The Sprouts of Wrath

43

The evening turned into night and the night into the coming day. And it was another good one. The people of the borough prepared to go about their business without any particular interest. Tomorrow was coming, the great day of the games and they all had their free tickets. Well, almost all. Old Pete waved goodbye to a well-pleased punter and pecked his old lips at the bulging bundle of money-notes he now clutched in his grubby paw. “Enjoy yourself,” he called. “Come on the Bs!”

Norman had been up most of the night tinkering in his lock-up garage and the Hartnell Air Car was coming on a storm. He had definitely come up with a winner this time. As the dawn broke on the black horizon he yawned, scratched his bum, locked up the garage and trudged back to his shop for an hour or two’s shut-eye.

Neville did not rise like a lark, more like a turkey on Christmas Eve. He had a bad feeling that he could not put a name to. Something was very wrong in the borough, his nose told him so. But exactly what, that was anyone’s guess. “Probably nothing,” said the part-time barman as he lay in wait for Norman’s paper-boy, pointed stick in hand.

Jim lay long in bed, nursing a hangover of extreme proportions. When the cabbage wine had gone he had done the unthinkable and broken into Omally’s hut wherein lay a half-crate of five-year-old Scotch. “If he is dead,” Pooley reasoned, “he will forgive me, if alive then I can always apologize.” Such reasoning had got Pooley where he was today, wherever that might have been.

The Professor looked in at his door. “Sleep on, sweet prince,” he said softly. “You are going to need all the strength you have.”

Inspectre Hovis had had a rough night. It had all been in newspaper headlines again. Each announcing in big black letters the sacking in great disgrace of the great detective. His commander had given him twenty-four hours to wind up his investigations, arrest the master criminals and recover the gold. Hovis awoke in a cold sweat to the sound of his telephone ringing.

“It must be tonight,” said the voice of Hugo Rune. “Be ready.”

Hovis replaced the receiver; his number was unlisted, he had not given it to Rune. “Tonight,” said Inspectre Hovis, “tonight.”

“And this is the London Olympics,” said the television set.

“And off you go,” said Neville, pulling the plug.

Young Master Robert danced before him in a youthful delirium. “That is for the benefit of the punters,” he cried, “switch it back on this minute.”

Neville gazed round at the deserted bar. “Why don’t you get stuffed?” he enquired under his breath.

“Your job’s on the line here, pal,” bawled the bouncing boy. “Get it back on, that’s an order!”

“As you please.” Neville inserted the plug in its socket. He could have found a far better place to stick it. “And to what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked.

“You useless skinny bastard,” said the Young Master. “You and your paddy mate thought you’d got the better of me, didn’t you? Thought you could wind me up, eh?”

“No offence meant,” said Neville, “none taken, I hope.”

“Do you see this?” The boy waggled an official-looking document beneath the barman’s nose. Neville did not like the smell of it. “See it, do you?”

“I think I can just make it out.”

“Well, take a good long look.” He spread the paper out upon the bar-top. “Peruse and inwardly digest.”

Neville cocked his good eye over it, firstly with disinterest, then with amazement, latterly with horror.

“You are selling the Swan?” he whispered in a creaking, breathless voice.

“Yes indeedy. This dump never made a decent profit, most likely because your hand was always in the till.” Neville took the greatest exception to that remark, but he was dumb-struck. “Well, now you can do the other thing. We’re selling it off. The brewery is diversifying, expanding into other areas, leisure complexes, recreational facilities, the growth market of tomorrow. These old spit and sawdust pubs are a thing of the past. The Swan is finished, you are finished.”

Neville’s brain swam in soup. “I… you … what…”

“Watchamate, Neville,” said Jim Pooley who, upon rising from his pit, knew exactly where he should take his breakfast.

“Jim,” said Neville, “Jim.”

Jim spied the barman’s grave demeanour. “Something up?” he asked, astute as ever.

“He’s just about to get his coat on and go down to the Job Centre,” said Young Master Robert.

“He is what?” Jim looked at Neville. “What is all this?”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” said the boy, “but this scrawny excuse for a barman is getting the elbow.”

“You are sacking Neville?” Pooley shook his head in order to wake up his brain. He surely hadn’t had that much to drink last night. But perhaps he had, perhaps he was having the DTs. “Sacking Neville?”

“He’s out. The brewery is selling the Swan.”

“Selling it, for how much?”

The Young Master turned the property details, for such they were, about on the bar-top. “Seventy-five-thousand pounds, more than it’s worth.”

“And when does it go on the market?”

“End of the week. Interested, are you?” he asked sarcastically. “You look like you could run to a sleeping-bag and a quart of cider.”

“There are no witnesses,” said Jim to Neville, “shall I kill him now?”

Neville hung his drowning head. “You know my feelings about murder in the bar.”

“This is a somewhat exceptional circumstance, we might waive the rule on this occasion.”

“You pair of no-marks, go screw yourselves.” With this parting shot, the Young Master stepped around the bar counter and drew himself a large Scotch. Grinning like a dead moggy, he took his drink off to a distant table.

Jim looked at the lost barman. “Golly,” said he.

“The game would appear to be up,” the other replied. “Have a pint on the house.” He took down a glass, stared through it wistfully and placed it beneath the beer spout.

“Seventy-five thousand,” said Jim. “Not an unreasonable sum, all things considered.”

“Well beyond my means.” Neville pulled upon the pump handle and presented Jim with his pint. “And yours also.”

Pooley smiled. “Not necessarily. Have a little look at this, and take a large Scotch for yourself.” Jim dug out the now legendary betting slip and spread it before the barman.

Neville looked at the slip, he looked at Pooley, at the slip, at the Scotch optic, at Young Master Robert, at Pooley. Neville did a whole lot of looking. “So it’s true,” he said in a whisper, appropriate to the occasion. “This is the genuine article. I heard talk, of course.”

Jim nodded. “The real McCoy, as they say.”

“Congratulations.” Neville was unable to muster a lot of conviction. “I mean, well done, I am happy for you.”

“Come on, Neville,” said Jim, “it would be a great shame to see the Swan change hands or ever, God forbid, close down. It’s kind of my past, I’d hate to see it go.”

“Then you …”

“Not me, Neville, you “Me?”

“Of course.” Pooley grinned, a warm flush of pure pleasure crept all over his body. “This is your pub, you should own it, it is your right.”

“My right?”

“I give it to you as a present,” said Jim, “on the promise that you never change a thing, not a hair of the carpet, not a tatty old bar-stool, not a nothing. That you keep it as it always has been, for ever.”

“I promise.” Neville crossed his heart. “You really mean it?”

Jim dug a leaky biro from his pocket and wrote upon a beer-mat, NEVILLE, IOU £75,000, signed Jim Pooley. “I’ll be around twelve tomorrow with the money, God willing.”

“God willing?”

“There are a few matters that the Professor and I have to sort out. Oh and Neville, you will take down that silly sign, won’t you? I always liked The Flying Swan, just as it was.”

“Oh yes, Jim, oh yes indeed!” Neville clutched the beermat to his chest. “Tell me once again that this is really true!”

“It is really true, and why shouldn’t it be. Every man should be entitled to his ‘happy ever after’, it’s only fair.”

“Oh yes, Jim, yes, yes, yes!” Neville pulled the plug from the television set. “Time, gentlemen, please,” he called. “Come on now, gents, have you no homes to go to?”

The Young Master leapt up from his seat and stormed across the bar. “Time, gentlemen, please? What’s your game? Have you gone bloody mad?”

Neville took up the soda syphon and levelled it at the Young Tormentor. “Should I, Jim? What do you think?”

“Oh. you should,” said Jim Pooley. “You really should.”

The Brentford sun moved across the sky, became a projected image for the balance of the day, dipped towards the horizon and made off towards foreign parts. Night fell upon Brentford.

Neville sniffed at the air. It ponged like crazy, but a broad smile was on the face of the part-time barman as he tapped the top pocket which contained a certain signed beer-mat. “We will ceremonially burn that,” he said, glancing at the ridiculous sign hanging outside the pub. “Ye Flying Swan Inn, indeed!”

“I don’t think I can go through with this,” said Neville’s erstwhile saviour, “I don’t think my bottle is up to it.”

Professor Slocombe smiled. “You will manage, Jim. My faith is in you.”

“But what exactly are you intending to do?”

“Well, I must confess that Kaleton has very much placed the cat amongst the pigeons by putting forward the start of the games. I am not as well prepared as I might like.”

“We are doomed,” said Jim.

“Nothing of the kind. The fact that he has done this suggests that he has doubts, fears that he will not succeed in his insane scheme.”

“But what of it all? You can’t be certain he isn’t telling the truth.”

“No, I cannot be certain, but the threat is palpable and we must make all efforts to confound his plans.”

“The Soul of the World,” said Pooley. “Some adversary.”

“No, Jim, I will not have it. We now have the wherewithal to enter the stadium, we shall see what we shall see.”

“Professor,” said Jim seriously, “you have held your ceremonies here, upon home territory. I am not a fool, I know that here you are at your strongest, your most powerful. But up there, out in the open, on Kaleton’s home pitch, we might not fare too well.”

“Jim, do you understand what is meant by the ‘balance of equipoise’?”

“Like Newton’s third Law of Motion — every force has an equal and opposing force, that kind of thing?”

The Professor scratched at his chin. “You are coming into your own, Jim.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” said Jim, although he knew that he did.

“Terrible forces rage and thrust, the universe is not a peaceful place, but the balance remains, one thing cancels out another. There is harmony. A universal plan exists.”

“God,” said Pooley, “you are talking about God.”

“If you put it in those terms, then yes I am. Universal Spirit, call it what you will, for every yes there is a no, two sides to every question. Without an over-lying logic there would be just chaos.”

“I dare not think about the stars,” said Jim.

“That is one of the most profound statements I have ever heard.”

“It is?” Jim asked. “I have others if you wish to compile a list.”

“Now is not the appropriate time, perhaps tomorrow.”

“If there is a tomorrow.”

“Aha!” said Professor Slocombe. “Perk up, Jim, here comes Biggles.”

“What ho, chaps,” said Norman Hartnell, thrusting his head through the french windows.

“Watchamate, Norman, oh dear me.” Jim made a painful face as the scientific shopkeeper stepped into the study. He was clad in a leather helmet, replete with goggles. Little woolly explosions broke from his ancient RAF flying-jacket, a silk scarf hung about his neck.

“Wizard prang,” said Norman Hartnell.

Professor Slocombe glanced at Pooley. Jim made a brave face. In his left trouser pocket a nubbin of fluff resembled the ear-lobe of the legendary Jack Palance. “Bear with him,” said Jim. “He says it will work.”

“And so it will and does,” said Norman. “Who’s going up for a spin then?”

The Professor placed instruments of his enigmatic trade into a Gladstone bag and snapped it shut. “If we are all ready,” said he.

Pooley took a deep breath. “All right,” he said, “let’s go.”

The three men walked out into the night streets of Brentford. It seemed a clear night, peaceful, just like any other. But Jim and the Professor knew to the contrary. Something lurked, a big bad goblin, waiting to gobble them all up. Norman marched ahead with a jaunty step. He just doesn’t know, thought Pooley, but what if he did? What if everyone knew? If things went badly tonight and all was as Kaleton had said, the world of men would soon be in for a dire shock. A rude awakening. All that was normal, all that was expected to be, all those plans and futures, gone up in a puff of smoke, or a bloody big bang. Or something. Jim had no idea what, but whatever it was was no laughing matter.

Norman led them to the row of lock-up garages, amidst many a furtive sideways glance to assure himself that they were not to be observed. Amidst many more furtive sideways glances, he took out his ring of keys and applied one to the lock. The up-and-over door did that very thing and Norman turned with a flurry of flapping arms. “Your chariot awaits,” said he.

The Morris Minor stood, looking somewhat the worse for wear. Pooley and the Professor edged about it, peering and wondering. Strange metal carbuncles had been welded on to the bonnet and a battery of commandeered flue-pipes, vacuum cleaner nozzles and shower sprinklers projected from beneath the boot. Metal hawsers were strung across the car and secured to iron rings set into the concrete floor.

“Just to be on the safe side,” said Norman to the Professor, who was eyeing these with suspicion. “Now if you two gentlemen would like to sit in the back? I need quite a bit of space in the cockpit.”

Pooley and the Professor climbed aboard and Norman swung back the driving seat after them. “My, my,” said Jim, “that looks quite busy.” The dashboard of the Morris now bore a distinct resemblance to that of Concorde, with rows of twinkling lights, gauges, dials, switches and the like.

“Mostly for show,” said Norman, “for the Japanese market, they love all that kind of stuff.” He busied himself releasing the steel hawsers, then climbed into the pilot’s seat and slammed the door. “Safety belt on,” he said buckling himself up. “Key ignition.” He did that very thing. “Altitude check, zero, check, thrust plates activated, single interlock on, Normanite pods optimum factor six …”

“Norman,” said Professor Slocombe sternly, “is all this pre-flight procedure actually necessary, or do I detect gamesmanship of the ‘bullshit-baffles-brains’ variety at work here?”

“Safety first, Professor. As test pilot it is my responsibility …”

“Test pilot?” said Pooley. “You mean that you haven’t, er, actually flown this thing before?”

“There has to be a first time for everything.”

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!” Pooley would have flapped his hands wildly and spun about in small circles, but he was firmly wedged in a very small space.

“Be quiet, Jim, have you no sense of adventure? Here we go, chocks away.” Norman revved the engine, engaged something which might have been a gear, but was probably far more complicated, and the car crept out of the lock-up and into the silent street. Norman placed his goggles over his eyes and leant back in his seat. “Up and away.” The car bumped down the kerb and into the road, showing no immediate inclination towards taking flight. “Up and away!” The Morris continued up the street, the only upping it seemed to have in mind. “Bugger!” said Norman. “There seems to be a slight technical hitch.”

Professor Slocombe examined his pocket watch. “We do not have all night,” he said in a cold voice.

“We are a bit overloaded,” said the shopkeeper, “but no problem, there’s a couple of paving slabs in the boot for ballast, I’ll just have them out.” He pulled the vehicle over to the side of the road, switched off the ignition, withdrew the key and climbed out of the car. Pooley noted that his safety belt had left with him, which was probably not an encouraging sign. The Professor was looking far from happy.

“Don’t blame me,” said Jim, “this is none of my doing.”

“Won’t be a tick.” Norman threw open the boot and struggled with a paving slab. It tumbled into the road and fell with a loud crash. The mystery in that, thought Jim, is how it failed to do the obvious and land on his foot. “Just one more and then we’ll be off.”

Jim suddenly realized that he seemed to be sitting much further back in his seat than before and that the view through the windscreen seemed mostly sky. “Norman!” he shouted, turning and tapping on the rear window, “Norman!”

“Shan’t be a tick, soon have it out.” This time the paving slab made a more muffled thump as it struck the ground.

“Oh, bloody hell,” wailed Norman hopping about on one foot, “Oh, bloody …”

“Oh, no!” howled Jim. “We’re going up! Norman, do something!” The shopkeeper hopped and swore. All four wheels of the car were now floating free of the road. The Hartnell Air Car was taking to its avowed natural habitat. “Norman!”

Suddenly realizing the gravity, or in this case non-gravity of the situation, Norman ceased his hopping and made a great leap at the rear bumper as it passed him by. He missed, floundered and toppled into the road where he lay drumming his fists and kicking his feet and crying “Bugger,” over and over again.

The car began to gather speed and altitude in a direct mathematical ratio which was of interest to the Professor alone. “I think you had better take over up front, Jim,” said the old man. “I have never actually driven a car.”

“I have driven cars, but never one like this, and anyway …”

“Anyway, Jim?”

“Anyway, Norman has the ignition key.”

“Ah,” said Professor Slocombe. “Now this presents us with certain unique difficulties. We would appear to be gathering momentum at a rate inversely proportionate to that of a falling object. Thus we are gaining mass. This is interesting, as Newtonic law would naturally presuppose an invalidation in the anti-gravitational properties of Normanite. One should cancel the other out.”

“Fascinating,” said Jim, growing sweaty about the brow.

“Yes,” said Professor Slocombe, “but not good. If we continue to accelerate in this fashion, then I estimate we I will strike the underside of the stadium,” he did a rapid mental calculation, “in approximately fifty-five seconds, give or take. I would consider impact to be a somewhat messy affair doubtless culminating in our extinction.”

Pooley got the message without a further telling of it. He shinned over the driver’s seat and began to tear at the dashboard. “A bit of wire would be your man, Professor.”

“Ah yes, a ‘hot wire’ I believe it’s called, a sound idea.”

The Professor reached into a rip in the seat-back in front of him and with a display of remarkable strength, ripped out a length of rusty spring. “Here you are, Jim, this should be the very thing.”

Pooley snatched the spring from the outstretched hand and delved into the dashboard. “How much time?”

“Thirty seconds, probably less.”

Jim jiggled the spring and thrummed the accelerator pedal. And cursed a lot. Norman had done a thorough job in rewiring the car, he couldn’t raise a spark. “It doesn’t work,” cried Jim, “it doesn’t work!”

“A pity,” said Professor Slocombe. “It was a brave try though.”

The car sped upwards, gaining speed. Far below, Norman watched it receding into the sky. He counted down the seconds beneath his breath and closed his eyes. If it was of any interest to anyone, other than those personally involved in the impending disaster, his mental calculations tallied exactly with those of the Professor.

A small task-force of hand-picked officers crept along the Kew Road. Before them, two figures stalked from shadow to shadow, muttering to one another in urgent muted tones. One was lean and angular and had taken no sustenance whatever this day, the other was broad and bulbous and had only recently pushed his chopsticks aside after a twelve-course belly-buster.

“As Commanding Officer,” said Inspectre Hovis, “I dictate the naming of names. This is Operation Sherringford and history will know us as Hovis’s Heroes.”

“Phooey!” the other replied. “As overall adviser on special attachment to the unit, I demand that this venture be called Operation Hugo, and we, Rune’s Raiders.”

“I have no intention of arguing with you, Rune.”

“Nor, I, you. Rune’s Raiders, or I go home.”

“All right, but it’s Operation Sherringford.”

“Ludicrous! Must I forever pander to your inflated ego?”

The two continued their dispute as they neared the gasometer. Behind them the team of five officers slunk along. To them this was Operation Laurel and Hardy and they were the Lost Patrol.

“All right, Rune,” whispered Hovis, as the two of them skulked in the shadows. “We’re getting close now, what is the plan?”

“Plan?” asked Hugo Rune.

“Plan, man, you do have one, don’t you?”

“Do you mean the plan for Operation Hugo, or that other one?”

Hovis muttered beneath his breath, no matter what the outcome of this operation was, he had determined that Rune’s immediate future was going to be subject to the pleasure of Her Majesty. “The plan.”

“Yes?”

“Operation Hugo,” spat Inspectre Hovis.

“Good,” said Rune. “Now follow me.” He led Hovis on and the Inspectre beckoned the task-force to follow.

Rune’s Raiders skirted the wire fence. It towered above them menacingly; tiny blue sparkles of electrical energy fizzed and popped about its upper regions saying, “Just you try it.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Hovis growled as the field of static set the Inspectre’s whitened pelt on end.

Rune strode forcefully on ahead in case Hovis spotted the hopeless look on his face. If he couldn’t come up with a means of entry soon he was going to have to do a runner. The fence was endless, threatening. He plodded on, casting spells in every direction. Suddenly he halted in his tracks and a broad smile broke out upon his broad face. “There,” said he, in a hushed voice.

Hovis collided with Rune’s ample rear end. “What?” he asked.

“There.”

Hovis followed the direction of the mystic’s gaze. “Well now, Rune, I underestimated you.” Not five yards ahead a ragged opening gaped in the wire. “Congratulations,” said Inspectre Hovis. “This way, men, and hurry.”

Rune smiled and shrugged modestly. “I am a man of my word,” said he, “I am Rune whose power is infinite, whose knowledge absolute.” I wonder how that got there, he wondered.

The Hartnell Air Car dipped away from the stadium with inches to spare and hurtled off into the night sky.

“Now that was close.” Jim Pooley gripped the wheel, knuckles suitably white, face a likewise hue.

The Professor’s head appeared above the passenger seat. “Exactly how did you do that?” he asked.

“There was a spare ignition key taped under the dash,” said Jim. “That was handy, eh?”

“Handy is not the word I would use, Jim.”

“Do you ever feel, Professor …” Jim glanced back over his shoulder.

“That a power greater than ourselves is in control of our destinies?” the old man asked.

“Something like that.”

“It is a possibility the present circumstances might add weight to. You most definitely have a guardian angel, Jim.”

“That’s a comforting thought.” Jim settled himself back behind the wheel.

The ancient scholar leant back in his seat. The teleportation of the key from Norman’s ring to Pooley’s hand had been a relatively simple matter, but it wouldn’t do to tell the lad that. “Drive on, Jim,” he told the pilot. “Bring us about over the stadium.”

“I’ll do my very best.” Jim had never been much of a driver, but whatever skills he might possess as a pilot were presently untried. “Cor, look at that,” he said.

Beneath them the stadium spread, acre upon acre, huge beyond imagination. A thing to inspire wonder and awe, if not a good deal more. Enclosed by the concentric circles of the stands, seating for a million people, so it seemed, the arena lay beneath a vast dome which shimmered in the moonlight. Towards the five star-points, the Olympic villages rose like small towns. A futuristic sky-scape of tall towers, cylinders, domes and pyramids with raised walkways, practice-tracks, thoroughfares and stairways strung between them. The panorama was fantastic, beyond belief, beyond possibility. It beggared description.

“It’s a corker!” said Pooley, very much impressed. “Big Boda this one.”

“I have never seen the like,” said Professor Slocombe, staring with almost equal wonder, “and I have been there and back again, as the saying goes.”

Pooley nodded thoughtfully, as was often his way when lost for words. At length he asked, “What are those, Professor?”

The sage followed the direction of Pooley’s pointing finger. “Both hands on the wheel, please,” he said. “What ‘those’ do you mean?”

“Those thoses.” Jim’s attention had become drawn to the ranks of tall pylons surmounted by silvered discs which sprouted variously about the star-points like fields of high-tech mushrooms.

“The solar cells I should suppose, Jim. They absorb the sunlight and project it from similar pads beneath the stadium, to simulate sky, provide light and create the visual camouflage.”

“Thank you,” said Pooley. “And so where would you like me to park, as it were?” Professor Slocombe delved into his Gladstone bag and brought out a blueprint of the stadium. Jim glanced back over his shoulder. “And how did you come by that, might I ask?”

“I stole it,” said the Professor in all candour. “I was far from certain that the television images told the whole truth about the stadium. I had this lifted from the offices of a certain Covent Garden design studio.”

Pooley grinned and flew the car in sweeping circles above the stadium, humming gently to himself. His thoughts at present were unsettled as he had no idea what might lie ahead. That he was going to buy one of these cars when he came into the big money was a certainty. As for now, getting through the night was rather high on the list of priorities. Another confrontation with Kaleton was in the offing and Jim felt almost comforted by the prospect. That was, he supposed, because his life lacked direction. That he should become Kaleton’s Nemesis, even if he pegged out in the process, lent a temporary purpose to an otherwise pointless existence. You will pay, said Jim to himself.

I do hope so, thought Professor Slocombe as he studied the blueprint without aid of a torch. “We will go down,” he told Jim, “at the southern tip, above the river, camp of the home team. I think we will avoid the Russian and American sectors, don’t want an international incident now, do we?”

Jim took his bearings. “Ah yes,” he said. “The river, yes, I’ve got it, but where exactly — and how?” he added as an afterthought.

“Yes, how?” Professor Slocombe folded the blueprint and peered out of the rear window. “There are heliports I see, but they have been constructed for vertical descent. There are no runways, and there is the matter of what will happen when you switch off the engine.”

“Oh yes?”

“Well, we’ll float up into the air again, won’t we?”

“Oh yes, I think the Hartnell Air Car is going to require a few more weeks on the drawing-board. So what are we going to do, Professor, bale out?”

“I’m not keen. Let us go down as slowly as we can, steer it around this way.”

Jim did as he was bid. They cruised down towards the camp of the home team, passing amongst the towers and pyramids, pinnacles and obelisks. At closer quarters it all became even more fantastic and unbelievable, a science-fiction landscape.

“How slowly can we go?” asked the Professor.

Pooley changed down and applied the brakes. “Quite slowly, as it happens. It’s quite clever this really, isn’t it?”

“The shopkeeper certainly keeps us guessing. Take us in straight ahead.” The car dropped gently down from the sky and although it continued to wobble uncertainly, Jim did an admirable job in controlling it.

“I have an idea,” said the Professor. “Can you take it in there?” He pointed to where a broad walkway disappeared into the entrance hall of one of the curious buildings.

“I’m not Luke Skywalker,” said Jim, “but the force is with us, I suppose.”

“Oh yes, indubitably, Jim.”

“Right then.” Pooley eased back on the throttle and in fits and starts they approached the opening. “Please extinguish your cigarettes and fasten your seat-belts.”

“Now is hardly the moment for levity. As soon as we are into the entrance hall, switch off the engine.”

Jim was suddenly more doubtful than ever. “But we will float up again surely?”

“And lodge under the entrance arch.”

That, thought Jim, was as iffy a proposition as any he had yet known. “In for a penny then.” The car bumped down on to the walkway with a squeal of tyres, bounced up again uncontrollably, the engine faltered and made coughing sounds. Jim gripped the wheel. “We’re going to crash.”

“Hold on tight, Jim. Now!” Pooley slammed on the brakes, tore the key from the ignition and made his personal recommendations to his Maker. The car ground along a side wall raising a stream of sparks and mangling metal, swerved, stopped dead and almost at once began to rise. There was a sickening crunch as it struck the top of the entrance hall. And then, a blessed silence. “Bravo, Jim, you did it!”

“I did?” Pooley’s face appeared over the wheel, nose crooked, a facsimile of the now legendary Chad. “I did do it, I really did.”

“Right, now we have wasted more than enough time — to work.”

“Right,” said Inspectre Hovis, “we have wasted more than enough time.” Rune’s Raiders stood in a dubious huddle before the great gasometer, fingering an arsenal of weaponry they were certainly unqualified even to handle, let alone raise in anger. Hovis cocked his old service revolver. “Now, Rune,” he said. “Open it up, there’s a good fellow.”

“Open it up,” Rune slowly remouthed the Inspectre’s words, “open it up.”

“We have the element of surprise to our favour.” Hovis turned to address the nervous constables. “Now, gentlemen, I do not want a bloodbath on my hands. We do not know how many of them there are in there. No-one, and I mean no-one, shoots anyone until I give the order, do I make myself understood?” The boot-blackened faces bobbed up and down in the darkness. Constable Meek straightened his Rambo-style headband and wondered which end of his Kalashnikov was the killing end. “OK, Rune, take us in.”

“Yes indeed,” said the Perfect Master, “indeed yes. Take us in, now let me see …”

“Now let me see.” Professor Slocombe studied the blueprint. He and Pooley stood within the shadow of the entrance hall; above them the Hartnell Air Car roosted quietly. “We go this way, Jim. Now try to keep your bearings, we may have to return at some speed.”

Pooley tucked the car’s ignition key safely away in his top pocket. “Exactly where are we going to?” he asked.

“To the very heart, Jim, the very hub. The core which lies at the centre of the arena, this area.” He pointed to the blueprint.

“But there’s nothing there but a black spot.”

“Indeed.” The Professor nodded gravely. “This way now, follow me.”

The two men passed between the titanic structures. Their entire design and geometry was strange, unnatural, alien. Jim ran his hand along a handrail and speedily withdrew it. “It hums,” he said, “it vibrates.”

“It knows we are here.”

Jim shuddered. “And what’s it all made of, Professor? This isn’t metal or glass, what is it?”

“Horn, bone, chitin, it is organic,” said the sage. “I don’t think this stadium was built, in the true sense of the word. I think it was grown.”

“Then it is …” the word did not come easily to Pooley’s lips, “… alive?”

“Not quite, it is dormant, moribund, if you like, it sleeps.”

“I do not like.” Jim tottered along behind the Professor, who moved with certain, long strides. “What when it wakes?”

“That, my dear Jim, is what we are here to prevent. We must not allow Kaleton to activate it, animate it, whatever you will.”

“This big shot of his that will ring out across the universe?”

“The very same. A shot of energy, some activating chemical agent, or pre-programmed codification. Whatever it might be we must prevent it.”

“It’s ever so quiet,” said Jim. “There must be thousands of people up here, how come we haven’t seen anybody?”

“I would suggest the use of a soporific gas, introduced into the air-conditioning at night to prevent any of the athletes wandering. We will not enter the dormitories to find out. Now wait.”

Jim looked up, somehow they had now entered the great arena. As usual Jim had been doing too much talking and not enough paying attention. He was lost, and now he was speechless. A low gasp arose simultaneously from two throats. They had entered a world of dream. Above them spread the weather-dome but from below it did not look like a glass canopy, more like a transparent membrane, breathing gently. And the arena itself, its scale was daunting, impossible to take in at a single viewing. The seating rose in great rings, rank upon rank, tier upon tier about a circus maximus built for Titans. The scope and symmetry was fearsome, yet it was fascinating.

“Oh indeed,” said Professor Slocombe. “Oh yes, indeed.”

“Why?” Pooley asked. “Why do all this if it is only meant to destroy?”

“It can destroy a million people here at a single go. But the whole point is that the entire world will be watching. More people watch the start of the games than any other single event, they would have to have something to look at.”

“It is inhuman, all too big, no human architect was a part of this.”

“No, Jim, it is as if all previous architecture was just a dry run for this. Baalbek, the pyramids, the temples of the Incas, the great cathedrals, all leading towards,” he gestured to include all that he could, “a temple for the gods.”

Jim’s head swam. “You are talking about religion again.”

“Not religion. An ideology perhaps, a greater understanding, a greater knowledge, but not one born of men. Worship of his gods has driven man to his most abominable of crimes, but also to his greatest of achievements. But this is not the work of man, but that of a higher order of being.”

“Esoterica was never my strong point, but this is the work of the devil.”

“It is all here, Jim, a masterplan, a great formula, the culmination of a hundred thousand years of accumulated thought and knowledge.”

“Then we are finished, Kaleton told the truth. Those that would walk with the gods require somewhat superior footwear. Let’s go out now, Professor, warn the army or something, take our chances on the ground.”

“No, Jim.” The Professor held up his hand. “All this can act for good as well as for evil. We can save the games, save mankind. This is the product of High Magick. Knowledge is neither good nor evil, it is in how it is applied.”

“As ever you have grasped but a tiny morsel of reality,” came a voice from everywhere and nowhere. “You think to construct a map of the universe, having nothing but the plan of your own backyard.” Pooley turned about in circles. The Professor stared into space. “Proud little man,” the voice continued, “puffed up with your own importance, creating God in your own image.”

“I am unable to see you,” said the Professor. “Will you show yourself or must I call out to you in the darkness?” The air buzzed with an unnatural electricity.

“Proud little man,” said the voice.

“Do you fear me so much that you dare not show yourself?”

“Fear is a human concept, Professor.”

“As is love. But you would know nothing of that.”

“Love, fear, hatred, all masks and blinkers, walls of delusion hiding a higher reality.”

Pooley strained his eyes to see something, anything, but the stadium swept away in all directions, fading into hazy perspectives. The owner or owners of the voice remained hidden to view. Jim shivered. There was a terrible B-movie banality about Kaleton’s conversation. One which, to Jim’s extensive knowledge of the genre, generally terminated in such phrases as “so die, puny earthling,” or something of a similarly unpleasant ilk.

“What do you want here, Professor? Have you come to plead for your precious hurnanity? Or perhaps for yourself alone?”

“On the contrary, I have come to issue you a challenge. There are old scores to be settled.”

“Old scores? I am intrigued.” The voice came close at Pooley’s elbow and the lad leapt back, keeping his failing bladder in check. Kaleton was sitting not two yards away in one of the rear stadium seats. Near enough to leap upon and kill, thought Jim, although he didn’t feel personally up to the challenge. “I thought perhaps you came in peace for all mankind.” The mocking tone in Kaleton’s death-rattle voice grated on Jim’s nerves, but the Professor seemed oblivious to it.

“Hardly that, Kaleton. I come to exact retribution. To punish you for your crimes and to finish a job which should have been finished a long time ago.”

Laughter exploded from Kaleton’s hideous face and the stench of his breath reached Jim, curling his nostrils and crossing his eyes. “And how do you mean to go about it? You are in my world now, I can smash you whenever I choose.”

“Perhaps and perhaps not, but hardly a victory upon a grand scale. I propose a far more noble scheme and one which I think might appeal to your sense of grandiosity as well as of justice.”

“Speak on.”

“I propose a battle of champions, to be held here and now.”

“Champions, battle, what is all this?”

“The protagonists are well known to each of us, light against darkness, good against evil, your man against mine.”

“Men? What men?”

“The sleeping Kings of Brentford!” said Professor Slocombe.

“What?” Kaleton’s head shrank into his shoulders, his chest bulging out to receive it, then he sprang from his seat to land upon all-fours. “You know of this?”

“Of the old battle, of the sanctuary, yes I know.”

Kaleton bounced and shook. Low howls and guttural sounds broke from his twisted mouth. Jim wondered where the lavs were. With a shudder, Kaleton rose once more upon two feet. He stared at the Professor, trembling and shaking. “There was a battle once,” he whispered, “long, long ago, when your people and mine fought, but then …”

“But then you were defeated.”

“Defeated, never! Look where you stand, Professor, does this look like defeat to you?”

“Then you have nothing to fear, you may enjoy your sweet revenge.” With that the Professor turned upon his heel and strode off down the long walkway towards the arena. “This is my challenge, Kaleton. Take it if you dare.”

Jim watched Kaleton. He was perched upon his crooked heels, frozen as if lost in thought. In reminiscence, perhaps? The Professor strode on. Jim glanced down, the Gladstone bag was there at his feet. The old man had gone off without it. In his recklessness he had surely left himself undefended. Jim was moved to take action, but lacked the wherewithal. Should he open the bag? Chuck the whole lot at Kaleton? Or simply run like mad?

Without warning Kaleton shot past him, bowling him from his feet. Jim felt that hideous strength, the raw elemental power. It fairly put the wind up him. Climbing into the nearest seat Jim flopped, powerless to do bugger all except look on.

Moving with a fearsome energy Kaleton bounded down the walkway after the Professor. “Raise your warriors!” he crowed. “Raise your dead king, your champion! This time, the reckoning will be swift and bloody.”

Pooley sank into his seat and sought his hip-flask. And now Professor Slocombe was standing upon the artificial turf of the sports ground, arms raised towards the sky. Kaleton bounded about him like a monstrous hound, calling insults and provocations. And light was growing in the arena. A curious glow illuminated the two tiny figures, foreshortened to Jim’s fearful gaze. Pooley popped the cork from the hip flask. “I wonder what the poor people are doing tonight,” he wondered.

Professor Slocombe mouthed the syllables of an ancient spell:

“‘And good King Bran had a battle axe

King Balin a mighty sword

And the warrior Kings rode out to war

And they met at the river’s ford’.”

And there came, as sounds and as movements, a great restlessness within the very bowels of the earth, a rumbling beneath the streets of Brentford. Old Pete’s dog Chips set up a plaintive howling which went unheard by his snoring master, the Hartnell Hear-it-all having been switched off for the night. At the pumping station, the mighty beam engine gasped in a lost Victorian voice. And beneath the water-tower something stirred. Beneath that tower of stone, forces long slumbering came into wake-fulness. A sound, a call, an awakening.

Outside the teepee at the bottom of the garden, two braves ceased their dance and stood sweating beneath the stars. Their faces shone. “And now it begins,” said Paul Geronimo, “the dance is over, the great old ones return, now it begins.”

And so did it begin. From behind the yellow varnish of old portraits unviewed for a century in council cellars, faces gazed forth, eyes blinked open. Musty tomes and librams heaved, pages turned. From out the coffers of the museum, dust-dry hands reached up to take musty weapons, the rotting halberds, the lances and war-swords. Memories unstirred for a millennium, memories hidden in old walls and crumbling fallen waterfronts, in grassy mounds, in dolmens, long barrows, hill-forts, earthworks and holy groves. Memories. And the warriors beyond memory awakened, returned. The warriors arose from their unmarked graves.

And through the walls and floors, the stairwells and window casements from out of the worn flagstones and cobbled courts, the warriors breathed life. And up through the tarmac which smothered the old thoroughfares and swallowed up the ground of Brentford where once stretched dew-dappled hedgerows and corn-fields mellow with golden harvest reaching out to the gently flowing Thames, came Bran.

Bran. Bran the brave and just, the slayer of men. Bran with that great head of his, which still spoke on long years after it had been parted from his body. Bran with those great arms of his, which had broken men and cradled babies. Bran with his wild blue eyes, and even wilder hair-do. Bran the blessed. Bran of old England. King Bran of Brentford.

It was definitely him! King Bran’s great hand closed upon the shaft of his battle-axe, drawing it from its museum case. He raised it to the heavens. Stretched up his arms, those arms of his with their steely thews, their cords of muscle, their knotted, tightened sinew. Raised up that great head of his, with its wild blue eyes, sweeping whiskers and quite improbable coiffure. And he called with a cry of triumph, “To arms! To arms!”

Rune’s Raiders bumbled about in the shadow of the gasometer as a seismic tremor rumbled beneath their feet.

“Something is occurring,” said Inspectre Hovis. “Rune, open the door or I will not answer for my actions.” He turned his pistol upon the mystic. “Make haste now or it will be the worst for you.”

Rune threw up his arms and in desperation addressed the gasometer. “Open, Sesame!” he cried. “Open … Sesame!”

Inspectre Hovis raised his pistol. “You bloody pillock!” he swore.

“And good King Bran had a snow-white steed.” Now the warriors were mounting up their horses. Steeds reformed from the dust of ages, reanimated by the words of the Professor’s calling. And the horsemen moved out towards the stadium, towards the new lair of their ancient enemy. A dusty legion passing through a dreamworld, at once foreign, yet oddly familiar. And they were of heroic stock, sprung from that mould long broken, long crumbled into nothingness. These Knights of old England, of that world of forests and dragons, of honour and of noble deeds. Holy quests. And the dust fell away from their armour, from the dry, leather harnessings, from those regal velvets. And the golden crown of kingship, with its broken emblem, rested upon the brow of Bran. The once and future King.

And the Kinsmen and the men-at-arms, the Knights Royal, breathed in the new air, the new unnatural air, laden with strange essences, flavours of this crude, uncertain century. And they rode on without fear. The boys were back in town!

High in the stadium, Pooley gulped Scotch and wondered what was on the go. The Professor stood alone at the very centre of the stadium, but Kaleton was nowhere to be seen. The stadium was silent as the very grave and had just about as much to recommend it. For in the stillness there was something very bad indeed.

“By the pricking of my thumbs something wicked this way comes,” said Jim. And he wasn’t far wrong, for now came a chill wind and the sounds of distant thunder. Pooley gazed up towards the weatherdome, but it had completely dissolved away. The stadium was now open to the sky. Lightning troubled an ever-blackening firmament and the stars came and went as trailers of cloud drew across them like darting swords. “Looks like rain,” said Jim “which would just about be my luck at present.”

And then Jim saw it. The cruel dark shape cutting through the midnight sky. The great, crooked wings sweeping the air. The long narrow head, the trailing feet, eagle-taloned, lion-clawed. The thin, barbed tail streaming out behind. “The Griffin!” Pooley ducked down into his seat. Further praying seemed out of the question, God was no doubt sick of the sound of Jim’s voice. Pooley’s nose came into close proximity with the Gladstone bag. “The Professor!” Jim sprang up, scanned the arena, in search of the sage … the old man had vanished. “Oh dear,” said Jim, “oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!”

And now he could hear the sounds of the flapping wings and further shapes filled the sky. The legion of King Balin rode the sky above Brentford. The legion of the forever night, raised by the force-words of the arch-fiend Kaleton. And at the van upon that most terrible of beasts, rode Balin. “Balin of the black hood. Balin whose eye was night.” Balin whose sword blade was the length of a man, although considerably narrower in width. King Balin of the iron tooth, the bronze cheek, the ferrous-metal jaw. Balin, the all-round bad lot. King Balin led his evil horde down towards the army of his enemy.

“I am going to count to five and then I am going to shoot your head off,” said Inspectre Hovis. “I should like to say that there is nothing personal in this, but I would not lie to a condemned man.”

“Abracadabra Shillamalacca! Come out, come out, whoever you are!” cried Hugo Rune.

“One,” said Hovis, “and I mean it.”

“Shazam!” cried Rune. “Higgledy-piggledy, my fat hen …”

“Two, three …”

“I’ll huff and I’ll puff …”

“Four, fi…”

“Look there, sir!” shouted Constable Meek. “Up there, up in the sky!”

“Birds?” said Hovis, squinting up. “No, not birds, bats! No! Bloody hell!”

“And there, sir, who’s that?”

Hovis peered about, following the constables wavering digit. On one of the high catwalks of the gasometer a solitary figure was edging along, carrying what looked to be a couple of heavy suitcases. “What’s going on here?” Hovis demanded. “I demand an explanation!”

“What’s he doing, sir?” The solitary figure was lowering one of the suitcases down the side of the gasometer on a length of rope.

“Is this your doing, Rune? Rune, come back! Stop that man, Constable!”

“Blimey,” said Meek. “And will you look at that lot!”

Along the Kew Road came the army of King Bran, riding now at the gallop. The war-horses heaved and snorted, their hooves raising sparks from the tarmac. The riders turned their noble faces towards the sky and raised their swords. King Bran ran a tail-comb through his gorgeous locks and urged on his charger. “Giddy up, Dobbin!” he cried. “Good boy there, gee up!”

Constable John Harney brought down Hugo Rune with a spectacular rugby tackle. “Gotcha!” said he, quoting the now legendary headline from the Sun. It may not have been much, but considering it was all he was going to get to say in the entire book, at least it was something.

Hovis leapt up and down. “Arrest everybody!” he cried. “Get on the walkie-talkie, Meek. I want the SPG, the SAS, the reserves, the bloody Boys Brigade, get them all here!”

“Yes, sir.” Meek whipped out his walkie-talkie. “Calling all cars,” he said in his finest Broderick Crawford, “calling all cars.”

“Please, sir, about this suitcase?”

“What suitcase, what, Reekie?”

“This suitcase, sir.” Constable Reekie pointed to the thing which now dangled a few feet above his head.

“Arrest it, boy! Arrest that holidaymaker. That case is probably full of drugs.”

“It’s ticking rather loudly, sir.”

“Ticking? Oh my God!”

“Duck, you suckers!” called a voice from above. “Hit the deck!”

The army of King Bran reached the Arts Centre. From out the night sky their mortal enemies fell upon them. The dark creatures dropped down upon the horsemen, beaks snapping, claws crooked to kill. The legions of darkness led by their evil lord. Balin the bad. Balin with his brow of burnished copper. Balin with his nose of black lead, his navel of tungsten carbide and a rare alloy with a complicated chemical figure.

“No prisoners,” cried Balin. “Spare not a filling, not a spectacle-frame, kill them all, kill, kill, kill!”

“Kill, kill, kill!” echoed his men, spurring down their nightmare steeds.

“God for Harry!” cried King Bran.

Tic-Toc-Tic-Toc went a certain suitcase.

Professor Slocombe laid a hand upon Pooley’s shoulder. “I think I have him distracted,” he told the flinching, cowering Jim. “We must get to work.”

“All work and no play,” said Jim painfully. “The hours in this job suck.”

“But the pay is good. Come, Jim, bring the bag, we must penetrate to the heart of the stadium.”

“What’s going on downstairs?” Pooley asked, gesturing in a downwards direction. “I saw all these flying things and now it sounds like a terrible punch-up.”

“It is only just the beginning, come on.”

“Not quite so fast.” Kaleton rose up before them. “Don’t take another step.”

“Help is on the way, sir.” Constable Meek crawled over to Inspectre Hovis. “A Commander West is coming over in person. He’s bringing a special task-force. He seemed terribly upset, sir, do you know him?”

Hovis buried his face in the ground and thrashed about with his legs. “You’re all under arrest!” he foamed.

Tic-Toc-Tic-Toc-Tic-Toc went the suitcase.

“And now the end is near and you must face the final curtain,” said Kaleton. “Tomorrow belongs to me, you are yesterday once more.”

“I’ll name that tune,” said Jim.

“So die, puny earthlings!” Kaleton raised his crooked arms.

“Don’t do it! Stay back!” shouted the Professor. “Jim, the bag.”

Jim tossed the Gladstone to the old man. It sailed through the air and departed into the darkness. “Sorry,” said Jim. “I suppose that means we’re in trouble.”

“You could say that.”

Tongues of fire grew from Kaleton’s fingers, leapt into the sky, veered down towards the two men.

The armies of Bran and Balin locked in titanic conflict the length of the Ealing Road. Big and bad was the fighting, great and terrible the hewing, the war cries, the blood and the torment. There was cleaving and cutting, hacking and stabbing.

Old Pete turned in his sleep. “Get down, Chips,” he muttered.

“And so die!” called Kaleton as he stood amidst the raining fire.

“I arrest myself in the name of the law,” said Inspectre Hovis.

Tic-Toc and finally Kaboom!!! said the dangling suitcase.

The gasometer erupted in a burst of crimson flame. The figure on the catwalk shinned up another staircase clutching his single suitcase. Torrents of debris filled the air and a cloud of golden dust.

In the stadium Kaleton shook and shivered, the flames about him guttered and died. “You have done this, you have tricked me. The tower, the sanctuary!”

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand that man,” said Jim.

“Run for your life, Jim,” said the Professor.

“Now that I do understand.” Jim took to his heels.

Kaleton staggered down the walkway towards the gaming ground. “The sanctuary, the wall is breached.”

“Blimey,” said Constable Meek emerging from a pile of golden debris. “Look in there.”

Hovis raised his charred head and gazed at the gasometer. A great hole yawned in its side and from within glowed … “Gold!” cried the Inspectre. “It’s full of gold!” Gold spilled from the ragged opening, but it was not just the gold from the robbery. This was a king’s ransom, a god’s ransom, the gold of centuries, the very gold of the gods, “The Gryphon’s golden hoard”.

“I get one per cent,” said Hugo Rune, “and don’t forget that.”

“God for Harry.” King Bran swung his mighty battle-axe taking several heads from as many shoulders. “Forward men, the battle is ours!” The horsemen moved onward, carrying the fight to the very doorway of Ye Flying Swan Inn.

“Same old sign,” said Bran. “A cup of mead later, I think.” Upstairs Neville pulled a pillow over his head. “Another bloody party,” he mumbled, snuggling down. “Now where was I? Oh yes, Alison, the appliance.”

Kaleton bounded over the artificial turf. “The sanctuary, the sanctuary.” Charles Laughton wasn’t in it.

The figure on the high catwalk faced another stairway. Below him the battle raged, cruel and bloody. Other tiny figures danced before the torn opening, delving into the golden hoard.

From the direction of the Brentford Half Acre came the scream of police sirens as a convoy of armoured vehicles moved into view.

The solitary figure climbed up and up, labouring beneath the weight of his suitcase. The stairways led ever upwards, towards heaven — the gasometer was never this high — yet it was. Upwards and ever upwards.

“I think I’m lost,” said Jim Pooley, “in fact I know I am.”

“Well done, Jim.”

“Now listen.” Pooley turned upon the Professor. “None of this is my doing, I don’t see why I should carry the can.”

“Or the Gladstone?”

“You’re the magician, wave the magic wand or something.”

“Really, Jim.”

“Well,” said Pooley, all sulks. “I got us up here and a fine waste of time it’s been. The least you can do is get us down.”

“There is a way, I think,” said the Professor, “follow me.”

“My God!” said Commander West as the armoured convoy turned into the Ealing Road and slewed to a halt amidst the holocaust. “Heavy riot gear, CS gas, shields, batons.”

“Rubber bullets,” the driver suggested.

“Rubber bullets.”

“Riot shields, sir?”

“I said that.”

“Helmets then.”

“Call for more reinforcements. Get on the blower, Briant. There’s a full-scale war going on here. Good Godfrey, that’s a head on the bonnet, isn’t it?”

“Looks like a Viking head, sir.”

“No, more like a Saxon.”

“Or a Celt, sir.”

“Dammit, Briant! I don’t give a shit about its nationality, get the bloody thing off my bonnet!”

Constable Briant stared out through the security grille at the carnage beyond. “I’m a bit doubtful about going out there, sir.”

“You’ll be on a bloody charge, constable.”

“Ten-four, sir.”

“Down this way,” said Professor Slocombe.

“It doesn’t smell good,” said Jim.

“Just follow me.”

“Arrest all this gold. Meek, I saw you filling your pockets. Rune, put that back.”

“One per cent, Hovis, I’ll take it now.”

“No you bloody won’t. Meek, I’m warning you. Reekie, I don’t know where you got that wheelbarrow but…”

The figure on the high catwalk gasped breathlessly; the stairways led up forever. But now he knew that at the top, at the top… he faced another stairway and prepared to climb. But his way was blocked.

“You,” said Kaleton. “You did this? But you’re…”

“Dead?” said John Omally, for it was no other man. “I all but was. Your filthy creatures damn near had me in pieces. But I survived, I crawled away and I hid out. And I watched you and now I’m going to kill you. Where is my girlfriend, what have you done with her, you bastard?”

“You’re a hard man to kill,” said Kaleton. “However.”

Omally shifted his suitcase from hand to hand. “Where is Jennifer?”

“She’s nice and safe, would you like to join her? Shall I call Jennifer that you might see her one more time, kiss those soft red lips? She’s so close you could reach out and touch her.”

“In here?” Omally’s free hand reached to the gasometer, but an icy blast tore it away, numb and bleeding.

“No,” said Kaleton, “she’s in here,” he pointed to his mouth, “and now you can come inside.”

“You’ve killed her, you… whatever you are.”

“Whatever I am. Who do you think I am?”

“You are Choronzon,” said Professor Slocombe, “lord of all anarchy, destroyer. You are Choronzon.”

Kaleton spun about. Above him on a higher catwalk stood Pooley and the Professor. Jim’s eyes bulged, filled with tears. “John,” he gasped, “John, is that you?”

“Watchamate, Jim,” said that very man.

“Blessed be,” said Jim Pooley.

“I am the Soul of the World,” cried Kaleton in many voices and many tongues, “I am Choronzon, I am Baal, I am Kali, I am Shiva. I am all that has gone before and all that is yet to come. Ruination lies in my hands, ruination for you and your kind. You dirt, you worms. Your time is at hand.”

“Where’s my girlfriend?”

“My future wife?” asked Jim. “He’s got her?”

“I am yesterday and tomorrow, Alpha and Omega. You are finished.” Kaleton twisted, distorted, the hideous mouth opened wider, swelled as if to encompass everything, the borough, the earth, the universe, the whole damn lot.

The earth trembled. The warriors beneath gazed up towards the iron tower. The riot police, prepared to batter skulls, halted in mid-swing. Rune made sacred signs. Meek continued to fill his pockets for the meek shall inherit the earth, after all. Hovis considered bee-keeping on the Sussex Downs. Behind Pooley’s left ear a particle of dirt resembled the exact shape of the lost continent of Atlantis.

“I am Choronzon,” cried the voices of Kaleton, the voices of the millions gone forward into the oblivion of yesterday. “We are the planet’s revenge, we will have no more of you. All die.”

“But you first,” said Omally, priming the suitcase and thrusting it into the ghastly void which spread before him, the mouth of hell.

The facade of human resemblance fell away from Kaleton. He was an unearthly shape, an elemental, the bogey man, the nightmare of children, the dreams of the mad, the delirium of the dying. He was all that was opposite, life in reverse. “You cannot stop us. You cannot reverse the process. A great shot will ring out across the universe. All will die, forever die, be gone. We are your Nemesis!”

Pooley swung down from the catwalk, struck the swelling creature from behind and catapulted it into space. Kaleton flew into the air, a whirling mass of neutrinos, primal flux, ancient evil made flesh, a formless horror that was many forms, many pasts and presents. And somewhere in that hinterland of time, lost between seconds, between yesterday, today and tomorrow, Omally’s suitcase exploded. It might have been in Brentford or even anywhere in the unknown world or the partially explored cosmos. But it was within the universe that was Kaleton. Great streamers of trailing sparks spun across the sky, the gasometer rocked and shook, the stadium shuddered and trembled, the air swam with visions, dreams, memories.

Pooley clung to the rocking staircase and saw it all. The world as it was, torn by elemental forces, a battlefield of unreason. Man’s ascent from the darkness, towards the glorious future. And he saw much more, the mistakes of generations who had lost their way. The terrible mistakes which had led to this. Pooley saw it all, and it was dead profound, I can tell you. All in the split second, or the lifetime or the eternity, it was all one and the same.

The streaming motes which were Kaleton, Beelzebub, the old serpent, the Grex, rained down upon Brentford. Flowed in a pure golden shower, dissolved and were gone. The stars returned, reason returned. Truth and tomorrow returned.

With a startled cry Jennifer Naylor returned from a deep, dark unknown place and fell into Omally’s arms. There was a bit of a hush.

Commander West stood in the now empty Ealing Road wondering where Armageddon just went.

“Shall I cancel the reinforcements?” asked Constable Briant.

In the teepee at the bottom of the garden, Paul Geronimo said, “It is done, the gods are happy, and now we smoke many pipes.”

“And possibly get some kip,” his brother suggested.

Neville turned once more in his sleep. “Alison,” he said, “you naughty girl.”

Inspectre Hovis struggled towards the hastily commandeered ice-cream van with an arm load of gold bars. “Keep sticking them in,” he told Hugo Rune, “there’s plenty of room in the back.”

“Do I understand that you are taking an early retirement?” the mystic asked.

Professor Slocombe turned his face towards the heavens. “It is done, I so believe,” said he, “it is done.”

“Does this mean I am a millionaire?” asked Jim Pooley.