Where The Bee Sucks Read online

  His own face peered out at him.

  He had never been happier to see it.

  Eight.

  Brownlow switched off his phone; he didn’t want calls from Goldman, demanding answers. I’m not my p.a.’s keeper, damn it. She was an adult, a fully grown woman, supposedly able to make her own decisions. What the hell she thought she was doing going to Oxford without telling anybody, was not Brownlow’s problem.

  Harsh, maybe, but he had a job to do. Life and the show must go on. What better tribute to the late Janine Goldman than to follow through and complete the project on which she was purported to have assisted? They could even dedicate an episode to her, put her name up after the end credits.

  Brownlow passed the time on the train - which, praise be, was only forty minutes late - watching again documentary footage of the excavation of an Elizabethan theatre. The Curtain had been discovered behind a pub in Shoreditch when the South London area was being prepped for regeneration. Archaeologists, historians and sundry experts swooped on the site. The regeneration must be forsaken, they cried. This rare piece of theatrical heritage must be studied and preserved, and if it is within the wit of man, rebuilt and refurbished.

  “The wit of man...” Brownlow smirked at the voice in his earphones. Well, some guy called Professor Auberon Cheese thought it could be rebuilt, for one. Brownlow pressed ‘pause’ and the academic’s face filled the screen of his laptop. He sure looks the part, Brownlow considered. The English eccentric. The wise old man.

  He fast-forwarded to his favourite sequence in the documentary. The Cheese guy was called to the dig and a burly, dust-coated workman presented him with a metal chest. Cut to a table in some lab somewhere and the professor is biting his lip as a guy in a white coat jemmies the chest open. The contents are revealed, laid out on a tray. The old man’s voiceover reports them to be a significant find. The staff of Prospero! Those four pieces of gnarled and blackened wood, preserved by their metal box but still looking the worse for age, were claimed to be the remains of the prop staff used by feted actor Richard Burbage in his portrayal of Prospero.

  Hang about, said a scruffy media type with wild hair and a narrow tie. Hadn’t Shakespeare’s company moved up the road to the Globe Theatre before The Tempest was even written?

  Pish and tush, Cheese countered. As far as we know The Curtain continued to operate even after the move. Who can say what brought the staff to Shakespeare’s former theatre? Storage, perhaps?

  The scruffy guy mugged to the camera, belittling the old guy’s explanation. He wrapped up the programme saying the staff was a bone of contention and the site would perhaps throw up more questions than it answered and yada yada yada, thank you and goodnight.

  Brownlow pressed ‘rewind’. He honed in on the moment of discovery and the look on the professor’s face.

  He was expecting this, Brownlow was astonished. He knew it was there!

  And so, Brownlow’s determination to finish his programme was redoubled. There was more to this than the digging up of a broken old stick. Why else was someone racing him to the pieces?

  The documentary ended without saying what happened to the pieces. Brownlow’s research team had done some digging of their own.

  The pieces had been auctioned off - well, three of the four had - in order to fund the excavation of the rest of the ruins. Professor Cheese had petitioned for the staff to be kept in one place but it was argued, and indeed proved to be true, that the pieces raised more money flogged off as separate artefacts.

  One piece was in London - up until recently, of course. One went to Birmingham’s new library, the largest public library in Europe, for its Shakespeare collection. The third went to Oxford, where it disappeared from public view. Brownlow suspected the don the cops were after knew something about that.

  And the fourth? The last piece of the staff, the headpiece, had disappeared before the auction.

  It could be anywhere.

  Brownlow froze a close-up of Professor Auberon Cheese.

  If he knew anything about human nature (and his dealings with the television industry had taught him much about that topic) Brownlow wouldn’t be surprised if the old bastard had a hand in the piece’s disappearance.

  Either way, the old bastard would be worth talking to. Even if all Brownlow got was a couple of nifty sound bites for the show.

  But, Brownlow closed his laptop as his train lurched into New Street Station, it would be a very interesting conversation indeed.

  First, however, was the piece that was known to be in the Birmingham library. Brownlow marched through the station and hailed a taxi.

  “Yank, am ya?” the driver smirked, activating his meter.

  “You bet,” said Brownlow, settling into the back seat.

  “Fair dos,” said the driver. The route he would take may not be scenic but it certainly would be more expensive.

  ***

  “I’m sorry but I haven’t made enough for three.” Alicia, arms crossed defensively, stood over Harry.

  Christ; I can’t even sit at my own kitchen table and ‘enjoy’ a cup of packet soup now. He shook his head.

  “I’ve got to go to work anyway.” He smiled in a manner that was merely a display of his teeth. “Doing the ghost walk tonight. You’ll have the place to yourselves. Try not to scare the neighbours.”

  Alicia gave a slow nod. “Your job’s weird,” she said.

  “Pays the bills.”

  Alicia turned to the sink and screamed as a hideous face appeared at the window. Seconds later, Olly came in, holding an A4 printout of his Caliban make-up over his face.

  “Brains...” he moaned. “More brains...”

  Alicia swatted at him with a tea towel. He lunged towards her. The photo fell away and he nibbled at her neck.

  Harry looked at his flavourless soup with added disgust.

  “You smell funny.” Alicia pushed Olly away. “Go and have a shower before dinner’s ready.”

  “Spirit gum,” Olly grinned. “I tried my face on today.”

  He picked up the picture and showed it to Harry. “What do you reckon?”

  “Looks like Nigel,” said Harry. The two men laughed. Alicia looked put out.

  “Nigel who?” She tried to snatch the picture from Harry.

  Harry stood up and let her have the photo.

  “Off out?” said Olly. “I was going to fetch some beers in.”

  “Harry’s got to work,” Alicia pouted as if it was the most disappointing news she’d heard in a long time. “He’s doing his little ghost thing tonight.”

  “Cool!” Olly enthused. “Perhaps we should pop along and see if he’s any good.” He punched Harry’s upper arm.

  “But I’ve spent half the day cooking!” Alicia whined, pointing at the cooker as a visual aid. Olly was clearly torn.

  “Sorry, mate.” He meant it too. “Next time though?”

  “Yeah” Harry put his jacket on. He was relieved they weren’t coming. He could do without Alicia’s critical face-pulling and he was uneasy about performing in front of Olly, the professional proper actor.

  Alicia cleared her throat and gave Harry’s mug a pointed look. Harry picked it up and put it in the sink.

  “Not there!” Alicia wailed. “I have to drain my linguini!”

  Harry rinsed the mug and upended it on the draining board. Olly sent him an apology with his eyes.

  “I’ll save you a beer!” he called as Harry went out.

  Alicia scowled. She’d got a nice pinot grigio in to complement her menu. There would be no beer.

  ***

  Harry walked through town to work. Alicia’s snarkiness and the conversation earlier with the Big Cheese made him look at his place of employment with critical eyes. It was a museum - it said so on all the signage, but it was
more of a tourist attraction than a conservatory of art and heritage. It was doing good business. Often there were more group bookings than they could handle. And it wasn’t a bad job - especially given the current climate - Harry got to dress up and put on silly voices so it wasn’t too far removed from his original intention to become an actor. People went away happy - for the most part.

  Unless I’m in a mood, he thought. Unless I’m being plagued by fictitious spirits.

  “Hello, Harry.” Mary greeted him on his way up to the staff room. “Are you ready for this?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ve been boning up all afternoon.”

  “I don’t want to know what you get up to in your spare time,” Mary affected a shocked expression. “I’m teasing! Counting on you to pull this off, Harry. Could become a regular gig for you. During the summer months, at least.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t let us down, Harry.” Mary’s bonhomie evaporated. Harry wilted from eye contact and continued up the stairs to get changed. Mary watched him go. Staff appraisals were coming up. Harry didn’t know it but he was on his last legs. Following the complaints about his recent tepid tours, this was his chance to redeem himself or Mary would have no choice but to let him go.

  ***

  Revived by the water in the Gents (Calum Banner had thrust his head into the toilet and flushed cool, restorative water onto his head several times) the don rode the lift up to the library’s Shakespeare collection. As foreseen, the girl at the enquiries desk had responded to his tweed suit and the air of entitlement he projected. She had even made noises about being honoured to be visited by such an esteemed academic. There was an awkward moment when she asked why he hadn’t come along to the official launch and the guided tour. Banner said he preferred to visit at quieter times, away from the hubbub of a champagne reception.

  Something inside him rankled. What remained of the don was more than a little miffed that he had not been invited to the grand opening. An oversight perhaps but more likely a slight. Oh, you could bet your life that old blusterer Cheese was given VIP treatment. He shut off the thought. Banner’s enmity was so engrained it was permeating the entity’s own consciousness. The transfer could not have been complete. When he had moved in, like a cuckoo, he must have left something of the professor in the nest. All the more reason to ditch this old body as soon as he could.

  But the old man had one last task to perform. He would demand to see the piece of the staff and, when the opportunity arose, he was going to bloody nick it.

  ***

  Hank Brownlow paid the cabbie and jogged around the library building to the main entrance on the pedestrianized forecourt. He paid no attention to the architecture and barely registered the coffee shop patrons who were enduring cappuccino al fresco in the brisk Birmingham breeze, imagining they were in some roadside trattoria on the continent. Barking sorrys and excuse-mes, Brownlow ploughed through the tables and chairs and waited impatiently for the perpetual motion of the revolving door to admit him to the reception area. He scanned an information board on a pillar. The Shakespeare Memorial Room was upstairs. Up lots of stairs. There was an escalator, he noticed, and doors to the right led to three elevators, but he would rather trust the power of his own thighs. All those years of gym membership would finally pay off.

  He bounded up, two steps at a time, breathing deeply as he went. He managed to get halfway to his destination before he had to stop, bend over and clutch the handrail to prevent dizziness overcoming him.

  Lousy rat-bag gym membership. What was he paying for?

  The fact that one has to actually attend the gym from time to time did not enter his thinking.

  A couple of minutes later, Brownlow continued on his way. Nine floors! He forced himself not to regret forsaking the elevator and hoped he’d have enough wind in his lungs to ask what he needed to ask when he got to the top.

  ***

  The Shakespeare Memorial Room gives the illusion it has always been where it is, even though the wooden cabinets around the walls are over a century older than the building itself. Professor Banner had visited the collection in its previous setting many times but of course, that was when he was Professor Banner and not just wearing the old man’s body like a meat suit.

  The collection houses books, artefacts, old theatre programmes and portraits of actors in Victorian and Edwardian versions of Shakespearean characters; but the being inside Banner was only interested in one of its more recent acquisitions.

  He was about to approach the attendant member of staff but found his throat was parched. He took out a bottle of water from his jacket and found the attendant member of staff approaching him.

  “I’m sorry, sir; you can’t drink that in here.”

  “But -” His voice was a croak, a sandpaper rasp.

  “There’s a cafe a couple of levels down,” the attendant smiled but her eyes were stern. “Or there’s the garden and the balcony. Lovely views...”

  The old man grunted an apology and shuffled towards the exit. Out in the corridor he pulled off the cap and upended the bottle into his mouth, glorying in its instantly reviving properties. A collection of marble busts gave him the cold shoulder.

  He went back into the Memorial room, aware that the front of his shirt and the shoulders of his jacket were wet. His thirsty body would soon absorb the moisture but he supposed no member of staff would want his wet hands touching their precious collection. He affected to stroll around, admiring the restoration, peering closely to read inscriptions behind the glass, aware too of the attendant’s watchful gaze. Perhaps she imagines I’m going to sneak a drink or open a picnic hamper or something.

  He watched the attendant watching him, both using their peripheral vision, circling the room, an old cobra in tweed and a young mongoose in a twinset.

  An idea sprang to life in the old man’s mind. He would ask the young woman to show him the piece and then he would catch her off guard and make the swap. The piece would be his and he’d be able to move around a lot more efficiently and to move freely around the building. When he became an employee of the library, he would make some calls, in his new lady voice. He would ingratiate himself - or rather, she would ingratiate herself with the custodian of the fourth and final piece. It couldn’t be better!

  The old man chuckled. The attendant scowled; he was up to something, she could tell. He approached.

  “Good day, my dear,” he smiled. “A beautiful room you’ve got here, I have to say.”

  “Um, thank you.”

  “Now, I’m something of a Shakespearean specialist. Dear old Bill and I are very old friends, you might say. Forgive me; my card.”

  The attendant took the small rectangle and glanced at it.

  “Professor Banner,” she read. “Oxford?”

  The credentials seemed to relax her. She smiled with her eyes as well as her lips. This was no old man up to no good; this was just a lovable old eccentric, a potty academic, and totally harmless.

  She saw he was peering at her chest.

  “Oh, I’m Nicky,” she turned her left breast towards him, giving him a clearer view of her nametag.

  “Good day to you, Nicky. Now, I wonder if you could show me something rather special.”

  “I’m sure I can, Professor Banner. What would you like to see? We have a lovely engraving of Beerbohm Tree that might be of interest.”

  The old man hummed and ahhed, pretending to be impressed. “What I’m seeking is something new.”

  “Well, you won’t find much new in here, I’m afraid.”

  “New to the collection, I mean, my dear. Is it possible, do you think, for me to see the staff?” He looked at her with wide, grandfatherly eyes.

  “Well, there’s only me on at the moment, but Martyn will clock on after lunch...”

  The old man laughed humourlessly. �
��You misunderstand; I don’t mean the personnel. I mean the staff of Prospero. I believe you have a piece of it here.”

  Light dawned on Nicky’s face.

  “Oh, you should have said! It’s all right; I’ve been off the caffeine all week. Trying herbal teas. Horrible teas, more like!” She shuddered but the old man had no sympathy.

  “May I see it?”

  “Um...” Nicky glanced anxiously around the room. There was no one else present. “Sorry; it’s just that I’m new, you see. I’m sure it will be all right. Considering you’re from Oxford and all.”

  “Quite.”

  “Please wait there.”

  She bustled our of the room, clicking away on two-inch heels as soon as she left the carpet and met the corridor floor. They’ll have to go, thought the old man. Can’t run in two-inch heels, should the need arise.

  Banner looked around, rocking on his heels, taking in his surroundings. He looked up at the beautiful ceiling. The place was a temple to Shakespeare; how little they knew! This shrine, this place for devotees to come in hushed witness, was celebrating one of the darkest magicians ever to cast a spell.

  And perhaps, Banner was amused by the irony, the greatest trick Old Bill pulled was to conceal his occult status and hold civilisation in thrall with the fruits of his day job for four hundred years.

  The girl - Nicky - returned with a set of keys on coloured fobs. She was nervous, sorting through for the key to fit the appropriate cabinet. She turned it in the lock of a set of long, shallow drawers, and then looked over her shoulder at the old man. “Oops; almost forgot. “ She straightened up and held out a pair of cotton gloves. “Better put these on, although I’d rather you didn’t handle the object at all really.”

  “Anything you say, my dear.” The being felt his mouth dry out. He bit his lip, feeling the cracked skin with his tongue. Get a move on, girl, before I turn to dust!

  Nicky eased the drawer along its runners. A gasp escaped her. The old man peered over her shoulder to see what was causing such alarm.

  The drawer was empty.