Horsehead Man Read online

  ‘That’s right,’ I said, ‘That’s what this scar is all about.’

  ‘Bluey didn’t used to have a scar like that,’ said Alex. ‘It’s a good point.’

  ‘So for the sixty-four thousand dollar question: who are you?’

  ‘I’m called Scalp.’

  ‘Yeah, we know that. We’ve been watching your shop for weeks. But who were you before that lunatic Rachel went and stuffed you into Bluey’s body?’

  ‘Er … Spud,’ I said. ‘Spud Wilson.’

  And then the three of them went ape. They were leaping up and down and hugging each other and falling about and shouting: ‘Spud, we’ve got Spud. Jackpot! Bingo! Eureka!’

  ‘You little ripper, Spud,’ Nebuchadnezzar said to me at last. ‘We thought that low-life Doig had made off with you. We thought he’d double-crossed us. Done a bunk. We thought he’d sold you to the Japanese, the Chinese, the Yanks, the mafia, the highest bidder. We thought you were gone for good.’

  ‘Umm,’ I said, ‘excuse my ignorance, but what has my whereabouts got to do with you three?’

  ‘We were Bluey’s partners. We were his … how can I put it? … business associates.’

  ‘Bluey didn’t have business associates,’ I said. ‘Bluey worked for Snood’s Laboratories. So did Rachel and Gazza. So did everybody.’

  ‘Oh, Snood,’ said Alex. ‘That little gnome. He wouldn’t have known what day of the week it was. He wouldn’t have known his thumb from his bum.’

  ‘Don’t worry about Snood,’ said Nebuchadnezzar. ‘He was was just the source of funds. He had all the lolly. We were just going to let him get the project up and running and then we were going to … umm … divert it.’

  ‘Divert it?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. Do you know what poor old Snoody boy wanted to do with you?’

  ‘He was planning brain-only space flight,’ I said.

  ‘Right in one, Spud, right in one. He was planning to stick your brain in a spacecraft and send you off to the Horsehead Nebula.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  ‘Wouldn’t have worked,’ Nebuchadnezzar said with conviction. ‘Would not have worked. You’d have been lucky to get as far as Andromeda. And that would have taken years and years. You’d have been a bit long in the tooth, Spuddo, a bit damn long in the old tooth. Not that you had teeth in those days, of course. No dental decay in brain-only space flight. How are Bluey’s chompers, by the way? Still sawing through the meat and two veg?’

  ‘Oh, um, they’re all right,’ I said.

  ‘I used to be Bluey’s dentist,’ Nebuchadnezzar said. ‘That is when I wasn’t being his business partner. We were at university together. And then when I graduated he was one of my first patients. He had a bit of trouble with his bite. And he used to grind his teeth together something rotten. Inner tension. Played merry hell with his fillings. You don’t grind your teeth, do you, Spud?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Well, there you are. They’ve gone to a better home, so to speak. Bluey wasn’t really responsible enough to be in control of a full set of clackers.’

  ‘Bluey was a nerd,’ Alex said.

  ‘True, I’m afraid,’ said Nebuchadnezzar. ‘Me and Alex here were students with Bluey and we all played football and cricket with him, but the truth of the matter is, Bluey was a bit of a dipstick.’

  ‘He was a total prawn,’ said the little chap.

  ‘And I think I can say,’ Nebuchadnezzar said, beaming at me, ‘we are all real glad you aren’t Bluey. It’s much better that you’re Spud.’

  ‘Sure is,’ said Alex. ‘We were only tracking Bluey because we wanted to find you.’

  ‘And now we’ve found you,’ said the small fry.

  They were all beaming and smiling. They had become relaxed and friendly and expansive. They seemed to think that I should be just as happy to have made their acquaintance. I wasn’t so sure myself.

  ‘So,’ I said slowly. ‘How were you planning to “divert” Professor Snood’s space mission?’

  ‘There’s no money in space,’ Nebuchadnezzar said.

  ‘Space eats money,’ said the runt.

  ‘Space is one great big hole waiting to be filled with poor suckers’ used banknotes,’ said Alex.

  ‘The smart money is at the track,’ said Nebuchadnezzar.

  This seemed like horse feathers to me. But I said carefully: ‘It is if you can get a sponsor. Then you can earn a bit. Maybe do a bit of promotion work. Star in commercials and that.’

  ‘I’m not with you, Spud,’ said Nebuchadnezzar.

  ‘Most kids just ride BMX bikes for the fun of it, but …’

  ‘BMX! What rubbish is this?’ said Nebuchadnezzar. ‘We’re not talking bikes. We’re not talking bike tracks. There are no bookies at bike tracks. We’re talking neddies, we’re talking the Sport of Kings, we’re talking the country’s finest bloodstock.’

  ‘We were planning to put your brain into a racehorse,’ said Alex.

  ‘We still are,’ said the little guy.

  Chapter Five

  ‘Look, I think I’d better be getting back,’ I said. ‘I’ve left the shop wide open. People will be wondering where I am.’

  ‘Steady on, Spud. Or do you like being called Scalp?’

  ‘In this town I’m called Scalp.’

  ‘Okay, Scalp. Don’t you want to know about your new identity?’

  ‘Er …’ I said. ‘Not right at this very moment. All my stock might be disappearing out the door.’

  ‘Don’t worry about those old grids,’ Nebuchadnezzar said. ‘By the time we’ve finished, you’ll have enough money to buy a dozen bike shops. You need never work again. Because, Scalp, we’re going to see you right — we are going to make you a full partner. You can have Bluey’s share. Isn’t that right, boys?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Alex.

  ‘Right as rain,’ said the little guy. ‘We’re not like that tightwad, Snood. He would have sent you off to the Horsehead Nebula without a penny to your name. No, mate, we are a horse of a different colour. Get it? A horse of a different colour.’

  I didn’t think this remark was very funny. Neither, it seemed, did Nebuchadnezzar.

  ‘Cut the cackle, Easter,’ said Nebuchadnezzar. ‘Scalp wants to know about his new body, don’t you, Scalp?’

  ‘Well … umm …’ I said. Quite frankly I wasn’t too thrilled by this idea of a new body, especially if it was a horse. ‘Er …’ I said, playing for time. ‘What about a few introductions?’

  ‘Introductions? Of course, of course,’ said Nebuchadnezzar. ‘This is Luigi de Pasquale, but we call him Easter for obvious reasons. He’s a jockey.’

  The little chap extended his hand across the table. I shook it with foreboding. He had a grip like a boa constrictor.

  ‘And this is Alex Smeeth. He’s a vet by training but he got debarred. Now he’s a sort of undertaker and keen amateur cyclist.’

  I shook hands with the undertaker.

  ‘And I’m Luis Greystone. I’m a dentist and man of parts.’

  ‘I thought you were Nebuchadnezzar,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ he said, shaking hands.

  ‘Only joking,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, well, the next … er … individual we’ll have to introduce you to is called Staxa Fun.’

  ‘What sort of name is that?’ I said.

  ‘A pretty damn stupid sort of a name,’ said Luis Greystone, dentist and man of parts, ‘but there’s nothing we can do about it. Racehorses have to have silly names. Otherwise they’re not allowed on the track.’

  ‘It’s a goer,’ said Easter the jockey. ‘Haunches like steel springs.’

  ‘Withers like prime grilling steak,’ said Alex.

  ‘But thick!’ said Luis. ‘Staxa Fun is easily the most stupid horse that ever lived.’

  ‘A drongo of a beast,’ said Easter.

  ‘A sort of Bluey Doig of the turf,’ said Alex.

  ‘Far too stupid to win a race,
’ said Luis. ‘And far, far too stupid to lose a race.’

  ‘It wouldn’t know its spavin from its belly,’ said Easter.

  ‘But with your brains on board,’ said Alex, ‘we’re staring a real winner in the face. We’re seeing our own reflections in the Elmbank Cup. We’re talking millions. And millions. We’ll be rolling in clover. We’ll never have to work again. We’ll be out to grass before we’re thirty-five. Think of that.’

  Being put out to grass was the last thing I wanted to think about, but it didn’t seem quite the right time to say so. I was coming to the conclusion that I ought to humour these loonies.

  ‘But er … I thought racehorses didn’t have to think. The jockey does all the thinking.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Scalp,’ said Luis. ‘The jockeys are thicker than the horses.’

  ‘Steady on,’ said the little fella.

  ‘With the exception of Easter here,’ said Luis.

  ‘Then,’ I said, ‘why don’t you let Easter ride a normal horse, if he’s so bright?’

  ‘The trouble with a normal horse is that it does what it’s told. The jockey tells it to go fast, it goes fast. The jockey tells it to go slow, it goes slow.’

  ‘So?’ I said.

  ‘So,’ said Luis, ‘the only way a jockey can slow a horse down is by pulling it. Hauling on the reins. But he’s not allowed to do that. He’s meant to make the dumb nag go as fast as possible.’

  ‘They’ve got stewards, see?’ said the little fella. ‘Eyes like hawks.’

  ‘Great big binoculars actually,’ said Alex.

  ‘And video replay,’ said Easter. ‘In slow motion. With close-up on command.’

  ‘And if they reckon the jockey was trying to slow the horse down, they disqualify him. And then the bookies know the horse can really go faster. See?’

  ‘No,’ I said. It sounded like rubbish to me. There’s no point being in a race if you don’t want to win. I said as much.

  ‘Ah, Scalp old mate, you’ve got a bit to learn. See, you might not want to win that particular race. Or the next particular race. But the race after that: that’s the race you want to win.’

  ‘And then the odds will really be in your favour, because nobody thinks the horse can possibly be any good.’

  ‘And there’s no lead in the saddle. The poor nag’s so slow it doesn’t attract a handicap. In fact, it can go like the clackers. Get it?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said, playing dumb.

  ‘Look,’ said Luis, ‘what happens is this. We stick your brains in Staxa Fun and the little fella here rides you in a few races. And the little fella behaves like a good boy — trying really hard to make you go as fast as possible. Kicking you, whacking you with the whip, swearing at you. All the things jockeys do. The stewards can gawk at the videos till the cows come home, good old Easter does nothing wrong. And there’s no dope in Staxa Fun — he’s not like some Olympic athlete, chock full of substances. No positive tests for Staxa, he’s as clean as a whistle. But he is slow. Poor old Staxa Fun is a very, very slow horse; not too quick off the mark, not a stayer. Because that’s how you, Scalp me old buddy, choose to run the race.’

  ‘And the next race,’ said Alex.

  ‘And the race after that,’ said Easter.

  ‘But not the final race,’ said Luis, ‘because that’s the big one. That’s the Elmbank Steeplechase. You romp home by a mile.’

  ‘And we all clean up,’ said Alex.

  ‘Millions,’ said Easter. ‘You’ll be a hundred to one.’

  ‘Maybe two hundred to one.’

  ‘And then what happens?’ I said.

  ‘Like we say, we’re rich.’

  ‘But I’m still a horse.’

  ‘There are worse things than being a horse,’ said Alex, brushing some dust off the shoulders of his black undertaker’s jacket.

  ‘You could be a pig,’ said Luis.

  ‘Or a goat,’ said Easter.

  ‘Or a capybara,’ said Luis.

  ‘A capy whater?’ said Easter.

  ‘Bara,’ said Luis. ‘It’s something you see in the zoo — sort of a monster rat.’

  ‘Yeah well,’ said Alex. ‘Scalp wouldn’t want to be one of those, not a capywhatsit. He wants to be something noble, something big and powerful, something that can hold its head up high. He wants to be a horse.’

  They were all grinning at me. They seemed to think I’d just won the lottery.

  ‘Being a horse,’ said Luis, becoming all dreamy and philosophical, ‘would be a bit like being your own bicycle. You could go incredibly fast, leap over things, do tricks.’

  ‘And what about when I finish being a horse,’ I said, ‘What then?’

  ‘Er … finish?’ said Luis.

  ‘When I’ve won this race, when we’re all incredibly rich. How do I get back into a human body?’

  ‘We hadn’t really planned for that,’ said Alex. ‘We thought that when we got hold of you, you’d still be in a vat. So we thought that if you just hopped out of your vat and into a horse — so to speak — you might like to stay a horse forever. Or you could hop back into your vat.’

  ‘Bluey was going to look after that side of things,’ said Luis.

  ‘But Bluey is dead,’ I said. ‘And if none of you are neurosurgeons like Bluey was, then there is no way you are going to be able to fit my brain into a horse’s head or into anything else. Brain surgery isn’t just a matter of undoing a few nuts and bolts, you know, there’s an art to it. And quite frankly, I doubt that a human brain can be fitted into a horse. There’d be compatibility problems.’

  ‘There’d be compatibility problems with a normal human brain,’ said Luis, ‘but not with yours.’

  ‘Your brain is hardly normal,’ said Alex. ‘It’s been modified, as you well know. Bluey was quite certain that all the artificial neural interfaces in your brain would slot into a horse’s brain easy as pie.’

  ‘But Bluey is dead,’ I said again. ‘And you aren’t neurosurgeons.’

  ‘That is a problem,’ said Luis. ‘It is a problem we hadn’t foreseen. But it is not an insurmountable problem.’

  ‘Insurmountable is not a word in my vocabulary,’ said the little jockey. ‘There is nothing I can’t mount.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Luis. ‘Let me think.’

  There was a moment’s silence. I looked around me. The gleaming stainless steel cylinders stood in their rows like missiles that had lost their points. It was weird. I leaned back in my seat and stretched out a hand. The cylinder I touched was cold. It sent a shiver down my arm.

  ‘They’re well insulated,’ said Easter. ‘It’s minus two hundred and ten inside.’

  ‘But what are they?’ I said.

  Before Easter could answer Luis said, ‘That mad broad will have to do it. I can’t think of anyone else.’

  ‘Who, that Rachel woman?’ said Alex.

  ‘Yeah her, and her friend whatshisname. Gazza. Where are those two, by the way?’

  I share a house with Gazza and Rachel. But I wasn’t going to tell these goons that.

  ‘Don’t know,’ I said. ‘Last time I saw them was on holiday in Indonesia. And anyway, I don’t think she’d want to do the job.’

  ‘Look,’ said Luis. ‘It was that mad woman who got us into this mess in the first place. If she’d gone and married Bluey like she was supposed to and not gone and stuffed his body with your brains, you’d still be in the vat and Bluey would still be a neurosurgeon.’

  ‘Anyway, how did poor old Blue die?’ said Alex. ‘Rachel didn’t actually kill him, did she?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘He died of an aneurysm. It was nobody’s fault.’

  ‘Ah well,’ said Luis. ‘Can’t be helped. Spilt milk and all that. We’ll just have to track Rachel down.’

  ‘I still don’t think she’d want to do it,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t think she’ll have much choice,’ Luis said. ‘I don’t think putting your brains in Bluey’s body was strictly legal. I do
n’t think burning down Snood’s laboratories was strictly legal. I don’t even think her qualifications are strictly legal — if I remember rightly she’s a graduate of the Redeemer’s Academy Correspondence Section. Not the best-known brain surgery school in the world. Quite frankly, I think the old Rachel would be spending the best part of a decade in clink if she didn’t choose to co-operate with us. Same goes for her mate Gazza.’

  The truth is that Rachel and Gazza are now properly qualified neurosurgeons. They’ve done the real exams. They work in a local hospital, fixing up car crash victims and people with tumours. Rachel teaches part-time at the university. Her hair isn’t dyed bright pink anymore. These days she doesn’t wear an earring in her nose. She wears nice dresses and properly ironed blouses and skirts. Gazza hasn’t got a ponytail. He’s had the tats on his face removed. He now wears three-piece suits and has put on a bit of weight. If you’d known the pair of them in the old days of Snood’s Laboratory, you wouldn’t recognize them now.

  Maybe that’s what had happened. Luis and his mates just hadn’t recognized Gazza and Rachel. If they’d been watching my shop for days, you’d think they’d have followed me home. But I didn’t have time to think about all this. I needed to get out of this spooky underground steel forest. I needed to escape from the clutches of Luis and his friends. I reckoned the thing to do was to string them along — pretend to be real enthusiastic about their screwball plans.

  I said, ‘Now look, er, about getting me back into a human body after we’ve all struck it rich at the races …’

  ‘No problem,’ said Luis after a moment’s thought. ‘No problem at all. You can have Bluey’s body back. We’ll put it on ice for you. If there’s one thing we can do in this place, it’s put bodies on ice.’

  The other two laughed like hyenas at this. When he could speak, Easter said, ‘Icing stiffs is what we do best.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ I said.

  ‘What do you reckon this place is, then?’ Easter said waving his little arms at the shining steel columns.’

  ‘Er … missile silo?’ I said.

  They all packed up again. When he could speak, Alex said, ‘Yup, that’s what they are: missiles aimed at the future. Detonation: a thousand years from now.’