I was enjoying the deeply respectful space most (well, all really) drivers allow a huge geometrician, wearing his colours and riding  a Fat Bob and I was kidding myself that having a private dick on the pillion was adding a little more cachet.  But it didn’t take long for the reverie to evaporate and the growing concern over the purpose of the visit to Highbury to fill the small screen of my imagination.

The Harlet ate the few miles between Shorty Chang’s and the Angles centre.  She was running sweetly despite being a travelling typographical error.  Pi piloted the beast up to the wrought iron gates and gave the security cameras a good look at us.  Their approval was given with a buzz and a click and the gate opened up sufficiently to allow us passage.

I was admiring the renovations the Angles had done since the unfortunate bombing incident.  Their long-running turf dispute with the neo-Cartesian Co-ordinates had spilled over from spiteful exchanges of letters in “Geometry Today” into something more sinistra.  It was generally agreed that taking a hard line from A to B was plane and simple and that nothing was to be gained by insisting that Reinmann was superficial.

The bombing, wrecked the Highbury façade, but there was no reported casualty.  The word at the Pig’s Arms was that this was more a reflection on the quality of reporting than an accurate picture of the human collateral damage.  According to the press the dispute was a bit over the top and despite Rouge making non-committal denials on TV, it was clear to everyone that the police had more than an academic interest in the feud.

We got off Pi’s machine and since Pi filled the western hemisphere, I took the hint and headed east through the next airlock into the Highbury anteroom.  It was surprisingly elegant.  The walls were wood panelled and reminded me of a spartan gentleman’s study.  It was reminiscent of an academic institution.  The clue that I picked up could well have been the shelves of books.  There was a blackboard filled with a complex proof.  On second look, it appeared to be a complex proof written in Cyrillic script.

I was about to take a seat and do a quick scan of my pockets for the remaining aspirin, but Pi’s look suggested that the Angle’s boss was waiting and that the meltdown behind my eyelids was going to have to wait.  He motioned me to knock and to go through the heavy door to the left.  I did.  “Da” was the reply.  I opened the door and entered.

An ordinary person could have been forgiven for imagining that he was confronting a man who looked a lot like Trotsky.  But I’m a private dick and we’re trained to spot the difference between the genuine article and the fake.  And this was the real deal.  The eye patch.  The steel-rimmed monocle.  The Einstein hairdo.  The icepick letter opener on his desk.

There was a square hippo skin rug next to the credenza.  Next to that were two other smaller pieces of preserved pachyderm skin.  I could see that the square of the hippopotamus   was roughly equal to the sum of the squares of the other two hides.

Trotsky was obviously very pleased by my situational appraisal.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the discovery was not so novel.

I was wondering how much more of this weirdness I could beria, when the phone on Trotsky’s desk rang.