“I know,” said Jim, “you are a PA.”
John sat down upon Jim’s desk and helped himself to Jim’s mug of tea. “So who are we up against next?” he asked. “We’re in the quarterfinals. Three more games and we’re there.”
“A team called Arsenal,” said Jim. “Ever heard of them?”
Omally shook his head. “They’re not Up North, I hope.”
“London team,” said Jim. “Quite popular, it seems. They’re amongst the favourites to take the cup. Top-division side.” Jim grinned foolishly at John. “Apparently,” he said, “Arsenal have a manager whose name is Arse.”
“I’ll give them a call on my mobile,” said John. “Perhaps after we’ve given the team a sound thrashing they might care to purchase space on our kaftans to advertise for a new manager.”
“I can manage,” said Neville as the brewery drayman rolled an eighty-eight-pint cask of Large down the chute between the open pavement doors and into The Flying Swan’s cellar.
Neville caught the weighty cask, lifted it with ease and stacked it on top of the rest.
The drayman peered down from the sun-bright street above into the shadowy regions below. “Are you all right down there?” he called.
“Fine,” called Neville. “You can drop them in two at a time, if you want.”
The sweating drayman shook his head. He was wearing an Arsenal T-shirt. “I don’t know what you’re on, mate, but if it’s on the National Health, I want some, too.”
Neville did not reply, but awaited further incomings of ale.
He was on something and he knew it. Something that added a string to his bow, put lead in his pencil and even hairs on his chest. And he was loving every minute of it. He’d never felt so alive before, so full of vim and vigour. He was fit as a fiddle and bright as a butcher’s bull terrier.
But his stocks of Mandragora were running dangerously low and Old Pete’s prices were now running dangerously high. That old villain had Neville by the short and curlies (which were now rather long and curly) and Neville knew it.
But he was having the time of his life and he really didn’t want it to stop.
“Neville,” a voice called down to him, but not from the pavement doors. “Neville, Pippa and I are getting lonely up here in the bar.”
“I’ll be with you in just a moment,” Neville called back. And to the drayman, “Three at a time now, if you will, I’ve business upstairs that will not wait.”
“Down to the business at hand,” said Professor Slocombe. “You know why I have summoned you here, gentlemen.”
Three men sat in the professor’s sunlit study, tasting whisky. One of these men was not a man, but something else entirely. His name was Mahatma Campbell and what he was was well known to the professor.
The other two were men indeed, young men and as full, in their ways, of vigour as was Neville.
“We are your men,” said Terrence Jehovah Smithers, raising his glass.
“Your acolytes,” said the Second Sponge Boy, raising his in a likewise fashion.
Professor Slocombe toasted his guests. “I hope that I have taught you well,” said he.
“You have, Master.” Terrence drained his glass. “You have schooled us in astral projection and the reading of men’s auras through the opening of our third eyes.”
“Positively Rampa,” said the Second Sponge Boy.
“And you will need all these skills when we meet our adversary.” Professor Slocombe lowered his fragile frame into the chair behind his desk. “The time grows closer. We must be well prepared.”
“Can we not just smash them now?” asked the Campbell. “Put a torch to the Consortium building and burn the blighters out?”
“I have tested their defences.” The scholar moved a pencil about. Without the aid of his hands. “They will not be caught off-guard again.”
“Then when, sir?” The Campbell took possession of the Scotch decanter and poured himself another.
“The day of the Cup Final, that is when.”
“But that is the day,” the Campbell said. “The Day of the Apocalypse – if we do not succeed.”
“We will succeed.” The professor’s pencil rose into the air and spelled out the word “SUCCEED”.
“Regarding the business at hand,” said Terrence, wrestling, with difficulty, the Scotch decanter from the Campbell’s fingers. “What exactly would this business be?”
“It is my understanding,” said Professor Slocombe, “that the tentacles of the Dread Cthulhu and the influence of the being that has raised him from R’leah, our enemy William Starling, are spreading slowly and inexorably across the borough of Brentford. You must be vigilant and watchful – there is no telling who might become consumed and overtaken by the evil.”
“And that is the business in hand?” asked Terrence.
“It is part of it.”
“And the other part?”
“Have you ever heard of a team called Arsenal?” Professor Slocombe enquired.
“All enquiries must be put through the switchboard,” said Ms Yola Bennett, “which is currently engaged. Please call back tomorrow.” She slammed the telephone receiver down and returned to doing her nails.
“Ms Bennett.” The voice of Mr Richard Gray came through the intercom. Ms Yola Bennett ignored it.
She was in a bad mood, was Yola Bennett. She hadn’t seen Norman for ages. He didn’t e-mail and he didn’t phone. And she was certain that he had recently ducked into a doorway when he’d seen her coming down the Ealing Road. Things were not going quite the way that she had planned.
“Ms Bennett!” The voice was somewhat louder now. Yola Bennett flipped the switch with an undone nail and said, “What do you want?”
“And don’t adopt that tone of voice with me, young lady.”
“What do you want, sir?” said Ms Bennett.
“A moment of your time in my office, if you please.”
Yola Bennett slouched from her seat and slouched into the office of Mr Gray. “Yes?” she said, a-lounging at the doorpost.
“Come in, please, and close the door.”
Yola Bennett did so.
“And sit down.”
She did that also.
“I will not beat about the bush,” said Mr Gray, viewing Ms Bennett across the expanse of his expansive desk and noting well the shortness of her skirt. “I feel a change of attitude is called for from yourself.”
“Oh yes?” Yola blew upon those nails that were mostly done.
“Your attitude will not do, young lady. You have been ignoring telephone calls, leaving correspondence unanswered and taking overlong lunch hours. Not to mention your record of attendance.”
“My record of attendance?”
“I told you not to mention that.[46] I feel that I may be forced to let you go.”
“Let me go?” Yola made a sudden face of horror. And outrage, also. And effrontery. It was a complex face. It quite bewildered Mr Richard Gray.
“Let you go,” said he. “If you don’t buck up your ideas, you’re out.”
“Stuff your job,” said Yola Bennett. “And stuff you, too, as it happens. All men are quite the same. And all of you are bastards.”
Mr Gray smiled, thinly. “Things not going too well for you with Mr Hartnel, then?” he said.
“What?” said Yola.
“Please don’t mess around with me. I know what you’ve been up to.”
“You know nothing and whatever you know is none of your business anyway.”