'You are a very rude young woman,' said the editor. 'Dismiss all thoughts of having sex with me.'

The only tidy thing resident to the office made a ghastly swallowing sound and said, 'Please forgive Mr Shields. He's been under a lot of pressure recently. My name is Derek and I am the Mercury's features editor. Can / get you a cup of tea?'

Kelly Anna looked at Derek and nodded her golden head. Derek wore a neat grey suit with a pressed white collarless shirt. He was young and tall and slim and handsome with short black hair and emerald eyes. And those eyes looked her full in the face and never once strayed to her breasts.

'Thank you Derek,' said Kelly Anna Sirjan. 'Lady Grey, without sugar.'

'Lady Grey, right.' Derek chewed his bottom lip. 'I might have to send out for that.'

'Well, whatever you have will be fine.'

'Fine. Then if you'll follow me, I'll show you around the building on the way.'

Derek led Kelly Anna from the office and closed the door behind him. The editor sat and fumed at his desk and made a very fierce face.

The face of Periwig Tombs was smiling sweetly. The tour bus was passing the allotments now and Big Bob Charker was singing the praises of Brentford's horti-culturalists.

'Twenty-three different varieties of tomato,' Big Bob said into the microphone. 'Twenty-three different varieties of sprout. And the mighty oak trees at the riverside end are the natural habitat of the lesser spotted grebe and the piebald finch chuck-chuck fiddledum bird.'

'Eh?' went Periwig as he swung the wheel. But his brain was roaring forward. Take a safari through the wildlifesanctuary and rare bird reserve of Allotment World. Enjoy a sprout and grebe burger at Periwigs, the exclusive allotmenteatery.

'Big bare-bottomed bumbly bees,' said the voice of Big Bob Charker. 'Busy busy bumble bees and Walter the Wasp as well.'

'Waspish,' said Kelly Anna Sirjan. 'Waspish, ill-mannered and clearly a misogynist.'

She sat opposite Derek at a window table in the Plume Cafe. The Plume Cafe sat at the top end of the High Street. The Plume Cafe boasted twenty-two different varieties of tea. None of which contained any sprout.

'I thought you'd like it better here than in the staff canteen,' said Derek.

'You mean that cupboard.'

'The staff canteen cupboard, yes. How's the tea?'

Kelly Anna Sirjan sipped her Lady Grey. 'Remarkably good, actually. The filtered water makes all the difference.'

'There's not much you can't get in Brentford if you know where to look.'

'I was talking about your boss, Mr Shields,' said Kelly Anna Sirjan.

'Yes, I know you were.' Derek sipped at his Typhoo. 'He's not a bad man. He's rather fierce and I agree he's something of a misogynist. But I'm afraid that he fears what you might do to the paper.'

'He should fear for his job,' said Kelly. 'Speaking to a complete stranger in the way that he did.'

'He has the job for life. It's written into his contract.'

'Only in Brentford,' said Kelly.

'Yes, you're right about that.'

'But he has nothing to fear from me anyway. I'm not here to change anything. I'm just here to study.'

'You want to learn how the paper's run? There's really not much to it.'

Kelly Anna plucked at her hair and turned smooth strands between her fingers. Backwards, forwards, backwards. 'It's not the paper,' she said. 'It's the town itself. I'm writing a thesis on it for my doctorate. I'm doing an MA in socio-economics. I approached the newspaper publisher at their head office. Told them about the project I had in mind. They put up the finance and arranged for me to come and work at the Brentford Mercury for three weeks. Mostly I just want to study the archives, learn about the history of the borough. I'm fascinated by the way that it appears to co-exist with the other boroughs surrounding it, yet remains curiously isolated and insular. I'm seeking to build up a general framework on which to hang my thesis.'

'Oh,' said Derek. 'Then Mr Shields has got it all wrong. He thought that you were some kind of troubleshooter from head office sent to shake up the place.'

'That's what head office would like me to do, but I don't want to cause any trouble. You can tell Mr Shields that I won't cause him any trouble.’

Derek smiled, exposing a set of perfect pearly-white teeth. 'Would you mind terribly if I didn't?' he said. 'I've worked at the Mercury for nearly two years now and he's shouted at me on every single day of them. It's been a real pleasure to watch him squirm, I'd like to enjoy it for just a little longer.'

Kelly raised an eyebrow. 'You're a naughty boy,' she said.

'Naughty bus,' said Periwig Tombs, struggling with the handbrake. 'I oiled you this morning, don't you get stuck on me now.'

The tour bus was parked at the western tip of the baseline of the Great Brentford Triangle.

'It is popularly believed', came the voice of Big Bob through the speaker system, 'that the city of Manchester has more canals in it than does Venice. This is.not altogether true, although we do have the world's most famous football team. Man U.'

'Eh?' went Periwig Tombs and he turned his head and slid back the little glass panel behind the driver's seat. 'Oi, Bob,' he called, along the deserted lower deck of the bus. 'Have you gone stone bonkers or something? What's all this toot about Man U?'

Big Bob's big head popped out from that special place where the bus conductors stand. 'Eee-up, bonny lad,' said he. And 'Eee-up, bonny lad' came out of the speakers.

'Eee-up, bonny lad?' shouted Periwig Tombs. 'That's not Manchester, that's Geordie, isn't it? Have you been drinking, or what?'

'Ding, ding,' went Big Bob. 'Hold very tight please.'

'You have been drinking!' shouted Periwig. 'You've been at the giggly pops.'

'Pardon I?' said Big Bob Charker. 'Giggly pops? What are those?'

'Piggly pops. Bimbo bubbly pops, damn me, I've forgotten how to speak.'

'Who are you?' asked Big Bob, suddenly. 'What are you doing in my front room?'

'He's lost it!' Periwig Tombs slammed shut the glass shutter and got into a bit of a sweat. 'He's gone mad. He's lost his lollipops, fan belts, no not those. What's happening? I'm getting out of here.'

Periwig did revvings of the engine and then stared out of the windscreen. 'Where am I?' he said. 'I don't recognize this place. I'm lost. The bus is lost.'

There came a dreadful rattling and banging at the shut glass shutter. Periwig ducked his head.

'Where are we?' shouted Big Bob Charker. He didn't have the mic any more. 'Get us back to Bren…' he paused. 'To Brentham, no to Brentside, no to Brenda, no to help! I'm lost! We're all lost. The bus is lost, help, help, help!'

Periwig Tombs stuck his foot down. He didn't know what was going on. What was happening to him or what was happening to Big Bob. But he suddenly felt very very afraid. Outside all the world was strange. The shops and houses, the lorries and cars. All were suddenly alien. Suddenly strange and unknown. His powers of recognition were blanking off. A car was a car and then it was not. Then it was just an odd-coloured shape. The road ahead was tarmac no more, now it was only grey matter.

'Aggh!' Periwig Tombs took his foot off the clutch. The bus was parked in second gear. The handbrake stretched and snapped and the old bus rumbled forward.

'What's this?' went Periwig, regarding the steering wheel in his hands. 'Black thing, coiled round? Spade? Spode? Snail? Snake? Snake'? Aaagh! Snake\'

Periwig covered his face with his hands. The bus began to gather speed.

The tourists on the top deck were unaware that anything untoward was occurring, other than that the rather odd commentary had ceased. They cheered as the bus scattered several pedestrians and had a passing parson off his pushbike.