The Circle Now Is Made (King's Way Book 1)

by Mac Fletcher

  If he wants a prat, I’ll give him one.

  "Going far tonight?" asked Jim after a brief lull.

  “I was until a short while ago," replied Greg. "I was planning a bit of a jaunt actually, but luckily I needn't rush back tonight. Good job really; I was going to cut short my stay here just to run an errand for a woman I know."

  “A lot depends on the woman and the errand I guess.” The newcomer grinned suggestively. “How was that, then?”

  “I collected some gear for her that she wants in a hurry. A couple of blokes I met are dropping it back for me now, though."

  "A distance away you say?"

  "Near Looe, Cornwall”

  "Blimey, I believe that is a distance," said the Aussie with what seemed little more than polite interest. "These guys are doing you a good turn in that case."

  "Yes. Moved down there myself a few weeks ago, but I'm up with my sister at the moment."

  Greg was becoming edgy, and beginning to wonder whether he'd need to stall for time, when he spotted Hud and Ten parking near the Ulster. Good old Wyndham. If I'd flashed a signal, I couldn’t have expected better timing; their own worst enemies that pair. Greg smiled to himself and observed the duo nodding to each other as Ten climbed from the Merc - obviously under the impression that, like his hearing aid, he was invisible.

  Greg looked away from the window and feigned ignorance as Ten, true to form, snatched up the Ulster tonneau and removed a large flat parcel. What he did observe was McCaffrey's expression, which told him all he needed. The stranger was suddenly eager to leave.

  "Hope I see you again sometime, mate," he said as he downed his beer and made for the door.

  "Oh, okay," replied Greg, with apparent disappointment.

  *

  McCaffrey followed the witless pair until an opportunity arose to overtake then, on passing, forced Hud into a ditch. The duo, fancying themselves as the aggressors, were bewildered as McCaffrey leapt from his car.

  “I’ll bet anything it’s some bastard fuckin' action man’s paid!” cursed Hud as they scrambled from the wreck. “He left the pub car park at the same time as us." He took a short length of iron pipe from the boot. "Grab the wheel brace there!”

  Had it been a fair situation, albeit two to one, there's little doubt Hud and Ten would have come off worst: McCaffrey was both powerful and experienced. Eventually, however, after both sides had taken a battering, the Aussie lay in a bloodied heap on the verge; his windows smashed, his car unusable.

  "Right!" Hud observed the glowing brake lights of a small saloon as it passed and pulled in some distance ahead. "He's reversing back – grab that tarp in the boot and cover this bastard while I grab the pictures. With luck the Good Samaritan 'ere'll offer us a lift, so you were drivin' the other car if he asks… An' if he don't offer us a lift, you know the action…"

  Greg knew nothing of events as he started slowly back along the planned route, with every intention of maintaining a leisurely pace. He didn't dare hope his journey would be without event, but he did have a plan B of sorts.

  A few miles into the resumed journey, a small Nissan overtook him at breakneck speed – and on a blind bend!

  “Shitheads!” hissed Greg; particularly disturbed to see the front passenger, a woman wearing a scarf it appeared, clutching a baby. It then disappeared into the bends ahead at terrifying speed, so Greg was surprised to have almost caught up again within minutes.

  It's almost as if they stopped for a while.

  Although his own speed was low, he closed on the vehicle until it was just beyond the range of his headlights.

  “What a maniac!” he muttered to Red, safely curled in the passenger well. “Frightened himself and his wife to death, no doubt.” Greg’s eyes left the road briefly as he glanced towards the dog. In that instant he caught sight of something. A white bundle being flung from the car in front. Not the baby! He stood on the brakes. For God’s sake, stop! Every drain of blood left his face. He staggered from the Ulster. Surveyed the road. Throat too dry to swallow, he looked towards the child's body.

  *

  Red nuzzled Greg's face in the darkness. An awful, blinding pain radiated from the back of his skull... Two unfurled sports' towels lay on the road in front.

  "Scheming bastards!” Slowly he stood; straightened himself. “I should have known it was them, Red, they can’t even nick a decent car. They've obviously opened the decoy parcel and come back for seconds. Come on,” he said, mildly annoyed that a pair of dimwits had got the better of him, but oddly unruffled. “All is not yet lost - and you at least had the sense to get out.”

  Master and dog had walked only a few hundred yards when Greg glimpsed a large, well-lit building through trees.

  "There's life around anyway, Red," he said, surprised to find that the building was an imposing pub, set back in a large area of land. “Smart old place,” he observed as he neared the half-timbered inn, noting a Porsche 928 on the half- filled car park.

  “They’ve got a good start on us now Red,” Greg said as he eyed the car enviously, “Bit ancient as Porsches go, this one, so I'm betting the owner's something of a poseur. Let's take a look."

  Greg strolled coolly into the pub, still surprisingly calm as he ordered a slim-line tonic before sitting with Red to study the situation. “I’d like to catch them before they destroy the pictures.” Red cocked his head quizzically. “…And I've just had an idea that's worth a crack.”

  Greg had taken note of the crowd in the pub. The logic that had made him successful had returned with recent sobriety. It reflected in the clarity of his eyes as he carried out a mental appraisal of the occupants. As in the Hamlet Cigar advert of old, seconds stretched like hours as he sipped unhurriedly at his drink.

  About half of the twenty or so customers, he noted, were wearing designer sweaters, the other half sporting less expensive though equally smart V necks with motifs. The gathering was further split into roughly three equal groups; one clean-shaven, one moustached, the third wearing beards. The groups weren’t standing in convenient enough order to make their proportions easily identifiable; nor did the type of jumper have any bearing on shaving habits. All, however, drank from tankards, some pewter, some cut-glass, and Greg felt he could almost put an occupation to each of them as they chatted happily away. In very round terms he reckoned about a third would be executive or sales, a third technical and IT, and the remainder a cross-section of local trades and rural workers. These differences were again in no way related or proportional to their other peculiarities: one jolly fellow Greg would have put down as village butcher, and a swarthy, darkly-bearded chap almost certainly ran the local garage, he mused.

  “Light, dark, sandy, bald.” Greg smiled and patted Red’s bony head. “Bit like a Mensa test.” One thing most had in common was an almost uncanny uniformity in size and build. “Five-ten to six-foot and medium-large, to a gnat’s dick,” he muttered, finally concluding - correctly - that they were the local cricket team. "Pre-season meeting this is, Red. Most likely to decide who paints the pavilion this year: never any shortage of bods to supply the paint, but a nightmare finding someone to apply it.”

  Greg studied the un-uniform uniformity of the crowd again, this time noting there was a latter day Ian Botham among them. Standing by the bar with two other chaps, he was rather taller than the rest, and wearing a hand-knitted Cashmere sweater and Gucci shoes. A moustache, highlighted hair, and Marbella tan completed the image.

  “Bet he’s the Porsche!” said Greg to his sleepy dog, “only one way to find out.” Greg winked at Red as he stood in readiness to visit the bar again. “If he is, he won’t be able to resist telling me.”

  Greg leaned on the bar beside Botham and Co, their mobiles and car keys sprawled across the counter as they chatted. The only keys Greg could muster were the tatty caravan ones, though he tossed them carelessly onto the counter as he ordered.

  “'Scuse me,” he said, “is that your Focus with the lights on?” The paladin's compan
ions looked down their noses, embarrassed for Greg.

  “No,” replied Botham curtly. “Mine’s the Porsche!”

  Moments later the Porsche leapt panther-like from the car park, Greg fancying it had risen into a wheelie for a split second. Botham found a bunch of brassy keys on the bar – a full hour and two half pints later.

  Red nestled in the flamboyantly carpeted foot-well, so accustomed to changes of home and transport he was finding them humdrum. He did give a contented yawn, though, as if to indicate that the standard was more in keeping with expectations. “I don’t suppose they’ll use the motorway, Red,” said Greg hopefully. “They'll need to maintain a low profile if they’re driving a stolen car apiece." He clicked on the Satnav. "We’ll follow the A466 from Hereford to Chepstow, and pray that’s the route they’ve chosen.”

  “You’re very wise,” replied Red, though only with a tired blink of his heavy eyelids.

  *

  The pair were south of Bristol; the Porsche still scorching along like a missile, Greg despairing he'd chosen the wrong route. Why did I apply logic to that pair of dickheads, Red – let alone credit them with the brains to avoid the motorway?

  Nevertheless, he reasoned, the lead the duo had - though not vast in time - represented a fair mileage to retrieve - even allowing for the immense difference in vehicles.

  Red was by now sitting up; staring through the window like royalty, though Greg suspected he'd have difficulty recognising his own reflection against the fleeting background of shadows. He slowed the car slightly for a bend, and suddenly Red began barking fiercely at the window. The dog then turned his attention to the back window, his front paws on the rear ledge. He barked furiously, his long neck craning into the narrow wedge beneath the sloping window. Despite Red's absurd behaviour, Greg would have continued but for fear of damage to the car: poseur though Botham was, he couldn't allow his dog to damage the treasured vehicle.

  “What is it?” shouted Greg as the dog barked and bounced violently enough to destabilise the car. “You want to go out?” Greg pulled into the next widened area, and on opening the door was amazed to see the old dog lope anxiously back along the deserted lane. Greg raced after him, though they'd covered some few hundred yards before he discovered the reason for Red’s anxiety.

  In a large gap in the hedgerow stood the Ulster, carefully and neatly backed in to the edge of the field. But for the care that had been taken to conceal if from passers-by, Greg would have assumed the car to have simply been dumped and the Nissan used from that point.

  “No,” Greg whispered to Red. “They'd have just ditched it and bolted if they had dumped it. They're still around.”

  Greg felt the bonnet. It was warm. Groped for the keys. Still there!

  “Stay, Red!” whispered Greg on removing the keys. He knew the dog would guard the car whatever the temptations as he made for the height of a nearby mound, vaguely outlined in the darkness.

  It was a calm, mild night, the lull after the storm having settled on the silent countryside, no more noise than a few distant lambs bleating. At the top of the mound, Greg paused momentarily to savour the dew-laden breeze. He saw nothing, and made his way back towards the Ulster. Then he stopped. Certain he'd detected the smell of wood-smoke! He stood and listened again. Voices. Faint and vague, but definitely voices. A sweet wisp of fruit-wood smoke, probably blackberry, floated up the bank and almost into his face. Greg followed the direction from where the smoke-laden breeze had drifted. Suddenly he caught a flicker of fire. They're never camping out? Slowly, almost painfully so, Greg approached the cluster of bushes from where the glow came - and saw Hud and Ten, crouched over the flames. They were burning the second package Greg had concealed beneath the tonneau.

  "Bastard thought 'e'd fool us with that pile of flattened cardboard," cursed Ten, though there seemed to be a lot of deliberation as to whether they were doing the right thing by throwing the genuine pictures on the fire, too.

  It was a sight Greg would have trod broken glass to see – almost have risked being locked up for. Indeed, he might have done just that! Afraid even to exhale, he listened to the conversation, though what he observed rendered him almost breathless.

  “Might as well throw this on as well,” said Ten as he produced a passport from his inside pocket, “careless o' the bastard to leave it in the Ulster after all the trouble of gettin' it. We should 'ave left it in there: if the law had found it he’d have been locked up long since. Fuckin' dimwit!"

  "But he'd never have led us to this lot… bonehead!"

  Greg was stunned. The whole course of events would have been altered entirely had he known. Though not necessarily for the better! he conceded.

  “We’re the dimwits for burnin' these pictures!” rasped Hud. “Mad as hatters.”

  “I don’t understand you,” whined Ten, “we’ll get decent money for destroyin' 'em, an' you want us to risk jail floggin' 'em to a dealer.”

  “How do we prove to Vance we have burnt 'em?” asked Hud. “Knowing 'im, he won’t pay us anyway. An' I’ll tell you something else, Ten, I may be a car dealer, but I know a bit about art. Some of these pictures are worth a few quid - some well known signatures on 'em!” He took one of the better pictures, a landscape in oil, layered neatly between tissue. "An' this one's a masterpiece."

  Greg listened in wonder, unperturbed that several of the pictures had already been destroyed. Aside from the masterpiece, among the better known ones were The Green Lady; Constable’s Haywain; and a Spanish lady with a rose in her mouth. And they were worth a bit: the lot had cost Greg all of twenty quid from a car-boot sale north of Hereford City.

  “All-right,” conceded Ten at last, “we’ll try a dealer tomorrow before we burn the rest, just to see if he’s heard of the artists.”

  Greg felt sure the dealer would have heard of the artists: there were famous names on some, among them being Van Morrison and de Burgh. He'd only excluded Kilroy and Churchill because they might have attracted suspicion.

  “First thing we’ll do is get rid of the banger, though,” insisted Ten, “liability, that.”

  There'll be no need for that, lads, I'm about to do it for you…

  *

  The smell of wood-smoke lingered sweetly in Greg’s nostrils as he drove to the nearest call box - so he could leave one last anonymous message.

  “Two men have just dumped a Porsche - which I believe to be stolen - near the roadside on the A38 south of Bristol. They're still in the area.”

  "Good job I got Eddy to arrange collection of the real pic’s, Red," said Greg as he re-started the Ulster. "Bart should be picking them up from Alf Cropper's place early tomorrow, but for now, Trevelly here we come!"

  Chapter Nineteen

  Greg didn't arrive until the early hours, so reluctantly he decided to knock up Jan and get some sleep on her settee. He hated taking anyone for granted, but he knew Jan wouldn't complain. She always seemed happy to see him.

  That morning was no exception: she flung her arms eagerly around him and insisted he ate before getting some sleep.

  “Come and sit in the kitchen while I do a snack,” she insisted, “I was terrified you’d never come back, and you’re safe enough now. Did you know the gang have been rounded up?”

  “I rang Eddy!” replied Greg guiltily. “I was afraid to call you because I still wasn't sure…”

  "Did Eddy know about Vance when you spoke…?"

  "Obviously not. What's happened?"

  "He's dead… Heard it on the radio just before I went to bed last night."

  "Where was he?"

  "Hospital… No mention of how he died, though. They did say there were no suspicious circumstances, so I can only guess it would be all the stress of being arrested."

  "Got off light, I reckon; I won't lose any sleep over him after recent weeks!" Greg's anger softened as he looked into Jan's sleepy eyes. "Sorry I'm ranting Jan, and sorry I wasn't in touch either. You must have been worried sick."

  “I understa
nd, and you’ve no problems now - thank God! There's so much going on - and I'm sure the lads are dying to tell you.”

  “I can’t wait,” replied Greg his spirits rising again. “All being well, I should have some good news for them, too.” Jan laughed aloud as he told her about the pictures - and that the estate might be saved.

  "God Jan, I can hardly eat for excitement. I've not been this keyed up since I was a kid."

  "The only casualty on our side was poor Fergal as I 'spect you'll know,” added Jan seriously. “Still in intensive care at the Royal, and he was so brave.” She poured them both coffee, and continued. “The police - Stubbs aside - are really grateful from what I’ve heard. Apparently they’ve been trying to crack that bunch for a long time.”

  "Just makes me wonder why they haven't managed to do it before now," commented Greg wryly. “But I do hope Fergal will be okay.”

  Greg finished eating and walked through to the lounge. “I told them to be careful and send for police if there was doubt.”

  "I know it doesn't help Fergal," replied Jan, "But the lads tried to exclude him: it was his choice to get involved."

  Greg lay on the settee, though suddenly he didn’t feel tired any more.

  “Try to get some sleep and stop worrying," said Jan as she put out the light and went back to her bedroom. “I’m sure he'll be OK.”

  Greg eventually fell into a deep sleep, and didn’t wake until almost noon. He took a shower and ate hurriedly before preparing to visit Sarah.

  "After that I'll call at the Holly Tree so I can hear the full story."

  “I've a surprise before you go.” Jan walked over to a small dresser in the corner of the lounge. “This might interest you.” Greg took the letter anxiously, half expecting more sinister news, but was pleasantly surprised that it was a reply to one of his ads weeks earlier.