“Give me one of those,” said Norman, gesturing towards the scotch.

“Closed for stock-taking?” Neville asked. “Or have the health people been sampling your toffees again?”

“Just pour the drink.” Neville did so.

Norman suddenly stiffened. “Has Small Dave been in here?” he asked, squinting about the bar.

“No,” said Neville, “but I think I am about ready for him now.”

“You’re not,” moaned Norman, “take my word for it.” As he had already thrown the scotch down his throat, Neville refilled his glass. “He was in my place and there is something not altogether right about him.”

“There never was.”

“This is different.” Norman peered over his shoulder to assure himself that he had not been followed in. “He knows things.”

“Course he knows things, he’s always reading your damned mail and squinting through people’s letter-boxes. Vindictive, grudge-bearing wee…”

“Yes, I know all that, but listen!” Norman composed himself. Neville took the opportunity to collect payment for the drinks. “He comes into my shop,” said Norman, “wants his copy of Psychic News. Isn’t in, says I. He mutters away to himself for a moment and then, it’s third from the bottom of the pile, says he. With the bloody corner up, says I.”

“Well of course you did,” said Neville.

“May I continue?” Neville nodded and Norman drew him closer and spoke in hushed and confidential tones. Old Pete turned up his hearing aid and placed it upon the counter.

“I root through the pile of papers and there it is, plain as plain, third up from the bottom, just like he’d said. Here you go then, says I. Five Woodbine also, says himself. I hand him a packet, he has another mutter then tells me they’re stale. Without even opening them! I get in a lather then, but I open up the packet just to be polite, and damn if the things aren’t as dry as dust.” Neville looked at Old Pete, who merely shrugged. Young Chips, however, was taking it all in. “Anyway,” Norman continued, “he then points to another packet on the shelf and says that he understands that they are all right and so he’ll take them. If this wasn’t bad enough, as he’s leaving the shop, he tells me that my false teeth are going mouldy under the counter.”

“And were they?” asked Old Pete.

Norman drew a furry-looking set of National Healthers from his pocket and tossed them on to the bar top. “Lost them a week or more back. He couldn’t possibly have guessed they were there.”

“Curious,” said Neville, scratching at his greying temples.

“But that’s not the worst of it.”

“You mean there’s more?”

“Oh yes.” Norman’s voice had a disarmingly tremulous pitch to it. “He said we must be off now. We, that’s what he said. But we will be back. With that the shop door opens by itself, he walks out and the thing closes behind him of its own accord.”

“Norman,” said Neville in a calm and even voice, “Norman, you are barred for life. Kindly get out of my pub and never, ever, ever return.”

15

Professor Slocombe was at his desk, busily at work amongst his books, when two bedraggled and heavily bearded travellers appeared at his French windows. “Come in, lads,” he said cheerily, “I am sure I do not need to inform you where I keep the decanter.”

“Do you know how far it is to Penge?” asked John Omally.

“I’ve never troubled to find out, although they tell me that it’s very nice.”

“Oh, very pleasant,” said Pooley, “but a fair hitch from Brentford.”

“My apologies,” said the old man, when the two men were both seated and clutching at their brimming glasses. “But you see, I had no wish to force your hands over this matter. I was not altogether certain that if I simply confronted you with the truth you would believe it. Rather, I considered that if matters were simply allowed to run their course, your inquisitiveness would get the better of you and you would involve yourselves. My surmise was accurate, I see.”

“As ever,” said Pooley.

“You quite suit the beards.”

“Soap Distant doesn’t own a razor.”

“Apparently he hasn’t grown a hair on his face in five years.”

“An interesting man,” said the Professor, “if a trifle eccentric.”

Omally’s attention had become drawn to an elaborate brass device which now stood upon a pedestal in the centre of the Professor’s study. “What is that body?” he asked.

“An orrery,” said the old gentleman. “I thought it might interest you.”

“Pre-eminently,” said Omally. “I find little in life more interesting than an orrery.”

Professor Slocombe raised an admonitory eyebrow, but after a moment of brief consideration regarding the deprivations suffered by his guests over the last few days he lowered it again.

“Let me show you,” he said, gesturing towards the instrument. The two men grudgingly rose from their comfy chairs, carefully bearing their glasses.

“It’s a mechanical device of great age,” the Professor explained, “demonstrating the movement of the planets about our Sun and their relative positions to one another during their endless journeys.” He drew their attention to a brazen sphere. “Here is the Earth,” he said, “and here the legendary planet Ceres. You can see that its path of orbit lay exactly between those of Mars and Jupiter. Fifth from the Sun. I have no wish to labour this point, but might I explain that although it was a comparatively small world its mass and density were such that its destruction caused a chain reaction in our system which had very serious consequences hereabouts.”

“So we heard.”

The Professor began to hand-crank the amazing piece of machinery and the brass globes pirouetted about the central sphere in a pleasing danse ronde.

“Here upon this small date counter you can follow the time-scale of each yearly revolution.”

Pooley and Omally watched the years tick by as the tiny planets spun on their courses.

“Now here,” said the old man, halting the mechanism, “is where the catastrophe occurred. You will notice the alignment of the planets, almost a straight line from the Earth. With the destruction of Ceres the gravitational effects would have been shattering.”

Pooley noted the date upon the tiny brass counter. “The time of the Biblical Flood,” said he.

“Exactly. I personally subscribe to the theory of Ceres’ existence and of its destruction,” said Professor Slocombe. “It ties up a good many historical loose ends, and I will go further. It is stated in the Bible that after the waters of the great Flood subsided, God set his bow in the heavens as a sign that no such event would occur again. I believe that the popular view that it was the rainbow is incorrect. Rainbows must surely have been observed before the time of the Flood. More likely, I think, that it is to our Moon that the Almighty alluded, the lunar disc’s journey describing as it does a bow-like arc in the sky each night.”

“Has a certain ring to it,” Pooley agreed. “But what puzzles me is to why these Cereans should choose Brentford of all places as a landing site. I take it that by what Soap said regarding gravitational landing beams this is, in fact, the case.”

“Indeed yes, Brentford has been singled out as the target. I thought originally that it was Soap’s network of tunnels which had drawn them, but I find that the Cerean tunnel system extends beneath a greater part of the globe. My second thought was that some great centre existed here in the distant past, possibly a previous landing site, but I can find no evidence to support this.”

“What then?”

“I feel it to be the influence of the Brentford Triangle!”

“The Brentford what?” said both men in unison.

The Professor poured a scotch from the crystal decanter and seating himself in a fireside chair did his very best to explain. “The borough which is Brentford proper,” he said, “exists within the bounds of a great triangle. The sides of this figure are the Grand Union Canal, the Great West Road and the River Thames. These follow the courses of three major ley lines. As you may know, these are lines of subterranean force which, although never having been fully explained, nevertheless appear to exert an influence upon the surface of the planet. I walk the boundaries of the borough every day and I have dowsed these lines many times. They never move.