“The ancients knew of their existence and aligned their tumuli, barrows, standing stones and circles upon them. Apparently they believed that the power could be tapped. Sadly, down through the centuries man has built across the leys, interrupting their flow and nullifying their power.”

“So,” said Pooley, “if the power of the leys is lost, why do you attach any significance to this Brentford Triangle business?”

The Professor tapped at his nose, and for the first time both Pooley and Omally realized where Soap Distant had got the habit from. “Simply because man appears to have lost touch with the leys’ power does not mean that other creatures also have. Certain are still susceptible, the most obvious being our feathered friends.”

“Darts?” queried Pooley. The Professor ignored him.

“I have written something of a monograph upon the subject. Migrating birds inevitably take identical routes each year, and these invariably run along the major ley lines of the countrywide system.”

“This all seems a bit iffy,” Omally remarked. “Are you suggesting that Cereans, like birds, navigate by ley lines?”

“I am suggesting that an advanced civilization such as theirs must surely have discovered them. And here at a time when they were uninterrupted. As the lines appear never to move, they are surely ideal for navigation. The maps of Earth no doubt gather dust in the Cerean ships’ computer banks even now. Ready when required.”

“I suppose it is feasible,” Omally conceded. “But even so, why choose Brentford? Why not Avebury, Glastonbury, Stonehenge or somewhere?”

The Professor rose from his chair and crossed the room to where something rested upon an ornate Victorian easel covered by a green baize cloth. Drawing this aside, he exposed a large mounted map of the district. The lines of the great triangle had been inked in red and stood out clearly.

“Impressive,” said Omally.

“But, as you say, hardly sufficient. It would certainly seem more logical that the Cereans would choose one of the better-known ley centres of this country. No, there is something more here, some inner pattern which I am failing to observe. I am sure it is staring me right in the face, but I cannot find it. Something is shining out like a beacon into space guiding these beings upon their way.”

Pooley and Omally followed the old man over to the map and stood peering over his shoulders. They turned their heads from one side to the other, made as to speak, then reconsidered, traced the courses of the streets, and pointed variously at random. At length they looked at one another and shrugged.

“I cannot see anything,” said Jim, “just roads and houses, shops and pubs.” With the mention of the latter two pairs of eyes turned simultaneously towards the great ormolu mantel-clock, which obligingly struck five o’clock.

“Nearly opening time,” said Omally. “I have been a week without a pint of Large. Possibly, Professor, we might continue this discussion over a refreshing bevvy or two?”

The Professor smiled gently and withdrew from his desk a folded map of the neighbourhood. “You certainly deserve a drink,” he said, “and here” – he took out a crisp new five-pound note – “have it on me.”

Pooley accepted both map and fiver. “Thank you,” he said, “this is most kind. Will you not join us for one?”

“I think not,” said the old man. “Study the map though and employ your wits. I ask only one favour: please bring me a pound’s worth of silver from the Swan’s cash register. From there and nowhere else, do you understand?”

“The motive or the request?”

The old man smiled and tapped again at his nose.

“One question,” said Omally, as he and Jim were turning to leave. “Suppose by the vaguest of chances we were to discover this pattern, what could we do?”

The Professor shrugged his ancient shoulders. “No knowledge is ever wasted. You know my methods. I never make a move before acquainting myself with every last piece of relevant information.”

“Yes, but…” Jim made a rustling sound with the five-pound note. “We will be in touch,” said John Omally.

“Good luck,” said the Professor, returning to his desk. “I shall look forward to hearing from you.”

John and Jim wandered off towards the Flying Swan. “At least one good thing has come out of all this,” said Jim after a while.

“Then you will kindly enlighten me as to what it is, because it has certainly slipped by me in the heat of the moment.”

“Well,” said Pooley, “at least now we know that the strangers upon the allotment are not from the council, so we can continue our game.”

“You are wise beyond your years, Jim,” said Omally, dealing his companion a weltering blow to the skull.

16

Neville sat alone at a side table in his favourite darkened corner of the empty saloon-bar. He heard the library clock faintly chiming the hour over towards the Butts Estate and sighed a deep and heartfelt sigh.

This was one of the part-time barman’s favourite times, when, the optics replenished, the pumps checked, and the glasses polished, he could sit alone for the short half-hour before opening and reflect upon days gone by and days possibly yet to come.

This afternoon, however, the barman felt oddly ill at ease. Something was going on in the borough, something sinister, and he could smell it. Although whatever it was lurked just out of earshot and beyond his range of vision, Neville knew he could smell it. And what he could smell, he most definitely did not like. It was musty and tomb-like and had the sulphurous odour of the pit to it, and it made him feel awkward and uneasy.

The part-time barman’s long thin hand snaked out from the darkness and drew away a tumbler of scotch from the table top. There came a sipping sound, a slight smacking of lips, and another great dismal sigh. Neville leant forward to replace the glass and his nose cleaved through the veil of shadow, a stark white triangle.

He shook his head vigorously in an attempt to free himself of the gloomy feeling which oppressed him. The feeling would not be so easily dislodged, however. Neville took a deep, deep breath, as a drunken man will do under the mistaken belief that it will clear his head. The effort was wasted of course, and the part-time barman slumped away into the darkness taking his scotch with him.

Something was very wrong in Brentford, he just knew it. Some dirty big sword of Damocles was hanging over the place, waiting to drop at any minute. His nose told him so and his nose was never wrong. Certainly the Swan’s patrons scoffed and sneered at his extra-nasal perception, but he knew what was what when it came to a good sniff. It was a family gift, his mad Uncle Jimmy had told him when he was but a scrawny sprog. The entire clan possessed it in varying degrees, and had done so since some half-forgotten time, in the pagan past, at the very dawn of mankind. Down through the centuries it came, father to son, turning up again and again and again. A great and wonderful gift it was, a blessing from the elder gods, which should never be used for personal gain or profit. “But what exactly is it?” the young Neville had asked his musty-looking relative. “Search me,” said Uncle Jimmy. “I’m on your mother’s side.”

Neville had total recall when it came to his childhood. He could remember every dismal dreary moment of it, with soul-destroying clarity. He, the gangling lad, always head and shoulders above his classmates and always sniffing. Such children do not have any easy time of it. And with the coming of his teens it got no better. Although highly sexed and eager to make the acquaintance of nubile young ladies, Neville’s gaunt, stooping figure, with its slightly effeminate affectations, had attracted the attention of quite the wrong sort of person. Big fat girls, some sporting cropped heads and tattoos, had sought to smother him with their unsavoury affections. Young fellow-me-lads of the limp-wristed persuasion were forever asking him around for coffee to listen to their Miles Davis records with the lights out. Neville shuddered, grim times.