“You left your body?” said John. “I have heard of such things. Were you in a car crash or something?”
“John, you’ve known me all my life. Have I ever been in a car crash?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then let me tell you what happened. Remember yesterday, when you told me all about what was going on and what had really happened to me on Friday night and you said that I took it very well?”
“You did,” said John, “ridiculously well, and then you came up with the plan to visit the Consortium building. Rather a bold plan, I considered, for one so normally timid as yourself.”
“I’m not timid,” said Jim, “I’m just cautious. But the reason I took it so well is because somehow I’ve always been expecting something like this to happen. I’ve always believed in this kind of stuff.”
“It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Because I knew you’d laugh.”
“I’m a Catholic,” said John. “You’d be surprised at all the old rubbish we Catholics believe in.”
“No, I wouldn’t. But this kind of thing has always fascinated me and I always hoped it would be real. You see, when I was a child, my dad gave me a copy of Lobsang Rampa’s book The Third Eye. It’s the autobiography of a man who grew up in a lamasery in Lhasa, Tibet. He became a lama and learned to open the third eye in his forehead. And he could see peoples’ auras and indulge in astral travel and even levitate.”
“Sounds most unlikely,” said John.
“And, sadly, so it proved to be. Years later the book was revealed to be a hoax written by Cyril Henry Hoskins, a plumber from Plympton.”
“Tough luck,” said John.
“But it didn’t put me off,” Jim continued. “And when I was a teenager I discovered Dr Strange in Marvel Comics – the original series, drawn by the now legendary Steve Ditko. Dr Strange learns all the stuff that Lobsang—”
“Cyril,” said John.
“Yes, that Cyril said he’d learned. He battles Baron Mordo and the Dread Dormammu. And I really, really wanted to do that, and every night I would lie naked on my bed and try to leave my body.”
“I’ve never heard it called that before,” said John, doing a Sid James snigger.
“Don’t be crude.” Jim sipped further Scotch. “But every night I tried, concentrating really hard. And then one night I actually did it.”
“You left your body?”
“Floated right out of myself. It was very scary at first. I sort of hung there above my bed, looking down at me, which I can tell you is very strange, because I didn’t look the way I thought I looked.”
Omally shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“Because,” said Jim, “we only see ourselves in mirrors, and that’s the wrong way round. That’s not the way we look to other people. We see ourselves in photographs, but that’s not the same, either.”
“Nice touch,” said John.
“What?”
“I said ‘nice touch’. That little detail adds a bit of authenticity to your ludicrous tale.”
“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 ea
sy, 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.
23
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?”
“Yes,” said Norman. And he drew out these items, somewhat crumpled due to their duffel-bag confinement and passed them across the expansive desk and into the manicured hands of Brentford’s solicitor in residence.
This man now examined these plans and documents and seals of certification. And then he sat back once more in his leather-upholstered chair.
“You are telling me,” he said, “that this is really real?”
Norman’s head nodded once more.
“But …” The solicitor perused the plans and the documentation and the contracts and anything else that he might possibly have previously overlooked.
“But?” Norman asked.
“But this is …” The solicitor’s voice trailed off.
“Are you all right?” Norman asked.
“Yes, yes.” Mr Gray raised a manicured hand. He tapped at a little desk console. “Ms Bennett,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” came a breathy feminine voice, a breathy feminine voice that Norman recognised to be that of the breathy feminine receptionist who had ushered him without charm into the solicitor’s office. “Ms Bennett, do we still have that bottle of champagne left over from the Jimmy Bacon case?”
“The one the gang gave you for getting him off the charge of indecent assault against the usherette of the Odeon cinema? And he was bloody guilty, you know that.”
“Quite so, Ms Bennett, but do we still have it?”
“It’s in the fridge, next to your inflatable love trout.”
“Hush.” Mr Richard Gray fluttered his fingers. “Please bring in the bottle and two glasses.”
And presently Ms Bennett entered the office of Mr Richard Gray. She was a stunner, was Ms Bennett, one of those curvy blonde bombshells of a type that have gone out of fashion, but really, truly should not have.
“There you go,” said she, leaning over Norman, who vanished in the shadow of her bosom, and placing the bottle of champagne and the glasses on to the expansive desk.
“That will be all,” said the solicitor in residence. “Back to your desk, now.”
“No champagne for me, then?” The bosom unshadowed Norman. The shapely legs were near enough for him to ogle shamelessly.
“Return to your desk, please,” said Mr Richard Gray.
Norman watched Ms Bennett depart, and sighed a little as she did so. He’d seen Ms Bennett in The Flying Swan once, in the company of John Omally.
“Champagne?” said Mr Richard Gray.
“Does this mean that the contract is A-okay?” asked Norman.
“Mr Hartnel,” said Mr Gray, uncorking the champagne and caring not one hoot for the fact that it spilled all over his expansive desk, and indeed his topping suit. “Mr Hartnel, what you have here is a contract drafted by the Consortium, a multinational concern headed by William Starling – whom, rumour has it, is shortly to be awarded the Order of the Garter by Her Majesty the Queen, God bless her.”
“I met him yesterday,” said Norman. “Very charming fellow.”
“A contract,” the solicitor continued, “that will be activated upon Cup Final Day, although I cannot understand why that should be.”
“Me neither,” said Norman, “but these things take time, I suppose. He’ll probably want to count all the many millions, make sure I’m not short-changed.”
“Undoubtedly so.” Mr Gray rolled his eyes.
More damn eye-rolling, thought Norman.
“Undoubtedly so,” Mr Gray continued, “but on that date, the Consortium will take control of your patents and you will receive a twenty-three-million-pound advance.”
“That’s what I thought it said,” said Norman.
“Against a fifty per cent royalty on your patented inventions. And given the groundbreaking nature of your inventions and the fact that they will totally revolutionise transport, telecommunications, power supply and just about everything else on the planet, I would estimate that within five years you will be one of the two richest men on Earth, Mr William Starling being the other.”
“You don’t think that I should hold out for a better deal then? Say a sixty per cent royalty?”
Mr Gray, who was sipping champagne, coughed into it. “Excuse me,” he said, drawing a shirt cuff sporting a Masonic cufflink over his mouth. “To bring these plans of yours into actuality will require a financial investment of millions. To have been offered a fifty per cent deal is beyond the wildest dreams of any inventor. History is being made here, Mr Hartnel, right here in this office.”
“Splendid,” said Norman, sipping his own champagne. “This isn’t as good as Mr Starling’s champagne,” he added.
“Mr Hartnel, you will soon be able to purchase every bottle of champagne in the whole world, should you so wish it.”
“I don’t think I would,” said Norman. “My fridge isn’t all that big.”
“Then buy another one. Buy ten – bu
y a thousand.”
“I wouldn’t know where to put them all.”
“Quite so. Then let us get down to business. More champagne?”
“I haven’t finished this one yet.”
“Then do.”
Norman did.
Mr Gray refilled his glass. “To business,” he said once more. “I am honoured that you have chosen me to represent you. You will, of course, need a great deal of legal advice during the coming months and years. There will be a lot of paperwork and a man of boundless wealth such as yourself would not wish to be burdened with it. But have no fear, I will take care of this tedious business for you. I will draw up an agreement of exclusivity.”
“What is that?” Norman asked.
“Nothing to trouble yourself about. Simply an agreement, a gentlemen’s agreement between the two of us, that I am your sole representative in all forthcoming legal matters. Your man, in fact. I will handle all your business, that you might enjoy the fruits of your labours, to whit, your enormous wealth.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Norman. “So the contract is A-okay, is it?”
“There is no small print. It is a thoroughly honest contract, with no legal loopholes and no danger to yourself of being swindled.”
“Splendid,” said Norman, gathering up the contract and his plans, patents and whatnots and so ons and ramming them back into his duffel bag.
“I’ll draw up the agreement now,” said Mr Gray. “A trifling point-five of a per cent and all your legal troubles will be forever behind you. This is your lucky day, Mr Hartnel. More champagne?”
“No thanks,” said Norman. “I have to get back to the shop. Peg thinks I’m in the toilet – I climbed out through the window.”
“It will take no more than a moment to draw up the agreement.” Mr Gray took out his fountain pen once more.
“Well,” said Norman, rising to his feet and shrugging, “thanks very much for the offer, but I don’t think I’ll bother. If the contract is A-okay, that’s enough for me.”
“Oh no,” said Mr Richard Gray. “Oh no, oh no, oh no. You have no idea of all the seemingly insurmountable problems that lie ahead of you. I can deal with them all. I am your man. I am your man.”
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