“Wallah,” went Omally, whipping back the potato sack to reveal the hoard.

“Oh, splendid,” said Jim. “As if things couldn’t get any worse, you have secreted a hoard of stolen cigarettes in my allotment shed, along with your horrible bike. Perfect. How can I ever thank you?”

“They are not stolen,” John explained. “And as I purchased them with our shared entrepreneurial business funds, you are entitled to half of the profits, as soon as you have sold them all.”

“Oh lucky man me,” said Jim Pooley.

The at-length to The Flying Swan was also increased by Jim Pooley making his second visit of the day to the business premises of Bob the Bookie.

At least Jim had a smile back on his face when he left these business premises. As evidently did Bob, whose loud and joyous laughter followed Jim on his way.

“It is going to be such a pleasure to take his money,” Jim told John as they proceeded on their journey.

John patted Jim upon the back and at that greatened length they reached The Flying Swan.

It was lunchtime now and The Swan was going great guns in the trade department. Young pale-faced business types, who toiled away in the nearby Mowlems building at jobs which probably involved computers, spoke noisily over their halves of cider and Lighterman’s lunches.[7] John and Jim elbowed their way towards the bar counter.

“Two pints of Large, please, Neville,” said John. “Jim is in the chair.”

“I’m penniless,” said Jim, “so I am not.”

Neville looked his patrons up and down, then up and down once more.

John and Jim looked back at Neville.

“Would you both just mind turning full circle?” Neville asked.

“Excuse me?” said Jim.

“Humour me,” said Neville. “A little twirl, but slowly, if you’ll be so kind.”

“All right then.” Jim shrugged and did a little twirl, but slowly.

John shrugged also and joined him in this curious perambulation.

“Happy now?” Jim asked.

“Absolutely,” said Neville. “I just wanted to get a really good look at you both, from all angles, as it were.”

“I see,” said Jim. “But why?”

“Because it is the last look at the both of you that I will ever be taking. You’re both barred for life!”

“What?” Jim’s jaw fell, to land with a palpable clunk upon his chest. “Barred?”

“Barred!” quoth Neville. “Now kindly get out of my pub.”

“Hold on there, Neville.” John made a cheesy grin. “That is not at all funny. Look at poor Jim, the colour’s gone right out of his chops.”

“Barred,” said Neville and he bared his teeth. “Traitorous, devious dogs. Out of my pub now or I’ll take my knobkerrie to the both of you.”

“Five more halves of cider over here,” called a pale-faced business type.

“Be with you in a moment, sir,” said Neville. “As soon as I have evicted these two undesirable elements from the establishment.”

“Neville,” said John, “have you become bereft of your senses? It’s us – John and Jim, your favourite patrons.”

“Curs and rapscallions,” cried Neville, reaching below the counter for his knobkerrie.

“Neville, please.” John raised calming palms. “Whatever is going on? What is all this about?”

“You know full well. You put him up to it, I know you did.” Neville glared at Jim with his good eye.

“What did I do?” Jim Pooley clutched at his heart.

“I’ve just had a phone call from Professor Slocombe,” said Neville.

“Ah,” said John.

“‘Ah?’ Is that all you have to say, ‘Ah?’” Neville now raised his knobkerrie.

“I think I’ll be heading back to the office,” said the pale-faced business type.

“It’s not my fault,” wailed Jim. “I didn’t volunteer for the job. It was all Professor Slocombe’s idea.”

“I trusted you.” Neville waggled his knobkerrie in Jim’s direction. “And I trusted this Irish ne’er-do-well. And what do you do? Stab me in the back, that’s what you do.”

Jim Pooley shook his head. “Never,” he said. “We never did. We never would.”

“Manager!” Neville had a good old shake on now. His good eye bulged from its socket. “You couldn’t manage a knees-up in a whore house.”

“Neville, calm yourself.” John leaned forward across the bar counter. “This could really work to your benefit. Allow me to explain. You see—”

But John Omally said no more, as at that moment Neville swung his knobkerrie and bopped him on the head. John’s eyes crossed and then they closed and John sank slowly to the carpet.

Jim looked down in horror. Words tried to form in his mouth, but could not. He raised a bitter gaze towards Neville and prepared to leap across the counter and exact a bloody revenge.

But Neville swung his club once more.

And Pooley hit the deck.

Norman pressed home the bolts on the shop door and turned the “open” sign to “closed”. Norman always loved his Wednesday afternoons, when at one he could shut up shop and engage in his own activities. With Peg, his oversized other half, off at her weekly meeting with the Chiswick Townswomen’s Guild, Norman’s time was his own. Certainly he was supposed to remove himself to the wholesalers to stock up on Pontefract cakes and liquorice sticks and jujubes and sherbet lemons. But as folk never bought those sweeties any more, and the jars that lined the dusty shelves always remained full, it didn’t really matter anyway.

Norman divested himself of his brown shopkeeper’s coat and hung it behind the door of the kitchenette, taking unto himself the patched jacket of green Boleskine tweed that had been his father’s before him and slipping it on as if it were a loving glove. Norman let himself out through the back door, locking it behind him, and sauntered off to his lock-up in Abaddon Street.

Now, a lock-up garage is a wonderful thing, almost as wonderful in its way as an allotment shed. It is a “man’s” place, full of a man’s accoutrements: tools and spare parts and things that no longer work because they need a few spare parts to set them going, and boxes of old magazines that must not be thrown away because there are interesting articles in them that might one day be interesting to read. And as with an allotment shed, or indeed a garden shed, there is always a half-bag of gone-solid cement that you always fall over when you come in. Which is there, as we all know, because it is a tradition, or an old charter, or something.

Norman unlocked and swung up-and-over the up-and-over garage door, stood in the entranceway and breathed in the ambience of his lock-up. It smelt good. It smelt of a man’s accoutrements, of tools and spare parts and things that no longer worked because … and so on and so forth and such like.

Norman smiled the smile of inward satisfaction, stepped forward into his garage and fell over a half-bag of gone-solid cement. Righting himself, Norman smiled some more and sought out his car keys. Because Norman owned a car. Well, not a car as such – it was more of a van. In fact, it was a van. An Austin A40 van that Norman was restoring. And not only restoring, but improving, enginewise.

Norman had certain theories regarding the internal combustion engine, mostly of the nature that it was a most inefficient means of powering an automobile. Norman was working on an alternative drive system for the A40 van, a revolutionary new method of automotive propulsion. It was near to completion and only needed a few spare parts to keep it going as smoothly as he would have liked.

It was not your everyday revolutionary new method of automotive propulsion. This was something quite different.

Norman had modestly named it the Hartnel Grumpiness Hyper-Drive. It would, in Norman’s humble opinion, bring joy to millions and millions of drivers who drove old and unreliable automobiles. Folk such as himself, for instance.