I grinned a bit more. ‘I’ll just pop back into the bathroom and change my underpants,’ I said.

Suavely.

I got on very well with Jackie. She showed me some tricks that she could do with canapés and I showed her a trick I’d learned in prison.

‘Don’t ever do that in front of a woman again,’ said the Doveston when he’d brought Jackie out of her faint.

Jackie took me all around London. The Doveston gave her something called a credit card and with this magical piece of plastic she bought me many things. Suits of clothes and shirts and ties and underpants and shoes. She also bought me a Filofax.

I stared helplessly at this. ‘It’s an address book,’ I said.

‘And a diary. It’s a personal organizer.’

‘Yes. And?’

‘It’s fashionable. You carry it everywhere with you and always put it on the table when you’re having lunch.’

I shook my head. ‘But it’s an address book. Only woosies have address books.’

‘There are pouches in the back for putting your credit cards in and a totally useless map of the world.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘These are the 1980s,’ said Jackie. ‘And in the 1980s there are only two types of people. Those who have Filofaxes and those who don’t. Believe me, it is far better to be a have than a have-not.’

‘But look at the size of the bloody thing.’ ‘I’m sure you’ll find somewhere to put it.’ ‘Where do you keep yours?’ Jackie pointed.

‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘Of course. Silly question. I’m sorry. And I did get a watch. Watches were a big number in the Eighties.

And none of that digital nonsense. Real watches with two hands and Roman numerals and clockwork motors. I still have the watch Jackie bought for me. And it still keeps perfect time. And it didn’t explode at midnight before the dawn of the year two thousand. Curiously, I have no idea whatever became of my Filofax.

‘You’ll need a car,’ said Jackie. ‘What kind would you like?’

‘A Morris Minor.’

‘A what?’

‘One like that.’ I pointed to a car across the road.

‘A Porsche.’

‘That would be the kiddie.’ And it was.

The Doveston set me up in a little flat just off the Portobello Road. ‘This area is coming up,’ he told me.

I viewed the greasy limo and the broken window panes. ‘It would perhaps do better for puffing down,’ I suggested. ‘I don’t like it here.’

‘You will not be here for long. Only until you have decorated the place.’

‘What?’

‘Once it has been decorated, we will sell it for double the price.’

‘And then what?’

‘I will move you into a larger flat in another area that is coming up. You will decorate that one and we will sell it once again for double the price.’

‘Is this strictly legal?’

‘Mark well my words, my friend,’ said the Doveston. ‘There is a boom going on in this country at the moment. It will not last for ever and many will go down when the plug is pulled. In the meantime, it is up to us, and those like us’ — he raised his Filofax, as if it were a sword — ‘to grab whatever can be grabbed. These are the 1980s, after all.’

‘And tomorrow belongs to those who can see it coming.’

‘Exactly. I’m not into property. Buying and selling houses holds no excitement for me. I want to make my mark on the world and I shall do that through my expertise in my chosen field of endeavour.’

‘Tobacco,’ I said.

‘God’s favourite weed.’

‘I have no wish to share another Brentstock moment.’

‘Ah, Brentstock,’ said the Doveston. ‘Those were the days, my friend.’

‘They bloody weren’t. Well, some of them were. But do you know what happened to me when I smoked that stuff of yours?’

‘You talked to the trees.’

‘More than that. I saw the future.’

‘All of the future?’

‘Not all. Although it seemed like all at the time. I saw glimpses. It’s like déjà vu now. I get that all the time and sometimes I know when something bad is going to happen. But I can’t do anything about it. It’s pretty horrible. You did that to me.

The Doveston went over to the tiny window and peered out through the broken pane. Turning back towards me he said, ‘I am truly sorry for what happened to you at Brentstock. It was all a terrible mistake on my part. I worked from Uncle Jon Peru’s notes and I thought that the genetic modifications I’d made to the tobacco would only help it to grow in the English climate. I had no idea the cigarettes would have the effect they did. I’ve learned a great deal more about that drug since then and I will tell you all about it when the time is right. But for now I can only ask that you accept my apologies for the awful wrong that I’ve done you and ask that you don’t ever speak of these things to other people. You can never be certain just who is who.’

‘Who is who?’

‘I am followed,’ said the Doveston. ‘They follow me everywhere. They watch my every move and they make their reports. They know I’m on to them and that makes them all the more dangerous.

‘This wouldn’t be the secret police again, would it?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the Doveston, grave, in the face. ‘Uncle Jon Peru Joans knew exacdy what he was talking about. You experienced the effects of the drug. You know it’s

‘Yes, but all that secret police stuff. I remember you saying that they would be in the crowd at Brentstock. But I thought you were only winding me up.’

‘They were there and they’re out there now. At some time in the future, when I consider it safe, I will show you my laboratory. You will see then how the Great Work is progressing.’

‘The Great Work? Uncle Jon Peru’s Great Work?’

‘The very same. But we shall speak of these things at some other time. I don’t want to keep you talking now.

‘You don’t?’

‘I don’t. You’ve got decorating to do. You’ll find all the stuff in the kitchen along with the plans for which walls you have to knock down and how to plumb in the dishwasher. Try and get it all done by next week, because I think I’ve got a buyer lined up.’

‘You what?’

But the Doveston said no more.

He turned on his designer heel and, like Elvis, left the building. He did pause briefly at the door to offer me a smile and a wave, before he went.

And it was then I saw it.

That look in his eyes.

The look that Uncle Jon Peru had had in his.

That look that the monkey in the Mondo movie had.

And I suppose it was at that very moment that I realized, for the first time ever, just how absolutely mad the Doveston was.

But I wouldn’t let it spoil our friendship. After all, I was on a roll here. I was in the money. I had a Paul Smith suit, a Piaget watch, a Porsche and a personal organizer.

All of these began with a P.

I really should have noticed that...

16

For a man who was not into property, the Doveston sure bought a lot of it. During my first six months of freedom, I moved house eight times. Each to somewhere grander in a more up-market neighbourhood. By Christmas of 1984, I had made it to Brentford.

Yes, Brentford!

The Butts Estate.

And which house was I living in? Why, none other than that once owned by Uncle Jon Peru Joans. It would have been a childhood dream come true — had I ever dreamed of such a thing in childhood. The dreams I’d had in childhood, however, were formed of far humbler stuff. Never once had I thought that one day I might live on the Butts Estate.

The conservatory had been rebuilt, but not in its original style. Two local jobbing builders, Hairy Dave and Jungle John, had hobbled a nasty double-glazed atrocity of the monstrous carbuncle persuasion across the back of the house and my first job was to pull it down.