A tray of comets arced through the serving win-dow, caught upon the mild night breeze, danced prettily along the open road and finally came to rest on the bonnet of a parked police car.

This was a 'marked' police car. All state-of-the-art technology: the big number on the top for helicopter recognition during 'riot situations'; the regulation police-issue revolver, that they always swear blind they never carry, in its usual clip beneath the glovey; the speed trap monitor thingy; and an unholy host of computer-a.s.sisted in-car crime-busting paraphernalia. The whole bit. And in this sat two, police officers. One was young and lean and pale and pimply. He munched a Big Mac, between sucks on a strawberry milkshake. The other was solid and stocky, military -moustached and in the middle of his years. He tugged ruefully upon a corned beef sandwich and sipped from a flask of Earl Grey tea.

Now, it could well be argued that the introduction, so soon, of yet another police car, be it marked or unmarked, was pushing credibility just a tad. Possibly so, but then if that's pushing credibility, just wait until you cop the ident.i.ty of the rueful tugger.

'Did you see that, Sarge?' asked the pale and pimply police constable, Ken Loathsome.

'I did, son,' replied reliable Ron St.u.r.dy (for it was none other). 'Radio-in our position and we shall give chase forthwith.'

The unmarked police car now lurked on the corner of Moby d.i.c.k Terrace. The lights were out and the driver's window down. At the wheel and all alone, Inspectre Hovis stewed in a black fug and a green tweed suit. The dreadful aspect of his shadowed stare was a real bra.s.s bed-wetter and no matter how you viewed him, the Inspectre was not a happy Hovis.

Oblivious to alliteration, the dour detective delved a discreet digit delicately down and drew a diamond-decked dandy case from the pocket of his waistcoat. Flipping this open with a practised thumb, he teased out a hand-rolled cigarette, tucked it between his lips and prepared himself to be oblivious to pseudo- Shakespearianisms also.

For lo, within that darkling car a match did flame and swiftly fled sleek plumes of smoke as wraiths toward the star-strewn canopy of night.

Oblivious also to the ever-present possibility of ruination to his career, Inspectre Hovis drew deeply on his tailor-made. Savouring his favoured blend, Virginia Plain, cut with ambergris, dried persim-mon, flaked peyote b.u.t.ton and Egyptian hashish. An acquired taste, but a really decent blow, once you had the measure of its mellow fruitfulness.

And Inspectre Hovis had. He was something of a connoisseur when it came to the use of restricted substances. Holding strongly to the conviction that, when the going gets tough, the tough should get stoned out of their boxes. And, at the present, the going did seem to be getting irksomely tough.

Relocated to Portakabin purgatory. Bereft of reliable Ron. Banged up with a seventeen-year-old pragmatist and now this. Here. This here. Hovis glared out at the night. Here. Here of all places. Back here in b.l.o.o.d.y Brentford!

With the entire Metropolitan district and most of the known world to choose from, with crime rampant up every street and down every alleyway of every town and every city, with criminals hailing from the far-flung corners of G.o.d's good earth, why did he always end up here? Here in b.l.o.o.d.y Brentford?

Of course Hovis could find no specific fault with the borough. Who could? The cradle of civilization.

Hub of the known universe. 'When a man is tired of Brentford, he is tired of life,' as Samuel Johnson actually wrote. No, you couldn't knock the place. Not really.But be all that as it may, and very well it may be, Inspectre Hovis was sick of the sight of it.

He had always imagined that his career as an Inspector of Scotland Yard would be set against a backdrop of sailing yachts, sw.a.n.k casinos and country houses. Rubbing his immaculately clad shoulders with the t.i.t-and-tiara set, bedding svelte heiresses and blasting the fur and feathered with his matched Purdys on the moorlands of the gentry, whilst solving The Crime of the Century.

Not numbing his b.u.m in a clapped out Morris Minor on the corner of a Brentford backstreet! Not at all!

It was so d.a.m.nably unfair. Why couldn't life imi-tate art just once in a while? He wasn't asking for much. Certainly for nothing more than he rightly deserved. All he wanted was the opportunity to solve The Crime of the Century. With the other perks thrown in, of course.

He could see it all in his mind's eye. The accolades. The press interviews. His eight favourites on Desert Island Discs. The call to the palace. The light tap on the shoulder. The 'arise Sir Sherringford Hovis'. It was his birthright.

Hovis sighed dismally. Of course, to solve The Crime of the Century, that crime had to be com-mitted first. And the chances of it being committed in Brentford were somewhat less than likely.

Follow-ing Mulligan home had been a waste of time. Curious though the recovery of the G.o.dolphin diamonds had been, their theft was eighty-year-old news. Were they part of something? That ever elusive big one? Hovis shrugged. Probably not. He'd give it another fifteen minutes on the off chance, then head off home to bed.

Inspectre Hovis offered up another 'heartfelt', finished his smoke and flicked the b.u.t.t end into the street. 'To paraphrase the dying words of the late lamented King,' said he, 'b.u.g.g.e.r Brentford.'

'This is car, twenty-three,' called Police Constable Ken Loathsome. 'Am in pursuit of suspect vehicle travelling east on Great West. Target is a good-humour truck.'

'A what?' asked reliable Ron.

'An ice-cream van.' Constable Ken chewed upon his bottom lip. 'Licence plate.-'

'Registration number,' growled reliable Ron.

'Registration number.' Ken cupped his hand over the microphone. 'What is the registration number, Sarge?'

'I don't know, son. We'll have to get a little closer and have a look see, won't we?' Sergeant St.u.r.dy viewed his youthful a.s.sociate from the corner of a world-weary eye. The boy was a buffoon. A bottom-feeder in the great gene pool. Hand-reared on American cop shows and donuts that go dunk in your decaffeinated. Not his cup of tea at all.

'I'll get right back to you.' Constable Ken signed off with the inevitable 10.4. 'Shall I make with the siren, Sarge?'

'If you must.

'Excellent!'

'There's a police car following us,' cried Anna.

Cornelius glanced into the driving mirror. 'We'd better try and lose that then.' He put his foot hard down, as one does, and the ice-cream van shot forwards.

Anna and Tuppe shot backwards. They gathered in a struggling heap at the rear of the van, much to the joy of the small fellow. 'Nice acceleration,' he remarked.

And indeed it was. Surprisingly so for an ice-cream van. Or perhaps not, considering the Mulligans.

Rotten apples to the core, the whole family of them.

'They're trailing. Which way should we go, Tuppe? Tuppe?'

The sound of a slim female hand striking a small male cheek was quite discernible, even above the roar of the van's engine.

'Ouch!' Tuppe disentangled himself from Anna and crawled forward. Cornelius leaned around and scooped him on to the pa.s.senger seat.

'My thanks.' Tuppe rubbed his cheek and grinned foolishly.'Which way?' Cornelius pa.s.sed him Rune's A-Z. Tuppe leafed carefully through it. 'I think we should go out a bit. Not start too close to home.'

'Agreed,' agreed Cornelius. 'Where then?'

'There's one marked in Hammersmith. Indicate left and when we go round the next bend, take a sharp right.'

Cornelius did so.

Terence Arthur Mulligan had emptied out his socks and now he, crept barefoot up the stairs to the darkness of his bedroom. His wife Valentina was snoring soundly, but it wasn't the usual fear of waking the nymphomaniac twenty-three-stone ex-women' s shot-put champion of Romania that kept him from switching on the light. Terence tiptoed over to the window and peeped between the curtains. He was still there. The unspeakable Inspectre. Parked on the corner.

Terence smiled and rubbed his hands together. 'You'll get yours, copper,' he whispered.

The fully marked police car screeched to a halt.

's.h.i.t!' cried Constable Ken. 'We've lost the motherf-'

'I am well aware of that, son. And kindly keep the language down.'

'Sorry, Sarge. So what should I do? Call for backup? Get a chopper in here?'

'I would suggest you put the car into reverse. Chummy indicated left before we lost him on the bend, did he not?'

'He did, Sarge.'

'Then reverse up and turn right.'

'Eh, Sarge?'

'Just do it, son.'

'Is this it?' Cornelius asked.

'This is it.' Tuppe studied the A-Z. 'Down at the end of this cul-de-sac.'

Anna leaned between them. 'That can't be right. There's just an overgrown old wall down there.

And you can see lights from a road shining on the other side.'

'X marks the spot,' said Tuppe.

'So what is your plan?'

'Same plan as before.' Cornelius took the A-Z from Tuppe and slipped it back into his pocket. 'We drive down to the end here, play the ocarina through the van's speaker system, then, when the portal opens, we storm in, grab whatever booty we can grab. And then we drive like the clappers.'

'And that's the plan.'

'That's it.'

'Sad.' Anna shook her head. 'That is a very sad plan.'

'You liked it well enough when Tuppe told you it back in the daddy's shed.'

'Well I don't like it any more.

'Well I do,' said Tuppe. 'I think it's a d.a.m.n fine plan. And if it's good enough for Cornelius it's good enough for me.

'Thank you, Tuppe.'

'Don't mention it, my friend.'

'It sucks,' said Anna. 'And would you like me to tell you why it sucks?'

Cornelius looked at Tuppe.

And Tuppe looked at Cornelius. 'No,' they both said.

Terence Arthur Mulligan crept back down the stairs and entered his kitchenette. It was a glum kitchenette. Glum and gloomy. And dank also. And malodorous. Penicillium flourished in its sink-tidy and a grey primordial soup bubbled in the crisper of its fridge. The only thing that kitchenette had going for it was the twenty-three thousand pounds' worth of diamonds laid out on its table. Which wa.s.something. Terence quietly closed the door, tugged a cheerless chair from beneath the table and, having first carefully examined it for errant life forms, seated himself there upon. Then he opened the table drawer and took out a toy telephone. Clearing diamonds aside, he placed it on the tabletop, lifted the foolish plastic receiver and put it to his ear. And a chill ran through his bones as he did so.

The toy telephone, as he knew full well, was hollow and disconnected, and could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be actually expected to work. But work it did. Every time.

Terence shuddered as he heard the dialling tone and his finger trembled, not a little, as he dialled the three digits on the silly little dial. Somewhere another phone began to ring.

'h.e.l.lo,' snapped a voice which had the cabby's bowels a-loosening.

'H... h.e.l.lo,' replied Terence.

'Ah, Mulligan,' went the voice. 'And what do you have to say for yourself?'

'I done my best, right? But I got nicked. It wasn't my fault.'

'I see. And what of the diamonds?'

Terence gazed down at those before him. It would be just the work of a moment to say 'the police have them all'.

'The...'

'Yes, Mulligan?'

'The police...

'Spit it Out, man.

'The police have got.

'Got?'

'Got some of them. They tried to beat the truth out of me. But I stood up to them, right? I managed to nick some diamonds back off 'em. I done my best.'

'And do the police intend to charge you with theft of the diamonds?'

'Nah, just with speeding.'

'We'll take care of that then.'

'You will?'

'Naturally. After all, you done your best, right?'

'Right,' said Terence. 'I did done my best.'

'Of course you did. Is there anything else you'd like to tell me?'

'Yeah,' said Terence, 'there is. The geezer who beat me up, followed me home. He's a right nutter.

He's parked on the corner watching my gaff'

'Well just you go off to bed like a good fellow. There's nothing more we wish you to do.'

Terence breathed a very large sigh of relief.

'For now,' said the voice of Mr Arthur Kobold.