by Mike Ripley
‘The farmers couldn’t give a shit about foxes,’ said Harry knowledgeably. ‘They prefer to shoot the little beasts.’
‘Talking of little beasts,’ said Tony, lowering his voice, ‘have you seen that vixen Lara?’
‘Not since this morning,’ I said truthfully. ‘I ‘spect she’ll be back at the ranch.’
‘You could be right,’ Tony nodded. ‘Must have a word with her before we disappear.’
He checked his watch.
‘My God, we’d better be off, young Harry me lad. We’ve some serious partying to do down in London tonight.’
They made their farewells. Harry even went to the extent of leaning over and kissing Stephie’s hand, despite Stephie’s ‘Oh, gross!’ reaction.
No sooner had they gone than Stephie announced she too had to put in an appearance at home.
‘Will your father be mad at you?’ I asked, because I was lubricated enough to be concerned.
‘I hope so,’ she said chirpily. ‘We’ve wasted the morning if he isn’t.’ There’s no arguing with that sort of logic. ‘You sticking around?’
‘For a while,’ I said. I knew I would have to sober up considerably before getting behind Armstrong’s wheel again. The old ‘It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive’
motto only ever worked for Kamikaze pilots.
‘So you’ll be at the disco tonight?’ She stood up and started to button her coat and finish her vodka and coke in the same blurred movement.
‘Disco?’
‘Wayne. The Flying Fenman. Special Boxing Day disco here tonight. Thought you’d stick around to see how the professionals do it.’
Everyone’s a critic these days. And they’re getting younger.
It was already dark by the time I wandered back over to the rectory. Nearly all the cars, and the army types’ motorbikes, had gone. Only a couple of Citroens and the Morris Minor stuffed full of anti-hunt pamphlets remained. The half-dozen or so people who remained were cleaning up the big ballroom, which looked like a soup kitchen after a bomb had gone off. The Reverend Bell, still in his cassock – although liberally splashed with mud – was organising the filling of black plastic sacks with used paper plates, the remains of baked potatoes and other assorted rubbish. Two motherly figures were collecting cups on trays and ferrying them to the kitchen.
Bell looked up and saw me, but he refused to hold eye contact. Some of the others smiled and nodded and said ‘Well done’ at me, but it was hardly the hero’s welcome I’d expected.
‘Where have you been?’ said an icy voice behind me.
Lara was standing, legs apart, hands on hips.
‘Keeping a low profile,’ I said with a smile.
‘Well, get your coat off and help with the washing-up.’
Her face cracked into a half-smile as if she’d just thought of something funny, then she held out her hands for my coat.
‘Wash or dry?’ I asked, trying to look cheerful.
‘Mavis will tell you.’ She nodded to one of the middle-aged women carrying a tray of cups towards the kitchen.
‘Reporting for duty right away, sah!’ I snapped, flicking her a mock salute, which turned out more casual than intended as I missed my forehead first time.
She ignored me and disappeared into the hall with my coat.
Mavis turned out to be a proper diamond. She took one look at me and decided not to trust me with the crockery, so I was put to work drying teaspoons and carrying plastic sacks of rubbish out to the rectory’s back door. In between chores, she made me cups of strong, sweet coffee, asking delicately if I wanted it black, and I’d said no because it was the milk that soaked up the alcohol.
Actually, it was Mavis’s constant chatter that sobered me up more than anything else. And could she rabbit. She turned out to be the astrologist of the gang, convinced that small, furry mammals were all born under the sign of Aries, carnivores were Taureans (I didn’t argue) and reptiles were Aquarians. As the others gradually departed, they would put their heads round the kitchen door and say ‘Cheerio, Mavis’ or ‘Happy New Year,’ and she’d give them titbits of advice such as ‘Prepare well for long journeys’ or ‘Remember to think of the colour blue next year.’ I wondered what tablets she was on, and where I could get some.
When it was time for her to go, Lara helped her on with her raincoat and Bell hovered near the front door, offering to show her to her little Citroen with the aid of a torch. I got the distinct impression he was still avoiding me.
‘Goodbye, Roy,’ said Mavis. ‘Remember always that pride comes before a fall.’
‘I will, dear, I will,’ I said, putting an arm around her shoulders and squeezing lightly.
Bell held the door for her and followed her out into the night.
‘Sweet lady,’ I said to Lara.
She looked blank and then said ‘Oh yeah’ in a vague way, then she curled a finger at me and indicated the door under the stairs to the cellar where the video gear was.
‘Come and see what we got today,’ she said, opening the door and reaching inside for the light switch.
I think I really must have thought it was a different sort of invitation, especially as Lara’s voice had gone quite husky and she was breathing deeply.
Whatever, I took an expectant step towards her, and when I was opposite the cellar doorway, she swayed to her left and crouched and then her right foot came up into my stomach with a force something akin to sticking your fingers in a power point.
There wasn’t much comfort in thinking that I saw it coming, even though I couldn’t do anything about it. I never even saw the heel of the hand smash into my forehead or the back elbow into my right-side kidney as I doubled up. But I felt them.
Then I think it was her right foot, but I wouldn’t swear to it, which came down on my right foot, just below the ankle, and then there was real red pain everywhere. It must have been relatively easy for her by then just to lash out once more and send me tumbling down the hard cellar steps to the incredibly hard cellar floor.
Chapter Fourteen
I landed on my left shoulder. I remember that, because it was the one bit of me that didn’t hurt up until then.
I must have more or less bounced into a kneeling position, and I know I stayed there for a while as it seemed the only option open to me. My right foot was pure agony, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember stepping on a six-inch nail. I didn’t seem able to breathe well at all, my left arm was dead to the world, my side hurt as if someone had inserted a burst appendix into me, and I couldn’t focus on anything as there was a sheet of perspex in front of my eyes. I shook my head to try and clear my vision. That hurt as well, and it still seemed as if I was looking through a jar of honey.
Don’t pass out, I told myself. Stay awake. There’s an awful lot of crap in books and the movies about people getting knocked out and then coming to with little more than a headache. If it was that easy, how come the first thing they ever ask at the hospital is, did you lose consciousness or not? And if you say yes, they panic and jam on the electrodes.
Try and be sick, I told myself; it’ll take your mind off things.
Someone was talking to me.
It was Lara, from the top of the stairs. I couldn’t focus on her, but at least I could hear her, so something was working.
‘Now stay there,’ she said, through rapid pants of breath. ‘Or I’ll come down and really hurt you.’
She didn’t get any argument from me on that one.
At least she left the lights on.
The video equipment, the piles of cassettes, the fake studio set-up all swam into focus eventually. I still couldn’t make it to my feet though, so I crawled across the floor until I reached the desk. By clawing at that, I managed to get somewhere near upright on my left leg, and it didn’t take me much more than an hour.
That wa
s about the sum total of my achievement. I scanned the place for possible weapons. Short of throwing a television set at her, and I didn’t give odds on me being able to lift it, there was nothing. I dismissed any notion of using some of the electric cables, or video leads, as a strangler’s noose or garrotte. That would involve getting too close to her. And if I was that close to her, she was that close to me, and she played rough.
I decided that my best policy was to try and hide, or at least make myself as small a target as possible. I tipped the desk onto its end and drew it around me in the corner of the cellar, crawling over the legs to weight it down. The desktop was half-inch thick plywood, and that made me think of the Kateda demonstration I’d witnessed, and suddenly it didn’t seem like such a good plan.
But it was the only one I had. At least I could keep my right foot behind the desk. That worried me. Even the slightest pressure on it was nerve-shredding, and my grubby Reebok trainer was bulging at the laces. I knew if I took the shoe off it would never go back on. There was no blood, though, which was good, I told myself. My shirt was spotted with it, but mostly from scratches and cuts picked up when bouncing down the cellar steps. I felt carefully all over my head and scalp and found several egg-sized lumps but no cuts. My right side ached, but there was nothing I could do about it.
Apart from all that, I was in pretty good shape.
If they’d left me alone for another hour, I might have made myself believe it. But they didn’t.
The two of them appeared at the top of the stairs dead on seven o’clock. I don’t know why I was worried about what time it was; I wasn’t going anywhere.
I hung on to the leg of the desk. If they were going to pull it away, they’d have to take me with it, but I didn’t think that was beyond them.
‘There he is,’ I heard Lara say as she led Bell down the steps.
Between the edge of the desktop and the wall I had my back against, I could see them clearly. Bell paused at the bottom of the stairs and looked anxiously in my direction. In his mud-spattered cassock, he gave me the impression that he had just finished digging a grave.
Come on: think positive.
Lara stood next to him, pulling on a pair of black gloves, the sort gardeners wear. Perhaps that meant I’d hurt her hands when she did me over. If that was the only positive thought I could manage, I was in trouble.
‘Go on,’ Lara was saying to Bell, ‘ask him, if you don’t believe me.’
Bell held out his hands, palms up, towards me. I flinched.
‘Roy, you’ve been very stupid,’ he said slowly.
‘That’s been said before.’
Watch it. Don’t provoke them.
‘Lara says you’ve taken one of our video tapes. A very special tape.’
‘Oh, does she?’ I said, far too cockily.
There was a scream that wasn’t me, and then one that was.
Lara gave a war cry and lashed out at the desktop, her gloved fist coming through the wood as if it was paper, stopping two inches from my nose. I yelled because I was genuinely frightened now.
‘Lara, that’s enough!’ shouted Bell.
‘Ask him again,’ she said calmly.
He didn’t have to.
‘Yes, okay, I took a tape. I just picked one at random.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought it might be something Billy Tuckett had done, and I was going to show it to his mother,’ I flannelled quickly. It’s not easy to concentrate when you’re trying to make yourself small enough to slide through the cracks in the concrete.
‘You didn’t know what was on that tape when you took it?’
‘No, swear to God,’ I said, hoping to prick his conscience.
‘But you do now?’ said Lara menacingly. She was menacing and I couldn’t see her.
‘Yes, I saw it when I got home.’ There was no point in lying.
‘Did anyone else see it?’
‘No,’ I lied.
‘Where is it now?’
‘In the dustbin. I threw it away. I didn’t want to be caught with that in my possession.’
‘I believe him,’ said Bell.
‘You believe anybody,’ she said nastily, and he flinched from her tongue as much as I had from her fist.
‘Whether he’s telling the truth or not, he knows too much. I’m bringing things forward to tonight.’
‘But you can’t,’ spluttered Bell.
‘I can and I am doing. Remember this, Geoffrey, it was Peter and I who founded this cell. You and your little friend Billy asked to join us. It was always understood that I gave the orders when Peter was not here.’
He bowed his head in defeat. I wanted to urge him on to stand up to her, but I also wanted to keep my head on my shoulders.
‘Don’t worry, you won’t be involved directly. I can manage things from here on in.’
‘But how will you get to London?’ asked Bell, despite my screaming silently for him to shut up and let her go.
‘I’ll drive.’
‘But you can’t!’ he came back petulantly.
For God’s sake, I’ll lend her the bus fare! Just let her go!
‘I told you I don’t have a licence. I never said I couldn’t drive.’
‘And what if you’re stopped for any reason? By the police?’
She won’t be; she won’t be.
‘Not having a licence will be the least of my worries.’
Good, that’s the spirit. Bon voyage.
‘All you have to do is keep him here until after midnight.’ I could feel her pointing at me through the desk.
Then what?’
‘Then you have to look out for yourself, Geoffrey. It’s what we agreed.’
Why didn’t she just go?
‘What about Harry and Tony?’
She made a snorting sound.
‘What are they going to do? By the time they realise the fourth tape is a blank – well, they’re hardly going to report it to their commanding officer, are they?’
So that was it. That was why Tony had been so keen to see Lara before he left. She’d somehow talked him into borrowing the training films on explosives for her and he’d wanted them back. That’s when she’d noticed one was missing and my card – as the only person from outside the cell to have access – had been marked from then on.
‘Goodbye, Geoffrey. It’s not going to be how we planned it, but I’m going through with it and you can’t stop me.’
I watched her climb the stairs and close the door at the top behind her. She didn’t look round and neither did Bell. He stood with his arms limp at his sides, head bowed. He could have been praying.
When I heard the front door slam, and I was more or less sure she’d gone, I exhaled loudly.
‘You can come out from behind there if you wish,’ said Bell. ‘I won’t hurt you unless you attempt to leave.’
‘I don’t think I can,’ I said truthfully.
Most of the muscles I had left without bruises on them seemed to have knotted with the tension. My buttocks ached and my right leg had decided against adopting the vertical ever again.
Bell took hold of the desk by its edges and eased it back; I howled as one of the legs caught my right foot slightly, but by curling my left leg under the right one, I was able at least to shuffle into a sitting position facing him. He backed away and sat on the bottom stair, elbows on knees, chin resting on his clasped hands.
‘I’m sorry about Lara,’ he said.
‘Not half as sorry as I am,’ I said wearily. ‘You know what she’s up to, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he said, averting his eyes.
‘She’s got a bomb, hasn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘Semtex, plastic explosives. The stuff they had on that video.’
‘Yes.’ Quieter now.
‘Where did she get it?’
No answer.
‘Was it her brother, Peter?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Where is this Peter, Geoffrey?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Is Lara going to meet him?’
He snickered at that. ‘Oh no. She’s doing this all by herself.’
‘Doing what, Geoffrey?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Stop playing the broken record, Geoffrey. She’s gone after Professor Bamforth, hasn’t she?’
His head snapped up and his eyes glowed.
‘How did you know that?’
‘Billy left notes. Not much. The name, Brian Bamforth –’ I tried to remember exactly what I’d found at Billy’s, but the old brain wasn’t exactly speeding into action ‘– and the word “transgenic” and a date: New Year’s Eve. She’s just brought things forward, that’s all, isn’t it?’
‘I can’t say any more,’ he said.
‘You haven’t said anything yet, Geoffrey. And you might as well, because tonight – one way or another – it’s all over. It can’t have been easy, playing at urban commandos. You’re not cut out for it. Billy certainly wasn’t.’
He sat in silence for a minute. Then he said: ‘Are you really here because of Billy?’
‘That’s why I came originally, yes.’
‘Was he a close friend?’
‘Not particularly. Hadn’t seen him for years, then suddenly he’s dead right in front of me. I didn’t like that.’
‘Why not?’ He seemed genuinely curious.
‘Damned if I know for sure. It just seemed such a waste. The whole thing does. You’ll never get anywhere hurting people to stop them hurting animals.’
He nodded his head.
‘I know that. I think I always have known it. But much of the time, there simply seems to be no other way. Have you ever felt really angry about something? Not jealous, or shocked, or annoyed, but really angry?’