Angel Touch (28 page)

I scurried under the tractor as the doors began to creak open. The tractor had more ground clearance than the Citroen, which was settled low on its hydraulics, and being found under the Shogun might just be too suspicious. I wasn't desperate enough to get under the lawn-mower.

The floor of the barn was cold stone and slimy and smelled, of engine oil and damp cereals. I scuttered around until I was facing the doors and pulled my legs in just as they opened fully.

Sergeant Waters stood in the opening, his right hand reaching down to his side.

He produced a set of car keys and loped past the tractor about ten inches from my nose. I could read ‘Nike' quite clearly on his trainers until they disappeared one after the other into the Shogun.

The four-wheel started first go, and he reversed out into the farmyard. With the doors open, I could see Cawthorne walking over to him. He handed Waters a battery-powered megaphone and pointed towards the wood. Waters nodded a couple of times and set off. Cawthorne walked back to the farmhouse and in through the front door.

I crawled out from under the back of the tractor just in case anybody thought to peer into the barn, and was about to use the lawn-mower for cover when my foot caught something hard and suddenly I was face down on the ground again.

Only this was more painful than the barn floor and it had a different texture. I checked my camera to see if it was still in one piece and stuffed it back inside my overalls. Then I put my hands out to explore what I had tripped over.

After having looked out into the daylight, it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust. Then I realised I was kneeling on a tarpaulin that someone had carefully placed over what could have been a small metal gate – or the detached ‘fun bumper' cow-catcher device from a small four-wheel-drive vehicle; say, a Shogun.

You don't have to give me clues on a plate. I fall over them.

 

 

 

 

 

I did the business with my camera, now there was plenty of light with the barn doors open, and was in the process of replacing the tarpaulin when the alarm bells went off and scared the hell out of me for the second time in five minutes. This was becoming Stress City, and I was too old for it.

It wasn't an alarm bell, of course, it was a telephone rigged to an extension bell fitted to the wall of the farmhouse, so that people working outside could hear it. There were four long rings and then it cut out, but before it stopped, Cawthorne was coming out of the farmhouse and walking quickly towards the Paddock.

I checked my watch: 10.40. That couldn't be Patterson calling for Airborne yet, but it might well be Airborne out on another document delivery somewhere else. The four rings and then cut-out sounded like a fax line connection. Why bother having an outside bell if the delicious Private Boyd was sitting on reception?

Cawthorne had disappeared around the northern end of the farmhouse, so I ran back the way I had come, around the south end, and climbed the fence back into the hop field. I ran between the bines, parallel to the farm, until I reckoned it was safe to crawl to the fence and risk a look.

I could see the Wood to my right, and way across the Paddock I could see Waters in the Shogun patrolling the edge of the Orchard. There was no sign of Cawthorne, and I thought I'd come too far. Maybe the fax machine was in one of the outbuildings; but they were the other side of the yard near the barn, and Cawthorne had been walking away from them.

Another ‘combatant' suddenly appeared from the Orchard end of the course, hurrying towards the farm. Even at this distance, I could see he was liberally spattered with yellow paint. Werewolf was on the move.

Then I realised that I could hear an engine getting louder and the Shogun was bouncing across the Paddock straight towards me.

I was convinced that the grass near the fence was long enough to conceal me, so they couldn't possibly have spotted me. Not unless they had radar or heat-seeking missiles, which they didn't. Did they? I was less convinced about that.

I was about to dive back in among the hops, though I probably smelled like last night's barmaid already, when the Shogun veered off to my right, and then pulled up about 20 feet from me.

A very angry Sergeant Waters jumped out of the driver's door. I could tell he was angry, because he was red in the face and his fists were clenched and he was swearing like a trooper. Well, I suppose that was in character. I could see why he was angry: the windscreen of the Shogun was well-smeared with yellow paint, and he'd obviously reacted by turning on the windscreen-wipers, the worst thing he could have done.

What I couldn't work out was why he'd driven all the way over here. There was nothing here except the field and the old, disused pillbox Cawthorne had warned us about.

The door of the pillbox opened and Cawthorne stepped out, so close to me that if the wind had changed I could have sniffed his after-shave. Any closer and I would have fallen over him too.

‘What's the panic? Don't you know to stay away from here?' Cawthorne was not pleased.

‘Look at this!' Waters shook a fist at the windscreen. ‘Just look. One of those buggers is deliberately spoiling the exercise.'

‘Which one?'

‘I don't know. I was over by the Orchard, and then this. He must have been up a tree. We've had four reported in for penalty hits already. Two of them twice.'

Cawthorne nodded towards the farm. ‘There's another one.'

Sure enough, another player was trudging out of the Orchard towards base.

‘It must be those two in the BMW with the flash suits,' said Waters. I was glad we'd made an impression.

‘I didn't rate the weedy one with the glasses,' said Cawthorne, ‘but the one with the beard looked a hard case.'

‘What do we do?'

‘Has anybody asked for their money back?'

‘Well, no.'

‘Then let the game run and say nothing, but tell Sandy to make sure those two don't get another booking.' He turned to the pillbox. ‘And don't come here again, I've told you this is private property. And go and clean my fucking vehicle, okay?'

Waters reversed the Shogun and did a backward handbrake turn, shooting off in a cloud of exhaust fumes and clods of grass and earth. Temper, temper.

I crawled closer to the pillbox. It was the same hexagonal design as any of the thousands you can still see along the south coast, or that you suddenly come across in the wilds of East Anglia for no apparent reason until you realise that the fields you're driving through were once airfields littered with empty Lucky Strike packets and B52 bombers. The whole concrete structure was sunk into the ground so it seemed only about four feet high. There were double firing slits on three sides and a metal door set in the side nearest to me. Cawthorne had had to duck his head to get in there, but he'd left the door wide open.

I had to get halfway under the bottom strand of barbed wire to see inside properly, and as I did so, my hand closed on something smooth and rubbery half-buried in the ground. I parted some grass and wondered why Cawthorne had bothered to run electric and telephone cables to a disused toilet for farmhands.

I could see why – and hear. There was a fax coming through. The machine had a plastic cover over it, like stereo systems used to have before they became furniture, I suppose to keep the dust out, but there was no mistaking the whirr-buzz sound. Cawthorne was leaning over the machine, blocking my view of anything else inside the bunker, and I slid around to check if I could see in through the slits.

No go. It would have to be the front door. But not while Cawthorne was in residence.

The door got me thinking. I crawled along the line of the fence to the nearest point I dared, so I could get a good view of it. There didn't seem to be any sort of lock on the door;
wartime pillboxes wouldn't have needed one, would they? Sorry, lads, can't beat back the Nazi hordes today, Fred's left the key at home.

The door was metal, on hinges four inches deep. There was a metal grab bar and two bolts on the outside, one-at the top, which could have had padlocks on at some time, to keep playful kids out. Then again, the pillbox was on private land, so maybe that hadn't been a problem. But I couldn't believe that Cawthorne would be so lax.

He wasn't. Above the door's right corner was a small black box burglar alarm, almost certainly wired back to the farmhouse, or more likely electronic, triggering a bleeper that Cawthorne could carry with him. It wasn't likely that it was connected to the local cop shop. He might have had to explain why he'd put a fax machine out here for the sheep to use on a quiet day. Perhaps the sheep were monitoring the futures market in wool.

I guessed that it was set back in the farmhouse, unless he had some sort of remote control toy. If it was, I reckoned I had a few minutes while he walked back there. If it wasn't, and he came back and caught me, then I'd have to fall back on my story as an over-enthusiastic games player. Trying that on Sergeant Waters was one thing. On Cawthorne, it could be a different ball game, and the balls on the line were probably mine.

The fax machine stopped whirring, and Cawthorne moved about, picking sheets from its output tray. Then I heard the snap of a lighter, and a cloud of blue smoke came out of the doorway, followed by a rattle sound. He was burning the fax message in a metal waste bin or my name was Roylance Maclean. Careful bugger, wasn't he?

He came out before the smoke had cleared and swung the door quietly on well-oiled hinges. He flipped just one of the bolts in a casual way and strode off towards the farmhouse across the Paddock.

He hadn't touched the black box alarm, so it was now or never. I guessed I had no more than four minutes before he got back to base, so I began to count on the old one-and-one, two-and-two, and so on principle in order to concentrate on the job in hand without looking at my watch. I told myself that I had up to two hundred and no more.

By ten, I'd crawled as far as the door. It took me to 20 to stand into a half crouch and reach up for the bolt. The door swung open and I scuttled in.

It wasn't as dark as I'd expected. The four-inch-wide gun slits let in plenty of light, although there were electric wall lights. Everything was covered in plastic casing to keep the elements out. Apart from the fax machine, there was an Amstrad PC with monitor and printer. No phones – Cawthorne would have mobiles – and apart from the two benches for the machinery and a single typist's swivel chair, nothing else. Except a long metal trunk on the floor, which removed a couple of inches of skin from my right shin as I scraped round it.

That got me to 30-and-five. Better do something.

I rattled the plastic cover over the Amstrad, but it was firmly locked in place. It was probably just as well. I am totally computer hostile, so I wouldn't have known what to do with the damn thing. I've nothing against them, they just hate me, so I became a founder member of the Campaign for Quill Pens and Ink. It's not a big organisation.

The trunk had a hasp and padlock, which looked new, though the trunk itself was war surplus. If I'd had my nail-file with me I'd have had a go at it.

Sixty. Don't hang about.

I wound up my Olympus and took shots of everything there was.

That took about ten more seconds. I couldn't think of anything else to do except get out.

That seemed sensible. I crouched down through the doorway and checked the coast was clear.

As I slid the door bolt home, I stopped counting at 92. A second later, there was a loud click and buzz, which could only be the black box alarm being activated.

Either I'd counted wrong or Cawthorne walked faster than I'd thought. Still (Rule of Life No 1), it's better to be lucky than good.

I worked my way back through the hop field until I could get over the fence and into the wood. It was just after 11.00 when I made the conifer where I'd split from Werewolf. My Exhilarator visor was still in the grass where I'd left it, and I sat down beside it to take stock of my stings, bruises and cuts. I didn't have time to get paranoid about blood poisoning, as my heart suddenly stopped beating.

The cause of this was somebody trying to spear me with a javelin, but a javelin with a yellow pennant tied to it. It landed six inches from my face, and before it had stopped quivering in the ground, a red one slapped down next to it. Before
I'd
stopped quivering, I realised that they hadn't been thrown, but dropped from above. And then a shadow passed over me and Werewolf came out of the tree to land perfectly balanced right in front of me.

‘Jeeeesus Christ!' I said, holding my heart.

‘Nice handle, but I'd stick to Roy if I were you,' Werewolf said matter-of-factly. ‘Less aggro signing on at the Social Security.'

‘Hey, if I ever did sign on, I'd need a pseudonym.' I looked at the pennants and so did he. He was proud of them.

‘You had to get them both, didn't you?'

‘I got bored,' he said. ‘And you wanted a diversion. Find anything?'

‘Some. Maybe not enough, though. But it should rattle him. I'll see what Sorrel's dad can turn up. Listen.'

In the distance, we could hear the outside telephone bell at the farmhouse.

I checked my watch and stood up so I could look across the Paddock.

‘That should be Patterson's fax coming through if he did what I asked.'

‘What happens?'

I explained rapidly about the pillbox, and sure enough we saw Cawthorne set out from the farmhouse, walking diagonally across the Paddock towards the fence. The pillbox roof was just visible, but you had to know it was there to spot it.

Just before he reached it, I used the last two shots on my film, though at that distance I didn't think I'd pick up much.

‘We've done all we can, I reckon. Let's blow while he's busy in there.'

‘Okay. You'd better have this.' Werewolf placed one of the paint pistols in my belt holster, then offered me one of the pennants. ‘And one of these. It'd look suspicious if I took all the glory, now, wouldn't it?'

I stuffed the Olympus inside my overalls and we jogged back across the Paddock, studiously ignoring the pillbox off to our left. We were the first back into the changing-rooms, and we dumped our holsters and visors on the folding table near the door. I didn't know if we were supposed to check them in with Private Boyd or not. Maybe she was warming up the showers. Werewolf left the two pennants in the doorway, crossed like ceremonial assegais.

We peeled off our khaki overalls and hung them on hooks. Mine was ripped and stained around the knees and elbows and had a bright yellow crutchpiece. Werewolf's, with a quick press, could have come off the peg at any Army and Navy store.

I chivvied him into a quick shower. Ever since we'd been at university together, I'd known him as a bit of a shower freak, staying in there for ages. His idea of heaven would be for someone to design a device that would allow him to read a book in there. If you see Terence Conran, pass it on.