‘No he didn’t,’ said Wobbler. ‘He just wrote a book called, oh, something like It’s About Time There Was a Revolution, and the Russians just followed the instructions. The actual leaders were a lot of people with names ending in ski.’

‘Like Stalin,’ said Yo-less.

‘Right.’

‘Stalin means Man Of Steel,’ said Yo-less. ‘I read where he didn’t like his real name, so he changed it. It’s Man of Steel in English.’

‘What was his real name?’

‘His secret identity, you mean,’ said Yo-less.

‘What are you talking about now?’ said Bigmac.

‘No, I get it. Man of Steel? Yo-less means he could leap Kremlins in a single bound,’ said Johnny.

‘Don’t see why not,’ said Wobbler. ‘I always thought it was unfair, the way the Americans got Superman. They’ve got all the superheroes. I don’t see why we couldn’t have had Superman round here.’

They thought about it. Wobbler then spoke for them all.

‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘round here he would have had trouble even being Clark Kent.’

They disappeared under the hoods again.

‘What did you say the Alderman was called?’ said Wobbler, after a while.

‘Alderman Thomas Bowler,’ said Johnny. ‘Why?’

‘It says he got the Council to build a memorial horse trough in the square in nineteen hundred and five,’ said Wobbler. ‘It came in useful very quickly too, it says here.’

‘Why?’

‘Well . . . it says here, the next day the first motor car ever to arrive in Blackbury crashed into it and caught fire. They used the water to put the fire out. Says here the Council praised Alderman Bowler for his forward thinking.’

They looked at the microfilm viewer.

‘What’s a horse trough?’ said Bigmac.

‘It’s that big stone trough thing that’s outside Loggitt and Burnett’s Building Society,’ said Johnny. ‘The one that’s been filled with soil for a tasteful display of dead flowers and lager cans. They used to put water in those things for coach horses to drink out of.’

‘But if cars were just coming in,’ said Bigmac slowly, ‘then building things for horses to drink out of was a bit—’

‘Yes,’ said Johnny. ‘I know. Come on. Let’s keep going.’

. . . WHEEEsssh . . . we built this city on . . . ssshshhh . . . on the phone right now . . . wheeesshhh . . . that was at Number Two . . . ssshwupwup . . . told a meeting in Kiev . . . wsswssshsss . . . Prime Minister . . . shsss . . . today . . . shhssss . . . scaramouche, can you . . . shssssss . . .

The tuning knob of the little radio behind Mr Vicenti’s grave turned back and forth very slowly, as if it was being moved with great effort. Occasionally it would stop on a programme, and then move again.

. . . ssshhhwwwss . . . and the next caller . . . shhwwsss . . . Babylon . . .