Evil Machines Read online

  At the same time, fifty armed officers burst into the shop, spraying bullets at the ceiling. They pounced on Mrs Morris, handcuffed her, put a bag over her head and bundled her into the back of a van.

  ***

  The story was, indeed, all over the press some weeks later, but I’m afraid neither Constable Robinson nor the superintendent got their promotion. The case was thrown out of court on the grounds that the Truthful Phone was not a reliable witness.

  In his summing up the judge said, ‘Since Mrs Morris only purchased the phone that morning, it could not have been a witness to the events it described. It was simply spreading malicious gossip.’

  As for Mrs Morris, she successfully sued the police for wrongful arrest and, with the £84 she received in compensation, she was able to buy a very nice telephone. It was red, and it said exactly what anyone who used it said and nothing else.

  The Truthful Phone itself disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The police claimed it had escaped from custody when they proposed charging it under the defamation laws. But there were rumours circulating that the superintendent had paid one of his friends to tie it to a lump of concrete and drop it off Westminster Bridge.

  Whatever happened to it, everyone agreed that they were well rid of such an evil contraption.

  But all the same, Mrs Morris felt she’d been lucky; as she said to her friend Mabel, ‘Goodness knows what would have happened if that switch had been pointing to “True”!’

  The Nice Bomb

  The bomb landed in the middle of the Johnson family’s living room during supper.

  ‘Well, you’re very lucky!’ said the bomb. ‘Normally my make and model goes off 100 per cent of the time. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Mr Johnson, who to tell the truth was still more than a little shaken by a bomb dropping through the ceiling into the family living room.

  So the Nice Bomb picked itself up and bustled round making tea for the Johnson family. Meanwhile the Johnsons turned on the telly and watched the news, which was all about how bombs had been dropping all around London. Apparently a little-known terrorist group was dropping them as a protest against the inefficiencies in the postal system.

  The news reporter was interviewing a masked man who said, ‘A second-class letter can take up to a week to arrive and even first-class letters have no guarantee of arriving the

  next day! This is something that we in MADIPOS will not stand for!’

  ‘MADIPOS?’ asked the Interviewer.

  ‘Movement Against Deficiencies in the Postal Service’ said the masked Terrorist.

  The Johnson family were all nodding in agreement with the Terrorist, when the Nice Bomb brought in the tea.

  ‘I’ve buttered some scones as well. You all look as if you’ve had a bit of a shock.’

  ‘Well, yes, we have,’ said Mrs Johnson. ‘It isn’t every day a bomb lands in your family living room.’

  ‘But I must say, for a bomb, you are very pleasant,’ said Mr Johnson.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the Nice Bomb. ‘I like you too.’ And it settled itself back on the sofa.

  They all watched television for the rest of the evening. There was a quiz show during which the Nice Bomb guessed all the right answers long before any of the contestants.

  ‘How do you know all that stuff?’ asked Kevin, Mr and Mrs Johnson’s son.

  ‘I’m what they call a “Smart Bomb”,’ said the bomb.

  ‘You could be on the show!’ said Loretta, Mr and Mrs Johnson’s daughter.

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t!’ replied the Nice Bomb. ‘I’m only a bomb, don’t forget.’

  ‘But you are a very nice bomb,’ said Mrs Johnson.

  ‘Unfortunately, I think you’ll find that, according to The Quiz Show Rule Book, bombs aren’t eligible to participate in TV game shows,’ replied the Nice Bomb. And it was right.

  ***

  The next day, the Nice Bomb helped Mrs Johnson get the children off to school.

  ‘It must be very exhausting for you – doing all this work day in day out,’ said the Nice Bomb to Mrs Johnson. ‘I could take a load of it off your hands.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Mrs Johnson, as the Nice Bomb loaded the dishwasher, hung the clothes out to dry, and spring-cleaned the entire house.

  ‘But don’t tire yourself out, my dear,’ added Mrs Johnson, as she drank her twelfth cup of tea while flipping through magazines on the sofa.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about me,’ said the Nice Bomb cheerily. ‘Us bombs have no concept of tiredness.’

  When the children came home from school, the Nice Bomb made them a snack and then supervised their homework.

  When Mr Johnson came in from work, the Nice Bomb cooked a particularly tasty supper of chicken in tomatoes and chilli.

  ‘You may be only a bomb,’ said Mr Johnson, ‘but you can’t half cook!’

  ‘And it’s finished off my knitting for me,’ said Mrs Johnson, holding up a beautiful Fair Isle sweater that the bomb had created that afternoon out of a rather pedestrian pattern that Mrs Johnson had been working on for months.

  ‘You’re a very nice bomb,’ said Mr Johnson.

  eee

  But the next day there was bad news. Mr Johnson came home from work and said that another group of terrorists had blown up the factory where he worked.

  ‘They were protesting against the parking restrictions,’ he said regretfully. ‘And while I thoroughly agree with them about relaxing the waiting and loading regulations in Casper Street, it does mean I don’t have any work and will not be able to buy any Christmas presents this year.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ said the Nice Bomb, when it heard all this. ‘Perhaps I can help. I may be only a bomb, but I’m very good at fixing computers.’

  So the Nice Bomb, in addition to doing all the housework, and feeding the children and supervising their homework, started an Internet business repairing computers.

  Every day more and more computers arrived to be repaired, and the bomb was able to fix them in no time at all – in between rearranging the living room and bleaching the bed-sheets.

  To begin with, Mr Johnson used to get up early and set off to look for a new job.

  ‘As soon as I find a new job, you can relax,’ he said to the Nice Bomb.

  ‘Oh! That’s all right!’ replied the Nice Bomb. ‘Us bombs don’t know the meaning of the word relaxation!’ And it cleaned the oven, washed all the windows and made a soufflé for supper, while at the same time mending a dozen more computers in its spare moments.

  As the weeks went by, however, Mr Johnson started going out later and later to look for work, while the Nice Bomb’s computer business went on from strength to strength, and the money poured in.

  ‘I’d give you a hand,’ said Mr Johnson, ‘only I don’t know the first thing about computers.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said the Nice Bomb. ‘Us bombs don’t mind a bit of hard work!’

  So Mr Johnson joined Mrs Johnson, sitting on the couch and leafing through magazines all day, while the Nice Bomb scuttled around the house, darning, sewing, dusting, cleaning, and mending the furniture – all the while fixing broken computers, digging the garden, washing up, shopping and doing a spot of ironing.

  ‘You be careful you don’t overdo it, my dear!’ shouted Mrs Johnson from the couch.

  ‘Ooh! Don’t worry about me!’ the Nice Bomb called back. ‘I’m only a bomb, I can’t overdo anything.’ And it finished washing the car, gave it a quick wax, repainted the outside of the house and built an extension to the garage.

  The children, Kevin and Loretta, grew very fond of the Nice Bomb. It helped them so much with their homework that they started getting better marks at school. They became punctual and even started to enjoy school more than they had done, thanks mostly to the Nice Bomb.

  When Christmas came, the bomb worked twice as hard. It earned enough money to be able to buy everyone presents. It put up the decorations, and made the
Christmas pudding. It cooked Christmas dinner single-handedly, and arranged the table with red flowers and white snowdrops and candles. It was the most elegant Christmas dinner the Johnson family had ever had.

  Two aunts and an uncle came to Christmas dinner, and were surprised to be greeted at the door by such a polite bomb in evening dress and white gloves, who took their coats from them and then poured them a sweet sherry.

  ‘That seems a very nice bomb, you’ve got there,’ remarked Aunt Justine.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said Mrs Johnson. ‘It’s a very nice bomb indeed.’

  The Nice Bomb provided some fine wine to have with the goose, and then dessert wine to drink with the Christmas pudding.

  During the brandy and cigars, Mr Johnson got up and called for silence.

  ‘My dear friends,’ he said. ‘This is the best Christmas any of us have experienced for many, many years. We have enjoyed not just the grandest spread and the best wines we have ever tasted, but we have also had such fun. We have played the most hilarious games and received such lovely presents. We have never had a dull moment. Not just that, but as I look round this table now, I cannot remember having seen such harmony and happiness in this or any other family.

  ‘And we owe all this to one person . . .’ And here Mr Johnson turned to the Nice Bomb, who was just serving out some more brandy from the decanter.

  The Nice Bomb looked down at the floor in embarrassment and said: ‘Please! Please! Remember I’m not a person – I’m just a bomb . . .’

  ‘But we owe so much to you . . . our dear friend . . . who has rescued us from the brink and provided for us and brought us so much happiness.’

  ‘Yes! Yes!’ said everybody, as they raised their glasses in a toast to the Nice Bomb.

  ‘Speech!’ they shouted. ‘Speech!’

  So the Nice Bomb stood up and said: ‘I’m sorry, everyone . . . I truly am . . .’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ asked Mrs Johnson. ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry about . . . You’ve done so much for us . . .’

  And that was the moment when the Nice Bomb exploded. For no matter how much it tried to be nice, it was – after all – just a bomb, and bombs are, I’m afraid, by their nature, evil things.

  The Lift That Took People to Places They Didn’t Want to Go

  When it had been first installed the elevator seemed to function perfectly well. When customers pressed the button to go to the Third Floor (Ladies Clothing, Shoes, Fashion Accessories and Books), it stopped at the Third Floor. When customers pressed the button for the Fifth Floor (Television and Hi-fi, Computers, Electrical Goods and Accounts), it stopped at the Fifth Floor.

  But then something seemed to go wrong.

  To begin with it was only little things. A customer would tell it to go to the Ground Floor (Cosmetics, Handbags, Luggage, Stationery and Exit), and the elevator would take them to the Fourth Floor (Furniture).

  The elevator repairmen were sent for. They readjusted the control mechanism, and things seemed to go back to normal.

  But then one day it started to go badly wrong.

  The head of the department store, whose name was Montague Du Cann, went into the lift with a Health and

  Safety inspector, and pressed the button for the Sixth Floor, which was where the offices were situated, but instead of going up to Six, the lift went down to the Second Basement.

  Montague Du Cann and the Health and Safety inspector walked out of the lift and into the ruck of exposed electrical cables, half-open bins of dangerous cleaning materials, crates of rotting sausages from the Food Hall, blocked exits and so many infringements of the Health and Safety Regulations that the inspector thought his birthday had arrived a day early! (He was going to be forty-seven).

  ‘I’m afraid I will have to take note of all these things,’ he told Montague Du Cann, who had hoped to be able to keep the Health and Safety inspector on the Sixth Floor while someone went down and cleared up the Second Basement.

  The thought crossed Montague Du Cann’s mind that the lift had taken them to the Second Basement deliberately and maliciously. But, of course, he dismissed the idea at once. After all, in his long experience as a Department Store Executive, he had never once come across an elevator acting of its own free will.

  Some days later, however, he had cause to rethink his opinion.

  Montague Du Cann had an aunt, whose name was Leanora Du Cann. She got into the elevator and pressed the button for the Sixth Floor, where she was to meet her nephew Montague. The lift, however, took her straight to the Third Floor (Ladies Clothing, Shoes, Fashion Accessories and Books).

  ‘Oh dear!’ said Leanora Du Cann, and she pressed the button for the Sixth Floor again, but the lift refused to

  move. Then she tried the ‘Close Doors’ button. But the lift wouldn’t close its doors either.

  ‘It’s stuck,’ said Leanora Du Cann to some customers who got into the elevator while she was pressing the buttons.

  ‘We’d better walk then,’ said the other customers.

  And that is what Leanora knew she had to do.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Leanora again, only this time more quietly.

  She stepped cautiously out into the Ladies Clothing Department. The stairs were situated further down the store to the right, through the Shoe Department. Leanora felt her knees go slightly wobbly. She took a deep breath, firmly zipped up the large empty bag she was carrying, and walked towards the shoes.

  The moment she started to move away from the elevator, the elevator gave a sort of snort – or perhaps it was a snigger – then it closed its doors and went back down to the Ground Floor. Leanora froze in her tracks. Then she slowly turned and stared at the lift, for a strange feeling had crawled up her spine. It was a very strange feeling indeed . . . the feeling of having just brushed past something nasty . . . something quite, quite malignant and deeply, deeply evil.

  Of course, she had no idea where the feeling had come from, but all the same nothing would have persuaded her to return to that elevator and try it again.

  So she set off once again across the Ladies Clothing Department, and pretty soon she found herself in among the shoes.

  She stopped at a pair of sling-backs in patent leather. They weren’t quite her size, but she looked around the

  store briefly, unzipped her big empty bag and dropped the shoes into it. Then she wandered towards the casual footwear section. A pair of espadrilles caught her eye. They were bright blue and had a white edging round the sole. Once again she glanced quickly round and then dropped the espadrilles into her bag.

  A little further on, she popped a pair of stiletto heels with ankle straps into her bag, then some ballet shoes, and she was just stuffing some expensive thigh-length boots in when all the alarm bells in the store started ringing, and a store detective put a hand on her shoulder and said, ‘Got you!’

  When Leanora finally appeared in her nephew’s office, she was accompanied by the store detective.

  ‘This lady says she’s your aunt, sir,’ said the store detective – clearly not believing a word of it.

  ‘Aunt Leanora!’ exclaimed Montague Du Cann. ‘You haven’t been shoplifting again, have you?’

  Aunt Leanora hung her head.

  ‘Caught her red-handed,’ mumbled the store detective, who was now beginning to feel he was in the wrong place.

  ‘I’ve told you time and time again never to go through the Shoe Department!’ exclaimed Montague Du Cann.

  The truth is that Aunt Leanora had suffered for some time from kleptomania, which meant she couldn’t stop herself stealing things – to be specific, shoes. I suppose you could say she was lucky she didn’t need to steal anything other than shoes, but she stole shoes whenever she saw them. She just couldn’t help it: brown shoes, black shoes, casual shoes, formal shoes, dancing pumps and fashion boots, slippers,

  slip-ons, high heels, low heels, flip-flops, sandals and wellingtons . . . and it didn’t matter whether they fitted her or not! She simply coul
d not stop herself stealing anything in the Shoe Department.

  ‘I know! I know!’ sighed Leanora. ‘I pressed the button to come straight up to the Sixth Floor, but the lift took me to the Shoe Department and then wouldn’t budge!’

  Her nephew narrowed his eyes. ‘That lift?! No . . . it couldn’t be . . .’ he murmured, for he simply couldn’t get rid of the suspicion that somehow – just maybe – the elevator was doing all this deliberately.

  For a moment, a clammy feeling stole across Montague Du Cann’s chest . . . In fact it was the same feeling that his aunt had experienced earlier, though, of course, he wasn’t to know that. It was a feeling of being close to something truly evil.

  And that was when things began to get really weird – really, seriously and dangerously weird.

  ***

  Montague Du Cann had not always been a department store executive. In an earlier part of his life he had been a bandit. His name had then been Juan Gonzales, and he was the boldest and most desperate bandit in the whole of New Mexico.

  He had gone to the bad down in old Silver City, and his gang was called the Dos Hombres Gang – which means the Two Men Gang, although in fact there were four of them.

  They robbed the bank in Española, and then fled across the Rio Grande to Santa Fe. But in Santa Fe the most

  junior member of the gang, who was known as The Kid, but whose name was actually Antonio Gabriel Bernardino Martinez, got drunk and started bragging about what they had done.

  Someone informed the local sheriff, and the sheriff, along with twenty armed policemen, had surrounded the lodging house, where the Dos Hombres Gang was hiding out.

  ‘Juan Gonzales!’ called out the sheriff through a megaphone. ‘We know it was you robbed the bank in Española. Come out with your hands up or we’ll shoot you down like a dog!’

  It was at this moment that Juan Gonzales conceived the idea that life as a department store executive in England might be preferable to the life of a desperate bandit in New Mexico. So he said to the rest of the gang:

  ‘Keep ’em occupied. I’m gonna get help.’

  ‘Right!’ said Fernando Emmanuel, the second-in-command, and he started firing at the policemen standing in front of the lodging house. The other two desperate bandits joined in and soon the rest of the policemen came from round the back to join in the shoot-out.