ARMITAGE, hurrying back to the Big Top for the grand finale, sensed immediately that something was up. His lorry – his baby, his best friend, his pride and joy – had moved! Nobody, but nobody, drove that truck except him. Just the thought of anyone else sitting in that seat operating those controls made his eyes squint, his toes squabble, his heart squerch, his liver squeak, his kidneys squelch and his intestines squit. He did not let other people drive his truck. Not ever. Never.
All successful criminals are both reckless and cautious. Despite the symphony of squiffy sensations rampaging through his body, Armitage sensed this was a moment for caution. If there were police around, he had to make sure he didn’t bump into them, dressed in his burglarising costume, while carrying the contents of a post office safe. You don’t need a law degree to understand why this would be a bad idea.34
He dodged into a nearby thicket. In amongst a tangle of branches he located the leafiest bush and stashed the bag of swag. Lifting up armfuls of dead leaves and tossing them over the swag bag, he quickly managed to conceal the hiding place. He’d be able to come back for it as soon as the coast was clear. Nobody would find the bag here unless they were looking for it, and the only person who’d come to look for it would be Armitage.
He looked in all directions before nipping out onto the path and rushing back towards his caravan in time for the final costume change. Due to the thicket detour, he was running late . . .
. . . but not too late, and Armitage made it into the ring at exactly the second the spotlight span towards him. His cuffs weren’t done up, and he hadn’t had time to zip his fly, but he was reasonably confident that no one would notice.
He grinned at the audience, all the more grinnily for knowing that he had successfully robbed them. The evening had gone superbly, apart from the one strange fact of that re-parked lorry. Yes, in all the scramble to get ready for his final entry, he still hadn’t had time to investigate. His criminal nose had given him the feeling that there weren’t any police snooping around, but he had not yet accounted for the mysterious truck move. This was a puzzle, a puzzle that distracted him slightly during his closing speech. Such was his skill at audience manipulation, however, that even when carried off at only 90% brilliance, it was still rousing enough to generate two standing ovations, three encores and a woken-up granny.
Granny stared at the empty seat next to her, in disbelief. Hannah was a responsible girl. She didn’t just run off. But she had just run off. She wasn’t there. As the audience around her whooped and clapped, then slowly began to drift out of the auditorium, Granny stood in front of her seat, turning round and round, calling her granddaughter’s name with increasing fear and desperation.
Then, through the canvas side of the tent, she heard a voice that she knew was Hannah’s calling out one very clear word): ‘GO!’
The side of the lorry clanged downwards. The audience, now streaming past on their way home, froze. They couldn’t believe their eyes. Inside the lorry was an enormous mound of stuff – valuable stuff – TVs, laptops, jewellery, DVD players, gadgets, gizmos and gee-gaws. Not just any old valuable stuff, either, but their valuable stuff. And also several tins of sardines.
Baffled at first into silence, then with noises of surprise, protest and outrage, the audience gathered round the truck staring in horror at the possessions that had been stolen from their houses while they were watching the show.
‘It’s all yours!’ Billy called to them from the top of the lorry.
‘Take it home again!’ said Hannah.
Armitage, who was back in his caravan, applying a layer of make-up remover, sensed that something was up. He knew well the sound of a satisfied audience trundling contentedly home, and this wasn’t it. This was something else. He looked out of the window and saw . . . the worst thing he had ever seen in his entire life.
He darted out, towelling off the thick white cream as he sprinted towards the commotion. Avoiding the audience, he ran in a wide arc to the back of the lorry and scurried up the ladder onto the roof.
A chill swept over Billy and Hannah when they saw the look on Armitage’s face as he appeared on top of the truck. Never had either of them seen an expression of such pure, intense, terrifying fury.
‘I’m going to deal with you two later,’ he hissed, fixing them each, in turn, with a stare so poisonous it was almost enough to turn the blood in their veins into a bleach and weed-killer smoothie. But only a moment after looking as if he would never smile again, Armitage strode to the edge of the lorry roof, faced the crowd below and, with enormous effort, as if his cheek muscles were in the final round of a weightlifting contest, he smiled. Not a happy smile, nor an obviously fake smile, but a smile with a hint of cringe, a smattering of apology and a sprinkling of fear.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he announced, in a thinner, less booming voice than usual. ‘Allow me to explain—’
At this point, a chorus of outrage flew up at him:
‘People, people, people, please calm down,’ said Armitage, patting the air in front of him as if it contained an invisible over-excited dog.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, simmer down, I beg of you. Please. All I ask is that you listen to me for one minute.’
‘I HAVE ONE QUESTION!’ boomed Armitage, in a voice loud enough to momentarily quieten the angry crowd. ‘Just one question. Have any of you read the words on your ticket, or on the side of my truck? Have any of you noticed the name of this circus?’
‘THE NAME, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IS SHANK’S IMPOSSIBLE CIRCUS. And so far tonight, you have seen many things that are wonderful, beautiful, awe-inspiring, improbable, extraordinary and exquisite, but until now, have you seen anything impossible? Have you?’
‘You are right, ladies and gentlemen, to feel cheated and angry. Because you bought tickets to a show that promised to achieve the impossible and until now, until this very moment, I have failed you. If you were all standing there, shouting up at me, demanding your money back, I would quite understand. For you have seen nothing impossible. Until now. Until you looked into this lorry under my feet.’
Armitage darted out a long, long finger at the end of a long, long arm and pointed down at the woman who had asked that last question. ‘You, madam,’ he barked, ‘are an extremely savvy lady, alert to wildest possibilities of the dramatist’s art. The rest of you, frankly, are more than a little behind.’
‘I promised you the impossible, ladies and gentlemen, and here it is! Right in front of you!’
‘Your possessions, ladies and gentlemen. Transported here, through what means I cannot reveal, but as a service to your good selves, to remind you that there are bad people about, and that your homes should be kept secure. For we at Circus Impossible think of ourselves not just as entertainers, but as public service educators, working closely with Her Majesty’s police force to remind you, through the wonder of live performance, that nothing is more important than home security.’
‘Think of it not just as an illusion to end all illusions, not just as the impossible made possible, but as a lesson to end all lessons. Goodnight, ladies and gentlemen. Help yourself to whatever is yours. And stay safe.’
With that, Armitage took a low, deep bow. There was a tense, sceptical silence, then one single clap at the back of the crowd, followed by another and another, until something resembling a modest round of applause trickled upwards through the air.
Armitage swivelled on his heel and turned towards Billy. ‘You,’ he said, ‘are in big, big trouble. And you . . .’ but when he spun in the other direction to address Hannah, all he saw was a pair of fingertips disappearing over the edge of the lorry, on the way down the ladder.
Armitage darted after her, jerking his body down the slippery rungs, jumping to the ground, and setting off at a run. It was not a very successful run, however, since barely had he taken two steps when a stick was thrust between his legs, sending him crashing to the ground.
‘MY COSTUME!!’ he yelled, as he clambered back onto his feet. ‘THAT’S A GRASS STAIN!!’
The mysterious stick, Armitage now saw, was no ordinary stick. It was a walking stick, held in the grip of a very angry-looking granny. By her side was a sleek and intelligent-looking dog.
The stick-wielding granny was approximately half Armitage’s height, but the way she stared at him was quite terrifying. Had he been slightly less terrified, he would have complained to her that it was his job to go around giving people terrifying stares, but he was too terrified, even, for that.
‘YOU LEAVE HER ALONE!’ she bellowed.
Armitage didn’t answer, for obvious reasons. He was too terrified.
Granny then lowered her voice into a steely whisper that was even more frightening than her bellow. She leaned towards Armitage, fixed him with a mesmerising stare, and said, ‘I know who you are.’
‘P . . . p . . . pardon?’ he stammered.
‘I know who you are. I know exactly who you are.’
‘A . . . and . . . wh . . . who’s that?’
‘Hmmm. I’m not impressed, frankly. Not one little bit. Never was. Although you do sell excellent candy floss.’
‘Th . . . thank you.’
‘And let me tell you this, young man. You may get away this time, but it won’t be long, now, before you meet your doom.’
‘My doom?’
‘Your doooooooooooooooom.’
With those mysterious words, Granny turned and left, hobbling homewards through the crowd, the dog by her side. Armitage watched her go, transfixed by the way she moved. Despite the stick, despite the hobble, there was something graceful about her, something elegant and almost floaty, that did not look like the walk of a civilian.
By the time Armitage composed himself, the girl was long gone.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Billy attempting to sneak away. Keen to reassert his position as the Terrifying One, he extended an arm and grabbed Billy by the collar.
‘You get back here!’ he bellowed, in a voice he was ashamed to realise was an attempt to impersonate the Terrifying Granny. He coughed, trying to remember what his own voice sounded like, and said, ‘Who was that girl? The one who ran away?’
‘I . . . I don’t know,’ replied Billy. ‘I think she must work for the police. She stole the lorry. I tried to stop her.’
Armitage gave Billy his are-you-lying? stare, so Billy gave Armitage a what-do-you-mean-lying-I’m-just-an-innocent-boy-who-always-does-what-he’s-told blink. Armitage gave Billy a you’re-not-as-innocent-as-you-look gaze which Billy met with a but-why-on-earth-would-I-disobey-you-my-beloved-step-father? shrug.
‘The police don’t work like that,’ snapped Armitage, giving his chin a menacing stroke. ‘But I think I know who does.’ He glanced at the spot where Granny had been moments earlier.
‘Who?’
‘She duped you. She was an infiltrator!’
‘An infilwhator?’
‘An infiltrator! She was sent to sabotage us!’
‘Sabowhat us?’
‘She was a spy! A double agent! A mole! A rat!’
‘A mole and a rat?’
‘She was working for someone, and whoever sent her knew that you were our weak point.’
‘Sent? By who?’
‘You don’t get to my position in the entertainment industry without making a fair few enemies along the way. But I think I know whose fingerprints were on this one.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ll tell you another time. Right now we need to run for it.’
‘Am I still in trouble?’
‘Yes. Huge trouble. Enormous. I won’t say this again. No friends!’
‘Because they could be mole-rats?’
‘Exactly. Trust no one. Except me.’
‘Except you?’
‘Except me.’
That night, the circus packed up. They had two departure routines. The usual one, where they stayed the night and carefully stowed everything where it belonged the next morning, and the emergency one, where they just pulled everything down, chucked it into the trucks any old how, and scarpered before it was light. If ever there was an occasion for Plan B, this was it.
Armitage contemplated rushing back to the thicket and grabbing his bag, but considered it too risky. Someone investigating the post office break-in might still come after them, and he couldn’t risk being caught with the booty.
Besides, he was a master of disguise. He could bide his time, wait until the coast was clear, then slip back into town unnoticed and retrieve the loot. That would be by far the safer option. As he drove away, through the night, Armitage contemplated his costume choices for the task. Travelling folk singer? Traffic warden? Sailor? Chimney sweep? So many options …
But he had to do it soon. What with wages to pay, animals to feed, vats of baby oil to purchase and costumes to dry clean, there was not much margin for error in the finances of Shank’s Impossible Circus. He needed that money.
His only fear was that he might bump into the stick-wielding granny again. There was something about her that bothered him, and not just her terrifying stare, either. He could have sworn he knew her from somewhere.
But where?
Armitage usually never felt safer, calmer, more manly, than when at the enormous wheel of his enormous lorry, but tonight the soothing effect of motorised bigness wasn’t working. Ever since setting off, his pulse had been irregular, his breathing had been short, his palms clammy, and his underpants strangely uncomfortable. Why? Because like an endlessly tolling bell, one awful word had been going round and round and round and round his head That word was dooooooooooooom!