“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” said I.

“Kindly sling your hook,” said the maitre d’. “We don’t serve your kind in here.”

“Just make mine a Guinness, then, and forget the pork scratchings.”

“Coming right up, sir.”

The maitre d’ drew off the pint of black gold, and I waited the now legendary one hundred and nineteen seconds for it to fill to perfection.

“On the house,” said the maitre d’. “And help yourself to the chewing fat.”

“Why thank you very much,” said I. “And what brings on this generosity?”

“Look at this place,” said the maitre d’, whose name, if you hadn’t guessed, was Fangio. “This is one classy number. Top-notch clientele, thirty-two brands of whisky, carpet on the floor and even paper in the gents’ bog. This is my kind of bar, Laz. Do you think you might keep coming back to this one throughout the rest of your case? I didn’t take much to the Lion’s Mane, a wildebeest trod on my toe.”

I gave the place a once-over glance about. With my new sense of Super-vision, given to me by the Red Head tablet I’d taken in mistake for an aspirin, I could see the men within the men and the women within the women. They all looked pretty damn fab gear and groovy and not a wrong’un amongst them. This place had everything that a place that had everything had. So to speak.

“It’s definitely us, isn’t it?” I said.

“Too true. And look at this uniform. The waistcoat favours my wasp-waist and the fitted slacks show off my snake hips to perfection. You look pretty dapper in the new trenchcoat and fedora, by the way.”

“We’re a regular pair of dandies, ain’t we?”

Fangio tipped me the wink. “So,” said he. “What brings you here?”

“A cab,” I said. “But I left it outside.”

Oh how we laughed.

And laughed.

The barber at the Ministry of Serendipity wasn’t laughing at all. The hands of Icarus Smith gripped the barber’s head.

“Tell me”, said Icarus, “all about this barber’s shop. Tell me exactly why it’s here.”

The barber’s lips were all a-quiver. Icarus kneaded his skull.

“It’s for training purposes,” whimpered the barber.

“Go on,” said Icarus. “Tell me.”

“To train up operatives in the art of exo-cranial massage. We’ve trained thousands. Thousands and thousands.”

“To what purpose?” Icarus asked.

“World peace,” blurted the barber.

Icarus squeezed his head.

“It’s true. Everybody goes to a barber’s or hairdresser’s at some time. By using exo-cranial massage on them, the Ministry’s operatives keep them in a passive state.”

“Keep them under control,” said Icarus.

“I wouldn’t put it like that,” said the barber, hunching down his head.

“I would,” said Icarus, yanking up the barber’s head. “So the Ministry has infiltrated thousands of these trained operatives into barbers and hairdressers up and down the country, so that they can use their techniques to keep the population pacified and under control.”

“I prefer the term world peace,” said the barber.

“I prefer the term world control,” said Icarus.

“Well, at least we know where all the workers in the orange jumpsuits and hard hats are,” said Johnny Boy. “They’re squeezing heads in barber’s shops.”

Icarus released the barber’s head. “There’s more to this,” he said.

“What?” said Johnny Boy. “More than world control?”

Icarus addressed the barber. “Are there operatives all over the world doing this?” he asked. “Or only here in England?”

“Only here, as far as I know,” said the barber.

“I thought as much,” said Icarus.

Johnny Boy looked up at the lad. “There are all kinds of colours whirling around you,” he said. “Just what’s going on in your mind?”

“Only this. What if all this angel and demon carry-on is a localized phenomenon? Centred right here in London. And what if it’s natural for people to be able to see demons and angels? Without needing the Red Head drug?”

“Then they’d see them, wouldn’t they?”

“And some do. But they’re considered mad. But the rest don’t. And why? Because they’re having their heads subtly massaged every time they go to the barber’s or the hairdresser’s. From when they’re children onwards.”

“And the massages affect the brain so people can’t see the truth?”

“That’s what I think,” said Icarus.

“Angels and demons?” said the barber. “You talking the jobbies from the bull’s behind parts, that’s what I’m thinking in my head.”

“Just a couple more questions,” said Icarus, “and then I’ll be done with you.”

“I plead the Fifth Amendment,” said the barber. “Also the Geneva Convention and the Waldorf salad. I tell you nothing more.”

“How many people work here?” asked Icarus.

“I tell you that,” said the barber. “About half a dozen. Me, Philomena the masseuse, Mr Cormerant the wages clerk, some guards that walk up and down. The chauffeur, no, he got stabbed in the corridor. The new chauffeur, the women in the canteen where nobody goes to eat, because the food tastes like pigeon poops. And the guv’nor, of course.”

“The guv’nor runs the Ministry?”

“That’s what guv’nors do, ain’t it?”

“And what is the guv’nor’s name?”

“Mr Godalming,” said the barber.

“Mr Godalming?” said Johnny Boy.

And so did Icarus Smith.

“Mr Godalming,” said the barber once again.

Icarus looked at Johnny Boy.

And Johnny Boy looked back at him.

“This Mr Godalming,” said Icarus to the barber. “What does he look like? Does he by any chance look like Richard E. Grant?”

“Ha ha ha,” the barber laughed. “No, he look nothing like Richard E. Grant. His father look like Richard E. Grant. But he don’t. He look more like Peter Stringfellow. He’s young Mr Godalming.

“Mr Colin Godalming.”

“Still waiting for Mr Godalming, Laz?” said the maitre d’ with a grin.

“In a manner of speaking,” said I. “I’m right, I assume, that this is the bar where all the media types come after they’ve been interviewed by daytime TV.”

“You’re right there, my friend.”

“Perfect,” said I. “Because I saw this guy on TV today and I’d really like to meet him.”

“Yeah?” said Fange. “Who’s that?”

“Celebrity hairdresser,” said I. “Looks a bit like Peter Stringfellow. The name’s Godalming.

“Mr Colin Godalming.”

15

“It’s a mullet,” said Fangio the malnourished maitre d’.

“It’s a what?” I asked, in a readiness of response.

“The haircut Peter Stringfellow has. Mullet, the classic 1970s haircut, as favoured by members of the Bay City Rollers and damn near everybody else. Peter Stringfellow is the last man on Earth to favour the mullet, now that Pat Sharp’s done away with his.”

“I’m more of a Ramón Navarro man, myself,” said I. “I can’t be having with hair that sticks out under my fedora.”

“Class,” said the string bean Fangio. “Pure class.”

“So he comes in here, does he, this Colin Godalming?”

“Regular as clockwork,” said the wasted one. “He should be arriving here”, Fangio studied the watch on his twig-like wrist, “in about ten minutes’ flat, or if not flat, then he’ll walk in upright, as usual.”

Oh how we laughed at that one.

“Well,” said I, to the half-starved meagre shrimp of a maitre d’. “That leaves us with ten minutes of prime toot-talking time.”

“You won’t get a word out of me,” said the scrawny wretch, “until you drop all those derogatory references to my slender, yet perfectly proportioned, physique.”

“Do you have to run around in the shower to get wet?” I asked.

“I’m warning you, Laz.”

“I heard that you once took off all your clothes, painted your head red and went to a fancy dress party as a thermometer.”

“One more and you’re out of here!”