“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.”