“I wouldn’t have,” said Dave, “except that it tied up with something that you told me years ago, when we were kids. Remember when you told me that you’d overheard those two blokes talking about human beings not really doing their own thinking? About their thoughts being directed from somewhere else outside their heads? About our brains being receivers and transmitters but not really brains that do thinking? Remember?”

“I do remember,” I said. “Those two young men in the restricted section of the Memorial Library. One of them works here now.”

“And there was something about this at your daddy’s trial, although it wasn’t reported in the papers.”

“The Daddy must have known something about all this,” I said.

“He did work for the GPO,” said Dave. “And you told me that he was on bomb disposal in the war. Perhaps he was part of the secret operations network.”

“Now, hold on,” I said. “Are we going to get rich here, or not?”

“That sounds like the kind of question I should be asking.”

“Well, you ask it, then.”

“No,” said Dave. “But I’ll ask you this. What do you think we should do? We could go to Mornington Crescent and if there’s anything valuable there that can be nicked I assure you that I can nick it. Or, and this is a big or, we could go to Mornington Crescent and try to find out what the truth of all this really is. What do you think?”

I thought long and I thought hard and it was a whole lot of thinking.

“All right,” I said, when finally I had done all the thinking that I could do. “Let’s go.”

“And do what?” asked Dave. “One or the other?”

“Let’s do both,” I said.

“OK,” said Dave. “That’s cool.”

Now, this wasn’t going to be easy, because I worked the day shift and Dave worked the night shift and so I couldn’t see how we could go together. And even if we did go together, how we were going to find what we were looking for, whatever exactly that was. I confided my doubts to Dave and Dave was, as Dave had always been, optimistic and up for no good. And, as he always had been, up to doing things at his leisure.

“You leave it with me,” said Dave. “I have to do a bit more research with a few more dead men. I’ll get back to you in a few days.”

“Don’t you want me to let you into room 23 each night?” I asked. But that was a stupid question. This was Dave, after all.

“I’ll let myself in,” said Dave. “You go home. Give my best to Sandra, if you know what I mean and I’m sure that you do. And if we meet as we change shifts, just nod. Pretend you don’t know me.”

“OK,” I said and I shook hands with Dave. I felt absolutely confident in Dave. After all, he was my bestest friend and he had never, ever, let me down. I trusted him. He was the only one I had ever owned up to regarding my homicidal tendencies. I’d never mentioned them to Sandra. Some things you just don’t say to your wife although you would say them to your mate. It’s a man-thing, I suppose.

So I went home and gave Dave’s best to Sandra.

And for the next week I just nodded to Dave when I changed shifts with him, and he nodded back when he changed shifts with me. And then I found a note on the table of the bulb booth telling me to meet him on Friday evening at eight-thirty at the Golden Dawn.

So on Friday evening I togged up in my very bestest, put Sandra’s head in the fridge to keep it fresh and stop her wandering about while I was out, and strolled off down the road towards the Golden Dawn.

It was a fine Friday evening. It smelled of fish and chips, as Friday evenings so often do, and there was still some sun left, as there generally is on a summery Brentford evening. And as I strolled along I wondered, quietly and all to myself, exactly what Dave might have come up with and where it might lead me and whether it might make me rich. Because I was warming more and more to the prospect of becoming rich. I felt that it was about time that I got what I knew I deserved.

It was all quiet and peaceful in the Golden Dawn. As quiet and peaceful as it had been the last time I was there. Which was more than six months before: on the night of my wedding anniversary, when Sandra had told me that she was going off for the caravanning holiday with Count Otto Black. I had Sandra wearing red now, by the way. I felt that she had mourned long enough.

But I’d actually quite forgotten about Eric the barman’s threats to me. About how he said he’d grass me up if I didn’t find out all about what went on in Developmental Services, because he had this thing about people’s True Names and how some of the folk in Developmental Services – well, one at least: Neil Collins – didn’t seem to have a True Name.

When I strolled into the Golden Dawn, and saw him standing there behind the pump, it brought it all back to me and I really cursed Count Otto for fouling up the orders I had sent him through the voodoo medium of Frank the invisible Chinaman, which caused him to butcher my Sandra instead of the blackmailing landlord.

I only mention all this in case you might have forgotten about it.

“Well, well, well, well,” said Eric. “If it isn’t my old chum the Archduke of Alpha Centuri.”

“Well, well, well, well,” I replied. “If it isn’t my very good friend Kimberlin Malkuth, Lord of a Thousand Suns. A pint of Large, please, and a packet of crisps.”

“I’ve been missing you,” said the barlord. “For so many months now. You and I had an understanding, I remember.”

“Indeed,” I said. “I’ve not forgotten. But I had a death in the family. My dear Sandra was cruelly taken from me.”

“Yes,” said Eric. “I read about all that in the papers. Tragic business. Poor Lady Fairflower of the Rainbow Mountains. The world is a sadder place without her.”

I nodded and he nodded and then he presented me with my pint. “But life goes on,” he said. “We should be grateful for that.”

“We should,” I agreed.

“And the fact that you stand there before me means that you are now all grieved out and ready to face life without the Lady Fairflower. It also means that you have come to tell me all that I need to know regarding Developmental Services.”

“It does,” I said. “Shall we step outside and discuss this matter in private?”

The barlord nodded and I smiled at the barlord.

A hand, however, fell upon my shoulder.

I turned and said, “Dave,” for Dave’s hand it was that had fallen.

“Not now,” whispered Dave in my ear. “Wait until after closing time. You can do for him and I will do for the cash register.”

“You are, as ever, as wise as your years,” I whispered back. “I’ll tell you everything later,” I said to Eric. “After closing, in private.”

“Right,” said Eric. “And you see that you do. I’ll lock up, then when I’ve kicked everyone out I’ll let you back in the side door.”

“Perfect,” I said.

“Double perfect,” said Dave.

“A pint for Dave too,” I said to Eric.

“Indeed,” said the barlord. “Always a pleasure to serve a pint to Barundi Fandango the Jovian Cracksman.” And Eric once more did the business.

Dave took me over to a side table and we took sup from our pints.

“It has to be this weekend,” said Dave.

“What does?” I asked.

“Mornington Crescent. We have to go this weekend.”

“OK,” I said. “But why?”

“Because I’m in too much danger of getting nicked and dragged back to prison. I’m working at the telephone exchange under a fake name. I’m a wanted man, remember. I told them that my cards and my P45 were being sent on by my last employer, but I think they’re already becoming suspicious. I shall have to run this weekend no matter what. So we do it now, or we don’t do it at all.”

“Seems reasonable,” said I. “What is your plan?”

“Well, I’ve chatted with a lot of dead blokes this week and remembering what you said about them lying, I’ve been careful to cross-reference everything. I know how to get into Mornington Crescent and I have a pretty good idea of what kind of booty is in there. And it’s lots. But there’s something more. Something in there that frightens the dead and they don’t want to tell me about.”