The Brentford Triangle

23

At long last the Memorial Library clock struck a meaningful seven-thirty. The Swan was already a-buzz with conversation. Pints were being pulled a-plenty and team members from the half-dozen pubs competing this year were already limbering up upon the row of dartboards arranged along the saloon-bar wall. The closed sign had long been up upon the Star of Bombay Curry Garden, and within the Swan, Gammon, in the unlikely guise of an Eastern swami, engaged Archie Karachi in fervent debate.

In the back room of number seven Mafeking Avenue four men held a council of war.

“The thing must be performed with all expediency,” said Professor Slocombe. “We do not want Norman to miss the match. I have, as the colonials would have it, big bucks riding upon this year’s competition.”

The shopkeeper grinned. “Have no fear, Professor,” said he.

“Omally, do you have your tools?” John patted at the bulging plumber’s bag he had commandeered during the afternoon from a dozing council worker. “Then it is off down the alley and fingers crossed.”

Without further ado, the four men passed out into a small back yard and down a dustbin-crowded alleyway towards the rear of the Star of Bombay Curry Garden.

Norman was but a moment at the lock before the four found themselves within the ghastly kitchenette, their noses assailed by the horrendous odours of stale vindaloo and mouldy madras. Kali’s face peered down from a garish wall-calendar, registering a look of some foreboding at the prospect of what was to be done to the premises of one of her followers.

“A moment please,” said Professor Slocombe. “We must be certain that all is secure.”

Within the Swan, Gammon suddenly interrupted his conversation, excused himself momentarily from Archie’s company, and thrust a handful of change into the Swan’s jukebox. As the thing roared into unstoppable action, Neville, who had taken great pains to arrange for the disabling of that particular piece of pub paraphernalia years before, and had never actually heard it play, marvelled at its sudden return to life. The Professor had left nothing to chance.

“To the wall, John,” said Professor Slocombe.

“Whereabouts?”

“Just there.”

“Fair enough.” Omally swung his seven-pound club hammer and the cold chisel penetrated the gaudy wallpaper. The mouldy plasterwork fell away in great map chunks, and within a minute or two Omally had bared an area of brickwork roughly five feet in height and two in width.

“Better penetrate from the very centre,” the Professor advised. “Take it easy and we will have a little check-about, in case the thing is booby-trapped.” Omally belted the chisel into the brickwork.

Within the Swan the jukebox was belting out a deafening selection of hits from the early sixties. The sounds of demolition were swallowed up by the cacophony.

“Stop!” said the Professor suddenly.

“What is it?” The words came simultaneously from three death-white faces.

“Changing the record, that’s all. You can go on again now.”

Pooley was skulking near to the back door. With every blow to the brickwork his nerve was taking a similar hammering. His hand wavered above the door handle.

“If it goes up, Jim,” said the Professor without looking round, “it will take most of Brentford with it. You have nowhere to run to.”

“I wasn’t running,” said Jim. “Just keeping an eye on the alleyway, that’s all.” He peered over the net curtain into a yard which was a veritable munitions dump of spent curry tins. “And not without cause. John, stop banging.”

“I’m getting nowhere with all these interruptions,” the Irishman complained. “Look, I’ve nearly got this brick out.”

“No, stop, stop!” Pooley ducked down below window level. “There’s one of them out there.”

“Ah,” said Professor Slocombe, “I had the feeling that they would not be very far from the Swan this night.”

The four men held their breath until they could do it no more. “Is he still there?” the Professor asked.

Pooley lifted the corner of the net curtain. “No, he’s gone. Be at it, John, get a move on will you?”

“Perhaps you’d rather do the work yourself, Pooley?” said Omally, proffering his tools.

“I am the lookout,” said Pooley haughtily, “you are the hammerman.”

“Oh, do get a move on,” sighed Norman. “It’s nearly a quarter to eight.”

Omally swung away with a vengeance, raising a fine cloud of brick dust, and dislodging chunks of masonry with every blow. When he had cleared a hole of sufficient size, the Professor stuck his head through and shone about with a small hand torch. “I see no sign of touch plates or sensory activators. Have it down, John.”

Omally did the business. As Gammon’s final selection came to an end and the jukebox switched itself off for another decade, the saboteurs stood before the exposed back plate of the Captain Laser Alien Attack Machine.

Norman opened his tool-box and took out a pair of rubber gloves, which he dusted with talcum powder, and drew over his sensitive digits. Taking up a long slim screwdriver, he teased out the locking screws. As the others crossed their fingers and held their breath, he gently eased away the back plate. The Professor shone his torch in through the crack and nodded. Norman yanked the plate off, exposing the machine’s inner workings.

A great gasp went up from the company. “Holy Mary,” said John Omally, “would you look at all that lot?”

Norman whistled through his teeth. “Magic,” said he. Upon the dashboard of a black Cadillac sedan parked in a nearby side-road a green light began to flash furiously.

The shopkeeper leant forward and stared into the machine’s innards. “It is wonderful,” he said. “Beyond belief.”

“But can you break it up?” Omally demanded.

“Break it up? That would be a crime against God. Look at it, the precision, the design. It is beyond belief, beyond belief.”

“Yes, yes, but can you break it up?”

Norman shook his head, “Given time, I suppose. But look here, the thing must serve at least a dozen functions. Each of these modules has a separate input and output.”

“Let me give it a welt with my hammer.”

“No, no, just a minute.” Norman traced the circuitry with his screwdriver, whistling all the while. “Each module is fed by the main power supply, somewhere deep within the Earth, it appears. This is evidently some sort of communications apparatus. There is a signalling device here, obviously for some sort of guidance control. Here is the basic circuitry which powers the games centre. Here is a gravitational field device to draw down orbiting objects on to a preprogrammed landing site. The whole thing is here, complete tracking, guidance, communication and landing controls. There are various other subsidiary components: outward defence modifications, protecting the frontal circuitry, alarm systems, etcetera.”

The Professor nodded. “Disconnect the guidance, communications, and landing systems, if you please, Norman.”

Norman delved into the works, skilfully removing certain intricate pieces of microcircuitry. “It occurs to me,” he said, “speaking purely as a layman, that as a protective measure we might reverse certain sections merely by changing over their positive and negative terminals.”

Professor Slocombe scratched at his snowy head. “To what end?”

“Well, if this device is guiding the craft in by means of gravitational beams locked into their computer guidance systems, if we were to reverse the polarity, then as they punch in their coordinates on board the ships, the machine will short them out, and possibly destroy the descending craft.”

“Will it work?”

Norman tapped at his nose. “Take it from me, it won’t do them a lot of good. Come to think of it, it might even be possible to cross-link the guidance system with the actual games programme on the video machine. Pot the bastards right out of the sky as they fly in.”

“Can you do it?”

“Can I do it, Professor?” Norman unscrewed a series of terminals and reconnected them accordingly. He also removed a small unobtrusive portion of the contrivance, which appeared of importance only to himself, and secreted it within his toolbox.

“Are you all done?” the Professor asked, when the shopkeeper finally straightened up.

“All done,” said Norman, pulling off his gloves and tossing them into his tool-box. “A piece of cake.”

Professor Slocombe rose upon creaking knees and patted the brick dust from his tweeds. He put a hand upon the shopkeeper’s shoulder and said, “You have done very well, Norman, and we will be for ever in your debt. The night, however, is far from over. In fact it has just begun. Do you think that you might now pull off the double by winning the darts match?”

Norman nodded. He had every intention of pulling off the treble this night. But that was something he was keeping very much to himself.

The Swan was filling at a goodly pace. With seven local teams competing for the cherished shield, business was already becoming brisk. Neville had taken on extra barstaff, but these were of the finger-counting, change-confusing variety, and were already costing him money. The part-time barman was doing all he could, but his good eye wandered forever towards the Swan’s door.

When at quarter past eight it swung open to herald the arrival of Omally, Pooley, Professor Slocombe and Norman, the barman breathed an almighty sigh of relief. Omally thrust his way through the crowd and ordered the drinks. “As promised,” he announced, as the Swan’s team enveloped Norman in their midst with a great cheer.

Neville pulled the pints. “I am grateful, Omally,” said he, “these are on the house.”

“And will be for a year, as soon as the other little matter is taken care of.”

“The machine?”

“You will have to bear with me just a little longer on that one. Whatever occurs tonight you must stand resolute and take no action.”

Neville’s suspicions were immediately aroused. “What is likely to occur?”

Omally held up his grimy hands. “The matter is under the control of Professor Slocombe, a man who, I am sure you will agree, can be trusted without question.”

“If all is as you say, then I will turn a blind eye to that despoiler of my loins who has come skulking with you.” Omally grinned handsomely beneath his whiskers. Neville loaded the drinks on to a tray and Omally bore them away to the Professor’s reserved table.

A bell rang and the darts tournament began. A hired Master of Ceremonies, acting as adjudicator and positive last word, clad in a glittering tuxedo and sporting an eyebrow-pencil moustache, announced the first game.

First on the oché were the teams from the Four Horsemen and the New Inn. Jack Lane, resident landlord at the Four Horsemen these forty-seven long years, struggled from his wheelchair and flung the very first dart of the evening.

“Double top, Four Horsemen away,” announced the adjudicator in a booming voice.

Outside in the street, two figures who closely resembled a pair of young Jack Palances, and who smelt strongly of creosote, were rapidly approaching the Swan. They walked with automaton precision, and their double footfalls echoed along the deserted Ealing Road.

“Double top,” boomed the adjudicator, “New Inn away.”

Pooley and Omally sat in their grandstand seats, sipping their ale. “Your man Jarvis there has a fine overarm swing,” said Omally.

“He is a little too showy for my liking,” Pooley replied. “I will take five to four on the Horsemen if you’re offering it.”

Omally, who had already opened his book and was now accepting bets from all comers, spat on his palm and smacked it down into that of his companion. “We are away then,” said he.

Bitow bitow bitow went the Captain Laser Alien Attack Machine, suddenly jarring the two men from their appreciation of life’s finer things, and causing them to leap from their chairs. Omally craned his neck above the crowd and peered towards the sinister contrivance. Through the swelling throng he could just make out the distinctive lime-green coiffure of Nicholas Roger Raffles Rathbone.

“It is the young ninny,” said John. “Five to four you have then, I will draw up a page for you.”

Neville was by now moving up and down the bar, taking orders left, right, and centre. The till jangled like a fire alarm, and Croughton the pot-bellied potman was already in a lather.

No-one noticed as two men with high cheekbones and immaculate black suits entered the Swan and lost themselves in the crowds. No-one, that is, but for a single disembodied soul who lightly tapped the Professor upon the shoulder. “All right,” said the old man, without drawing his eyes from the match in play. “Kindly keep me informed.”

The Four Horsemen was faring rather badly. The lads from the New Inn had enlisted the support of one Thomas “Squires” Trelawny, a flightsmaster from Chiswick. “Who brought him in?” asked Pooley. “His name is not on the card.”

“A late entry, I suppose, do I hear a change in the odds?”

“Treacherous to the end, Omally,” said Jim Pooley. “I will not shorten the odds, who is the next man up?”

“Jack’s son, Young Jack.”

Young Jack, who was enjoying his tenth year in retirement, and looked not a day over forty, put his toe to the line and sent his feathered missile upon its unerring course into the treble twenty.

A great cheer went up from the Horsemen’s supporters. “He once got three hundred and one in five darts,” Omally told Jim.

“He is in league with the devil though but.”

“True, that does give him an edge.”

Somehow Young Jack had already managed to score one hundred and eighty-one with three darts, and this pleased the lads from the Four Horsemen no end. To much applause, he concluded his performance by downing a pint of mild in less than four seconds.

“He is wearing very well considering his age,” said Omally.

“You should see the state of his portrait in the attic.”

“I’ll get the round in then,” said Professor Slocombe, rising upon his cane.

“Make sure he doesn’t charge you for mine,” called Omally, who could see a long and happy year ahead, should the weather hold. With no words spoken the crowd parted before the old man, allowing him immediate access to the bar.

Beneath his table Young Jack made a satanic gesture, but he knew he was well outclassed by the great scholar.

“Same again,” said Professor Slocombe. Neville did the honours. “All is well with you, I trust, barman?” the old gentleman asked. “You wear something of a hunted look.”

“I am sorely tried, Professor,” said Neville. “I can smell disaster, and this very night. The scent is souring my nostrils even now as we speak. It smells like creosote, but I know it to be disaster. If we survive this night I am going to take a very long holiday.”

“You might try Penge, then,” said the old man brightly, “I understand that it is very nice, although…” His words were suddenly swallowed up by a battery of Bitows from the nearby games machine.

Neville scowled through the crowd at the hunched back of the paperboy. “Perhaps I will simply slay him now and take my holiday in Dartmoor, they say the air is very healthy thereabouts.”

“Never fear,” said Professor Slocombe, but his eyes too had become fixed upon the green-haired youth. Speaking rapidly into Nick’s ear was a man of average height, slightly tanned and with high cheek-bones. The Professor couldn’t help thinking that he put him in mind of a young Jack Palance. The youth, however, appeared so engrossed in his play as to be oblivious to the urgent chatter of the darkly-clad stranger.

Neville chalked the bill on to the Professor’s private account, and the old gentleman freighted his tray back to his table. “How goes the state of play?” he asked Omally.

“Squires Trelawny is disputing Young Jack’s score,” said John, unloading the tray on to the table. “He is obviously not altogether au fait with Jack’s technique.”

“Oh dear,” said Pooley pointing towards the dispute. “Young Jack is not going to like that.”

Trelawny, a temperamental fellow of the limp-wristed brotherhood, frustrated by the apparent wall of indifference his objections ran up against, had poked one of the Horsemen’s leading players in the eye with his finger.

“Trelawny is disqualified,” said the adjudicator.

“You what?” Squires turned upon the man in the rented tuxedo and stamped his feet in rage.

“Out, finished,” said the other. “We brook no violence here.”

“You are all bloody mad,” screamed the disgruntled player, in a high piping voice. The crowd made hooting noises and somebody pinched his bum.

“Out of my way then!” Flinging down his set of Asprey’s darts (the expensive ones with the roc-feather flights), he thrust his way through the guffawing crowd and departed the Swan. Young Jack, who numbered among his personal loathings a very special hatred for poofs, made an unnoticeable gesture beneath table level, and as he blustered into the street Trelawny slipped upon an imaginary banana skin and fell heavily to the pavement. As he did so, the front two tyres of his Morris Minor went simultaneously flat.

“This has all the makings of a most eventful evening,” said Jim Pooley. “The first eliminator not yet over and blood already drawn.”

The adjudicator wiped away the New Inn’s name from the board. With their best player disqualified, morale had suffered a devastating and irrevocable blow, and the New Inn had retired from the competition.

Next up were the North Star and the Princess Royal. The North Star’s team never failed to raise eyebrows no matter where they travelled, being five stout brothers of almost identical appearance. They ranged from the youngest, Wee Tarn, at five feet five, to the eldest, Big Bob, at six foot two, and had more the look of a set of Russian dolls about them than a darts team. Their presence in public always had a most sobering effect upon the more drunken clientele.

Their opponents, upon the other hand, could not have looked less alike had they set out to do so. They numbered among their incongruous ranks, two garage mechanic ne’er-do-wells, a bearded ex-vicar, a tall lift engineer with small ears, and a clerk of works with large ones. They also boasted the only Chinese player in Brentford. Tommy Lee was the grand master to the Brentford Temple of Dimac and was most highly danned, even amongst very danned people indeed. Few folk in the Borough ever chose to dispute with him over a doubtful throw.

However, Tommy, who had taken the Dimac oath which bound him never to use any of the horrendous, maiming, tearing, crippling and disfiguring techniques unless his back was really up against the wall, was a fair and honest man and very popular locally. He was also the only player known to throw underarm. He fared reasonably well, and as usual it took two strong lads to withdraw his hand-carved ivory darts from the board.

“I’ll bet that took the remaining plaster off Archie’s back parlour wall,” said Omally. “By the way, Professor, I hope the man from Bombay is being well-catered for. We wouldn’t want him popping next door to grill up a popadum, would we?”

Professor Slocombe tapped his sinuous nose. One or other of the North Star’s men was throwing, but it was hard to tell which when they were detached from the set and you couldn’t judge them by height.

“One hundred,” bawled the adjudicator.

“What odds are you offering at present upon the North Star?” the Professor asked. Out of professional etiquette John answered him tic-tac fashion. “I will take your pony on that, then.”

“From your account?”

“Omally, you know I never carry money.”

“The Princess Royal need one hundred and fifty-six,” boomed the adjudicator, taking up the chalks.

The lift engineer, making much of his every movement, stepped on to the oché. There was a ripple amongst the crowd as his first dart entered the treble twenty. A whistle as his second joined it and a great cry of horror as his third skimmed the double eighteen by a hairbreadth. Crimson to the tips of his small and shell-likes, the lift engineer returned to his chair, and the obscurity from which he had momentarily emerged.

“Unfortunate,” said Professor Slocombe, rubbing his hands together, “I have noticed in matches past that the lift engineer has a tendency to buckle under pressure.”

Omally made a sour face, he had noticed it also, but in the heat of the betting had neglected to note the running order of the players. “The North Star needs eighty-seven.”

Amidst much cheering, this figure was easily accomplished, with a single nineteen, a double nineteen and a double fifteen.

“I am up already,” said Professor Slocombe to the scowling Irishman.

“And I,” said Pooley.

Now began the usual debate which always marred championship matches. A member of the Princess Royal’s team accused the men from the Star of playing out of order. The adjudicator, who had not taken the obvious course of forcing them to sport name tags, found himself at a disadvantage.

Omally, who had spotted the omission early in the game, shook his head towards Professor Slocombe. “I can see all betting on this one being null and void,” said he.

“I might possibly intervene.”

“That would hardly be sporting now, would it, Professor?”

“You are suggesting that I might have a bias?”

“Perish the thought. It is your round is it not, Jim?”

Pooley, who had been meaning to broach the subject of a loan, set against his potential winnings, began to pat at his pockets. “You find me financially embarrassed at present,” he said.

“I think not,” said Professor Slocombe. “I recall asking you for a pound’s-worth of change from the Swan’s cash register.”

“You did sir, yes.” Pooley shook his head at the Professor’s foresight and fought his way towards the bar.

Neville faced his customer with a cold good eye. “Come to kick me in the cobblers again, Pooley?” he asked. “You are here on sufferance you know, as a guest of Omally and the Professor.”

Jim nodded humbly. “What can I say?”

“Very little,” said Neville. “Can you smell creosote?”

Pooley’s moustachios shot towards the floor like a dowser’s rod. “Where?” he asked in a tremulous voice.

“Somewhere close,” said Neville. “Take my word, it bodes no good.”

“Be assured of that.” Pooley loaded the tray and cast a handful of coins on the counter.

“Keep the change,” he called, retreating fearfully to his table.

“We’re up next,” said Omally, upon the shaky Jim’s return. “Will you wager a pound or two upon the home team?”

“Neville smells creosote,” said Jim.

“Take it easy.” Professor Slocombe patted the distraught Pooley’s arm. “I have no doubt that they must suspect something. Be assured that they are being watched.”

The Captain Laser Alien Attack machine rattled out another series of electronic explosions.

Norman stepped on to the mat amidst tumultuous applause. He licked the tips of his darts and nodded towards the adjudicator.

“Swan to throw,” said that man.

Norman’s mastery of the game, his style and finesse, were legend in Brentford. Certain supporters who had moved away from the area travelled miles to witness his yearly display of skill. One pink-eyed man, who kept forever to the shadows, had actually travelled from as far afield as Penge.

“One hundred and eighty,” shouted the adjudicator, although his words were lost in the Wembley roar of the crowd.

“It is poetry,” said Omally.

“Perfect mastery,” said Pooley.

“I think it has something to do with the darts,” said Professor Slocombe, “and possibly the board, which I understand he donated to the Swan.”

“You are not implying some sort of electronic duplicity upon the part of our captain, are you?” Omally asked.

“Would I dare? But you will notice that each time he throws, the Guinness clock stops. This might be nothing more than coincidence.”

“The whole world holds its breath when Norman throws,” said Omally, further shortening the already impossibly foreshortened odds upon the home team. “Whose round is it?”

“I will go on to sherry now, if you please,” said the Professor. “I have no wish to use the Swan’s convenience tonight.”

“Quite so,” said John. “We would all do well to stay in the crowd. Shorts all round then.” Rising from the table, he took up his book, and departed into the crowd.

Old Pete approached Professor Slocombe and greeted the scholar with much hand-wringing. “My dog Chips tells me that we have a bogey in our midst,” said he.

“And a distinguished one of the literary persuasion,” the elder ancient replied. “Tell your dog that he has nothing to fear, he is on our side.”

Old Pete nodded and turned the conversation towards the sad decline in the nation’s morals and Professor Slocombe’s opinion of the post office computer.

Omally found the boy Nick at the bar, ordering a half of light and lime. “Have this one on me,” he said, handing the boy two florins. “You are doing a grand job.”

Raffles Rathbone raised a manicured eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you now approve?” he asked.

“Each to his own. I have never been one to deny the pleasures of the flesh. Here, have a couple of games on me and don’t miss now, will you?” He dropped several more coins into the boy’s outstretched palm.

“I never miss,” Nick replied. “I have the game mastered.”

“Good boy. Two gold watches and a small sweet sherry please, Neville.”

The part-time barman glared at Omally. “You are paying for these,” he snarled. “I still have my suspicions.”

“You can owe me later,” Omally replied, delving into his pockets. “I am a man of my word.”

“And I mine, eighteen and six please.”

“Do you know something I don’t?” Nick asked the Irishman.

“A good many things. Did you have anything specific in mind?”

“About the machine?”

“Nothing. Is something troubling you?”

Nick shook his limey head and turned his prodigious nose once more towards the unoccupied machine. “I must be going now,” he said, “the Captain awaits.”

“Buffoon,” said Omally beneath his breath. By the time he returned to the table, the Swan’s team had disposed of their adversaries in no uncertain fashion.

“I am sure that I am up by at least two bob on that game,” said Pooley.

“Two and fourpence,” said Professor Slocombe. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

The final eliminating match lay between the Four Horsemen and the Albany Arms, whose team of old stalwarts, each a veteran of Gallipoli, had been faring remarkably well against spirited opposition.

“Albany Arms to throw,” boomed himself.

“Leave me out of this one,” said Pooley. “Unless God chooses to intervene upon this occasion and despatch Young Jack into the bottomless pit, I feel it to be a foregone conclusion.”

“I will admit that you would have a wager at least one hundred pounds to win yourself another two and four-pence.”

“Don’t you feel that one thousand to one against the Albany is a little cruel?”

“But nevertheless tempting to the outside better.”

“Taking money from children,” said Professor Slocombe. “How can you live with yourself, John?”

Omally grinned beneath his beard. “Please do not deny me my livelihood,” said he.

From their first dart onwards, the Albany began to experience inexplicable difficulties with their game. Several of the normally robust geriatrics became suddenly subject to unexpected bouts of incontinence at their moments of throwing. Others mislaid their darts or spilled their beer, one even locked himself in the gents’ and refused to come out until the great grinning black goat was removed from in front of the dartboard.

It was remarkable the effect that Young Jack could have upon his team’s opponents. The crowd, however, was not impressed. Being responsive only to the finer points of the game and ever alert to such blatant skulduggery, they viewed this degrading spectacle with outrage and turned their backs upon the board.

Young Jack could not have cared less. The Four Horsemen needed but a double thirteen to take the match and the Albany had yet to get away. The present-day Faust smirked over towards the Professor and made an obscene gesture.

Professor Slocombe shook his head and made clicking noises with his tongue. “Most unsporting,” said he. “I shall see to it that none of this occurs in the final.”

Without waiting to watch the inevitable outcome of the game, he rose from his chair and took himself off to where the Swan’s team stood in a noisy scrum, ignoring the play.

“He has gone to bless the darts, I suspect,” said Omally. “In his yearly battle of wits with Young Jack, the Professor leaves nothing to chance.”

“Do you believe it possible?” Pooley asked wistfully. “That somewhere in this green and pleasant land of ours, this sceptred isle, this jewel set in a silver sea and whatever, that there might somewhere be a little darts team, based possibly in some obscure half-timbered country pub out in the sticks, which actually plays the game for the love of it alone, and without having recourse to some underhand jiggery-pokery?”

“Are you mad?” enquired Omally. “Or merely drunk?”

Jim shook his head. “I just wondered how such a game might look. If played by skill alone, I mean.”

“Jolly dull, I should think. Here, take this one-pound note, which you can owe to me, and get in another round.”

Jim watched a moment as Young Jack’s hellish black dart cleaved the air, leaving a yellow vapour trail, and thrust its oily nose into the double thirteen. “I should still like to see it,” he said. “Just the once.”

“Naïve boy,” sighed Omally, running his pencil down endless columns of figures, and wondering by how many thousands of pounds he was up this particular evening.

Professor Slocombe finished muttering a Latin text over the table of laid-out darts and gave the benediction. “This will not of course enable you to play any better,” he explained, “but it will protect your darts from any mysterious deflections which might occur.”

The Swan’s team nodded. They had defeated the Four Horsemen in the final five years on the trot now, which was, by way of coincidence, exactly the length of time that the Professor had been acting as honorary President. They took the old man’s words strictly at their face value. None of the accidents which marred the play of the Horsemen’s other opponents ever befell them, and although few of the team knew anything whatever about the occult, each blessed the day that Norman had suggested the elderly scholar’s nomination.

“Be warned now,” Professor Slocombe continued, “he does appear to be on superb form tonight. Look wherever you like, but avoid his eyes.”

Neville appeared through the crowd bearing a silver tray. On this rested a dozen twinkling champagne saucers and a Georgian silver wine cooler containing a chilled and vintage bottle of Pol Roger.

This little morale-booster was another of the Professor’s inspirations.

“Good luck to you all,” said the part-time barman, patting Norman gingerly upon the shoulder. “Good luck.”

A warlike conclave had formed at the other end of the bar. Young Jack and his demonic cohorts were clustered about Old Jack’s wheelchair, speaking in hushed, if heated, tones. Neville sensed that above the smell of creosote, which so strongly assailed his sensitive nostrils, there was a definite whiff of brimstone emanating from the satanic conspirators. The part-time barman shuddered. Why did things always have to be so complicated?

The Swan now swelled with crowds literally to bursting point. It was almost impossible to move amongst the throng, and trayloads of drinks were being passed from the bar counter over the heads of patrons, generally to arrive at their destinations somewhat lighter of load. It was rapidly reaching the “every man for himself” stage. The atmosphere was electric with anticipation and unbreathable with cigar smoke. The noise was deafening and even the Captain Laser Alien Attack machine rattled mutely, lost amidst the din. Croughton the pot-bellied potman had come down with a severe attack of no bottle and had taken himself off to the rear yard for a quiet fag.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” bellowed the adjudicator at the top of his voice, “it is my pleasure to announce the final and deciding contest of the evening. The very climax of this evening’s sport.” Omally noted that the word “sport” appeared to stick slightly in the adjudicator’s throat. “The final for the much coveted Brentford District Darts Challenge Trophy Shield.”

Neville, who had taken this cherished item down from its cobwebby perch above the bar and had carefully polished its tarnished surface before secreting it away in a place known only to himself, held it aloft in both hands. A great cheer rang through the Swan.

“Between the present holders, five years’ champions, the home team, the Flying Swan.” Another deafening cheer. “And their challengers from the Four Horsemen.”

Absolute silence, but for the occasional bitow in the background.

“Gentlemen, let battle commence.”

The home team, as reigning champions, had call of the toss. As the adjudicator flipped a copper coin high into the unwholesome smoke-filled air, Professor Slocombe, who had taken up station slightly to the rear of Young Jack, whispered, “The same coin had better come down and it had better not land upon its edge.”

Young Jack leered around at his adversary. “As honorary President,” he said, “I shall look forward to you personally handing me the shield upon your team’s crushing defeat.”

Whether through the action of that fickle thing called fate, or through the influence of some force which the Professor had neglected to make allowance for, unlikely though that might seem, the coin fell tailside up and the Four Horsemen were first upon the oché.

Through merit of his advanced years and the ever-present possibility that he would not survive another championship game through to the end, Old Jack threw first.

Professor Slocombe did not trouble to watch the ancient as he struggled from his wheelchair, assisted by his two aides, and flung his darts. His eyes were glued to the hands of Young Jack, awaiting the slightest movement amongst the dark captain’s metaphysical digits.

It was five hundred and one up and a five-game decision and each man playing was determined to give of his all or die in the giving. Old Jack gave a fair account of himself with an ample ton.

Norman took the mat. As he did so, both Pooley and Omally found their eyes wandering involuntarily over the heads of the crowd towards the electric Guinness clock.

Three times Norman threw and three times did those two pairs of eyes observe the fluctuation in the clock’s hand.

“He cheats, you know,” whispered Pooley.

“I’ve heard it rumoured,” Omally replied.

“One hundred and eighty,” boomed the man in the rented tux.

On the outer rim of the solar system, where the planets roll, lax, dark and lifeless, appeared nine small white points of light which were definitely not registered upon any directory of the heavens. They moved upon a level trajectory and travelled at what appeared to be an even and leisurely pace. Given the vast distances which they were covering during the course of each single second, however, this was obviously far from being the case.

Upon the flight deck of the leading Cerean man o’ war, the Starship Sandra, stood the Captain. One Lombard Omega by name, known to some as Lord of a Thousand Suns, Viceroy of the Galactic Empire and Crown Prince of Sirius, he was a man of average height with high cheekbones and a slightly tanned complexion. He bore an uncanny resemblance to a young Jack Palance and, even when travelling through the outer reaches of the cosmic infinite, smelt strongly of creosote.

“Set a course for home,” he said, affecting a noble stance and pointing proudly into space. “We have conquered the galaxy and now return in triumph to our homeworld. Ceres, here we come.”

The navigator, who bore a striking resemblance to his Captain, but whose rank merited a far less heavily braided uniform and fewer campaign ribbons, tapped out a series of instructions into a console of advanced design. “Goodness me,” said he, as the computer guidance system flashed up an unexpected reply to his instructions upon a three-dimensional screen. “Now there’s a funny thing.”

Lombard Omega leant over his shoulder and squinted into the glowing display of nine orbiting worlds. “Where’s the fucking planet gone?” he asked.

“One hundred and forty,” shouted the adjudicator, oblivious to what was going on at the outer edge of the solar system. “The Horsemen needs ninety-seven.”

“If they aren’t cheating,” said Pooley, “they are playing a blinder of a game.”

“Oh, they’re cheating all right,” Omally replied, “although I don’t think the Professor has worked out quite how yet.”

In truth the Professor had not; he had watched Young Jack like a hawk and was certain that he had observed no hint of trickery. Surely the Horsemen could not be winning by skill alone?

Billy “Banjoed” Breton, the Horsemen’s inebriate reserve, was suddenly up on the oché. The very idea of a team fielding a reserve in a championship match was totally unheard of, the role of reserve being by tradition filled by the pub’s resident drunk, who acted more as mascot and comedy relief than player.

A rumble of disbelief and suspicion rolled through the crowd. Two of the Horsemen’s team pointed Billy in the direction of the board. “Over there,” they said. Billy aimed his dart, flight first.

“Young Jack is having a pop at the Professor,” said Omally. “He is definitely working some kind of a flanker.”

A look of perplexity had crossed Professor Slocombe’s face. He cast about for a reason, but none was forthcoming. A gentle tap at his elbow suddenly marshalled his thoughts. “There is one outside and one by the machine,” said Edgar Allan Poe.

Professor Slocombe nodded.

“May I ask the purpose of the game?”

“It is a challenge match between the hostelry known as the Four Horsemen and our own beloved Flying Swan,” Professor Slocombe replied telepathically.

“Then may I ask why you allow your opponents the edge by having their missiles guided by a spirit form?” A smile broke out upon Professor Slocombe’s face which did not go unnoticed by John Omally.

“He’s sussed it,” said John.

Professor Slocombe leant close to the ear of Young Jack. “Have you ever heard me recite the rite of exorcism?” he asked. “I have it down to something of a fine art.”

Young Jack cast the old man the kind of look which could deflower virgins and cause babies to fill their nappies. “All right,” said he, “we will play it straight.”

“That you will never do. But simply chalk that one up and be advised.”

“Forty-seven,” bawled the adjudicator, who was growing hoarse.

“Unlucky,” said Professor Slocombe.

“The Swan need sixty-eight.” The Swan got it with little difficulty.

Lombard Omega ran up and down the flight deck, peering through the plexiglass portholes and waving his fists in the air. “Where’s it gone?” he ranted at intervals. “Where’s it fucking gone?”

His navigator punched all he could into the console and shrugged repeatedly. “It just isn’t there,” he said. “It’s gone, caput, finito, gone.”

“It must be there! It was fucking there when we left it!”

The navigator covered his ears to the obscenity. “It honestly isn’t, now,” he said. “There’s a lot of debris about, though, a veritable asteroid belt.”

“You find something and find it quick,” growled his Commanding Officer, “or you go down the shit chute into hyperspace.”

The navigator bashed away at the console like a mad thing. “There’s no trace,” he whispered despairingly, “the entire system’s dead.” He tapped at the macroscopic intensifier. “Oh no it isn’t, look, there’s a signal.”

Lombard was at his side in an instant. “Bring it up then, you wally. Bring the frigging thing up.”

The navigator enlarged the image upon the three-dimensional screen. “It’s on Planet Earth,” he said. “A triangulation and a ley image, the constellation of the Plough surely, and look there.”

Lombard looked there.

“One third up from the base line of the triangulation, a beacon transmitting a signal. The coordinates of an approach run, that’s where they are!”

“Hm.” Lombard stroked his Hollywood chin. “The bastards have moved closer to the Sun. Wise move, wise bloody move. Take us in then. Earth full steam ahead. Lock into autopilot, the beacon will guide us in. Anybody got a roll-up?”

Omally rolled a cigarette as the Professor joined them at the table. “You found them out, then?” he asked between licks. “I don’t think we’ve entirely got the better of him,” the old man replied. “He’s a trick or two up his sleeve yet, I believe.”

“I won’t ask what that one turned out to be.”

“The Swan lead by one game to nil,” croaked the adjudicator. “Second game on. Horsemen to throw.”

As this was a championship match, by local rules, the losing team threw first. Young Jack ran his forked tongue about the tip of his dart. “Straight and true this time, Professor,” quoth he.

“With the corner up,” the old man replied.

Young Jack flung his darts in such rapid succession that they were nothing more than a triple blur. They each struck the board “straight and true” within the wired boundaries of the treble twenty, which was nothing more nor less than anybody had expected. The grinning demonologist strode to the board and tore out his darts with a vengeance.

“I should like very much to see the fellow miss once in a while,” Pooley told the Professor. “Just to give the impression that he isn’t infallible.” Professor Slocombe whispered another Latin phrase and Young Jack knocked his pint of mild into his father’s lap. “Thank you,” said Jim, “I appreciated that.”

Archie Karachi was throwing for the Swan. Dressed this evening in a stunning kaftan, oblivious to the damage wrought upon his kitchen, he was definitely on form. Archie had a most unique manner of play. As a singles man, his technique brought a tear to the eye of many a seasoned player. Scorning the beloved treble twenty, he went instead for bizarre combinations which generally had the chalksman in a panic of fingers and thumbs. On a good night with luck at his elbow he could tear away an apparent two hundred in three throws. Even when chalked up, this still had his opponents believing that he had thrown his shots away. Tonight he threw a stunning combination which had the appearance of being a treble nineteen, a double thirteen and a bullseye, although it was hard to be certain.

The degree of mental arithmetic involved in computing the final total was well beyond the man on the chalks and most of the patrons present. When the five hundred and one was scratched out and two hundred and fifty-seven appeared in its place nobody thought to argue.

“I admire that,” said Professor Slocombe. “It is a form of negative psychology. I will swear that if the score does not come up in multiples of twenty, nobody can work it out.”

“I can,” said Omally, “but he is on our side.”

“I can’t,” said Pooley. “He pulls his darts out so quickly I couldn’t even see what he scored.”

“Ah,” said Omally, “here is a man I like to watch.”

The Four Horsemen’s most extraordinary player had to be the man Kelly. He was by no means a great dartsman, but for sheer entertainment value he stood alone. It must be understood that the wondrous scores previously recorded are not entirely typical of the play as a whole, and that not each member of the team was a specialist in his field. The high and impossible scores were the preserve of the very few and finest. Amongst each team, the Swan and the Horsemen being no exception, there were also able players, hard triers, and what might be accurately described as the downright desperate.

The man Kelly was one of the latter. When he flung a dart it was very much a case of stand aside lads, and women and children first. The man Kelly was more a fast bowler than a darts player.

The man Kelly bowled a first dart. It wasn’t a bad one and it plunged wholeheartedly in the general direction of the board. Somewhere, however, during the course of its journey the lone projectile suddenly remembered that it had pressing business elsewhere. The man Kelly’s dart was never seen again.

“A little off centre?” the player asked his fuming and speechless captain.

His second throw was a classic in every sense of the word. Glancing off the board with the sound of a ricocheting rifle bullet it tore back into the assembled crowd, scattering friend and foe alike and striking home through the lobe of Old Pete’s right ear.

The crowd engulfed the ancient to offer assistance. “Don’t touch it,” bellowed the old one. “By God, it has completely cured the rheumatism in my left kneecap.”

Lombard Omega scrutinized the instrument panel and swore between his teeth. “I can’t see this,” he said at length. “This does not make any fucking sense. I mean, be reasonable, our good world Ceres cannot just vanish away like piss down a cesspit in the twinkling of a bleeding eyelid.”

The navigator whispered a silent prayer to his chosen deity. It was an honour to serve upon the flagship of the Cerean battle fleet, but it was a hard thing indeed to suffer the constant stream of obscenity which poured from his commander’s mouth. “We have been away for a very long time,” he ventured. “More than six thousand years, Earth time.”

“Earth time? Earth bleeding time? What is Earth time?”

“Well, as target world, it must be considered to be standard solar time.”

Lombard Omega spat on the platinum-coated deck and ground the spittle in with a fibreglass heel. “This doesn’t half get my dander up,” said he.

Standard solar time was approaching ten-fifteen of the p.m. clock, and the Four Horsemen and the Flying Swan now stood even at two games all and one to play for the Shield. Tension, which had been reaching the proverbial breaking-point, had now passed far beyond that, and chaos, panic, and desperation had taken its place. Omally had ground seven Biros into oblivion and his book now resembled some nightmare of Einsteinian cross-calculation. “I sincerely believe that the ultimate secrets of the universe might well be found within this book,” said Pooley, leafing over the heavily-thumbed pages. For his outspokenness, he received a blow to the skull which sent him reeling. Omally was at present in no mood for the snappy rejoinder.

“For God’s sake get another round in,” said Professor Slocombe. Omally left the table.

“Forgive me if you will,” said Pooley, when the Irishman was engaged in pummelling his way through the crowd towards the bar, “but you do remember that we are under imminent threat of annihilation by these lads from Ceres. I mean, we are still taking it seriously, aren’t we?”

Professor Slocombe patted Pooley’s arm. “Good show,” he said. “I understand your concern. It is always easy to surround oneself with what is safe and comfortable and to ignore the outré threats which lurk upon the borderline. Please be assured that we have done everything that can be done.”

“Sorry,” said Jim, “but strange as it may seem, I do get a little anxious once in a while.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” croaked the adjudicator in a strangled voice, “the end is near and we must face the final curtain.” There were some boos and a few cheers. “The last match is to play, the decider for the Challenge Shield, and I will ask for silence whilst the two teams prepare themselves.”

A respectful hush fell upon the Swan. Even the boy Rathbone ceased his game. However, this was not through his being any respecter of darts tournaments, but rather that his last two-bob bit had run out, and he was forced up to the bar for more change.

“It is the playoff, five hundred and one to gain. By the toss, first darts to the Horsemen, good luck to all, and game on.”

Professor Slocombe’s eyes swung towards the Horsemen’s team. Something strange seemed to have occurred within their ranks. Old Jack had declined to take his darts and sat sullenly in his wheelchair. The man Kelly was nowhere to be seen, and the other disembodied members of the team had withdrawn to their places of perpetual night and were apparently taking no more interest in the outcome of the game.

Alone stood Young Jack, hollow-eyed and defiant.

“He means to play it alone,” said the Professor. “I do not believe that it is against the rules.”

“By no means,” said Omally. “A man can take on a regiment, should he so choose. As a bookmaker I find such a confrontation interesting, to say the least.”

The Swan’s patrons found it similarly so and Omally was forced to open book upon his shirt sleeves.

Young Jack took the mat. He gave the Professor never a glance as he threw his stygian arrows. To say that he actually threw them, however, would be to give a false account of the matter, for at one moment the darts were in his hand, and in another, or possibly the same, they were plastered into the darts board. No-one saw them leave nor enter, but all agreed that the score was an unbeatable multiple of twenty.

“One hundred and eighty,” came a whispered voice.

Norman stepped to the fore. Although unnoticed by the throng, his darts gave off an electrical discharge which disabled television sets three streets away and spoiled telephonic communications a mile off.

“One hundred and eighty,” came a still small voice, when he had done his business.

Young Jack strode once more into the fray. His eyes shone like a pair of Cortina reversing lamps and a faint yellow fog rose from the corners of his mouth. He turned his head upon its axis and grinned back over his shoulders at the hushed crowd. With hardly a glance towards the board, he flung his darts. The outcome was a matter for the Guinness Book of Records to take up at a later date.

“I don’t like this,” said Professor Slocombe. “I am missing something, but I do not know what it is.”

“We are scoring equal,” said Omally, “he needs but one unfortunate error.”

“I am loath to intervene, John.”

“It might get desperate, Professor, say a few words in the old tongue, just to be on the safe side.”

“We will wait a bit and see.”

“He is closing for the kill,” said John.

Professor Slocombe shook his head. “I still cannot see it, he appears to be winning by skill alone.”

“God bless him,” said Pooley.

Omally raised a fist towards his companion. “We are talking about the Swan’s trophy here,” he said, waggling the terror weapon towards Pooley. “This is no joke.”

“One day,” said Jim calmly, “I shall turn like the proverbial worm and take a terrible retribution upon you, Omally, for all the blows you have administered to my dear head.”

“Sssh,” went at least a dozen patrons. “Uncle Ted is up.”

Uncle Ted, Brentford’s jovial greengrocer, was possibly the most loved man in the entire district. His ready smile and merry wit, his recourse to a thousand cheersome and altruistic bons mots, of the “laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone” variety, brought joy into the lives of even the most manic of depressives. It was said that he could turn a funeral procession into a conga line, and, although there is no evidence to show that he ever took advantage of this particular gift, he was never short of a jocular quip or two as he slipped a few duff sprouts into a customer’s carrier-bag.

Omally, who could not find it within himself to trust any man who would actually deal in, let alone handle, a sprout, found the greengrocer nauseous to the extreme degree. “That smile could make a Samaritan commit suicide,” he said.

Uncle Ted did a little limbering-up knee-work, made flexing motions with his shoulders, and held a wet finger into the air. “Is the wind behind us?” he asked, amidst much laughter from his supporters. He waved at the smoke-filled air with a beermat. “Which way’s the board then? Anybody got a torch?”

Omally groaned deeply within the folds of his beard. “Get on with it, you twerp,” he muttered.

Uncle Ted, who for all his inane clowning, was well aware that a wrong move now could cost him his livelihood, took a careful aim whose caution was disguised behind a bout of bum wriggling. His first dart creased into the treble twenty with very little to spare.

“Where did it land then?” he asked, cupping his hand to his forehead and squinting about. His supporters nudged one another, cheered and guffawed. “What a good lad,” they said. “Good old Uncle Ted.”

Ted looked towards the board and made a face of surprise upon sighting his dart. “Who threw that?” he asked.

To cut a long and very tedious story short, Uncle Ted’s second dart joined its fellow in the treble twenty, but his third, however, had ideas of its own and fastened its nose into the dreaded single one. The laughter and applause which followed this untimely blunder rang clearly and loudly, but not from any of those present who favoured the home team.

“What a good lad,” said Young Jack. “Good old Uncle Ted.”

The greengrocer left the Flying Swan that night in disgrace. Some say that like Judas he went forth and hanged himself. Others, who are better informed, say that he moved to Chiswick where he now owns three shops and spends six months of the year abroad.

Omally was leafing frantically through the pages of his book. “I am in big schtuck here,” he said suddenly, brushing away a bead of perspiration from his brow. “In my haste to accept bets and my certainty of the Swan’s ultimate victory, I have somewhat miscalculated. The fix is in and ruination is staring me in the beard.”

Professor Slocombe took the book from Omally’s trembling fingers and examined it with care. “I spy a little circle of treachery here,” he said.

“The Four Horsemen needs one hundred and forty-one,” gasped the adjudicator.

“I am finished,” said Omally. “It is back to the old country for me. A boat at the dock and before the night is out.”

Professor Slocombe was staring at the dartboard and shaking his head, his face wearing an unreadable expression. Pooley was ashen and speechless. But for the occasional bitow to the rear of the crowd, the Swan was a vacuum of utter silence.

Young Jack squared up to the board as Omally hid his face in his hands and said a number of Hail Marys.

Jack’s first dart pierced the treble twenty, his second the double, and his third the single one.

“One hundred and one,” mouthed the adjudicator in a manner which was perfectly understood by all deaf-mutes present.

Omally waved away a later punter proffering a wad of notes. “Suck, boy,” was all that he could say.

The adjudicator retired to the bar. He would say no more this evening and would, in all probability, make himself known for the rest of his life through the medium of notepad and pencil.

Norman, who had sacked the rest of the team, took the floor. He threw another blinding one hundred and eighty but it really didn’t seem to matter any more.

The Four Horsemen needed but a double top to take the Shield, and a child of three, or at a pinch four if he was born in Brentford, could surely have got that, given three darts.

Neville put the towels up and climbed on to the bar counter, knobkerry in hand. There was very likely to be a good deal of death and destruction within another minute or two and he meant to be a survivor at any cost.

Croughton the pot-bellied potman leant back in his beer crate refuge and puffed upon his cigarette. Up above, the night stars glittered eternally, and nothing there presaged the doom and desolation which was about to befall Brentford. “Oh look,” he said suddenly to himself, as he peered up at the firmament. “Shooting stars, that’s lucky. I shall make a wish on them.”

Upon the allotment a tiny figure moved. He was ill-washed and stubble-chinned and he muttered beneath his breath. At intervals he raised his head and called, “Edgar.” No reply came, and he continued upon his journey, driven by a compulsion impossible to resist.

“Four Horsemen to throw,” said some drunken good-time Charlie who had no idea of the gravity of the situation. “The Four Horsemen needs forty.”

Young Jack appeared from the crowd, wielding his dreaded darts. He crossed the floor and approached the Professor. “You will not enjoy this, St Germaine,” he spat. “Be advised that I know you for what you are and accept your defeat like the gentleman you are not.”

Professor Slocombe was unmoved, his glittering eyes fixed upon Young Jack. “If you want this to be sport,” said he, “then so be it. If however you crave something more, then know that I am equal to the challenge.”

“Do your worst,” sneered Young Jack. “I am master of you.”

“So be it,” said Professor Slocombe.

Young Jack took the oché. Again his head turned one hundred and eighty degrees upon his neck as he gazed at the crowd. “The Swan is finished,” he announced. “Five years have passed and you have grown weak and complacent. Prepare to bow to a superior force. Say goodbye to your trophy, you suckers.”

A murderous rumble rolled through the crowd. There was a great stamping offset and squaring of shoulders. Ties were being slackened and top buttons undone. Cufflinks were being removed and dropped into inside pockets.

Young Jack raised his dart and lined up for a winner. Neville took a sharper hold upon his knobkerry and patted at his loins to ensure that the cricketer’s box he had had the foresight to hire for the occasion was in place.

Omally smote the Professor, “Save us, old man,” he implored. “I will apologize later.”

Professor Slocombe rose upon his cane and stared at his adversary.

Young Jack drew back his hand and flung his dart.

The thing creased the air at speed, then suddenly slowed; to the utter dumbfoundment of the crowd, it hung suspended in time and space exactly six feet three inches above the deck and five feet from the board.

Professor Slocombe concentrated his gaze, Young Jack did likewise.

The dart moved forward a couple of inches, then stopped once more and took a twitch backwards.

The crowd were awestruck. Neville’s knobkerry hung loose in his hand. Great forces were at work here, great forces that he would rather have no part in. But he was here at the killing, and as part-time barman would do little other than offer support.

Every eye, apart from one ill-matched pair, was upon that dart. Supporters of both Swan and Horsemen alike wrinkled their brows and strained their brains upon that dart. Beads of perspiration appeared a-plenty and fell, ruining many a good pint.

The dart eased forward another six inches. Professor Slocombe turned his stare towards the glowing red eyes of his opponent. The dart retreated.

Young Jack drew a deep breath and the dart edged once more towards its target.

“You wouldn’t get this on the telly,” whispered Jim Pooley.

Old Jack suddenly put his wrinkled hands to the wheels of his chair and propelled himself towards the Professor.

“Restrain that man!” yelled Omally.

Pooley lurched from his seat, but, in his haste to halt the wheeling ancient, caught his foot upon a chair leg and tripped. He clutched at the table, overturning it, and blundered into Professor Slocombe, propelling him into the crowd. At this moment of truth the proverbial all hell was let loose.

The night-black dart set forth once more upon its journey and thundered towards the board. Young Jack stood grinning as Pooley upset his infirm father and brought down at least another four people in his desperation. Omally struggled up and struck the nearest man a vicious blow to the skull.

Before the eyes of those stunned patrons who were not yet engaged in the fracas the dart struck the board. As it did so a devastating explosion occurred overhead which shattered the bar optics, brought down great lumps of plaster from the ceiling and upset the part-time barman into the crowd.

“It is God!” shouted Omally, hitting with a will. “He will stand no more!”

Nicholas Roger Raffles Rathbone fell away from the Captain Laser machine. “It wasn’t me,” he whimpered, “I didn’t do it.”

The lights of the Swan suddenly dimmed as the entire world which was Brentford proper went mad.

“It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me, I swear it.”

Nobody really cared. Outside something terrific was happening. Possibly it was the prelude to the long-awaited Armageddon, possibly earthquake, or tidal wave. Whatever it was, the darts fans were not going to be caught napping, and the stampede towards the door was all-consuming. A single darkly-clad figure wearing a brand of creosote aftershave was immediately trampled to oblivion beneath the rush.

As the patrons poured into the night the enormity of what had occurred became apparent. Shards of flaming metal were hurtling down upon Brentford. Great sheets of fire were rising from the tarmac of the Ealing Road as the surface met each blazing assault. Several front gardens were ablaze.

Pooley and Omally helped the fallen Professor to his feet. “It has begun,” said John. “What do we do?”

“To the machine,” yelled the old man. “It would appear that Norman has served us right.”

Nicholas Roger Raffles Rathbone stood blankly staring at the screen. “I didn’t do it,” he said repeatedly.

Omally was at his side in an instant. “Play it,” he roared. “You are the kiddie, play it.”

Rathbone drew back in horror, “No,” he shouted. “Something is wrong. I will have no part of it.”

“Play it!” Omally grabbed at the green hair and drew the stinker close to the machine. “You are the unbeatable master, play it.”

Nick drew up his head in a gesture of defiance. As he did so, he stumbled upon a chunk of fallen ceiling and fell backwards, leaving Omally clutching a bundle of green hair and what appeared to be an india-rubber face mask. The figure who collapsed to the Swan’s floor, now bereft of his disguise, resembled nothing more nor less than a young Jack Palance.

“He’s one of them,” screamed Omally, pointing to the fallen Cerean, and dancing up and down dementedly. “He was never playing the machine, he was signalling with it. Get him, get him!”

Pooley hastened to obey. “The left armpit, isn’t it?” he growled.

The erstwhile paperboy backed away, covering his wedding tackle. “Not the armpit,” he whimpered. “Anything but the armpit.”

Professor Slocombe was at the machine. “How does it work?” he cried. “How does it work?”

“Leave him, Jim,” yelled Omally, “play the machine, shoot the bastards down.”

Upon the allotments columns of pure white light were rising into the sky. The door of Soap Distant’s hut was wide open and a great glow poured from it, silhouetting dozens of identical figures gliding through the opening.

When the first great explosion occurred, a small dwarf in a soiled postman’s suit had flattened himself into a sprout bed, but now he arose to his full height and stared about in horror at the bizarre spectacle.

He danced up and down and flapped his arms, “Edgar,” he shouted, “Edgar, help me, help me.” The figures now pouring through the shed doorway were bearing down upon him, and the postman took to his tiny heels and fled. He plunged through the open allotment gates and paused only to assure himself that he still had a tight hold upon the pair of bolt-cutters he had been carrying. Without further ado he continued his journey, bound for a certain lock-up garage upon the Butts Estate, and destiny.

In the Swan, Pooley was at the controls. “There’s eight of them,” he said, “moving in a V formation.” His finger rattled upon the neutron bomb release button, and tiny beads of yellow light swept upwards towards the bobbing cones at the top of the screen.

“Get them, Jim,” screamed Omally. “Come on now, you know how it’s done.”

“I’m trying, aren’t I? Get us a drink for God’s sake.”

Neville, who had fallen rather heavily but happily not upon his tender parts, was on all fours in the middle of the floor. “What the hell is going on?” he gasped. “Get away from the counter, Omally.”

“We’re breaking your machine,” said the breathless Irishman, “don’t knock it.”

“But what was that explosion? My God!” Neville pointed out through the Swan’s front windows. “Half the Ealing Road’s on fire. Call the appliances.”

Pooley bashed at the button with his fist and jumped up and down. “I’ve got one! I’ve got one!”

Overhead, but a little less loudly this time, there was another explosion, followed by the sound of faltering engines and a Messerschmitt dive-bomber scream.

Those present at the Swan ducked their heads as something thundered by at close quarters and whistled away into the distance. There was a moment’s deadly silence followed by a muted but obviously powerful report.

Another Cerean craft had fallen to Earth upon Brentford; given its point of impact, it was unlikely that Jim Pooley would ever again receive a threatening letter regarding an overdue library book.

“There! There!” Neville was pointing and ranting. “It is the third world war and we never got the four-minute warning. I am withholding my vote at the next election.”

Small Dave struggled up from the gutter and shrieked with pain. He had been rather nearer to the library’s destruction and a sliver of shrapnel from the founder’s plaque had caught him in the backside.

“Oh woe, oh woe, oh damn!” he wailed. A less determined man would by now have called it a day and dived for the nearest foxhole, but loathing and hatred overwhelmed the postman, and nothing would turn him from his vendetta. Feeling tenderly at his bleeding bum, he raised the bolt-cutter to the garage lock and applied all his strength. He strained and sweated as he fought with the steel clasp. Finally, with a sickening crunch the metal gave, and the garage door swung upwards.

Small Dave stood panting in the opening, his features shining pinkly by the light of ten thousand blazing dogeared library books. Sweat poured from his face as he surveyed the object of his quest. Snorting and wriggling in the eaves of the lock-up garage was Simon. A camel far from home.

“Now that you have it,” said a voice which loosened Small Dave’s bowels, “what are you going to do with it?”

The postman swung upon his blakeys. “Edgar,” he said, “where in the holy blazes have you been?”

Norman had been almost the first man out of the Swan. As the explosion rang in his ears he had realized that big trouble was in store and that if he was to take his great quest to its ultimate conclusion, now was going to have to be the time.

Clutching his purloined microcircuit to his bosom he had braved the rain of fire and legged it back to his shop and his workroom. Now, as the explosions came thick and fast from all points of the compass, he fiddled with a screwdriver and slotted the thing into place.

“Power inductor,” he said to himself, “will channel all the power from miles around directly into the apparatus. Wonderful, wonderful!”

Norman threw the much-loved “we belong dead” switch and his equipment sprang into life.

In the Swan, the lights momentarily dimmed. “Another power cut,” groaned Neville. “All I bloody need, another power cut. Typical it is, bloody typical.”

Pooley thundered away at the machine, watched by the Professor and John Omally, who was feeding the lad with scotch.

“Go to it, Jim,” Omally bashed Pooley repeatedly upon the back. “You’ve got them on the run. Here you missed that one, pay attention, will you?”

Pooley laboured away beneath the Irishman’s assault. “Lay off me, John,” he implored. “They’re firing back. Look at that.”

The skyline upon the screen had suddenly been translated into that of the immediate area. The silhouettes of the flatblocks and the gasometer were now clearly visible. As the three men stared in wonder, a shower of sparks descended upon the screen from one of the circling craft and struck the silhouette. Outside, a great roar signalled the demolition of one of the flatblocks.

“Get them, you fool, get them.”

Unnoticed, Raffles Rathbone edged towards the door and slipped through it, having it hastily away upon his toes towards the allotments.

The Swan’s lights dimmed once more.

In Norman’s kitchenette, lights were flashing, and a haze of smoke was rising from many a dodgy spot weld.

Norman sat at his console, punching coordinates into his computer, an ever-increasing hum informing him that the equipment was warming up nicely.

Clinging to the controls of a not altogether dissimilar console was a swarthy clone of a famous film star; Lombard Omega had taken the controls.

“Treachery,” he spat, from between his gritted and expensively capped teeth. “Fucking treachery! Those bastards have drawn us into a trap. Bleeding change of government, I shouldn’t wonder. How many ships lost, Mr Navigator?”

The navigator shrank low over his guidance systems. “Four now, sir,” he said, “no, make that five.”

“Take us out of autopilot then, I shall fly this frigging ship manually.”

One of the remaining blips vanished from the video screen of the Captain Laser Alien Attack machine.

“Oh dear,” said the Professor. “It had occurred to me that they might just twig it.”

“There’s still another two,” said Omally. “Get them, get them!”

There was now a good deal of Brentford which was only memory. The New Inn had gone, along with the library, and one of the gasometers was engulfed in flame. A falling craft had cut Uncle Ted’s greengrocery business cleanly out of the Ealing Road, which, survivors of the holocaust were later to remark, was about the only good thing to come out of the whole affair. There had miraculously been no loss of life, possibly because Brentford boasts more well-stocked Anderson shelters per square mile than any other district in London, but probably because this is not that kind of book.

Pooley was faltering in his attack. “My right arm’s gone,” moaned he, “and my bomb release button finger’s got the cramp, I can play no more.”

Omally struck his companion the now legendary blow to the skull.

“That does it!” Pooley turned upon Omally. “When trouble threatens, strike Jim Pooley. I will have no more.”

Pooley threw a suddenly uncramped fist towards Omally’s chin. By virtue of its unexpected nature and unerring accuracy, he floored the Irishman for a good deal more than the count of ten.

Professor Slocombe looked down at the unconscious figure beneath the beard. “If that score is settled, I would appreciate it if you would apply yourself once more to the machine before the other two craft catch wind of what is going on and switch to manual override.”

“Quite so,” said Pooley, spitting upon his palms and stepping once more to the video screen.

Small Dave backed away from Edgar Allan Poe, his tiny hands a flapping blur. “What is all this?” he demanded. “I don’t like the look of you one bit.”

The Victorian author approached upon silent, transparent feet. “You conjured me here,” he said, “and I came willingly, thinking you to be a disciple. But now I find that I am drawn into a position from which I am unable to extricate myself. That I must serve you. That cannot be!”

“So leave it then,” whined Small Dave. “I meant no offence to you, I only wanted a little assistance.”

“You realize who I am? I am Poe, the master of terror. The greatest novelist ever to live. Poe, the creator of Dupin, the world’s original consulting detective. Dupin who was not, I repeat not, a dwarf. You mess me about with your trivial vendettas. I have spoken with Professor Slocombe, there is only one way I can find release. You vindictive grudge-bearing wee bastard!”

Small Dave backed towards the floating camel. Simon was floundering amongst the rafters, bawling now at the top of his voice, loosening slates and splintering woodwork.

“Stay away from me,” shrieked Small Dave.

“Stay away from me!” shrieked Simon in fluent dromedary.

Edgar Allan Poe stalked onwards, his patent leather pumps raising dust upon another plane, but leaving no footprint upon the Earth.

“Stay away from me!”

Simon gave a great lurch and burst out of the rafters of the lock-up garage. As he rose through the shattered opening towards the stars, Edgar Allan Poe lunged forward and, in a single movement, bound the trailing halter line firmly about Small Dave’s wrist.

“Oh no!” wailed the dwarf as he was dragged from his feet to follow the wayward camel through the open roof.

Edgar Allan Poe watched them go. “I will be off now,” he said, and, like Small Dave, he was.

In Norman’s kitchenette all sorts of exciting things were happening. Dials were registering overload to all points of the compass, lights were flashing, and buzzers buzzing.

The great brain-hammering hum had reached deafening point and a hideous pressure filled the room, driving Norman’s head down between his shoulderblades and bursting every Corona bottle upon his shop shelves. With superhuman effort he thumped down another fist full of switches, clasped his hands across his ears, and sank to the floor.

Every light in Brentford, Chiswick, Hounslow, Ealing, Hanwell, Kew, and, for some reason, Penge went out.

Lombard Omega squinted through a porthole. “Blackout!” he growled. “Fucking blackout, the wily sods. Mr Navigator, how many of us left?”

The navigator looked up from his controls. “We are it,” he said.

What Lombard Omega had to say about that cannot possibly be recorded. It must, however, be clearly stated in his defence that it was one of his ancestors who had invented the Anglo-Saxon tongue.

“Take us in low,” he said. “We will strafe out the entire area. Stand by at the neutron bomb bays and make ready the Gamma weapon.”

“Not the Gamma weapon?” said all those present.

“The Gamma weapon!”

“Fuck me,” said the navigator.

Pooley, Neville, and Professor Slocombe peered around in the darkness. The only light available flickered through the Swan’s front windows from a roaring inferno which had once been much of Brentford.

“What now?” Pooley asked. The Professor shook his head.

“You’ve done it, you’ve done it! Crack the champagne.” Neville performed a high-stepping dance before the now darkened and obviously defunct Captain Laser Alien Attack machine.

“Free beer for a year,” moaned a voice from the deck.

“For a century,” sang Neville. “Oh bliss, oh heaven, oh no!”

From the distance came a faint whine of unearthly engines. Something large and deadly was approaching, and all means of confounding its destructive intent had vanished away.

“Oh dear,” said Professor Slocombe, “anybody want the last rites?”

“Prepare the Gamma weapon,” ordered Lombard Omega.

“Gamma weapon prepared, sir.”

“Take out the entire quadrant, spare not an inch.”

“Not an inch, sir.”

“Fire the Gamma weapon.”

The navigator flinched and touched a lighted panel upon the master console. A broad beam of red raw energy leapt down from beneath the ship and struck home upon the Kew side of the river Thames.

The five-hundred-year-old oaks of the Royal Botanic Gardens took fire and half a millennium of history melted away in a single moment. The beam extended over a wider area and tore into the river. The waters thrashed and boiled, like a witches’ cauldron, hissed and frothed beneath the unstoppable power of the deadly Gamma weapon.

And the beam moved forward.

The mother ship ground on over the river, a vast chromium blimp filling a quarter of the sky. Along the length of its mirrored sides, lights glittered and twinkled like oil beads. Above it, great dorsal spines rose sharklike and menacing.

The hideous beam moved up from the churning waters and ripped into the river bank, hewing out a broad and ragged channel into which the old Thames gushed in a billowing flood tide.

Ahead lay the Brentford Quadrant, the Ealing Road, and the Flying Swan.

Brentonians fled from their shelters out into the streets. They shielded their faces against the all-consuming heat and took to their heels. The world was coming to an end and now was not the time to take the old Lot’s wife backward glance.

In the Swan the lads cowered in terror as the ghastly rumble of falling masonry and the death-cry of splintering glass drew ever nearer.

Outside, the Ealing Road, crammed with screaming humanity, pouring and tumbling in a mad lemming dash away from the approaching holocaust. Behind them the blinding red wall of fire pressed on, destroying everything which lay in its path.

Omally was upon his knees. “Stop it!” he screamed at Professor Slocombe. “Do something, in the name of our God. Only you can.”

The Professor stood immobile. The cries of terror rang in his ears and stung at his soul. The town he had for so very long cared for and protected was being razed to ashes and he was powerless to stop it. He turned a compassionate face towards the Irishman and tears welled in his eyes. “What can I do?” he asked, in a choked voice. “I am truly sorry, John.”

Lombard Omega stared down upon the carnage, with a face of hatred and contempt, “Run, you bastards!” he shouted, as the antlike figures beneath scattered in all directions. “I will have every last one of you, look at that, look at that.”

The crew of the mother ship craned their necks to the portholes. Below, the destruction was savage and sickening. The streets were being cleaved apart, the houses and shops, flatblocks and places of worship driven from existence.

More than thirty Morris Minors, some even priceless collectors’ models with split windscreens, suicide doors and hand-clap wiper arms, had already been atomized, never again to sneak through the dodgy back street MOT.

Professor Slocombe closed his hands in prayer. As the wall of fire moved relentlessly forward and the buildings fell into twisted ruination, he knew that only a miracle could save Brentford.

“What’s that, sir?” asked a Cerean deckhand, pointing through a porthole.

“What’s what?”

“That, sir.”

Lombard Omega strained his eyes through the rising smokescreen of burning Brentford. “Jesus Christ!” he screamed, catching sight of a floating object directly in the ship’s path. “It’s a fucking camel! Hard to port! Hard to port!”

“You are at the controls,” the cringing navigator informed his captain.

Lombard swung the wheel and the craft veered sharply to the left, avoiding the drifting mammal by a hairbreadth.

Caught in the slipstream, a certain small postman let fly with a volley of obscenity which would have caused even the ship’s captain to blush.

“That was fucking close,” said Lombard Omega, wiping creosote from his brow. “Those bastards don’t miss a trick, do they? Give me more power, Mr Navigator. More power!”

The navigator upped the ante and covered his eyes. A great vibration filled the air. A fearsome pressure driving everything downwards. The flood waters ceased their frenzied rush and hung suspended, as if touched by Moses’s staff. The scattering Brentonians tumbled to the pavements, gasping at the super-heated air and clutching at their throats. The Captain Laser Alien Attack machine lurched from its mountings and toppled into the Swan, bringing down the side-wall and exposing the horrors of Archie Karachi’s kitchen to Neville, who, borne by the terrible force, vanished backwards over the bar counter, losing the last of his fillings.

As Pooley and Omally struck the fag-scarred carpet, their last glimpse of anything approaching reality was of Professor Slocombe. The old man stood, the hell-fire painting his ancient features, hands raised towards the burning sky now visible through the Swan’s shattered roof, his mouth reciting the syllables of a ritual which was old before the dawn of recorded history.

Above came the deadly whine of engines as Lombard Omega and the crew of the Starship Sandra moved in for the kill.

“Finish them!” screamed the Captain. “Finish them!”

The ship rocked and shivered. Needles upon a thousand crystal dials rattled into the danger zone. A low pulsating hum set the Captain’s teeth on edge and caused the navigator, who had suddenly found Christianity, to cross himself. “Finish them!” screamed Lombard.

The ship’s engines coughed and faltered. The air about the craft ionized as a vague image of something monstrous swam into view. It wavered, half-formed, and transparent, and then, amid a great maelstrom of tearing elements, became solid.

Lombard Omega stared in horror through the forward port. “What’s that?” he cried drawing up his hands. “What in the name of F…”

His final words, however obscene, must remain unrecorded. For at one moment he was steering his craft through empty air above Brentford Football ground and at the next it was making violent and irreconcilable contact with the capping stone of the Great Pyramid of Cheops.

Whoosh, wham, crash, and bitow went the Starship Sandra as it lost a goodly amount of its undercarriage and slewed to one side. It plummeted downwards, a screaming ball of fire, narrowly missing the roof of the Flying Swan, cartwheeled over the Piano Museum, and tore down towards the allotments, the last men of Ceres, who were standing around looking rather bemused, a very great deal of carefully-laid explosive, and the few sparse and dismal remnants of a former postman’s prize-winning cabbage patch.

There was a moment of terrible silence and then an explosion which rocked the seismographs at Greenwich and had the warlords of a dozen nations reaching towards the panic buttons.

A very great silence then fell upon what was left of the Brentford Triangle.