The Brentford Triangle (13 page)

John and Jim were taking the long route home. After the incident earlier that evening at the Swan they had no wish to cross the allotment after dark. It was a brisk, cloudless night, and as they slouched along, sharing a late-night Woodbine, they were ill-prepared for the ghastly wailing cries which suddenly reached their ears.

“What is it?” Pooley halted in mid-slouch.

Omally peered up and down the deserted street and over his shoulder to where the allotment fence flanked an area of sinister blackness.

“It is the plaintive cry of the banshee,” said he, crossing himself. “Back in the old country no man would question that sound. Rather he would steal away to his own dear hovel and sleep with his head in the family Bible and his feet in the fireplace.”

“I have never fully understood the ways of the Irish,” said Jim, also crossing himself just to be on the safe side. “But I believe them to be a people not without their fair share of common sense, best we have it away on our toes then.”

Another horrific cry rose into the night, raising the small hairs on two ill-washed necks, and causing Pooley’s teeth to chatter noisily. This one, however, was followed almost at once by vile but oddly reassuring streams of invective, which could only have arisen from one local and very human throat.

“Could that be who I think it could?” Pooley asked.

“If you mean that very electronics expert with the brain of a veritable Einstein to whom you previously alluded, then I think that it might just be.”

The two men strained their ears for another sound, but none was forthcoming. Slowly, they proceeded along the street, halting outside the row of lock-up garages. “Would you look at that,” said Omally, pointing to where a line of orange light showed beneath one of the doors. “Now what would you take that to be?”

“I would take it to be another trap,” said Jim. “I have recently had a very bad experience through entering sheds without being asked.”

Omally shuddered. The thought of those icy-black subterranean waters was never far from his mind. “Caution then?” he asked, creeping close to the door and pressing his ear to it.

It was at that exact moment that Edgar Allan Poe, who had been badly shaken by the floating, screaming camel, chose to make his exit from the garage. Passing discreetly through the solid wood of the garage door he slid right into the skulking Omally. For one ghastly moment the two forms, one solid and smelling strongly of drink, the other ectoplasmic and probably incapable of bearing any scent whatever, merged into one.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God!” screamed Omally, clutching at his head. “The very devil himself has poked his clammy finger into my ear.”

“Who’s out there?” Norman spun away from Simon, who was now silent beneath the falcon hood of a potato sack which had been rammed over his head.

“Night watchman,” said Pooley unconvincingly. “Twelve o’clock and all’s well. Goodnight to you, stranger.”

“Pooley, is that you?”

“Norman?”

The garage door rose a couple of feet and Norman’s face appeared, peeping through the opening. “Is Small Dave with you?” asked the persecuted shopkeeper.

“That vindictive grudge-bearing wee bastard? Certainly not.”

Norman crawled out under the door and drew it rapidly down behind him. “Just servicing the old Morris Minor,” he said.

“Sounds a bit iffy,” said Omally.

“A bit of gear trouble, nothing more.”

“Let me have a look at it then.” Omally was all smiles. “I know the old Morris engine like the back of my hand.” He extended this very appendage towards the garage doorhandle, but Norman barred his way.

“Nothing to concern yourself about,” he said, “nothing I cannot handle.”

“Oh, no trouble, I assure you. Nothing I like better than getting to grips with a monkey wrench and a set of allan keys.”

“No, no,” said Norman, “I think not, it is growing late now and I have to be up early in the morning.”

“No problem then, I have no a.m. appointments, to me the night is yet young. Leave me the garage key and I will post it through your letter-box as soon as I am done.”

“You are kindness personified,” said Norman, “but I could not impose upon you in such a fashion. My conscience would not allow it. I will just lock up and then we shall stroll home together.” He stooped to refasten the padlock.

“You’d better switch the light off before you go,” said Jim Pooley.

Norman’s hand hovered over the padlock. A look of terrible indecision crossed his face.

“Allow me,” said John Omally, thrusting the shopkeeper aside and taking the handle firmly in two hands. “I should just like to have a look at this car of yours before we depart.”

“Please don’t,” whined the shopkeeper, but it was too late. The door flew upwards and the light from the lock-up garage flooded the street, exposing Norman’s secret to the world.

Pooley took a step backwards. “My God,” was all that he had to say.

Omally, however, was made of sterner stuff. “Now, there we have a thing,” he said, nudging the cowering shopkeeper. “Now there we have a thing indeed.”

Norman’s brain was reeling, but he did his best to affect an attitude of bland composure. “There, then,” he said, “satisfied? Now if you don’t mind, it is growing late.”

Omally stepped forward into the garage and pointed upwards. “Norman,” he said, “there is a camel asleep in your rafters.”

“Camel?” said Norman. “Camel? I don’t see any camel.”

“It is definitely a camel,” said John. “If it were a dromedary it would have but one hump.”

“You have been drinking, I believe,” said Norman. “I can assure you that there is nothing here but a Morris Minor with a tetchy gearbox. I have read of folk suffering such hallucinations when they have imbibed too freely. Come, let us depart, we shall speak no more of these things.”

“It’s definitely a camel,” said Jim.

“Dear me,” said Norman shaking his head, “another victim of Bacchus, and so young.”

“Why is it in the rafters?” Pooley asked. “I was always of the opinion that camels preferred to nest at ground level and in somewhat sunnier climes.”

“Perhaps it is a new strain?” said Omally. “Perhaps Norman has created some new strain of camel which he is attempting to keep secret from the world? Such a camel would no doubt revolutionize desert travel.”

Norman chewed upon his lip. “Please be careful where you stand, Omally,” he said. “Some of the primer on the bonnet is still wet.”

Omally put his arm about the shopkeeper’s shoulder. “Why not just make this easy on yourself?” he asked.

“Although I accept that mentally you are a fearsome adversary, surely you must realize that the game is up? Cease this folly, I beg you.”

“Don’t scuff the spare wheel with your hobnails,” said Norman.

Pooley raised his hand to speak. “If I might make a suggestion,” he said, “I think that the matter could be easily settled with a little practical demonstration.”

“Yes?” said Norman doubtfully.

“Well, you suggest that Omally and I are suffering some kind of mental aberration regarding this camel.”

“You are.”

“And we say that your Morris Minor is only notable for its complete and utter invisibility.”

“Huh!”

Pooley drew out his pocket lighter and struck fire. “You rev up your Morris,” he said, “and I shall toast the feet of my camel.”

“No, no!” Norman leapt into life. “Not toast his feet, not toast the feet of my Simon.”

“The camel has it,” said Jim Pooley.

Norman sank to his knees and began to sob piteously. Omally suggested that Jim should lower the garage door and this he did.

“Come, come,” said Omally to the crumpled shopkeeper, “there is no need for this undignified behaviour. Clearly we have intruded upon some private business. We have no wish to interfere, we are men of discretion, aren’t we, Jim?”

“Noted for it.”

“Not men to take advantage of such a situation are we, Jim?”

“Certainly not.”

“Even though this manifestation is clearly of such singularity that any newspaper reporter worthy of his salt would pay handsomely for an exclusive.”

“Say no more,” moaned Norman between sobs. “Name your price. I am a poor man but we can possibly come to some arrangement. A higher credit rating, perhaps.”

Omally held up his hand. “Sir,” he said, “are you suggesting that I would stoop to blackmail? That I would debase the quality of our long-standing friendship with vile extortion?”

“Such I believe to be the case,” said Norman dismally.

“Well then,” said Omally, rubbing his hands together, “let us get down to business, I have a proposition to put to you.”

After leaving Norman’s garage in the early hours of the morning, Pooley found little joy in the comforts of his cosy bed. He had listened with awe and not a little terror to the amazing revelations which Omally had skilfully wrung from the shopkeeper. Although Jim had plaintively reiterated that the Earth-balancing-pyramid theory which Norman had overheard, that lunchtime so long ago, was gleaned from the pages of an old comic book, as usual nobody had listened to him. What small, fitful periods of sleep he had managed were made frightful with dreams of great floating camels, materializing pyramids and invading spacemen.

At around six o’clock Pooley gave the whole thing up as a bad job, dragged on an overcoat, thrust a trilby hat on to his hirsute head, and trudged off round to the Professor’s house.

The old man sat as ever at his desk, studying his books, and no doubt preparing himself for the worst. He waved Pooley to an armchair without looking up and said, “I hope you are not going to tell me that during the few short hours that you have been gone you have solved the thing.”

“Partially,” said Jim without enthusiasm. “But I think John should take full-credit this time.”

The old man shook his head. “Do you ever feel that we are not altogether the masters of our own destinies?” he asked.

“No,” said Jim. “Never.”

“And so, what do you have to tell me?”

“You will not like it.”

“Do I ever?”

Pooley eyed the whisky decanter as a source of inspiration but his stomach made an unspeakable sound.

“Would you care to take breakfast with me, Jim?” the Professor asked. “I generally have a little something at about this time.”

“I would indeed,” said Jim. “Truly I am as ravenous as Ganesha’s rat.”

The Professor tinkled a small Burmese brass bell, and within a few seconds there came a knocking at the study door which announced the arrival of Professor Slocombe’s elderly retainer Gammon, bearing an overlarge butler’s tray loaded to the gunwhales with breakfast for two.

It was Pooley’s turn to shake his head. “How could he possibly know that I was here?”

Professor Slocombe smiled. “You ask me to give away my secrets?” he said, somewhat gaily. “Where would I be if you deny me my mystique?”

“You have mystique enough for twenty,” said Jim.

“Then I will share this one with you, for it is simplicity itself.” He rang the small bell again and Gammon, looking up from the coffee he was pouring into the fine Dresden china cups, said, “Certainly, sir, two lumps it is.”

“It is a code with the bell-ringing,” said the enlightened Jim.

The Professor nodded his old head. “You have found me out,” said he. In reality, of course, Pooley had done nothing of the kind.

Gammon departed at a mental command, closing the door behind him. Pooley set about the demolition of the steaming tray load. Between great chewings and swallowings, he did his best to relate to the Professor all that he had seen and heard that night.

Professor Slocombe picked delicately at his morning repast and listened to it all with the greatest interest. When Pooley had finished his long, rambling, and not a little confused monologue, he rose from his chair and took out a Turkish cigarette from the polished humidor. Lighting this with an ember from the grate, he waggled the thing at Pooley, and spoke through a cloud of steely-blue smoke. “You would not be having one over on me here, would you Pooley?” he asked.

“I swear not.”

“Norman has a camel in his lock-up garage which he teleported from the Nile delta and which openly defies the law of gravity?”

“Not openly. Norman is keeping the matter very much to himself.”

“And he plans to alter the Earth’s axis by teleporting the Great Pyramid of Cheops into Brentford football ground?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

Professor Slocombe fingered the lobe of his left ear. “We live in interesting times,” he said.

Pooley shrugged and pushed a remaining portion of buttered toast into his mouth.

“The idea does have a certain charm, though,” said Professor Slocombe. “I should really have to sit down and work it out with a slide rule. For the moment, however, I feel it would be better if he was dissuaded from going ahead with it. I think we should nip it in the bud.”

“I think John and I can fit that in between engagements,” said Pooley sarcastically. The Professor raised an eyebrow towards him, and he fell back to his toast chewing.

“How near to completion do you believe his project to be?”

Pooley shrugged again. “Days away, by the manner in which he spoke. Omally, using his usual ingenuity, suggested that he might avail himself of any serviceable components from the Captain Laser machine, once he had successfully disabled it. That idea alone was enough to win him over to the cause. What with thinly-veiled threats of exposure and the assurance that his action would not only save mankind as we know it, but also secure him readmission to the Swan in time for the darts tournament, he was putty in Omally’s grubby mitt.”

“It would certainly be nice to clear all this up before darts night,” said the Professor enthusiastically. “I have booked a table at the Swan, I would not care to miss it for the world.”

“Let us pray that none of us do,” said Pooley. “Would there be any chance of a little more toast?” Professor Slocombe reached for his small brass bell. “I know perfectly well that it is not how you do it,” said Jim.

“The toast is on the way,” said Professor Slocombe, smiling broadly.

Neville limped painfully up the stairs to his room, bearing with him the special mid-week edition of the
Brentford Mercury
, which had flopped unexpectedly through the Swan’s letter-box. Propping it against the marmalade pot, he lowered himself amid much tooth-grinding on to the gaily-coloured bathing ring, which rested somewhat incongruously upon his dining chair.

As he sipped at his coffee he perused the extraordinary news sheet. BRENTFORD HOLOCAUST! screamed the six-inch banner headline with typically restrained conservatism.
“Many arrests in Battle of Brentford, rival gangs clash in open street warfare.”

Neville shook his head in wonder at it all. How had the trouble started? It was all a little hazy. That Pooley and Omally were involved, he was certain. He would bar them without further ado.

He groaned dismally and clutched at his tender parts.

He surely could not afford to bar any more clients; something desperate was going to have to be done to persuade Norman to return to the fold. And Old Pete; he was sure he had barred him, but he was equally certain that the old reprobate had been in the night before. Perhaps he hadn’t. He would bar him again just to be on the safe side.

He perused the long columns of journalistic licence which covered the
Mercury
’s front page. It had been some kind of political rally, so it appeared, the Brownshirts or the League of St George. Apparently these extremists had been drawn into combat with the martial acolytes of the Brentford Temple of Dimac. The police had acted bravely and justly, although greatly outnumbered. There was some talk of decorations at the Palace.

Neville skimmed along the lines of print, seeking to find some reference to the original cause of the incident, but none was forthcoming. The Swan didn’t even get a mention, nor did the names of any of the regulars appear amongst the list of arrested villains destined to go up before the beak this very morning. With the arrival of the boys in blue the Swan’s stalwarts had either melted away into the night or retired to the tranquillity of the saloon-bar to engage in games of darts and dominoes.

He read the final paragraph. The gallant bobbies had, so it was stated, become involved in a hair-raising car chase through Brentford with a black nineteen-fifties Cadillac which had roared away from the scene of the crime during the height of the disturbances. They had pursued it through the maze of backstreets until unaccountably losing it in a cul-de-sac.

Neville folded the paper and flung it into the fireplace. He would get to the bottom of all this, just as soon as he could get it all clear in his mind. But for now only two things mattered: firstly, that Norman be reinstated as soon as possible in a manner in which neither party would lose face and one which would not anger his pagan deity; and, secondly, that the ice pack which he now wore strapped between his legs got another top-up from the fridge.

Small Dave sat in the sewage outlet pipe at the old dock, which he now called home. His face wore a manic expression into which it had been moulding itself, a little more permanently, with each passing day. He had given up such niceties as hygiene, and now lived for only one thing.

Dire and unremitting vengeance!

Some way further up the pipe, hovering in the darkness, was a misty figure, visible only to the small postman and to certain members of the animal elite.

Small Dave ground his teeth and spat into the daylight. So Norman had the camel penned up in his garage upon the Butts Estate, did he? He had always suspected the shopkeeper, and now Edgar had confirmed his suspicions.

“We have him,” sneered the dwarf, raising a tiny fist towards the sky. “Right where we want him.” He grinned towards the spectre, exposing two rows of evil-looking yellow teeth. Edgar Allan Poe shifted uneasily in the darkness. He was not at all happy about any of this. He had made a big mistake in allowing himself to become involved with this diminutive lunatic, and sorely craved to return to the astral plane. Although a grey and foggy realm, which offered little in the way of pleasurable diversion, it was infinitely preferable to this madhouse any day of the week.

Sadly, by the very nature of the laws which govern such matters, he was unable to gain release, other than through the courtesy of the being who had called him into service. The mighty fire which had raged through Small Dave’s house, eating up many thousands of copies of his books, had acted as some kind of sacrificial catalyst which now bound him to the material world.

Edgar Allan Poe was thoroughly Earthbound, and he was in a very, very bad mood.

At a little after eleven-thirty John Omally reached the Flying Swan. He would have reached it sooner but for the throng of reporters from the national dailies who had accosted him in the street. With his usual courtesy and willingness to be of assistance he had granted several exclusive interviews on the spot.

Yes, he had been there in the thick of it, braving the rubber bullets and the tear-gas. Yes, he had been the last man standing, by virtue of his mastery in the deadly fighting arts of Dimac. No, he had only saved the lives of three of his companions, not four, as was popularly believed. And no, he was sorry, he could not allow any photographs to be taken, modesty forbidding him to take more than his fair share of credit in saving the day.

Patting at his now heavily burdened pockets, Omally entered the Flying Swan. Neville was at the counter’s end, supported upon the gaily-coloured rubber bathing ring which he had Sellotaped to the top of a bar stool. He was studying a picture postcard which boasted a rooftop view of Brentford, but upon Omally’s approach he laid this aside and viewed the Irishman with distaste.

“You are not welcome here,” he said in no uncertain terms.

John smiled sweetly. “Come now,” he said, “let us not be at odds. You have no axe to grind with me. I come as the bearer of glad tidings. All your troubles are over.”

Neville’s good eye widened. “All my troubles are over?” he roared, but the exertion sent blood rushing to certain areas which were better for the time being left bloodless and kosher. “I am a ruined man,” he whispered hoarsely, between clenched teeth.

“A regrettable business,” said John. “If I ever see that fellow in the black suit again, I shall do for him.”

Neville said, “Hm,” and pulled the Irishman the pint of his preference.

“Have one yourself,” said John.

Although the deadly phrase burned like a branding iron upon Neville’s soul, he was loath to refuse and so drew himself a large medicinal scotch.

“About this being my lucky day then?” he said, when he had carefully re-established himself upon his rubber ring. “You will pardon my cynicism I hope, but as the bearer of glad tidings you must surely rival the angel of death announcing the first innings score at the battle of Armageddon.”

“Nevertheless,” said Omally, “if you will hear me out then you will find what I have to say greatly to your advantage.”

Neville sighed deeply and felt at his groin. “I believe that I am getting old,” he told Omally. “Do you know that I no longer look forward to Christmas?”

John shook his head. He didn’t know that, although he wondered how it might be relevant.

“I haven’t had a birthday card in ten years.”

“Sad,” said John.

“At times I wonder whether it is all worthwhile. Whether life is really worth all the pain, disappointment, and misery.” He looked towards Omally with a sad good eye. “People take advantage of my good nature,” he said.

“No?” said John. “Do they?”

“They do. I bend over backwards to help people and what do I get?” Omally shook his head. “Stabs in the back is all I get.” Neville made motions to where his braces, had he worn any, would have crossed. “Stabs in the back.”

“I really, genuinely, can help you out,” said Omally with conviction. “I swear it.”

“If only it were so,” moaned Neville. “If only I could see some ray of hope. Some light at the end of the dark tunnel of life. Some sunbeam dancing upon the bleak rooftop of existence, some…”

“All right, all right!” Omally said. “That’s enough, I’ve been kicked in the cobblers a few times myself, I know how much it hurts. Do you want to know how I can help you out or not?”

“I do,” said Neville wearily.

Omally peered furtively about the bar and gestured the barman closer. “This is in the strictest confidence,” he whispered. “Between you and me alone. Should you wish to express your gratitude in some way when the thing is accomplished, then that is a matter between the two of us.”

Neville nodded doubtfully. Whatever it was that Omally was about to say, he knew that it would as usual cost him dearly. “Say your piece then, John,” he said.