The Sprouts of Wrath (9 page)

Hovis drew snuff from his cane and pinched it meaningfully to his nose.

Professor Slocombe decanted a large Scotch into a crystal tumbler and placed it between the quivering outstretched hands of John Omally. “Monsters?” he asked.

“Monster,” mumbled the Irishman as he cowered before the Professor’s roaring log fire, a blanket about his shoulders and his bare feet in a warming bowl of rose-scented water. “… just the … the one.”

“One, I think, is surely sufficient.” The elder left the decanter within John’s easy reach, returned to his study desk and reseated himself. “Might I trouble you to reiterate?”

Omally huddled nearer to the flames. “I’ve told you all I know. It was fast and it was …” he lifted a trouser bottom to survey a painful yellow bruised shin, “… hard. And it just went up, up and over us, like some great spider.”

“An insect, then?”

“Not an insect, Professor, it was as big as a man.”

“A large river bird then, or an animal, perhaps.”

“It wore clothes. Professor.” Omally finished his Scotch. He refilled his glass.

“A showman’s ape?”

Omally shook his head, his teeth rattling like castanets. “Not an ape.”

“Think carefully,” said the old man. “The thing struck you, it played with you and then it fled.”

“It ran across the ceiling.”

“Did it? You were in a state of shock when you observed this, you had received a blow to the forehead, you were confused, disorientated.”

“Yes, but…”

“The entire event occurred within a few short seconds under conditions of next to no light. If an ape had swung across the ceiling, from the light fittings perhaps?”

“No, Professor.”

The old man leant back in his chair and tapped his long fingers upon the desk top. “Upon your own admission, you had been drinking.”

“I was not drunk.”

“John, you have been in the river, you have witnessed an explosion at close quarters, you have crept across Brentford, down back alley-ways and through people’s gardens to get here. You are drinking now as we speak. What value is to be placed upon your testimony?”

“You are suggesting now that I am not in full command of my senses?”

“I am suggesting that it is reasonable to assume that, under the circumstances, your judgement might be temporarily impaired.”

“I know what I saw, I just don’t know what I saw, I mean.”

“I know what you mean.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my judgement.” Sullen and shaking, John refilled his glass.

“All right.” Professor Slocombe rose from his chair and took himself over to the cowering Celt. “Close your eyes, John.”

“For what?”

“Please, humour me.” Omally closed his eyes. “Now from memory, what am I wearing?”

“That’s easy: white shirt, pale blue cravat, silk dressing-gown, grey trousers, carpet slippers.”

“Very good,” said Professor Slocombe. “Nothing wrong with your judgement.”

Omally opened his eyes. His host was clad in a three-piece suit of green Donegal tweed, a grey shirt with a bow-tie and brown brogues. “Be damned,” said John Omally.

“Would you care for a second try?”

“Need I bother?”

Professor Slocombe inclined his old white head. “The quickness of the mind deceives the eye,” he said enigmatically. By the time the ancient had reseated himself he was clad once more in his former attire. Omally never saw how he did it. “An illusion, John. A parlour trick — nothing more. I trust the point is well taken.”

“It wasn’t an ape.”

“Well, if it perished in the explosion then we shall never know.”

“That is something, I suppose.” Omally’s hand was once more about the neck of the decanter.

“Something?” The Professor leant forward across his crowded desk and fixed Omally with a glittering eye. “I don’t think you realize the gravity of the situation, John, the enormity of what you have done in your efforts to save your miserable skin.”

“I don’t think I…”

“To destroy the evidence of your unlawful activities, you construct a bomb and walk with it through the streets of Brentford. Without care for who you might injure or what damage you might wreak upon private property, you explode same, killing at the very least some animal that will probably prove to be a showman’s exhibit or treasured pet.”

“Yes, but…”

“John, by bombing one of the sites scheduled for the Olympic construction you have committed an act of international terrorism. If this is not bad enough you have also been directly responsible for the possible manslaughter of your closest friend. Is this the ‘something’ of which you speak?” Omally hid his face from that of his accuser. “And then you come here,” the old man continued, “to take advantage of our long-standing friendship, by making me an accessory after the fact of your horrendous crimes. What have you to say for yourself before I telephone the police?”

Omally stared up bitterly, his eyes were moist and his lips quivered. “I came to you because you are the only man I could trust, the only man I respect. I told you everything, I made no secret.”

“So, what do you wish, that I wave a magic wand, absolve you of your sins, three Hail Mary’s and Our Father, perhaps?”

“I came to you for help.”

“Then this is my help. Go to the police, tell them everything.”

Omally broke into a plaintive sobbing. “Yes,” he croaked. “All right, you are right, you are always right! If I have killed Jim, then I have nothing to live for, you are right.”

The whisky decanter was suddenly upon the Professor’s desk, he refilled his glass and also another. “Well, the decision must be yours then. You can go to the police now and make a clean breast of it. Or perhaps you would prefer to wait until they drag Jim’s body from the Thames.”

“No,” said Omally, rising to his feet. “Anything but that. I know what I have done. I am damned beyond redemption.”

“No man is beyond redemption.”

“This one is. My life has been nothing but greed and selfishness. I see all that now. I know what I have done.”

“And so?”

“I will make amends, I will do the right thing, the honest thing.”

“Good, John, good.”

“I shall give myself up and serve my time,” said Omally, “and then I will enter a monastery, forswear my former existence, forswear the pleasures of the flesh. I shall be a sinner saved.”

“A sinner saved?” The Professor, who was no stranger to duplicity in any of its myriad guises, stared long and hard at the broken man standing before him. A golden aura surrounded him. “Blessed be,” said Professor Slocombe.

“The phone,” said John. “I will do it now.”

The Professor’s hand reached out towards the instrument. Suddenly he paused. “Wait,” he said, stiffening visibly. “Listen.”

“Listen? To what?”

The old man’s eyes darted towards the french windows. “Something …” From without there came a slow unearthly dragging of footsteps. A hideous squelching as of some monstrous mollusc.

“Oh no,” said Omally. “What is it?”

“By the pricking of my thumbs.” The Professor reached into the desk drawer and withdrew an amulet of powerful potency. Omally shuddered in his footbath; even sitting close to the roaring fire he felt a graveyard chill run through his bones. The footfalls drew ever nearer, ghastly, unnatural. The Professor clutched the amulet to his heart, Omally’s eyes glazed, a cold sweat formed upon his brow. “Professor …” The slow footfalls crashed in his head, closer, closer. And then it was upon them. Something dark and awesome lurched into view. An evil smell filled the air as the creature pressed forward. Thick slime hung about the discoloured visage, a dripping claw-like hand rose, a mouth opened and from the horrible maw a voice came.

“Watchamate, John,” it said.

“Jim?” gasped Omally in a cracked and broken voice. “Jim, is that you?” The apparition stepped into the room and nodded its weed-clung head. “Jim, you’re alive!” Omally toppled out of his footbath and fell to his knees before him. “You’re alive, Jim!”

“It was a close run race.”

“Then did you …? Did you?”

“Did I bloody what?”

“Did you save the betting slip?”

Professor Slocombe buried his face in his hands and groaned dismally.

A thin yet insistent drizzle, of the type one generally associates with bank holidays and state occasions, fell upon a borough that was suffering a severe case of that “morning after” feeling.

A hazy mist arose from the embers of last night’s holocaust as Inspectre Hovis delved here and there with the tip of his cane, seeking a why or a wherefore. Several constables, hands deep in their blue serge pockets, shuffled their feet, hunched their shoulders and shared wistful thoughts of poached eggs and kippers.

Hovis rooted with a will. His four short hours of sleep had been anything but restful. He had tossed to and fro in his bed whilst terrible dreams assailed him from every side. Headlines sprang up before his eyes: TERRORISTS SABOTAGE BRENTFORD OLYMPICS! POLICE HELPLESS AS GAMES BOMBED! BUNGLING INSPECTRE GIVEN THE ELBOW!!!

He’d only been in the borough for forty-eight hours and already he’d banged up half the town council, read the riot act and become embroiled in an international terrorist bomb plot. This sleepy west London suburb was proving to be about as sleepy as Beirut, Afghanistan, Libya and the Falls Road all rolled into one. And amidst all this confusion and distraction here was he, desperately seeking to save his tattered reputation and redeem himself in the eyes of his superiors and the world. He didn’t need all this, what a carve-up.

At the end of his cane something colourful twinkled. Hovis stooped to pick it up, wiping away the ash. Although somewhat charred about the edges, the photograph, for such it was, shone out at him like a little Kodak-colour jewel.

Hovis examined it with interest. It was a holiday snap, a foolish red-faced tourist in a sombrero drinking wine from a Spanish
pouron
. The Inspectre’s eyes swiftly became hooded slits. This was it. A clue, a mug-shot, God-given. Many people would have seen many things in that snapshot, well, not that many, but a few at least. But Hovis saw only one, the face of a born killer, a revolutionary of Pancho Villa proportions. The face of Public Enemy Number One.

“Inspectre.” The voice belonged to Constable Meek. “What do you make of this, sir?”

Hovis picked his way through the sodden ash to join the young constable. “What is it?”

“Look, sir.” Meek pointed up towards the wall of a gutted warehouse, which had taken, by its appearance, the full force of the blast. “It’s like a shadow, sir.” Hovis cocked his head upon one side and stared up at the wall. Clearly outlined upon the charred concrete was a curious image. “What do you think, sir? A man crouching, or a dog perhaps?”

Hovis flicked open his cane and applied snuff to his nose. The image was disproportionate, exaggerated. It glowed with a dull effulgence and struck an odd chord of recognition. Hovis was, however, unable to name that tune in one. “Get the forensic lads to take some photos before the rain washes it off. It may be significant, it may not.”

“Yes, sir!”

Hovis drew a tentative finger gently across the image, being careful not to disturb the outline. He examined his finger with interest. “Now what does that look like to you, Constable?”

Meek peered at the Inspectre’s fingertip. “Gold paint, sir, or gold leaf.”

“Or gold dust. Full marks for observation, Constable. Well done.”

Meek puffed out his chest. “Thank you, sir.”

“Now get on to forensic, get the photos and get them on to my desk by lunchtime and no later.”

Meek’s chest sank away. You bastard, he thought. “Yes, sir,” he said.

Jennifer Naylor tilted the cafetiere towards the exquisite china coffee cup and poured a measure of decaffeinated.

She freighted the delicate cup into the living room, where an occasional table rose to meet almost any occasion upon legs of faux-grained maple. Its sun-golden top bore the weight of several Sunday newspapers which lay in a casual composition. Jennifer perused a random headline and sipped her coffee. The project thus far had certainly met with the least line of resistance. Things were moving on apace. The public imagination, that fickle beast whose existence is only denied by those who seek to capture it, had been hunted down, snared and thrust into a cage of its own construction. And now she was one of its keepers and her duties were to keep it cosy and warm and above all safe. And upon this point she knew, as did all others directly concerned with the project, exactly what she was dealing with. The humanization of technology. Technology, friend and servant of man, rather than technology, fearsome tyrant to the uninformed. Maintaining government and “vox-pop” approval for the project was top priority. Every aspect of every aspect had to be handled with the utmost delicacy. The construction was to be the eighth wonder of the world, a technocratic monument to an unknown genius, but for all its awesomeness it had to be
human
. Above all human, that was the brief.

Jennifer scanned a newspaper column or two and nodded in complete approval. Fleet Street was already in a hot flush of patriotic fervour. The disasters of Birmingham were already forgotten. Tomorrow belonged to Brentford.

Amongst the papers lay a large metallic foil envelope which had arrived by special delivery that very morning. Jennifer placed her coffee cup amongst the Sundays and opened it. It contained a sheaf of computer print-outs and a cheque raised in her name to a sum amply sufficient to her current needs. Jennifer examined the signature with keen interest but she could make nothing of it; it was more like a runic symbol. The designer of the great stadium, inventor of Gravitite and financier of the Brentford Olympics was still as much a mystery to her as to everyone else.

Hers not to reason why. Jennifer consulted the print-out. It was a schedule of her duties for the coming week, listing meetings to be arranged, statements to be given, to whom and at when. The names of certain luminaries in the fields of art, literature, the sciences and the media appeared. Their support, considered essential to the overall success of the project, was to be enlisted. And the wherewithal by which this might be achieved was all there, printed in slim computer-type.

Anticipating possible difficulties with local ecologists, traditionalists, reactionaries and other spoilsports, it was considered prudent to bring forward the schedule of works by a day. Work on the five sites would begin at once.

Jennifer shook her beautiful head, lost in admiration for the mysterious organizer. The insight and perception displayed held her in fascination. Ever since her first involvement with the project she had felt a dull pain gnawing away at her insides, a hunger pang which could only be satisfied by one thing. Somehow, someway, she
had
to meet this person whose genius obsessed her. Somehow, someway, their paths
must
be made to cross. And then we should see what we should see.

Reverently she turned the page of the print-out and noted to her further wonder a list entitled: DISSENTERS: CLASS A SECURITY RISKS. Below this encircled in red, were only two names, yet two she knew almost as surely as she knew her own: James Arbuthnot Pooley and John Vincent Omally.

The two dissenters were enjoying a hearty breakfast. They had bathed, slept soundly and now sat in their newly laundered clothes enjoying a magnificent spread in the Professor’s dining room.

Gammon, the Professor’s elderly retainer, removed the silver dome from the crumpet dish and asked, “Is everything to your satisfaction, gentlemen?”

“Oh, indeed yes.” Pooley wiped a napkin across his mouth and prepared himself for an assault upon the crumpets.

Omally sipped coffee and watched the Professor from the corner of his eye. Something was coming, that was for sure. All this ill-deserved hospitality, what was the old man up to?

“And now,” said the Professor, as if in answer to John’s unasked question, “I am going to tell you both exactly how you can repay my hospitality.” Omally turned his coffee cup between his fingers, Jim kept right on eating. “You are both going to change your ways,” said the Professor. “Dishonesty and duplicity are now but regretful chapters in your dual history. Altruism is now your watchword. Good works will be the standard by which others shall judge you. Honest toil your daily lot.”

“Your colloquy is as ever eloquent,” replied John. “The points are both well made and well taken, we shall watch our ps and qs from now on.”

“You will,” said the Professor. “Your behaviour will be exemplary.”

“Be sure of that,” said Jim, “you betcha.”

“Good. This knowledge affords me a basic security which I place in high esteem. Thus the act I am about to perform becomes nothing more than a symbolic gesture.”

“Oh, yes?” said John, doubtfully.

“Yes.” Professor Slocombe took from his dressing-gown pocket Pooley’s tobacco tin.

“Ah, thanks,” said Jim, rising to his feet.

“No, Jim, I shall mind this.” Pooley’s pained expression was not lost upon Omally.

“Am I to take it that the tin contains something more than just baccy and papers?”

Jim slumped in his chair. “Baccy, papers and a betting slip.”

“Exactly.” Professor Slocombe passed the tin several times between his hands. Neither of his breakfast guests saw it vanish, but it did so nevertheless. “A symbolic gesture, nothing more,” said the magician. “The slip will remain in my custody the few short weeks until the games begin. During this period I shall watch with interest the manner in which you conduct yourselves.”

“You want us to… work?” The full horror of this proposition had not quite hit Pooley, hence he was still able to form the sentence.

“Indeed I do, Jim.”

“Such rectitude is laudable,” said Omally, “and I applaud your principles. However, it is not often the case that what might appear to be a good idea in principle is inevitably a bad one in practice. Professor, the pursuance of virtue and the turning of the now legendary honest buck are all well and good, but…”

“But me no buts, John.”

“Come now,” said Omally, “you will have your little joke and the humour is not lost upon us.” Pooley groaned in sickly agreement. “Return the betting slip, put your trust in us, we will not disappoint you.”

“But I do trust you, John. The slip will be safe with me.”

Pooley bit his lip, “But what, sir, if, and perish the thought, some ill were to befall you?”

“Happily I am in the best of health, Jim.”

“You are not a young man, Professor,” said John.

“You are as young as you think,” declared the ancient, “which is also a happy circumstance, because my affairs, being somewhat complicated, may well take several years to put in order, should some tragedy befall me. But let us not dwell upon such dismal matters. If one is to believe only half of what one is told, then Brentford stands poised upon the threshold of a veritable Golden Age. If, surrounded by such rich and fertile pastures, two stalwarts such as yourselves are unable to gain honest employment, then one can only lament your lack of enterprise. Backs to the plough, noses to the grindstone, shoulders to the wheel.”

“Professor.” Pooley raised his hand to speak.

“No more,” said the elder. “The conversation is at an end. I am confident that all aspects have now been covered. Repetition does not enforce a point, it merely belabours it.”

“I wished merely to enquire whether you still require the services of a gardener?”

“You are hired, Jim.”

Pooley smiled broadly. “My thanks, Professor. What of you, John?”

Omally buttered his crumpet. “I am cogitating,” he said in a sullen tone.

At a little after nine a.m. a helicopter swooped across Brentford. It circled the borough several times before departing towards the west. Those who saw it remarked upon two things, the advanced design of the thing, which resembled a slim silver fish, and the unusual fact that it made absolutely no sound whatsoever.

At a little after ten a.m. work began on the five Olympic sites. No-one observed the arrival of the engineers, technicians, construction supervisors, operatives and navigators. But at the time no-one thought much about it. There was a charity match on at the football ground between Brentford’s First Division glory boys and the Lords Taverners Eleven. Those who weren’t at the match were either still in bed, brewing tea in their allotment sheds or sticking the Sunday joint in. And there was little enough of interest to be seen at the sites anyway. For within half an hour, tall impenetrable screens had been erected to shield the operations in progress. And these operations, whatever they might have been, were taking place in absolute silence.