They gave him a moment. And several more.

'What's up with him?' Cornelius wound down the window and stuck his head out.

'Meep your horn.'

'No. Not yet. Not...' Cornelius sniffed the air. He sniffed again. 'That's odd.'

'What can you smell?'

'Nothing.'

'Nothing is odd?' Anna shook her head.

'For me, yes. Wait here.' Cornelius got out of the car and gently closed the door. 'I'll just take a look.'

Anna and Tuppe watched him. They saw him sneak up to the car in front, peep in at the driver's window, jerk back, stoop to retrieve his cap from the road, peep once more into the car, then open the door and reach in.

And then they saw him pull out his hand at con-siderable speed, slam shut the door and lurch back towards them.

Cornelius flung himself into his seat. Breathing heavily.

'What's wrong?' Anna gaped at the boy with the grey face and the popping eyes. 'What is it?'

'There's a dead man driving that car,' said Corne-lius Murphy.

'A dead man?'

'A dead man. Sitting there, staring straight ahead. He must just have died. He's still warm.'

'It's not Kevin Costner, by any chance, is it?'

'No, Anna, it is not.'

'Pity for him then. Because I'm not giving anyone else the kiss of life tonight.'

'We should do something,' said Tuppe. 'Not that I know exactly what.'

'Phone for an ambulance.' Cornelius put the car into gear. Make an anonymous call. Whatever hap-pened here is nothing to do with us. I'll drive round him and we'll find a phone box. OK?'

'OK,' said Tuppe.

Cornelius steered carefully around the stopped car. As they pa.s.sed it by, Anna and Tuppe made furtive peepings. The driver sat like a dummy, staring straight ahead.

'How very horrid.' Tuppe made a sour face. 'Drive on quickly, please.'

Cornelius did so. A hundred yards up the main road they came to the general post office. Three telephone boxes stood before it.

'Wait here.' Cornelius parked the car, got out and ran over to make the call. He lifted the receiver in the first box, waited, shook it against his ear, waited once more and then cursed briefly. The phone was dead.

Cornelius tried the next one. And the next. Then he returned to the car and leaned in at the window.

'Out of order.'

'All three?' Anna asked.

'All three. Lines are dead. Nothing.' Cornelius looked up and down the road. It was deserted. Not a soul in sight. He sniffed the air once more. And then he shivered.

'What is it?' Tuppe got a worried look on.

'I can't smell anything. Not anything at all. I can smell us. But nothing out here. Something's very wrong.

'Get back in the car, Cornelius. Drive us home.'

'Yes indeed.'

Cornelius drove on. There was a haunting stillness to the night. As if the very life had been sucked right out of it. The three travellers felt uncomfortable, oppressed. They didn't speak.

They were nearing the Chiswick roundabout when they saw the bus. It was the late-night single-decker from Richmond. It was coming towards them. Or rather, it wasn't. The bus had stopped a few yards before a request stop, where an old man stood with his arm outstretched. The old man was standing very still. Very still indeed.Cornelius pulled up alongside the non-oncoming bus and stared up into the driver's cab.

'Not another stiff?' Tuppe hid his face in Anna's T-shirt.

'I don't like the look of this.' Cornelius gave his bottom lip a bit of pensive chewing. 'You two wait here. I'll take a look.'

'No,' said Anna. 'Why don't you wait here, and I'll take a look?'

'Why don't you both take a look, while I wait here?' Tuppe suggested.

Cornelius couldn't get the bus door open, but, as he crept along the side, he could see all of the pa.s.sengers.

There were just the four of them. A lady in a straw hat, reading a paperback. A black guy in a leather jacket, half risen from his seat. Two yobbos in sh.e.l.l suits, lounging by the door. All were still.

Frozen, like characters in a waxwork tableau.

'h.e.l.lo.' Cornelius drummed on the window. 'Can anyone hear me in there? h.e.l.lo. h.e.l.lo.'

'Cornelius,' Anna called, 'come over here and check this out.'

The tall boy joined her at the request stop. She was examining the old fellow. 'Is he dead then?'

'I suppose he must be. His heart's not beating and he doesn't have a pulse. But he's still warm. Feel his face.'

'I'd rather not, thank you.

Anna hugged her elbows. 'Cornelius, something terrible's happened here. Something really terrible.

Do you know what I'm thinking?'

'No,' said Cornelius. 'I don't.'

'I'm thinking, is it all over? Did some plague, or something, sweep across London while we were inside that warehouse? Cornelius, I'm thinking, are we the last people alive?'

The tall boy gave a shudder, which he tried very hard to disguise as a shrug. 'Let's go.

'Where to? To your house? Should we go there, do you think?'

'No, I don't think we'll do that.'

'Where then?'

'We'll drive around,' said Cornelius. 'Have a look. See what we can see. Yes?'

'Yes. All right.'

He chanced an arm about her shoulder as they walked back to the car. She didn't seem to mind. Or perhaps she just didn't notice.

'What's going on?' Tuppe asked, as Anna shifted him once more onto her knee.

'I don't know.' Cornelius dropped into his seat. 'I really don't know.'

'But they're all dead?'

'Seems so. But I just don't get it. Dead people do not stand at bus stops with their hands stuck out.'

'They do in the kind of movies I watch.' The small fellow fluttered his fingers. 'Then, when you're least expecting it, they pounce! And they suck your brains out of your nostrils. Did you ever see Night of the Living Dead?'

Anna looked at Cornelius.

And Cornelius looked at Anna.

'Don't be silly,' said the tall boy, putting his foot hard down.

They drove through Brentford. It looked a picture beneath the full moon. Miami? Vermont? The Taj Mahal? Forget 'em. Brentford by moonlight. You want romantic? You got romantic.

But somehow not tonight. The big moon hung above the silent borough, ghost-white in the cloud-clear sky. And halfway up the Ealing Road the travellers came upon two fellows.

They were frozen in att.i.tudes of drunken cama-raderie. Arms about each other's shoulders.

Captured in mid stagger, a few yards from the door of The Flying Swan.

'Do you know what I'm thinking?' Tuppe asked.

'Very possibly, but go on anyway.

'I'm thinking, perhaps it's the end of the world.'

'No,' Cornelius a.s.sured him. 'The end of the world is all fire and brimstone.'

'Well, so the Bible says. But what if that's a misprint or something? What if the end is just, the end?Every-thing simply stops, like a clock, runs down and stops.'

'Like a clock?'

'Or a movie. The big freeze frame. End picture, roll credits. Produced by, directed by, from an original idea by G.o.d. Fade out.'

'No.' Cornelius tried to make his 'no' sound convincing. But it lacked a certain something. 'It can't be that. What about us, then?'

'The exception that proves the rule. Or...' Tuppe paused.

'Or what?'

'Nothing. Absolutely nothing.'

'Out with it, Tuppe.'

'Well.' Tuppe scratched his tiny chin. 'Suppose this is some unwritten version of the Biblical End.

The end of a particular cycle. The beginning of another. Now, if this was the case and G.o.d, in all his infinite wisdom, wanted there to be a new cycle, then He'd need, you know .

'I don't know,' said Cornelius. 'What would G.o.d in his infinite wisdom need?'

'He'd need a new Adam and a new Eve,' said Anna.

'Exactly,' said Tuppe.

'What?' Cornelius stood on the brake.

Tuppe slumped back, holding his head. 'Easy on the emergency stops. I nearly went through the windscreen.'

'What are you saying, Tuppe?'

'Calm down, Cornelius. Think about it. It makes sense, doesn't it? The stuff of epics thing. I mean, how epic can you get? Fathering the new humanity.'

'Me?' A bit of a smile came to the tall boy's mouth. 'Father of the new humanity? I could go for that.'

'You?' Tuppe fell back with more than a smile. 'I wasn't thinking of you. I was thinking of me.'

8.

It hadn't been Mickey's day at all. The police finally arrived at Minn's Music Mine, about two hours after he'd called to report the 'robbery'. By which time Mickey, whose powers of recuperation were the stuff of local legend, had sobered up sufficiently to realize the deep brown stuff he was getting himself into.

There were just the two policemen. One was a pimply youth, who spoke in a curious, unidentifiable accent. The other, a solid-looking body with a military moustache and a steely gaze. His name was Sergeant Ron St.u.r.dy.

Mickey recognized the pimply youth at once. He was a dedicated purchaser of plectrums. Sergeant St.u.r.dy recognized Mickey Minns.

'Surely I used to be your probation officer,' he said. The scene-of-crime investigations didn't take too long. Sergeant St.u.r.dy despatched his junior a.s.sociate to make inquiries next door at Mr Patel's. 'Just mention my name and take a statement.'