The Brentford Triangle

22

Neville the part-time barman took up his mail from the mat and thrust it into his dressing-gown pocket. Amongst the bills and circulars were no less than three postcards sporting rooftop views of Brentford, but the barman did not give these even a cursory glance.

He had been up half the night trying to work out a deal with his pagan deity over his ill-considered blood oath, but was still far from certain that the matter would be allowed to rest. It was always a hairy business wheeling and dealing with the Elder Gods of Ancient Earth.

Neville drew the brass bolts and flung the door open to sniff the morning air. It smelt far from promising. He took a deep breath, scratched at his bony ribs, and gave the world a bit of first thing perusal. It had all the makings of a beautiful day but Neville could not find any joy to be had in the twinkling sunlight and precocious bird song.

Like others who had gone before him, Neville the part-time barman was a very worried man. The day he had been dreading had come to pass. All over Brentford, dartsmen were awakening, flexing their sensitive fingers, and preparing themselves for the biggest night of the year. The Swan’s team had been growing surlier by the day. Where was Norman? they asked. Why was he not practising with them? Neville’s excuses had been wearing thinner than the seat of his trousers. If Norman did not turn up for the tournament the consequences did not bear thinking about.

Neville looked thoughtfully up the road towards the corner shop. Perhaps he should just slip along now and smooth the matter over. Throw himself on Norman’s mercy if necessary, promise him anything. Omally had said that the shopkeeper would be present, but was he ever to be trusted?

Neville hovered upon his slippered toes. It would be but the work of a minute. Norman would be numbering up his papers, he could say he just called in for a box of matches, exchange a few niceties, then leave with a casual “Look forward to seeing you tonight.” Something like that.

Neville took a step forward. At that moment, in the distance, a figure appeared from the shop doorway. Neville’s heart rose; it was telepathy surely. The shopkeeper was coming to make his peace. All his troubles were over.

Nicholas Roger Raffles Rathbone hoisted his paperbag into the sunlight. Neville’s heart fell. “Bugger, bugger, bugger,” said the part-time barman, returning to the saloon-bar, and slamming the door behind him.

Parked close to the kerb in a side road opposite to the Swan, and lost for the most part in the shadow of one of the flatblocks, was a long sleek black automobile with high fins. In the front seat of this gleaming motor car sat a man of average height, with a slightly tanned complexion and high cheek-bones. He bore an uncanny resemblance to a young Jack Palance, as did his passenger, who lounged in a rear seat, smoking a green cheroot. The two watched the paperboy as he passed within a few feet of their highly polished front bumper and vanished into one of the flatblocks.

No words passed between these two individuals, but the driver glanced a moment into his rear-view mirror, and his passenger acknowledged the reflected eyes with a knowing nod.

The day passed in an agonizing fashion. Pooley and Omally took their lunchtime’s pleasure in a neutral drinking house at Kew, where they sat huddled in an anonymous corner, speaking in hushed tones, bitterly bewailing the exorbitant prices, and casting suspicious glances at every opening of the saloon-bar door.

Norman closed up his shop at one and busied himself in his kitchenette. What he did there was strictly his own business, and he had no intention of letting anything, no matter how alien, interfere with his afternoon’s work.

In his sewage outlet pipe, Small Dave paced up and down. His hair was combed forward across his forehead and his left hand was thrust into his shirt in a fashion much favoured by a diminutive French dictator of days gone by. As he paced he muttered, and the more he muttered the more apparent it became that he was plotting something which was to cause great ill to any camel owners in Brentford.

At intervals he ceased his frenzied pacing and peered up and down the hideous pipe, as if expecting the arrival of some fellow conspirator. None, however, made an appearance.

Professor Slocombe was not to be found at his desk that afternoon. He had pressing business elsewhere. Whilst the sun shone down upon Brentford and the Brentonians went about whatever business they had, he was conversing earnestly with a pink-eyed man of apparent albino extraction, who had given up such doubtful pleasures to dedicate himself to the search for far greater truths.

Even now, the Professor sat in what was to all appearances a normal Brentford front room, but which was, in fact, situated more than a mile beneath Penge; which I understand is a very nice place, although I have never been there myself.

At a little after three, Neville drew the bolts upon the Swan’s door and retired to his chambers. He had been anaesthetizing himself with scotch since eleven and was now feeling less concerned about what was to happen during the coming evening. He was, however, having a great deal of trouble keeping the world in focus. He falteringly set his alarm clock for five and blissfully fell asleep upon his bed.