The Brentford Chainstore Massacre (9 page)

The monk marched ever closer.

Jim could see his face now. It was the face of an Old Testament prophet. Noble-browed, wild of eye, with a great beak of a nose, a chin thrust forward.

And on he marched. Right past.

“Hold on,” cried Jim. “I want a word with you.”

But the monk didn’t turn.

He didn’t see Jim.

But who was this?

A hooded rider was coming out of the East, as though borne on the wind. He rode towards the monk, reigned in his horse and dismounted.

“Ho there, holy father,” he cried.

“Out of my way, villain.”

Rather harsh words for a monk, thought Jim, but he stared in awe at the rider. For the rider had now pulled back his hood and his face could clearly be seen.

“I go with God,” declared the monk. “Do not stand in my way.”

“But I am God’s messenger, or rather the messenger of his messenger.” The rider smiled wickedly. “I have something to deliver.”

“I want nothing from you, odorous one. I smell the breath of Satan on you. The sulphur of the pit.”

“Your words are unappealing, monk. What have you in your bundle?”

“I have the Days of God. And God will not be denied them.”

“God may not be denied his days. But I deny you yours.”

“Stand aside, Antichrist.”

“Your days are numbered, monk. Your end is now.”

“Stand aside.”

“Recommend yourself to your maker.”

And then a blade flashed in the sunlight and the searing wind and drove in again and again.

And then Jim saw more. Much more. Horror piling on horror.

And then he awoke with a scream.

Omally was shaking him. “Are you all right, Jim? You’re white as a sheet.”

“I’m OK. I’m OK.”

“You’ve a terrible sweat on you.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Did you see him? The monk, did you see him?”

“I saw him all right. I saw everything. It was terrible, John. Terrible.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“It was the stuff about me in Compton-Cummings’s book. ‘Surely this is the breath of Pooley.’ An assassin came out of the East with the wind and the assassin was me.”

“You?”

“One of my ancestors. One of my ancestors murdered the monk.”

“Holy Mary!”

“He was sent by the Pope. You see, the Pope couldn’t rescind the papal bull. Those things are supposed to be inspired by God. And God isn’t noted for changing his mind. So the Pope called in an assassin to murder the monk and destroy the Brentford Scrolls.”

“And this assassin was one of your blokes?”

“He looked just like me.”

“And did he destroy the scrolls?”

“No. He tried to blackmail the Pope. Demand piles of gold for the scrolls.”

“So what did the Pope do?”

“He sent an assassin to assassinate the assassin.”

“Bastard.”

“Too right. That assassin was a Mr Scan Omally.”

“God’s teeth and trousers.”

“So then the assassin of the assassin tries it on with the Pope and the Pope gets another assassin to assassinate him. And then this assassin…”

“Does this go on for very long?”

“For years.”

“So who fetched up with the scrolls in the end?”

“One of my blokes.”

“And did he destroy them?”

“No, he buried them.”

“Where, Jim? Did you see where?”

“I saw exactly where.”

“So do you know where they are now?”

“I know exactly where they are now.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s so weird,” said Pooley. “I mean, the thing must have been locked into my genes. Part of some ancestral memory, perhaps. Passed down from father to son from generation to generation.”

“Go on.”

“I must have known all along. It’s the place I always go to, you see. My kind of spiritual haven. I’m drawn to it whenever I want to be at peace and think. I never knew why, but something inside always told me to go there.”

“So where is it, Jim?”

“The bench outside the library. The scrolls are buried in a casket underneath.”

“Would you look at that?” said John Omally. “Did you ever in your life see a bench more firmly cemented into the ground than this lad?”

Jim Pooley shook his head. “But I suppose if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be here for long.”

“True enough. But how are we going to get it up?”

Jim stroked his chin. “All right,” said he, “considering that we have got this far by doing it our way, I suggest we apply our unique talents and effect a speedy and successful conclusion.”

“Well said,” said John. “Go on then.”

“Go on what?”

“Apply your unique talents.”

“Right.” Jim looked the bench up and down and around and about, scuffed his heels upon its mighty concrete base and then stood back with his hands upon his hips and his head cocked on one side. “We will just have to blow the bugger up,” said he.

“Blow the bugger up?” Omally flinched.

“Easiest solution. No messing about.”

Omally sighed. “Jim,” he said. “Exactly how deep in the ground are the scrolls?”

“I give up,” said Jim. “Exactly how deep?”

“I have absolutely no idea. But we can’t blow up the bench in case we blow up the scrolls also.”

“Controlled blast. You know all about explosions, John.”

“Not so loud.” John put sshing fingers to his mouth. “It’s a bad idea. And don’t you think that the sound of an explosion might just attract the attention of passers-by?”

“We could do it at night, when everyone’s asleep.”

John let free a second sigh. “Do you have any more inspired ideas of a unique nature?”

“Yes,” said Jim. “I do. We could tunnel under.”

“Tunnel under?”

“Like in this film I saw. The Wooden Horse, I think it was called. These prisoners of war built this vaulting horse and they went out every day and exercised with it. But there was a bloke inside with a spoon and a bag and he dug this tunnel and…”

“Wasn’t Trevor Howard in that one?”

“He might have been. I think John Mills was.”

“Didn’t Anton Diffring play the Nazi officer?”

“With the long leather coat?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you always want a coat like that?”

“I still do.”

“I’ll buy you one when we get our first pay cheque.”

“Thank you very much, John. Now what exactly were we talking about? I think I’ve lost the plot here.”

“You were just telling me that we should build a vaulting horse and carry it out into the library garden every morning so that while I exercise on it you can be underneath with a spoon tunnelling to the bench.”

Jim nodded enthusiastically. “I have to say,” he said, “that when you put it that way, it comes across as a really stupid idea.”

“Doesn’t it though.”

“So,” said Jim, “that leaves us with Marchant.”

“Marchant?”

“Once he’s restored to his former greatness, we’ll hitch him to the bench with a length of chain and…”

John was shaking his head.

“You’re shaking your head,” said Jim.

“I am,” said John.

“All right then, I give up. I’ve offered you three perfectly sound suggestions and you’ve pooh-poohed every one. It’s your turn.”

John offered up another sigh. “There has to be some simple way to shift it,” he said. “Let’s go and discuss it somewhere else. The sound of all these road drills in A minor starting up again is giving me a headache.”

And John looked at Jim.

And Jim looked at John.

And then they both smiled.

And Early the Very Next Morning

“And what do you think you’re doing there, my good man?” asked the official-looking gent with the bowler hat, the big black moustache and the clipboard.

“Me, guv?” asked the bloke down the hole.

“Yes you, guv.”

“Cable TV,” said the bloke. “We’re laying the cable.”

“Does anyone in Brentford actually want cable TV?”

“I shouldn’t think so. It’s all crap, isn’t it? Presented by a lot of has-beens, like that Blue Peter bloke who had that spot of bother with the…”

“I believe I read of it in the Sunday Sport. But if no one actually wants cable TV, what’s the point of all this digging?”

The bloke down the hole grinned. “Now you’re asking,” he said, “and I’ll tell you. You see, I drill the hole and then my mate here takes this big saw and cuts off the important roots of the roadside trees.”

“But won’t that kill them?”

“It certainly will. Within two years from now there won’t be a single tree left in any town or city in the country.”

“But surely that’s a very bad thing?”

“Depends whose side you’re on, I suppose. It will be a bad thing for us, but not for the alien strike force drifting secretly in orbit around the planet.”

“What?”

“Well, this is only my personal theory, and I may be well off the mark, but I believe that the cable television network is run by space aliens bent upon world domination. And they’re seeing that all the trees get cut down so the atmosphere on Earth changes to one more suitable for themselves.”

“Great Scott!” said the official-looking gent.

“Nah, only kidding,” said the bloke down the hole. “The truth is that we only do it because we’re stupid. Blokes who dig holes in the road are all working class and all the working class are stupid.”

“Surely that is a somewhat classist remark.”

“What does ‘classist’ mean?”

“You really wouldn’t want to know.”

“But who are you, guv? You look a bit of a toff. Should I call you ‘your honour’ rather than ‘guv’?”

“‘Guv’ will be sufficient. I am from the Department of Roads.” The official-looking gent flashed an official-looking ID.

“Gawd luv a duck,” said the bloke. “That has me fair impressed.”

“And so it should. Now I want you to stop digging there at once and start digging over there instead. I will supervise.”

“Whatever you say, guv. Where exactly do you want us to dig?”

“Right there.” The official-looking gent pointed to the bench outside the Memorial Library.

Now, the other chap who did a lot of pointing hadn’t been heard of for a while. But he had been busy and he was up to absolutely no good whatsoever. Dr Steven Malone wasn’t lecturing this morning, nor was he putting in any time at the Cottage Hospital. He was working alone in his underground laboratory at Kether House.

You might well suppose that as a chap who looked the dead Kennedy of Paget’s Holmes, in black and white, Dr Steven would have had one of those Victorian Mad Scientist’s laboratories. You know the kinds of jobbies, all bubbling retorts and brass Bunsen burners, with squiddly-diddly glass pipes and red rubber tubing. There would be a lot of early electrical gubbinry also, sparking coils and polished spheres and a heavy emphasis on the switchboards with the big “we belong dead” power handles.

But not a bit of it.

Because, let’s face it, nobody would have a laboratory like that nowadays. In fact nobody really had a laboratory like that in those days. Laboratories like that were invented by Hollywood. And although we are all eternally grateful for the way Hollywood has rewritten history for us, this is not Hollywood.

This, thank God, is Brentford.

And we do things differently here.

Dr Steven Malone’s laboratory was a living hell. Anyone who has seen photographs of Ed Gein’s kitchen, or Jeffrey Dahmer’s bathroom, will be able to form an immediate impression. Somebody once said that “psychos never comb their hair”; well, neither do they wash their dishes. And Dr Steven Malone was a psychopath, make no mistake about that. Although he did comb his hair, and wash his dishes.

For the record, it is possible to trace the precise moment when the genetic engineer stepped out of sanity and entered loony-doom. The day five years before when he changed his name from Stephen to Steven.

It came about in this fashion. Dr Steven had been introduced to a certain writer of Far-fetched Fiction at a party in Dublin. This writer showed Dr Steven his pocket watch. The numbers on the face had been erased and replaced by the letters of the writer’s name. Twelve letters, six for the Christian name and six for the surname. Dr Steven viewed this preposterous vanity and, unlike others who have viewed it and responded with certain gestures below waist level, Dr Steven was intrigued and he knew that he must own one. The effect upon him was profound, because he realized that the name Stephen Malone has thirteen letters. And thirteen is an unlucky number.

And the man who would change the world would not have thirteen letters in his name.

There was some kind of Cosmic Truth in this, albeit one of a terrible madness. The body of the writer was pulled from the river the following day. His pocket watch was never seen again.

Except by Dr Steven Malone.

So back to his laboratory.

It smelt bad down here. Bad, as in fetid. Bad, as in the stench of death. There were Dexion racks down here, poorly constructed. Glass jars stood upon these racks, glass jars containing specimens. Human specimens. Pickled parts, suspended in formaldehyde. Here a tragic severed hand, its fingertips against the glass, and here some sectioned organ, delicate as coral, wafer thin as gossamer. And all around stared human eyes, unseeing yet reproachful from within those tall glass jars.

On the floor was litter. Crumpled cartons, empty bottles, discarded cigarette packs (for most psychos smoke), and magazines and books and newspapers and unopened letters and flotsam and jetsam and filthy rags and tatters. And there were bloodstains on the walls and on the ceiling and on the litter. And on the hands of Dr Steven Malone.

And on further Dexion racks, where stood six zinc water tanks. Each filled with a sterile solution and each containing a naked human torso. The arms, legs and head had been neatly and surgically removed from each, the wounds tightly stitched, plasma drips inserted. Electric implants caused the hearts to beat. And within each swollen female belly something moved.

Something living.

Something newly cloned.

Dr Steven walked from tank to tank, examining his evil handiwork. And smiled upon it all.

“What a bastard!”

“This could be a bit of a bastard,” said the bloke from the hole as he viewed the concrete base of the library bench. “Now what we usually do when faced with a situation like this is go off to breakfast for a couple of hours.”

“In keeping with your working class stereotype?”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. So we’ll see you later, eh?”

“I think not,” said the official-looking gent. “Let us cast convention to the four winds this day. Let us tear off the woollen overcoat of conformity, lift the grey tweed skirt of oppression and feast our eyes upon the golden G-string of egalitarianism. Take up your pneumatic drill and dig.”

“Gawd stripe me pink, guvnor. If that weren’t a pretty speech and no mistake.”

“Just dig the damn hole.”

“What’s going on?” asked a casual passer-by, whose name was Pooley.

“We’re digging a hole,” said the bloke who had been digging, but now was mopping his brow. “It’s for cable TV. This official-looking gent says we’re to dig it here.”

“Mind if I just stand and watch?”

“Don’t you have any work to go to?”

“Well,” said Jim. “I used to be an unemployed, but now I’m a job seeker.”

“Oh, you mean a layabout.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, stand back and don’t get in the way. This pneumatic drill is a fearsome beast. Mind you, it’s a joy to use. It drills in the key of E.”

“Surely it’s A minor,” said the official-looking gent.

“No, E,” said the bloke. “Like in the blues. The blues are always in E.”

“The blues are always in A minor,” said the official-looking gent. “I used to have a harmonica.”

“It was a Hohner,” said Jim.

“How do you know that?” asked the bloke.

“Just a lucky guess.”

“Well, the blues are always in E, take it from me.” The bloke returned to his drilling.

A lady in a straw hat peered into the hole and nodded her head to the rhythm of the drill. “That’s C, that is,” she shouted above the racket.

“E,” shouted the bloke, without letting up.

“A minor,” shouted the official-looking gent.

“A minor,” Jim agreed.

“C!” shouted the lady. “My husband used to play with Jelly Roll Morton, and he invented the blues.”

The bloke switched off his pneumatic drill. “Jelly Roll Morton did not invent the blues,” he said. “Blind Lemon Jefferson invented the blues.”

“He never did,” said the lady.

“Nobody did,” said the official-looking gent. “The blues go back hundreds of years to the time of slave-trading.”

“No they don’t,” said a young fellow with a beard who’d stopped to take a look at the hole. “The blues are a form of folk music which originated amongst Black Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century.”

“With Jelly Roll Morton,” said the lady.

“Blind Lemon Jefferson,” said the bloke.

“There is no specific musician accredited with beginning the blues,” said the bearded fellow. “But the form is specific, usually employing a basic twelve-bar chorus, the tonic, subdominant and dominant chords, frequent minor intervals and blue notes.”

“What are blue notes?” Jim asked.

“A flattened third or seventh.”

“But always in A minor.”

“In any key you like.”

“Are you a job seeker too?” asked the bloke in the hole.

“No, I’m a medical student,” said the bearded fellow.

“Another layabout.”

“Would you mind if we just got back to the drilling?” asked the official-looking gent, consulting a wrist that did not have a watch on it. “The day is drawing on.”

“Yeah, dig your hole,” said Jim.

“Listen, mate,” said the bloke. “Just because I dig holes for a living doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

“I thought you said it did,” said the official-looker.

“I was being ironic. All right?”

“Socrates invented irony,” said the lady in the straw hat.

“Bollocks,” said the bloke.

“No, she’s right,” said the beardie. “As a means of exposing inconsistencies in a person’s opinions by close questioning and the admission of one’s own ignorance. It’s called Socratic irony.”