by steve higgs
‘Come out and face us!' he shouted when the door refused to yield.
This formed unusual behaviour for the village of Finchampstead where normally I would claim that nothing ever happens. I knew from experience that the relative IQ of a crowd was somewhere near the square root of all the people’s IQs averaged. Crowds were dangerously stupid. Having formed, a crowd then wants to do something. People egg other people on. People whisper thoughts into other people’s ears and before you know it they are setting fire to cars.
I looped the dog leads around a lamppost and left them a good few metres away from the crowd before I approached. As I came along the street, I saw a car with crude spray writing all along one side and I knew what the crowd were there for.
The sprayed word was Klown.
No one had noticed my arrival, or if they had they had assumed I was just coming to join in. The young man stepped forward to kick the door again. As he drew back his right leg, I pushed him over. So now I was centre of attention, all eyes on me. The shove I had given him pulled at my ribs a bit, but I was refusing to show that I already wanted to go for a lie-down.
‘What’re you playing at?’ asked a man just in front of me. I recognised him so perhaps he recognised me also. I did not know his name, but it was a small village, so we had probably stood together in the queue in the shop before.
‘That would be exactly my question also,' I replied, moving my gaze around so that I locked eyes with everyone in the small crowd. ‘It is Sunday morning in our peaceful little village and you lot are trying to scare a man from his house.'
‘But he is one of those clowns from the TV,’ complained a woman in the front row to a chorus of “Yeahs.” From many others.
‘Does anyone know the name of the man living here?’ I asked.
‘It's Cliff Maxwell,' the same woman said, now sounding not quite so sure of herself.
‘And you know this because?’
‘Well, I live next door but one.’
‘So, you are his neighbour. Has Cliff lived here long?’
‘What has that got to do with it?' asked the young man who had now picked himself up off the ground. I ignored him.
‘I’m waiting,’ I reminded the lady. I needed to be the one in control. I had to dominate the crowd until they came to their senses.
‘As long as I remember,’ she said reluctantly.
‘Can you tell us all what he does for a living?’ I asked, looking at the crowd rather than her. I was smiling now, my expression engaging and beginning to win over the people in front of me.
‘He is a clown!’ she delivered with gusto as if it were a crime in itself and she was revealing him as guilty.
‘Do you mean that he is a children’s entertainer?’
‘Um.’
I addressed the crowd, ‘Has anyone had Cliff around to their child’s birthday party?’
‘Oh, yes. He came to my Tommy’s fourth birthday just a few weeks ago,’ said a young mum. I noticed that she had brought Tommy with her this morning to witness the lynching.
‘Did he display any behaviour at the time that made you in any way scared? Did he stab, maim or otherwise murder you or any of the guests at the party?’
‘Well, err no.’
This thing was over. I could see the uncertainty in the faces of almost all the villagers in front of me now. A few were less happy about it though. I pressed on, ‘My dear fellow villagers, the man that lives here is a children's entertainer. Nothing more. The Klowns you have seen reports of on the TV are something else entirely. What on earth were you thinking? What were you going to do if you got him out of his house this morning? If he had run from the back door would you have given chase? What then? Beat him to death?' a few people were starting to drift away from the back row. Slithering back to their houses hoping they could later deny ever being here.
‘Hold on…’ started the young man again.
‘Did you vandalise his car?’ I demanded angrily.
‘What? No, I…’
‘Who did then?' I snapped, cutting him off. He looked genuinely innocent, but someone had painted the man's car and there might be damage to the man's house yet. ‘Where do you think you are all going?' I asked. People were now actively trying to be somewhere else. ‘This poor man has been besieged in his own home by you and his property has been damaged.' I reached behind me to knock politely on his door without taking my eyes off the people left still standing in front of me. Just then, a police car entered the street from the end I had walked from. I turned my head and sure enough, another police car was coming from the other end. The dispersing crowd were now trapped and had frozen.
Behind me, the door opened. Just a crack. I heard the safety chain catch the door. I looked over my shoulder to see a slim section of a face peering around the door at me. ‘Mr. Maxwell the police are here. You are safe to come out now.
The police cars had stopped about fifty metres apart and the occupants were getting out. I spotted immediately that the car to my right contained PC Amanda Harper, my new work colleague and another officer that I recognised as PC Hardacre. This would go smoothly now. Amanda spotted me and left PC Hardacre to the task of corralling the crowd so that she could join me at Mr. Maxwell's door.
‘Good morning, Amanda,’ I said.
‘Having a busy day, Tempest? I thought you were supposed to be taking it easy.’
‘That had been the plan,’ I conceded.
I explained quickly what had transpired. Mr. Maxwell felt safe enough to leave his house once he saw Amanda's uniform, so was able to regale her with a more detailed account of events from his perspective. He had called the police before I arrived.
I left Amanda dealing with the villagers and collected my dogs from where I had left them. As I said goodbye to Amanda, she told me that this was the third such incident this morning. Vigilante crowds were targeting children's entertainers all over Kent. Mr. Maxwell had been lucky compared to some it would seem. Others had sustained injuries at the hands of their idiot mobs. I wondered then if across Kent there were men that owned clown suits barricading their homes for fear of attack.
The dogs pulled me to the park in the centre of the village so that I would unclip them from their leads. I found that it was a long way down to them with my ribs hurting the way the currently did, but I let them off and watched as they scampered away.
Soon enough, I was back home and surprisingly relieved to be back in the warmth of my house. Normally the cold does not bother me. I learned to ignore it a long time ago and had always held the opinion that it simply does not get cold in England. Not really. The opinion, of course, was born from having spent time in countries where it genuinely does get cold. I wondered if perhaps I was just feeling it more today because I was feeling battered in general.
I made a cup of tea and joined the Dachshunds who had already claimed prize spot on the sofa. I turned the TV on and settled down to do nothing, just like the doctors had told me I should. Once again, I fell asleep without drinking my tea and woke up to the sound of the dogs barking.
There was someone at the door. At least the dogs believed there was, so as usual they were making lots of noise and dancing around in front of it. It had taken me twice as long as it usually would to make my way from the sofa to the porch and I could not find the effort to shoo the dogs back into the kitchen, so I just opened the door and let them go. I was fairly confident the person outside would not get savaged by them.
It was my parents. The dogs climbed their legs.
I said, ‘Hello.’
‘Hello, Tempest,’ replied my mother. ‘Do you have a lunch plan?’ They were both dressed for church. I checked my watch to find that it was 1317hrs. I had slept for over an hour. My parents had been to church, probably stayed for tea, biscuits and a chat and then come directly to me.
‘I do not. I hadn’t given it any thought actually. I was probably just going to grab something from the fridge.’
‘Your father and I thou
ght that might be the case, so we are here to take you out for lunch.’
Excellent.
‘Would you like to come in while I find my shoes and coat?’ I asked.
They nodded and followed me back into the house. The dogs plopped back over the door sill so I could close the cold air outside. I considered leaving the dogs behind as they could be a little bothersome in a pub at lunchtime – all the interesting smells getting them going, but I wanted them around me as often as I could manage it and I estimated that I could slip them a few small pieces of roasted meat without ruining their dinner or upsetting any of the other patrons. As if reading my thoughts, they happily stuck their heads in their collars as I offered them.
Sunday Lunch at The Hen and Pheasant, West Farleigh. Sunday, October 23rd 1351hrs
A thirty-minute drive later, the car tyres crunched across the gravel carpark of the Hen and Pheasant in West Farleigh. As we exited their car, mother handed the keys to my father and instructed him that he was driving home. He did not bother to put up an argument, it was a well-rehearsed charade because dad always drove home if it was daylight. His eyes were not too good at night and mother did ninety percent of the driving, so he got to be the designated driver whenever they went out for lunch.
At the bar, I ordered a bucket of wine for my mother and non-alcoholic beers for my dad and I. Non-alcoholic beer was not something I would typically imbibe. I got used to drinking it in Iraq many years ago when someone decided it would be an acceptable substitute for the real thing which, of course, was not allowed: Young, excitable and potentially irresponsible men, plus weapons, explosives and alcohol are not a recommended mix. The beverage failed to taste like the real thing in my opinion but was not awful provided one accepted it was going to taste different. My dad had overheard me though.
‘I think you would rather a coke,’ he said in a meaningful and conspiratorial tone. ‘I would definitely prefer one.’
I glanced at him. He checked to make sure my mother was not paying attention and showed me the hip flask in his jacket pocket. It would be full of rum and would indeed make the coke more interesting. I seriously considered it but, in the end, I declined although I got a coke for my dad so he could sneakily have a drink without my mum knowing. He grinned when I handed him his glass.
There was an open fire supplying welcome heat to the large dining room but a wide semi-circle in front of it where patrons had established it was too hot to go closer. We were escorted to a table way back in the depths of the pub which was next to a large window that looked out over the river. As I watched, a small pleasure cruiser went past, the skipper standing high up to see over the canopy as he steered.
On the drive over, mum and dad had both asked me about the attack and about the Klowns. I had admitted that I had no idea why they had targeted me or what they were trying to achieve in their attack or in general. Now, sat at the table the conversation continued.
‘Surely they must have said something?’ my mother insisted.
‘They said lots of things, mother. Most of them are not repeatable. It wasn’t exactly a conversation we were having.’
‘I don’t understand why they would just attack you. You must have done something to upset them.’
‘Leave the boy alone, Mary,’ instructed my father, knowing full well she would utterly ignore him.
‘It is entirely possible that I have, mother. I simply do not know what that might be. The police are trying to find something that links the crimes they are already responsible for but are drawing a blank, so far as I know.'
‘Ooh, is that lovely Amanda still helping you out?’ Here we go.
‘Yes, mother.’
‘Have you asked her out yet?’
‘No, mother.’
‘Why ever not, Tempest. She is ever so pretty and is just the right age for breeding.’
My word!
‘Mother,’ I said with an edge of impatience, ‘Amanda is already dating someone.’
‘Is that because you didn’t ask her out? I know how slow you are at making a move. You will never get a woman at your pace.’
My right eye twitched.
‘Mary,’ my father warned.
I tried to present an argument that would make sense to her, ‘Mother, Amanda and I work together. It would be inappropriate for us to be in a relationship. It would certainly be inappropriate for me to make advances towards her. If there ever was an opportunity, it has passed and there is no point in discussing it.’
‘Love always find a way, Tempest,’ mother loved a cliché.
‘But we are not in love, mother.’
‘She might not be,’ my mother said under her breath as she took a gulp of wine that nearly emptied the large glass in one hit. ‘I need another glass,’ she announced happily.
‘Mother, if you continue to pester me about Amanda I am going to leave,’ I threatened.
‘Fine,’ she drained the rest of her glass. ‘Ooh,’ she said, excitedly tapping the table to get my attention. ‘What about the girl from last weekend?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Oh, what was her name? You remember, Tempest. You went to school with her.’
‘Sophie!’ I exclaimed. I could feel the colour draining from my face.
Nuts! I was supposed to be taking her out for lunch today.
‘That's right. Sophie. She is nice. Maybe you should ask her out.' At least for once, my mother was trying to fix me up with a lady I was actually interested in and not a woman that could be confused with a walrus.
I slid slowly out of my chair, excused myself and went outside to make a phone call.
Sophie answered almost immediately.
‘Tempest.’ There was a definite snippiness to her voice. That she was monosyllabic was a clear indication of displeasure.
I elected to go with the "beg for forgiveness" strategy. It worked, but only after I explained that I had spent the night in the hospital and still had morphine in my body. I detected a mothering instinct in her reaction to my news that I was injured. It was not necessarily a bad thing.
‘Would it be acceptable to rearrange for tomorrow evening? I would very much still like to take you out for dinner.’
‘That sounds lovely, Tempest. Shall we say seven o’clock?’
‘I will pick you up at seven.’
We said goodbye and I wandered back into the pub. My steak was waiting for me. My parents were already tucking into theirs. ‘Everything alright, kid?' My dad asked once he had cleared his mouth of half-chewed cow.
‘Yes. I had a lunch date with Sophie arranged for today but forgot all about it. I am seeing her tomorrow night instead.’ My mother beamed at me and raised her glass in salute. There was food in front of her though, so I was safe from interrogation for a few minutes at least.
I sat down and tucked into the succulent piece of meat on my plate. It was excellent and cooked just the way I like it. I abstained from dessert while my parents indulged themselves with a sticky toffee pudding and ice cream. It was too heavy for me, so I chatted amiably about nothing much and took the dogs to the bar to fetch mother another pail of wine.
By the time we left the restaurant, mum had put away about a bottle and a half of Pinot Grigio, the obvious result of which was that she fell asleep before we made it out of the carpark. She would snooze in her armchair and wake in time to sing along with Songs of Praise on television later this evening.
On the way to their house, they dropped me at mine, but in the back of their car, my eyes had been getting heavy – the residual effect of the painkillers combined with limited sleep. Both dogs were asleep on my lap, one either side, making me warm which had added to the relaxed contentedness. Mum did not wake up when we stopped, she was snoring loudly in the passenger's seat, her mouth open and hanging to one side. Dad asked if I needed him to come in and help me with anything which I thanked him for but had no tasks I could not perform for myself.
I waved him off and took the dogs inside. The Klown case beck
oned. However, it felt like too much effort to even spend time reading into it. There were numerous other tasks around the house and garden that I was definitely not about to tackle, so resignedly I selected a book from my bookshelf and settled down to read. The dogs climbed onto my lap and presently we all fell asleep.
The Blue Moon Office. Monday, 24th October 0900hrs
It was Monday morning and I had risen at 0730hrs which was far later than usual. Getting a shower had not been a comfortable experience; raising my right arm to wash my hair a particularly painful chore. The two painkillers I had taken when I awoke, didn’t begin to work their magic until I was making breakfast, and it wasn’t until I was ready to leave home that I could move and breathe without wincing.
By 0850hrs I was trudging up the stairs to my office. I had silently bet myself a skinny blueberry brownie from the coffee shop that it would be Jane this morning and not James that I would find at the desk.
‘Good morning, boss,' hallooed Jane as I went in. I would have fist pumped my successful guess but might then have had to explain why. She was sat at the desk wearing a blue satin top and a cashmere cardigan in a contrasting hue. I had asked her once where she managed to buy women's clothes to fit her frame and how they were always such great quality. The answer, she revealed was a website called, Hers for Him, where they sold second-hand ladies clothing tailored to the male shape.
‘How are you feeling? Would you like coffee?' she asked. Until recently, it had been my habit to arrive at work with a coffee in my hand, but since my run in with Hayley, I was avoiding the place. Hayley and I had a brief game of hide the sausage two weeks ago and a few days later, after a receiving a text from me that I had inadvertently addressed to Jane, she slapped me in the face in the street and called me several names.
‘Indeed, I would. Thank you, Jane,’ I answered as I passed her to take a seat by the window. ‘Could you also get me a blueberry muffin? One of the skinny ones?’