That's a thought. Do I need a weapon? Not a knife – I'd never have the guts to use one – but something I could use to buy time if Everett or Sleazy Bob find me. I try a few cupboards and a few drawers, being extra careful to ensure they don't rattle, squeak or creak, but there's nothing more lethal than a spoon. I was hoping for something more substantial, like a rolling pin, but there's nothing that hefty.
I look up at the hanging pots and pans. Most of them are far too big and heavy – some of them are so big you can imagine cannibals cooking a couple of missionaries in them – but there's a wok at the end that could be a contender. Woks are pretty light at the best of times, and this one's pretty small, just larger than a dinner plate.
I reach up and unhook it. Perfect. Heavy enough to hurt, not so heavy that it'll do serious damage, to someone else or to me. I don't fancy pulling a muscle trying to hit somebody.
It's amazing the effect having a weapon has. I know it's just a wok, but it's still a weapon and I feel a lot more confident.
I pad across to the utility room, gently close the kitchen door behind me and look for a cupboard to hide in.
Every single cupboard is full. Cereals here, cleaning stuff there, boxes and tins and packets and jars. Clearing enough room to give me a hiding place would take forever.
I look at the slightly open window, but Everett's driver is still out there. Too risky. I sit on the floor, wok in hand, and wait for something to happen.
I don't have to wait long.
I've been sitting for a couple of minutes when I hear the kitchen door squeak. Whoever's in there is doing his best to move quietly, but he's not doing a great job of it: the footsteps are soft, but I can still hear them as they go from one end of the kitchen to the other. The steps stop for a moment, and I try to breathe as quietly as possible.
He's retracing his steps. The footsteps move back across the kitchen, then stop – listening again – and resume. He's coming this way.
I slowly push myself up, taking care not to knock the wok against anything.
The footsteps stop again.
After exactly ten seconds, the door handle turns. The door swings out to the kitchen and I swing the wok into the gap, overarm.
Sleazy Bob goes down like a sack of potatoes.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Sleazy Bob is lying spread-eagled on the floor. His chest is rising and falling, and there's no sign of any blood. That's a relief. I wanted to stop him, not kill him. He's going to have the mother of all headaches later on, though.
The shotgun's about a metre away, lying on the floor next to the open door. I decide to leave it where it is. I'm not the gun type, and I'd be scared of shooting my own toes off. Anyway, I've already got a perfectly good weapon: a shiny wok with a noticeable dent in it.
I've taken two steps into the hallway when Adam Everett's voice booms from the top of the stairs. "Are you planning to stir-fry me?" He looks amused, not angry. "I've been threatened with all kinds of things in my time, but that's a new one," he says, smirking.
Everett walks towards the stairs and I tighten my grip on the wok. He spots the move and lifts his arms from his sides, fingers extended, palms towards me. "I'm not armed," he says. He waves slightly towards the stairs. "May I?" I nod, and Everett starts to walk slowly down the stairs.
"I don't suppose you've encountered the inimitable Mr Hannah?"
I jerk my head towards the kitchen door. "He's in there."
Everett nods. "Hence the dent in your frying pan?"
"Yeah."
As he reaches the last step, I raise the wok in case he tries anything. But instead of lunging at me or pulling a gun from his waistband, Everett sits on the bottom step, his arms hugging his knees, rocking gently backwards and forwards. He doesn't say anything for a while.
"So," he says. "Care to explain what you're doing in my house? Are you intending to beat some kind of confession out of me? Is that the plan?"
"Plan? I didn't plan anything. I was planning to go to my bed until Sleazy Bob broke into my flat and kidnapped me."
Everett raises one eyebrow. "Sleazy Bob? Who is -- ah, okay. So why do you call him -- never mind. He brought you here? To this house?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"He said you'd been ignoring him."
"And you are, what? Flowers and chocolates?"
"More of a sacrifice."
Everett looks astonished. "A sacrifice?"
"Think so."
He shakes his head, sighs, and cradles his head in his hands. He sighs again.
"Hannah doesn't have a key, doesn't know the codes. Neither do you. How did you get in?"
"The window in the utility room was broken."
"Let me guess. The alarm wasn't on."
I nod. "That's right."
Anger flashes across his face and he lets out yet another sigh. "Details," he says. "Always details." The head goes into the hands again. I wait until the silence is uncomfortable before interrupting.
"I've already called the police," I say.
Everett nods. "Mister Burke?"
"He prefers Detective Burke."
"Detective Burke, then. I had the pleasure of his company quite recently."
"Pleasure?"
"Well, perhaps 'pleasure' is the wrong word. He told me that if I wasn't a good boy, Santa Claus wouldn't bring me any good presents. Something like that, anyway. He's a very imposing gentleman. I'm sure he can be very persuasive."
"Were you persuaded?"
Everett looks up with a wry smile. "Persuaded that my choice of business partners could be better? I don't need a policeman to help me come to that conclusion," he says.
"So what are you going to do now?"
"I don't know. I was thinking that I might --"
He doesn't finish his sentence. Sleazy Bob decides that this is the perfect moment to blunder red-faced into the hall, his hair and shoulders coated in something white. He's bumped into something in the kitchen or the utility room, flour by the looks of it, and he looks like a furious clown, or maybe a rosy-cheeked ghost. He doesn't look too sure on his feet -- concussion, probably -- but he's holding the shotgun perfectly steady, gripping it so tightly his knuckles are white.
"Robert --" Everett starts, but Sleazy Bob isn't listening. He points the gun at me and barks, "drop it."
I drop the wok.
"On your knees."
I kneel.
"Hands behind your head."
I clasp my hands together and hold them behind my head.
Sleazy Bob points the gun at my face. I try to ignore the enormous barrel and look straight into his eyes. They're watery, bloodshot.
Sleazy Bob sniffs and wipes his right arm across his face, quickly returning it to the grip of the shotgun.
"Robert," Everett says, standing up. "Robert, this really isn't necessary."
Sleazy Bob keeps the gun levelled at me.
"Robert. You can put the gun down. It's okay."
The eyes flicker towards Everett and then back to me. The hands tighten their grip on the gun.
"Robert."
Sleazy Bob's eyelids twitch.
Sleazy Bob's nose wrinkles.
Everett puts himself between me and Sleazy Bob, his right hand open, his arm outstretched.
Sleazy Bob sneezes.
The shotgun roars.
I hit the floor, hard.
My ears are ringing but I think my eardrums are okay. I can hear Sleazy Bob sobbing, and I can hear a noise coming from Everett that I know I'm not going to forget any time soon. My face is wet. I really don't want to think about that.
I look up. The soles of Everett's feet are right in front of me. Sleazy Bob's at the other end, on his knees, tears streaming down his face. The gun is on the floor beside him, forgotten.
I slowly rise to my feet. If Sleazy Bob notices, he doesn't react. I take one step. No reaction. Another. Still nothing. I start down the corridor, checking over my shoulder to see what Sleazy Bob's doing, but
he's still hunched over Everett's body.
I make it to the front door. I throw it open and walk into a wall of blue flashing lights. I hear shouts, and engines, and crunching gravel, and I put my hands over my head, and Amy tackles me like a football player.
EPILOGUE
I'm lying behind a bush, the sun hot on my neck, watching a helicopter attack a bear. Which, let's be honest, isn't something you see every day.
The bear is doing his best to smash the helicopter, but the pilot is smart: after each swoop the helicopter soars into the sky, heading for the sun. Blinded, the bear can only wait for the next attack.
Amy is lying next to me. "I don't think this will ever get boring," she says, watching Barney the Bargain Bear shake his furry fists at the sky.
You know the bit in King Kong where he's being attacked by biplanes? Imagine that, but in front of a garden centre instead of on top of the Empire State Building.
"My turn," Dave says, grabbing the remote control from me.
We had the idea a couple of nights ago. We were in my apartment and we'd had a few beers when the advert came on yet again. Barney the Bargain Bear is coming to Garden Land, the voiceover yelled, explaining how Barney is on a mission to deliver bargains on absolutely everything. When Barney gave a big thumbs-up as the voiceover chuckled about "bear necessities" we knew what we had to do.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Dave asked.
"If you're thinking bear baiting, I'm thinking what you're thinking," I replied.
"Then you're thinking what I'm thinking," Dave said.
So this morning we bought a remote controlled helicopter, chose our spot and waited for Barney the Bargain Bear to turn up. We didn't start buzzing him immediately, though. Give us some credit. We bided our time and came up with a plan. Whenever there weren't any customers coming in or out of the front doors, we'd unleash the Kamikaze Kopter.
The name was Dave's idea.
So far we've buzzed him about twelve times, and the poor old bugger in the suit is getting pretty pissed off. We'd have buzzed him more often, but it's hard to control a helicopter when you're laughing. The score so far: I've buzzed him five times, Amy's got him once and Dave's hit him four or five times. Sunny was supposed to be here too, but she got offered a last-minute gig for a lot of money.
"Fair play to him," Amy says. "He's still doing his happy bear dance."
The happy bear dance is Barney's way of expressing the power of discount prices through the medium of dance.
"I wish the customers would disappear," Dave says. "We've got bears to hunt."
"Patience, my kamikaze friend," I say. "Wait a bit and he'll be all yours."
It takes four or five minutes, but eventually there's a lull. The helicopter drops like a stone, bounces on Barney's head and shoots skywards again. I can tell by the body language that Barney is becoming a very angry bear indeed.
"You know, I could do this all day," I say, taking the controls from Dave.
"Me too," says Dave. "Ah, shit."
Barney is talking to a security guard and pointing in our direction. The guard says something into his walkie-talkie and starts sprinting. He's heading right for us.
We run.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks very much for buying or borrowing Coffin Dodgers. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. If you did, I’d be very grateful if you could tell somebody else about the book.
(If you didn't buy it or borrow it because you're one of those Evil Internet Pirates, you should do something to restore your karma. Call your mother. Do something nice for somebody else. Write a glowing review on Amazon. That kind of thing.)
I'd love to take all the credit for this book, but the truth is that writing is a team effort and Coffin Dodgers was beaten into shape with the help of an extraordinary bunch of people. Liz Marshall, David Marshall, Joseph Kynaston Reeves, Ruth Marshall and Paul Douglas all provided invaluable help with the manuscript, while the inimitable Ronnie Brown designed the cover with a bit of help from Stephen Paul and Alison Stewart cleaned up the copy.
Would you like to read more? I’m currently writing the sequel to Coffin Dodgers, which will be available in 2012. In the meantime I’ve got a short story, Malky’s Bottle of Christmas, available for the Kindle here. I’ve also put together a collection of my technology journalism, Bring Me The Head of Mark Zuckerberg, which you’ll find in the Kindle Store here.
If you'd like to stay in touch with what I'm up to, my website is at Bigmouthstrikesagain.com. You'll also find me on Twitter as @garymarshall.
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