And on further Dexion racks, where stood six zinc water tanks. Each filled with a sterile solution and each containing a naked human torso. The arms, legs and head had been neatly and surgically removed from each, the wounds tightly stitched, plasma drips inserted. Electric implants caused the hearts to beat. And within each swollen female belly something moved.

Something living.

Something newly cloned.

Dr Steven walked from tank to tank, examining his evil handiwork. And smiled upon it all.

“What a bastard!”

“This could be a bit of a bastard,” said the bloke from the hole as he viewed the concrete base of the library bench. “Now what we usually do when faced with a situation like this is go off to breakfast for a couple of hours.”

“In keeping with your working class stereotype?”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. So we’ll see you later, eh?”

“I think not,” said the official-looking gent. “Let us cast convention to the four winds this day. Let us tear off the woollen overcoat of conformity, lift the grey tweed skirt of oppression and feast our eyes upon the golden G-string of egalitarianism. Take up your pneumatic drill and dig.”

“Gawd stripe me pink, guvnor. If that weren’t a pretty speech and no mistake.”

“Just dig the damn hole.”

“What’s going on?” asked a casual passer-by, whose name was Pooley.

“We’re digging a hole,” said the bloke who had been digging, but now was mopping his brow. “It’s for cable TV. This official-looking gent says we’re to dig it here.”

“Mind if I just stand and watch?”

“Don’t you have any work to go to?”

“Well,” said Jim. “I used to be an unemployed, but now I’m a job seeker.”

“Oh, you mean a layabout.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, stand back and don’t get in the way. This pneumatic drill is a fearsome beast. Mind you, it’s a joy to use. It drills in the key of E.”

“Surely it’s A minor,” said the official-looking gent.

“No, E,” said the bloke. “Like in the blues. The blues are always in E.”

“The blues are always in A minor,” said the official-looking gent. “I used to have a harmonica.”

“It was a Hohner,” said Jim.

“How do you know that?” asked the bloke.

“Just a lucky guess.”

“Well, the blues are always in E, take it from me.” The bloke returned to his drilling.

A lady in a straw hat peered into the hole and nodded her head to the rhythm of the drill. “That’s C, that is,” she shouted above the racket.

“E,” shouted the bloke, without letting up.

“A minor,” shouted the official-looking gent.

“A minor,” Jim agreed.

“C!” shouted the lady. “My husband used to play with Jelly Roll Morton, and he invented the blues.”

The bloke switched off his pneumatic drill. “Jelly Roll Morton did not invent the blues,” he said. “Blind Lemon Jefferson invented the blues.”

“He never did,” said the lady.

“Nobody did,” said the official-looking gent. “The blues go back hundreds of years to the time of slave-trading.”

“No they don’t,” said a young fellow with a beard who’d stopped to take a look at the hole. “The blues are a form of folk music which originated amongst Black Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century.”

“With Jelly Roll Morton,” said the lady.

“Blind Lemon Jefferson,” said the bloke.

“There is no specific musician accredited with beginning the blues,” said the bearded fellow. “But the form is specific, usually employing a basic twelve-bar chorus, the tonic, subdominant and dominant chords, frequent minor intervals and blue notes.”

“What are blue notes?” Jim asked.

“A flattened third or seventh.”

“But always in A minor.”

“In any key you like.”

“Are you a job seeker too?” asked the bloke in the hole.

“No, I’m a medical student,” said the bearded fellow.

“Another layabout.”

“Would you mind if we just got back to the drilling?” asked the official-looking gent, consulting a wrist that did not have a watch on it. “The day is drawing on.”

“Yeah, dig your hole,” said Jim.

“Listen, mate,” said the bloke. “Just because I dig holes for a living doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

“I thought you said it did,” said the official-looker.

“I was being ironic. All right?”

“Socrates invented irony,” said the lady in the straw hat.

“Bollocks,” said the bloke.

“No, she’s right,” said the beardie. “As a means of exposing inconsistencies in a person’s opinions by close questioning and the admission of one’s own ignorance. It’s called Socratic irony.”

“How would you like a pneumatic drill up your fudge tunnel, sunshine?” asked the bloke.

“Come now, gentlemen,” said the official-looking one. “We all have our work to do.”

“He doesn’t,” said the bloke, pointing at Pooley. “Blokes like him are just a drain on the country’s resources.”

“I resent that,” said Jim, who did.

“Punch his lights out,” said the lady in the straw hat.

“Do me a favour,” said the bloke. “Look at the state of him. He’s got two black eyes already. Wanker!”

“Come on now,” said he of the official looks. “There’s work to do.”

“You keep out of this,” shouted the bloke. “Bloody jumped-up little Hitler.”

“I resent that.”

“Oh yeah, do you want to make something of it?”

“Excuse me,” said the bloke’s mate, who had been quietly digging away with a spade throughout all this. “But I think I’ve found something here. It looks like a treasure chest.”

“Let me take a look at that,” said he of looks official.

“No chance!” said the bloke. “If my mate’s found something, then we’re keeping it.”

“If I’ve found something, I’m keeping it,” said the mate.

“It could be an unexploded bomb,” said Jim, in a voice that sounded unrehearsed.

“Bollocks!” said the bloke and the mate of the bloke.

“It could be,” said the lady in the straw hat. “They used to drop all these booby traps in the war. Disguised as tins of Spam and packets of cigarettes and electric vibrators and…”

“We’d better cordon off the area,” said the OLG. “You two chaps out of the hole and away to a safe distance. I will take charge of the bomb.”

“Good idea,” said Jim. “Come on, everyone, back, back.”

“Did someone say ‘bomb’?” asked Old Pete, who had been passing by.

“Move along please, sir.”

“Why are you wearing that daft moustache, Omally?”

“What’s all this about a false moustache?” asked the bloke in the hole, climbing out of it.

“Just a deluded old gentleman,” said John Omally. “Come on now, all of you, clear the area.”

“What’s your game?” shouted the bloke, taking a swipe at Omally and tearing off his false moustache.

“Oooooh!” said the lady in the straw hat. “It’s the weirdo from the park who makes road drill noises in A minor while his mate here goes to sleep.”

“His mate here?” The bloke turned upon Pooley.

“I’ve never seen this official-looking gent before in my life,” said Jim, crossing his heart and hoping not to die.

“Who’s in charge here?” said someone else, pushing through the nicely growing crowd.

“I am,” said John.

“You bloody aren’t,” said the bloke.

“Well, someone better be. What have you done to my bench?”

“Your bench?” said John.

“I’m the chief librarian,” said the chief librarian.

“He is,” said Jim.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said the chief librarian. “I should have known. You’re always dossing about here. I knew you were up to something.”

“Bloody layabout,” said the bloke.

“Right,” said Jim, rolling up his sleeves. “That does it.”

“Right,” said the bloke, punching Jim on the nose. “It does.”

“Stop all this,” cried Omally, stepping forward to grab the bloke, but tripping over his mate who was climbing out of the hole.

“Fight!” shouted the lady in the straw hat, stamping on the chief librarian’s foot.