The Sprouts of Wrath

  John Omally climbed down through the open hatchway, clutching a bulging holdall and peered into the darkness. He flicked the light switch. ‘Damn it,’ said he. ‘Jim, are you in there?’

  All was silent, except for the gentle lap of water against the hull. Even the plopping salmon had turned in for the night.

  ‘Jim?’ There was no reply. Pooley had evidently done a runner. ‘Poltroon,’ muttered Omally. ‘I shall have words to say to that lad when I catch up with him. Banjos the electrics, leaves the door open to all and sundry.’ He stood up in the hatchway and placed the holdall upon the deck before him. He didn’t need much light for this, it was all down to a single flick of a switch to set the five-minute egg-timer, the work of but a moment.

  Omally unzipped the holdall, flipped the switch, rezipped the holdall and received a violent blow to the forehead which sent him tumbling backwards into the blackness of the salon. ‘What the . . . who?’ Omally sprawled in the dark, cursing and spitting oaths. He drew a deep breath and prepared to come up fighting. The lozenge of moonlight visible through the open hatchway was momentarily blotted out as a dark shape dropped down into the barge after him. ‘Who is this?’ John demanded. ‘What’s your game?’ Something bowled across the floor and struck him in the shins with a sickening crack. Omally screamed in anguish and not a little fury, and doubled up clutching his legs. He fell in an untidy heap on top of an unconscious Jim Pooley.

  ‘Oh, ouch, what’s going on here?’ mumbled a bleary drunken voice.

  ‘Pooley, is that you?’

  ‘John? Get off there.’ This was the second time in one day that Jim had woken up to find a man on top of him.

  ‘John, unhand me . . . my God, I’ve gone blind.’

  ‘Shut up, man.’

  ‘What’s going on? Get off me, I say!’

  ‘Pooley, be quiet.’ Omally sought to stifle Jim’s cries with one hand whilst seeking out his lighter with the other. ‘There’s someone in here.’ John felt Pooley shudder. The terrible memory of whatever he’d seen through the porthole suddenly resobered his drunken brain.

  ‘John, there’s a thing, a mons….’

  ‘Shut up!’ Omally struck fire to his Zippo and held it above him. Pooley did what he could to focus his eyes.

  ‘You’ve got a nose bleed,’ he observed.

  ‘And I’ll not be the only one.’ Omally addressed his unseen assailant. ‘Fight like a man, come out!’ The slim flame burned and fluttered, the shadows danced. Within the cocoon of light Omally helped his companion to his feet, wincing at the pain of his own battered legs. ‘Come on out, you coward, show yourself!’

  There was a sudden rush of movement. Something leapt before them. Leapt up. Omally held high his lighter and ducked away as it loomed above them. A terrific figure, gross, unnatural. It clung impossibly, upside down upon the ceiling.

  Pooley stood frozen with horror. John thrust him out of the way and dived for cover as the thing scuttled across the ceiling like a great black beetle and vanished through the open hatchway. And the moonlight vanished with it as the hatch swung shut with an almighty crash. John leapt to his feet in the darkness and flung himself towards the hatchway. Above him the bolt slid home, the padlock clicked. They were trapped.

  Omally beat at the hatch. ‘Let us out!’ he yelled. ‘Let us out!’

  Pooley’s voice came from the darkness, ‘Don’t do that, John. It’s on the outside and we’re on the in, for God’s sake. At least we’re safe.’

  ‘Safe?’ Omally’s voice rose to a pitch that was new to Jim’s hearing. ‘Jim, you damned fool, I armed the bomb! It’s out there. We’ve got about two minutes left and then . . .’

  ‘Let us out!’ screamed Jim at the top of his voice. ‘Let us out!’

  ‘Light, we must get some light.’ Omally floundered about the salon. ‘Where’s the torch? Where’s anything?’

  Unseen, even to himself, Jim’s hands began to flap. ‘Don’t do it,’ warned Omally. ‘Where’s the torch? Where is it?’

  ‘On the hook! On the hook!’

  ‘Where’s the hook?’

  ‘By the door!’

  ‘Where’s the door?’

  ‘Over there . . . or is it over . . .?’

  ‘It’s here.’ Omally flicked on the torch. It actually worked. He shone it into the idiot face of Jim Pooley.

  ‘Help,’ said Jim in a small foolish voice. ‘Help.’

  ‘There must be some way out.’

  ‘If the hatch is locked we can’t squeeze through a porthole.’

  The torchlight glanced off a glass panel in the floor. The fish pens,’ said Omally.

  ‘Ah,’ said Jim. ‘I forgot to open them.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, it’s the only way out, come on.’

  ‘We’ll drown.’

  ‘We won’t.’ Omally tore up the glass-panelled trap-door that covered the fish pens and jumped down into the water. It was very cold and very black and sadly lacking in promise. Between his wounded knees, a great trout moved ominously. ‘Come on, Jim, we can punch our way through the wire netting and swim out underneath.’

  ‘We’ll drown.’

  ‘Come on!’ Omally shone the torch up at Jim, grabbed him by the ankle and dragged him down into the water.

  ‘The fish will eat us,’

  ‘Get going, there’s no time left, take a deep breath now,’

  Jim had time to take about a half of one before Omally thrust his head under the water and propelled him forwards through the wire netting of the fish pen wall. All about him the great fish plunged, as eager as he for freedom.

  Jim was only beneath the surface for a few brief seconds, but his past life flashed before him several times nevertheless. Then, with a great gasp, he broke water, ten or so feet out from the barge. He coughed and spluttered and spat out Thames.

  Above him came sudden movement, sound. Jim turned his terrified eyes towards the barge. On deck, ghastly beneath the moonlight, the thing paced to and fro. It looked almost like a man, yet it walked upon all fours. Its head pivoted about as it sighted Pooley and a low howl escaped from its black throat.

  Jim floundered in the water, the undercurrent was strong and he was no swimmer. He was rapidly being dragged downstream and down generally. ‘John, help . . . John!’ Pooley’s voice faded as the blackness of the river engulfed him.

  And then a deafening explosion tore the Brentford night into a million fragments. A great torrent of flame mushroomed up from the ancient barge, billowing into the sky. Shards of burning splinters rained down upon the river and the surrounding area. And amidst that maelstrom of fire and tearing fury something perished that was neither man nor beast, gave vent to a shriek of fury and defiance and became no more.

  What had been for most denizens of Brentford a night of jollity and celebration was suddenly a chaos of ambulances, police cars and fire engines. Bells jangled, sirens screamed, beacons flashed. The town hall disgorged a band of martial pensioners wielding wine bottles and walking sticks. Neville buried his face in his hands as the pub cleared for the second time in one day. So much for the ‘takeaway Toasties’, he thought.

  It was some time before the fire brigade were able to batter down enough corrugated iron fencing to gain entry and bring the raging inferno under control. By the time they had accomplished this, the headquarters of the P & O Line was nothing but a blackened shell.

  It was some time later still that Inspectre Hovis arrived on the scene. He addressed his inquiries to the leading fireman. ‘God alone knows,’ that man replied. ‘Chemicals is my guess, there’s any amount of the stuff lying around here. All this should have been knocked down years ago. A build-up of gases in the barge is my bet, although it could be any of a number of things. We’ll give it a thorough going-over in the morning, when it’s all cooled down a bit.’ Hovis drew snuff from his cane and pinched it meaningfully to his nose.

  19

  Professor Slocombe decanted a large Scotch into a crystal tumbler and placed it betw
een 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 i
ts 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 what?’

  ‘Did you save the betting slip?’

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

  20

  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.