Shell Shocked (The Cosmic Carapace, #1) (3 page)

Spencer had made the only sensible decision he could think of and gone to the pub in order to drink until he couldn't remember who Edie bloody Robertson was. The late night chase and resulting bop on the head on the way home had definitely not improved matters. It was the confusion of arriving back to find a tortoise with the word 'Prat' written on it in white paint, sat calmly on his doorstep in a box, that had really topped things off to the point where whiskey was required though.

And so he sat in his small kitchen, staring at his newly acquired and accusatory pet. Contemplating through an alcoholic haze what to do with it. Kitchen is probably stretching the definition somewhat, even for the most exuberant of estate agents. It was a counter which ran around a corner of his one room flat. Flat is probably stretching the definition too if the truth be told. He was currently renting what was in reality Mr Reginald Singh's garage. Ok, Mr Singh had put down carpet and installed a tiny closet toilet, but it was still a garage.

Spencer thought that it might well be time to take stock of his life. He'd never really felt he belonged anywhere, or to anything in particular. He always felt like he was just biding time. To what end? He didn't know. Things interested him of course, he was fascinated by things on a daily basis. He'd once had a huge, fat Maybug fly into his face and after once again emitting a far higher pitch scream than he would have liked (it seemed to be a common theme in the face of terror), became fascinated. He studied them, discovered other names they were known by such as Cockchafer (it hardly needs to be said that this was a particular highlight of the research). Then, as things tended to from his mind, it vanished. The only information he could remember now about the Cockchafer was its amusing name and the fact that in the Middle Ages they were put on trial for not withdrawing into a designated area, found guilty and executed.

Spencer Blake had a certain kind of kind of mind. Once something had interested him, he had an almost unquenchable thirst for more information. On the face of it, this would seem like a tremendous trait. Unfortunately it was coupled with an extraordinarily selective memory. It seemed he was only able to retain the esoteric and frankly useless facts. This was why the changes he’d noticed in the world had bothered him so much, why he’d had to document each one, why he’d become obsessed with them.

It was the moon landing change that had really annoyed him. One day he’d woken up to find that Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon, and not Buzz Aldrin as he had been previously. Although this was how it always went with the changes, him noticing and the rest of the world being ignorant, this one annoyed him for another reason. His favourite chocolate bar, Buzz bars, had simply vanished from the shelves. It had been named after Aldrin originally, but apparently a chocolate bar named ‘Neil’ didn’t really have the same appeal to the marketing people as Buzz had had.

He swilled the whiskey in his glass and wondered If the council would ever hire him again. Or if anyone would once word got out that he had broken the arm of the very old lady he was supposed to be invisibly watching.

He was stirred from his thoughts by a knock on the door. He carefully placed the tortoise on the floor in case he crawled off the counter, and made his way to the hall.

The silhouette outlined against the stained glass of the front door appeared to be wearing a top hat. It had to be said, this was not a common occurrence in Ealing, and Spencer visibly checked as he noticed, slowing for a second before continuing to the door and opening it.

The man was indeed wearing a top hat, though oddly this wasn't the most striking aspect of him. Even in Ealing. A shock of white, straggly hair stuck out around the brim of the hat, coupled with a large, bristling, white moustache. White mind you, not grey. The most brilliant of whites. This facial hair extravaganza lived below a thunderous nose, bulbous and red in equal measure. His eyes sparkled blue with an electric mischievousness as he leant on the long dark wood cane he had in his right hand.

His blue three piece suit had a military air, with brass buttons and gold thread dashed around. Though it was more Sergeant Pepper than Sergeant major.  He looked like Dick Van Dyke trying to play Willy Wonka, in a costume borrowed from Adam Ant.

“Spencer!” he boomed, beaming a set of perfect teeth at the rather puzzled figure in front of him.

“Yes?”

“We need to talk young man about what you intend to do in life and how you think you're getting on with the aforementioned life, I would suggest it is not going well at all now that you have lost your job, your rent is due soon and you have no... romantic engagements...” at this last point he waggled his eyebrows. Quite an exhibition on someone with what looked like two white, hairy sausages above his eyes.

This had all been rattled off so quickly that Spencer felt a little off balance, particularly as he was still looking at those eyebrows.

“Well...”

“Well I think it's best if I just come in and have a little chat over a nice cup of tea," the man said, pushing past Spencer into the kitchen/living room/bedroom.

Spencer spun round to see him bend to look at the tortoise on the floor.

“Ah! A tortoise! Quite wonderful creatures!”

He wagged a long finger at Spencer who stood slack jawed and silent.

“Though I think you could have taken more care with the choice of name.”

~~~~

D
espite now being sat in his own flat with a strange man in a ludicrous suit, Spencer was feeling relatively serene. This was of course partly because he was clouded in the warm fuzzy embrace of copious amounts of ale and several large whiskeys, but also because he was now nursing a cup of hot tea that wasn't spread across his trousers as the previous one of the day had been. The strange man had prattled on that tea leaves being the best reason he could see for trees, and how he was determined to one day grow his own, all the while breezily going about the actual making of said brew, with remarkable efficiency bearing in mind this was to him, a strange kitchen. To be honest, it was quite a strange kitchen to Spencer, who preferred to sample the delights of Ealing's finest takeaways. Ok not finest as such, but he had, he told himself, been discerning enough to have cut down the number of curries he had gotten from 'The Spice of Life' since he had found a piece of what had looked suspiciously like a collar in his lamb bhuna.

It suddenly occurred to him that up until now he hadn't really been much of a host, he was pretty sure he should have made the tea for starters. Then again, he didn't have a bloody clue who this guy was and he had already had a very rough day and a great deal of alcohol. He asked a question he thought he was jolly well entitled to ask.

“Who the bloody hell are you?!”

“Spangler my boy, Arthur Chesterton Spangler.”

He sat opposite Spencer beaming a grin as he wiggled his eyebrows.

“Oh. OK.” Spencer realised this actually didn't help him that much. This clearly required some deeper investigative questioning. He thought hard.

“What do you want?” Brilliant, thought Spencer. Brilliant.

“Well you of course my boy!” This was an unexpected and slightly troubling answer, thankfully he carried on.

“I want you to come and work for me. Join my little team. Ah yes, we have a fantastic team, all eager, all keen, and all of them... enjoy the work.”

He waggled his eyebrows to such an extent that Spencer was pretty sure they were going to jump from his face and crawl off to join the wildlife under the fridge.

Spencer was acutely aware of how suddenly and desperately bleak his employment opportunities were at the moment. He turned and looked into the bright blue eyes.

“You’re offering me a job?”

“Of course my boy! The pay is double what you were earning for the council snooping you did, but you will have to work hard!” At these last words he waggled his finger and rose, picking up his tea and downing it in one.

“I must dash I have many things to do today! Oh yes indeed!” The man seemed to almost verbalise the exclamation marks.

“Look, how did you know where to find me? How did you know I'd lost my job?” He was already heading for the front door with Spencer in pursuit.

The old man looked around the tiny bedsit, his eyes scanning the walls. Spencer could feel a prickle of heat run down the back of his neck. The walls were covered with newspaper articles, handwritten notes and lengths of string which joined various parts between the drawing pins which held them there.

Spangler took a slow breath. “I see you’ve been noticing things for quite a while.”

Spencer could feel panic rising now. He’d never spoken to anyone about the things he’d noticed. He’d only laid it out across his walls since Lisa had stopped coming around, previously having it hidden in drawers. He said nothing, not wanting to sound crazy.

“I can answer all of your questions Spencer. If you do not believe me, I suggest you have a look at the moon tonight.” He’d answered in the same faraway tone as when he’d scanned the walls, but the moment he stopped talking he snapped out of it and leapt to his feet.

“I shall see you tomorrow at 8am my boy, until then!”

“Wait!” Spencer leapt up from the table and instantly realised that although from the waist up the tea had sobered him considerably, his legs remained at least 48% whisky. His foot hit the corner of the table and he fell, sprawling on the floor. He opened one eye slowly and saw golden handwriting on a thin card of white paper lying next to him. 8pm, Ingress, Bushy Park, London. Bring the tortoise.

––––––––

S
pencer woke up to the sound of his phone alarm. It played an annoying melody that every morning he swore he'd change, but promptly forgot. He sat up and looked towards the end of the bed. There was the tortoise. Staring at him. It was exactly where he’d left it last night, sat in an old cardboard box he’d found at the end of Mr Singh's garden, with only a limp piece of lettuce for company.

The light seeping through his fading curtains was dulled, suggesting it was another grey day in London. Either that or a lorry had parked outside again blocking the light. He yawned, making his way to the tiny bathroom, aware of the tortoise's eyes burning a hole in the back of his head.

He blearily splashed his face with water and brushed his teeth. His hand reached down to his stomach which was starting to form a very small paunch.

I really need to start looking after myself,
he thought. He had noticed that his face had become more puffy recently. He was fully aware that his face was fairly normal. No dashing good looks here, but nothing too unfortunate in the appearance stakes either. This waxy look his skin seemed to be developing would not do at all though. Recently he had been eating badly and drinking too well. Or eating well and drinking badly depending on your particular view of these things.

In truth, he wasn’t very good at the day to day life stuff. Organisation came as naturally to him as sky-diving is to a limpet. This was a disappointment to his foster parents who had been the kind of people to lay the table for dinner with a set square. They had tried from an early age to get him to conform to their strict routine. The more they pushed, the more the young Spencer rebelled. He ignored the neatly drawn timetable which hung in the kitchen which divided up the household chores. He refused to acknowledge the designated time to eat his daily allowance of fruit and instead, wantonly ate a banana whenever he felt like it.

Endless schooling on the importance of good paperwork, planning and how to keep a meticulously tidy and clean house, had had the effect of forging in Spencer's mind a longing for mess, disorder, and generally anything that didn't involve him having to scrub a surface. They'd meant well, but his natural uselessness at so many things, including (according to Lisa) his inability to form meaningful relationships, shone through. This might be why the tortoise was worrying him so much, he could well forget it only to discover its grim skeletal form in years to come hidden behind a radiator. It was, he considered a form of OCD, but in reverse. He craved chaos, wanted disorder.

They had though succeeded in one aspect of their child indoctrination program. They had taught him to be a good person. A person of strong moral fibre. This was the part that Spencer could not forgive them for. Spencer knew, as he had been taught, that the good will you showed in the world would be returned to you. It was just a shame that almost nobody else felt this way, it was a bit of a flaw in the theory really. Yet annoyingly, he still believed it. Faith is a funny thing.

If he was being honest, he was bored. The idea of becoming a private detective had thrilled him when he had first started. The thought of tracing stolen jewelry for a lady of the aristocracy who, while inviting him to her manor house in the country for afternoon tea, would reward him handsomely. Or tracking down a former bank clerk who had disappeared with thousands and had taken up a new identity. The reality was cases like Edie's, or worse, the cheating spouse, were what made up the bulk of his work. The shock of the number of people suspicious of their partner's fidelity was only outdone by the shock of the number of people who actually were being unfaithful. He would always do his job thoroughly, but nobody likes the bearer of bad news. It was all a far cry from what his imagination had provided him as a child. He briefly pictured himself sliding over the bonnet of a car before apprehending a criminal mastermind and sighed.