The Sprouts of Wrath

Corgi paperback ending:

There’s never a policeman around when you need one. It’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something. The sign on the door of the Brentford nick read “GONE TO THE GAMES”. And that was that.

“Bloody typical.” Champagne Pooley levelled his boot at the constabulary door, setting off the alarm. But nobody came. The streets were deserted. Everybody had gone to the games.

“Come on,” said Omally. “Let’s get this done. If Bob gives you any trouble, he’ll have me to settle with.”

“Well said, that man.”

The two turned away from the abandoned police station and made off up the abandoned Albany Road. They were just passing the abandoned recreation ground when a terrible thought struck them in anything but an abandoned manner.

“Could it just be possible?” asked this thought. “That Bob the Bookie might choose, rather than pay Jim his winnings, to make away to distant parts, leaving naught behind him but an evil memory?”

Pooley and Omally stopped short in mid stride. John looked at Jim and Jim looked at John.

“Oh no,” gasped Jim. “Say it isn’t so.”

“It isn’t so.” Omally broke into a run. Pooley was already way ahead of him.

As they neared Bob’s shop on the corner of the Ealing Road, they saw to their shared horror that things were not as they should have been in that particular neck of the Brentford woods.

Several large vans were drawn up outside the bookies. Men in grey overalls were going in and coming out. They were going in empty-handed, but that wasn’t the way they were coming out.

“Oh no!” A breathless Pooley skidded to a halt, Omally hard upon his Blakey-sparking heels. A surly-looking gent in a dapper business suit, armed with a clipboard and pen, was supervising the goings-in and comings-out. He offered Pooley a brief and disparaging glance. “Do you work here?” he asked.

Jim shook his head.

“Then bugger off because I am.”

“You what?” Jim drew back his cuffs and knotted his fists. Omally held him back. “Where is the proprietor?” he enquired.

“Inside.” The surly gent cast an eye over a rare potted lily that a grey-overalled minion was freighting from Bob’s shop. He ticked it off on his clipboard. “Rubber plant,” he said. “Fiver.” He waved the minion away to the yawning rear door of one of the vans.

“What is going on here?” Omally demanded.

“Repossession. Oi, you!” the surly one yelled across the road to where Leo Felix was cranking Bob’s latest Rolls-Royce up the back of his knackered tow truck. “Careful with the chromework, Chalkie, that car’s going to the auction.”

“Come on.” Omally thrust Jim through the open door and into the betting shop. Things didn’t look too promising in there. The grey-overalled lads were setting about the premises with a will. Prising pictures from the walls. Rolling up the lino.

Omally grabbed the nearest by his collar and swung him aloft. “Where is Bob the Bookie?” he spat through seriously gritted teeth.

“In there.” The minion offered shaky thumbings towards Bob’s back office.

“Thank you.” Omally let him slide to the floor. “Follow me, Jim.”

The Irishman took the shop in two long strides and the office door from its hinges with a single well-aimed boot.

And then he stopped. Pooley stumbled forwards and peeped over his friend’s broad shoulder.

“Oh dear,” said he. “Oh dear, oh dear.”

The office was empty of furniture, fixtures and fittings. On the bare boards, in a corner, huddled a cowering, cringing, quaking wreck of a man. It was Bob the Bookie.

Omally gazed down at the human disaster area. He noted well the dishevelled hair, the stubbled chin, the torn shirt collar and the broken finger-nails. “Bob,” said John. “Bob, what is happening here?”

The broken bookie turned up red-rimmed eyes to his uninvited guests. “Oh no!” he wailed. “No no no.”

“I like not the looks of this fellow,” Jim whispered. “Let us collect the winnings and take our leave directly.”

“No no no.” The pitch of Bob’s voice soared to new heights of tragedy.

“No?” Omally glared down upon him.

“No.” Bob shook his head furiously. “All of the money. Gone. All gone.”

“Gone?”

Pooley tried to say “gone” also, but the word would not come.

“Gone.” Bob began to gibber. “All of it. I invested everything I had to cover your winnings. Put it all into The Kaleton Organization. Stocks and shares. A dead cert. Now this morning — gone. The Kaleton Organization has ceased to exist. I’m wiped out. Bankrupt.”

“Bankrupt?” Omally was across the room in a flash. And Bob was dragged from the floor and hoisted up the wall. “All of the money? Jim’s millions? You lost it all?”

“All.” Bob’s head went bob bob bob.

“No.” Omally gave it a smack. “Jim deserves his happy ever after. All he’s been through. All he’s suffered. You won’t deny him it.”

“All gone,” Bob burbled. “No money. All gone.”

“Then you are all gone too.” Omally’s eyes narrowed and his hands closed upon the throat of the banjoed bookie.

“John, no.” Pooley found his voice. It was a still small version of its normally robust self. But it was his none the less. “Let him go, John. Leave him be.”

“Leave him be?” Omally shook Bob all about. “But it’s not fair, Jim. You should win out this time. You should.”

Jim shook his head. “All that money. All those dreams. What can you say? Put him down, John. Put him down.”

“Jim.” Omally let the bookie sink back to the uncarpeted floor. “Oh, Jim.”

“Let’s go.” Pooley turned to take his leave. “There’s nothing for us here.”

“But, Jim …” Omally scowled down at the fallen bookie and prepared to put the boot in.

“Leave him alone, John,” said Jim, without looking back. “Let’s go.”

Omally threw up his hands. It was all too much.

“Hold on, Pooley, don’t go.” Bob raised himself on a besmutted elbow. “Wait. Don’t go.”

Jim turned in the doorway.

“Pooley, I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.”

“Forget it.” Jim turned away once more.

“No, wait.” Bob struggled to his knees. “I want you to have something.”

Jim glanced over his shoulder. “If it’s a tip for the three-thirty, I’m no longer your man. I’ve given up betting.”

“No, it’s this.” Bob fumbled in his jacket. He brought out something shiny and exquisite-looking. “My new watch. It’s not worth a great deal, but I’d like you to have it.”

“How much is it worth?” Omally tore the thing from the outstretched hand.

“A hundred at least.”

“A hundred pounds?”

“A hundred grand,” said Bob. “I don’t wear cheap tat.”

“A hundred thousand pounds?” Pooley sank in the doorway.

“Well, seventy-five at least.”

“We’ll take it.” Omally held up the consolation prize.

“And call it all square?”

“All square?” Pooley found his feet.

“The betting slip?” Bob’s voice quivered plaintively.

“Oh, that.” Jim took the passport to paradise from his pocket and gazed at it sadly. And then, without a second thought, he tore the thing to shreds.

“Seventy-five thousand pounds.” Omally admired the watch on his wrist.

“Hand it over.”

Omally grudgingly handed it over. “I was only looking.”

“Indeed you were.” Pooley strapped his winnings to his own wrist.

They were strolling up the Ealing Road en route to the Flying Swan. They had a certain spring in their step.

“We’ve come out on top.” Omally thrust out his chest and drew in great draughts of healthy Brentford air. “We have actually come out on top this time.”

“Perhaps by proxy. Sort of.”

“By proxy? What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s owed.” Pooley took a nimble sidestep as Omally leapt at him.

“Owed?” Omally floundered in the gutter.

“Owed.” Pooley helped him up. “To Neville. I said I’d give him seventy-five thousand. He needs it to buy the Swan. The brewery are selling it. Sacking him.”

“Sacking Neville?” Omally took in the enormity of Jim’s words. “Sacking Neville?”

“Kicking him out. Well, we can’t have that, can we?” John shook his head freely. No, we certainly could not have that.

“So I gave him an IOU,” Pooley went on. “For seventy-five thousand. Handy this, eh?” He tapped the wristlet watch. “What a happy ever after.”

“A happy ever after?” Omally sighed. Then he put his arm about the shoulder of his dearest chum. “You are a good man, Jim Pooley,” said he. “And I’m proud to call you my friend.”

The two men approached the door of the Flying Swan.

Neither of them actually had the price of a pint in their pockets.

But for today at least, that was hardly going to matter.

And as to tomorrow?

Well, tomorrow’s anyone’s bet.

Isn’t it?