“They’re not badly hurt, are they?” Neville was heard to ask.

“They’ll survive. Thick skulls, the both of them. And the both of them known faces, as it were.”

“I’ve been under a lot of strain,” said Neville. “They drove me to it.”

“You’ll be pleading diminished responsibility, then,” said Constable Mild, “at your trial.”

“Trial?” Neville’s good eye rolled.

Norman found this most alarming. What was with all this eye-rolling today? “Evening, Neville,” said Norman. “Pint of Large, please.”

“Ah,” said Constable Meek, “it’s Brentford’s Porn King.”

Norman ground his dentures. “I’m not Brentford’s Porn King,” he protested. “Those magazines arrived by mistake. They weren’t what I ordered.”

“You had them in your rack,” said Constable Meek. “What were they, now? Cissies On Parade, the ‘periodical for businessmen who like to dress as babies’. And Banged Up and Gun-Totin’, ‘naked pregnant women with Uzis’.”

“It came as just as much of a shock to me,” said Norman. “I’d ordered Airfix Monthly and Meccano World.”

“A likely story.” Constable Meek did titterings.

Neville drew Norman a pint of the very best.

“But let us not be distracted from the business at hand.” Constable Meek fingered his brand-new extendible truncheon. “Should your victims choose to press charges, you’ll be looking at a five-stretch, minimum.”

“Five years? Cheese!” Neville’s face became the mask of fear.

“I love it when their faces do that,” said Constable Mild. “Makes the job worthwhile, in my opinion.”

“You’ll be out in two and a half with good behaviour,” said Old Pete, who had not left his bar stool all day but for the occasional visit to the gents.

“Who did you assault, Neville?” Norman asked as he took control of his pint and paid for same with the exact amount of pennies and halfpennies.

“I didn’t assault anyone,” said Neville.

“He did,” said Old Pete. “Pooley and Omally. Laid the two of them out, stone cold.”

“You were a witness to this, then, were you, sir?” Constable Meek asked Old Pete.

“Excuse me?” said the ancient.

“You saw the assault occur?”

“You’ll have to speak up, my hearing aid is faulty.”

“You witnessed the occurrence!” shouted Constable Meek.

“Did what?” asked Old Pete. “Pit test the old currants, did you say?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Forget it,” said Constable Mild. “He’s a loon.”

“Up yours, pointy head,” muttered Old Pete.

“What did you say?”

“Excuse me?” said the ancient. “You’ll have to speak up a bit.”

“You’re warned,” said Constable Meek to Neville. “And if your victims do choose to press charges, you’re in real trouble. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this place. Any more bother and you’ll kiss goodbye to your license and say hello to incarceration.”

And then they left. The two of them. The boys in blue.

“Bastards,” said Old Pete. “Cossacks.”

Norman tasted ale.

“What?” said Neville. “What are you looking at?”

“Sorry.” Norman busied himself with further ale-tasting.

“Bop,” went Old Pete, miming mighty boppings with his crinkly paws. “Just like the Wolf of Kabul swinging Clicki Ba.”

Neville made growling sounds under his breath.

“My glass is unaccountably empty,” said Old Pete, staring into said glass and making a quizzical face. Neville snatched the glass away from the elder and returned it once more to the dark-rum optic.

“Bop?” Norman whispered “bop” and mimed a muted bopping of his own while Neville’s back was turned. “He really bopped both Jim and John on the head?”

“A real treat, it was.” Old Pete sniggered. “It’s not the sort of mindless violence you see every day, especially not in here. The last time I saw someone get a walloping like that was in one of those dodgy videos you hired me.”

“I didn’t know what was on them.” Norman did sssh-ings with his fingers. “They arrived as a job lot. I’d never even heard of a snuff movie. I thought it was, well, about snuff, I suppose.”

Old Pete shook his old and wrinkly head. “You are a caution, Norman, you well and truly are.”

“If that’s a compliment, I’ll take it.” The shopkeeper raised his glass. “Honey catches more flies than vinegar, you know.”

Neville thrust Old Pete’s tipple before him and stalked away along the bar to serve a wandering bishop who’d stopped in for a swift one before heading down to the annual congress in the deconsecrated Anabaptist Chapel on the corner of Moby Dick Terrace.

“So,” said Old Pete, “apart from dodgy videos and girly magazines, how goes the world with you, young Norman?”

“Fraught as ever.” Norman made the face of one who knew the meaning of ‘fraught’. “But I had a bit of luck this afternoon. Answered an ad. A chap giving away crates of computer parts.”

“Giving away?” Old Pete mused upon this concept, but concluded that it meant nothing to him.

“Took me ten journeys in the van.” Norman dragged the last bit of liquid pleasure from his pint glass. “Couldn’t even get the van into my lock-up afterwards.”

“Someone will nick that old van of yours.”

“I can assure you that they won’t.” Norman grinned as evilly as his amiable visage would allow. “It has certain security features built into it. I built them in myself.”

“It will be gone already, then. I have an old handcart I can let you have at a price that might at first appear reasonable.”

“I’m fine,” said Norman. “One hand washes the other, you know, and a washed pot never boils.”

“So what are these computer parts? A lot of superannuated old toot, I’ll wager.”

“Well, they’re certainly not new. There’s nearly forty crates of them, labelled on the side as parts from something called a Babbage Nineteen-Hundred Series.”

Old Pete coughed suddenly into his rum, sending a jet of it up his right nostril to cause him further distress. He coughed and wheezed and Norman took to smiting him between his crook-backed shoulder blades.

“Lay off me, you hoodlum!” Old Pete raised up his stick and Chips bared his teeth towards the Samaritan shopkeeper’s ankles.

“I’m only trying to help.”

“Then leave me alone.”

“You seemed to be having some kind of fit.”

“I’m all right.” Old Pete pushed Norman away, took up what was left of his rum and tossed it down his throat.

“Same again for the both of us,” called Norman to Neville.

Neville, who appeared to be having some kind of dispute with the wandering bishop, did not hear him.

“You did say Babbage, didn’t you?” Old Pete was almost his old self once more. “Babbage Nineteen-Hundred Series?”

“That’s what it says on the crates.” Norman waved his hands towards Neville. “Same again over here, Neville, please.”

Neville, however, was still engaged in words with the wandering bishop. Heated words, these seemed to be, although Norman could not quite hear what they were.

“Burn them,” said Old Pete. “Burn the lot of them now, Norman.”

“That’s a bit harsh.” Norman regarded the old scoundrel. “Every man has the right to worship in the church of his choice. I’ve nothing against wandering bishops. In fact, I really like their hats.”

“The crates, Norman, you buffoon. The computer parts. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll burn them all.”

“Burn them?” Norman’s face was one of considerable surprise. “Why would I want to burn the crates?”

“Let’s just say that what’s in ’em is dangerous. Very dangerous. I know what I’m talking about and I’m giving you sound advice. Trust me, I’m a pensioner.”

“You’re drunk,” said Norman. “Alcohol has addled your brain.”

“Norman.” Old Pete leaned forward on his bar stool and grasped Norman’s tweedy lapels. “You don’t know what you’ve got there. You really don’t. I thought all that stuff was done with years and years ago. It mustn’t start again. Do you understand me?” And Old Pete shook feebly at the lapels of Norman.