“Should we take this back to your place, Professor?” John Omally lifted the casket.

“Best to. I will be along presently.” Professor Slocombe made mystical finger-motions over the casket and spoke certain mystical words.

“Goodbye, then.”

“They’re coming out,” said Derek. “They’ve got the casket. Although it hasn’t got a lid on any more.”

“But the bloody thing’s empty.”

“Are we absolutely sure of that?”

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

Jim stopped to take deep breaths. “I can’t believe all that stuff in there,” he said. “What was that all about?”

“Madness,” said John. “Plain and simple.”

“Plain and simple? I don’t think so.”

“Perk up, Jim. You got the scrolls back. You’re a genius, my friend.”

“I suppose the Professor wouldn’t mind if we had a drink or two at his expense while we were waiting, to celebrate as it were.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t.”

“Good. Because I certainly need some.”

The limousine backed up really fast. An electrically driven window drove down and a hand reached out to snatch the casket.

“We’ll take that,” said a voice behind the hand.

“No you bloody well won’t.” Jim drew back.

“Run,” was John Omally’s advice.

And Jim took it.

“After them,” shouted Derek.

“No need to shout,” shouted Clive. “Which way are they going? How could the bloody chauffeur see through this tinted windscreen?”

“I think he wore dark glasses.”

“Oh, that would be it, then.”

“Run, Jim.”

“I’m running. I’m running.”

“Take the scrolls out of the casket. It’s less to carry.”

“I can’t see them.”

“You can feel them, though.”

“That’s right.” Jim groped in the casket. Drew out the invisible scrolls, which reappeared as he did so. “Clever,” said Jim. “Very clever.”

“Run,” said John.

“Way ahead of you.”

“Up that way.”

“I can see them. I’ve got the glasses on now.” Derek had a great big gun on his lap. He began to push great big shells into the breech. “Nine-gauge auto-loader,” he said.

“Phase plasma rifle in a forty-watt range?”

“Only what you see on the shelves, buddy.”

“God, I love those movies.”

“They’re running that way. After them!”

“I’m on it.”

“Are we going to make for the canal again?” Pooley puffed.

“No, you can only pull off a trick like that just the once. Down here.” Omally ducked into an alleyway.

Jim joined him, huffing now, as well as puffing. “Well, they can’t drive down here.”

“You can’t drive down there,” shouted Derek. “Stop the car, we’ll chase them on foot.”

“In the movies they turn the car on its side to go down alleyways.”

“Yeah!” said Derek. “They do, don’t they?”

“Aaaaaagh!” went Jim, as the limo swerved onto its side and shot along the alley, making glorious showers of sparks.

“Run faster.”

“I’m running. I’m running.”

“You know,” said Clive, as he clung to the wheel, “I much prefer this kind of job to all that farting around in the Corridors of Power.”

“Oh yeah.” Derek fed another shell into his gun. “This definitely has the edge on accountancy.”

“We’re coming to the end of the alleyway now. When I bump the limo back down onto its wheels, what say you lean out of the window and let off a few rounds?”

“Spot on.”

John and Jim ran out into Moby Dick Terrace.

“John,” Jim huffed and puffed and gruffed, “pardon me for asking a really stupid question, but why didn’t we just run back into Dr Malone’s house, where we would have been surrounded by policemen?”

John said nothing and the two ran on.

The limo smashed down into the terrace and Derek bashed out a back window with his gun butt. “You only had to press the button, Derek.”

“Yeah, but it’s much more exciting this way.”

Now, you’d have thought that there would have been someone around. Someone, or lots of someones, what with the army cordoning off streets and setting up border posts and everything. But there wasn’t, because the army had, as usual, ballsed it all up. They had cordoned off a road here and there, and set up a border post here and there, but the plucky Brentfordians, rather than engage in another riot, had simply decided to ignore them. They had taken to skirting the roadblocks by going down alleyways, or through people’s houses and out of their back gates. And as few folk in the borough actually drove motor cars, there weren’t any traffic build-ups either.

So that explains that, really. In case you were wondering.

They were not making particularly good progress up Moby Dick Terrace. Dustin Hoffman may have done all that stuff in Marathon Man, but this is John and Jim here. The limo soon caught up and cruised in pace with the pavement runners. Derek stuck his head out of the shattered window. And he stuck his gun out also.

“Do you want to stop?” he called to Jim. “Or should I just shoot your face off?”

Jim clutched the scrolls to his bosom. “All right. All right,” he gasped. “I give up, don’t shoot.”

“You too, asshole.”

“Me too,” said John.

“OK, now get into the car.”

Derek moved across the back seat as John and Jim climbed in beside him. “Close the door,” said Derek. John closed the door.

Clive struck a match on the dead chauffeur’s head and lit up a Zigger cigar. “Where to?” he asked.

“Round to Fred’s,” said Derek. “And burn a bit of rubber on the way.”

19

From a bedroom window in Moby Dick Terrace, Dr Steven Malone watched as the black limousine roared off in a cloud of smoking rubber. “And bloody good riddance to them,” he said.

He had left very little to chance. He had known of the secret tunnel when he bought Kether House and he had later bought this one, where the tunnel emerged in the back garden shed. The occupants of this house, an old couple with no living heirs, hadn’t wanted to sell. Their death certificates said natural causes. Dr Steven had signed them himself.

The mad and monochrome medic turned away from the window and smiled at the two little babies on the bed.

“All right, my boys?” he said.

“All right, dada,” said the golden one.

The dark one only growled.

“All right, boys,” said Fred. “Wheel ’em in.”

Derek and Clive pushed John and Jim from the Corridor of Power into the Chamber of the same persuasion.

“Superb,” said Fred, eyeing up the arrivals. “And do I spy the Brentford Scrolls?”

“You certainly do,” said Derek.

“And do I spy a nine-gauge auto-loader?”

“You certainly do, sir, yes.”

“And you walked through this building, carrying that?”

“Er,” said Derek.

“Twat,” said Fred. “But very well done all the same.”

“I picked up this machete on the way,” said Clive, brandishing same. “Do you want Derek to chop their frigging heads off now?”

“Ooh, yes please,” said Derek.

“All in good time. What exactly is that prat doing?”

“He’s flapping his hands and spinning round in small circles, sir.”

“Well, make him stop.”

Derek clouted Pooley in the ear.

Jim ceased his foolish gyrations, and collapsed in a heap on the floor. John clenched his fists, but there was nothing he could do.

Fred’s feet were up on the fender. “Drag him over here. And pick up those scrolls. Valuable items, they are. We wouldn’t want any harm to come to them, would we?”

“Wouldn’t we, sir?”

“Of course we would. I was being ironic.”

Derek picked up the scrolls and handed them to Fred.

“Right,” said Fred. “So, here we are then. The Brentford Scrolls.” He held them up and gave them a good looking over. “Pretty fancy, aren’t they? Good quality parchment. I suppose I should savour this moment, but I don’t think I’ll bother. I’ll just toss them on the fire.”