“It’s all the truth. I looked down upon myself and I was connected to my body by a silver cord. And when I got over being so scared, I went out for a fly. I went straight through the bedroom wall and up the street and along the Ealing Road, floating, swimming through the air at the height of the top of the lampposts. It was incredible. And when I got to the football ground I saw this boy, a ginger-haired boy, and he was sitting right on the top of one of the floodlights.”

Omally shook his head, but Jim continued with his tale.

“So I swam on through the air,” Jim continued, “and joined this boy on top of the floodlights. And I said to him, ‘Why did you climb up here? It’s really dangerous.’ And he said, ‘I didn’t climb up here, I flew like you. I’m astral travelling, too.’ Apparently he’d always been able to do it. We arranged to meet again the following night and he said he’d fly with me to Tibet.”

“And did you?” John asked.

“No,” said Jim. “The next thing I knew it was morning and my mum was bringing me a cup of tea and I was still lying on top of the bed in my nudity.”

“You dreamed the whole thing,” said Omally.

“No,” said Jim. “It was real.”

“It was a dream, Jim. Just a dream.”

“No, John, it was real, because that very morning I saw the ginger-haired boy.”

“Really?” said John. “And he confirmed your meeting with him the night before?”

Jim shook his head. “I was on the number sixty-five bus, going off to an interview for a job at George Wimpeys, which happily I didn’t get. The bus pulled up outside Norman’s shop – this was when Norman’s dad was still alive – and at the bus stop stood Norman, and the ginger-haired boy was there beside him. And he saw me through the window and raised his thumb and mouthed the word ‘Tibet’. But the bus was full and it pulled away from the stop before I could jump off, so I didn’t get to speak to him.”

“So Norman saw this ginger-haired boy. Did he know him?”

Jim shook his head once more. “I asked Norman later. I said, ‘Do you know that ginger-haired boy who was waiting at the bus stop with you this morning?’ And Norman said, ‘There wasn’t any ginger-haired boy. I was all alone at the bus stop.’”

John looked hard at Jim. “Is that the end of the story?” he asked.

“That’s it.” Jim shrugged. “And it’s all true, I promise you. I never managed to do the astral-travelling thing again, so I never saw the ginger-haired boy again and I never flew to Tibet. But I still try, on the rare night that I go to bed sober.”

“You should have come to the professor,” said the Campbell, “when you were a lad. If he’d believed you to be sincere, no doubt he would have taught you the technique.”

“Do you really think so?”

“No,” said the Campbell. “I’m pulling your plonker. He’d never train a twat like yourself.”

“Thank you very much indeed.”

The inner door of Professor Slocombe’s study opened and the ancient scholar stood framed in the opening. His face was grey and he looked more frail and fragile than ever before. His delicate fingers trembled and his old head rocked gently upon his slender neck.

Omally hastened to guide the old gentleman into a fireside chair. “Are you all right, sir?” he asked. “You look all but done.”

“All is done,” said Professor Slocombe, accepting John’s glass of Scotch and tossing it back in a single gulp. “The deal is done.”

“You met with Starling?” Jim asked.

“In my astral body, Jim. And your words came to me and offered me some comfort. Had I met with him in my physical form he would have killed me. His accomplices were awaiting my arrival.”

Jim Pooley made a fearful face.

“Fear not,” said Professor Slocombe. “All is done. Starling will trouble you no more.”

“You didn’t—”

“No, Jim, I didn’t kill him. He is a powerful magician, very strong with spells. But I extracted from him a magical oath in return for the Eye. He has promised that no more attempts will be made upon the lives of yourself and John.”

“And you trust his words?” asked Jim.

“By breaking a magical oath he would forfeit his powers. But he will not swerve from his goal. He intends to acquire the football ground and to loose the serpent. I suspect that we may be visited by Lord Cthulhu’s dark and scaly minions, intent upon some kind of sabotage or another. But no more attempts will be made upon your lives.”

“So we’re free men?” said John. “We’re safe?”

“You are safe,” said the professor, “and we may still succeed. Seven more games and Brentford wins the cup.”

“It all sounds so very easy when you put it like that,” said Jim.

“It will not be easy. We must remain on our guard, and I will arrange for certain herbal preparations that will offer extra protection. It will not, as I say, be easy, but we will succeed. And now I suggest that you fellows go off about your business – football club business. I am weary and sorely in need of rest.”

“Yes,” said Jim. “Well, thank you, Professor. Thank you for everything.”

“It is I who should thank you, Jim. I am responsible for the dangers to yourself, for which I am truly sorry. I will do whatever I can to make it up to you.”

“Will you teach me the secrets of astral projection?” Jim asked.

“No,” said Professor Slocombe.

“Oh,” said Jim.

“Just one thing,” John said. “What about the Eye? Is Starling coming here to reclaim it?”

“No need,” said Professor Slocombe, and he gestured to his desk. The Eye of Utu was no longer there to be seen.

Richard Gray leafed once more through the documents that had been placed before him. He made some marginal jottings with his fountain pen and then replaced its top and returned the pen to the topmost pocket of his topping suit.

“Mr Hartnel,” said Mr Gray, leaning back in his leather-upholstered chair and gazing across his expansive desk towards the shopkeeper who sat before him. “Mr Hartnel, I have been Brentford’s solicitor in residence for thirty-five years. I knew your father and, if you recall, I drew up the prenuptial agreement that your fiancee demanded.”

Norman nodded dismally. He recalled that all too well.

“And you have since come to me on many occasions, mostly, I recall, in the hope of securing financial backing for one of your, how shall I put this, imaginative inventions. How goes the Hartnel Grumpiness Hyper-Drive, by the way?”

“Very well, actually.” Norman smiled towards the solicitor, who did not return this smile. “I had to really shout at it this morning – I think there’s a bit of dirt in the carburettor.”

“Quite so. Suffice it to say that you have called upon me on many occasions, and here you are once more, upon this Monday morning, calling upon me with this –” Mr Richard Gray cast Norman’s contract towards Norman. “– and asking me to, how did you put it? ‘Give it a quick once-over, because a trouble shared is a trouble halved.’”

Norman’s head bobbed up and down in the manner of a felt dog in a Cortina rear window.

“What exactly do you expect me to say about this?”

“That it’s sound,” said Norman. “That I’m not going to be diddled out of my millions.”

Mr Richard Gray took up his desk calendar. It was one of those Victorian ones, with the little rollers with little brass knobs that you turn to alter the date and the day. “Am I misreading this?” he said.

“I don’t think so,” said Norman. “Why?”

“Because surely it must say April the first. Because surely this must be an April Fool’s Day jape.”

“I assure you, it is not,” said Norman.

“Then you are telling me that you hold five original patents?”

“I have them here in one of my duffel bags,” said Norman. “Would you care to take a look?”

“Certified by the Patent Office? Stamped with their official seal?”