I shrugged and said, ‘I will never understand the logic in your method of doing things.’

‘And I trust that you never will. Now dig.’

And so I turned pages and dug.

‘A woman in Chiswick has given birth to a child the shape of a vacuum cleaner,’ I said.

‘Dig further.’

‘Brentford Football Club have beaten Manchester United four-nil,’ I said. And I whistled as I said it, and after I had said it too.

‘And that is something they will do again. But a long way into the future and in quite another story altogether.’ [2]

‘Aha,’ I said. ‘Perhaps this is it. “SCIENTIST VANISHES”. Is that the kind of thing you are looking for?’

‘What do you think?’ Mr Rune asked, as his hand snaked out towards my bacon.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think that it is. I recall that the first Brightonomicon case we took on involved a lost dog. I think the case of a missing scientist might be a suitable one with which to begin our new quest. Would you care for me to go and take a stroll around the borough and see if I can find him by myself?’

Mr Rune did shakings of his head and swallowings too of my bacon. ‘From where did this scientist go missing?’ he enquired, once he had swallowed.

I skimmed through the article and read aloud from it.

Professor James Stigmata Campbell, a particle physicist working for the Ministry of Home Affairs, vanished from his laboratory in mysterious circumstances. His cellar laboratory was locked from the inside and his clothes were found strewn upon the floor. Professor Campbell had most recently announced a significant breakthrough in his field of endeavour, which he had been expected to deliver in a paper to a meeting of the Fellows of the Royal Society tonight. Police are baffled.

‘Perfect,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘And now go and answer the telephone. ’

‘But the telephone is not ringing.’

Mr Rune cupped a hand to his ear, counted three and the telephone rang.

I rose, a-shaking of my head, put down the newspaper and went off to answer the phone.

A fussy-voiced fellow in a state of considerable agitation demanded to speak to ‘that scoundrel Rune’. I asked him his name and he said it was Mr McMurdo. I placed my hand over the receiver and conveyed this intelligence to Mr Rune.

He mouthed the word ‘perfect’ once again. Said, ‘Tell him I will be right with him,’ then settled down for a nap.

I did as Mr Rune had told me, then put down the receiver and returned to my newspaper.

Some time later Hugo Rune rose and took up the phone.

Words were exchanged and then Mr Rune said, ‘You may consider the case of your missing scientist Professor Campbell as good as solved.’

He then replaced the telephone receiver, announced that now all was as it should be and counselled me to put on my socks and brogues as we were going out. And then he gave me a little box affair on a strap and told me that I must wear it over my shoulder at all times. I asked exactly what it might be and Mr Rune said that it was a gas mask.

‘But the Germans never used gas in the Second World War,’ I said. ‘Everyone knows that.’

‘And they never used the atom bomb either. According to what everyone thought they knew.’

‘Good point,’ I said. ‘Whatever it means.’ And I accepted my gas mask. ‘Will you be wanting me to hail a taxi?’ I asked, with justifiable trepidation, recalling as I did Mr Rune’s brutality towards cab drivers.

‘I think not, Rizla,’ said the guru’s guru, shrugging on a magnificent ulster coat. ‘Have you ever travelled on a tram?’

And I had not. As a child I had travelled on trolley buses and I remembered those well. But trams I had only seen in the Transport Museum, and the prospect of travelling upon one held considerable charm.

‘Top deck,’ said Mr Hugo Rune. ‘Then you will see wartime London.’

And so we travelled by tram. They ran the length of Brentford High Street – for in these times you could travel from Hounslow to the City of London by tram. And oh what a noise they made. And what a smell too. That electrical ozone smell that you generally associate only with bumper cars. And oh what sights I saw from the top deck of that tram. And oh how they saddened me greatly.

London was in ruins. I had never imagined the scale of the damage. Yes, I had seen The World at War [3] on television and I knew about the Blitz. But it seemed that hardly a house or a shop or a church or a public building had escaped some kind of damage. The destruction was heartbreaking; civilisation was literally being torn to pieces.

I must have made a very glum face at this, and I know that a tear or two took shape in my eyes. Mr Rune could see my distress and he told me to brighten up and offered me a fag.

‘A Capstan Full Strength,’ said he. ‘If you are intending to smoke, then do it as you would do any other thing – by fearlessly jumping in at the deep end. The poodle of perspicacity must bow its furry knee before the spaniel of spontaneity.’

And who was I to doubt him?

I had noticed, due to the fug and general stench, that the upper deck of the tram was the haunt of smokers and so I accepted Mr Rune’s offer and took to the ruining of my health as I viewed more ruination.

And sick at heart I felt as we travelled on that tram. I watched the gallant lads of the Auxiliary Fire Service dousing smouldering remains and members of the Ambulance Corps loading shrouded bodies into their canvas-cloaked lorries. I also saw members of the Home Guard coming and going and it looked for all the world to me as if it was some great film set for a wartime movie.

But I knew that it was none of this. It was real. The destruction and death. The sorrow and desperation. And I realised that I was now part of it. That Mr Rune and I were on a quest upon the outcome of which clung the lives of millions. This was no laughing matter.

Not that I felt like laughing. My unfailing cheerfulness had now failed me. I could not imagine that I would ever be happy again. That anyone who had experienced any of this could ever be happy again.

Although.

Well, my Aunt Edna had been through the Blitz. She had served in the Fire Brigade. And throughout my childhood, she had always been cheery enough. She had got over the horror. And so it seemed had most people of that generation. They had struggled through. And if they had survived intact they had been grateful for it and struggled on.

And I had heard about the Blitz Spirit.

Although I could not really see any evidence of that right here and now.

‘Perhaps we should have taken the Underground,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘This must be difficult for you.’

‘I will survive,’ I said. ‘But it is terrible. Awful. I had no idea that it would be as dreadful as this.’

‘And it could get so very much worse. Which is why we are here to put things aright. Are you enjoying that Capstan?’

I put on what I considered to be a brave face. Although, I feared, one tinged with grey. I was now having considerable trouble keeping my breakfast down.

My brave face was spied out by a rather shabby-looking individual sporting the traditional cloth cap that marked him out as one of the working class of this particular period, poor but honest and given to a cockney singalong at the drop of his, or anyone else’s, hat.

‘Gawd smother my loins in liniment,’ said he, ‘but that’s a brave face you’re putting on there, guv’nor. And you a toff by the look of your right-royal raiments.’

I glanced at Mr Rune, wondering whether this fellow’s banter might cause the Perfect Master to bring his stout stick into play. But Mr Rune now appeared to be snoozing, so I just smiled at the fellow.