“I shouldn’t think so,” said Sandra.

“Thank God for that,” I said.

“What?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have time to read it. This is my golden opportunity to put in some overtime. I’m certain that Barry who does the seven p.m. to seven a.m. shift isn’t as quick on the switch as he might be. I can sit with him and give him some pointers.”

“Yes,” said Sandra. “Why don’t you do that?”

“I will,” I said, “I will.”

Count Otto returned from the toilet.

“Finished counting?” I asked. “How many were there this time?”

“Same as last time,” said Otto. “Which is comforting, when you think about it.”

“That is so true,” I said. “So very, very true.”

Otto took up what was left of his pint and supped upon it.

“I was just telling Gary that you and I are going off on holiday next week,” said Sandra.

Otto choked upon his pint.

“Easy,” I said, patting him on the back. “Are you all right? Did it go down the wrong way?”

“Just a bit,” said the count.

“I was saying to Sandra,” said I, “not to send me a postcard. I wouldn’t have time to read it.”

“Oh,” said Count Otto, glancing over at Sandra, who seemed, if I wasn’t mistaken, to be winking in his direction. “Well, OK, then. I’ll keep her entertained. Try and find her something to fill the moments when she would otherwise have been writing you postcards.” And the count squeezed at his groin region.

“Thanks a lot,” I said to the count. “Would you care for another pint? Seeing as how you’re being so kind as to take Sandra on holiday while I’ll be busy at work.”

“Yes, please,” said Count Otto. “A whisky chaser would be nice too.”

“Done,” said I. “No problem.”

I returned to the bar. “Same again,” said I. “Although different for Sandra and one for the count.”

“Phew,” said the landlord. “You do have money to splash about. I’ve got fillings from the drip trays here that will pass for a Tequila Sunrise and set you back nearly three quid.”

“In for a penny,” said I.

“Quite so,” said the landlord, emptying the drip tray into a used glass. “Oh and, Gary …”

“Yes,” I said.

“I need to know. It matters to me.”

“Need to know what?” I asked. For I didn’t know what he wanted to know.

“About FLATLINE in the capital letters. I need to know what it’s all about.”

“Well,” I said, as I accepted the drinks I was given and paid the price that I had to pay for them, “I’ll do what I can. But I do have a lot on my mind at present. I’m going to be doing some overtime. I’ll be busy.”

“I need to know,” said the landlord. “I’m not wrong about the True Names. Even though I thought I was wrong, that travelling man proved to me that I wasn’t. This is important, if only to me. Whatever you find out will be between the two of us. You know the old saying, ‘you scratch my back, I don’t stab yours’. OK?” And the landlord made a very vicious face.

“OK,” I said. “It’s a done deal. I’ll find out, I promise. But I do have a lot on my mind.”

I did.

And as I took the drinks back to the table I did a lot of thinking. And I do mean a lot. I thought about myself. And what I’d become. And who was the real me who was me now. And I thought about Barry who did the night shift and whether I should make him a pair of elbow trolleys.

And I thought about the landlord and his True Names and how he couldn’t divine the True Name of Neil Collins and I thought about FLATLINE and whatever FLATLINE might actually be, it being in capital letters and everything.

And I thought about the landlord grassing me up and me being dragged away to prison.

And I thought about Sandra and regretted that I hadn’t been able to take her on holiday because holidays weren’t written into the Official Secrets Act.

And I thought about Count Otto. And what a good friend to Sandra and me he had been for years.

And I thought about what a shame it was that I would be forced to swoop upon him one night as he lay asleep in his bed. Bind him, gag him and slowly torture him to death.

Because, after all, he was sexing my wife!

And company man and sell-out boy and wimp and twonk that Sandra might have thought I was.

I certainly wasn’t having that!

13

It’s funny how things work out, isn’t it?

If Sandra hadn’t gone off on that caravan holiday with Count Otto Black, I would never have put in that bit of overtime and found out just how useless Barry was at the bulb.

It was honestly as if he didn’t care.

Can you believe that?

I was standing there, talking to him about switch technique and what I called “alert-finger” and the bulb flashed. And Barry just reached out across the table, slow as you please, as if he was answering a telephone, and flapped his hand down on the switch.

I was flabbergasted.

I was stunned.

Stunned, appalled, and flabbergasted.

All at once.

“That is so bad,” I said to Barry. “That is so bad. I can’t believe how so, so, so, so, so, so bad that is.”

“It’s just a bulb,” said Barry. “Just a fugging bulb.”

“Curb that language in this booth,” I said to Barry. “This is not just a bulb.”

“So, what is it, then, a way of life?”

“It’s a job for life. And I’ve worked at it for five long years of mine. And it’s a responsibility. A big responsibility. It’s your responsibility when you’re on your shift.”

“Get a life,” said Barry. “Get real.”

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” I said. “I spy anarchism here. I spy subversion. I smell recidivism.”

“You smell wee-wee,” said Barry. “And it’s yours.”

“No wee-wee on me,” I said. “Sniff my groin if you have any doubts.”

“Smells of teen spirit,” said Barry. Whatever that meant.

“You’ll have to apply yourself more to the job,” I told him.

“Barking,” said Barry. “Barking mad.”

“I’ve never been to Barking,” I told him. “I can get mad about Penge, perhaps. But never Barking.”

“Fugg off home,” said Barry. “I want to read my book.”

“You can’t read a book here. You have to be ever alert.”

“I have to switch a stupid bulb off when it comes on. I’ll read my book until it does.”

I opened my mouth very wide but no words at all came out of it.

“I’m reading Passport to Peril,” said Barry. “It’s a Lazlo Woodbine thriller. Not that you’d know about that, I’m sure.”

“On the contrary, young man,” I said. “I’ve read every Lazlo Woodbine thriller at least a dozen times. I know the lot. By heart, most, if not all, of them.”

“Yeah, right,” said Barry.

“Yeah, right indeed.”

“Oh, so if I was to ask you a question about Lazlo Woodbine, you’d know the answer, would you?”

“I applied to go on Mastermind answering questions on the detective novels of P.P. Penrose as my specialist subject. I didn’t get picked, though.”

“All right, I’ll ask you questions.”

“Not here,” I said. “The bulb might flash.”

“Fugg the bulb,” said Barry. “If it flashes, I’ll switch it off.”

“I’ll switch it off,” I said. “You’re useless at it. I’m going to see if there are drugs I can take that will allow me to stay awake twenty-four hours a day so I can do your shift too.”

“What drug did Lazlo Woodbine take in Waiting for Godalming that allowed him to stay awake for twenty-four hours a day for a whole week?”

“Trick question,” I said. “No drug at all: he did it by willpower. He had to stay awake because if he fell asleep the Holy Guardian Sprout inside his head would have read his mind and given away the trick ending of the book to the readers. Waiting for Godalming was a Post-Modernist Lazlo Woodbine thriller – one of the weakest in my opinion.”

“Good answer,” said Barry. “But it might have been a lucky one. All right, I’ll ask you another. In Death Carries a Pink Umbrella—”