The Sprouts of Wrath

  ‘The joke is certainly lost on me,’ said Omally, in an appalled voice. ‘Attempts upon my life rarely cause me to smile.’

  ‘A cruel irony, John, your inquisitiveness was to prove your ruination.’

  ‘Your understanding of such things is a tribute to your learning,’ said John, ‘but your detachment sometimes verges upon the inhumane.’

  ‘Quite so, I apologize.’

  ‘We should take this thing to the police,’ said Pooley.

  Professor Slocombe joined John in some vigorous head-shaking. ‘I feel that might complicate matters even further. Inspectre Hovis is already quite keen to interview you. I should recommend strongly to the contrary on this issue.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jim. ‘In that case, if irony is the name of the game, then let us readdress this parcel back to its sender,’

  The prospect has a certain charm, but we have yet to identify him. John, what do you know about the patron who has put up the money for the games?’

  ‘As much as you, Professor, probably less, a scientific genius with money to burn and a desire for anonymity. Oh, I see, then you think-’

  ‘I do not know, but there is much I would like to find out. Events suggest a link, both incidents occurred at sites directly connected with the construction of the stadium.’

  ‘The thought had crossed my mind.’

  ‘So do you think you might make some enquiries, employ your silken tongue, ask about, subtly of course.’

  ‘But of course.’ Omally scratched plaster dust from his blackened barnet. ‘It might prove difficult, but not impossible.’

  ‘Good. Then it is my suggestion that you both lodge with me for a while, at a rent found mutually agreeable, of course. I have several spare bedrooms, you will find the accommodation suitable, I trust. Go about your daily business, keep your eyes open and your shoelaces well tied. That is my suggestion.’

  Pooley made the face of gloom; this was evidently a serious matter. John said, ‘What about Mrs King? She’ll call the police when she sees what has become of that bug hutch she calls a rooming house.’

  ‘I will deal with that directly,’ said the Professor. ‘You can owe me out of your winnings.’ Pooley reached for the whisky decanter. ‘And I will have a bar tariff typed out,’ said Professor Slocombe, smiling sweetly.

  30

  The days continued to pass and the stadium neared completion. Beneath, the borough was changing, the light which now fell upon it was unnatural and laid queer textures on to the familiar landscape. The time-softened edges of the old buildings seemed to sharpen, perspectives became clearer. More startling than this was the sudden fall of night. Gone were the long dreamy summer evenings, when the Swan’s patrons took the pleasure of their porter in the warm night air. Now at sunset the solar cells withdrew into the upper canopy and for a brief moment the great umbrella of the stadium was etched clearly against the sky.

  Muttering doubtfully the patrons turned up their collars to the sudden chill and shuffled back to the comfort of the saloon bar. Old Pete raised two fingers and Young Chips peed defiantly skyward.

  Pooley leant upon the Professor’s spade and mopped his brow with an oversized red gingham handkerchief. The recent doings had all but done for him. Had it not been for the thought of his coming wealth and his agreement with the Professor, he would no doubt have taken to his bed for an indefinite period.

  Norman laboured away long into the nights upon a project of his own formulation; but for the occasional muted explosion or fluctuation in the neighbourhood electricity supply, his neighbours had little cause to complain and so left him to it.

  Jennifer Naylor now received daily instructions and followed them as best she could. Her inquisitiveness towards the identity of the borough’s Big Mr X grew with each day to become her waking obsession.

  Omally sat outside his allotment hut. Being on the boundaries of the borough the allotments continued to enjoy a natural sunset and a soft afterglow. Thus in the doorways of similar sheds, which formed a picturesque shanty town leading down the natural arc of land towards the Thames, other Brentonian males sat in similar postures, puffing upon their pipes and supping their home brew.

  Omally scratched in the dust with his dibber and considered his lot. He had taxed his considerable ingenuity to the very limits in attempting to track down the enigmatic organizer of the games, who might or might not be his would-be assassin. But he had achieved very little in return for his pains. He had inveigled his way into the town hall registrar’s office and consulted the land register to discover who had purchased each of the Olympic sites. Each purchaser had told him the same story: they had been commissioned to purchase the land on behalf of a third party that had more than adequately compensated them for their time and trouble. Employing a deviousness previously unexploited, he had teased from each the name of the secretive buyer. The name was always the same: THE KALETON ORGANIZATION.

  Sensing victory John sped off to Companies House, but to no avail. The Kaleton Organization was not registered, it was not a research organization nor a charitable institution, nor a trading body of any persuasion, it was not listed in any directory, public or private. It was a bank account alone and nothing more. It was a dead end.

  John turned his dibber in the soil. Anyone with resource enough could have got as far as he had, which after all was nowhere at all. He was almost on the point of giving up when a sudden thought crossed his mind. It was such a pleasant thought and so ripe with engaging possibilities that he gave himself a mental boot in the backside for not thinking of it sooner. Leaping to his feet with a wild cry of exaltation, which raised eyebrows from the nearby hut-sitters, he mounted up Marchant and rode away at speed.

  He caught Alison’s Floral Fripperies in the High Street just as the big girl was closing for the night and charmed her out of a bunch of Day Lilies. At a little after seven, having bathed his body to fragrant cleanliness in the Professor’s marble bath, dressed himself in Pooley’s best suit and shaved his chin to a manly blue, he set out once more upon Marchant bound for Jennifer Naylor’s.

  As John rode out he sang softly to himself a lilting ballad rich in the pathos of the hard times of Holy Ireland. That he had never known these hard times himself, being Dublin born and Brentford bred, was beside the point. For when the soul of the Gael is stirred to song, then that song will as like as not be one of lament, heavy with sentiment and evoking memories of Erin’s tragic history, and the bittersweet times that all but were. ‘The night that O’Rafferty’s pig ran away,’ sang John Vincent Omally. John turned right into Aiwass Avenue and suddenly applied the anchors. Marchant slewed violently and spilled lilies from his saddlebag. Muttering beneath his breath John dragged his bike into the concealment of a parked car and scooped up the fallen flowers before ducking away out of sight.

  Parked in front of Jennifer’s semi was the long black car which had delivered the all but deadly package to his door. Now what could this mean? Omally’s brain turned somersaults. Was Jennifer in for the chop too and if so why? If the car belonged to the Kaleton Organization, and the Kaleton Organization were responsible for the games and if what and if is and, and . . .

  At this moment the liveried dwarf shuffled out of Jennifer’s porch and entered the long black vehicle. John chewed upon his knuckles. Now was a time for the finding out, an opportunity to learn the whereabouts of the mystery Mr X, but what to do? If Jennifer had received a parcel then he had to warn her. Omally dithered, the car cruised slowly away up the avenue. Think, man, think. His decision was however made for him on the instant he saw Jennifer’s Porsche slide out of her garage and turn up the avenue after the receding black car.

  ‘Well, now,’ said John, and, much after the fashion of the late-and-legendary, ‘the game is afoot.’ He climbed aboard Marchant and set off in hot pursuit. The sheer nonsense of a sit-up-and-beg-bike pursuing a Porsche did not even enter his head; he applied foot to pedal and made out for the off.

  At the top of Aiwass Avenue Je
nnifer turned right. Pleased with this at least, Omally followed. He could see the long black car in the middle distance turning left towards the football ground and spoke honeyed words of bribery to Marchant. Promises of a new back light and aluminium pump were duly made. The bike was evidently satisfied, as when Jennifer’s Porsche turned left it permitted Omally to follow without complaint. As a token gesture, signalling disapproval, it did, however, let John do all the work and by the time he passed Griffin Park he was already working up a healthy sweat.

  Across Brentford went the little convoy, Omally riding drag in a fervour of pressing pedals. Left at the traffic lights and up the Kew Road towards the Chiswick roundabout. As John applied his best feet forward, the thought that the Kaleton Organization’s headquarters might well lie somewhere to the East of London, in Penge, or some other far-flung outpost of the civilized world, took the opportunity to cross his mind. Such matters did not bear thinking about so he plodded on. The black car took yet another left turn and entered the new estate to the rear of the great gasometer.

  Omally pulled up at the corner and took a breather, rolled and lit a cigarette. To his knowledge there was no other road in or out of there, but then where was the black car heading? Delivering another bomb? In the distance the Memorial Library clock struck the half hour. Above, a drone of engines announced the arrival of further sections to the nearly complete Star Stadium.

  Omally took a final drag and flicked his butt-end into the road. He had two choices: stay where he was, or go looking. He cocked a pedal; hanging about on the off chance had never been his way. Plough on.

  John entered the new estate. He knew little about this area now, although it had been his home when a lad. The streets of Victorian houses had gone the way of all flesh, beneath the bulldozer’s plough and in their place up went the gaunt flat blocks, built by folk who cared little, to house strangers who cared even less. The place was now a wasteland. Poorly designed and indifferently constructed, the dwellings were already beginning to sag and crumble and the Brentford council feared daily a disaster of Babel Tower proportions.

  As irony would have it, residences similar to those demolished were now commanding huge sums in nearby Chiswick and Ealing. But is it not written in The Book of Ultimate Truths, that those who can predict the future rarely work for the town planning department?

  Omally pushed foot upon pedal and entered the Twilight Zone. It was seedy and fly-blown and haunted.

  Graffiti covered each and every wall in indecipherable hieroglyphics, ruined cars stood upon stacked bricks and in the crepuscular glow of a single street lamp, a knot of ne’er-do-wells, clad in the style of Post-Holocaust chic, eyed him with evident hostility. Omally hunched his shoulders, shivered and cycled on, oppressed and depressed. This wasn’t Brentford; he might as well be on the moon.

  John’s thoughts now turned solely to the welfare of Jennifer Naylor. What had become of her? He swung in clockwise circles about the flat blocks, weaving through the dereliction and waste, but there was no sign of her Porsche, or of the long black car which had preceded it into this hinterland of urban decay.

  John halted beside the high wire fence which guarded the perimeters of the gasometer. He would have to check the underground car parks next and he did not relish the thought. Even Mad Max himself might have his doubts in that neck of the woods.

  Suddenly John heard a cry. A woman’s scream? He strained his hearing, tense and alert. Another cry and it came from beyond the fence, somewhere near the great gasometer. He leapt from his bike and thrust it against the fence, thinking to shin up from it and over. There was a crackle of blue fire and he found himself upon the ground intimately entangled in his bicycle frame. John disengaged himself and struggled to his feet, cursing, spitting and nursing his singed fingertips. His ears rang and blood pounded in his temples. There was a strange metallic taste in his mouth. The fence was electrified.

  Blowing on his fingers, John mounted up and cycled on seeking an entrance. He had not travelled one hundred yards before he espied Jennifer’s Porsche through the wire, parked up close to the gasometer. The driver’s door hung open, Jennifer was nowhere to be seen.

  Omally became frantic, he pedalled on and on, around and around. The fence was endless, there was no entrance to be found. Within a few brief minutes he was back where he started. ‘Now that,’ said John Omally, ‘I do not like one little bit.’ He cocked an ear but the night was now silent, now dark, black and silent. Logic and reason presented him with a united front. If the Porsche got in, then there had to be an entrance. That, however, was as far as logic and reason were prepared to go on the matter. ‘Damn,’ said John. ‘Damn and blast.’

  Now there is more than one way to skin a cat - not that John had ever seen any technique demonstrated to pleasing effect - yet it followed, somehow, that there must be more than one way to best an electrical fence some fifteen feet in height. Omally viewed the fence, he viewed Marchant, he viewed himself. Again he viewed Marchant. The bicycle nuzzled against him. As if to say , ‘please don’t do what I think you are going to do.’ Omally viewed the fence once more. ‘Sorry,’ he said to Marchant.

  It was not the work of a moment, it was a right old kerfuffle. Omally struggled to remove Marchant’s tyres, Marchant was not at all keen and by the time the tyres had been forcibly removed, Omally was somewhat bloody about the fingers’ ends. Wrapping the rubber tyres about his hands to insulate him from the electrical charge Omally scaled the wire fence.

  He dropped down inside the gasometer’s enclosure, scrunched Marchant’s tyres into his jacket pockets and brandished his bicycle pump. Then, in a manner much beloved of the SAS he scuttled forward from vantage point to vantage point, cover to cover. He crept up behind Jennifer’s Porsche. It was abandoned. He skirted the outbuildings, prying into windows, keyhole peering. There was nothing. Upon numb legs he approached the great gasometer. The vast cylinder of Victorian iron, which was the borough’s most famous landmark, spread before him. John had never been so close to it before and had never realized just how large it really was. The thing was enormous. An iron stairway led up towards the catwalks and gantries which encircled it and John could think of nothing better to do than climb to a suitable height and see what might be seen. He grasped the hand-rail and learned almost at once the error of his decision. If the fence was hot, then this was cold, and impossibly cold to boot. Omally recoiled with a pained gasp, breathing warmth on to his now sub-zero palm. He knew that gas under pressure drops in temperature but this was ridiculous. Something very wrong was going on around here, and he was up to his neck in it.

  Chancing that the cold might take some time to penetrate the patent air-soles of his Doctor Marten’s he thrust his hands into his pockets and stepped lightly up the staircase. He gained the first catwalk and skipped nimbly along it, surveying the landscape below and keeping a weather-eye open for trouble. All was silent, dark, unfathomable. He approached the second stairway, breathing heavily. Suddenly there was a rumbling sound beneath him, a grinding of gears, noises of iron in motion.

  Omally flattened himself against the iron wall, cursing as the back of his head made contact with arctic metal.

  Below a heavy section of gasometer slid aside and a sharp white light floodlit an area of wasteland before it, spreading out in a broad fan. Omally craned forward to look, leaving a tuft of his hair fastened to the frozen iron, like an Indian trophy. Below him a figure left the iron fortress and strode into view. It was Jennifer Naylor.

  Omally watched her as she walked to her car, tall, erect, magnificent. She seated herself, slammed shut the door, keyed the engine and roared away. Before her, a section of the fence momentarily dissolved as the car passed through it, to reform almost on the instant. Gears ground, metal moved and the light snapped away, leaving John in shivering darkness.

  He had seen enough, much more than enough. Without a second thought he dashed back along the catwalk, down the staircase, across the compound and left the area in the manner
by which he had entered.

  31

  In a white room with white curtains there was a chair, a table and a bed, none of which merited mention. Upon a white wall, however, there was a great chart and before this stood Inspectre Sherringford Hovis.

  The chart was a complicated affair resembling, at first glance, an underground railway map designed by an infant. At second glance it didn’t look a lot better either. The overall design was that of an uncapped pyramid, the base line crowded with newspaper cuttings, photographs, mysterious ‘samples’ in plastic bags, numbers listed upon shop receipts, odds and bods. Red lines running variously from odd to bod traced intricate networks which occasionally converged. The pyramid was two-thirds covered by such plottings; the apex was bare but for a few pencil lines and a large black question mark which crowned the whole.

  Inspectre Hovis cupped his left elbow in his right palm and dug his left forefinger into his right nostril. He sucked air through his teeth, withdrew his rooting digit and tapped at the enigmatic wall decoration. The object of his particular attention was a single charred photograph into which a great number of red lines converged, giving it the appearance of a terminus in the manic metro-system. Hovis leant forward and stared, eye to bleary eye, with the photographic image of James Arbuthnot Pooley. ‘I will have you, laddy,’ he said, giving the red face a summary tap upon the cheek. So saying, he turned his attention towards a branch line and traced the route to a single stop. Here were what viewers of the much beloved Untouchables lovingly refer to as ‘mug shots’. These displayed front-face and profiles of two twins with braided hair and folded brows. Beneath were the names Paul and Barry Geronimo. Inspectre Hovis hooked a finger into his watch-chain and drew out his ‘Regal Chimer’, the very chiming pocket-watch that featured in Pooley’s favourite Western. But shoot-outs with Mad Indio were not in the forefront of the great detective’s mind, as he perused the dial and said the single word, ‘Late.’ As if in answer there came a rhythmic knocking at his chamber door. Hovis draped a bed sheet over his chart. ‘Enter,’ said he.