“Ah,” said John, when Jim had done with his explaining. “It all makes perfect sense. It’s quite simple, really.”

Jim cast John that old-fashioned look.

“What?” said John.

“Never mind,” said Jim. “But as you can see, there’s a lot of away games and we must be prepared.”

“Right,” said John.

“Right,” said Jim.

“Anything else you can think of?” John asked.

“Not really,” said Jim.

“Right,” said John once again.

“Right indeed,” said Jim.

There was a pause. A moment of silence.

John perused his wristlet watch. “The bar’s open,” he said.

The saloon bar door of The Flying Swan wasn’t open, even though it was now five past eleven.

The door of Neville’s bedroom wasn’t open, either. It was similarly locked. Neville sat upon his bed and Neville had a big sweat on. Downstairs, he knew, downstairs in his saloon bar, were two young women. Two beautiful young women. Two beautiful young women who were stripped to the waist.

Neville shuddered. His fingers trembled. These trembling fingers poured a trembling but substantial measure of his private stock of whisky into a glass that would have held his false teeth, had he worn any. Which he didn’t, for his teeth were all his own. Neville upended the glass into his mouth and gulped back the contents. What was he going to do? He couldn’t go down there and stand at the bar, his bar, with those things bobbing away on either side of him. He’d faint again. He knew he would. Well, faint again again. Because he had re-fainted after the first time, when Pippa and Loz had loomed over him trying to bring him round by fanning him with the T-shirts they’d removed.

“What am I going to do?” cried Neville.

But answer came there none.

“I could run.” Neville’s good eye turned towards his wardrobe and the battered suitcase that gathered dust upon its top. Slip out, over the back wall, make a run for it.

Neville shook his head. Fiercely. No, that wouldn’t do. The Swan was his life. He wouldn’t be driven from it by two pairs of breasts. It was unthinkable.

Sadly it wasn’t unthinkable, because Neville was thinking it.

“What am I going to do?” Neville took up his pillow and hugged it to his own bosom. “What am I going to do?”

And then something caught the part-time barman’s good eye. Something that had been under his pillow. Something that he had all but forgotten about. He’d put it there for safekeeping. And because, in its plastic bag, it had looked very suspicious behind the bar amongst the Spanish souvenirs. It had looked, in fact, like drugs.

Which somehow, in a way, was what it was: the bag of Mandragora given to him by Old Pete.

Neville took up the bag, opened it and sniffed at its contents suspiciously. What had that old villain said? That stuff will make you a god-damn sexual tyrannosaurus. Just like me. Neville quite liked the smell. It smelt fruity. But what, exactly, did it really do? Did it really prolong active life, increase virility, put a spring in your step and lead in your pencil?

What if it did?

Neville took a deep breath through his mouth and blew it out of his unblocked nostril. It might be just what he needed – a bit of a sexual pick-me-up, or at least something that would lift his spirits, take the edge off his blind terror, simply give him confidence. What would be the harm in taking it? Old Pete wouldn’t poison him, that was unlikely.

Although.

Neville held the packet at arm’s length. The oldster had a wicked sense of humour. This fruity-smelling herbal something might prove to be a powerful laxative.

“No,” said Neville, drawing it near to himself once more and giving it another sniff. “He prides himself on his horticultural knowledge. If he says that this stuff does what he says it does, then it will do what he says it does.”

And with that said, Neville emptied a small quantity into his false-teeth-glass-if-he-wore-false-teeth-which-he-didn’t. And topped the glass up with whisky.

“Tell you what,” said Neville, steeling himself and tipping in at least half the remaining contents of the bag. “In for a penny, in for a pound. There’s no point in going off half-cocked, is there?”

Norman felt remarkably chipper.

Which was odd, considering.

Considering the punishment he’d taken when the floor of the executive box had given way.

Norman distinctly remembered falling through. And coming into contact with the concrete of the stand below. And then the other shopkeepers coming into contact with him, as they, too, plummeted downwards. And Norman also remembered the sounds, those terrible sounds of his own bones breaking – his wrist bones and his ribcage, and his jaw, as well.

He could remember all this. And then things went a bit hazy.

Norman stood behind the counter of Peg’s Paper Shop and felt at himself. Gingerly. He wasn’t even bruised. How could that be? By all accounts he should surely be dead, but he wasn’t. How could that be?

Norman scratched at his wig and sought an answer. There was something, he was sure of it. He did have some recollections. A face swam into Norman’s thoughts, if faces could but swim. And this face was the face of Archroy.

Archroy.

“Yes,” whispered Norman. “I think I do recall, after all.”

He could see the face of Archroy gazing down at him. It was a face displaying an expression of concern. And a voice, too – Archroy’s voice. And the voice said, “Don’t worry, old chap, you’ll be all right. You’re not going to die.”

“Die?” whispered Norman. “I was going to die.”

And the shopkeeper remembered something else, amongst all the chaos and the screaming and the people running in all directions (well, one direction each). Something Archroy had put over him. Something woolly and warm and golden and twinkling.

And then that was it.

And Norman had woken up in his bed with not a bruise or a bit of his person broken.

And Peg had actually let him sleep late, until nearly half-past ten. Which was decidedly odd in itself. Beyond odd, in fact. Little less than unnerving.

“Odd,” whispered Norman. “Most odd. I will have to speak to Archroy of this. I’ve heard that he’s definitely back in the borough.”

“What are you whispering about?” boomed the voice of Peg.

“Nothing, my dear, nothing. In fact, I’m just popping out for a moment. I won’t be more than five minutes.”

“You’d better not be.”

Norman slipped off his shopkeeper’s coat and slipped from the shop. He crossed the road and entered the phone box (a red K2 designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott) and from here he phoned the offices of Mr Richard Gray, Solicitor of Law.

Ms Yola Bennett answered the phone.

“It’s me,” said Norman.

“Norman,” said Yola. “My love, how are you?”

“How are you?” Norman asked. “I woke up in my bed this morning, but I don’t remember getting home. Things are a bit confused. Were you injured?”

“I wasn’t in the box when the floor fell through, I was downstairs in the bar. I couldn’t find you in all the confusion. They said you were taken to the hospital, but you weren’t. I’ve been so worried.”

“Well, I’m fine,” said Norman. “Not even a chafing. Would you care for a lunchtime shag, I mean drink?”

“I can’t get away this lunchtime. We’ve got a lot of bandaged-up town councillors here, all intent on suing the club for compensation.”

“Oh,” said Norman. “Well, perhaps tonight? I’ll call you later.”

“E-mail me,” said Yola. “You do have a computer, don’t you, Norman?”

“I certainly do.”

“Then take down my e-mail address and e-mail me.”