John drew deeply upon his pint. “You find me a puzzled man,” said he with some sincerity.

Pooley nodded, “I also am puzzled,” he said tapping his chest.

The part-time barman stood silently a moment, hoping for a little elaboration, but when it became apparent that none was to be forthcoming he picked up a pint glass and began to polish it.

“You have had no luck yet with the disablement of that horror?” said Omally, gesturing over his shoulder towards the video machine.

Neville accelerated his polishing. “None whatever,” he snarled. “I have tried the hot soup through the vent, the bent washer in the slot, assault with a deadly weapon. I have tried simply to cut the lead but the thing is welded into the wall.”

“Why not pull the fuse at the mains box?” Pooley asked.

Neville laughed hollowly. “My first thought. Our friends from the brewery have thought of that. I have pulled every fuse in the place, but it still runs. It works off some separate power supply which doesn’t even register on the electric meter. It cannot be switched off. Night and day it runs. I can hear it in my room, humming and humming. I swear that if something is not done soon I will tender my resignation, if only to save my sanity.”

“Steady on,” said Jim.

“Look at it!” Neville commanded. “It is an obscenity, an abomination, an insult!” He placed one hand over his heart and the other palm downward upon the bar-top. “Once,” said he, “once, if you will recall, one could sit in this pub enjoying the converse of good friends well met. Once, in a corner booth, meditate upon such matters as took your fancy. Little, you will remember, and correct me if I am wrong or sinking into melancholy, little broke the harmony of the place but for the whisper of the feathered flight. Once…”

“Enough, enough,” said Jim. “Hold hard now, you are bringing a lump to my throat which is causing some interference to my drinking.”

“I am not a man to panic,” said Neville, which all knew to be a blatant lie. “But this thing is wearing down my resistance. I cannot take much more, I can tell you.”

Omally noted well the desperation upon the barman’s face and felt sure that there was the definite possibility of financial advancement in it. “You need to play a shrewd game with those mechanical lads,” he said, when he thought the time was right. “A firm hand is all they understand.”

Neville’s eyes strayed towards the jukebox, which had not uttered a sound these ten years, since Omally had applied a firm hand to its workings. It seemed a thing of little menace now compared with the video machine, but Neville could vividly recall the agonies he had gone through at the time. “You feel that you might meet with such a challenge?” he asked in an even voice.

“Child’s play,” said Omally, which made Pooley choke upon his ale.

“Good show.” Neville smiled bravely and pulled two more pints. “These are on the house,” he said.

Old Pete, whose hearing was as acute as his right arm sound, overheard the last remark. “Good morning, John, Jim,” he said, rising upon his stick. “A fine day is it not?”

“It started poorly,” said Omally, “but it is beginning to perk up. Cheers.”

“Been to the allotment then?” the ancient enquired, placing his empty glass upon the counter and indicating the mud-bespattered condition of the two secret golfers.

“Weeding,” said John, making motions with an ethereal shovel. “Spring up overnight, those lads.”

Old Pete nodded sagely. “It is strange,” said he, “what things spring up upon an allotment patch overnight. Take my humble plot for instance. You’ll never guess what I found on it the other day.”

Pooley, who had a kind of intuition regarding these things, kept silent.

“Golf tee,” said Old Pete in a harsh stage whisper.

“Large rum over here,” said Omally, rattling Pete’s glass upon the bar.

“How unexpected,” said the wily old bastard. “Bless you boys, bless you.”

Omally drank a moment in silence. “Now tell me, Pete,” said he, when the ancient had taken several sips upon his freeman’s, “how spins the world for you at the present hour?”

Old Pete grunted non-committally. “It is a case of mustn’t grumble, I suppose.”

“No news then? Nothing out of the ordinary or untoward on the go?”

“Not that I can think of, did you have anything in mind?”

“No, nothing.” Omally made a breezy gesture. “It is just, well, to be frank, Pete, it is well known that little, if anything, going on in the Borough ever slips by you, as your present drink will bear testimony to. I just thought that you might have some little snippet of interest up your four-buttoned sleeve.”

“You couldn’t be a little more specific?” said Pete, draining his glass. “So much happens hereabouts, as you know, to keep one’s finger upon the pulse is a thirsty business.”

Omally looked towards Pooley, who shrugged. “Same again please, Neville,” said John to the part-time barman, who had been hovering near at hand, ears waggling.

“All the way round?”

“All the way.”

The honours were done and to Neville’s disgust Old Pete drew his benefactors away to the side-table, beneath which his dog Chips lay feigning slumber. The three men seated themselves. “Would I be right in assuming that you have something on your mind, Omally?” the ancient asked.

“It is but a trivial matter,” Omally lied, “hardly worth wasting your valuable time with, but I must confess that it causes me some perplexity.”

“Ask on then, John, you are two drinks to credit and I am by no means a hard man to deal with.”

“Then I shall get straight to the point. Have you seen a suspicious-looking character skulking around, on, or near the sacred soil of our allotments?”

Old Pete nodded. “Of course I have,” he answered, “both there and elsewhere.”

“Wearing a grey coverall suit, sallow complexion, high cheek-bones?”

“Looks like a young Jack Palance?”

“The very same.”

“I have seen several.”

“Oh dear,” said Pooley, “more than one?”

“At least four. Take my warning, they have the mark of officialdom upon them. I saw one last week down by the cut, one yesterday on the corner of the Ealing Road, and there is one drinking this very minute in the far corner over by the gents’ bog.”

“What?” Omally’s head spun in the direction of the gents’. There in the darkened corner stood a sinister figure in a grey uniform. His features were blurry in the dun light, but it was almost certainly the same individual that he and Pooley had spied out on the allotment not half an hour earlier. As Omally watched, the figure turned his back upon them and strode through the door into the gents’.

“All right, Pete,” said Omally, turning to the ancient. “Who is he?”

Old Pete shrugged. “There you have me, I’m afraid. When first I saw them I took them for Council workers. They had some kind of instruments mounted on a tripod and appeared to be marking the ground. But I never got close enough to question them. They slipped away into side roads or off down alleyways upon my approach. This is the nearest that I have so far come to one of them.”

“But you are sure that there are more than one?” Pooley asked.

“I have seen as many as three of them together at one time. As like as the proverbial peas in a pod. Suspicious, I call it.”

“I shall go and question him.” Omally rose from his chair.

“Best wait till he comes out,” Jim suggested. “It is hardly sporting to corner a man in the bog.”

“Do it now while you have him cornered,” said Old Pete. “They are a sly crowd. I never saw that fellow enter the Swan and I was the first man in.”

“That settles it,” said John, drawing up his cuffs. “I shall have it out with him.” Without further word he crossed the bar and pushed open the door to the gents’.

It closed gently behind him and a long minute passed. Pooley looked up at the Guinness clock and watched the second hand sweeping the dial. “Do you think he’s all right?” he whispered.