You know how my story begins, you've seen it a thousand times on the telly.
It starts with a tall, handsome, mysterious, private investigator, named me, in my office, trying to find out who took Mrs Colley's tortoise shell.
And of course, there's a girl.
Out of both the P.I agencies, in all of upper Hatford, she had to walk into this one.
Sure, maybe It was the fact that I'd named my agency 'Top Lip Investigations' in order to poach clients from Hatford's long established 'Top Tip Investigations', but those guys were arseholes, they'd been in the game longer than me, they were licenced, and had more than one person working there.
I thought it was fair enough.
Anyway, the girl.
She was eloquent, dressed head to toe in black, with legs that ran red lights and brutally murdered lollipop ladies.
They didn't stop, is what I'm getting at.
I offered to take her coat, but the look she gave me seemed to say 'I would, but I'm not sure I'd get it back.'
I didn't blame her; the rent alone ate into my bank account at a rate that was both horrifying and unexpected, like a hungry bear at a pre-school, leaving the walls in dire need of re-plastering and the copper wire in the walls in need of replacing.
She sat down across from me as I nursed apple juice from an imitation crystal glass.
"Mr Dastard..." She began.
Oh, that's my name by the way, Hugh.
Hugh Dastard.
What's yours?
Yeah, mines cooler, right?
"I was told that Lip Investigations is an agency that can handle the most... delicate matters,"
Here's a tip for any young budding P.I's reading this, delicate means illegal, always, and illegal means expensive.
I took a moment before I replied, lit up a cigarette, almost choked, put it out again.
"I'm discrete," I replied, with a cough.
I see now that I was lying, but this was before I'd decided to write all of this down, and post it on the internet without changing any names.
Incidentally, her name was Veruca Watson.
"I'm here on behalf of my employer," said Ms Watson, with minimum eye contact, "Something has been taken from him, something irreplaceable."
"Then go to the police," I smirked, and awaited a 'This isn't the kind of thing the police should be involved with.'
"No police," she spat.
I rolled my eyes at her.
"Look lady, this is a legitimate business, you want dirty work done you go find a man in a pub or something,"
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.
It was a check, with more zeroes than a table-top role-playing store on an over thirties' night.
I remember staring at, holding it in my hands, and feeling my sense of ethics suddenly exorcized from my body.
I wanted to say no, but the power of price compelled me.
"All right," I said, "Give me the details."
She didn't, not then anyway.
Instead, I found myself taking a ride with her to her employer's house.
It was a long ride, full of awkward silences and tedious radio.
Every question I asked was quickly dismissed with either a 'I'll tell you when we get there', or a 'you can talk to Mr Faraday about that'.
Mr King Faraday lived in an old mansion, way out in the country, complete with electric gate, hedges cut into the shapes of things that weren't hedges, he even had peacocks.
The whole breakfast.
Veruca parked up and I got out of the car to find the man himself waving at me from his doorway.
"Coo-ee!" He shouted.
It was the first time I'd actually heard someone say that.
He was dressed in a floral kimono, with matching slippers, and had hat-oriented hair, long at the sides, bald on the top.
"I'm afraid I've been the victim of a most heinous crime!" He yelled, even though I was stood right next to him.
I decided that It was best to snuggle up into the man's pocket, next to his check book and extra strong mints.
"Mr Faraday, I'm sincerely sorry about what happened to you, if you could just answer some questions I'll get right on the case,"
He grabbed me by the lapels of my coat and pulled me close.
"There's not a moment to lose," he cried, into my ear, "We must away to the scene of the crime if we wish to capture these miscreants!"
I was dragged into the house by the man with the 7-digit pension plan, followed by Veruca who shut the door behind me.
It was then I started to doubt the legitimacy of the case, and was beginning to think I was being groomed by the world's richest, and most elaborate sex pest.
They took me to what Faraday called his collection, a room filled with Fabergé eggs, decorative china.
There were cats everywhere, shorthairs, longhairs, all climbing up and down antique tables and wardrobes, I made a mental note to check for a tortoise shell.
However, the first thing I noticed was the dinosaur.
In the centre of the room on a raised platform was the skeleton of what I assumed was a tyrannosaurus rex, I say assumed, couldn't tell for sure because the skull was missing.
"Where the hell did you get this?" I asked.
"Criminals!" Replied Faraday, happily.
Why the head, I thought to myself, If I were a burglar, and I was robbing this place I'd just bring a trolley and partake in the most decadent game of supermarket sweep imaginable.
I was intrigued.
"Wonderful old beast, the T-rex," chirped Faraday.
"Yeah," I replied," Read on the internet that people are starting to think they weren't all scaly like you'd imagine."
"No, no, no, no scales," said Faraday, "Maybe some, but mostly they were bread crumbed."
At what point does a person stop being eccentric and start being bat shit crazy?
I think it's got something to do with money.
I mean, you don't call the shouty, homeless woman outside of HMV with all the yogurt pots eccentric, do you?
But if she had a nice coat on, a team of assistants, and stocks in Microsoft, it'd be a different story.
When I was nine my Mum sat me down and gave me some advice, she said; 'Hugh, don't go sticking your dick in crazy, there's a good lad', but here crazy was eccentric, and eccentric was sticking me with enough money to get the office re-furbished, buy a new telly, and take a trip to Drayton Manor.
I took the case.
Once I'd said that Faraday began to vomit information, he told me that he'd had the skeleton stolen whilst in transit, that he'd had it intercepted by hired thugs at a port near Dover.
Apparently, it was on its way to the Natural History Museum from a place called Hell's Creek.
That morning, Faraday'd woken up to find that the T-Rex skull that he'd rightfully stolen, had been stolen.
"Here's your advance," said Faraday, as he pushed a bedpan full of twenty-pound notes into my arms.
"Sorry, I'd run out of briefcases so I put it in one of my snow shoes," he continued, "I'll also be giving you a lend of my assistant, Veruca, have you met her?"
I played along with the old man's 'eccentricism', and told Veruca that we should head to the Museum.
She nodded.
There we were again, faced with another hour-long car journey of awkward silences, only this time I had legitimate questions.
"Anything else weird happen in that place?" I asked.
"Well, there's' the cats," she began.
Now, get ready for this, remember this because It may not seem all that important right now.
She told me that since the skeleton had arrived, some of the cats began to die of sudden heart-attacks.
She'd wake up one morning and find a stiff kitty laying in the middle of the room.
"What does Faraday say about all this?" I asked.
"Nothing," she replied, "I haven't told him, I usually just go out and buy another cat, if you haven't noticed,
Mr Faraday is a tad..."
"Eccentric?" I suggested.
"A tad... mad as a box of geriatric frogs."
I looked down at the bedpan on my knee, and decided that we'd need to stop off before the museum.
A lot of P.I work involves getting people who don't want to talk to you to talk to you, this involves painting an image in their mind that you're someone they'd want to talk to.
I bought a new suit, black, pinstriped and expensive.
I needed to look like someone with more money than sense, In this instance, a potential investor, and the best way to do that is to spend a grand on the kind of clothing you could get at a bargain outlet for under sixty pounds.
Veruca already looked the part, neat tied back hair, glasses, branded skirt and blazer, but for me It took a bit more work.
I couldn't help but imagine Richard Gear as Faraday, watching me try on suit after suit in a fever inducing montage of misplaced wealth.
By the time we'd reached the Museum we looked the part, like two out of work jazz musicians who'd just won it big on the Tuesday draw.
As soon as we entered the Foyer we were poached up by a man in white trousers and blue blazer.
I told him that we represented the Faraday fund, and that the old man, like the chicken, was ready to start his journey to the other side.
His jaw dropped and I imagined his eyes rolled back, revealing two pound signs on the whites of his eyes.
With the 'kerching' practically audible he began showing us around the museum, Veruca and I faking interest the whole way.
Then came another twist in the Bernard Mathews dinosaur twizzler that was this case.
There, in front of us was the head of our cretaceous client.
I was gobsmacked for a moment, bemused by the unlikely coincidence of the museum, owning just the skull of a pre-historic monster, and my friend Mr Faraday owning the body.
"Where's the rest?" I asked, assuming I already knew.
"That's actually an interesting story," replied the museum man.
He was called Jeb, by the way.
"We did have a full skeleton, but it was stolen on its way here, two months later we find this skull on the side of a road near the Hell's Creek formation, just lying there waiting for us."
"That's a very interesting story," I replied, "Who would have been in charge of the skeleton had it arrived?"
Jeb's eyes narrowed from the obscurity of the question.
"Me, why?"
By the time Veruca and I'd left the museum it'd started to get dark, we agreed that we'd take tonight to do some research and meet up tomorrow.
See, the P.I's job used to be a lot harder, back in the days before the internet we'd have to rely on human sources, eyewitnesses, paper trails. We'd have to stay up all night, rummaging through bins, listening in on police radios, some real noir shit.
But now, we have google, a source of pretty much infinite information, you can learn anything on google.
I couldn't find much regarding the black market price of a T-rex skull, but after a few hours of relentless link clicking and listening to 'bang a gong' on repeat I found something.
I say I found something, which I did, that something just happened to be an email from Veruca.
But I found it, it was in my inbox, amongst the cease and desists, and 'constructive' feedback from angry ex clients.
To: toplip@investigate.co.uk
From: watson.veruca@farday.com
Re: Tyrannosaurus Charlie
Hugh,
Found something interesting, picture enclosed, think you should come over tomorrow to inspect.
Veruca
The picture was of something that looked like a giant grey egg, cut in half down the middle.
Inside was the imprint of a T-rex skeleton, as if it were some kind of mould for mass producing fossils.
After that I was all over the search engines like a teen idol in their underpants.
I looked for replica skeletons, their production and sales price.
Bingo.
It was clear to me.
Someone out there was making fake dinosaurs, and selling them to old men.
Trust me, at 3AM in the morning the brain has a funny way of connecting things.
Victorious, I went to bed.
In the morning I met with Veruca at the mansion, but we didn't get in, instead she took me to a large shed at the end of one of Faraday's many fields.
I decided I'd keep the replica-dinosaur-hypothesis to myself, after all, I didn't want to be wrong in front of the customer with all the money.
Inside the shed was the mold from the picture, lying imprint up.
"I saw this last night, but didn't think you had it on the property," I said.
"It's odd," replied Veruca, "This is what the skeleton arrived in, it was cut in half when we got it but look."
There was a thin crack on one of the halves, just around where the head was placed, it looked like someone had tried to repair it with plaster of paris.
"Just what am I looking at," I began.
"It's been tampered with," replied Veruca.
"I don't know," I replied, "Maybe customs cut it open to check for contraband."
"That doesn't make any sense to me," said Veruca, "These things are so delicate, so much effort goes into transporting them, I don't think you'd just cut it open."
A hole appeared in the shed wall.
Part of the mould exploded, sending a could of white dust into the air.
We were being shot at.
I couldn't believe it, after all my days as a P.I I'd never actually been shot at, gun wielding maniacs and lost housecats don't exactly go hand in hand, not in real life anyway.
It was amazing, finally, some action.
I pulled my gun from under my coat, the detective special, it was lightweight, loud and never missed.
"Do you have a licence for that?" Yelled Veruca, as she ducked into the mould.
Another section of woodwork exploded.
The shooter was firing through the entrance side.
I took a deep breath, steadied my hand, burst through the wooden door and began firing like a deranged cuckoo clock at 12am.
I could see the shooter, prone on a nearby knoll and clutching a sniper riffle.
Once I began to fire, he panicked and ran off into the woodland, probably struggling to re-load as he ran.
I gave chased him through the woods until we reached a country road.
He stopped dead in the middle and turned back to me, as he cocked the rifle.
"Stay back or I swear to god, I will kill you," he threatened.
That made me feel a bit safer, someone who wants you dead, who actually wants to kill you, wouldn't give a
warning like that.
I searched the big book of detective clichés I keep in my brain for something to say.
"Who sent you?" I yelled, aiming my tiny black revolver at his head.
They say the enemy of your enemy is your friend, but I don't think that's true.
My enemy, was the shooter, his was a truck named Eddie Stobart, who I deduced was not my friend, after watching it splatter my only lead across the English countryside.
The truck didn't even stop, I wasn't even sure if it'd noticed the vehicular manslaughter it'd just committed.
Veruca ran up behind me and stopped in shock.
"JESUS!" She cried, "What calibre is that gun?"
She eyed the mass of bones and strawberry jam that was once the shooter.
"Truck got him," I said, simply.
"The fuck do you mean Truck? Oh my god there's going to be so many questions, the police are going to need to be called, forensics' will be down, we'll get questioned and they'll get everything out of us and we'll go to pri-"
"We've leaving it," I said, simpler.
I turned and began making my way back to the manor.
"You're driving," I said, simplerest.
"Where are we going?" She asked.
"To the museum,"
I was feeling pretty dramatic at the time, ready to go and kick some major arse, but the car ride managed to calm me down a bit.
I marched into the foyer, where I met Jeb once again.
"Ah, you decided to make that donation then?" He asked.
"Not quite," I replied, "Take me to the Rex skull."
I clutched my gun in my pocket as we walked, once we reached the skull I pulled it out and shoved it into his fat, t-rex counterfeiting face.
"We've been making fake dinosaurs, haven't we," I spat.
Jeb was terrified, honestly, I'm trying to think of a metaphor or a simile here, but the only thing I can compare it to is a man with a gun in his face.
"What, are you high?" asked Jeb.
"Hugh, are you sure you've thought this through," asked Veruca, who was beginning to notice people, noticing me.
"It all makes sense, the mould, the missing skull, the second skull here," I said, "It can't be the same skull, can it, and this guys the skull guy!"
I smiled victoriously and did a little dance.
"Fuck, I'm good," I declared.
Jeb paused.
"What the hell does any of this mean?" Said Jeb.
"The mould, Jeb! The one in Mr Faraday's shed, which you've been using to make fake dinosaurs!"
I got my phone out and showed him the picture Veruca'd emailed me.
"That's... The T-rex mould, how did you get that!"
Something in Jeb's voice changed, from fear to anger, as if the man in his head had just changed gear.
"Hugh," said Veruca.
"Just admit what you were doing and hand yourself over," I said.
"It's not a mould," said Jeb.
It was then I finally decided to actually listen to him.
Turns out having someone shoot at you puts you on edge a little, you connect things that aren't connected, make rash decisions, and ultimately turn a gun onto a member of museum staff.
Only one thing for it.
I pulled the trigger.
There was a bang and for a moment Jeb's horrified expression was shrouded in smoke, before clearing up and revealing him unharmed.
"A cap gun, really?" Yelled Veruca.
Yeah, a cap gun, I took on a guy with a sniper rifle with a cap gun. The thing is, only people who need to shoot people need real guns, I just need people to think I might be shooting them.
Like I said, the detective special, lightweight, loud, and never misses, because it doesn't actually shoot anything.
I could tell Veruca was frustrated with me, her face had turned bright red, and began to scrunch up like an imploding strawberry.
But that was the least of my worries, the museum security had sprung into life, once they realised I didn't have a gun.
"Come on, moron!"
Veruca grabbed me by the hand and began dragging me across the museum like a wounded beagle, the security wasn't much trouble, most of them were to fat or too lazy to chase.
I quickly dispatched the two guards at the door by firing a couple of blanks their way.
They must have been really good friends because as soon as I aimed at the one to the right, the one to the left threw himself in front of my cap gun screaming 'Nooooooo'.
I got a quick glance at the awkward aftermath as Veruca pushed me into her car.
Without hesitation she floored it and got us as far away from the museum as possible.
After a bit of driving, and a check to see if there were any police hanging about, she stopped in a lay-by.
"So, you want to tell me what the fuck just happened?" She spat.
I thought about it for a moment, prepared my defence.
"I have reason to believe that they are counterfeiting dinosaurs at the natural history museum,"
Veruca sighed.
"If that were true, why would I have the mould?" She asked.
"Because your boss had it stolen," I replied.
She was beginning to lose her temper again.
"You must be the thickest P.I ever to get his licence, it's not for making dinosaur moulds," she protested.
It was around then I started to feel like a complete dick.
This never happened to Morse, or Marple.
Christ, it didn't even happen to the B.T advert guy in 'death in paradise'.
Monk was right, it IS a jungle out here.
She explained to me that sometimes when extracting a dinosaur skeleton, they dig around it, then fill the whole with plaster, wait for it to harden, then ship it.
"Then why did you show me the mould?" I asked, genuinely confused.
"BECAUSE, IT HAD BEEN TAMPERED WITH!" She declared.
I was lost again.
"What I'm saying is; I think someone opened it up before it reached the museum," said Veruca.
"But it didn't reach the museum," I replied, "You guys stole it."
"Exactly, and they found the head back in Hell's creek, right?"
"But there was a head in it when you guys stole it,"
Oh.
I felt cogs turning in my brain, the little monkey with the cymbal's syncing up to the beat of the case.
There's a thing about detective work, most people over look it but It's not always a whodunnit, by the way, I know whodunnit, it was Jeb, the question was more 'whatdidhedo' than anything else.
You can find out whodunnit within the first couple of hours, just look at O.J, the busy work lies in finding out what he did, how he did it, then proving it.
There was something in the mould, something important, that Jeb was supposed to collect, but because of my trigger-happy performance earlier, I'd hit a dead end.
I'd hit more dead ends than a dogger in a new town.
"We need a lead,"
"Think I've got one," said Veruca.
She pulled a wallet out of her pocket, the I.D read 'Jebediah End'.
"You pickpocket him," I stated.
"Well you did a pretty good job of distracting him," replied Veruca, a hint of a smile almost creeping onto her face.
His wallet was filled with the usual stuff, oyster, I.D, debit, Lib Dem membership, and his business card.
On the back of the business card was a number scrawled in blue biro.
I took out my phone and rang it.
"Cześć?"
"Hey, It's Jeb," I lied.
"Jeb," started the voice, "You sound different."
"Yeah, I'm in a tunnel, how's the skull?"
It was a shot in the dark, for all I knew it could've been his dentist, but in my days as a P.I I'd discovered that a shot in the dark always has the chance to temporarily illuminate the room.
I was hoping to see a T-Rex skull during the flash.
"Skull is fine, you call me to check on skull? Asshole."
The line dropped dead, the monotonous tone that proceeded the hang up sounding almost like a victory fanfare.
I let out an involuntary fist pump.
"What, what is it?" Asked Veruca.
"Give me the keys to Faraday's place, I'll go set up, get Jeb and bring him here, tell him if he doesn't come
with you we go to the police, get him to bring the skull too."
I dropped a wad of bed-pan taxi money onto her lap and pushed her out of the car.
"Go!" I shouted.
So, there I was, driving towards the climax of the case, so sure that this time I'd finally sussed it, but allowing
myself to mull it over in my mind during the drive.
By the time I'd got there, I was certain.
Faraday was in his collection room, dusting his oddities with a toilet brush.
I searched the room once more, plenty of cats, none dead, smoke detector, working, a lot of flammable furniture.
Fantastic.
"Any news?" Asked Faraday.
"Not just yet," I smiled, and began to scale the partially incomplete T-rex.
"If you've run out of Daily Mails I'll take a Guardian," said Faraday.
Oh, good, I thought, he thinks I'm a paper boy.
I sat on the neck of the skeleton for half an hour before the door opened.
It was Veruca, followed by Jeb and two men carrying a white T-rex skull.
Jeb had a gun to Veruca's back.
"Make no mistake, Dastard, this one's real," he perked.
"Hugh, I'm sorry, they tricked me, by the time we got here his cronies were waiting," said Veruca, apologetically.
"It's okay," said I, from the dinosaur, "I've got the situation under control."
Jeb laughed, ushering his two skin-head bodyguards to join in.
"You've never had any control," he smiled.
The bodyguards placed the skull onto a nearby table and produced guns from their coats.
They aimed at me.
"It's all very simple," said Jeb, "I'm going to kill you, and if you don't let me do it quick I'll kill the woman first."
"Then why'd ya bring the skull?" I asked.
"You don't want to die without knowing all the details of the case, do you?" Said Jeb.
Now here's the thing, the bad guy won't tell you shit, unless he thinks you're not making it out of the room alive, but if he thinks he's beaten you then he'll sing like a 10 tonne ancestor of the canary.
"Actually," I started, "I think I've got it down."
Jeb was smiling like a maniac at a wildlife mutilation convention.
"Oh, please go on, I'd love to hear another one of your insane theories,"
You know, while you've been reading this, did you ever think to yourself 'man, this guy's an idiot' or something like 'I could do a better job than this guy'? Well, if you did, now's your chance, don't read ahead anymore, get a bit of paper and a bic, and write down what you think has been going on, stick it in an envelope and don't open it till it's been explained fully.
"Veruca, you owe me an apology," I began, "But I also owe you an apology because we were both, kind of right."
The whole room shot me a confused glance, apart from Faraday, who looked more bored than anything else.
"So, we begin at the Hell's creek formation, where a group of virgins find themselves a dinosaur skeleton, they dig it out, stick a mould around it, and send it to London for the general public."
"Only, the skull doesn't make it to England just yet. The mould is broken, the skull is taken out, something else is put in, the mould is repaired and it's on its way to Blighty."
"So, what's in the mould?" Asked Veruca.
"I'll tell you," I said, savouring the feeling of being in the know, "A skull, but not a T-rex skull, not one that actually once belonged to a dinosaur, that one was left on a roadside. But one that was supposed to be delivered to the museum, collected by you, Jeb, and sold off to the highest bidder."
"But what is it!" Shouted Veruca.
"Something that wasn't supposed to be stolen by Mr Faraday," I said.
"Stollen?" Said Faraday, "Are we having cake?"
"Maybe later," I threw my hands out and leaned back on the dinosaur a bit.
It felt good to have the attention of the crowd, even if the crowd did have real, functioning handguns. I have what's called a 'showman's flare', which Is the flare I fire into the air when I'm right and need some fucking attention.
"I got a joke for you though, what's big, and white, and kills pussies?"
I winked at Veruca.
Remember the cats?
Still feeling good about what you wrote in that envelope?
"Not that," I smiled, "Cocaine!"
"You pour liquid cocaine into the mould, it sets, makes a Columbian T-rex cast, it gets stolen by a man who knows nothing about dinosaurs but has many cats. Cats who like to climb, and who lick the cocaine skull of a 65.5-million-year-old animal and have... you ready for this?"
"Heart attacks!" Yelled Veruca, the smile this time managing to spread fully across her face.
"Enough of this!" Cried Jeb, jabbing the gun into Veruca's back, "Kill him!"
The two potato shaped men cocked their guns, and I brought out the detective special and fixed it on Jeb.
"I wouldn't," I smirked.
"It's a cap gun," laughed Jeb.
"It's the detective special," I replied, "Lightweight, Loud, never misses because it doesn't shoot, and, oh, yes, it creates quite a lot of smoke."
Jeb raised an eyebrow.
"Did you not wonder why I was sitting up here?"
With that, I fired the cap gun directly into the smoke alarm, trigging the sprinkler system and bringing down a rain of cocaine-melting water.
All the cats in the room started to surround the skull, licking from the Charlie-puddles it was leaking from its eye sockets.
Jeb's thugs began to fire, that was my cue, I slid down the vertebrae of the skeleton, which was more painful than I'd anticipated.
"You morons!" Jeb pushed Veruca to the floor, "Get the skull out of here!"
What happened next had to be the strangest thing I've ever witnessed in my life, as the three men made towards the skull and tried to pick it up, only to find it guarded by the horde of crack cats, who hissed and snared as the men reached forward.
It put me in mind of a bar brawl, how when one punch is thrown, others just start hitting people through fear of missing out.
The first cat leapt onto Jeb, and before he could swipe it off, there was another, and another, and another, until him, tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee were buried under the twitching, furry mound of hissing and claws.
Veruca grabbed me with one hand, Faraday with the other, and headed for the way out.
Before I left I saw white puddle of goop, that was once Tyranosaurus-Charlie.
So, that's my story, believe it, don't believe it, doesn't really matter to me.
I'd like to do a whole, 'what they did next' type thing, you know, the ones you get at the end of movies that add nothing?
Well, I never saw Veruca again.
Faraday was investigated by the police, and the skeleton finally made it to the museum, where it was re-united with its real head.
As for Jeb?
The cats ate him.
All of him.
I think that's about it.
Oh wait, the two guards from the door at the museum?
They got married.
Thing is though, I didn't necessarily win, the authorities never arrested anyone, Jeb's operation, however big, is probably still up and running, and I'm banned from entering the museum of natural history.
But god damn it I figured it out, and sometimes, that's victory enough.
So long.
Au revoir!
Remember to burn that envelope.
