The Brentford Triangle by Robert Rankin Read Free Book Online Page A

grey cat stretched luxuriously upon the roof of Pooley’s hut. Nothing unusual here, all peace and tranquillity.
    Omally took a few tentative steps forward. He passed the first concealed tee-box and noted with satisfaction that all was as it should be. He crept stealthily in and out between the shanty town of corrugated huts, sometimes springing up and squinting around, eyes shaded like some Indian tracker.
    Then a most obvious thought struck him: there were only two entrances to the allotment and any camel would logically have to pass either in or out of these. Therefore any camel would be bound to leave some kind of spoor which could surely be followed.
    Omally dropped to his knees upon the path and sought camel prints. He then rose slowly to his feet and patted at the knees of his trousers. What on earth am I doing? he asked himself. Seeking camel tracks upon a Brentford allotment, he answered. Have I become bereft of my senses? He thought it better not to answer that one. And even if I saw a camel track, how would I recognize it as one?
    This took a bit of thinking out, but it was eventually reasoned that a camel track would look like no other track Omally had yet seen upon the allotment, and thus be recognized.
    Omally shrugged and thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. He wandered slowly about, criss-crossing the pathway and keeping alert for anything untoward. He came very shortly upon the decimation of Small Dave’s pride and joy. Half-munched cabbages lay strewn in every direction. Something had certainly been having its fill of the tasty veg. Omally stooped to examine a leaf and found to his wonder large and irregular toothmarks upon it.
    “So,” said he, “old Posty was not talking through his regulation headgear, something
has
been going on here.”
    He scanned the ground but could make out nothing besides very human-looking footprints covering the well-trodden pathway. Some of these led off towards the Butts Estate entrance, but Omally felt disinclined to follow them. His eyes had just alighted upon something rather more interesting. Slightly in front of Soap Distant’s padlocked shed, an image glowed faintly in the dirt. Omally strode over to it and peered down. He was certain the thing had not been there earlier.
    The Irishman dropped once more to his hands and knees. It had an almost metallic quality to it, as if it had been wrought into the dirt in copper. But as to exactly what it was, that was another matter. Omally drew a tentative finger across its surface but the thing resisted his touch. He rose and raked his heel across it but the image remained inviolate.
    John peered up into the sky. It wasn’t being projected from above, was it? No, that was nonsense. But surely it had to come off, you couldn’t print indelibly on dust. He scuffed at the ground with renewed vigour, raising a fine cloud of dust which slowly cleared to reveal the image glowing up once more, pristine and unscathed.
    Omally stooped again and pressed his eye near to the thing. What was it? Obviously a symbol of some sort, or an insignia. There was a vaguely familiar look to it, as if it was something he had half glimpsed upon some occasion but never fully taken in. It had much of the rune about it also.
    “So,” said a voice suddenly, “you are a secret Mohammedan, are you, Omally?” The Irishman rose to confront a grinning Jim Pooley. “Surely Mecca would be in the other direction?”
    Omally dusted down his strides and gestured towards the gleaming symbol. “Now what would you make of that, lad?” he asked.
    Pooley gave the copper coloured image a quick perusal. “Something buried in the ground?” he suggested.
    Omally shook his head, although the thought had never crossed his mind.
    “Is it a bench mark then? I’ve always wondered what those lads look like.”
    “Not a bench mark, Jim.”
    “It is then perhaps some protective amulet carelessly discarded by some wandering magician?” Although it seemed almost a