Old Pete accepted his with a surly grunt. Omally pressed a five-pound note into his hand. “Why not get yourself a half-bottle for later on?” said he. “For medicinal purposes.”

“You’re a gentleman,” said Old Pete.

“I’m a scoundrel,” said Omally, “and so are you.”

The two men raised glasses and drank each other’s health.

“But I’ll tell you this,” said Omally. “Back in the old country we don’t make light of incubi and faerie folk and things of that nature.”

“Don’t you, though?” said Old Pete.

“We do not. There’s a strong belief in such things in Holy Ireland.”

“Is there?” said Old Pete.

“There is, and shall I tell you for why?”

“Please do,” said Old Pete.

“Souls,” said Omally. “The souls of the dead.”

“Go on.”

“It is popularly believed,” said Omally, “that the faerie folk are the souls of the dead, the soul being an exact facsimile of the human form, though far smaller and subject to an entirely different set of laws and principles. Now, fairies are notoriously mischievous, are they not?”

“So I’ve heard it said.” Old Pete swallowed rum.

“And this is because they are the earthbound souls of folk who were neither good enough to go to heaven nor bad enough to go to the other place.” Omally crossed himself. “The mirthmakers, the folk who could never take life seriously.”

“Folk such as yourself,” Old Pete suggested.

Omally ignored him. “Why do you think it is,” he asked, “that only certain folk are able to see the fairies?”

“Several answers spring immediately to mind,” said Old Pete. “It might be that there aren’t too many fairies about. Or that they employ an advanced form of camouflage. Or that they are for the most part invisible. Or, most likely, that those who claim to see them are in fact mentally disturbed.”

Omally shook his head. “It’s down to susceptibility,” he said. “Psychically speaking, of course.”

“Oh, of course.” Old Pete rolled his eyes.

“To perceive the faerie folk requires a certain type of mentality.”

“I think I gave that as one of my answers.”

“Hence the Irish.”

“Hence the Irish what? Or was that another figure of speech?”

“The greatest proliferation of faerie lore and belief in the entire world, Ireland. And you will admit that the Irish mentality differs somewhat from the accepted norm.”

“Willingly,” said Old Pete. “Of course, your theory might gain greater credibility were you able to offer me some convincing account of an encounter you yourself have personally had with the faerie folk.”

Omally grinned. “Well, I couldn’t do that now, could I?”

“Could you not? Well, that is a surprise.”

“Because,” said John, “the kind of mentality required to understand the whys and wherefores of the faerie folk is not the kind suited to their actual observation. I am too sophisticated, more’s the pity. A simple mind is required. A child-like mind.”

“Hm,” said Old Pete, regarding his now empty glass.

“So tell me, Pete,” said Omally, “have you ever seen a fairy?”

Old Pete peered over his glass at Omally’s tweedy form. Throughout the conversation he had watched the ring of hobgoblins that encircled the Irishman’s head, the bogles and boggarts that skipped to and fro around his feet singing songs about shoemending, the fat elf that sat upon his shoulder and the unruly pixie that nestled in his turn-up.

“Leave it out,” said Old Pete. “There ain’t no such things as fairies.”

And they all lived happily ever after.

1

If you ever had to describe Dr Steven Malone to someone who’d never met him, all you’d have to say was, “He’s the bloke who looks like Sherlock Holmes in the Sidney Paget drawings.” Of course, there will always be some people who will immediately say Sidney who? And there may even be a few who will say Sherlock who? And you can bet your life that there’s a whole lot of others who will say Doctor Who. But to them you need only say Doctor Steven Malone. (Eh?)

It wasn’t a curse to look like a Sidney Paget drawing of Sherlock Holmes, even if it did mean you were only in black and white and spent most of your life in profile, pointing at something off the page. It had never proved to be a big bird-puller, but it had served Dr Steven well at school for plays and suchlike, and it did mean that he looked dignified. Which very few people ever do, when you come to think about it.

He looked dignified now, as he stood upon the rostrum in the lecture theatre of the Royal College of Physicians at Henley-upon-Thames. And he was dignified. He had carriage, he had deportment, and he had a really splendid grey with white check Boleskine tweed three-piece suit. It had the double-breasted flat-bottomed waistcoat with the flap on the watch pocket and everything. Tinker used to wear one in Lovejoy, but his had been in the traditional green with the yellow check.

Dr Steven looked the business. And he was the business. Top of the tree in the field of biochemistry. The icing on the cake of DNA transfer symbiotics. And the ivory mouthpiece on the chromium-plated megaphone of destiny when it came to genetic engineering. He was also very good to his dear little white-haired old mother, a 33° Grand Master in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Sprout and a piercing enthusiast who boasted not only a Prince Albert but a double ampallang and apadravya.

Dr Steven sipped from a glass of liquid ether and gazed at the ranks of students with his cool grey eyes.

“And so,” he said. “What do we learn from these three short stories?”

The students gazed back at him, none, it seemed, inclined to offer comment.

“Come on, someone.” Dr Steven made an encouraging face in profile. By the law of averages, some of the students must have been listening. Some might even have been interested. One might even have got the point.

“Someone? Anyone?” Dr Steven eyed his audience once more. His gaze fell upon a young man with a beard. His name was Paul Mason and he was a first-year student of genetics. Dr Steven pointed. “Mason, what of you?”

The lad’s eyes focused upon his tutor. “Me, sir? Pardon?”

“What do we learn from these three short stories?”

“Not to believe the evidence of our own eyes?”

Dr Steven raised his grey eyebrows and lowered his off-white ears (a trick he had learned in Tibet). Mason’s eyes went blink, blink, blink. “I’m very impressed,” said the doctor. “Would you care to enlarge?”

Mason shook his hirsute head. “I think I’ll get out when I’m winning. If you don’t mind.”

“All right. But just before you do, tell me this: were they true stories?”

“Well, certainly the first one. Because I was the bearded passer-by in that.”

“And the other two?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

Dr Steven lowered his eyebrows and raised his ears once more. “Anybody else? Pushkin, what of you?”

Larry Pushkin, back for yet another year at the taxpayer’s expense and a chap who had as much chance of becoming the next Doctor Who as he had of becoming a medical doctor, was rooting about in his left nostril with a biro. “I’d rather not comment at this time, sir,” he said, in a Dalekian tone. “I think a cockroach has laid its eggs in my nose.”

“Anybody? Anybody at all?”

Those who could be bothered shook their heads. Most just stared on blankly. But then, somewhere near the back of the auditorium, a little hand went up.

“Who’s that back there?” asked Dr Steven.

“It’s me, sir. Molekemp, Harry Molekemp.”

“Why, Molekemp, this is an honour. You are out of your cosy bed somewhat early.”

“Wednesday, sir. The landlady always vacuums my room on a Wednesday.”

“Rotten luck. And so, do you have some erudite comment to make?”

“Yes I do, sir. I don’t believe Mason. You told the shaggy dog story in the first person. If Mason had been the bearded passer-by, you would have known.”