“Yes,” I said to Dave. “You’re right about that. It really doesn’t come any bigger than this, does it?”

“No,” said Dave. “It’s huge. It’s world-sized.”

“Yes,” I said. “It is. I’ve been going about this thing all the wrong way.”

Dave made groaning noises.

“No, really, listen. Barry and I have been doing ‘biographies’, dictated by the dead. That’s what the launch party here tonight is for. P.P. Penrose dictated his life story to Barry.”

Dave laughed. “Not to you, then? What a surprise.”

“Cut it out,” I said. “I admit it, I didn’t have the nerve to talk to him. But think about it, Dave: if the dead are willing to talk, they might be willing to talk about anything. We were just thinking biographies, but that was Barry’s idea. You’ve given me a better idea. What about all those dead criminals, like, say, pirates for instance? They might be prepared to tell us where they buried their treasure. And not just criminals. Leonardo da Vinci might tell us where he hid his last notebook. Michelangelo might tell us about the location of a few missing masterworks.”

“Hitler’s mob probably had all that lot,” said Dave.

“Yeah,” said I. “And a whole lot more. There must be tons of hidden booty that only the dead know about. I don’t know why I never thought of this before.”

“Because you weren’t with your bestest friend,” said Dave.

“You are so right,” said I.

“And perhaps you’re right too,” said Dave. “Perhaps the fact that you haven’t been caught means that there isn’t any surveillance. I think that, together, you and I might pull off a very big number here.”

“The very biggest,” said I.

“Mind you,” said Dave, “this will have to be between you and me. We daren’t have any loose ends. No smoking pistols. No one but the two of us must know about this. Are we agreed?”

“We are,” I said. “Anyone else,” and I drew my finger across my throat, “no matter who they are.”

“Hello.”

I looked up and so did Dave.

“Enjoying yourself?”

“Yes indeed, Barry,” I said.

Sandra drove Dave and me home in the taxi. I was far too drunk to drive and also too excited.

Sandra drove very well, considering.

Considering that she had to get used to the nice new nubile body I had rather drunkenly and lopsidedly attached to her neck. But she did very well and I rewarded her later with as much sex as I could manage, considering my condition.

I had to set the alarm clock for five and get up to dispose of the taxi. I didn’t want anyone finding Sandra’s old body in the boot, so I drove out to a bombsite in Chiswick and set it on fire.

It burned beautifully and I enjoyed watching it burn. I considered its burning to be a kind of phoenix rising from the ashes of my past. A new beginning. For me. For Sandra. And for Dave. I felt that up until now I had been going about things in all the wrong way. Well, not really going about them in any way at all, when it came down to it. I’d just been drifting along on a life tide, washed from one situation to the next, with all my attempts at finding a real purpose and making a real success of myself failing, failing, failing. This would be a new beginning. This, I felt sure, was my fate. And I smiled as I watched that taxi burn and felt warm and happy inside.

My enjoyment was temporarily spoiled, however, by a lot of noisy banging that suddenly came from the inside of the taxi’s boot.

I knew that it wasn’t the cabbie.

And I knew that it wasn’t Sandra’s headless bits and bobs.

So I suppose that it must have been Barry.

But it soon calmed down and stopped.

And the taxi was soon reduced to a charred ruination.

And so, although I had a terrible hangover, I went off to work at the telephone exchange.

With a big fat smile on my face.

20

Priceless, really, the way things turn out.

Dave didn’t have a motorbike, but he was the first person to apply for the vacancy at the telephone exchange. For the night-shift bulb-booth operator. Which was still referred to as the position of telecommunications engineer.

I called in on Dave at a little after eleven p.m.

“You look a bit shagged out,” said Dave.

“I am,” said I. “Sandra’s new body is a blinder.”

“Can I have a go?” Dave asked.

“Certainly not. Get your own zombie.”

“Hm,” said Dave. “When you put it like that, it sort of puts it in perspective. I think I’ll stick with living girlfriends.”

“So, what are we doing tonight?”

“Well,” said Dave, “I made a list of possibilities.”

“Yes?” I said.

“And then I crossed them all out.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I used my head,” said Dave. “If you want to be a really great thief, then you have to use your head. You have to put yourself in the position of the person you’re stealing from. Think, if I were you where would I, as you, hide the booty?”

“Go on,” I said.

“So,” said Dave, “it occurred to me that we would not be the first people to come up with this idea. After all, FLATLINE, or Operation Orpheus, has been around since wartime. Don’t you think that others before us would have thought of doing what we intend to do?”

“Yes,” I said. “You’re right.”

“I am,” said Dave. “So, following the direction of this thinking, where does it lead us to?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Where?”

“To the top,” said Dave. “You’d have to go to the top.”

“To God?” I said.

“To Winston Churchill,” said Dave.

“What?” said I.

“Churchill would know,” said Dave, “where all the Nazi booty went. He’d have got his Hitler impersonator to find out. So Churchill is the man to speak to.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know about this,” I said. “We’re not just going for Nazi booty here. We’re going for all booty.”

“In recent history, the Nazis nicked the most. It’s probably all in Switzerland in special bank vaults.”

“I’m getting out of my depth here,” I said.

“I’m not,” said Dave. “Nicking is my business. Let me have an hour on the phone with Mr Churchill and we’ll both be rich men. I’ve looked up his death date, like you told me you have to. I’ve got it here. Let’s do it.”

“Well, I can’t see any harm in that. Let’s give it a go. Follow me.”

And Dave followed me.

We took the lift to the seventeenth floor. I picked the lock of room 23 and led Dave to the telephone box. “Take as long as you like,” I said. “Dial in his full name and date of birth,” and I explained to him all the rest, “and do your stuff.”

“Sorted,” said Dave and he entered the telephone box.

I dithered about outside. I paced up and down, then I sat and smoked a cigarette. Then I paced, then sat and smoked another one.

At what seemed a very great length, Dave emerged from the telephone box. And Dave didn’t look very well.

“Are you all right?” I asked him. “You look a bit shaky.”

“I am a bit shaky,” said Dave. “I wasn’t expecting to hear all that I just heard. That Winston Churchill is a very angry dead man.”

“Oh,” I said. “Why?”

“He says that he was betrayed. He says that a secret elite is plotting to take over the world.”

“The British government,” I said. “You told me that.”

“Not them,” said Dave. “He says aliens.”

“Space aliens?”

“According to Winston Churchill. And who is going to argue with him?”

“Did he say anything about the booty?”

“Oh yeah,” said Dave. “He said lots. Apparently there’s a secret underground complex beneath Mornington Crescent tube station. All the booty is there. And all the rest of it. The real communications network centre.”

“For communications with the dead?”

“No, the aliens. The aliens who are us.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said. “But let me tell you this, Dave, and I’m sorry I didn’t mention it to you earlier. You can’t take everything the dead say as gospel truth. They have a tendency to make stuff up. They tell a lot of lies. I wouldn’t take this aliens stuff too seriously if I were you.”