Extract from Chapter 17 of mystery-comedy novel, 'The Investigations of the Para-Usual':

‘So what is very para-usual about Two Swords?’ asked Woo, mispronouncing the waxworks founder’s name.

‘Tussauds,’ said Dr Pratt, pronouncing the name “Too-sor” in an exaggerated French accent, something approximating an Estuary Bordeaux.

‘You’re not French!’ rejoined Woo, testily.

‘Madame Tussaud’s museum would have been one of the first venues for public entertainment in Victorian England,’ ventured O’Singh, hopeful that a flashpoint had simmered down.

‘Indeed. People would come from all over London to see the waxworks of the French Revolutionaries,’ said Dr Pratt, unperturbed by Woo’s presumption over his national identity.

‘Like the nightclubs or discotheques – the modern entertainment spots – people would queue outside waiting to pay their admission.’

‘But, but, the difference is in the door policy – what the 19th Century doorman would allow to be brought into the premises.’

‘Allow us to demonstrate,’ offered O’Singh. ‘I will be a Victorian doorman new to the job. Dr Pratt, you can be the nightclub visitor, happens to be Madame Tussauds.’

O’Singh stood with his legs astride, rolled his shoulders and worked his jaws, pretending to chew gum, aloof to the approach of Dr Pratt’s madame.

‘Allow me please just to say at this juncture, that this is the very scene that I intended Dr Pratt to participate in using the mannequin head,’ qualified O’Singh, briefly stepping out of character.

Dr Pratt took his cue from O’Singh and approached as he had before. O’Singh’s doorman held out a hand and gestured for Dr Pratt’s Tussaud to stop and open up her imaginary bag.

‘“Uh, oh,” the bouncer thinks,’ said O’Singh, again withdrawing momentarily from his character. ‘Alarm bells go off in his head. Someone with a severed head in their bag. Looks like trouble.’

‘“Is this your head, madame?”’ asked O’Singh’s Victorian doorman, pretending to slowly lift one such body part from the bag.

‘Oui, oui, but er…,’ stammered Dr Pratt’s madame.

‘So our doorman turns to his superior, a senior doorman, who recognises Madame Tussaud,’ explained O’Singh, half-turning to assume the veteran’s guise, ‘and says: “She’s alright, mate”.’

‘He waves her on,’ interjected Dr Pratt, releasing himself from his waxy dame persona. ‘Permits madame entry.

‘Usually one would expect a person posing a security threat to be refused admission. But the para-usual situation here at Madame Tussauds was that the complete opposite was true – those deemed undesirable would have been welcomed in the 19th Century.’

Extract from Chapter 17 of mystery-comedy novel, 'The Investigations of the Para-Usual': 

‘You know one can be rather stung by the suggestion that one is less important than a common scientist, sir,’ sniffed Woo, in an injured tone as Higgins made his departure.

‘Spare me,’ said Cohen. ‘What’s your proposal?’

‘The traditional, sir!’ announced Woo, suddenly brightly, triumphantly, scrambling across the lab to reveal the operations board scrubbed clean and the operatives’ diagram replaced with the one word, ‘TRADITIONAL’.

‘I’m sorry, I….’

‘I offer you… I present to you, “The Investigations of the Traditional”, the “I-O-T”,’ said Woo, snatching the cap from his head to point out the letters on its peak. ‘This blasted obsession with discovering what is new, sir – the para-usual. I don’t care for new ideas. You know where you are with traditional things.’

‘Your point?’

‘We all know what we are talking about when we speak of the traditional. It provides an instant reference.’

‘Where am I? You’re losing me.’

‘Example. I hasten into a barber’s shop. I’m in a hurry. “Whadda would you like, sir?” the barber asks. He’s Italian by the way, from Italy, a traditional haircutting nation. “A traditional haircut,” I return.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Short back and sides,’ retorted Woo, attempting to conceal a sneer in his reply.

‘Again, with time at a premium, I bustle into a sandwich shop. “Yes, duckie?” the sandwich hand chirps. “What would you like?” “A traditional sandwich”, I reply. Automatically she knows.’

‘And what’s a traditional sandwich?’

‘Cheese and pickle.’

‘I see.’

‘I may speak of a “traditional tree”. Again my audience recognises that as the oak.’

‘Right. And where is this going?’

‘I research and document here, in this fine centre of research, all that is traditional. Construct a compendium of my discoveries. Think how economic our daily communication could be if we standardised what is traditional.’

‘Right. Allow me to try this out. By your logic, what is, let us say, a traditional dinner?’

‘Bangers and mash,’ replied Woo, directly.

‘Could be fish and chips, though,’ countered Cohen.

‘Well, yes there could be one or two alternative traditional dinners in total,’ stammered Woo.

‘Traditional pet?’

‘Ah, well that’s rather easy. The dog. A traditional dog being the Golden Labrador.’

‘Or the Black Labrador. Or the traditional pet could be a cat. Which do we understand each other by?’

‘Well, I… It’s quite simple,’ faltered Woo, quickly finding his theory on stony ground.

‘Is this what you have for me?’ thundered Cohen, rising with indignation. He tore at the air in frustration, swung around and without further ceremony made directly for the door.

‘But…’ called Woo, catching up with Cohen in the corridor. ‘The Investigations of the Traditional is much better than The Investigations of the Para-Usual. It is, it is, it is,’ blubbed Woo, crying crocodile tears.

 Extract from Chapter 14 of mystery-comedy novel, 'The Investigations of the Para-Usual':

The Minister of State at the Department of Energy, Climate Change and Green Stuff, Mohammed Cohen, surveyed London from the bulbous hill in Greenwich Park under the shadow of the Royal Observatory. The heat was up. London shimmered in full panoramic view.

‘Lovely day!’ Up the incline came the day-appreciator, Woo, picking his way with the aid of a wooden cane. ‘A traditional summer’s day – blue skies, sunshine, tinkling ice cream vans.’

‘I need a thinktank!’ said Cohen, cutting off at the first available opportunity the possibility of any small talk with the Head of the IPU.

‘A think tank, sir?’ wheezed Woo, breaking the modern buzzword in two. ‘A reservoir of thought, eh? I shall be gladdened to advise.’

‘Uh!’ spluttered Cohen, rolling his eyes. ‘I need the kind of scientific analysis the operatives bring.’

‘I could do science, sir – pfffffffffffffffffffflt!’ interjected Woo, indignantly. ‘That’s my ringtone, sir. Excuse me.’

Woo whipped out his mobile phone and made an act of listening intently to some pressing communication. Meantime, he could not help but betray with a slightly crestfallen expression that his flatulence alibi had deprived him of driving home his rebuttal.

‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’ he harrumphed down the phone and feigned terminating the call. ‘Excuse me. A sales call,’ explained Woo, lamely, pocketing his phone.

Muy muchos gracias to Sarah a Corbett for pre-ordering a copy of the book. Sarah believes that power surges will be less of a problem using tidal energy, if TV broadcasters could synch football match half-times, when everyone sticks the kettle on, with a high tide.  

Extract from Chapter 13 of mystery-comedy novel, 'The Investigations of the Para-Usual':

Dr Pratt cast a fretful look at his watch, then jumped as the latch flipped and the door of the cab sprung open. Professor O’Singh’s head appeared and loomed grotesquely as he struggled to squeeze his shoulders through the opening. His face was fully made up. Lips painted, cheeks rouged, eyelashes plumped and curled.

‘You!’ exclaimed Dr Pratt, arm raised in the manner of somebody warning a bomb disposal expert of making a false move.

‘Sorry, so sorry to keep you waiting,’ wheezed O’Singh, flumping onto the back seat opposite Dr Pratt, setting the whole vehicle asway.

‘You have the head of a lady!’ blathered Dr Pratt, at last able to verbalise what he was seeing. He, at the same time leant forward to cup O’Singh’s head in his hands, a convenient visual to aid the hard-of-understanding.

‘But which lady?’ returned O’Singh, enigmatically, jamming his knees around a department store carrier bag he was attempting to conceal.

The cab engine started with a splutter.

O’Singh caught his breath and saw that Dr Pratt was still staring, transfixed.

‘I confess, I have been so tired of late,’ offered O’Singh in apology.

‘Oh,’ ventured Dr Pratt, curious how O’Singh’s sudden bout of transvestism could be brought on by fatigue.

‘This is more activity than I have enjoyed for a very long time. I fell asleep in there…’ explained O’Singh, nodding his painted head in the direction of the hulking department store whose side entrance he had just emerged from. ‘I was negotiating my through the Cosmetics Department and I just had to sit down. I found a stool. The next thing I knew I had awoke wearing the full range from Clinique.’

Extract from Chapter 12 of mystery-comedy novel, 'The Investigations of the Para-Usual':

Dr Pratt waved a hand, indicating that he had something to say though it would have to wait until after a sneeze. He sneezed. ‘That’ll be your mobile phone,’ he said in that oh-dear-me tone we all talk in immediately after we’ve sneezed. ‘Nice. I was never given one when I was in charge.’

‘And what use should I have for this?’ asked Woo, balefully, slipping the device out of a plastic bag so that it sat awkwardly in his hand, upside down. He pressed a random key, which set off a whirring sound causing Woo to throw the mobile back down on the desk away from himself as though the thing had bitten him.

‘What’s the bally thing for?’ demanded Woo. ‘What’s it do?’

‘It is what we call a “mobile phone”,’ offered O’Singh, charitably. ‘We could teach you how to use it.’

‘A moveable telephone? I rather think I could work out how to operate it for myself, if I chose,’ sneered Woo.

Dr Pratt picked up the phone, glanced at the screen and turned it round to show Woo. ‘It’s taken a photo of your shoe.’

Woo snatched back the phone and looked for himself. ‘I know that,’ he said, ‘I know my shoes better than you, Pratt.’

Dr Pratt and O’Singh stood patiently as Woo prodded more keys. Each time frustrating himself afresh. He set about punching several keys at a time.

‘Dah-de-dah-dah-de-dah-dah-de-dah-de-dah…’ chimed the phone, sounding like an organ grinder’s version of the William Tell Overture. Dr Pratt prised the device from Woo and stopped it.

Immense thanks to Becky Walker for pre-ordering a copy of the book. Becky is a screenwriter and playwright. She once considered texting The Iliad but found alas that it contained more than 140 characters

Extract from Chapter 11 of mystery-comedy novel, 'The Investigations of the Para-Usual':

‘We are expanding our knowledge,’ explained Dr Pratt coolly, looking like he was pulling knowledge from his head.

‘Using connections,’ said O’Singh, emphasising ‘connections’ evangelistically. ‘Dr Pratt and I believe we have struck upon something monumental. It is not just about rooting out a para-usual fact here, another there, but connecting them. What we believe we may be doing is embarking on a journey to knowing everything,’ added O’Singh, magnanimously. ‘And to that end, my suspicions are that we could start anywhere, with any subject. And so,’ he said more hurriedly, tapping the board, quelling a protest from Woo, ‘in our recent meet with the Government we happened to start teasing out what is para-usual about kidnapping.’

O’Singh threw a significant look at Dr Pratt, to gesture reassuringly that he had begun to sell the department and the battle to win over Woo.

‘Body snatching was, then, a natural progression in the thought process – the kidnapping of dead people instead of live ones.’

‘Why would I do that?’ interjected Woo. ‘I kidnap a dead person. I say to that dead person’s relatives, hand me over the money else I send you a body part in the post.’

‘Yes?’ said O’Singh, eager to engage Woo.

‘The transaction therefore depends on a body part precious to the owner being allowed to reside with that owner intact, for a stipulated fee. Mostly illegally, I should add.’

‘The ransom is essentially a retaining fee,’ concurred O’Singh.

‘If you will,’ returned Woo, sniffily. ‘What you absolutely fail to recognise is that the bargaining power of the kidnapper is diminished considerably when the owner of the body parts is dead, when he or she – for I do not make sexist assumptions when hypothesising about the gender of dead people –is inconvenienced by the hacking off of an appendage far less than a live one sentimental to the keeping of body parts.’

‘And what outcome do you anticipate?’ enquired O’Singh.

‘The ransom payer has the luxury of refusing to pay while retrieving the entire body of the dead kidnapped person in instalments. The kidnapper, meanwhile, is left out of pocket.’

‘Oh?’

‘Postage and packaging. Especially if the kidnapper has used the more costly same-day delivery service.’