“I have a plan,” said Pooley. “And I will take care of everything.”
“Yo,” said Ricky. “The man with the plan. Is this guy boss, or what?”
The man with the plan stared into space. But the man with the plan had a plan.
And it was a blinder of a plan and it had come upon Jim in his moment of need, as if from God upon high.
It was also a terrifying plan and Jim knew that when he pulled it off it would doom his name for ever. But the cause was just, and the cause was good and Pooley’s plan was this.
Pooley would pull off The Pooley. And he would do it in this fashion. He would borrow money. Much money. All the money that was needed to finance the Gandhis for one enormous gig. One legendary gig, at Wembley, say. One that everyone would want to come to. Everyone who was a Gandhis fan would be there. Everyone. And that everyone would surely include the time-hopping Geraldo, who wouldn’t want to miss a gig like that.
Jim would track down Geraldo at the gig and force him to tell him the names of the following day’s racing winners. Geraldo could easily find these out, but, as Jim knew, he wouldn’t want to. But Jim would make him do it, because Jim would explain that if he, Jim, didn’t pull off The Pooley he wouldn’t have the money to pay off the debts and make the Gandhis world famous. And they had to get world famous. Because if they hadn’t, Geraldo would never have heard of them and come back through time to hear them play. Future history recorded that the Gandhis were world famous and future history also recorded that Jim had pulled off The Pooley. And so, if Geraldo didn’t want to mess around with future history, he would have to give Jim the names of the winners.
He would have to. He would. He just would.
It was a blinder of a plan, and as Jim stared into space, going over it all once again in his head, just to make sure he could understand it himself, he felt certain that it was the way things had to be. He couldn’t escape from his fate, and only he could make the Gandhis famous.
It was a blinder of a plan. It was truly dynamite.
Norman heard the explosion and ducked for cover in his bath. It wasn’t Pooley’s dynamite plan, but something down in the kitchen.
Norman sheltered beneath his hands, in fear of falling plaster. He was no stranger to explosions. They went with the territory, when you were an inventor. In fact they were part of the fun of it all. If you didn’t have at least one decent explosion in the course of each experiment, you didn’t qualify for the right to wear the inventor’s white coat, in Norman’s opinion.
Norman raised his head from his hands. The ceiling hadn’t fallen and down below the tape played on. It was just a minor explosion. Not the full gas mains job.
“Phew,” went Norman. “I wonder what that might have been. I think I’d better go downstairs and find out.”
And Norman was just on the point of climbing from his bath when it happened.
It happened fast and it happened hard and it didn’t give Norman a chance. It came up through the floor and up through the bath and caught Norman right where Pigarse’s dad had stuck the Barbie for art.
Whatever it was, it was long, hard and white. Long, hard and white as a length of two by one. But this was not the carpenter’s friend of the well-loved music hall song. This long, white, hard thing was sharp at the end and more cylindrical in nature.
Norman went up in a foamy blur and came down again in slow motion.
Whatever it was had vanished now, but a bellowing came from below.
It was quite a remarkable bellowing. And although Norman’s thoughts were not particularly centred upon any bellowing other than his own at this precise moment, even he could have told that this was not the bellowing of a horse.
As such.
But the beast that did the bellowing had many horse-like features. The mane, the hooves, the flanks and fetlocks and the rest. But this beast that reared and bucked in Norman’s kitchen, beneath the flow of water from his punctured bath, was more than just a horse.
Much more.
For this beast had a single horn that rose in glory from its head.
A long, white, hard and pointed horn.
A wondrous and magical horn.
A horn, indeed, that is only to be found on the head of a unicorn.
I had words last week
With an uninspired Greek
Of the “Carry-your-bags?” variety.
Who insisted that I
Tip him low, wide and high.
As a fellow might do in society.
I informed this yob
That his only job
Was to tote all the trunks of his betters.
This he flatly denied
And in dialect cried
That he was a great man of letters.
And whilst argument flared
This brash ruffian dared
To summon the help of a Peeler.
And falsely accuse me
And roundly abuse me
And quote from the works of Cordelier.
But this was his downfall,
Illiterate scoundrel.
The Bobby was classically trained.
And he struck down the Greek
With his stick, so to speak.
Which was twelve inches long and close-grained.
14
As he always liked to make an early start, Inspectre Sherringford Hovis, Brentford’s Detective in Residence, led the dawn raid on John Omally’s house.
The Inspectre had spent much of the previous evening interviewing the captured Omally, in an attempt to learn the whereabouts of Small Dave. But the captured Omally had stubbornly insisted that he was really the clerk from the library.
Even when put to the torture.
Although never a man to give a crim the benefit of the doubt, Hovis had finally tired of all the screaming and agreed that in order to prove the truth of the matter once and for all, he would raid the address shown on the library ticket and if there was another Omally to be found there, he would set the captured one free.
Enthusiastic constables smashed down John Omally’s door and burst into the house, with big guns raised and safety catches off.
The sight of Omally’s kitchen had a most profound effect upon several of the married officers. Awestruck in admiration and moved almost to the point of tears, they could do little other than remove their helmets and bend their knees in silent prayer, within this sacred shrine to single manhood.
A search of the upstairs revealed only two things of interest: an unmade and unslept-in bed and an ancient library book entitled How to Play the Stratocaster.
The latter was bagged up as evidence.
Secure now in the knowledge that he did in fact have the right man in custody and that this man was evidently a hardened crim who could hold out under torture[13], Inspectre Hovis returned to his office, a cup that cheers and a bowl of muesli that doesn’t.
So where was the real John Omally?
The answer to that was: elsewhere.
John had spent the night with Jim at the Gandhis’ squat. The band occupied a large and run-down gothic house in Brentford’s Bohemian quarter. The tradition (or old charter, or whatever it was) that all aspiring rock bands must live together in a squat began with the Grateful Dead. And if it was good enough for the Dead, then it’s good enough for anyone.
It was a little after nine of the Thursday morning clock when Omally awoke to a proffered cup of coffee.
He awoke on the living-room sofa, and not, as he had hoped he would, in Litany’s bed. John yawned and stretched and sipped at the coffee.
“Thank you, Ricky,” he said.
“No problem,” said Ricky. “How are you feeling?”
“Somewhat odd, as it happens.”
“Hardly surprising. You crashed out, mate. A couple of tokes on the hookah and you were gone. Dope not really your thing, is it?”
13
And also, evidently, a master of disguise. For he bore no resemblance at all to the John Omally positively identified from the surveillance video footage of him leaving the Flying Swan with Soap Distant.