‘The very same.’
‘The callous swine,’ said John Omally. ‘So what happened then?’
‘Exactly what you might expect. Open rebellion on the part of the unmarked. What they could no longer buy they took. There was looting and burning and killing. Much killing. Under the direction of the Government’s master computer martial law was imposed. The computer issued a brief edict: all those who do not bear the mark to be shot on sight.’
‘Are you making this up, Soap?’ Omally leant forward in his seat and waggled his fist threateningly beneath the hollow Earther’s all-but-transparent nose. ‘Jim and I have both sussed that something pretty grim is going on here. Although we are trapped by a seemingly impenetrable barrier, the shops never run dry. There is always milk and fags, bread and beer, although that is tasting a bit odd of late. It must all be coming in from the outside, although we haven’t figured out exactly how as yet. Parachutes in the dead of night we suspect.’
‘You’re on a wrong’n,’ said Soap. ‘Nothing gets in or out except me. And there’s no food going begging out there either.’
‘So how do you account for it then?’
‘It is all manufactured right here in the parish.’
‘Oh rot,’ said Jim. ‘Do you see any cows grazing in the Memorial Park, or any hop fields or tobacco plantations? Talk sense, Soap, please. How could any of it be made here?’
‘It is all artificially produced. Every last little thing, it’s all synthetic. Including your manky beer.’ Soap pushed his glass aside. ‘I can’t tell you how it’s done but I can tell you who’s doing it.’
‘Lateinos and Romiith,’ said Omally in a doom-laden voice.
‘None other. What do you think the walls are up for anyway?’
‘To keep us in,’ Jim said gloomily. ‘To keep me in and stop me spending my money.’
‘Wrong,’ said Soap. ‘To keep the others out. Those walls were whipped up to protect the master computer complex in Abaddon Street. It is the centre of the whole operation.’
‘They got my antique bedstead, the foul and filthy fiends,’ snarled Omally, ‘and now my beer also. Will it never end?’
‘But why is this master complex in Brentford?’ Jim asked. ‘I’d always pictured Armageddon getting off to its first round in a somewhat more Biblical setting. The gasworks and the flyover just don’t seem to fit.’
‘You’ll have to ask the Professor about that,’ said Soap. ‘Or possibly your man there.’ Soap stretched out a pale hand towards the tall, gaunt spectre wearing long out-moded tweeds and smoking a Turkish cigarette who now stood majestically framed in the Swan’s famous portal.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Mr Sherlock Holmes, gesturing to the three seated figures, two of which were now cowering away and seeking invisibility, ‘if I might just prevail upon your aid in a small matter.’
‘And there was I utterly convinced that things could get no worse,’ said John Omally. ‘Oh foolish fellow me.’
18
Sherlock Holmes strode up the Ealing Road, his cigarette billowing smoke about his angular visage. Pooley and Omally plodded behind, and had they chosen to pause a moment and look around they might just have caught sight of the manhole cover which closed upon Soap’s retreating form.
‘I merely wish you to be close at hand,’ said Sherlock Holmes as he marched along. ‘Just button your lips and hang loose, got me?’
Pooley, who had recently purchased for the detective an advanced video recorder and the complete series of Basil Rathbone cassettes, thought to detect the hint of an American accent creeping into the Victorian voice. ‘Oh, gotcha,’ he said.
Outside Norman’s corner-shop Holmes drew to a sudden halt. His two followers did likewise and peered without enthusiasm through the spotless plexiglass of the new aluminium-framed door to where Norman stood behind his shining counter. The true shopkeeper was busy in his kitchenette, bent low over a set of indecipherable plans scrawled on to the innards of a cornflake packet. He scarcely heard the shop door-bell chime out an electronic fanfare. His double peered up from the countertop computer terminal and surveyed his three potential customers. The Irish one, cowering to the rear, owed, he recalled. Clearing his throat with a curiously mechanical coughing sound, he asked, ‘How might we serve you, gentlemen?’
‘We?’ queried Sherlock Holmes.
‘The plurality is used in a purely business sense,’ the robot replied. ‘We, the interest, which is Norman Hartnell, corner shop, as a small concern, realize the need to extend a personal welcome to the prospective client in these competitive times.’
‘Very precise,’ said Sherlock Holmes. ‘An ounce of Ships, if you please.’
‘Certainly, sir.’ The robot slipped his hand behind his back and drew out the packet. Omally considered that to be a pretty sneaky move by any reckoning.
‘You have redecorated your premises, I see,’ said Holmes.
Considering this to be a simple statement of fact which required no reply, the robot offered none.
‘And all achieved with the left hand.’
The creation stiffened ever so slightly but retained its composure, although a fleeting look of suspicion crossed its face. Pooley and Omally both stepped back unconsciously.
‘I was always given to understand that you were right-handed,’ Holmes continued.
‘That will be eighteen shillings and sixpence, please, sir.’ The robot stretched forward both hands, that he might exhibit no personal preference.
‘Put it on my slate, please,’ said Sherlock Holmes.
Beneath his breath John Omally began to recite the rosary.
Holmes’ deadly phrase clanged amongst the robot’s network of inner circuitry and awakened the word ‘Dimac’. ‘Eighteen shillings and sixpence, please,’ the robot Norman said. ‘The management regret that. . .’
‘So I have been given to understand,’ said Holmes. ‘If it is not inconvenient, I should like a word or two with the management.’
‘I am it.’ The robot pressed his hands to the countertop and prepared to spring over. ‘Kindly hand me the eighteen shillings and sixpence.’
‘I think not,’ said Sherlock Holmes. ‘Let us not bandy words, please. If the real Norman Hartnell still draws breath then I wish to speak with him. If not, then I am making a citizen’s arrest.’
The robot lunged forward across the counter and made a grab at the detective’s throat. Holmes stepped nimbly beyond range and drew out his revolver. He pointed it at the space between the robot’s eyes, his aim was steady and unshaking. ‘Hurry now,’ he said, ‘my time is valuable.’
The robot stared at the great detective. Its lips were drawn back from its plasticized teeth which glowed an evil yellow. Its eyes blazed hatred and its hands crooked into cruel claws.
‘Hold hard or I fire.’
The pseudo-shopkeeper crouched low upon his knees and suddenly leapt upwards. Holmes’ finger closed about the trigger, but the inhuman reactions of the creation far outmatched his own. The thing leapt upwards, passing clean through the ceiling of the shop, bringing down an avalanche of lathe and plaster and tumbling timber-work. Holmes staggered backwards, shielding his face from the falling debris. Pooley and Omally adopted the now legendary foetal position. A series of further crashes signalled the departure of the robot through the walls of Norman’s back bedroom.
Startled by the sounds of destruction, the shopkeeper burst through his kitchenette door into the now thoroughly ventilated shop. He gazed up at the crude hole yawning above and then down at the faces of the three coughing and spluttering men as they slowly appeared amidst the cloud of dust.
‘What. . . who . . . why . . . ?’ Norman’s voice trailed off as Sherlock Holmes rose from the debris, patting plaster from his shoulders, and removing a section of lathing from his hair.
‘Mr Hartnell,’ he said, ‘it is a pleasure to meet you actually in the flesh, as it were.’
Pooley and Omally blinked their eyes towards the gaping ceiling, tow
ards the startled shopkeeper, and finally towards each other. Shaking their dust-covered heads in total disbelief, they followed the detective who was even now ushering the fretful Norman away into his kitchenette. Holmes suggested that Omally might bolt the front door and put up the ‘Closed For The Day’ sign. This the Irishman did with haste, fearing that he might miss anything of what might be yet to come.
When he entered the kitchenette he found Norman squatting upon his odd-legged chair in the centre of the room, surrounded by a clutter of bizarre-looking equipment which was obviously the current fruit of his prodigious scientific brain. Holmes perched behind him upon the kitchen table, a tweedy vulture hovering above his carrion lunch. Without warning he suddenly thrust a long bony finger into Norman’s right ear.
‘Ooh, ouch, ow, get off me,’ squealed the shopkeeper, doubling up.
Holmes examined his fingertip and waggled it beneath his nose. ‘I pride myself,’ said he, ‘that, given a specimen of earwax, I can state the occupation of the donor with such accuracy that any suggestion of there being an element of chance involved is absolutely confounded.’
‘Really?’ said Omally studying the ceiling and kicking his heels upon the new lino of the floor.
‘Who’s your friend?’ whined the persecuted shopkeeper.
‘Don’t ask,’ counselled Jim Pooley.
‘I will ask the questions, if you don’t mind.’ Holmes prodded Norman in the ribs with a patent leather toecap.
‘I do, as it happens,’ said Norman, flinching anew.
‘Be that as it may, I believe that you have much to tell us.’
‘B***er off, will you?’ Norman cowered in his seat.
‘Language,’ said Jim. ‘Mr H, our companion here, is a house-guest of the Professor’s. He can be trusted absolutely, I assure you.’
‘I have nothing to say. What is all this about anyway? Can’t you see I’m busy redecorating?’
‘The shop ceiling seems a bit drastic,’ said John.
‘Blame the wife,’ Norman said sarcastically. ‘She said she wanted two rooms knocked into one.’
‘I once heard George Robey tell a similar joke,’ said Holmes. ‘It was old even then, I believe.’
‘George Robey?’
‘No matter. Now, sir, there are questions that must be answered. How can it be that your duplicate works in your shop yet you still exist? Show me your palms, sir.’
‘Show me your palms? Jim, where do you meet these people?’ A sudden clout on the back of the head sent the shopkeeper sprawling.
‘Here, steady on,’ cried Jim. ‘There’s no need for any of that. Sherlock Holmes never engaged in that kind of practice.’
‘Changing times,’ the detective pronounced, examining his knuckles.
‘Sherlock Holmes?’ sneered Norman from the deck. ‘Is that who he thinks he is?’
‘Your servant, sir,’ said Holmes, bowing slightly from the waist.
‘Oh yes?’ Norman cowered in the corner shielding his privy parts. ‘Well if you’re Sherlock Holmes then tell me, what are the thirty-nine steps?’
‘This is where I came in,’ said Jim.
Holmes leant forward and waggled his waxy finger towards Norman. ‘Spill the beans, you,’ he cried. ‘Spill the beans!’
‘He’s been watching the Basil Rathbone reruns,’ Pooley whispered to Omally.
‘If you don’t mind,’ said John, ‘I think Jim and I will take our leave now. We are men of peace, and displays of gratuitous violence trouble our sensitivities. Even in the cause of justice and the quest for truth, we find them upsetting.’
Pooley nodded. ‘If you are now preparing to wade in with the old rubber truncheon, kindly wait until we have taken our leave.’
‘Fellas,’ whined the fallen shopkeeper, ‘fellas, don’t leave me here with this lunatic.’
‘Sorry,’ said Jim, ‘but this is none of our business.’
‘If you really wish to make a fight of it, your Dimac should be a match for his Barritso.’ Omally pointed to the still prominent lump upon his forehead, which bore a silent if painful testimony to his previous encounter with the martial shop-man.
‘That wasn’t me, John, I swear it.’
‘So,’ said Sherlock Holmes, ‘then spill the beans, buddy.’
‘All right, all right, but no more hitting.’
‘No more hitting,’ said Sherlock Holmes.
Buddy prepared himself to spill all the beans.
19
Old Pete thrust his wrinkled hand beneath the shining plexiglass counter-shield of the sub-post office. The dark young man now serving behind the jump did not remove his minuscule headphones but merely nodded as he passed the electronic light-wand across the ancient’s palm. He punched a few details into the computer terminal and awaited the forthcoming readout. Upon its arrival he raised a quizzical eyebrow towards the pensioner and said, ‘There appears to be some discrepancy here, sir. I suggest that you come back next week.’
Old Pete glared daggers at the dark young fellow-me-lad behind the tinted screen. ‘What damned discrepancy?’ he demanded.
The young man sighed tolerantly. ‘The computer registers a discrepancy,’ he said. ‘It states that for the last ten years you have been receiving two pensions each week. Such a thing could not, of course, happen now under the new advanced system. But with the old Giro, well who knows? We shall just have to resubmit the data and await a decision.’
‘And how long will that take?’
‘Well, computer time is valuable, you are allotted six seconds weekly; we will see what happens when your turn comes around again.’
‘And in the meantime?’ foamed Old Pete. ‘Do you mean that until your filthy electronic box of tricks gives you the go-ahead I am penniless?’
‘The word "penniless" no longer applies. It is simply that, pending investigations, your credit is temporarily suspended. You must understand that this is for the public good. We are trying to institute the new system hereabouts in a manner that will cause minimum civil unrest.’
‘You’ll get maximum civil unrest if I don’t get my damned pensions, I mean, pension!’ Young Chips growled in agreement and bared his fangs.
‘Next customer, please,’ the dark young man said.
‘Hold hard,’ cried Old Pete raising his stick. ‘I want to speak to the manager.’
‘This branch no longer has a manager, sir, but an operator, fully conversant, I hasten to add, with all current trends in new technology.’
‘A pox upon your technology. Who do I see about my pension?’
‘Well you might fill in a form which we will forward in due course to Head Office, requesting a manual systems over-ride, although the procedure is somewhat archaic and extremely lengthy.’
‘Then I’ll go up to your Head Office and speak with them.’
The dark young man laughed malevolently. ‘One does not simply go up to Lateinos and Romiiths and speak to them. Whoever heard of such a thing?’ He smirked towards his assistant, who tittered behind her hand and turned up her eyes.
‘Oh don’t they, though?’ snarled Old Pete, grinding upon his dentures and rapping his Penang-lawyer upon the plexiglass screen. ‘Well, we’ll see about that.’ With Chips hard on his down-at-heels, the ancient departed the sub-post office, walking for once without the aid of his stick.
Ahead, where once had been only bombsite land, the Lateinos and Romiith building rose above Brentford, a dark and accusing finger pointing towards the enclosed triangle of grey-troubled sky. Sixty-six floors of black lustreless glass, swallowing up the light. Within its cruel and jagged shadow magnolias wilted in their window-boxes and synthetic gold-top became doorstep cheese. It was not a thing of beauty but there was a terrible quality of a joyless for ever about it. High upon the uppermost ramparts, amid the clouds, tiny figures came and went, moving at a furious pace, striving to increase its height. Never had there been a Babel tower more fit for the tumbling, nor a fogey more willing to take on the task.
Old Pete rounded the corner into Abaddon Street and glowered up at the sheer glass monolith.
‘Progress,’ he spat, rattling his ill-fitting dentures. ‘A pox on it all.’ His bold stride suddenly became a hobble once more as he passed into the bleak shadow of the imperious building and sought the entrance. A faceless wall met his limited vision. Another painful hundred yards, a further corner, and another blank wall of featureless glass. ‘Damned odd,’ wheezed the ancient to his dog as he plodded onwards once more. The entrance to the building could only be in the High Street. To Old Pete’s utter disgust and still increasing fury, it was not.
He now stood leaning upon his cane beneath the night-black structure, puffing and blowing and cursing loudly whenever he could draw sufficient breath. There was simply no way in or out of the building, not a doorway, not an entrance, not a letter-box or a nameplate, nothing. Young Chips cocked his furry head upon one side and peered up at his ancient master. The old boy suddenly looked very fragile indeed. The snow-capped head shook and shivered, and beneath the frayed cuffs of his only suit, the gnarled and knobby hands with their blue street-maps of veins knotted and reknotted themselves into feeble fists. ‘We’ll get to the bottom of this,’ snarled Old Pete, still undefeated. Once more raising his stick he struck out at the dead-black wall towering towards infinity. The blow did not elicit a sound and this raised the ancient’s fury to cardiac arrest level. Pummelling for all he was worth he retraced his steps and staggered back towards Abaddon Street.
As the aged loon lurched along, raining blows upon the opaque glass, a hidden probe, shielded from his vision, moved with him, scanning his every movement. Digesting and cataloguing the minutiae that made up Old Pete. Through an advanced form of electro-carbon dating it penetrated the bone rings of his skull and accurately calculated his age to five decimal places. Its spectroscopic intensifiers analysed the soil samples beneath his fingernails and generated graphs which were no matters for jest. Fluoroscopes X-rayed his lower gut and ruminated upon the half-digested lunchtime pork pies, which contained no traces of pork whatever. The probe swept into the fabric of his wartime shirt, illuminating a thousand hidden laundry marks and cross-indexed them. It moved down to his underpants and hurriedly retraced its metaphorical footsteps to areas above belt-level. It checked out the tweed of his jacket, measured the angles of the lapels and, through numerous esoteric calculations, tracked down the suit’s manufacture to a Wednesday in a long hot summer prior to the Great War. The computer banks gulped it all down and gorged themselves upon the feast of data; gurgled with delight and dug in ever more deeply in search of further toothsome morsels. They entered secretly into his head and chewed upon his brain cells, ravenously seeking the possibility of electron particle variables in the codex of his cerebellum.
East of Ealing Page 12
