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“Oh, help!”
    A sickening report above drew Jim’s attention. It seemed that the elderly head of Omally’s pickaxe was debating as to whether this would be as good a time as any to part company with its similarly aged shaft. “Oooooooh noooo!” shrieked Jim as he sank a couple of inches nearer to kingdom-come. Pooley closed his eyes and made what preparations he could, given so little time, to meet his Maker. Another loud crack above informed Jim that the pickaxe had made up his mind. The handle snapped away from the shaft and Jim was gone.
    Or at least he most definitely would have been, had not a pair of muscular hands caught at his trailing arms and drawn him aloft, rending away his tweedy jacket sleeves from both armpits. A white-faced and gibbering Jim Pooley was dragged out through the gap in the fencing and deposited in a tangled heap upon the pavement.
    “You are trespassing,” said a voice somewhere above him. “These are your jacket sleeves, I believe.”
    Jim squinted up painfully from his pavement repose. Above him stood as pleasant a looking angel of deliverance as might be imagined. He was tall and pale, with a shock of black hair combed away behind his ears. His eyes were of darkest jet, as was his immaculate one-piece coverall work suit. He wore a pair of miniscule headphones which he now pushed back from his ears. Jim could hear the tinkling of fairy-like music issuing from them.
    “I was passing and I heard your cries,” the young man explained. “You were trespassing you know.”
    Jim climbed gracelessly to his feet and patted the dust from what was left of his jacket. He accepted the sleeves from the young man and stuffed them into a trouser pocket. “Sorry,” said he. “I had no idea. My thanks, sir, for saving my life.”
    “It is no matter,” said the young man. “Had you fallen you might have damaged some valuable equipment.”
    “Oh, thanks very much.”
    “It is no matter. This site has been acquired and excavated for a new complex to be built. Lateinos and Romiith Limited.”
    “Oh, those lads.” Pooley blew on to the scorched palms of his hands. The “Acquired for Lateinos and Romiith” signs had been blossoming upon all manner of vacant plots in Brentford recently, and the black-glazed complexes had been springing up overnight, like dark mushrooms. Exactly who Lateinos and Romiith were, nobody actually knew, but that they were very big in computers was hinted at. “Don’t let the marker posts on your allotment fall down,” folks said, “or the buggers will stick a unit on it.”
    “Well again, my thanks,” said Jim. “I suppose you didn’t see anything of an old bedframe while your lads were doing the excavations?”
    “Bedframe?” The young man suddenly looked very suspicious indeed.
    “Well, never mind. Listen, if you are ever in the Swan I would be glad to stand you a pint or two. Not only did you save my life but you saved me a good deal of unnecessary labour.” Pooley made as to doff his cap, but it was now many hundreds of feet beneath his reach. Cursing silently at Omally, he said, “Thank you, then, and farewell.” Snatching up Omally’s pickaxe head, he shambled away down Abaddon Street leaving the young man staring after him wearing a more than baffled expression.
    Jim thought it best to return Omally’s axehead at once to his allotment shed before any more harm could come to it. He also thought it best not to mention the matter of the spade, which having been one of Omally’s latest acquisitions was something of a favourite with him. Possibly then, it would be a good idea to slip around to Norman’s and stick his nose once more against the kitchenette window.
    As Jim came striding over the allotment ground, pickaxe head over shoulder and “Whistle while you Work” doing that very thing from between his lips, he was more than a little surprised to discover Omally in his shirt-sleeves, bent over the zinc water-butt, dabbing at his tender places.