"I can keep a secret," said Jack. "Listen to this one." He whispered words into the still lowered ear of Dr Steven.

"She never does," said the doctor.

"She does too, but don't tell anyone."

"I certainly won't."

"So what's the top secret then?"

Dr Steven Malone waved Jack into a fireside chair and seated himself upon another. "For the last two years," said he, "I have been engaged upon a groundbreaking project. From all over the world I have gathered dried blood samples. From the Shroud of Turin, the Spear of Longinus, the purported crown of thorns in Troyes, nails from the true cross scattered in cathedrals across Europe, even an item claimed to be the holy prepuce. I have cross-matched two and I am certain that they come from the same being."

"Jesus Christ!" said Jack.

"The very same. It is now my intention, using a reagent of my own formulation, to liquefy this blood and extract the DNA. With this I intend to clone ..."

"Jesus Christ!"

"Exactly. And not just the one. I am going to clone at least six."

"Like in that film," said Jack. "The Boys from Brazil. Where they cloned Hitler."

"Exactly. Mine will be The Boys from Bethlehem."

"But surely," said Jack, "you are tampering with forces that no man should dare to tamper with."

"Oh, absolutely, yes. But then - do you mind if I stand up while I do this bit?"

"Not at all."

Dr Steven Malone stood up, flung his pale arms in the air and began to stalk about the room. "They thought me mad, you see!" he cried out in a ranting sort of a tone. "Mad? I who have discovered the very secrets of Life itself?" He sat down again. "What do you think?"

"Very impressive. But you could also add, 'One day the whole world will know my name.'"

"Thanks very much. I'll remember that in future. Now, about your blood."

"How much do you want?"

"About eight pints."

Close Your Eyes and Cover Your Ears "Well, I'd like to," said Jack. "But I really should be getting back to work."

"Another time, then. I'll show you out."

"Thanks very much. Goodbye."

Eh?

"Well, I'd like to," said Jack. "But I really should be getting back to work."

Dr Steven Malone produced a small automatic pistol from a trouser pocket and pointed it at Jack. "Regrettably no," said he. "I cannot allow you to leave. I require your blood and I require it now. It's nothing personal, you understand. I would have used the blood of whoever had delivered the package. The isotopes are all I require to complete my procedures."

Jack began to worry. "Aw, come on," he whined. "You don't want my blood. My blood's just ordinary stuff. I could telephone my wife, she's got terrific blood."

"Is your surname Bryant, by any chance?"

"That's right. Perhaps you know my wife. Wears a very short dress. Has this lurcher that's also a Dane, and ..."

"Likes to make love with her head in the fridge?"

"She hasn't mentioned that to me," said Jack.

"Move," said Dr Steven. "Along the corridor and down the steps."

"Oh no-diddly-oh-no-no."

This had undoubtedly been the most eventful day in Jack's long and uneventful life. Sadly it would also be the last.

Dr Steven stood in profile, pointing with his pistol to the basement off the page.

6.

The dreaming mind of Pooley went on its walkabout, wading through a stream of semi-consciousness.

A cracked mug of darkened foliage by swollen ashtrays on limp carpets of faded heraldry where smells of stale cinemas and locked cars and fridges and magnets and bottom drawers in old boarding houses giving up their dying breaths and period paper ads for tennis shoes and foundation garments and Cadbury's twopenny bars of Bournville that give an athlete energy to run while underneath and undisturbed the rough drawer bottoms offer scents of camphor and sassafras and amber and Empire and then across the polished lino turning tiny rubber wheels The Speed of the Wind his favourite Dinky push and flip with the thumb to send it flying forwards past the potty deep into the dark beneath the bed where lying and looking up the silver shining spirals of springs ranked one beyond the next in crazy perspective out of focus from the fluff and fuzz of folk who pay by the day and the day you leave you must clear the room by ten and wipe the sink before you go downstairs to put your luggage in the sitting room we call the lounge and take a last walk along the promenade to watch the sea make fractious moves along the beach and suck the sand and lick the piles those cracked white piles beneath the pier all shuttered look there even the Palm Restaurant is closed and will not offer tea on trays to place upon its green glass table tops because the Lloyd Loom chairs are placed there now the arcades have their blinds pulled down by photo men and donkey men and those who bowl the penny maybe you can win the goldfish in the bag or simply watch and walk across the iron-trellised railway bridge as fast as you can to keep up with dad who has left it late to haul those cases up the asphalt stairs towards the empty platform where the train blows steam and shouts and sighs and streets of terraced houses with their grey slate roofs above the London stocks and strokes the orange cat upon the window sill that's glad to see you home and homework rushed upon that last weekend it's good to be back in the playground where the conkers rise and fall and fag cards flick and girls skip and show their knickers and the marbles and the whistle blows like a train "Jim Pooley, headmaster's room at the double."

"But it wasn't me. Omally did it, not me, sir."

But John did not own up.

And Pooley got the cane.

Jim stirred in his altered state. "Move forward, you sod," he told his brain. "We keep going back to school, and I'm fed up with getting the cane again and again and again."

There was a bit of a mental lap dissolve and what's this?

Fast music. Pete Townshend windmills. Marshall speakers. Mod dancing. Blue Triangle Club. Scooters. Parkas. Here's Jim here. Nice whistle. Burton's special. Fifteen pounds ten shillings over ten weeks. Slim Jim tie. Nice touch that. He's waiting for someone. Foolish haircut, Jim. Great loafers though. Ivy Shop, Richmond? Cost a packet, those, lads. Who are you waiting for, Jim, all alone outside with the music coming through the bog window and the bouncer on the door smoking a reefer?

"Sandra," whispered Jim in his cosmic sleep. "Oh, Sandra."

Stand and wait and shuffle and look at your watch. Nice watch. Where d'you get that? Bought it off a bloke in a pub. You don't go into pubs, do you, not at your age? Bloke outside a pub. Outside a club. Just now! The bouncer sold it to me. Where is Sandra? Where is Sandra?

But Sandra is not coming. Sandra has gone off with John Omally, on the back of his Vespa.

Jim mumbled and grumbled. "Bloody John. Forward, brain, forward. Into the future."

Whir and click and fast forward.

And freeze frame.

And play.

What year is this? Get up, have breakfast. The bookies, then the pub. The pub and then the bench, then home for tea and then the pub again. Then ouch, get up and groan have breakfast, then the bookies, then the pub, the bench, then tea and then the pub. What's this? The years becoming years, yet all the same? A small job here, a little fiddle there, a laugh, a sadness and another beer. Then sleep it off, then up, then breakfast, then the bookies and the pub, then ...

"Forward," moaned Pooley. "Fast forward, please."

Fast forward. Freeze frame. And play.

... the bench, then home for tea, then to the pub, then ...

"Forward! Forward!"

Bubbling, turning, little spheres of red and white.

"Stop here and play!"

Bouncing, tumbling over, little numbers too.

"This is it," sighed Jim, "this is it. What week? What week?"

"It's the National Lottery draw for tonight, the mmmph mmmph mmmph 1997."

"I didn't catch that date," said Pooley.

"And the machine chosen for tonight ..." The presenter's that bloke who used to be on Blue Peter, isn't it? "Chosen by our beautiful guest star, is ... Leviathan."

"Oooooooooh!" went the crowd. As if it really mattered at all.

"Oooooooooh!" went Jim. Because here he is, sitting in a front-row seat, a lottery ticket in his hand. But he looks a bit odd. Somewhat battered. His left foot is all bandaged up. Has he been in a fight, or a war, or what?

"And to press the magic button," says the Blue Peter bloke, or is he off that children's art programme where they do things with rubber bands and cling film and tubes of adhesive, or was that a video with German subtitles? "To press the magic button we have that American actress with the improbable breasts, who was in that film with Sylvester Stallone. You can't put a name to her face but you'd recognize her if she got her kit off."

Jim made odd sounds under his breath. "Just get on with it," he muttered.

"Press that button, bimbo," cried the Blue Peter bloke, or is he the fellow who does the chocolate bar commercial, where all that creamy stuff spurts everywhere? Or was that on the video with the German subtitles?

"That was on the video," mumbled Jim. "Roll them old balls."

The American actress with the Woolworths frontage pushed the button. Down and plunge and round and round went the balls.

Jim studied the ticket in his lap. "Come on," he whispered.

And then the balls slide one after another into the tube, the tension mounting all the while. The Blue Peter bloke, who does mostly voice-overs nowadays, but is trying to rebuild his career with the help of Max Clifford, points to the first ball and shouts, "Seventeen."

"Oooooooooooooh!" go the crowd. Do any of them actually have seventeen marked on their cards?

"I do," whispers Jim.

"Twenty-five."

Another "Oooooooh". Not quite so loud this time and lacking several Os.

Jim gives his card the old thumbs up.

Then "Forty-two" and "Nineteen" and "Number five". And fewer "Ooooohs" every time, except for Jim.

"Then thirty-one," says Jim, all smiles.

"And thirty-one."

"Oh yes! And then the bonus ball, which is ..."

"One hundred and eighty."

"What?"

"One hundred and eighty."

"That's not right. The balls only go up to forty-nine. Hang about, you're not the Blue Peter bloke, you're ..."

"One hundred and eighty and the Flying Swan scoops the darts tournament for the nineteenth year running." And John Omally went "Prrrrrrrt!" into Pooley's earhole.

Jim leapt from his studio seat to find himself leaping from the bench before the Memorial Library. Omally's grinning face filled all the world.

"Counting sheep?" grinned John. "Hey ..."

Jim caught him with an uppercut that swung the Irishman over the bench and into the bushes behind.

Omally rose in a flustering of foliage, clutching at his jaw. "Mother Mary's handbag, Jim. You hit me."

"And there's more to come, you robber of my millions."

Jim took another mighty swing, but this time John ducked nimbly aside. Carried by the force of his own momentum, Jim too plunged over the bench. Omally helped him to his feet. "Calm yourself, Jim, be at peace there."

"Be at peace? I was there, right there, I had the numbers, I ... God, the numbers, what were the numbers?"

"One hundred and eighty was one of them."

"You bloody fool, Omally." Jim took yet another swing but this too missed its mark and Pooley went sprawling.

"Stop this nonsense, Jim. I've come to make you rich."

"I was rich. I was. I had it. Help me up for God's sake, I'm stuck in brambles here."