“As indeed you must. You have your constables scouring the area day and night, I trust.”
Hovis shook his head. “Perish the thought. There is sufficient going on here without complicating matters further. A hoard of flat-footed bobbies turning out every lock-up garage in the area or giving the local padre the dawn call is the last thing I want. No, I’ve got them all on traffic duty and litter patrol. I will go this one alone.”
“But you are out-borough,” said Professor Slocombe. “I mean, well, you will find it hard going on your own.”
“I have enlisted the help of several locals, who, shall we say, owe me a favour or two. I am not completely on my own. Thus, I regret that for now, last night’s incident must be left to hang in the files. Should further evidence, in the shape of bodies, appear, then the matter will be dealt with accordingly. Other than for that I have no further wish to know what is going on around here.” Hovis held up his hand towards the Professor, whose face now expressed outrage. “I am sorry, but there it is. I have spoken to you in confidence and I trust that you will respect same. The matter is for now closed. There will be no further word of it spoken. Do I make myself clear?”
“You are making a very grave mistake, Hovis.”
“Be that as it may, I have leads to be followed, a skein to be untangled, I must be gone. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” said the Professor, “and good luck, for you will surely need it.”
27
Further days did as one might expect them to and the weeks began to pass. The media were playing something of a waiting game. Regular reports were issued as to the progress of the stadium’s construction, and certainly the sheer scale of the operation and its unique nature made everything newsworthy. But the Birmingham débâcle and the sheer eccentricity of the Brentford project had the newsmen hedging their bets.
The work progressed nightly and more and more pre-constructed sections were pressed into place, but the greatest wonder of all was that none of the stadium was actually visible come morning. A thin and hazy line delineated its expanding borders but the solar cells and the ingenious system of sub-stadia optics projected daylight on to the borough and laid an all but perfect camouflage. But the eyes of the world were upon it, or at least upon what little they could see of it. Reporters prowled the borough seeking a twist or a turn that might be moulded into an exclusive. But they got little in return for their pains. Through motives entirely unconnected both Ms Jennifer Naylor and Inspectre Sherringford Hovis saw to that.
At a little before ten-thirty on a particular Thursday morning John Omally strolled into the Flying Swan. The terrors of the night on Griffin Island were pressed far to the back of his mercurial mind; his thoughts were now, as ever, fixed upon the main chance. As such he was singularly unprepared for the horror which now met his naked gaze.
At the end of the bar-counter Neville stood glowering, his teeth and hands painfully clenched and the cause of his consternation all too apparent. In the centre of the saloon bar perched upon a bar stool sat Young Master Robert, demon spawn of the master brewer. About him moved his evil catspaws, coldly and efficiently tearing the living heart from the grand old watering hole.
Omally caught at his breath, his head swam and his eyes bulged painfully from their sockets. He had known many shocks and traumas during the course of his eventful life, but this, this was torment to the very soul. Nightmare become reality.
“Away,” quoth the Young Master, gesturing to the line of Britannia pub tables, which, it had been previously assumed, nothing less than the long awaited nuclear holocaust event would have been capable of shifting. “Out with the old and in with the new.” A menial dragged away one of the antique tables exposing four bright discs of carpet which hadn’t seen daylight for one hundred years. “To the dump, to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump,” sang the boy wonder in a ghastly parody of the Lone Ranger’s famous theme.
Omally staggered over to Neville. The part-time barman stared through him, his good eye ticcing violently. “Neville,” gasped Omally, “Neville, do something!”
The part-time barman’s eye finally focused upon a friend. “John,” he whispered, “John, do something.”
“Bin the chairs,” cried Young Master Robert unfolding an enormous set of plans across his bony knees. “I want a line of chrome bar-stools over there. Where are the video machines?”
“Video machines?” Neville gripped the bar-counter for support. He was fast approaching “wipe-out”.
Omally glanced about in desperation, searching his brain for a solution. Kill them all, said his cerebellum, spare not even their children lest the evil persist. “Shotgun,” ordered Omally, “where is the shooter, Neville?”
“No guns,” stuttered the banjoed barman, “no killing in my pub, John, anything else, do something, anything.”
“Get the dartboard down,” crowed the young vandal, “Bin it.”
“Kill them all!” shouted Neville. “Spare not even their children lest the evil persist!”
There were five brewery menials, big fellows to a man. John considered that he could bring down at least two of them, possibly three if luck was on his side, but as a long-term solution to any problem, violence had only so much going for it and no more. There had to be another way and one that did not endanger life and limb. “Leave this to me,” said Omally, straightening his dicky bow.
“What are you going to do?”
Omally looked long and hard into the face of Neville. It was a face he had known for nearly twenty years, through long and short and thick and thin, but it had never looked like this before. The barman’s expression spelt defeat. His face said “beaten”. John patted the good man upon the shoulder. “Chin up,” he said, “Just leave it to me, I’ll sort it out.”
The barman’s mouth said “thank you” but no words came from it.
Omally straightened his shoulders and strode across the bar towards the Young Master. He owed Neville, every regular in the Swan owed Neville. In Brentford Neville was respected and in a manner which had no side to it he was loved also. No-one, no matter for the what, which or why, should be allowed to do this to him.
Omally strode across the bar this day a titan, an avenging angel, a Knight Templar. He didn’t have an idea in his head.
“What do you want?” asked the Young Master, when John was near enough to make his presence felt.
“I … er, whatchadoing?” asked Omally.
“I would have thought that was clear enough.”
John looked about, as if seeing the carnage for the first time. “Oh,” said he, “redecorating, is it?”
Young Master Robert ignored him and returned to his plan. Yokel, he thought.
“Perhaps I can be of some assistance,” said John Omally, holding up a corner of the plan. “You’ve got it upside down,” he added helpfully.
“I know what I’m doing, kindly clear off.”
John thrust his unwanted hands into his pockets. “It’s a brilliant concept, ideas-wise,” he said thoughtfully.
The Young Master eyed him over the plan. “You approve?” he said with suspicion.
“Oh yes,” lied Omally, peering at the plan with a knowing eye and convincing enthusiasm. “I see that the wall-bars are going to divide the saloon bar from the public; where do you propose to put the Nautilus machine?”
“Right here.” The Young Master pointed appropriately, watching for Omally’s response.
“Across the entrance to the gents, shrewd,” said John, “Very shrewd.”
“You think so?”
“Indeed yes, the punters will literally have to work out on the machine to get to the gents, work up a thirst, eh?”
“That’s what I thought,” said Young Master Robert, though he hadn’t until now.
“This kind of theme bar is definitely the bar of tomorrow,” John continued. “I was only chatting with Lucas about it the other day.”