The Antipope

21

The people of Brentford had taken to calling them the Siamese Twins. From the moment they had despatched the sinister contents of the sack along the river John Vincent Omally and James Arbuthnot Pooley were never to be seen apart. The days passed wearily with no call from the Professor. Pooley wondered if the old man might possibly have lost his nerve and decided to do a runner, but Omally, whose faith in the Professor bordered upon the absolute, would have none of that. “He has seen too much,” he assured Pooley, “he will not rest till that Pope Alex is driven back into the dark oblivion from whence he came.”

“There is a definite sword of Damocles air to all this,” said Jim. “I feel that around every corner something is lurking, every time a telephone rings or a postman appears I have to make a dash for the gents.”

“My own bladder has not been altogether reliable of late,” said John dismally.

“Talking of bladders, it would appear to be opening time.”

John nodded. He owned no timepiece but his biological clock told him to the minute the licensing hours of the county. “A pint of Large would be favourable.”

Outside the Swan a builder’s lorry was parked and two swarthy individuals of tropical extraction laboured away at the damaged brickwork with mortar and trowel. Neville, his hand still bandaged from his recent encounter with the Professor’s unopenable parcel, put down the glass he was polishing and addressed them with a surly “What’ll it be?”

Omally raised an eyebrow. “Not still sulking over the hole in the wall, surely, Neville?” he said.

“I am a patient man,” said the part-time barman, “but I have stood for a lot this year, what with the perils of Cowboy Night and the like. Every time I sit down and catalogue the disasters which have befallen this establishment over recent months, Omally, your name keeps cropping up, regular as the proverbial clockwork.”

“He is a man more sinned against than sinning,” Pooley interjected helpfully.

“Your name comes a close second, Pooley.”

“They’re doing a nice job on the front wall,” said Pooley, smiling painfully. “What did the brewery say?”

“As it happens,” said Neville, “things didn’t work out too badly there, I told them that it was a thunderbolt.”

“A thunderbolt? And they believed it?”

“Yes, indeed, and not only that, they said that due to the evident danger they would give me an increase in salary, but did not think it wise to install the new computerized cash register in case its electronic workings attracted further cosmic assault upon the premises.”

“Bravo,” said Jim, “so all is well that ends well.” He rubbed his hands together and made a motion towards the beer pulls as if to say “Merits a couple of free ones then.”

“All is not well,” said Neville coldly, waggling his still bandaged thumb at them. “Someone could have been killed, I will have no more of it. This is a public house, not a bloody missile proving station.”

Neville counted the exact number of pennies and halfpennies into the till and rang up “No Sale”. The Siamese Twins took themselves and their pints off to a side table. They had little to offer each other by the way of conversation; they had exhausted most subjects and their enforced closeness had of late caused them generally to witness and experience the same events. Thus they sat, for the most part speechless, oppressed by fears of unexpected telegrams or fluttering pigeon post.

The bar was far from crowded. Old Pete sat in his regular seat, Chips spread out before him 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 breath. “Ow, ooh, get off, get off.” These imprecations were directed towards Jim Pooley, whose oversized boot had come snugly to rest beneath Omally’s chin. “Will you get off I say?”

Pooley jerked himself awake. “Where am I?” he groaned.

“Where you have been for the last two days, in my bloody allotment shed.”

Pooley groaned anew. “I was having such a beautiful dream. I can’t go on here,” he moaned, “I can’t live out my days a fugitive in an allotment shed, I wish Archroy had never rebuilt it. You must give yourself up, John, claim diminished responsibility, I will gladly back you up on that.”

Omally was not listening, he was peeling a potato. Before him a monstrous heap of such peelings spoke most fluently of the restricted diet upon which the two were at present subsisting. “It is spud for breakfast,” said he.

Pooley made an obscene noise and clutched at his rumbling stomach. “We will die from spud poisoning,” he whimpered. “It is all right for you blokes from across the water, but we Brits need more than just plain spud to survive on.”

“Spud is full of vitamins,” said Omally.

“Full of maggots more like.”

“The spud is the friend of man.”

“I should much prefer an egg.”

“Eggs too have their strong points, but naught can in any way equal for vitamins, carbohydrates or pure nutritional value God’s chosen food, the spud.”

Pooley made a nasty face. “Even a sprout I would prefer.”

“Careful there,” said Omally, “I will have none of that language here.”

“Sorry,” said Pooley, “it just slipped out.” He patted at his pockets in the hope that a cigarette he had overlooked throughout all of his previous bouts of pocket-patting might have made a miraculous appearance. “I have no fags again,” he said.

“You’ve got your pipe,” said Omally, “and you know where the peelings are, there are some particularly choice ones near the bottom.”

Pooley made another tragic sound. “We eat them, we smoke them, we sleep on them, about the only thing we don’t do is talk to them.”

Omally chuckled. “I do,” he said, “these lads are not as dumb as they may look.” He manoeuvred the grimy frying-pan on to the little brick stove he had constructed. “Bar-b-que Spud,” he announced, lighting the fire. “Today, fritters lightly fried in their own juices, turned but once and seasoned with…”

“Seasoned with?”

“Tiny golden flakes…of spud!”

“I can’t go on,” said Pooley, raising his voice to a new pitch of misery. “Two days here wondering who will get us first, the police or that maniac in the Mission. I can’t go on, it is all too much.”

“Your fritters are almost done,” said Omally, “and this morning I have a little treat to go with them.”

“Spudburgers?” queried Pooley. “Or is it Kentucky fried spud, or spud chop suey?”

“You are warm,” said Omally, “it is spud gin.” He hefted a dusty bottle into the light. “I thought I had a few bottles of the stuff left, they were in the bottom of one of the potato sacks. Good place to hide them eh?”

Pooley ran a thoughtful hand over his stubbly chin. “Spud gin, is it good stuff?”

“The best, but seeing as you have this thing against spuds, I shall not offend you by offering you any.”

“It is no offence, I assure you. In fact,” Pooley scooped up a spud fritter and flipped it into his mouth, “I am growing quite fond of the dear fellows. Ooh, ouch!” He spat out the fritter and fanned his tongue desperately.

“They are better left to cool awhile,” Omally informed him. “Here, have a swig.” He uncorked the bottle and passed it to Pooley.

Pooley had a swig. “Not bad,” said he. Omally watched him with interest. Pooley noticed that he was counting under his breath. “Nine, ten,” said Omally.

“Ye Gods!” croaked Pooley in a strangled voice, clutching at his throat. Sweat was appearing upon his forehead and his eyes were starting to pop.

“Creeps up on you doesn’t it?” Omally asked, grinning wickedly and taking a lesser swig from the bottle Pooley had dropped into his wisely outstretched hands.

Pooley’s nose had turned a most unpleasant shade of red and his eyes were streaming. “That definitely has the edge on Old Snakebelly,” he said when finally he found his voice, “but I feel I have the measure of it now, give me another swig.”

The two men sat awhile in the morning sunlight sharing the bottle and chewing upon Omally’s potato fritters. At length Jim said seriously, “You know, John, we really cannot keep this up much longer, we are dangerously close to the Mission and if that character does not get his Papal paws upon us then someone else is bound to observe the smoke from our fire and report our presence to the police.”

Omally nodded sombrely. “All these things have of course crossed my mind, our imposed isolation here has given us both time for reflection. For myself I am prepared to sit it out and await the Professor’s word, what of you?”

Pooley shrugged helplessly. “What can I say, I am up to my neck in it, I suppose we have little choice.”

Omally passed him the bottle once more and leant back amongst the potato sacks. “We shall not starve,” said he, “although I am afraid there is a limit to the things even I can do with a potato.”

Pooley had risen to his feet, his right hand shielding his eyes from the sunlight, and he appeared to be gazing off into the distance. “Now what do you make of that?” he asked in a puzzled voice.

Omally rose to join him. “Where?” he asked. “What are you looking at?”

Pooley pointed. “It’s like a swirl of smoke, or a little black cloud.”

Omally shielded his eyes and squinted off into the haze. There was a dark shape twisting and turning in the sky, and as he watched it grew larger and blacker.

“It’s locusts,” said Jim, “a bloody plague of locusts.”

“It’s not locusts,” Omally squealed in a terrified voice, “it’s birds, the birds from Archroy’s garden. Run for your life.”

Pooley’s feet were welded to the ground. “I can’t run,” he whimpered, “I fear that the potato gin has gone to my legs.”

“Into the shed then.” Omally grabbed his companion by the shoulders and yanked him backwards, slamming the door shut behind them. He was not a moment too soon as the screeching mass of birds covered the allotment in a whirling feathery cloud, obliterating the sun. The sound was deafening, horny bills scratched and scraped at the corrugated iron of the small hut, a thousand tiny hooked claws tore at it. Pooley’s hands found themselves once more clapped over his ears while Omally beat away at the snapping beaks which forced their way in through the cracks of the door.

“Do something, Jim,” he shouted, his voice swelling above the din. “If they get in here, there won’t be enough of you left to send home in a tobacco tin.”

Pooley took to turning about in circles, flapping his hands wildly and shouting at the top of his voice. It was a technique he had perfected as a lad and it had always served him well, when it came to getting his own way.

The birds, however, seemed unconcerned by Pooley’s behaviour and if anything their assault upon the hut became even more frenzied and violent. There was the sound of splintering wood and Omally saw to his horror that scores of tiny dents were beginning to appear on the corrugated walls. Then suddenly the attacks ceased. Pooley found himself spinning, flapping and shouting in absolute silence. The birds had gone.

“The birds have gone,” said Jim, ceasing his foolish gyrations.

“They have not,” Omally replied, “I fell for a similar trick on my first encounter with them.”

Pooley pressed his eye to a crack in the door. “I can’t see them.”

“They’ll be around, on the roof or around the back.”

“Then should we make a break for it?”

“That I would not advise.”

The two men slumped on the potato sack in the semi-darkness. It was cramped and with the sun beating down upon the roof it was also extremely hot.

“We’ll die in here for certain,” said Pooley, “suffocate we will, like rats in a trap.”

“Don’t start all that again,” said Omally, raising his fist in the darkness.

Long minutes passed; in the distance the Memorial Library clock struck ten. Several yards away from the shed Omally’s bicycle Marchant lay in its twisted wreckage, musing upon man’s inhumanity to bike and bird’s inhumanity to man. Jim struggled out of his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “Have you any more of that potato gin?” he asked. “Only if I am going to die, I should prefer to die as I have lived, drunkenly.”

“Nobody is going to die,” Omally assured him (although to Pooley his voice had a somewhat hollow quality), “but I would appreciate it if you could be persauded to channel your enormous intellect towards some means by which we might facilitate our escape.” He pulled another bottle from the potato sack and handed it to his companion.

“You have a lovely turn of phrase, John,” said Jim, drawing the cork from the bottle and taking a large swig. He passed it back to Omally, who took a sip and returned the bottle. “How does one drive off birds, such a thing is surely not impossible?”

“A shotgun is the thing,” said Pooley, “both barrels, small shot.”

“I fear that we will have a long time to wait for a passing gamekeeper,” said John.

“We might tunnel our way out then, possibly dig down, we might even break into one of Soap’s underground workings.”

Omally tapped the concrete floor with his hobnails. “We can forget that I am thinking.”

“A scarecrow then.”

Omally stroked his chin, “I can’t really imagine a scarecrow putting the fear of God into these lads, but if you will give me a few moments I think I have an idea.”

The Memorial Library clock struck the half hour and within the small hut upon the allotment Jim Pooley stood wearing nothing but his vest and underpants. “Don’t you ever change your socks?” Omally asked, holding his nose.

Jim regarded him bitterly in the half darkness. “Are you sure this is going to work?” he asked.

“Trust me,” said Omally, “the plan is simplicity itself.”

Pooley chewed upon his lip. “It doesn’t look very much like me,” he said, “I am hardly that fat.” His remarks were addressed to the life-sized dummy Omally was fashioning from Pooley’s garments. He had knotted the sleeves and trouser bottoms and stuffed the thing with potatoes.

“We’ve got to give it a little weight,” said John. “How is the head coming?”

“Splendidly, as it happens,” said Jim. “I like to pride myself that given a turnip, which I am disgusted to find that you had secreted from me for your own personal consumption, and a penknife, I am able to model a head of such magnificence as to put the legendary Auguste Rodin to shame.” Pooley passed across his sculptured masterpiece and Omally wedged it firmly between the dummy’s shoulders. “Very nice,” he said.

“Very nice if it fools the birds.”

“It will,” said Omally. “Have some faith in me will you?”

“But what of me?” Pooley complained. “I shall be forced to run through the streets in my underwear.”

“I have thought of all that, leave it to me. Are the bottles ready?”

Pooley held up two bottles of the potato gin. They had been uncorked and gin-dampened strips of cloth torn from Jim’s shirt-tail thrust into the necks, Molotov cocktail-style.

“Better douse our good friend here,” said Omally, “we want this to work to maximum effect.” Pooley took up the last bottle and poured it over the dummy. “Right.” Omally held the dummy with one arm and made the sign of the cross with the other.

“That is very comforting,” said Jim.

“We only get one chance at this, Pooley, don’t mess it up, will you?”

Pooley shook his head. “Not I, but it seems a tragic end to a good suit.”

“I will buy you another,” said Omally.

“What with? You have no money, you are wearing my other suit.”

“You may have my Fair Isle jumper and cricket whites.”

“Bless you,” said Jim Pooley.

Omally edged open the hut door. All was still upon the allotment, the relentless sun beat down upon the parched earth and in the distance, a train rolled over the viaduct.

“Now as ever,” said Omally firmly; gripping the dummy he flung it forward with as much strength as he could muster.

There was a great ripple in the sky above the hut and down upon the dummy in a squawking, screaming cascade the birds fell in full feathered fury. Pooley struck his lighter and set flame to the strips of shirt tail.

“Throw them,” screamed Omally.

Pooley threw them.

There was a double crash, a flash and a great flaring sheet of flame engulfed the feathered hoard. Without looking back Pooley and Omally took once more to their heels and fled.