Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls

18

Dr Vincent Trillby was a deviation from the norm.

A scientist from the future, possessed by demons and now playing guru to a time-travelling fanboy who took orders from The Voice of God. Not your everyday man on the Brentford omnibus.

A question that might be asked, and not without good cause, is this: If Wingarde took his orders from The Voice of God, why then would he need a guru?

Good question.

And one deserving of an answer.

It is a well-known Holmesian adage that, once you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, no matter how unlikely it might appear, must be the truth.

So let us, as would Holmes, apply the science of deduction to this problem. And then, having solved it, we will plunge headlong into all the ensuing chaos and action, at least secure in the knowledge that we actually know what the bleeding hell is going on.

So.

Let us first consider Wingarde. He has shot dead his many-times-great grandfather. Surely, then, he himself would cease to exist? He would never have been born. But here Wingarde is. Large as life and very much more powerful. How?

All right. Consider this. What if Wingarde, although a Pooley by name, is not actually a real Pooley? Which is to say, what if Wingarde Pooley Snr is not the biological father of Wingarde Pooley Jnr? What if Wingarde’s mother had been having an affair and had got herself pregnant?

These things happen. It’s something to do with single men not washing their dishes, and a full explanation can be found on pages 25 and 26 of this book.

So, if this is the case, and let us assume that it is (because it is!), who might Wingarde’s real father be?

Well, obviously someone his mother found very attractive. Someone glamorous, perhaps. Someone powerful. Because power is a great aphrodisiac.

How about someone really powerful? How about the director of the Institute? How about Dr Vincent Trillby!

All right, let’s try that one on for size. Does it fit? It does. And it would explain what Dr Vincent Trillby is doing in the twentieth century. Searching for his wayward boy.

It makes perfect sense. And as perfect sense is much better than no sense whatsoever, we will stick with it as an answer.

But what about those demons? And what about The Voice?

Are these connected? Well, yes and no.

Firstly, then, the demons.

Picture this scenario.

Amidst all the chaos at Institute Tower, the various Trippers coming and going and hitting each other, Dr Vincent Trillby’s mobile phone rings. Dr Trillby answers it. “Trillby speaking,” he says.

“It’s Marge,” says Marge, in tears (for Marge is Wingarde’s mum).

“Whatever is it, Marge, my dear?” asks Dr Trillby, dodging Tripper number eight. “You sound upset.”

“It’s our darling boy,” weeps Marge. “Our darling Wingarde. He’s gone. He’s run away.”

“Now calm yourself, Marge. He’s run off before. I’m sure he’ll come back. Don’t worry.”

“It’s easy for you to say don’t worry. No one knows you’re his real father. He doesn’t know. My husband doesn’t know—”

“Yes, yes,” says Dr Trillby. “Let’s not start all that again. Have you any idea where he’s gone? Did he leave you a voicemail or anything?”

“Yes,” blubbers Marge, and she plays the voicemail down the phone.

The voice of Wingarde says, “Right! By the time you get this message I’ll be gone. I’m sick of living in this stinking century with THE END on its way and everything. So I’m off. I’m getting out. I’m going back to a decent period to—”

“—see some decent bands,” says another voice (the voice of Geraldo).

“Yeah, to see some decent bands. Like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Sonic Energy Authority and the Lost T-Shirts of Atlantis and—”

“—Gandhi’s Hairdryer,” says the voice of Geraldo.

“Yeah, we’ll see them too. So goodbye, Mother. Goodbye, Father. Goodbye.”

And click goes the voicemail and that is that.

“He’s gone mad!” cries the voice of Wingarde’s mum. “What shall we do, Vincent? What shall we do?”

Dr Vincent Trillby sighs yet another sigh. He’d hoped that he’d done with sighing, but with all the Trippers and now this … He grabs the nearest Tripper by the throat. “Download the time travel program into my lifespan chronometer and do it right now,” says he. “I’ve got to find my son.”

So far, so good. This all follows neatly. But what about those demons?

Right. So Tripper, much against his will, downloads the time travel program from his lifespan chronometer into Dr Trillby’s. But then Dr Trillby is faced with a problem. Where and when is Wingarde? Dr Trillby can date the Beatles to the latter part of the twentieth century. But that’s not enough. He’ll need to be a bit more accurate than that. So Dr Trillby does what anyone would do in such circumstances. He hooks into PORKIE. That’s SWINE, if you recall. The Single World Interfaced Network Engine. Sum of all human knowledge. Knower of all that there is to know.

Tiny letters move across the screen of Dr Trillby’s lifespan chronometer. They spell out the words WE THANK YOU FOR CALLING SWINE, BUT REGRET THAT ALL INFORMATION IS NOW CLASSIFIED. SWINE IS NOW OFF-LINE AND HAS GONE ON HOLIDAY. GOODBYE.

Dr Trillby panics and, his heart now ruling his head, programmes a random latter-part-of-the-twentieth-century date into his chronometer and then wham bam, thank you, ma’m, he’s off.

Out of the future and back to the past.

And right into very big trouble.

For Dr Trillby is not as other men. Dr Trillby is a deviation from the norm. Particularly because Dr Trillby was not actually born. Dr Trillby was cloned, and a man who is cloned may look like a man, but he doesn’t possess a soul. You can clone the man but you can’t done the soul. And so what do you think would happen to a man without a soul who suddenly appeared in the twentieth century?

Another good question.

And one deserving of an answer.

Such a man without a soul would instantly fall prey to demonic entities. For it is only the presence of our souls that keeps the buggers out.

So, here we have a man without a soul, possessed by demons, searching the latter part of the twentieth century for his son. And here we have his son, driven by The Voice, screwing up the latter part of the twentieth century and creating a situation ideal for demonic agencies to seize control of society. The creation of a single mega-organization running damn near everything.

That is fertile soil for Old Nick and his chums.

That is Virgin territory!

And it certainly would not have happened if the great and Godlike Richard Branson had still been at the helm.

Would it? No, of course it wouldn’t. Are we agreed?

Yes, we are. It all makes perfect sense. It is all as clear as an author’s conscience.

Three questions only remain to be answered and then all the pieces will fit:

What about The Voice?

How come Wingarde is now running Virgin?

And how come Dr Trillby is posing as his guru?

Again, good questions. So let us apply the science of deduction to them and get ourselves back to the action.

It is certainly not hard to see how, guided by The Voice and considering all he has so far achieved, Wingarde could easily have taken over Virgin. And we can accept that Dr Trillby set himself up as editor of the Brentford Mercury in a historically changing world as a means of tracking down his son. Information Superhighway stuff, data access, all that kind of caper. And we can accept that it was some time after Jim’s murder that Wingarde took over Virgin. By which time Virgin had already bought out the Brentford Mercury.

A continuation of deductive reasoning puts forth this simple proposition. A new head of Virgin, recognized by Dr Trillby. He has found his wandering son. His wish is to drag him back into the future. But he cannot, because Soap Distant has his personal lifespan chronometer. He wants it back, so he puts out the wanted posters and waits for Soap to reappear. And while he’s waiting he wants to keep close to his son. So he approaches him, chats with him, and as he knows everything about Wingarde it is not difficult for him to convince the lad that he is little less than a guru.

But but but but but but! I hear you say. What about The Voice? If this is The Voice of God in Wingarde’s head, The Voice of God will know.

So, what about The Voice?

Good question.

Very good question.

Very good question indeed.

Acupuncture, absent healing, alchemy and eyeless sight,

Ectoplasm, elementals, OTO and inner light.

ESP and elongation, healing currents, Eckanar,

Flying saucers, flat Earth theories, Order of the Silver Star.

(And that ain’t the sheriff)

Ghosts and temples, Gnosticism, Glastonbury Zodiac,

Mysteries and Meher Baba, magnetism, men in black.

Apparitions, astral bodies, amulets, astrology,

Gerald Gardner, Alex Sanders, Anton L. and Mr C.

(Mr Crowley, that is. The man was a beast)

Loch Ness monster, Hatha yogi, levitation, hollow Earth,

Hexagrams and Kirlian photos, Lobsang Rampa, Patience Worth.

Hare Krishna, Krishnamurti, zelator and neophyte,

Karma karma, Dalai Lama, Church of Satan, Church of Light.

(I Ching. You Ching. We all Ching together)

Avatars and bilocation, Book of Shadows, Book of Thoth,

Doubles, dowsing, dreams and Druids, visions of the Holy Ghost.

Precognition, Vril and Voodoo, succubi and the Golden Dawn,

I’m getting sick of all this hoodoo. I think I’ll go and mow the lawn.

Yee hah.

We gone.