Victor nodded and scratched.
‘I know that both physically and mentally your father is no match for Vernon any more. He gave everything that he could for the benefit of you and this country. Vernon would do the same. I have to agree that something must be done, but I will fight to the end to see that our poor little son is not skewed.1 Where is my poor little boy now? Probably huddled in some dirty old barn crying for his Mummy, me …’ She wiped her eyes, although there were no tears as Vampires can’t and don’t cry. But at that particular moment she was a little confused.
‘I am against the killing of my son Vernon and that is final. Come, Victor, we will try and find our confused and bewildered boy who wouldn’t harm a fly.’
‘Mine dear, I’m agreeink with all you sayink, but can’t ve haff one little drink before ve go, ya?’
‘No, you can’t. You have just started your diet.’
* * *
The confused and bewildered little boy was hiding in the doorway of an unlit shop writing in a notebook. He wrote: ‘Igon first, Valentine second, King Victor third and Queen Valeeta fourth. All to be removed, but tortured first. Not necessarily in that order.’
The Inspector tries to clear up the case.
Vernon soon puts him in his place.
Special Prince Igon was on a business trip to Gertcha. Having concluded his business, which was getting Gertcha to buy nuts from Gotcha, he had booked his seat home on the new fancy stage-coach, the Gertcha-Gotcha Flyer. The coach, an eight-seater, pulled by the best six horses from both lands, was the very latest in style and had all the latest safety devices, including disc hooves on the back two horses.
Although the driver and his co-driver sat outside on top of the coach, they shared one enormous hat. It had two skull caps covered with one long piece of material, rather like a plank of wood with two inverted soup bowls. The idea was that it would keep the rain off both of them at the same time.
Inside the coach was a very pretty stewardess serving drinks and duty free tobacco. The trip itself was very quick considering the distance covered; over two hundred miles in just over ten and a half hours, twenty-four horses, a change of driver and co-driver, three stops and four different (but all very pretty) stewardesses, all of whom fell in love with Igon.
Igon sat by the window looking out into the darkness. He had bought his duty free drinks and tobacco, although he didn’t smoke or drink. He had bought them for the old folks’ home on the outskirts of Katchem. He felt sorry for the old folks and had taken them under his wing. He stared into the night, but his thoughts were on the rumours about Vernon and a storm.
‘Have you heard?’ said one passenger to another.
‘Heard what?’ the other passenger asked.
‘What happened in Katchem.’
‘No, what?’
‘They had a storm last night and the statue was blown down.’
Igon was only half listening to the conversation, as he was working out on his portable abacus how much money he had made for his country with his nut deal.
‘What statue?’ the second passenger asked.
‘Just a moment, are you a Gert or a Got?’ the first passenger asked.
‘I’m a Gert,’ the second passenger said with a certain pride.
‘Oh well, in that case you won’t understand,’ the first passenger said, as he continued to play with a multi-coloured cube, trying to get squares of the same colours on each side of the cube.
‘Why won’t I understand?’ asked the second passenger in a small hurt voice.
‘Because you are a Gert and not a Got. If you were a Got, you would understand about the statue.’
‘What should I know about it?’ the second passenger almost begged. ‘It might help me with my business deal in Gotcha.’
‘What business are you doing in Gotcha, then?’ asked the Got man.
‘I’m going there to sell nuts to the Gots,’ the second man said.
‘Why?’ asked the Got man.
‘Because they’ve sold all theirs.’
Igon had started to eavesdrop when he heard the words ‘nuts’ and ‘business’.
‘So please tell me about the statue that’s been blown down?’
‘Well, it’s called the Vernon statue,’ the Got man confided. ‘It was blown down in a storm last night and Vernon wasn’t in it.’ He looked at the Gert man through half a wink and then went back to his cube. The Gert man looked nonplussed.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t in it?’
‘I said you wouldn’t,’ replied the Got man.
‘Well, may I ask,’ the Gert man said, smiling sarcastically, ‘if, when you put up a statue of someone in Gotcha, do you always put him inside the statue?’
Igon tapped the Got man on the shoulder before he could answer, and asked, ‘Did you say the Vernon statue, the one in Katchem?’
‘Yes,’ the Got man nodded. ‘It blew down last night.’
‘And Vernon was in it?’
‘Are you a Got?’ asked the Got man.
‘Yes,’ replied Igon.
‘No, Vernon wasn’t in it.’
‘Not in it?’ said the incredulous Igon.
The Got man whispered loudly towards Igon, ‘They say he escaped and is after revenge.’ The Got man looked at Igon this time through two half-closed eyes while at the same time nodding slowly.
Meanwhile the Gert man, who had understood not one word of the conversation, thought he would change the subject by asking Igon, ‘What business are you in, young sir?’
‘Nuts,’ Igon replied and after that remark the conversation seemed to peter out.
Igon turned his head back to the window and looked out into the blackness. His eyes focused on the two eyes looking back at him from his own reflection. They were full of fear. As the coach moved along towards Gotcha he felt a shiver run through his body, but it wasn’t a shiver of cold. Igon was frightened, and he knew it. His thoughts were filled with Vernon.
* * *
A new chief inspector of police was brought in to take over the ‘Vernon Problem’ and to make sure that Vernon was caught and punished. His name was Chief Inspector Speekup. Unfortunately he was very deaf, a result of never having dried his ears properly after washing when he was a little boy. At the moment he was busy with the men in the Katchem Police Force, working out how to combat the Vernon Problem. Twenty tall candles had been lit in order, as the Inspector put it, to throw more light on the case. All leave had been cancelled. His team of eight