Chapter Nine

It was raining. Well that made a change, didn’t it? It was always raining in this “Britain”. What’s more, this particular night it was pitch black, foggy, freezing cold and it was raining. Sign up, they said. See the known World, they said. Lucius was a legionary, he’d been called up to the Roman army from his nice family home in Umbria. Where his upbringing had been in sunshine, with red wine, olive groves and dappled shade and warmth, he was now on this fog shrouded island where if it wasn’t raining it was blowing a gale and if the gale stopped blowing long enough the locals would turn up and try and either sell you something, or kill you. To be brutally honest he was sick and fed up with this backward stupid country and the natives who lived here. He couldn’t wait to get back to civilisation – central heating, slaves and people being forced to fight to the death for his entertainment. Now THAT’S civilisation. All these Durotriges seemed to be interested in was farming and fighting him and his colleagues. And so this particular evening, here was Lucius, some miles from Lindinis, in the middle of nowhere, standing as watch outside his cohort’s encampment as the rain hammered down on his helmet. The decurion had shouted at him to keep his eyes peeled for treacherous Britons. Well the decurion needn’t have worried, Lucius would have his revenge for this awful night, next time he ran into some local savages. He’d give ‘em what for, like they did at that last hill fort the other week. Admittedly it was quite small and only a farming community, but it had the capacity to have weapons of mass destruction (OK, pebbles) ready for an attack on unguarded Roman heads within 45 seconds. The World was now a safer place that they had massacred all the old people and sold the rest off into slavery. Lucius wasn’t scared of these barbarians. He was a Roman soldier, armed to the teeth and trained to the highest level in ways of killing and upsetting people in great quantities. Just to re-assure himself, Lucius practiced a couple of half hearted thrusts with his gladius sword at imaginary invaders. He’d like to see the barbarian swines who could get past him!
He blew in his hands to try and instill some warmth and stamped his feet. The wind howled once more round his bare legs and he cursed the day he had been brought to this island. Lucius supposed it was better than some of his colleagues who had ended up in the forests of Germanica with large spears stuck up their bottoms. But no one really spoke about that set back, or any of the other set backs the army ever encountered, the Roman Empire just liked to talk itself up, and so only victories were allowed to be mentioned.
Just at that moment, Lucius heard a noise. A crackling noise, slmost like someone moving through very dry foliage. He knew this couldn’t be true as there was nothing that could possibly be dry in Britain with the weather they were having. There it came again. Lucius drew his gladius from it’s scabbard and his eyes darted around him, but the surrounding darkness merely loomed back at him.
“Who goes there?” He yelled in the deepest, most frightening voice he could muster. He swallowed loudly and re-doubled his grip on the gladius. “Come on! Who’s there?” He shouted. Lucius thought he could make out a glow in the semi distance, a sort of ethereal glow, somewhere near the distant horizon – or was it just two inches from his nose? He just couldn’t tell, but it was getting bigger and the crackling sound was coming through constantly now. He was just about to call for the decurion when there was a loud buzzing sound and a distinct backwards popping noise and two figures suddenly hurtled out of nowhere and bumped into Lucius. One of them was wearing a large white helmet with wires coming out of it, and as they stumbled into Lucius, the white helmet connected heavily with Lucius’ chin and knocked him out cold. Drood looked down at the recumbent figure of the unconscious Roman legionary.
“Oh, nice one Bryan! You’ve managed to make us travel in time, but you’ve twatted a Roman.” Drood reached down and felt Lucius’ pulse, just to make sure he wasn’t dead. Bryan pulled the helmet off his head with some difficulty. Drood had his head back and was drinking in the falling rain, trying to get rid of the inevitable dehydration.
“Bloody hell!” Whispered Bryan, looking around. “We only bloody did it!” He whooped with delight. Drood looked round the darkness, but it was so foggy, wet and miserable you really could not see a thing.
“So where are we?” He looked towards Bryan, who was now similarly drinking in the rain water.
“Hulke” said Bryan, eventually. “Well, I assume that was where you were thinking of when you visualised somewhere in Roman times.” Drood nodded.
“I tried to visualise the green near the Priory which I suppose is this, but…” he gestured vaguely around him, “I’m just not used to seeing it without the Priory being here.” Bryan was looking at some of the readings in the small palm top information unit.
“Do you remember earlier, when we were at my house and you had a look at the Lethbridge book?” He asked of Drood. Drood nodded. “Well this little beauty of a time machine only seems to have picked up on some of the subconscious stuff in your little brain. Remember the first bizarre event at the Priory site mentioned in the Lethbridge book?” Bryan’s eyebrows were beginning their inevitable waggling session.
“Yeah, some legionary got spooked by an apparition and…” Drood’s voice tailed off as he realised what he was saying. His hand moved involuntarily to his mouth. “Shit!” He exclaimed. “Do you mean WE are the apparition that scared the Roman?” Bryan was nodding eagerly and the eyebrows were on full waggle mode.
“Seems inevitable!” he roared with laughter. Drood looked down at the figure of Lucius on the ground.
“Should we help him?” Asked Drood, softly. Bryan took a cursory look down at the Roman.
“Nah! Fuck him. Bloody Romans. Just the ancient world version of Tesco’s really. Don’t matter where you go you’re bound to find some evidence of them and they’re all the bloody same.” He began reading some figures from the information unit under his breath. “To be honest, the way his lot with Vespasian carried on down here I think we’d be right justified if we gave him a proper leathering while he’s down there.” From the darkness there was a bark/cry of something nearby. Possibly only a fox, but it could just as easily have been a wolf. Drood looked round nervously.
“I think I’ve seen enough of Roman Hulke to be honest, Bryan.” He shivered slightly and suddenly realised how cold and wet he was. He looked over at the information unit in Bryan’s hand. “So how do we get back?”
“Good question…” said Bryan, softly. “I’m not entirely sure, but if I put my helmet back on…” he did this as he mentioned it, then went back to intently studying the information unit in his hands. “Yep, we should be due for a chrono-displacement field opening up in the same place any second now…” They stood there in the rain and darkness. Nothing happened. Bryan tapped the information unit. Still nothing happened. Unknown to them, behind them on the wet ground, Lucius started stirring.
“You haven’t got a sodding clue, have you Bryan?” asked Drood bitterly. Bryan shrugged his shoulders.
“Theoretically, the chrono-displacement field should re-open the portal in the exact same spot it occurred in…” Bryan tailed off as he looked in shock over Drood’s shoulder. Drood turned round very slowly. There was Lucius, still obviously groggy from the impact with the helmet, but now upright, swaying slightly and brandishing the gladius sword at them. He shouted something at them in Latin. Drood and Bryan looked at each other and then back at the Roman.
“Please tell me you speak Latin, Bryan” Hissed Drood out of the corner of his mouth. Bryan wracked his brains for a moment.
“Er… Non crapito san janitorum!” He yelled. Lucius looked at them in astonishment. Drood looked back at Bryan.
“What did you just say to him?” He asked. Bryan beamed back at Drood.
“It’s the only bit of Latin I can ever remember. It’s from Carry on Henry where Sid James explains Henry the VIIIth’s motto to Cardinal Wolsley.” Drood groaned.
“So what did you just say?” He repeated urgently.
“Non crapito san janitorum – don’t shit on your own doorstep.” Lucius was looking at them as if they were from another planet, which to be honest they might as well have been.
“We’re confronted by an irate violent Roman and you start quoting Talbot Rothwell scripts at him!” Shouted Drood. “God I wish the bloody chrono thing would fucking open right now…” just at that moment, with a loud crackling sound, the ethereal light spread around Bryan’s shape as the displacement field opened. Bryan offered his hand to Drood.
“Come on! Hurry up!” Drood ran so he was right next to Bryan. Lucius took a slight pace toward them, but the weird light and noise was obviously frightening him. Bryan waved at him and shouted “Arriverderci, Brutus!” and with a loud backward popping sound, Bryan and Drood vanished infront of the legionaries astonished eyes. Lucius stood in the deafening silence, looking toward where the men had been, but of the weird people there was not a hint of any evidence they had ever been there. He looked round himself two or three times, just to make sure they weren’t playing some joke on him. But they had gone.
“Non crapito san janitorum?” He repeated to himself. These Britons were crazy. He could hear the decurion approaching in the gloom. He would explain all to him and seek advice from his many years of service in foreign lands. Within two minutes of starting the story, Lucius was on a charge of being drunk on duty and was given three days field punishment as a consequence. And serves him right.

Chapter Eight

Drood and Bryan had been left on their own for a while now. They gazed out in silence at what Hulke had become. Drood was perched on one of the laboratory stools, Bryan sat cross legged on top of one of the work benches. Polly had brought them some food, mostly sandwiches and fruit, but they weren’t particularly in the mood for eating. She had long since disappeared to a meeting, but had promised to return as soon as she possibly could.
“Look at it…” breathed Bryan, slowly shaking his head. “England’s green and pleasant land.” Drood began resting his chin on his hands, his eyes looking away from the endless urban sprawl of London.
“What I’m worried about is that within the next few months, you and I have to become brilliant scientists, invent all sorts of clever shit and become heroes to these people.” He sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. “I really don’t feel up to doing all that today.” Bryan climbed slowly down from his perch on the work bench and listlessly toyed with the sandwiches for a while, but he soon lost interest and wandered to the back of the laboratory. He tested several walls by waving his hand in front of them, pretty much like Polly had earlier, but none of them seemed to be willing to clear. But then one did…
“’Ere, Drood!” He called. “Come ‘ere and look at this!” Drood sighed and slowly got up.
“What now? Don’t tell me – they’ve put crazy paving over the Amazon rain forest and stone clad the Andes…?” His voice tailed away as he stood next to Bryan and they stared through the window Bryan had just cleared. “Is that what I think it is?” Drood breathed softly. Bryan nodded and even allowed his eyebrows a quick waggle.
“Drood, my dear chap, I rather think it is.” The other side of this wall was another laboratory, but far less cluttered. There were two control consoles to one side, but in the middle was what appeared to be a large shower cubicle. Cables ran from the base of the cubicle to the consoles and, directly over wherever any person wanting a shower would have stood, were dazzlingly white apparently plastic pen nibs, six of them. But these were big pen nibs, at least half a metre long and a good 100cm in diameter. Emblazoned across the front sliding door of the cubicle was the words “Hinchcliffe-Camfield Corporation” and then just below that the words “Chrono-Displacement Model SH101”. Drood and Bryan looked slowly at each other.
“Do you think we should?” Asked Bryan eventually. Drood looked back at the machine in the laboratory for a moment, and then glanced back to Bryan.
“Should what?”
“Get in there. Have a closer look.” Bryan was eager. Drood leant back from the glass and sighed.
“If, and I mean IF we go in there, we are just going to look at it Bryan. We are not going to start randomly pressing buttons, are we? We could end up anywhere.” With this affirmation from Drood, Bryan was straight away trying to find the doorway in. This was no easy feat as all the walls seemed exactly the same with no obvious entry point. “Did you hear me, Bryan?”
“Oh yes!” Said Bryan loudly, moving along the wall and sweeping his hand over each and every inch, trying to find anything that might trigger a door to open. Inevitably, he found it. With an almost heartfelt sigh, a door shape materialised in the seemingly solid wall and then retracted into the ceiling. Drood and Bryan stood in the doorway, gazing across at the machine in the darkened laboratory.
“How do you get any lights on in here?” Whispered Drood. Bryan looked up at the ceiling.
“Computer! Lights!” He called. Drood was about to sneer that this wasn’t Star Trek, when the lights, as if some Lothario was testing his dimmer switch before a big date, glowed up to a reasonable brightness. They both took slightly tentative steps into the room. Drood moved forward and finally found himself close enough to the machine to almost touch it. He reached out a hand, paused for a moment lost in a mixture of thought and awe, before he finally made contact with it with his hand. He moved his fingers up and down the outer shell. It felt disappointingly like a food mixer or a microwave oven.
“How on Earth did we invent this?” He whispered, hoarsely. “How does it even work?”
“It connects to the synapses of your frontal lobes and helps you to focus on the era, date or event you wish to visit with the use of the visualiser circuits.” Bryan seemed remarkably well informed on how this contraption worked.
“How does it connect to your synapses?” Asked Drood, slowly turning round. His eyes soon proved that Bryan had found all the answers.
“With this I guess!” he cried, cheerfully pointing to his head. Bryan was wearing what appeared to be a glitzy hi-tech crash helmet with various strands of fibre optic cables snaking out of the back and leading across to one of the consoles. He was also clutching a thick book entitled “The Hinchcliffe-Camfield Chrono-Displacement SH101 Operators Manual”.
“Bryan! For Christ’s sake take that bloody thing off!” Drood moved sharply towards Bryan, who backed away defensively.
“Hold hard!” Shouted Bryan. “It’s not even turned on! Nothing can happen!” Drood calmed slightly. He would still be happier if Bryan wasn’t wearing the crash helmet.
“Just be careful, alright? Don’t touch anything else.” Drood implored him. Bryan tapped a salutary finger to his forehead and nodded slightly. Unfortunately he didn’t notice the tiny red light flicker on at the back of the helmet as he had tapped the front. Bryan inclined the manual towards Drood.
“It seems pretty simple to operate, if these instructions are to be believed.” He laid the book open on top of the nearest console as Drood leaned in next to him for a closer look. “All you do is make sure the helmet and the booth are fired up, visualize on the exact place and time you want to go to, the Chrono-Displacement circuits select an undisturbed piece of space and time where you wish to go, and enfolds them in a singularity.” Drood looked at his friend wearing the daft helmet.
“What the hell does that mean?” he asked slowly.
“A singularity is, approximately, a place where quantities which are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite. Such quantities include the curvature of space-time or the density of matter. Space and time are eventually distorted enough for the continuum to exist in its whole in one place, and the chrono-displacement can take place.” Bryan reeled this off in a very matter-of-fact voice. There was a long pause as Drood just stared at Bryan.
“How in the name of fuck do you know THAT?” Drood squeaked this most indignantly. Bryan held up the small smooth remote control-looking unit that Polly had been using earlier.
“You would not believe the weird shit Wikipedia has listed in the year 3596…” His eyebrows waggled tremendously. Drood went to snatch the unit from him.
“Did you steal that from Polly?” He shouted. Bryan held it up as high as he could, and seeing as he was a good foot taller than Drood at the best of times, easily fought off any chance Drood had of getting it back.
“I have been leant this by the fair Dr Fielding. I asked her if she had anything I could read before she went off to her meeting. She gave me this.” Bryan lowered the unit as Drood’s attempts to snatch it ceased. Drood was looking flustered now.
“Come on Bryan, lets get out of here before someone comes in and finds us…” He reached up to remove the helmet from Bryan’s head. It was only then he realised the door they had entered this laboratory through had vanished, and they were faced with another long faceless row of a wall. Bryan was trying to pull away from Drood.
“Hold on! Hold on!” he yelped. “Just stop and think for a moment, will you?” Drood stopped momentarily.
“What now?”
“You’re worried about not becoming a great inventor? But we know you DID become a great inventor, because it says so in all their history books. So who is more likely to be wrong?” Bryan looked imploringly at Drood. “Drood-bloody-Hinchcliffe, or the Encyclopaedia Britannica?” Drood sighed dramatically and slumped onto the small stool next to the console.
“OK, but Bryan, how are you and I going to invent all of the things we are supposed to invent and patent, between now and Christmas?” He let out another dramatic sigh for good effect. This dented Bryan’s confidence not one jot. He held up the information unit Polly had lent him.
“We have all the information of when, what, why and how in this little beauty…” he announced, before moving over and stroking the outside of the Chrono-Displacement Unit. “And here we have the ability to make dreams come true…” Bryan lent across and grabbed Drood by the hand, he yanked him into the shower cubicle part of the machine and stepped in next to him. “We decide where and when we need to go, put our minds to it, so to speak…” There was a slight pause. “So, where do you want to go first, Professor Hinchcliffe? VE Day? England winning the World Cup in ’66? Far off into the unimaginable future, or back to Hulke in Roman times!” Bryan was quite a salesman.
“Roman times would be cool…” breathed Drood. “The Roman’s bore the arse off me, but it would be great to see what Hulke was like then. Before the Priory.” Bryan beamed at him, like a teacher who’s particularly dim-witted pupil had just managed to solve a simple bit of artithmetic.
“OK, so you just close your eyes, imagine exactly where you want to go. Visualize it…” Unknown to Bryan, on the console opposite them, lights began snapping on as the system began talking to the helmet on his head. “Visualize it, Drood…! Want it!” There was a sudden deep rumble of power units kicking in, a crackling badly tuned radio sound filled the air, and with an ear-drum pummelling backwards popping noise, in the blink of an eye both Bryan and Drood snapped out of existence.

Chapter Seven

There was a bright light shining in Drood’s face. He was lying on his back on a cold hard floor as arcs of light above his head flooded the room. His head hurt and his mouth felt very dry. He could hear Bryan groaning next to him. Just then Doctor Fielding appeared before him again, squatting down beside him where he lay. She had a plastic drinking bottle which she handed to him. It was water, icy cold and with a mild citrus taste to it. He drank it down eagerly.
“One of the first things we ever noticed about Chrono-Displacement is that it causes dehydration. We’re not even sure why.” Said Doctor Fielding. Drood handed the bottle back to her. “You also probably have a thumping headache as well…” she said. Drood nodded dumbly. “I thought so. There was a mild pain killer in the water as well.” She handed the bottle to the figure next to Drood. “Here, Professor Camfield, drink this…” Bryan suddenly levered his large torso into a seating position next to Drood and poured water into his mouth. Drood looked round the room they were in. It looked like some sort of hyper-advanced technical laboratory – the sort of thing you see in toothpaste adverts where tremendously attractive looking people in white coats look at enormous 3-D images of plaque, while a tiny piece of writing at the bottom of the screen says “Dramatisation”.
“Where are we?” He asked eventually. Doctor Fielding stood up.
“You’re in a hyper-advanced technical laboratory in the central HQ of the Hinchcliffe-Camfield Corporation.” Drood was sorry he asked really. “And yes, before you ask, you are in the year 3596. You were caught in the Chrono-Displacement field…” Doctor Fielding didn’t seem best pleased by this turn of events.
“Shit!” Bryan suddenly spluttered. “3596!” He seemed genuinely distraught at this news. Drood put an arm round his shoulders.
“It’s OK, man. We’ll be OK…”
“Yeah, but I’m gonna miss ‘Top Gear’ now.” Bryan blew his nose on a distinctly dodgy looking handkerchief. Drood managed to stand up on somewhat wobbly legs; Doctor Fielding gave him a supporting hand.
“What happened, really?” He asked with a slightly pained voice. Doctor Fielding led him over to a couple of chairs and sat him down gently. She sat down next to him.
“You and Professor Camfield were caught in the Chrono-Displacement field.” She began. Drood nodded.
“Yeah, you said. Now explain again in words I can understand. What IS a Chrono-Displacement?” Bryan shuffled over at this moment and pulled up another chair. Doctor Fielding took a deep breath – the sort someone takes before relating a very long story that they’ve heard many times before.
“Mankind had strived for the goal of time travel for many years. The closest anyone got was with the abandoned Seagal-Sax Project. Then you and Professor Camfield had hypothesized the use of a quantum accelerator attached to a home baking machine and we were off and running.” Drood looked at Bryan who just shrugged in a non-committal way as Doctor Fielding continued. “Another one of the senior employees within the Hinchcliffe-Camfield Corporation, Professor Aldred, used your notes from the archives to continue the project and finally made the big breakthrough. Whereas other experiments had looked at projecting a capsule through time and space, the Hinchcliffe-Camfield premise was that to visit a specific place in time you needed to think about displacement. Physically removing a portion of space and time and replacing it with an identically sized portion of space and time from your own era. And it worked!” She beamed at them. “There is your proof!” She pointed eagerly at the floor where they had both been laying. In a neat circle was a small patch of grass cuttings. “From the lawn of the beer garden at The Meeting Place.” Drood peered down at the small green clippings.
“Couldn’t someone just have walked those in from outside?” He ventured. Doctor Fielding laughed with quite astonishing gusto.
“Outside?” Again she laughed more than is reasonably expected of such a lame statement. “Come here!” She beckoned Drood and Bryan over to one of the gleaming white walls. She waved a hand in front of it and it immediately shimmered and turned clear. They could see the outside world of 3596. They must have been at least 50-storeys high, and as far away as the eye could see there was a sprawling white conurbation. Everything gleamed as if new, but not a spot or jot of green could be seen. Vast sixteen lane highways hovered just above most of the buildings, and vehicles screamed past at bewildering speeds. There only seemed to be two makes of vehicles – vast monstrous tank like units that powered along looking solid and rugged, and small apparently one-person units that were long and thin, and if Drood was being very uncharitable would probably say looked like some sort of large scale version of an Ann Summers sex-toy. Here and there enormous screens floated serenely in the sky and pumped out ever changing images of adverts, news and what appeared to be weather reports about the Moon. But it was all eerily quiet despite so much action and movement.
“Dr Fielding, is this room sound-proofed?” asked Drood, indicating the vast amounts of traffic outside. She shook her head.
“Hydrogen engines with Hinchcliffe-Camfield Dampers. Both pollution and noise-free.” She said, and added “And please call me, Polly.” Drood and Bryan looked out on this white gleaming world of wonder.
“Where are we?” Asked Bryan, softly.
“You Sir, are in the London Borough of Hulke.” Came a voice from behind them. It was male, elderly, quite clipped and gave the impression that the owner of this voice was a short-tempered self important little shit. Drood, Bryan and Polly turned round. That assumption seemed quite correct.
“Ah, Professor Aldred…” Polly ushered Drood and Bryan towards the man. “This is Professor Hinchcliffe and Professor Camfield…” Aldred didn’t wait for them to reach him.
“I know who they are, Doctor Fielding.” He snapped. “What are they doing here?” Polly began to look flustered.
“During the last expedition, on return unfortunately the Professors were within the Displacement Field and got brought back here…” Polly was being politeness personified. It cut no ice with Aldred.
“This shows an alarming lack of professionalism, Doctor Fielding. I trust you de-contaminated the specimens?” He uttered the words with annoying clarity.
“Naturally.” Polly half turned and smiled apologetically at Drood and Bryan. Aldred moved closer to them and looked intently at Drood and then Bryan.
“I find it almost impossible to give credence to the idea that these two…” here he struggled to find the right word, “…gentlemen, are responsible for our glorious present.” Bryan’s face flushed with anger. He drew himself up to his full height, towering over Professor Aldred.
“Careful, granddad. Some of us ‘gentlemen’ take exception to being called a specimen.” Aldred removed his glasses and looked intently up at Bryan.
“Fascinating.” Said Aldred. “This one seems to think it can threaten me…” Bryan seemed to relax a little, smiling broadly and patting Aldred on his bald head.
“You ever speak to me like that again, Granddad, and you’ll have to shove a Steradent up your arsehole to clean your teeth…” Polly dashed forward at this point.
“Professor Camfield, please. Professor Aldred is just...er…just…” She wasn’t actually sure what Professor Aldred was. Being a curmudgeonly old wanker to be honest, but she couldn’t say that. “Professor Aldred. I shall be returning these gentlemen as soon as possible. No protocols have been breached.” Professor Aldred returned his spectacles to his face. He looked from Drood to Bryan and then over to Polly.
“The Chrono-Displacement Field is off line for general checks. It will be off line for 12 hours. Keep these two under supervision until then.” And with that he stalked off out of the laboratory. Polly turned and smiled apologetically at Drood and Bryan.
“Sorry. He’s a bit stuck in his ways.” She sighed. “Wants everything done by the book, you know?”
“Yeah. I know.” Said Drood. “One thing he said did puzzle me, though. Surely he was wrong – The London Borough of Hulke?” Polly shook her head.
“Nope, Hulke became part of the Greater London sprawl in about 2800.” She said. Drood was astonished and horrified.
“Hulke can’t be part of London. London’s about 150 miles away!” He cried. Polly turned to the walls the other side of the laboratory from the previous window she’d opened. Once more her hand waved in front of the white screen and once more it clarified. More urban sprawl disappeared off into the horizon – but there, right in the middle, still mostly free of buildings, was the stark unmistakeable ridges and lines of Silston Hill.

Chapter Six

The look of wonderment and amazement on Bryan’s face was something to behold. The dazzling lady had just used the Hinchcliffe-Camfield Neuro-Tazer on him, and he now sat, slack-jawed in the darkened beer garden, very gently shaking his head.
“Bloody hell…” he breathed. “You could make a fortune out of that thing…” The lady smiled and slipped the Neuro-Tazer back into her pocket.
“You did.” She said. “Or you will…er…well, it’s did for me and will for you, if that makes sense.” But Drood and Bryan were still looking at each other with astonished looks on their faces. They had been out of their boxes together on many occasions, whether through drink or more chemical means. But this was something else altogether. From smashed to sober in a matter of a second or two. After what seemed a lifetime, a very good question presented itself to Drood.
“I don’t wish to sound rude, but who the hell are you and what the fuck is going on?” He asked in a voice slowly rising with indignation towards the end of the sentence. And admittedly he’d lied; he didn’t care if he had sounded rude or not, and as it was he had been pretty rude after all.
“I think we should all sit down. This might come as some surprise.” She gestured toward the spare seats on the bench where Bryan was sitting, with a still somewhat spaced-out look on his face. Drood lowered himself down onto the bench and the lady sat next to Bryan. “My name is Doctor Fielding” she began, “Doctor Polly Fielding. I am one of the senior research developers at the Hinchcliffe-Camfield Corporation.”
“Wow…” breathed Bryan again. “Can that Neuro-Tazer thingy go in reverse?” He asked.
“Please, there isn’t much time.” Doctor Fielding’s voice was raised slightly, but it had the desired effect. “I have come here from the year 3596 – your future, and we need your help. The future of planet Earth is in your hands.” There was a long pause.
“Bugger me! You don’t half tell some whoppers, girl!” Shouted Bryan, slapping his leg and laughing. “What do you do for an encore?”
“Professor Camfield, I expected so much more from you…” She looked at him with earnest eyes.
“Professor?” Asked Drood. Doctor Fielding nodded. “And you say I’m a Professor as well?” Again Doctor Fielding nodded. “What in?” Drood hadn’t even managed an “O” level in any of the sciences at his school.
“Let me see if I can remember…” Doctor Fielding tilted her head as she thought deeply. “Professor Drood Hinchcliffe, Senior Fellow of Alpha University and head of departments including Pan-Dimensional Engineering, Chrono-Displacement Technology, and Zero-G Sexual Techniques.” She smiled brightly at him. “And you were knighted in the New Year’s honours list in 2010.” Drood slowly raised his hands to his head, rubbing his fingers gently against his throbbing temples. He suddenly looked up sharply at Doctor Fielding again.
“OK, what about Bryan? You said he was a Professor as well…”
“Indeed he is. Professor Bryan Camfield, Senior Lecturer at Beta University and head of Advanced Experimental Herb Testing and it’s effect on Carbon Based life forms.” Drood looked closely at Bryan, who returned the gaze with a slow waggle of his normally very active eyebrows.
“Far out, man…” Breathed Bryan, slowly. Drood shook his head again. This was wrong, very wrong. This mad woman must have the wrong people. He and Bryan weren’t scientists, far from it. They had never done anything like this at all. OK, Bryan could just about be said to be an Advanced Experimental Herb Tester, but then go to the Glastonbury Festival and have a look round and you’d find hundreds of equally well qualified people. And as for himself now being a Pan-Dimensional Engineer and a…what was it? A Chrono-Displacement Technology specialist? She was taking the piss, surely?
“Are you sure you’ve got the right people?” Asked Drood. Doctor Fielding nodded with immense patience.
“Yes, definitely.” She affirmed.
“What do you know about me?” Asked Drood, sharply. “What’s my background, my history?” Doctor Fielding once more fished into her pockets and produced what appeared to be a wafer thin piece of smooth metal with a smoked glass veneer on its upper half. She stroked her fingers over the dark glass top, and it suddenly illuminated while text and pictures appeared on the screen. Doctor Fielding read from it.
“Professor Neil ‘Drood’ Hinchcliffe was born in Plaistow, East London on 15th July 1974. He showed little sign of his future greatness in his early education, but blossomed somewhat late in life, when in early 2009 he and his colleague Professor Bryan Camfield patented their revolutionary Groovy Convertor. This brilliantly simple machine, capable of converting basic ingredients such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen etc into primitive nutritious food stuff was a major breakthrough. That combined with the almost simultaneous patenting of their legendary ‘Textya-Flayva’ unit, capable of instilling the basic food stuff with whatever flavour and texture the user wished and in limitless quantities, was the major reason for the end of famine, war and disease on planet Earth and was the first major stepping stone towards the tolerant peaceful society we now all enjoy…” Doctor Fielding lowered the small wafer thin unit and the screen lapsed back into darkness. Drood chuckled dryly.
“Well, at least you got my birthday right.” He ran his hand through his hair and leaned towards Dr Fielding. “How can any of this be true? You say I am a great scientist who in approximately six months time is going to invent a machine that is going to change the course of human history. HOW?”
“What I have just told you is true. It is history. My history.”
“Fine, and much as I don’t really want to piss on your chips dear, but Bryan and I are not scientists. I couldn’t tell you a Bunsen burner from a van der Graf generator. And all this running around Hulke this morning with your mad clues in the paper. What the hell was that all about?” Drood suddenly realised how disturbed he had been by today’s odd events. Dr Fielding smiled sympathetically. She held his hand gently across the table, something Drood enjoyed very much.
“Yes, I am sorry about the skulduggery, but we couldn’t just turn up in your front room and tell you we were from your future. You might have gone mad.” She patted his hand gently and let go. “We had to get you to a place that is permanent in our time as well as yours – The Priory.” Drood agreed this seemed a plausible idea. Then another thought struck him.
“OK, but who put that vast amount of money in my bank account?” Dr Fielding looked blankly at him.
“Vast amount of money?”
“Yes, over a million quid got paid into my bank account.”
“I can assure you that was nothing to do with us…” Just at that moment there was a sharp bleep. Dr Fielding jumped up and reached into her pocket. “Oh no…” Drood and Bryan stood up as well.
“Something wrong?” Asked Bryan. Dr Fielding nodded as she again checked the smooth metal and glass thing.
“The Chrono-Displacement Field is deteriorating. I’m surprised it’s lasted this long. I must go.” She jogged down the beer garden to the area where she first arrived and turned back to face Drood and Bryan. “I’ll be back in contact soon, I promise. Everything will become clear to you.”
“Good, cos at the moment, it’s as clear as mud…” began Bryan. Drood moved towards her.
“You can’t just clear off again. We need to know more…” Dr Fielding put her hand up.
“Stay away! Don’t get too close…” There was that loud crackling untuned radio noise again. It seemed to be coming from all around them.
“What the hell is that?” Asked Bryan loudly. He moved towards Dr Fielding and put his hand on her shoulder. “What is it?” Drood jumped forward to pull Bryan away.
“Careful Bryan…” he began, but suddenly with a blinding blue light the air around them crackled and split, the entire universe seemed to spin on its head – and they both passed clean out.

Chapter Five

Just outside of Hulke is a large sweeping typically West Country hill. It is a vast curved c-moon shape, smothered in lumps and bumps from various periods of man’s history, and is crowned with a large old Iron Age hill fort, complete with massive ramparts and an elaborate entrance system. This is Silston Hill and it dominates the horizon around it. On the right day, at the right time, when the sun just catches all the ancient ripples on its surface, it seems to come alive, shimmer and appear like some sort of horrendously expensive CGI effect from the latest American blockbuster. But it is real and was one of the major selling points of Hulke to Drood when he first started house hunting down here. It just had a certain vibe about it – it feels right. Drood and Bryan were heading for the quaint little village of Fetchborough and any drive to Fetchborough necessitated a partial drive over Silston Hill. Why the journey to Fetchborough? A hunch of Bryan’s…
“Now this mysterious bird of yours, she don’t say much. But what she does say… ha-hah!” Bryan thumped the steering wheel of his aged Saab as it trundled up the lower slopes of Silston Hill. Drood shook his head.
“I don’t get it, Bryan.” Bryan put a hand to his head, as though exasperated at trying to explain the finer workings of a rack and pinion steering system to a cave dwelling Neanderthal.
“What was the last thing she said to you?” He asked Drood, imploringly.
“She went pop, I keep telling you..!” Bryan sighed dramatically.
“SAID. What she SAID! Before the pop!”
“Er…” Drood wracked his brain again. “The meeting place. Doesn’t make sense now and certainly didn’t make sense then.” Bryan cackled triumphantly to himself and slid a cassette into the elderly stereo in the car dashboard. Peter Gabriel started shouting about being “On the Air” rather enthusiastically, and the crowd in the room with him seemed to enjoy joining in.
“The Meeting Place.” Bryan emphasised each and every syllable. “A pub in Fetchborough.” He looked at Drood with a massive smile on his crazed face; as though this was the obvious answer to everything.
“OK, so some amazing lady from who knows where is going to leave a trail of half clues for me across most of Hulke on a bizarre morning, and then will know about a pub in Fetchborough…” Drood looked deeply at Bryan, who was still smiling and waggling his eyebrows excitedly at his “Eureka” moment. “You are mad. You’re barking. Worse than that, you’re beyond barking. You’re Dagenham Heathway mate!” Bryan let out an even louder cackle and started drumming his hands on the steering wheel in time to the music.
“Of course, a luddite like you is missing another important clue that has led me to my desire to get to ‘The Meeting Place’ in Fetchborough…” Bryan turned slowly towards Drood, seeing if his brain had caught up with Bryan’s. Drood just shrugged pathetically.
“OK smart arse. Spill the beans.”
“That lady you met was like a ghost, yes?” Said Bryan. Drood had to agree that there was something of the afterlife about her. Bryan continued. “Then we take ourselves to Fetchborough, as all linguistic experts will know the meaning of the place name…” Drood turned slowly back to face Bryan again.
“Linguistic expert? You?”
“I know the meaning of old English place names. And I know what Fetchborough means.” Bryan’s feathers had been ruffled. He descended into a slightly moody silence.
“Oh Christ! Go on then, AJP Taylor, enlighten me!” The manic smile and waggling eyebrows immediately leapt back into place on Bryan’s face.
“Fetchborough! Borough of course derived from the Anglo-Saxon burgh which means a fortified place or enclosure, and Fetch which is old English for…” here he paused for dramatic effect, “…a haunted place or the place of the ghosts…” Peter Gabriel stopped singing and the elderly tape machine spat the cassette out rather contemptuously. Silence descended on the car again.
“Are you pulling my leg?” Asked Drood, eventually. Bryan slowly shook his head and Drood felt a distinct chill run down his spine, despite the heat of the day.

Bryan’s Saab rounded another bend in the road and there was the sign for the village of Fetchborough, bidding welcome to all visitors and announcing that the village was twinned with Hanteville on the Breton coast in North West France. The main road through Fetchborough meandered slowly past a small village green with a war memorial on it and on down to the crossroads where “The Meeting Place” stood on one corner and diagonally opposite was the village shop, complete with a large fluffy cat asleep in its front window. Bryan swung the car round to the back of the pub and a large gravelled car park. Running alongside this was a big beer garden, partially full of families, bikers and smokers, all liberally dotted around a variety of wooden bench like tables. They walked inside the old ivy covered building and up to the bar where Bryan ordered two pints of Wadworth 6X from the barman. Two foaming pints of Wiltshire’s finest ale were soon in their hands and they wandered back out into the summer heat of the garden. Drood settled himself at one of the benches and Bryan sat down and immediately produced his tin from his leather jacket, and set to work on rolling himself a fag, an intense look of concentration on his face.
“So, what do we do now?” Enquired Drood after a while. Bryan looked up and slowly round the pleasant beer garden.
“We wait.”
“Is that it?” As plans went you couldn’t fault its simplicity Drood pondered. “What exactly is it we’re waiting for?” Bryan stuck the rolled cigarette between his lips and lit it. He blew the smoke high above the table.
“Something amazing…” he breathed and raised his beer glass in a salute to Drood. “Cheers!”

It wasn’t just a long wait; it was a very long wait. In fact it was seven pints of 6X, two plates of scampi and chips, several packets of pork scratchings, frequent visits to the toilets and two large whiskies waits. It was also now dark and Drood and Bryan were the last two people in the beer garden. They were both extremely drunk as well.
“You know what…” began Drood, trying to roll himself a cigarette from Bryan’s tin and spilling a lot of the tobacco, “I don’t think anything is going to happen.” He hiccupped loudly at the end of this sentence which caused him to drop the cigarette paper on the floor. He bent over to pick it up.
“Patience is a virtue…” Breathed Bryan softly and sipped his whisky. A thought suddenly presented itself to Drood’s drink befuddled mind.
“Bryan, how the hell are we getting home?” Bryan giggled softly to himself.
“I’ll press the pedals in the car and you turn the wheel. We should end up somewhere…”
“Yeah, a hedge probably. Or a starring role with Alistair-bloody-Stewart on ‘Police, Camera, Action’.” Drood finally got the cigarette rolled and now began the task of locating the lighter. “Bryan, you and I are both completely pissed. You are not driving me home. We’ll get a taxi…” A taxi from here back to Hulke on a Saturday and at this time of night would normally have been too prohibitively expensive for Drood to even begin considering it, but he still had the majority of his £250 from the cash point in his wallet and was sure he could cover the cost. From inside the pub came the distant clang of a bell and the voice of the barman informing everyone it was last orders. Bryan immediately began struggling to stand up.
“What you want?” he slurred as he nearly toppled backwards into the darkness. “Pint? Whisky?” Drood shook his head and waved a hand in dismissal. “Both it is then!” Said Bryan forcefully, and swayed off in the direction of the bar again. Drood sat in silence in the garden and listened to that wonderful breathless hush of a summer evening in the countryside. And then there was that sound again. The crackling electronic radio tuning noise he’d heard at the Priory earlier. Only this time it was much stronger and focussed. There at the end of the beer garden, not more than ten feet from where Drood sat, the air began to shimmer again, only this time it seemed more organised and less random. Then with a distinct backwards pop of a sound the lady from the Priory stepped out of the shimmering shape. Now if Drood had just been his usual, relatively sober self on a Saturday night, and nothing of this complete weirdness had happened that day, he probably would have screamed and ran for his life. But as the lady smiled and began walking towards him, he simply smiled drunkenly and waved at her.
“Drood…” she whispered his name, almost in awe. “This is such an honour for me, Sir. I am a big fan of yours…” Drood was puzzled, he took the rolled cigarette from his lips and went to say something, but instead he just burped loudly.
“Sorry…” he gulped. He swung his legs round in an attempt to get out from the bench seat, but somehow overshot his bearings and slumped heavily to the grass on his shoulders.
“Professor Hinchcliffe!” She squealed. “Are you alright?” He was laughing uncontrollably by now and was having great difficulty in getting to his feet. The lady came to his aid and pulled him upright – she was stronger than she looked.
“Professor?” He slurred, breathing beer and whisky fumes in her direction. She waved her hand in front of her face.
“You’re drunk!” She said. “Here…” she reached into her coat pocket and produced something that looked like a torch. She pressed the end against Drood’s forehead and pushed a button on the side. There was a bright spangly noise, Drood felt like someone had just hit him over the head with a jewel encrusted rubber chicken and everything immediately snapped into focus. He was sober!
“What the hell was that?” He asked, rubbing his now non-swimming head.
“It’s a mark three Hinchcliffe-Camfield Alcohol Neuro-Tazer.” She explained. “But most people call it the paralytic converter.” She tossed it from one hand to the other. “Another one of your little inventions Professor!” She said and smiled dazzlingly.

Chapter Four

The silence in the front room of Bryan Camfield’s house was disturbed only by the feint noise of a small piece of paper being rolled between fingers, and the virtually noiseless buzzing of a small fruit fly called Neville. With deft and experienced fingers, Bryan was putting together a spliff of quite prodigious proportions. He had smoked one already and it was doing rather splendid things to the synapses in his brain. This sequel was likely to open up his mind to all sorts of possibilities, but it was likely to prove one spliff too far for poor Neville. Neville had spent the previous 15 minutes flying in and out of the smoke Bryan had exhaled and currently believed himself to be a Sun God called “Piwommi” from 14th Century Peru, rather than the rather plain and ordinary fruit fly that he was in reality. Everything in the room he was buzzing round just seemed so alive and vibrant, nothing more so than the Fair Trade bananas in their bowl which he had been dive-bombing on and off for the previous couple of minutes.
Through Bryan’s muzzy brain he heard a bell ringing. What was it? A message from the other side? The tolling of the bell of lament for all those lost souls over the years? When the sound came again, it turned out to be his front door bell. Bryan slowly ejected himself from his almost unfeasibly squashy sofa and achieved his full height of something like six feet and three inches. He had a shaggy unkempt beard and long well groomed hair, all of which was mostly very dark brown to black, but with the occasional hint of grey sneaking in around the temples. The door bell rang again.
“Alright!” He walked towards the door, muttering and swearing under his breath in a mile-wide Wiltshire accent. He opened the door to the dazzling day light, and there was Drood, a slight sweat upon his brow but looking decidedly pale. “What’s the matter, you seen a ghost or something?”
“Don’t you bloody start…” said Drood. “Can I come in, Bryan? I need your help…” Bryan ushered him into the cool dark room, just as Neville plummeted into the bananas again.
“Well, you know my saying…” said Bryan, spliff between lips and on the point of being lit. “A friend in need…can go screw himself, really.” And he wheezed with laughter at his own joke. His Zippo lighter flared in his hand and he puffed away merrily on his roll-up as Drood dropped into a chair of almost equal squishiness as the sofa. Through the banks of smoke escaping his lips, Bryan could see not a trace of a smile or laugh crossing Drood’s face. “Oh, come on! You’re not still embarrassed about chucking up in that litter bin last night?” Drood wiped a hand across his moist brow and silently shook his head.
“I don’t know, Bryan. I think I’m going mad…”
“Well about bloody time too. I’ve been urging you to do that for years.” Bryan offered him the joint, something Drood would rarely accept. He fairly snatched it from his hand, brought it to his lips and inhaled deeply. Drood let his head loll back a little and blew out the smoke with a low satisfied sigh.
“Let me run this past you Bryan, and then you tell me if I’m in need of sectioning.” Drood handed him back the spliff. Bryan shrugged in a non-committal sort of way, and sat back on the squashy sofa, long legs neatly crossed. “OK, wake up this morning…” Bryan immediately imitated a Muddy Waters blues riff. The look on Drood’s face stopped him in his tracks, and he mumbled an apology before ushering Drood to continue with the story. “Right, wake up this morning, bit of a hangover, as expected. Go down to Mr Letts’ shop, all my usual stuff. Back to the back garden, reading the personals in the Hulke and Silston Gazette and there are a series of messages for me. They are urging me to look in my wood burning stove. In the stove is a hand-written message telling me to check my bank balance, so I check it and it turns out I am a millionaire. I go for a beer to celebrate in the Bakers Arms and there is another hand-written note in there for me telling me to go to the Priory and wait by the north walk to meet someone. I go there and while I am there a beautiful woman materializes out of thin air in front of me, says “the meeting place” and then vanishes. What do you think? Am I going Tonto or is this some sort of wild dream?” Bryan had been nodding sagely through all of this, as though Drood was simply recounting a recent trip to the supermarket; however his reply came completely out of left field.
“Could you buy me a jet ski?” He beamed, spliff jammed in the corner of his mouth. Drood was stunned.
“What?”
“Now you’re a millionaire, could you buy me a jet ski? I’ve always wanted to have a bash on one of them…” Drood let out a sigh of Biblical proportions and let his head flop back on the cushion of the chair.
“Bryan! I really do need your help! I am utterly confused and…” here his voice stumbled a little, “…I’m fucking scared mate…” Bryan nodded slowly again, before reaching out with his long arm to offer Drood the spliff again. Drood shook his head slowly.
“Well, we need to look at this rationally.” And as if to emphasise this point, he gently stubbed out the spliff in his ashtray, but not terminally, it might be nice to re-light it later. “Let’s see what old Lethbridge has to say about this sort of thing…”
“Lethbridge?” Drood looked up and wiped a stray tear away from the corner of his eye. “Who’s Lethbridge?” Bryan was now up on his feet, feverishly running his hands over the spines of the rows of dark musty old books that inhabited the shelves in the dark corner of his front room. These are the largely anonymous looking old books you would see in charity shops and immediately skip past to something else more interesting. But not Bryan Camfield. Bryan collected old books about Hulke and the surrounding districts, but more specifically about the darker and more mysterious side of Hulke’s murky past. He selected one particularly hefty tome from the shelves and brought it down amid a shower of dust and cobwebs. He blew on the spine and coughed a little.
“Lethbridge?” He looked at Drood and then indicated the book in his hand. “Lethbridge.” He said this as though this explained everything. Drood leant forward in his chair and reached for the book. He repeated his earlier question.
“Bryan, who is Lethbridge?” Bryan handed him the book and began to explain.
“Lethbridge was the Reverend Alastair Gordon Lethbridge, parish priest for St Robert’s in Holmes Street and investigator of all things paranormal in Victorian Hulke. A sort of 19th century Fox Mulder.” Bryan gestured towards the book in Drood’s hand. “This was his masterwork, The Dark Arts in Hulke’s Pagan Past, published in 1888. It was also his undoing.” Drood had begun flicking through the book. On the inside there was a photographic plate of the author who looked as much like David Duchoveny as Drood looked like Ursula Andress. His reputation as the 19th century Fox Mulder must be on his ability to work out bizarre happenings than on his looks. He looked more like a cross between Arthur Lowe in Dad’s Army and the Duke of Edinburgh on a bad hair day.
“Why was this his undoing?” asked Drood, looking up momentarily from the ghastly picture of the author.
“As you can imagine, Victorian Hulke wasn’t exactly a very cosmopolitan, easy-going place. When his parishioners read about his book they were not best pleased. He was accused of being a Black Magician and some other very serious allegations are thrown his way.” Bryan inevitably re-lit the spliff and inhaled deeply. He blew smoke out in a long luxurious exhale. “But before he could be de-frocked, or de-dog collared, he disappeared.” Drood looked up again from the book.
“Disappeared?”
“Yep” said Bryan. “Just simply vanished off the face of the Earth and was never heard of again.” He smiled widely and wildly. “Pretty far fucking out, eh?” Drood nodded while continuing to look through the musty book. Lethbridge was certainly thorough if nothing else. He had listed nearly every single bizarre happening and paranormal event to have occurred in Hulke since Roman times. From 52AD when one of Vespasian’s rampaging troops had nearly soiled his toga when being confronted by an apparition on the site where the Priory now rests, to a Miss Gertrude Nathan-Turner who had seen bizarre lights in the sky over the Priory ruins in 1884, and had fallen into a swoon and not recovered for six months. “So you seeing some weird shit at the Priory – it’s nothing new mate.” Drood gently shut the book in his hands. His mind was still racing and the recent introduction of some of Bryan’s illegal substances had started it going off in some quite remarkable directions. But it was the girl he had seen at The Priory – her face and those eyes; they still burnt inside his own mind.
“So what about the girl I saw at The Priory?” He handed the book back to Bryan.
“What exactly did she say to you?” Asked Bryan, as he reached up to return the Lethbridge book to its usual place on the shelf. Drood wracked his brain.
“It was something like an apology at first, for being underhand, or something. Then she told me there was very little time.” Bryan listened intently as Drood recounted this.
“Nothing else?”
“Hang on, she did say ‘the meeting place’ and then went pop.” Drood paused mid-sentence. “Well, not literally. But she made that sort of noise as she disappeared.” Bryan stuffed his tin of tobacco and illegal substances into pocket of his leather jacket, and then slid it over his shoulders.
“Then I guess we’d better go there…”

Chapter Three

“How much?” Drood struggled to see the small black and green screen of the cash machine properly in the morning brightness. He shielded it with his hands and pushed his face as close to the tiny inadequate screen as he could. It seemed to be saying that his bank account, normally as empty as Paris Hilton’s brain, was now chock full of money to the tune of…
£1,000,528 CR That had to be wrong, surely? The machine now asked if he needed another service. A small queue of three people stood behind Drood, tutting quietly to themselves but never quite getting up the courage to actually complain about how long he was taking. Drood reckoned a little cash might be a nice idea, so he tentatively withdrew £250, the most he had ever got out of a cash machine at any one time. Turning to the small irritable crowd behind him, he made a big show of slotting that many notes into his normally starved wallet. Feeling almost giddy with power he walked away from the machine. What to spend his ill gotten gains on first? Beer seemed like a splendid option, even with his constitution still a little fragile after last night’s episode. Could he face the “Flag of Nations” so soon? No, not really, so he turned on his heel and marched smartly down the High Road, turned right into Moffatt Street and headed towards the “Bakers Arms”. This wasn’t a bad little pub, as far as town pubs go, relatively unspoilt and still serving a reasonable pint. Drood hadn’t been in for a while, so hopefully no one inside would know of his embarrassments from the night before. The main bar was nicely empty and surprisingly dark and cool after the piercing sunlight and heat of outside. An old clock struck twelve noon with tremulous chimes as Drood ordered a pint of Directors and settled himself up at the bar on a stool. It was good. No one in here knew who he was and no one was going to bother him about last night. He could quite happily sup his beer and work out what the fuck was going on in his life at the moment, as everything seemed to be going a bit mad.
“Excuse me.” The barmaid interrupted Drood’s train of thought. “This may sound stupid, but is your name Drood?” He sighed heavily. Perhaps his performance last night had been so spectacular that the pub jungle drums had been hammering out their own headlines already.
“Yes” he finally admitted. “I am the said drunken prick, if that’s what you mean.” The young lady looked at him a little perplexed.
“I don’t know anything about that, but there’s a letter here for you.” She handed him a small sealed white envelope. There was some writing on the front, namely “Drood” and “when he comes in at noon”, and today’s date on the back. “I just noticed it while I was cleaning. Wasn’t there yesterday. So, is it for you?” she asked. Drood nodded, almost dumbstruck.
“I guess so…” Who on Earth would leave a letter for Drood in this pub? He could scarcely remember his last visit here; it must be months ago, at least. The barmaid wandered away as Drood slipped silently into his thoughts. He opened the envelope slowly, discovering inside a neatly folded piece of paper of quite high quality with the same immaculate handwriting from the piece of paper in his wood burning stove. Again, its message was equally perplexing.
“Finish your pint, then I’ll see you at the Priory. North walk.” And again, that was it. Perhaps a visit to the Priory might be in order, just to try and make sense of this morning. If someone had some answers then Drood certainly had plenty of questions. He drained his pint and placed the glass on the bar.
“Another one?” Asked the barmaid, reaching for a clean glass without waiting for the answer. Drood stood up sharply.
“No thanks, but buy one for yourself.” And he left a five pound note for her, the most he had ever offered a bar person for a drink. She took the note silently. Drood paused by the door. “And you are now supposed to say ‘thank you’.” She looked at him with Doe eyes.
“Why?” Mumbling to himself, Drood walked out into the dazzling light again.
“Say goodnight to the folks, Gracie…”

The Priory sat in its pleasant green surrounds and almost glowed in the baking heat of this fine summer day. Odd groups of people disported themselves around the well tended lawns that swept down from the High Road, and entertained themselves, either energetically playing endless games of football or knocking a tennis ball about with a cricket bat, and there was even the odd couple spotted about here and there, limbs entwined, oblivious to the outside world and just there, for that moment with each other. Drood looked on, with only a little envy, as a rather handsome young man in a pair of desperately fashionable sun glasses, ran his hand up and down the shapely thigh of a rather nice looking blonde lady. That was how he should be spending his Saturday, in a nice intimate grope with a nubile young lady, not staggering around the periphery of life in Hulke chasing what appeared to be some sort of elaborate practical joke. Just for a second Drood became quite angry, waiting for someone like Bryan or even either Tara or Claire, to leap out of the rhododendrons and go “GOTCHA!” and thus inspiring even more guffaws from everyone else at his expense. But they didn’t. No one appeared. He walked slowly along one of the low crumbling walls, his fingers tracing gently over the ragged tops of the broken masonry. Drood stopped and looked right round, 360 degrees, his hand shading his eyes from the sun, but nothing obvious presented itself to him. His hand slipped into his pocket and removed the envelope from the “Bakers Arms” again. Re-reading the note might help. “The north walk”? Where was the north walk? Perhaps reading one of the fading signs put up by the council some years ago might be a good idea. For once he was right, the sign very helpfully pointed out that the section he was currently standing next to was known as the “west walk”. If he wanted the “north walk” he would have to go about 50 metres forwards and turn right. This was also not as bad as it took him next to some lush green trees that towered over the Priory and offered cool shade. Drood thankfully moved into the dappled darker recess of the north walk and perched himself on what was once probably a very impressive pillar, but was now a not very impressive stump. His feet, now off ground level, kicked gently against the stone of the pillar with the rubber heels of his boots. And then it happened.
There was a crackling noise, distinctly electronic in origin, and something akin to someone trying to tune an unwilling radio. Almost as soon as it started it stopped. Drood looked around with some alarm, but there was no one else in close proximity and everyone in Hulke, even those in the distance, seemed to be going about their everyday business as per normal. Silence. Then it came again, only this time much louder. Even the air seemed to crackle with static. Directly in front of Drood, the foliage on the shade-giving trees seemed to shimmer as if in a heat haze. This seemed to intensify until a faint, almost fluorescent light began radiating in the air before Drood. This formed into a shape, and a very nice shape it was too. A lady, aged about 30, shoulder length brunette hair, pulled back off her face, wearing cute spectacles over big brown eyes and wearing a white laboratory coat, just seemed to materialise in front of Drood and hung a worrying 6 inches above the ground. There was what appeared to be a light aura around her, almost like the old description of St Elmo’s Fire. She looked Drood directly in the eye and smiled, and it was a smile worth waiting for. She started to speak, but when she opened her mouth no sound came out. She was obviously aware of this and mouthed the words “for fuck’s sake” quite brilliantly while feverishly pushing buttons on what appeared to be a very snazzy looking mobile phone in her hand. She was still trying to speak, but still no sounds came through. Drood shook his head.
“I can’t hear you…” he mouthed, miming putting fingers in his ears and shaking his head at the same time. She rolled her eyes in a sort of “no shit, Sherlock” kind of way. This was followed by more feverish button pushing on her mobile phone and no doubt lots of swearing. Suddenly he heard her.
“…stupid bollocking machine…ah!” She looked at Drood directly, scraped an errant strand of hair from her face and smiled dazzlingly. “Can you hear me now?” A dumb smile spread across Drood’s face.
“I can…” And he gave a rather lame thumbs up sign. Those big brown eyes…
“Sorry about all the subterfuge and bizarre messages, but we wanted to make sure this time.” Drood wasn’t really sure what she was talking about and the look on his face must have got through to her. “Never mind, not much time and lots to tell you.” She put the mobile phone thing in her coat pocket and addressed Drood directly. “Now then. The meeting place…” and with a loud backward sounding popping noise she promptly vanished away into nothing. Drood realised that in the past he’d been known to have a bad effect on some women, but they had never just vanished in front of his eyes with a strange popping sound before. This day had begun strangely, had got a lot more bizarre and had now gone straight off even the “weird shit-o-meter scale”. Drood jumped gently down from his seated position on the pillar/stump and gazed as to where the nice lady had been. There was not a trace of her, save for a small, perfectly formed circle of grass that had been trimmed to exactly the same uniform length all over. He squatted down next to this patch of grass and ran his hands through it. It was slightly warm, but nothing more than that. Standing up sharply, Drood nodded to himself. There was only one person he knew who could possibly answer all the bizarre questions that this day was throwing up - the only man in the whole of Hulke who was in tune with the more eccentric elements of the make up of our cosmos. Drood was going to have to go and see a hippie called Bryan Camfield.

Chapter Two

Drood was a Londoner – an east ender to be precise. West Ham born and bred, so how the hell did he come to live in Hulke? It was a long story, but I guess that’s what you’re here for. At the age of 26 Drood had fallen for a beautiful lady called Christine who had insisted that she didn’t want to stay in West Ham and dreamt of racing off into the mystical West Country with the man of her dreams. Who was Drood to argue with such a persuasive tone? They had spent a couple of trips searching out new homes – Drood had found the Holmes Street property via an auction, had bid on it and startled himself into action by actually winning it. The dream was coming true! A house in the mystical west, just as madam had ordered! However, Drood had turned out to be not quite the man of Christine’s dreams. No sooner had they moved down here when she had cleared off with the Master of a local hunt and was now breeding babies and fox hounds in vast numbers somewhere up on the Mendips. And serves her bloody well right thought Drood. She had gone from hippie love child to Tory hunting-shooting-fishing harridan within six months. That’s quite a change. Drood himself had continued his lonely, monk-like existence buoyed only by the occasional oasis of lust with a temporary girlfriend, and frequent bouts of the sort of thing your mother told you would ruin your eyesight. He had settled well in Hulke though – he loved the pace of life and the whole feel of the town. He even quite liked his job – office manager at the local adult education college. It wasn’t exactly taxing, but then again the pay was atrocious so it really was a case of swings and roundabouts.

Today was Saturday! Drood’s favourite day. He would set off from his house, walk to the newsagent, purchase a paper, saunter home and sit in the garden drinking tea, smoking fags and reading the paper very slowly and in minute detail. It was what weekends were all about. The newsagent was just on the corner of Holmes Street and Lambert Street, not a long walk by any standards, but in the summer pleasant enough, and in the winter far enough to blow any cobwebs away. It was a very old fashioned place – hard floors, floor to ceiling papers and magazines, large chilled cabinets full of anonymously made and sinister looking sandwiches and racks of horrendously tacky greetings cards. You know the kind – the ones with “Happy Birthday to a Special NINE Year Old” printed over a photo of Stan Bowles playing for Q.P.R. in about 1974. Drood paused momentarily outside the shop and perused the items for sale postcards stuck in the window. His advert was still there, offering his old Yamaha acoustic guitar for a mere £40. No one had contacted him about it. If he had sold it he was going to put the money towards buying a really nice Electro-Acoustic he had seen for sale in Kingsland’s Music Emporium on the High Road. It was glossy black with glinting silver frets and just looked the business. What a shame Drood was such a terrible guitarist. He sighed and pushed open the glass fronted door. The tiny bell above it jangled and danced. Mr Letts, the owner, was busy fleecing a young child aged about six of his pocket money. Drood moved to the papers, picked up a copy of “The Times”, “The Sun”, “The Hulke and Silston Gazette” and “Private Eye”. He moved to the counter and plopped his selection as the six year old departed, ladened with sweets but significantly less well off.
“Morning Mr Letts” began Drood jauntily. Mr. Letts, a large lugubrious man with mutton chop whiskers and a personal freshness problem gazed at Drood over his half moon spectacles.
“You’re up bright an early this morning.” He said with a small mischievous smile playing over his ravaged features. Drood frowned at him, unsure of where this was leading. “Hear you had a touch too much of everything at the Flag of Nations last night.” He grinned and revealed a mouth like a graveyard. Drood groaned silently. Bad news obviously travels fast in Hulke. Nothing like a bit of misery for someone to really cheer up the local gossips.
“You’ve heard?” Drood ventured, as a rather pathetic opening. Mr. Letts snorted like some pig that was a bit too over pleased with itself.
“Trying to cop off with Claire Piper and then attempting to start a fight with the Hulke Barbarians’ Captain? Well put it this way – I am surprised your balls and your head are still in the right place!” And he guffawed at his own joke heartily. Drood seethed and dearly wished he could think of a stunningly witty and adroit response that would leave Letts a quaking shaking incontinent wreck, penitently grovelling on the floor in front of him. However the best he could manage was:
“Just fuck off and die you fat git.” OK, admittedly not exactly in Oscar Wilde or Spike Milligan’s league, but it did at least make Drood feel a little better about himself. True, he would have to find somewhere else to buy his papers and fags from now on, but it had been worth it. And Letts had still sold him what he wanted before throwing him out.

The back garden of 63, Holmes Street was particularly pleasant this morning. Drood lay in the over long grass, a large mug of tea in front of him, a Camel Light cigarette in his right hand, and his large athenaeum of papers and magazines piled up waiting for him to work his way through them. The Times was as it always was – Giles Coren only reviewing restaurants that were within staggering distance of the Groucho Club. How did he get the job in the first place? Thank God that nepotism isn’t rife in the British media. Simon Barnes trying to make football out to be something akin to Buddhism – or in other words, the usual. The Sun was as entertaining as ever. Some large breasted pop tart that Drood had never heard of, had turned up at some London club he had equally never heard of, and had been photographed getting out of a London cab possibly not wearing any knickers. Wow. This was Earth shattering news. Who cared what happened at the Middle East Peace Conference – can you see if she has any shreddies on? Mind you, the Hulke and Silston Gazette was turning out to be almost equally exciting. Someone somewhere didn’t like what someone somewhere else was planning and they were complaining about it at the council offices. Nothing would ever happen about this, of course, but the Hulke and Silston Gazette still reported on it. There was also the usual section of wedding photos – heavily hair gelled men with fake tans and ear-rings marrying a variety of butt ugly women with Jennifer Aniston haircuts and shoulder tattoos, and nearly all of them spending their honeymoons in “The Dominican Republic”. Where the hell was that? It sounded like something out of “1984”.
But now Drood was getting on to his favourite part of the local rag – the adverts! There seemed no limit to the depths the good people of Hulke and Silston would stoop to – nothing was too crappy to be sold. For instance:
“Red and grey Formica kitchen cupboard. One door missing. Some glass damage. £5 ono. Buyer to collect. Call Hulke 353711.”
Drood lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Would there be anyone at all in the surrounding area who considered his or her life so empty that they just HAD to have a red and grey Formica kitchen cupboard with a door missing? There was always an outside chance. Come on, the half-wits round here had voted in a Tory candidate at every election since the Battle of Hastings, so they were quite capable of anything. He turned to the next page. Still nothing here that would interest a man of his tastes and sensibilities. But by now his advert trawling was taking him away from the stark reality of second hand kitchen cabinets, and into the only partially charted waters of the “Personal” columns.
Aside from the usual grunt groan “man-seeks-woman-for-bouncy-bouncy-sessions” ads there was also the cryptically fascinating announcements column. These adverts were free as long as you weren’t selling anything and were something of a tradition in the Hulke and Silston Gazette going back 20+ years. It was always a long column and was inevitably packed full of bizarre proclamations. Drood picked the first one out immediately as a classic of its genre.
“Oozlum Woozlum to Cathode Ray Tube. The ink monitors are watching. Switch to scramble mode.” And that was it. Further down this column Cathode Ray Tube was urging Oozlum Woozlum to consider his (or her) procrastination techniques, whatever that meant. And so it went on, line after line of eccentric nonsense that obviously meant something to someone somewhere. However, half way down the second column a small one line advert snapped Drood out of his semi-interested state. It read:
“Drood. Something wonderful is going to happen.” And, again – that was it. Drood grabbed the paper tightly and pulled it closer, as though sticking his face close enough to the inky print might make this mad message make sense. He read it and re-read it. It definitely said Drood.
“Something wonderful?” He said, out loud. “Like what?” His eyes ducked back down to the paper in his hands. Five messages below the first seemingly addressed to him, was his answer.
“Drood – everything you could hope for. What is your dearest wish – right now?” His heart was beating a little faster now. This was weird. He slowly stood up to his full height, never taking his eyes off the message. The only other time he had experienced goose bumps like this was the night the first four balls out of the National Lottery Draw had been on his ticket. The message straight below the previous one made his pulse rate sky-rocket.
“Drood – just like the first four numbers in the Lottery. Of course you were never going to get the final two, were you?” Sweat suddenly beaded on his brow. He cried out as the forgotten cigarette in his hand finally smouldered through to his fingers. Drood stamped out the final smoking remains of the fag and took himself back to this weird paper. What was his dearest wish – right now? Well, he’d always fancied driving round in a brand new Land Rover Discovery… oh, come on. He could do better than that. The mystical column agreed eight lines further down.
“Drood – only a car? We know you and we need your help.” They needed his help? And surely his idea of an ideal world could stretch further than a large car. What about World peace? That would be nice, everyone getting on with each other for a change. The column agreed once more.
“Drood – that’s more like it. And you will achieve it.” But how? Who would ever listen to him? He had no influence, no status and barely a pot to piss in.
“Drood – your pot runneth over. Go see your wood burner.” And that was the final advert of that week’s column. Now this was definitely not your usual Saturday, even on a day with such a ferocious hang-over to contend with. What did it mean? Go see your wood burner? It was the height of summer for Christ’s sake. Drood pondered a while as he stood in silence in his garden. He picked up his tea mug and marched inside. It was time to take a good hard look at his wood burning stove.
Inside seemed spectacularly dark after the brilliant sunlight of the back garden. Drood wandered through into his sitting room, but everything seemed wonderfully normal and re-assuring. The sagging shelves of books, CD’s, LP’s and his elderly stereo were all where they should be. The signed photo of Spike Milligan smiled down at him from its alcove. And there, lurking in the middle of the stone fireplace was the wood burner itself. It was a nice modern model, a Villager, but its front windows were blind and blackened from the heat they had experienced in the winter. Cobwebs trailed round the hinges and indicated the front doors had not been in opened in a while. Drood knelt in front of the black box and tried to crane his neck so he could see if anything was going on round the back of the burner, but it was, as ever, flush to the wall with the flue running up into the chimney breast. There was absolutely nothing out of place or unusual. Drood tentatively reached out a hand and unlocked the front doors. The cobwebs split and broke as the doors opened outwards. Inside was a mass of old ashes and darkness. But there was something else. A small clear plastic wallet, a little bit like the bags you get from banks for your small change. Drood picked it up. Inside was a piece of A4 paper that had been folded neatly into a quarter. He opened the bag, took the paper out and unfolded it. In clear, neat handwriting was written the message:
“I recommend you check your bank balance.” And that was it. This was madness. Expecting Drood to check his bank balance – on a Saturday? Anyone would think that Banks opened for their customer’s convenience! Seriously, this definitely needed checking up, so a visit to the High Road seemed like an urgent need.

Chapter One

It would appear that the weather men had been right the night before. It really was going to be the hottest day of the year so far. Even at this early hour, a light blue hazy mist rose over the fields and hedges of the surrounding districts as the first really hot rays of the sun started to get to work. The gently rolling hills and dipping valleys of the Somerset/Wiltshire border looked as inviting as ever. Nestling in a small valley just by the A303 lay the drowsy buildings and streets of Hulke. It was a small, non-descript town that showed signs of its heyday having long since passed. This was complete crap as it had never had a heyday in the first place. It had always just been “that place”. No railway had ever been there, no major battles of the English Civil War had ever raged near it. Hitler hadn’t even bombed it. No one had told him about it, so why should he?

Hulke has one major tourist attraction. Alright, I exaggerate. Hulke has A tourist attraction. In the middle of the town is an attractive and relatively large green. Its lawns undulate and are liberally covered with leafy trees that offer tranquil corners for lovers and tramps alike. In the middle of all this charming greenery lie the stark ruins of Hulke Priory. This was a small religious house that had never really been a major site, but had still been torn to pieces and left to rot by Henry the VIIIth and his asset stripping operation. Now the crumbling walls were slowly decaying in the elements, but still attracting the occasional visitor who would shuffle round, reading the information boards erected by the town council and taking photos to bore friends with later. It still made for a nice vista from the shops and pubs that lined one side of the High Road.

Some three roads back from Hulke’s main drag was Holmes Street. This was another largely anonymous red brick Victorian terrace of apparently cloned houses. They marched up the shallow hill in a regimented line of conformity. Here and there, owners had attempted to stamp their own identity and individualism on the outside by painting a gutter a garish pink, or by affixing large and hideous plastic butterflies on the brickwork. Some others had just decided to ignore all boundaries of taste and good sense and had plumped for the leprosy of home improvement – stone cladding. Number 63 was a little different from the rest, but you had to get up close to notice it. Around the front door, with its pretty and original stained glass panel, there were one or two messages. Things like a “Glastonbury 98” see-through badge, or a deeply faded “Dig Deep for the Miners” sticker, that sat proclaiming the house owners taste – and peeled slowly.

Upstairs in the main bedroom, a single figure lay sprawled across the scrambled bed clothes of the double bed. It was a male figure, aged about 35, thick set and with a mass of straggly brown hair that was thinning slightly at the front. He lay face down on the bed in just a pair of boxer shorts, a tiny sheen of perspiration in the small of his back. Somewhere in the street outside he could hear a milk float whining up the hill. His eye lids slowly parted and he focussed on the mobile phone by his bed, used as it always was by him as a clock and alarm just as often as a means of communication. The time said 07:34. For one moment he thought it was time to get up, head to the office, but then it came back to him. It was Saturday. A day off. The thumping hangover confirmed that it definitely was Saturday. The figure rolled on to his back and tried to ignore the headache, but on the pain Richter scale this one was heading towards double figures. He struggled into a semi seated position, farted thunderously and then pondered on the possibility of being upright. It sounded far too adventurous and he slumped back into the pillows. This was Neil Hinchcliffe, known to all his friends, and the occasional enemy, as “Drood”. A bizarre nickname, that was for sure and one whose explanation was now lost in the mists of time and would probably never be recovered. Not unless someone invented a time machine and what was the likelihood of that ever happening? He had been known as Drood since his years at secondary school and it had stuck, and to be quite honest he liked it. Summoning up super human reserves of energy and resolve he levered himself into a seating position and then, even more impressively, swung his legs out over the edge of the bed and let them dangle down to the floor. Hot. Headache. Desperate for a wee and a poo. Mouth like a piece of sandpaper. All of these sensations were analysed by his brain and filed away in order of importance, to be dealt with as they became critical. Toilet first seemed like a good starting point – obviously after an evacuation of his bowels and the resulting odour, this would necessitate the opening of a window somewhere which would alleviate some of the over heating problems. A glass of water and two paracetamol would equally cure the sandpaper and headache scenario. See! Life could be made simple!

It had been a spectacularly bad night at the pub the previous evening. “The Flag of Nations” was another simple Victorian building with two bars and a miniscule snug. Its front windows were of a pleasant stained glass, while inside the flag motif was played to the extreme with various pennants draped over most available surfaces. Dark wood and horse brasses completed the picture. Drood had been a regular there for the past 4 years and things still weren’t improving. This particular Friday evening, two of the local lasses were in there – Claire and Tara. Both of them quite nice, but Drood was particularly fond of Claire with her dark hair and big sensuous eyes. But then he wouldn’t have kicked Tara out of bed either and he had been single for far too long and was determined to impress these ladies. But it didn’t go according to plan. He had sat with them in the snug and felt happily in control of the situation and even started flirting with both of them. They even admitted that they were both very single and were on the look out for a man in their lives. Drood’s heart had leapt at this admission. He was poised to move in for the kill when Claire delivered her knockout blow on his undefended emotional chin.
“Drood” she had begun, gently rolling the “R” and leaning forward so that he could get a better look at her cleavage. “Both Tara and I are single and in need of good men, and we wanted to ask you something…” Drood, as calmly as he could manage replaced his pint on the table, but inside butterflies were going ape-shit and his breath shuddered slightly. Was she really going to say next what he thought, hoped and prayed she was going to say? Something along the lines of “can we come back to your house and give an impromptu display of lingerie wearing and Sapphic tendencies for your delectation?” Did she bollocks…
“What we wanted to ask you was, do you know any nice single men you could introduce us to?” His heart slapped onto the floor, flapped around pathetically for a second or two and then expired. He tried to regain some composure and raised an eyebrow quizzically in a way that he hoped would be attractive.
“Well, there is one name that springs to mind…” He growled in what was a passable imitation of a sexy voice. Tara sat forward excitedly and Claire’s big brown eyes twinkled.
“Oh, do tell!” said Tara. Drood licked his lips slowly, ready to deliver his trump card.
“Me” he announced, proudly. Silence descended on the snug.
“You?” said Claire and looked in bewilderment at Tara. Drood’s confidence evaporated.
“Err… yes, me” he repeated, only this time in a timid rather pathetic little voice. Claire reached over and stroked his arm gently.
“Oh you sweetie, always trying to cheer us up with a joke. You are just like a brother to us, totally safe and trustworthy! That’s why we love you!” She finally emotionally murdered him by giving him a chaste, innocent peck on the cheek and stood up and headed for the bar. Tara remained briefly. She looked hard at Drood.
“You fancy her don’t you?” she said sharply. Drood nodded dumbly and smiled apologetically at her.
“Dreadful isn’t it?” He ventured in a joking way. Tara stood up and picked up her drink.
“Yeah” she breathed. “You know you don’t stand a chance, don’t you? Claire’s completely out of your league.” She added. Another emotional boot in the bollocks. She drained her glass and went off to join Claire. Drood sat for a second in silence. He had already drunk too much and was getting towards “emotional” in more ways than one. But he would be OK; he would settle his emotions and go out into the bar again. He just needed a couple of seconds to calm him down and get everything under control again. Just at that second, some complete knob-end put on “Hurt” by Johnny Cash on the juke box and Drood dissolved into a mass of snot and tears. Heaving shoulders and gasping breaths. He would have to do what a man had to do. He was going to have to get very, very drunk and make some completely futile gesture of love and admiration.

Downstairs in his kitchen the following morning Drood poured water into his kettle for a cup of tea. His mind recovered what he had finally done at the pub last night. He groaned with embarrassment. Seven pints of Summer Lightning and a couple of whiskies were probably not the best way to begin a romantic plan, but the purchasing of large amounts of crab sticks and winkles from the woman who came round with the shell fish tray and then attempting to give them all to Claire and Tara as a token of good will and unbridled lust was definitely a no-no. The added ingredient sure to make this whole scenario collapse was the fact that Claire and Tara were by this time completely surrounded by the Hulke Barbarians Rugby club and enjoying their attentions as they were all obviously completely unlike brothers to them. Drood had completed his utter embarrassment by throwing a winkle at the Rugby Club captain, had just missed having his head taken off his shoulders by the said captain and had been rescued by his best mate Bryan Camfield who had helped him stagger home, pausing only to throw up in a litter bin. As he poured the boiling water from the kettle into a mug for some tea this following morning, he could only console himself with the idea that one day he would look back on all this and laugh. Probably sometime during the next ice age.

A Novel featuring Hippies, football and time travel...

OK, OK, I know there are millions of other people banging out novels on line. I have even read some of them myself. I have been farting about with Team Spirit for what seems a lifetime now and I do love the story, I have it all mapped out in my mind, but it is the discipline of making myself write it down completely, finish it off, that is the real difficulty I have. So many other things to distract me. Well, having heard some woman on the radio the other day getting over excited by the six-figure advance she had received from a certain well-known publishers for her (IMHO) self-centred navel gazing tosh that had been picked up on the net via a blog, well, I thought I'll have some of that myself. So week by week, I shall start publishing the chapters of Team Spirit and the ongoing struggle of it's central hero Drood Hinchcliffe and his best buddy Bryan Camfield, to come to terms with a bizarre world of which they have not the slightest idea what is going on in. Blimey. That sentence got away with me already and I haven't even started yet. You can always make a run for it here, dear reader...

Comments would be most welcome, as long as they are either constructive or praising. Please, none of this American "Hey, I love your blog, have you considered tri-equity sausage bonds with Rolex watches free in our casino with lashings of hot viagra! Make your cock HUGE!" bollocks, OK?

Finally, the town this is based in is called Hulke and is pronounced "HEW-K" and is actually based on the town of... well, that would be telling. See if anyone can work it out.