by Wendy Holden
In her hiding place beside the one-armed bandit, Laura was staring though the plastic top of the sixties bubblegum machine. Had Jonny Welsh been there he would have explained that the gumballs inside were absolutely of the period, tracked down at great effort and expense on an obscure East European website specialising in vintage British sweets.
Laura was not looking at them, however. Focused on the events in the bar-room, she was rigid with excitement. A wide reader, interested in politics, she knew all about the Profumo affair. The gravity of Jackson’s situation was immediately obvious to her. It may have been just a pub quiz, but this could well be a resignation issue.
The penny finally dropped with Kiki too. ‘You mean you’ll have to resign?’ she said to Jackson, trying to keep the hope out of her voice. The village only tolerated him because of his political influence. Without it he would be run out of town, as Roger Slutt had been.
‘Of course I arsing won’t!’ The red face was now very close to hers. ‘Who took the photos?’
Wedged in between the bubblegum machine and the one-armed bandit, Laura was asking herself the same question. It seemed to her that it could have been practically anyone. Everyone in the bar last night had smartphones. But why would they betray the village and compromise everyone’s privacy? A Pyrrhic victory of this nature simply didn’t make sense.
Kiki folded her arms. A light gleamed in her eye as she faced down the furious minister. ‘I do have a suspect,’ she told him.
Laura leaned forward in her gap, the better to hear.
One of Jackson’s mighty red fists made contact with a roughly sawn table top. ‘Ow!’ he yelled, shaking out the sausage-like digits. ‘Tell me who they are! I’ll kill them. I don’t care if they’re Lady Mandy arsing Chease!’
Between the retro machines, Laura held her breath. Great Hording was turning out to be a far better story than she could ever have hoped for.
‘It’s not Lady Mandy,’ Kiki said, regretfully. She paused before delivering, with a drama even Lady Mandy might have appreciated, ‘It’s that ghastly little oik from the Fishing Boat Inn!’
Laura clapped a hand to her mouth to stop herself shouting in protest. She had been with Kearn all evening and knew for a fact that he had not brought his phone out once.
Jackson’s indignant fist again hovered over a bar table, but then appeared to think better of it. The eyes now boring into Kiki’s looked slightly puzzled. ‘Not the one who resisted Welsh’s planning application? I had the arse of a job to talk the Mayor round. Bloody oik had convinced him that the loss of the Farmer’s Arms as a local pub for local people would make Great Hording a weekend dormitory for rich Londoners.’
‘Which it would,’ Kiki agreed. ‘And did.’
‘Exactly! That was the whole point. Bloody Mayor got all uptight about it though. Had to get his wife off a fraud rap and his cleaner a passport before he’d wave Jonny’s application through.’
Laura gasped in surprise, but also frustration. Damn her dim-wittedness for not switching her phone on to capture this evidence of corruption in high places. She was wedged in very tightly, but even so might be able to pull it out if she took care. Her fingers inched towards her back pocket. The minister continued to reminisce. ‘Bloody oik. Or oiks. There were plenty of them, as I remember. What did they call themselves? The Little Hording Popular Front?’
Kiki nodded, pleased with how easily her theory had caught fire. She couldn’t say she had actually seen Kearn take the photo, but the sheet of notes that Peter Delabole had shown her proved that someone in the room was recording events with malicious intent. There was, as Peter said, a fifth columnist in the ranks. A serpent had entered the Great Hording Eden. And who else could that serpent be but Kearn? The resentment Little Hording felt about Great Hording was well known. And Kiki’s fury about the inflated mushy peas price was still raw.
‘But what was he doing here?’ Jackson asked suddenly.
Under his bulging gaze, Kiki shrank with fear. She had not anticipated this question and had no answer. It now occurred to her that her theory had a flaw in it. She herself had opened the citadel gates to admit Kearn’s Trojan pea-laden horse.
‘Because the whole point of this place is that we don’t let outsiders in,’ Jackson continued.
Kiki’s mind skittered about, wondering who to curse most. Kearn? Or Hervé? It was his fault just as much. If he’d made proper mushy peas in the first place, none of this would have happened.
She swallowed. ‘Er...’
Laura, on the verge of pulling out her phone, now lost her balance and knocked the handle of the bubblegum machine. The process set in motion could not be reversed. A handful of small, hard balls released themselves and rained down on to the reclaimed stone floor. The noise was like machine-gun fire.
In the bar, the Defence Minister jumped. ‘What the bollocks was that?’ He had visited only one army base, but it had been more than enough. His wife, however, remained unsympathetic to his claims of PTSD.
Knowing discovery was imminent, Laura leapt out of her hiding place. Too late, however. With a speed born of much jogging around the village environs, Kiki was in the passage in a flash and bearing down on her, eyes flaming with outrage above her reading glasses. A skinny brown arm shot out and grabbed Laura by the wrist.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ rasped the pub manager. It was the girl from last night, she recognised angrily, the slim, dark-haired one who went off with Caspar Honeyman.
‘Getting a bubble gum,’ replied Laura, attempting an insouciant smile. It was the obvious reply.
‘As if!’ snarled Kiki. But while she was acting angry, inside she was hugely relieved. This girl had saved her from having to answer Jackson’s question, and provided a decoy into the bargain.
The Defence Minister had by now lumbered out into the passage. ‘Who’s this?’ He looked Laura up and down, not unappreciatively.
‘She was in Kearn’s team last night,’ Kiki accused. ‘She must be another member of the Little Hording Popular Front. All that’s being stirred back up again. It’s a full-blown conspiracy! They’re spying on us!’
The better part of valour is discretion. The phrase flew back to Laura from some long-ago English lesson. Meaning that it was better to run away in some situations than hang around and argue the toss.
This was all too obviously the case here. But Jackson was blocking the door and Kiki defended the bar entrance. There was no way out.
Chapter Seventeen
Help came from an unexpected quarter. All three parties now became aware of a tremendous noise outside. It sounded like two women screaming, but how could it be, in peaceful Great Hording?
Kiki abandoned her interrogation of Laura and rushed to the pub’s rose-framed front windows. It was difficult to see what was going on; a crowd of women in high-end leisurewear stood between her and the action. As usual at this time on a Sunday morning, Great Hording was alive with the lean, toned wives of captains of industry out on their jogs. Something, however, had made them all stop and gawp.
Kiki dashed outside, only to find her view blocked by Dung Spaw, whose large, pink, fluffy jogging costume, ‘Gym Bunny 1’, had been runner-up for the previous year’s Turner Prize. She wiggled through the crowd, past Anna Goblemova, resplendent in gold Lycra leggings and a gold sequinned vest, and Margaret Tache and Dame Hermione, the former in a T-shirt printed with the floor-plan of the Parthenon, the latter in enormous tracksuit bottoms.
‘Anna looks like the wife of some particularly spendthrift emperor,’ Dame Hermione murmured loftily. Margaret Tache need not think she was the only person who knew about classical culture.
‘But, my dear, isn’t that just what she is?’ returned the leading Latinist. ‘Oligarchs are contemporary Roman emperors, are they not? Goodness me, what are these ladies shouting about?’
It was the question that Kiki, too, was asking herself. But it was impossible to tell. She couldn’t even make out who they were, as
both were wearing sunglasses and seemed to be made mostly of hair. Some big blonde hair was struggling with some long, dark hair, although the dark hair seemed to have the advantage, performing a number of martial-looking chops and kicks. ‘Get away from me, you maniac!’ screamed an American accent. A chorus of yaps seconded this remark.
There was a collective gasp of recognition. ‘My God, it’s Savannah Bouche!’ cried the childrenswear entrepreneur Annabel Jackson, who seemed more excited about this than the disaster currently engulfing her husband. Given the routine humiliations of being married to him it was possible, Kiki knew, that she thought he deserved it. ‘And her dogs! Mandela, Pankhurst, Mahatma and Che! Aren’t they just adorable?’
‘Not sure that’s the word I’d use,’ pronounced Margaret Tache, as the four scraps of fur viciously nipped the ankles of their mistress’s assailant. ‘Rather, they put one in mind of Cerberus, who famously guarded the entrance to Hades.’
“Or Henry VIII’s faithful lapdog Tickle,” put in Dame Hermione swiftly.
The great classicist stared at her suspiciously.
The rest of the group were watching competition of a more physical nature. The Hollywood actress and her opponent were going hammer and tongs.
‘She certainly learned a thing or two on TaeKwondo Hippo!’ winced Dung Spaw.
‘Savannah!’ shouted Sabrina Lacey, rushing over to the flying legs and arms. ‘What in hell’s name are you doing here? Tim’s going to be just so thrilled... Why didn’t you tell us— oof!’
She was shoved out of the way by the resurgent blonde, whose new tactics were to grab and punch.
Margaret Tache tossed her trademark plait over her shoulder. ‘This reminds me of the celebrated episode in Livy when the emperor’s concubines resolve to settle their differences physically!’
‘And I am reminded of the famously deleted scene in Shakespeare’s unfinished Edward VI, where the village women fight over who was first in line at the well,’ added Dame Hermione, not to be outdone. ‘Look at all the hair she’s pulling out!’
Clumps of the brunette’s hair were scattered all over the neatly raked gravel.
‘Was all extensions,’ Anna Goblemova said triumphantly.
The air resounded with a slap and a howl. A pair of mirrored aviator shades wheeled through the air. The dogs, evidently believing this was a game, rushed after them and brought them back, depositing them at Lulu’s feet.
‘Will teach you steal my man!’ shouted the blonde in a throaty accent that seemed of every nation and none. She picked up the glasses and hurled them away as far as possible. Off went the dogs once more.
‘It’s Lulu!’ cried Anna Goblemova, who was addicted to Hello!. ‘Huh, she got quite a left hook.’
Under the impact of this very hook, and the knuckleduster effect provided by Lulu’s jewellery, Savannah now staggered sideways, tripped up on her own hi-tech trainers and fell over. Something square, solid-trousered and set-faced now entered the fray. Mindful of the fact that the pantomime cast was still to be announced, the crowd parted respectfully at the approach of Great Hording’s most influential resident.
‘Savannah!’ boomed Lady Mandy, wielding her basket of simple country nosegays like a weapon. ‘My dear, what on earth is going on? You’ve been out jogging for simply hours. We all began to wonder what on earth had happened to you.’
Flat on her back, apparently winded, the actress did not reply.
‘Why’s she staying with Lady Mandy?’ Willow St George hissed to Wonky de Launay.
Wonky was checking her jogging make-up in her FitBit’s integral mirror. ‘Guess she wants a part in the panto as well.’ Her tone was entirely without irony.
Lady Mandy continued seizing the situation by the scruff of the neck. She stormed up to Lulu. ‘Kindly explain yourself!’
Lulu, absolutely unfazed by theatreland’s most-feared battleaxe, placed tanned hands dazzling with diamonds on her generously curved hips. She made an unlikely pugilist in her flowing Céline trousers and Victoria Beckham shirt, but that she was an effective one was indisputable. Savannah Bouche, devoid of most of her famous hair, her famously pneumatic mouth given an extra boost by Lulu’s upper cut, lay unconscious at her feet. ‘She steal my fiancé!’ Lulu announced, meeting Lady Mandy’s furious glare with the indignant glint of her impenetrably black sunglasses.
‘Nonsense!’ returned Lady Mandy. ‘Savannah is in a relationship with my son Orlando. That is why she is here in Great Hording.’
There was a collective gasp from the listening crowd. ‘So it’s all over with South’n Fried!’ exclaimed Margaret Tache, putting what everyone was feeling into words.
Lulu was staring at Lady Mandy. ‘Is over?’ she demanded disbelievingly. ‘My fiancé and slag-tart husband-stealer?’
Lady Mandy brandished her basket. ‘I object to that description of my future daughter-in-law.’
Laura, who had escaped through the back of the Golden Goose and was now edging her way round, saw a small, noisy pack of dogs dart past. She immediately connected them, not only with a certain incident at Buckingham Palace, but with the yapping from the helicopter last night. She had, she realised, witnessed, or at least heard, the arrival of Savannah Bouche.
Thank God Caspar hadn’t. Fame whore as he was – for all his complaints – the sheer celebrity wattage of the superstar would have knocked him sideways. Laura would have spent the night with Lulu and the Kim Jong-un bunting.
Why was Savannah in Great Hording though? But perhaps it wasn’t so surprising. Everyone else seemed to be, except for South’n Fried, of course, currently Busting global Ass. But hold on, what had Lady Mandy just said?
Future daughter-in-law?
So Savannah had chucked South’n Fried already? And for Orlando Chease? Laura paused, apprehension now mixing with her amazement. How was Lulu going to take this?
A loud ring of laughter broke the ominous silence. ‘Ha! Savannah Bouche is your outlaw daughter!’ cackled Lulu. ‘Well, good luck with that, you know? Will minutes last five, hmm?’
The figure on the floor now stirred unexpectedly. In a swift athletic movement, Savannah leapt to her feet like someone from an action movie, which indeed she was. She turned to face the staring crowd. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she yelled, ‘I am no longer engaged to Orlando!’
That was over too! Laura had heard of love lives like revolving doors, but Savannah’s was more like the spin cycle on a washing machine.
‘Ha!’ shouted Lulu again, even more triumphantly this time. ‘You see? My sharp end exactly! My, how you say, point!’
Among the crowd there was a dead silence. Everyone who had been staring at Savannah now turned to stare at Lady Mandy, whose face had been host to an amazing variety of expressions ranging from shocked to furious. Now realising herself the cynosure of all eyes, she took a deep breath, straightened her mighty shoulders and prepared to deliver the speech of her life.
‘I cannot,’ she intoned in the crisp diction famous for reaching the very furthest seats at the back of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (albeit only in the soundcheck in her job as junior stage manager), ‘imagine what on earth you mean, my dear. Last night, when you finally arrived by helicopter – several hours late, I might point out, and with a large number of dogs...’
‘I had a meeting with my agent,’ Savannah interjected crisply. ‘About a new role in a really big film.’ Her eyes glittered venomously as she looked at Lulu. ‘And you can have your fiancé back, girlfriend. Talk about useless. Turns out he’s more into papier-mâché than private jets.’
The heads of the crowd turned to Lulu to see how this last remark went down. The billionheiress tossed her hair back. ‘Is too good man for you,’ she stated, with dignity.
‘And for you, it seems,’ Savannah returned with a curl of her famously pillowy lips. ‘He left you, after all.’
‘Like your horrible dogs leave you!’ retorted Lulu. ‘Where they gone, huh?’
Savannah looked around. Lulu wa
s quite right, since the final mighty hurl of the mirrored Bouche sunshades, there had been neither trace nor bark of Pankhurst and co.
‘My babies!’ shrieked the actress, rushing off in her hi-tech trainers.
‘Just where do you think you are going?’ Lady Mandy yelled after her.
Savannah did not stop. ‘Once I get my babies,’ she shouted over her shoulder, ‘I’m outta this dump.’
There was a stir of outrage among the crowd, all of whom had sunk millions into this dump. Kiki was aghast. A Hollywood superstar describing Great Hording in those terms might well be the beginning of the end. Lady Mandy, her face red with fury, drew herself up to deliver the ultimate riposte. ‘If you think,’ she shouted after the tiny, sticklike figure, ‘that you will be allotted a role in the forthcoming Great Hording pantomime, you have another think coming!’
Somewhat unexpectedly, Savannah did react to this. She had got as far as Peter Delabole’s bookshop when she turned and shoved her middle finger in the air.
‘Well, really!’ gasped Lady Mandy. ‘Talk about gratitude! We Cheases were about to raise that girl from mere fame to the level of thespian royalty!’
‘Oh my God, I’m about to miss The Archers omnibus!’ cried Kate Threadneedle in a panic.
Lulu was not slow to grasp the huge significance of this. ‘And is big showdown between Eddie Grundy and Lynda Snell!’ she gasped, rushing into the car park.
Exclamations of horror echoed hers and within seconds the entire crowd had dispersed. All that remained to hint at the recent dramatic events were Savannah Bouche’s hair extensions scattered on the gravel.
With a final, despairing glance round, Kiki went back into the pub to face Jolyon Jackson. He had taken full advantage of the facilities and was downing his fourth pint and fifth gourmet bacon sandwich as he flicked through the parts of the Sunday papers that didn’t directly allude to him.