The Brentford Chainstore Massacre

12

“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.”

“How would you like a pneumatic drill up your fudge tunnel, sunshine?” asked the bloke.

“Come now, gentlemen,” said the official-looking one. “We all have our work to do.”

“He doesn’t,” said the bloke, pointing at Pooley. “Blokes like him are just a drain on the country’s resources.”

“I resent that,” said Jim, who did.

“Punch his lights out,” said the lady in the straw hat.

“Do me a favour,” said the bloke. “Look at the state of him. He’s got two black eyes already. Wanker!”

“Come on now,” said he of the official looks. “There’s work to do.”

“You keep out of this,” shouted the bloke. “Bloody jumped-up little Hitler.”

“I resent that.”

“Oh yeah, do you want to make something of it?”

“Excuse me,” said the bloke’s mate, who had been quietly digging away with a spade throughout all this. “But I think I’ve found something here. It looks like a treasure chest.”

“Let me take a look at that,” said he of looks official.

“No chance!” said the bloke. “If my mate’s found something, then we’re keeping it.”

“If I’ve found something, I’m keeping it,” said the mate.

“It could be an unexploded bomb,” said Jim, in a voice that sounded unrehearsed.

“Bollocks!” said the bloke and the mate of the bloke.

“It could be,” said the lady in the straw hat. “They used to drop all these booby traps in the war. Disguised as tins of Spam and packets of cigarettes and electric vibrators and…”

“We’d better cordon off the area,” said the OLG. “You two chaps out of the hole and away to a safe distance. I will take charge of the bomb.”

“Good idea,” said Jim. “Come on, everyone, back, back.”

“Did someone say ‘bomb’?” asked Old Pete, who had been passing by.

“Move along please, sir.”

“Why are you wearing that daft moustache, Omally?”

“What’s all this about a false moustache?” asked the bloke in the hole, climbing out of it.

“Just a deluded old gentleman,” said John Omally. “Come on now, all of you, clear the area.”

“What’s your game?” shouted the bloke, taking a swipe at Omally and tearing off his false moustache.

“Oooooh!” said the lady in the straw hat. “It’s the weirdo from the park who makes road drill noises in A minor while his mate here goes to sleep.”

“His mate here?” The bloke turned upon Pooley.

“I’ve never seen this official-looking gent before in my life,” said Jim, crossing his heart and hoping not to die.

“Who’s in charge here?” said someone else, pushing through the nicely growing crowd.

“I am,” said John.

“You bloody aren’t,” said the bloke.

“Well, someone better be. What have you done to my bench?”

“Your bench?” said John.

“I’m the chief librarian,” said the chief librarian.

“He is,” said Jim.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said the chief librarian. “I should have known. You’re always dossing about here. I knew you were up to something.”

“Bloody layabout,” said the bloke.

“Right,” said Jim, rolling up his sleeves. “That does it.”

“Right,” said the bloke, punching Jim on the nose. “It does.”

“Stop all this,” cried Omally, stepping forward to grab the bloke, but tripping over his mate who was climbing out of the hole.

“Fight!” shouted the lady in the straw hat, stamping on the chief librarian’s foot.

“Sandra’s crotch!” yelled the chief librarian, hopping about like a good ’un.

And then the crowd gave a bit of a surge and the fists began to fly.

Omally got his hands on the treasure chest, but the mate, who wasn’t giving up without a struggle, head-butted him in the stomach, knocking him into the hole. The lady in the straw hat began to belabour all and sundry with her handbag. The young man with the beard, whose name was Paul and who knew not only about the blues and Socratic irony but also Dimac, brought down the bloke who was kicking Pooley with a devastating blow known as the Curl of the Dark Dragon’s Tail.

And as if on cue, for always it seems to be, the distinctive sound of a police car siren was to be heard above the thuds and bangs and howls of the growing melee.

Omally clawed his way up from the hole. “The mate’s getting away with the chest, Jim,” he shouted. Jim, now in the foetal position, responded with a dismal groan.

The police car swerved to a halt and three policemen leapt from it. One had a face to be reckoned with, another rejoiced in the name of Joe-Bob.

“Let’s give those new electric batons a try,” said the one with the face.

And things went mostly downhill after that.