The Antipope

shamming indifference to the unwelcome attention being paid to his hind quarters by a blue-bottle. Norman sat at the bar, wearing an extraordinary water-cooled hat of his own design, and a couple of stalwarts braved the heat for a halfhearted game of darts. An electronic Punkah-fan installed by the brewery turned upon the ceiling at a dozen revolutions an hour gently stirring the superheated air. Brentford had fallen once more into apathy. The sun streamed in through the upper windows and flies buzzed in eccentric spirals above the bar.

Pooley gulped his pint. “Look at them,” he said. “The town has come to a standstill, we spend the night matching wits with the forces of darkness while Brentford sleeps on. Seems daft, doesn’t it?”

Omally sighed. “But perhaps this is what we are doing it for, just so we can sit about in the Swan while the world goes on outside.”

“Possibly,” said Pooley finishing his pint. “Another of similar?”

“Ideal.”

Pooley carried the empty glasses to the bar and as Neville refilled them he did his best to strike up some kind of conversation with the part-time barman. “So what is new, Neville?” he asked. “How spins the world in general?”

“Once every twenty-four hours,” came the reply.

“But surely something must be happening?”

“The boating lake at Gunnersbury is dry,” said the part-time barman.

“Fascinating,” said Pooley.

“The temperature is up by another two degrees.”

“Oh good, I am pleased to hear that we can expect some fine weather.”

“They pulled two corpses out of the river at Chiswick, stuck in the mud they were when the water went down.”

“Really?” said Jim. “Anybody we know?”

“I expect not. Only person to go missing from Brentford in the last six months is Soap Distant, but there was only one of him.”

Pooley’s face twitched involuntarily, it was certain that sooner or later someone would miss old Soap. “No-one ever did find out what happened to him then?” he asked casually.

“The word goes that he emigrated to Australia to be nearer to his holes in the poles.”

“And nobody has identified the corpses at Chiswick?”

“No,” said Neville pushing the two pints across the bar top. “The fish had done a pretty good job on them but, they reckon they must have been a pair of drunken gardeners, they found a wheelbarrow stuck in the mud with them.”

Pooley, who had raised his pint to his lips, spluttered wildly, sending beer up his nose.

“Something wrong, Jim?”

“Just went down the wrong way, that’s all.”

“Well, before you choke to death, perhaps you wouldn’t mind paying for the drinks?”

“Oh yes,” said Jim, wiping a shirtsleeve across his face, “sorry about that.”

Omally had overheard every word of the conversation and when the pale-faced Pooley returned with the pints he put a finger to his lips and shook his head. “Who do you think they were?” Jim whispered.

“I haven’t a clue, and there’s no way that the Captain is going to tell us. But it’s the wheelbarrow I worry about, what if somebody identifies it?” Omally chewed upon his fingers. “I should have reported it stolen,” he said. “It’s a bit late now.”

“Even if they identify it as yours, there is nothing to tie you into the corpses. We don’t know who they were; it is unlikely that you would have killed two complete strangers and then disposed of them in your own wheelbarrow.”

“The English Garda have no love for me,” said John, “they would at least enjoy the interrogation.”

“Anyway,” said Jim, “whoever the victims were, they must have been killed sometime before being wheeled across the allotment by the Captain and dumped in the river, and we have perfect alibis, we were here at Cowboy Night, everybody saw us.”

“I slipped out to bury a crate of Old Snakebelly,” moaned Omally, “on the allotment.”

Pooley scratched his head. “Looks like you’d better give yourself up then. We might go down to the Chiswick nick and steal back your wheelbarrow, or set fire to it or something.”

Omally shook his head. “Police stations are bad places to break into, this is well known.”

“I have no other suggestions,” said Jim. “I can only counsel caution and the maintaining of the now legendary low profile.”

“We might simply make a clean breast of it,” said John.

“We?” said Pooley. “Where do you get this ‘we’ from? It was your wheelbarrow.”

“I mean we might tell the police about what we saw; it might start an investigation into what is going on in the Mission.”

“I don’t think the Professor would appreciate that, it might interfere with his plans. Also the police might claim conspiracy because we didn’t come forward earlier.”

Up at the bar Norman, who had quietly been reading a copy of the Brentford Mercury, said suddenly, “Now there’s a thing.”

“What’s that,” asked Neville.

Norman prodded at his paper. “Wheelbarrow clue in double slaying.”

“I was just talking about that to Pooley,” said Neville, gesturing towards Jim’s table.

But naught, however, remained to signal that either Jim Pooley or John Omally had ever been there, naught but for two half-consumed pints of Large going warm upon the table and a saloon-bar door which swung quietly to and fro upon its hinge.

Norman’s shop was closed for the half day and a few copies of the midweek Mercury still remained in the wire rack to the front door. Jim took one of these and rattled the letterbox in a perfect impression of a man dropping pennies into it. He and Omally thumbed through the pages.

“Here it is,” said Jim, “‘Wheelbarrow Clue in Double Slaying. Chiswick Police leading an investigation into the matter of the two bodies found on the foreshore upon the fall of the Thames last week believe that they now have a lead regarding the owner of the wheelbarrow discovered at the scene of the crime. Detective Inspector Cyril Barker said in an exclusive interview with the Brentford Mercury that he expected to make an early arrest’.”

“Is that it?” Omally asked.

“Yes, I can’t see the Mercury’s ace reporter getting the journalist of the year award for it.”

“But there isn’t a photograph of the wheelbarrow?”

“No, either the reporter had no film in his Brownie or the police didn’t think it necessary.”

“But ‘early arrest’, what do you think that means?”

The words were drowned by the scream of a police-car siren. Driven at high speed, the car came through the red lights at the bottom of Ealing Road, roared past them and screeched to a standstill a hundred yards further on, outside the Flying Swan. A plainclothes detective and three burly constables leapt from the vehicle and swept into the saloon bar.

The two men did not wait to see what might happen. They looked at each other, dropped the newspaper and fled.

There are many pleasures to be had in camping out. The old nights under canvas, the wind in your hair and fresh air in your lungs. An opportunity to get away from it all and commune with nature. Days in sylvan glades watching the sunshine dancing between the leaves and dazzling the eyes. Birdsong swelling at dawn to fill the ears. In harmony with the Arcadian Spirits of olden Earth. At night a time for reverie about the crackling campfire, the sweet smell of mossy peat and pine needles. Ah yes, that is the life.

Omally awoke with a start, something was pressing firmly into his throat and stopping his