Hemel Hempstead

The lemurs still hadn’t forgiven Nilroy for losing his bagpipes at last year’s lemur parade in Hemel Hempstead, hoping no one would notice that he had sewn together five ducks instead

This, of course, came as no great surprise to anyone who knew the lemurs (or for that matter, Nilroy). What was more surprising, perhaps, was that Mortimer hadn’t noticed five of his missing ducks for well over two weeks.

The bagpipes never did show up. However, when Mrs Ablesnatch was recovering from her “business”, the few visitors she received all commented on her lovely new tartan hot-water bottle. “A gift from a distant relative.” she had explained, although it wasn’t clear if the distance was literal or figurative. Mrs Ablesnatch rarely spoke of her relatives.

The lemurs’ capacity for holding grudges was legend, and most of the townsfolk avoided them for this reason. No one could be certain, but it was widely believed that the lemur parade was an idea of their own, carefully seeded within the council and nurtured until it had become an annual tradition.

What only became apparent later, in the same way a boiling lobster doesn’t realise until far too late, was that all the other parades and festivals had been slowly being downsized, postponed and eventually cancelled, until only the lemur parade remained.

As no-one had taken much notice, rather than become suspicious, most of the organisers had rallied around in growing support for the remaining parade, fearful that this too would fall by the wayside, a victim of the mysterious plague which had ended the other festivities.

The lemurs, of course, were quite proud of this, and rightly so.

However, the lingering disappointment over what was to be the crowning glory of the parade had festered at the back of their minds, and thoughts of revenge had started to take root.

Nilroy had been inconsolable. Oh how he’d loved that set of bag-pipes, and love make you do crazy things. No-one would believe him that he’d found the ducks, already dead, earlier that morning. Equally unbelievable was finding a length of hose, four narrow PVC pipes and an old dog-eared photocopy of a set of instructions on how to put them all together to make a rudimentary set of pipes.

The précis was very convincing, and spoke of the rich history that preceded the modern pipes, where Scots would create legendary instruments out of whatever they could find. Including ducks.

And, as in love as Nilroy was with his own tartan octopus, the incredibly unlikely fortune of finding these key ingredients along with this set of instructions had never occurred to him as anything other than an answer to an unsung prayer.

With hindsight it was obvious it wasn’t going to work. The ducks just weren’t as inflatable as they needed to be, and Nilroy’s needlework wasn’t as precise.

Later, several of the onlookers during the parade had time to reflect on the exact moment everything had gone tits-up. Most agreed that it was difficult to recover once the bag of sewn-together duck carcasses had reached pressure saturation and forcibly exploded. The final indignity was Nilroy recovering a parson’s nose from inside Mr Abernathy (who later made a full recovery but still avoids ponds and farms.)

Nilroy’s apology had been received, and it was mutually agreed that he wouldn’t take part in future parades. Nilroy was comfortable with this, particularly after he had worked out where the ducks had come from. Fortunately (or not, depending on your perspective) he had worked it out before Mortimer, which gave him a difficult few days wondering how he would explain it before Mortimer finally worked it out.

He had realised by now that no-one would believe the truth, and he wasn’t creative enough to come up with a convincing lie, so he decided to simply let Mortimer believe whatever Mortimer wanted to believe.

The lemurs, meanwhile, plotted on. One of their number, a more moderate lemur by the name of Glovis, had suggested that the real target of their ire and wrath should be the individual (or individuals) who had stolen Nilroy’s bag-pipes. Most of the other lemurs didn’t subscribe to Glovis’ idea that the pipes had been stolen, merely believing that Nilroy had left them outside a pub, unsecured, as he often tended to do.

Lemurs are not known for their democratic style of decision making, so Glovis was left to believe whatever he chose. Glovis had chosen to follow the evidence.

He’d tried to gain access to Mrs Ablesnatch’s cottage, in the hope of seeing the fabled hot-water bottle, but Mrs Ablesnatch was no-longer unwell and had stopped receiving visitors. He’d thought about reaching out to Nilroy, but realised there might be more questions than answers from Nilroy, and wasn’t sure how he would answer them.

Glovis was concerned that there were dark forces at work in the heart of Hemel Hempstead; forces greater than the lemurs. He had realised he was on his own.

Mortimer was the obvious choice as a starting point. Having lost half his ducks, he was by his own admission half the man he once was. Even several months after the fateful parade he was having difficulty looking after himself. Glovis observed him through the dirty windows of the old vicarage which served as Mortimer’s home. Mortimer shuffled between his gas-fired range and the large wooden table in the middle of his kitchen, and then back; each time boiling an old iron kettle and then bringing it to the teapot on the table. Back and forth, back and forth he shuffled, a broken man.

Glovis nosed around the pond with the remaining ducks, who were understandably nonchalant. They were ducks, after all. He examined the small shed with the hatch that Mortimer had built in his yard. He explored the chicken-wire run that extended a few feet from the back of the shed. He then found something.

Caught on a rough splinter on one of the posts was a dark, oily feather. Glovis knew at once that this was not a duck feather. His mandatory ornithology training had started to kick-in. Examining it further, a chill went down his spine as he realised what had been happening, as he began to understand the darkness at the heart of Hemel Hempstead.

The penguins. The penguins had returned.