The Brentford Triangle (12 page)

Young Chips, who could smell a nigger in a woodpile even with his nose bandaged, set immediately to work upon the Cerean’s ankles.

Pooley had by now, under the welter of blows, lost hold upon Neville’s apron, and, as the part-time barman lapsed from consciousness and sank gracefully behind the bar, found himself being borne once more towards the doorway. Towards the very doorway, in fact, where John Omally now stood, brandishing a beer bottle.

“Leave hold,” roared the Irishman. Pooley’s mouth opened and closed and a lip reader would have covered his eyes at the obscenity.

The Cerean squared up to the obstacle in his path and raised his left hand to strike. Omally swung his bottle and, it must be reasoned, more from luck than judgement, struck the villain a devastating blow to the left armpit.

As he lost his grip upon Pooley, several of the pro-Neville brigade fell upon the barman’s attacker with relish.

The Cerean staggered towards Omally, who, having the advantage of fighting upon home territory, stepped nimbly aside and tripped him through the Swan’s open doorway and into the street.

Outside, parked close to the kerb, stood an automobile that was a collector’s dream. It was ink-black and gleaming, a showroom piece. The handbook had it down as a nineteen-fifty-eight Cadillac Sedan, the deluxe model. In the driving seat sat a man of average height, wearing an immaculate black suit. He bore an uncanny resemblance to a young Jack Palance and favoured a creosote aftershave. It took him but a moment to leave the car and gain the pavement, but by then the chaos of flailing fists which now filled the Swan was spilling into the street.

The pro-Pooley faction, who knew a brewery henchman when they saw one, and who were currently occupied in assaulting the one who was rolling about clutching at his armpit, saw another quarry and wasted little time in taking the opportunity to vent their spleen.

Archie Karachi, who ran the Star of Bombay Curry Garden next door to the Swan, was a man who knew a race riot when he saw one. Thrusting a vindaloo-stained digit into his telephone dial, he rang out a rapid nine, nine, nine. Being also a man of few words, and most of those Hindi, his message was succinct and to the point. “Bloody big riot in Swan,” he bawled above the ever increasing din, “many men injured, many dead.”

The blue serge lads of the Brentford nick were not long in responding to this alarm call. With the station grossly over-manned, as befits a district with a low crime rate, what they craved was a bit of real police action. A bit of truncheon-wielding, collarbone-breaking, down to the cells for a bit of summary justice, real police action. Within minutes, several squad cars and a meat wagon were haring along the wrong side of Brentford High Street, through the red lights, and up the down lane of the one-way system, bound for the Flying Swan. Within the wheel-screeching vehicles constables were belting on flak jackets, tinkering with the fittings of their riot shields, and drumming CS gas canisters into their open left palms with increasing vigour.

What had started out as a localized punch-up, had now developed into wholesale slaughter. The numbers involved in the
mêlée
had been swelled significantly by the arrival of a gang of yobbos from the flatblocks opposite. Those crop-headed aficionados of the steely toecap had been met head on by the students of the Brentford Temple of Dimac Martial Arts Society, who had been limbering up for their evening’s training schedule with a fifteen-mile run. Neither of these warrior bands having the slightest idea what all the fuss was about, or which was the favourable side to support, had contented themselves with exercising their respective martial skills upon one another. Although this did nothing to ease the situation, to the crowds of onlookers who now lined the opposite pavements and crammed into every available upstairs window, it added that little extra something which makes a really decent riot worthwhile.

With sirens blaring and amber lights flashing, the squad cars slewed to a halt at the rear of a war-torn Cadillac. This development was wildly applauded by the onlookers, many of whom had thought to bring out stools and kitchen chairs, that they might better enjoy the event. As hot-dog men and ice-cream sellers, who have an almost magical knack of appearing at such moments, moved amongst the spectators, the Brentford bobbies went about their business with a will, striking down friend and foe alike. With every concussion inflicted the crowd hoorahed anew and, like the season-ticket holders at the Circus Maximus in days gone by, turned their thumbs towards the pavement.

To the very rear of this scene of massacre, pressed close to the wall of the Flying Swan, two bearded golfing types watched the carnage with expressions of dire perplexity. “Gather up the map,” said John Omally. “I feel that we have pressing business elsewhere.”

Easing their way with as little fuss as possible through the Swan’s doorway, they passed into the now deserted saloon-bar. Deserted that is, but for a certain part-time barman who now lay painlessly unconscious in the foetal position behind the jump, and an old gentleman and his dog, who were playing dominoes at a side-table.

“Goodnight to you Pooley and Omally,” said Old Pete. “You will be taking your leave via the rear wall I have no doubt.”

Pooley scooped up the map and stuffed it into an inside pocket. “Offer my condolences to Neville,” he said. “I expect that it is too much to hope that he will awake with amnesia.”

“You never can tell,” said the ancient, returning to his game. “Give my regards to Professor Slocombe.”

Professor Slocombe peered over the pen-besmirched, match-riddled map with profound interest. At length he leant back in his chair and stared a goodly while into space.

“Well?” asked John, who had been shifting from one foot to the other for what seemed like an age. “Has Pooley found it?”

The Professor pulled himself from his chair and crossed the room to one of his bookcases. Easing out an overlarge tome, he returned with it to his desk. “Undoubtedly,” he said, in a toneless voice. “If you will pardon my professional pride, I might say I am a little miffed. I have sought the pattern for weeks and you find it in a couple of hours.”

“I think we had the natural edge,” said Omally.

Pooley, whose injured parts were now beginning to pain him like the very devil, lay slumped in an armchair, a hand clasping the neck of the whisky decanter. “I only hope that it will help,” he said. “Those lads are on to us, and I escaped death by a mere hairbreadth this night.”

“We have by no means reached a solution,” said the Professor, in a leaden tone. “But we are on the way.”

Omally peered over the old man’s shoulders as he leafed through his great book. “What are you looking for now?”

“This book is the Brentford Land Register,” the Professor explained. “The pubs you have plotted were all built during the last one hundred years. It will be instructive to learn what existed upon the sites prior to their construction.”

“Ah,” said John, “I think I follow your line of thought.”

“I think my right elbow is fractured,” said Jim Pooley.

The Professor thumbed over several pages. “Yes,” he said. “Here we have it. The Four Horsemen, built upon the site of the cattle trough and village hand pump.” He turned several more pages. “The New Inn, upon this site there has been a coaching house for several hundred years, it has always boasted an excellent cellar and a natural water supply. Built in 1898, the North Star, a significant name you will agree, founded upon Brentford’s deepest freshwater well.” The Professor slammed the book shut. “I need not continue,” he said, “I think the point is clearly made.”

“My collarbone is gone in at least three places,” said Jim.

“It can’t be the water supply,” said Omally. “That is ludicrous. Aliens do not steer themselves through space guided by the village waterworks. Anyway, every house in Brentford has water, every house in the country, surely?”

“You fail to grasp it,” said the Professor. “What we have here is a carefully guided natural watercourse, with the accompanying electrical field which all underground water naturally carries, culminating in a series of node points. The node points channel the ley earth-forces through the system, terminating at the Flying Swan. If you will look upon the map you will see that the Swan is built exactly one third up from the Thames base line of the Brentford Triangle. Exactly the same position as the King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid. A very powerful position indeed.”

“It all appears to me a little over-circuitous,” said Omally. “Why not simply stick up a row of landing lights? If these Cerean lads have all the wits that you attribute to them, surely they could tamper with the National Grid and form a dirty big cross of lighted areas across half of Britain?”

“Possibly,” the Professor replied, “they might be able to do that for an hour, possibly for a day, but this pattern has been glowing into space for a hundred years, unnoticed by man and untouched. It is reinforced by the structures built above it, pubs, thriving pubs. This is Brentford; nobody ever knocks down a pub here.”

“True,” said Omally. “We have little truck with iconoclasts hereabouts.”

“This beacon could go on radiating energy for a thousand years. After all, the Cereans had no idea how long they would have to wait to be rescued.”

“There is definitely evidence of a cracked rib here,” said Pooley, feeling at his chest.

“All is surely lost,” said Omally.

“I didn’t say it was terminal,” Pooley replied. “Just a job for a skilled surgeon or two.”

Professor Slocombe stroked his chin. “At this very moment,” he said, “somewhere on the outer rim of the galaxy, the Cerean Strike Force is heading towards its homeworld. Finding none, it will inevitably be turning here, guided by the descendants of its stranded forebears. Unless otherwise diverted or destroyed, they will home in upon their landing area, and I do not believe that we can expect any of that ‘We bring greetings from a distant star’ benign cosmic super-race attitude to be very much in evidence upon their arrival. We must work at this thing; I do not believe that it is without solution.”

“My ankle’s gone,” grizzled Pooley. “I shall walk with a limp for the rest of my life.”

“Do put a sock in it, Pooley,” said the Professor.

“But I’m wounded,” said the wounded Pooley. “Somebody might show a little compassion.”

“I don’t think you realize the gravity of the situation.”

“On the contrary,” said Jim, waggling a right wrist which was quite obviously a job for the fracture clinic. “I’ve never missed an episode of ‘The Outer Limits’ – true, I’ve been in the bog during many a title sequence, or slept through the last five minutes, but I know what I’m talking about. None of this smacks to me of sound science fiction. All this sort of stuff does not occur in the shadow of the gasworks. Alien invaders, who we all know to be green in colour and pictured accurately upon the front page of the
Eagle
, do not muck about with council water supplies or conveniently arrange for the location of public drinking-houses. I take this opportunity to voice my opinion and pooh pooh the whole idea. There is a poultice wanting upon these knees and more than one of my fillings has come adrift.”

“An uncle of mine has connections with the Provos,” said Omally. “If you will sanction the exemption of the Swan, I might arrange for the levelling of every other relevant pub in Brentford.”

Professor Slocombe smiled ruefully. “That, I think, might be a little too extreme,” he said. “I am sure that a less drastic solution can be found.”

“Nobody ever listens to me,” said Jim, going into a sulk.

“As I see it,” said Professor Slocombe, “the Flying Swan is the epicentre of the entire configuration. It has been so aligned as to act as the focal point. The harnessed Earth forces flow through the alignment and culminate therein. There must be something located either within the Swan or beneath it into which the energy flows. Something acting as locative centre or communicating beacon to these beings. As to what it is, I have not the slightest idea.”

“Maybe it’s the darts team,” said Pooley. “We’ve held the shield for five years. Perhaps your lads have infiltrated the team and are guiding their mates in through a series of pre-planned double tops.”

“You are not being obstructive are you, Jim?” the Professor asked.

“What, me? With the collapsed lung and the damaged cerebral cortex? Perish the thought.” Pooley took up his glass in a grazed fist and refilled it.

“Now we know where it is,” said the Professor, “it surely cannot be that difficult to find it.”

“But what are we looking for?” asked Omally. “You find a great triangle, we find the constellation of the Plough.”

“I find it,” said Pooley.

“Pooley finds it,” said Omally, “one thing leads to another, but we just go around in circles. What are we looking for?”

“I think I can make a reasonable guess,” said Professor Slocombe. “We are looking for something which is the product of a high technology. Something which utilizes the vast power fed into it and acts as the ultimate homing beacon. It must have been placed in the Swan during the last year or so, for it was only during this time that the Earthbound Cereans gained knowledge of their prodigals’ return and wished to announce their own presence.”

Pooley shrugged. “Product of a high technology, runs off its own power supply and recently installed in the Swan. Can’t see anything filling that bill, it would have to be pretty well camouflaged…” Pooley ceased his discourse in mid-sentence. An image had suddenly appeared in his brain. It was so strong and crystal clear that it blotted out everything else. It was the image of a large bulky-looking object shrouded beneath a groundsheet and secured with baling wire, and it was humming and humming and humming.

“By the light of burning martyrs,” said John Omally. “It has been staring us in the face for months and we never even twigged.”

“What is it?” the Professor demanded. “You know, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jim Pooley. “We know well enough, but believe me the thing will not be easily tampered with. It will take an electronics expert with the brain of an Einstein to dismantle it, and where are we going to get one of those in Brentford?”

Norman Hartnell was not a happy man. Apart from being barred from the Swan with darts night rapidly approaching, which was the kind of thing that could easily drive a sensitive soul such as himself to the point of suicide, he also was suffering a grave amount of concern over his camel. Still wedged firmly into the eaves of his lock-up garage, and gaining bulk from its hearty consumption of cabbage leaves, the beast still showed no inclination whatever to return to Earth. On top of these two insoluble problems, Small Dave’s untimely return to Brentford and his disconcerting perceptions were causing the shopkeeper a good deal of grief. He really would have to get rid of the camel. It was damning evidence by any account, and he also had the definite feeling that Small Dave was on to him. The nasty vindictive grudge-bearing wee bastard seemed to be dogging his every move. If he was ever to transfer the Great Pyramid of Cheops from its present foundations in Egypt to its planned relocation upon the turf of Brentford football ground, he really couldn’t have the dwarfish postman blundering in and spoiling everything before the project was completed.

Norman dropped into his kitchen chair and did a bit of heavy thinking. The mantelclock struck eleven, time once more to feed the camel. Norman glanced despairingly about; perhaps he should simply blow the garage up. The trouble was that he was really growing quite attached to the mouldy-looking quadruped.

He’d never been allowed to have a pet when he was a lad, and dogs didn’t exactly take to him. But Simon, well, Simon was different; he didn’t snap at your ankles or climb on your furniture. True, he didn’t exactly do anything other than sleep in the rafters and roar for food when hungry, but there was something about the brute which touched Norman. Possibly it was his helplessness, relying upon him, as it did, for his every requirement. Perhaps it was that he had Simon exclusively to himself, nobody forever patting at him and offering him biscuits. Whatever it was, there was something. Simon was all right. He was cheap to feed, living as he did upon Small Dave’s cabbages, and his droppings made excellent manure for the roses. Norman wondered for one bright moment whether a camel might be trained to eat dwarves; shouldn’t be but a mouthful or two. Pity camels were exclusively vegetarian.

Norman rose from his chair, drew on his shabby overcoat and put out the kitchen light. Stepping silently through the darkened shop, he put his eye to the door’s glass and peered out at the Ealing Road. All seemed quiet, but for the distant sound of police sirens. Small Dave was nowhere to be seen.

The shopkeeper drew the bolt upon the door and slipped out into the night. He scuttled away down Albany Road, keeping wherever possible in the shadows. Down the empty street he hurried, with many a furtive glance to assure himself that he was not being followed.

Young Chips, who was returning from some canine equivalent of a lodge meeting, had been watching the shopkeeper’s progress for some moments. Now where is Norman off to, he asked himself, and who is the character in the Victorian garb hard upon his heels? If I wasn’t half the dog I believe myself to be, I would be certain that that is none other than the famed American author, Edgar Allan Poe. Scratching distractedly at a verminous ear, the dog lifted his leg at a neighbour’s Morris Minor, and had it away for home.

Norman reached the allotment gates and peered around. He had the uncanny feeling that he was being watched, but as there was no-one visible he put the thing down to nerves and applied his skeleton key to the lock. A wan moon shone down upon the allotments, and when Norman had had his evil way with Small Dave’s already depleted cabbage crop, no living being watched him depart with his swag.

The row of lock-up garages slept in the darkness. As Norman raised the door upon its well-oiled hinges, nothing stirred in the Brentford night. “Simon,” he said in a soothing tone, “din dins.”

Having closed the door behind him, he switched on the light, illuminating the tiny lock-up. Simon looked down from his uncomfortable eyrie, and Norman sought some trace of compassion upon the brute’s grotesque visage. “Yum yums,” he said kindly. “Chow time.”

If camels are capable of displaying emotions, other than the “go for the groin if cornered” variety, Simon was strangely reticent about putting his about. As he hung in the air, the great ugly-looking beast did little other than to drool a bit and break wind. “You cheeky boy,” said Norman. “It’s your favourite.”

Behind him, Edgar Allan Poe eased himself through the closed garage door and stood in the shadows watching Norman making a holy show of himself. Simon saw Edgar at once, and Simon did not like the look of Edgar one little bit.

“WAAAAAARK!” went Simon the zero-gravity camel.

“Come, come,” said Norman, flapping his hands, “there is nothing to get upset about. It’s really only cabbage, your favourite.”

“WAAAAAARK!” the disconsolate brute continued.

“Shhh!” said the shopkeeper. “Calm yourself, please.”

“WAAAAAARK!” Simon set to wriggling vigorously amongst the eaves.

“Stop it, stop it!” Norman frantically waved the cabbage leaves about. “You’ll have the whole neighbourhood up.”

Edgar Allan Poe was fascinated. Times had certainly changed since he had shuffled off the old mortal coil. Small Dave had spent a goodly amount of time impressing upon him the importance of finding a camel. But to think that people actually kept them as pets now, and that they were no longer tethered to the planet of their birth by gravity. That was quite something. “Stone me,” said Edgar Allan Poe.