O’Brien is in one of his many bedrooms, propped up on a bed against the headrest by a royal court of cushions, safely cuffed, and disconsolate under the anaesthetizing glare of the old portable television I’d dug out of a cupboard for him, while I, ensconced in his study, thrash out the next installment of our kidnap drama for my Nickelodeons, and there’s a pulse and a rhythm as the words burn across the page, as I squeeze out one delicious sentence after another, like so many rows of sizzling sausages, scrumptious, taste-the-fucking-difference sausages, and I’m centered and I’m definitively in the zone when — CRASH! — I hear earthenware come a cropper outside along with an anguished, girlish squeal and the flow of my creative juices is brought to a sudden standstill.

    There’s an intruder on the premises. 

    Or rather another one, besides me, and this one’s far less slick at the breaking and entering malarky. 

    “WHAT WAS THAT?” shouts O’Brien.

    “WHAT WAS WHAT?” I reply, innocently. “DID YOU HEAR SOMETHING?”

    “OF COURSE I DID — YOU DIDN’T?”

    “NOT A DICKY BIRD?”

    I scamper into several of his adjoining and adjacent rooms while I’m lying through my teeth at him, until I find the source of our disturbance, until there she is, moving along the side of the building and into the garden, stealthily, nervously, and no, she’s not exactly a dicky bird, but she is a somewhat fruitily-dressed bird in search of some extramarital dicky, no doubt, so I wasn’t too far off the mark.

    “IT SOUNDED LIKE A POT PLANT,” he shouts. 

    “I’D HAVE NOTICED — ARE YOU SURE IT WASN’T THE TELLY?”

    “I DO KNOW THE FUCKING DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TELLY AND A POT PLANT!”

    Temper, temper. 

    If I respond in kind, his wife may find her voice, take his side, and no one wants that with a prowler outside, so I hold my tongue and let him feel like he’s won his battle, while I concentrate on winning a war. 

    Looking down at her, our mystery woman, from my high window, draped in its noirish shadows like Anthony Perkins in the only film of his that matters, I suddenly note a resemblance in her to a very modern Janet Leigh: the hair, peroxide blonde, is cut boyishly short, and her sixties-style dress, shorter still, is raised to get a male pulse rate up. She seems confused by the lack of life in the building, particularly given that she’d had a romantic rendezvous lined up. All the downstairs curtains are drawn; all the blinds are down. It all seems a bit odd.

    Inexplicable. 

    Hers is not the only puzzled mind in the vicinity however, what with the million-dollar question her presence on the premises now troubles mine with: the troubling question is this: do I leave a door ajar for her to find, permitting her to step into the diegetic world of our story, or do I allow her to continue roaming outside, wild and free and wanton? I take a breath as a mental palette cleanser, and with that I’m resolved: while the heart certainly leaps at the opportunity — of an injection of tragicomedy, the notorious Fallen Woman triangulating a seemingly happy marriage in real time — I’ve made up my mind to go the other way and play it safe. 

    It’s only day one, and a story, like all living things, needs its air in which to breathe.

    Meanwhile, in the garden below, the mystery blonde checks her phone, oblivious to the sliding doors moment I’ve been brooding over, and seems to make a call of her own, both literal and idiomatic. She’s a picture of impish impatience with her hand stroppily on her hip, waiting for a reply at the other end of the line that’ll never come from a lover who’s up here zip tied in front of a television, and then finally she shakes her head, pockets the phone, and off she struts. 

    Be seeing you. 

    Sooner rather than later, I hope. 

    On my way back to the study, Alistair sees me as I pass his bedroom, and snaps, “So did you find the source of the noise that you pretended not to hear?”

    “Yes, you were right, it was a pot. But I’m sorry to say that there’ll be no deus ex machina coming to save the day — it was just another tabby on the prowl, the very apex of animals when it comes to ignoring our domestic boundaries.”

    “Stop waffling on and come in here.”

    If for no other reason other than to keep him pacified, I do as bid and enter the bedroom. I lower my chin and raise my eyebrows like the foulest of Karens to question my summoning, and he fills in the gap with a big bucketful of moan:

    “Explain to me how the hell I’m supposed to stay out of work for a week without getting sacked, will you?”

    “This again?”

    “Yes, this again, because it’s my life, and you can’t keep me tied up in here; they need me.”

    “I would counter that my needs are somewhat greater.” 

    Permit me a minor digression here, dear reader: There are plenty of long dead literary genres out there (chivalric romances, dependent on the idea of feminine and masculine virtue; hagiographies, wholly reliant on a belief in saintly sacrifice and martyrdom, sadly gone in this age of selfish rage), but I would humbly argue that no narrative exists, none, which is deader than the genre to which Alistair currently belongs: the yuppy-in-peril. No one has rooted for this guy, the high-achieving hero at risk of losing it all, since the eighties, since the time when the dream began its slow implosion. Nowadays, the underdog is the only dawg in town and Alistair certainly doesn’t tick enough intersectional boxes to count as one of those. It’s not all ideological astroturfing either. There’s an instinct in us to root for the small fry, and justly so, but this guy, what with all the money, fame and social capital at his disposal, will always be a yuppy, even after almost everyone has forgotten to use the word.

    None of this I feel the need to share with Alistair, who has persisted in his insufferable rant while my mind was wandering lonely as a cloud.

    “I’m not some office worker on a hamster wheel — I can’t just not turn up one day and then fob them all off spinning out a flimsy excuse for a whole week. Time is money, and my time, that’s a lot of other people’s money, pal, a lot of people’s livelihoods.”

    “They’ll be using pre-recorded material today and they’ll stick some holiday cover in place for the rest of the week. They’ll parachute in a bod who’s able to argue with the plebs in an entertaining manner, an understudy, and that’ll be that.” 

    “They’ll sack me!”

    “Well, I’ll kill you.”

    “Christ, what am I even going to say?”

    “Well, if it’s words you want…”

    “That’s not what I meant and it’s not what I want.” 

    “Because if it’s the honeyed word that you’re looking for,” I say, my train of thought refusing to be derailed, “I’ve taken the liberty of writing you a monologue — give me a sec to fetch it.” I nip out of the room and into his study, find the A4 sheet of dialogue I’d prepared earlier, and return to place it in his supine lap. Then I nod to suggest that he read it, which he does without grumble or complaint. “I think you’ll concur that it’ll be enough to buy us the time we need, that is if you’re coming at it with an amply open mind.” His brow wrinkles into a darkened frown while digesting it and then, when he’s done perusing, he starts shaking his head in dismay.

    “You’re fucking crazy — there’s no way I am reading that shit out loud to anyone.”

    “Once again, I’m not, it’s the world around us that is, and yes you are, and with all the thespy feeling you can muster.” 

    “No one will buy this.”

    “If it lacks the necessary Stanislavskian realism, perhaps not, and that’ll be on you, Alistair, but I promise you one thing that they will buy: the authenticity of the gunshot going off in the background and the sound of your—”

    “I can’t make this ring true; I just can’t!”

    This is getting us nowhere. 

    A wise man once said that the craft of instruction can be reduced to two simple verbs: to tell and to show. With all my telling getting us nowhere, I ready myself to show him the way through a spirited reading of the aforementioned text. I can barely lay claim to a method or a process, but I clear my throat and centre myself to get into the role as best I can before letting loose in a thin erratic voice, speaking into an invisible mouthpiece, flitting from vulnerable one moment, to frantic and fraught the next, all the while stuttering for verisimilitude’s sake and adding fresh ideas as and when they occur:

    “You’ve got to believe me when I say that I’ve tried picking up the phone on so many occasions before now, but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it — [Breath] —now this is going to sound reckless, I know, but there is simply no other way. — [Breath] —Here’s the rub: My marriage is hanging by a thread as thin as gossamer. She says that I’m more interested in my career than our marriage, and worse, even suspects me of having an affair! — [Breath] —So here I am with one last chance to save it, and I mean to make it count. — [Breath] — Sorry, but I lied about my having a migraine: I had to buy myself a day to think it all through, to work it all out. — [Audible sigh] — I’ve decided to take Harriet away to the Maldives for a week to sort it out between us. — [Panicky breath] — I hate myself more than you ever could for the mess I’m putting you in — [More Panicky breaths] — I know this sounds rash and I really wish that I could have explained this in person and god knows I hope my job will be there when I return, but, like I said, it’s hanging by a thread, my marriage, it’s nothing but spider spaff holding our lives together, and I’m not taking any more risks — [Breath] — Don’t take offence if you don’t get any replies from me when you call, because I won’t have my phone on me for the week, she’ll have my undivided attention — [Breath] — She said that my media work was driving us apart, so if I as much as look at the mobile, I reckon that’ll be it. — [Breath] — Don’t be spooked by the sight of both our cars out in the drive either: I booked a taxi. Bloody parking at Heathrow would likely hasten our divorce.” 

    Rather than ending on a magniloquent bow, I take out my vape pen, place its golden tip between my pursed lips and release a beautifully dense cinnamon and passion fruit cloud up towards his light fitting and await its slow velvety descent like a theatrical curtain fall.  “So, what do you think? Speak now or forever hold your codpiece,” I say, in amongst these smoky effects.

    “That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve heard since the last stupid thing that you said.”

    “It’s meant to sound like the product of a disordered mind.”

    “Then I guess congratulations are in order — no one’s going to take that away from you.”

    Touché.

    My face coils into a half sneer before I have the presence of mind to sweep it all away. “What I meant to say was, in the monologue, I wasn’t reaching for a memorable register, but a muddled one.” I take an inhalation from the pen and snort my vapours out in two long lines like a sleeping dragon. “Dunking on Heathrow’s parking facilities hits the wrong note at the end, right?”

    “Ditto the spider spaff.” 

    “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!”

    “Hey?”

    “Alistair — I have reflected, and full of snark though your objections are, I accept them. You were right to take issue with my overcomplicating of matters.”   

    Another expressive drag on the pen, inhaling as if it’s the very source of my magnanimity, and an even longer exhalation before I conclude with: “All that said and done, you’re going to record the monologue as a WhatsApp message anyway.” 

    Direct hit! 

    Now there’s more than enough anxiety in his facial expression to compensate for his earlier attack on my reading. Take that. His mouth falls open and is about to evoke Edvard Munch’s much celebrated painting when I cut in:

    “Your employers may think that you’re speaking in a contrived manner, but there’s absolutely no chance that it’ll arouse suspicions of foul play. They’ll think that you wrote it, disingenuous doggerel as it is, and blame you for its shortcomings.” I take another drag, a reflective one, and add as an aside in amongst the vapour: “I mean, ask yourself, why would you open up to your colleagues and friends, you, the sort of man who throws sickies to cheat on his wife in their marital bed.”

    “Fuck you.”

    “Whichever way you look at it, it’s a win-win for me. They’ll think that you’re making a terrible excuse for your absence, but at least they’ll think it’s you making it, and that’s all I need for a week of your time. I’ll post the same recorded message to all your WhatsApp contacts and reply where I can to family, friends and colleagues. You’ll field the calls tomorrow, under the watchful eye of the gun, and in the days thereafter we’ll ignore the phone as best we can.”

    “And what about my wife — where does she fit into your Muppetavellian plan?”

    I roll my eyes at his droll attempt at wordplay and shake my head at his being insufferable, all the while making a mental note to include it in the book later. 

    “Her excuse has already been called in. She’ll be in Scotland tending to a very sick mum for the week. Naturally, I’m hoping our two narratives don’t collide. One shouldn’t cross streams unless you’re looking for catastrophic results as that Ghostbuster once so memorably put it. Every story needs its complications, sure, but there is a limit to the number a narrative can shoulder.” 

    Now he’s shaking his head in contemptuous disbelief.

    “Why bother cooking up two wildly different stories for Harriet and me? Can’t I just visit a sick mother-in-law who isn’t sick instead of taking my wife on a last-minute trip to the Maldives to save a marriage that doesn’t need saving?” 

    “In a word: nae. Scotland isn’t that far away and your type of colleague may get you to do the show in a local studio; or worse, push for a long-distance commute.”

    “My type of colleague?” 

    “Your employer is a special breed, Alistair. Whilst there’s no end to the depth of what some people are capable of feeling, what most fail to gather is that the inverse is also true: feeling has no beginning for some, and I would argue that your strand of media type, the espouser and shaper of daytime narratives whose task it is to shepherd the plebs into their ideological pens, is a particularly heartless breed. These people are as empathetic as the feta cheese in one’s Greek salad, but not nearly as wholesome.” 

    “So your reason for my implausible story is a prejudice against a media type?”

    I nod to aver, curtly, skipping over this latest complaint to continue my train of thought: “They understand that feeling is part of the human condition, are more than willing to manipulate said feelings, shape them in whatever image they please, but they brook no actual value in matters of the heart; to them it’s nothing but pure larp.” 

    “Come on — I could lose my job!” 

    I’m reminded of Harriet and my need to check in on her. Edging towards the door, seeking a full stop to the conversation, I say: “Well, this is why I don’t think your wife’s story will serve as a reason to keep you out of the studio for a week, for what it’s worth.”     

    He snorts.

    “Worth? Since you’re finally asking, pal, no more than a few Venezuelan bolívar, that’s what! A sick relative is a damn sight more believable than this Maldives toss. If I’m going to be kept here a week, the least you could have done is come up with a credible yarn to feed my employers. Your bullshit slop about a marriage-saving last-minute trip to the Maldives is definitely not that!”  

    I’m halfway out of the door at this point, the staircase in my sights, when as an afterthought, and sadly gifting him the final word, I harrumph over my shoulder: “You really are quite antagonistic, Alistair, has anyone ever told you that?” 

    “Every story has its antagonist — and in this one, pal, it sure as hell ain’t me!” 

 

* * *

 

In exchange for granting the wife downstairs a sliver of liberty (by cutting her free of her cellophane wrapping), I add another pair of plastic zip restraints to her ankles to match those on her wrists, making any directional movement wormlike and likely very slapstick. But there’s no chance of any fun coming from her this afternoon: she’s on the sofa, motionless, blankly staring ahead at their gargantuan TV, doing her very best to ignore me while I tighten the restraints around her ankles, and so with nothing else to be occupied with, I find myself drifting into the superhero slop on the TV as it plays out to a kitschy climax. 

    The hero goes WHAM! 

    The villain goes CRASH!  

    HOORAY! go the fist-punching crowds lining the streets below. 

    On the table beside her, a large glass of tap water is half empty (all you Pollyannas — half full if we must) suggesting a successful quaffing of the Xanax I’d spiked it with.

    Suddenly, she clears her throat as if to speak, and there’s more drama in her short preparatory breath than in any of the nonsense on the big screen.  “You look different,” she murmurs, her voice vague and monotone, her eyes, indifferent to mine, remaining locked on the images in front of her while she speaks.   

    “Really — different how?” I say, feigning innocence about her meaning; at this she peels her eyes off the gaudy events on the TV and lays them firmly on mine. 

    “This morning, you looked more or less human.” 

    Oh — and I get her meaning straightaway: Whilst I was posing as a delivery man, several hours ago, the dowdy corporate-looking waterproofs she’d first seen me in and to which she’s now alluding were never meant to keep me dry with barely a cloud in the sky — no — I only wore them to hide my tangerine-coloured chinos, a detail that might otherwise have caught my kidnappee’s eye, giving her, and he, dangerous pause for thought and a reason to keep their guards up more than was necessary. In those opening moments of my derring-do, I had to be nondescript before the O’Briens and yes, whilst I could have brought a change of clothes instead to put on after I’d put them both to sleep, to my mind a real superhero always wears his costume underneath his civvies.

    Her eyes remain on me, piercing and severe.

    “So I looked more or less human this morning — and now, by contrast, you’re going to say that I look as if I belong on a lower rung of the Great Chain of Being, in among the beasts, right?” Affecting a breezy tone out of keeping with her darkening one, I add: “A trailblazing way with one’s wardrobe will divide opinion, Harriet — but if one must, then divide and conquer, that’s what I say.” 

    “You look like an oily Tory out on the pull — a younger Michael Portillo or a Gove, high on poppers, cruising the Conservative Clubs for a sign of young Tory bumhole to exploit.”  KRAKOOOM! goes the TV as a large building collapses, and here I must confess, Dear Reader, that I’m rather taken aback by both the vividness and illiberal nature of her imagery, and in my struggle to come up with a reply, I bloody well lose my god given turn to speak as well: “You know a lot about my husband and I,” she says, in the same flat monotone as before, “but we don’t even have your goddamn name yet — you do have one?”

    “Yes, indeed I do have one.” 

    “Well, what is it?”

    “Brace yourself.”

    “Consider me well braced.”  

    “P.J. Pumpernickel,” I say, for the first time in my professional life, and here I realize that it’s me who’s been doing the bracing, not her. I catch myself fiddling with my vape pen and guiltily slip it away in a pocket to stop myself.

    “If you don’t want to tell me, fine, act like that, I don’t care that much anyway.”

    I smile and nod once, decisively, as a show of earnestness and still she doesn’t believe me, but I’ve said it out loud, and the hurdle hath at last been o’erleapt.

    “Stop messing, what’s your fucking name, you clown?”

    “You’ll only have my pen name as long as I’m in this house, which isn’t Clown, and is, as I’ve told you, Pumpernickel — P.J. Pumpernickel to be precise — duly at your service.”

    Every time I say it out loud, every time I proclaim myself, I feel that bit stronger than before — which brings to mind those dysphoric tranny types, coming out of the closet, tearing it asunder, shedding that obsolete ‘dead’ name to come into being again, afresh, anew.

    “You’ve named yourself after an artisanal bread?”

    I reintroduce the vape pen to my pursed lips, dragging on it hands-free, exhaling through the nostrils to shroud myself in a mystic, sweet-smelling smog.

    “In my dark but well-populated corner of the web, Pumpernickel is a byword for literary infamy. We writers, you see, are swimming against the tide, against the troublesome, disorientating flow of image and sound that makes up the modern condition. The ideal reader is out there, still, but he’s a demanding soul with so much worthless trash vying for his attention.” Here I nod over at the TV screen for my supporting evidence. “The ideal reader needs his scribe to be worthy of his attention and that, I assure you, I am. However, lest he miss me in such a crowded field, I’ve chosen a name as a device to help me stand out of it.”

    “BJ Lumpytickle,” she says, mirthlessly.

    “You’re being silly.” 

    “Do you still live in your box room with your mum and her legion of cats, P.G. Tips?”

    “P.J. Pumpernickel is a wryly amusing moniker that says, here’s a chap who doesn’t take himself too seriously, but perhaps you should. When you’ve overcome your prejudices, you’ll note how it evokes a rogues’ gallery of literary ne’er-do-wells: there’s the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Rumpelstiltskin, and then we have P.J. O’Rourke in the initials.”

    “V.J. Plumpy knickers.”

    I take several more tokes on the pen than are necessary, chugging on it like the finest of Watts’ prototypes before accepting, finally, that she’s not to be won over with logic and reason, and so, in amongst my vapours, I remind her of the precariousness of her situation:  “Don’t forget your archetypes, Harriet, and by that, who our damsel in distress is, and which of us is playing the evil mastermind — one that’s armed to the very hilt.”

    This is enough to stall all her needling and establish a wall of silence between us. 

    Time passes. 

    We redirect our attention to a vapid hero slugging it out against a cosmic wrong’un.

    Eventually, she says, with a disgusted-looking grimace: “That smell is killing me.”  

    She’s negging, but at least there’s life in her, and I, respond charitably by pocketing the vape pen: after all, someone has to be the grown up around here. 

    “It’s a cinnamon and passion fruit e-liquid — it’s actually quite hard to come by.” 

    “It smells like fresh sick.”

    “It’s an acquired taste.”

    “Fresh sick?”

    “Better on the tastebuds than on the nasal hairs, I’ll grant you.” On this accommodating note, our dialogue, I feel, having run its natural course, I spin on my heels and leave the room, leaving her to the gaudily-coloured trash on the TV. 

    There’s urgent work to be done and alas, this magnum opus won’t write itself. 

 

* * *

 

    There’s another noise outside! 

    Not a pot plant this time but a rake or something going over with an almighty clang!

    Shit!

    Frozen into a dithering stasis at the foot of the stairs, I wait for another sound, but in its place there’s only the pounding of a human heart — and yes, it’s mine.   

    “WHAT WAS THAT?” bellows O’Brien up in his bedroom; his exact words from earlier when another sudden noise had caught our attention — if this is history repeating itself, à la Marx, let’s hope we skip all the tragedy and get straight to the farce.

    I rush upstairs to find him on his bed, mouth open, and pounce on him before he can speak, let alone raise hell, stuffing his gaping cakehole full of socks, reestablishing the scarf tightly and securely around his head for quiet. 

    “Schtum’s the word,” I whisper, “while your prowler with her wanton growler is on the premises, not a peep from you, got it?” 

    He attempts to communicate via the eyes — rather murderous, it must be said — and I leave his room to an unsettling scene of apoplectic head shaking and a muffled sound that shouldn’t make it as far as downstairs — where I scamper to get to work on Harriet, attending to her in much the same manner, and god love that Xanax , she’s passivity personified, barely resistant to the socks inserted into her mouth and the scarf that’s wrapped around her head.

    If the prowler does find her way inside, neither kidnappee will be forewarning her of my intent.

    That is if it is a her.

    Christ — what if it’s the police? 

    I should check from an upstairs window — find out what the hell I’m dealing with.

    THE SOUND OF GLASS SHATTERING! 

    There’s no time. I need to gather my things instead. Stay downstairs to face whatever it is that’s making that noise. 

    Benzo. 

    Gun. 

    Zip restraints, at the ready. 

    MORE GLASS SHATTERING! 

    There’s no innocent explanation for any of this. 

    It’s a break and entry.

    Pure and simple. 

    MORE GLASS BREAKING! 

    And it’s coming from their pantry.

    The O’Briens have themselves a service entrance at the end of a very long pantry — an unnecessarily bourgeoise amenity, very much expected of our crass and richly-remunerated media class — and guess who didn’t remove the sodding key sticking out of the door — this guy, that’s who!

    There comes a wind-chime tinkle from their pantry: it’s the gentle sound of smaller shards being knocked loose from one of the glass panels, presumably to clear a hand-sized gap so someone may reach inside and turn the key to enter.

    Think. 

    No, don’t think, do!

    I act on instinct, slipping into the convenient crevice between the open living room door and the wall. Inside the building, our prowler will, I hope, be lured here Pied Piper–style to the sound of the TV where she’ll find Harriet — gagged, bound, and staring in wide-eyed wonderment — a perfect distraction for me as I step out from behind her and send her to sleep with a jab of the benzo. 

    That’s if it is a her. 

    And she’s alone. 

    Christ, and it’s not the police!  I am truly at the mercy of circumstance now — a Tolstoyan product of historical forces, swept along by events (dear boy, events) rather than a Great Man shaping them as he sees fit. I find myself tempted by Pascal’s Wager to put all my chips on a theistic universe, but then again, prayers for divine intervention coming from a man who’s kidnapped two and has plans for a third are likely to fall on deaf ears whether He’s up there listening or not.   

    CRUNCH! CRUNCH!

    It’s the sound of glass being trodden on. 

    Whoever it is out there — he, she, or worst of all, they — is inside the building.

    “Alistair?” enquires a female voice, as soft as a feather, and there’s no muttering or murmuring in support of her question, only a brittle silence, suggesting, one hopes, her aloneness. “Are you in there?” she whispers, louder this time, so close to me that I can hear her breathing on the other side of the living room door — she’s a veritable Thisbe to my Pyramus at this point.

    In my eyeline I can see the back of the sofa, but there’s no telling that it’s occupied — and if I can’t tell that Harriet’s on the other side, neither will the prowler be able to; to all intents and purposes this is an empty room with a TV playing. 

    “Alistair?” she says, taking a hoarse whisper to its loudest decibel. “Are you in there?”

    She’s unsure of her next step. 

    I feel the heft of the gun in my hand to reassure me of mine. 

    If things quickly go south, I have the monopoly on violence, I always have that.

    (Says a man sky high on copium.) 

    “Alistair — where are you?” and her voice is more assertive, clearer, and it carries right across the room. Suddenly, Harriet springs up from behind the sofa and swivels her head around to meet eyes with her husband’s mistress, perhaps for the first time. At the sight of the wife on the sofa, the intruder gasps “Ha—!” in shock, catching herself midbreath before fully pronouncing the name. “I like not that”, I’m tempted to add, but the Shakespearean reference will no doubt go over everyone’s heads and there’s really nothing more insufferable than the sound of a man of letters explaining his bookish references to the plebs.

    The prowler moves beyond the door between us and heads over to Harriet’s sofa. 

    “Wait — why are you gagged?” she asks, incredulously, the danger of the situation still somewhat lost on her. “What is this — are your arms and legs tied as well?”

    Meanwhile, Harriet shakes her head frantically, mumbling — “Mmph! Mmph!” — no doubt as a warning for the prowler to turn around to see me lurking in the shadows, Nosferatu-like, but Harriet is about as clear as a baby seal so all is good in the world, and maybe that wager on God’s existence is paying off.

    It’s time to act. 

    The prowler yelps in fright as I pounce and take her arm in a vice-like grip, twisting it behind her back, yanking it up, and deftly paralysing her in one fell swoop.

    By Christ does she scream! 

    “HELP MEEE!”  

    “Get down on your knees!”  

    “HELP! I’M BEING—” 

    If any of their posh neighbours are in earshot, I’m done for. 

    “On your knees — now!”

    “Why do you want me on my knees?” 

    My god, she’s thinks I’m a pervert. And why, exactly, do I want her on her knees? No reasons immediately forthcoming, I decide to memory hole the idea.

    “I am the most chivalrous man you know, that is if you do as you’re fucking told.”

    With her arm still pinioned behind her back, I flash the gun in her face with my free hand to motion for her to turn her head from me and to face the far wall.

    “Please don’t kill me!” she whines, pathetically. 

    “I’m not going to bloody kill you — I’m here as a writer — I’ll explain it all later, okay.”

    I want her to look away while I give her a jab of the benzo, but she’s crying, so pitifully, and I’m starting to question whether I should have gone to all this trouble for my work; I mean, do my Nickelodeons really deserve this level of commitment? 

    “You’re a what?” she sobs. 

    “A writer.”

    “That doesn’t make any—” 

    “We’re not getting into the creative process now — turn around and face the wall, like I told you.”

    “You’re only saying that because it’ll make it easier to avoid the whites of my eyes while you’re pulling the trigger — I’m not bloody stupid — so no, I won’t turn around to face the wall.” 

    “I’ve already told you, I’m a—” 

    “If you’re going to shoot me in the head,” she cuts in, “you’re going to face up to the inhumanity of your crime while you’re doing it and take it with you to hell!”

    This is getting us nowhere. 

    “Have it your way.”

    While she’s rambling on in her womanly way, I use her arm — the one behind her back — to slip a plastic zip restraint over, before I bring the second arm close enough to do the same there, so that she’s fully restrained, zip-tied, both arms locked tight in the small of her back. This is a vital window of opportunity. She’s too stunned and nervous to scream anymore, so I gather my spare socks and scarf and get to work gagging her. 

    A few seconds later, she’s incapacitated, and the scarf’s tight around her head, and silence reigns supreme. 

    Best of all, I haven’t wasted any time in rendering her unconscious with the benzo.  

    There is a god. 

    She’s the same blonde from earlier: thin and attractive in that sharp-dressed Westminster spad sort of way. Into her dirty thirties, so in no way unethically young, eminently leerable, and a decent catch for the King Leerer, O’Brien. 

    Anyway, I digress, and I really need to write this all up before the adrenaline abates.   

    O’Brien’s mistress has sexy sleuthed her way into our story, adding herself to his little harem — ditto, to my expanding diegetic world — and so much new content is arriving in real time.

   Pumpernickel is comfortably back in the driver’s seat.

    Onward!