his freeman’s, “how spins the world for you at the present hour?”
Old Pete grunted non-committally. “It is a case of mustn’t grumble, I suppose.”
“No news then? Nothing out of the ordinary or untoward on the go?”
“Not that I can think of, did you have anything in mind?”
“No, nothing.” Omally made a breezy gesture. “It is just, well, to be frank, Pete, it is well known that little, if anything, going on in the Borough ever slips by you, as your present drink will bear testimony to. I just thought that you might have some little snippet of interest up your four-buttoned sleeve.”
“You couldn’t be a little more specific?” said Pete, draining his glass. “So much happens hereabouts, as you know, to keep one’s finger upon the pulse is a thirsty business.”
Omally looked towards Pooley, who shrugged. “Same again please, Neville,” said John to the part-time barman, who had been hovering near at hand, ears waggling.
“All the way round?”
“All the way.”
The honours were done and to Neville’s disgust Old Pete drew his benefactors away to the side-table, beneath which his dog Chips lay feigning slumber. The three men seated themselves. “Would I be right in assuming that you have something on your mind, Omally?” the ancient asked.
“It is but a trivial matter,” Omally lied, “hardly worth wasting your valuable time with, but I must confess that it causes me some perplexity.”
“Ask on then, John, you are two drinks to credit and I am by no means a hard man to deal with.”
“Then I shall get straight to the point. Have you seen a suspicious-looking character skulking around, on, or near the sacred soil of our allotments?”
Old Pete nodded. “Of course I have,” he answered, “both there and elsewhere.”
“Wearing a grey coverall suit, sallow complexion, high cheek-bones?”
“Looks like a young Jack Palance?”
“The very same.”
“I have seen several.”
“Oh dear,” said Pooley, “more than one?”
“At least four. Take my warning, they have the mark of officialdom upon them. I saw one last week down by the cut, one yesterday on the corner of the Ealing Road, and there is one drinking this very minute in the far corner over by the gents’ bog.”
“What?” Omally’s head spun in the direction of the gents’. There in the darkened corner stood a sinister figure in a grey uniform. His features were blurry in the dun light, but it was almost certainly the same individual that he and Pooley had spied out on the allotment not half an hour earlier. As Omally watched, the figure turned his back upon them and strode through the door into the gents’.
“All right, Pete,” said Omally, turning to the ancient. “Who is he?”
Old Pete shrugged. “There you have me, I’m afraid. When first I saw them I took them for Council workers. They had some kind of instruments mounted on a tripod and appeared to be marking the ground. But I never got close enough to question them. They slipped away into side roads or off down alleyways upon my approach. This is the nearest that I have so far come to one of them.”
“But you are sure that there are more than one?” Pooley asked.
“I have seen as many as three of them together at one time. As like as the proverbial peas in a pod. Suspicious, I call it.”
“I shall go and question him.” Omally rose from his chair.
“Best wait till he comes out,” Jim suggested. “It is hardly sporting to corner a man in the bog.”
“Do it now while you have him cornered,” said Old Pete. “They are a sly crowd. I never saw that fellow enter the Swan and I was the first man in.”
“That settles it,” said John, drawing up his cuffs. “I shall have it out with him.” Without further word he crossed the bar and pushed open the door to the gents’.
It closed gently behind him and a long minute passed. Pooley looked up at the Guinness clock and watched the second hand sweeping the dial. “Do you think he’s all right?” he whispered.
Old Pete nodded. “Omally knows how to handle himself, it is well known that he is a Grand Master in the deadly fighting arts of Dimac.”
“It is much spoken of, certainly,” said Jim with some deliberation. As the second hand passed the twelve for the third time Pooley gripped the table and pulled himself to his feet. “Something is wrong,” he said.
“He said he was going to have it out with the fellow, don’t be so hasty, give him another minute.”
“I don’t know, you say you never saw him come in, maybe he has several of his chums in there. I don’t like the feel of this.”
Old Pete’s dog Chips, who had not liked the feel of this from the word go, retreated silently between the legs of his ancient master. Jim was across the carpet and through the bog doorway in a matter of seconds. Once inside he froze in his tracks, his breath hung in his lungs, uncertain of which way it had been travelling, and his eyes bulged unpleasantly in their sockets. Before him stood John Omally, perspiration running freely down his face in grimy streaks. His tie hung over his shoulder college scarf fashion, and he swayed to and fro upon his heels.
Omally stared at Pooley and Pooley stared at Omally. “Did he come out?” Omally’s voice was a hoarse whisper.
Pooley shook his head. “Then he must still be here then.” Pooley nodded. “But he’s not.”
Pooley was uncertain whether to shake or nod over this. “There’s a terrible smell of creosote in here,” he said. Omally pushed past him and lurched back into the bar leaving Pooley staring about the tiled walls. Above him was an air vent a mere six inches across. The one window was heavily bolted from the inside and the two cubicle doors stood open, exposing twin confessionals, each as empty as the proverbial vessel, but making no noise whatever. There was no conceivable mode of escape, but by the single door which led directly into the bar. Pooley gave his head a final shake, turned slowly upon his heel and numbly followed Omally back into the saloon.
6
As the Memorial Library clock struck one in the distance, Norman finished topping up the battered Woodbine machine outside his corner shop. He locked the crumbling dispenser of coffin nails and pocketed Pooley’s two washers, which had made their usual weekly appearance in the cash tray amongst the legitimate coin of the realm.
Norman re-entered his shop and bolted the door behind him, turning the OPEN sign to CLOSED. As he crossed the mottled linoleum he whistled softly to himself; sadly, as he had not yet retrieved his wayward teeth, the air sounded a little obscure. For some reason Norman had never quite got the hang of humming, so he contented himself with a bit of unmelodic finger-popping and what he described as “a touch of the old Fred and Gingers” as he vanished away through the door behind the counter, and left his shop to gather dust for another Wednesday afternoon.
Norman’s kitchenette served him as the traditional shopkeeper’s lair, equipped with its obligatory bar-fire and gas-ring. But there, apart from these necessary appliances, all similarities ended. There was much of the alchemist’s den about Norman’s kitchenette. It was workroom, laboratory, research establishment, testing station and storage place for his somewhat excessive surplus stock of Danish glossies.
At present, the hellishly crowded retreat was base camp and ground control for Norman’s latest and most ambitious project to date. Even had some NASA boffin cast his knowledgeable eye over the curious array of electronic hocus-pocus which now filled the tiny room, it was unlikely that he would have fathomed any purpose behind it all. The walls were lined with computer banks bristling with ancient radio valves and constructed from Sun Ray wireless sets and commandeered seedboxes. The floor was a veritable snakehouse of cables. The overall effect was one to set Heath Robinson spinning gaily in his grave.
Norman spat dangerously on his palms and rubbed them together. He picked his way carefully across the floor until he reached a great switchboard, of a type once favoured by Baron von Frankenstein. As Norman squared up before it, however, he had no intention of mouthing the now legendary words, “We belong dead”, but instead lisped
