it was you. I'm afraid I'll need help to release you from this trap, sir. You might like to take a sip of this to take the edge off the pain.' He produced a hip-flask and poured some Cognac into my mouth. I drank it greedily. The scalding spirit felt good. 'Is that better, sir?' I nodded but strangely the action was proving more difficult than I had expected. My head had become enlarged to the size of a small moon, and moving it was an enormous task. I tried to thank him but my tongue had been replaced with an iguana who refused to budge. My eyelids also seemed to have become alarmingly heavy. I looked up at my benefactor but he was in the sky, and his voice seemed to be coming from the next valley. The scalding spirit had felt good but now I realised there was a sharp metallic edge to the taste, a chemical taste that didn't belong there. I reached out into the sky to grab my benefactor but my hand didn't move and then someone switched the lights off.
Chapter 21
I was in a room. I was wearing a canvas nightshirt. It had a big black number stencilled on the front. 43. My new name. A nurse was folding my trousers over a hanger. The wound on my leg had been dressed with a white bandage. Nice job. But some idiot had left a team of roadmenders with jackhammers behind in the wound. I was going to tell the nurse, but she probably knew. It must have been a road for the dynamite trucks. Something to do with the quarry they were excavating in my head. I had a smart metal belt on to go with my canvas pyjamas. It didn't have a buckle. There was a bulge at one side. It was something electrical. Better not touch. You can get hurt if you don't know what you are doing. Better go back to sleep.
The nurse appeared in my dream. I told her to go away but she didn't seem to understand. I told her to give me my trousers back. It was hard getting through to her because she was on dry land. I was swimming at the bottom of the lake. I spoke to her in a series of soft plopping bubbles but they got lost in translation. I looked around for a fish who could help. And then I realised you need an amphibian for this job. At home on land and in water. I looked for a frog. Typical, there's never one when you need one.
I decided to go to sleep again only this time a different sleep so they couldn't find me.
It worked for a while but then the nurse came along. She was bending down towards the surface of the water and holding my wrist. That was nice. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all. I tried to groan. Nothing too ambitious. They still hadn't done anything about that iguana.
The nurse looked at me and shrugged.
Oh so that's the problem.
She smiled and shrugged again.
I wasn't sure if I could remember any Welsh, but the iguana did.
The nurse giggled.
Not bad, great the way he got the
You're better than I thought. You've even got the
I lay back for a while and hoped the people would down tools in the quarry. I looked at my watch, almost noon. The lizard had gone. I waited. And after a while, I found I could sit up. And look around. I checked the belt round my waist. It was impossible to remove and had electric solenoids welded to it. I didn't like it. An hour passed and then the door opened and the butler walked in pushing a wheelchair. 'You'll probably be a bit shaky on your feet for a while, sir, so I've brought you this. The master has instructed that you are to take lunch with him. He also asked me, sir, to advise you not to make any attempts at escape until he has had a chance to demonstrate the workings of the belt.'
It all seemed like a good idea. The butler chatted to me as he wheeled me down a long corridor lined with doors. 'This is the old sanatorium, sir, quite a ghoulish place if you ask me. We thought it best to put you here while you recovered. I expect, though, the master will want to move you into the main house as soon as you are strong enough.' We came to some double doors and the butler pushed them open with my feet and wheeled me out into hazy sunshine. We were on a lawn some way from the main house. The cold air blew the clouds out of my head.
The Philanthropist was sitting in an electric wheelchair just inside the half-open French windows observing my progress keenly. Even from fifty yards away I had no trouble in guessing who it was. There was only one person it could be. My old adversary, the locust-sized criminal genius Dai Brainbocs; or as he now preferred to call himself, Dr Faustus. When I arrived he reached out his hand to me excitedly. 'I really am most thrilled to meet you again, dear Louie.' He pumped my hand and I stared at him still groggy but the fog slowly clearing.
The butler wheeled me in through the doors to a wood-panelled dining-room. Brainbocs drove alongside in his electric car. Last time we met he had been able to walk; maybe this was one of those degenerative things even his fancy Florida surgeons couldn't help. We took our places at either end of the long table that was already set for lunch.
'Before we proceed,' said Brainbocs, 'I hope you will understand if I quash any silly ideas that you will inevitably entertain about escape. Rhodri, if you would be so good.'
The butler brought from the mantelpiece another belt identical to mine and laid it down on the tabletop. Then he brought a metal dish of what looked like liver. 'These belts are quite popular with some of the police forces in South America, although this isn't an original, I made it myself out of some electronic camera flashes. It works just the same, though. Do anything to upset me and it delivers an electric shock of ten thousand volts straight to the
