Arson About

Remember the unidentified pile of bones found when the wicker man burned down? Well, they aren't 'unidentified' any more.  Not really, anyway.  This is what happened.
Dave and Val were livid when they saw what happened to the wicker man. When I say 'what happened to',  of course I should really say 'what Tuppence did to'.   With a Zippo lighter and a box of firelighters.
'We understand that Tuppence has issues,' said Val. 'We aren't surprised that he's turned to arson.  The poor creature hasn't even been to school.  And with role models like Tuppy and Geoffrey...'
'His diet's awful as well,' added Dave. 'No fresh vegetables.  I think he just gets crisps, fish finger sandwiches and corned beef to eat.'
'It's a wonder he's alive,' added Dr Wilson, 'he'll never make it to old age and maybe that's a blessing.  For all of us.'
This 'convo' took place on the headland where Dr Wilson was picking through the remains of the wicker man, and was overheard by Geoffrey as he circled over on his way to the Tunnels to check out the crisps and corned beef situation - we were running a bit low on supplies for that evening's tea.
'They even let him have a brace of pistols,' said Dr Wilson, foaming at the mouth, 'and live ammo.  He should really be in a secure unit - one of the old-style Borstals, where they could birch some sense into him. That's clearly a human femur by the way.'
'Oh no!' said Val, 'it's not his fault.  He needs help.  Proper psychological help like what we can offer and that.  Punishing him won't help.'
'He's already been in the sweat lodge (please see paperbacks for details of this awful experience).' said Dave. 'I'm not sure we can offer much more.'
'What about a short course of online C.B.T. or some ear-candling - once the pandemic's over of course?' said Val. 'It might help him develop a more positive mental attitude.'
'That wouldn't even make a dent,' scoffed Dr Wilson,' the lad's battle-hardened.  No, no, no, a good birching once a week would sort him out.  I'll do it. I've got a birch tree growing outside my garden and - '
'He hasn't even got a garden,' I said, interrupting Geoffrey's account. 'He's raving again.'
'I know,' said Geoffrey. 'Just wait till you hear the next bit.'
'OK but hurry up. I'm starving and I want to get the tea on.'
'Well,' said Geoffrey,' I'll cut a long story short.  Turns out Val and Dave had a self-isolating visitor self-isolating in their healing yurt, and they went for a socially-distanced stroll along the headland to admire the view.  Thinking they'd get an even better view from the top of the wicker man, which was of course then in situ having been erected as a publicity stunt by Val and Dave, they climbed to the top, got trapped in the head and were unable to make their way down.  Tuppence failed to hear their frantic screams over the calling of the gulls and the howling of the gale that whipped over the clifftops as he set light to the thing, and they perished in the inferno.'
'What a lovely story,' I said. 'Did you get any corned beef when you were out?'

next time - Stormy's relatives return to the States having failed to inherit the Puff Inn, and Dave and Val start a government-style anti-obesity clinic, free at the point of delivery - actual funding details to follow.  The bones of the late self-isolating yurt guest are hygienically crushed into paste with hand sanitiser, hygienically folded into a face-mask and flung over the top of the cliffs and into the sea, for hygienic funeral-style reasons.  Somebody says a few words but nobody can hear them over the calling of the gulls etc.. and there is a ham sandwich tea back at ours.  Dave and Val don't come because we don't provide a vegan alternative.  Tuppence hears about Dr Wilson's plans to birch him, and plots a ghastly revenge...

Well!  Guess who turned up at Stormy's funeral?  Stormy!  yes, he wandered in half-way through the cage fighter's dismal reading of Stop All the Clocks, and asked whose funeral it was.
'Yours,' I said. 'Oh wait...'
 Turns out the bones that were found inside the wicker man *weren't his after all*.  SO WHOSE ARE THEY?
The problem is, we don't have 'police' or 'coroners' or 'procurators fiscal' hereabouts.  No.  We attend to everything ourselves.  If you recall (and if you don't, it doesn't much matter), we solve many of our local difficulties by simply chucking them 'over the top', i.e. off the cliffs and on to the jagged rocks and boiling seas below.  Where often-times (excuse the egregious use of 'often-times') there can be found a hungry Orca, with jaws a-gape, bored out of its mind, and only too pleased to snap up a juicy morsel.   We also hold an annual vote to decide who is the year's 'most unpopular' person, and whoever it is gets dead-legged on a midnight clifftop ramble, and hey presto! it's a happier, simpler world hereabouts. 
'But you were seen climbing up the wicker man,' said the T-G.
'Maybe I was, T-G.  But I climbed back down again.  It wasn't that hard. I roped myself up and everything, I'm not TOTALLY thick.  I went up to have a look for the clipper that was due to sail past on its way from Portugal to Massachusetts with a holdful of best Madeira.  I thought I'd get a better view from the head, and so I did.   I waved my storm lantern and guided it nicely on to the reef, where it foundered perfectly.  Since then me and the rats have been shifting the Madeira from the clipper to the Tunnels.   We could've done with a hand by the way.'
'We thought you were a goner Stormy.  We thought we'd never sup another pint of Purple Peril again,' said Geoffrey.
'And I thought I'd never get another gig again,' said Tuppence. 'When are you opening up?'
'I've got the social distancing worked out and I've extended the bar area outside by rigging up a few yards of tarpaulin.  We should be on for Friday night, given a following wind.  I've got ten gallon drums of hand sanitiser and - '
'Never mind all that!' snapped the T-G. 'What about the crew of the foundered clipper?  I take it you didn't allow them to drown?'
'And what about us?' growled Stormy's relatives. 'We ain't turned up here for nuffink.  We thort there'd at least be a funeral tea with 'am sandwiches and a bottle or two of stout.  Plus the reading of the Will of course, leading to us probably inheriting the Puff Inn and selling it on to a property developer and then going on a fancy holiday with the proceeds and being set for life.  Not that we were expecting anything or had thought it all through on the way here or that.  We're just saying.'

Next time - everyone goes to a socially-distanced 'welcome back' night at the Puff Inn.  Including Stormy's relatives and the crew from the foundered clipper.  Tuppence powers up the Moog and does a selection of E.L.P. classics before someone cuts the electric cable and causes a power outage.  There is a massive fight in the darkness caused by a shortage of cheese and onion crisps and general over-ingestion of alcoholic comestibles.  Nobody knows who is hitting who and nobody much cares. Meanwhile, the unidentified pile of burnt bones still lie in what was supposed to be Stormy's coffin...

Well, we went out to the headland last evening as planned and we burned the wicker man to the ground.  All that's left now is a pile of wood ash, some blackened chicken wire - and some bones.  More on those later.  I sat at a safe distance, sipping a triple strenf absinthe and laudanum koktale and crunching my way through a packet of 'Kalms' while Tuppence danced naked beside the leaping flames.
I needed the Kalms because as we made our way across the moor towards the headland Tuppence began to wonder whether the wicker man was cis or trans.  'If he's trans I won't burn him Uncle Tuppy.  He'll be a fantastic representation of liberation from the hegemony of the binary sexual economy.'
'Even though you said before that he's a vile and disgusting representation of capitalism and binary-legged hegemony?'
'Yes.'
'How will you know if he's trans though?  It's a very basic figure with no defining characteristics other than two arms and two legs.  And a head.'

'I'll know.'

As it turned out,  he didn't know.  If I'm honest, I don't think he cared - or at least, he cared more about setting the huge thing ablaze.  

As the vast knees crumbled into ash and the torso fell forwards over the cliffs, tumbling onto the rocks below in a dense orange cloud of sparks and wood smoke and leaving two stumpy, smouldering 'feet',  Tuppence cried, 'So passes the tyrannic age of the binary-legged money-grubbers!  Look upon your work ye mighty and despair!' 

'Don't you mean 'my works' ye mighty?'  I pulled a copy of Palgrave's Golden Treasury from my bumbag and leafed through it.  

'Oh who cares about such details now Uncle Tuppy.  We're free!'

'How does burning a wicker man make us free?'

'It just does.  For one thing, it gets the anger out of your system when you destroy things.'

'What about Val and Dave Nark's floundering tourism business?  What about the yurt?  What about Val's ear candling?'

'You can't do social distancing and ear candling.  Everyone knows that.  Val and Dave will just have to diversify.  Anyway I really enjoyed the conflagration Uncle Tuppy.  I'm sure lots of other people did who were watching, as well.  I was surprised to hear the blood-curdling screaming noise it made as it burned - I wonder if we'll ever know what caused that.  Probably just some damp wood reacting to the heat or something.  Not to worry!   Now I'm going to find something else big to burn and I think I know what it's going to be.'

Next time - Tuppence burns Val and Dave's yurt to a crisp.  Val and Dave don't know this yet as they're staying in a friend's airbnb in Leicester and have been 'locally locked down' due to the coronavirus spike.  We also discover that Stormy Petrel has gone missing from the Puff Inn and was last seen clambering determinedly up the wicker man's left leg, followed by a mysterious black-clad figure...this leaves the Puff Inn sans patron just as they've erected a gazebo and extended the beer garden for safe consumption of outdoor comestibles...who could be responsible for Stormy's disappearance?  Could it possiby be...a rival local busniess person, or persons?  

Tuppence came in last night in an agitated state.
'I'm in an agitated state Uncle Tuppy,' he said, wringing his hands. 'Where's the chainsaw?'
'We don't have one.' I tipped an extra dose of laudanum into my tea.  Lord knows I need it these days.
'Well an axe then.  An axe will do.  Anything with a blade.  And ropes.  A block and tackle.  Matches.  Petrol!  Tinder!'
'Usually you manage fine with your brace of pistols Tuppence.  What's all this for?'
'I want to tear down the wicker man. Destroy it, and push it into the sea, to perish on the rocks below.'
'Not the wicker man that Val and Dave Nark have just finished carefully fashioning from locally sourced willow wands, and placed on the headland to attract tourists!'
'Yes!  it's a representation of their two-legged tyranny over the neighbourhood Uncle Tuppy.  A grotesque symbol of the dominion held by the two-legged haves over the four-legged have nots. Dave and Val are money-grubbing capitalists of the first water, trying to slip under the radar camouflaged as green sustainable living type people.  They're nothing short of fascists Uncle Tuppy and I want to saw the legs off their statue and burn it to the ground.  Burn it I say!'
'Why don't you saw Dave and Val's legs off and burn them to the ground?'
'Because I would get done for murder Uncle Tuppy.  Someone would dob me in.'
'Well it is true not much gets past the old Tupfinder General with his infrared spyglass.  But I don't think he'd ever dob you in.  Never mind - we can think about that later.   Why not sit down and have your tea before you rush into anything. It's double egg and chips with bread and butter and plenty brown sauce.  Once we've eaten I'll dig out the balaclavas and rubber soled shoes and we can both head noiselessly over to the cliffs.  I'll help you burn the bastard down.  I can't stand Val Nark.'

next time - Tuppence manages to set fire to the wicker man using a tinder box, some empty crisp packets and a bottle of methylated spirit, and the resulting flames attract a passing coronavirus-infested cruise ship that has failed to find a port that will allow them to land.  More on that later.