It would be glib to continue with something along the lines of "the only thing that kept him going was the thought that, one day, …" because, in truth, there were several things that kept Olly going. Pre-eminent, naturally enough, was the thought that he was going to make it big. He had to. He simply had too much going on in his head to allow him to remain undiscovered. Also there was the strong likelihood that, somewhere along the path, money - serious money - was going to come his way. A story of his would prove to be so vivid that a film or TV series would be a logical result. Finally, people would listen to him. Because that was another thing. He wasn't just that oversized freak from Essex with an insatiable reading habit and a couple of mediocre A-Levels. The one the other kids had thought was weird and their mothers had gossiped about. No, he was the platinum to their aluminum foil. He knew it, and he would prove it beyond doubt.

     But the hits, they never came.

     Olly didn't spare himself in the daytime in order to collect the money to afford his nights. He matched the rent, had enough for modest meals, and devoted the dark hours to acts of creation. With curses, despair and determination, he battled all the manifold horrors that cheap accommodation in the capital could expose him to and, shockingly perhaps, managed to produce work that looked professional enough. Some of his pieces were even accepted by mid-ranking magazines and journals. Most, however, were not.

     The cycle went on. He wrote what interested him but quickly found that what he liked was mostly not what they liked. The literary gatekeepers. The ones you had to get past before you could reach your audience.

     "I can't understand it," he'd say to Tim, his only constant friend. "I put everything I've got into those pieces and they just send back some standard rejection six months, nine months, one year later."

     Tim would stare into his pint. "Maybe you should write something different. Change your style."

     It wasn't advice that Olly wanted to hear. But he tried it anyway. Called himself Olivia a couple of times. Reworked his bio. Exchanged some of his habitual certainties for uncertainties. The only difference he could detect was that the rejections were a tad more cordial, a bit more encouraging.

     "Fifty years ago," he told his mother, "I would have made a living out of this. I could have written novels. They would have been published. There was a demand for it then. Now it's all just … " Well, what was it exactly? "… just whether your life tells a story. Who your daddy is. Whether you've been on BBC Two. You don't need to be good. Good doesn't even matter."

     Valerie wasn't in a position to disagree.

     "Well I think you're good, Ol. I really do. I don't know where you get it from."

     And neither did he. But every now and then, he wished that he didn't get it. That he'd never got it. That he could have had a proper job. A profession. Some kind of family life perhaps. Then, a couple of days later, he'd get another idea and start again. He'd end up with something he liked (or quite liked), send it out, and wait.

     "… isn't a good fit for us at this present moment …"

     "… it does not fit our needs at this time …"

     "… I don't think this particular submission would fit with the magazine …"

     Olly checked his email account. Out of 700+ messages, 124 contained a reference to "fit" in some form or other.

     He couldn't help himself. He revisited some of his 'greatest hits'. Or rather the greatest hits that they - strangers - had landed on him. He knew precisely who and when they were. He knew precisely where he'd been when he'd read those mails. Which parts of which streets he'd been walking down. Which activities had been ruined by their arrivals.

     There was snotty girl Jane. He'd seen her on TV. She was a youngish, glamorous novelist who also edited her own much-lauded magazine. It was a great credit if you could get it. A career-changer most likely. And Olly, while he wasn't overly impressed by its contents, realised he had to play the game until he could control the game. Jane, for her part, was equally unimpressed by Olly's would-be contribution and took full advantage of her ability to say so, berating him for his "old-fashioned sensibilities", "flat characterisation", "leaden dialogue" and "weak ending".

     Then there was George. Abrasive George. Olly knew that mail backwards and forwards. Its wording had locked itself into his head like a soliloquy from the Dane. "This is the sort of poem I'm allergic to," was an opening that set the bar for rudeness at an Olympic height, as George then began to take apart the processes of what Olly thought (and still thought) was one of his better poems. He'd written poetry since, but never perhaps with quite the same abandon or purity of intent. You shouldn't let it bother you. He knew that. But it didn't stop it bothering you. And that was what people like George wanted.

     And then there was Les, the agent. Oh yes, Olly had had an agent. Or had he? Les had outperformed the Pied Piper in that regard. Their trail of communications stirred memories of how he'd flattered Olly, called him in for a meeting at his grand quarters, boasted about himself, prognosticated about the industry, asked Olly about his future projects, promised help, at times claimed to be representing him, and at others was totally distant. The result of their exchanges being that Olly was left full of mistrust for those who supposedly had the power to do him good and none the more enlightened about the extent of his own talent.

     And there were more. It was quite a read and quite an evening. For the first time, perhaps, Olly realised that it couldn't go on.

     Sometimes internally, sometimes aloud, Olly asked himself the same question: "Am I really that bad?" A lot was riding on the answer and he gave himself ample time to supply as impartial a response as he could possibly muster.

     He thought over his projects. The ideas that he'd exploited to his own satisfaction. The pieces he'd produced which he remained happy to stand by.

     All he could say was an honest "No."

     This led him to the second and final question: "Do they deserve it?"

     This time minimal deliberation was required. "Yes. They absolutely do."

*

Having alternated between being a relief postman, a seasonal postman and a full-time postman, Olly was used to pounding the streets. Not only was he used to it, he actively enjoyed it. He liked the sense that he was treading the same ground as all those great fictional characters and their makers. It also made him naturally adept at finding places. He didn't need a satnav. He knew the boroughs, especially the bookish haunts. Or, more particularly, where the modern literati lived.

     Come on, Jane! Hampstead? Hardly original, was it?

     And George, Notting Hill? Where else?

     And as for Les, Knightsbridge. He'd already been in there by invitation!

     There was certainly something to be said as well for having worked as an apprentice locksmith. Or a locksmith's mate, as they would have called it once upon a time. In truth, he did little more than lug a metal case around, but he saw enough of what Joe Edmeades did to know that there wasn't one regular domestic lock that couldn't easily be overcome with the right tool and a little bit of knowledge. In fact, he'd even written a short story about it. An absurdist crime caper that Les hadn't much cared for. Well, he might change his mind now. Upon closer inspection, that is.

*

There was, of course, no doubt as to Olly's guilt. He'd never intended there would be.

     The case, with its references to compromised bodily functions, certainly caused a sensation. One of the lesser quality, but more imaginative, papers termed it THE NIGHT OF THE LONG MANUSCRIPTS, and that description seemed to stick.

     Olly was benign and co-operative throughout. The highlights for him were the witness statements which exposed, once and for all, the fundamental poverty of Jane's writing, the humourlessness of George, and the tendency that Les had always had towards self-aggrandisement.

     On receiving his sentence, Olly thanked the Hon. Mr Justice Piggory and cheerily embarked upon a new life at the pleasure of whichever majesty happened to be on the throne that week.

     The damnedest thing was that, even before the case had ended, a clamour for Olly's work amongst the general public had begun in earnest. All that was available was a self-published, and largely ignored, science fiction novella. Now its sales veered off the graph. Readers of all ages hunted for more of his material. Small online journals had never had so many hits. Pamphlets and small print magazines that he'd featured in were beginning to change hands at a premium.

     Olly - or 'Orifice', as he was now affectionately known - found that jail was as good as his last flat, and much better than school. Within weeks of his arrival, he received word that Lord Handscombe of Handscombe Press wanted to publish a volume of his collected stories. Not only that, but the company was offering him a carte blanche, three-book deal to go with it.

     Olly told them he'd think about it.