Torchland

It was the new century. Fresh pickings. The kids were in school now, and times were good, if a little poopy. Mostly it was velcro and lavender, and Spike was tickled.

Miss Doherty had started going to night school, and became a fully fledged psychiatrist. It made her feel good at the end of the day, she told Spike. An achievement. He was proud of her, and shut the gates at night knowing that his home was a little fortress, and he was guarding something precious.

Spike had been learning the clarinet, but it wasn't going so well. He kept practicing to Pee Wee Russell records, and the guy kept playing so goddamn fast. He couldn't keep up. Finally he had hurled the instrument out the window, and damaged the mouthpiece beyond repair. It had been a costly musical lesson, but at least, he reasoned, he had learnt 'New Orleans Rag' before jacking the whole thing in, and could play it at parties if fortified with alcohol and naked self-delusion.

It had been three years since they'd taken a case, and Miss Doherty told Spike over dinner that she missed the good old days. The adrenaline pump. The sense of ridiculous danger. The paychecks. All that jazz. Spike had to agree with her. Maybe it was time they put a little advertisement out, like they had all those years ago. Miss Doherty wiped the table down, and looked at Spike, in a way he liked quite deeply.

Once again - Torchland & Co. was open for business.

Years later, Spike and Miss Doherty would sit together and laugh and remember all the crazy shit that had gone down, wondering how they had managed to get out of it with their wallets and the kids and everything.

The Dublin phone call turned into a cross-country Mad Max marathon of misunderstandings and random petrol stops, until the man came clean and approached them at an Esso in Tullamore, asking if the Torchland Detective Agency was still open for business.

"I sold it to a multinational conglomerate," said Spike. "So no."

"I see," said the man.

"Why did you leave those pumpkins outside our hotel in Galway?"

"I didn't," said the man. "I've just been following you since you ran out on me in that hotel in Dublin."

The man paused. He looked pained.

"I have a problem, and I think you can help me."

"Let's eat first. I need some fish."

They ate sushi and talked quietly in a Japanese restaurant on the main Tullamore strip. It was called "Miso!", and it closed three weeks later, confused and disappointed.

"A friend of mine has become...delusional."

"Wasabi," said Spike to the waiter. "A good glunk of it."

"He has become convinced that a woman he once spurned is out to mangle him. She has helicopters following him around, agents on his trail, and his food has been frangled."

"Excuse me?"

The man refused soy sauce and continued, unalarmed.

"He believes it all relates to a fortune teller he visited some years ago, who told him he would be screwed over by a red-haired woman. This woman is now controlling his life. Voices are warning him to watch out. He can't sleep. Ever."

Spike dunked a gyoza.

"Sounds to me like a classic paranoid schizophrenic. Where does he live, and how much can you pay me?"

"Wexford. And as much as it takes."

Spike took the job, found a yellow pages, and called a reputable looking Wexford fortune teller.

"I have a friend who is a paranoid schizophrenic."

"I see," said Victor Vernan, the Wexford soothsayer.

"If he comes to see you, will you tell him exactly what I tell you to say?"

"Of course." said Victor, without pausing. "Anything you want."

"Sensational."

The man visited Victor two days later, and brought his friend, whose name was Kenneth.

"You believe you are being persecuted" said Victor.

Kenneth looked unnerved, but said nothing.

"A woman is seeking your destruction."

Kenneth kept his eyes on the floor. He still felt suspicious. Victor had a large purple turban on his head, and seemed to be a little drunk.

"She is not to be feared. She seeks only your wellbeing and happiness. If you wish it, these people will follow others instead."

Kenneth looked up.

"How do you know?"

"Because I can see the future."

Kenneth furrowed his brow.

"What are the winning lottery numbers for tomorrow night?"

Victor smiled.

"I don't use my powers for monetary gain. That would be unethical."

"Bollocks," said Kenneth. "You're a fraud."

Victor could hear the sound of helicopters in the distance. He decided he had done all he could do.

"Do not fear," he said solemnly. "All will be well if you wish it."

The helicopters touched down right outside Victor's tent. They crushed some deckchairs beyond repair. Five men got out and grabbed Kenneth, handcuffed him, threw him into one of the choppers and then took off in a cloud of dust.

Victor was taken aback.

"I saw that coming" he said solemnly. "I wish I could have done something to stop it."

Spike never got paid.

Everything was the wrong way round in Ireland. The cars. The roads. The people. But the family seemed to like it.

"Let's live here" said Miss Doherty on their first night in adjacent hotel rooms in the plush, slightly run-down Gresham hotel.

Spike wasn't so sure. He knew he was being paranoid, but he saw vipers everywhere. The funny-looking bell-hop. The weird old guy reading a paper in the lobby who always seemed to be looking at them. The angry knackers on O'Connell street that kept circulating them in full predatory mode.

Spike figured they'd hire a car and head west in the morning. He'd heard there were some good mountains they could take a shot at. Keep that vim percolating. Then he could start to size up some options.

They were about to bring their bags down to the lobby the following morning when the phone rang. Miss Doherty picked it up.

She turned to Spike.

"It's for you."

Spike took the receiver and stared at the kids.

"Yeah."

The voice on the other end was muffled, but he made out a harsh, Dublin accent.

"Spike? It's time to get to it."

"Who is this?"

"It's Larry."

"Come on up."

Spike hung up quickly and turned to the others.

"Remember what we practiced earlier on? Well it's time to hustle."

They walked to the stairs and began the fourteen floor descent without protest. Spike and Miss Doherty carried the kids in turn and whistled show tunes they'd heard on the radio. The kids joined in on the choruses. When they reached the lobby, they left through the fire escape and hailed a taxi.

"Yeah. Let's head west."

The driver looked squarely back at Spike.

"Anywhere in particular?"

"Where can we rent a car?"

"I'm sure you could get one from that hotel."

"That hotel's no good."

"Okay. We'll head west", the driver said reasonably.

And they did. To Meath. It cost 300 euro. Spike paid in weird cash and hired a large Honda from a small car hire establishment beside a petrol station on the main street. They bade farewell to the taxi driver and clambered into the new wheels. Miss Doherty put on some Coltrane, and four hours later they were in Galway. Spike checked them into a hotel near the Bay and they ate seafood and pie and slept like babies.

They were awoken by the faint, sickly smell of burning. It was 4.16 am.

The first thing Spike noticed was the sweet, sickly smell of burning. He checked his watch. It was 5.18am. He rose quickly, kissed the still sleeping Miss Doherty on the cheek, checked on the kids, and walked slowly downstairs carrying the fully loaded AK-47 he had picked up cheap in Zurich. He could see a small, angry man through the living room window, standing on the front lawn beside two burning pumpkins. He was unarmed. Spike opened the front door, came out onto the lawn and nodded to the man. It was like a cheap Mexican standoff. Crazy music played in Spike's head as he stopped before him.

It had only been a matter of time. Coots had made a lot of enemies over the years, and Spike had regularly felt the consequences. In response to Coots' mercurial method of investigation, Spike had been shot at, stabbed, dangerously eyepoked, dangled at perilously high altitudes, poisoned with a mercury-based beverage disguised as Jagermeister, and nearly assmangled by a gang of crazed Chinese stained-glass windowcleaners who thought Coots was trying to kill them when in fact he was only asking directions to a restaurant off Delancey.

This guy was no doubt being paid by one of the many asshole criminals Spike and Coots had put away. Specifically, Spike had a pretty strong suspicion it was one Larry Jaguar, a wealthy ratfucker from Brooklyn they had caught peddling junk to pensioners in New England. He was locked up for good, but that didn't stop him making orders on the outside. Larry liked his assassins to add a personal touch, to really rub it in, so an enemy's corpse was usually found with some burnt-out pumpkins nearby to symbolise the deed. Pumpkins were burned in ancient times to signify vengeance, Larry had once explained to Spike under interrogation, which Spike found out later was total horseshit.

"Can I help you?" said Spike, as the music in his head came to a stop.

The man smiled. "Yes. Yes you can."

"I've got children upstairs. I don't want any trouble."

The man nodded.

"These are just a warning, " the man said quietly. "A certain person wishes you to know that you are not safe. Not here. Not anywhere. And when he orders it, you will be eliminated for good. He wants you to sweat it out a little first."

"That's it?"

"That's pretty much it," said the man.

"Ok," said Spike. "Tell Larry I think he's a gutless fruitcake, and he has terrible hair. Now kindly get these things off my lawn, and fuck off while you're at it."

The man nodded, turned away and walked slowly down the driveway until he was gone. The pumpkins lay there, smoking. Spike kicked one straight through, and soiled one of his brand new suede-based shoes irrevocably.

Six hours later, Miss Doherty and the kids were waiting at a Lufthansa check-in desk while Spike booked four one-way tickets to Dublin, Ireland. He used his newfound powers of telepathy to convince the woman behind the counter to upgrade them from economy to first class, then felt bad about it and made her change them back to business. It was only fair.

The driver was twenty minutes late getting to the airport, and reached the arrivals terminal anxious and out of breath. He felt stupid. This was a big job, and here he was, late for the mysterious client Bernie had told him to make sure to be on time for. He scanned the board for details of the flight from Frankfurt, lighting a Gauloise to calm his nerves. At once he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to face a small, bearded man in his late fifties, carrying a large black suitcase. He looked incredibly angry.

"You're Guy?"

"Guy, yes sir" he said, pronouncing it differently without trying to cause too much offence.

"You're late."

The man began walking out of the terminal.

"Yes, I'm sorry sir, the evening traffic here, it's terrible - "

"Don't bullshit me, you fucking frog. You should have left earlier."

"Sir, I'm not French - "

"I don't give a shit. Just don't jerk me around again, comprende?"

"Of course sir. Can I take your bag?"

"No."

The vacuum doors shut behind them and they emerged into the cold night air.

"I have car right here."

Guy opened the back door of the plush stretchjob for the small, angry man, shut it carefully behind him, and sighed gently before getting into the front seat and speeding off towards the exit.

"Take me to Via Orselina 6, Muralto. You know where that is?"

"Muralto? I think so sir, I think so."

"You make sure so, you hear me, guy?"

"Yes sir. No problem at all."

Cold air pumped in mercilessly around them as they drove on into the city. The driver laughed nervously, and called back to him.

"I'm sorry sir for the air, it broken you see, I can make it hot if you like though."

There was no response from the back.

"You want radio? TV?"

After another long silence, Guy sighed again and floored the accelerator. It was three hours' drive from Locarno airport to the small, isolated village of Muralto, across vast mountains and deep, dark lakes. Beautiful in the daytime. Completely, cosmically black at night. It wasn't going to be fun.

An hour into the trip, the man asked to stop at a petrol station so he could buy cigarettes. Guy offered him some of his own, but the man told him in so many words they were not the sort of cigarettes he liked to smoke. So they pulled into a Tamoil and bought some Marlboros. Back on the road, Guy attempted a little light conversation about the weather, but was shot down mercilessly in another display of icy silence, so he concentrated on improving his gearstick action and thinking about other, more ambitious courses he should have taken in college.

Some minutes later the man's phone rang, and Guy listened with interest as the man spoke quietly in a cold, brittle New England twang.

"Yeah, I made it."

A pause.

"I'll be in touch."

And he hung up. It was the last event of note for the final two hours of the trip, which dragged on endlessly in freezing cold silence as they climbed higher and higher into the mountains. When they finally entered the tiny, snow-tipped village of Muralto, Guy's ears had popped, and he didn't really care any more, so he straight up asked the man his business in the area.

"I'm here to take care of some pumpkins," came the cryptic reply.

After dropping the man off at his huge, custom-built chalet, and receiving a scolding, less-than-it-should-have-been tip, Guy headed back into the mountains with the TV blaring, wondering what the old man had meant and why he hadn't complained once about the air conditioning.

Alone in his bedroom, the man opened his briefcase and checked everything was in order. He placed an alarm clock on his bedside table, set for 5am Swiss time. It was now almost 2am. He went to the window. Looking out, he could see the Torchland estate far in the distance, its lights extinguished for the night. He closed his curtains, turned out the light, got into bed and lay there in the darkness for the next three hours, wide awake.

Two years had passed, and little had changed in Spike and Miss Doherty's world, except for the twins she had kindly produced, and the buyout of Torchland & Co. by a multinational conglomerate.

Spike climbed a lot of mountains to keep grounded after the checks cashed. He hit the miles hard. Sometimes he took the kids with him. Doherty had named the two girls Sophie and Jo. They couldn't talk yet, but damn they could listen well. Chips off the Torchland block.

Miss Doherty was in the porch, on the phone to her hilarious stockbroker Kevin Lithe, when she saw a car drive up outside and park near her Honda. A tall, wiry man emerged from the car and knocked on the screen door. It was Spike's old boss, the Chief, whose name she never did catch, and he wanted to talk to Spike.

Four hours later Spike was back from the mountains, the kids in tow, listening as the Chief told him about the Burning Pumpkin case. Someone seemed to be making a lot of noise back east, and they wanted Spike to hear all about it.

"It's Coots, Spike."

"Excuse me?"

"Coots, your old partner."

"That old bastard. He's retired, isn't he?"

"You could say that. Or you could say that somebody just retired him. You could say a lot of things."

The Chief had a terrible habit of not just beating around the bush, but sometimes wandering off from the bush altogether.

"Get to the point, Chief."

"He's dead is what I'm getting at Spike, and it wasn't pretty."

"Killing's never pretty", said Spike. "Poor old Coots. Never hurt anybody. Except all those people he killed."

"Yeah. Then he was unbelievably vicious. But most of them deserved it."

Spike nodded, and stirred his mint tea, thinking about all the crazy stuff Coots had done. Headgraters, cleaver monkeys, the whole nine yards. To Coots, it was theatre. He was psychotically inventive with that shit. Spike hadn't been all that fond of him, but they'd ridden the same bumper for five years, and that had to count for something.

"They found some burning pumpkins near his body. We thought that might be meant for you."

Spike put his cup down, and sighed. He knew who it was. He couldn't tell the Chief a goddamn thing, or he'd be next on the list.

After the Chief left, Spike booked the family into a chalet in Switzerland for a year, and hit the road.

Switzerland was in the middle of a heatwave, and Miss Doherty had only brought winter clothes. She went shopping with the kids and bought some t-shirts, slacks, crepe paper and ice cream. They went skiing and mountain climbing and then got tired and went home to their huge chalet and had doughnuts.

Spike never left the house. He was reading up on hypnosis. He had a hunch he was going to need it.

After they got married, Spike and Miss Doherty decided to go into business together as a crime-fighting duo, a sort of downmarket version of Dempsey and Makepeace.

They placed an advertisement in the local Gazette announcing that the Torchland & Co. detective agency was open and eager for business. Doherty would have liked a little more recognition in the title, seeing as she was a full fifty percent of the team, but had to agree her name lacked a certain zing. So Torchland & Co. it was.

They rented an office high above a stained-glass window shop in Harmley and waited for the phone to ring. They didn't have to wait long. An hour into their first game of Cluedo, a Mrs. Hubblescope placed a call asking them to visit her at her flat in Parsnip Grove, regarding her husband's alleged philandering. Spike put down the receiver and shrieked a shriek of hungry pleasure.

Mrs. Hubblescope was a tiny, terrifying woman. After showing them into her cramped, one-room apartment on the 86th floor of Greystroke House, she informed them that she suspected her husband was having with an affair with an elderly woman from the 34th floor.

"What makes you think he's doing the dirt, Mrs. H?"

"Well he always goes out for groceries late at night, and returns empty handed and exhausted. I also can smell barley water on his breath. Do you need me to draw you a map? He's playing around!"

"We can follow him, check out his movements, monitor his phone calls, anything you want" said Doherty. "Our rates our very reasonable. 100 clams a day plus expenses. "

"The money doesn't matter. I am incredibly wealthy, but choose to live below my means. Harry hasn't two marbles to click together. My father was a relative of St. Paul, you know."

"That's great," said Spike. "He was one of my favourites."

They followed Harry for two weeks, existing only on rusks and oatmeal, during which time they observed Harry visiting the post office, going to the track, buying a lot of expensive presents, and regularly visiting a stooped, elderly woman on the 34th floor who always looked very pleased to see him.

Mrs. Hubblescope was understandably distraught when confronted with the news, and the vivid and unnecessarily explicit photographs.

"I'll never talk to him again. He's broken my heart."

"You're too good for him," said Doherty. "Why don't you sell up and buy a mansion? He can have the crummy 34th floor. "

So that's what she did. Mrs. Hubblescope moved to Monte Carlo and became romantically linked with the elderly father of David Coulthard, the celebrated Grand Prix winner.

Spike and Doherty resumed their game of Cluedo with a renewed sense of accomplishment. Doherty won by correctly guessing that none of the assembled guests were guilty because Professor Plum had faked his own death to claim on some insurance money. Spike laughed a crazy laugh, and poured themselves another round of Moonshine Mysteries.