Knees Up Mother Earth by Robert Rankin

then,” said Constable Mild, “at your trial.”
    “Trial?” Neville’s good eye rolled.
    Norman found this most alarming. What
was
with all this eye-rolling today? “Evening, Neville,” said Norman. “Pint of Large, please.”
    “Ah,” said Constable Meek, “it’s Brentford’s Porn King.”
    Norman ground his dentures. “I’m
not
Brentford’s Porn King,” he protested. “Those magazines arrived by mistake. They weren’t what I ordered.”
    “You had them in your rack,” said Constable Meek. “What were they, now?
Cissies On Parade
, the ‘periodical for businessmen who like to dress as babies’. And
Banged Up and Gun-Totin’
, ‘naked pregnant women with Uzis’.”
    “It came as just as much of a shock to me,” said Norman. “I’d ordered
Airfix Monthly
and
Meccano World
.”
    “A likely story.” Constable Meek did titterings.
    Neville drew Norman a pint of the very best.
    “But let us not be distracted from the business at hand.” Constable Meek fingered his brand-new extendible truncheon. “Should your victims choose to press charges, you’ll be looking at a five-stretch, minimum.”
    “
Five years
? Cheese!” Neville’s face became the mask of fear.
    “I love it when their faces do that,” said Constable Mild. “Makes the job worthwhile, in my opinion.”
    “You’ll be out in two and a half with good behaviour,” said Old Pete, who had not left his bar stool all day but for the occasional visit to the gents.
    “Who did you assault, Neville?” Norman asked as he took control of his pint and paid for same with the exact amount of pennies and halfpennies.
    “I didn’t assault anyone,” said Neville.
    “He did,” said Old Pete. “Pooley and Omally. Laid the two of them out, stone cold.”
    “You were a witness to this, then, were you, sir?” Constable Meek asked Old Pete.
    “Excuse me?” said the ancient.
    “You saw the assault occur?”
    “You’ll have to speak up, my hearing aid is faulty.”
    “You witnessed the occurrence!” shouted Constable Meek.
    “Did what?” asked Old Pete. “Pit test the old currants, did you say?”
    “That’s not what I said.”
    “Forget it,” said Constable Mild. “He’s a loon.”
    “Up yours, pointy head,” muttered Old Pete.
    “What did you say?”
    “Excuse me?” said the ancient. “You’ll have to speak up a bit.”
    “You’re warned,” said Constable Meek to Neville. “And if your victims do choose to press charges, you’re in real trouble. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this place. Any more bother and you’ll kiss goodbye to your license and say hello to incarceration.”
    And then they left. The two of them. The boys in blue.
    “Bastards,” said Old Pete. “Cossacks.”
    Norman tasted ale.
    “What?” said Neville. “What are you looking at?”
    “Sorry.” Norman busied himself with further ale-tasting.
    “Bop,” went Old Pete, miming mighty boppings with his crinkly paws. “Just like the Wolf of Kabul swinging Clicki Ba.”
    Neville made growling sounds under his breath.
    “My glass is unaccountably empty,” said Old Pete, staring into said glass and making a quizzical face. Neville snatched the glass away from the elder and returned it once more to the dark-rum optic.
    “Bop?” Norman whispered “bop” and mimed a muted bopping of his own while Neville’s back was turned. “He really bopped both Jim and John on the head?”
    “A real treat, it was.” Old Pete sniggered. “It’s not the sort of mindless violence you see every day, especially not in here. The last time I saw someone get a walloping like that was in one of those dodgy videos you hired me.”
    “I didn’t know what was on them.” Norman did
sssh-ings
with his fingers. “They arrived as a job lot. I’d never even heard of a snuff movie. I thought it was, well, about snuff, I suppose.”
    Old Pete shook his old and wrinkly head. “You are a caution, Norman, you well and truly are.”
    “If that’s a